The morning was very slow for me as jet lag was hitting me hard. We took a bus to our hotel, the Catalonia Barcelona Plaza Hotel, where we would be staying for the weekend before arriving at our apartments. I settled into my room and took a shower before my roommate, Ali, who is also one of my apartment-mates, arrived. Once Ali arrived she and I, and another girl Alex, who Ali had met on her flight decided to get some lunch and explore Barcelona.
We decided to walk to Las Ramblas, which is a very popular hot spot for tourists. It's a 2 mile long street filled with little cafés/restaurants, shopping carts, and really elaborate street performers. We stopped at a little restaurant named Micky's and we all ordered "jamón y queso"sandwiches. (For all you non-Spanish speakers, jamón means ham, and queso means cheese) The sandwiches were really good, especially the french baguette the meat and cheese was on. After lunch we decided to walk around some more, and walked over to the marina, which was housing a rather large cruise ship, and off in the distance one could see the very new and fancy "W" hotel.
As we were walking up Las Ramblas to head back to our hotel, we came across a market hidden in a little side street. Let me tell you, this was the first Spanish market I've seen, but it sets the bar extremely high. The rows and rows of any food you could think of were amazing. What was especially amazing was the expansive set up of chocolates and other sweets.
After our trip at the market we walked and walked (and after getting somewhat lost, took a cab) and arrived back to the hotel to relax in the room and grab dinner.
The first day was not too busy, but it was really fun finally getting to experience the city I've been waiting to see for months now.
Wow!
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