Hello Again,
I just finished my last paper yesteray and all that I have left to do is take my final exams. I finished classes Thursday and have two weeks left. This upcoming week is compromised of "special events" and study sessions for our finals which are the week after that. My finals the week after happen to all be on Monday which is nice cause then I have the rest of the week free to enjoy Perugia before I go home! : (
Well anways this past weekend my and my roommate Kara went to Barcelona Spain. We knew before we even went on Spring Break that we wanted to do one more trip out of the country as I could not afford more than that and I had no time! haha every weekend in Perugia was begininning to fill up with class trips, other planned trips and a visit from my parents. So before spring break we decided to look into going to London with a few friends but the pound is killing the dollar and it was just going to be too much money. We were going to be able to afford this trip because of a not so good airline called Ryanair, haha (I will get to that later). They have super cheap flights and some are to London for just a penny! Yes 1 penny after taxes it's about 20 to 30 Euro's but still thats a real deal for college students. Well after London fell through we decided to look into Prague in the Czeck Republic but the issue with that is that Ryan-air does not fly there so we would have to take a commercial air-line which would have cost way too much. Well at this point some of our friends were unsure what they wanted to do and were not sure if they wanted to travel to some of the other places we were looking into. So me and Kara were flying solo. At this point we realized we wanted to go anywhere in Europe, we did not care where, ahah we just wanted to travel somewhere. So after looking for the cheapest flights on Ryan-air we found one to Barcelona Spain for 1 penny! hah After it was all said and done we payed 35 euros round trip. We were pretty excited.
So here in Perugia we do not have classes on Fridays and Thursdays I only have one class in the morning which I had yet to miss, so me and Kara decided to leave April 2nd Wednesday night after our classes. The only thing was we had to get ourselevs to Rome as thats where Ryan-ar leaves out of, but they leave out of Ciampino the much smaller non-commercial airport. haha Also if you miss your flight you must buy a whole new ticket as thats just the type of airline these people are haha. You also have to pay about 20 Euro's to check your bag and therefore we carried on and could only bring a super small amount of liquids cause of the whole silly liquids rule. Well Kara had a class that got her out kind of late on Wednesday and we had to take a train to Rome which took three hours as we did not take the super expensive super fast one also that one left at a time that we could not leave at. So anyays once at Roma Termini train station we had to take a cheap bus to Ciampino but because her class got out so late we had to take a cab to the airport just make our flight, it was mad dash there and I really did not think we were going to make it! hah I was all ready to buy another ticket etc. so when we got there like an hour early I was soo happy. We made the plane and arrived in Barcelona that night, we took a hour bus ride into Barcelona city center and then got on the Metro about two stops up to our hostel. The hostel was great and clean and safe and in a really good location to everything we wanted to do. We were really tired to we went to bed ready for day one in Barcelona.
We got up and had a typical American breakfast at this place down the street it had eggs and bacon, it was great! Then we headed to Las Ramblas which is one of the biggest streets in Barcelona, it is filled with lots of shops and food and street vendors and lot of street preformers. At night is has the biggest social scene and nightlife in Barcelona. So we walked up and down that going into the open air food market which was super cool. We just walked around and took in the sites which I really enjoyed.
Now I will be a dork and give you some brief history about Antoni Gaudi of Barcelona. He was an artist and famous architect of the 1800's and his art can be seen all over the city. His stuff is super ornate and crazy and just totally unfunctional architecture but it's really cool as well. Also I learned when people use the term Gaudi or (God-e, as I thought it was pronounced! hah) that are refering to him and basically saying that person or thing is really over the top and flashy etc.
So after Las Ramblas we decided to head to La Sagrada Familgia which is the Sacred Family Church done by Guadi. It was his last work of art and is still being worked on! He designed it to be super big and ornate and therefore he knew it would take a long time to work on and that it would never be finished in his lifetime. So they are still working on it and do not estimate it to be finished untill 2020 and even then they are not completely sure if it will be ready! Crazy huh?
Next we decided to go to Park Guell (pronounced G-well or fastly it would be well I guess), this was supposed to be a community living area with a school etc. designed by Guadi and he was commissioned by Paula Guell. It never was finished and is now just a really cool park with great views of Barcelona and Gaudi's artwork. His house which he used to live in is there and alot of Mosaics and other houses done by him are there. It was really pretty and the weather was great too, it was alot of walking to get there and alot more walking once inside, but it was totally worth it!
Barcelona is a huge city and probably bigger then Rome, we were super tired after all of our walking around so we hopped on the metro and headed back to our hostel before dinner. I thought Italy started lthings late but Spain is even later, we went to dinner at around 9:30 and even then there were only a few people in the restuarant, it did not start to get full untill we left! haha I really liked Spain but was not impressed with the food, our hostel lady reccommended this place and it was just like sandwiches. They are known for Tapas which are just like Olives and bread covered with different sauces and stuff. Bascially just appetizers and stuff, I think cured meats are also big there aswell. Anways after dinner we walked around a bit then headed back to our hostel to get ready for day two.
