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