Amsterdam

Valencia

Granada 1

Granada 2

Less than two weeks to go! I've made lists of all the things I have left to do around the city (which is surprisingly short) and a list of the souvenirs I still have to buy. I'm going to try and get some chorizo (a type of sausage) and maybe some good cheese back with me, but I'll have to see what customs says when I get to the U.S. We start exams on Wednesday and classes officially end on Thursday. I have an exam this Wednesday and Friday and then two more next Monday and Thursday. This means I should have plenty of free time to get around the city and see the last few parks/museums/random things I've missed. And (hopefully) I'll get to spend some more time at the beach.

We had a lot of fun in Amsterdam! Amsterdam is a beautiful city, it's like some sort of Dutch fairytale. All the buildings are brick with brightly painted doors and shutters and there are flowers everywhere. Amsterdam also has canals, which I didn't know beforehand, but the bridges add even more character to the city. We saw the house that Anne Frank and her family hid in up until they were taken to concentration camps and the famous red-light district. Some of my friends went to a Van Gogh museum, but I saw a lot of his famous pieces in Paris so I didn't want to go. The weather cooperated really well, too, so we were lucky.

I haven't uploaded photos from Amsterdam yet, but when I do I'll post the link.

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while! I think about it everyday, but it's getting harder and harder to keep up with this blog. I'll try to give as good of a summary as I can...

This past weekend I took my trip to Valencia and Granada and surprise! I went all by myself! I didn't mention it before because I didn't want anyone to worry but now that I'm back in Barcelona I can say that everything went PERFECTLY. I had a fantastic weekend all to myself. In fact, the only hiccups I had all weekend involved the Barcelona train station so I really can't complain at all. I took a train to Valencia Thursday evening, it was about three and a half hours. I found my hostel and checked in and I had a dorm room meant for six girls all to myself. Friday I spent the entire day walking around the city seeing the churches, plazas and museums. I even saw a movie when it started to get dark, just to kill some time. My train from Valencia to Granada left at 1am, so I had plenty of time to kill.

I spent all day Saturday and Sunday in Granada, a city that turned out to be my idea of a Spanish paradise. It's the Spain that I've been looking for, the Spain I read about in all of my textbooks before coming here. Granada is a relatively large city, but the historical center of it still feels like a pueblo. I had a great time just wandering around watching the people, smelling the flowers, and working on my tan! I ate some traditional tapas and seafood and tried just about all the pastries I hadn't seen before in Barcelona. Saturday night I even saw an authentic flamenco show in a great little hole-in-the-wall bar.

Sunday I spent almost the entire day at La Alhambra, the royal grounds and palaces of the Moorish royalty that thrived in Spain until the Catholics forced them out in 1492. I was amazed how well it was preserved, despite how my travel guidebook says they're nothing like they used to be. Apparently Napoleon used La Alhambra as a fort during the Spanish war for independence from France and he and his troops destroyed as much of it as they could. La Alhambra (and Granada in general) is filled with gardens and flowers in every available space. I felt like I could smell flowers and hear birds singing even when I couldn't see the flowers or the birds. How Granada became such a happy-go-lucky place I really don't know.

I really enjoyed spending the weekend alone, even if it meant a 13-hour train ride back to Barcelona. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted and for as long as I wanted. I took time to stop and read anywhere the mood struck me and found that I really enjoy reading near fountains. I had time to write in my journal and think about whatever I decided needed thinking about. (Like how two weeks from tomorrow I'm getting on a plane to the United States...) Silvia noticed right away how happy this trip made me and said it was the happiest and most excited she'd seen me after any trip this semester.

Tomorrow at about 7am we'll be on a flight to Amsterdam. No, I'm not traveling alone this weekend. Matt, Trent, Stephanie, Adriana and I rented an apartment for the weekend so we'll all be together. I might even see a friend from home who is studying in Holland and is thinking of coming to Amsterdam to see us tomorrow, that should be fun. I'll be back Sunday evening and will try my best to write again by Monday at the latest. Next week final exams start... I think I'll also try to start packing then, too! EEK!

