I Love Barcelona: Tourist Edition

It's been forever since I last updated! So much has been going on here and I cannot believe how quickly the time is passing by. I have about a month and a half left here, (it's the final countdown) and we're trying to live up Barcelona as much as possible. I really can't imagine leaving this place. 

Currently we are on Spring Break, but before I get to that (okay, I'm too lazy to go through all of those pictures yet) here are some really amazing things we've done around Barna in the past month:

1. El museu de Picasso: Gorgeous gorgeous museum in Barrio Gótic, which is organized chronologically through Picasso's life. They go through all of his styles, from childhood sketches to his blue period all the way to his extreme cubist phase. Very very interesting, and his artwork is really outstanding. Made me absolutely fall in love with Picasso.

2. Codorniu winery tour: Our program organized a day trip to a winery just outside of Barcelona that is known for its cava (Spanish champagne, you just can't call it that if it's made outside of France). Unbelievably gorgeous and lots of fun, especially the fast train ride that we got to take through their underground wine storage....that was cool :). We tasted two of the cava wines, which were outstanding!

3. Palau de la musica catalana: Our program got us tickets to see a flamenco performance at this famous music performance hall, designed by a modernist catalán architect named Lluís Domènech i Montaner. The architecture both inside and out is completely outstanding; often times I didn't know whether to look at the architecture or the performers. The music in this place is just beautiful. I also adore everything about Flamenco, and was so happy to be able to see another performance. This one was a bit more modern and rigid/professional than the one we saw in Sevilla, but the dance and music styles were the same. And the tapas we had on the program's money weren't bad either!

4. "Mona": Apparently, a Catalán Easter tradition. My host mom explained that godmothers are supposed to give an easter cake to their goddaughters every year, and that usually it's meant for kids and they go all out with the decorating (kind of like what we do for kids' birthday cakes). But, my host mother still gets one from her grandmother. She stressed to me like 3 times that this is a CATALAN tradition, and that they don't do this anywhere else in Spain. Oh, I'm going to miss that Catalonian pride.

5. Parc de la Ciutadella: Historically famous park in the old city, constructed over an old military compound and updated for the International Exposition held in Barcelona during the industrial revolution (which is why Barcelona has its own Arc de Triomf, which is right next to this park). Pictured is a famous fountain designed by a young Gaudí. Also has a giant statue of a mammoth....I have no idea why, but the Catalans are obsessed with mammoths? Anyways, the park is gorgeous and lots of fun to walk around. Also a huge tourist attraction.

6. ¡Força Barça!: FCBarcelona, the fútbol team here, is getting into its final competitions and things are starting to get ridiculous. We went to a sports bar to watch the Madrid-Barça game last night, which was definitely a learning experience. For one, Barcelona and Madrid legitimately despise each other. Madrid is the capital of Spain and Barcelona is the capital of Catalunya and, on top of everything, their soccer teams are huge rivals. I learned a lot of really classy cheers against Madrid, including, "Madrid burn, burn Madrid!" I can't even describe the madness when Barça scored. On my walk home after the game, people were honking and singing the Barça anthem through the streets. Soccer is such a huge deal here, especially because Barça is so good. Pictured is a window I passed by on the street, which pretty much sums it all up: the Catalonian flag, the FCB colors, and the Catalunyan independence movement flag. 

Also, apparently I really like soccer. It's so much fun to get into. Who knew I could like a sport? 

I'll wrap this post up with the beloved mamut!! Isn't he precious?

Keep an eye out for posts on Greece, France, and my last month in Spain! Hasta pronto! 

Londres: Mind the Gap

To continue my Jewro trip, this weekend brought a slightly impromptu viaje to....London!

By far one of my if not my favorite place that I have visited so far. If it weren't so cold and dark, I'd be packing up and moving there tomorrow.

For one, they speak English. We didn't get lost on the underground, not even once! I didn't expect it, but after having not spoken Spanish for 4 days I really had difficulties speaking in Spanish after coming back.

I already know that I want to go back. We spent a lot of time just seeing things, which you have to do when you first visit London. We went to Portobello Road, saw the Millenium Bridge, saw the houses of parliament and Westminister Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, etc.

One of the things we actually went into was the reconstructed Globe Theater. I enjoyed my nerdy Shakespeare moment so much. The tour was a little stupid and kitschy, but we happened to come in during a rehearsal for "Romeo and Juliet" (they have no actual shows on right now because it's too cold). I basically tuned out and glued myself to this rehearsal the whole time, taking about a thousand pictures, and could hardly contain my excitement.

