Barcelona!

I watched the running of the bulls every morning (except Saturday and Sunday) of San Fermin. It became a nice little routine in the morning and I actually enjoyed it a lot. Since I have class at 9, I always eat breakfast at 8…right when the running began. So Marcos would move my breakfast to the seat that can see the TV, and the three of us would watch it together. It was always the same: first the runners stretching and getting ready, the group of people chanting around the statue of San Fermin, the lighting of the little rocket that signifies the bulls being released, and then the run, ending in the arena where we sat when we were in Pamplona. Last Wednesday, day 7, was the second to last day. It was a good ending too, as far as casualties go. The front bull plowed down six or seven people. Lol. Literally plowed them down. Again, I don’t think anyone was seriously injured, but I’m sure some people will be in some pain for a while. My favorite part was Maria. Even though she has watched San Fermin for decades, every time someone got hit by a bull, she would shriek, “AY, AY!” and screech some Spanish words and Marcos would join in with her. Wednesday I just sat in my chair giggling at all her shrieking because so many people got trampled. I’m chuckling now just thinking about it. I really love my homestay. I got sooo lucky with them.

Last Wednesday I went to school, gave a twenty minute presentation in my culture class on the customs and traditions of Spain, then went home (I almost always have picnics during the week and bocadillos are getting old) and had lunch. Bre ended up going home for lunch today too, so the four of us ate together, which rarely happens. After lunch, I napped a bit before meeting up with Caitlin to go to the centro for a fieldtrip for our culture class. (Note: if you’re not interested in culture and history stuff, you may wanna skip this paragraph.) We have gone on multiple excursions for that class, and it is by far the best and most interesting way to learn about history in Valencia. We visited a few places: Torres (I forget the rest of the name), the Roman ruins, the Cathedral (again), and the Admiral’s Baths. Other than the Cathedral, these are all places I didn’t even know about, so it’s so nice our teacher takes us to them. Plus we get in for free because we’re a class from the University. So the Torres place is a huge castle that at one point was used to defend the city. We first went inside to where the prisoners were kept. We then climbed up into the top of the castle into the castley structures (Idk their names) where guards used to shoot people down from with their bows. The views from up there were amazing. This city is beautiful. We also took lots of cool class pics (there are only 7 of us in my class) defending the city with our imaginary weapons. All over up there, they have these structures that have little slits so you can hide behind them and shoot your arrows through the slits without being shot yourself. It’s pretty cool. There’s also a dried up moat. We had lots of fun up there. Also, my teacher Jwan (that’s not how you spell it, but it’s how you say it, so I will stick with that spelling) is growing on me more and more. He’s probably in his thirties and I think he’s gay because he wears purple and he likes Lady Gaga. But he’s super nice and he loves to chat with us about the United States and he’s just fun. So after the Torres place, we went to the Roman ruins. The story behind that is a long, long time ago, all the ruins were above ground (obviously), but the river flooded and all the sediment buried it. So about 15 years ago, a house was there and it was torn town to build apartments or something, but during the construction, they discovered these ruins underground. So now it’s a museum and they dug it all out so you walk down to all the ruins and it’s really cool. There’s glass floors to look down into wells and they have models and painted walls to show you how the city used to look. They even found old pottery and plates and jewelry that they have on display. It was really interesting. I definitely felt like I was seeing something I could never see in the U.S. After thatttt, we went to the Admiral’s baths. We had a tour guide for that one, and we first watched a video on the functions of all the baths. There are three rooms: the hot room, the warm room, and the cold room. The hot room was kind of like a sauna, and they would heat up the water over a fire and pour the hot water all over the floors and they would wear special clogs so they didn’t burn their feet. The warm room was where they bathed and got massages and what not. And I don’t really remember what the cold room was for because I think I lost focus of the video by the time the cold room rolled around. But after the video, we walked through all the rooms and every room had star-shaped skylights to look out. So that was another unique place to see. Also, Jwan apparently loves ice cream because every time we go on an excursion, we stop to get it. Obviously we all love it too, so it works out well. So that’s where we stopped after the baths. Morgan, Caitlin, and I all got the large this time. It was delicious. Our last stop was the Cathedral and we just walked around and admired its beauty some more. Jwan showed us where they do the Baptisms and he showed us how the floorplan of the Cathedral is in the shape of a cross. (Did I ever mention that on the scavenger hunt we went on the first week we were here, we climbed up all the stairs of the Cathedral? Allllll 207 of them.) Also, there are many churches in Europe that claim to have the real Holy Grail. But the experts believe that the real one is the one here in Valencia. And it’s in the Cathedral. Unfortunately, you can only see it during the morning; it’s locked up in a separate room. But a couple of my friends have gone to see it and they say it’s pretty cool. So we peeked through the locked gates into the room it is in, but it was pretty dark. We were supposed to be going to the Lonja also, but Jwan said we could do it another day.

