Barcelona

We luckily got a cheap easy flight from Palma up to Barca and enjoyed the quick transit. After checking into our central hostel we got straight out in amongst the city that promised so much from fellow traveler feedback. Within about 20 minutes it was already impressing us. We stumbled into this little cafe where the bar was covered in 30 odd different tapas all with a kebab style stick stuck through them all. Less than $2AUD each we sampled a few. I discovered my perfect pastry! It was a small square sandwich made of puff pastry and in the middle looked like just custard. That was enough to grab my attention but when I bit into it and discovered the golden syrup bonus I could barely finish before grabbing another off the bar.

 We spent the afternoon wandering the small streets throughout the old gothic part of the city and the famous Rambles down to the floating harbour complete with brand new shopping centre and movie theatre. The next day we trekked up to Gaudi's park with nice views of the complete city and also jumped on and off a city tour, learning a bit more about the dark past (and economic present) of spain. The one that shocked us most is that the unemployment for 18-25 year olds is more than 50%. Continuing in the history of the mad architect we walked through town to his famous, still unfinished church. An amazing structure as you can see from the photos with a lot going on in the exterior decorative design. Later that evening we checked out a cool city bar and got to know Alice, a fellow hostel dweller from Southern England.

The next day I headed out to the airport to pick up the little sister who was fairly exhausted after a storm ridden flight and suffering from a cold. A quick dinner with her before she passed out for some much needed rest. The next morning we started weaving our way through the city highlights with Jane. All in all a great city that lived up to the hype.