Barcelona, day 4!

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3

We had a late start, but finally managed to get out of the apartment at around 15:00 (3 PM). I think. I can't remember the exact time, but who the hell cares about that anyway? xD

When we opened the door out to the world, we were met by a wall of heat. It was pretty insane! We were like "By Thor, we're Vikings, we're not used to this insanity!" (or more like "WOW. Oh God, that's hot. Oh wow. D:")
Took the metro to Plaça Catalunya, where I remembered I'd forgotten both my cameras at home and just had my phone. I managed to survive. We walked across the square and commented on the absence of doves. Plaça Catalunya is normally packed with them, to the point that you almost have to walk through a sea of them. On Friday, there were maybe 50-100 doves. We were like "Even the doves have found a cooler place to hang out for the day!"

We decided to walk down Avinguda Portal de l'Àngel and see what happens. Our plan was just to visit the Cathedral (Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia), but we had to wait until 17:15, when entrance is free of cost. We went straight for some ice cream, because THE HEAT, THE HEAT - bought a few scoops and sat down on a ledge on Plaça Nova, which is right next to the Cathedral. Even though it was in the shade, the stone was piping hot, we almost burned our asses. Still, we sat there until the ice cream was gone (I almost managed to eat it before it melted), and then decided we had to move somewhere or risk melting into the stone. We walked into one of the narrow old streets of the Barri Gòtic and promptly got lost. Okay, not totally lost, but we did end up going down some streets I've never been in before, and I wasn't quite sure where we were all the time xD

Pretty building attacked with.. paint? (The door and fence.)

So that's the Plaça Sant Jaume, with the Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya (which houses the offices of the presidency of the region's government) and the City Hall. A little bit of Irene, and then random old stuff xD

After walking around for a bit, we went back to the Cathedral and sat down on a ledge that was cool and nice while trying to think of things to do while waiting. The square in front of the Cathedral was packed with tourists waiting for the clock to hit 17:15, so we decided to wait a bit longer so we wouldn't end up in a sea of people going in. After resting our feet, I suggested we could check out other places in the meantime, so we did. The first place we visited was Plaça de Sant Felip Neri.

Irene is kindly showing you the size of this thing.

...and so are these kids xD

I wanted to see this because of its history.
First of all, it's a beautiful little square with this really cute fountain that I for some reason didn't take pictures of. I know Irene did, though, so if I remember I'll get them from her and add them here.
It is known to be really quiet even though it's in the middle of the city, but I think school had just ended or something when we arrived, because the square was filled with kids playing around and parents chatting.

The church (which is the building in the last two photos) was built in the 1700s (we didn't go inside as it looked very.. not open), and the damage to the wall seen in the pictures is from bomb shrapnel. During the Civil War, in January 1938, the church was bombed, and 20 children seeking shelter inside were killed.
The contrast with the children climbing on the damaged wall hit hard with me.

In addition, this church was where Antoni Gaudí was headed when he was run over by a tram in 1928, which led to his death a week later.

The other place I wanted to see was a twofer - Plaça del Pi and Plaça de Sant Josep Oriol are both outside the church Santa Maria del Pi (we didn't enter that one either), and is a nice place to people-watch. We sat on some steps in the latter square and could see both the Plaça del Pi and the Carrer del Pi, where a lot of people came and went.

Carrer del Pi.

We even saw a man with a Goth style "kilt" walking his dog whilst smoking a cigar.. with a pipe. We were like "What just happened?" - and were so flustered we forgot to take a picture or film him. xD

Finally we decided to go see the Cathedral (though we've both seen it several times before). The Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia was constructed between the 13th and 15th century, and Santa Eulàlia is the co-patron saint of the city. She was a young girl, just 13 years old, when she suffered martyrdom (there are various stories as to how she died), and in the beautiful cloister of the Cathedral there are at all times 13 geese, one for each year of her life.
I didn't really film much inside the cloister (still don't know why, maybe I'm senile), but I did film Irene talking to the geese about food.




