El diario de mis aventuras en España

Last post from Espana

2005-07-14T03:40:00.000+02:00

Well, ladies and gentleman, boys and girls. This is officially my las post from Barcelona, Spain. We're leaving in 3 hrs to the air port and 3 hrs after that on our plane to Paris. Then we have a 5 hr layover in paris, and will depart from paris at about 5pm bcn time. which is 11am atl time. We shoudl be back oat about 7pm est. Weather permittting. Well, it's been a sad day. I walked around and enjoyed some of the city near our place for the last time for a while. It's sad; i wish we could be here longer. Oh well. There's always another vacation. Well, this has most certainly been an experience of a lifetime. Ciao,
Blake

ps see you all back home!

Happy Birthday Pops! And, uh, other stuff....

2005-07-08T22:45:00.000+02:00

   Ugh!
   Classes suck. So i don't get to go anywhere this weekend b/c i have to study, write a paper, and do a 2 projects.... bleh. Well. Paris was fun. We saw the Eiffel Tower. It was big. And tall. And how ironic it was that they has "Paris 2012" all over the place and didn't win the olympics. Hehe. Oh well. Sucks for them. We spent no les than 6 hrs in the louvre. It was the best part of paris. We only stayed through saturday. It was fun. Everyone is so very stereotypical there. :-D
    Ok, so yesterday i went shopping and found a second hand clothes store that was awesome. I got 3 shirts, and an adidas like jacket all for 15e. The jacket is black, white and yellow! TECH colors!!! :)
   Today i also went shopping, and got some cool stuff. A big barcelona flag thats on my wall as we speak. and some incence. There was also a breakdancing group down by the christopher columbus statue. They were good and i gave them 30 cents. Mad respect, as they say :)
   I think tomorrow i'm just gonna do lots of work. And then sunday there might be a bullfight here and im gonna try to go to that. If not theres usually a Spanish guitar concert also on sundays. Well i'll put some photos down below. Everyone have a good weekend.
-b

My weekend plans

2005-06-29T19:30:00.000+02:00

Ok, so my plans for this weekend changed a little. Mostly because every wants to go to Morocco, but no-one actually is willing to. :( I had it all figured out. Anyways. Instead I'm going with Neel to Paris. It ought to be pretty fun. I'm still shooting for going to Morocco next weekend. I may have to pass on the running of the bulls. But I have my priorities. :) Anywho. We're leaving onix in about 45 minutes, and will be on our way to Paris at 21:05! Wish me luck and stuff. Everyone have a good weekend!
Ciao.

Oh, ps: I should be back no later than Tuesday morning, just fyi. :) - bi

Pictures

2005-06-27T03:04:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone! (Shout-Outs to Eldon's Mom & Dad for reading!!!! :) )

Today (night, whatever...) I'm going to introduce you to some of our friends that we've made during our stay!

Killer Skateboarding Hamburger!!!

Ok, that was some graffiti from near the zoo we spied last weekend. Now here's some pictures that interest people:

Eldon and our new friend Marie (she was here visiting the Frankster) attempting to fit onto his skateboard at the same time!

Me and Marie doing it gangsta style!

The next one is Matt on the left, and in the back to the right is our Catalan friend Montse (her whole name is Montserrat!). She attends our Computational Photography class. Well, anyways we're out eating at that Argentenian place in this shot and the next.

This is Evan's chica Di (like "die").

This picture is of a guy named Edwardo (left) and our friendly neighbor Sebastian (right) at Barceloneta about 2 weeks ago.

This is a shot from Sonar the other night. This is LCD Soundsystem.

This is the sunrise after San Juan.

Next, say hello to my dinner this evening, his name is Phil...

Ok, ok. It's really just some more paella. Me and Eldon went out with Frank and Marie tonight so she could eat paella b/c they don't have any in San Sebastian (Where she's studying). Yummm!!!!

Ok, maybe more pictures later. Now I'm going to read and then sleep!
Ciao!

Sorry for the Delay

2005-06-25T01:05:00.000+02:00

It's been about 10 days since I last posted. For this I sincerely apologize. As you will soon see, I've been rather busy doing.... well, not a whole lot, actually. There have been a few big events that've happened here in Barcelona. Cody (my roomate from last year, and in our apartment next year) came into town with a bunch of hoodlums from the Lorraine program. So I spent most of last weekend with them. There was also the Sonar music festival that some of us from here went to. Then there was San Juan festival a few nights ago.

