On Friday, we continued with orientation at 9 AM. We got out around noon, and one of my friends and I decided to look for a place for lunch. This was difficult, seeing as Spaniards eat lunch around 2, so most places weren't even open. We ended up eating at Starbucks...haha.
Later that day, each Spanish class had to participate in a Scavenger hunt in various places in the city. My group was assigned the area of Paseo de Gracia. This area is very pretty and includes Gaudi's Casa Battlo and Casa Mila. Another pretty house was Casa Comalat.
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| Casa Comalat |
The scavenger hunt was fun, but 3 hours of walking around the city in this heat was exhausting. So, after the scavenger hunt was over, my roommate and I decided to go sit down in a cafe for something cold to drink. We then further explored the city, going down various smaller alleys. We toured the Catedral de Barcelona and on our way back to our metro stop, we got turned around and ended up near the ocean beside the monumento a Colon!
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| Inside of Catedral de Barcelona |
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| Me in front of the Monumento a Colon |
Although we were very tired, it was fun finding something new, and we ended up walking the entire length of La Rambla back to our stop. It was a very long day!! For dinner, Angeles had gone to eat with her cousin, so she left us some dinner to heat up: macarrones y salchichas con una ensalada y pimientos asados (maccoroni and sausagae with a salad and roasted peppers). After dinner, we rested for a bit before getting ready to go our for the night!
The first Saturday was very strange, because I ended up having to go to class.....at 9 AM. Apparently during the fall semester, there are so many bank holidays in Spain, that in order to fit in all of our language classes, we had to have class just this first Saturday. It was pretty rough having to wake up that early, but when I got back, I took a nap, and then Daniela and I got ready to go to the beach! Before the beach, we got lunch at one of the restaurants on La Rambla. Most have some sort of lunch deal with tapas and paella for a set price. We each got a different type of paella, so that we would be able to try both. Daniela ordered paella mixta, which has seafood, chicken, and vegetables; and I got fideguay, which had pasta with sausage and cheese. Each dish came with queso and 2 tapas: pan con tomate y tortilla de patatas (bread with a tomato sauce a piece of a Spanish omlette). We also had sangria with our meal. Everything was delicious!!
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| Paella Mixta (back) and Fideguay (front) |
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After lunch, we headed down to the beach, La Barceloneta. It was a pretty long walk, but there was a lot of cool architecture along the way.
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| On the way to the beach! |
Once we got to the beach, we noticed that there were TONS of people there. There was almost nowhere to sit. We decided that only one of us could swim at a time, so that our bags would not be left alone for the pickpockets. While Daniela was swimming, and I was trying to put on my sunscreen, a strange man just plopped down beside me and started speaking in some mystery language...I have no idea what it was. He would not go away, so matter how hard I tried...I was yelling at him in Spanish, and for some reason he thought I was French, so he started talking to me in French...which I don't know..at all. Finally, a nice Australian girl near me came to sit with me until Daniela got back, and he still wouldn't leave. Sooooo, we left him and headed further down the beach, where luckily we ran into some friends from our program. There were so many vendors on the beach, for all sorts of things: massages, henna tattoos, empanadas, cervezas, donuts.... My personal favorite sight at Barceloneta was a man who was just standing in the middle of the beach with his shorts pulled down in the back....very interesting, I'm going to borrow a picture of him from my roommate because I was so in shock that I didn't think to take one. Seriously, I have never seen anything like it. He would walk up to people and ask things...for example, he asked one guy if he had a cigarette and if he worked for Bill Gates. He ended up being escorted away by the police, but it was all very entertaining to watch. I did finally get in the water, though!! It was really nice, and I didn't see any sharks or sealife of anykind, so that was good because I usually don't get in the ocean at home, as many people know.
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| Barceloneta |
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| SO creepy...strangest thing I have ever seen |
We stayed at the beach until around 5, then decided to do some more sightseeing. We walked to the Parc de Ciutadella, which was a nice park with a very impressive fountain. The zoo was also located here, but we are planning on doing that another day. After walking around the park, we found the Arc de Triomf. I thought that was only in Paris, but apparently not. After a long day, we decided to head back home. Angeles made us a crema de zanahorias (cream of carrots), which was very good. We also had lomo con queso, y una ensalada (pork loin with cheese and a salad). After dinner, we had tea with Angeles on the porch of the apartment. It was a nice end to a long day.
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| Cascada del Parc de la Ciutadella |
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| Arc de Triomf |
On Sunday, the last day of our weekend, we slept really late. I needed it, because I had not been feeling well after getting so little sleep since I arrived. After waking up late, we got ready for the beach again. This time, we were going to a more secluded beach, la Premia del Mar. It took about a 45 minute train ride to get there, but it was worth it because you could actually relax at this beach. We headed back around 7, and Angeles made alcachofes, un tipo de pescado (sepia?), una ensalada, y pimientos asados (artichokes, cuttlefish, a salad, and roasted peppers). Sunday was a very relaxing way to end the weekend!
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| Premia del Mar |
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