Barcelona!

Another weekend, another fabulous voyage. This last weekend 3 friends and I packed up our carry-on-sized backpacks and spent the weekend in beautiful Barcelona. I will say that we didn't do as much sight-seeing as we did in London, but that decision was made by choice. Comparing London to Barcelona to me is like comparing vacation in New York City to Florida (a spectacular Florida with beautiful parks, a fabulous metro system, and tasty Sangria). The city is much smaller than Paris and with the beautiful weather, we stopped taking the metro and just walked everywhere. Barcelona was also significantly cheaper than Paris, which meant we didn't mind stopping often for a delicious bite to eat!

One of my favorite things about being a young student studying abroad, is that fact that we are always staying in hostels. I'm sure my mom is shivering at the thought, but so far all the rooms have been clean, safe, affordable, and full of fun and interesting people! One amazing thing that I never realized about learning French is how many doors it can open to making new friends from all over the world! We roomed with 3 people from Strausbourg, and met a group of students from Réunion (a little island off the coast of Madagascar). We also met a group of people from Georgia Tech studying abroad in Paris as well. We kept laughing that we were speaking more French than in Paris, and I am happy to report that all that practice is improving my french significantly. After London, going back to classes in French was very difficult and I kept getting tongue-tied while having dinner with my host-mom. But after Barcelona, my classes were easy and my host-mom and I couldn't stop talking!

Here is my Barcelona Top 5:

1) Sagrada Familia: This enormous Chapel designed by Gaudi has been under construction since 1909 (and we heard rumors it is to be completed in 2015! Anyone up for a return trip?). We may live in a city with Sacre Coeur and Notre Dame, but this Chapel is on a completely new level. The Stained glass was beautiful, the carvings were incredible, and every inch is Guadi-fied. I took at least 50 pictures just of this church alone.

2) Jardines de la Ciudadela: A beautiful park with an enormous fountain built by Guadi. This was our first day and we just sat in the park and soaked up with mid-60's weather and just kept saying, "I can't believe we're in Barcelona!"

3) Unidentified Market: We found a huge market off Las Ramblas (the most lively street in Barcelona, also very close to where we were staying). This market full of fresh fruit, vegetables, baked goods like empanadas and other delicious things I don't know the name of, chocolate chocolate chocolate, fish, meat, and amazingness. I bought myself a kilo of strawberries for less than 1 euro!

4) THE FOOD!: Paella (rice dish with seafood, so incredible), Churros con Chocolate (fried, crispy pieces of sugared dough that you stick in a melted fudge-like cup of hot chocolate), Olives (which are amazing in Spain), Chorizo (spanish sausage). YUM!!!

5) Parc Guell: A giant park designed by none other than Gaudi. While the Gardens were full of grass to lay on and trees to sit under, parc guell had dirt paths surrounding cactus patches and beautiful mosaics. There was a band playing in the area with the long, Guadi bench, and everyone was dancing and laughing and having a great time.


One thing that is interesting, that I'm sure my sister will love to hear, is that a lot of my Spanish came back. For those who don't know, before I started spending my summers at Korean Camp, I went to Spanish Camp for five years starting at the age of 8. Because these camps are immersion camps (and because I only went for two weeks at a time), I never learned proper grammatical formulas: conjugations, verb tenses, etc. Yet when speaking in Spain, the phrases just came out, which surprised both myself and my friends (who did not speak any Spanish at all). One night, my friend Jess pointed out to me once that I had been, rather unconsciously, translating from Spanish to French for our new-found friends, which was probably one of the most exciting things ever. Sadly, when trying to demonstrate Korean for our friends from Réunion, I could only say "ahnyonghasaeyo" with an awkward, french-ish accent. C'est la vie.

Update: This weekend I am going with my school to Avignon (by weekend, I mean leaving Friday morning, return Saturday Night). Next week are my midterms that with a little studying I am feeling quite confident about, and then on March 18th I am off to Berlin!