Since last time, we have had quite a lovely week. There are no other words to explain this week’s events besides relaxing and beautiful. Noelle and I have been flying solo (or I guess double) with Ashley and Dionne in Paris for the week and it has been kind ofnice to have the house a little quieter than usual (not to mention we are never rushing anywhere because we are both anal about being punctual). As much as we miss them, we have enjoyed the time we have spent just the two of us.
On Tuesday morning, we had class and decided that we are in love with our teacher. Haha. Not only is he good-looking, but he is so incredibly intelligent and all he does is read books on everything and he is just kind of perfect. O man. Anyways, after class Noelle and I had planned out our day and were really excited about it. We had planned to go to La Boqueria… which, little did I know, would soon be my number one favorite place in the city. La Boqueria is Barcelona’s open air food market and is known for being one of the most beautiful places in the city. They sell a widevariety of fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, eggs, nuts, dried fruit, candy and chocolate. But the thing that you really have to see to understand is the way that they display all of the produce and everything else. It is stunning and colorful and everything is so intricately placed. I will post pictures soon. But pretty much, we were just walking around with huge smiles on our face because of how great it was. They also have smoothie-like fresh squeezed juices of all different sorts for only one euro. You have no idea how much we’ve been craving smoothies!!!
We had to do a ten minute presentation for Spanish class on Wednesday on our favorite place in the city and we decided to do it on this. We took a ton of pictures and decided to walk to the GSE office from there and come back later for fruit (it’s super cheap). So we bought some chocolate to bring to Julia and Paola, and of course some for ourselves (they have the most incredible display and variety of candy and chocolate). We also bought dried fruit and nuts which were to die for! We hung out at GSE for a while and then walked back to Plaza Catalunya and went to this huge bookstore (think Borders) and looked at books for a while. This has become one of our favorite things to do We each got books in Spanish that we are going to try to read and translate. I got Peter Pan and Noelle got James and the Giant Peach. We were really excited about it. After that we found Sephora and were ecstatic! We were there for a while and then walked down La Rambla to get back to La Boqueria. La Rambla is great during the day because there are a million vendors selling everything from flowers and Barcelona items to chickens, bunnies and birds. There are also a ton of street performers that dress up in the most extravagant costumes and put on these great performances. Do what you gotta do to make a buck, right? So we bought some grapes at the market and then headed home.
We spent the whole rest of the day on Tuesday working on our power point presentation for Spanish. We were up late because of internet issues but we really can’t complain because this is the only real thing we have had to do for school yet. We woke up early Wednesday morning to practice our presentation and went to classes as usual. Our presentation went great and we were glad we went first toget it over with. We brought our Spanish books with us so that after class we could go sit at a café in town and read them. We found this really cute little café by our school and got a croissant and cafes con leches and read our books for about an hour. We had planned on going to a bar to watch the big soccer game, but by the time we got home we were so tired that we just wanted to rest before we went out that night.
Lisa came over to our apartment for our Tequila night, which we try to have every now and then, and the three of us hung out at our place before heading out to the club. Wednesday night ended up being a lot of trying to get to different places, and we ended up back home at around 1:30. You win some, you lose some.
Noelle and I woke up for class early Thursday morning, with much hesitation, and again went straight from class to La Boqueria. It was such a beautiful day and we were so happy to be out and about just taking advantage of it. We met Lisa there and we all got smoothies and fruit. Noe Noe and I tried this Organic restaurant in La Boqueria and they call everything ‘orgasmic’. The signs on their food literally say ‘orgasmic burritos’ and ‘orgasmic pizzas’. We got a kick out of it. We got the burritos, and Noelle liked it, but it wasn’t orgasmic for me and I just got fruit instead.
We trekked over to GSE again and just sat and talked with Julia for a while. She is our comfort zone. We like have to see her every couple of days to be content with our lives. After GSE we walked back to La Rambla (déjà vu of Tuesday) and Noe Noe went home because her foot was hurting and she wanted to siesta, but I really wanted to stay out so I continued walking down la Rambla, admiring the paintings being sold on the side walk as well as the many many street performers. I ended up at the port, which is like the harbor, and there are a bunch of shops and restaurants. I stopped at a little café right on the water called buen migas (which in Catalan means ‘Good Friends’) and had a café con leche and sat in a lounge chair for about an hour and read my book. There were tons of little kids playing outside in the big open space outside with their school and I loved just watching them play. I miss kids so much and was wondering how much trouble I would get in if I stole one… just kidding… but seriously.
I took the metro home… and then it broke down, so I walked back home and ended up discovering a really cute little area right by our house. I was pleased with my discovery and good sense of direction.
