Futbol game and sagrada familia

View from our seat
At least we could see the whole game!

Last night we went to a Barcelona vs. Rayo ballecano futbol game. It was incredible, yes we were in the nose bleed section but we were able to sit next to each other which we didn't think would happen and it didn't rain! Before leaving the hostel we wanted a picture of all the girls and they both had purchased really cool Barcelona scarfs and I had no fan gear. Sean saw that I had no team spirit and let me borrow a jersey. I went from least legit to most in about 2 min thanks to Sean.

LEGITIMATE FANS  right here :)

Modeling again

We made our way to the game climbed several stairs and took several pictures. The fans weren't too ruddy around us but it was a really cool atmosphere.
Afterwards we took the subway back with EVERYONE else and there cousin.

Metro on the way home

Sagrada Familia

Today we woke up early and went back to Sagrada Familia Church for our trip to the top of the tour. We got there early and it was nice because it was not too touristy yet. Our trip was for 9:30 and the church opens at 9. The stain glass windows were amazing! And the ceilings I can't even begin to describe. Gaudi was an incredible architect. The weather was sunny 55 and very windy, so no complaints. Blue sky's were seen all day.

INSIDE!

About to head up the stairs

Ceiling!

WOW!

Stain glass is beautiful!

View from the tour!

Exterior

This is how you get a GREAT picture
You really have to commit
Yes that is me on the ground

Like this one 

Afterwards we walked down to the old town, stopping in the park and found an amazing fountain! Then we found lunch at a cute little Catalan restaurant. Here I got pesto appetizer and steak. It was delicious and only 10.80 for that with bread, coffee, and pudding bread for dessert.
We walked around the old town and found some cute souvenir shops and postcards, and candy AKA happy pills store.

Statures everywhere

FOUNTAIN!

Creative 

One of our favorite restaurants 

Love this place :)

Columbus monument

E-Bikes 

Boats in the harbor 

Then we went to the waterfront and found some ships and more street vendors, after we decided to take the chair lift up to the castle. We found amazing views at the top and lots of tourists.

BARCELONA!

Frances (yes I was being artsy)

So many buildings

JUMP!

The castle at the top

Frances and Kristi matching shoes
On the walk down

After missing the last chair lift down we walked down to the metro and took it to la boquaria, a food market in the center of the city. Here we found fresh fruit, meat, fish, bread, nuts, candy, chocolate, and everything in between.

Smoothies

Tomatoes

Oranges

Candy

Enjoying dinner on the street

Empanadas 

We grabbed some empanadas for dinner and a fruit cup for breakfast.
At this point all of our feet are pretty sore and I had had enough touring for one day. I was ready to be laying down and not feel like I was being hurdled like sheep, being forced to follow the crowds and walking at a slow pace.

Barcelona - magic fountains and PAELLA

We finally made it! We slept for about 3 hours Friday night and caught a taxi to the airport in Budpest. We made it through security with no problems and found the gate. This is the first airplane I have flown on that there was not assigned seats so we made it though the crowd and managed to find 3 seats next to each other with no problem. We all slept for almost the whole flight. I remember Kristin waking up saying... "Wow when did we land?" when we were at the gate. Haha

Finally on our flight!

Beautiful hostel 

We found our luggage and the airbus, but the hostel was a little more challenging. We were dropped off in the city center called Catallyna central and I thought I had printed directions to the hostel catllyna but instead I printed directions to the Catallyna hotel. Wops.. But eventually found it and we're warmly welcomed by a guy name Sean, who I think we all have a baby crush on now. He showed us around the hostel, gave us a map of the city and shared helpful information like things to see places to eat, and also places to avoid (too expensive)

We proceeded to make this our home by unpacking a little then we were on our way to find some tapas. We walked to txapella a tapas bar Sean suggestion on the main strip. It was cheap and good. But we were still hungery so afterwards we found a McDonald's haha. We kind of just toured around a got a feel for where we were and things to do and see. After we found a grocery store to get some breakfast food. Freshest produce I think I've seen at a store yet. After we came back to the hostel for snacks and a nap.

Tapas!

Just a cool statue

Modeling

After some rest we were off to see the magic fountains. This was fountains in another main square that lite up and had Spanish music in the background. A very large tourist attraction. We took an elevator to the top of a building were we had a fantastic view of all of Barcelona. After we roomed around the quarter and sat with the other tourist, took lots of pictures and listen to street music.



After we decided to eat a late Spanish dinner. Which wasn't fantastic but we were again pretty hungary at this point. So anything would do the trick.

Three Amigas!

Magic Fountains!

Today we woke up and followed a free walking tour of architecture history of....... It was really interesting and I am glad we participated there were only 2 other couples with us.

Statue

Afterwards we walked down close to the water on a mission to find paella for lunch. And we did :) it was quite fantastic. Afterwards we enjoyed finding our way back to the hostel in no hurry. We found many cute stores Restaurants, and souvenir shops. And some st. Patties day pride on one corner. Now it's nap time again.

All the walk ways looked like this! Beautiful

Just learning some history

Architecture by Gaudi

MOST DELICIOUS MEAL! PAELLA

Series of unfortunate events

Soo today is the day, plan was wake up get on a bus to budapest arrive by 2 pm have a late lunch and find the airport before 5 to get on our flight to barcelona at 630.
Instead right now it is 650 and we are still an hour outside of budapest by train.
The morning started off rough when frances recieved an email saying our bus from vienna to budapest was cancelled. So then we thought well how about a train And so we all meet at westbanoff train station and looked at our options. The next train was scheduled to leave at 11:45 getting us to budapest in 3 hours. This would have worked perfectly. But apparently we weren't ment to have a stressfree travel day, because we soon found out that train was cancelled. And so we looked at potential other options. Could we find someone to drive us to budapest.... answer was no. Traffic was backed up for 15 hours at the boarder to hungary do to snow. So train was the only answer. And so we hoped and waited for the next train to leave ontime and in a jiffy. But of course this was a series of unfortunate events so this train was natually delayed leaving, it was now 2 pm and IF the train took 3 hour we would get to budapest at 5 and have little to no time to get to the airport.
But of course we were on our way and had a 2 hour delay at one stop in hungary. Apparently there is only one track open between two stations in hungary because the others are snow covered.
And so at this point we have accepted that we will miss our flight. Which means we loss all our money because werw cheap college kids and didn't think we would need insurance, so we and have to buy a new ticket.
After arriving in budapest fances friend from her school back in the states is atudying there and she met us at the train station and let us crash for the night.
We found a plane ticket for 200 dollars (seriously the cheapest option) leaving at 6 am and we bit the bullet.
So we went and got some dinner and had a few hours of sleep before hopping in a cab at 330 to get to the airport nice and early.
Flight went well and we finally found our way to our hostel :)
More too come soon. Things can only get better at thia point.