ince i traveled by train all of august). as we boarded, they made everyone put their bags through an x-ray machine. ive never had to do that at any other station. the train ride was about 7 hours. it wasnt that bad though. i slept on and off and read. they also played "boy in the stripped pajamas" so i watched a little bit of that, but its an extremely sad movie, so i tuned out at the e
nd. when iarrived everyone was already settled. i got unpacked and then we headed to parc guell (gaudis park). it was pretty incredible. the tile work was exquisite! also, the major highlight was that it was the location of one of the finales of America's Next Top Model, so of course we had to walk what was the runway! also at the park, i tripped and fell in front of a bunch of people. as embarrassing as it is to admit, it makes for a good story. i think i was just really tired. needless to say, i went to bed early that night!
saturday we went to casa battlo and casa mila. i didnt go inside but just the outsides were astounding. once again i couldnt get over the tile work. it made me want to tile my entire (future) house. ok, not the entire thing, but i for sure want to do some cool tile work! that night we attempted to see a foun
tain/light show near plaza de espana, but missed it by ten minutes. it was a bummer. we met up with greg (another student in
bilbao) and his friend studying in barcelona and got sangria.
Sunday we went to the Sagrada Familia. this might have been my favorite thing. it was incredible. its huge! and its still under construction (they began in the late 1880's)!
a lot of it is blocked off because of all the equipment but what you can see is amazing. the stories portrayed on the outside alone are magnificent. one side has the passion of Christ, the other has the nativity, and the third is the Glory. pictures dont do it justice because it is so detailed. i had some beautiful stained glass too. it was more modern stained glass that what
you usually see. there werent images depicted, rather it was shades of a color pieced together. it was an amazing church. we all decided that we should have a reunion in barcelona when construction is complete! after that, we went to las ramblas (a pedestrian street with vendors and artists etc). i got some cool street art. it kind of
like blown plastic on canvas, hard to explain. astrid, kristen and i hung out at the port for a while. it kind of reminded me of new orleans because a man was playing louie armstrong, i saw a horse-and-buggy, and the breeze from the water felt like i was on the riverfront. we were sitting on a dock and there were tons of fish. astrid had extra bread from her hot-dog bun so we started throwing it to the fish. it was so funny because where every you threw the piece, the fish would sort of make a dog-pile trying to vie for it. it amused us for a good while. all the while i had developed a headache of all headaches and had to go back to the hostel and lie down. i napped but was woken up with an even worse headache. my friends were great enough to get me loaf of bread so i wouldnt have to take medicine on an empty stomach. they took great care of me. i went back to sleep and after a while was better! we ended up packing and staying in since we had early departures. i took the train back, and the ride was surprisingly quick.
i enjoyed the long weekend, but yet again got a giddy feeling when i got off the metro and walked towards the residence hall. i was so happy to be back in "my little part of spain".
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