     Let's see... Where shall I begin? Well a good place would be Friday last. I woke up at around 11 in the morning and met Cody et. al. at the Sants train station. After a brief hello, I guided them through Barcelona's metro station to where their hostel was on the Gran Via. After a delightfully short rest at the place, we headed out in search of food. They wanted somewhere cheap so I told them I knew of a place that was cheap, but it was like 12 blocks from where we were at the time. They more or less consented (by this I mean that at least a two thirds majority gave approval, some such as Sam and Chris were unawares to the situation) and we set out. I led them such that we walked past the Arc de Triomf, and through some very pretty streets that I knew of. We then arrived at our destination on the corner across from Estacio Nord. We sat down as two groups of six, and they ooed and awed at the 4 euro menu that included a drink. After we all placed our orders I ran to my room (for we were but 2 blocks from my dorm) and mailed a letter that had been direly in need of mailing. I suppose I led them there on purpose to near where I lived, because the letter had to be out that day by 17:00 or it would've been a terrible ordeal for me. Well, the trip to mail the letter took no more that 10 minutes, and when I got back the bread was waiting, as was my drink. Our food came out a short moment later (I was also well aware of the timing of the restraunt, it being one that I enjoy on a regular basis when there is nothing to make for lunch in the room on the weekends), and we ate, paid, and left.
     After lunch they decided to split into two groups. Group one consisted of all the guys and Travis' girl, Rachel. Group two was the other three girls. Group One wanted to go to the beach, and Two wanted to go shopping. I told the group of girls about the Chinese shops around the arc, and about Placa de Catalunya, and Las Ramblas, and how to get there. They left, and I showed the others the way to the beach. I lead them through the Park behind the arc, and to all the cool little stuff that's in there. It was a fun walk, and after some complaining on the part of the unaware individuals I spoke of earlier, we made it to the beach. There we hung out. But not for too long. I read some of my book, and they walked around. We then walked all the way from Port Olympico to Barceloneta (which is a fair amount of the beach). After that they went to their hostel and I back to my room to shower and change. Then we met back up and went out and had some delicious Paella. I had Fideguay, which is these long, skinny noodles chocked full of all sorts of pork products and cheese. It was really good. After dinner we went and hung out on the beach for a few hours in Barceloneta, and the Retired separately.
     Saturday I let the Lorraine kids be and went about my own business, a little tired from the Tourist/Tour-Guide beat. I went about the park and read around the Arc. An interesting thing happened to me while I was reading. As I'm being all wrapped up in The Tempest, I happened to notice the weight on the bench shifts. More to my side, so that I felt myself sink a little. After realizing this shift, I turned to see what was going on on my bench, and noticed that my backpack had dissapeared! After but a split second of panic, I had the wits to look up from the bench and spied some real hoodlum walking very casually with my bag. I promptly dropped my book and ran after him. Reaching him but a moment later, I proceeded to shove him as hard as I could into the railing of the park. Shouted some impulsive words at him, and grabbed my bag from him. After checking that the contents of my bag were still there, and keeping an eye as this mischeif maker walked away, I returned home, too agitated to read anymore, wishing I had beat the crap out the guy. I reasoned it was for the better that I didn't try to fight him. I reasoned that I did have my bag, and none of the contents were missing, and that if I had tried to fight him, and somehow lost, I might be without my bag in its entirity. So as irked as I am even now about it, I can only be thankful that I felt the bag as it was removed from my bench.
     Well, later on, after going back to my room and having a bite to eat to calm me down, I met up with Amelia, Christian, Sam, Hank, Christian's friend Mandy, and Justin, and learned they were going to the Sonar music festival that night. I went online and purchased my ticket. Then we headed out to the show. It was quite a long walk from Placa Espanya, a solid hour, and no less, of straight walking. Well we got there, got our tickets from the Will call place, and had no trouble getting inside with our cameras and everything. I only wish the security back home was like it is here. Well we got to see some famous names in concert such as De La Soul, LCD Soundsystem, and MIA (british). It was really fun, and I hadn't been to a concert in a long time.
     Sunday I met up with the Lorraine kids at their hostel in the morning, about 11 or so. Then we went to the beach where we chilled for most of the day. Read, listened to music, and just generally hung out. Cody and some people went swimming to the bouys, which were pretty far away. And the water was pretty cold as well. Later that evening we went and ate at soem restraunt right beside the Gothic District, it was really good. They left monday afternoon some time. So I said farewell to them on Sunday night.
     The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. The power went out one of the days this week. That was probably the only excitement that happened around the dorms. Thursday night though, was the festival of San Juan (Saint John). We went out to the beach at about 11 pm and enjoyed fireworks all through the night and into the morning. Only a few of us stayed until the sun rose, but I was determined to be one of them. And so I was. :) It was lots of fun. The beach was packed from left to right full of all sorts of people. I met some random guy from Atlanta that wanted a bar to go watch the NBA final. There was also a guy walking down the beach wearing only a backpack; and I mean ONLY a Backpack! Well we watched the sunrise, the proceeded to head back to onix, where I promptly face-planted on my bed after entering the room.
     Yesterday I did basically nothing. I read, walked outside a little, and went out to eat with some people at an Argentenian restraunt down the way a little. It was really good. Though I didn't have steak, Matt did, and it was humongous. We walked to Barcleoneta and some of the group had some Helado. Then we walked back to Onix. That pretty much leaves me here, this morning. Where I walked around and read some, and grabbed a decaf and a pastry. Hopefully I won't go so long next time between posts. Have a good day!
Ciao!

Italia Pictures

2005-06-15T18:24:00.000+02:00

Here are a bunch of pictures to accompany the other day's post on Italy. I decided not to put them in the other post, because that would make it even longer! Enjoy!

Unlike most airports, at Girona "International" you walk right up to the plane, get to smell the beautiful scents of the tarmac, and experience REAL travel.

The Leaning Tower at Pisa, as you can see, is a not quite as level as the architects might have hoped.

The City of Florence.

Michaelangelo's David. Pretty cool. We weren't supposed to take pictures, so I snuck only this one.

Vivolio. Quite amazing gelato.

Piazza del Popolo. Our entryway into Rome.

Il Vittoriano. Really cool building, and a beautiful atmosphere around it.

Near the Foro Romano, there are all sorts of cool statues and random things that are really beautiful, and not noticed enough.

Foro Romano.

Foro Romano.

There were several couples apparently being wed in Rome while we were there. They also had photographers with them making them pose.

St. Peter's Square, Vatican City. Sunday morning.

St. Peter's Square, Vatican City. Sunday.

St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. This was Sunday also, just before we skipped into line.

The Line to get into St. Peter's!!!

The Swiss Guard. "Where for art thou Pope?" Hehe.

The Castel St. Angelo. Cool stuff.

Vatican City from down the way.

Me on the roof of the Castel, the Vatican behind me.

The Pope spoke at noon.

Digitally Zooming in on an already Digitally Zoomed picture. We were quite a ways from him.

The Pantheon :)

Trevi Fountain. Really is the best fountain in Rome.

The Colosseo. :-D

Inside the Colosseo. Notice the far outer wall kinda stops.

More in the colosseo. You can see the construction going on to restore the floor.

From the opposite side. The labyrinths under the floor are cool.

Taken from the second story that we could go to.

The partially done floor. I think it's gonna be wicked when it's done.

Ok! That's all for now. Everyone have a good day!

Past 2 Days

2005-06-15T14:00:00.000+02:00

Well, the past two days have been pretty boring. It rained for like 2 days almost straight. But today is beautiful Mediterranean weather once more. Did you know that only 20% of people in Spain rent their houses/apartments? The lowest in Europe. Yes, that's yet another useless thing we just learned in class. Well, hopeuflly we'll learn something useful in class today. Later.

The Italy Post!

2005-06-12T17:17:00.000+02:00

What follows is my account of 5 days in Italy. This is the most ridiculously long post ever! Just to give you perspective, this took up 3 full pages in Word. Ok, get ready.
n.b. pictures up later today maybe....

