Phwoar, turns out we did still have a lot to organise before leaving. And given I’ve been funemployed since the start of December, any excuse for not being fully packed until 3 am the morning of leaving is tenuous at best. Ho hum.

Aside from that, faff-free transit to Barcelona on NYE. We bagged business class flights (for £1 + Avios 💥), which was a decadent and unrepresentative way of kicking things off!

Map, Journey and Costs

Note: prices are for 2 adults with baggage

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From	To	Mode	Duration	Cost
🇬🇧 Poynton	🇬🇧 London Euston	Train	02:20	£61.00
🇬🇧 London Euston	🇬🇧 London Heathrow	Tube	01:01	£11.00
🇬🇧 London Heathrow (LHR)	🇪🇸 Barcelona (BCN)	Plane	02:25	£1.00

What more can I say - we filled out boots. One set with tapas, and the other with Sangria. Patatas bravas were the stars of the show. The favourite place we went to for tapas was Tosca Tapas y Vino. Very tasty and good value (5 tapassy things, 1 jug of Sangria, 2 cocktails for £65).

Vermut i a la Gàbia had the best patatas bravas - they were very muy on the garlicy salsa.

A bit spur of the moment, and really good fun. When waltzing down La Rambla, gawking at the creepy living statues, we got the urge to have a caricature made.

Very much recommend it! Surreal experience for sure. It feels like when you’ve got a spot on your face and you think that everybody is looking and then laughing at you. But you’re in a nightmare, and everybody is 😱. Very vivid experience and a lot of fun.

We high-tailed it straight to our hostel, glugged some complimentary bubbles they left for us (what hostel does that?!) and went to Le Bistro Sensi for tapas. Great vibe, food and drinks.

It turns out there is a Spanish tradition at midnight on December the 31st, to scoff 12 grapes (each represent a month of luck) on each midnight chime. We were somewhat caught off guard however, and missed the first few grapes. I very enthusiastically tried to catch up on my graping, knocked my wine, and submerged our grapes in their cousins’ juices 😢. The camarero was overly generous in refilling my Merlot after - so who needs lucky grapes anyway 💪.

Don’t feel we got our fix.

We went to see Sagrada Familia (from the outside). It’s really cool and very impressive, but I just feel there’s a limit to how much you should celebrate a project that is that level of over both time and budget. I’m sure a lot of architects could be as intricate and impressive with their works if they gave that level of regard to scope.

We were quite keen to see some of his work though, so opted to visit Park Güell on the recommendation of some friends. Alas, tickets had sold out, and the various blog posts that suggest you can get in for free after 17:30 were very wrong. After trawling the perimeter for a while, we gave up and hit a square they suggested for some Sangria instead 🍹.

For some reason, there was no way I could re-pack everything into my bag - despite not buying anything new. How does that happen?! Is Spanish air thicker or something?! Either way, I had to forfeit a pair of trousers 🤦‍♂️ At this rate I’ll be done for indecent exposure by the time we get to Vietnam.

Barcelona was a lot of fun, and a great start to the trip. The trip still feels very surreal (are we really away for that long?!), and Barcelona didn’t help with that. Very much had to work to shift the city-break mentality and spend time and money more like a backpacker, and didn’t always succeed. It very much served its purpose of being a fun place for NYE, and a cheap place to access Southeast Asia from.

Would definitely recommend NYE in Barcelona. Pleasant weather (19°C and sunny), great food and good vibe.