Heyyy Barcelonaaaa!

Hello friends! Sorry I took me a few days longer than I would have liked to get this out to you, however I’m here now! Hurray! So we’ll start with the boring school stuff first then I will tell you all about Barcelona!!

                Classes are going great! I really enjoy all of them and they are definitely keeping me busy. Mostly because I am a chronic overachiever and have been doing exercises on my own. But I was rewarded for all my hard work because I finally dreamt in French!! I was so excited I woke myself up…oops. This week I have to study super hard though because next week is midterms and my family will be here so I’m trying to get the bulk of my studying out of the way before they get here (OMG TWO DAYS !)

Okay now Barcelona:

                So I may or may not have skipped my classes Thursday and Friday (okay I did) but I checked with my professors and got the notes from other students so no worries; anyways it was totally worth it. There were five of us that went, myself, three other Americans; Casey, Emma and Kallie, and my friend Min from South Korea. Our travels went smoothly (train, plane and bus) and we arrived Thursday night at the hostel without incident. The language barrier was virtually non-existent because apparently everyone in Barcelona speaks English in addition to Catalan and or Spanish. Europeans and their multi-linguists amaze me to no end.  

                Anyways we started bright and early Friday morning with a free tour! Our tour guide was amazing and you could really tell that he loves Barcelona and loves sharing that passion with others.  He was incredibly knowledgeable of history of Barcelona and where all the buildings, monuments and parks fit in. After our tour we found the most beautiful fountain (second most beautiful place I have ever been), saw the Arc de Triomf and hit up the beach! It was a fantastic day. Saturday also started bright and early because we wanted to get to the Sagrada Famillia before the lines got outrageous. If you ever have the opportunity to go there, do it. It is THE most beautiful place I have ever been. The outside is sweet but the inside is stunning. Seriously amazing.

                Next we found a huge market full of fresh fruits, vegetables and meats of every variety, so of course we got lunch there. Nothing like freshly squeezed fruit juice and authentic Spanish food on a Saturday afternoon. Next we were off to see Park Guell, where we saw Gaudi’s house, two other houses and other various creations of his. It was so incredible!! Once we were done there we found a little Chinese restaurant to eat at in peace while the Barcelonans gathered in every public facility that had a TV to watch the Barcelona-Real Madrid game. Holy cow do they love their soccer!! We hit the hey early that night because our train was at 8am the next morning and while our hostel experience was really good, it was still really hard to sleep for longer than a few hours at a time without being woken up by someone. So that’s it for our adventure, no one got pick-pocketed, I saw my top two most beautiful places and now here are some pictures: