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| Barcelona 2013 |
Saturday 10th
August 2013
Saturday morning and finally all packed for Barcelona! At
12pm the cab arrived to pick us up to the airport. There was a little bit of
traffic and the driver was a little slow but overall it was an easy trip. At 13.45pm,
we arrived for bag drop at Gatwick airport and there was a long queue! We
finally dropped our bags and passed through security. We arrived at the duty
free shopping at about 14.45pm. We did a quick bit of shopping and I bought
some Ray Bans for about £100 and also got some perfume. The gate was about to
close, so at 15.15pm, we made our way gate 107. At 15.45pm, we boarded the
plane and the left shortly. At 18.50pm, we arrived in Barcelona airport. It was
a lovely day, blue skies and sunny! It was an amazing feeling. We caught a taxi
to the hotel and arrived at the hotel about 19.45pm. We checked in and went to
our room, 523. As we walked in, it wasn’t as nice as Portugal’s hotel but still
nice.
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| View from the hotel room |
Ally dibbed the extra-added bed that she regretted after, as it was the
most uncomfortable bed. We dropped all our bags and luggage in the room and at
20.30pm we headed out to the beach. It was a short 5-minute walk and a lovely
stroll. We took some pictures and explored the area around us. Along the way,
we saw a 24hour McDonald’s, which was funny as it reminded us of the one near
where we live back in London.
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| Exploring and evening strolling |
There was a Port right by the beach, Port Olympic
and it was surrounded by loads of restaurants. After the stroll on the beach
and a quick exploring, we decided to find somewhere to eat. At 22.05pm, we went
to eat at Man Go, a tapas bar. It was funny as we ordered a little too much and
had to stuff our faces towards the end of the meal! We laughed about it and
enjoyed eating right by the beach. At 23.30pm, we arrived back at the hotel and
prepared the itinerary for tomorrow.
Money spent:
Duty Free £420.85
Cab £50
Total: £470.85
Food (Man Go) €70
Refreshments €11.40
Taxi €35
Total: €116.40
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| By the beach |
Sunday 11th
August 2013
We woke up at 7.45am and got ready for breakfast at 9.00am.
It was a slightly disappointing breakfast because there wasn’t much of a
variety; however this didn’t stop me from stocking up on a breakfast buffet!
There also wasn’t any English tea which was quite disappointing, so I had a
coffee instead. At 9.45am, we headed back to the room and got ready to leave
for our first trip. Before we left the hotel, we booked a night time tour which
we saw on a leaflet that was quiet good which departed later on tonight. We left the hotel at 10.15am to La Rambla and
we decided to walk from our hotel. It was a lovely day about 30-33 degrees. We
walked along side the beaches and it felt so good! At 11.43am we reached
Somorrostro beach. The further down the different beaches, the more people
there were. We had walked for quite a bit with no rest so we decided to take a
pit stop. At 12.20pm, we stopped off to buy some water and some ice lollies and
also had a quick look in the souvenir shop – Calypso. It was refreshing!
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| Night Time Tour Bus |
After
we finished our break, we continued with our journey. At 13.20pm we were at
Port Vell and we decided to take a break again. We stopped off by some benches
surrounded by some palm trees with a view of the port. We took a few pictures
then continued with our journey. At 14.00pm, we ended up by a row of market
stalls by Port Vell. We shopped for a bit and bought some leather masks. At
14.20, we found La Rambla and walked along it and did a spot of shopping. It
had been a long day. We also passed the place where we had to meet later for
the tour bus so we knew where we was going. Around 15.30pm, we headed back to
the hotel using the metro. The metro system was very easy to use and we bought
T10, which is a train ticket that allows multi people a journey of 10 single
journeys for €9.80. At 16.15pm,
we arrived at Portnou station. Little did we know there was actually a station
after Portnou which was actually closer to our hotel! After 45minutes walk, we
finally arrived back at the hotel. We decided to spend some time on the beach
as the sun was still out! After a bit of chilling, at 17.15pm, Ally and I left
for the beach while Jo stayed at the hotel for a rest. Ally and I planned to
leave the beach at 19.00pm but accidentally we both fell asleep. Luckily, Ally
woke up in time and we left the beach around 19.10pm. We arrived back at the
hotel and got ready for the open tour bus which we had to meet at Catalunya
Square.