Day two in Barcelona we decided to do a bike tour of the city as it is a really bikeable city. It was 20 euros and they took us everywhere. We saw alot of Guadi's architecture such as a set of apartment complexes he designed. We also saw an old square that has been in almost every Spanish movie ever filmed. We went through the gothic area of Barcelona which was neat, basically everything that is everything to see in Barcelona we saw it. The tour ended at Las Ramblas and me and Kara decided to do some more shoppiing and walking around there. While walking around, I got super excited for across the street I saw..... a DUNKIN DONUTS! In Barcelona! : 0 hahaha Granted it was called Dunkin Coffee and had no Coffee Coolatas and the Iced Coffee I got was not nearly the same, however it still reminded me alot of home and I really enjoyed it. Next we decided to be even more American and stop into Burger King! haha After that we walked down past Gaudi's Apartment Complexes and went inside, (we never went in on the bike tour) it was beautiful and had an unbelievable view of Spain that I never expected to be up there when I looked at it from the outside. It was probably my favorite Guadi thing I saw while in Barcelona, it was really funky and colorful, typical Guadi. It was getting afternoonish night time so we went back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. After being unimpressed with our Spanish food the night before we decided to continue our American streak and go out for some somewhat American food... Mexican! haha Our roomates had gone to Barcelona over Spring Break and reccommeneded a really good Mexican restaurant. It was 10 euros and I got rice and steak and refried beans mmm it was my best meal in Spain! haha
Day three was our last day in Barcelona and we decided to look over our guide books and maps etc. and do everything that we had not done on our bike tour. One of which was the furnicular, it was a gondola thing that took you up to this high mountain with some more of the best views in Barcelona. It was great weather and there was a cool castle like building atop it that made for some great photos. We decided to save our money and get even better views by walking down the mountain thing. It was a great walk and we definately got our exercise! haha We decided to spend the rest of the day just walking around and soaking up every last bit of Barcelona that we could! We got Sangria at this resturant and we did more shopping. We also stopped by the huge Gothic church which was totally un-Gaudi, but still wicked cool, I loved it. We ran into a mass of Spainards outside the church who were doing a typical Spanish dance which was really cool.
For our last night we decided to go to a Flamenco show which is the popular dance of Spain. Flamenco dancers wear long flowy dresses and sing Spainish songs it's really cool. We had to make the show at like 10:00 and since we spent to much time getting ready and just lying around at the hostel we were forced to have a really touristy, super over-priced and not even good dinner on Las Ramblas but we had no other options, hey you live you learn.
Anyways the story should end here specially since I have written soo much (sorry haha) but sadly it does not. We had a flight out of Gerona (the smaller Barcelona airport) at 8:20 but we had to take that hour and a half bus ride out of the city center to the airport. The only bus that worked out for us to take and get us there was at 5:40! yea so we had to wake up at like 4:30 and take a cab to the bus station then hop on a bus to the airport. I could not sleep and got a bit sick so I was up at 3:00 and woke Kara up at 4:30 to get ready. We got on the bus and made it to the airport no problems, (yet haha) super early. We checked in and got some breakfast at our gate. We waited to get on the plane and since Ryan-Air has no assigned seats we waited in a semi-line thing with everyone else to make a mad dash to get on the plane when the gates opened. However, Ryan-Air the great little airline that they are decided to cancel our flight out of the blue supposedly cause of fog?! If we had got on that flight we would have gotten to Rome at like 10:30 11, then got on the bus to the train station and make it back to Perugia at like I dunno 2:00, maybe 3? But our flight was canceled and now they had to let us out of the gate and back through to the other part of the airport. We had to wait in a line haha excuse a mass of people in a clump for about 3 hours waiting to find out what flight we could get on. Neither me nor Kara could miss classes on Monday so when we finally made it up there and they told us the only flight to Rome was the next morning and we could not take it. After lots of confusion at the airport and shear frustation Ryan-Air got us on a flight at 4:30 that day to Venice and once we got to Venice we had to get on yet again another bus to take us to the Train station. Once there we found out the only trains going to Perugia was a night train leaving at like 11:00. So we had to take a night train and make one stop early in the morning at like 5:30, 6 in a place about a hour to half hour out of Perugia. We got back to Perugia at about 7:30 showered, pounded back a few espressos and then headed to Italian class and then a full day of other classes! haha... yea, I was tired to say the least.
Overall I had a great trip to Barcelona, it was a really great city and the weather was amazing. Although we did get screwed over by Ryan-air when you pay 35 euros for a flight what else can you excpect! So yea I am really glad I got to make one more trip out of Italy as it was alot of fun. Well hope you enjoyed this super long entry! haha Here are my pictures from Rome two weeks ago and Barcelona enjoy!( Also I took some videos at the Flamenco show and they are on here as well! ) Ciao ciao and see you all really soon!
-Alyssa