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After being ill for a long time, my boyfriend
and I decided that it was time to put my recovered body to the test, and
we opted for a long weekend away to Barcelona.
Seeing that I always want to know everything about anything, I devoured
several travel guides, from very boring ones to the supposedly funky
time out guide.
I fell in love with the city while flying over it! We decided to hit the
city after unpacking and I then discovered that my kind of quirky,
individual style was widely available in the shops here, but none of
these had been mentioned in any of the guides. Now, these are not
designer shops, seeing as I studied fashion myself and I am not one to
pay a lot of money for something nice. What I look for has to be
different and easy to customize.
First off it was on to New Yorker, a shop which sells one of my
favourite brands - Fishbone. The Barcelona branch has a small entrance
that is not prominent, but go past that and you will find a huge
collection of women’s and men’s clothes, accessories and lingerie. The
style is H&M-like but more alternative.
Further along we discovered Pull and Bear, which offers clothes in the
same line, with shoes, very nice bags, and cute skirts. For cute and fun
lingerie, sleepwear and hosiery - visit a branch of Oysho. Of course,
not to be missed are the very small but conspicuous Spanish branches of
Miss Selfridge and Top Shop-Top Man. Other shops worth a visit here are
Bershka, E-Stradivarius and Orange for shoes.
The best coffee shop in town is without a doubt Starbucks, not only for
their variety of coffee, tea and nice cakes and muffins to go with the
drinks, but also for their very comfy and cosy seats where you can rest
your tired body for hours, with friendly staff to serve you.
Don’t believe any of the guides which tell you to take a tourist bus to
see all of the sites, because I consider it a waste of money. First of
all it is very windy up on the bus and you cannot hear a word the guide
is saying. Furthermore, the tour takes a very long time and does not
bring you directly to the places that you want to go to.
My advice is, when you want to see any of the tourist places, find out
where it is, take the metro and just get there on your own. It is much
cheaper that way, you can decide when you wish to go and how much time
you wish to spend while there. I learned this the hard way. Although it
was kind of against our nature, my boyfriend and I decided to get on the
bus. On the bus, we nearly froze to death, got into an argument and then
we had to sit in a Starbucks for over an hour to cool our heels.
All in all, we found our own way around Barcelona. The best moment was
when we were just sitting on a park bench one morning, enjoying the sun
and watching the people walk by. That was when we fell in love with
Barcelona. It has everything, from a beach to a vibrant city centre, sun
and an easygoing atmosphere. We already decided before we left the city
that we would be back one day. In May we are going for a whole week, to
make up for our long weekend there which had actually been much too
short!!
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