Barca!!!

So... Barcelona is officially my favorite city in Spain that I've visited so far.

It really was just wonderful. We had gorgeous weather (low 60's the entire weekend) and there is just SO MUCH to do there!! We visited Las Ramblas (a famous street with lots of shops that runs into the Mediterranean), the beach (they're actually fake and the sand gets brought up from Egypt every few years), the statue of Christopher Columbus "pointing to the sea", the Plaza Real (built by the Bacard family - yes, when you thought Bacardi rum, you were thinking correctly), the old palace for Ferdinand and Isabel, Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Casa Mila La Pedrera and Casa Batllo (but didn't go into either of these, just saw them from the outside), the Picasso museum (this was wonderful, and I decided that I like early Picasso a LOT and I really don't appreciate later Picasso very much), and lots of other random places.

We also signed up for a cooking class where we learned how to make sangria and paella. The sangria was absolutely fantastic!! I'm super excited to get that recipe and try it when I get home - it's supposed to be better if you let it sit overnight first so I'll definitely have to do that. The paella was decent, definitely not as good as when my senora's dad makes it. It did have prawns in it (read: shrimp with a head, eyes, antennae, skin, and feet) but I braved the storm and peeled and ate them, and actually thought they were quite delicious!

The only really bad thing about Barcelona is that the people who run the gift shops are all REALLY pushy. We'd go into a store and if we spent even more than a couple moments looking at something, they'd come up to us and tell us how much it was. AND they followed REALLY closely behind us ALL the time, and it really made me not want to buy anything from them, so I really didn't.

I absolutely LOVED the Sagrada Familia and Park Guell (see my Picasa album for pictures!!). I'd seen it all in pictures before and it was just thrilling to get to see it in person and take my OWN pictures of the places! I really wanted to go inside Casa Batllo as well but it was 16,50 euro to get in, which was WAY too expensive... I was just so excited to see all of Gaudi's stuff, since I'd done a presentation on him in high school. It was fabulous!

So... yeah, Barcelona is pretty amazing as far as Spanish cities are concerned, and if given the opportunity, I'd go back in a heartbeat (because there was still stuff that we didn't get to see because we didn't have enough time).

I've got one more trip to Madrid to see Megan this upcoming weekend, and then I am done traveling. While I'm sad that I'm not going to get to see EVERYTHING that I want to see here in Europe, I think, on the whole, I made good decisions about my travel destinations and I enjoyed my time in them. Additionally, my feet have been yelling at me this last week and a half to STOP WALKING EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME! Goodness, they are tired. I think it's some sort of combination of all the traveling I've done and just plain walking everywhere, but my feet are looking forward to a break, a day where they don't have to be constantly walking.

Also, I can't believe that I'll be home in four weeks! It's such a weird thought for me, because for a lot of this trip, I thought it would never end, but now, the end is FAST approaching and I can't believe how quickly it seems to have gone (quickly and not at the same time). I mean, I'm visiting my sister this weekend, and then it's Thanksgiving, and then almost right after that I'll have finals, and then I'm going home. It's like, bam! bam! bam! all going at once.

I feel like a rock that has been traveling over this giant hill for the time that I've been here, at least since the halfway point. Right after the halfway point, I felt like things were still moving decently slowly, but now I'm rolling and picking up speed now that I'm halfway down the hill. Such an odd thought to be almost done with such a life-changing semester...