Yeah, I tried to make it a play on words. Vicky Christina Barcelona was a huge hit here, and yeah I finally went to Barcelona!! (my thoughts about the movie can be discussed with you individually later if you actually care).
This past weekend, my study abroad program took us to Barcelona. Oh, by the way I hope this will be a shorter post since I literally don't have much time to write it. We all had to make our way to the airport by 8:15am Friday morning. I think there were about 20-30 of us all together. I don't think I've ever been on a plane where I know half the people already. We had to fly because driving there from Sevilla is probably more than 9 hours. I don't actually know how far it is, but on a bus from Sevilla to Madrid, it's 6 hours and that's long enough. So we arrived by 11ish, got to the hotel and immediately went on a bus tour. It was a pretty long morning, so understandably I could barely keep my eyes open on the bus. Everything was so beautiful, but I just needed a nap! But I did pay attention to the important things, so don't worry.
We drove around and saw some of the sites used at the 1992 Olympics, Montjuic--the hill overlooking the city center and the port, La Sagrada Familia--a church built by Gaudí, a famous artist/architect who died while trying to finish this last work. I'll have to put up pictures later or something, but it was unlike any church I had ever seen before. He's from the modern era, and everything was just so unusual and beautiful. We didn't get to go inside, but I took some good pictures.
Then we stopped at Park Güell, another thing inspired by Gaudí. It wasn't so much of a park, like grass everywhere and such, but it was beautifully decorated with lots of mosaics, tiles, benches, and columns, everything Gaudí-style.
We drove around a little bit more and ended up at Las Ramblas, one of the bigger shopping areas in Barcelona. It was filled with the typical stores that I've seen all over Spain (and the world) and then lots of boutiques and cafes and restaurants. We decided to go back with the bus to get to the hotel, which was so far away, and we took a nap. I understand that the program has to do things that are affordable, and Barcelona is an expensive city, and while the hotel was really nice, it was so far away from anything. That was probably my only complaint, but it wasn't even that bad of a complaint because that forced me to use the metro, which was a beautiful thing. The metro system in Barcelona is probably one of my new favorite systems. It was so easy and efficient to use, I learned it in about 10 minutes. Everything was clearly laid out, the prices weren't bad, and you couldn't really get lost. I used it a bunch of times over the weekend and it made me happy. Oh, metros.
So later that night I met up with a friend from Berkeley, who also went to my high school and who also went to my elementary school. Some of the girls in my group and I ended up meeting her and her two friends at this mexican restaurant in the center-ish area. The girls from the program and I have been dyinnnng for mexican food. It just seems non-existent in spain. Who knows why though because mexican food is so delicious! So we were all excited to eat mexican, finally. We had a super long dinner (because nothing goes fast in spain) and while the food wasn't authentically mexican, it did the job. The place was called "La Rosa Negra" which is one of the reasons I wanted to go there, just to be able to tell my friend Hilary that Dirty Dancing Havana Nights called my name in Barcelona.
Saturday morning we awoke to one of the best Spanish hotel breakfasts we've had. It was filled with all sorts of fruit, croissants, jamón, cereal, cheese, and even omlets. I don't know why I felt like sharing that with you, but it was a delicious breakfast. We continued on our day with a tour of the Palau de la Musica Catalunya, which was a music house that has been around for 100 years now and has housed many famous musicians. It's privately owned and therefore lavishly decorated to the point where I wasn't allowed to take pictures. It was filled with mosaics and stained glass windows and lights and it was super wonderful. It finally inspired me to make a mosaic something when I get back home to the states.
We went from there to a church called Santa Maria del Mar, and then had plenty of free time, where Mackenna, Flor and I walked around the Gothic quarter, stumbled upon a lomography store (which was so beautiful to me) and ended up at the Picasso museum. While most of Picasso's most famous works weren't there, we wanted to go anyway. Being in that museum was like seeing a whole different side of Picasso than I have ever seen before. His earlier works were so much different than what he turned into, and I had never studied it. So it was great to see his transition, and then my favorite room was this room devoted to one subject--he made 20 or so copies of a famous Velazquez piece called "Las Meninas" and they were more in the style of that which you think of when you think of Picasso today. It took Mackenna and I a while to figure it out, but once Flor told us, the room opened up to us in a completely new light and it was beautiful.
Later that night I went to my friend Sarah's apartment for dinner, where she and her friends cooked Mexican food!! (she was the one I met up with the night before). I was so excited to keep eating mexican food, so that's the only reason I'm writing about it right now, but it was fantastic, not only eating mexican food, but cooking together and having a great time. Then we went out to this bar called "La Oveja Negra" or the black sheep, which is one of the oldest bars in Barcelona and it was pretty sweet. Flor and Mackenna met us there, and Flor said that she had heard that people like Hemingway used to frequent the place when they were in Barcelona (which was another reason we went). So, she asked one of the waiters and he had no idea what she was talking about, so that will be a mystery to us all.
Finally, sunday was just one of those days. We had to check out of the hotel by 12, but we weren't leaving Barcelona until 5, so we walked around Las Ramblas, and for some reason, even though I am living in Spain, I forgot that EVERYTHING but restaurants are closed on Sundays. So that was so much fun. Alli and I ended up walking around the city, got some great gelato, and then found ANOTHER cheap mexican place. What a wonderful weekend for me and mexican food. We had a great time.
Okay, so that was probably more of a bland blog, and I hope you forgive me, especially because of the lack of pictures. You see, it's 12 am here and I have to wake up in about 6 hours. I wanted to make sure I wrote about this blog before I left, otherwise you never would have heard about my trip to Barcelona. But I'm sure my next blogs will be better. Tomorrow morning I am taking a high speed train to Madrid where I will fly to Paris for 4 days, then I will hop over to Belgium for two days, and then I am going to go to Prague for 4 days. This trip, as Alli and I have coined it, is called Armageddon. I don't even remember when this occurred, but as you can probably guess, while it's not the end of the world, it's the trip to end all trips. Whatever, I've got so much to do before I go, so I'm going to end this post now and go enjoy my spring break!!
Hasta luego,
Haley
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment