The Magical Land of Barcelona

Last weekend I went to Barcelona with a few of my friends.  It was so much fun and very pretty!!  If you ever have a chance to go you definitely should!  I had a blast!  However, if the trip would have turned out like our trip started, I may be saying something different.

    We left Thursday after class to take a bus to Malaga to catch our flight.  We were kind of cutting it close on time so we (okay maybe just me) were worried a little bit. We ended up getting to the airport and through security in plenty of time for our flight.  Heck, we were basically the first people at the gate.  But of course, when the guy came around to check tickets, he looked at us, asked us if we spoke spanish (we said yes) and then said we need to go get a stamp on our ticket, but we needed to hurry, like run, because they were boarding!  Oh my goodness!  We have never had to get a stamp before for any of the other flights I have taken, so we didn't get one this time either.  We ended up running all the way across the airport, we had to go outside of security, and then to the other side of terminal 2 just to get a stamp on our ticket!  Then we ran all the way back, through security for the second time, and when we got back to the gate...it hadn't moved at all!  There was no point in even running!  But at least we made the plane.
 

Who's America's Next Top Model

    Once we got to Barcelona though things calmed down.  Well kind of, but the rest of the running around that we did we decided to do ourselves.  On Friday, we got to see La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, the 1992 Olympic Stadium, and el Fuente Magica, and we went on a bus tour.  La Sagrada Familia is a HUGE chapel that started being built by Gaudi but he never had a chance to finish it.  So people have been and still are building it to how he wanted.  It has never not been under construction!  I don't think it's supposed to be done until around 2020.  Then we took a bus tour of the city, just so we could get a chance to see everything that Barca has to offer.  After the bus tour, we had a picnic in Park Guell, which also has some beautiful architecture of Gaudi, complete with houses that reminded me of Hansel and Gretal/gingerbread houses.  In Park Guell, there is also an area where America's Next Top Model was shot!  That's right, I got to be a model for a day! :)

 After Park Guell we went to visit the 1992 Olympic Stadium.  It was so cool!  We couldn't go inside the stadium, but we got to look in.  It was pretty neat, it's the first Olympic Stadium I've seen.  There was also a cat inside the stadium!  I named him Oly short for Olympics. haha  After the stadium we visited el Fuente Magica, the Magic Fountain.  Every Friday and Saturday, there is this gigantic water fountain that lights up and has a water show with music.  It was so pretty and lots of fun.  We stayed for two of the shows.  The first one was to 80's music!  My favorite! And the second was with Classical Music.  It was really cool.  Then we took some cheesy touristy photos in front of it.

el Fuente Magica

 Saturday, we went to Camp Nou, the FCBarcelona Futbol Stadium, and got to have the Camp Nou Experience.  It was lots of fun!  We got to see the field from the press boxes, from the sidelines, we saw the locker rooms, press conference area, the team's church, and I even learned the Barcelona Fight Song.  It was so much fun, and I'm not even a big fan of soccer.  But it was really cool to see how into the sport the people of Spain are.  It reminded me a lot of being back home in my house. :)  After the Camp Nou Experience we spent the day at Las Ramblas, which is like a tourist shopping street with lots of street performers.  And, I got to stick my foot in the Mediterranean Sea!  Really cool, but really cold!  It was such a great trip!  I would go back again when I ever get a chance.  Tomorrow I'm headed to Dublin,!  May the luck of the Irish be with me!

Whirlwind

 Last week…I don’t really even remember what happened last week.  I think mostly just school.  On Friday my program had a trip to Madrid.  I was really excited to go because everything was paid for and planned out already, so I was thinking it was going to be like a mini vacation.  The truth is, it was my least favorite trip so far.  The weather was really bad, so that didn’t help at all.  Madrid is really big, which I don’t like, and all of the Spanish cities are kind of starting to look the same.  I also didn’t really get a chance to do a whole lot.  I wanted to see the Guernica while I was there but that didn’t end up working out.  But I did get to see inside the palace, which was really pretty, old, and interesting to see, but the tour was a little boring.  I also got to go to The Prado and see some of the paintings I learned about from Ms. Huso.  It was pretty cool to see in person, things that I read about in a Spanish IV book.  It made it all seem a little more real.  My favorites were El 3 de Mayo by Goya and Las Meninas by Velazquez.  While in Madrid I also got to experience my first Spanish play, La Fuga.  It was pretty interesting and funny because of the actions of the characters, but they talked so fast!!  I was able to understand the plot of the play, but it was kind of frustrating because when something funny happened, everyone would be laughing in the audience and we were sitting there wondering what was going on.  It was a great experience though, and the play seemed like it would be pretty good!