 We also went to the Tate Modern, which was a little bizarre but I really enjoyed it. The picture is of their temporary display...that's not a rug, folks. That's an exhibit, of millions of individually hand crafted sunflower seeds. They also had a room of Soviet Bolshevik propaganda, which was bizarre but awesome. The museum looks out over the Thames, so we went up to the top floor and had a coffee and enjoyed the gorgeous views.

We also did the London Eye, which moves much slower than I thought it did. Not much interesting about it, other than that it's very pretty. The Spanish tourists there were extremely obnoxious.

That night we went to a pub in a nice area of London, tucked away in a hill and absolutely gorgeous. We had an amazing meal, and I take back everything I ever said about the English having horrible food. The English pub was so cute and so enjoyable. Also, they actually serve vegetables in Britain...something that we really appreciated, considering that the Spanish have no idea what vegetables are.

One of my favorite things that we did was the Tower of London, which is an old castle right by London bridge. It's gorgeous but has a gruesome history, and also includes the royal jewels and the royal armory. I adored the historic aspects and also the gorgeous old architecture. They also have these creepy ravens that can't fly so they just awkwardly hop...they've clipped their wings because there's some story that England will fall if the ravens leave the tower....iiiiiidk.

We finished up our trip with a walk through St. James park and to look at Buckingham Palace. A great way to finish up the trip...sunny and gorgeous (rare for London).











Overall, I love London. The people are so friendly and nice, everything is interesting, and I've made it a summer goal to learn about the English royalty. And their accents are wonderful :)

Barrio Gótic, Sitges Carnival, antibiotics: just another week in Barça

Trying to keep myself up for a skype board meeting, what better solution than to blog? Rewind to a few weeks ago:

1. Quiet historic plaza in the Barrio Gótic, the old historic part of the city. Just visited it for the first time a few weeks ago and absolutely love it. The roads are cobbled, the buildings are all made of stone in gorgeous old-style architecture, and there are lots of small cafés and fun stores. The walls around this plaza have holes in them because of a bomb dropped in it during the civil war (side note: the spaniards are absolutely obsessed with their civil war. Every famous book, movie, historic site...everything deals with the civil war. It's a huge deal here.)

2. Churros con chocolate- also in the Barrio Gótic are a TON of churros places. Churros are just fried dough that you often eat with this very very thick melted chocolate/hot chocolate weird hybrid drink/dipping sauce. They are very good, and are all over Spain. Needless to say, I've only had them twice and felt disgusting afterwards! 

3. Carnival de Sitges- Sitges, the costal beach town about 30 minutes by train from Barcelona. Huge art , cultural, and gay hub. We went to the Carnival parade in Barcelona and it was pretty underwhelming, but in Sitges it was absolutely insane. This picture gives you somewhat of an idea...bright floats, bizarre sequined costumes, tons of people, and lots of Rhianna (they adore her). It took us probably 2 hours to get out of the city. And that wasn't even the biggest night of Carnival for Sitges...insane.

4. Antibiotics- After enduring the coldness that was Carnival Venice and Carnival Sitges, my body just couldn't make its way through the virus I had. I had to go to the doctor and explain everything in Spanish, which was definitely an experience. Luckily my program was great about it and got me an appointment within 4 hours. I got antibiotics and, three days later, the horrible 3 week virus was over. But before then, I made sure to stock up on tissues....

I am very happy to not be sick anymore. :P

Coming up next: London! Chao amores.

Ciao, Rector Ubach

Well, I've said goodbye to the santa who leaves bread next to the microwave and the incredibly senile dog (sadly, I never thought to take a picture of the dog...). Let me tell you, it has been a huge relief.

I came back from Venice and had to push off moving day for 3 days because I couldn't talk. I was able to move at the end of the week. The housing coordinator and I made up some story about how I was offered a chance to live with Spanish students so as not to offend my previous señora. I also made sure that CIEE wouldn't put anyone with this woman again. It actually worked out pretty well; I went to a program event and didn't come home until after my señora was asleep, and woke up after she went to work. She left me a nice note and we left it at that. She even locked up the demon dog so that it would not bother me as I left. So considerate!

I am now living in the mountains, close to Parc Güell. The neighborhood is mostly residential but absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the neighborhood yet, but I love it. No matter where I look I can see mountains. I also live on the green line now, which is the main city subway line and super convenient for me. No more 30 minute subway treks to class! To give you an idea of how far up I live, here is a picture (definitely not from google...okay yah I googled it) of one of the staircases that I have to take out of the subway.



