Yikes!

So, I was talking to my mom last night and she said that I really needed to update this thing! Which is completely true - ever sine Barcelona, we've gotten busier and busier with school. In fact, classes are now OVER! I just have an exam on Wednesday and I need to finish up a final paper - and do all the other work I haven't completed, yet. Nuts!

I do still want to update you guys on what has happened, so I'll start with where I left off and make new posts as I complete assignments! A win-win situation!

Barcelona

Although I'm glad I went to Barcelona with the group, it was a huge money-drain. We had to buy overnight train tickets, book a hostel, and pay for all of our food. And, honestly, I much prefer Madrid and the other places we've visited. Why? The Catalán is one thing - I didn't feel like I was practicing my Spanish (and I wasn't, actually, since we spoke English with each other). Also, the city is not as "friendly" as Madrid. What do I mean by that? It's very, very touristy and thus has a lot of pickpocketers. Although nothing was stolen in our group, a few people did lose some very important belongings by being reckless. The train ride was awful and guaranteed no sleep because of the small compartment we were in - I did wind up flying back to Madrid with four other people the evening before. And, all the nice clubs were ~1 hour away walking, so I either didn't go out or killed my feet. Humph.

But, it wasn't all bad. Barcelona has a BEACH, for one thing, so that's where I was every day for an hour or two. I got a great tan! (It's now gone.) Europeans, as I had heard previously, aren't much for modesty. Most of the men were in speedos and a huge proportion of the women were topless. No big deal, right?

We also did some sightseeing. We visited two very unique monuments designed by someone we had talked about in class (Antoni Gaudí): Sagrada Familia and Casa Milà.


(My pictures weren't very good, so this is from Wikipedia). You'll notice that it's still under construction - although work began in 1882, it's not expected to be completed until 2026 due to a halt in construction during the Spanish Civil War, which began in 1936.


(Also from Wikipedia) This "house" was originally built for a wealthy couple.

We also visited Parque Güell, a huge garden/park also designed by Gaudí. We hiked uphill for 436 steps (I counted), then we discovered they had a tourist escalator a block away from where we started. Oh well. I have pictures of this one!

It's so green!


Archways/the tunnel
More neat architecture (my captions are so creative today..)

The main plaza.

Me in the park, photo-bombed by John.

We wanted to see the lit-up fountains that night, so we had to kill some time and eat dinner. The group split up (it's impossible for 20 people to agree on a place to eat, and also, a good portion of our group simply likes to eat McDonalds wherever we go). After a lot of wandering and getting lost, we found a random Catalán restaurant owned by a Chinese family. One of the girls in our group is from China, so they spoke Chinese and she was able to tell us about all the items in the menu. It was a lovely dinner, definitely one of the highlights of the trip. When we exited at ~9:30 (the fountains were from 9-11, I believe), we saw huge blue streaks across the sky - picture Superman, or something. My camera isn't very good, but here's the best I've got:

Turns out it was leading the way back to the fountains - how thoughtful.


This picture is TILTED (so sad!) but it is a good representation - basically the colors and shape/size of the water varied (and was constantly changing). At one point they had classical music playing along, which was nice.

View up-close.

Okay! That concludes my trip to Barcelona. So, I'm caught up until June 6 - go me! I'll try to crank out another update today after I get some work done. Also, I'll be home in 6 days (my birthday!!). I can't wait!

I'll leave you with a panorama of the city: