barcelona!

I do not even think that Barcelona and Sevilla are even in the same country. Though my weekend at Barcelona was beyond amazing, I am very happy I chose Sevilla for my program.
Catalan is my main reason. I knew that everyone there spoke it, that's why I didn't choose Barcelona for my program, but I didn't realize it was literally like their language. Signs, maps, everything! was in Catalan. I do not speak Catalan, and I have never spoken French, so even with my Spanish knowledge, things were complicated. In Spanish, beach is playa. In Catalan, beach is placta except the c is written with a symbol that I have never seen in my life.
Barcelona is a busy, busy city. Mostly everyone spoke English, and you could definitely see that tourists were more prevalent. Example: Sevilla airport has 11 gates, Barcelona's T2 airport (there's 2 airports) has 3 terminals! I'm not sure the population sizes but Barcelona just had so much more of a big city feel. Sevilla is so quaint and has such a small town feel. I'm definitely loving Sevilla more, and almost everyone in the group agreed that we were glad we were not in Barcelona permanently.

On the first day, we flew in at about 10. We went to the hotel and checked in, and wanted to find the beach. We knew the local beaches were not that awesome but that's what we wanted to do, so we did. Barcelonota beach was nothing awesome. The Mediterranean Sea, however, is the most gorgeous body of water I've ever seen. It's a blue-green color and when you get close it looks liek there's gold glitter everywhere in the water. As it turns out though, it is never warm. I definitely still got in a few times, but it was freezing. Also, Barcelona's weather was a nice relief. Sevilla is just dry and hot everyday, but Barcelona had a bit of humidity and an awesome breeze. So we went to the beach near our hotel, and were in the sun for a very long time. The temperature difference is insane, as in 4 hours by the river in Sevilla burned over half the group and 7 hours in the Barcelona sun didn't burn anyone. It was gorgeous to just lay there and look at the water and the sand. That evening, we decided to splurge on dinner and go to somewhere semi-nice. I'm not much of a meal splurger, but I am SO glad that I did. I got seafood paella, and it was real homemade paella, and it was awesome. I'm getting hungry just thinking about this paella. All the seafood (and actually all the food in general) is soooo fresh! Yes, my shrimp is looking at me when it comes out, but I can't even mind when I know it hasn't been in a freezer for months, unlike in the US. After this, we went out to a few places our friends that we knew that were in/ had been in Barcelona told us about. The first place was called Chupitos. Chupito means shot. This bar serves 2 euro shots but they're interactive and very neat. For example, I did a shot where the bartender dumped alcohol on the bar, handed me a marshmellow on a stick, lit the bar on fire, had me roast it, dunk it in my shot and take it. It was a pretty cool place, definitely unlike anywhere I had ever been. Then we went to a club that had put our name on their VIP list earlier that day called Shoko. The drinks were expensive, but the theme of the evening was Great Gatsby so it was really cool to see the flappers/ have the speak easy kind of feel. Also at one point, all of us girls were standing together, and one of the clubs promoters was like hey, follow me. So we did, and we were taken into VIP and given free champagne, which was really awesome. Just like a lucky once in a lifetime kind of thing, seeing as VIP access in Barcelona is easily 1000 a night.

The next day was our touristy day. Being a tourist is awesome, because ignorance is bliss, and we were so ignorant. We didn't realy know how to get anywhere, so a lot of time was killed trying to look at a map in a foreign language. Eventually, we foudn some things we wanted to see. First up was Casa Batllo, or the house that Gaudi lived in/ designed. It was awesome! The tour was expensive, and I was hesitant, but I'm extremely glad I went on it now. There were like 3 straight lines in the entire house and everything else was colored and set up just so the light and wind would flow through perfectly. The architecture was definitely one of a kind but it's something I am very glad I got to see. Next up was Sagrada Familia. I was sooo excited to see this, because I've heard so many awesome things about this building. I have never seen anything like it in my life. The architecture was so intricate with designs everywhere and specific carvings placed in just the right spots, and it is so big! Looking up at it is just awe stirking because it is so tall and incredible. The main thing that stuck out to me was on the one side of the buiding, there were these reptiles. They were huge, not positive how huge because they were high up, but definitely very heavy and made of concrete. They hang off the side of the towers!! It amazed me that someone could design something and inticately place everything so that nothing fell off and everything was so detailed. In the US, architects would say screw the reptiles, we don't need them, that's too much work. So gorgeous though. After this we siesta-ed. Barcelona's bed time is never. I know this because last night we didn't go to bed. Our flight left at 6 so we needed to leave the hotel by 3:30 so we just didn't get a hotel room to save money. People were awake this entire time. Clubs don't even open until 12:30. It's brutal. But anyways, they also don't siesta. Just another reason to appreciate the south of Spain more! This evening, we actually went with a tour group. The tour was cheap, included free drinks, and did a lot of things in one night. The first took us to a bar that locals tend to frequent. It was small, but I did end up speaking to a lot of Spainards/ people from other countries. After this, we went to a bar on a mountain right outside of Barcelona. This was my favorite, because outside you had a view of the entire city. Totally unlike anything I've ever seen. When we got off the bus, we saw a wild boar just chilling on the sdiewalk! It was insanity! Also, it was raining. (Rain here is not like rain there, trust me.) After this we went to two clubs, one for mostly locals and one for mostly tourists. Both were fun, and we ended up in VIP again at the last one. I saw the sunrise this night, and people were still walking around like it was the middle ofthe day.

On the last day, we really wanted to go to Sitges. It's a beautiful beach right outside of Barcelona (30 mins by train and only 7.50 euros) I've never been on a more beautiful beach in my life, which is a real bummer, because my camera died about 10 minutes after being there. This day was very relaxed, we laid on the beach all day. I walked around a bit, and because of the Corpus Christi holiday, there were festival like things everywhere. Tents selling fresh wheels of cheese right in the street! For dinner, we ate tapas and it was incredible tapas. It was a self serve bar, and each tapa was about a euro. They were all served on bread and it ranged quite a bit. Croquettes (what I would describe as fried balls of mashed potatoes YUM), sausage wrapped in bacon, fried egg with beef, just an incredible assortment. We were pretty bummed that we had to leave this morning, because we probably would've stayed the night in Sitges if we had the opportunity. We returned to our hotel, cleaned up in the bathroom, and spent our last few hours walking on Las Ramblas, which I kind of think was overrated. Maybe I was just bitter about leaving, but it seemed like a really expensive stretch of tourist traps. I'm going to say I was just bitter about leaving, because we didn't really want to get crazy to get on a flight after not sleeping all weekend.

Today I am sleeping. I slept a total of about 8 hours in Barcelona, and 4 of them probably occured on the beach. Another reason we were glad Barcelona was just a weekend visit. I would've probably died. I need a little more shut eye, so Sevilla is perfect. Not much sleep, but definitely more than in Barcelona. Also today I am not eating because I ate a lot yesterday. All those tapas, ice cream, and then a falafel type wrap thing that was in the top 10 greatest things I've ever eaten which it turns out I love falafel. All in like the last 5 hours I was in Barcelona (I didn't want to miss any food!)

Goodnight!