My new host mother is so much fun and very sweet. She is in her 30's and I think is kind of a hippie, and very interesting; the weekend that I moved in she actually went out of town to go snow shoeing in the Pyrenees mountains. Having grown up here, her maternal language is actually Catalán. She is always on the phone speaking in Catalán, and we watch the news in Catalán every night. Definitely going to be learning more about the dual culture for now on.


And instead of piles of bread, she gives me piles of fruit. Fantastic.

"Regresar: To come back"!

I have my computer back! And it's time to finally tackle this blog! Vale, vamos. (For those of you playing along at home, anyone catch the glee reference in the title? )

I finished off the end of February's whirl-wind Eurotour with a visit to Venice for a weekend and for the first day of Carnival. It was beautiful, crazy, and freezing. I also met up with a friend of mine from Vanderbilt while I was there, which was great and we had such a fun time.

We actually stayed at a little hotel on Mestre, the mainland, and had to take the bus into Venice. Cross the bridge and all you can see is the Grand Canal, tons of boats, gorgeous buildings, tons of people, and a sign for carnival. While walking around the island we heard just about every language, accent, and dialect imaginable.








Every street is lined with restaurants, souvenir stores, bakeries, and mask vendors. The masks are everywhere; I'm not sure if it was just because it was Carnival or if it is always like this, but literally we could not walk in any direction without passing by a thousand masks. They can range from the cheap 2 euro masks to the 450 euro designer masks. Everyone wears them, but only on Carnival (of course, the locals probably don't, but it's a big touristy thing. We found out later that the island is really huge and that the locals live in a more remote area of the island.) Naturally I bought a cheap mask which was most likely made in China, but we got to look at a lot of really gorgeous beautifully designed (and very expensive) masks!

The food was amazing too, but very expensive. I only had pasta once; apparently eating a big bowl of pasta is not really considered a normal meal...it's more of a side dish. There were touristy gelato places everywhere, which were delicious. Lots of chocolate and bakeries everywhere. And so many obnoxious American tourists eeeeeverywhere! I understand now why the Europeans have such a bad impression of Americans....most of them are ditzy, loud, and annoying.                                                                                                                                                    

The second day we were there was the actual start of Carnival, which was crazy. The amount of people in the streets was absolutely absurd...it took us an hour and a half just to walk from one end to the other. Part of the reason was the sheer amount of people, the other because of all of the crowds around street performers and people in elaborate costumes. Lots of children, too, which I didn't really quite understand considering just how unhappy they all were...seriously, we could hear children crying no matter where we went.

Luckily, my friend and I spent most of the day off of the island. We purchased water bus tickets for the day and went off to Murano, the glass blowing island. There were a lot less people on the island, which is well known but a nice break from the chaos that was Venice. The canals are lined with glass blowing factories, cafes, and gorgeous bright colored apartments. We got to see two glass blowing demonstrations for free, and had fun just walking around the island and looking around.

We also spent a fair amount of time walking into all of the various glass shops on the island. Some of the things that the people on Murano make are just absolutely extraordinary. You go into one of these shops and everything is lined with chandeliers, sculptures, jewelry, etc. I looked into a few galleries too, to see the really remarkable things that glass blowers make. Things in these stores can generally be very expensive; even a single glass bead can cost something like 1.50 euro. It was a lot of fun just to look at the gorgeous things that they make, maybe not so much on the buying side.

We took the water bus then to another, more residential island called Llito to have dinner...what ended up being the best idea all night. I was getting progressively more and more sick ever since Sevilla, so we got tea and medicine and walked around the cute little island. Everything was a lot cheaper when we left Venice. We sat down and had a pizza dinner and tiramisu at an adorable neighborhood restaurant. It was delicious!

We returned to the island at night to see the big Carnival concert. A lot of the people had cleared out by then, and the concert was insane. I was confused because it ended around midnight/12:30...so definitely not on Spanish time. We tried to talk to a few Italians for a while, which proved to be a little difficult. They can understand a mix of English and Spanish, but I had actually begun to seriously lose my voice...which brought us to turn in for the night. I left Venice very tired, very full, and not being able to voice any sound, but it was completely worth it. I'll leave you with a picture of the Venice coast line from the water boat...absolutely gorgeous.

Up next: Carnival parts 2 and 3, and moving day! Spain is not good for my immune system! Stay classy.

The planets are not aligned in my favor this week

Hola queridos,

Sigh. Unfortunately, the Spanish technology gods have claimed my laptop, my baby, pobrecito. Monday is a holiday (for no apparent reason....wat?) and the Spaniards are useless on weekends, so it might be a while until I get it back.

Until then, I'm stuck with library computers. No blog posts until next week, then! Will hopefully be able to catch up soon enough.

