After 5 long days, it feels SO good to be back in Barcelona. Home sweet home, haha. For 7 more days at least.
Wednesday morning we woke up at the crack to catch our train to Madrid. It was a 3 hour ride on a high speed train. I tried to sleep, but it was pretty uncomfortable. It was very smooth but the seats seemed worse than airplane seats. I've decided that if I ever travel for a job in the future I need to find a way to not be a bear that whole day, haha, because any sort of travel by train/plane/automobile just takes it out of me. We stayed in Hotel Regina in Madrid which was in a really nice part of town. I stayed with Katie and Molly this time so we would be able to check out early together on Friday. Our room was really cool, but the wood floors squeaked a lot. Anyway, we dropped our luggage off right when we got there Wednesday morning around 10. Our purpose for visiting Madrid last week was to see the different PhotoEspaña exhibits, which are a huge deal in Spain. Photographers from all over the world have displays all throughout Madrid it's all privately sponsored so there's no advertisements or anything to distract from the exhibits. Our first exhibit was located on a rooftop terrace of a museum right across the street from our hotel and it was all about clouds and the skylines of Madrid. It was really cool. Our second was in the same building and it was El Arte de la Luz, which was neat because he didn't even use pictures sometimes to create his photographs. We saw a few more exhibits then had lunch. After lunch, we stopped by an exhibit on the way back to the hotel called Calves & Thighs. It was...interesting. The nudity still continues to shock me. The artist, Juergen Teller, has done a ton of high fashion stuff and then he just has crazy shocking stuff with himself as the subject. After this exhibit, I think Marcel noticed we were all kind of drained and let us loose for the day. After getting our rooms situated, a group of us went out to watch the Spain World Cup game. Sadly, they lost 0-1. They played like crap too. We all went back to take a nap before the South Africa/Uruguay game. We found a cute irish pub to watch that at and feasted on more food than we've seen the entire trip and watched our team lose again. We were all rooting for South Africa this time. They lost 0-3.
Day 2 of Madrid started with some crazzzzzyyyyy dreams and some excellent breakfast. Thank God for complimentary breakfasts at hotels. Our first exhibit was my favorite of all that we went to. The photographer was actually a professor from MIT and he was studying the art of movement. My favorite was the photo of the golfer swinging.
The second exhibit we went to was about time. I didn't get very much out of this one. Also, there were scary dark rooms with odd photo displays that I got followed into twice by older men. One time DJ and I were in a room together and this man dressed in all black came up behind us and ran his hand over the projector really slowly. It was so freaky. It doesn't sound like it but it was pitch black and we could barely see the guy. After this exhibit, Marcel walked us around the nice part of Madrid and we walked through streets that had all sorts of designer brands up and down the streets. One thing I noticed about Madrid was the amount of Range Rovers, Mercedes, and Audis there were! I saw so many TTs. Still my dream car, haha.
After lunch we went to the Prado museum for a few hours. It was cool to see the actual Las Meninas but I literally have 0 appreciation left for art at this point. I can only look at so many crucifixes and not get bored.
After the Prado we watched the Mexico game in our room with some of the girls and got ready to go out. On our way to Kapital, we stopped by McDonalds to have some dinner. Seriously...first time in 5 years I've eaten at McDonalds. But it doesn't count since I'm in Spain, right? It was delicious. I feel like a terrible human being. Kapital ended up being AWESOME. It's a 7 story discoteca in Madrid and they were having a promo for a new whiskey. We got free hats, sunglasses, flowers for our hair, shirts, and a free drink. AND we got in for free. It was awesome. After hanging out on the rooftop terrace for a while, we went down to the second floor and did some karaoke, haha. Me and some of the girls sang No Scrubs by TLC. I never realized how repetitive that song is until then. We did awesome though! Then we checked out the first floor, which had some pretty awesome dancers on platforms. By awesome I mean ridiculously sexy. In Spain, dancing is weird because only boys dance with boys and only girls dance with girls. So after a while of just standing in a circle with no one approaching us, we went to the second story where more Americans and danced there for a little while. We left at around 3 because Katie, Molly and I had to be up at 7 to check out of the hotel and catch our train to Granada.
Friday morning we woke up, ate breakfast, checked out of the hotel, and caught a taxi to the train station and left ourselves just enough time to be comfortably early. The train ride from Madrid to Granada was about 5 hours and unfortunately we had the awkward seats on the train that face the row in front of it so the whole way I had to be careful not to knock knees with the (of course) abnormally tall man sitting across from me. When we were pulling into the Granada train station, I was a little worried that it was looking a bit like Mexico. But I was mistaken! The Granada train station is just a little sketchy but nothing else is! Granada is b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l! But really, that train station is dumb. They don’t even have maps there. We had to get directions from the people to a tourist center to get a map. Luckily we found it okay. After getting the map and finding where our hostal was, we went and checked in. Hostal Costal Azul was so cute! Our room had a bed and a pull out couch and we had our own bathroom! It was perfect.
After getting settled, we met up with Katie’s 2 friends from back home, Lisa and Miranda, who are studying abroad in Granada. We watched the USA World Cup game at a bar and it was so cheap. First of all, we got free tapas with a round of beer. That NEVER happens in Barcelona. Second of all, the beer was SO cheap! And the alcohol content was way higher than I’m used to. Now I understand why Carson was always telling me how cheap everything was…Southern Spain is much cheaper than Northern Spain. While we were at the bar, Marcel called us to make sure we had gotten there safely. That made us all feel really good, haha, knowing that he was still looking out for us. After the bar, Lisa and Miranda took us to the “tienditas”, which are little shops they discovered that sell lots of handmade things. They were soo cool. I got a purse and a coin purse and some bracelets. I might have splurged a little but it was so much better than all the dumb souvenirs that Barcelona has. After splitting ways for dinner, we met back up at 9:30 to see Alhambra. Unfortunately, we missed our time to get our tickets so we just played around with the different lights they had on the buildings.
The next morning after Molly and I got some breakfast, we met up with Lisa and Miranda again to go get piercings but the shop was closed! It was frustrating but I loved walking around and seeing the city. Katie and her friends were going paragliding that afternoon so Molly and I went up to Alhambra and walked around what we could without actually going inside. Then, we decided to go up Sacremonte to see the caves and Granada from up high. We walked as far as we could and then got scared and turned around, only to find an old Italian man and a young German girl behind us. We decided to follow them and the old man ended up being really nice. He was from Sicily and had been a tour guide at one point and now he’s a painter. He showed us the restoration of the wall on the mountain and pointed out the old parts and the new parts. We never could figure out what the two of them were doing together because the girl barely spoke but we stayed with them until we got down to the town part of Sacremonte and skeedaddled away from them as soon as we could. We got some amazing pictures though! We went back to the hostel and waited for Katie, Miranda and Lisa to get back before splitting some croquettes and calamari for dinner.
Sunday morning we checked out of the hostal and met with Lisa and Miranda to take taxis to the bus station so we could get to the beach. The beach was about an hour and a half away from Granada and it was a gravelly beach instead of sand, which ended up being nice because it got really windy while we were there and there weren’t any sand tornadoes or anything. It did get a little unbearable though after a while...the whole rocks being thrown on us/it got really cold. So we ate lunch and headed back to the bus station. Unfortunately I was not feeling well at all so the bus ride back I just tried to relax and think positive thoughts. My head was killing me. I’m going to have to figure some things out when I get back home for sure. We walked back from the bus station and by the time we made it back to the center of the city, it was time to say bye to Miranda and Lisa. I’m so happy we were able to meet them. They were so sweet and such good tour guides, haha. Molly, Katie and I grabbed our luggage from the hostal and hit up Haagen Daas for some ridiculously overpriced crepes and then headed to the train station. An old man and old woman helped us get to where we needed to go. They were so nice. We made it there safe and sound and killed some time. When we were walking to our train car, we passed all these people with their windows open and we could see their beds and we got SO excited. When we realized that we only had normal seats for the entire ELEVEN hour ride, we were beyond disappointed. It was by far the worst 11 hours of my life because every hour or so the train stopped and picked up more people and they were loud and we were right by the door, which was also loud. Thankfully we were all together and we weren’t facing the row in front of us again.
We arrived in Barcelona this morning at 10. I think we were all ready to get off that dumb train. This week all of our projects are due so I feel like we’re all going to be stressed to the max. 7 days until I’m home!
Granada's ambulances have the same sound that American ambulances use. It's surprising what makes me miss home, haha.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Pre-Madrid/Granada
Sunday seems like forever ago. I honestly don’t even remember what I did. I beached! That’s right...gettin' all brown n stuff. (Side note: crazy lady started early AGAIN second night in a row. I’m totally fine with that, better 11:30 at night than 4 in the morning) Then, that evening a group of us got some delicious €1,88 bottles of white wine and saw the Magic Fountain show at Montjuïc! It was beautiful! Katie knocked a baby to the ground and we all took jumping pictures in front of the fountain. It started at about 9:30 and lasted until 11:30, but we left about 15 minutes early because we all wanted gelato/crepes. On our way back in the subway, a guy tried to pickpocket Austin. Molly and I were behind the group on the escalator and a shady looking group of guys were in-between us. We had just made a comment about how they looked so suspicious when Molly saw one of them reach his hand into Austin’s pocket. She started yelling at him that he was being pick pocketed and the guy pulled away. They actually followed us to our train, but I gave them the evil eye and they left. Or something like that. Then, after getting back to Resa, I was able to talk to Carson for a few hours on Skype. By few, I mean a lot. By a lot, I mean 6.
Monday, Molly, Katie and I attempted to change our train tickets so we could go straight from Madrid to Granada. It was a fruitless attempt. Apparently we needed the original credit card to make any changes and that was in the hands of Lynn, who arranged all our travels for the trip. We contacted Marcel who contacted Lynn who told us she wouldn’t be able to help us until today at 7. We needed some retail therapy so we stopped by H&M on the way home. That evening, we had our last city class and I was able to talk to my fish camp partner, James for a long time! (shoouutttt outttttttt) It was sooo good to catch up. We hadn’t talked in forever.
