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!