Maybe it was the rainy weather or the hype everyone has given the city, but I didn’t think Barcelona was that great. It has some cool sights and the people were generally friendly. (Maybe a little too friendly, as we saw some people getting pick-pocketed as the thieves chanted, “Black man! Black man!” and grabbed at the crotches of male passersby.)

I actually preferred Madrid to Barcelona, where we had better weather and it was less overrun with tourists. I feel like a hypocrite when I curse tourists, but I feel there are definitely a certain breed of tourists who make other tourists’ trips unbearable: the slack-jawed yokels who take pictures of anything and everything and get mad when the locals don’t speak English.

Also, Barcelona had a total hard-on for Gaudí. I get it, he was a pretty neato architect, but every monument the city had to offer was designed by him. I would hope that Barcelona has more sides to it than just gaudy (wordplay!).