Today, I got mail from my mom! Which they delivered to the wrong room again, but that means I got it in the morning from Bridget which made my morning so much better. Then, we got to go to the beautiful Park Güell. I’ve been looking forward to going for the LONGEST time. It seemed like we’d never get there. First of all, when you get off the subway, there are just stairs and stairs and stairs. It’s like a stairway to heaven basically. It just goes on and on and on. You think I’m being excessive, I’m not. There were A LOT of stairs. So we finally got to the top and went to a cool little rock mountain thing with some crosses on the top. It was cold and overcast at first but by the afternoon the sun was shining and it was absolutely beautiful. We were able to go to the Casa Museu Gaudí, where he lived for 20 years, and saw different things Gaudí designed and his “bed”. Which I doubt was his actual bed. Then, in the plaza part of the park, Marcel gave us a photo project that I just could not handle. It was about depth of field and having a shallow and a deep narrow of field. I could get one but not the other. I even had to switch to manual focus and it was just a complicated mess. I eventually just gave up because I wanted to be able to enjoy where I was. I still probably didn’t take as many pictures as I wish I could have. Oh well. I was able to get Carson something that I think he’ll like and I got myself a pretty ballin’ Park Güell flipbook.
After our walk, we went to Que Pasta! and had lunch. Then, I went to Decathlon and got a duffle bag for the trip tomorrow. Now I don’t have to stuff EVERYTHING into my backpack/don’t have to rewear anything.
In photo class we all discussed and got critiqued on our ideas for the photo project we have to present next week. I told Marcel about my volume idea and he seemed to like it. So hopefully on the train tomorrow or this weekend I can think about other things that I can take pictures of that go along with my 'volume' thing. It was rough relating it to Barcelona but I think I sounded pretty convincing, haha.
After class, a group of us met Lynn to get our tickets changed, which ended up only costing us €14! For dinner, we stopped at a Greek restaurant and I had falafel for the first time! It was so good. And it was in pita and had this delicious sauce. I’m so glad I tried it. After walking home, I booked our train tickets coming back from Granada. Overnight, 11 hour train ride. Check. Should be interesting. I get back Monday morning at 9!
Just 12 more days until I’m back in the great state of Texas!
Monday, Molly, Katie and I attempted to change our train tickets so we could go straight from Madrid to Granada. It was a fruitless attempt. Apparently we needed the original credit card to make any changes and that was in the hands of Lynn, who arranged all our travels for the trip. We contacted Marcel who contacted Lynn who told us she wouldn’t be able to help us until today at 7. We needed some retail therapy so we stopped by H&M on the way home. That evening, we had our last city class and I was able to talk to my fish camp partner, James for a long time! (shoouutttt outttttttt) It was sooo good to catch up. We hadn’t talked in forever.
Today, I got mail from my mom! Which they delivered to the wrong room again, but that means I got it in the morning from Bridget which made my morning so much better. Then, we got to go to the beautiful Park Güell. I’ve been looking forward to going for the LONGEST time. It seemed like we’d never get there. First of all, when you get off the subway, there are just stairs and stairs and stairs. It’s like a stairway to heaven basically. It just goes on and on and on. You think I’m being excessive, I’m not. There were A LOT of stairs. So we finally got to the top and went to a cool little rock mountain thing with some crosses on the top. It was cold and overcast at first but by the afternoon the sun was shining and it was absolutely beautiful. We were able to go to the Casa Museu Gaudí, where he lived for 20 years, and saw different things Gaudí designed and his “bed”. Which I doubt was his actual bed. Then, in the plaza part of the park, Marcel gave us a photo project that I just could not handle. It was about depth of field and having a shallow and a deep narrow of field. I could get one but not the other. I even had to switch to manual focus and it was just a complicated mess. I eventually just gave up because I wanted to be able to enjoy where I was. I still probably didn’t take as many pictures as I wish I could have. Oh well. I was able to get Carson something that I think he’ll like and I got myself a pretty ballin’ Park Güell flipbook.
After our walk, we went to Que Pasta! and had lunch. Then, I went to Decathlon and got a duffle bag for the trip tomorrow. Now I don’t have to stuff EVERYTHING into my backpack/don’t have to rewear anything.
In photo class we all discussed and got critiqued on our ideas for the photo project we have to present next week. I told Marcel about my volume idea and he seemed to like it. So hopefully on the train tomorrow or this weekend I can think about other things that I can take pictures of that go along with my 'volume' thing. It was rough relating it to Barcelona but I think I sounded pretty convincing, haha.
After class, a group of us met Lynn to get our tickets changed, which ended up only costing us €14! For dinner, we stopped at a Greek restaurant and I had falafel for the first time! It was so good. And it was in pita and had this delicious sauce. I’m so glad I tried it. After walking home, I booked our train tickets coming back from Granada. Overnight, 11 hour train ride. Check. Should be interesting. I get back Monday morning at 9!
Just 12 more days until I’m back in the great state of Texas!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Bilbodventures
Well, I’m back from Bilbao! Unfortunately it rained pretty much the entire time we were there. I absolutely loved it though. Bilbao was everything I wanted Barcelona to be and more. It was charming and there was a beautiful river running through it and it was totally surrounded by mountains. Gorgeous. We left early Wednesday morning and ended up sitting in the airport for what seemed like forever. We got on the plane, I fell asleep, and basically 2 seconds later we landed. I think it was maybe a 45 minute plane ride. So not bad at all. We had a man waiting for us when we landed (VIP, nbd) who took us in a (party) bus to our hotel, which was about 30 minutes away.
Hotel High Tech was right next to the theater in Bilbao and about a 30 minute walk away from the Guggenheim! It just celebrated its 100 year anniversary last year and it had wooden floors and a spiral staircase. It was SO cute. The rooms were awesome. There were two twin beds with CLEAN SHEETS, a ballin’ shower complete with water jets and 2 shower heads, and cable TV. I felt extremely pampered. Once we got settled in our rooms, we met Marcel for lunch at a tiny little restaurant by our hotel. Another beautiful thing about this excursion was that most of our meals were paid for. So basically everyone completely pigged out at these meals and didn’t eat any other time. After gorging ourselves, we had a little time in the hotel to nap and get ready for our walk and prepare our notes for the things we had been assigned to talk about. Well, it started raining…hard. And since Marcel wasn’t feeling too good he postponed the walk until later in the evening. After more napping and more relaxing, we tried again and went regardless of the rain. It wasn’t going to stop so it was pointless to not go. Everyone wanted to see the city anyway. We ended up going to a brand new public space by a cool architect and saw a comic book exhibit. Again, I was shocked by the nudity and the lack of discretion when it came to these comics. There were some pretty graphic ones, haha. (Pun intended.) When we left there, it had finally stopped raining so we were able to see the part of the city we were supposed to see Friday. It’s all very different from Barcelona. Bilbao is MUCH cleaner, smells better, the people seem nicer and take better care of themselves and generally are better looking, and it seems to have more greenery, which feels more comfortable to me.
On our walk we visited one of the plazas and had a quick photography lesson on shutter speed. We had to take a picture of the fountain with moving water and still water. It was frustrating at first but once I got it, I was so excited! We made it back to the hotel and after showering and reading for a little bit, I passed out. It was SO nice to be in air conditioning again.
The next morning we got free breakfast from the hotel, so everyone had at least 3 plates from the breakfast buffet. I had 4, I’m not even going to lie. Nutella croissants, potato and egg quiche, scrambled eggs, and coffeecoffeecoffee. Mmm. Best breakfast on the trip so far. We were on our own for lunch on Thursday, hence the gluttony. The Guggenheim was the only thing on the agenda, so after breakfast we walked across the bridge and saw the other side of the city and visited the Gugger. It started raining almost as soon as we got there but I was so glad it held off as long as it did. That was the only time we were outside that it wasn’t pouring on us. We had from 12:30 to 5 to explore the Guggenheim, which was the perfect amount of time.
The first exhibit we went to were these HUGE, tree sized metal shapes that you could walk through. It’s hard to explain. They were very ominous, I thought, but someone I was with said they thought they were peaceful.
There was also a room of paintings and sculptures. My favorite painting was one that the artist, Yves Klein, had painted naked women and had them roll around on a canvas. So it was just blue paint smeared on a huge white canvas. That artist died at 34 from a heart attack. I’m sure that wasn’t drug related.
Next, the entire second floor was dedicated to Anish Kapoor, who designed The Bean in Chicago, which pretty much everyone knows about. His big thing is art that doesn’t require the artist’s hand. So there was an entire room filled with what looked like concrete poop that he had designed a machine specifically to make these weird concrete designs. They were interesting but literally…he almost titled the exhibit something to do with poop according to the commentary. There was also an entire room of mirrors, which was a lot of fun. Some of them were on the walls, some were rectangular, some were huge. It was really cool to see what would happen to you the closer you got and stuff. One of them made you look upside down until a certain point, then when you got closer you looked right side up. It was odd. My favorite thing though was one that had to do with pregnancy. It was on a wall and when you looked directly at it, you saw absolutely nothing, but when you stood perpendicular to it, there was a HUGE bump on the wall. It was nuts. Also, one of the bigger rooms had cannon in it that shot wax onto the wall in the corner. Because “the corner is culture” or something like that. We were actually able to see the museum worker fire the cannon. It wasn’t as exciting as we were hoping it was going to be, but it was still cool to see some dude load wax into a cannon and shoot it at a wall. Probably won’t ever see that again..
After we saw the cannon, we met to go to lunch. I tried really hard to not eat but gave in and bought a cheap sandwich, which turned out to be DELICIOUS. After some lunch, we headed back to the Gugger and finished out our time on the first and third floors. The third floor was meh…lots of junk art and paintings which aren’t my fav.
