Park Guell

My favorite part of the Barcelona trip was Park Guell. It is located quite a ways outside of the city and up a giant hill. We climbed up a little hill on top of the big hill to get a great view of the entire city. Then, we went to Park Guell, which was designed by Antoni Gaudi to be a gated community for the rich and famous of Barcelona, but it was a complete fail because none of the rich wanted to live so far from the city center. He did actually complete a couple of the houses and one of them is the top one. I really like his architecture because it really is one of a kind. After the checking out the park, we climbed up the mountain further to find a place to eat our dinner and watch the sunset.

After the sunset, a few of us went to see Avatar in 3D because we had a flight at like 630, so our bus to the airport was at 330 am. All four of us fell asleep during the movie, so we basically paid to take a nap. After the movie we just chilled in the theater forever and everyone just left it was so great.

Overall, Barcelona was a great trip!

Barcelona day 2

After the football stadium, we went to a couple of plazas and explored a lot of things, including the famous Gothic quarters in the center of the city where the Cathedral is located. After that we went to the beach. After the beach we started our way up to a park and saw some multi0colored building. I have no idea what it is for, but it looked cool lol.

FC Barcelona!

The first thing we did on our second day in Barcelona was go to the football stadium of the best team in Spain, FC Barcelona. This was an awesome experience, because not only was the stadium incredible and massive, but the history in the museum could not be matched.

Barcelona

We found 5 euro flights from Sevilla to Barcelona or so we thought. It seems like all of my travels so far start out with it being an adventure to find the hostel and this was no exception. First of all, this five euro flight took us to Reus, an airport that is a 1.5 hour bus ride outside of Barcelona. The bus we got on did not have enough seats for everyone, so a few of the people that I went with had to sit in the aisle of the bus the whole way.

Once we got into Barcelona, we still had a ways to go. There was a reason that our hostel was so cheap, it was really far outside the city, we were up a huge hill in some park. The first pic is of us walking up the road to our hostel.

After we got settled into our room, we went to explore the city. The first place that we went was to the Sagrada Familia, or the cathedral that was designed by Antoni Gaudí in 1915, but is still under construction. This is due to some rule of the Catholic church that certain basilicas can only be paid for by money given at mass, so 90 years later, they are still struggling to fund it. A Japanese man visited the church and fell in love with if, offering to pay the rest of the cost, but the church could not accept.

We then walked around Barcelona and saw the Casas de Gaudi, or the houses of Gaudi. He was a very famous architect in Barcelona and he designed some very unique buildings. The third picture is one of his houses. He designed everything, including the furniture of these buildings. After seeing these, we walked down the main street of Barcelona and went to a huge market.

Next, we chilled down by the port (fourth pic) for awhile before going to the fountain show. This fountain show was incredible! It was about a half hour long or so and the water and colors went along with various songs that they played. The show is every hour, so we actually stayed for a second show and watched it again because we were so impressed.

RAIN!

I am going to take this moment to vent a little bit about how rainy it has been in Sevilla since I have been here. It has rained in the last month more than it usually does in a year here. I actually chose Sevilla because it is warm and dry and just really nice weather. It's kinda funny because my senora says about every day that it never rains here just makes me mad haha. I just cannot wait until the weather gets better because I am soooo sick of having lazy days inside, I want to explore!

Palma de Mallorca, climbing mountains

Third day in Mallorca, since this is a long weekend, we decided to check out Palma. First thing in the morning we went to a market in a little town near Palma by train. It was not anything too special, but it is always fun to barter with people and they like to barter there so it is great. After that we wanted to check out some of the festivities for the Mallorca Day. There was supposed to be a human tower, but the newspaper was wrong and it was the previous day. We chilled and watched some people run a 5K and I just do not understand why people do that because no one looks happy when they run lol

The second picture is of the Cathedral of Palma. It is a pretty impressive building, especially with the fountain on the one side.

After the cathedral, we went towards the castle up on a hill. We had to walk a long way and boy was it a climb up the mountain to that castle. The top picture is Phil, Austin and I on our way to the castle by the port. The third is the incredible view from the top of the castle.

The last picture is my favorite picture of this trip so far. The sunsets were amazing every night, but so much more so this night. Phil had a sunset setting on his camera that conveyed exactly what we saw that night, and using a timer took this great photo.

