So I've been in Barcelona for 15 days and have gone to class for 3. What else have I been doing? Stayin' breezy. The weather here is AMAZING. It literally is always sunny. The temperature has cooled down significantly since I've gotten here. There is always a nice breeze too. It's like the perfect mixture of cool, sunny, and breezy. And I've been enjoying this weather just walking around wandering the city.
One of my first stops was Parc Guell. Gaudi's massive mosaic filled park. It's so meticulous and gorgeous. There are two little houses at the front of it with stairs and fountains that lead up to tons of pillars and then to an enormous curvy bench that is completely covered in mosaics. There is an amazing view of pretty much all of Barcelona from here, but the park goes higher up. And so did I. If you keep climbing these stairs and paths up higher you get to pretty much the very top. There you see every thing in Barcelona in the direction of the Mediterranean Sea and in the direction of some mountains or hills? I'm not entirely sure, but it was gorgeous. From that height I could see a huge cathedral on one of the hills and a ferris wheel right next to it. I'm pretty sure that is where the amusement park I want to go to is. Unless that is a cathedral for carnies. Not sure. Also I gave the lamest description of Parc Guell but there will be pictures so you can see the beauty of it.
Another little excursion of mine was watching the parade for a Catalonia National Holiday which was on September 11. It's a holiday celebrating Catalonia independence. On September 11, 1714, Catalonia, the region in Spain where Barcelona is, had to surrender to the Spanish army and lost all of their Catalonia identity. This was when the dictator Francisco Franco began his rule in Spain and wanted a unified country without multiple dialects or separation from the whole country. Catalonia and Catalans suffered a lot from this. The language almost died and fear of losing Catalan traditions and culture rose. Once Franco died, Catalan was being written again and the country was able to continue their traditions and cultures. So on September 11, here, I walked around and watched their parade. Some things were intense but overall informative. There were flyers everywhere talking about how Catalonia should be its own state and part of the European Union and other governmental organizations. There was lots of screaming liberty, middle fingers to Spain, memorials, and some cool music. Nothing like any other parade I've seen before.
Also, I've been eating. kind of. The best food I've had so far has been a sandwich that I had right before climbing all of Parc Guell. It had a piece of steak, garlic aioli, mushrooms, and cheese on this huge crispy bun. It was quite possibly the best thing I've eaten in my entire life. It just tasted like garlic and mushrooms. So good. I've also had my first tapas in Barcelona. My friend and I were wandering looking for a place that would be nice but cheap. So we were stopping and looking at menus and the waiter comes out of one restaurant and shows us the menu. We look at it and we're like, sorry this is too expensive. He's response was no it's not, we'll give you a two for one deal. So we decided to go there. We ended up getting 7 tapas; spicy potatoes, ham croquettes, mushrooms, asparagus, 2 different types of calamari and a salad plus a dessert for 18 euro. It was all really tasty too. Being the broke student that I am going out to eat doesn't happen too often. Instead I shop for myself and cook. I've basically been living off of sandwiches because they are tasty, easy and cheap. BUT there was a revelation Monday when I went grocery shopping :) I found the Spanish verison of ramen. Yes and it is curry flavored. It's a bit more expensive compared to its American equivalent, 75 cents instead of 25. It must be the fancy curry flavoring. Either way finding that made me very happy.
Now I have no idea how to work blogs. Supposedly I can make it so I can have a slide show of all of my pictures, but I don't know how to make that work. So instead here is a link to where I will be uploading all of my pictures so that everyone can see them. I hope it works...
http://picasaweb.google.com/117888092170327481457/HolyFuckItSBarcelona?authkey=Gv1sRgCK_tjO_vvNi6nAE#
No comments:
Post a Comment