After the museum, most of the girls went on a mission to find warmer clothes. Barely any of us checked the weather before we left and we regretted that decision immensely when the temperature dropped to about 15°C (whatever that is in F…it’s COLD when it’s raining and you’re in shorts and a t shirt). Katie, Bridget and I lucked out and found a warm-ish sweater thing for around 8€. It was perfect. After chilling out at the hotel for a little while, we met for dinner with Marcel. Before we sat down, we stopped by a place to get some pintxos, which is basically Bilbao’s version of tapas but it also reminded me of an amuse-bouche . They were basically just bite-sized appetizers. At the restaurant, our waiter had paw prints tattooed on his neck and when he smiled, it looked like he had no front teeth but it was a classy place. I got the risotto, which I thought would be good since they make it on the Food Network all the time! Well, it was bland and kind of gross. When everyone saw the portions of our food, the waiter just laughed at us. Let’s just say Katie got four raviolis. Four. We were disappointed. So we made up for it with wine, and apparently were cut off by Marcel after 3 bottles, haha. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for him. I can only imagine how embarrassing we must be. After dinner, a group of us wanted to go out so we walked around until we found a nice little reggae bar, haha. It was nice and…relaxed…so it worked out, haha. We called it a night after seeing the dance off between a dredlocked man and a granny looking woman, which was pretty hilarious.
The next morning, breakfast pigout #2 occurred, this time complete with cheesecake. Yes, there is even dessert for breakfast in Spain. They don’t skimp. We met for 10:30 to check out of the hotel and then went to the Cathedral. As beautiful as it was and as cool as it was to hear the story of the Cathedral, I feel like they’re all the same in every city I visit. I always feel so cold and empty inside them because they’re all so massive. We also visited the biggest market in Europe that is currently undergoing what looked like MAJOR construction so it was probably smaller than La Boquiera. Still cool though, kinda fishy. It was pouring the entire time that we walked around and I was incredibly happy when we stopped in a restaurant for lunch after just 3 hours. Lunch wasn’t that exciting. I didn’t want to deal with fish bones anymore and my only other option was chicken, which I generally hate. Yep, still hate it even in Spain. It was worth a shot.
After lunch we had about an hour of free time, so of course the girls went shopping. First Corte Ingles, then Sephora, then H&M. At 5:40 we left the hotel and met the (party) bus to go back to the airport. It was raining pretty hard so our flight was delayed about an hour and after spending many hours in the airport we finally made it back to Barcelona at about 10:30.
Marcel warned us about being too comfortable feeling and being too lenient with our stuff and just let us know we still needed to be careful and aware of our surroundings. Well, on the subway home a guy tried to steal from Vincent. I saw the aftermath, him snatching his hand away from Vincent once he figured out what was happening. It was kind of scary. They were obvious about it but I just can’t believe it happened right after Marcel said something. It’s a good thing he did though because we were all on our guard.
Bilbao was absolutely beautiful. I’m so sad it rained so much while we were there but it was still so much fun. The city was incredibly easy to maneuver around, which I liked a lot. I never once had to pull out a map. Once we walked it once, I felt good walking around on my own. I felt safe and so clean. I always feel dirty in Barcelona. I can’t wait to see what Madrid and Grenada are like.
Hotel High Tech was right next to the theater in Bilbao and about a 30 minute walk away from the Guggenheim! It just celebrated its 100 year anniversary last year and it had wooden floors and a spiral staircase. It was SO cute. The rooms were awesome. There were two twin beds with CLEAN SHEETS, a ballin’ shower complete with water jets and 2 shower heads, and cable TV. I felt extremely pampered. Once we got settled in our rooms, we met Marcel for lunch at a tiny little restaurant by our hotel. Another beautiful thing about this excursion was that most of our meals were paid for. So basically everyone completely pigged out at these meals and didn’t eat any other time. After gorging ourselves, we had a little time in the hotel to nap and get ready for our walk and prepare our notes for the things we had been assigned to talk about. Well, it started raining…hard. And since Marcel wasn’t feeling too good he postponed the walk until later in the evening. After more napping and more relaxing, we tried again and went regardless of the rain. It wasn’t going to stop so it was pointless to not go. Everyone wanted to see the city anyway. We ended up going to a brand new public space by a cool architect and saw a comic book exhibit. Again, I was shocked by the nudity and the lack of discretion when it came to these comics. There were some pretty graphic ones, haha. (Pun intended.) When we left there, it had finally stopped raining so we were able to see the part of the city we were supposed to see Friday. It’s all very different from Barcelona. Bilbao is MUCH cleaner, smells better, the people seem nicer and take better care of themselves and generally are better looking, and it seems to have more greenery, which feels more comfortable to me.
On our walk we visited one of the plazas and had a quick photography lesson on shutter speed. We had to take a picture of the fountain with moving water and still water. It was frustrating at first but once I got it, I was so excited! We made it back to the hotel and after showering and reading for a little bit, I passed out. It was SO nice to be in air conditioning again.
The next morning we got free breakfast from the hotel, so everyone had at least 3 plates from the breakfast buffet. I had 4, I’m not even going to lie. Nutella croissants, potato and egg quiche, scrambled eggs, and coffeecoffeecoffee. Mmm. Best breakfast on the trip so far. We were on our own for lunch on Thursday, hence the gluttony. The Guggenheim was the only thing on the agenda, so after breakfast we walked across the bridge and saw the other side of the city and visited the Gugger. It started raining almost as soon as we got there but I was so glad it held off as long as it did. That was the only time we were outside that it wasn’t pouring on us. We had from 12:30 to 5 to explore the Guggenheim, which was the perfect amount of time.
The first exhibit we went to were these HUGE, tree sized metal shapes that you could walk through. It’s hard to explain. They were very ominous, I thought, but someone I was with said they thought they were peaceful.
There was also a room of paintings and sculptures. My favorite painting was one that the artist, Yves Klein, had painted naked women and had them roll around on a canvas. So it was just blue paint smeared on a huge white canvas. That artist died at 34 from a heart attack. I’m sure that wasn’t drug related.
Next, the entire second floor was dedicated to Anish Kapoor, who designed The Bean in Chicago, which pretty much everyone knows about. His big thing is art that doesn’t require the artist’s hand. So there was an entire room filled with what looked like concrete poop that he had designed a machine specifically to make these weird concrete designs. They were interesting but literally…he almost titled the exhibit something to do with poop according to the commentary. There was also an entire room of mirrors, which was a lot of fun. Some of them were on the walls, some were rectangular, some were huge. It was really cool to see what would happen to you the closer you got and stuff. One of them made you look upside down until a certain point, then when you got closer you looked right side up. It was odd. My favorite thing though was one that had to do with pregnancy. It was on a wall and when you looked directly at it, you saw absolutely nothing, but when you stood perpendicular to it, there was a HUGE bump on the wall. It was nuts. Also, one of the bigger rooms had cannon in it that shot wax onto the wall in the corner. Because “the corner is culture” or something like that. We were actually able to see the museum worker fire the cannon. It wasn’t as exciting as we were hoping it was going to be, but it was still cool to see some dude load wax into a cannon and shoot it at a wall. Probably won’t ever see that again..
After we saw the cannon, we met to go to lunch. I tried really hard to not eat but gave in and bought a cheap sandwich, which turned out to be DELICIOUS. After some lunch, we headed back to the Gugger and finished out our time on the first and third floors. The third floor was meh…lots of junk art and paintings which aren’t my fav.
After the museum, most of the girls went on a mission to find warmer clothes. Barely any of us checked the weather before we left and we regretted that decision immensely when the temperature dropped to about 15°C (whatever that is in F…it’s COLD when it’s raining and you’re in shorts and a t shirt). Katie, Bridget and I lucked out and found a warm-ish sweater thing for around 8€. It was perfect. After chilling out at the hotel for a little while, we met for dinner with Marcel. Before we sat down, we stopped by a place to get some pintxos, which is basically Bilbao’s version of tapas but it also reminded me of an amuse-bouche . They were basically just bite-sized appetizers. At the restaurant, our waiter had paw prints tattooed on his neck and when he smiled, it looked like he had no front teeth but it was a classy place. I got the risotto, which I thought would be good since they make it on the Food Network all the time! Well, it was bland and kind of gross. When everyone saw the portions of our food, the waiter just laughed at us. Let’s just say Katie got four raviolis. Four. We were disappointed. So we made up for it with wine, and apparently were cut off by Marcel after 3 bottles, haha. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for him. I can only imagine how embarrassing we must be. After dinner, a group of us wanted to go out so we walked around until we found a nice little reggae bar, haha. It was nice and…relaxed…so it worked out, haha. We called it a night after seeing the dance off between a dredlocked man and a granny looking woman, which was pretty hilarious.
The next morning, breakfast pigout #2 occurred, this time complete with cheesecake. Yes, there is even dessert for breakfast in Spain. They don’t skimp. We met for 10:30 to check out of the hotel and then went to the Cathedral. As beautiful as it was and as cool as it was to hear the story of the Cathedral, I feel like they’re all the same in every city I visit. I always feel so cold and empty inside them because they’re all so massive. We also visited the biggest market in Europe that is currently undergoing what looked like MAJOR construction so it was probably smaller than La Boquiera. Still cool though, kinda fishy. It was pouring the entire time that we walked around and I was incredibly happy when we stopped in a restaurant for lunch after just 3 hours. Lunch wasn’t that exciting. I didn’t want to deal with fish bones anymore and my only other option was chicken, which I generally hate. Yep, still hate it even in Spain. It was worth a shot.
After lunch we had about an hour of free time, so of course the girls went shopping. First Corte Ingles, then Sephora, then H&M. At 5:40 we left the hotel and met the (party) bus to go back to the airport. It was raining pretty hard so our flight was delayed about an hour and after spending many hours in the airport we finally made it back to Barcelona at about 10:30.
Marcel warned us about being too comfortable feeling and being too lenient with our stuff and just let us know we still needed to be careful and aware of our surroundings. Well, on the subway home a guy tried to steal from Vincent. I saw the aftermath, him snatching his hand away from Vincent once he figured out what was happening. It was kind of scary. They were obvious about it but I just can’t believe it happened right after Marcel said something. It’s a good thing he did though because we were all on our guard.
Bilbao was absolutely beautiful. I’m so sad it rained so much while we were there but it was still so much fun. The city was incredibly easy to maneuver around, which I liked a lot. I never once had to pull out a map. Once we walked it once, I felt good walking around on my own. I felt safe and so clean. I always feel dirty in Barcelona. I can’t wait to see what Madrid and Grenada are like.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Shadows/Volume/Illumination/Multiplicity
We did end up going to the ice bar! Yay for following through with plans! It was so much fun and extremely cold, of course. I got some kind of fruity drink that was “free” but you had to pay 15€ to even get it so there was nothing free about it. We were only able to stay for about 30 minutes. I was wearing sandals and my feet were going numb, haha. We attempted to go to the casino after that but we found out you need your original passport to get in. Womp womp. Now we know for next week.
After being turned away from the casino, we all decided we were pretty hungry. We had seen some delicious looking paella being eaten at a nice-ish looking restaurant we we decided to stop and have a bite to eat before going back to Resa. Well, the food was good. The service SUCKED. There was a big mishap with the waiter and he brought us more food than we had ordered and then said that it wasn’t his fault and refused to take it away because he would have to pay for it. Poor Jenifer argued with him for a solid 20 minutes and he refused to do anything about it. It ended up being good food but geez…just absolutely terrible, terrible service. I guess they don’t abide by the same policies as American restaurants. The waiters don’t get tipped so they don’t care if you’re happy or not. In the end, the waiter claimed that he gave us a break by giving us the bread for free but it still was just the principle…it was a pizza, he could have taken it back.
Sunday it rained on and off all day so I literally stayed in all day and eat, slept and read. I took two naps, talked to Carson, and read Redeeming Love. I might have left once to get some food, I don’t even remember. It was kind of nice to do nothing. Oh, I did go to a Vegan restaurant for dinner, now I remember. Molly and I split a basket of bread and I got a fruit smoothie, haha. Not the best of meals.
Monday I got my package from Carson! I woke up early (on my own, no alarm, at 7:45…booya) and waited in the lobby for the UPS man. I sat in the terrace and just stared out the front windows. An hour and a half later, he walked in and I pounced on him! Everything inside the package was so incredibly thoughtful and sweet. It’s definitely going to make the rest of my time in Spain much easier. I woke Danielle up with all my excitement, so she and I went to Carrefour so she could get a fan and we both got some groceries. Probably the last time we’ll have to go since we’re only in Barcelona for another ELEVEN days. That’s it. 20 days total left of the trip. The whole time I was tried to not smile (still excited about the package), which, now that I think about it, probably just made me look weirder than smiling for no reason. Oh well.
The rest of the day was filled with nonimportant, dripdrying situations that I won’t go into detail about. The washing machines take forever and blah blah blah. Class Monday was all logistical stuff. We discussed our city projects and chose the street and plaza we’re going to do our final presentations on. Danielle and I chose the Plaça de Sant Jaume and Passeig del Born. I’m excited about these two things because: 1) the plaza is close & it’s at the end of one of the biggest shopping streets & there’s always something going on and 2) Born is where probably my fav restaurant is in Barca so yay for eating good while working on a project. We have to research these two places and try to make our presentation as visual as possible, which will be a challenge for me for sure. In business everything is so explicit. That’s why I like this trip so much…it has absolutely nothing to do with business, haha.
Today was for sure one of my favorite days by far. We woke up and met at the Parel-el Metro station with Marcel and headed over to Montjuïc, which is a hill overlooking Barcelona that has a castle on it. It was absolutely beautiful and standing on top of the castle led to some breathtaking views of the city.
We stopped by the Fundació Joan Miró. This was basically another art exhibit that I didn’t understand anything about. There was literally a painting that was an entirely white canvas with a single blue dot on it. I want to go nuts, splatter paint a couple canvases and have a building dedicated to me. That’s all it takes, right? I don’t appreciate art, apparently.
After we walked through the Olympic museum and stadium, we headed to lunch at the Palau Nacional which was SO good. I’m trying very hard to order things that I would never think of ordering at home and it worked out in my favor today. I had excellent soup that was so filling that it didn’t even matter that my Carpaccio was again kind of slimy today (it was Salmon this time instead of beef). My dessert wasn’t chocolate but it was still good and finishing with a cappuccino just makes the world seem like a beautiful place.
Lunch took about 2 hours, which I’m getting more and more used to here in Spain. I think the fact that we travel in large groups really intimidates these poor Spaniards and they just go nuts when they see us. We pretty much always get bad-ish service in restaurants and the other day at dinner they almost turned away because they didn’t have enough seating. (BS) We visited a temporary photo exhibit in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (which is inside the Palau Nacional) called Prague, Paris, Barcelona. I LOVED the photo exhibit, it was al about modern photography from 1918-1948. I wish I had written down some of the pictures I really liked so I could have looked at them now but I just loved so many. I’m always shocked at how much nudity is in them. I don’t know if it’s because I’m in Europe or what but…these pictures were all from the 20s and stuff. Weren’t people supposed to be like hella modest back then? They wore clothes from their ankles to their necks…yet they’re butt naked in all these photos. I got inspired for my photo projects and I have a couple ideas now, which I’m really excited about. I need to think about them a little more and make sure I can execute them well and not just throw them together but I’m moving in the right direction, I think. We’ll see what Marcel thinks.
After the photo exhibit we stopped by The Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, which was built for the 1929 Barcelona International Expo. It was incredible to see the differences between it and the Palau Nacional, which was also built for the expo. This was built by germans and had clean, simple lines that made a lot of really neat shadows. There was water everywhere, not fountains but just water over rocks and tile. It was interesting to see the contrast.
We finished up the day at the CaixaForum Barcelona to see the exhibit about children around the world and the Jacques Henri Lartigue photo exhibit. Both were really cool and neither was in English. There was another exhibit that I tried desperately to sneak a picture of because I want to potentially use it for my project but the museum lady kept catching me everytime I went to take the picture. I shouldn't have gone alone...I needed someone to create a diversion. Now I know for next time.
Tomorrow we are flying to Bilbao. The big deal there is the Guggenheim. We're staying in a hotel which I'm SUPER pumped about. I'm only taking my backpack though which means no computer, which means no updates, and no pictures on Facebook until at least Friday night.
After being turned away from the casino, we all decided we were pretty hungry. We had seen some delicious looking paella being eaten at a nice-ish looking restaurant we we decided to stop and have a bite to eat before going back to Resa. Well, the food was good. The service SUCKED. There was a big mishap with the waiter and he brought us more food than we had ordered and then said that it wasn’t his fault and refused to take it away because he would have to pay for it. Poor Jenifer argued with him for a solid 20 minutes and he refused to do anything about it. It ended up being good food but geez…just absolutely terrible, terrible service. I guess they don’t abide by the same policies as American restaurants. The waiters don’t get tipped so they don’t care if you’re happy or not. In the end, the waiter claimed that he gave us a break by giving us the bread for free but it still was just the principle…it was a pizza, he could have taken it back.
Sunday it rained on and off all day so I literally stayed in all day and eat, slept and read. I took two naps, talked to Carson, and read Redeeming Love. I might have left once to get some food, I don’t even remember. It was kind of nice to do nothing. Oh, I did go to a Vegan restaurant for dinner, now I remember. Molly and I split a basket of bread and I got a fruit smoothie, haha. Not the best of meals.
Monday I got my package from Carson! I woke up early (on my own, no alarm, at 7:45…booya) and waited in the lobby for the UPS man. I sat in the terrace and just stared out the front windows. An hour and a half later, he walked in and I pounced on him! Everything inside the package was so incredibly thoughtful and sweet. It’s definitely going to make the rest of my time in Spain much easier. I woke Danielle up with all my excitement, so she and I went to Carrefour so she could get a fan and we both got some groceries. Probably the last time we’ll have to go since we’re only in Barcelona for another ELEVEN days. That’s it. 20 days total left of the trip. The whole time I was tried to not smile (still excited about the package), which, now that I think about it, probably just made me look weirder than smiling for no reason. Oh well.
The rest of the day was filled with nonimportant, dripdrying situations that I won’t go into detail about. The washing machines take forever and blah blah blah. Class Monday was all logistical stuff. We discussed our city projects and chose the street and plaza we’re going to do our final presentations on. Danielle and I chose the Plaça de Sant Jaume and Passeig del Born. I’m excited about these two things because: 1) the plaza is close & it’s at the end of one of the biggest shopping streets & there’s always something going on and 2) Born is where probably my fav restaurant is in Barca so yay for eating good while working on a project. We have to research these two places and try to make our presentation as visual as possible, which will be a challenge for me for sure. In business everything is so explicit. That’s why I like this trip so much…it has absolutely nothing to do with business, haha.
Today was for sure one of my favorite days by far. We woke up and met at the Parel-el Metro station with Marcel and headed over to Montjuïc, which is a hill overlooking Barcelona that has a castle on it. It was absolutely beautiful and standing on top of the castle led to some breathtaking views of the city.
We stopped by the Fundació Joan Miró. This was basically another art exhibit that I didn’t understand anything about. There was literally a painting that was an entirely white canvas with a single blue dot on it. I want to go nuts, splatter paint a couple canvases and have a building dedicated to me. That’s all it takes, right? I don’t appreciate art, apparently.
After we walked through the Olympic museum and stadium, we headed to lunch at the Palau Nacional which was SO good. I’m trying very hard to order things that I would never think of ordering at home and it worked out in my favor today. I had excellent soup that was so filling that it didn’t even matter that my Carpaccio was again kind of slimy today (it was Salmon this time instead of beef). My dessert wasn’t chocolate but it was still good and finishing with a cappuccino just makes the world seem like a beautiful place.
Lunch took about 2 hours, which I’m getting more and more used to here in Spain. I think the fact that we travel in large groups really intimidates these poor Spaniards and they just go nuts when they see us. We pretty much always get bad-ish service in restaurants and the other day at dinner they almost turned away because they didn’t have enough seating. (BS) We visited a temporary photo exhibit in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (which is inside the Palau Nacional) called Prague, Paris, Barcelona. I LOVED the photo exhibit, it was al about modern photography from 1918-1948. I wish I had written down some of the pictures I really liked so I could have looked at them now but I just loved so many. I’m always shocked at how much nudity is in them. I don’t know if it’s because I’m in Europe or what but…these pictures were all from the 20s and stuff. Weren’t people supposed to be like hella modest back then? They wore clothes from their ankles to their necks…yet they’re butt naked in all these photos. I got inspired for my photo projects and I have a couple ideas now, which I’m really excited about. I need to think about them a little more and make sure I can execute them well and not just throw them together but I’m moving in the right direction, I think. We’ll see what Marcel thinks.
