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Published: February 24th 2009
Las Ramblas
I seriously though that this was a metal statue at first.Viernes 20 febrero—During this week I have been getting caught up on my sleep, which caused me to be awake around 5am, but I didn’t want to get out of bed until about 7. At school, I had my written and listening Spanish Exam. Although I didn’t study for it as much as I would have liked, I think that it went well. After this, CIEE had organized so we could go into an English class and meet Spanish students that wanted to learn English. I was excited to do this, because I still didn’t have an intercambio. When I got there, they put me in with a group of 8 chicas, aging from 18 to 26. The professor jokingly said how lucky I was seeing that I had so many chicas, but truthfully, it was crazy. Here I was with 8 chicas that wanted to talk to me at the same time in Spanish; it was just really confusing at first. However, Amrit came to my rescue, so I then only had four students, which was more manageable. This hour flew by and I thought that I had done well given how little Spanish I actually know. These students know
Las Ramblas
Outdoor pet shops on las ramblas, cool, but bird flu anyone. how to read and write English, but have had very little practice speaking it, so it was hard for them to speak in English. When I had to leave at noon, we set it up so that I am going to meet with two of them on Tuesdays and the other two on Thursdays, hopefully this works out because it is great practice for me. I then caught the bus home and switched my school backpack for my ‘European’ backpack so I could catch the train to Barcelona. I decided to take the train instead of a plane because the train station is closer to my house, so easier to get to and it worked better into my schedule. I was a little worried about the 4.5 hour ride, but really, it would take about the same length to fly because of the time to get to the airport and airport security. The time really went fast because I got to sit next to Ben, a CIEE friend, sleep, do homework and just enjoyed looking out the window. When we arrived at the Barcelona train station, the scene was muy loco. It reminded me a lot of the Chicago airport
Cathedral de Barcelona
So the Cathedral is going under some resteration, so they put up a cloth of what it's suppose to look like, I thought that it was a neat idea. with the number of people going a million different ways. Ben was coming to Barcelona to meet up with his mother and sister, but his hotel was about 2 blocks from my hostel, so I convinced him to figure out the metro with me. This was a little intimidating at first, but after we got off the metro and walked above ground opposite of my hostel it was well worth it. Taking the metro was definitely more challenging than taking a taxi, but was a great experience that made seeing my hostel very exciting because I had travel about 300 miles without any difficulty. We then found Ben’s hotel and I met up with Brain Falk and Rachel Smith. Brian was my roommate freshman year and is studying abroad in Galway, Ireland and Rachel is a friend that lived in our dorm freshman year who is studying in Madrid, Spain. The three of us and some of my CIEE friends that had arrived in Barcelona on the day before headed out to a fun place for dinner. After which, the three of us hung out on the second floor of the hostel, which was the bar/meeting room. If anyone is
traveling in Barcelona, look up Centric Point Hotel, it’s a big 430 bed place, but feels much smaller than that and has a great chill atmosphere.
Sabado 21 febrero 2009—We got up around 9ish for a great breakfast downstairs before getting cleaned up to explore the city. Brian and Rachel had arrived Friday morning, so they had a better feel for the city than I did, but there is so much to see. We started with going down the Ramblas (the main street with street performers and many small shops) and then to the Barcelona Cathedral. The Cathedral was a massive structure that had numerous small chapels on the outside of it, but overall I was an unimpressed in it because I expected a grander Cathedral given Barcelona’s impressive past. One interesting aspect of this church was that it had a courtyard that had 13 geese in memory of the 13 year old saint that was buried at the church. It was just different to hear and see geese at a church. From here we did some shopping at some of the shops and artist stands where Rachel got a piece of artwork that was of the rambla. I
Cathedral de Barcelona
I spy with my little eye a goose and a frog. also wanted to, but with traveling at the end of the semester, I don’t know how to get the paintings back safely or if I want to spend my limited Euros on artwork. I may save my art purchases to when I return to Europe in the future. We also made our way to the Mercado Central, where we bought two fruit smoothies, got some fresh meat and sausage, pineapple, strawberries, bread and pop for lunch all for about 10 Euros. We took our lunch to a plaza at the top of the Ramblas, where we ran into a kid that had a Badger hat that actually knew Brain and mines other roommate from freshman year, small world. We all really enjoyed our picnic lunch because it was fun shopping for our own meal and it was a great day for a picnic. After a quick stop at the hostel to drop off the painting, we made the trek to the Sanrada Familia, a church that started construction in 1882 and won’t be done for another half a century. We decided to not go inside, but did the Rick Steve’s self guided tour of the exterior. This place is hard
to explain because it is so interesting with all the architecture along with the fact that it is a modern cathedral that is still under construction. However, everyday about 4,000 people tour the building so when it is finally finished, I don’t know if will actually function as a church or just another religious tourist site. From here, we headed towards a park that was located back downtown. It again was a long walk, but we did take a little pit-stop to watch a local futbol game. This park was very beautiful and also had a zoo attached to it. The feel of the park was really chill with friends just sitting on the grass talking and eating. We did the same, but unfortunately we didn’t have any drinks or food. On our way back to our hostel, we passed a local place that had cheap paella and since Brain hadn’t had this trational Spanish food yet, we had to have this for supper. The place was deserted other than some local cops who were there for coffee because seeing that it was only 8pm, it was still too early for the locals to have supper. Back at the hostel,
Cathedral de Barcelona
A sweet fountain in the Cathedral's courtyard that had St. George slaying a dragon. St. George is the Patron Saint of Barcelona, he most have killed a dragon at some point because this scene is repeated throughout the Cathedral. we talked with these two girls that were from California, but were studying in Madrid for a while before going downstairs to share a pitcher of sangria. Seeing that it was carnival, we headed out to see what it would be like. I knew back in Alicante, it was a big deal and that supposedly it was even bigger in Barcelona. However, the main celebrations were about 20 kms away, so the people left in Barcelona were still dressed up, but the city was a little empty. I went as Peter Quinn, a Scottish golfer without a golf club, it was a fun costume. We did however find a nice bar to chill at before calling it a night.
