Labor day in Spain

On Monday, I started the day with my class at 9.  It was weird knowing that all of my Wofford friends were also starting classes that day and I was not going to be there.  We finally met our Spanish teacher, Yolanda, and she was very nice and we learned a lot of really helpful things.  The whole class was based on learning several colloquial phrases used in everyday life.
After class, I took a short nap and then Daniela and I decided to explore some of the smaller streets in the Las Ramblas area.  We wanted to go somewhere for lunch that was less touristy than some of the other cafes.  We ended up at a place where the menu was in all Catalan.  Although we weren't really sure what we ended up ordering, it was very good.  We both had gazpacho and I had some type of sausages for my main dish. 

Gazpacho Andaluz

The Catalan Menu

After lunch, we headed to Gaudi's Parc Guell.  I loved seeing all the whimsical architecture everywhere.  Everything had curves and it looked like you had left the city.  The Parc was probably my favorite thing I've done thus far.  We walked all the way to the top and were able to see the entire city.  I also found a cave where a fashion show for America's Next Top Model was filmed, so that was also pretty exciting for me, haha.  I've posted a lot of pictures from the park, because there was so much to see there.

Where the fashion show was!

Daniela and I on the bench overlooking the city

After seeing Parc Guell, we took the metro to la Sagrada Familia, the famous cathedral designed by Gaudi.  It is still under construction and has been since the early 1900s.  According to the staff at the Cathedral, it will not be finished until 2027.  The cathedral has so much detail, inside and out.  It was beautiful because it was so intricate and different.  However, I was a little disappointed because the construction really is everywhere.  At times, I felt more like I was in a construction zone than a famous church.

The ceiling

On the way down one of the towers

Gaudi y yo

Because we had seen two really important attractions in Barcelona that day, we didn't get back to the house until almost 9, which is when we usually have dinner.  However, when we got to the apartment, Angeles was nowhere to be found.  All of the sudden, we remembered that tonight was the Welcome Ceremony for IES, so we thought that maybe Angeles had not made dinner because she assumed that we would be there.  Because we would be so late, we decided to just eat dinner at a cafe by our house.  We ordered several different types of tapas, and I ended up trying morcilla for the first time.  It was actually really good!
When we returned home, Angeles was so worried!  It turns out that she was there waiting for us the whole time!  We apologized for the misunderstanding and she calmed down a little bit. 

On Tuesday, I was thankful that my teacher moved our class to 11:15, so I got to sleep in a little later.  After class, some friends and I walked around the city and explored some more areas of Las Ramblas.  We found out that there was a futbol game later that night versus Argentina, so we found a place to watch the game and planned to meet there later that night.  After buying our jerseys, we headed home for dinner.  Angeles ended up making salmon de plancha, or grilled salmon..my favorite!  After dinner, we got ready to go watch the game.  The night wasn't at all what I thought it would be, because the bar that we went to to watch the game was in favor of Argentina, and Spain ended up losing 4-1.  Hopefully, we'll have better luck the next time we watch a game.