After the photo exhibit we stopped by The Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, which was built for the 1929 Barcelona International Expo. It was incredible to see the differences between it and the Palau Nacional, which was also built for the expo. This was built by germans and had clean, simple lines that made a lot of really neat shadows. There was water everywhere, not fountains but just water over rocks and tile. It was interesting to see the contrast.
We finished up the day at the CaixaForum Barcelona to see the exhibit about children around the world and the Jacques Henri Lartigue photo exhibit. Both were really cool and neither was in English. There was another exhibit that I tried desperately to sneak a picture of because I want to potentially use it for my project but the museum lady kept catching me everytime I went to take the picture. I shouldn't have gone alone...I needed someone to create a diversion. Now I know for next time.
Tomorrow we are flying to Bilbao. The big deal there is the Guggenheim. We're staying in a hotel which I'm SUPER pumped about. I'm only taking my backpack though which means no computer, which means no updates, and no pictures on Facebook until at least Friday night.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Chocolate and Shopping Adventures..
Today, we went to the Museu de la Xocolata, aka the Chocolate Museum. Our tickets were little bars of chocolate, it was so cute. It was refreshing because obviously they have to keep the chocolate cool so going from our extremely hot dorm rooms to the museum was so nice. Air conditioning never felt so good. There were a lot of chocolate sculptures that had to do with Barcelona and then there was a whole room of sculptures (I think they have a competition) of just random things like eggs and stuff. They even had The Pietà, which was incredible.
Of course the end of the museum dumped you out in a cute little cafe with all sorts of chocolates. There were chocolate lollipops, chocolate Sagrada Familias, chocolate liquers, chocolate vodka, and on and on. Chocolate everything. My own personal heaven.
After the museum, we wanted to check out a shop that I had read about online called WaWas that was supposed to have cool souveniors and whatnot. Well, they were closed becaue of Siesta. womp womp. The next mission was food...first we had to find some Dirty Turk for DJ, which was difficult because we were in the nicer part of Barcelona. Then we had to decide what the rest of us wanted to eat. We finally just went to Born which is basically a Rambla and it had a lot of nice restaurants. I had heard about one of them, Sandwich and Friends, so we ate there and it turned out to be absolutely delicious and cheap too! The next stop was a shop by the Picasso Museum that I had noted when we passed it that I wanted to see it later. We got some postcards that were ridiculously overpriced but hella cute. Then we stopped by a really cute jewelry store that had the cutest rings but none of the ones that I liked fit on my fingers...awesome. So not only can I not buy the shoes here, I can't buy the rings either. On our way back to the metro we decided to stop by WaWas again and it was open! It was not what I expected though which was kind of disappointing.
Tonight the plan is to check out the Ice Bar on the beach and then head to the casino! I wish I had brought my small camera with me so I wouldn't have to lug around my big camera everywhere but I definitely want pictures from the Ice Bar so it's coming with me.
Of course the end of the museum dumped you out in a cute little cafe with all sorts of chocolates. There were chocolate lollipops, chocolate Sagrada Familias, chocolate liquers, chocolate vodka, and on and on. Chocolate everything. My own personal heaven.
After the museum, we wanted to check out a shop that I had read about online called WaWas that was supposed to have cool souveniors and whatnot. Well, they were closed becaue of Siesta. womp womp. The next mission was food...first we had to find some Dirty Turk for DJ, which was difficult because we were in the nicer part of Barcelona. Then we had to decide what the rest of us wanted to eat. We finally just went to Born which is basically a Rambla and it had a lot of nice restaurants. I had heard about one of them, Sandwich and Friends, so we ate there and it turned out to be absolutely delicious and cheap too! The next stop was a shop by the Picasso Museum that I had noted when we passed it that I wanted to see it later. We got some postcards that were ridiculously overpriced but hella cute. Then we stopped by a really cute jewelry store that had the cutest rings but none of the ones that I liked fit on my fingers...awesome. So not only can I not buy the shoes here, I can't buy the rings either. On our way back to the metro we decided to stop by WaWas again and it was open! It was not what I expected though which was kind of disappointing.
Tonight the plan is to check out the Ice Bar on the beach and then head to the casino! I wish I had brought my small camera with me so I wouldn't have to lug around my big camera everywhere but I definitely want pictures from the Ice Bar so it's coming with me.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Second week flew by!
I think one of my favorite things about Spain so far is the amount of coins the EU feels necessary to have in circulation. There are 1,2,5,10,20, and 50 cent coins AND 1 and 2 dollar coins. Excessive. It's also confusing that the 50 cent pieces are bigger than the 1 dollar piece and the 5 cent one is bigger than the 10 cent one. And the 1,2, and 5 cent pieces are all copper.
Dorm life here is exactly the same as dorm life at A&M. Only, there's no air conditioning here so we have the pleasure of hearing everything that goes on outside. There's a crazy lady who sits in the benches across the street every night and chants for hours. Occationally she screams whatever it is she's saying at the top of her lungs and wakes everyone up in the wee hours of the morning. There are always drunk people being loud and singing at night. And someone is obsessed with a certain song that they like to play loudly every day. The same song. Oh, and someone LOVES Lady Gaga and insists on playing that loudly as well. So much for that whole quiet time after 10pm. As negative as all that was, I do like it here, haha. The bed is hard as a rock and I love it. There are built in shelves and there's plenty of space for all my stuff. It's so nice outside that air conditioning isn't even necessary. Where in Texas is that possible? And, let's face it, I'm sure at some point in my life, I've been the drunk person who was loud and woke people up.
Yesterday, we had a short walk because Marcel had a meeting in the early afternoon. We saw everything that was constructed for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, like where the judges and athletes lived and some of the gardens. We ended up in the Olympic Port, which is just past the fish on the beach. In photo class, we got all the details for our projects. One is a collection of 59 pictures with a common theme and the other is expressing something that surprised us about Spain in 5 pictures. We don't have to turn them in until the first day of the fall semester, which is a relief because a lot of people thought we had to turn our final projects in while we were still here. We finished up the week at a really interesting photo exhibit called Domestic, which was all about people and their homes.
Today was uneventful. I WOULD have gotten Carson's package this morning but no one was in the office at 8:30 to accept it. (24 hour security?? liessss) So after Danielle got back from changing her train ticket, she and I made the trek to the UPS store which isn't even on my map, haha. 2 metro rides, 2 taxi rides, and 2 hours later we were still both package-less and discouraged. Getting packages in Spain is much more difficult than one would think.
Tomorrow Danielle and I are probably going to go to Sagrada Familia. A group went today but we were on a mission, haha. Sunday the plan is still to do a wine tour and watch the bullfight so hopefully that all still happens!
Dorm life here is exactly the same as dorm life at A&M. Only, there's no air conditioning here so we have the pleasure of hearing everything that goes on outside. There's a crazy lady who sits in the benches across the street every night and chants for hours. Occationally she screams whatever it is she's saying at the top of her lungs and wakes everyone up in the wee hours of the morning. There are always drunk people being loud and singing at night. And someone is obsessed with a certain song that they like to play loudly every day. The same song. Oh, and someone LOVES Lady Gaga and insists on playing that loudly as well. So much for that whole quiet time after 10pm. As negative as all that was, I do like it here, haha. The bed is hard as a rock and I love it. There are built in shelves and there's plenty of space for all my stuff. It's so nice outside that air conditioning isn't even necessary. Where in Texas is that possible? And, let's face it, I'm sure at some point in my life, I've been the drunk person who was loud and woke people up.
Yesterday, we had a short walk because Marcel had a meeting in the early afternoon. We saw everything that was constructed for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, like where the judges and athletes lived and some of the gardens. We ended up in the Olympic Port, which is just past the fish on the beach. In photo class, we got all the details for our projects. One is a collection of 59 pictures with a common theme and the other is expressing something that surprised us about Spain in 5 pictures. We don't have to turn them in until the first day of the fall semester, which is a relief because a lot of people thought we had to turn our final projects in while we were still here. We finished up the week at a really interesting photo exhibit called Domestic, which was all about people and their homes.
Today was uneventful. I WOULD have gotten Carson's package this morning but no one was in the office at 8:30 to accept it. (24 hour security?? liessss) So after Danielle got back from changing her train ticket, she and I made the trek to the UPS store which isn't even on my map, haha. 2 metro rides, 2 taxi rides, and 2 hours later we were still both package-less and discouraged. Getting packages in Spain is much more difficult than one would think.
Tomorrow Danielle and I are probably going to go to Sagrada Familia. A group went today but we were on a mission, haha. Sunday the plan is still to do a wine tour and watch the bullfight so hopefully that all still happens!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Things just keep getting classier in Spain...
Losing my metro pass was tragic, I’ll admit. But the fact that yesterday I was ticketed for not having the correct ticket on a tram blew that out of the water. So not only did I lose my pass worth 50€ but then I had to pay 25€ or else I would have been arrested. How completely irresponsible of me. So, needless to say, I’m buying every ticket now and I will NOT attempt to sneak onto any type of public transportation while visiting Spain. Lesson learned backwards and forwards. Got it. Marcel said that in the 5 years he’s been coming to Spain, that’s only the second or third time that he’s seen them actually walk through checking tickets. Lucky me! And the funny thing is that when Molly and I sat down, I pointed out a sign that said the minimum fine for not having the correct ticket. We laughed about how much that would suck. Well, let me tell you, it sucks big time.
