Friday, July 13, 2012

Spain: Day 2 Part 1

Playing: Awakening-Yellow Card (Their new album is coming out soon!)
Reading: Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link
For my first full day in Barcelona, my family and I started our day off at Plaça De Catalunya. It was a large plaza surrounded by stores and restaurants with fountains and sculptures in the center. Mostly an area for looking around, it was fairly free of tourists in the morning, but when I went back at night, it was packed with people and musicians.
One of the stores surrounding the Plaça De Catalunya, was El Corte Inglés, which is one of Spain's biggest department store chains and the one in Barcelona happens to be one of the biggest in Spain. We went down to the bottom level, where the super market was, to look at all the food they had there. There was a bakery, specialty goods store, deli, and so much more down there. Their seafood selection was huge!
Afterwards, we walked down Las Ramblas, which was a super tourist-y area, but I didn't see any Americans there, mostly other Europeans. They were selling these cute bouquets made up of small, neon colored flowers that I really liked. They were so happy. Along this street, they also had news kiosks, flower stands, portrait artists, gelato stands, a pet store, and little baked goods stands plus tons of stores and restaurants to eat at.
We stepped onto a side street to get to the Plaça Reial. (You can spot my brother in this photo in his khaki shorts and grey v-neck.) The Plaça Reial was crowded that day with a bunch of vendors selling random stuff like a stamp collection, old postcards, and keys. It felt like a swap meet was going on, when I went.
Afterwards, we made our way to Mirador de Colon, where there's a huge Columbus statue. I don't believe in celebrating Columbus Day, since it's been proven that both the Vikings and the Chinese found America before him, so I just cropped him out of the photo. I still thought it was necessary to share with you that I visited this touristy place, though.
 We continued our walk to the marina, which was lovely. They had a model of an old galleon there that you could go on, but it was expensive, so I didn't go. We just kept on walking across the bridge, which was called the Pbla. de Mar, I believe, and looked at all the fish in the water that were literally doing flips.
We ended up at a shopping center called mare magnum. They had tons of seafood restaurants surrounding the area that specialized in tapas, which is like Spanish dim sum. I liked the way this building curved up and how everybody was reflected in its walls. As you walked up to it, it appeared, as if you were walking on the ceiling.
 A funny little store they have in the mall is 2theloo, which is a pun on "tood-a-loo" and was basically a store, where you pay to use the loo. Although the store is a rip off because I'm way too cheap to pay to use a toilet, I still found the name hilarious. Hopefully, I'll get the rest of Day 2 up soon and I hope you'll enjoy all my Spain write-ups!

7 comments:

  1. Nice post ^^ Thank you for your lovely comment on my blog, mind to follow each other? :)

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  2. Wow Spain looks amazing!
    You must be having the best time, I'm so jealous
    xxx

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  3. awh i think the loo sign is cute, and i hate paying for toilets, but id rather that then use dirty toilets :p

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  4. nice post, the flowers are so pretty, and food looks delicious as hell! ;*

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  5. great post can't wait to see more of your barcelona posts!!

    haha i was like that too.. because of course as americans you never pay to use the toliet.. and here in germany you pay to use the toliet EVERYWHERE.. the mall.. gas stations sometimes even cafe's.. but i've actually found that i really enjoy it now.. because i always ALWAYS know i'll be greeted with an EXTREMELY clean toliet.. which i really appreciate being a germ a phobe hahaha. they actually have these toliets in gas stations.. that after you sit on them and you flush.. the toliet seat actually spins in a circle on itself and get's sprayed with a disinfectant as it's going around in a circle! it's sort of amazing.

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  6. Karina Dinda R.-Thanks! :)

    kathy-You get to live in beautiful Australia. I'm JEALOUS that I've never gotten to visit! ^^

    bollykecks-Yup, especially those flowers! :3

    Hello Naka-I'm just so unused to paying to use the bathroom that I can't convince myself to unless it's an emergency. D:

    Beth K-The seafood looks so fresh! *o*

    Lisa-That's great that they clean the toilets. I find that whenever I get to Europe, I always have to pay to use the toilet. And then in Asia, where you don't have to pay, the toilets are gross except for Japan, which is super clean everywhere. :D

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