Arriving in Barcelona and driving around the city, felt like a dream.

This Spanish city was on my list for a few years now, and I was so stoked to finally be there.

We didn’t even stop to drop off our things at the hostel before pulling up in front of La Sagrada Familia to take a look at probably the most popular building in the city.

I didn’t think it was possible for a building to look like it was melting, but doesn’t it?

After some time to admire the architecture, it was time to drop things off at the hostel and get ready for a very Spanish night on the town.

I’m going to take this moment to say, during this trip I gained a new appreciation of sharing a room with three other girls at any given time. Getting ready for nights out was so much more fun than usual – sharing makeup tips, having someone check out my outfit before leaving the room, but most importantly, having people to get absolutely hyped with before every epic night.

And this was definitely one of them.

Dinner that night would be classic tapas while watching flamenco dancers, and of course, lots of sangria. That was another moment of surrealism. Me just sitting in my seat at the table with a group of people I could now call friends, watching flamenco, eating tapas, drinking sangria, in Barcelona. It felt magic.

After a couple of my new friends were now excitedly force-feeding me sangria, I was super ready for our next stop of the night – The Red Garter for karaoke!

At home, I often find myself at a karaoke bar where I rent myself and some friends a private room and we sing for a couple of hours. We were going to a legit karaoke bar where you get up on a stage in the middle of the room and sing your heart out.

Another couple of sangrias later, I ended up getting on stage with a group of our girls to sing ‘Lady Marmalade’, as we were still floating high from our trip to the Moulin Rouge. It was so much fun rocking out to our group jamming to various pop songs – it wouldn’t be a karaoke session without someone singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Mr. Brightside’, or ‘I Want It That Way’, would it?

Once we’d tired of the karaoke bar, we all got into taxis to the nightclub. I’ve never been to an actual club before in my life; I prefer a bar or pub setting. But when in Barcelona, right?

Honestly, I wasn’t a fan of the club, but it was still something I can say I’ve done – and I did it in Barcelona. Cool.

*Gothic Quarter: a courtyard where an Evanescence music video was filmed*

The late night didn’t stop us – bright and early the next morning we met our tour manager for a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter. I’m a lover of interesting architecture, and Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter was like heaven. Every structure was unique and beautiful.

After the walking tour, a group of us split off to walk through the city and grab some lunch. I have to say, one of my favourite things about our group being so big was that I got to talk to so many new people.

Especially in the beginning of the tour when we were all getting to know each other, before the little groups of friends had formed, I loved sitting with people I hadn’t really gotten a chance to talk to and have a meal with them — share that connection.

Eventually we hit up the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya – the national art museum, which was really pretty. The museum itself was great (love me some Picasso), but my favourite moment was stepping out of the doors of the museum after a couple hours to the view in the photo above.

You can get lost in a museum, forget where you are, inside just another room full of paintings. But once we stepped outside to the beautiful warm weather, to the view of Barcelona in front of us, and the landscape beyond that, to the sound of a man serenading the crowds on a Spanish guitar – that hit me like a ton of bricks.

I am here. This is happening.

After what felt like such a long day of wandering, the few of us who were still kicking decided we had to cross one more thing off the Spanish bucket list: churros.

We ended up finding a place called Waffle where we sat down for some desserts and ended up chatting about the previous nights’ happenings. This would be the first of a series of Girl Talks we’d later deem Waffle Conventions.

That evening we went back to the hostel and had a family style meal in the common room, followed by card games and sangria. As fun as this night was, it was very bittersweet. I had made good friends with one girl who would be leaving our group the next morning. But she’d be continuing her travels post-Contiki and would be in the same cities as we would be later on, so it wasn’t exactly goodbye.

Even still, the next morning was filled with emotional goodbyes from the whole group as we left four people behind in Barcelona and had picked up 10-15 new faces to continue the journey with us.