Barcelona, June 13, 2019
by Thomas Barton, 10
That day all of us were super tired so we slept until 10:00 AM, which is really saying something because my mom wakes up at 6:30 AM everyday. My dad, Isabela, and I got breakfast for everyone at a variety of bakeries on the main street. We got coffee for the parents and a few different types of Spanish empanadas and croissants. After breakfast my mom, my sisters and I walked to Main Street and got a taxi ride to the gondola station. We got to the gondola station after a pleasant ride around the part of Barcelona that we had not seen yet. We saw an old castle that was turned into an art museum and an old bull fighting colosseum that was turned into a shopping mall. Once we got to our destination, we waited in a short line compared to the lines we had been experiencing all trip and entered the gondola. The gondola ride was really cool because we got to see the whole city and the city’s famous landmarks. Once we got to the top of the mountain we got off the gondola and walked up a big stairwell up to an old Spanish fort.
Once at the top of the stairwell we saw the cannons they would use to fight with and other old artifacts from the fort. The fort had a trench all the way around the whole base that was shaped in order for a moat to fit inside of it. Inside the trench was beautiful flowers, vines and vibrant colors that I was sure my grandpa would have loved to take pictures of. He was a great photographer and was always looking for interesting and out of the ordinary things to take pictures of. We walked across a really old drawbridge, got tickets, watched a short documentary about the history of the place, and walked up some stairs to the main level. Up there was a courtyard and a huge balcony outside of the courtyard and the view was super pretty. We saw holes for arrows and weapons to shoot through the walls and covers for protecting the spaniards from the enemy. There was one more level so we walked up a spiral staircase to the top story.
This was cool to see because my mom pointed out the different things we would be doing while we were in Barcelona, so I got an idea of our whole Barcelona visit. We could see the ocean, downtown, islands, the FC Barcelona stadium, factories, so basically you could say we saw it all.After many pictures we started to get hungry and we saw a cafe in one of the old rooms so we thought it would be a good idea to eat at the fort. Margaret ordered a tri-colored salad without tomatoes so it was two colored salad and it was just pesto, avocado, and mozzarella. Isabela and my mom ordered a salad and coffee and I ordered a panini and ate a lot of Isabela’s salad and my mom ate a lot of my panini. Once we were finished with lunch we left the fort and walked on the sidewalk down toward the first place we got on the gondola. On the way down there was a bar on the side of the mountain where we got ice cream and water.
A little bit lower down we could see two big pools, one with lanes and professional equipment and the other with different high dives which also looked professional. There was no one in the pools but there was a bunch of people tanning on the pool deck in their swim suits and all I wanted to do was jump in that refreshing pool but I didn’t have a swim suit, I was outraged. After we finished our cold scrumptious ice cream we walked the rest of the way down to the original location.We just kept walking talking about old memories and laughing at different stories that either our mom told us or that we remembered from when we were small kids. We passed by a lot of art and old buildings on our way to the Miro museum. We had to walk through a whole school of kids to get to that museum because a school let out right in front of us. After finding our way through the maze of scrambling kids we got to the Miro museum. Of course while walking around looking at the different art pieces we had to have the very common two words an AUDIO TOUR. My mom loves her audio tours because she likes to know all the details about all the artwork, which takes a really long time. Audio tours are sometimes interesting but the voices on those thing are really depressing and fake. Miro was very different than other artists he wanted to make special art pieces that stand out, he even lit an art piece on fire to make it stand out. We walked through the museum admiring the unique forms of art and patterns. After many art pieces we walked out of the Miro museum into the smell of grass, food and cigarettes.
We walked even more passing tons of graffiti and old buildings until we got to the square. We went to the main square that my mom remembered from her past experiences in Barcelona. We then walked down the typical Europe square with markets and restaurants and a bunch of people hustling around from every which direction. I feel like Dory from Finding Nemo because we walked so much, saying we just kept walking, just kept walking, just kept walking. But anyway we walked until my mom stopped us at a huge market with fresh goods telling my brain that I need to walk inside, so we walked in. We looked around the market and ended up buying some fresh fruits and chocolate covered strawberries which I hadn’t had in forever.Once we were done walking around the market we continued down the road of restaurants and shops looking around enjoying the Europe vibes. We then started to get hungry and sat down at a restaurant that seated you in the middle of the square like all the other restaurants so we got to enjoy our outside dinner. My mom and I ordered a few different plates of tapas, including shrimp, cheese, salami, chorizo, an actual tri-colored salad, etc..My mom ordered a sangria which was a very common word in Barcelona at the restaurants because my parents loved their sangrias. My sisters ordered a margarita pizza to share and we ordered another big salad to share between the four of us.
Once our stomachs were satisfied with food we paid and walked toward the metro station. We bought tickets and I didn’t count for one because I wasn’t old enough to count. There was people in front of us that went through the big gate but the gate wouldn’t close so we were trying to make it close even when we backed up five steps it wouldn’t close so we ended up getting a free metro ride. We walked up the stairs and back to our rental house. I was so tired by the end of the day because we had walked like nine miles around town that day. My dad was at home working all day so he and my mom went out and did whatever they do by their seIves. I was ready for bed but I wanted take a shower with my last bits of energy, so I took a shower and passed out on my bed.
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