Barcelona!

For those of you who actually follow my blog (aka Hope), sorry I haven’t written in a while… I was sick last weekend/everyone stayed in Madrid because we had a class trip on Friday, soooo I didn’t do anything of real interest. My senoras were so nice to me though and took complete care of me (including giving me special tea for my stomach in an “I <3 NY” mug”—be cuter.)

ANYWAY onto more exciting things!! This weekend I went to Barcelona which was a lot of fun.  The art and architecture there is phenomenal and I spent like 2 hours at La Sagrada Familia (thank you audio guides) which is Gaudi’s famous church (/the most visited construction site in the world since it’s unfinished). The insanely long line was definitely worth it. I also saw Gaudi’s houses, Dali’s house (2.5hrs outside of Barcelona, but worth a trip if you have time), the Picasso Museum, Park Guell (Gaudi’s park), walked down Las Ramblas and Passeig de Gracia (like Barcelona’s 5^th Ave) and around Barri Gotic/Born—super cute area. I got to see some Penn girls that were also there and also 2 girls from Bronxville which was really nice. Seeing familiar faces in a new place is always so great.

Since it was Halloween weekend, a lot of people were out and about Barcelona at night because “Barcelona is totallyyyy the place to be this Halloween weekend, like it’s gonna be sick” –according to a group of 4 Bostonian guys who were on our flight. Sweet life.  We (Allison and I) went to some clubs on the beach after a delicious dinner on Friday night, and then Saturday we met up with a few other Penn girls for some draaanks and the later with a Bronxville friend of mine/her program friends at Chupitos (a shots bar). Chupitos was really fun and quite an experience. It was super packed with people and the shots were quite entertaining (and also good).  All in all, a really fun trip with only a few problems. These were: 1. Allison and I had some serious travel fails while trying to go to Dali’s house. Including a 2+ hour gap between when we arrived in Girona (we flew into that airport) and when our train to Figueres was (a quick ride to Dali’s house). This forced us to ‘explore’ Girona- difficult with a large bag- so we ended up at a random Girona fair/carnival? Very strange. Allison has classy pictures from it… 2. I tried to go to the Boqueria (huge market) on Sunday. It was closed. Extremely disappointing, but as Allison pointed out, you always need a reason to go back to a city! 3. I went to McDonald’s 3 times. Dicey. But their cono kit kats are so good! 4. The 10 person room in our hostel was notttt quite ideal—every time people came in, they decided it was acceptable to turn on the lights while they rummaged around in their bags and their lockers and talked with their friends. Not proper hostel etiquette, especially when they popped on the lights at 5:30am, 7:30am and then the next day during a completely acceptable siesta at 6pm. Rude.

Besides those minor hurdles, Barcelona was great. I definitely suggest going there, although be warned that you will speak more English than Spanish (or at least that was the case for me, save for at Chupitos bar). ALSO bank on being exhausted when you return/ try to plan your trip when you have a nice fiesta day for recovery! Thanks for partying, Spain. !Feliz día de los Santos!