Barcelona: the first day

Week 7 of the first semester at Queen Mary is "Reading Week". What is reading week, you may ask? Well, it's an unofficial week off of classes in which students are supposed to catch up on any work they may be behind on. Most study abroad students take this time to throw all academic caution to the wind and quench their wanderlust with some European travels. I say it's unofficial because some classes do still meet, such as Tori and Kathleen's probability class (kudos to them for skipping their midterm exam to travel around Spain and Italy with Anna and I!!). It's okay, they're smarty pants and will ace their class anyway.

We left our flats around 2:45 am on Saturday morning to start our long journey over to Spain. A few hours later, we were boarding a plane at Gatwick airport that would be bringing us to Barcelona, the capital of the Spanish region of Catalunya (Catalonia).

Having decided to tag along on a free walking tour around 2 pm, we had some time to kill in the early afternoon. We began our day of exploration at the Arc de Triomf, right down the street from our hostel. It goes by the same name as the Arc in Paris, but is much smaller and more colorful. 

After a quick lunch at a cafe, we were on our way to our free walking tour led by Helen, a Scottish girl who has been living in Barcelona for almost a year now.

She brought us through the historic Gothic district, to this castle where Christopher Columbus appealed to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella upon returning from his journey sailing the ocean blue. 

Further on, we passed the site where traditional Catalan dancing takes place every night, right in front of this church.

All of the flags you see here are the Catalan flags, and those with a blue triangle and a white star belong to progressive Catalans that want Catalunya to become its own nation, independent of Spain. The official language of this region of Spain is not Spanish, but rather its Catalan, a language I find to be an extremely bizarre mix of French and Portuguese, and hardly anything like Spanish.

She walked us through quaint Plaças and winding roads down to the Santa Maria del Mar, where we soon ended our tour. We found ourselves in need of a little snack and decided to try out Pinxos. They're basically small bites of food most often served on slices of bread with toothpicks in the top. At the end, you're charged based on how many toothpicks are sitting on your plate.

We wandered over to Barceloneta, the port area of the city.

After resting up and getting back out for dinner, we stopped at the Magic Fountains, where a spectacular light and water show is put on every Saturday night.

Stomachs rumbling, we wandered back over to Barceloneta to finally get our hands on some authentic Spanish paella, a rice dish laden with deliciously fresh seafood.

After sitting on the beach and dipping our toes into the chilly Mediterranean for a bit, we decided to head back and lay our weary heads to rest.