So after the fieldtrip, Patrick and I Bisied back toward ISA because he lives around there and I was meeting up with some friends at Cien Montaditos for dinner. He didn’t know the exact roads to take, but he claimed to have an excellent sense of direction, and sure enough, he had no trouble finding the street we needed. And by chance, we happened to pass the Cien Montaditos I needed! Haha. So I parked my bike and went in. Cien Montaditos is a sandwich place that is very popular chain in Spain. Even Maria and Marcos like it. They have 100 (hence the “cien”) different sandwiches you can order and most of them are one euro. The sandwiches are little…only about 4 inches long…but they come with potato chips and most people will order three or four of them and be full. On Wednesdays, Cien has everything for a euro. All the sandwiches, all the appetizers, beer, and their sangria-like drink. So I got two sandwiches (I was pretty full from my ice cream) and the sangria. This time I got a Mexican taco sandwich and a chicken Caesar sandwich. They were both delicious. We hung out there until it was packed, then Jenny, Allison, Mallory, and Bre were all going to a bar, but I decided to Bisi home and go to bed because I have to get up at 7:30am for class. So, I read a bit and went to sleep.

Thursday I had class…double grammar because Jwan and Eduardo (my other teacher) switched a class period. So next week I will have double culture and I’m hoping Jwan will take us somewhere for part of the day. Eduardo is one of the craziest teachers I’ve ever had. He is probably around thirty and he’s so goofy. He hates the beach and he hates the heat. So every morning he’ll come in huffing and puffing about how hot it is and swearing under his breath. I just laugh at him, because it’s always the same. Then he’ll talk with us for twenty minutes or so because the grammar classes are supposed to get in lots of Spanish conversation, and then he’ll teach us. Eduardo is also an avid smoker, so he gives us a 15 minute break every class period so he can go smoke. Lol. Also, Eduardo randomly uses the F word all the time. In Spanish, the word is joder, and he will casually use it in conversation like it’s no big. Haha. For example, the other day, Trista was explaining some Texan tradition and she had a picture on her phone so she handed it to him so he could see and he goes, “Ahh, joder,” as if he was saying, “Ahh, I understand.” Lol. He’s crazy. So in class, he played the first halves of commercials and we had to predict what we thought was going to happen. Then after four or five of them, he played one of those commercials where you’re watching intently and then a big scary face pops up screaming, and Morgan screamed so loud that I was pretty much paralyzed with fear. Lol. After class, Bre and I went souvenir shopping through the plazas for a few hours and then I met up with Caitlin and Sarah to shop for clothes. I needed to find some light linen pants for Morocco because you’re supposed to have your knees covered. The shopping trip was unsuccessful on my part.

Friday morning at 8, we left for Barcelona as one of our ISA trips. The bus ride was pretty long…with the break we had halfway, it took about 4.5 hours. But the ride was sooo pretty. Valencia is south of Barcelona, so we just drove right up the coast line. Mountains on one side, the Mediterranean on the other. Beautiful. When we got there, we had an hour (or so) long bus tour. We drove up to the top of a mountain that looked over all of Barcelona. Barcelona is a very pretty city, but it’s too big for my taste. The views were cool though…the coast and the mountains and all the city. There is a famous church in Barcelona called the Sagrada Familia that is still being built and has been for a couple centuries now. The architecture and detail of the church is amazing. It is absolutely gorgeous. We didn’t go inside the Sagrada Familia because it cost around 10 euro (the money is going toward the construction) and the line to go in was about an hour and a half wait. There was an architect named Gaudi that lived until around 1925 and his work is all over Barcelona. He had taken over the plans for the Sagrada Familia but after he died, his plans were destroyed in a riot so no one really knows what the final product was supposed to look like. The plan is to have the church completed in 15 more years. The church has many huge, detailed, pointy towers that kind of look like a crown. It really is a site to see. After our bus tour, we checked into our hotel and had free time. We walked around a bit before heading toward the beach. Since it was opening day of Harry Potter, we wanted to see it. Mallory, Bre, Gab, Kristin, Andrew and I found out about a theater that was playing it in English (with Spanish subtitles) so we went there. I felt kind of bad spending my time in Barcelona in a movie theater, but I’ll always remember seeing the last HP in Barcelona. The movie was amazing by the way. Cried my little eyes out (a few times). So after the movie we walked back toward the hotel and stopped at a doner kebob place to eat. Yummm. I could eat those every day. So then once we got back it was night time and everyone was going out to a club, but the problem is, I don’t want to stay out until 5am like everyone else, and I don’t want to spend 10 euro on a cab to go back to the hotel alone (especially when I don’t know Barcelona at all), so I stayed in and caught up on my Internet time and was completely happy with that. I was also happy the next day when we had to get up early and I was well-rested.

