Barcelona

Hola,

We made it to Barcelona safe and sound. Our 30 hour flight experience from Sydney went fairly smoothly. The flights from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur to Vienna and Vienna to Barca were a smooth enough experience. We had one blip. In Sydney, Austrian Airlines informed us that our baggage was overweight by 10Kilos and that they charged $30 per kilo for excess luggage. So we had to lose 10Kilos pretty fast. We ended up tossing some old clothes out at the airport. What a way to clean out the wardrobe!

After that the flights went pretty good. Austrian airlines turned out to be probably the best flying experiences we´ve ever had. They were very professional, the food was great and they were very polite. Also our fellow travellers seemed to be very laid back so it made for a pretty good experience overall. In Vienna we had a stopover of about 4 hours and in Kuala Lumpur it was about 1 hour, so overall we were travelling over 30 hours!

When we got to Barca we were of course quite tired. After getting a taxi, we took a long nap, woke up at 11 and headed for dinner. Barca is a great city that way. They don´t go out until at least 9 for dinner. My kind of city! We walked down La Rambla and had some Tapas and beer at a local taverna. We walked down the partying La Rambla street for an hour. What a place! The street was abuzz with street performers, parties and general mayhem. On our way home we found a nice little Inn just around the corner from our hotel. By chance it was called the Limerick bar. We stopped in and had a pint of Guinness! A nice end to our first European night.

On Friday we walked all over the city to replace a pair of shoes left behind in Sydney airport. We visited the Arc De Triomf, the shopping district around Rambla De Catalunya and the Barri Gothic. Still being jetlagged, we had a nice siesta and promptly went out that night at 11 for Tapas.

On Saturday we put our tourist shoes on again and went visiting the Barri Gothic, La Rambla, the Picasso museum, the Port of Barcelona, Els Quatre Gats (famous bar that Picasso drank in) and the Sou Cathedral. We then had a nice dinner at Flash Flash, a nice local omlette house and retired for a few pints in Limerick (haha!).

It´s Sunday today, which means that it is U2 day. We are relaxing a little before the show. We already went to visit the Nou Camp where the concert is on and there were hundreds queueing outside the stadium by lunchtime! We couldn´t get to do the Nou Camp tour, so we headed to the famous Temple De La Sagrada Familia, the ongoing Gaudi project, which was first started in 1882, and is still being built! What a site! A very interesting architectural spectacle!

That´s about it for now. We are really looking forward to U2 tonight (hope it cools down though!). Before that we are going for our daily siesta! We hope to have some updates on the concert and the rest of our Barca trip soon so stay tuned!

Adios Amigos!