But hey, if you want me to film more, let me know! Since the Cathedral is free to enter at certain times of the day, it won't cost me anything but a little time to stop by and do some quick filming! :)
Bonus pic of a fountain in the cloister:

This is a quick video of the interior, near the altar. It's quite dark inside, so my phone wasn't really up to filming any other place xD

Finally we decided to take the elevator up to the roof, as I'd read that the views were pretty spectacular. It cost 3€, and it was totally worth it.



..yeah. We spent quite a lot of time up there, just enjoying the wind in our hair and the view. Plus we chatted a bit with a Canadian couple who just gaped at us when Irene told them it was her fourth visit to the city and my fifth. xD

After finally managing to get back down to earth again (literally), we walked back up towards Plaça Catalunya, when we saw a great store display that I needed to film.




Finally, we had dinner at Hard Rock Café (nom nom noooooom) before heading home and relaxing until bedtime.

Barcelona, day 3!

Day 1 - Day 2

Sorry for the delay, but day 3 ended in beer, and not in blogging. So on the morning of day four, here's the recap of yesterday xD

Since we had a two-day ticket on the tourist bus, we decided to take two of the routes again, just for funsies. I didn't film much on the red route the day before, so I tried to make up for that. Again, I'm no professional, so a lot of this is stupid, but yeah, here you are:


First of all, Passeig de Gràcia has a lot of modernist buildings (and a lot of upscale shopping opportunities, for the people who care about that shit). I think I managed to film half of some of them. xD


Barcelona has a lot of fancy buildings, and here's another one.


Here's random stuff; Avinguda Diagonal has tons of trees.. and parrots. I tried filming so you could hear them. Then Sants train station, which has tons of taxis. Finally, the Parc de l'Espanya Industrial next to Sants station has a dragon sculpture that doubles as a slide for the kids. xD


Parc de Joan Miró has this statue called "Woman and Bird". I don't see that, but that's okay. Then Plaça d'Espanya and the huge fountain there, and finally the Venetian Towers and MNAC with the Font Màgica in front of it.


Here are more stuff & things from the Sarrià district. One word: Frankfurtmania.


I'll just throw this one in here as well, even though it's really bad: A golden winged lady missing a head, near Camp Nou stadium.


Okay, so here's a little about our day:
We walked to Plaça Catalunya to buy something for me to cover my head with, because my scalp got burnt from the sun the day before. All I could find was a scarf/shawl/thing that was huge and made me look like an old lady or a Muslim (no offence to the hijab wearers out there, but it's not for me!), but it was all we could find and it cost 5 euros, so I went for it. And it did its job, my scalp is fine now xD We got on the red route of the Bus Turístic, which took us through the first four videos I posted; through Passeig de Gràcia, up on Montjuïc hill (I didn't film much there as we're going up there another day to explore properly), down to the port. We decided to get off the bus down in the Port Vell area, or rather at the Maremagnum shopping mall. Once there, we found a place to eat where they had okay tapas (no pics of that, they didn't look as good as they tasted), then popped by H&M to find something else for my head.

I love it, and needed to pose like a tard. xD

Then we walked around a bit more, finally found some toilets (the ones at the ground floor was connected to a shop called "2theLoo" (yes, seriously), and entering the toilet area cost 0,60 euros - no thanks), then walked outside to find us some ice cream, because it was 32 degrees out (that's 90 F) and we were slowly melting away. After devouring that and buying some more water, we got back on the bus and took it via Port Olímpic, through Barri Gòtic and back to Plaça Catalunya.

It's a statue of a man and his horse. Of course.

Also, this monument.

Francesc Macià was the 122nd President of Catalunya. 

Caixa Catalunya's headquarters in Via Laietana, Barri Gòtic.

We then got on the blue route, which took us past Sagrada Família, Park Güell, Sarrià and all that - the last two videos from earlier. Here's a quick photoshoot I've labeled as "We suck":

I'm tarding - Irene's normal.