 On the way to Madrid we made a pit stop in Toledo.  I enjoyed Toledo more than Madrid.  We had a tour guide take us around the city and tell us a little about the history.  When we say “Holey Toledo!” it comes from Toledo, Spain, because it has 80 churches!!  And trust me, we saw at least 15 on our hour long tour.  In Toledo we also got to ride an 8 million dollar escalator that is in the side of the mountain, so people can get from the bottom of the city to the top!  It was amazing!!  Very cool!  We ended our trip in Toledo, with a trip to a sword factory!  Toledo is known for its stainless steel swords and knives.  That was pretty cool, and I got to whole a sword, so what’s not to like about that! J 

So I think at the beginning of this trip, I kind of started to hit the “this isn’t as fun as it used to be stage”.  It’s not that I don’t like it anymore or am not having fun anymore, but I’m just starting to miss the luxuries of home.  I miss being able to take a hot shower for as long as I want.  I miss knowing exactly what to do when I walk into a restaurant.  I miss being able to understand everything that people say to me, instead of trying to use context clues.  I’m just getting a little frustrated, but this week helped because I had visitors!  Kyle and his family came over for the week to experience a little Spanish Culture. They came at the right time because I think now that I had a little taste of home that I have a second wind to keep exploring and learning new things. I have midterms the next two weeks. :/  The only one I’m really nervous for is my Literature one.  That’s Monday so I should get studying. The next two weekends I have trips planned already and then it will be Spring Break.  These next two months are going to fly by!  

Fun Facts from across the world

     Nothing really new or exciting happened this week, but I did forget a few things about my recent trip to Gibraltar/Malaga.  Did you know that Gibraltar is the home of Miss World 2009??  Me either!!  When we crossed the border the first thing we saw was a big poster of Miss World 2009.  Also, in Malaga we also went to a Picasso Museum.  Malaga is where Picasso was born, so of course we had to stop and see some art.  It was pretty neat.  We got to see some original Picasso artwork and make our own (pretty funny) interpretations. Plus side to this visit, I can use some of the things I saw for a paper for my history of art class.  

     This week's Granada Seminar was over olive oil.  We learned how they make olive oil and how to tell how "good" the oil is by reading the labels.  While in class this was fairly interesting.  Then over the weekend we went to an olive oil museum.  The way it seemed to me, was that at the museum we would actually see them making olive oil and have them go through parts of the process for us.  I even thought we were going to be able to have a olive oil tasting. (When you taste olive oil you put it in your mouth, swish it around, and then spit is out. Yuck.) However, once we got to the museum, I quickly realized that it was no longer a working olive oil factory.  It was really a museum.  So we got to walk around and here how they make it, but nothing really very exciting at all.  It was kind of disappointing, but there is always room for fun.  My friend and I ended up taking some good pictures there, and it was really pretty, because it was in a town up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

  Now for my favorite story of the week.  I bought some playing cards last week because they would come in handy on trips, and I wanted to see what a Spanish deck of cards would look like.  I got them out this week to play solitaire and I realize that there are not enough cards.  I thought that maybe I just dealt out the cards wrong, so I tried again (3 more times).  Each time with the same result, not enough cards.  So I end up counting them and there are only 48 cards!!  I didn't know if I bought a bad deck or a special deck or if all Spanish decks are like this so I decided to do some research.  Turns out my deck was perfectly fine.  Here's the history of a Spanish Deck of Cards (Baraja):

  ~Usually made up of 40 cards (1-7,10-12) 10-12 are picture cards kind of like our Jack, Queen, and King

  ~ Sometimes the 8 and 9's are added to make 48 cards 

  ~Jokers (Comodines) are rarely used which makes a 50 card deck. ( I have this kind)

  ~There are four suites: Clubs (bastos- they look like chicken legs), Gold coins (oros), Cups (copas), and Swords (espadas)

  ~The suites represent the social classes of the Middle Ages

  ~Coins: Merchants

    Clubs: Peasants

    Cups: Church

    Swords: Military

  ~10 is called a sota and represents a prince. 11 is called caballo and represents a knight. 12 is called rey which is the king.

I then tried to see if there was a special Solitaire game, but I didn't really see anything that looked too promising or that I wanted to try to learn right then.  So now I have this very nice deck of Spanish Cards that I don't really know how to use.  I learned a lot though! :)

Carnaval en Malaga

After Gibraltar we went to Malaga before going back home.  We didn't really have any plan once we got to Malaga except to see some of the city and relax.  We were thinking about even going to the beach to just chill for the day.  However our "plans" changed because when we got to Malaga we found out that it was Carnaval.  Carnaval is like a party/celebration that a lot of cities in Spain have.  While we were in Malaga it just turned out to be their week of Carnaval.  So there were a lot of music groups just hanging out in the streets.  Everyone was dressed up in costumes, like it was Halloween!  There was a parade Sunday night, so we went to that.  It was a lot of fun!!  All of the floats and people in the parade threw out confetti and there was music!  It was great!  I decided that confetti is a lot more fun than candy.  I'm really glad that it was Carnaval when we went, because it was a lot of fun!

Malaga Carnaval

Spongebob cast in the Parade!

