Week 16: Exploring More Of Cataluña

Hey there Beholders 🙂 I took this week nice and slow. Now that I’m done with weekend traveling, I decided I wanted to rest up this week fully (and by rest up, I mean studying for finals, reading A LOT, like the most I’ve read my entire time abroad, and watching some TV with my roommates) and then be ready to pack in everything I want to do during my final two weeks. Don’t worry though, I still had time to do some fun activities. 

Dinner with my Roommates

Starting the week off, my roommates and I enjoyed a delicious Mediterranean restaurant in the Gothic Quarter called Bistrot Levante. We shared hummus and babaganoush with freshly baked, warm pita and then I enjoyed the lamb shawarma as my entree. While I thoroughly enjoyed the food and the vibe of the restaurant, I thought it was a bit pricey. I still recommend this restaurant though to anyone looking for some appealing Mediterranean food. 

Christmas Markets

Christmas Markets have officially landed in Barcelona! This week I only went to one which was the market at Sagrada Familia. It’s mainly food and Christmas trees and other holiday plants around the perimeter but there were also a few vendors with fun little gifts. This market was very different than the ones that I’d been to in other cities. The gifts were a little less related to Christmas which was nice, but I’m on the hunt for an ornament. Hopefully, the other markets will be a bit more Christmas-themed.

Also, I forgot to mention this before, but Barcelona is FILLED with holiday lights. Practically every street has lights lining it, and each street is done differently. Every day we discover new lights. The community events and things such as these lights are a big contributor to what makes Barcelona so special.

Wine Gogh

Soraya, Alexa, and I painted Van Gogh’s painting, Sunflower Night while enjoying unlimited wine at Wine Gogh. It’s super cool because all of the painting is done under black light so it’s a little bit of a surprise once you’re done and the regular lights are turned back on. One thing I particularly liked about this activity was that it wasn’t a touristy thing to do. Most of the time we make our plans with the mindset of “We have to get this done while we’re in Barcelona” and “We have to try all of the tapa restaurants” but with this, we just wanted to paint together and drink some wine.

Day Trip to Cadaqués, Girona, and Figueres

Self-date of the week! I took a day trip to Girona, Figueres, and Cadaqués. I did this with the tour guide company, Buendia Tours. This was the biggest self-date I’ve done yet. An 11-hour day in which I saw three new places and even made some new friends. 

Girona

Girona was the first stop. It’s a beautiful medieval town that has the cutest cobblestone streets with ivy peeking through the cracks.  It has a large cathedral, Santa Maria del Girona (my third Santa Maria cathedral in Spain), and lovely little coffee shops. They also have a Jewish Quarter so this was a great place to spend the first day of Hanukkah! The tour guide was fantastic as well. We did a walking tour and then had about an hour to go off and explore on our own. I checked out some shops and grabbed a bite to eat at a cute cafe where my guide also happened to be. This was the start of our new friendship.

Figueres

Figueres is not as pretty of a town as Girona, but it houses the famous Dalí museum which I spent all of my time exploring. Dalí was an interesting man with an interesting style. Also a bit egotistical. Nonetheless, he is a wonderful artist and I enjoyed learning more about him and his work. 

Cadaqués

After a beautifully scenic and somewhat nauseatingly windy ride, we finally made it to the finale, Cadaqués! Cadaques is an absolutely beautiful beach town. It is quite small and everything is right up on the sea. The white buildings with blue doors give it a Greek feel but our tour guide told us, this is a design strategy for most beach towns along the Mediterranean. While there, I checked out some more shops, went to a few view spots, and enjoyed a glass of the local wine with my tour guide where we discussed why traveling is so important and how much we love Barcelona. 

Also some back story: My parents went to Cadaqués when they visited and couldn’t have loved it more. They bought me a postcard (one of the things that I’m collecting) which practically forced me to go. I’m happy they did though because I got out there and discovered my future place of retirement 🙂

Overall, the day was a raging success! I will admit, it was something I was nervous to do at first. Such a long day by myself. But it turned out to be better than I could’ve imagined and I’m happy that I pushed my comfort zone.

Downtown

Friday night Soraya, Alexa, our neighbors, and I all went to the club Downtown. This was a new club for us, one we’d been meaning to check off the bucket list for a while now. We danced the night away and even learned some new moves. I had a blast and hope I have time to go back! Oh and for the record, Downtown is not in downtown (which is a bit ironic).

Bar Crawl

To finish the weekend strong, my roommates and I did a bar crawl to a bunch of new bars and they were all a hit. We started at the speakeasy, Bobby’s Free. Disguised as a barber shop on the outside, but a typical speakeasy from the prohibition on the inside. Great drinks and a great vibe. Though there was never a prohibition in Spain so an interesting theme. Next, we headed over to Space Cowboy. A bit but if you get your drink before 10 pm you can get the 2 drinks for 12 euros deal. We took them up on this offer as there are four of us so it was perfect. Bar Sauvage was our next hit. The drinks here are very fun and a bit risque (my friend got a condom with her drink). But Bar Sauvage has a super fun vibe and is very lively. After a short intermission on the swings in a park we came across, we headed over to Mint Bar. We got basic Coronas here and enjoyed the DJ playing downstairs in this cellar-type-basement. It was giving an underground club/rave vibe. Super cool there but upstairs was also a bit quieter so a nice place to hang out and socialize. Lastly, we headed over to Farola where we also met up with our neighbors and their friends. It was super crowded but a great place to listen to music and enjoy yummy cocktails. This bar also turns into a party until 3 am so it was a great place to end the night. Overall a very successful bar crawl. 

Upon further reflection, maybe I didn’t take this week as slow as I’d thought. Regardless, it was a perfect way to spend my pre-finals week and third to last week here. 

Thanks for checking in! 

Sending virtual hugs and high-fives,

Chlo

P.S. I love reading your comments! Feel free to let me know any thoughts, connections, ideas, etc. you may have.