No such thing as too much Paella

Last weekend I went to Barcelona and I can’t begin to tell you how absolutely beautiful it is – with a beach, a city, and breath-taking architecture what is better?  Antoní Gaudí designed several different amazing buildings, parks, and homes here that I’d only heard about.  I can’t explain how crazy the feeling is to just be driving down the street in a taxi and casually passing the Sagrada Familia, which is the cathedral originally made by Gaudí.  He died during the process and all of his drawings were unfortunately burned in a fire, so now several other architects have put in their ideas and it has continued to grow, which is why there’s so many cranes around it, but it should be done within 10-15 years.  It’s possibly the tallest building in the city. 

We drove past some of his other buildings but I was just excited to see Parque Güell, the famous park he made that is full of mosaic art.  My parents gave me a framed picture og Spain for Christmas about 2 years ago, not knowing what it was at the time.  Later I figured out in class it was Parque Güell, therefore making it a necessity to see it this trip.  And of course, it was everything I had expected, if not more. 

We went to the beach, which almost all of them here are nude beaches, with that said not everyone is nude but some of them are, needless to say I did not participate.  We went shopping throughout the streets around the corner from the official cathedral of Barcelona.  Next we went to a winery, Codorníu, which was FULL of rooms of wine.  We got to try two of their wines and get some to take back to states too.  

Boquerones

Paella del mar

Mussels

For lunch, we had paella yet again, two nights in a row actually.  One night we got del mar, the seafood one, which had mussels, shrimp, and calamari.  They also served us boquerones, which are like fried anchovies.  They were good but they still had the head, tail, and bones which you could eat because they were so tiny.  The next night for dinner we got paella mixta, the mixed paella with both meat and seafood.  It had chicken, pork chop, mussels, sausage, and calamari.  This one was definitely better because of the way the rice was cooked, which was a little crispier rather than juicy with some sauce. 

Paella Mixta

After all the food I have tried so far my favorite is patatas bravas – potatoes with a spicy tomato sauce.  Last night, the same place as the paella, had the best we’ve had so far because of how crispy and salty the potatoes were.  We also had some amazing patatas con ali-oli which is potatoes with ali oli and they had added paprika which just made it even better.

This week I’m headed to the Prado – one of the largest museums and most well known around the world, and Alcalá de Henares – where Miguel de Cervantes was born.  Thursday I’ll be off to Rome! Couldn’t be having a better time here.