Soller and a train ride

Our original plan was to go to the Cave of Dragons, but the only way to get there is by a certain bus that only comes once a day for some reason. So we got there early and waited, but the bus just drove by even though there was a good ten other people waiting with us. Our next plan was to go to Soller another town on Mallorca that to get there we rode an old train through the mountains and it was beautiful.
Soller was just a little town, nothing special. We went for a hike a little bit outside of Soller and it was a great countryside.
When we came back, I took the amazing picture of me in the Mediterranean Sea with an amazing sunset in the background. That night I learned a great new card game that I definitely plan on teaching my family when I get back called Wisp. It is very similar to Spades and a lot of fun.
One thing that I thought was interesting was that they had everything in Catalan, Castellano and English, with quite a bit of things in German. Catalan is the a variation of Spanish spoken in Catalunya, where Barcelona is. Castellano is the Spanish that everyone else speaks, more or less.

Arrival in Palma de Mallorca

It was an adventure to get to Palma de Mallorca and our hostel. It started at about midnight that morning when I took the midnight bus that normally takes six hours to get to Madrid. Austin and Phil took the 1am bus, I couldnt because it was full, yet our buses arrived at the same time because when we made a stop our bus driver decided it was fine to bs and drink coffee with everyone waiting on the bus. We then took the metro to the airport and flew to Palma de Mallorca. Mallorca is an island province east of Spain, and Palma is the capital of Mallorca.
When we got to the airport, we decided to walk into town instead of looking into riding the bus for some reason lol. As you can see in the picture above we had to cross a major highway but no big deal. We eventually made it to the beach, after a couple kilometers, and found a map that said we were down the beach a bit. After a good half hour walking down the beach we found out we were about halfway there! The map we found had our hostel in the wrong location, but we found it because I brought the address for some reason.
Our hostel was so close to the beach it was crazy! Me and Phil decided to go up to roof to check out the incredible view. We spent the rest of the day chillin at the beach and playing cards.

AVATAR

Today, I finally got to see Avatar in 3D and it was incredible. I saw it before in just normal demensions lol. The movie was also in Spanish, which was interesting. I actually understood everything, esp since I saw it before and new what was going on so it helped me to understand everything they were saying. One thing that is different about Spanish movie theaters is that they have assigned seats that you are supposed to buy in advanced. Well, we did not know this and bought ours right before, were the first ones in and had great seats until we were told those were not our actual seats. So, we sat in the front which was disappointing, but it still was a great movie and I recommend it to everyone.

Spring Break Plans

I just bought my plane tickets for our first spring break (ya i know I have 2) and I am going with my friend Steve to ITALY!!! We debated going with some other people to Rome then Athens but that was too expensive for us so we decided to hit up a few cities in Italy. We will be going to Rome first for a few days, then Florence, then Venice. I cant wait!

Interview day

I had my interview this afternoon. I had to do the interview over the phone which made me really nervous that something would go wrong. Well, it did not start out well. I had to make the call because I have a plan on Skype that I can call anyone, but when I made the call, I called the wrong number! I was a little rattled after that, but I did not let it bother me because I then called the right number and had a great interview, I am so pumped, I hope that it went well.

Later that night, I went back to the same burger place with some other friends that wanted to go to check it out (I know I am obsessed). But this time I got quesadillas and they were sooo good it was great. I missed quesadillas so much because at Pitt I have them atleast once a week.

Greatest day so far!

OMG I am so excited! I signed my lease for my apartment for next year! I was so worried about it all working out with me being in Spain. I actually have never seen the apartment that I just signed a lease for except for the pictures online, so I am really trusting my roommates to make a good decision. I am just kidding, because i know they will only pick a great place for us.
Also, I just found out that I have an interview this Friday for PNC as a summer internship for the summer. This really is my dream internship and it is hard to believe that I have a chance to get this internship.
When I got home from class, I had Valentine's day cards from both Courtney and Meme :) makes me happy.

BURGERS!

Today, I had to change classes yet again, but this time is the last time for real, or so they say lol.

That night a few of my friends and I went to a place that we heard had really good burgers called the Glassy Lounge. They were so good and I needed a taste of America and it was fantastically perfect!

Carnaval!

Carnaval is a massive party in Cadiz. A carnival is a big celebration that ocurrs right before lent. There are many of these parties throughout the world, but the biggest are in Rio de Janeiro, Venice, and the one I went to in Cadiz. It consists of thousands of people dressing up in costumes and going crazy in the streets. It is a street long celebration, but we only went to the craziness for one night. It was a two hour bus ride, and we got there at about ten. we actually did not leave until about 6 am, so we experienced an entire night of craziness. I wore my awesome bear mask, and Jess kept shooting everyone dressed as an animal because she was a safari hunter lol. It was a great great night and a once in a lifetime experience, with all of the drums, and drunken spaniards singing.

Another week of class done!

