Barcelona!

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¡Hola a todos!

This past weekend I went to Barcelona with the Furman group. We were there 5 days, and it was a whole lot of fun! We left Friday morning around 8 a.m. (I wasn´t late this time like on our trip to Galicia!) We didn´t get to Barcelona until around 5:30 that afternoon. The bus trip wasn´t too memorable because, honestly, I basically slept the whole time! After putting our luggage up in the hotel, we took a walk with our professor to the center part of Barcelona. We were all too cheap to buy metro tickets and didn´t realized that our hotel was about 3-4 miles away from the city center, so we definitely got our exercise in! We walked by some really cool buildings that were designed by Gaudi (a famous Spanish arquitect). Gaudi once said that he would never design a building with straight lines because there were no straight lines in nature. Because of this, all his buildings are really cool! We also walked down this street called Las Ramblas. Basically it is a huge outdoor market type area where they sell everything from flowers to souveniers to animals (yes, they sell animals. There were a few roosters that were for sale too...don´t ask me who goes downtown to buy a rooster...) We also visited this outdoor market too. After walking 4 miles back to the hotel, we ate dinner and then a group of us went out to a Hawaiian bar. The drinks were really cool but also kind of expensive, so we all split them.

Saturday: We toured Park Guell which was designed by Gaudi. After that, we went to see La Sagrada Familia, which is this HUGE cathedral that was also designed by Gaudi (I´m telling you, he´s all over this city!) Construction of the cathedral began in 1883 and it is still under construction today. They say it will finally be completed in 2020. But it was kind of neat to see a cathedral being built because we always see them finished but never half way there. After seeing La Sagrada Familia, we took the bus to the Olypmpic Stadium. I also saw the Olypmpic Torch stand (if you remember the 1992 summer Olympics, it was the one where the guy used a bow and arrow and shot the flame into the torch). I love the Olympics, so seeing those was really exciting for me! We also learned that the 1936 Olympics were suppose to be in Barcelona, but they had to cancel those because the Civil War started in Spain 2 weeks before the start of the Olympics. So they had to wait until 1992 to have the Olympics there again. After the stadium, we drove to the top of a mountain where there were fantastic views of the city and the Mediterranean Sea, so beautiful! From there, we drove for about an hour to the town of Montserrat. This town is in the mountains and the views from there were incredible as well. We ate lunch there and also toured a monastery in the town. We returned to the hotel around 6:30. A group of 5 of us (including our professor, Dr. Friis!) decided that we wanted to get the full Barcelona experience, so we went out for tapas 😊 Dr. Friis has been to Barcelona 4 times before, so he knew all of the good places! I tried the famous tomato/olive oil/garlic bread of Barcelona, and we also got Catalan chicken and sausage. It was really fun!

Sunday: Thank God Saturday night we got an extra hour of sleep because of day light savings, because we had to be on the bus by 8:30 Sunday morning. We drove for about 2 hours up the coast of Spain (heading towards France) to the town of Empurias. Empurias used to be an important coastal town for the Greeks, and then after that, it was a military base for the Romans. The city is fairly well preserved, so we got to see ancient Greek and Roman ruins. After Empurias, we drove to the Salvador Dali museum. His work is so cool but really weird too! After seeing all that he did, I am convinced that he was a genius. He made a painting of Beethovan´s face using octopus ink! After this, we returned to Barcelona where we went to the Picasso museum. This was also really neat because this museum has many of Picasso´s paintings from when he was a kid. It was cool to see that he didn´t just paint weird pictures but could paint normal things perfectly as well. I was so dead after walking back to the hotel this night (again, probably 3-4 miles...) that after dinner, I just crashed.

Monday: Halloween! We had the day free, so we started out around 10:30 and went to the Cathedral of Barcelona. When Columbus brought back some Indians from the Americas, they were baptised here. Next, we walked to La Parque Ciudadella. There was a giant statue of a mammoth here (I don´t know why...) so we took our picture by it! From here, we walked down to the sea and walked along the coast until we reached the statue of Columbus. We ate lunch at a restaurant by the sea. The restaurant was really nice and the food, delicious, but when we got our bill, it was 114 Euros! Granted, there were probably about 10 of us eating there, but they charged us for crazy things like 1.40 Euros for the bread that they put out on the table. I now know that if they put out bread in Spain, it doesn´t necessarily mean that it is free! After lunch, we took an hour and a half boat ride alond the coast. We were on the boat while the sun was setting! It was absolutely GORGEOUS! Probably one of my favorite things I did while in Barcelona. We returned to the hotel, ate dinner, then had to get ready for our Halloween party that we were having in the hotel 😊 Everyone had to dress up only using things that were in the hotel room. Heather (my roommate while in Barcelona) and I decided to be upside down people! We wore sweatshirts on our legs and stuffed our pants with newspaper and put them on our heads. I thought they were relatively good costumes considering what we had to work with! Around 11, we all met up in one hotel room. It was fun seeing everyone else´s costumes. At 1:30 a.m., a group of 7 of us left to go out in Barcelona for Halloween. We took the metro down to the coast (we were NOT walking 4 miles again!) and we went to a club that was right on the water. We stayed there until 5 a.m.! We took the metro home (it opens for the day at 5 a.m!!) and got back to the hotel around 5:40ish. I then called my friends at Chapel Hill (hey, it was only 11:40 there!) because they were all going out on Franklin Street (which is where I have gone the past two years for Halloween.) I then had to pack up my suitcase. I debated whether I should go to sleep or just stay up because we had to be ready to go at 7:30. In the end, I went to sleep around 6:25 and got up an hour later. I slept well on the bus, to say the least....

So that was my trip to Barcelona! One other thing: My apartment here in Madrid is going to be under construction for the next month. This week, they are tearing up our floor, so we cannot live there. So, last night, Margarita (my señora), Azthara (her daughter), and I had to pack up our stuff and move out to live at her boyfriend´s house. It was so crazy! I came back from being out that afternoon and had to pack my suitcase for London as well as pack up my books for school and clothes until Wednesday. Also, we had to take all the stuff off the floors and tape up my closet and drawers, etc, so that dust doesn´t get in them. We covered all of the furniture with plastic wrap and moved a lot of the furniture outside to the balcony! We didn´t get finished until 11ish and were finally at the boyfriend´s house by 11:30. So now I live in a new neighborhood, but only until Wednesday. I´m going to London tomorrow, so it really doesn´t affect me too much. Construction is going to continue after that (they are working on the windows and repainting the walls) but we can live there while all this is going on. I really like Margarita´s boyfriend, though (he´s a language professor so he likes teaching me new words!) so I am fine with the temporary move.

Tomorrow I leave for London! My flight takes off from Madrid at 11:45 and arrives in London at 1:15. I come back to Madrid on Wednesday. I am staying with my friend from Furman who is studying there this semester, so it should be tons of fun!

Hope everything is going well back in the US! I miss and love you all!

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Photos

Upside down people
Heather and me wearing our costumes!