The thing about Barcelona is that everyone speaks English. I think I heard more English than Spanish. Kinda weird. It’s also super expensive. So the next morning we went to breakfast at the hotel and it was actually a decent breakfast. At our Madrid hotel, the didn’t have a lot of the breakfast foods we’re used to at home. But in Barcelona, along with the usual, they had eggs and bacon!!! So I made little bacon and egg bocadillos and it was delicious. We also made sandwiches with their lunch meat and cheese and stuck them in our bags to eat for lunch. J So we had a three hour walking tour and to be honest, nothing we saw really stuck with me. We went into a cathedral (we had to cover our shoulders and legs, so I threw jeans on under my dress) and saw an old temple, and at another church, there was a wedding about to start, and they actually let us go in. So we sat in the back with a bunch of other randos not invited, but our tour guides made us leave right before the bride walked down the aisle. Boo. We did see the couple later though after the wedding. So we had free time after we saw all these things and we walked around and I don’t wanna say it was boring, because it’s hard to be bored in Spain, but Barcelona was my least favorite of the cities we have visited in Spain. We just didn’t really know what to do or where to go. We went to this Gothic neighborhood (part of the city, not an actual neighborhood) that Manuel suggested, and it was alright, but we weren’t too thrilled. I think it’s because Barcelona is so big that a lot of the main attractions are so spread out and not really in walking distance, so we just didn’t see a whole lot. So we took a little siesta in the middle of the day and then in the evening, we went to dinner at some restaurant. I just got tapas because I wasn’t very hungry. Tapas are kind of like small appetizers, and the people will go from bar to bar and eat tapas before dinner or lunch. So after dinner, Caitlin, Sarah, Gab, and I took the metro to a palace we had seen during our bus tour that has fountain/light shows at night. That was probably the coolest thing I did all weekend. The palace was gorgeous at night and it had light beams shining behind it all over. There are two long reflection-type pools with small fountains leading to the palace and at the end of the pools was a huge fountain that would shoot up into the air and change colors and go with music. It was really cool. We watched for about an hour and then Gab and Sarah left and Caitlin and I walked up the manyyyy steps to the palace. They even had escalators that took you half way up. Haha. Once we got to the top, the view was amazing. Barcelona looked so pretty at night. So we got a lot of fun pictures and afterwards, before getting back on the metro, we got strawberry lemonade slushies and sat by the fountains for a while. Then we got home at about 12:30 and everyone else had gone out again so we just hung out for a while before going to bed.

