Thursday morning, Audra and I woke up in Barcelona. We had arrived the previous night after making it to our hostel. And on our way there from the airport, the craziest thing happened: our bus hit a taxi. Of all places I thought a bus accident would occur, Rome is the first place that comes to mind!
Anyways, the first place we visited was the Picasso Museum. Like the Van Gogh Museum, the Picasso one showcased many of Picasso's works in chronological order. But, instead of a gradual change from normal to weird paintings like Van Gogh, Picasso's style changed almost instantly. One minute he was painting like everyone else, then he was painting in only shades of blue or making everything triangle-shaped. What a character.
For lunch, we stopped into a local tapas bar and then visited another restaurant for paella. Both were so good and delicious!
After lunch, we walked down Las Ramblas (officially, it's La Rambla since it's only one street), taking in the sights while photobombing tourist pictures and following along with a Rick Steves walking tour.
The tour finished right by the ocean, so of course we headed towards the beach. We hung around there for a while, soaking up the last few hours of sunshine.
On Friday, our first stop was the Sagrada Familia. Spending the semester in Rome, I've seen what typical Roman and Italian churches look like. So when we emerged from the metro and gazed up at the Sagrada Familia, I was seriously blown away by its modern architecture. Pictures don't do it justice, but it's still beautiful anyways.
The inside of the church was even more strange. Gaudi sure was quite the unique architect.
We ate lunch at a Catalan restaurant. The entire menu was in Catalan, but luckily we had a waitress who spoke English and explained everything to us. I cannot tell you what we ate, but it was seriously the best meal of my life.
We spent the afternoon strolling throughout Park Guell, another one of Gaudi's creations which was originally intended to be an upper-class neighborhood. We got to see beautiful archways and views of all Barcelona.
At the top, we even met a guy named Marco from Italy! Too bad we are only in Italian 101 so we had to carry on the conversation in English.
On our way back to the apartment, we stopped into a cafe to get chocolate con churros, which Audra loved. Then, we kept walking and stopped by some buildings Gaudi designed.
For dinner, we had paella (yes, again) at a restaurant in a nice part of town. We even got to see one of Gaudi's buildings lit up at night!
Before catching our flight Saturday afternoon, we took the funicular up Montjuic to see the 1992 Olympic village and stadiums. I even reenacted the lighting of the torch (skip ahead to 4:35).
We also stumbled upon a beautiful park with a downtown view and botanical garden while working out way down the mountain. But, then it was time to fly out of the lovely Barcelona.
This spring break was easily the best one I've ever had (and probably ever will have). I loved traveling through so much of Europe, but it feels so nice to be back home in Rome!
Arrivederci!
Gina
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