We left out of our rooms at 03:15, and walked to the bus station (Barcelona Nord, which is literally across the street from us, infact there it is out of the my window). We hopped on the bus, and left the bus station promptly at 03:45. We got to Gerona Airport at 04:45. The check in line was huge, but it was ok. We got our tickets and had about 40 minutes if not more to kill. We walked around, looked in the Duty free shop, then finally boarded our plane. We left about 5 minutes late, but the flight was smooth (a 737-800 if you care about the plane). And we got a really good tailwind and arrived in Pisa a full 25 minutes ahead of time. The flight took about an hour. And we were there in Pisa at no later than 08:00. We got our stuff, hoped a bus and rode it for a little. We got off at the wrong place and had to walk with our bags to the Leaning Tower. It was pretty cool to see. Took a bunch of pictures, several goofy ones. Then we started trucking back to the train station. We stopped for a little bite to eat. Then walked at caught the train to Florence. The train took about 1:40. And we arrived at the station in Florence at like 12:20. We waited on Ryan and some other Oxford people till like 13:20. Then we went and got some pizza and gelato. We went back to the station at 15:00 and finally met up with them. Ryan (Erica’s “Knight in shiny/ing Armor") showed us to a cool building with a big dome that overlooks the city. So we shelled out the euros to get in and climb to the top. It was worth it. An absolutely stunning view. So we spent about 20 minutes up there to get our money’s worth and then headed back down. The inside staircases were really, really teeny. And going past people who were going up or down was an interesting and funny experience. Well, after we finished with that, we walked back to where the Oxford cats were staying and took a quick cat-nap. Well, at least that was the plan. It actually turned into a nice long siesta (about 4 hrs). But we were pooped. We then went out for a little bit, and found a place called “The Fiddler’s Elbow.” Really nice place. I think we heard more English that first day in Florence and Pisa than we’d heard in our whole stay at Barcelona before. Well, after our short stay out that night we went back and I crashed on some guys floor who I didn’t really know because I couldn’t get into Ryan and Ryan’s room as they were asleep. Turns out I pulled the right move though, because the guys I stayed with had an extra pillow and blanket and R&R didn't! It was great for me, not for Kelsey and Hank! I slept pretty dang good too.

Ok, so day 2, Florence. We got up, had some breakfast (mmmm.... pastries!). Then headed to the Academia to view Michelangelo’s David. We waited in line for about an hour to get in. Not so bad. There were a lot of cool paintings and statues, nothing particularly noteworth or famous. Then we went to the main David area. He was pretty stinking amazing. WAY Bigger than I expected. He certainly makes you feel pretty small. His foot is about the size of an average man's torso. All from one slab of marble that was going to be thrown out. Well after we spent some time in there we went and grabbed some lunch. We got some particularly delicious lasagna (Neel and I got the last 2 plates of it, and everyone else had to get other stuff! Mwah haha!), and met two girls who had just graduated from UPenn (? Maybe Penn State ?). And one of them is going to Emory this fall (Brett! *wink wink* *nudge nudge*). They walked with us to Vivolio, the world’s best gelato place, and we had some incredible gelato. They had so many types it was unbelievable. After that we went to this cool Leonardo da Vinci Exposition where they had all these rebuilt machines from da Vinci’s notes. It was all interactive, so we got to play with everything, it was tons of fun (can anyone say Kindergarden?). Then we got some snacks at the grocery store next to the exposition for the ride to Rome the next day. Then Hank, Neel, Kelsey and myself went perusing the markets. Hank and I got separated from N & K, but that’s ok. We wandered for a little, then we headed back to meet up with the guys we were staying with. We pretty much just hung out until dinner time, then went and ate. Had some yummy pasta and Italian bread. It was very good.

Day 3 of the trip, (i.e.: Saturday) we were supposed to catch the 6:45 train, which was pretty ambitious to begin with. But I fell asleep on the second floor in Hays’ Room, and Kathy and Neel couldn’t find me. I felt really bad, but we didn’t have to pay anything to get our tickets changed. So that was good. We got to Rome at about 1pm. (9:30 train). Checked into the hostel, which was painfully out of the way from the city. (Note to all those who are going to go to Rome later: get your hostel inside the city!!! There are several around the Roma Termini (the main station). It will be well worth the extra money!). Well anyways, the place we stayed at was still nice. It had a very nice scenic feel about it. It was called the Tiber Camping Village. After we were finished checking in and getting situated. We went back to Piazza de Popolo (which is more on the northend of the city). And we started walking from there. We grabbed a little bite to eat, and went into a few churches that were in the vicinity.
Rome is an absolutely gorgeous city. I will go back most certainly one day. We pretty much walked and looked in little stores and came upon fountains and such until we hit this gorgeous group of Piazzas, the Piazza Venezia, Piazza di Sant Marco, and Piazza M. di Lorento. In the front of all these piazzas, there was this gorgeous building apparently called Il Vittoriano. The statues that adorn this building are incredible. There are also 3 fountains on the building alone. We walked around the right side of the building (westward) and pretty soon came upon the Foro Romano, which if you haven’t guessed is the Roman Forum! It was awesome. All the ruins are so cool. We unfortunately couldn’t get down into them, because they had closed just 15 minutes before we got there (to new visitors, people already inside had another 45 minutes to meander around :-/ ). We actually never quite made it to there in time. But you can still get a pretty good view from walking around them. When I go back, I certainly will make it a point to go down into them. Well, after we walked around them, we saw the grave of some catholic saint under a church, and then walked more until we came upon the Colosseo!
Man, that thing is so cool. I think it’s my favorite place in all of Rome. It’s just so incredibly humongous! It’s hard to believe that it was actually built by people back in 80 A.D.!!! We didn't go in as it was getting pretty late by this point. So we hopped the metro and got off at some random stop, and found a place to eat dinner. After some interesting and very delicious “Home-made” pasta. We headed back to Popolo and grabbed the train to the hostel.