There isn't much to report this week. Last Friday (about 9 days ago now) I slipped going down the stairs of my apartment and hurt my foot. After walking on it for almost a week, I gave in and went to the orthopedist on Thursday to make sure there were no broken bones. Luckily I didn't break anything so I don't have a cast, boot or crutches but I'm still hurting pretty bad. The doctor told me to stay off it the best I can and gave me some heavy-duty ibuprofen to help with the pain. Unfortunately, it's not easy to avoid walking in this city. The weather has been pretty great lately and it pains me to sit inside with ice on my foot while the whole world is out enjoying the sunshine. Especially since I only have four weeks (gasp!) left. I've been trying my best, but sometimes the weather and the lure of fun with friends gets the best of me. It's supposed to be rainy most of the day today... so maybe I'll actually stay home and not walk. In any case, it'll heal with time so it's okay.

Thursday was also Dia de San Jordi. He's on of the saints of Cataluna (the 'state' in which Barcelona is located) because of a legend in which he saved the princess from an evil dragon. When he saved her, her tears of joy mixed with the blood of the dragon and a red rose appeared. San Jordi gave the rose to the princess and began the tradition of giving roses to women on this day. Then, later in history Cervantes and Shakespeare both died around this time and it was named some sort of day to honor literature as well. So, now on Dia de San Jordi the men give the women a rose and the women give the men a book. Of course, many people don't follow this tradition too strictly because obviously women love books as well, but it's still an important day in Cataluna. All of the bookstores (of which there are gobs upon gobs in this city) set up tents outside on the sidewalks to sell their books and there are carts and tents set up to sell roses anywhere that the bookstores left space. Also, anyone with a balcony hangs the Catalan flag from it. The photo at the top is of our apartment building, just to give you an idea of what the city looked like that day.

Obviously with my foot the way it is we didn't do any traveling this weekend, so I don't have any new photos to share with you. This coming week I'll be traveling Thursday evening through Monday evening through southern Spain so when I get back I'll have TONS to post.

I missed a few calls after I'd already gone to sleep this week, they came up "Unknown" so I don't know who it was but I'm pretty sure it's somone who must've been calling my virtual U.S. number. Whoever it was can feel free to E-Mail me or call back, just remember that it's seven hours later here and after midnight I'm usually either asleep or trying to get to sleep. Calling before 5pm CST works a lot better for me.

More next week...

This weekend I went with my program to a place called Vall de Boi, about four hours away from Barcelona and up in the Pyrenees Mountains. Saturday we visited two Romanic churches from the 12th century. There are eight of them in the area that are extremely well preserved. Sunday we spent a few hours at a national park in the mountains and did a little hiking. We had a very nice tour guide who taught us about how the park is run and what kinds of wildlife can be found in the area. One interesting thing I learned is that hunting, fishing and camping are not allowed in the national parks but they do let farmers use the land for grazing for their sheep or cattle. The weather was fabulous and so was the view. Visiting the park was the only thing we did Sunday then they drove us back to Barcelona.

This weekend I don't have any real plans set, but I think I might go to Tarragona and see the Roman ruins there on Saturday in the afternoon. Next weekend I'm going to two other cities in Spain that my program didn't pay for us to visit. I'll be visiting Valencia and Granada from Thursday through Sunday night and traveling by train... Even though I'm pretty sick of trains after taking so many through Italy...

I'll be heading home a month from Wednesday or four weeks from Friday, depending on how you want to look at it! Because of my crazy layover in D.C. I'll land in the U.S. on Friday the 22nd at about 8pm, but I don't leave D.C. until 12pm the next day so I don't actually get to SF until 8pm Saturday the 23rd. When I land in D.C. I'm going to see what I can do to get out of there earlier, but I doubt they'll be able to do much for me. In any case, I'm starting to get excited to head home. I know it's going to be sad to leave the city, but I miss all my family and friends back home!

Here is a link to an album I just added some photos to. I added photos from La Pedrera, an apartment building designed by Antoni Gaudi that was lived in during the early 1900s. I'll also post the link to my photos from Vall de Boi.