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| Magic Dancing Fountains |
We got the train to Catalunya and arrived around 20.45 where we started
to queue for the bus. There were quite a few people there already! We had to
pay the remainder amount for the tickets and we had €48 to pay, we gave her a €50 and she didn’t give us any change and said
thanks! We wasn’t very happy about this but we didn’t say anything either! We
got on the bus and were allocated seats, luckily we had a seat in the middle of
the bus which we had hoped for. I sat next to Ally and Jo sat on her own just
behind us. At 21.30pm, the bus tour started. Julia who was our tour guide spoke
on a microphone which we heard through individual earphones. We toured a few of
the sights of Barcelona and it was a good overview. Ally and I had the giggles
and we laughed throughout the journey. Jo, said she didn’t have any sound in
hers but she did not want to say anything. So she pretended that she could hear
stuff and took pictures of whatever everyone else was taking pictures of. We
all had a good laugh about this. I wrote on the phone for Ally to read “I’m
laughing at Jo and she can’t hear anything but looking at what everyone else is
looking at”. At about 22.50pm, we stopped off to watch the magic fountains. It
was lovely but very busy. At 23.20 we had to be back at the bus. We headed
there and sat back in our seats. A few locals passed the bus and chucked some
water at us. It hit the lady in front of me, Jo and myself quite badly and a
little on Ally too. We laughed at this and I was rather shocked. Thankfully, it
was only water. We continued to laugh about this as the tour continued. Ally
decided to write on my phone ‘Aren’t you glad you don’t have her hair?’ I
replied ‘Just weave’. We laughed. Ally then wrote ‘See how many clips you can
count!’ I counted and replied with ‘9’ and we both looked at each other and
tried to hold in our laughs. But failed. Ally said by this time of the tour,
she had zoned out and lost interest. It wasn’t that great as Julia the tour
guide was just reading from a paper and translated it twice! It was funny when
she mentioned the La Sagrada Familia and said the cranes were up there to
complete the building but they probably won’t complete it ever and she
continues and said ‘maybe it’s part of the charm’ in a funny way. Ally and I
looked at each other and laughed some more. I then looked out and saw a lady
running towards a water fountain. I wrote on my phone ‘That fatty ran for her
life to get a drink of water. Reminded me of Jo’. We burst of laughing yet
again. Every time we turned around to look at Jo, we laughed as she was saying
she was tired and couldn’t hear anything and had no idea what was going on. I
was very hungry and kept mentioning it to them that I was starving and every
time we passed a restaurant I would point it out. I don’t know why, but we
found this rather amusing. We arrived back at Catalunya Square at midnight. We
decided to buy McDonald’s and take it back to the hotel. We bought some food
and waited for a taxi at the rank there was a few people before us. At the
front of the queue were these two Chinese girls. A taxi had come but another
oriental lady on her own and managed to steal their taxi and the two girls just
let her. We were furious as we was waiting a long time for the taxi and the two
girls were stupid! We couldn’t believe it. I was tired, hungry and did not want
to wait any more. Everyone was frustrated and just wanted to go home. The taxis
took a long time and there was no taxi’s about. A lot of people decided to
cross the road and tried to flag a taxi down. They managed to, so we decided that
we were going to do the same. We went over the road and we had to walk a bit.
Taxis were being taken and it wasn’t going well. Finally, I spotted a taxi and
ran up to it and flagged it down. As we got in, he looked at my bag of
McDonald’s. He wasn’t happy with it at all but I wasn’t eating it. He didn’t
say anything but you could tell he wasn’t happy but at this time, I didn’t
care. I really wasn’t in the mood and was highly irritated. At 1.30am, we
finally arrived back at the hotel. I stuffed my face with food and headed to
bed.
