From Barcelona with love!

We arrive in Barcelona on Halloween day and were very surprised/kind of scared by what we found. We found our hostel right away on the same street as two of Gaudi`s famous buildings included La Pedrera. We moved into our first Shared (6 bed dorm) and found our new Australian roommate dressed in a revealing Oktoberfest outfit and covered in fake blood. She told us about a Halloween party that the hostel was putting on in the lounge so we got a quick supper and a bottle of wine to share and headed to the "party". The party turned out to be a bunch of first time halloweener´s dressed in very strange outfits and a band that might have been one of the worst I've ever heard. They played their instruments and then at random times would yell into the microphone HALLOWEEN! So needless to say we finished our bottle of wine and headed out to a tapas bar for a tamer Halloween, where we ordered lots of great tapas and another bottle of wine! It turned out to be a really fun night and just what we were in the mood for. Unfortunately, our Oktoberfest clad roommate was a snorer and so our sleep was not the best of the trip.
On Saturday we woke up to another rainy day in Spain but made the best of it and headed down to the Gothic area of Barcelona where we wandered around and happened to stumble across many of the major sights we were trying to find. We walked down La Rambla, went to the Barcelona Cathedral, saw the Palau musica de Catalonia, and had a great little Mexican lunch. We got back to the hostel and met our new Australian roommate Drew, who turned out to be awesome and we had nice Tapas dinner with him and a few of his friends. After a few bottles of wine our night got a little crazy and it ended with playing drinking games in the hostel room.
Sunday was a pretty low key day but we did end up going to the Picasso Museum with our new friends which was really cool (and cultural!). After the museum we were pretty hungry so we went to a noodle bar which turned out to be really good!! Asian food has been a trend so far. After a long night, we took a much needed siesta and relaxed for a little while until we decided to be very Spanish and went out to a Tapas restaurant that had been highly suggested by a friend of Sarah´s . We were really happy we went because we really enjoyed the food and also the American man at the next table told us it was the best tapas bar in Barcelona and ordered us an amazing Spanish dessert! We went to bed early and were very happy to have the 6 bed dorm room all to ourselves!
We made a big day out of our last full day in Barcelona! We went to the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's amazing cathdral, which is still under construction even though it was started in 1886 and is now projected to be finished by 2030. It was amazing and we were really glad we went to see it. After that we walked down La Rambla again and got to the really neat St. Josef´s Market which Sarah had been waiting for all weekend. We got some baguettes, cheese, some fruit and a few other treats and took it down the the waterfront and had picnic lunch by the pier. From there we walked to the Barcelona city beach which I'm sure in the summer is packed with people but today was just lovely! It was a little too cold to swim in (at least for us, but we did see one man swimming!) but Katherine put her feet in and I think that was enough for all of us. We sat on the beach for awhile and took in the view until it started to cool off and we decided to head back to the hostel. On our last night in Spain, we had some more tapas and wine for a late dinner and were going to call it a night early so we are well rested for our travel day tomorrow!
We all had an amazing time in Barcelona, it's a beautiful city with some amazing things to see but we are also all extremely excited for Italy and Venice tomorrow!!!