Home and connected

Guess who has has the internet!?! Yep, me.

I returned from my Spanish adventures to find the internet up and running at my house. Hooray. So you can once again expect regular updates from me.

What’s new you ask? Well let me tell you.

First of all my boyfriend is now a handsome 30-year-old. Happy birthday flynn! The great girlfriend that I am, I decided to celebrate his birthday in Spain…without him. And this is how it went:

May 5 Saturday

Martina and Aishling picked me up in a cab and headed off to Dublin airport to catch our 3:45pm. After only a 2.5 hour flight we landed in Madrid around 8pm (an hour time change). We found our way through the metro to our hostel which was conveniently located in the center of the city. After a quick freshening up we hit the town to meet Aishling’s brother, Rowan, who’s been living in Madrid for the last year. After dinner we met up with a few of his friends and headed out to a bar. The bars that we went to were all great, good music, great people and cheap (but good) beer! Not much more I could ask for there.

The first bar we went to had no television…

May 6 Sunday

As true Madrilenians do, we stayed out all hours of the night and finally settled back into our hostel around 6am. Not the best idea for sightseeing the next day. However, we only had plans to go visit museums and some parks. First Aishling and I headed to the Museo del Prado, where I got to see Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. Then we met up with Martina and spent the remains of the day in Parque del Buen Retiro listening to the bongo’s beat to rhythm in our heads.

Madrid Archetecture

May 7 Monday

We got up early, 7am which is early for a holiday, and made our way to the Madrid train station to get a train to Toledo. Surprisingly we found everything quite easily and had our tickets within 20 minutes so we had plenty of time to spare. We picked some breakfast and awaited our train. The ride was only a half our so it was almost over as soon as it began. We stepped off the train into the quaint historic city of Toledo. We hadn’t a clue where to go so just followed our fellow tourists and soon found ourselves on our own, snaking up a hillside towards the city. Once we reached the top we were so amazed. Toledo is such a small quite town (even with all the tourists), surrounded by stone walls and beautiful old buildings.

The sign into Toledo

I can easily say that our highlight was the Toledo Cathedral, dating back to 1226. Now, I’ve taken lots of art history classes, and I’ve seen the slides of intricate alters, but I was not prepared for this one. One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, and unfortunately it could never be replicated in photos (believe me, i tried) and is something one has to see.

The apse of the cathedral

Wall painting

The current Cardnial

We wondered around the cathedral for a good two or more hours. We stopped of for some lunch and then visited Santa María la Blanca, a synagogue dating back to 1180.

We strolled around the city for a while before catching a train back to Madrid.

View of Toledo

We met back up with Rowan for Tapas and a few beers. The last bar we went to looked like it was straight out of the 1920s, light jazz was playing, we were surrounded by art and we were expecting some flapper girls to walk in at any moment. At the evening’s end we took a short metro ride back to our hostel and said our goodbye’s to Rowan and thanked him for being an excellent tour guide.

Tapas Bar

May 8 Tuesday

We were up early again to catch our train to Barcelona. We had bought our tickets the day before so we just headed straight for the station and where after a little hassle i was finally able to get some breakfast. Finally we settled into our train seats for our 4 hour ride to Barcelona. I passed the time watching the country side and reading The Courious Incident of the Dog in the Night. When we arrived in Barcelona we found our hostel easily, settled in and as usual, hit the town! It was only 5pm by the time we headed out so we took a stroll down La Rambla to the Mediterranean sea. We sat by the sea for while and then stopped in at this silly “fairy bar” for a few pints, where we ended up for the nite. Imagine if the enchanted forrest was a bar and you have a pretty good idea what the inside of this place looked like.

May 9 Wednesday

This day was dedicated to Antoni Gaudí First we headed to his Casa Batlló. Amazing, and once again something that pictures can not capture. If only every house was created with this much thought and passion.

Roof of the Casa Batllo

Next we headed to Sagrada Família. Now, I knew that this building was still under-construction, but I had no idea to what extent. It’s basically a construction site, men with hardhats, cranes, machinery, lots of hammering and drilling and throughout all of this are tourists wondering around the perimeter. The front facade is very angular while the back facade is the most intricate piece of architecture I’ve ever seen. Every time I looked at it, i saw something that i hadn’t seen before. We were also able to take a lift to the top of the cathedral where we had great views over Barcelona and could get closer to Gaudi’s incredible designs.

stained glass

Me and Aishling, view from the top

We continued our Gaudi walk to Parc Güell. We spent several hours here walking throughout Gaudi buildings and artworks.

Gaudi has now jumped to one of my favorite artists. I’ve never seen anything like his buildings and I never imagined anything liked them existed. On our way home we stopped at a xocolata cafe for a cup of chocolate and churros!

May 10 Thursday

Today was was our museum day. We began the day by visiting the Salvador Dali Museum. What a wacko!

Next off to the Palau de la Música Catalana . Just when I though I’d seen it all with Gaudi, along comes this building. Unfortunately for us, we could only take a guided tour through the building and no pictures were allowed. The interior was pure eye candy at the hight of the Art Nouveau period, right up my alley.

After a short trip on the metro, we found ourselves at the Joan Miró museum. I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of Miro, but it was bright and colorful that’s for sure. Some of his paintings were beautiful, others were simply a black squiggly line on a white canvas…the kind of painting that makes you say…”I could do that.” But you gotta hand it to the guy, he was dedicated. There were Hundreds of paintings and most of them were on wall-sized canvases.

For dinner we headed to the Café de les 7 Portes, established in 1836, where we had paella in the same seats as, Orson Welles, Dalí, Picasso, Miró, and Che Guevara have eaten.

After dinner we headed to Bar Marsella, an absinthe bar, where we stuck to beer, and tried to gain some of the genius of Miro, Picasso and Hemingway who had all drank there.

May 11 Friday

Beach day! We laid on the beach all day, with the occasional dip in the Mediterranean. When the sun started going down, we headed back to the hostel to freshen up. We found a great little cafe for dinner were were had the best dinner of the trip.

The modernist trail, trail markers throughout the city

Local Graffiti

May 12 Saturday

Flynn’s Birthday! We took one last stroll around Barcelona, grabbed some lunch and headed to the bus station to head to Girona. We had an 1.5 hour bus ride to the airport and then a 2.5 hour flight home. I can’t say it was the best to be home, because that means I have to go back to work and no more sunshine. But it does mean I get to sleep in my own bed and not spend so much money.

And that was my trip to Spain.

As always for the complete slideshow visit my picasa page.