Viva Barcelona II

Vall de Boi

Milano, Venezia, & Firenze

Sicilia & Roma

Roma II

Roma III

I don't know how I can possibly write about everything I did over spring break... I haven't even been able to get all the photos up yet, there are too many! I guess I can start with the general comments...

Italy is fabulous! Before we left the weather predictions were saying there was a chance of rain in every city we were going to visit for the entire week so we were prepared for some bad weather. By some stroke of luck, however, we barely saw a handful of sprinkles over the course of the week. Italy was all sunshine and cool breezes for us! We did almost all of our traveling by train and it got old after a while. From Milan to Venice, Venice to Florence and Florence to Rome were all about 4 hours or less. But, from Rome to Palermo, Sicily was FOURTEEN hours and it was miserable!!!! Our car was one of the only cars to have five of six seats filled so none of us could recline our seats or put our feet up! Sometime after 3am two of the passengers in our car got off at a stop and the other three of us got a few hours sleep where we were able to lie down before the ticket checker came by and woke us all up again. At that point I never wanted to get on a train again, so I was glad we were flying back to Rome instead of taking another night train.

The food was fantastic, as I'm sure you'd imagine. We ate a LOT of pizza this week. When looking for the cheapest meals, it turned out that a cheese pizza and a bottle of water was usually the winner. Most of the pizza had a thinner crust than what we eat in the U.S. but they give you a pizza the size of a medium pizza back home so it's plenty for one person. The desserts were great, too! I ate my share of cannoli and chocolate! The pasta was good, too... I think I had lasagna, spaghetti and tortellini at different points during the week and they were all yummy!

Let me see... highlights... Well, I'd already been to Venice and there wasn't much more I could see that I hadn't seen when was there before. But, I still enjoyed it because it's a beautiful city and truly one of a kind. When we were in Florence we didn't get to see much because it was Monday and we forgot that most public museums, gardens, castles, etc. are all closed on Mondays in Europe. So, we didn't get to go inside the Piti Palace or its famous gardens and we didn't get to go inside the museum that holds the original statue of David by Michelangelo and that was a bummer. Once again though, the weather was great and we were able to walk everywhere we needed to go and we saw a lot of beautiful architecture.

Matt and I had a few hours in Rome before we caught our train to Sicily so we walked through as much of the city as we could and completely overwhelmed ourselves. We literally just kind of "stumbled upon" the Colosseum as we were looking down a narrow street trying to find our way to the center of the city. It was pretty incredible how it just kind of showed up right before our eyes. I already mentioned how the train ride to Palermo, Sicily was awful, but our experiences in Sicily were interesting, too. Palermo is the biggest city and it was really strange compared to the other cities we've seen. It was very dirty and a lot of it seemed rundown. The traffic was AWFUL and we saw a couple stereotypical Italian men get out of their cars to yell things at the other people in traffic. We took a bus to a nearby town called Corleone which is the town "The Godfather" is based on and there's supposedly still a lot of mafia influence thriving there. We got dropped off right in the middle of their lunchtime so almost everything was closed and all the people were just watching us from their windows clearly wondering what the hell we were doing there. We walked for a little bit and then ended up sitting in a plaza waiting for two hours for the bus to come back and pick us up. As we were sitting there waiting all the old men of the town came to the plaza with their canes and their matching hats and sat on the benches talking to each other and watching us. We were convinced they were retired mafiosos. Apart from that I can only say that Sicily really does have the most incredible landscape I think I've ever seen. It's a great mixture of coastline, mountains, and green, rolling hills and plains. I loved it!

Then there's Rome... What can I say about Rome? I couldn't wrap my head around that city no matter how hard I tried. We had two jam-packed days of sightseeing and still couldn't see everything we wanted to. There are ruins strewn about around the entire city and all of them are tied to names and stories that seem like legends and myths to us. Much of the ancient city dates to before the death of Christ and some of those relics are still standing today. Most of the time we just walked around stunned and snapping photos. We went to see the Vatican on Friday and that was interesting as well. We got to see the inside of St. Peter's Basilica, the room of the tombs of the Popes, St. Peter's Square, and the Sistene Chapel. We weren't able to see the Pope speak because we didn't get tickets in time, but we were able to see more of Rome with the time we saved. The whole thing was really surreal.

