Spain - Beautiful Barcelona

March 28
I had a bit of a struggle with an unactivated Eurail Pass at Atocha as my pass was apparently not "activated" at Algeciras, but a nice grandfatherly Renfe employee helped me out and I didn't miss my train to Barcelona. When I got out of the metro in Barcelona looking for my hostel I got a bit lost. I got to the rather spacious hostel and got acquainted with the more diverse crown (LA, Chicago, Denmark, UK, NZ, Germany). During the afternoon I visited Montjuic and the Olympic Park, which was gorgeous and had a fantastic view of the city. I wandered through the Barri Gotic which had a fantastic Old World-feel, similar to Tangier, but less suspect. Barcelona reminded me a lot of San Francisco the more I thought about it.

March 29
I missed my scheduled bike tour due to my failure at map reading (a very uncommon occurrence), so I wandered through the Parc Guell and visited La Sagrada Familia (I must have walked halfway across the city of Barcelona and back). I checked out the Camp Nou, where FC Barcelona plays, and I was a bit surprised to find that it had gone fully Nike commercialized, although I probably shouldn't have been. I bought lunch in La Boqueteria, an exceptionally large farmer's market. While wandering the city I happened upon dozens of beautiful plazas and buildings randomly hidden throughout the city. That night I went out on a date with Stefanie, the German girl, to get Tapas and wander the city at night.

March 30
I made it to the bike tour today and that was rather fun as I spent most of the time talking to the guide and the guide in training. I found out that the guide in training thought I was also training to be a guide, so score one more for my attempts to not appear outwardly touristy. We saw a large portion of the city I visited the previous day, but this time I actually learned the history behind it. I spent more time with Stefanie today seeing the Museum of Barcelona history and lounging about a park. It was a nice vacation romance, but it wasn't meant to be.

March 31
Don't book 6 am flights, because that means you have to be at the airport at 4 am, which is stupid. I'm pretty sure I was the first person at the Barcelona airport that day. I had to connect in Amsterdam to make it back to SFO and I had the tightest connection of my life, making it by about 5 minutes after getting stuck behind a family with small children at Schengen Zone customs in Schiphol. I flew KLM, which was pretty nice, except for the huge group of Italian tourists who were going to San Francisco on what must have been their first vacation ever.