MKNonline Blog

Our last full day in Barcelona got off to a late start from exhaustion. The nice thing with vacation is that this is totally okay. The bad thing was we essentially wasted our Arsticket from the day before. Price of Admission at two museums < Price of Arsticket. We only had time for one museum before everything closed (it was supposedly Sunday. We would have no idea of the day of week it was from here on out).

We chose the CCCB (the Contemporary cultural building or something to that effect) because it was closeby to our apartment. They had a cool special exhibit called Drap Art that was all art made with recyclable or re-usable material. Cool stuff. The other exhibits were depressing though. I think one was on people's obsession with material things and body image which made me, a person obsessed with material things and body image, feel like a horrible person. It was also very uncomfortable art, which I can respect, but I'm not going to look at it more than I have to. The other was not so much an art exhibit but a pretty extensive collection of evidence on the rapid globalization and urbanization of China in the form of movies, photographs, maps, and city records. Lesson learned: China is big. And it will destroy everything in its path.

My kind of Art

Up next, we took our first Barcelona subway ride and immediately question why we never took the subway before. Clean, cheap, empty, and on-time, all of which are my favorite properties of a good subway system.

Since it was getting late for a Sunday, we were going to go to Montjuic, another giant park on another hill overlooking the downtown Barcelona area. This one was closer to the water. What’s fun is you take the subway to a funicular (those elevator-type vehicles that goes up a hill) that takes you to the base of the hill/park. From there, you take a cable car ride to the top of the hill where a castle sits with awesome views of the city and Mediterranean. It’s totally free and open to the public, although there’s a military museum you can pay for to visit.

Where did Alan go?

Alan's search party.

Always the willing subject, Ezeibe stares directly into the sun for me to get my shot.

Put some clothes on, woman.

The two most badass muthafuckas on the planet.

The view from the top of the fortress was as equally amazing as yesterday’s view of Park Guell. I love good views. Looking at everything around you, it weirdly just makes me so present and aware. I can hear my thoughts and emotions clearer.

A random couple enjoys the show.

Unspoken rule that all group photos must be taken from at least 50 feet above sea level.

One of the views from the top. I think that's the city museum in the foreground.

Thus ends my hippy diatribe. So the sun was setting, which meant we had to get out of the park and off to dinner. We decided to take a different cable car back down that would take us to Barceloneta, the neighborhood by the port close to the beaches. This cable car ride is up there in my list of scariest cable car rides. This car was tiny, with little seating. And, when it initially arrived to the station, the conductor looked at it funny, hopped out of the cable car, and talked to the tech. They discussed something, and then decided to send off the cable car on its own. Except, it went about 10 yards, swung in the wind a bit, and then came back to the station. And then they let us in. Paranoia sinks in and I start mentally accepting that this is the way I’m going to die.

This cable car was also unnecessarily high above the ground and water. I swear it actually went higher than the hill on its way to the port. At the end, you basically land on this giant hulking metal tower and have to take an elevator 30 something stories down. Not cool.

Scary cable car ride

We made it down and walked along the beach/boardwalk, which was another great “Holy shit, I’m in Europe moment.” It shouldn’t have been, but it just was. There were a scattering of people just chilling out in beach blankets either reading a book, having a picnic, or hanging out as the sun was setting. I have never been a beach person, but watching those people just hang out at dusk without a care in the world makes me want to immediately buy beachfront property. We walk through the sand and take our moment of zen along the water.

I could get used to beach life.

Cool art piece on the beach

Dinner provided some more fruitless wandering. We spotted an open restaurant that looked authentic enough and seemed to serve seafood. Everyone was eating on giant barrels, which was a good enough gimmick for me to buy in. Unfortunately, when we finally got seated, we were in the back room of the restaurant, where we sat in front of a giant keg, not on top of one. Whatever. Ezeibe decided he needed to try paella again. I felt adventurous and offered to split one as well. Alan, not really agreeing with our restaurant choice in the first place, just shrugged and joined in as well.

I guess the paella was okay. It had a ton of shellfish and clams. I’m not usually a fan, but hey, when in Spain. I’m sure it was better than the one Ezeibe had the day before, which we’re pretty sure was microwaved. I mean, for the giant portion we got even though we split a paella, it seemed well worth the 25euro price. Except it really wasn’t. When the bill came out, we realize we had each been charged 25euros for the joint paella. I guess that’s normal. It kind of ruined our day.

And so ended our last day in Barcelona. We tried to pack up and get some early sleep because of our day tomorrow, where we would leave the city.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 4th, 2009 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Personal Stuff, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.