Now we're back in Barcelona with three days left of spring break. Easter is HUGE here since the country is about 97% Catholic, so we get an extended break. Everything is shut down for the most part both today and tomorrow, but I'm hoping to get out and accomplish some sightseeing in Barcelona on Tuesday... or maybe a day at the beach, depending on the weather. Coming up we have a trip with our group to Vall de Boi this weekend; I'm not sure exactly what we'll be doing there but I know it involves the mountains and possibly some hiking. The weekend after that I think I'll be taking a day-trip to Tarragona which is a site with Roman ruins just outside the city. And beyond that I know I have a trip to Amsterdam planned May 8-10, but the rest of the weekends are up in the air. I'll be home in 6 weeks!

Photos from this week will be up sometime later today...

Alright, finally my long-awaited post about Paris! First of all, traveling there by myself went fine. I went through my usual anxiety about airports. I don't know why I'm always so afraid something will keep me from getting to my gate on time; I always get there so far in advance that I have time to eat a meal and take a nap before boarding. In any case, the flight from Barcelona to Paris is fast, about an hour and a half. I took the train into the city and managed to find the metro lines I needed AND my hotel all by myself. My friends and I went out to eat and then I went to sleep early because I had a cold and our friend Aura was going to arrive very early Friday morning and I knew we had a full day of sightseeing ahead of us.

Friday Aura and I pretty much owned Paris. We managed to hit almost all of the major sights on foot with just a map and a good sense of direction. We were able to walk from our hotel to the Arc de Triomph, from the Arc to the Eiffel Tower, from the Eiffel to Luxembourg Gardens, to La Sorbonne and from La Sorbonne to Notre Dame. There was a service going on while we were there, which was interesting. We forgot that it was a Friday of Lent so the Roman Catholic servies would be going on. By the time we finished at Notre Dame it was about 4:30pm so we went back to the hotel and took a nap before dinner. Thursday evening we took the metro to see the Moulin Rouge/the red light district/the Sacre Coeur. The walk from the Moulin Rouge to the Sacre Coeur was really interesting because the street is flocked with clubs advertising lap dances, peep shows, and cabarets. Surprisingly, though, it wasn't all that sketchy even after dark.

Saturday we took things a little easier. First we went to the Louvre, where we managed to get through everything we'd both been planning on seeing. It took us about 3 hours to see everything we were hoping to see, including the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, Madonna on the Rocks, and the small exhibition of Spanish art. We also saw the Egypt and Mesopotamia exhibits... some of ancient Rome and Greece too, I think. After the Louvre we hopped a train to Versailles, about half an hour or so from the heart of the city. Since I'd already been to Paris, few things that we'd seen up to this point took me by surprise. But Versailles definitely blew me away. There simply aren't words to describe how HUGE the palace is and how extensive the gardens/property behind it are. There are miles and miles of gardens and fountains and one huge canal. It was incredible. I just walked around imagining what it must have been like back when royalty were wandering around in their fancy clothes. After Versailles, Aura and I went back to the Sacre Coeur/Montmarte area to have a crepe and to look at the artists paiting portraits in the street, then we bought some bread and cheese and went back to the hotel, exhausted.

Sunday the three friends I was with all had flights at noon and mine wasn't until 4pm, so I took time to go to the other major art museum in Paris, Musee d'Orsay. The Orsay has a lot of sculputres and a huge collection of French Impressionism art. I saw most of the major works of Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir and Van Gogh. The Van Gogh was definitely my FAVORITE part and I didn't even know his stuff was there. My favorite painting of his is the one of his bedroom... I bought a magnet with that painting on it and it ended up being the only souvenir I brought back with me from Paris.

Since getting sick last Thursday, I'm finally feeling better today. I've gone through a bottle of cough medicine, a handful of ibuprofen and now I'm taking some medicine to help drain my sinuses and that seems to be working. I've also had countless cups of tea... Probably 4-5 a day. Thanks Gram :) By the way, I've now learned to communicate with pharmasists in Spain and France, although France was mostly gestures and not so many words haha. My roommate had the flu, so my weird cold/sinus thing is really not so bad in comparison.

