Monday, October 10, 2011

Barcelona!!!!


Barcelona was amazing! The food was to die for and the atmosphere was incredible! I did so much I don't even know where to begin. We went to a couple museums, including Picasso, Miro, and Dali. I think I preferred Dali over the other two. His work was so unique. I like how some of his paintings had so much detail in them it was crazy, and then others could be so simple, but still the lines were so intricate and strategically placed. His painting of Lincoln is genius. He has a way of making a painting inside of another painting, unbelievable. Gaudi wsa another good artist and architect that we learned about. We visited La Sagrada Familia Church, Park Guell and the apartment he designed. I don't know how he did it. Each one was amazing, special, and just so Gaudi. His style is completely different from anything I have ever seen before.  
This is a picture of the entrance of the park that Gaudi designed , Guell Park.



Beach with Hillary!!
Even though we did visit a bunch of museums and historical sites while in Barcelona, we also had a lot of free time when we were on our own and could explore the city as we wished. On Saturday, after seeing the park, we had some free time for lunch and to explore before we were to meet to see another museum. Since we had to take the metro across town anyway, Hillary, Eric, Aaron, and I decided to get off a stop early and walk to the beach. I was so excited!!!! We didn't go in, but a wave did hit us pretty hard while we were walking, getting us all soaked, but it was worth it. Later that night some of us took the metro back to the beach so we could go swimming cause we brought our suits and we wanted to be able to say that we swam in the Mediterranean. Eric, Laura, and I ran and jumped into the ocean because we were expecting it to be cold. The water was actually really warm! I was really surprised because it felt freezing when we put our feet in it earlier. We swam for at least a half an hour, till about eight. Then we decided to walk around since it was our last night in Barcelona. Eric had seen on a map that there was a pretty big park near by with a mammoth statue and he wanted to go see it, so we wandered that way. The park turned out to be huge and we stumbled upon an enormous temple looking structure with a waterfall. We think it was Greek because it depicted the scene of one of the goddesses being born, not sure which one, but the one that was said to be born from the water. It was really cool, partially because we found it on our own and it was dark out making it seem mysterious in a way. We found the mammoth right next to the temple. We all climbed on it and got our pictures taken. We named him Manuel. We thought it was appropriate since he is Spanish.

On Manuel with Aaron, Eric, Laura, and Beth

On our way back to the metro to get to our hostel, we got a little lost. We couldn't find the metro anywhere! We even had a map, but somehow we couldn't get to a metro and every time we thought we were close it ended up being a tram station, not the metro. We eventually found one but it took us 2 hours to get back. And then when we were getting off the metro, there was a skirmish next to us. We were jogging up the stairs next to the escalator, when a man on the escalator started yelling and pushing his way back down it. I had no idea what was going on because they were yelling in Spanish. I just ran off as fast as possible because all i could think of was that the guy had a gun or something. Afterwards I was told that the man that was yelling had been pick pocketed and when he realized it he turned around demanding his wallet back. When the other guy denied that he took the man pushed through and reached into the other guys pocket and took his wallet back. That is one of the bad things about Europe. There are a lot of pick pocketers, especially on escalators because they can get crowded. 
But all in all I had an amazing time! It went by too fast.