Monday morning we were able to go on the boat like we had planned! It was so awesome. I like how I have pictures looking down on the city from the top of Mount Tibidabo and now pictures looking from the Mediterranean Sea over the city. City class was fun at first but then Marcel took us to an exhibit that was totally in Catalan and had the MOST annoying music ever. I think it was about energy consumption. We watched this girl go through her typical day and it gave facts about the different services and stuff Catalunya offers. But still…totally different language. Music…still stuck in my head. We got a whole pamphlet about it though that’s in English and we have to write a paper about it. I’m sure that’ll make what we watched make much more sense.
Tuesday’s walk was of my favorites so far! We started at the Edifici Forum and saw the huge solar panel that I was able to take pictures of the day before from the boat, then made our way to the center of the city visiting all the big parks on the way. The parks in Barcelona are so much fun. They make their slides on huge hills and they have awesome block things that make music. Oh and huge teeter totters! I think DJ and I broke one of the 4-way teeter totters (oops). Photo class was fun and it went by fast. Marcel showed us the different sizes of pictures and then how to organize.
Today is Katie’s birthday! Right when I woke up I noticed a letter on the floor and someone had slid my mail under our door last night. I got a letter from Ashley, my old co-chair! I was so happy. After having such an emotionally draining day yesterday, it was nice to start my day like that. Our walk started at Torre Agbar and we went on a huge hunt for this drink that Marcel wanted us to try (I think it was called Tio Che?) that took us about an hour.
He bought a round for us all and we sat on a street in Pobleneu while we all tried it. It’s made from almonds that they soak for 24 hours and it looks milky and tastes like carrots. It wasn’t good or bad. I would never crave it and it left a weird aftertaste in my mouth, but I’m glad I tried it! We finished our walk and a few of us headed to the beach. Per Marcel’s suggestion, we went further than we normally do and the beach was practically empty! It was so nice. We were right next to a restaurant too that was playing Michael Jackson on repeat it seemed, so it was perfect. We stayed for about 3 hours. I got burned for the first time in the most awkward shapes. I only put sunscreen on my shoulders but I have random hand prints on my legs and my stomach…awesome, haha. We left the beach and headed to Carrefour to get supplies for our potluck we’re all having tonight for Katie’s birthday! Our potluck was DELICIOUS. Some of the girls cooked and it was probably the best meal we’ve had so far, haha. Now we’re getting ready to go out to celebrate. We asked one of the guys at the restaurant that we laid by this afternoon where we should go and he suggested Opium, so I’m sure that’s where we’ll go…and do hoodrat things.
Monday morning we were able to go on the boat like we had planned! It was so awesome. I like how I have pictures looking down on the city from the top of Mount Tibidabo and now pictures looking from the Mediterranean Sea over the city. City class was fun at first but then Marcel took us to an exhibit that was totally in Catalan and had the MOST annoying music ever. I think it was about energy consumption. We watched this girl go through her typical day and it gave facts about the different services and stuff Catalunya offers. But still…totally different language. Music…still stuck in my head. We got a whole pamphlet about it though that’s in English and we have to write a paper about it. I’m sure that’ll make what we watched make much more sense.
Tuesday’s walk was of my favorites so far! We started at the Edifici Forum and saw the huge solar panel that I was able to take pictures of the day before from the boat, then made our way to the center of the city visiting all the big parks on the way. The parks in Barcelona are so much fun. They make their slides on huge hills and they have awesome block things that make music. Oh and huge teeter totters! I think DJ and I broke one of the 4-way teeter totters (oops). Photo class was fun and it went by fast. Marcel showed us the different sizes of pictures and then how to organize.
Today is Katie’s birthday! Right when I woke up I noticed a letter on the floor and someone had slid my mail under our door last night. I got a letter from Ashley, my old co-chair! I was so happy. After having such an emotionally draining day yesterday, it was nice to start my day like that. Our walk started at Torre Agbar and we went on a huge hunt for this drink that Marcel wanted us to try (I think it was called Tio Che?) that took us about an hour.
He bought a round for us all and we sat on a street in Pobleneu while we all tried it. It’s made from almonds that they soak for 24 hours and it looks milky and tastes like carrots. It wasn’t good or bad. I would never crave it and it left a weird aftertaste in my mouth, but I’m glad I tried it! We finished our walk and a few of us headed to the beach. Per Marcel’s suggestion, we went further than we normally do and the beach was practically empty! It was so nice. We were right next to a restaurant too that was playing Michael Jackson on repeat it seemed, so it was perfect. We stayed for about 3 hours. I got burned for the first time in the most awkward shapes. I only put sunscreen on my shoulders but I have random hand prints on my legs and my stomach…awesome, haha. We left the beach and headed to Carrefour to get supplies for our potluck we’re all having tonight for Katie’s birthday! Our potluck was DELICIOUS. Some of the girls cooked and it was probably the best meal we’ve had so far, haha. Now we’re getting ready to go out to celebrate. We asked one of the guys at the restaurant that we laid by this afternoon where we should go and he suggested Opium, so I’m sure that’s where we’ll go…and do hoodrat things.
Monday, May 31, 2010
What I learned today...
DO NOT LEAVE YOUR EXPENSIVE METRO PASS IN THE SHORTS YOU INTEND TO WASH.
Because that sucker cannot handle getting wet.
Yeah, that's all that is left.
Now I get to pay for all my metro rides instead of going for free. I'm going to try to sneak on as much as possible though because I refuse to pay the 50€ I would need to replace it.
Because that sucker cannot handle getting wet.
Yeah, that's all that is left.
Now I get to pay for all my metro rides instead of going for free. I'm going to try to sneak on as much as possible though because I refuse to pay the 50€ I would need to replace it.
First weekend!
My first weekend in Barcelona was a success! After such a crazy hectic first week it was nice to slow down and be able to finally take things in.
Funniest things so far:
--The man who says "Hello! Good Morning! I see you!" everytime I pass him no matter what time of day it is.
--The man walking a ferret on a leash.
--The women who chase around the pigeons taking a crapload of pictures.
--The squeakers on La Rambla that I JUST found out can't just do that from practice...they actually have something in their mouths. What a bummer, I just thought they were talented. They sound exactly like birds, it's nuts!
--The men at the corner store who insist on playing "Sexy Chick" when we walk in, then turn it off as we're leaving.
--The announcement in 5 languages at the beach to be sure to wait 2 hours after eating before getting in the water.
I wish I had brought:
--Febreeze
--A watch
--An alarm clock
--Pictures of my peeps
--A small camera in addition to my SLR
--More adapters and one universal adapter
--A pair of flip flops that AREN'T leather for the beach
--More t-shirts
Now I know for next time I'm abroad for 5 weeks.
So Saturday a few of my group decided we wanted a little adventure so we made the trek over to Mount Tibidabo, the tallest mountain in the Serra de Collserola. There's an amusement park and a HUGE church, the Temple de Sagrat Cor, at the top. Sam, Jordan and I decided to walk up it instead of taking the tram. An hour and a half later we made it. (My butt was killing me yesterday! I was so sore!) The views were absolutely amazing. It was well worth it. After chilling at the top for a while (and creeping on a wedding that was going on inside the church), Katie and I decided to come back. We made a quick stop at H&M and then came home!
Yesterday we had a pretty chill day. A group of us went to the beach for a few hours. I bought a less loud and obnoxious pair of sunglasses. The whole green/yellow/red sunglasses thing is fine for Fish Camp but they're a little ridiculous for everyday wear...I say this now, months after buying them and wearing them all the time. So now I'm rocking the (fake) black Wayfarers. I'm getting pretty tan. The plan is to return to Texas a lovely shade of dark brown...walking outside for 4 hours everyday and spending countless hours on the beach should make that pretty easy to obtain! Later, we all came back to clean up and we went to a "Mexican" restaurant that I had read about called Margarita Blue. It was good but definitely not the delicious Mexican food we know and love back home. I got a Margarita that was no Bodega Shaker, but it hit the spot. We made a quick stop to get some gelato and crepes, then came home. We walk on the wild side here in Barcelona. Can't you tell?
Today the plan is to rent a sailboat for a couple hours and see the coast. I'm hoping everything works out! It seems a lot of times we plan for things and we have to change the plan at the last minute, but everything is more fun in Spain so it's all good. Later, we have city class and an evening walk. We were all supposed to read these packets for class today but one of them is about streets. An entire book about streets, just take a second to imagine what that's like. It's boring. And the author just thinks streets are the coolest things ever. So needless to say, I haven't finished yet and will be scrambling later to get it read before 4.
Funniest things so far:
--The man who says "Hello! Good Morning! I see you!" everytime I pass him no matter what time of day it is.
--The man walking a ferret on a leash.
--The women who chase around the pigeons taking a crapload of pictures.
--The squeakers on La Rambla that I JUST found out can't just do that from practice...they actually have something in their mouths. What a bummer, I just thought they were talented. They sound exactly like birds, it's nuts!
--The men at the corner store who insist on playing "Sexy Chick" when we walk in, then turn it off as we're leaving.
--The announcement in 5 languages at the beach to be sure to wait 2 hours after eating before getting in the water.
I wish I had brought:
--Febreeze
--A watch
--An alarm clock
--Pictures of my peeps
--A small camera in addition to my SLR
--More adapters and one universal adapter
--A pair of flip flops that AREN'T leather for the beach
--More t-shirts
Now I know for next time I'm abroad for 5 weeks.
So Saturday a few of my group decided we wanted a little adventure so we made the trek over to Mount Tibidabo, the tallest mountain in the Serra de Collserola. There's an amusement park and a HUGE church, the Temple de Sagrat Cor, at the top. Sam, Jordan and I decided to walk up it instead of taking the tram. An hour and a half later we made it. (My butt was killing me yesterday! I was so sore!) The views were absolutely amazing. It was well worth it. After chilling at the top for a while (and creeping on a wedding that was going on inside the church), Katie and I decided to come back. We made a quick stop at H&M and then came home!
