NO. LE. CREO. I can't even believe that, after all these months of anticipation and preparation, we are actually here! On Monday, December 30, we flew out of LAX on a direct, one-way flight to Barcelona to begin our European adventure. Lots of people talk about how they dream of moving to Europe or they wish they had when they were young...and here we are, actually doing it! I'm sure this is an experience we'll be talking about for the rest of our lives!
We left Los Angeles and 8 pm and arrived in Barcelona at 4 pm...and thus began a week (and counting) of some serious jet lag. Any tips for how to get back on a good sleep schedule would be MUUUUCH appreciated. Anyway.
Before traveling to our more permanent home near Madrid, we spent a couple of days in Barcelona just in time to ring in the new year. Barcelona is AMAZING! Before arriving I don't think I'd ever seen a building older than maybe 300 or 400 years, and all of a sudden there we were, walking within the walls of what used to be an ancient Roman city dating to the time before Christ. Incredible! Here's a quick recap of our short time in the Catalonian capital.
It wouldn't be a proper Spanish welcome without a night out at a tapas bar (or seven)!
The streets of the city are littered with tapas restaurants, and this one we visited, La Tasqueta de Blai, is apparently one of the best in town. Tapas are basically small appetizers, and at these restaurants, you just grab as many as you'd like and pay by the toothpick. These little snacks were DELICIOUS, and we're definitely looking forward to eating like this more during our time here.
After sorting out a wrong charge of an extra 20 euros for ordering drinks (because what boring people don't order drinks at a tapas bar on New Year's Eve?), we headed to the biggest party in town at the Plaza de España!
We may have been the only ones out of the crowd of probably 50,000 people gathered in front of the Royal Palace without a drink in our hands, but that didn't stop us from having a good time! About 20 minutes before midnight, the lights dimmed and the spectacular display of lights, water, and fireworks commenced.
The show was amazing! It was definitely the most extra fireworks show I've ever seen. Instead of sipping Martinelli's when the clock struck midnight, we popped 12 grapes in our mouths one by one, as is tradition in Spain, in an effort to earn good luck in the coming year.
The above photo only kind of captures the vast number of people gathered in that plaza. Neither of us had ever been in a crowd that big before, and just walking the 50 yards to leave took about 20 minutes. When we finally got back to the hotel at nearly 2 am, the party was just getting started for the rest of the city! I can not even imagine partying as long and as late as these people do.
As if the jet lag wasn't enough to make us sleep longer than we should have, our hotel room was void of any outside windows soooo we slept in until 11 am the next morning (I'm sure the rest of the city did the same but likely for very different reasons). We spent the day walking the streets of the Gothic Quarter, entering random cathedrals, sneaking into tours, and marveling at Gaudi's strange architecture. Here are some photos of our New Years Day 2020:
The Barcelona Cathedral. We stayed just around the corner from this Gothic masterpiece, and I believe it will be the first of many, many cathedrals we'll see while we're here. Here's the inside:
So detailed. So over-the-top. So beautiful in a very dark, dismal way.
The outer walls of this structure that surrounds the Barcelona Cathedral date back to the 3rd and 4th centuries. So so old! This location has been a sacred place for those living here for over 2,000 years beginning with the Roman Temple of Jupiter. UNREAL.
On a tour around the Gothic Quarter that we spontaneously joined we learned a bit about the Jewish history in the area. Just down this, the narrowest road in Europe is the oldest known synagogue in all of Europe. So as to abide by Catholic laws, the building couldn't be taller than the shortest Catholic church, so the entrance to the synagogue is about shoulder height.
This is the entrance to Park Güell, a beautiful park overlooking the city. In 1900, Count Eusebi Güell commissioned renowned architect Antonio Gaudi to build a high-end neighborhood, but the plan flopped because of their overestimation of the number of people willing to buy such expensive houses so far from the city center. The government bought it and turned it into a park, and it really is so beautiful.
Okay, this low-quality pic is a big reason we need to go back to Barcelona and see this again...that, and we didn't actually get to go into this or any museums because most everything was closed for New Years Day. This building, La Sagrada Familia, is GIGANTIC. I mean, from Parque Güell you can see it's like 10 times the size of any nearby building. Good thing we live a short train ride away from this beautiful city.
Alright, there you have it! Our very first of so many European adventures. Now that we're in our temporary home in Alcalá de Henares, I hope to make updating this blog a weekly thing. I'd love for you to follow along and please, give me any European suggestions that you have, we're totally novices on this beautiful continent!
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