Day 2 in Roma (Day 4, Sunday): We got up pretty early and took the 8:30 shuttle and train out to the Vatican. We walked into St. Peter’s Square. It’s pretty cool. Lots of people were just kinda hangin out there. The line into The Basilica was HUGEGANTIC. Seeing as how we aren't the most patient group, we kind of snuck into the middle of it. Then slowly made our way to the metal detectors. They are pretty pointless, really. If some one makes them beep. The guards will just look at them and be like, “Uhm. Beep? You’re ok. Keep going.” I guess if they don’t look shady, they don’t care. St. Peters was really pretty inside. By far puts all the other cathedrals we went in to shame. There was also a surprising amount of Italian military men (and women) walking around, just like the rest of the tourists, taking pictures and whatnot, but doing so in their camo uniforms and berets. After spending some time in the basilica, we left back out into the square. On the way out you can see some of the Swiss guard at their posts. They look really goofy, like they came out of a Shakespeare play, but I’m sure they’re not to be messed with. We headed to Castel S. Angelo, which is just down the way from the main Square. It’s the castle that all the old popes used to use to hide out in. It’s really neat and you get a really good view of the Vatican and St. Peter's from the roof. Well, we chilled out on there for a little bit. Then we headed back to St. Peter’s Square, because we heard the pope was coming out at 12.
We got there with about 15 minutes to chill. Then low and behold, the new pope comes out onto a balcony off to the side, and starts speaking. The crowd went pretty crazy. It was cool. The whole thing was in Italian, so weren't really able to understand what was going on, but it was still cool to see and hear the pope. Then after about a 15 minute sermen, he started giving shout outs to the big groups of people. We only know thins cuz he would say some stuff, then a group would cheer really loudly. He also shouted out to a few German groups in German, which was cool. Well, being the intelligent, sentient beings that we are, we headed out about halfway through the shout outs, and started making our way through the ginormous crowd to the exit. This was of course very smart on our part, because right as we reached the edge where the barricades had been set up, we turned and he was saying good bye and waving and all that stuff. And then he disappeared, and the crowd all focused their attention on leaving exactly where we were. We hopped the barricade and jetted.
After we were clear of most of the tumult, we strolled pretty lazily towards the Piazza Navona, which is a really pretty and long plaza with three fountains. There are also about 1 million kabillion fafillion street vendors there. There were 2 really good street performers. One was dressed like a business man and was frozen in the classic walking in the wind pose, it was pretty amazing. Then there was this older Italian gentleman who did a puppet sort of show, where he made these glove puppets dance to music. He was really good. He got a lot of money from people. He did a really good skit with a Michael Jackson puppet doing smooth criminal. That was probably the best. Well, we then strolled pretty carefree again to Pantheon. That junk was sweet. What’s really cool too is the fact that it’s just kinda in the middle of the city. Not really separated by any expanse of open space. The only open space around it is the small Piazza in front of it where there’s a fountain. We chilled there for a little bit, there’s really not a lot to do except look at it. It’s free to go in, and inside it’s just a big room. But it’s a cool big room. After the pantheon, we went and chilled at the Fontana Trevi, which in my opinion is the coolest and most beautiful majestic fountain in Rome. So go there most certainly. It’s really crowded, and for a reason. After Trevi, we strolled through some back alleys to the Colosseum. Theres another Arc de Triomf by the Colosseum that we didn’t spot the day before. We walked around that for a little bit and then headed to go into the arena itself. It broke our bank and cost 10euro to get in. Which kinda hurt, but I think it was well worth it.
We went at a cool time, because the Italian government has decided to re-floor the arena, and they’re about ¼ done right now. So you can still see the underground labyrinths of chambers, and yet the partial floor gives a good idea of how amazing it would be to be in the Colosseo back in maybe the 2nd century. I think it’ll be even better when the floor is all the way done. It’ll do it more justice. We spent about an hour if not more wandering around. You can only go on 2 of the main floors. Cuz the other are in the part that’s fallen away, and I guess they don’t want you to do any more damage or fall off the edge. You can go to this link to read some of the history of the Colosseo.
Well after the Colosseum, we were getting pretty hungry. So we went looking for this restaurant Ms. Edwards had claimed was the best in Europe. Well, much to our dismay we found where the restaurant used to be. After much grief and mourning, we found a close by restaurant. It turned out to be the best meal I’ve had in Europe. So I wasn’t too sad. The entire menu was in Italian, which was a good sign from the beginning. Much to our luck, our waitress spoke pretty dang good English, and helped us decipher what we wanted. I got a thick spaghetti type noodle pasta with fresh lime, fresh tomatoes, and something called roghetta (sp?). Well, needless to say it was the best thing I’ve ever eaten just about. Certainly must be a good area for food that we went to. We also ordered a bottle of house wine (because what would a trip to Italy be without some famous Italian wine????). But it turned out that she brought us the wrong bottle (a 16 euro bottle to be exact!), but she didn’t charge us! Absolutely baffling! By far also the best white wine I’ve ever tasted. Well, after the main course we split some fresh strawberries and cream, Neel also got some espresso. So now that we were sufficiently stuffed, we headed back to the Piazza de Popolo to try to catch the last train of the night.
We were much successful. Though there was a scary incident on the platform involving a gypsy quarrel. Much shouting ensued. And everyone was leaning out of whatever windows and doors were open to see what was going on. All I could see was a half naked gypsy man screaming in a drunken stupor at some other seemingly innocent Italian (?) guy. Soon though, to everyone’s great enjoyment, a security officer came and escorted the crazed gypsy away. The ride back was nice and quite. We met some other people that were staying at our hostel/campsite who were from the states also. They were nice. Then we got back and crashed for the night.

Day 3 in Rome, Last day of the trip. We woke up early and packed and checked out in time to get the first bus/train to town. We immediately went to the Vatican Museum hoping to avoid a long line. Well, we learned a very important lesson: whatever you’re thinking, 10,000 other tourists are thinking the exact same thing. So we filed into the massive line. Not but 1:40 minutes or so later though, we were at the entrance. We spent several hours in the museums of the Vatican. We saw the Sistine Chapel, which was pretty awesome. The entire thing is painted absolutely beautiful. I was made to take my hat off when we got into it though. But that’s ok. Snuck some pictures, and then went out and looked around some more. Several of the exhibits closed about halfway through the day, much to our dismay, due to renovation work in progress. Well, we all three grabbed some food at the Vatican cafeteria. It was extremely reasonably priced. Quite possibly cheaper than all of the street carts. We had pizza. It was delicious. And they serve beer in the Vatican. Which I found pretty interesting. We thought that might offend some people. But it didn’t offend us. After eating, Neel wanted to go look for a jacket. So he disappeared into the streets. And me and K-Dogg went to get a better, less crowded view of St. Peter’s Basilica. We were about to leave when we noticed the line to the Pope’s tombs was extremely short. So we hopped into line, waited about 3 minutes and then we were under ground. We saw the apparent tomb/shrine to St. Peter. I’m not sure exactly if it’s the real thing. But I don’t think it is. I think it’s as far as anyone normal gets to see though. Then we got to see Pope John Paul II’s tomb. It was really quite a beautiful memorial. There was also the tombs of all the other popes down there. Kind of creepy if you think about it. But it was nice. Then we headed to the terminal where we had dropped our bags off earlier in the day and met up with Neel again, who was quite unlucky in his search for a jacket. We caught the train to Ciampino, then the bus from there to the actual airport. Much nicer airport than Girona. But that’s ok. We all got separate window seats on the flight back. I finished Ender’s Game (by Orson Scott Card, go read it everyone, one of the best books I’ve ever read!) on the plane ride back. Well, after a the bus ride back it was pretty late and I just crashed. I’m pretty sure everyone else did the same thing.

Well, thus concludes our adventures in Italy. And as they say, “When in Rome…” Ciao ciao!