Money spent:
Tour bus €56
Food - McDonald’s €17.55
Refreshments €8
Gifts & Souvenirs €153.8
Travel €9.80
Taxi €14
Total – €259.15
Monday 12th August
2013
We woke up a little later today at 8.45am. Jo was
still sleeping and I played some loud music to wake everyone up. It wasn’t
appreciated but we had to go for breakfast! We got ready, and I washed my hair
and freshened up and in the end, at 9.45am ally and I went to get breakfast. We
left Jo sleeping. At 11am, we headed to the Lcària beach and Ally and I decided
to have a swim in the Balearic Sea. We took some pictures and just chilled on
the beach. As I washed my hair earlier, I didn’t want to get it wet, but in the
end I decided to have fun and did some swimming. It was so fun. At 12.50pm, we
made our way back to the hotel because Ally needed the toilet and the sun was
getting too strong.
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| A selfie at the beach |
At 13.00pm, we reached McDonald’s and decided to stop off
quickly for a McFlurry and some food for Jo as she didn’t have breakfast. We
got back to the hotel soon after and got ready for our next trip, which was to Montjüic.
At 15.45pm, we left to the metro station and arrived at Espanya around 16.20pm.
We managed to make our way towards Montjüic and took some pictures. One truck’s
tire had blown up from the heat we suspect which sounded like a bomb. At around
17.06pm we took a short break to top up sun cream and enjoy the views. We
continued with some more walking and trekking in the heat, we followed signs
and got to a point where we could see Barcelona. It was amazing. We found the
cable cars to get to the top of Montjüic and we boarded those. At 18.10pm, we
got to the top, where there was Montjüic Castle. We walked around and decided
to take a refreshment break at 18.50pm. There were lovely views and we had some
jokes.
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| At the top of the castle |
At 19.19pm, we headed back down via the cable cars. We couldn’t do the
walk back down so we got on the metro back to hotel. We had to travel on a tram
before heading to the metro station, which was pretty cool. We arrived back at
Llacuna Station at 20.13pm and walked back to the hotel. We got freshened up
and at 22.00pm; we left to go to Port Olympic to see what other restaurants
were there. We decided to eat at quite a nice posh place and chose one with a
set menu. The restaurant we chose was called El Cangrejo Loco. They had a set
menu, which consist of two starters, one main and dessert. We didn’t know how
we would finish all this food but we thought we’d try it anyway. Not only did
we have the set menu, we had olives and bread as extra starters that came with
the table. We ordered some Cava too, which was nice. We did struggle a bit but
we managed to finish the food. I was completely bloated and we had to laugh
about it as we was walking back. We left the restaurant at 23.50pm and strolled
along the beach back to our hotel. We got back to the hotel at 00.06am and
headed to bed!
Money spent:
Cable Car €30.90
Food (McDonald’s €9, El Cangrejo Loco €105) €114
Refreshment €6.70
Travel €9.80
Total – €161.40
Tuesday 13th August
2013
We all woke up at 8am today and got ready for breakfast for
8.45am. Today we were going to do some bike riding so we was excited. We headed
back to the room at 9am and at 9.20am we headed to find the meeting point for
the bikes as we wasn’t sure where it was and was told the meeting point was in
a small street. We arrived and managed to find our way there without too much
trouble. At 9.45am, we paid for the bike tour and found out what the bikes were
like and that we may be joined by one more person. First look at the bikes it
looked alright, quite excited. As we was still a little early, the guy told us
to come back at 10.30am where the tour will start. We walked around and killed
some time. At 10.30am, we arrived back at meeting point. We was given the smart
E-bikes and we tested it. I just about reached the ground and once I started
riding the bike, it just didn’t feel comfortable and knowing that we would be
hitting roads, I didn’t feel confident enough to ride this bike. The tour guide
said there was another option of bike, which is still an E-bike but there was
no horizontal pole from the seat to the handlebars. I tried that bike out and I
was so much more comfortable with that one. So, immediately I told him I would
like to swap. He told me this was fine. My sisters then also changed their mind
and decided to go for the other bike. We was then told another person was
coming to join us, we waited a little while, whilst testing our bikes and he
arrived. We was all set to go. The tour guide was lovely, he was polish but he
knew a lot about Barcelona and spoke in detail and was very nice.
