2/18- 2/27: Villafranca, Sitges, and exploring Barca!

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After my big weekend with Natalie, I took it pretty easy and gotten lots of rest. On Monday, I went to the store to stock up on food because I was completely out, and tired of eating out. I bought a ton of vegetables and fresh food, so I was super excited to make a greek salad, and some soup. I then walked over to Hannahs to hang out for a while. After talking for a couple hours, I had to go home to do my homework that was due the next day with Alex. Unfortunately it turned out to be a lot harder than we expected, so I had to stay up till 4:30am to finish it. Which was definitely better than Alex because he stayed up all night. But that was also because our internet was going really fast because no one was on it, so he was skypeing to friends at home. The next day I was pretty tired but had lots of coffee and tea, so I was fine. I made myself an amazing sandwich for lunch, and for dinner, pasta with sauce and chicken, and some vegetables. Because the first month I was adjusting to living here I rarely had vegetables, so now I cant get enough of them! Which is good now because I can eat healthy and I try to not allow myself to eat out too often. I then walked over to Hannahs/Briers/Emily’s apartment because I was going to join the gym that they go to. But once we finally got there, they said that their passes were full, so I couldn’t join. But I figured I probably wouldn’t have time to use it that much, so its okay. I then went home and had some tea and watched the Office. Wednesday went pretty much the same as Monday and Tuesday. I slept in, started to write my previous blog, went to class (we were watching a movie in Spanish! I really like it), came home and made dinner. I then had to do an outline of a paper for my EU class which I am doing with Usman, so yet again it was a really calm day. I also took a break with Lauren by going to their favorite Churro stand, and I got a cream filled churro. So delicious!
Those past three days really calmed me down and I got lots of rest. Its also finally feeling like school because I had a midterm next week, and have to start thinking about my paper that I have to write. And I need to work ahead because I have virtually no weekends free.

On Thursday, we decided to have a pancake night, where we would make a feast of different types of pancakes for dinner. While I was in my last class, Lauren and Hannah went to the store to get supplies, but found no pancake batter, so instead we made it crepe night. We also had bananas, syrup, chocolate, and peanut butter to make various different crepes. It was a really fun night. After dinner, Emily, Hannah, Lauren and I were supposed to go to this club to see our friend Axel and his band play. But my freshman year roommate from Berkeley, Anna, was in town visiting, so I went to meet up with her. I went over to Meaghan’s apartment (another friend from Berkeley), and we all caught up and told each other our stories about our adventures abroad. It was really nice to see a familiar Berkeley face in Barcelona. Although I love the friends I have made here, its always nice to see an old friend.

Friday was the Villafranca wine tasting trip with GSE! We got up early, took an hour and a half bus tour down to Villafranca, and once we got there, we took a tour of the Torres winery. Apparently it is the best winery in Spain, and it world known. After our tour, we got to try a sample of their red, white, and rose wines. All were very good.
We then drove to this restaurant, where we got to try calcots! Calcots are these green onion things, that are a traditional Spanish dish. You eat them with your hands, and are so messy that you have to wear a bib. The other food was delishious as well, and we all stuffed ourselves to the very brim with rabbit and a ton of grilled vegetables. We also got to try our hand at a Pouron, which is the traditional wine vase pouring game that I described from my first week in Barcelona. Good thing we were wearing bibs because it was red wine!
After our wonderful trip to Villafranca, Lauren and I went back to the apt for a couple hours, and then headed out shopping in our area. We were both determined to finally get brown boots which we had been wanting, and we actually both came out with boots! Finally a very successful shopping trip.

On Saturday, Lauren, Emily Y., Nicole, and I went to Sitges for the day. Sitges is the town 30 mins outside of Barcelona along the beach. We had seen it when we went for Carnival, but that was at night, so we wanted to go back during the day. The town is so cute! It was much less touristy than Barcelona, and much more quaint. We spent a couple hours walking around the streets, taking lots of pictures, grabbed a café con leche, and shopped. After all our walking, we had worked up an appetite and went out in search of Mexican food because we had heard that they actually had decent Mexican food, unlike Barcelona. We stumbled upon this restaurant called SoCal- it was southern California themed! Needless to say we were super excited, and immediately went in to eat. We told the owner that we were all from SoCal, and then he gave us 2 for 1 margaritas, and we talked to him almost the whole time. It was pretty decent Mexican food, so we were all very happy to have had burritos and nachos, etc. After lunch, the weather had turned pretty cold, so we headed back to Barca. It was still pretty early, so we walked to the Gothic Quarter to this café called Caelum. It is actually the old site of Jewish bathes, so the downstairs café was really cool sitting in old jewish baths. They specialize in hot chocolate, so I ordered it, and the waiter warned me that it had no crème or milk in it- just chocolate. Nicole and Emily warned me that I wouldn’t be able to finish it because it is so rich, but I easily proved them wrong and ate all of the chocolate. It was delicious.
That night, we went back to the Fairy Bar and then went to la Ovella Negra.

