The One with Jacob

This last week my friend Jacob from U of I visited for five days. It was a jam packed week filled with so many different things. I held off on doing some of the touristy things in Barcelona until I had friends visit so that I would not be visiting each place 10 times during the semester. By doing this I was able to see a lot of things for the first time as well.

We went to the FC Barcelona basketball game against Milan. The atmosphere was quite unique during the game. I would say it fell somewhere in between a college basketball game and an NBA game. There were flags all over the place and there were drums playing as well which created a great vibe throughout the relatively small 8,000 person arena.

We also went to a FC Barcelona soccer game for the first time ever. I had been to Camp Nou for a tour of the stadium but this was the first live game I had been to. The stadium is the biggest in Europe with a capacity of around 95,000 people. If it is not obvious already, the discrepancy in the stadium size should be a clue of how much bigger soccer is here than basketball. The game was dominated by Barcelona the entire way through and they ended up winning 6-0 against Rayo Vallecano. Messi had two goals and Neymar had a goal also. Overall it was a great experience and I can't wait to go back.

We went to see some of the famous sights in Barcelona as well such as Sagrada Familia and Park Guell. Both of them were beautiful and I can see why they are two of the top tourist destinations in Barcelona. We also went to the Magic Fountain Show at Montjuic. The fountain shines different colors and plays to music. 

Montjuic Overlooking the Fountain

Panorama of the Sagrada Familia

Stained Glass Windows of Sagrada Familia

On top of Park Guell

Park Guell

Park Guell's Mosaics

Magic Fountain

Magic Fountain

The week was also filled with Barcelona nightlife which is second to none in the world. Barcelona is filled with a great mix of unique bars and clubs. There is always a new place to go to ensure that you will never get bored. Over the course of the four nights of going out we went to Sutton, Opium, Chupitos, Dow Jones, and The Apartment. Sutton had a DJ named Rehab perform which was a really fun time. Dow Jones is a really cool bar that I would recommend checking out when coming to Barcelona. Basically the prices of the drinks fluctuate throughout the course of the night. If a drink is being purchased frequently then its price will increase and likewise if nobody is buying that drink the price will drop. 

Every so often the market will also crash and all of the drinks will be very cheap. There is a large ticker symbol in the party that is really cool because it actually scrolls through the price of every drink. Our strategy was to run over to the bar and buy up a bunch of one drink that we wanted when the market crashed before the price went back up. Chupitos is also up there as one of the best places to drink in Barcelona. Chupitos is a shot bar with 150 different types of shots. Every shot is two euros, except for a select few that are five. Tip: All shots on Monday's are only one euro.