Mi Vida en España: Glimpses of my life in Spain: Barcelona!! Week 9

The highlight of this week was definitely my trip to Barcelona for the weekend (March 31-April 3) with three friends: Grace (my roommate), Alicia, and Chelsia. I was “enchanted by Barcelona” as my facebook status said upon my return. We had perfect weather the whole trip (the worst day was Sunday – cloudy, but we were just traveling home that day) which definitely made the experience wonderful.

Thursday. Our flight left at 8am so we were at our hostel by 10:30am, but weren’t able to check-in until noon so we found a coffee shop next door and sat, relaxed, and made plans for the days with our travel book and map. After checking into our hostel we went to the Picasso museum which was interesting and had Picasso’s versions of the Meninas of Velázquez which was interesting to see. After Picasso we stopped by a beautiful park to relax and eat some lunch – our sandwiches from home that we brought with us. We then ventured to the beach to take a look – how beautiful! We sat on some rocks by the water for awhile to enjoy the view and moment and allow some to finish eating. Sitting on the beach is a moment for all your senses: the beautiful site of the water, waves, sun, and sand; the sound of the waves hitting the rocks and the seagulls making their noises; the smell and taste of the salty water in the air; and the warmth from the sun with the coolness of the breeze from the water – exhilarating. After the beach we headed to the Cathedral which sadly was under some construction so we saw a lot of scaffolding which took away from some of the beauty (the postcards of it looked better :) ), but it was still fun to see. We headed back to our hostel because there was free supper at our hostel, but we found out that it was very small and very unappetizing. There was pasta that had no taste at first and as you continued it was just gross and then the pizza that Chelsia got was so greasy and not editable…sad day. Thankfully we found out in the mornings that the free breakfast was much better! That night we got ready to go out for the night – we were going to have a salsa night as we had found two places on a map we acquired that were suppose to have salsa nights. We stopped for tapas first to satisfy our disappointment with supper, but when we arrived at the first salsa place there was no people there and it was not at all what the map described. There was no place to dance, no DJ, and no people (and the map said it had all of those…). The music playing in the place wasn’t even salsa music. The next place we went to seemed a little more promising as there was salsa music playing, but again there wasn’t really any dancing. We found out that they had lessons on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and then sometimes people would dance on the weekends…it was more a bar scene instead of a dance place. Oh well, we listened to the music and talked for awhile before heading back to the hostel. Not quite the salsa night we had planned, but it worked out.

Friday we went on a free walking tour to all the buildings and works of Gaudí – that was VERY interesting and very fun! I learned SOO much about this man that is so interesting, but I don’t have time to write it all down here (I have it in my personal journal). Gaudí thought that the architecture should be an expansion of nature therefore his buildings have a very unique look to them, but a style that I really like. With this free walking tour we didn’t enter any of the buildings because that would cost money, but we were able to see the outsides of them all and learn about Gaudí and the history of them. The tour ended at the Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family) which is a Cathedral (actually it was just named a Basilica by the Pope in the summer) that was a project of Guadí, but is still not complete. The Sagrada Familia was probably my favorite part of Barcelona – the history, detail, and plans for it are amazing! It probably will not be completed for 30 or more years still (or longer?) and I would love to see it when it is completed. Guadí left many models and designs so that the project could continue after his death, but during the civil war his workshop was set on fire and it took ten years to try to gather all the information from friends and acquaintances of his and try to resemble the models. The Sagrada Family will have three sides on it: one depicting the birth of Jesus (completed), another will be the passion of Jesus (not quite completed), and the other the ascension of Jesus to Heaven (not completed). It will also have 12 towers to represent the 12 disciples, a Mary tower, and a Jesus Christ tower (the tallest and grandest). There is more too – I just can’t remember it all right now. The inside is INCREDIBLE! It has a more modern style and is a mix of white/light stone with many stain glass windows with bright colors that reflect off the white stone beautifully! It is definitely a place to see when it’s sunny outside. Also, the pillars branch out like trees in order to support the place instead of having arches (a new idea of Gaudí’s). We were able to climb and walk in one of the towers as well – what a view! Definitely a place to put on your list of places to visit!! We went to Park Guell which is also a work of Guadí and his friend Guell that was originally going to be a place where the rich could buy a piece of land to build their home, but this failed so now it is a park. You go up to the top of the park (it is on a pretty high hill) by using outdoor escalators and then work your way down. Gaudí designed the buildings and other amenities in the park such as benches and fountains and such.

Saturday we went the food market – this was another really fun experience. The COLORS!! That is the first thing you notice. It is packed with people and there is food of every type there – all fresh and delicious. We decided to buy food there for our lunch and we bought fresh strawberries, raspberries, watermelon, bread, avocado, and a cold pasta salad – it ended up being the cheapest lunch we bought. We walked toward the beach again because we wanted to see the different places where the Olympics took place in 1992 and ended up eating our lunch down there by the beach. Nothing is better than a beach side picnic with such fresh food! The area of where the Olympic water events and summer events by the beach took place was not impressive at all – we wouldn’t have even known it was there if it hadn’t said what it was on the map. :) Oh well, we saw a new game called footvolley which is volleyball, but where you can’t use your hands so you have to hit the ball with anything but your hands – very cool to watch. We also encountered a fun musical band that was playing along the beach – one of my favorite parts of Spain is all the street performers (musicians and more) – they really make the experience fun. We went to the Olympic circle and the other area that had all the Olympic things, but sadly we couldn’t figure out how to see any of them (we couldn’t get into the stadium or see the pool.) That was a little disappointing, but we did get to see the circle and climbed up to see a castle. We had the wonderful treat of seeing a magnificent fountain light show with music in the Plaza de España with the huge fountain there. It’s amazing all the shapes that you can make with water and the colors and music were great. When it was a song that people knew, everyone would start singing!! We ended the night be going to the Poble Espanyol which is a little “city” made to show all the different Spanish architecture from all the different areas of Spain. We decided to go at night because the tickets were cheaper, but what we didn’t know was that during the day there is a student discount and we regretted not going during the day because that’s when all the shops were open. It was cool to see some of the places we’ve been in Spain and how they were reflected in this village and we also had our supper there. It felt a little deserted at night though – Alicia made a good point how it felt like we were on a movie set. :)

We were pretty exhausted by the end of this trip - but very satisfied with it. We headed back on Sunday and got to Sevilla around 4:30 in order to jump right back into homework and the week. I am definitely putting Barcelona on my list of places I would like to return to! :)

This is becoming a long post and there really isn’t much to say about the past week. These next two weeks before Holy Week are crunch time for me as I have many things due for my classes here and applications for other things for St. Kate’s. I can’t believe Holy Week is right around the corner – it’s already April!