Italians are cool

2005-06-08T00:37:00.000+02:00

Ok, so this isn't my Italy post (yet), but it still has to do with Italians! There's this guy Sebastian, who we met downstairs, and he promised us last week he would cook for us this week some real Italian food. And since we're back in Spain, and the delicious pasta is a thing of a the past, it was nice. So Sebastian cooked us a pasta with egg, cheese and bacon. It is now quite possibly the second best thing i've ever had. I'm so stuffed though, I can't even think of eating anymore. I'll get a picture up tomorrow of us all with him. Also he introduced us to his friend Flavia. She was freakin' hillarious. They are both Italian. It's so fun to hear them talk to each other. And we help them with words they don't understand or don't know how to say in English. Then we attempted to learn some Italian, but I think I failed pretty bad :-D. Well, anyways back to the great, great, great food. The cheese he used was from Italy, from his home. It was a different varietal of parmesian. He brought 8 kilos with him (5 months ago). That's 17.6 lbs for those of you not quite used to Metrics yet. That's a LOT of cheese. I think he's down to the last kilo now. But he leaves for a short stay at home in about 2 weeks. And how he cooked it was pretty funny. He freaked the girls out when they asked if he cooked the egg, and he said, "No." They wigged for a sec. But then he got what they were asking. Apparently he just cracks the egg into the pasta, and the heat from the pasta cooks the egg. They were much more calm after this. It was absolutely amazing. Ok, I'm gonna go fall asleep thinking about how full I am now. Ciao!

Pre-Crazy Update

2005-06-07T01:30:00.000+02:00

Ok, sorry no recent updates. Look for a huge one tomorrow evening some time. But for those of you who asked, yes i'm alive still!!! I successfully made it to and fro Italia. Here's a quick overview of our trip (and i mean quick).
3:45 am Thurdsay: Bus to Girona Airport
6:45 am Thursday: Fly to Pisa, Italy
8-11ish am Thurs: Pisa! (leaning tower and all that nonsense)
1 pm Thursday: Meet up with Oxford peeps in Florence, Italy
The rest of thurs & fri: Crazy fun in Florence with the Oxford Kids!!!
Sat morning 9ish: Train to Rome.
Get to rome at 12:30 or so, go checkin, blah blah.
Even Crazier fun (x3) in Rome Sat, Sun, Mon
Fly out of Roma Ciampino at 8:00, get here at 9:30ish, ride the bus and get back to the dorms at 11pm today(monday it was at least). Ok, ciao amigos!

¡¡¡Camping, The French, and Futbol Loco!!!

2005-05-30T00:20:00.000+02:00

Well, this weekend was pretty fun. We left about 10:30-ish for Latour de Carol. Which is the last stop on train in Spain. As we're loading the train at the Station Sants, Eldon, for what reason is still a mystery to me, gets up and looks out the door, then steps down. Of course, as luck would have it, the doors promptly close without warning, and off we go. I felt really bad for him, the look on his face was awful. But alas, he had fun at a Brazilian music festival on the skirts of town.

So anyways, we get off at this podunk station where the Spanish rail meets the French rail. And asked around the station for good camping. These two really funny old guys pointed off into the distance and said, "Left, Spain. Right, France." It was quite awesome. So we decided to march to the right. Needless to say, when we actually came upon Latour de Carol (about 30 minutes walking), which I think is in France, we saw no more Spanish. We kept walking down the road and confirmed our suspicions at a small playground where a sign read something about the gov't of France.
At this point we all realized we didn't have our passports, so we made our way across a nearby bridge and over this gorgeous creek. Walk along a dirt road a little, then disappear into some farm land and onto the train tracks. We followed the train tracks for a while, no trains came until we were off of it, so that was good.
The scenery was beautiful. The French countryside is just amazing, I could totally retire there. We finally came about the edge of the mountain we wanted to hike, where the train tracks bent sharply, and start our ascent.

We found some really good flat ground near the bottom, and decided to make camp there (for the sake of not having to hike down a mountain at 6am among other reasons). We strung our food and packs up in the trees. And went climbing into the forest. We chose quite possibly one of the toughest places to ascend, but it was fun, and good exercise. There was a series of electricity poles that went up the side, so we followed under them, because they had some clearer areas on their path. Note that when I say clearer areas I really mean that you can stand up for at leat 75% of the time as opposed to maybe 45% anywhere else. It had to be at least a 55Â° incline too. Well, we made it up about 3/4 of the way, then came upon a road that we probably could've taken the whole way. We walked this a little, and then it merged into another road that we followed to the base of one of the smaller peaks on the mountain we had chosen. With minimal effort we were resting atop the rocks. I think I either hit some poisonous plant or got bit by something at the top, because my elbow broke into a little rash for the night. It's pretty much gone now, but it itched like a buggar for a while.

Well, we chilled at the top for a while, then headed back down, trying to make the bottom before dark (considering we had no flashlight!). We were going pretty good until I slipped and skidded down about 10 ft and realized that my iPod (which I didn't want to leave at the camp, because it was the only thing valuable in my pack. And as to why I brought it camping: it lets me empty my camera onto it and have virtually unlimited pictures, and I can also dump other people's cameras onto it also) was missing from where it had been. So me and Kelsey spent about 20 minutes searching, and he finally found it back up the trail before I ever fell! Oh well. It's all good. We made it down to the camp just as the light was failing us. We moved a bunch of stones into a fire ring, and then Hank set about starting the fire as others readied the hot dogs and moved sticks and stones around the campsite and readied their sleeping places. We had a good time talking around the camp fire and pigging out Oscar Meyers.

This morning we were up at 'bout 6, me and Kelsey made a fire to keep us warm, and then we ate breakfast. Oranges, bananas, and apples. Hank had some baked beans!!! We were all very jealous. Well, it was pretty uneventful as far as the rest goes. We back tracked to the trainstation which took way less time than walking from it. And chilled on the train platform for an hour. Ate some more, then got on the train. After we got on the train and it pulled off, some policia were going around checking tickets and passports, needless to say wedidn'tt have them, but they were really cool and we just showed them drivers licenses and they were happy. We told them we were studying in Barcelona. They did give these African guys some trouble because they didn't have their passports, but everything seemed to work out in the end.

After we got back, we ate KFC. It was ridiculously good!!! I didn't realize exactly how much I missed mashed potatoes and fried chicken!!! After that I pretty much just crashed in my bed. Woke up about 6 (pm this time), and took a shower. Then I met up with the students on the trip and we all went to go watch Espanyol play their last game of the season. It was awesome. Way better game than last time. The action was way way better. Each team was seriously going crazy. Espanyol won 2-0! They had so many near-misses also! I think they had about 3 good shots on the goal in 10 minutes in the second half. Well, didn't really matter, because they won. After the game everyone rushed the field. And a few of us dared to follow suit (I for one). It was so cool. All the Spanish fans were going crazy. Me and Eldonn got piecess of the net! There was also a fight earlier in the game between an Athletic Club fan and an Espanyol fan. That stayed fair for about 5 seconds before the AC guy got the crap beat out of him by a buch of people in blue and white. The cops had to rush up their and escort him from the premises. Also right before the match ended a few fans got loose and ran across thefieldd. One of them got tackled! It washilariouss! Well, that's everything so far. Look for some pictures added to this post later! G'night everyone!

