fiestas y siestas

Welcome to fiestas y siestas, the place where this blog first began! I started to blog as a way to journal and keep in touch with my family and friends while I studied abroad in Barcelona during the summer of 2010. The blog has since moved on, but I wanted to be able to have all of these posts in one place to come back to whenever I need a little reminder of this amazing summer adventure. The posts are in reverse order, though...so feel free to start at the beginning and relive this trip of a lifetime with me :) 

NEW DIRECTIONS

The blogger.com bookmark on my computer has been staring at me for the last 20 days, nagging me to come back and post, to wrap-up the story of my adventure and my summer, and to let you all know what I've been up to! (I'm kidding on that last one...does anyone even read this besides my Dad? Probably not.)

Anyway, I guess I'd been in denial that this amazing summer was coming to an end and just couldn't bring myself to sit down and reflect on it all. However, the first day of class has forced me to face the idea that summer is in fact over, and that it's time to close that chapter of my book and open up a new one.

It's hard for me to make anyone else understand what the 7 weeks in Spain meant to me. I'm sure anyone who's gone abroad knows what I mean. When people ask how it was, obviously I say that it was amazing, that I had the best time ever, that I can't wait to do it again - but I've said those same things about a roller coaster at Hershey Park or a Sugarland concert. The words sound empty when I use them to reference my trip, because I just can't find the right ones to describe how delicious the gelato was, how breathtaking some of the sights were, how funny some of my conversations with Rafaela, Carmen, and Marie were, and how badly I want to go back.

Don't get me wrong - I LOVE being back en los Estados Unidos. I soaked up every second of my days with my family in the Outer Banks, loved my 2 weeks at home, counted down the days until I got to see my friends again, and can't imagine anywhere else I'd rather be right now than in my cute new apartment in College Park.

What I mean is that I'd give anything to relive the experience, and to share it with everyone that I love. What good is an amazing experience if you have to keep it all to yourself? This blog has been my attempt to do that - to try my best to share my Spanish adventure with you all, in hopes that one day, we can experience it together =].

But the question remains - the trip, the summer, the adventure...they're all over. Does that mean the blog is over too? I had a major dilemma over that question. I definitely wanted to keep it going, but what would I write about? Even though I love reading other people's blogs about their lives, I'd never assume that anyone would want to read about the in's and out's of myeveryday life - it's just not that exciting! I knew that if I kept blogging, it would have to have a topic, a subject, a purpose, etc..., not just be a journal of my thoughts published online for the whole world to see.

So the answer is, yes, I'm going to keep blogging. I came up with (well, I didn't come up with it, I saw someone else who did it first) an idea of a new direction to take my blog in, and I can't wait to get started. Stay tuned later in the week to see what it will be.

thanks for reading!

xoxo

lauren

I MADE IT!

I'm in Philadelphia!!

Only for a little while though, as my next stop is Norfolk, VA where my family will be waiting to take me back to the Outer Banks where they've been on vacation since Sunday!

I can't wait to see everyone - even though the 7 weeks flew by, I still feel like I haven't seen them in sooo long.

Speaking of sooo long - I feel like I've been traveling for 2 years instead of 2 days. By the end of today, I'll have been in the Madrid, London, Philly, JFK, and Norfolk airports...crazy!!

Once I get a chance to breathe and reflect a little, I'll post some more about this crazy, amazing, life-changing experience that is quickly coming to an end.

But for now, I think I'll take a nap on my flight to Norfolk ... Otherwise the excitement to see everyone will make the trip take forever.

Thanks for reading :)
Xoxo
Lauren

RAFAELA

I just realized that while I may have introduced Rafaela to everyone reading this, I never showed you her picture. I always think that when you can put a face to the stories, it makes them so much better. So here she is....Rafaela =]

I miss her already! Even though our dinners with Carmen and Marie are much more exciting and entertaining, there was something special about only understanding half of what Rafaela was talking about and having to resort to animal noises, hand gestures, and pictures in cook books to carry out any sort of conversation. Okay, so maybe special isn't the right word. But it was still an experience that I'm so thankful to have had, and I'm so glad that I was assigned to live with her. My spanish is definitely better because of it, I can differentiate different meats from different body parts of animals, and I know how to use a Spanish fan in the true authentic style. What more could I have asked to learn from my Senora?!

