Trip to Barcelona!

Hello, Hello!

Much has happened in this past week or so and as such I apologize for not writing about my where about more often. Well, to catch up to present day my room mate and I decided to make the jump to a new family. I think this may have been the best decision I have ever made in my entire life! We (secretly) call her our "Jackpot Mama!" Mainly, because we hit the jackpot of mama's in Spain. We now live closer to the center of Valladolid, walking distance to school and to the bars : ). We also get fed more than I ever thought I could eat, all fresh, and we both have our own rooms. We have an older brother, Edwardo. Edu as he is commonly called around here is 30, single and by American (and probably Spanish terms) is socially awkward, but he shows his affection for Julie and I by doing things for us. We came home the other day to discover that he and his friend Cesar installed wifi for us. What a sweet older brother, right? He and his friend spend quite a bit of time on-line and chain smoke in the evenings, luckily our mama makes him smoke in his room and gets pissed when he brings his cigarettes around the house. They have a lot of arguments about this, ha ha ha.

Classes, Spanish and Cal Poly, are going well. Apparently, we are taking a ridiculous amount of classes, the Spaniards have no reservations in making fun of us, in fact I had one call me a "square." Always nice to hear. This past weekend was our first three day weekend here, they celebrate Columbus Day here too, except its their National Day. Sadly, there are no fireworks or big celebrations, they just go and hang out on the street all day. Usually, ending up drunk in cafe's, but when you're with friends, what else is there to do? To celebrate their national day, us Americans went out and travelled the country, more specifically I went to Barcelona. May I just say now, if I never return to the United States you will find me on a beach soaking up the Mediterranean sun, drinking sangria and reading about Gaudi in Barcelona. I love the city and couldn't have asked for a more perfect weekend. The trip started with 2 girls and ended up with 10 girls and 2 guys joining the festivities, 12 of us roaming the streets wasn't truly conducive to seeing everything and getting around, but we made it work. Note to parental unit: When you come and visit, I would love to go back to Barcelona - it is quite the mix of Mediterranean style and So Cal climate, you'd love it.

To start our vaca we hopped onto a bus and 10 hours later we were there. Yes, 10 hours on a bus - not the brightest idea, but it was cheap! We started our day by an attempted stealing of one of the girls' purses, luckily a nice stranger almost strangled the guy and she got her purse back. Not the best first impression of Barcelona, but it was a good reminder that we need to be careful with our belongings. We proceeded to head off to our hostel, which was more like a hotel than a hostel. We had our own room (6 of us) and our own bathroom. We had access to the pool, sauna and spa at the gym next door and they provided free shuttling to different locations around Barcelona. Our room overlooked the Agbar Dome, talk about location?! We unpacked, showered and by 11 am we headed to the Sagrada Familia and unintentionally made it a Gaudi day. P.S. Gaudi is the very famous architect in Barcelona that has works all over the city. We ended up seeing his Cathedral, his house and park. We headed back early for dinner and a nap, getting ready to hit the town big later that night. To our dismay, we picked the only part of Barcelona that doesn't have a night life and ended up heading home early, early being a relative term here. We made it home by 3 lol. Good thing we had a couple of hours of sleep, because the following day was spectacular. The weather warmed up significantly and 8 of us decided to walk all over downtown. We made our way over to the Arc de Triomf, the park perpendicular to the Arc and straight to the Chocolate Museum. If I may add, the Chocolate Museum is more of expressing how amazing chocolate is, not much of a museum, but they had the best chocolate croissant I have ever had! They even had classes for kids, and I was a bit bummed that we couldn't join in the fun. From there we made our way through side streets in the Gothic district and magically discovered the other Cathedral in Barcelona. On this particular day there was a Catalan celebration and we were invited to join by dancing in the plaza to traditional Catalan music. It's a lot of hopping and holding hands, the older crowd made us young things look ridiculous, they had all the moves. Once that was all over we continued wandering the streets and smacked into the Mediterranean Sea. We must have looked silly running towards the water, but the beach was calling us. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the sunshine, eating bruschetta and drinking wine. We attempted to go take a tour of the futbol stadium later that day, but it was closed so we only got to experience it from a far. That night we joined a bunch of people in our hostel to a snazzy club across town, not only did they play live music, but a couple of us didn't head home until they kicked us out at 6:30 the next morning! Did I mention we had a bus to catch at 9:00? Ya another 10 hour bus ride post sweaty bar night, fun fun. All in all, Barcelona was really freaking cool we really had no plans in seeing any of the big stuff, but the best part is that all of a sudden you come across them... Go Barcelona! This week is a going to be less eventful, but we are visiting Segovia on Saturday and our mama has promised to take us to the Cathedral in town for mass on Sunday! I think I would be more inclined to go to church every Sunday if we had Cathedrals in the U.S.. Any-who, it is late here and I have class bright and early tomorrow morning! Hasta Luego!