Today Meghan and I woke up to go on a Gothic tour with guides provided from ISA. We took the metro and met them in Plaza del Angel. I immediately came upon La Colmena Pastisseria and got a fruit tart for breakfast. We then made our way onto the Barcelona Cathedral and the surrounding areas. The tour lasted about two hours where we learned some history of the establishment of Barcelona and learned that its original name was Barcino. After the tour, Meghan and I went with two our friends, Sara & Sara, to La Rambla, one of the main streets in Barcelona. We didn’t get to explore the entire street because it is fairly long and ends up at the beach, but I figure we covered about half of it. We saw some street artists, flower stalls, many restaurants and shops. I randomly came upon Wok to Walk, which is a Chinese wok chain restaurant that Alex Saltzman introduced me to in Amsterdam when I visited her over spring break. I was excited to try it here, but sadly, I feel like the one in Amsterdam is better. Regardless, it was fun to go there as it brought back great memories for me. After lunch, we continued on La Rambla and came across Mercat de La Boqueria, which is Barcelona’s most famous food market. There were many stalls selling fresh fruits and vegetables to smoothies to fresh fish to hanging meats and delicious (and very expensive) assortments of chocolate. I got two pieces: one was dark chocolate with almonds and oranges and the other one was a chocolate chip cookie covered in layers of chocolate. My roommate got 2 pieces of chocolate and it ended up being 10 euros! I also got fresh papaya, mango and strawberries, which were all delicious! We ended up at the end of La Rambla, where we came across the large retailer stores such as H&M, Zara and their main department store, El Corte Ingles. It reminded me of a Nordstrom on steroids. There were two stores side by side, with each store containing at least 7 floors. One of the stores contained shoes, clothes, and handbags alternating every level and the other Corte Ingles had other clothes, shoes, etc., along with home supplies. I was so overwhelmed, I had to leave…and that’s saying something! Meghan and I were pretty tired at this point so we took the metro back to our resedencia for a siesta so we can hit the clubs tonight. We want to go back to the shops tomorrow because we still haven’t bought any clothes or shoes! Classes start on Monday so we are trying to get as much play and tourist time in as possible!

wok from Wok to Walk 

Meats and cheeses in Mercat de La Boqueria

 Street artists on La Rambla