GRANADA

Can it be Friday already? How has this week gone by so fast? Friday means that it's the weekend, and the weekend means that we're leaving Alicante, leaving Spain, leaving Europe so soon! It has flown by so quickly, I can't believe it.

But let's not focus on that right now =] Let me tell you about our two days in Granada.

We left Wednesday morning for the bus station and took a 4 hour bus ride there, putting us in Granada right at the hottest part of the day. We headed straight to the pool at our hotel (which was beautiful! Thanks, Marie =]), lounged around, took naps and showers, and got ready for dinner.

We were treated to dinner by Carmen, who made us reservations at El Mirador de Aixa, one of the most beautiful restaurants in Granada. According to Carmen, Bill Clinton ate here once and said that everyone should have a chance to go before they die. (And obviously, if Bill Clinton says it, it must be true!) But as it turns out, he was absolutely right - every table has breathtaking views of La Alhambra, Granda's most famous site, and the food was by far the best I've ever tasted in my life. Everything down to the bread I ate was delicious. One of the best parts of the meal, though, was when Carmen called the restaurant and the host hesitantly brought the telephone over to our table. She was just calling to make sure that we liked the restaurant and were having a good time - both of which were understatements, of course!

Everything was perfect, and to be surrounded by such beautywhile eating such amazing food - it was something I'll never forget.

(You should check out this restaurant's website! You won't believe it http://www.miradordeaixa.com/)

Anyway, after our stomachs were full of good food and were sore from lots of laughing, we made our way back to the hotel and got a great night's sleep.

We spent Thursday walking around Granada and checking out the town - we had tickets to La Alhambra, but not until later in the day, so we had the morning to explore.

Our taxi cab driver showed us the newspaper headline from Wednesday, which announced that Michelle Obama (and Sasha, and her friends!) were going to be in Granada all day Thursday! We knew they were in Spain this week, but we never thought we'd be in the same city as them! So, we went about our day hoping we'd catch a glimpse, but unfortunately so did the rest of the city, and the Granada police force had some other ideas in mind. Everywhere we went, Michelle and Sasha were always just two steps behind us, and the police cleared everyone out of every place they anticipated the first lady's arrival.

First, we went to La Catedral which was huge and beautiful (as most of the churches I've seen in Spain have been). But I was having trouble paying attention to the audio guide because I kept looking around to see if I could spot an Obama anywhere. It quickly became apparent that they were on their way, because they stopped letting people into the Cathedral and started strategically turning the lights off in certain areas to make everyone leave. After we tried to plot an attempt to hide in one of the chapels until Michelle and Sasha arrived, we gave up and went outside to stand among the cameramen and other tourists waiting to catch a glimpse.

Once we realized it was probably a lost cause and that we'd never see the first lady, we crossed the street to get some gelato. Little did we know that Michelle, Sasha, and her 7 friends also had a craving for gelato, so we got kicked out of there pretty darn quick. We were allowed back in after they'd left (Sasha ordered a chocolate, by the way!), and there were tons of news casters and camera men in there interviewing the people who worked there. They even got a close up of my face eating my ice cream! I wish I knew about Spanish news stations and TV channels - I would have checked to see if my head shot made it on air. =]

Our final stop was La Alhambra, the palace and fortress still standing from when the Moors ruled Granada. The entire city has Arabic and Muslim influences, but La Alhambra tops it all. The detailed architecture, elaborate gardens, and stunning views of the city made it one of the prettiest places I'd seen thus far. There was running water throughout the entire place which was a nice soundtrack to our journey through the garden.

We had tickets to go into the Palace at 7, but had to go in earlier because, you guessed it, Michelle and Sasha were on their way! You could see the guards starting to move people through and hurry them along so that they could empty the place out. By then the novelty of being followed by the first lady had worn off and I was a little annoyed that they got to have every monument in Granada all to themselves! But it didn't matter - my feet were sore and I was ready for a break, so we went back to the hotel to hang out for a little before going back to the bus station and heading back to Alicante.

It was a great, relaxing two days, and I'm eternally grateful to Marie and Carmen for making it happen (and for a million other things too, but that can be its own blogpost!) It was the perfect "vacation within a vacation," and now we can add another Spanish city to our list of ones that we've seen!

That's all for now - it's time for another exciting dinner with Carmen, Marie, and who knows who else they'll find to invite over for dinner. I look forward to the conversations, arguments, and endless laughter that are in store for tonight =]

xoxo

lauren

LUCKY DUCK

I was thinking about luck when I was boarding train #1111 from platform 11 at 11am on Saturday morning, and I realized that I am one lucky girl.

I've been noticing that a lot since I've been in Spain - and even more so in the past few days. So I hope you'll excuse me for a minute and not mistake this for bragging while I elaborate a little bit...

I'm lucky that I get to be on this trip in the first place - that I have parents who could appreciate what a great experience this was going to be and were willing to send me here for the summer, that I was able to work and save money for so long so that I could enjoy myself here, that I'm healthy and happy - physically and emotionally able to do something like this. Just being here for 7 weeks is a blessing in itself.

I'm lucky that I chose ISA. They handled every single aspect of the trip beautifully and with such personal, detailed attention. I feel like any study abroad program can pull off a successful 5 week summer program easily, but it was the little things that made the difference and made you feel like they were really there for you. Little things like a real person answering the phone in the Texas office when I called with questions before I left. Or like one of the Barcelona program directors calling the train station for me when I was having trouble buying tickets online and couldn't speak to them in Spanish. Or like how any one of them will spend 15 minutes with you in front of a map explaining how to get somewhere, which metro stop to get off at, what the best times to go are, etc... Or like how they organized and paid for each and every one of us to have a taxi service to the airport or train station on the last day. Those are only a few of the things ISA did to make us feel comfortable and make sure we were making the most of our time there. (Needless to say - if you're ever thinking about studying abroad, absolutely go through them. I would again in a heartbeat!)

I'm lucky that I had Maggie. Even though I'm sure I could have done it alone, it would have been such a different experience (and not nearly as fun, obviously =]). There were so many times during the trip when I thought, "thank God Maggie's here." Whether it was when I first got to Madrid not knowing a single soul, or when I was feeling a little homesick in the beginning, or when I needed someone to laugh with when Rafaela graphically described how to kill a rabbit at dinner, or when I needed to take a cab in the middle of the night to a 24-hour pharmacy...I could go on and on obviously, but the gist is that I'm so glad that we got to do this together. :)

....I realize I'm being a little bit longwinded here so I'll do the rest in more of a list format for everyone's sake.

I'm lucky that we were assigned to live with Rafaela.

I'm lucky that I met the people that I did, and that I now have places to visit all over the US.

I'm lucky that I got to spend a weekend in Costa Brava and another one in Rome.

I'm lucky to be in Alicante. (this one deserves a little more explanation!)

In Alicante, we're staying in an apartment owned by one of my mom's cousins. On the first floor of the building, there are two apartments. One belongs to one of my extended family's closest friends, Carmen. She's lived here her entire life, and knows everyone and everything in the city. The other, which belongs to my mom's cousin, is where we're staying. It's huge and absolutely gorgeous, and would be a treat to stay in any time, but I feel like I appreciate it even more after my time at Rafaela's. Maggie and I probably looked like kids in a candy store when we got here and learned that there was air conditioning and wi-fi. I'll post more about our time here a little later, but I'm lucky on so many levels to be ending our trip in this beautiful city in this beautiful apartment, spending time with family and friends and being treated so well by our hosts =].

Finally, I'm lucky to have family, friends, and an entire life at home that I can't wait to get back to. It would be easy to want to stay in these beautiful places I've been and leave the mundane, everyday things from home behind, but I wouldn't trade that life in for anything. (Just as long as I can come back here and visit!!)

That's all I've got for now, but I had to take a minute and look at the big picture and make sure that I'm not taking any of this for granted. Every minute of it is better than the last, and I can't believe that it will all be over soon!

But I don't want to think about that right now....now it's time to go to the beach =]

Hasta luego!

xoxo

Lauren

ADIOS BARCELONA!

I think Barcelona is trying to tell us something.

It rained last night for the first time since we´ve been here.

And today, our plan was to go to the beach but the clouds in the sky seem to have other plans.

