This past weekend my roommates and I decided to go on our second trip outside of France, Barcelona! Again, we had to do our research beforehand to ensure what travel restrictions were in place and what covid restrictions Barcelona still had. Luckily to travel to Barcelona, all we needed to show was our vaccine card. Most countries have passenger locator forms that you are required to fill out prior to departure. They ask you the typical questions of where are you currently living, how long are you staying, are you experiencing any covid symptoms, etc. Once you fill out the form you must send it in online to the airline for them to validate it. After the airline has validated the form and all of the information on it, you can check-in online! I would recommend making sure to do this, so you avoid any lines or issues at the airport. With all our forms and boarding passes ready to go, we were off to Barcelona!
I was beyond excited to head to Spain for the first time. Luckily, one of 
my best friends and roommate from last semester is studying there at ESADE Business School, so I was able to crash at her place for the weekend. After getting off at the airport I took the metro straight to her place for only 5 euros! The metro is just as easily navigable as the Paris metro system, so I would definitely recommend using this as a way to head into Barcelona. When I got to her place, I was amazed to see my first Barcelona monument from her window! As you can see in the picture, her place is right next to the famous La Sagrada Familia building.
Similar to Florence, we decided to spread word of our Barcelona trip and meet up with almost 20 of our friends abroad. We had people come from all over including London, Rome, and Madrid! Along with the people in Barcelona, we were all able to gather together for our first night in the new town. We met up at a delicious Asian restaurant called Boa-Bao that had great bao buns and fried rice!
The next day, we started by walking around Barcelona to fully take in everything it had to
offer. By the time we had breakfast, we had already ended up walking 3 miles! Other than the metro, walking is definitely the most popular mode of transportation in Barcelona. We ended up eating a delicious breakfast at a place called Trópico, where I got the best avocado toast and smoothie! After that, we hiked up Park Guel and saw amazing landscape views of all of Barcelona. We then took the metro and walked to the marina where I saw the ocean for the first time since I arrived in Europe. I almost forgot what it looked like, which is a big deal for someone who has lived in California their entire life. It was beautiful and we had a nice afternoon snack right on the water. At this point, we had walked almost 10 miles throughout the day so we decided to go back and relax before going to the most amazing tapas place, Sensi tapas. Barcelona is known for its tapas and if there is one place I would 10/10 recommend it is Sensi. Given we were a big group, they decided to curate a menu for us of their most popular items and it was the best meal I had while we were there. By the end of the day, I checked my Apple Watch and we had walked almost 30,000 steps! I was more than ready to get to bed that night.
Woke up the next morning with a cat staring at us from across the room. Somehow, it
managed to get into the apartment. While it was very cute, we had no idea where it had been so we decided not to touch it and called the receptionist to get it out for us. Last trip a bat, now this trip a cat, we realized there seems to be some sort of animal break-in each trip so far, but we don’t mind because it leaves us with some funny, memorable moments. After the cat had left, we decided to start our day walking through the gothic quarter. The gothic quarter was filled with so much culture and art, it was amazing to see. 
We saw the famous Cathedral La Seu where live musicians were playing. From there, we decided to go to the beach! This was my favorite part of the trip, for the weather was perfect, the water was warm, and the sand was so soft! It was a perfect day for a quick beach trip. We had worked up quite an appetite by all the walking again having walked 6 miles by this time of day, so we decided to go to La Boqueria. La Boqueria is a huge market of fresh fruit, vegetables, meats, and all sorts of food for super cheap prices! I got the most delicious smoothie and empanada for only 5 euros, and
it ended up filling me up until dinner. I would highly recommend going there at least once while in Barcelona. Lastly, we decided to watch the sunset at Bunkers which is an amazing viewpoint of all of Barcelona. This is definitely the spot to watch the sunset for it was filled with a lot of abroad students our age! We met people from the University of Michigan and girls studying in London! By the end of the day, we had walked almost 30,000 steps again. One thing you should prepare for in Barcelona is how much walking you will do, so definitely bring some comfy walking shoes!
We ended up leaving the next day, but I could not have asked for a better trip with my best friends! I can’t wait to continue going on more trips throughout the rest of the semester and creating more memories like these! Until next time, Au Revoir or should I say Adios!
