Day 146: Sunday in Barcelona

I was still feeling low on energy from my illness, but I eventually mustered up the will to leave the hostel and head towards downtown. On the way I stopped at a bookstore that sold all kinds of books in Spanish. I thought it would be good motivation to pick out a Vonnegut book to read after my Spanish had improved. They had La Pianola (The Piano Player) and Matadero Cinco (Slaughterhouse Five). I hadn't read The Piano Player, but had heard it was good. Unfortunately, they wanted 22 Euros for this small, 300ish page paperback. I'd read Slaughterhouse Five, though it wasn't my favorite. But at 8 Euros, I bought it anyway. I already kind of regret it. The cover is hideous and the novels non-chronological structure and modern writing style are probably going to confuse the hell out of me if I can ever read it.

I first made it to Catalunya Plaza where I sat at a bench under a large rhododendron and tried to read my new book.

With the help of Google Translate, I made it through the first paragraph before I felt like my head was going to explode, so I continued further oceanward.

The next major landmark I ran into was the Cathedral of Barcelona, just a 5-minute walk southeast of Catalunya Plaza.

I need a haircut

This Gothic cathedral is located, predictably, in the Gothic Quarter. There are people busking and hawking wares all over the Gothic Quarter. I appreciated these guys doing opera, rather than something more typical.

I walked around for a bit, but was growing fatigued quickly and rain clouds were looming overhead, so I returned to the hostel. It began raining shortly afterwards, so being in bed near an open window overlooking the hostels courtyard was not an unpleasant place to be for most of the day's remainder.