I'm finally switching homestays tomorrow, and am very happy to be moving out of my current homestay. No more incessant forcing of bread, no more senile dog. Hasta nunca.

Vanderbilt kids, have fantastic spring breaks, and I want to hear all about them when I get a computer back!

Ciaoooo.

So many things to blog about, parte tres: Sevilla y Cadíz

Oh my god, so much traveling this month. Finally, my whirlwind tour of February weekend trips is over. Time to recount all of it, hopefully in the spirit of conciseness. :)

Last weekend, the program took us to Sevilla, which is a major port city in the south of Spain (in Andalucía). I absolutely adore this town more than anything, and I think if I had to choose any other place to live in the world, it would be Sevilla.

Plaza Catedral, leading into the winding streets of the historic district

Sevilla is more like a pueblo than an actually city. Everyone seems to know each other. The main plaza is constantly busy, gorgeous and sunny. The buildings are bright and colorful, and have an amazing architectural mix of European and Moorish influences. A lovely break from the white and grey, thin narrow apartment buildings of Barcelona.

The first thing we did was take a walking tour of the historic district, which is a maze of tourist shops, cobbled winding roads, tapas places, and gorgeous old-style houses.The tiles to the right are everywhere in the city--they're called "azulejos", and Andalucía is known for them. This is just a small example, but every house is decorated with elaborate tiles.

The houses themselves are interesting; the bottom floor is a patio with open-air rooms bordering the patio, usually with lots of tiles, plants, and maybe a fountain. The upper floors have closed in bedrooms, studies, etc.  Very different from what we're used to, but so fun and so beautiful. You can just walk onto the porch of these houses and look into their patios...which we did.

For the Jews out there: the city has an amazing Jewish history; the historic district used to be a strong Jewish district in Spain. The streets are so windy, maze-like, and narrow (the idea, our guide said, was because windy streets without street access make it hard to find them). You can find some sort of Jewish artwork in every other souvenir store, antique store, and little boutique.

Pictured to the left is a couple of us CIEE Jewish representatives in front of an azulejo map of the old historic Jewish district.

We also visited the Sevilla cathedral, which they told us is the third largest cathedral in the world. Typical Europe...you visit a place, you have to see its cathedral. It actually used to be a mosque, so despite the obvious Euro-christian influences, the architecture is actually very moorish.

Again, it's kind of one of those things where I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it is. This pic is of the grand chapel in the cathedral. There are other chapels, including one that is curtained off and reserved for the royal family. It's a big deal.

Afterwards we climbed up the bell tower, which is called la Giralda. It used to be a main part of the mosque, before it was converted into the cathedral. To the left, the view of Sevilla from the bell tower--note the bull fighting arena (which we sadly did not get to visit) and part of the mosque/cathedral in the lower foreground.

The most amazing part of the trip for me, and probably of this whole semester so far, was attending a flamenco performance. Flamenco is a very traditional Spanish form of music and dance; it's especially attributed to Andalucía.

Flamenco is a combination of a very particular type of music, played on a Spanish guitar, with a following of rhythmic clapping and yelling from the clappers, and with the flamenco dancers. The dancing involves very impressive series of strong stomps on a wooden surface. It's very rhythmic, loud, and powerful--typical Spanish.

The next day, we took a day trip to Cadíz.  It's a beach town about an hour and a half away from Sevilla. We got to see the fortifications and beach castles built around the city. The seafood was really good, and they have lots of windy streets with little shops as well. We went up another bell tower in the Cadíz cathedral, which was beautiful to see the whole town and the sea. For those of you playing along, and who have seen Lost season 6, IT LOOKED LIKE JACOB'S TOWER (dad, I know you get that reference!)

On our last day in Sevilla, we went to see the Real Alcazar--originally of moorish origin, the gorgeous buildings were converted into a royal palace for various royal monarchs. The entire thing is so humongous, with gigantic Moorish-style rooms displaying beautiful European artwork, and a maze-like, endless series of gardens. We found a peacock in one of them? It was very beautiful, stunning, and relaxing to just walk around in these gardens. Also, very easy to get lost in.

To finish up our trip in Sevilla, we sat in plaza del catedral, ate lunch, watched the horses pulling the trolleys, and listened to a Spanish guitarist street artist playing next to the remains of an old royal palace. With the sun beating down, it was the perfect way to end the trip.














If you couldn't tell by the ridiculous amount of stuff I wrote about it, I absolutely love Sevilla. It's by far my favorite place that I have been to so far.

Coming up next: Venice Carnival, I get laryngitis, and I'm going to move! Hasta luego!