We leave for Italy on Saturday morning. We fly into Milan, but we're leaving for Venice a few hours after we get there and we'll get to Venice at about midnight Saturday night. We'll spend Sunday in Venice, then Monday morning we take a train to Florence. Tuesday afternoon we take a train to Naples, but once again we're only staying a few hours. Tuesday night I'm taking an overnight train from Naples to Sicily. We're spending all day Wednesday in Sicily, then flying from Sicily to Rome late Wednesday evening. Then, to round out the trip, we're spending Thursday, Friday, and half of Saturday in Rome. We come back from Rome late Saturday afternoon.

We just found out today that our spring break actually goes through the Tuesday after Easter, so I have three free days I'm not sure what to do with. I could save the money and spend them lying on the beach here (if the weather's nice) or going to museums around Barcelona, or I could pick somewhere in Spain to spend a few days. I haven't decided yet... It'll probably be a last-minute decision. I'll keep you posted.


Paris: The Sights I

Paris: The Sights II

Paris: The Art

Just a reminder that I'll be in Paris from today (Thursday) through Sunday evening. My phone works there, but keep in mind it's very expensive to receive and make calls from outside Spain so use it for emergencies only, please. I'll write and post pictures Sunday or Monday sometime. Hope all's well...

Ashley

Hey everybody! Here's another quick weekly update for you...

I got a little bit more sightseeing done this last week. My friend Jenna and I went to La Sagrada Familia and went inside and took the audio-tour. If you liked the photos from the outside of the church, you'll love the photos from the inside and from the tower we were in. The audio-tour pointed out so many things I wouldn't have noticed myself. I learned that the church will seat 10,000 patrons when it's all finished and that it has a choir loft that will seat another 1200 singers. The entire interior is designed to resemble nature with pillars that look like tree trunks and turn into leafy fronds at the top. The church will be lit almost entirely by natural light, both white light from the outside and colored light through the beautiful stained glass windows. We took an elevator into one of the bell towers and saw another great view of the city as well as a great view of the facade that Gaudi himself worked on.

Saturday we went to Montserrat or "the serrated moutnain" which is about an hour away from Barcelona by train. The mountains were BEAUTIFUL and had so much history. Hundreds of years ago a statue of the Virgin Mary was found in a cave by a group of shephard children. A beautiful monastery was built on the mountain and the statue became the central figure of the basilica. People take pilgrimages from all over just to come to Montserrat and touch the statue. The monastery is also home to the world's oldest boy's choir. We were able to listen to them and it was very moving. We took some time to climb around the mountain a little bit and then we had to head back.

Saturday night we went to a concert by a famous American DJ called Girl Talk. I'd never heard his music before, but all of my friends told me I haaaddd to go so we went. The show was from 2:30-4am - crazy, right? The club was PACKED, but we managed to have a good time dancing and left right after the concert (even though the club was open until 6). By the time we walked to the metro and I got cleaned up after getting home it was 6am. At that point I'd been awake for 23 hours with only a little snooze on the train home from Montserrat under my belt. Needless to say, I spent most of Sunday in bed either sleeping or watching TV.

I leave for Paris on Thursday, so Sunday night or Monday sometime I should have a ton more photos to post. Until then, here are my photos from La Sagrada Familia and Montserrat!

La Sagrada Familia Revisited

Montserrat

Hey everybody! There's not as much to report this week... Last week I didn't miss a single class, so that kept me busy. A few girlfriends and I found a cute little place with delicious desserts and wine for a good price and they let us hang out as long as we want after we're done eating and play cards. I think we'll be going back there quite a bit over the next couple of months. The weather has gotten considerably nicer over the last week, so I've been walking a lot more and spending more time in the streets exploring. Friday I didn't have class and I walked more or less around the entire city and up the beach. There are pictures of some of my favorite buildings and my time on the beach in the photo album I'll put at the end of this post.

