It has been a very busy week here at 'Nacio 18' (our apt.) with beautiful sights, crazy nights out and more laughs than all of those combined. We started off the week with a midterm in our Spanish Civilization and Culture class... we were not too worried about it. It is completely opposite from home where we would be up ALL night in Love Library stressing, studying and not sleeping over midterm week. Nope, not here. We began our 'study group' Monday night at about 8:15 and studied all the way until 8:34 when we were over it. The exam ended up being pretty easy, and we all felt good about it. We came home and I worked on a 20 minute oral presentation I had to give on Wednesday for my Cross-Cultural Management Class. It happened to be really interesting and I actually enjoyed spending ALL DAY working on it. I was determined to finish the presentation so we could go out that night.
We got ready and had some friends over at our apartment before we all went out. The thing that is a pain about going out on week nights (which has become a very prevalent event) is that the metro closes at midnight... but the clubs don't open until 2. Therefore, you either have to go to a bar for two hours before-hand and stay out until 5 a.m. when the metro re-opens. We rushed to make the metro on Tuesday night and took it, once again, to Pipperment (remember, the bar that serves two liter mixed drinks) and met up with about 10 other friends there. We all hung out there until about 1:30 before heading to Up & Down, yes, again. (We tend to go back to places we have fun at... and where Kyke throws his parties). So we danced all night at up and down and met a lot of great people (and by 'great people' i mean hot guys). Talked to the German doctor again, who wants to hang out this week
I'm loving life in Barcelona, and the boys are definitely somewhat of a factor in that. haha.The next day, I successfully gave my presentation and did the whole 'school thing' all day. We tried to go to a football (soccer) game that night, but we weren't going to be able to all sit together so we ended up having a relaxing night at home. Thursday.... oh Thursday! What a day this was about to be! Ash and Dionne left for Madrid that morning and Noelle and I went to class and then, you guessed it, went to the GSE office to hang out with our favorite people in the whole world, Julia and Jordan. We spent about an hour there and headed out on a quest for 'Mt. Tibidabo'. Ok, maybe it's not a "quest" per say, but we knew the two of us would have quite the adventure reaching the top. With that said, the metro/train/bus/funicular ride to the top was more forms of transportation than I would have hoped to take in a matter of an hour, it's all about the experience right? (That's what I tell myself when things aren't as great as I had hoped for)
Mt. Tibidabo is a 488m mountain that overlooks the entire city. It is one of the few places in the world where you will find a gorgeous cathedral just a couple of feet from a 'fun-fair'. But, believe it or not, that is exactly what is up there. The cathedral, named Sagrat Cor or Holy Heart is a magnificently designed neo-gothic church with one cathedral literally built on top of the other. It is stunning, and we went on a really foggy day so the view and pictures are eerie and made us feel like we were in a horror movie. The inside of the church was breath-taking with the most colorful murals on the walls and ceilings and we enjoyed just sitting there and watching a ton of kids on their field trip sing along to a woman on a guitar. That made the long trek up there all worth it. The amusement park was kind of open, but there was no one up there, so we had lunch at a tapas bar and made our way back down.
I must have been completely delirious on the way home, because I got us lost TWICE. We laughed it off, until we realized we only had about an hour to relax before we had promised to meet our friends at Champagneria (our favorite place) at 7 p.m. We made it, we always find a way, and went to Champagneria for some delicious tapas and cava. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it is ALWAYS a good time. We happened to run into these guys that we had met last time, but they brought two more friends with them this time and we all had so much fun. We took a ton of pictures and I really hit it off with this guy Alex, who was really cute, and Noelle liked his friend Ivan. We ate, drank and talked with them until the place closed at 10 and then all of our friends, and the guys went back to our apartment to get ready for the night. The guys went home to change and planned to meet us at Sutton, a club, at around 2. However, Noelle and I needed to catch the metro by twelve. So after RUNNING to the metro stop, not too unusual considering we are almost always running 'fashionably late', we made it on (after I chucked Noelle in at the very last minute that the doors were closing). We were determined to get there before the metro stopped.
We still had two hours until we had to be at the club and so we sat on a park bench on Diagonal (a main street), drank some beers (you can drink in public here, and we are cheap), spoke only in Spanish to each other (don't ask me why) and people watched for a while. About an hour, and some very interesting people later, we headed to Sutton where we met up with friends and danced at the club. Knowing we had quite a long day on Friday, we decided to call it a night at about 3.