Lazy Friday

2005-05-28T09:32:00.000+02:00

Well, Friday was very uneventful. I just sat around being a bum, read for school some, did the email thing. Then I decided to go read my for-fun book in the park. It was a beautiful day once again, so I did just that. I layed in the sun next to a statue, and read for about 2 hours. You can also certainly tell the tourists are rolling in now. And it's very easy to distinguish them. Pretty bad considering i'm just that, a tourist. After I was sufficiently sleepy from the sun, I got up and walked around the park and listened to the iPod for a little. It's so awesome how many people are in the parks here at any given time. I wish we had parks like this at home. I went and got a decaf and a chocolate croissant, then headed back. Still being a bum, I turned on the movie "City of God," which we borrowed from this guy Felix down the hall, and watched that. Eldon came back from Tarragona about this time and watched the rest with me. He'd already seen it, so it was ok that he was late. Everyone should see this movie, it's definitely one of my favorites now. Read about it here. Well, then I read some more for school, and fell asleep. We're getting ready to go out to the Pyreneese and Andorra. We'll be back Sunday in the afternoon. Everyone have a good weekend!

The park where i read.

A small musical group playing for money nearby in the park.

Please clean up after your dog! Haha! I found this sign hillarious for some reason.

Some random entertainers in the park.

These old guys by the Arc that play this game with metal balls. Every day they're there in the afternoon.

¡Más fotos!

2005-05-26T20:52:00.000+02:00

Ok, this is pretty much just a photo thing here. Be patient. There's a lot.

This is a guy dressed up as Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

A fountain talking to you. (Someone else wrote that while I was gone, I don't know who!!!)

A Santa Claus in a ally balcony in mid may.

Bored? Andrew, Amelia, and Frank.

The adjuntament building of barcelona.

A really neat statue.

This, notice the couple making out near the base. This is actually a pretty common sight.

The Familia thing by gaudi.

A bear at the zoo.

Animals close up with a wide angle lens, anyone?

This guy made me sad.

They love their penuts.

Some of the gorillas.

A Red-Necked Wallaby, mid-jump.

A really cute little green guy!

Our teacher asked us to take a picture of this, just moments after he told us no pictures that day.

I don't know what Jerald is doing here, but it might have been an attempt to dance.

Poor Alice, some guy just wanted to back his thang up! Haha!

The asian possie, plus Ira. (Ira, Flora, Alice, Helen).

Me with a rather dumbfounded look...

Erica in the park.

Kelsey in the park.

The gorilla "Snowflake" that the website failed to mention had died, 100% Chocolate (Except the leaves).

Don Quixote, de la Mancha, fighting the famed windmill giant, sculpted from nothing but chocolate. Mmmm.

This was my favourite peice, also 100% coco, It's of a guy slaying a dragon and saving the princess. The detail was just so much better in this than the others.

This was cool just cause it was "Finding Nemo" in chocolate.

The cup of delicious metled chocolate we had after... Soooo goood!

Some really cool graffiti art.

A cool chimera/gryphon-ish statue in the park.

A guy painting in the park, and well, painting the park.

Ok, more later!

Chocolate

2005-05-25T18:27:00.000+02:00

Ok, well half of today's classes were cancelled. That was pretty sweet. So several of us went to the chocolate museum instead. It was neat. We got to learn about the history of chocolate. But i could've done that at home. The real cool part was gettin a cup of thick melted chocolate afterwards at the bar thing there. It was sooooo goooood. The girls, depsite all their boasting, couldn't barely manage to get down half their cup. Me and Kelsey happily helped them with the rest. We did take about half of our chocolate, found some fruit at a local market, and ate chocolate and strawberries in the park. We met a group of college kids from Dartmouth. They were actually pretty annoying... They were playing beer pong on the public table-tennis tables in the park. Me and Kelsey also dipped part of our chocolate bar into the liquid chocolate and it was awesome. Then we walked around, to try to get some of the fat off of us, and went over by the lake and sat around. I read some, and talked with the group.
I'm supposed to be cooking dinner tonight for our group of people who eats regularly, so i'm going to do a smothered chicken recipe. Please pray for me!!! I'll post some pictures of all this nonsense later. Now i must go get stuff from the grocery store. Later!

Walking, Speaking Spanish, and Stabbing Bulls.

2005-05-24T23:14:00.000+02:00

Ok, today was a pretty cool day.
Class was cancelled!!! So a few of us went walking around, mainly in search of the museum of chocolate, but just also to stretch our legs on another gorgeous day out here. The museu turned out to be closed today, so we got some icecream (helado). I got 2 scoops, one strawberry, and one coconut. Incredible. Then we went and all ate in the park and watched little school children play in the park and talk about random stuff. I got pretty bored, so I bid the group farewell and went exploring on my own. I walked down Ronda de Sant Pere, which leads from the Arc all the way through Placa de Catalunya, and ends at the Placa de Universitat. Lots of neat shops and stuff, just really a beautiful day for a walk. I didn't buy anything, so I consider it successful.

The Arc de Triomf, built for the 1888 world expo.

I did get a decaf and a chocolate filled and sprinkled croissant (omg, so freaking good) and read my book for leisure at the cafe. Then I grabbed another helado and took the subway to Spanish class.

Spanish was good, more practicing conjugating verbs. I'm starting to get the hang of it. Our Spanish teacher is really cool. She is 25 and speaks Spanish, Catalan, English, French and a little German. That's pretty awesome in my opinion. After class, several of us grabbed another cafe or postre (cafe decafinado con leche, personally), and then went to leave. I invited everyone to go to this Irish pub I spotted earlier in the day to watch rugby, and only Amelia took me up on it.
So we got there, everyone who works there is really from Ireland and speaks the best English ever. It made us so happy. We enjoyed some nachos, I had an absolutely awesome Budweiser, and we watched rugby and bullfighting on the TV. Bullfighting is freaking awesome. Very brutal, and I can understand why they want to make it illegal to practice, but it's still a very interesting sport. There is much revelry and show going on to bullfighting. We watched 3 fights, and the rugby match was between Scotland and the Barbarians. Don't ask me, just look them up here if you want to know more. Scotland pounded the Barbarians into the groud, I think the final was 35-7! Yeah, pretty bad. We talked to one of the guys who works there for a little while, his name is John. They were all really nice.

I decided to give everyone out there a little peak at our living arrangement here. Me and Eldon share a pretty much traditional style dorm, but with a kitchenette and our own bath. The maids came today to sweep and change our sheets, so we figured it was an opportune time to show it off.

First is the view as you walk in:

Then our bathroom (which is oh so small, and I bump my head on everything there):

Our shower is super super teenie! If you weighed over 250, I honestly don't think you'd physically fit into it:

Then there's the kitchen:

And here's Eldon modeling our lovely beds and desks:

Ok, well there really isn't much to it. So I have to read for architecture, so later!

