champagne & celebrations

On Saturday we went on an excursion with ISA to Sitges, a town about 40 minutes away from Barcelona. Our first stop was at Codorniu, a vineyard and sparkling wine cellar – the biggest in the world! The same family has run the vineyard for 18 generations (since 1551), and their product is called Cava – something you can only find in Catalonia (the region of Spain that Barcelona resides in). Cava is similar to champagne, but when it was first created here in 1872, the French wouldn’t let them use that name, which is how we ended up with Cava.

We got a tour of the buildings to learn how Cava is made (I’ll spare you all the details, but it’s very time consuming -not a single detail goes unnoticed!), and then a tour of the wine cellars. The cellars housed TONS of wine – 4 levels deep and a seemingly endless maze of wine bottles. We got to take a ride on a tram around one of the levels, which felt a little DisneyWorld-esque, and then finally, after all that, we got to try two types of Cava! They were delicious, and well worth the wait. Also in true DisneyWorld-style, we were promptly dumped into a gift shop after our tour, where we could buy all of the delicious Cava we had just tried, plus much more.

After a quick look at the beautiful view over the vineyards, we left to go to the main town of Sitges, home of beautiful windy streets, tons of great shops, and some beautiful beaches. We spent a couple hours on the beach and then window-shopped for a little while before getting back on the bus to head home.

When we got back to Barcelona, we had to hurry up and get to a pub to watch Espana beat Uruguay in the World Cup Quarter-Finals! I’ve been exposed to some pretty crazy sports fans (read: all Philadelphia fans & Maryland basketball fans), but Spanish soccer fans are a different story. It’s so fun to watch the games in such an exciting atmosphere – and even more fun when they win! Today I bought a jersey so I can be properly outfitted for the game vs. Germany on Wednesday.

On Sunday, we celebrated America’s birthday and the fourth of July with all of the other ISA students on the beach.

We came home for dinner, showered, and then went back out to an Irish pub that was hosting a 4^th of July party -full of hamburgers, Budweiser, and karaoke – a true American celebration!

It was weird not being at home for such a traditional holiday, but we still managed to have a great time anyway!

When I told Rafaela we’d be celebrating on Sunday because it’s “the day America has independence” (I’m still working on my past tense verbs) – she was quick to point out that Spain has no independence day because they had control over other countries, no one has ever had control over them. Thanks for that, Rafaela.