Adios Barcelona, Bonsoir Montpellier

As our train to Montpellier was at 4:30 pm, we still had more than half day in Barcelona. The day before we noticed the surrounding mountains (not as high as in Vancouver) and the gondola and la teleferic. So what do I want to do in my last day of Barcelona? Of course climb he highest peak and take the gondola.

Again we went out early in the morning, but Monday morning was very different from the day before. The streets were filled with people, cars, motorcycles and bikes. Everyone was rushing around. We were rushing too, as we wanted to see as much as possible in the next few hours.

First we needed coffee, so we headed to the nearest Starbucks coffee shop, but when we got there the barista told as that that there are no beans (what???) so we can get only an Americano or Expresso. We had a hard time to understand that there are no beans, I keep asking why there is not coffee, until finally I understood… we found that quite funny, can one imagine going to a Starbucks that doesn’t have coffee beans? We decided to get an Americano and that seems to make the guy happy. I guess one of the barista nightmare is to have 2 foreigners walking in the coffee shop early morning and want coffee and there is no coffee. Americano was good enough. We started walking and walking and walking. I was tired and hungry. We stopped briefly and at a pastry shop and got a few pastries to go. We made it all the way up to the castle. Then up there admiring one of the best views of Barcelona, we had the pasties, yum….they were really good.

The break was short just enough to recover a bit; after we kept going up and views were getting better and better. We made it up to the highest point in the city. We walked around and admired a 360 degree view of the city. On one side there is Barcelona, old city and the very noticeable Olympic buildings (some of them have very interesting futuristic shapes) and one the other side there is the Mediterranean sea and the port. Well the port got my attention. I was thinking I was busy at my job in Vancouver, I can’t even imagine how busy the people in Barcelona working for the port and shipping lines must be; the port is HUGE, there are a few terminals and tons of containers everywhere. The funny part, there was a Cosco vessel just discharging at port and that made me think about my job, my colleagues and my work….hmmm, everything seems that belongs to a distant past but yet I have been away only for 2 weeks. I don’t want to think back, I really like my place back at home, can I get home sick so fast???

We could have walked back down in the city but the gondola ride down is too cool to miss. The gondola goes down in a straight line, and after turns around something like a letter L. We liked that. 
It was almost 2 pm, we were hungry! an Americano and pastries and all that walking, our stomachs were screaming – Food.
We went to the grocery store and got ourselves some stuff; we stopped in the nearest park right in front of the Sagrada Familia and made ourselves some nice sandwiches, fancy cookies for dessert and Voila – a good lunch.

We were laughing devouring our lunch – well we are 2 jobless, homeless people, what better place to eat lunch but in the park in front of one of the most controversial architecture church.

At the end as we walking back to our hotel to get our bags, we noticed many tourists sitting on the benches and snacking – hmmm, it seems that they got our idea and they don’t want to spend 20 Euros for a 5 Euros lunch.