I think Barcelona might be kicking us out!

Regardless of what Barcelona has in mind for us, a taxi will be waiting for us outside of Rafaela´s house at 9am tomorrow morning. From there we take a train to Alicante, where Reghan has been studying for the past 4 weeks and where we´ll spend 10 days with her, my mom´s cousin Marie, and our family friend Carmen. Hopefully we´ll get to see Valencia or some other Spanish towns while we´re there too! It´s bittersweet, because I´m sad to let this time in Barcelona end, but I´m also looking forward to relaxing days on the beach and time spent with family in Alicante.

Tonight is our last dinner with Rafaela - I wonder what she´ll make us for our final feast. Last night I asked her if we could take a picture with her, but she told me we´d have to wait for tonight when she looked better. Can´t wait to show you all the picture! I´m going to miss her and our dinner conversations so much...I wonder if I can try to record tonight´s. We´ll see!

So, this is my last blog post from Barca! It´s been an amazing, unforgettable 5 weeks.

¡Adios Barcelona! ¡Hasta pronto!

xoxo
lorena

SIGHTSEEING - PART 1

Here’s a little description and some pictures of 3 of the Barcelona sites I’ve been to in the last week or two! I’ll post about more of them later =]

The Zoo

I was a little bit bummed that it cost 16 euro to get in, but I love animals and I love zoos, so I figured it would be worth it! For a relatively small zoo, there were a TON of exhibits and animals. On the downside, though, all of the animals were kept in really small cages or habitats. There didn’t seem to be nearly enough room for them to roam around, nor did their homes seem to be clean. That was a little bit disappointing, but it was still a good time and I’m glad I went. I liked that at every exhibit they listed the name of the animal in Catalan, Spanish, and English, and had a description of the animal in each language too.

There were even a few animals I’d never heard of or seen before, like the Capybara, the world’s largest rodent. (Interesting, right?!)

We got to go to a dolphin show at the zoo too, and while it was nothing compared to the shows I’ve seen at Hershey or Sea World, dolphin shows are always fun, and it was a new experience to try and understand what they were saying in Spanish.

After the zoo I came home and had dinner with Maggie (who opted to skip the zoo, which was probably a good choice considering the endless amounts of birds flying around there).

La Sagrada Familia

We finally made it to Barcelona’s most famous attraction – La Sagrada Familia. (translated to “The Holy Family” in English) It’s claim to fame is that it was designed by Gaudi, Barcelona’s most famous artist. It was begun sometime in 1882 and is STILL being built today! Crazy, right? The construction is done by private companies and is all funded through donations and entry fees to the church. It isn’t projected to be finished until at least 2026! I hope I can make it back here to see it when it’s finished!

We opted not to pay the 14 euro to go in because we’d heard that it wasn’t really worth it and that the outside was the part to see. (And when we got there and saw the enormous line of tourists standing in the sun waiting to go in, we were even surer of our decision!)

The church has 18 spires, each one representing one of the 12 apostles, the 4 evangelists, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ. There are 3 different sides, though 1 was under construction and hard to see. The original, famous side, which was completed while Gaudi was still alive, looks kind of like one of those drippy castles you make at the beach with wet sand. (Did I just compare Gaudi’s most prestigious work of art to a pile of wet sand? Oops. Sorry Gaudi!) However, once you see it close up, the detail and artistry of every single inch of the building is absolutely amazing. You realize why it’s taken so long when you see all of the intricate details in the cement. (Not to mention, the thing is HUGE!) This side was meant to represent the Nativity, or Christ’s birth.

The other main side is meant to represent the Passion, or Christ’s death and Resurrection. This side was built after Gaudi died, and although his designs were used in creating it, it looks MUCH different from the first side. It’s much more modern and severe, and doesn’t look like anything else I’ve seen of Gaudi.

He’s probably rolling over in his grave over it right now.

La Catedral

We ventured into Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter (Barri Gotic) to see La Catedral, a beautiful Catalan church built in the 1300’s. We tried to go a few days earlier but learned that you need to have your shoulders and knees covered, so we returned a few days later with the right clothing. The entire inside is edged with little chapels devoted to particular saints or events. There was a baptismal font, a confessional, and a huge choir loft. It kind of felt like a tourist trap though – you could pay to have your confession heard, every chapel had a donation box asking you to donate money, and then there was the gift shop (obviously).

