where they make the cheese!

BACK FROM BARCELONA!

By far my most favorite city that I have seen yet. It was so well-rounded! I mean, you could be completely surrounded by people in the most urban of settings and then you could walk to the beach in 10 minutes! Plus, there were palm trees everywhere, so that helped with the exotic-ness.

Erin and I stayed with our friend from BC, Chiara, who was the best hostess we could have asked for. She has only been in Barcelona for 2 months but already knows so much about the city -- when we would go to places she was like our own personal tour guide. My favorite things that we saw were, undoubtedly, the buildings and structures created by Gaudi. We saw La Pedrerea, Casa Batllo, Parc Guell, and Sagrada Familia. They were ridiculous! Look up pictures online if you don't know about them (soon, as well, I will post my own pictures). I really knew nothing about the modernist movement (he was building Dr. Suess houses in the early 1900's) but I am basically obsessed. We also saw some work of another modernist who built the Hospital San Pau (where we all agreed we would gladly be sick for an extended period of time...it was basically a gorgeous college campus) and the Palau di Musica. The coolest thing about Barcelona was that you could just walk down the street and be amazed. Every building was so cool, even if they weren't Gaudi's or anything. I loved it.

We also went down Les Rambles, a huge square that was packed and had the most intricate street statue performers I have ever seen. There were also a ton of kiosks, some of which sold ANIMALS. So weird.
We got tapas, of course, and sangria (it's a cultural thing!), and for lunch, Chiara made me try a waffle topped with chocolate and condensed milk and ice cream and it was simultaneously disgusting and delicious. ALSO CHURROS!

No crazy nightlife for us though -- because we wanted to see as much of the city as possible, we bypassed the club scene where people get back at 7 am (no joke, Erin and I saw some people coming back home this morning when we left for the train station). I don't think I could handle being abroad there -- sleepy Parma is much more my style. But I would love to go back to Barcelona, there is still a lot to see.

Oh, and we were able to go to the BEACH because it was nice weather. We didn't go in, but instead sight-saw (conjugation?) the Olympic Village in Port Olympic, and threw rocks in the water. ALSO ALSO we went up a funicular (I sang Decemberists all the way up because it reminded me of Myla Goldberg) and a ski.lift type thing to the top of this hill that had beautiful views of the city.

So basically Barcelona was a weekend of a GORGEOUS town, a TON of walking, and TOO MUCH fried food. Oh man. LOVED IT.

This week we have a Verdi opera on Tuesday (excited to dress up!) and my 8:15 am classes were CANCELLED this week because we are transitioning to the next part of the school year. SCORE.

I don't want to think about the fact that it's almost November already.