You can't be cute all the time...

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With the semester officially over, many of the people in my program headed out to do some traveling before returning home. Three of my friends (Hilary, Tori, and Maya) and I went to Barcelona together for three days.

Hilary and I left for the airport around midnight. Our flight left Athens around 3am and we finally got to the hostel in Barcelona around 6:30 or 7. The hostel people were very nice and let us hang out (and sleep) in the lounge while we waited for Hilary and Maya to wake up. Once we were all conscious and ready to go, we headed out for our first day in Barcelona!

The trip was fairly relaxed because we all wanted to celebrate the beginning of our summers. We also agreed to see as few museums as possible and absolutely no archaeology museums. We headed first to the large open air food market in Barcelona. We walked around and got snacks from a bunch of different places in lieu of lunch. We tried some interestingly liquefied meat, amazing fresh fruit and fruit juices, and some Catalan cheese. We then walked through a large park and up to a castle fortification. Along the way, we stopped for ice creams and sat watching children playing in the playground. It is highly entertaining to watch children attempt to play tetherball when they are actually too young to do so... 😊

We walked around a lot attempting to find a specific part of town for dinner, but when we got there we found out that you have to pay to get into the area before you even find a place to eat, so we went somewhere else. The Spanish food we had was really good, though, so it didn't matter that it wasn't what we hoped for.

The second day we went to see Gaudi stuff. We started off at the failed attempt for a community neighborhood (though it makes a wonderful park!) and we enjoyed another great walk through the park. We then made our way to the Sagrada Familia church, which is incredibly impressive. We went through the museum, which attempted to explain the math and science behind Gaudi's architecture, though it was a bit hard for me to follow. Suffice it to say, it was incredibly impressive. It is amazing how he was so successful at recreating natural phenomenons.

After seeing the church, we stopped for waffles and ended up hanging out and playing some bridge before continuing on our walk of Gaudi houses. We did see two more Gaudi houses before finally finding falafal for dinner. The experience was greatly improved by watching some street performers break dance out the window.

On our last day, we explored Barcelonetta and then hung out on the beach for the afternoon. It was quite relaxing and a wonderful way to hang out for the last time... We enjoyed more Spanish food at a nice little restaurant along the beach and then Tori, Hilary, and I spent another night in the airport. Tori and Hilary went off to Amsterdam and I went back to Greece.

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Photos

Sagrada Familia
the ceiling is meant to look like a forest

Sagrada Familia
all the detail work is phenomenal, these spires actually look like fruit baskets!