This weekend I decided to take a break from Alicante and visit one of the more popular cities in Spain, Barcelona. We left on Friday the 8th at 8:55 pm from Alicante flying Vueling which is an airline based out of Great Britain which was really nice and the flight was only 50 minutes which surprised me because it's about 5 hours by train or car to get from Alicante to Barcelona. Once we landed we met up with our friends and went to our hostel, which is my first ever experience in a hostel, and to put it nicely it's a little strange. Don't get me wrong the location is amazing and it wasn't that expensive but its just weird having a crappy little bed and I don't really know what it is its just different from anything i had experienced. Well since we didn't get to the hostel until about 1130-12 we just went to bed to prepare for the very busy Saturday that we had ahead of us. The whole reason that we planned this trip was because FC Barcelona had a home game that Saturday versus Almeria and we were going to attend!
Saturday started out like any other day we got up and got ready and then we had to go with our friend Nicole to return a bike that she had rented the night before to see Barcelona before our flight got in. We walked along the street La Rambla Catalunya and i ended up finding a shop where I got a cheap replica Barcelona jersey with Messi's name and number on it. After that we decided we were going to find the place to pick up our tickets for the game tonight to make sure that the place was legit and we weren't getting ripped off. Well when we used the first information to find the place on google it didn't actually exist and we started getting nervous. We ended up calling the place and getting directions on how to reach their location and picked up the tickets which was very harmless and we all could breathe a sigh of relief as we opened up the envelope and saw that there were real tickets with real seat numbers inside.
After that we took the metro (which is really nicely set up) to see Parque Güell or in Catalan "Parç Güell". We must have gotten off at the wrong stop because we walked for a good 40-50 minutes to find this park but it was definitely worth it once we reached the main part. The park is made up of benches that were designed by Gaudi the famous architect who it seems designed all of Barcelona. Included in the park other than the benches are beautiful arched structures that support the benches and two houses designed by Gaudi as well. The whole park is done in a mosaic style with all the color and detail being provided by the chipped pieces of glass that have been put back together it is truly stunning. After the Parque Güell we decided that since we still had a few hours before we wanted to leave for the Barcelona game we were going to go visit the other well known landmark in Barcelona that has a major impact from Gaudi...La Sagrada Familia.
La Sagrada Familia is a massive unfinished Catholic Cathedral that is one of the largest tourist attractions in Barcelona. Construction of the church originally began in 1882 with Gaudi getting involved in 1883, he was then the main architect and designer until his death in 1926, it was only a fourth done at that point in time. The progress was then slowed due to the civil war and lack of funding, in 2010 it reached the mid-way point in construction, with some more difficult parts still to tackle. They estimate that the project will be complete in 2026, because it would mark 100 years since the death of Gaudi who devoted a lot of time to the project. We went and were amazed by our first view, we decided that we were going to pay to enter the cathedral because who knew if we were going to come back and see it. It was money well spent, the cathedral was jaw-dropping, my friend Kate and I couldn't even think of words to describe how impressed we were with the architecture and the amazing stained glass and spiral staircases. When we left we realized that on one side the facade of the building was the nativity scene complete with all the animals and people that would be in the nativity. Then when we were leaving we realized that the opposite facade of the building was the story of the passion of the Christ, so the two sides of the church were the beginning and the end of the life of Jesus Christ which makes sense because it is said that Gaudi began the work on the church as a gift to Jesus. At around 4 we made our way back to the hostel to sit tight for a few hours before heading off to Camp Nou for the FC Barcelona game.
At 6 we headed out for the metro taking it to a stop that was about two blocks from the stadium. We ended up just following the crowd but because we didn't buy the tickets together we all sat in different parts of the stadium, I ended up running into other girls in the USAC program from Alicante and sat with them cause our seats were up really high from the field but you wouldn't be able to tell by some of the amazing pictures that I managed to take. It seats 99,354, making it the largest in Europe and the fourteenth in the world in terms of capacity.The stadium was overwhelming at first with it's massive size and on the side across from where i was sitting the seats spelled out in Barça colors FC BARCELONA and the other side where i was sitting said MES QUE UN CLUB ( more than a club). The game was set to kickoff at 8 and at about 700 the teams came out onto the field and we saw our first glimpse of what can be considered a soccer dream team, from Brazil: Danny Alves (World Cup Player), from Spain: Piqúe (WCP), Xavi (WCP), David Villa (WCP), Iniesta (WCP who won the cup for Spain), and finally from Argentina: Leo Messi (WCP). It was unbelievable, as they walked on the field the whole stadium started chanting and screaming, they were seeing the most important thing that would probably occur today because if Barça won they would be 8 points ahead of Real Madrid who they play next week, which is crucial. At 8 we took our seats and the game started, in the first 45 minutes Barça had all the options we all knew they were going to strike first but nothing happened, half-time and it was still 0-0. The second half starts and David Villa strikes the ball and we all thought it was a sure goal until it bounced off the post and started a fast break for Almería, which lead to a goal and Barça being down 1-0. However 4 minutes later Villa was taken down in the box which resulted in a PK for Barça and Messi drilled it tying the game. Only a few minutes later off a corner kick Barça scored their second goal taking the lead. As the game began to draw to an end it looked as if Almería was beginning to gain some momentum until the defenders for Barça cleared the ball past the midline and sent Messi on a one-on-one with the goalie who stood no chance Messi blew the ball by the goalie and Barça had won. I also have now kept my streak in Spain, since I got here in January I have been to 3 fútbol (soccer) games, every home team has won, Real Madrid, Hercules and now Barça, and each team has given up one goal to their opponents. Strange coincidence! I'm now exhausted and I'm sure tomorrow will be another busy fun day but i'm excited to tell you guys more about Barcelona and i'll post a whole update of just pictures when I get home and the internet is better!
Till next post just remember
Barça, Barça Baaaaaarça!!!!!!!!!!!!
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