Barcelona

Hi again,

I realized it s been a while since my last entry, and I have to tell you about Barcelona. I am in Cordoba now soaking the lovely heat. It s 43 degrees outside and I cant get out of the building.

Barcelona:
That was one of the longest stops I had during my trip; 3.5 days. And it was worth every second. I really enjoyed my time there. LEt me tell you:
- It s a quite big city and of course the capital of Catalunya.
- You can see signs and graffitis and stuff everywhere saying "Catalunya is not Spain".
- My friend Ali who s been living there told me they speak Catalan in the daily life but it was impossible foir me to tell the diference between Espanish and Catalan. They both sound the same way; the speaker has a flu and cannot say h, s and a couple of more letters.
- In the first night I stayed in a hostel in the biggest street of the town close to all metro stations so it was cool. The second and third nights I was in my friend s place.
- Ali gave me a warm traditional Catalan welcome. We drank the famous Catalan drink Raki and ate some Catalan food: mangalda bonfile, cacik, biber, tomtez.
- Gaudi was also a crazy dude I supose. All around the town there are buildings of him -all really different and spectacular- and it really gives the city a cool atmosphere.
- La Sagrada Familia of course, is his masterpiece and the place to go when you re in Barcelona. I was really amazed with the level of detail in every piece and aspect of the building. They be been working on it for mopre than 150 years and it s still half wasy done. They hope to complete it by 2020 but noone beleives it s gonna happen. You have to go see for yourself this incomplete church. Amazxing. The audio guide given there was the best I have used so far and the tourists there are the worst. It s impossible to keep walking when 50987 people ahaed of you take photos on each and every step.
- My other grand visit was to Camp Nou! I took a tour of the staduim and the club museum. I ve been to all floors of the stands, locker rooms, press rooms and the muesum full of european cups. It was really cool. And it is a big ass stadium i should add. Weird thing is in Camp Nou there weer more tourists than in Sagrada Familia! I considered getting out because of the stupid crowd! I cant imagine how much money the club is making from these touristic visits, it s really a major attraction in a city full of hundreds of places to visit.
- There are Pakistanis selling cheap beer in the streets 24/7. The beers are somehow cold, we dont exactly know where they keep their stash but they always have cold beer in their hands.
- They obviously do not just sell beer. While we were standing in a corner in the "prostitution street" whichi is 10 meters away from one of the busiest and major streets of the town, a guys came to us trying to sell beeer although we already had one each. He didnt accept no as an answer and kept pushing and gradually increased the level: He moved on to weed, then offered pills, then 2 minutes later he came back with the idea of selling us cocaine, Before he moved up to LSD we left the place.
- It s really weird that the streets are full of dealers and everyone knows about this.
- Drinking in the streets is prohibited, but noone really gives a shit
- Ali is a pretentious entel architect so he gave me insight and fancy information about the buildings around, which was really cool actually.
- He also took me to the places where tourists dont go. so I had the chance to get some local snacks and food. And also he took me to the backstreets like the one I described just abov. Might be a little dnagerous for non turks to go there at night.
- By night, I mean after 2 am. The night life doesnt start there until 2-3 o clock and this is really interesting. The bars and clubs are almost empty before that time and people drink at home or in the streets before going to a place. We also did the same, and after a shit load of alcohol Ali tried to take me to a pure non touristic club in the middle oif nowhere. We got lost and spent 1 hour wandering around but finally found the place.
- I witnessed the craziness of the infamous Barca night life. It s really a mess, in a good way of course. The partying went until 5 6 in the morning and we left the place around 6.
- That was the time when I remembered that I have a train at 8 o clock! As you know I am totally prone to and ok with missing my trains. But I paid 20 euros for that train (details to come) and it was my only shot to go to Andalucia in the following 2 days. So I got scared (gotum atti) and since I am an extraordinary lucky man, we couldnoit find the metro station nor any cabs. AFter half an hour we managed to find a cab and went home. I packed up in 5 mins and ran for the metro to the station and (surprise!) caught my train.
- The train was really cool. I have to tell you about it. I travelled in the Spanish fast train AVE in business class. eeheh. The tivket actually cots 188 euros and I paid only 20 as a suplement. This trip alone means I almost gained my interrail pass money :) By the way, they gave me a breakfast, some snacks and lunch and 2 small bottles of wine on the train for being in the business class. My outfit was kind of out of fashion thre though: People were dressed up and wearoing siuts of at least nice clothes and I had my bakpakir shorts and messy short on :)
- I arrived in Cordoba as my first stop in Andalucia.

I am here for more than 1 day now and I ll leave for Granada soon. I ll write about Cordoba the next time. But very shortly:
- Now I know why there is thing called siesta. It s impossible to do anything here durng the day cause it s so hot.
- Nonone is in the streets during the day.
- My hostel has a terrace where you can see the Mezquita sitting on the couch.
- Very beautiful yet different city.
- I entered the last week of my trip and it feels really sad.

All to come in the next post. Take care!