Barcelona

I went to Barcelona this weekend and it was the best time I've had while in Europe.  Maybe it was my mindset or maybe it was the atmosphere but either way I had an amazing time and am wishing that when I wake up tomorrow my flight home will have been a nightmare and I'll still be in Equity Point Gothic hostel (Gothic neighborhood, no black and white sketchers there).  I'll start with the basics.  I planned this trip with my friends Jeff and Kelsey, but later learned that a bunch of my other friends were coming along also (Adrian...I don't want to name names).  My RyanAir flight left at 17:05 on Thursday evening (yes I skipped class).  RyanAir is the scariest plane ride you can take.  I'll try to remember to go into more detail in the blog later.  We arrived around 20:15 at our hostel and went from there.  The next three days would be too hard to detail in this opening paragraph so I will describe each day separately.  Finally, our trip ended with a nice slumber party in the Barcelona airport before our 6:00 monday flight.  I arrived back in Sevilla after taking a bus from the airport just in time to sit in my classroom for forty minutes until my 9:00 class started (the walk home back and would have taken about the same time but would have resulted in me not attending class).  It was funny having a completely stuffed backpack and yet needing to ask someone else for a sheet of paper to take notes.

Taken from my top bunk!

[RyanAir side note]

Actually, I think I'll start with a description of RyanAir and their flights.  To start off with, I was greeted at the airport by a squatting dog.  But anyway, Spanish people line up for boarding an hour before they let people on the plane.  Add that to my list of things I don't understand.  Meanwhile, airline employees were probably chilling and eating a bocadillo (sandwich) somewhere out of sight.  So after sweating about whether my bag would meet the restrictions (40x55x20cm, and 10kg), I was allowed to board.  The only cool part about this flight was that you could board the front or the back of the plane.  Once inside I noticed the extremely plasticized cabin that lacked emergency pamphlets (just a sticker on the seat), reclining seats, and any sense of comfortability.  Finding a seat next to my friends I buckled up immediately.  The look of our 20 year-old-ish flight attendants did little to ease my fears.  On take off, the plane zig-zagged across the runway going however fast a plane that is taking off goes.  I am fairly positive that the pilot was younger than me (or had muscle spasms) due to the video-game like maneuvering.  In-flight services were definitely not provided, but I did enjoy the repeated advertisement played over the intercom.  They sold smokeless cigarettes on board?  Really?  I feel like I should end this paragraph.  Our landing was a solid bounce or two off the ground followed by applause from the terrified cabin.  Where were the boos?

Well, I'll try and remember to go through everything that happened each day:

Thursday:
Flight, Arrived, put stuff in locker on my bunk "room," hung out in the common area, then went to a bar down the street and eventually a dance club.  Pretty fun stuff, except I was definitely out way too late.

Friday:
My friends and I decided to make Friday our Gaudi day.  Gaudi was a famous architect that basically owns Barcelona's heart incase you didn't already know.  First of all we set off on the metro to find the ridiculously famous Park Güell (the Güell family served as Gaudi's patron for many things).  After getting off the metro we found out that we had a San Francisco like trek ahead of us.  Come to think of it, many of the buildings in Barcelona had the San Fran stick out over the sidewalk type design.  Our hike up was simplified by the presence of escalators (not down though), I wasn't sure how dangerous this would be in the rain.  Reaching the park was an incredible feeling, for before this moment I hadn't set foot in a real park in Europe (No stinkin' plazas!).  The park environment kind of resembled Black Butte I'd say.  Definitely had a a few different plants (cacti, aloe? plants), but the dry dirt/air and the numerous pine trees brought me back for a second.  After reaching the summit and taking a few horizon/city shots, we set off to find the really cool parts of the park.  I'm not sure how to explain Gaudi's insanity, I'll let the pictures do the speaking.  After a solid two hours or more in the park we set off for what I was told was the most visited site in Europe (wait...didn't they tell me that about La Alhambra?  Damn Europeans and their pride...).

Their album was titled, "High every day"

Walk up the hill to the top

Barcelona from the top of Park Güell

Open areas are awesome!

Holding up the open areas

Crazy spiral walk way...crazy Gaudi...

Below the plaza, so much design can't fit it all in.