I'm normal - Irene's tarding.

Next funny:

Quick, to the Bimbomobile!

This house was just too cute:

And then this, which is on the wall next to FRANKFURTMANIA:

"Casa de Família Germanes Hospitalàries de la Santa Creu".

What can I say, I don't speak Catalan, and the wiki page doesn't exist in any other language - translating it to English gives me this:

"The Hospital Sisters of the Holy Cross is a religious congregation, founded to address the needs of inmates at the Hospital de la Santa Creu in Barcelona. Continues to operate today, working in other places. "

I just liked the letters on the wall :'D

Anyway, after the bus returned to Plaça Catalunya, we hopped right on the metro back to the apartment, popped by the store to buy some essentials (water, beer and snacks), and then relaxed the rest of the evening. Made dinner in the apartment, then put on "Confessions of a male stripper" and had a couple of beers. xD

Today, Irene's been a bit tired from the previous days, so after eating breakfast she went right back to sleep. I needed to fix this blog post, so we haven't really done anything so far today. Plus, the forecast says it's supposed to be as hot as it was yesterday, so we have to figure out what we can do that doesn't involve too much walking in the sun. Will probably visit some museums or something :D

Anyway, that was yesterday for you all! Hopefully I'm not boring the crap out of you yet - we still have 12 days to go!

Barcelona, day 2!

Day 1

HELLO. And good night (it's 22:25 here, also known as 10:25 PM) xD

Today we've just been cruisin' around on the tourist bus pretty much all day. It's a hop on/hop off thing, but we've been doing very little hopping - just enjoying the view and the wind in our faces. Today has been very hot, so the wind was pretty awesome :D

Anyway, I filmed a little later in the day. Tested out different apps. The wifi on the bus was spotty, so I've only uploaded shorter stuff on Instagram (and a Vine), but I'll fix the longer videos later. Right now, I'm pretty much beat xD



 ..so yeah, that's that for now, actually. I'll have a look through my phone to see if I've taken any pics today - right now, I can't actually remember, haha. It's been a long day, so now we're gonna relax on the bed with our feet up and eat some candy because nom Spanish candy. :D

Update:

I'm adding two videos from Vimeo here as soon as they're uploaded and stuff.

#1:


20140611_183823.mp4 from skadet on Vimeo.

#2:



20140611_193900.mp4 from skadet on Vimeo.


Update #2:
I just went through my camera and found a few pictures, so here you are!

This is a sculpture in Port Olímpic. Aside from it being a skewered face, I don't know anything about it xD

The fountains at Plaça Catalunya. I'll get some better pics later.

Another (way smaller) fountain, also at Plaça Catalunya. It's so cugly :D

We all know what this is; the Sagrada Família. We just did a drive-by, I'll get more pics when we visit it properly.

I recently learned that the golden man on the bridge is Jesus, and this symbolizes his ascension.

This is the entrance of the Passion Façade, dedicated to the suffering of Jesus.

Barcelona, day 1!

Yay :D

Okay. Last night we started our celebration a bit early by eating pizza and then going to see Edge of Tomorrow at the movies. The pizza was good and the movie was awesome! :D
Got home and were supposed to go to sleep quickly so we could get enough sleep before leaving eeearly in the morning. Guess what happened? None of us were sleepy. All amped up and ready to go.
We decided to watch another movie just to pass some time and see if we got sleepy. I did! I went to bed at 23:10.. and fell asleep sometime around 23:45 - because I couldn't stop thinking about all the things xD
Then I woke up because of a sound and was all "IRENE'S UP IT'S TIME TO GO YAY WHAT TIME IS IT?" .. and it was 01:45, and I could sleep for another two hours. Hah.