Today I had my first midterm and it went pretty well. My friends and I spent the afternoon studying outside, soaking up the sun, and drinking coffee from a small cafe. Sounds great, right? Tomorrow I have another midterm and then we start new classes on Wednesday. Saturday I'm going to Montserrat with some friends and I'll probably spend Friday and Sunday either on the beach or in museums... Depends on the weather and how ambitious I'm feeling. Next weekend is our trip to Paris and we've got a hotel booked now so all we have to do is make our flights and get there to enjoy the city. We also finalized our itinerary for the trip to Italy in April. We'll be going to Milan, Venice, Florence, Naples, Sicily and Rome. Needless to say it's going to be a busy week of travel and sleeplessness, but it's totally worth it.

That's it for now!

Ashley

Viva Barcelona II

New photos of Montjuic and Tibidabo

Hello all! Let's see... what is there to report? Well, last week I went to every single class but one. That's a record. Mondays are pretty rough, I often miss at least one of my six hours of class that day but even Monday I made it to all of them! Getting to and from class, doing my homework, and sleeping in between consumed the majority of my week. Over the weekend my friends and I went to a handful of new bars that top all the tourist lists to see what they were all about. One of my favorites so far is called Dow Jones. There are screens all over the bar with what looks like stock market numbers rising and falling, but instead of the prices of stocks it's the prices of specific beers or drinks so you can buy something when the stock is low and when it goes back up you buy something else. Every so often there are 'crashes' where everything is half price. It's entertaining at least! I've been meeting people from all around the world. Wednesday night we met a group of Italian students a year younger than I am who were visiting Barca for their spring break. Friday night I met a group of German and Austrian people who are here working for the year. It's been fun!

Saturday I went back up to Montjuic to see the castle and visit the Joan Miro Museum. The castle wasn't that impressive; it costs money to go inside and I've heard the museum inside of it is pretty boring... so I just walked around the outside of it and enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL weather instead. The flowers are starting to bloom, so I could just walk around, take in the sun and smell spring all around me. I spent the entire day on my own, some much-needed alone time. At the Joan Miro Museum I listened to classical music and tried to put a lot of thought into his work. Much like the Dali museum, his surrealist art was a bit hard to understand but if I read the titles and stepped back to see the whole picture sometimes, just sometimes, I could get what he was going for. He also used a lot of different mediums like Dali did. After I was done at the museum I watched the magic fountain show in front of the old palace. I put photos of the show up, but they really don't capture how amazing the show was. I took videos, but the files are too big to upload :(

Sunday a friend and I went to Tibidabo, a much larger mountain to the northwest of the city. It was quite a hike uphill just to get to the tram to the top, then we had to wait for a tram on top of it... But it was totally worth it. The view of the city is unbeatable. If Montjuic is a good view, Tibidabo is an incredible view. There's a small theme park and a huge, very interesting church at the top of the mountain. We walked around the theme park and then sat in the sun eating our sack lunches for an hour or so. This weekend was really the first time we've had decent amounts of sun and heat for an entire day, it was a blessing.

We booked our flights to Amsterdam over the weekend, so right now I have Paris March 27-29, Italy April 4-12 and Amsterdam May 8-10. I'm still trying to organize trips to other places in Spain and there's a chance I might go to Geneva as well, but that's a bit of a long shot at the moment. I hope all is well back home. I'll post photos from this weekend later tonight when I've put them all up on Facebook.

Ashley

Hello all! I'm back from a crazy and short weekend in Dublin, it was a great time! We didn't get to do as much sightseeing as I would have liked for two reasons: We didn't come prepared with a list of important things to see and we didn't have enough time. We were all up at 5am to catch a bus to the airport an hour away from Barcelona, then we had a two hour flight, and about a half hour of walking to get to the apartment we were staying in. Needless to say, we were exhausted when we got there and had to take a siesta. Friday night we obviously went out and enjoyed the Dublin nightlife. The Irish are party animals, no doubt about it. Saturday we went to Trinity College and walked around the City Center quite a bit just enjoying the pretty buildings. We spent about 3 hours in the Guinness Storehouse learning about how the beer was created and marketed and stuff and enjoyed a free pint on the top floor. The Guinness Storehouse has the best view of Dublin on its top floor, a great place to enjoy a pint of the freshest Guinness on the planet. We tried to get to a few other places, but they ended up being closed because we spent too much time in the Guinness Storehouse. Saturday night we went out with all of our new friends from Adriana's friend's school and had another great time. Then we had to leave Sunday morning and had another long day of travel.

