Barcelona: A review - Day 1

The day some from our class were waiting for had finally arrived… Some of us were feeling very happy after a tough exam, not because we aced it, but because we were happy to leave behind the gloomy weather of Oxford and embrace ourselves with sunshine !!

The excitement was almost over when we almost missed our flight at Gatwick. The plane was scheduled to depart at 6.25 PM, which meant that the gates closed at 6.05 PM. With 2 minutes to spare, I cleared security at Airport. I looked up at the departure board to see the departure time and the gate information. The flight was leaving at gate 104, and to my left one of the boards read “gate 3, gate 20 - 150 to the left”. I freaked out! 100 gates to cover in less than 2 minutes. I ran up and down couple of elevators, crossed a couple of terminals, and made it just on time. The excitement just got better !

We cleared the immigration check at Barcelona at 10 PM, and boarded the bus to the center of the city. We headed to the Kabul Hostel on “La Rambla“. I was surprised to find most shops still open at 10 PM. The hotels were full and the streets were swarmed with people, very unlike what we see here in the UK.

We reached Kabul hostel at 1030 PM. The place was packed with backpackers. I had my accomodation booked for only 2 nights, and needed to confirm a bed for the 3rd night. We left our bags at the hostel and headed for dinner.  At dinner some of us ate Paella and drank sangrilla, both which I liked a lot.

We met up with the rest of the gang at 2 AM that came in at different times in different flights. Had a walk to the harbor through some back alleys. While we walked to the harbor, we saw a guy approaching us murmuring something. As he came closer, I heard him say, “Beera Serveza Beera” … He was trying to sell cheap beer on the streets for 1 Euro. As we passed by him, an other one of these came by selling the same, and these annoying instances continued for the rest of the trip.

The city seemed a lot of fun and a lot left to explore. Thinking about all the beautiful girls I saw that night walk by me, I went back to the hostel to sleep.