Barcelona Day 1 Part 1 | One Day at a Time

Continued from Madrid Day 3.

It’s travel day. Leaving Madrid and headed to Barcelona via high speed train today. Pretty excited to see another city in Spain, Let’s go.

But first, some photos from last night. RL laying in bed getting alone time watching a scary movie on her phone. I’m sitting in front of the computer getting my alone time blogging like a mad man.

We set our alarm for 10am and by 11am it’s time to head to the train station. The station isn’t very far from our hotel, but just far enough that we didn’t want to walk with our packs if we didn’t have to. Our hotel did inform us that there’s yet another road closure today at 11:30am for something else. So we decided to get to the station a little earlier and just hang out there for a little bit. In other news, my sore throat and coughing has improved over night. No more fever as well it seems, so overall that’s good news. Let’s hope the improved outlook holds.

Yet another beautiful sunny day here in Madrid. The weather could not have been better during our time here. Mid 70s during the day and low 50s at night.

Calling an Uber.

Uber shows up in a timely manner this time.

In about 5min we’ve arrived at the train station. They’ve already started blocking off the road here, but fortunately it was on the other direction so far.

That glass cylinder is the memorial to the Madrid train station bombing in 2004.

From the outside, looks like a typical train station.

Until you get inside…

Bam! The old portion of the train station has been turned into a green house. So badass. Definitely one of the cooler train stations in existence.

Massive bird of paradise plant. Biggest one I’ve ever seen.

Time to head through a simple xray machine security and go the waiting area for our train at the newer part of the station.

One last photo with this cool garden.

Past security, into the newer portion of the station…which ironically doesn’t seem nearly as appealing and has very few seats.

There’s however a cafe and they do have seats here. Might as well grab a bite to eat before boarding.

Nom nom nom.

nom

OK, time to board.

Will be visiting this at some point.

Of course, our car is one of the last ones on the platform.

Not like a Japanese train. Both of our seats had broken seat back recline levers, so as we sat down, it would start to slowly recline if we leaned back at all. Lame.

It did however leave right on time though.

I would have never guessed this is what country side of Spain looks like outside Madrid. So arid and so Texas like.

Looks like West Texas close to New Mexico.

Olive groves?

RL got herself a screw driver. On this train ride, my tummy started cramping badly. All those days of drinking, not sleeping enough, being sick is finally wrecking my stomach. Well, it’s wrecking it more is a more accurate statement.

Imodium to the rescue. I popped a few of those and halfway through the train ride, I felt good enough to say fuck it and get some wine. Maybe the wine will help my muscles relax and I’ll stop cramping as much.

Medicine.

The catholic church dominates all towns and cities here.

Train goes pretty fast, I think it gets up close to 200mph at times.

Outskirts of Barcelona.

Train arrived 10min early and we got here in 3 hours flat. A nice pleasant train ride. Though, unlike a Japanese bullet train, this Spanish train was filled with people chattering the entire time. Not annoyingly so, but not library silent like a Japanese train.

Didn’t use the subway once in Madrid, but that’ll change here in Barcelona. Transfer from train to subway to head to our hotel.

Apparently Banksy is now on the same level as Dali and Warhol…

6 stops later, we are here.

La Rambla. Look at this amazing blue sky!! I feel like I’ve only seen skies this blue in Europe. It’s incredible. The weather here is also perfect, 50s to 60s.

Just look at that amazing sky!!!

Down this street off of La Rambla is our hotel. First impression is that Barcelona is grittier than Madrid. There are a lot more graffiti, trash on the streets, homeless people, urine and barf places, and a lot more international tourists and immigrants here.