It was still really beautiful, though, and I was glad we went to see it.

BARCELOVIN'

hola!

it's been a while since I've blogged about just being in Barcelona, and while I have a blog entry all typed up about all of the famous sites we've seen, I think I'll save it for another day and just talk about some of the fun things I've been doing this week!

On Monday morning Maggie and I finally got the famous Spanish breakfast Churros con Chocolate. It felt kind of like eating dessert for breakfast, and while I had a stomach ache for a good part of the day, it was delicious and totally worth it! It's essentially just a coffee mug filled with hot, melted chocolate, and a plate of freshly cooked churros to dip into it. yummm!

I went into the Sephora here a few days ago to buy some new mascara, and I'm SO glad I did. They should put this store in all of the tourist books as one of Barcelona's top attractions! (That might be an exaggeration, but it was pretty cool!) You walk in on street level to what looks like a normal Sephora, but then when you go down the escalator, all of a sudden you're dropped onto a huge red carpet and into the biggest, most amazing Sephora I've ever seen!

I've purposefully tried to leave out what I've been doing at night here so that I don't worry any parents who may be reading this (you're welcome!). But the other night, we realized that there are some really cool bars in Barcelona that we hadn't seen yet, so a few friends and I set out to check them out. This one was called 4 Gats (like cuatro gatos, or 4 cats) and was the bar where Picasso was discovered! Apparently he and his friends used to hang here when they were 16 or so, and Picasso was asked to design the menu. It's a bar and a restaurant, but we didn't venture back to the restaurant. It was sooo cute and quaint and all of the waiters were wearing suits! It was a nice change of pace from the usual Barcelona nightlife.

Other than these things we've just been exploring and loving Barcelona. Life with Rafaela has been great as well. We finally started gossiping with her tonight - she wanted the scoop on everyone else's homestay's. I love a good gossip sesh...ISA must have known that when they paired me up with Rafaela! She pulled out the list of everyone in the program and where they lived and proceeded to give us commentary on all of their neighborhoods, and loving every second of some of the horror stories we told her about our friend's senoras. We told her we were lucky to have been paired with her, and she replied by telling me I should tell ISA how much I love her house. She asked me to tell them every 2 minutes for the rest of dinner. Oh, Rafaela!

Tomorrow (Friday) we leave for Rome for the weekend! I'm going with Maggie, and our friends Morgan and Mallory, two sisters from Texas. AND, even more exciting than that, Reghan is meeting us in Rome! I can't wait to see her, can't wait to eat pizza and pasta and gelato, and to experience "the eternal city!"

WEEKEND IN COSTA BRAVA

For the first time since I’ve started this blog, I’m having a serious case of writer’s block. (Is that what you call it when you’re blogging? Typer’s block? Blogger’s block?) Anyways, I think the reason why I’m at a loss for words is because I just got back from the most beautiful, relaxing, amazing weekend, and I’m worried that there are no words to do it justice. I’m hoping that I can illustrate it well enough with my words and some pictures, but Costa Brava might just be one of those places you have to see for yourself to really understand what I’m talking about.

The weekend sort of reminds me of one of those plot lines that they teach you to make in second grade (sorry, the elementary ed major in me is coming out). You know, a beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion. It just kept getting better until finally we had to get on the bus to come back to Barcelona.

We left Barcelona by bus at 8am on Saturday, and arrived at Empuries, an archeological site with ancient Greek and Roman ruins from 600 BC. I can appreciate how amazing it is that something that old still exists and that I get to see it, but they were less-than-breathtaking (to put it nicely), as the ruins were, well, ruined.

You couldn’t really tell what anything was, so it was up to our tour guide (a woman dressed as an ancient Roman who thought she was much funnier than she actually was) to create the scene in our minds. She didn’t do a very good job, and it was SO hot, so we all kind of wanted to get out of there and get to a beach. Thankfully the tour only lasted an hour, and then we had 4 beautiful hours to relax on the beach. For the last hour we rented this paddleboat shaped like a car that had a slide on top of it, and had a great time in the water.