  The next day, we just hung out in some parks and plazas and people watched.  It was our relaxing day.  We listened to a few more music groups that were playing, and we went to an interactive music museum.  That was pretty cool.  We got to play on the drums and keyboards, and learned about some music history.  It seemed like our whole trip had a music theme, starting with the karaoke bar and ending with the music museum.  It was a really nice and relaxing weekend trip! :)

The Rock and Los Monos (Monkeys)

  This past weekend we had a four day weekend because of Dia de Adalusia.  So some friends of mine and I decided to take a trip to Gibraltar and then on the way home stop in Malaga, Spain for a few days.  I didn't really know much about Gibraltar before I went except that there were monkeys there so I decided to check it out.
  Apparently there must have been some sort of force attracting me to birds this past week.  (Update on our bird...it died...three days after we got it.  It was very sad and our Senora seemed heartbroken.  Unfortunately, it never got to sing.)  On the five our bus ride to La Linea (the town in Spain right next to the Gibraltar border, where we were staying at) there was a guy sitting in front of me, who was traveling with his pet bird.  A bird on a bus is not a good combination.  First of all, it smelled like bird.  Secondly, there may be a 18-20ish year old man who likes to provoke the bird.  The bird would whistle and then the man would whistle.  For three hours!! At first it was very entertaining, but after awhile it got a little old.

The Rock of Gibralter

  We got to the bus station in La Linea around 9pm on Friday.  We have the address of our hotel, but we don't have directions so we ask a girl near us if she knew where it was.  Her response:  Andando o en coche? (Walking or by car?)  We say walking and she says: "Ay, muy lejos!" (Very far!)  She then just tells us to take the cab by us.  We don't want to pay for a cab so we just started walking.  We then decide we have no idea where we are going to we go back to ask the cab driver for directions and to see if it really is that far.  His response: Andando o en coche?  We say walking.  So he gives us directions ( turn right at the next street, walk till the end of the street, turn left and then turn left at the second street)  and says that it should take like 2-3 minutes.  So we walk...to the end of the street (it's been like 8 minutes by now) and turn left.  We're in like the residential area of town.  Probably no right.  So we ask an older lady who was taking out her trash, but she didn't have her glasses on so she couldn't see, so she asks a man working on his car.  His response: Andando o en coche?  Really?!  We have large backpacks on and are carrying other bags.  Of course we're walking....we say walking and he goes: muy lejos!  And gives us directions back to almost where we started.  So we walk.  We end up walking by a police station so we as the lady sitting in there, she says: "Andando o en coche?  Again, walking, but this time the directions seemed like we were close.  Now we're by a take out pizza place and a man is leaving so we ask him just to make sure.  He tells us to go down two more streets and turn right.  So we walk, but about a minute later a women is getting out of her car, coming towards us like she wants directions.  We don't even know where we're going!  It turns out she was the wife of the guy at the pizza place and he gave us wrong directions.  So we end up getting to our hotel finally after about an 1 1/2 of walking, when really...our hotel is literally 2 minutes away from the bus station!  It was an eventful night.

  Saturday we walk across the border to Gib, it's like five minutes away from our hotel.  There is barely any security, and you literally just walk right across.  You even after to walk across the Gibralter runway to get into town.  Pretty cool!  We ended up taking a taxi tour of the rock.  We got to go into a cave that was used for a emergency hospital during WWII and we went into a tunnel.  We also got to see monkeys!!!  Not only did we see them, but they sat on our shoulders and heads!  Our cab driver has names for them all and know which was a nice or not, so he just picked them up and put them on us.  I had one on my shoulder and all of a sudden a not as nice monkey(Richard) jumps off the roof of our cab and onto my head!!  It was terrifying!  I was done with monkeys on me after that. :)

Me and the Monkeys

Phone booth fun!

 Then we had good ole fish n chips in little England at Roy's.  It was pretty good.  After lunch we went to a glass blowing exhibit.  It was really neat! And it looked difficult to do. Then we hung out in the botanical gardens and took pictures in telephone booths.  We went back into town around 6 and everything was closed there where no people around at all!  It was a ghost town!!  We managed to find a place open for supper, Made in Mexico...in Irishtown (the name of the street)...in Gibraltar...five minutes away from Spain. We got done eating and when we back outside, still no one to be found.  The square was even deserted.  I don't understand where all the people went to.  Again we found a pub that was open and we had ice cream sundaes and watched the futbol game.  When the game got over...the pub turned into a karaoke bar!  It was pretty fun to watch people go sing, but the best part was the glass blower from earlier in the day came in!!  Very weird!  He came over and talked to us and then he gave us his and his son's YouTube links because they are in a band!  It was all just very strange!  I haven't checked out the links yet, but I'll put them up here soon too so you all can see who we met.  Maybe they'll be good too.

 We walked back across the landing strip and the border and made it safely back into Spain.  Sunday we were off to Malaga!