The next morning, we ate some more breakfast, stole some more sandwiches, and went to el Parque Guell. That was also really cool. This was also Gaudi’s work and it was awesome. Very modern, very unique. The buildings (mostly just gift shops now) looked like they belonged in Candyland. They reminded me of gingerbread houses. I would honestly love to live in one of those houses. They were so cool. Gaudi’s architecture was very mosaic in the park and it was just very fun. Part of the park is a little overlook and for that, he designed large columns underneath and made the ceiling half circles to drain the water into the columns for (I think) the city to use. After that, we rode the bus to another part of the city where Gaudi designed a couple more buildings. I just love his architecture. The first one is an apartment building now (I can’t imagine how much it costs to live there) and the building has a kind of wave to it and the balconies are all black metal shapes and swirls and strange designs all together into a weird jumble. It looks amazing. The second building is a museum now and the front is multi-colored mosaic tiled and the wavy roof looks like reptile scales and the balconies look like skeletons. It kind of has the same “fake” feel as the gingerbread houses. I just loved them. Along with the Valencian architect that designed all the arts and sciences buildings and other buildings throughout Valencia and Spain, Gaudi is definitely one of my favorite architects that I’ve seen in Spain (or anywhere for that matter). We had more free time after that, so we walked around Las Ramblas, a plaza basically meant for tourists. Haha. We looked through shops and just walked around. We ate lunch at a restaurant with Mexican food. Our meeting place for the bus was the statue of Christopher Columbus (he was Spanish) so we went over there a little before we were supposed to meet. All along the base of the statue giant lions jutted out about 10 or so feet off the ground. We decided to climb the lions to take pictures. The problem was that once I got on the tail, there really wasn’t a good place to grab to pull myself up on its back, so Caitlin gave me a boost. I ended up flat on my stomach on the lions back hugging the thing for dear life. We were all dying laughing (including the randos standing around watching), but I was literally terrified. Lol. Mallory got a nice little string of pictures of the process of getting on the lion, including me face down on the thing. So eventually I got the courage to pull myself up to a sitting position, got a couple pics, and I got down asap. It started to sprinkle a bit, and we got on the bus and headed back to Valencia. Overall, I enjoyed Barcelona, but a little bit less than our other trips.

Monday was a beach day. It was also the easiest day of classes ever. Eduardo talked with us for a half hour before he had to leave for a funeral, and then Jwan let us out 45 minutes early too. We asked Jwan about our final exam, and he said he had one prepared, but he didn’t know if he wanted to give it to us. He said because there’s only seven of us, and because we participate so much, and because he feels like we’re his children (lol, aw), he didn’t feel like a final exam was really necessary. What he eventually decided to do was to go through the exam questions and answers with us, so all we’ll have to do is study them for the exam and we can all get 100%. Best final ever. Thanks Jwan! J Over the weekend, Bre and I also got two new roommates in our house. Maria and Marcos introduced us last night. One is from Germany and she’s only 17. The other is also 17 and is from Slovania I think? She was super awkward to talk to. The German girl and I had breakfast together Monday morning and she’s a nice girl, but she only spoke to me in English, so it’s like Q-Hey (our Korean roommate, and I obviously don’t know how to spell her name) all over again. Oh welllll. At around 10:30, Bre and I met up with Caitlin, Sarah, Jenny, Allison, and Mallory at the City of Arts and Sciences. We wanted to see the buildings and pools at night, so we just walked around and took pictures. It was very pretty. After hanging out for an hour or so, we went to McDonald’s because Sarah was in one of her must-have-ice-cream-right-now moods. Haha. So we all got ice cream and sat around chatting for a while. Then we all grabbed Bisies and headed home to bed.  

Tuesday for culture, we went on another field trip with Jwan. This time, we went to an archeological museum and another art museum. The art museum was modern and abstract, and until the floor with the optical illusion paintings, we all just kept making up silly interpretations of the abstract stuff and saying, “I could’ve done this…” The archeology was cool. Pottery and artifacts and bones and all that. All stuff found around Valencia. But at this point, I think we’ve all had enough of museums (we’ve gotta be nearing 10 or 15 in the last thirty days). So Jwan took us to this museum that had a little park in the inner square outside. So we sat for a little while and chatted before jumping back on the bus to go back to the University. After we got back, Morgan and I headed to the beach again and around three or four, more of our friends started joining us, so that was nice. Then my intercambio friend Antonio came and hung out with us too, so that was fun too. Antonio and I spent probably 45 minutes in the ocean swimming. The waves were huge…not the undertow kind, but the slam-you-hard-in-the-face kind. At around 7:45, Juan and I Bisied back home (he lives a street down from me) and us four girls ate dinner together. Lol. Kinda strange.

Tomorrow we leave for Morocco. Our flight leaves Valencia at 7:10pm, and we’ll be in Marrakesh an hour later. Friday Bre, Mallory, and I booked a day trip to the Ourika Valley. (Jenny and Allison are going on a multiday trek through the desert, so we won’t be going together.) We will be seeing a traditional Moroccan house where the lady makes us mint tea. We then go on a two hour long hike into the Valley to see mountains and ruins. We also have a twenty minute CAMEL TREK! I can not wait!! We eat a traditional dinner and come back. Altogether, the trip is 8.5 hours, so it should be very interesting! Next week is our last week in Valencia...already! I feel like I just got here. This has been suchhh a wonderful experience, but at the same time, I’m definitely looking forward to coming home.

Besos!