26 hours after leaving Amsterdam, we arrived in the beautiful, sunny Barcelona, Spain. Except it wasn’t sunny..it actually was raining. We decided that the rain followed us from England. (Ironically, Ormskirk had a straight week of sun as we were constantly trying to escape the rain from country to country.)

We stayed at the Garden House Hostel. It was the best decision we’d made since beginning this journey through the world. The Hostel is beautiful, clean, the staff is extraordinary and so helpful, and the rooms were AMAZING. Best of all? Completely in a college kid’s budget. It’s a big out of the way if you’re looking for somewhere in the center of town…but it’s in a really safe neighborhood and only two blocks from the train station which leads right into town. Farther down the street from it is a park that has a few hiking trails that lead up to the top of a hill that has benches, a large cross (which you can see from the balcony at the hostel.)and a magnificent view of the city and surrounding areas. All I can say is STAY HERE. It’s beautiful.

A good tourist spot is the Parc Guell. It was really packed when we were there, but hopefully it’s not always like that. The view is amazing and I believe an episode of America’s Next Top Model was shot there. And of course, being 20/21 year old girls, we found a playground and played around for a good hour.

After finding our child within on the playground, we decided to head back to the center of town and go to Barceloneta, and go to THE BEACH! It was just as beautiful as I had imagined it. And there were surfers EVERYWHERE. It was my first real experience at a beach (a downfall of living in IOWA.)  and I was absolutely blown away. When walking to the beach we passed by a lot of little shops and restaurants, but there was a gelato shop and it was AMAZING. I have racked my brain trying to think of the name, and I can’t remember it. But it’s there, and it doesn’t have any doors, completely open and on a corner. Try to find it…it’s amazing.

One day we took an afternoon away from the beach and sightseeing and went to the Barcelona Aquarium. It’s perfect for families and so awesome. And after you’re done staring at sharks, eels, and octopuses, there’s a ton of activities and toys for little ones. And of course, since we’re kids at heart, we spent a good hour messing around on the rides and activities. It was an afternoon well spent.

The only downfall of the sunny, beachy Barcelona is the crime. We had three attempts of pickpocketers with one success. Poor Maggie got her wallet stolen on the train. It was very scary but luckily she was able to get everything figured out and luckily she wasn’t traveling with a credit card. Still scary though…I was really glad my parents instilled in me good travel tips about pickpocketers and such.

All in all, Barcelona is beautiful and makes for a great sunny holiday…when it’s not raining. Go there!