First evening in Barcelona

Lets try something different this time, a live blog about each passing day in the new country I visit. Barcelona. This is the ninth country I am visiting in the past 2 years and I have never arrived so impressed!

The flight to Barcelona was from Dusseldorf Weeze, one of the misnamed airports in Germany but allowing the cheapest travel possible! Every flight for the day was delayed owing to terrible snow. But since snow is seldom heard of in Barcelona, ours was the only one that was on time. After 2 hours and 15 minutes of uneventful air journey, I had to take the bus service from Girona airport to the main city. Accommodation was booked in Dreams hostel. This is the first time I had booked a youth hostel for my stay, in every other country it was a cheap hotel. Rains welcomed me into the country and now I have learnt after my Krakow experience that a rainy welcome will lead to the best enjoyment and its proving to be true again! 1 hour of bus journey saw the rain fade away to lead into the most pleasant winter evening so far. 14 degrees and wet with little breeze. The thermals that I had to wear to fight the minus 10 in the morning was already starting to feel uncomfortable and useless.

The hostel is situated in a place called Pep Ventura, 20 minutes from the city center where we [myself and Vimal] got off. But the well structured metro connections made it a cake walk to reach this place. Learning from a Spanish guy how to locate the hostel, I was highly impressed by its neatness and organization. The 12 bed dormitory is clean and well insulated. The reception is spacious allowing space for numerous activities and the guy at the reception too was helpful with the touristic doubts.

After a refreshing face wash, we were surprised in the reception by an Indian couple who had also just checked in and plan to stay for the next 3 nights. So we teamed up to get to the city center and walk around. The city center, Plac Catalunya is enormous with fountains and huge streets which resemble the Champ Elysee in Paris. Brilliantly lit for the christmas, its is truly a shoppers delight. The four of us were just walking and awing at the beautiful lit complexes, buildings and restro bars. Finally the long walk ended in an all you can eat Catalan buffet. Wonderful salad and the Catalan spinach was my pick and I relished it very much.

back in the hostel at around 10 and we planned the itenary for day 2. Until then, its good night from Rp!