An Interesting Monday

2005-05-24T00:21:00.000+02:00

Well not really a WHOLE lot has happened today. BUT..... Something really bizarre happened. A guy on the trip, Duckett (a.k.a. Thomas Perry, really cool guy), got hit by a car!!! No Lie! He's ok, he's all cut up and bruised, he broke his hand, but he's alive. The TAXI that hit him like stopped, and then drove off. I guess he freaked out. It was totally weird though, because I saw him right after it happened. I was bringing up my laundry (which is a whole 'nother story), and I get up to our floor (3) and there was Duckett. I was like, "Hey Duckett." And he turned his head and was like, "hey." And I instantly noticed his chin was bleeding, then I looked and his hand was covered in blood and his left arm was all bruised and bloody. I asked, "What the hell happened to you!?!?" He just said, "Dude, I just got hit by a car. I think I broke my arm." It was borderline funny just how like, stoic and out of it he was. Then he asked me, "Dude do you know where the hospital is."
I said, "No. You should go ask the reception people where it's at."
"What floor is that," he asked. At this point I knew he was truly out of it.
So I said, "Zero." And pressed the button, because I was unsure of his state. I wished him good luck and he got into the elevator. That was pretty much the last I saw of him until after Spanish and when we were going to eat.
Once again, he's ok. He has 3 stitches in his chin, and bandages on his right leg, left arm and middle right finger. He's pretty messed up looking, but he's alive.

Well, less exciting than that, I did laundry today. The washing machine works good, some Spanish guy showed me how to work it, but I loaded it too much and it wouldn't start. So I took a little out and closed the door, but it wouldn't start. Then I started pressing buttons (Note: Bad Idea). I figured out the Spanish symbol for "Stop" pretty quickly. So I had to go buy another 3 token for the washer, which I won't be doing for much longer: the self washer stuff is only like 2 for a whole box. And the dryer sucks. I got my clothes out very warm, and still wet. So my clothes have been hanging all over the room. I should get most of them down, because Eldon is back from his excursions. Well moral of the story: Onix laundry is expensive, become friends with your sink. The End.

P.S.: Here's some eye candy, that's (L->R) Kelsey, Duckett (yep), and Mike. Mike quickly regretted his decision here. Hehe.

A Long Update

2005-05-22T22:50:00.000+02:00

Note: I started this on thursday, but while inserting the images, blogger ate almost the whole thing. I got really frustrated at it and just went to sleep. So sorry about that. Hope you enjoy!

Lets see. Wednesday night we went out to a bunch of clubs at the Olimpyc Vila (?), this little strip of places by the ocean, and had a great time. We had a few creepy guys following us from place to place though, because of the dancing 20 yr old girls in our group. But, it doesn't matter. We had a really fun time just going to all the different places, several of them had half naked buff guys that would dance with the girls to get them and other patrons to come in. They seemed pretty desperate for business. Alice danced with one of them for a while! That was pretty funny.

We took a tour of the Barri Gotic Thursday (The Gothic Neighborhood). Our tour guide was really good, and really laid back. Very appropriate for us. It was only the Spanish class kids that went, and only half of them showed up. So it was fun being a tourist. I took like 200 pictures over today. More will be coming too!! We went to a bunch of the big churches/cathedrals in the area. The architecture is amazing. There was this one cathedral to Sant Felip Neri that apparently was a refuge for all the women and the children during the Spanish civil war in the 20's ish and the opposing force broken in and killed all of them. You can still see the bullets buried in the exterior walls. It's pretty breathtaking.

I'm still so amazed at how beautiful Barcelona is. Too bad we don't have much like this back home. (Don't get me wrong, colonial era houses in Georgia are beautiful too, just in a different way). It's pretty awesome to think that Barcelona is almost 2000 years old. It was started in the first century ad. The Romans built it atop a hill. Then walled it in. It pretty much stayed walled in for over a thousand years. It attracted lots of little establishments around the area, but the size of the city was fixed.

Also on Thursday we went wandering around on the other side of Sardenya (opposite the Arc de Triumf). Really we just went like one street over and walked towards the mountains. Our overall goal was to find a place to eat. Keeping that in mind, we walked toward this Gaudi building that's been in the process of being constructed for over a century, and went into a bunch of interesting shops. I spotted a shop named "Secretos del Sahara" (Secrets of the Sahara) and it looked really cool and different, so we went in. The guys in there were awesome! They were both African (like for real) and one of them thank goodness spoke pretty good English. They at first tried to sell us a bunch of crap that we didn't really want. Then as we were going to leave, they stopped us and asked us to translate a fax that they had been sent by a woman who lived in their loft for a month. There was a foto on the page, so we explained to them about that (it was of her using one of their drums in a concert), and the message read like, "Hope to see you soon, xoxoxo, so and so." And when we told them that xoxoxo meant kisses and hugs they threw their hands into the air and cheered! Then they ushered me and Eldon towards a shelf towards the back of the shop and claimed they wanted to give us something for really cheap. They proceeded to pull out these long pieces of cloth, tied a little knot-ish thing in them, and then one of them started to tie one around my head! It was awesome, one of those things that they wear when they ride the camels! I actually thought it was really cool looking on me! So we chilled out with them for a little longer while one of them played some drums for us to entertain us. He was really good at it. Then we all were getting even hungrier so we thanked them, told them we'd come back, they made us promise to send them a picture, then we left to go walk some more.

We stopped at a little store and I bought a Barce sticker because I had really been wanting one. Then we continued on. We passed by the bullfighting arena, saw the most awesome pizza delivery vehicle, and saw a protest happening across from the unfinished Gaudi cathedral.

Erich convinced us to go eat at a Chinese place called "The New Shanghai." It was awesome! 9 got us an 8 course meal! Yes, EIGHT courses! I have never been so full in my life! We ordered the meal that was the "Family meal for 5," more like 50! (ok, a tad exaggeration...But still we could've been good on the 4 person meal). We had like every meat they sell, aweomsely huge eggrolls, salad, tons of rice, HUGE shrimp, and sweet and sour chicken for desert. It was incredible. The only other meal that comes close was the Paella we had last week.

Well the next day (Friday) we went to Sitges, this beach community about 30 minutes away on the train. It was pretty nice. The beach quality was definitely better than here at Barcelona. But the water is still frigid to us. A local woman told us that it was warm and we looked at her like she was stupid. We went walking around for a while, just a lot of beaches. Then when we were hungry and sufficiently burnt (I got burned on the back inside of my knees, it is not very fun!), we headed back into the town part of Sitges for some late lunch. We ate at the Frankfurt 2 and the guy there tried to jip me 20 cents on my ticket. I politely correct him and avoided being the tourist he takes advantage of that day. Though apparently Kelsey didn't succeed quite as well and lost his 20 cents! Hehe. Oh well. It was really good (Lomo con queso bocadillo) and then we went to meet up with Hank and Christian. We left them a note to meet us at 7, and we'd leave at 8 if they weren't there. So we sat around the train station looking like bums for almost an hour, and at 7:55 we bought tickets back (they hadn't show up yet), and got on the next train, still no sight. Well if it wasn't just their luck that they got off of the exact train we got on! Later when we met them back at the dorm, they said they were there at 7:50 and we said we left at 8:00! Both fudging the truth a little. That's ok though. We all ate dinner together here, and then went out to a bar with a big group of people from tech. We met some really nice people from here and talked with them for a while. Then we just turned in and crashed.

