In between our two Sessions here, we get four days off. This basically means, everyone will be traveling around Europe. Somehow I was lucky enough to combine two groups of my close friends here into one group. I'm so happy they hit it off well because it was the vacation of a lifetime.
Don't get me wrong, I love traveling with my family, and hope to travel more with them in the future. But traveling with just friends is quite and interesting, different and amazing experience.
Of course, our flight took off an hour late, and we got to our hotel past midnight. Needless to say, no one was in the mood to go out, even for a late night snack. So we spent the night catching up on sleep in the hotel. When we got dropped off, we were immediately awed by our hotel. Once we got to our rooms, I was basically shocked beyond belief. I found the hotel online and we split each room three ways. The reason we booked it was because it was close in price to a nice hostel but it seemed like a pretty decent hotel and we figured it would be more safe and less stressful. I had no idea what would be waiting for us. Our hotel had plenty of room and a gorgeous view, I guess I should have realized a four star hotel would.
Our first day in Barcelona was spent exploring. We started off our day going to The Sagrada Familia which is a masterpiece of Gaudi (the architect). It was dedicated to The Pope and is a gorgeous Cathedral, and even has a small religious church meant for the children who lived in the area. The entrance fee was pricey, but it was completely worth it. After that we went and got our first serving of Paella while in Spain. It was so yummy, we were all pleasantly surprised, mostly because we had no idea what to expect. After lunch, we visited the Chocolate museum which was really cute, and our ticket was a bar of Chocolate so of course we loved it. After that we made our way to Las Ramblas (a famous street in Barcelona) in order to find souvenirs and heels for the night. We had purchased a ticket to see Calvin Harris perform prior to the trip and realized it was at a top club in Barcelona, and we thought that heels were expected. We were mostly correct but, wearing heels until 6am is just not fun for anyone. Before we left to see Calvin Harris, I finally got ahold of both my parents and was able to catch up a bit on my families life at home. I'm pretty sad that I wasn't there for my nephew's first words, and to see him start to crawl but I'm happy to know everyone is safe and everyone seems to be doing great without me there. I can't wait to see my nephews and family. Mom, I miss your food so much, I'm hoping you'll make my favorite meal when I come back.
The second day in Barcelona we went to see Parc Guell. Parc Guell is hard to explain. But basically, it is like a playground of beauty completely thought of by Gaudi. There are pictures on the blog post before this. It took a long time to even walk half of it (3 hours), and by the time we finished half of it we realized we were too tired to complete the other side and they looked somewhat similar to each other. Before Parc Guell we went to have lunch and decided to try the Sangria there for the first time. I quickly decided it wasn't really my thing, and just ate the fruit. But I ended up ordering Spaghetti randomly, and I swear it tasted exactly like the way my babysitter used to make it, delicious. (My moms is amazing too, but is a much different recipe). After Parc Guell we had dinner and decided to try some of the tapas there. We tried the Calamari, potato tortilla (omelet with potato), crochets, and papas britas. It was all really yummy, but probably pretty unhealthy. We stopped at a fruit market on the way home and got some giant delicious fruit. We took a really tiny siesta before going out and then our night began. It was tons of fun, and there are pictures on the previous blog post. It was nice that once again we didn't have to pay any type of entrance fee, I have such gorgeous friends.
The next day we decided to make it a relaxing one. My friends purchased souvenirs from Las Ramblas and then walked to the beach. We had ice cream twice that day, once before the beach and then after dinner. It was so bloody hott in Barcelona, we were melting as quickly as our gelato did. The beach was so nice, we actually all went into the water. And I got my wish, we finally all got hair wraps together (I've never had one before). After the beach we went to a very nice dinner because we all wanted Paella again before we left. I decided to stick with the chicken and vegetable Paella but my friends all ordered the mixed one which has sea food in it. I tried the prawns, mussels and crawfish. It was pretty good, I'm just not a huge fan of too much sea food. I'm kinda spoiled, since my favorite sea food is snow crab or king crab legs. On the way home, we realized again how much fun we were all having, there were plenty of giggles and the ice cream made the night even better. When we got home we were all pretty exhausted by somehow my room could fall asleep until 3 am. Most likely because the two previous nights were so late. This morning we woke up at 6am and left for our flight. None of us wanted to leave Barcelona, but the memories and pictures are priceless.
The trip made me realize how extremely fortunate and lucky I am to have parents able to fund this trip. Thank you dad for being the push to get me here, I will always be grateful. This is a once in a life experience and I don't know if my time can get any better here. But there are still three more trips to come and I can't wait for them. I'm so fortunate to have found such amazing friends here. (I still miss my Bach Five though.) Plus, I'm pretty happy with the grade I'll probably end up with for the first session, and hopefully my grade for my next session will be even better now that we understand the grading system and type of work we are expected to do.
Since we came back we all needed to catch up one some sleep and relax before classes start again tomorrow.
Life is good, I miss you all.
Nicole
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