Barcelona, Spain

Hola! So after 4 years of Spanish education, I finally got to use it! Unfortunately, the official language of Barcelona is actually Catalan, but mostly everyone still spoke Spanish. I would have never thought I could get by with what I knew, but after living in Rome off about 100 words in Italian, I felt like I was fluent in Spanish. Plus, we apparently spoke well enough that people responded to us in Spanish, whereas in Rome they usually just start speaking back in English. Romans we have decide are very much like New Yorkers, thy have a thicker accent, they loathe tourists, and they identify as Romans not Italians. Barcelona was a very unique and exciting place. Guadi is the artist responsible for most of the architecture in the city, and he has a very crazy and unique style: modernisma. Everything is very colorful and eccentric looking, but it fits in very well with the city. I had an amazing time! It reminded me a lot of Paris, similar city feel with lots of architecture, art, shopping, and food, only it was much more Bohemian instead of "in style" and much cheaper, which was a very good thing for me!

Well, we got in on Thursday night and arrived at our lovely hostel. We knew there was some sketchiness going on when it turned out the hostel was named something different than it had been listed online. Instead of "Omni House" we were apparently stay at "Buba House" (pronounced booba). Our rooms had everything we needed: beds. In our room, the window had apparently been broken by the wind, so instead we had a plastic garbage bag, but no worries, it was hot and it wasn't accessible to anyone from the outside, it actually looked into the bathroom. So when it was hot at night and we opened the window, we could also see directly into the bathroom which proved quite interesting, especially when guys went into pee, and then looked directly in our room. It was quite entertaining, whenever the light turned on in the bathroom we would just hit the floor so as not to cause any awkward situations. Ahhh, hostels. It was alright though, clean and in an amazingly good location. We got up Friday morning and strolled down Las Ramblas. This is the major street in Barcelona, filled with vendors, flowers, and street performers. About halfway down is La Boqueria, which is this huge produce market. We haven't seen fresh fruits and veggies in a very long time. Mensa (our cafeteria at the JFRC) is not to big on freshness or anything other than pasta pomodoro (pasta with tomatoes). So we were pretty damn excited. I purchased a Pintahaya, which is this crazy fruit with a pink leafy outside and a white kiwi-like center. Not bad, and also kiwi juice! Yum!!! After wandering about for a bit, we headed to the Placa to meet up for our bike tour. Yeah for Fat Tire Bike Tours Barcelona!

Okay, so really I haven't ridden a bike in a long time, we stopped at the beach and got Cava (catalan sparkling wine), and the streets were super narrow and crowded. Probably not the best combination. We just rang our little bike bells and hoped people got out of the way and cars didn't hit us :-). Our tour guide was a young american guy, and all the people on the tour were about 20, so we had a lot of fun. The tour was very informative, but delivered with a good dose of college humor. We met some guys from Columbia University, and some girls traveling with Disney on Ice!- I was super jealous of them. The tour covered all the basics. As we had discovered, Barcelona was pretty proud of itself, and did not like that it is a part of spain, apparently it used to be its own county and kind of wishes it was again. Blame Ferdinand and Isabell who united Castil (Spain) and Catalunya, who's castle we saw by the way. We got to sit on the steps Christopher Columbus was greeted on! We also got to see some really cool Guadi architecture, including the infamous Sagrada Familia church. It is this crazy church with extreme detail that looks like it's melting. He worked on it until his death, but left plans for the church's completion, so they've been working on finishing it, but it will probably take at least 50 more years!! It is enormous and can be seen from everywhere in the city. In addition we passed by the Barcelona bull fighting ring, and got to ride out to the Mediterranean Sea, soo beautiful, a tad windy. We stopped out there and everyone got chickens and Cava, or me rice and Cava.

That night we decided to go to a Flamenco show! It is a type of spanish dancing, very intense with a lot of stomping and footwork. We hung out at the Flamenco club for a while and had some Sangria, because c'mon, it's spain! It was quite tasty, a blend of wine and fruit. Afterwards, we headed to a tapas bar. Spain is famous for tapas, little plates of appetizers essentially. Very scrumptious as well. It was a very long and crazy, but fun day. On Saturday we took things a little slower, revisiting La Boqueria and traveling up Park Guell, a famous park designed by Guadi. After this we visited the Olympic village, which was exteremly impressive. They had constructed parks, a huge pavillion, towers, and the "magic fountains" in honor of the games, on top of a hill above the city. Torino had not gone all out like this. We hung out there and saw the fountain show at night with lights and smoke and music. After, we headed back to the center of the city to pick up some Subway and Sangria to take home. We are super desperate for American food by now! Apparently there was some pretty extereme rioting, we were kind of oblivious. We saw the armed cars, police, and helicopters, but we were too focused on Subway to really be too concerned. If you want an entertaining read, this is what we were in the midst of: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4818180.stm (mom you probably shouldn't). We had an amazing time, and while we didn't stay up too late, we did leave our hostel at 5:30 am on Sunday and may I just stay, still mobs of people on the street- craziness. Anyways, back in Rome for now. Interesting update, my Calcio team won their first game ever last Wednesday!!!! It was quite the exciting event, the entire school was pretty shocked. Only about 6 weeks left here, than back to the real world. Miss you all! Ciao-ciao!