Erasmus: Aranjuez and Barcelona

Hola people! Hope you're all well and happy! As with many of my posts whilst here on Erasmus, I have been busy traveling, studying and living the Erasmus life to find time to blog more frequently and also I decided to spend more time doing stuff to come up with content for you guys! So all exciting times!

St. Patrick's Day is coming up this Friday! I'm looking forward to that and to experience St. Patrick's Day here in Madrid and to show the Spaniards how us Irish party on Paddy's Day. I hope you'll all find a way to at least have a Guinness!
And now on to the fun stuff!
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Aranjuez

On the weekend of the 18th of February, so about three weeks ago, as one of our weekly things to do, my friends and I came up with a plan to check out another town within the autonomous region of Madrid. We had already gone to Alcala de Henares (see previous post) and been to Toledo and Segovia on the first few weeks so, we checked online on TripAdvisor and came to the conclusion that Aranjuez was the place to go.
We met up at Atocha Renfe train station at 11:30, all of us. A nice multinational group of Finnish, German, Swedish, French, Mexican and Irish. At Atocha Renfe, you move towards Via 7, I remember and from there, you take the train heading towards Parla, which stops in Aranjuez on the C3 line. The train journey from Atocha Renfe cercanías to Aranjuez takes around 45 to 50 minutes but the train journeys to these places really don't feel like they're so long, especially with friends and with the great view of firstly industrial but primarily agricultural Madrid with fields and pastures on each side. 
We arrived in Aranjuez at around 12:30 or shortly thereafter. Hunger overcame a majority of us, so the plan was to initally find food and then continue sight-seeing around Aranjuez and make our way to the Royal Palace. Leaving the Aranjuez train station, we made our way up the Carr. de Toledo,

the main street off of the station and then through the winding streets of residential Aranjuez until we came to the Aranjuez street market. The market was just like what I remember the markets to be like in places like Walthamstow, London or the Torrevieja market in Alicante. As a group, we moved our way through, looking at the different items being sold and bargained left and right. None of us really had a fancy to buy any items until a mobile vendor selling candied coconut lollipop balls came to us with different colored coconut treats. They looked so good and for just €1, we couldn't really say no. We almost sold him out, I believe. The coconut balls, however sweet, were awesome and we were all really impressed with them. The only downside was that it just made us more hungry!
We moved on, using TripAdvisor onto the Carr. de Andalusia, one of the main

streets, I reckon for boulangeries and other small eateries and now matter h

ow many we passed, we were inclined to find the number one restaurant on TripAdvisor- Casa José. We walked up the street and came to the Casa José. I completely understand why it was considered number one on the app, the waiters were in full tuxedos. We, however, were with backpacks, sweatshirts, baseball caps and just not dressed for fine dining that would be associated with the place. It looked amazing, however! Across the street to our luck, there was the Mercado de Abastos on the same street as Casa José. The Mercado de Abastos is quite similar to the Mercado de San Miguel. You could get ham, bread, drinks and the further you moved in, is where the eating areas were located. The different restaurants all offered something unique. Italian food, seafood, paella etc. We walked around and came to the decision that Italian food just suits everyone! 

The place we ate at was a place called "diVino". It seemed like a nice place, with a nice menu and it was just convenient for everyone. Most of the people ordered their pizza, which just looked amazing! Their Caesar Salad also looked delicious. I ordered the spaghetti pesto, and pesto is one of my favorite things to eat. Pesto is just... heaven. I could eat pasta pesto forever, so I was super excited to try this one and soothe my hunger. We sat and talked, they gave us big 2 liter bottles of water. My friend ordered the Paella from the vendor next to diVino. The paella looked and smelled great and according to my friend, Diego, it was really delicious seafood. We received our food. My friend's bolognese looked good but mine, didn't look or really taste as good as I was expecting. The pesto was way too oily to the point where my spaghetti were drowning. I ate it anyway because I was starving 😂

After lunch, it was then time to go up and make our way to the Royal Palace of Aranjuez. Just around the corner from the Mercado was the Iglesia de San Antonio de Padua. Normal touristy pictures were taken quickly, the building was quire impressive. We kept going and just basked in the sunshine of the Plaza de San Antonio. A cool little plaza which was basically the walkway to the Royal Palace. Not many people were here but it was nice to just feel the sun while we walked. We entered the entrance gardens of the Palace. The place was laced with fountains everywhere, which made the gardens look really beautiful. We took group photos around the fountain

and then looked around the riverside. We did that slow walk thing through the gardens, taking in all the nature and awesome fountains and statues littered around the massive gardens.  To the right of the Palace, we entered the bigger Jardin de la Isla. Magnificent arches of shrubs and plants with cool areas to sit and chill out as well as great places to take photos. We posed for some funny photos, tried to catch some animals and chat. We relaxed there for a good 20 minutes before walking the perimeter of the Palace. As we came to the opposite side of the palace, we decided to enter the Palace. It cost about €4 for students to enter, which wasn't so bad. We entered and let me tell you, the place is very grand indeed. A huge staircase is the first thing to see as soon as you enter. You walk up them and you do a loop of the whole building, taking in all the different rooms of the Spanish Royal Family. A shisha smoking room,

a waiting room in front of most rooms, a load of art and candelabras everywhere. The place was lavish. Gold trimmings. Great views. You get a sense of what it's like to be Royal, which kind of made us wish we were rich... Which gave us thoughts about how much we would get if we flogged everything in the Palace, but we didn't do it 😂. We finished walking around and saw all the stuff that made the Royal's tick in their time. 
Apres Palace, we decided it was maybe time to head back to Madrid and make our way to the Plaza Mayor 400 Celebrations! We arrived back in Madrid at around 5:30 or 6. 
Aranjuez- ✅
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Barcelona

Now here's the really fun story! 
Last weekend, from the 9th until the 12th, my friends and I booked and traveled to Barcelona with ESN, the Erasmus Social Network. The trip was called the "Barcelona Experience" and considering I had never been before, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to see the city for a couple of days!
The trip began early on Thursday evening when a few of the guys and I met up in at the Puerta del Sol in the center of Madrid, as a meeting place. We met early so we could look for things that we needed for Barcelona and also chill out together for a while in Madrid. We spent most of the time in O'Neill's Irish Bar, chilling with a beer.
The scheduled time to leave was 1 am so we could travel through the night and be there for 9 am. We left Madrid around 1:30 am and traveled our way through the night, making a pitstop in a service station where we were able to snack and hydrate before continuing onto Barca. The trip itself was kind of tough as 8 hours on a bus can be quite uncomfortable for the legs. We brought our neck pillows so that helped somehow.
At 9:30, the bus stopped in Barcelona to let us out and we, as a group of about 60, made our way to our hostel. Our hostel was Yeah Hostel on Carrer de

Girona. A tired, grumpy-ish group, we left our bags at the hostel and immediately made our way to the Sagrada Familia, the most famous Cathedral in Barcelona. The building was amazing to behold. Eight tall towers touched

the skyline and the sandy color of the building made for a cool exterior. We lined up to go through the security. It was the first time I had ever seen security this intense at a church. We managed to get our tickets free, thanks to ESN and were quickly moved through the line and received our headphones. Immediately huddled in a group, we were given a tour of the Sagrada Familia in English. The tour guide started from the exterior of the building, explaining the different imaged depicted across the walls and the meanings of the different statues and it was very interesting to see and hear about all of these religious artifacts.
We moved into the building. The stained glass windows and the different religious ornaments made for very unique and interesting interior design, which I found quite impressive. The security on hand to make sure we removed

our hats and so on. We didn't stay too long at the church as we had more to do in the day. We exited the church and were immediately starving. Only cure? Maxi bucket at KFC! We came back to our group with 20 pieces of chicken and a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi, looking like animals shoving it in our faces but we didn't care!
After the food and the Sagrada Familia, we walked, looking at the different building designed by Antoni Gaudi, the same man who designed the Cathedral. It was really hot outside too. The ESN coordinators then said we could do what we wanted for a while, so we decided that it was time to skip the walking tour and head to the beach! So we walked towards Las Ramblas, the most famous market street in Barcelona to make our way to the waterfront. Las Ramblas wasn't as crowded as I had expected but it was still pretty neat to see! We walked quite a while and eventually came to the Columbus Monument! And then we saw the water. It's

awesome when it's sunny out to be near the water. The heat and the water just makes it feel like summer. We walked on the promenade, bought some drinks and ice-cream and just chilled there for a little bit before it was time to head back to the hostel. When we arrived back, we opted out of the ESN activity. Instead, we discovered what was inside the hostel and came across a perfect rooftop terrace where we sat out and chatted for a while until we got hungry again. We used TripAdvisor again and used to find our place for late lunch. Close to us, and the place we ate in was called La Vietnamita which was a Vietnamese street food restaurant. It was quaint but smelled lovely. We went in and were immediately greeted, the service was good. I ordered the Vietnamese chicken curry. Now, if you like the taste of lemongrass, or citrus

flavor, this is for you. The food was quickly served but for me, it was too bitter. It wasn't horrible but just a bit too strong tasting for me. 
After late lunch, we stopped in a small bakery for some churros and made our way back to the hostel, which was at about 5:30 or 6 pm. We were given our bedrooms. My friends and I were all in one room, which was awesome. The rooms were amazing. Great furniture, awesome bathroom and a small balcony, it was great.
 And from then until 11pm or so, we were given free time which consisted of mostly drinking alcohol before the night of partying. We ordered pizza to our room from Telepizza, which was awesome as it was like a cool, tight house party. That night, ESN got us free entrance into Razzmatazz Night club, one of the better know clubs in Barcelona. It was an animal themed night so I drew my face with some sort of whiskers! We partied until the wee hours. The club itself was good. The music was good, it had three floors and a roof terrace. So I would recommend visiting Razzmatazz if you're passing through Barcelona

The next day consisted of breakfast at the hostel early enough, at around 9:30 am. And from then, we got ready and instead of joining with ESN on their walking tour, we decided to spend the day just doing our own tour of Barcelona. We traveled to the Sants Estacio metro station which is where the Venetian towers are. Our main goal was to get to the Palau Nacional. Around

the corner from the Venetian Towers, which were cool to see was exactly what we were looking for, the Palau Nacional. The parade up to the palace was quite nice with the palace looming over us. The surrounding buildings were nice to see on the way to the palace but its not denying that the palace out did them all, We walked the gardens a bit before our stomachs started growling at us. It was then our mission to make our way back to the beach area and find a place to eat.
We walked the way behind the palace and firstly stumbled onto Estadi Olimpic, one of the stadiums for the 1992 Olympics. The place was awesome with great views but

again, it was a place we didn't wait long at because we wanted food! We walked on for about 3 kilometers until the sea was in sight and food was almost in our belly. We managed to finally make it down to the coast and back to the statue of Columbus. From there, we used TripAdvisor again to find a place to eat and this time, it really paid off. We found this Italian restaurant not too far from the beach called "Tucco" (Carrer dels Còdols 27). We went in and were greeted by an English speaking waitress who was quick to tell us the different offers and menus they had to offer. All of it sounded good, I won't lie. Three lasagnas, ravioli, spaghetti carbonara and a sandwich is what we all ordered as well as cheesecake for dessert. We were not waiting too long for the food, which was great as the place was quite busy. The food. Oh wow. The food was amazing. We were all quick to finish the food and then sit back and talk about how good it was. The cheesecake was delicious. The carbonara was great. I couldn't really fault it. The only thing I fault is that I haven't tasted Italian food like that in Madrid!
After food we came back to the hostel, first taking the metro and then a cab. Luckily the cabs in Barcelona are actually quite cheap! We came back just in time for us all to go on a trip to Park Guell and the Bunker. The bunker was our

first stop. The bunker is a mountain-top like area where you can get a 360 degree panoramic view of Barcelona. You could see all the big buildings, even through the dense smog. We watched the sunset there, which was pretty amazing and got some cool photos with friends. After that, my friends and I trekked through some forest area on our own mission to get to Park Guell. A few wrong turns and stumbling across a soccer match, but we eventually got there. Unfortunately, we didn't wait too long there until we were ushered back to the hostel. When we arrived back, we decided that we should have a sit down meal in the hostel. The hostel offered starters, main course and dessert with an open bar for only €10! Now we couldn't really say no to that. So we sat for about 3 hours just eating, drinking and eating. The barman, Tiago, always on hand to offer more drinks. The food was really good and fresh. The chef was out serving and was able to tell you what was in the food, so it was a really nice experience. The rest of the night after dinner consisted of getting ready to party in formal wear and heading to Shoko nightclub. I've been

to Shoko nightclub in Madrid before but never one this size. We got to Shoko at around 1:30 am. It's a beachfront club, so it was really cool. But it was full. Boy was it crowded. I've never been in such a crowded place. If it weren't for my friends, I would have hated the place but they made it fun! So after a few hours there, we went outside onto the beach and just chilled there for a good hour or so before deciding it was way too cold and we had to head home at around 5:30 am.

We missed breakfast the next morning 😂 And were already on the bus back to Madrid by 12:30. A small pitstop was made at the Autonomous University of Barcelona where other ESN groups were meeting up, we were given a free lunch of bocadillos and juice and watched some people perform in the center of the courtyard. After that, all we really did was sit in a bus for hours on our way home. 
All in all, I'd give Barcelona a good thumbs up and I would definitely go back!
Barcelona- ✅

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