From there we went to our hotel in the cutest little town called Roses. All of the houses were built into the mountains, and reminded me a lot of what the scenery looks like in Greece (not that I’ve ever been to Greece – I just know what the scenery looked like in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, so I’m going with that picture in my head). Our hotel was up on a hill and had the most breathtaking views of the Mediterranean and of the town below. The actual hotel was a little bit underwhelming – they must have thought that with such great views from the balcony of every room, there was no need for things like air conditioning, comfortable beds, travel size toiletries in the bathroom, or more than one key per room. But in the grand scheme of things, none of that mattered because I got to wake up to this in the morning:

We had a great dinner in Roses and got to walk around the town for a little while. My favorite moment might have been earlier than that though, after my shower –clean and wrapped in a towel, sitting on our little balcony and reading my book. There was a nice breeze, the view was amazing, and I think it was the most relaxed I’ve been since I’ve been in Spain; maybe even the most relaxed I’ve been all year.

Sunday morning after we had breakfast and checked out, we drove down to the port and boarded a double-decker boat to take a trip to a town called Cadaques, most famous for being home to Salvador Dali for many years. The boat ride was absolutely amazing. The water was clear, the cliffs were surrounding us – it was breathtaking. At one point the boat stopped and they let everyone slide down the back and swim in the sea. I opted to hang on the top of the boat, soak up some sun and take pictures of the swimmers. It was so much fun to be on the top of the boat with all of my friends here, listening to music, taking pictures, and having a good time.

I thought Roses was the cutest town I’d ever seen until the boat docked in Cadaques. This town looked even more Greek, with the white houses built on the windy roads up endless hills. We walked along the road on the coast and shopped a little before stopping to eat lunch at a cute little outdoor restaurant. I had my first seafood of the trip – spaghetti with clams! It was delish. After lunch and a little more exploring, Maggie, Morgan, Mallory (do all my friend’s names begin with m?) and I found a little bit of shade on the edge of a cliff and sat there for an hour or so just talking and taking in the amazing views. After a stop for gelato (obviously) we boarded the boat again. I put my towel down on the top of the boat and took the best ½ hour nap in the sun while the boat took us back to the port, where our bus was waiting to take us back to Barcelona. The perfect ending to the perfect weekend.

I hope you get the idea of how amazing this place was. But the good news is, if you don’t, I’m pretty sure my wedding will be in Cadaques, and you’re all invited!

BUCKET LIST

On our first night in Barcelona, Maggie and I made a “Spain Bucket List” of things that we knew we had to do while we were here. We pooled all of the info we’d gotten from friends who had been here before, literature from ISA, word of mouth, and guide books to compile the list. Most of the things are Barcelona-specific, but some are just in reference to our entire trip. I thought I’d share it with you and show you what good progress we’re making!

SPAIN BUCKET LIST

Visit La Sagrada Familia

Go to the beach twice a week ü

Visit Las Ramblas ü

Master the metro ü

Go to a bullfight

Visit another country

Hike Montserrat ü

Go to the Magic Fountain ü

Walk down Passeig de Gracia ü

Go to Parc Guell ü

Go to Parc Ciutadella

Get a fruit smoothie at La Boqueria ü

Visit each neighborhood of Barcelona at least once

With a little more than two weeks left in Barcelona, and 4 weeks left in Spain, I’d say we’re doing a pretty good job of getting done all of the “must-do’s"!!

HIKING MONTSERRAT

On Tuesday, we took an hour-long train ride to Montserrat, a beautiful old monastery set atop a beautiful mountain just outside of Barcelona. We heard it was a “must-see” while we were here, and that it was a full day trip, so we decided to take a day off class to go visit. In addition to the monastery, there’s a hiking trail that you can take to go all the way to the top of the mountain. So, we put on our sneakers and gym shorts and ventured up Montserrat. From the train station, we took a cable car up to the monastery. From there, it was a 2-hour hike to the very top of the mountain [we opted out of taking a train half way up to make it only a one hour hike, and it hindsight that was probably a bad idea!]

Before I go on, let’s just acknowledge the fact that I’m not exactly athletic, and hiking isn’t something I would normally choose to do. But, I figured it was a tourist thing, and that it would be a nice 2 hour walk up some windy, paved walkways with beautiful scenery, benches to rest on, and water fountains, and that a little exercise wouldn’t kill me.