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| View from Park Guell |
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| One of many stops during our bike tour |
It was around 14.30PM when
we finished the tour. The pilot guy we met asked if we wanted to get a
drink and we agreed and found a little place for drinks. It was nice, we sat in
the sun, chatted for a bit and he kindly paid for the drinks. It was around
15.05PM when we finished our drinks. We did a spot of souviener shopping and
picked up some snacks on the way back to the hotel. We got back to the hotel
around 16.20PM and we chilled for a bit. We didn’t want to waste the day so we
decided we would go to the Aquarium. At 18.10PM we left for the Aquarium and
arrived in Barcelonetta Station around 18.40PM. We walked to the aquarium and
arrived at 19.00PM and thankfully there wasn’t a long queue for the tickets. At
19.30PM we had finished looking around the aquarium it wasn’t amazing but we
still had fun.
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| Sharks! |
The aquarium was right next to a big shopping centre and at
19.45PM, we shopped for a bit until we decided that most of the shops were high
street stores that we could find in London so we decided to find somewhere to
eat. At 20.30PM, we saw a place called Ikurz & Gut, which looked nice, and
prices were reasonable, however service took too long so we left the place! We was
left waiting for 20minutes! A good decision too as we found an itilain
restaurant called Gino’s and the food was delicious and very satisifying. We
left Gino’s at 21.45PM and we decided to stroll back to the hotel. It was a
good walk and it was lovely! We arrived back at the hotel at 22.52PM.
Money spent:
Exchanged £200 = €185.71
Bike Tour = €150
Aquarium (Entry €55.50, Photo €8) = €63.50
Food (Gino’s €55) €55
Refreshments €6.35
Travel €9.80
Gifts & Souvenirs €74.91
Total – €359.56
Wednesday 14th
August 2013
The weather was looking good today and we wanted to make the
most of the beach. So at 9.15AM, we went for breakfast. We came back from
breakfast at 10.10AM. It was a good one. We got ready and then headed off to
the beach at 11.00AM. We swam in the sea, sunbathed and had a nice time on the
beach until 14.00PM. We walked back to the hotel and took a shower and at
16.15PM we left for Camp Nou. After a little searching for the ticket office,
we finally got our tickets and headed into the Stadium at 17.25PM. We had a lot
of jokes and fun in the Stadium even though my sisters weren’t so keen on it to
begin with. At 18.50PM we finished the tour. It was a good time we went as it
wasn’t that crowded and we had the opportunity to take pictures at the end with
no queue as they closed entry.
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| Barcelona FC |
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| Football Stadium |
On the way home, we did a little shop at Mango’s
Outlet. We managed to buy a few pieces. At 19.50PM, we got the train, we
decided to check out a shopping centre so we got on a train to El
Maresme-Fòrum. The shopping centre was a short walk from the station. We briefy
looked at the shops and most of them were high street stores and we also
managed to see a supermarket however it was closing. At 20.45PM we decided to
go eat. We went to Cañas y tapas and had one last tapas meal. It was nice. We
left the restaurant at 22.00PM. We passed a small store and decided to take a
look, where we picked up a few gifts. At 22.45PM we arrived back at the hotel.
Money spent:
Barcelona FC Tour €69.00
Food - (Cañas y Tapas €) €50
Refreshments €6.87
Gifts & Souvenirs €53.04
Travel €9.80
Total – €188.71
Thursday 15th
August 2013
It was an early start today and it was a little bit of
a struggle. We woke up at 6.15am when the sky was still brightening up. We got
ready and left the hotel at 7.10am. I had a couple of fairy cakes for breakfast
and bought some along with me for the ride. At 7.50am we arrived at Catalunya
Square and Jo and I had to use the toilets so we stood outside McDonald’s
waiting for it to open! I bought a small cappuccino shot to drink. We found the
bus tour and got on the bus at 8.20am. The coach left at 8.40am for Costa
Brava. We decided to sleep for a bit on the coach, as it would take about 2
hours to arrive. At 10.30 we arrived in Costa Brava and we had some time to
explore and take some pictures. The tour guide had an accent and pronounced
‘boat’ as ‘boot’ and we couldn’t help but laugh because it was so unexpected!