Domingo 22 febrero—After breakfast and checking out of our hostel, the three of us headed down to the Ramblas to spend the last hour before they had to head to the airport for their flight back to Madrid. We just people watched until they left. This was a good way to spend our last hour together. I hopefully will see Rachel next weekend when CIEE takes us to Madrid for three days, but I most likely won’t see Brian until
Modeling
Styling in some hats that were really expensive. I’m home because I’m not going to Ireland until June, when I’m meeting another friend there. After they left, I used my guide book to find some roman ruins. These were a little disappointing because they were only grave markers, but it was a lot of fun to find this small park in such a large city. From here, I continued to the Picasso museum that is housed in an older part of town in three Baroque era mansions. I’m not a big art fan, but I can appreciate the great artwork. I really enjoyed Picasso’s early works that are in the traditional style more than his later works when he started to create his own style. His cubianism paintings are very interesting and are great works of art, but I prefer highly detailed paintings over impressionistic works. However, this was a great museum that I would recommend to others because Picasso is an amazing modern artist and the museum itself is beautiful and organized by Picasso’s age so you can watch his style’s evolve over time. As I walked back towards the Ramblas, I was able to join in the Catalan dance called Sardana. According to my guidebook, it
Lunch
El Mercado Central de Barcelona occurs every Sunday at noon and is a very patriotic dance done by the locals. It was fun thanks to the old lady next to me that let me watch her feet the whole time because I need all the help I can get to get my two left feet to do what I want them to. After getting a quick bite to eat and a little people watching, I took the metro back to the train station. However, this took less time than I thought, so I had about an hour and a half extra at the train stations, so I found a nearby park and watched some locals play racquet ball and read a Newsweek mom and dad had brought over for me. The train ride back to Alicante went by faster because I slept for a while, listen to my iPod while watching the scenery and read a two week old Wisconsin State Journal. Although it was a great weekend, it was a great feeling to arrive back in Alicante. I think the quote of “The best thing about traveling is coming home” is very accurate because traveling allows you to see amazing sites and experience so
Lunch
Our picinic lunch in the park of fresh bread, meat, cheese, fruit and Fanta. What more could you want. much, but it also makes you realize how important home is. After doing my last bit of homework, I called it an early night.
Lunes 24 febrero- In Spanish class, I got back my Spanish test and I did very well so I was happy. The Camino class went well as usually and so did history until we (the students) try again to address the professor about the amount of outside work he is requiring of us. I don’t think that he understands our side of the situation, so we may go talk to the director. It isn’t that we are lazy, but we spend more time doing work for him then we do our Spanish classes and we came to Spain to focus on Spanish. The whole day, I have been a little disappointed because although I had a blast in Barcelona, I missed Carnival in Alicante. Brian, Rachel and I had made our Barcelona plans before I knew that it was Carnival, but I feel like I missed out on a unique celebration here in my “hometown”. Sometimes, small town festivals are more fun than big city ones, so in the future I plan on making sure
Sangrada Familia
Sangrada Family Church. It began construction in 1882 and won't be done for another 50 years or so. I know all the local festivals before I plan a trip. At home, I caught up on some sleep before listening to my friends radio show. I really enjoyed calling in and talking to them on air, even though I’m so far away. During their two hour show, I looked up flights to basically every major city in Europe for our long breaks and Spring Break. There are so many places to visit and only so much time and money. After doing this blog and homework it was time for bed.
--Sorry that this is soooo long, I hope that I'm not scaring readers off, it was just a great weekend.
-- These are only a few of the numerous pictures that I took, but they should give you an idea of my weekend
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Dominic
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Barcelona Cathedral Misericords
It is worth noting that Barcelona Cathedral has some of the best misericords in Spain. Unusually for continental misericords, they have supporters - usually a very British thing.