Yesterday we had a pretty chill day. A group of us went to the beach for a few hours. I bought a less loud and obnoxious pair of sunglasses. The whole green/yellow/red sunglasses thing is fine for Fish Camp but they're a little ridiculous for everyday wear...I say this now, months after buying them and wearing them all the time. So now I'm rocking the (fake) black Wayfarers. I'm getting pretty tan. The plan is to return to Texas a lovely shade of dark brown...walking outside for 4 hours everyday and spending countless hours on the beach should make that pretty easy to obtain! Later, we all came back to clean up and we went to a "Mexican" restaurant that I had read about called Margarita Blue. It was good but definitely not the delicious Mexican food we know and love back home. I got a Margarita that was no Bodega Shaker, but it hit the spot. We made a quick stop to get some gelato and crepes, then came home. We walk on the wild side here in Barcelona. Can't you tell?
Today the plan is to rent a sailboat for a couple hours and see the coast. I'm hoping everything works out! It seems a lot of times we plan for things and we have to change the plan at the last minute, but everything is more fun in Spain so it's all good. Later, we have city class and an evening walk. We were all supposed to read these packets for class today but one of them is about streets. An entire book about streets, just take a second to imagine what that's like. It's boring. And the author just thinks streets are the coolest things ever. So needless to say, I haven't finished yet and will be scrambling later to get it read before 4.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
First Post!
Well as of today I have officially been here a week, which is incredibly hard to believe. Here’s a really quick breakdown of what’s already happened.
Friday:
Leaving was rough. I just felt unprepared right up until my plane left. Then, once I got on my first plane there were a few moments that the plane jumped or something and I thought I was going to die. I don’t think it was any worse than any of the other plane rides I’ve ever been on but since this whole trip was just so difficult to work out, I figured the plane crashing would have been pretty consistent with the way things had been going. Then, on the second plane from Newark to Barcelona, a woman had a panic attack (supposedly) so we had to turn around from the runway to let her off. An HOUR later, we were back on the runway. My second plane was actually a lot smaller than the first one, which had screens on every seat and plugs for your laptop. I think it was a 777? Something like that…a domestic plane with three rows of seats…huge. I got fed a lot too, so I guess Continental is doing alright these days. I remember when they quit serving meals altogether and just gave one snack. But I got a chicken enchilada (so random) which was probably 10x better than the hard as rock sandwiches they used to always give. The second plane didn’t have as good of a selection of movies as the first so I read my book and apparently the people I was sitting next to knew Khaled Hosseini, the author of the book I’m reading, which was pretty cool.
Saturday:
Since we were delayed an hour we didn’t land until about 10:15 Saturday morning, but Marcel was still waiting for us at the airport. The airport was so different than any American airport. It was a lot quieter, I think because no one was on a phone. Everyone’s luggage made it, thankfully, but we were missing a person. We all split taxis from the airport to our dorm, Resa, which is at the corner of what I thought were two pretty well-known streets but every taxi I’ve ever had here always has a confused look on their face when they hear where I need to go…which is real comforting, let me tell you. We all got settled in our rooms and met downstairs with Sam, who had arrived earlier in the week, and the Dallas plane people to get lunch. I actually didn’t eat…they went to a place close by in Rambla del Raval called Fish and Chips, but since I’m trying to save money AND I didn’t want my first meal in Spain to be non-Spanish cuisine, I didn't eat. After lunch, Sam took us through La Rambla and we got to experience the Metro for the first time. We saw Torre Agbar and shopped at the big Carrefour (Spain’s Walmart of sorts) for toiletries and electronics that people forgot to bring. I had to get a different cord for my laptop because I couldn’t fit the plug into my adapter…that whole three prong thing. But it actually worked out really well because I just use that cord for my laptop and I can use my adaptor (cause I only brought one…genius) for everything else. On the way back we stopped by Carrefour Express which is just right on La Rambla, really close to our dorm, for groceries. I got bread for my pb&js and milk (which they DON’T refrigerate in the store) and cereal for breakfast. All for only 4€! At this point I was really wishing I had brought a watch. It stays light so much longer here it’s REALLY hard to tell what time of the day it is. Marcel recommended that we try to stay up as late as we could on Saturday so we could get used to the time easiest and fight jetlag. I’m pretty sure I came back from our adventure, ate a sandwich, put a few things away in my room, and passed out at 9.
Sunday:
By this point everyone was here except for Danielle, the person we discovered was missing. We were told she came in Thursday night but no one had seen her or heard from her so we all thought that was strange. Later, we found out she was stuck in Atlanta of all places and she wouldn’t get in until Monday. So the 14 of us decided to go to the beach, which is about 15 minutes away from Resa. Molly’s College Station roommate May has been studying in Barcelona since January so she met us and took us to the beach. And conveniently she speaks Spanish so it was really easy to get around with her with us. Even though the people here speak Catalan, which is NOTHING like Spanish, but most of them know Spanish also, they just don’t like to speak it because of their history. We ate at a restaurant that overlooked the beach and most of us split a meal of the day--you get an appetizer, an entrée, a dessert, and a drink (lunch is the big meal of the day in Spain). Eating in Spain is nothing like eating in America…everyone takes their time. It also didn’t help that we had such a large group. So lunch took about 2 hours, then we finally made it to the beach, which is just breathtakingly beautiful. A few of us laid out on the beach and another group went walking around. Beaches in Spain..also very different from America. A lot of the women are topless, a lot of the men wear Speedos, and it’s not uncommon to see people on top of each other. A lot of people smoke pot on the beach and there are constant solicitors, which reminds me a lot of Cabo. Asian people trying to sell massages, Pakistani people trying to sell beer (that, according to our advisor, they store in sewers), and my favorite is the men walking by showing the tattoos they can do and the page is always open to the Playboy Bunny page. Because THAT’S what I want, how did they know?! We laid out for an hour or two then headed back to clean up for our first dinner with Marcel. We ate at La Fonda which is right across La Rambla near the plaza that Marcel lives in. We got there at 7:30 and literally were the only people in the restaurant. People started POURING in at around 9 though because that’s dinner time for them. I loved what I got except for the Carpaccio, but I had to try it. I got white wine to drink, which was delicious.
Monday:
I woke up early to run with Vincent and DJ. We ran about 30 minutes to the W Hotel, which is just right at the end of La Barceloneta, and back. Our orientation was at 10 with Marcel for classes. We got our maps and little notepads and pens and then walked over to our classroom, which is about 5 minutes away from Resa. It’s the coolest building ever. Our class is actually held in a basement of a building that looks ancient. After our walk, Molly, Danielle and I went looking for shoes for Molly because she forgot her tennis shoes and needed something to wear for our walks. But Monday was a holiday in Spain so hardly any of the retail shops were open. Molly and I tried chocolate con churros though because they look delicious in pictures but they weren’t good. Our first class on Monday was our city class and I’m pretty sure everyone had a very difficult time staying awake. It was really cool learning about the structure of the city though but I think we were all still jetlagged that staying awake just wasn't an option. Class only lasted an hour instead of the two it was supposed to be. Later in the evening, after class, we all went out for dinner at a really cheap Turkish place on Nou de la Rambla and as good as it was…it made me sick later. After dinner we played around in a garden in the middle of a block and ooohed and ahhhed because we had just talked about public spaces in city class.
Tuesday:
We had our first walk with Marcel in the morning. We have morning walks Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 10-2 and Marcel walks with purpose for sure. Our first stop was actually the gardens we had visited the night before. Then we stopped by La Boquiera, which is a market on La Rambla. The food there was incredible and it’s all so beautiful. Our walk ended at the Museu D’Historia De Barcelona, which was just all about the history of Barcelona and how it originated and whatnot. It was really cool because underneath they had all the Roman ruins still intact. Pretty much the only thing I took from it though was that they used urine to clean their clothes. After our walks, we have a break from 2-4, then we have photo class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In class, everyone was exhausted again and I’m pretty sure most people fell asleep again. I was paying attention though and I was the only one asking questions. So by the end it seemed like Marcel was purely talking to me, which got a little awkward. After class a group of us went and got gelato, which was delicious of course.
Wednesday:
I was supposed to meet DJ and Vincent to run again but when I got down there I thought they had left without me so I just went on my own. I ran towards the fish but turned around before I got too far because I didn’t want to be late for class. When I was halfway back I ran into DJ and Vincent, so I turned around and ran with them the rest of the way. Our walk was really cool because I was using the manual settings on my camera for the first time ever so even though I don’t have that many pictures, I feel like they’re cooler (maybe). We saw the Arc de Triomf and the Santa Maria del Mar cathedral and ended up at the Picasso Museum. Picasso seemed a little crazy…especially since he painted over 50 paintings of his interpretations of Las Meninas. We don’t have class on Wednesdays so a group of us had lunch at Pizza Del Born then went straight to the beach. We had to take the Metro and a Tram to get there but we did fine! I was proud of us. We laid out until like 5 or so then headed back to Resa. I had a pb&j then a group of us went to La Rambla and split a 2 liter pitcher of Sangria, which was great.
Thursday:
Our morning walk started at Casa Mila, which was designed by Gaudi. We were there for about an hour and it was really interesting all of the details that were so well thought out…even the door knobs were special. In the attic they had models of all of his buildings and all of the things that inspired him to do his arches, like the ribs of a python. The terrace was probably my favorite part. Then we went to Fundacion Antoni Tapies which was not my favorite place for sure. It all went over my head. Photo class was interesting again. We looked at examples of everything we had learned about on Tuesday. It was neat because they were pretty much all pictures taken by Marcel, so it was cool to see his interpretation of what makes a good picture. For dinner we met with the woman who arranged our excursions to Madrid and Balboa. Her office has a terrace that overlooks Mercat de Santa Caterina, which has the most beautiful roof I’ve ever seen. We had pan con tomate for dinner and just hung out until everyone got too cold and we had to go back.
Friday:
Our first day of shopping! We woke up late and had lunch…I got what seemed to be beef jerky on toasted bread. My jaw hurt so bad after chewing through it all, but it was good. It could have used some cheese. Then we hit up H&M…we were there for forever but it was HUGE so you had to stay for hours just to see everything. I got 2 shirts, a skirt, and a dress for about 30€. Then we tried Zara (I had to after learning about it in my Global Marketing class…because that’s the kind of stuff we talk about) but it was out of our price range for sure…and it wasn’t as cute. The trends here are definitely different. They wear Alladin-esque pants that look really comfortable but they’re odd looking. It’s like dressy sweat pants with a really low crotch. It’s hard to explain. We stopped by Corte Ingles so Katie could get an adaptor and then the Nike Store for Yvette, then we headed back to Resa. We had dinner in our rooms then we went to the Dow Jones Bar, which I’m in love with. We met some people from UT, go figure, and hung out with them most of the night. Danielle, Bridget and I ended up leaving right around 2 but Katie and Yvette stayed out until 5! I just don’t think I could handle that, haha.
