Phil's Blog

On a trip to Europe for work, I had a weekend to kill, and from Toulouse the closest city was Barcelona. I've always wanted to go to Spain, and really enjoyed the sites on my train ride from Toulouse to Spain.

Right away the differences between France and Spain were apparent, the super fast super smooth, prompt French train required a transfer to a slow, late, Spanish train.


The highlight of my train trip was when these really nervous looking Americans (boy and girl backpackers) got on near the Spanish border... they kept looking back and I'm like wtf. Finally after crossing into Spain the conductor comes around checking tickets. When he gets to the back of our car he comes running back to the Americans swearing at them in Spanish. He grabs the dude and hauls his ass out of the train, and drops them both off at some random Spanish border city. They had evidently just chucked their bikes in the middle of the train....hope their bike ride to Barca was good!


Catalonia looked very interesting and I wish I could have stopped in Girona.


First thing I have to say, everyone that heard I was going to Barcelona kept telling me to watch out for pickpockets... ok fine, I've been plenty of places where that's a problem, no big deal. But petty theiving seems to be at a new extreme in Barcelona. This proved the case almost right away when I met up with a friend for lunch. We had sat down for not two seconds when I felt my jacket slip off the back of my chair...sure enough there goes some dude running away with it. I give chase, and he drops it and runs away. But then I notice how everyone wears their backpacks on the front, and keep hearing more stories...it's a shame because in some ways it's safer then Baltimore because of the lack of violent crime, but it really is a seedier place then most major European cities (more about that later).


Barcelona really takes monuments to the extreme. This is THEIR arc de triomphe. The level of detail and size of these things that are everywhere is insane.





This is just a random Poisiddon statue in a park, and the detail and amount of crap going on is just insane.


Here's a sign you wouldn't see in the states.


Barcelona has some famous churches, but it's most famous is the church of futbol.


The game was sold out, and Barca won! (Dry stadium though, and the atmosphere was really quite tame)


Generally I'm not real big on "famous" tourist things...like the Eiffel tower was meh to me. But I have to say the Sagrada Familia was really quite amazing.


It's insane that its been under construction for 100 years.


The passion facade by Josep Maria Subirachs was my favorite because it's just so creepy and awesome.

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