Hola friends! I thought that I would recap my trip to Barcelona and Madrid high-low style. Enjoy!
Low: After a small travel hiccup to start the trip, I had major travel issues to end the trip. We were originally supposed to fly from Madrid to Geneva on Sunday night at 8:40pm. My flight to Orlando was leaving at 9:40 the next morning, so I had just over 12 hours to unpack, repack, do some pre-conference work, and oh, sleep. As we headed to the airport in Madrid, the skies started to look stormy. Our flight was initially delayed by two hours, but around 11pm, they announced that the flight was cancelled until 1pm the next day. Obviously, this meant that I would miss my flight leaving Geneva the next morning, so I scrambled to figure out how to re-book that itinerary while we waited for a shuttle bus to pick up our full flight and transport us to a hotel. On Monday, as we waited for our 1pm flight in the Madrid airport, we found out that our flight had been delayed again - until 4pm. In the end, I arrived home in Geneva around 7pm on Monday - nearly 21 hours after I was originally scheduled. The longest 90 minute flight of my life!!
High: La Sagrada Familia - I had some pretty high expectations for this place, and it totally lived up to them. It was absolutely stunning, and although I think I got some pretty good pictures, photos could never really do this place justice. It is just so spectacular!
Low: The trip started out on the wrong foot for me. In prevoius travels, I have never really had to use my passport when travelling inside of the Schengen area. I've always just used my Swiss ID, so I chose not to bring my passport with me on this trip. Stupid mistake. I ended up missing my flight to Barcelona on Tuesday night because of it. Luckily, I was able to book a super early flight the next morning, so I didn't really miss too much, but it certainly was a dumb and easily-avoidable cause of stress!
High: I really loved Madrid! We spent a really lovely weekend enjoying the city. I loved the architecture, the food, and the vibe. We also managed to get off the main tourist track for a bit and wandered around - my favorite thing to do! And of course, there was an awesome market!
Churros and chocolate!!! A random American girl heard us talking on the sidewalk about getting breakfast and recommended this place to us!
The oldest restaurant in the world according to Guiness
While not traditional Spanish, this burrata with blueberry and almond was OUTSTANDING
Sea urchin relleno!
Flamenco!!
This stag-do put their costumes back on and raced through the empty terminal while we all waited for our flight that wasn't leaving.
Actually, the hotel that EasyJet put us in was the nicest one I stayed in all week!
High: Casa Batllo - after our experience at La Sagrada Familia, we decided to try to check out some more Gaudi and ended up here. I was really impressed with this place! The audio guide has a pretty interactive element to it, and it was super informative. It really helped give a lot more of a sense of Gaudi's vision and process. Really, really impressive.
Low: We went to a huge market in Barcelona, but we had all just eaten breakfast, so we could only look at everything! Rookie mistake!
High: Barcelona is just great. I loved the energy - and the beach!! I also loved our daily siestas :)
Low: Apparently, you can only get "good" paella in Valencia. Another trip to Spain is needed!
High: Barcelona is just great. I loved the energy - and the beach!! I also loved our daily siestas :)
Low: Apparently, you can only get "good" paella in Valencia. Another trip to Spain is needed!
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