With the help of a nice park worker we found a closer metro station which dropped us about five blocks from La Sagrada Familia.  After making a quick detour by Guadi's Casa Mila La Pedrera (not worth 17 euros so we didn't go in) we headed to our main attraction.  By this time my mouth was drier than an American clothes drier so I bought some water that turned out to be sugar water. Oh well, it was great.  The Sagrada Familia is a church/temple/whatever that was started in the late 19th century by some architect that I don't remember and later handed over to Gaudi to complete.  Guadi worked on the incredible and massive structure, considered his unfinished masterpiece until he was run over by a tram in 1926 (seriously the most famous person in the city was run over by a tram?).  After some years of dormancy construction resumed using estimated plans.  The originals had died along with Gaudi and the Spanish Civil War.  La Sagrada Familia is now expect to be completed between 2020 and 2040.  While the temple was amazing, I found it funny that a religious building had its own gift shop built inside.  I'll let the pictures do the rest for me.

Incredible front of Sagrada Familia

Ridiculous right?

"Why is this taking so long?"

Planning/design room

Other side of la Sagrada Familia

Under Construction...yet still so cool.  Check out the spiral staircase/ramp.

Fruit at the top of a church???

Not much for the rest of Friday, went to some bar down the street and hung out for a while with some Swedish people that spoke perfect English.  If you don't speak more than two languages, you're pretty much a handicapped hostel-stayer.  This post is way too long, I'll try and fit Saturday and Sunday into one.

So Barcelona is super cool so far. Went to park güell, sagrada familia and walked around other places. My hostel is pretty damn crazy, modeled after a Gaudi building. I'd put up pictures but I'm on my iPhone. Catch ya later.

Things I don't understand about Sevilla

I don't understand:

1) Why people don't own rain jackets-- they only use umbrellas.
2) Why they have ambulances here when all the streets are one way and it would be faster to walk to the hospital. Multiple times have seen ambulances stuck behind long lines of cars with no hope of saving whoever they're after.
3) How they train their dogs to be off leash all the time without any problems.
4) Why people don't care about their dogs shitting all of the streets and peeing on everything.
5) Why they clean the streets every night with hundreds (thousands?) of workers when the streets don't get cleaned and are just shit on the next day anyway.
6) The garage doors. They open like regular doors, like the push/pull kind. This takes like a minute to happen since all the doors are made of like thousand pound boards of medieval wood, and also takes a lot more time. Bothers me.
7) The tranvia, kind of like a long street car, only goes like a mile and a half through the middle of the city and costs more than a euro. They're also pissed that there are cables running through the city (for the tram) and are working hard to get rid of them.
8) Why there is no carpet. Or even rugs for that matter. My feets be so cold when I wake up to stone floors.
9) Why the sim card on my phone always seems to "come out of place" when it doesn't.
10) Why the streets are lined with orange trees. Seriously, there are thousands and thousands of them and its not like the people are eating. Get some variety, come on.
11) Why there is no grass. What do they have against grass?
12) Why there are only concrete soccer courts and why you have to buy a new ball everytime you play because the old one is destroyed after a solid two hours.
13) How much more personal a hug is than these two damn cheek kisses.
14) Why few people are allowed into a residence.
15) Why people don't care when their cars get into fender benders. I've seen people get hit, or a motorcyclist get hit and the driver of the car was just like, "you okay?" "ya" "alright, peace."
16) Why window shopping is more of a reflection on Spanish culture than soccer, bullfighting, or flamenco. I seriously run into people all the time stopping to look at something they are never going to buy.
17) Why kids call each other "tío." This means uncle when translated literally but is used as like "bro" or "dude."
18) How the Spanish people don't get over their cultural three hour siesta when everyone is going broke.  Maybe if you didn't sit around and drink for three hours during the day and stayed at work you'd get some stuff done and maybe make some money.
19) Why Spaniards eat out and go to cafes all the time. I mean, first of all you're broke. Like 25% of Sevilla is unemployed. Where is the money coming from? They must never save any money. Or I guess they're just living off the welfare system. But still.
20) The fear of rain.
21) Why there is so much english around. "No tira papeles en el water" -in the bathroom at CIEE, "dont throw paper in the water." "Parking público." Definitely not how you say parking in spanish.
22) The obsession with American music, especially non-dance music. They don't understand.......
23) Why every tabletop in the CIEE palace is not secure and moves up and down when you touch it.