… I am justresuming writing from a couple of days ago and I am going to apologize in advance because this is going to be a loooong one. I have done so much in the past couple days… so sit back, relax, grab a café con leche and keep reading!
After I wrote on Thursday afternoon, we wanted to do something fun that night but not stay out too too late because we wanted to be ready for wine tasting in the morning. What else could be more fun than Champagneria? We were so thrilled because Julia said she would go with us since she had never been, so we all met at our place and headed over to, what has become our favorite hang out. I guess we weren’t thinking about the fact that it was late on a Thursday night and how crowded it would be, but honestly, we’ve NEVER seen it this crammed. I’m not exaggerating (hard to believe coming from me) that you were literally hugging the person next to you because the place was so jam-packed. It took us a solid 20 minutes just to get in there and get a spot… sounds like fun right? Well when we finally got in, we met a few really nice guys right away. They were from all over; one from Barcelona, one from the Dominican Republic and two from Argentina. We had such a great time talking with them for like two hours and it was awesome having Julia there with us. We drank our champagne, ate our tapas and once itclosed at 10:30 we went with one of the guys to this other bar in the Gothic quarter and got sangria. It was a really fun night and we were so excited for wine tasting the next day!
Our alarm rang much earlier than we would have preferred Friday morning, but we forced ourselves up and headed to meet the group to go wine tasting. The bus ride was an hour and a half but went by rather quickly by just chatting away with friends, Julia and Jordan. The Torres Winery was in Vilafranca del Penedes and has been voted the best winery in Europe for a couple years. It is still family owned and has been in the business of wine-harvesting and commercialization for over three centuries. The winery we visited is the most well known and oldest of all the Torres wineries. We began the tour with a video documenting the history and wine making process and proceeded to a little tram that drove us around the vineyards.
I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t like I had expected, and the tour itself wasn’t that interesting. The woman started the tour off by saying, in ALL seriousness, “Is anyone claustrophobic or scared of the dark?”… we all pretty much died laughing. Who starts a tour by saying that? We were all making jokes the whole time and literally laughing so hard that we were crying. Once we got off the tram, we went into a room where we tried three different types of wines, a white, blush and red. Personally, I don’t like wine, but you know I drank it anyways. We all bought stuff at the store afterwards and then headed back to the bus for the best part, group lunch.
We went to a restaurant called ‘La Casa del Conill’ which means ‘The House of the Rabbit’. This restaurant was originally built as a family home and bakery in 1812 and a family lived there and had a bakery for 184 years until turning it into a restaurant. We had our own room and a HUGE table that fit all 40 of us and looked like ‘the last supper’. It is known for serving ‘calcots’ which are a type of onion which are grilled, long and messy. We had to all wear bibs throughout our entire meal to keep from getting food and wine on our clothes! You peel the skin off the calcots, dunk them in a garlic sauce called ‘romescu’ and eat as many as you can stuff in your mouth before the second course arrives.
We were drinking wine out of ‘porrons’ again (if you remember from my first entry, its kind of like a wine bong type of thing) and Jordan showed me a while ago that if you mix sparkling water with red wine it tastes SOO much better and not like wine at all. This is my new drink of choice… you stay hydrated while getting dehydrated. Haha. Anyways, I kept making toasts at lunch with everyone and it was really funny (but then again, I always laugh at myself) and just said things like, “Here’s to good food, an amazing city, great wine and wonderfulpeople!!!” I thought it was good. 
Once the main courses of meat and vegetables came out, I was curious about the meat (and a little tipsy) and wanted to be spontaneous and try something. So I did, I ATE RABBIT!!! I still can’t believe it, but I had a bite and it tasted and looked like chicken. Everyone was so proud of me it was really cute. Lunch was a total blast and we just laughed the entire time with everyone. When we were leaving, there was a HUGE, MASSIVE porron sitting on this wooden stump in front of the restaurant and everyone, being a little tipsy, thought it would be a good idea to try to drink out of it. It literally took two people to hold the thing up and then pour it into someone’s mouth. By far the funniest thing I have seen in a really long time. People were getting the wine spilled all over them and spitting it out because we were all laughing so hard. I didn’t try it, and I’m kind of surprised too.
The bus ride home was tedious but entertaining, I’m sure you could imagine. I went on the microphone and invited everyone over to our house that night before we went out. Once Noelle and I got home, we fell right asleep and woke up around 9 p.m. All our friends, about 15 of them, came over around 11 and we all hung out here until we went out at like 1:30. It was fun having everyone over here and we went to this club called ‘Otto Zutz”. It is a 3-story club with a different theme and type of music on every floor. It wasn’t as crowded as we had expected on a Friday night, which was good and we danced and had a blast until 5:30 a.m. Needless to say, we were exhausted.