Sunday was another tourist day. Since this was one of my last weekends in Barcelona, we wanted to see more of Barcelona before we start going on all of our weekend trips. We first went to the Archeological Museum in the gothic quarter. We got to see the Roman ruins of Barcelona, which are under all the new buildings. So the entire museum was underground, and we got to see an entire new city! We got to see the ruins of two churches, and other stores like a laundry and a winery.
After the museum, we grabbed lunch at PitaPita, and then went to the Parc del Laberint d’Horta. It is the oldest garden in Barcelona. It had beautiful gardens all around the 22 acre park, and in the middle is a labyrinth that you can walk through. Lauren, Emily and I had a great time exploring the labyrinth and taking pictures.
Well that was the end of our tourist weekend! It was a jam-packed weekend, but so fun. I really feel like we explored a lot of Spain.




The next week was crazy busy. I had to leave on Thursday morning for Amsterdam, so Monday through Wednesday was full of various things.

All day Monday I studied for my international econ class because we had a midterm the next day. I went to Spanish class in the afternoon, and then came back and studied some more. Alex and I studied late into the night before the test.

The next day, I had my midterm at 9 in the morning. I was thoroughly prepared, so I didn’t have trouble with it, and ended up finishing the test and leaving an hour early. I then went to the library to work on my Spanish presentation, which was due the next day. Anna, my friend from Berkeley, was still in town and was going to stay with me for Tuesday and Wednesday, so I didn’t want to just do homework while she was at my apartment, so I did as much of my presentation as I could for the next two hours before I had to go pick her up at the metro. We had falafel for lunch (at our favorite place by sagrada familia) with Lauren, and then Anna and I walked around Sagrada Familia and the Hospital de Sant Pau. We then went to the grocery store to buy food for dinner, and I then headed off to class. After my afternoon Spanish class, I came home and Anna cooked dinner while I continued to try to finish my Spanish presentation as quickly as I could. I finished the majority of it after another hour and a half and then we had a delicious dinner (an Anna recipe making something similar to Ali Ghobi with lots of cauliflower). After dinner, Meaghan came over and the three of us along with Lauren made homemade chocolate chip cookies! They could have been a little better, but hey it was basically the first time we had cookies since being in Spain, so it was a nice taste of home. Meaghan then left to go home, and Anna and I watched Planet Earth in bed until we fell asleep.

The next day, I got up early to finish my presentation, and then Anna and I went to Parc Guell. We took a picnic lunch, so once we got there, we sat on a bench overlooking the main part of the park, eating delicious sandwiches, pears, and chocolate. We then walked around the park and quickly headed home so I could go to Spanish class. I arrived to Spanish just barely on time, and gave my presentation. It ended up going much better than I expected, considering how much time I spent on it, but since I was talking about a subject I knew a lot about, I was able to wing most of it. After class, I came home, started packing for Amsterdam, and then went to a futbol game! It was FC Barcelona vs. Valencia. I went with a bunch of my GSE friends, and it was an amazing experience. We put on facepaint, and it was such a huge game that almost the whole stadium was full. Lauren and I wanted to catch the metro before it closed at 12 (and I still needed to finish packing), so we left early and unfortunately did not get to see Barca score. Apparently the game got really good after we left, and I am sad that I didn’t get to hear the famous GOAL! yell, but it was still a fun experience. I then came home, met up with Anna at the metro (she had been hanging out with Meaghan), and then packed. Once I finished packing, Anna and I watched another episode of Planet Earth, and fell asleep.

It was a whirlwind of a week, but still so fun. It was nice having Anna here during my most stressful week because although I couldn’t devote my entire time to her, she gave me motivation to finish my work quickly so I could still enjoy myself. It was amazing having her out here, and so nice to see a familiar face from Berkeley.

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Comments

[carlitos]

hey
havent talked to u in a while how u beeen