Wow, time really has been going by really fast here in Spain. Hard to believe that I have been here for a month already!
Today I went to a costume store because tomorrow I am going to Cadiz for Carnaval. I found this amazing mask at the store and it was only like 3 euros or something, so hilarious cheap costume, cant go wrong there lol. I went with my friend and we had a blast trying on all of the ridiculous hats they had. The place was nuts with all of the other people buying last minute costumes just like me.

Later that night, a bunch of us went out to dinner for some tapas. We went to a Caribbean food place and it was really good. One disappointing thing is that I had to miss the Pitt-WVU basketball game. WVU was ranked 5th in the nation and just beat Pitt the week before, but Pitt beat West Virginia in triple-overtime. I really really wish I could have been there for that one because it was a home game.

Change Classrooms?

So, for some reason the Universidad de Pablo Olavide makes us change our classrooms every two weeks. I understand that they had to change them after the Spaniards finished with their finals, but why the need to continuously change rooms? This just does not make any sense to me at all.

I am also kind of disappointed that I could not go hiking yesterday. The trip was full for some reason, even though I am paying them for all of these trips. I almost just went in the morning because I am sure that someone did not show up at 9am on a Sunday morning, but I got my work done instead.

Cordoba

Another day this weekend and another day-trip! This time we went to Cordoba, which is a town about 2 hours away from Sevilla. We went to what was once a mosque that was turned into a cathedral, as most were in Spain when the Christians took back Andalusia, Southern Spain from the Moors. In the tenth century, it is said that 500,000 people lived there under the Caliphate of Cordoba, the king of Andalusia and Northern Africa. This was, at the time, the most populated city in the world. It was interesting because we went to a mosque/cathedral and a synagogue in the same day. Then we went to the Alcazar, or king's palace, which was beautiful. After that, we had a couple of hours to do whatever we wanted and of course, as American as we could be, we ate a Burger King lol. It was a great trip until the drive back. We had two buses and the over bus broke down, so our driver had to try to help fix it. They got it started but did not make it very far before stopping again. My bus then had to go backtrack to try and find a belt that fell off of the other bus, and we actually found it. It did not work, however and they, for some reason, ordered another bus from Sevilla when we were 1.5 hours away. We did finally get home, just 4 hours later than we were supposed to.

Italica

On this day, we went to the old Roman city of Italica. It was just for a day trip because it is only about a half hour drive from Sevilla. It was founded in 206 BC as a retirement town of generals of the Roman army. All of the houses in Italica were grand because everyone had money at the time. The amphitheater seated about 25,000 people, which made it the third largest in the Roman empire, even though the town only had 8,000 inhabitants. They would pay people from other Spanish towns to come and watch the shows and gladiator fights. There were even two bathhouses. I was a pretty interesting day-trip and it was amazing that the mosaics are still intact from the original Roman houses.

Done with my second week of class!

Well, I made it through my second week of class and my classes are going well so far. One great thing is that I was able to change my time for my European Union Class because before on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I had class at 1030 to 12 and then 130 to 3. That 1.5 hours was terribly boring and I was late for lunch every day, so my senora did not like that schedule either. The first day when I went to go to the class to get the teacher to sign my add/drop paper, I went to the wrong classroom, so I ended up the 4th person on the list. That meant that 4 people had to change their class and somehow exactly 4 people did! I am so happy now my schedule is 9 to 12 on Mondays and Wednesdays and 1030 to 130 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I love it. The add/drop process was a mess, and I was one of the few people that lucked out.

La segunda clase de salsa

My friends and I went to buy our tickets to Carnaval a huge party in Cadiz. We will be going on February 13th for the day. On our way we went to McDonald's to be typical Americans and I got a hot fudge sundae or sundae chocolate and it was soooo good, I hadn't eaten ice cream for the past month. We may have gotten lost and went to the wrong building when trying to find the company, but we did eventually and all was well haha.

I went to my second salsa class. This was the first class that we could dance with partners and I was really nervous, but it went very well. Since there were a lot more girls than guys, I got to dance with all of them as they rotated around. I was a little nervous, however because there was a Spanish woman that was 8 months pregnant. She was pretty good for as huge as she was, but if she does not make it to a class sometime, I will know where she is lol. Overall, it is pretty fun and I cannot wait for the next class!

Baloncesto!

Earlier tonight, our program had some pickup basketball games. There were probably 20 something students that came, which was a lot more that I figured would come. We had to take a city bus for about 25 minutes to get there, so it was a little far away. I haven't really exercised much, so this was really good for me. Wow, I did not realize how much I was not in shape until I played full-court basketball. It was a lot of fun, though and it is every week, so it will be something that I can look forward to every week to keep myself in shape.

I figured that I would keep the theme with a picture at the top of every post, so I went with the basketball lol.