As it turns out, it was the opposite. A “little exercise” was actually a 2-hour HIKE up steep (I’m not kidding….like really steep) hills, on rocky paths, in the 80-something degree heat with no water in sight. There were multiple times where I seriously contemplated turning around and going back. Thank goodness for the beautiful scenery and the good friends who slowed down the pace for their out-of-shape companion =].

Now that I’ve caught my breath, taken a shower, and chugged some water, I realize I’m being a little bit dramatic. Except for a scary couple of minutes where I actually thought I couldn’t breathe anymore, it turned out to be a great experience and I’m proud of myself for doing as much as I did. It was a really nice break from all of the noise and craziness of the city. At one point, it was just the three of us standing on the edge of this mountain without a single other person or sign of civilization around – no noise, no nothing, just mountains all around us and a view that went on forever. It was really beautiful. Check out these pictures!

Oh, and P.S….for a more upbeat, athletic, and enjoyable perspective of our trip to Montserrat, check out Maggie’s blog! (www.mkyelencsics.blogspot.com)

GIRONA AND FIGUERES

On Saturday I went on one of the ISA day trips to Girona, a town about an hour 1/2 north west of Barcelona. The city was built by the Romans in 100 BC (aka a REALLY long time ago) and was built with walls surrounding the town. It's the first main city that nomads would travel through coming from the north, so as time went on the city started spilling over the original walls, and in 1500, new walls were built around the city which still stand today. It was such a beautiful little city - it was pretty cool to see physical walls define city lines - I'd never seen anything like that. You cross one of 6 or 7 bridges across the river that surrounds the city, and then pass through the gate into the center.

This statue sits at the main entrance to Girona. The legend was that if you tried to get into the city at night after the gates had been locked, you could kiss the lionness and she would know whether or not you belonged there, and if you were truly from Girona, she would unlock the gate and let you in. The legend continued that if you were new to the city, you had to be "baptized" by kissing the lion, and also if you were a visitor but wanted to return to Girona, you had to kiss the lion. (Our tour guide told us that last year during the swine flu scare, they took away the stairs to reach the lion statue so no one could kiss it and spread germs!)

Everywhere in the city were these beautifully colored houses. We learned that when the city was remodeled after some war, they had to rebuild the houses with an ugly type of rock, so the builders were given a choice of 6 or 7 paint colors to choose from. No two houses on a block could be painted the same color, and that was how you told people where you lived (I live in the orange house between this and that street!)

Girona also had a large Jewish community at one point and we walked through that section of town. When the Jews did live there, they were highly valued because they spoke Arabic, and since the Muslims played a huge part in building much of the city, they were used at translators. Our tour guide noted that there are no remarkable buildings or distinctions that separate the Jewish quarters from the rest of the city, except for these markings on the doorways where the mezuzah was once placed.

After we walked around and saw the city, we stopped for lunch and some shopping, and then we headed to Figueres, the town where Salvador Dali was born, and where his museum, Teatro Museu Dali, is located.

I don't know how to describe the museum other than wonderfully strange. If you've never seen Dali's art, you really should - it's unlike anything I've ever seen before. Every single thing in the museum was weird and strange and beautiful all at the same time. You could stare at a single piece of his art for an hour and still find something new about it. Here's a little taste, but the rest of my pictures from the museum are on facebook!

(This piece of art takes up an entire room. The "eyes" are two pictures hanging on the wall, the "nose" is a fire place, and the "lips" are a sofa. You have to climb a flight of stares and stare through a special glass to get this view of the entire face.)

This was the second of 3 ISA sponsored trips. Next weekend we go to Costa Brava for an overnight. It's supposed to be beautiful!

This week Maggie and I have a little itinerary planned out, because we began to realize that we're running out of time in this beautiful city and we need to make sure we see everything!

Here's the plan for the rest of the week:

Tuesday (tomorrow) : Montserrat

Wednesday: beach day

Thursday: La Sagrada Familia and the Gothic quarter

Friday: Montbau (a farther, less tourist-y, more beautiful beach)

Saturday-Sunday: Costa Brava

What a week! Can't wait =]

xoxo

Lauren