From Tuesday through Thursday in Barcelona, there was a nonstop progression of spending the day in meetings followed by some sort of sightseeing and eating combination, then going out drinking, going to bed too late and having to get up and do it again. I don’t remember there being any free time in there, and frankly I can’t remember any particular thing happening on any particular day, except that on Thursday, we cut out from work a little early and went to Parc Güell. I’m glad we didn’t stick around work because the managers’ meeting turned out to go really long, and we would have been waiting around forever for the rest of the team. The closest metro stop dropped us at the bottom of a huge hill which has a couple escalators to help for some of the climb. We climbed up and made our way around the park, reading the Catalan signs as best we could, and only getting lost once. By the time we were done walking and taking pictures, it was starting to get dark and we headed back for the hotel arriving just in time to go to the Mexican place next door to the hotel. The food was decent and affordable, but somehow the group managed to accumulate an absolutely insane bill; probably 75% of it was alcohol.

The following day some of my coworkers left for home, and I was still feeling woozy at 11am, but we headed out for more sightseeing, checking out the other Gaudi buildings in town and doing a little shopping. It didn’t take a whole lot of convincing by my coworkers to get me to eat McDonald’s for lunch. Not so much because we wanted the food as for the novelty of the experience; the menu has different food and is printed in Catalan. I don’t think there was any Spanish on the menu, though the employees did speak it.

By the time dinner rolled around, we were all pretty tired, especially those of us who had been out the night before. We ate at a hot dog place near the hotel and called it a night. My remaining coworkers were leaving the following morning so at last I knew I’d be able to sleep in.