After I called my parents at 6:30 a.m. my time, and broke it to them that I am movingback to Spain after college (didn’t go over to well with mom, who told me I was just "Living la vida loca"... dad was all for it), I fell asleep until 2:30 on Saturday. I hate sleeping in that late, but I think we both know that it was much needed! Noelle and I took the metro down to Port Vell and ate lunch at an outdoor café at the harbor called “Nou Can Tipa” (no clue what it means in Catalan, my apologies) and had salad and pizza. It was mmm mmm good! There were a ton of people speaking all different languages around us because it was a very touristy part of town. We enjoyed sitting there trying to decipher all the conversations going on around us. We then walked through the harbor, admiring all the street performers and beautiful scenery. We went to the same café I was at the previous day, Buen Migas, and had cake and coffee… ate ourselves into oblivion, got sick, and had to go home. No bueno.
We watched Across the Universe at home and relaxed until Alex knocked on our door and surprised us with an amazing dinner he made. It was soo sweet because we both weren’t feeling good. He made pasta with meat pesto sauce and sautéed onions, tomatoes and zucchini. It was good. I am officially on a “No carb left behind diet.”
My friends Katie and Talia called and said they were going to this great bar called ‘L’ovella Negra’ and that it was so much fun. I was not feeling well but I reminded myself, “When in Spain.” So Alex and I took the metro to her apartment and then we all went out to the bar. We met a bunch of our friends from GSE there and we all got delicious sangria and enjoyed the crazy atmosphere. I met a really really cute German guy named Philipp who is studying at the hospital, that my school is at, to be a doctor. We talked like all night and got each others numbers. I am still talking to Abel and we have plans to hang out this week, he is really fun and such a sweetheart. I’m excited, especially to practice my Spanish.
This morning, I woke up at about 10:30 and met my friends Sarah, Nicole, Lauren, Emily and Lisa in Plaza Catalunya and we wanted to see the sights in Barcelona that we had yet to see. We walked from there to the ‘Museu d’Historia de la Ciutat’ which is one of the most famous museums in Barcelona. It is nestled in the remaining section of the old city walls. Half of it is dedicated to temporary exhibitions on Iberian and Mediterranean culture with artifacts dating back to hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
The highlight of this museum, however, lies underground where the remnants of the old Roman city of ‘Barcino’ are still in tact and have been placed in the a way as to depict the old city. The artifacts, walls and ruins are as real as can be, because they are real (duh), and make one feel as though they are walking through the Roman city way back when. It was extremely interesting and I had wanted to see this museum this whole time. However, unlike everywhere else I have been in the city, I don’t think I need to see it again.
Lisa and I were the first ones out and she took me to this café I had been DYING to go to since Jordan pointed it out on our Gothic Tour of the city. It is called ‘Caelum’ and it is in the middle of the Gothic Quarter (old Jewish quarter). There used to be old Jewish bath houses there and once the Jews were kicked out of Barcelona (hey, I’m still here!) they just built a café over it and right in it. It is one of the cutest cafés I have seen yet (that says a lot) because it looks like a little cottage inside and smells like candles. I loved it, and we just sat and had coffee for about 20 minutes while the other girls finished up and got food.
We all met up at the metro and headed out to see ‘Horta Labyrinth’. Parc del Laberint d’Horta, in Catalan, is the oldest garden in Barcelona, a clear example of late 18th century neoclassical gardens. It is a true open air museum that follows a previously determined itinerary and we were all extremely eager to see it! My initial reaction to this unreal place, besides utter amazement, was that I felt like I was in the middle of ‘The Secret Garden’… you know that movie?! Of extraordinary beauty, it holds many secrets of a long history dating all the way back to 1791.
The park spreads across 22 acres, 20 of which are landscaped. It is divided into three staggered terraces, all with a touch of Italian style. The park is stunning; Icould have stayed there all day! At the bottom level is the unbelievable labyrinth, or maze of bushes that is truly a sight unlike anything else. I felt like I was in Alice in Wonderland, especially when we literally got stuck in the maze and couldn’t find our way out without running into dead ends. It was hilarious and beautiful, all at the same time. The park was full of fountains, statues and such incredible architecture. I want to take my parents there so bad.
From the park, Lisa and I had dinner at The Hard Rock Café after craving a salad more than anything else. We had a lovely dinner and headed home which is where I am now.
All in all, it was a very productive and incredible day, and as you can tell, an even more incredible week. Whew… that was long! I think it’s obvious I’m happy here, but I am realizing more and more about myself everyday that has never been so clear to me before. I think this was the perfect time in my life to take this little adventure and see the world in a different way. If this isn’t true happiness…then someone needs to change the definition.
Todo mi amor!