Anyway, we finally got up around 4 AM, left an hour later and arrived at the airport waaay too early. Luckily, we were able to check in our luggage ourselves and could pass through the security checkpoint immediately. We found our gate and some food and sat there for maybe an hour and a half before boarding began. I had a book, thankfully. Made time pass by very quickly xD Also, airport selfies:

Yeah, we're gorgeous. xD

After 3 1/2 hours on a plane, we landed safely in Barcelona. Got our bags (after waiting for a while, of course), changed into more appropriate pants (aka short ones), found food and then got on the bus to the city.. where I informed Irene that we wouldn't be staying in the apartment hotel she thought we'd booked, but rather in a fancier apartment that I got for the same price - that is much closer to the city centre. :D

Our view. Says it all, doesn't it?

After relaxing for a while (and Irene got to catch some Z's as well) we decided to check out a shopping mall that's four blocks away. Went by Lush, bought some insanely awesome ice cream (I got two scoops - Kinder Bueno and Ferrero Rocher. Yes, that's right.), then agreed we were both waaay too tired to check out a mall. Instead, we went by a super market and bought some food to stuff our fridge with, plus some water for tomorrow's explorations. Returned to the apartment, put away the foodstuff, relaxed again because tired feet hate malls, and after much back and forth decided we really needed some real dinner. We couldn't really decide at all, but finally figured "Burger Rock" sounded decent enough. Mostly because it's like half a block away. On our way there, though, we found another restaurant that looked very nice, and the prices were definitely nice, so we went for pizza instead. Yay, pizza! The food was good, too, so we have a feeling it'll be our friendly neighborhood "we're so tired let's just go there again" restaurant.

I'd been battling a tension headache ever since we entered the apartment earlier in the day, but as soon as I sat down at the restaurant and had a sip of ice cold Cola Zero with a lemon wedge, the headache lifted. Great therapy! We finally managed to pay and walk home again, and now it's time to sleep, because SLEEP IS GOOD FOR YOU. ME. US. EVERYONE.

Okay, so we didn't really take that many pics today, because travel and blah. But tomorrow we're going on the tourist bus, and we're gonna be good girls and take tons of pics for you guys - and finally some video as well! We thought about doing some video today, but there was never a good time, really. But yes. Prepare to see some more of Barcelona tomorrow!

Love to all of the people who donated so we could do this, and love to all of you who sent good vibes instead, from Irene and me :D

3 days, 9 hours and 39 minutes..

..and I'm putting together a rough itinerary so we have some sort of control over what we want to see and experience. Grouping together attractions so that we'll waste as little time as possible.
Checking out which ticket we should get for the metro to save money. If there are any concerts we should attend at the Palau de la Música Catalana.
Putting together a sort of budget so we know how much we'll spend on entry tickets and transportation. Making sure I have all the needed information in my little Moleskine book that's going in my bag and on Dropbox, in case the little Moleskine book should disappear on the journey.

My packing list is done and printed out. Most of the to do list is checked off. Today I bought ear plugs in case of traffic noises at night (and because the night of June 23rd can be reeeeally noisy with fireworks and partying). I'm pretty much ready. I just need to do the last stuff on my list and then pack.

This shit is so surreal, I'm actually going to Barcelona very soon, and my brain is all "Nah, you're not, you're saying it and you know it, but I don't believe you."

Guess I'll just have to show my brain that it is true. In 3 days, 9 hours and 32 minutes.

Pre-holiday jitters

In 5 days, 14 hours and 20 minutes, Irene and I will be on a plane headed for Barcelona. Aaaw yeah.

We're going to celebrate 10 years of being best friends plus my 28th birthday, and we're gonna do that for 15 days.

2004: I'm the one hiding behind the others, Irene is the one in the green sweater.

