BARCELONA part dos.

Those hotel beds are REALLY comfy. 

When the alarm went off at 10AM (yes, we slept 'in'), we did not want to move... but we had such an exciting day ahead of us, that we knew we needed to.

We davened, packed our lunch, and we were off!

Thank G-d for google maps... what would we do without it!?

We used it to get to the metro and it guided us through out the entire Barcelona.

We started off at the Jewish Quarter. It was so cool going into and seeing the artifacts that survived after all of these years.

Even though only part of the men's section is still in tact, there are a lot of things that were donated by priests and families from the 15th century that are now in the shul.

Around the corner (about 45 seconds away), is a small museum - about three rooms - about the Jews and the life of RaShba (who was born in Barcelona, Spain!).

From there, we continued through the alleyways to the Barcelona Historic Museum.

It dates back to the 800s, when the first settlers came to Spain.

It goes through all the years and through out the Middle Ages, explaining how people lived.

It showed how their houses were made, what they used for money, how the sewer and laundry systems were made. We learned how they made wine and stored fish during the time and where their cemeteries were set up.

We then had our tuna-packet lunch with crackers (every time we eat lunch like that, I feel like its Pesach and we’re on a little trip!) and continued on to the Picasso Museum. At 3:00 PM, all museums are free. We didn’t mind paying the 2-euro to get into the museum and this point, our feet were killing us that we just wanted to go to the museum for a little and go back to the hotel!

When we got to the museum (after a few wrong turns), we saw that the line was down the block. We figured we would wait a little to see if the line would move… if it began to move in 5 minutes, we would stay and if not, not… but, being Jews, we do anything for free things, so we stayed!

After a half hour of waiting, it was our turn to for the Museum.

We got our free tickets and saw the Picasso Exhibits.

It was really convenient that everything (and everyone) spoke English. Each room had a year and a summary of where Picasso was at the time and what was happening in his life because each year, his art depicted something different.

Did you know that Picasso first famous painting was from the year 1900, when he was 20!?

It was so cool to see his biography along with his art… because you can see that as he got older, he became very disturbed. Instead of painting people and faces, everything became twisted and robot-like!

When we left the museum, we walked down La Rambla, the “hot-spot” street of Barcelona. Aside from the awful smell, there were street vendors selling chatchkas. It was nice to see, but after five minutes everything looks the same and it gets boring.

Monday was a special day because it was the first day off we had since we started school. Because of this, Aliza and I stayed an extra night in Barcelona. We had deli sandwiches for dinner and watched an awful movie, but we were so happy because we just wanted to sit in our beds all day long!

Monday was Gaudi day.

When we woke up, we quickly ran to the Kosher supermarket in Barcelona. Although they did not have so much more to offer, they did have frozen pizza, crackers, and side dishes.

The woman behind the counter was really sweet and had patience, which is something that the Madrid restaurant lacks.

From there, we went to the Sagrada Familia.

We know that churches are not okay to visit. We know that one cannot go into a church and taking pictures next to a church is most likely not okay too, but we did not go for the church.

We went because Gaudi, a Spanish architect built a building that cannot even be described.

He started the building in the 1920s and is still not complete.

There are no words to describe this building. It is carved with such intricate detail and there is no way to describe it.

You must see it to believe it!

At the Chabad house on Shabbos, we met a guy named Tomer who told us he owned a yogurt store right next to Sagrada Familia. We didn’t know whether or not he was religious or if his place was kosher, but decided that if we were ‘in town’ we would check it out.

Low and behold, there was a mezuzah on the door and it was kosher, how could we have even doubted him!?

When we walked in, Tomer wasn’t there – but someone, who believe was his sister (she had a Hebrew tattoo behind her ear) helped us.

They had no yogurt (weird, since it’s a yogurt store!) but they had slushy’s that Aliza loved.

From there, we went to our last stop: Park Guell. It was a Gaudi park of his art and architecture. To me, it was paradise.

The place was packed with tourists! By the languages you heard, you would have no idea that we were in Spain.

When walking in, all you see are palm trees and this fantastic art. It was everywhere. I stood in awe for some time, taking in the greatness that was in front of us.

We went to the top of the mountain to see everything from the top and I was dumbstruck by the sight of it.

When we originally planned our Barcelona trip, we weren’t going to come to the Gaudi Park. It was too far from everything, so we were going to nix it, but I am SO happy we went. It really was a sight that I will never forget.

After standing in the scorching sun for hours, we went back to the hotel, sat at the pool for a while (you know, to fry some more) and then our Barcelona adventure ended with some Haagen Daaz ice cream and a Renfe train ride (studying) back to Madrid, our home.