As of right now I don't have any trips planned until Paris March 26-29. I might go to Granada in two weeks... but that's up in the air right now. School is going well, we have midterms in two weeks. I'm already feeling how fast this semester is going, time is flying by! On a side note, I could use some snail-mail in my life if anyone feels like writing to me... Mail really brightens my day :)

Dublin Photos

Ashley

This past week has been Carnaval in most Spanish-speaking countries and Tuesday night was the big finale of the week. It all coincides with the week before Lent begins and Tuesday was "Fat Tuesday" as we call it in the States. So, instead of Mardi Gras they have Carnaval.... Anyway, the biggest celebration in the area on Fat Tuesday is in Sitges, a small-ish town about half an hour away by train. Four friends and I bought pretty masks and made our way to Sitges, along with thousands and thousands of other people. Everyone was dressed up like Halloween and they had lots of creative costumes. We saw a group of Spanish guys dressed as American football players, but their jersies were for a hockey team, we got a good laugh out of that.

Sitges was packed with people when we got there, every bar, restaurant, and dance club was full and so were the streets. We found a good place to wait for the parade to come instead of fighting the crowd to see it at the beginning. When it finally got to where we were waiting it was AMAZING! Sitges is known for being a popular place for homosexuals, so parade had tons of women in traditional Carnaval costumes but there were lots of men in flamboyant costumes as well. Every float had it's own music playing and every group of participants had a different theme for their costumes and dancing. We were right up next to the fence so dancers would stop and take photos with us, it was awesome. All of the parade participants were drinking as they danced up and down the streets and you could tell they were having a good time, too. All of the floats had a secret cabinet with mixers for drinks and one even had a bartender.

The parade lasted almost two hours and after it was over we wandered around Sitges enjoying the scene. It was just one giant party in the streets (and the streets were therefore filled with everyone's garbage and empty drink cups/cans/bottles). Even the beach was full of people having fun, it seemed like everyone was getting along with everyone else and just celebrating all together. It was unlike anything I've ever seen, definitely a once in a lifetime experience. I'll put the link to my two albums of photos at the end of this post.

This weekend we'll be in Dublin, so I'll have more photos and stories when we come back. We'll be staying with a friend of Adriana's who is studying there and living in an apartment. We don't have a lot of plans made yet, except to tour the Guiness factory and have a mug of the freshest Guiness in the world when we get to the top of it. The rest of our touristy plans will probably be made when we get there.

I hope all's well back home!

Ashley

¡Carnaval, te quiero!

¡Carnaval, te quiero más!

Hey everyone! This was a busy weekend for me, so of course that means there are new photos to check out. This Saturday we took a group excursion to Girona, a very old city about an hour or so north of Barcelona. We took a somewhat dull walking tour through the historic center of the city and saw Sant Feliu Church from the 13th century, The Cathedral from the 11th century, and the Monesterio de Sant Pere de Galligants from the 12th century. We also saw the ancient Arab Bath which wasn't used by Arabs in the area, it was only named that in recent history because the architecture of the structure was identical to how the Arabs built their bath houses centuries ago. The locals used it as a place to bath, socialize, and enjoy the ancient version of a sauna. We had a nice sack-lunch picnic along the river and then took a bus to Figueres.

The only mention-worthy thing about Figueres is the Salvador Dali museum. Dali was a 20th century surrealist artist who worked with just about every medium imaginable, including a medium I'd like to call "random things bought at a flea market." Some of his most famous work was there and it was a real treat. It's always incredible to read about a painting and see a tiny black and white version in a book and then walk into a room to find the original actually fills an entire wall of a huge room. On the other hand, one of his masterpieces "The Persistence of Memory" or "Soft Watches" was tiny. In any case, it's impossible to describe his work so you'll have to look at the pictures.