Anyway, now you’re caught up! I’ll try to post more regularly.
Friday:
Leaving was rough. I just felt unprepared right up until my plane left. Then, once I got on my first plane there were a few moments that the plane jumped or something and I thought I was going to die. I don’t think it was any worse than any of the other plane rides I’ve ever been on but since this whole trip was just so difficult to work out, I figured the plane crashing would have been pretty consistent with the way things had been going. Then, on the second plane from Newark to Barcelona, a woman had a panic attack (supposedly) so we had to turn around from the runway to let her off. An HOUR later, we were back on the runway. My second plane was actually a lot smaller than the first one, which had screens on every seat and plugs for your laptop. I think it was a 777? Something like that…a domestic plane with three rows of seats…huge. I got fed a lot too, so I guess Continental is doing alright these days. I remember when they quit serving meals altogether and just gave one snack. But I got a chicken enchilada (so random) which was probably 10x better than the hard as rock sandwiches they used to always give. The second plane didn’t have as good of a selection of movies as the first so I read my book and apparently the people I was sitting next to knew Khaled Hosseini, the author of the book I’m reading, which was pretty cool.
Saturday:
Since we were delayed an hour we didn’t land until about 10:15 Saturday morning, but Marcel was still waiting for us at the airport. The airport was so different than any American airport. It was a lot quieter, I think because no one was on a phone. Everyone’s luggage made it, thankfully, but we were missing a person. We all split taxis from the airport to our dorm, Resa, which is at the corner of what I thought were two pretty well-known streets but every taxi I’ve ever had here always has a confused look on their face when they hear where I need to go…which is real comforting, let me tell you. We all got settled in our rooms and met downstairs with Sam, who had arrived earlier in the week, and the Dallas plane people to get lunch. I actually didn’t eat…they went to a place close by in Rambla del Raval called Fish and Chips, but since I’m trying to save money AND I didn’t want my first meal in Spain to be non-Spanish cuisine, I didn't eat. After lunch, Sam took us through La Rambla and we got to experience the Metro for the first time. We saw Torre Agbar and shopped at the big Carrefour (Spain’s Walmart of sorts) for toiletries and electronics that people forgot to bring. I had to get a different cord for my laptop because I couldn’t fit the plug into my adapter…that whole three prong thing. But it actually worked out really well because I just use that cord for my laptop and I can use my adaptor (cause I only brought one…genius) for everything else. On the way back we stopped by Carrefour Express which is just right on La Rambla, really close to our dorm, for groceries. I got bread for my pb&js and milk (which they DON’T refrigerate in the store) and cereal for breakfast. All for only 4€! At this point I was really wishing I had brought a watch. It stays light so much longer here it’s REALLY hard to tell what time of the day it is. Marcel recommended that we try to stay up as late as we could on Saturday so we could get used to the time easiest and fight jetlag. I’m pretty sure I came back from our adventure, ate a sandwich, put a few things away in my room, and passed out at 9.
Sunday:
By this point everyone was here except for Danielle, the person we discovered was missing. We were told she came in Thursday night but no one had seen her or heard from her so we all thought that was strange. Later, we found out she was stuck in Atlanta of all places and she wouldn’t get in until Monday. So the 14 of us decided to go to the beach, which is about 15 minutes away from Resa. Molly’s College Station roommate May has been studying in Barcelona since January so she met us and took us to the beach. And conveniently she speaks Spanish so it was really easy to get around with her with us. Even though the people here speak Catalan, which is NOTHING like Spanish, but most of them know Spanish also, they just don’t like to speak it because of their history. We ate at a restaurant that overlooked the beach and most of us split a meal of the day--you get an appetizer, an entrée, a dessert, and a drink (lunch is the big meal of the day in Spain). Eating in Spain is nothing like eating in America…everyone takes their time. It also didn’t help that we had such a large group. So lunch took about 2 hours, then we finally made it to the beach, which is just breathtakingly beautiful. A few of us laid out on the beach and another group went walking around. Beaches in Spain..also very different from America. A lot of the women are topless, a lot of the men wear Speedos, and it’s not uncommon to see people on top of each other. A lot of people smoke pot on the beach and there are constant solicitors, which reminds me a lot of Cabo. Asian people trying to sell massages, Pakistani people trying to sell beer (that, according to our advisor, they store in sewers), and my favorite is the men walking by showing the tattoos they can do and the page is always open to the Playboy Bunny page. Because THAT’S what I want, how did they know?! We laid out for an hour or two then headed back to clean up for our first dinner with Marcel. We ate at La Fonda which is right across La Rambla near the plaza that Marcel lives in. We got there at 7:30 and literally were the only people in the restaurant. People started POURING in at around 9 though because that’s dinner time for them. I loved what I got except for the Carpaccio, but I had to try it. I got white wine to drink, which was delicious.
Monday:
I woke up early to run with Vincent and DJ. We ran about 30 minutes to the W Hotel, which is just right at the end of La Barceloneta, and back. Our orientation was at 10 with Marcel for classes. We got our maps and little notepads and pens and then walked over to our classroom, which is about 5 minutes away from Resa. It’s the coolest building ever. Our class is actually held in a basement of a building that looks ancient. After our walk, Molly, Danielle and I went looking for shoes for Molly because she forgot her tennis shoes and needed something to wear for our walks. But Monday was a holiday in Spain so hardly any of the retail shops were open. Molly and I tried chocolate con churros though because they look delicious in pictures but they weren’t good. Our first class on Monday was our city class and I’m pretty sure everyone had a very difficult time staying awake. It was really cool learning about the structure of the city though but I think we were all still jetlagged that staying awake just wasn't an option. Class only lasted an hour instead of the two it was supposed to be. Later in the evening, after class, we all went out for dinner at a really cheap Turkish place on Nou de la Rambla and as good as it was…it made me sick later. After dinner we played around in a garden in the middle of a block and ooohed and ahhhed because we had just talked about public spaces in city class.
Tuesday:
We had our first walk with Marcel in the morning. We have morning walks Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 10-2 and Marcel walks with purpose for sure. Our first stop was actually the gardens we had visited the night before. Then we stopped by La Boquiera, which is a market on La Rambla. The food there was incredible and it’s all so beautiful. Our walk ended at the Museu D’Historia De Barcelona, which was just all about the history of Barcelona and how it originated and whatnot. It was really cool because underneath they had all the Roman ruins still intact. Pretty much the only thing I took from it though was that they used urine to clean their clothes. After our walks, we have a break from 2-4, then we have photo class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In class, everyone was exhausted again and I’m pretty sure most people fell asleep again. I was paying attention though and I was the only one asking questions. So by the end it seemed like Marcel was purely talking to me, which got a little awkward. After class a group of us went and got gelato, which was delicious of course.
Wednesday:
I was supposed to meet DJ and Vincent to run again but when I got down there I thought they had left without me so I just went on my own. I ran towards the fish but turned around before I got too far because I didn’t want to be late for class. When I was halfway back I ran into DJ and Vincent, so I turned around and ran with them the rest of the way. Our walk was really cool because I was using the manual settings on my camera for the first time ever so even though I don’t have that many pictures, I feel like they’re cooler (maybe). We saw the Arc de Triomf and the Santa Maria del Mar cathedral and ended up at the Picasso Museum. Picasso seemed a little crazy…especially since he painted over 50 paintings of his interpretations of Las Meninas. We don’t have class on Wednesdays so a group of us had lunch at Pizza Del Born then went straight to the beach. We had to take the Metro and a Tram to get there but we did fine! I was proud of us. We laid out until like 5 or so then headed back to Resa. I had a pb&j then a group of us went to La Rambla and split a 2 liter pitcher of Sangria, which was great.
Thursday:
Our morning walk started at Casa Mila, which was designed by Gaudi. We were there for about an hour and it was really interesting all of the details that were so well thought out…even the door knobs were special. In the attic they had models of all of his buildings and all of the things that inspired him to do his arches, like the ribs of a python. The terrace was probably my favorite part. Then we went to Fundacion Antoni Tapies which was not my favorite place for sure. It all went over my head. Photo class was interesting again. We looked at examples of everything we had learned about on Tuesday. It was neat because they were pretty much all pictures taken by Marcel, so it was cool to see his interpretation of what makes a good picture. For dinner we met with the woman who arranged our excursions to Madrid and Balboa. Her office has a terrace that overlooks Mercat de Santa Caterina, which has the most beautiful roof I’ve ever seen. We had pan con tomate for dinner and just hung out until everyone got too cold and we had to go back.
Friday:
Our first day of shopping! We woke up late and had lunch…I got what seemed to be beef jerky on toasted bread. My jaw hurt so bad after chewing through it all, but it was good. It could have used some cheese. Then we hit up H&M…we were there for forever but it was HUGE so you had to stay for hours just to see everything. I got 2 shirts, a skirt, and a dress for about 30€. Then we tried Zara (I had to after learning about it in my Global Marketing class…because that’s the kind of stuff we talk about) but it was out of our price range for sure…and it wasn’t as cute. The trends here are definitely different. They wear Alladin-esque pants that look really comfortable but they’re odd looking. It’s like dressy sweat pants with a really low crotch. It’s hard to explain. We stopped by Corte Ingles so Katie could get an adaptor and then the Nike Store for Yvette, then we headed back to Resa. We had dinner in our rooms then we went to the Dow Jones Bar, which I’m in love with. We met some people from UT, go figure, and hung out with them most of the night. Danielle, Bridget and I ended up leaving right around 2 but Katie and Yvette stayed out until 5! I just don’t think I could handle that, haha.
Anyway, now you’re caught up! I’ll try to post more regularly.
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