I can't wait for it to be Tuesday! Though, in the meantime I have plenty of stuff to do, so I'm pretty sure Tuesday will come quickly enough. I'm almost done writing my packing list and my to do list, so all that's left is to wash my clothes, buy the last few things I need and to make the finishing touches on the itinerary. Friday I'm working, Saturday I'm doing Irene's hair, Sunday I'm working, and on Monday Irene and I are going to the movies (gonna watch Edge of Tomorrow) and early dinner, before we go to bed early. Then all of a sudden, it's Tuesday, and Mom's driving us to the airport! :D

It's funny how I'm writing this and it's still like it's far, far away and it's not gonna happen, it's all just in my head. And then I remember that it is real, we are going, and in under a week. Then I get all jittery and woooh.

Okay. So. I'm going to post photos from our trip daily, because I'm bringing one of my laptops with me. Also, we're gonna do little video snippets and post here whenever. Aaand I'm gonna be somewhat active on Instagram, so follow me and see what happens! :D

Sun, smiles & happy Barcelona thoughts

Wherever you are while reading this, I hope your day is as great as mine has been so far. All this positive energy coursing through my veins right now feels great, and I wish I could share it with everyone!

The sun has finally found Norway. After a ridiculously warm winter with something like 18 hours of sun total from January 1st to the end of February, March has brought the sun back to us. Especially these last two weeks - and the forecast says sun, sun, sun with a bit more sun. It's still ice cold in the mornings, though, with temperatures down to minus 5 degrees Celsius, but the sun is really warm. I love it. I'm sitting behind huge windows at school, enjoying the heat with sunglasses on and Stuff You Missed In History Class podcasts in my ears.

Sitting here in the sun really makes it feel like spring is finally here, and with thoughts of spring comes thoughts of summer. Summer! It's my absolute favorite season, and not just because my birthday is in June and I love birthdays. I have great memories of birthday celebrations, summer vacations spent hanging out with friends growing up, going on vacations with family - and, as I've grown older, with friends. Still, summer is my favorite season because it's just so happy. The days are longer and brighter, the warmth from the sun surrounds you and makes it totally okay to eat a popsicle to cool down - or to escape inside for a little while. The barbecue comes out, and we gather the extended family around for great food and many laughs. Summer makes people happier. It makes me happier. The gloomy winter months let go of me and I'm finally able to really smile, feel great - I'm almost bubbly when the sun starts heating things up, and those who know me, know that I'm not typically a bubbly person. Summer changes me for the better.

The sun just makes things different. The light is different. Warmer. Everything looks better. Outlooks are better. This year, I've even managed to secure a summer job at the beautiful Blaafarveværket, which is a tourist attraction very close to where I live (a 10-minute car ride, to be exact). It'll probably get hectic, but I think it'll be a nice break nonetheless. The hours are totally okay, the pay is good enough, and it'll fund my basic expenses and bills through June and July, since there's no student loans payouts in those months.
June. June'll be the greatest month this year, and I'm not saying that just because of my birthday or because the final exam in MRI theory is due June 6th, which marks the end of this school year. I'm saying that because of this:

That's right. June 10th, at 9 AM, Norwegian flight DY1740 leaves Oslo Airport with Irene and me on board. We're headed to Barcelona, as you might've guessed, for 15 days of awesomeness. Yeah, we've been planning this trip for a couple of years now, to celebrate our 10-year anniversary in the city that brought us together.

Even though I've had car troubles for a little while now that have pretty much drained my Barcelona savings (prompting me to start this FundRazr campaign), we're dead set on making this the best trip ever. I don't even care what life throws at us between now and June 10th, we are going, and it will be the vacation of a lifetime. I've been planning this for so long now, and everything's paid for. Nothing can ruin this for us. Nothing at all.

Sitting here enjoying the sun my thoughts are automatically drawn towards Barcelona - sitting in the Spanish sun, maybe eating a nice picnic lunch in Parc de la Ciutadella, touring around the city on the Bus Turístic, seeing many of the things we've seen before and quite a few new ones (hopefully we'll get to do a day trip to Montserrat, which would be awesome).. and just enjoying life. I'm going to start working on our itinerary now - 15 days to fill with adventures!

I simply can't wait for June to roll around, because I'm pretty sure it'll be the best June so far in my life.