Spain pt. 3 FCB, Olympic Stadium, and la Castille

Sorry about the last few days of break, I needed some time to reflect on how wonderful a trip it was so I decided to take a small respite....

WHICH BRINGS US TO

Day 3: Sunday in Barcelona
After convincing the jetlagged ones to rise out of bed, and celebrating our UNC victory with them, we decided to take a trip uptown to see the home of Messi, Piqué, Xavi,and a few other somewhat famous people at Jason's request

And that's how we ended up touring the Barça stadium

It was pretty wicked. I've never been in a soccer stadium before, so It was pretty exciting for a first timer. For about 13 €, we got to go to the clubhouse, onto the field, into the press boxes, into the trophy room, etc... So I'll just post a couple photos because they'll say a lot more than I can

El Mejor Jugador de Todos!

We probably spent about 2-3 hours there, and had to leave because they were closing super early for some reason. But it was pretty cool because there were touch screen exhibits that just showed replays of the greatest moment in their history. So we could've spent all day there. This was an English friendly area, because apparently it draws a ton of tourists.

So we wandered off to a starbucks after that, being exhausted from walking around Barcelona for two days. Starbucks is as expensive in Europe as it is in America, fyi.

Afterwards, we wandered towards the ocean trying to head up to the Olympic stadium (I think that was our intention? Or maybe we just ended up there.) We got to walk up a ton of stairs to an art museum (whose name escapes me) and ended up with a great overview of the city.

Forgot the name of the museum

Afterwards, it started raining (being a citizen of Ireland, I was so ready for this). So we ran in the general direction of some trees, where we found the Olympic plaza.

Jason and Mwiti tried to sneak around to a roped off section, but somehow the security guard saw them from ACROSS THE STADIUM and whistled at them to get back. And that's how we got thrown out of a free location (it was more of a general ostracism, we were getting some rude glares).

Afterwards, we took a tram up the mountain to La Castille, which had a great location and view over the entire city and ocean.

We finished up there, and took an almost vertical tram back down the mountain. And after exploring for the weekend, succumbed to our first nap of the trip before heading out for the night.

Our hostel gave us a deal where they took us out for karaoke and to a Spanish club. So we scrounged up dinner somewhere, then headed out with Beth and Zane (who were staying across town). They took us (of course) to an Irish Pub where we belted out southern tunes and most importantly, sweet Caroline

Just an overall attractive photo all-around

After the tour guide left us in the pub (and apparently proceeded to the club), we decided to just walk to the club ourselves. When we arrived at the club in question, it was closed, along with all the other clubs on the beach (it was a sunday, so we assumed as much). And we just spent some time wandering the beach.

We jumped into a taxi to get back, and pulled about 20 metres before the taxi driver informed us he only was going to take four of us. He wouldn't let us leave without paying the 2 € we owed him for the trip (despite how much we argued with him), so we paid him, and angrily jumped in other taxis. That was probably the most antagonistic person we encountered on the entire trip.

Quite a full day.

Preview for tomorrow: