jacobblogs

Tag: mango

  • Barcelona, Spain: 4/8

    I have (two!) more days in Barcelona – I wanted to get some proper sleep, so I extended my stay by booking a hotel with a private room instead of a shared room with 15 other people. The cost difference is significant though – the hostel only costs about $30/night!

    Today, I started with breakfast at another cafe. I’ve been enjoying ordering whatever new coffee sounds interesting in the moment – this time it was a cortada (coffee and steamed milk, about a 50/50 ratio). I added a packet of sugar, and it was very enjoyable.

    Breakfast!

    Alongside the cortado, I got toast with eggs, cheese, avocado, mixed greens and tomatos. Plus, a glass of fresh orange juice – this has been a menu item every place I’ve gone – I think it is popular in spain. I’m not complaining!

    As usual, the breakfast was delicious, and I think this one was also around 15 euro. I think I tend to pay more than average (my research indicates 5-10 euro is normal), but I’m eating a larger breakfast than is typical (I think a pastery and coffee is more normal).

    After breakfast, I returned to plan the next leg of my trip in more detail and do laundry. The hostel has a washer and dryer, but they cost extra money – almost 10 euro for a wash and dry! That’s quite pricey, but the convenience is hard to beat, and I won’t need to do laundry again for at least a week.

    Speaking of the next leg, here’s the plan. Thursday around 11AM, I will board a train and spend the next 6 or so hours on my way to Lyon, France. I chose Lyon primarily because it was along the way and made the train ride not too long. There, I stay for an evening The next day, I will take a train to Luxemborg and stay there (the capital is the same as the country). Finally, on Saturday, I will take a train to Amsterdam.

    Training all the way back down to Milan would have taken too long and I would have had to leave Amsterdam earlier than I wanted to – so instead of spending less days, I ended up getting an economy ticket to Milan, which should allow me almost a week in Amsterdam! Going down by train would have taken at least 4 days if I wanted to not be travelling for more than 8 hours, so it made sense to me.

    After breakfast and logistics, I walked to Basílica de la Sagrada Família, an unfinished church from the 1800’s. It towers over everything nearby, and tourists swarm its grounds. I didn’t go inside – the lines and ticket costs didn’t seem worth it, but I did shoot a few photos.

    OLYMPUS C740
    OLYMPUS C740
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    Among the tourists there was a man blowing huge bubbles, and there were kids running underneath.

    I wonder how he was making money?

    I also shot a few other interesting things along the way…

    I couldn’t tell if this was an advertisement for something, or … just there.
    This stained glass covered multiple apartments within this building, probably an area a couple hundred feed wide and 4 stories tall!
    This tower is familiar to me! I used photos of it in an example for the “Tower building” activity I created for kid’s after school maker clubs. I didn’t think to wonder if I would ever see it in person!
    A view of the camera from up on top of the hill behind the city.

    After the basilica, I decided to head up the hill behind the city, where a large parc had multiple trails and good views of the city (the photo above was from there).

    This was a (closed) museum in part of the park.
    You can see how insanely tall the bascilica is compared to everything around it!
    I liked the colors of the tiles on this house. In this part of the hill, there were a few full houses (which were quite old) that I realized were single residences, not apartments! I wonder what they cost…

    The rest of the photos aren’t anything super special, so I’ll put them in a gallery with notes in the captions.

    Mopeds are VERY common here. You can’t walk anywhere without seeing a dozen!
    I liked this red flower on the windowsill.
    This lock was keeping cars from driving into the parc on the hill.
    I haven’t seen many tuk-tuks in Spain – which surprises me, given how much smaller the vehicles are here, and how popular mopeds are.

    Barcelona takeaways / culture shocks / impressions so far:

    Probably the biggest culture shock so far is how common smoking is, and how few restrictions there are on where it is done. It’s very common to see someone smoking at a cafe outdoors, or sometimes even inside (though this seems discouraged). My cab driver who picked me up from the train station was smoking inside the cab as he drove me! I didn’t realize that the US’s laws around not smoking close to buildings weren’t the norm – nor that a general public disgrace towards smoking wasn’t everyday either.

    This city is SO easy to get around! If I had a driver’s liscence here, I could rent a moped off any corner and get around easier than anyone in a car. Walking is super easy (definitely easier than driving), and I hear public transit is good – but I’ve been too afraid to try it yet.

    Food seems to all be fresh and high quality – maybe this is just where I’ve gone, but I think adjusting back to the US might be challenging…

    Anyway – Barcelona is now on my list of places I will consider living and working. It has its problems – high rent from foreign landlords buying properties to rent exclusively to tourists is one, but there are a lot of things to like here.

    Lastly – I just had the best mango I’ve ever had! It did cost about 5 euro, but I think it was worth it. Below are the before and after photos.

    Did you know you can eat mango skin? I thought they were toxic until a few months ago. They are kind of bitter, though.

    All for now! 🙂