Well, there are a lot of things I don't understand about Sevilla that aren't on this list but maybe I'll make a things I don't understand about Sevilla part two sometime.

My shitty phone. Took some nice maneuvering to hide my shitty fingernails. iPhone I miss and love you, you have no idea.

Soccer

So I went to go play soccer with some Spaniards from the residency today.  No not on grass, they don't have grass in this city of stone and concrete.  Instead, we played on a concrete court (I guess you call it that, I don't really know) which is terrible for my turf shoes, and even worse for the brand new cleats I bought before coming here.  We all pitched in to buy a ball because apparently everyone in Spain doesn't play soccer religiously... They don't really practice religion too religiously either.  After going to the front of the main residency at 4:00pm and waiting a solid twenty minutes for it to be 4:00pm Spanish time (think Mexican time) we all met up and headed to the "court," which was located along the river next to the main bus station and one of the bigger bridges in town.  We played Americans v. Spaniards and us Americans won because we're so cool.  It was a fun experience and a good way to make friends with Spaniards since I didn't have to trip over my words the whole time.  After the game the brand new ball we bought was basically destroyed, so I guess I understand why they didn't have one to begin with.  I'll try and remember to bring my camera the next time I go play so all of you beautiful people can actually see what I'm talking about.

Cadiz - a little late

I never posted anything on my trip to Cadiz.  It's about an hour and a half or so from Sevilla and it's like the oldest city in Western Europe, like over a thousand years old.  The size of the city hasn't changed in those thousand years because it is surrounded by water on three sides and a massive wall on the other.  I guess you could say it was pretty much like Sevilla except that it has a beach.  Cadiz also happens to be the hometown of Antonio, one of my piso-mates (flat-mates).  There weren't as many topless sunbathers as I was expecting.  It was nice to get some fresh air and see some open space, even though the open space was the ocean.  I would talk about my thoughts on the ocean but I think that might be too negative and gross.  Well, I don't really remember too much information on Cadiz but I hope you like the pictures.

Humongous wall that spans the side of the city that isn't covered with water.

So many random boats...

Shore line with a bunch of cubes. Its weird how they just build the city and tell the ocean to stop.

This picture won't load straight for some reason...maybe its the curly trees messing with the computer.

bust a move

These trees were crazy. The branches were like 10 feet in diameter and grew out sideways. Some of them were supported by metal posts on the ground.

pretty sweet cathedral

One of the guides from CIEE, he went to Granada too. Alejandro. All the girls want to be in his group. because he is cute. 

Definitely thought this looked cooler in person.

View from the top of the cathedral tower. You can kind of see the fact that Cadiz is surrounded by water.

Plaza in front the cathedral. That is the floor plan of the cathedral, I thought it was pretty cool. 

They called this the light house because it was the first thing ships would see when coming in to port. At least during the day when the sun would reflect off of it...at night not so much.

Um

Well, I'm having a really tough day and I wish that someone that I have known for more than a month was here to give me a hug.  I miss you people a lot.

I can't focus on anything...

Dunkin' competition
What the hell is a dagel? And why are they duffin?

Granada/La Alhambra

So, I went to the Alhambra (sounds better La Alhambra) the weekend before this post and it was a pretty damn ridiculous two days and one night.  I guess I didn't only go the La Alhambra but to the city of Granada itself (named after the Spanish word for pomegranate).  It was roughly a three hour bus ride, a bus ride filled with listening to people not let me fall asleep.  I know, I know, I'll only get to see these Spanish countrysides a few times, but a lot of them look like Mexico, and thats just dirty.  On arrival we got our rooms at our fancy 4-star hotel named Alixares (apparently 250€/night...like $346.83 at yahoo's exchange rate today, ballin').  I roomed with my friends Jeff, Carlos, and some random Spaniard dude who never introduced himself to me...but he does work with satellites?  They only gave us one humongous metal key so we just left it at the front desk and would ask them for it without ever needing to verify our identity (sketch).  Although I didn't sleep as much as I wanted to in Granada (at a club, el Camborio, until 4:30am or something, then duck game until 6:00am...I'm loyal), I am going to dedicate my health and revitalization to the food at the hotel buffet.  While not of the same quality, I felt as though for three meals I was back home eating the final meals my Mom made me, and I was SO SO SO happy.  I don't even know what most of the food was called but I know that it tasted good and a lot fit into my stomach.  Most importantly it didn't have TUNA in everything.  Tuna is the grossest thing in the ocean, just ahead of humongous garbage clouds.  Sorry for those who like tuna, but I can not emphasize enough my hatred for the residencia's favorite meal plan: green salad with tuna, followed by breaded and fried tuna, and topped off with a slice of what looked like pork until I put it in my mouth tuna.  There's some cartoon with a character named Tuna in it and I can't figure it out (Rocket Power?).

