Barcelona

Okay, so even though I’ve been in Andorra for about 4 days now, I figure I’d better write a little about my trip to Barcelona before I forget. Sorry if this is a long post.
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The whole story behind my trip is funny. Basically Fulbright took so long in telling me whether or not I had a grant that my advisor at APU called during the week of graduation and found out that I was an alternate. Then somehow the office in New York messed up my address and sent my official letter to APU, which actually reached me at home maybe a week or two after I’d been back. That same day I got an e-mail from Fulbright in Andorra congratulating me on receiving the grant. Needless to say, I was confused and not sure if I had the grant or not. (It’s funny, because today at orientation Jordi, the guy who organizes all of the Fulbright stuff in Andorra, was telling us how quickly the grantees had been chosen but that Fulbright told him not to contact us too early! So apparently he already knew that somebody had backed out and was wanting to contact me sometime in April, but they told him to wait until the end of May!) So because of the confusion, I hadn’t given him any travel dates and he called me around 5 or 6 in the morning asking me when I was planning on flying to Barcelona. Still pretty much asleep, I told him I’d like to come a week early. Then later that morning I woke up and realized that I would be there a week before by myself (boring!). But anyway, that's how this trip all started.
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So after that, I tried to find somebody to visit Barcelona with me, and finally my friend Cassie who is living in Switzerland worked it out so that she could come. So bright and early Monday morning I flew to Newark, and later that afternoon to Barcelona, arriving at 9:15 the next day. Cassie and I met up at the airport and took a bus into the city. So between Tuesday and Friday we managed to visit the cathedral, the City History Museum, the Chocolate Museum, Las Ramblas (the main street), lots of modernisme architecture (Sagrada Familia church, Casa Mila, the Block of Discord, Parc Güell, the hospital…), the beach, the city park, the Picasso Museum, and the Magic Fountain at the top of Montjuïc. Lots of walking and buses and metro.
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I had a really good time, though I’m not sure how relaxing it was. Traveling is definitely not the same thing as vacation. I felt like each day was better than the one before it, even though I was probably more tired as the week went on. Barcelona is a big city but we felt pretty comfortable about getting around after awhile. It was very overwhelming being back in Spain and being in a big city where life is busy and noisy, but also full of different smells (good and bad). I was reading a book this summer that said that compared to the rest of the world, but US doesn’t smell like anything. Well, that’s not true of Spain, and on top of all of the other sights and sounds, this added element put me into sensory overload for the first day. Not that things were unfamiliar; I’d experienced most of it in Sevilla, but it does take awhile to get readjusted.
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I think that the highlights were seeing the Sagrada Familia, riding bikes along the beach and getting to swim for a little bit in the Mediterranean for the first time, the Magic Fountain show on Friday night, and getting to hang out with Cassie. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been there with me!!! She was the perfect person to spend the week with, as she’d already been in Europe for almost three months and could help me with the transition (though I think Spain was maybe a lot different from being in Italy and Switzerland).
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So we saw the Sagrada Familia church on Thursday morning and rented audio guides as we walked through. The church isn’t finished, in fact they’ve been working on it for more than a century, but it was interesting seeing it as a work in progress. I loved the ceiling and the inside pillars which are built to look like a forest. The architect, Antoni Gaudí , loved to incorporate nature into his designs and used lots of geometric shapes such as hyperboloids and paraboloids. It was very interesting. After three days of seeing museums and churches, we tried to make Friday into a more relaxing day. We had a picnic at the city park, rented bikes and rode along the beach, swam a little, and then went to the water show at night. I think that the Magic Fountain was my most favorite part, even though it was so cheesy. It reminded me of being in Disneyland, probably because when we got off the bus the fountain was playing Disney music (though in Spanish and Catalan). We sat right up on the edge of the fountain for about an hour watching the different shows, which were all basically colored water fountains set to music. It was a really great way to end the week. Saturday morning we got up early and went back to the airport, where I got on a bus to Andorra while Cassie got on a plane back to Switzerland.
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Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/kelsey.maass/Barcelona?feat=directlink