Barcelona

Hola readers!!

I went to Barcelona last week end with a group of friends studying abroad with me. Since we are on a student budget, we tried to look whatever was cheaper to go there: bus, plane, train, carpooling, etc. (well I don't see what's left but let's pretend there is)
We opted for the bus. Alsa is the most popular bus company in Spain so we tried to buy our ticket online but our american cards weren't working for some reason. We went to the train/metro/bus station "Avenida de America" and got our tickets using the machines there. 50E roundtrip.

Then, we were looking for cheap hostels and found a decent one in Las Ramblas (very famous neighborhood in Barcelona) and not too far from the beach, a 30 minute walk. So we booked it online and everything was all set!!

The bus ride was very exhausting and not very comfortable. I mean, I really tried every position but nothing worked. I suffered in silence for 8 hours... Once in Barcelona, we took the cab to go to our Hostel, checked in and went to our room. There were 8 beds in total, but we were only 4. The four other people were from Chile, Germany, Algeria and Slovenia. What I liked the most about the hostel was the diversity of its residents and we were all approximately the same age! It wasn't the cleanest place, I give you that. But better than paying 200 bucks a night at a hotel!!!

We walked A LOT, visited Las Ramblas, the beach area, downtown, went to the famous Park Guell. It is a very charming city, with many things to see. The people there understand Spanish and most of them speak it. But everything is written in Catalan and you'll notice the difference when you hear people speaking on the street.

I spent a lot of money on food ( I was always hungry), and the metro is more expensive than the one in Madrid. Overall, I really liked Barcelona although the beach wasn't that impressive.

The Hostel we stayed at is "BeMar" if anyone's interested. Go with a big group of friends and bring snickers if you're planning on walking a lot!






Thanks for reading!

Park Guell