Yesterday morning we got up at 11 and set out for the real trip this weekend: Hiking and camping in the mountains. It started off kinda so so. The touristy part there is this old monastery/cathedral. The architecture and sculptures in the Cathedral were absolutely amazing. I took a bunch of pictures inside before I was told by one of our guys that I wasn't supposed to, but this was after I was done being in there. They have this thing they call the Black Madonna. Click on that link to learn a little more about it's history, it opens a new window, so disable pop-ups for like 2 seconds. Everything in the church was amazing.

After we went there, we stopped by the vending machines so a few of us could get some water (not me mind you, I brought 2 1,5 liter bottles ;) ). Then we picked a trial and started walking. We actually missed our first stop on the trail accidentally, but that's ok.

The scenery was amazing. I can't really even try to describe the hike other than breathtaking. Every turn there was a new slightly different view that just took your breath away. We also discovered this old abandoned place in the side of one of them mountains. It was incredible.

Well we hiked for like 4 or 5 hours then we turned to go to the campsite.

Well, turns out that if you don't have a tent, you're not allowed in the campsite. Needless to say we didn't have a tent. So we found a spot and started a small campfire. Note well that campfires are illegal in the national parks of Catalunya, so we were certainly being roguish. But its all good, no one there really cares. They have really no enforcement present like we do back home. So we chilled out by the campfire and cooked hot dogs. Frank wasn't so happy with the whole illegal fire thing. But we tried to calm him down by giving him 2 of the hot dogs. Apparently it worked pretty well! We made camp and fell asleep around midnight.
4:30 am-ish I woke up to the sound of church bells and couldn't really fall back asleep. I made myself a little more warm and curled back up and just layed there until the church rang 6 am.

Got up then and ate an apple, and waited for other people to wake up. We had a little visitor down this wall from where we slept

Yes, that's a hog! Anyways, after everyone was awake, we went back into the village and used their facilities and went hiking for a little bit. So turned out that today was some sort of celebration of the Catalunyan resistance and there were over 2000 people hiking a race across Monsterrat. And also turned out that the trail that we hiked up was the trail they were coming down! Hola and bon dia to everyone we passed, but we soon took a trail that diverged from theirs and went on for a little bit. Took a break, then headed back down.

We attended a mass at 9:30, didn't understand a word except "Jesus Christ" every now and then. It was the shortest mass ever at only 35 minutes. Then we left and walked around the town some more, watched the festivities going on and then decided to leave.

That pretty much puts us at right now. I took a nap cause I was ridiculously tired and just woke up about an hour ago. I don't really know if we're doing anything tonight, it's kinda raining outside, but there are people cheering for some futbol out of my window at a bar. Maybe I'll go watch with them. Anyways hopefully I won't go so long again without posting. But everyone have a nice evening. Bye!

2005-05-16T19:19:00.000+02:00

Today has been pretty uneventful so far. I just woke up from an afternoon nap, it was splendid. Earlier, at about noon, we met the architecture professor downstairs and proceeded to have class as a walk through the city. This is because today is a holiday (Pentecost is what somebody said, but don't hold me to that) and nobody is doing anything. So we got to be all touristy and take a little tour of the area around where we're staying. We ventured over to the Arc de Triumf that was built for some 1888 exposition (which we can see from the room, and is pretty cool), then we started walking around and talking about the way the city is planned and laid out and not planned and blah blah blah blah. There were some cool facts in there I tried to write down, but most of it was architecture nonsense that seemed too akin to English lit for me to care to remember. It is really neat though how you can see the way the city came into being at certain events in history, and how it continues to unfold.

Ok, now it's about 1 am. It's raining, which we were told might happen a grand total of 2 times (even though we're by the sea). And lightening. It's really quite a peaceful and beautiful atmosphere to read to. So good night everyone, I'll leave you with a view from my window right now:

2005-05-16T01:09:00.000+02:00

Well, we went to our first Football (and by football I mean soccer, but they spell it 'futbol') match today! It was lots of fun. RCD Espanyol v. Valencia. (The RCD stands for Royal Club of Sports basically) It was a very exciting match, though it did end in a tie, 2-2. Espanyol scored to tie the match in extra time (time they add on for various delays)! Some guy also got nailed right square in the mommy-daddy button with about 5 minutes left! Everyone in the whole stadium let out a cry of pain at the same time. They are also way way into their teams here, and will through stuff at you if you cheer for the other team! Good thing me and Eldon looked up their colors before hand (ok, well Eldon did, but I recommended it). RCD Espanyol is the Blue/White team and Valencia is the Orange team. They also really like to sing during the futbol match, they had a Espanyol section that was really hardcore about it, and some guy there had a megaphone that was outrageously loud! Also, as is everywhere, tons of people were smoking in the stadium, that was probably the only annoying part of the evening.
Earlier in the day a lot of us went to the beach, it was a lot of fun. Though there was a kid running around with nothing on but a red hat. The beaches are pretty nice here, same usual street vendors everywhere, and guys that walking around selling cervezas, coke, fanta, and agua are rampant. You also have to fight for space on the beach, and the water is still pretty cold. I must go do some reading for my COA class that we have on a freaking holiday! Bye!

Zoo de Barcelona

2005-05-15T00:18:00.000+02:00

Today we all went to the zoo! It's a walk down Sardenya, and then turn next to the big sign that says Zoo. It was pretty fun. A good look at a different culture. Everyone there feeds the animals and smokes everywhere (which they do everywhere else too). It was a lot of fun though, they had a good bit of gorillas and other primates. But they fall short of the Atlanta zoo in the big cats and the elephants and stuff. We definitely have a better setup for all those animals. They used to have the world's only albino gorilla, named Snowflake, but he died 2 years ago apparently. They fail to mention this on their map and website, I suppose to get people to come anyways.

Also Barcelona won their football match today (soccer that is), so people are shooting off fireworks in the streets. Some girls phone has been ringing non-stop for over 4 hours too. I'm just glad I have been not here for most of it. It was ringing when we got back from the zoo, and that was at 6. Time to find something to do. It's only 12:30 here, the night is supposedly young, we'll see.