Today a friend and I took a tram-like thing to Montjuic, or Mount of the Jews, a small mountain near the ocean here in Barcelona. I don't know a whole lot about the history of how the Jewish people used the mountain before they were expelled from the country in 1492, but today there are many imporatant museums, botanical gardins, the 1992 Olympic site, and the National Palace with it's nightly Magic Fountain display. We didn't have a map so we kind of wandered but we did see one of the gardens, the Olympic site and the Palace. None of the museums were open today so we had to skip that. The view of the city from the top of the mountain was breathtaking... I keep forgetting how HUGE this city is. What makes Barcelona so interesting is that everyone lives IN the city. There aren't a bunch of suburbs nearby where the working people live and then they commute each day. Barcelona isn't filled with skyscrapers, it's filled with small businesses and residential areas.

If anyone needs to send a package of any kind, please do not send it to the apartment I'm living in. The only things I can receive here at the apartment without a hassle have to be the size of an envelope or smaller. If you have to send a package by regular mail or anything via Fed Ex or UPS, it's best to send it to the study abroad office where there is always someone there to receive packages. Address packages to:

I.S.A. OFFICE
Attn: My Name
Calle Trafalgar 6, Segundo Piso, Puerta 21
08010 Barcelona, Spain


Photos:
Girona y Figueres
Barcelona By Day IV

Barcelona By Day III

Barcelona By Day IV

Sorry for waiting so long to post again, but there wasn't anything worth posting about for most of the week last week. I got over my little cold and spent the rest of the week going to school, coming home for dinner, and sleeping. Well, there was one night of sangria and Mexican food with friends, but generally speaking we had pretty dull lives. My roommate went to Paris on Thursday so I had the room to myself all weekend and I took advantage. I spent some time writing in my journal, reading my book, and exploring the city on my own. Oh, and I got lots of sleep!

I never explained my photos from last weekend, but really the most important of them were of La Sagrada Familia. That building has been under construction for well over 100 years and it shows in the detail that covers every inch. When we came up the steps from the metro we were smack dab in front of the church and it took my breath away. La Sagrada Familia is certainly the symbol of Barcelona. Most of the other photos are from Las Ramblas which is a long street that goes from Placa Catalunya, the most important plaza in the city, all the way to the ocean. Down the middle are little kiosks selling all kinds of things, including small pets, flowers, souveniers, what have you. Then off to both sides on the actual streets that mark Las Ramblas are some of the more popular and famous stops in Barcelona like the huge marketplace and the only Baroque church.

This Saturday I spent most of my early day, 12-3ish, at Parc Guell, a park that was also designed by Gaudi and was intended to be part of a ritzy housing development. The housing development idea failed, but there is still an unbelievable park filled with mosaics and incredible landscaping. I can't really describe it in words, you have to look at the photos (which I'll be posting later and will put up a link to soon). The best part was the awesome view of the city. Saturday evening I took a walk through the Gothic Quarter with my friend Matt and we saw some of the oldest parts of the city. When we visited the cathedral Santa Maria del Mar there was a wedding going on and we got to watch some of it. When we visited the Barcelona Cathedral there were services going on. And while we were walking through some of the streets we were surrounded by a parade with musicians and people wearing giant costumes in honor of Eulalia, the patron saint of Barcelona.

This Saturday we're taking a group excursion to Girona and Figueres, two small towns near Barcelona, to see some history and the Dal í museum. School is still going fine. I still don't really have much homework, but I'm not complaining. I'm booking my flight to Paris tonight... Ummm... Oh, address update. If you mail me anything, put my homestay mom's name on the top and then ATTN: my name. And I misspelled her name on all the info I gave you guys, it's actually Lanaspa. I transposed the letters at the end. So it should be:

Silvia Lanaspa
ATTN: My Name
and then the rest of the address.... This will help alleviate any confusion with the postal carrier about whether or not the mail should actually come to this apartment because my name isn't on the list of names outside.

That's it for tonight :)

Love, Ashley