After waking about and following the tour guide we headed back on the coach at
12.10pm. We travelled to Pals, and we was given a short tour of that place. At
13.05pm we got back on the coach again. We arrived by the port at 13.45 and was
given time for lunch, everyone went their different ways. We decided that there
was much to eat and do so we decided just to eat waffles and get ice cream then
sit on the rocks overlooking the sea. When it was time to gather up again we
headed on to the half submarine boat. At 15.05 the boats left l’aventura del
nautilus. It was a fun experience the sea was so clear you could see the fish
clearly. Half of the boat went under water were we got to see the submarine
experience. The fresh water breeze, view and the hot weather was a perfect boat
ride day. We arrived back on shore and at 16.55pm everyone was back on the
coach were we was heading to the last stop of the day. At 17.30pm, we arrived
at the Roman and Greek ruins. Some people chose to stay on the beach but we
decided to finish the tour. It wasn’t listening properly mainly because we
didn’t understand much and was getting restless but we still managed to find it
fun. At 18.30pm we sat back on the coach. Everyone as tired and a lot of us
took naps. At 20.25pm we arrived back in Barcelona. We decided to get the train
and then walk the rest. At 22.30pm, we was just strolling around and we decided
to eat Mexican and it was delicious! A great choice! We finally arrived back at
the hotel at 23.55pm. It was a long but good day.
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| Costa Brava Clear Blue Sea - Amazing |
Costa Brava Tour €183
Food - (McDonald’s €1, Casa Mexicans €60, Crepes &
Waffles €15.10) €76.10
Refreshments €5.50
Gifts & Souvenirs €95.20
Total - €359.80
Friday 16th
August 2013
After yesterday’s long day we decided to wake up a
little bit later and got up about 8.30am. We couldn’t quite decide whether we
should check out then go supermarket to buy the remaining things or whether we
should rush after breakfast. We decided t discuss it over breakfast at 9.15am.
We decided we had some time if we rushed. So at 10.12am Jo and I leave for the
station speed walking. We laughed along the way at how ridiculous we was and
arrived at Forum station at 10.25am. We found the supermarket and we did a big rush-shopping
trip we had hands full of sweets and confectionary and whilst laughing and
struggling to keep it all together. We arrived at the check out at 10.47am and
then rushed back to the hotel. We managed to get back to the hotel at 11.11am
and with time to pack and get ready. We checked out at 11.50am. We left our
luggage at the hotel and then went to the beach at 12.00pm. We spent about two
hours and then decided to get some drinks and snacks at inercia xiringuito
beach bar.
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| Crepes with Cream by the beach |
It was refreshing and we sat for a while. At 15.25 we left to go
back to the hotel. We strolled back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and
shortly at 16.00 our taxi was waiting for us to take us to the airport. It was
sad to leave but it had been one very fun, educational and culturally opening
experience. I loved it. 20 minutes later we arrived at the airport and was
quite early! We dropped our bags off and then at 16.35 our duty free shopping
started. The airport wasn’t that big so there was a limit to our shopping. At
17.10pm, we sat and waited for our plane. Ally and I fell asleep for a bit and
2 hours later at 19.25pm we finally boarded our plane. At 19.53 the plane took
off and we arrived back in London not long after. We collected our luggage and
at 20.20 we boarded the train back home close to the station where our dad came
to pick us up. It was a great holiday and definitely loved it!
Tip Hotel €5
Refreshments €25
Gifts & Souvenirs (€209.60 (Duty Free) €54.62 (Supermarket)) €264.22
Taxi €40
Total - €334.22
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| View from the plane |
Click here to see the video diary: http://youtu.be/MQtzZpgE7BM
