Borough Food Market and Bad Start to Barcelona
We had to say goodbye to Malmaison today. It was a very sad day indeed. The room was immaculate and everyone there was so nice and the location was great. Little did we know just how much we would really miss it...
We had a lazy morning and packed up all of our clothes and things. Malmaison would watch our bags while we went out for the day. Our flight for Barcelona didn't leave London until 8pm so we had plenty of time to explore still.
Our first stop was the Borough Market. Yet another food market haha. You'd think doing food markets back to back days wouldn't be fun but we had a blast. Borough Market is more traditional British food and the Camden Market from the day before was more ethnic food from all over the world. We tried a ton of different foods. Our first food was an empanada (like a calzone but with meat and potatoes). Then, we tried a praline donut which was great. To be adventurous, I tried oysters for the very first time. They weren't bad... They just kind of soaked up whatever flavorings I put on them. I did not perfect the slide them down your throat thing haha. Our last food adventure was Indian street food. It's called a dosa and it's like a thin pancake or crepe. It was good!
With full bellies, we had some more time to burn. We decided to walk over to the Tate Modern museum. This is the modern art museum in London. Lacey had never been there when she was here before. It's... an interesting space? Neither one of us is super into modern art but it was still cool to see the space. On the way there, we passed a guy playing tuba but also pushing out fire from the tuba? It was insane and super funny.
We walked from the Tate Modern over the river. We eventually made out way to Primark. This is a huge clothing store chain all over Europe. Think H and M but bigger. Lacey walked around for a bit and shopped around. We still had more time to burn so we walked over to the British Museum next. We didn't intend on going here but we still had lots of time to burn before our flight so we walked around the museum for a while. It was super busy but still interesting.
Finally, the time had gone by enough for us to go back and grab our bags. We took a bus back to Malmaison and said our final goodbyes. We stopped at Tesco again and got some food to eat for dinner (yummy sandwiches again haha). We took the train out to Stansted which was easy peasy. When I was in London before, getting to Standsted was a disaster but it's easy now. We got checked in and through security easily (it was not busy). The wait for the flight and the flight itself was uneventful other than some minor turbulence.
The real problems started once we landed in Barcelona. We got our bags easily and figured out how to buy the subway tickets we needed. Again, all pretty smooth. Then we got to our hostel. We arrived at our hostel late, like super late, like 12:30am late. Word of warning, never check into a hostel that late. The guy at the desk was pretty nice but very flustered. There were lots of people coming up with issues and he was by himself. We tried to check in but he seemed to not be able to find our key. He looked all over the desk area for a long time. Eventually, he just grabbed the master keys and took us up to the room.
The private rooms at this hostel are actually old apartments. So 3 private rooms share a single bathroom. We got to what should have been our room and the worker opens the door and then quickly closed it. He looked super confused and said, "there must be a mistake". Ooooookay... So we all go back down in the tiny elevator with all our bags (VERY tiny). He tells us to wait in the lobby and he'll figure it out. He eventually comes back down and a woman comes down too. They're talking in Spanish and looking confused at the computer screen. Lacey and I knew it was not going well.
It turns out a couple had taken over our room even though they didn't have a reservation. The guy couldn't kick them out so he had us sleep in a 2 twin bedroom instead of our double bed. NOT IDEAL. We made it work and pushed the beds together but this was not a good start. We weren't actually falling asleep until about 1:30am or 2am. It was an actual disaster. The room was tiny and the beds were not comfy and the curtains were paper thin and it was ugh. A bad start to Barcelona.
 |
| Malmaison Lobby |
We had a lazy morning and packed up all of our clothes and things. Malmaison would watch our bags while we went out for the day. Our flight for Barcelona didn't leave London until 8pm so we had plenty of time to explore still.
Our first stop was the Borough Market. Yet another food market haha. You'd think doing food markets back to back days wouldn't be fun but we had a blast. Borough Market is more traditional British food and the Camden Market from the day before was more ethnic food from all over the world. We tried a ton of different foods. Our first food was an empanada (like a calzone but with meat and potatoes). Then, we tried a praline donut which was great. To be adventurous, I tried oysters for the very first time. They weren't bad... They just kind of soaked up whatever flavorings I put on them. I did not perfect the slide them down your throat thing haha. Our last food adventure was Indian street food. It's called a dosa and it's like a thin pancake or crepe. It was good!
With full bellies, we had some more time to burn. We decided to walk over to the Tate Modern museum. This is the modern art museum in London. Lacey had never been there when she was here before. It's... an interesting space? Neither one of us is super into modern art but it was still cool to see the space. On the way there, we passed a guy playing tuba but also pushing out fire from the tuba? It was insane and super funny.
We walked from the Tate Modern over the river. We eventually made out way to Primark. This is a huge clothing store chain all over Europe. Think H and M but bigger. Lacey walked around for a bit and shopped around. We still had more time to burn so we walked over to the British Museum next. We didn't intend on going here but we still had lots of time to burn before our flight so we walked around the museum for a while. It was super busy but still interesting.
Finally, the time had gone by enough for us to go back and grab our bags. We took a bus back to Malmaison and said our final goodbyes. We stopped at Tesco again and got some food to eat for dinner (yummy sandwiches again haha). We took the train out to Stansted which was easy peasy. When I was in London before, getting to Standsted was a disaster but it's easy now. We got checked in and through security easily (it was not busy). The wait for the flight and the flight itself was uneventful other than some minor turbulence.
The private rooms at this hostel are actually old apartments. So 3 private rooms share a single bathroom. We got to what should have been our room and the worker opens the door and then quickly closed it. He looked super confused and said, "there must be a mistake". Ooooookay... So we all go back down in the tiny elevator with all our bags (VERY tiny). He tells us to wait in the lobby and he'll figure it out. He eventually comes back down and a woman comes down too. They're talking in Spanish and looking confused at the computer screen. Lacey and I knew it was not going well.
It turns out a couple had taken over our room even though they didn't have a reservation. The guy couldn't kick them out so he had us sleep in a 2 twin bedroom instead of our double bed. NOT IDEAL. We made it work and pushed the beds together but this was not a good start. We weren't actually falling asleep until about 1:30am or 2am. It was an actual disaster. The room was tiny and the beds were not comfy and the curtains were paper thin and it was ugh. A bad start to Barcelona.
Comments
Post a Comment