Okay, now that I have bitched enough about tuna I should probably talk about the actual coolness of La Alhambra.  Also known as the most visited site in Europe, La Alhambra is a palace, a fortress, and just a plain hill.  Being the moors final outpost in Spain is served as an important base for the Islamic population during the 15th century and before.  On top of a hill and surrounded by humongous walls, it is easy to see the strength of the builing/complex.  However, La Alhambra is more beauty than brawn.  As you can see from the pictures below, and other pictures that you might see, the palace(s) and fortress are filled with incredibly detailed architecture and elaborate gardens.  It is difficult to image the detail put into these buildings, so like google it or something.  The building basically served as a city full of the kings servants; servants that ranged from noblemen to soldiers to pooper scoopers I bet (or wait they just leave animal shit on the ground in Spain).  I'd type more about it but I don't want to just end up making stuff up.

Well after La Alhambra we went to some hookah/tea place and then had a couple of hours to wander aimlessly.  After returning to the hotel and eating, I went out to some bars and spent a solid two hours running into american after american in my program and just attracting a bunch of good old Spanish stares.  Finally, after many had given up on the night, a few friends and I took a cab to the aforementioned club, el Camborio, some how got in without paying cover (7€), and explored these humongous caves that had been turned into a dance club.  After losing ourselves in the maze of tunnels, we finally found the top level of the club which was open and and had a spectacular view of La Alhambra lit up at night (basically the bottom two pictures but from a different angle).  After realizing I had like 0 money to get a taxi home solo I ended up staying way later than planned and ended up back at the hotel around 5am, just in time to watch the duck game on some random streaming site.

The next day we visited the tomb of Fernando de Aragon y Isabel de Castilla (Los Reyes Católicos) and saw the gigantic tombs that rest above their coffins that are also on display.  Pretty crazy to see the tomb of the people who united Spain as a Christian nation and expelled anyone who worshipped other religions.

FYI, you'll know I think a place is cool if I mess up the symmetry with picture overhang from the XL option.

City of Granada

Was at a club on that hill, overlooking La Alhambra at night.

Soldiers Homes within the fortress

I like capitals, so what.

Not my best hair day. but at least I have an armrest.

Crazy detailed arch followed by crazy detailed wall... followed by crazy detailed (insert word).

Dome of one of the side "rooms" of the kings palace.  You can't tell but the texture is the same as the arch in the photo above.

View of La Alhambra from across the valley...and me.

Don't mess with La Alhambra.

I didn't have time to sit and edit bc i got way too annoyed with the picture uploading process.

Maid

I wish my maid wasn't such an over-achiever.  I feel like she has issues similar to the baldy on Deal or No Deal.  My bathroom doesn't need to be cleaned every day while I am sleeping, or, while I am just being woken up from her banging around the flat.  I would love to sleep in.  Apparently she thinks Americans take huge shits hundreds of times a day?  I don't know why my floor needs to be mopped every day.  Especially when the floor isn't even clean after her attempts.  I would talk to her about this but she doesn't understand that I don't understand her gibberish Spanish.  It's weird how different everyone's Spanish is here.  Graded on a 10-point scale of understandability, maybe a 2, on a good day.  Maybe I'm just pissed because she just woke me up again. I admire her work effort and job commitment and I understand why she is a professional maid, but leave me alone for once!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! just a little late, but forgive I'm in Granada with no computer!