We woke up just in time (at 10:30 a.m.) for the Picasso/walking tour (at 11:00) Friday morning. We literally hopped out of bed and left, not the way I would have chosen to do it, but we made it and that's what matters. We met our group on Las Ramblas and began the walking tour throughout the gothic part of the city, ending the tour at the famous Picasso Museum. The tour was great, especially because I LOVE that part of the city. There are so many cafes and shops on these narrow alley-ways and no matter how tired or drained you are, you can't help but enjoy the hell out of it. That is my main goal for the next two months is to spend more time in this part of town.
We arrived at the Picasso Museum and stopped at a small restaurant to get some tapas that were displayed on the surface of the bar, screaming our name so loud that we had to stop and get a few. We took a tour through the Museum of all Picasso's work, the majority of which he himself donated in 1970, occupying five medieval mansions on the street. Picasso was particularly fond of Barcelona (who wouldn't be?) and lived in Catalunya for some time; which is why Barcelona is such an ideal place for his museum. The most intriguing part about the museum is that most of the work is from his early years (as early as nine years old) and one is able to see what an amazing artist he was at such a young age. The coolest part for me was seeing his sketch books because they showed him just messing around, as any artist would, but probably never expected anyone to see. We watched as the paintings progressed, as well as his fast-paced mind, into what Picasso is so widely known for today. By the end of the museum, the paintings were stunningly beautiful and extremely different, to say the least.
Noelle and I hurried home to pack for our weekend in Costa Brava with five of our girlfriends from the program. What a journey this was. From metro, to the two and a half hour train, then 15 minute bus ride and then a ten minute cab ride we finally made it to the little beach town of Empuriabrava by 9:00 p.m. Our friends Melody, Chloe, Heather, Maureen and Elyse had already been there all day because they didn't want to do the tour so we checked into our hotel/apartment and all went out to dinner. They brought us to this place they had wanted to go to, it was Melody's birthday, called 'Dolce Vita', an Italian restaurant right on the beach. We had a wonderful dinner consisting of us all passing our food in sync to the right throughout the whole dinner so we could all have a little of everything. We finished dinner and headed out to some bars.
Let me preface this by saying that Empuriabrava is a VERY small beach town. The entire town is built on canals, much like Venice, and it is 'the place to be' in the Summer. However, we aren't exactly in Summer yet, so the town was, well, desolate... empty... the complete opposite of Barcelona. There were seven of us girls, and we made our own party. We started at one bar, we were the only girls there, got waay more attention than we would have liked, had a drink and left. We found this really really cool discoteque/bar with all these couches, a dj and an amazing atmosphere. I felt like I was in an ikea catalog to be quite honest. haha. We had such a fun time all dancing together to the (very European) techno music.
It had been such a long day so we slept like babies that night. The next day we slept in and went to lunch at an outdoor cafe on the beach called 'Orange Kiwi'. The beach was only a two minute walk from our hotel and the weather was a perfect 75 degrees. After lunch we went and got frozen yogurt... first time in Spain thus far! It was really good (duh)... complete with nutella (God's gift to women... you have to try it) and strawberries. We spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and walking around town admiring the canals and houses. We decided to make a big dinner in our apartment that night and hang out at the hotel until we went out. We relaxed for a couple hours (the whole weekend consisted of relaxing, it was amazing) and we all made dinner: baguettes and brie, pasta with vegetables and wine. It was delicious and then we played some games and headed out for the night. We went back to the fun bar we were at the night before and hung out there all night. It was nice being able to go out somewhat earlier than usual.
We pretty much did the same exact thing on Sunday: Orange Kiwi, yogurt, beach. We tried going to Cadaques, which is like the best town in Costa Brava, but literally the entire world shuts down on Sundays, so we were out of luck. It was such a nice, relaxing weekend getaway in a beautiful town with all the girls. We love these girls and are so lucky to have such great people in our program. We took the train home that afternoon and were happy to be back at our humble abode.
So here we are now, almost at our two month mark and I am more excited than ever for the next two months. We are traveling every weekend to seven different cities throughout Europe together, and then 3 weeks of traveling with the family, and I can't wait. I have definitely seen the vast majority of Barcelona, but hope to revisit some of my favorite places as well as continue to seek out new ones. I am constantly surrounded by people who love life as much as I do and we are taking in this experience one day at a time, just like I had hoped for. So, an incredible two months have passed us by but I whole-heartedly believe, THE BEST IS YET TO COME...
