Barcelona - half Saturday

Okay well I said I was going to do Saturday and Sunday on the next blog but I think I am only going to be able to fit in the first half of Saturday because I want to have a lot of pictures of this and the Barcelona game which was Saturday night.  Gah this takes forever and I should probably be doing homework but it is so much more fun to write in a language that I can try to entertaining in.  Okay so we were really tired and didn't really get going until just before noon.  Still, I probably accomplished more on this Saturday than I have in many days here.  My friend Kelsey left to go shopping (addicted...haha) and Jeff and I didn't really know what to do so we wandered around.  First, we walked down to the beach, crossed a humongous humongous humongous street (my photo doesn't do it justice) and landed at the marina. It was pretty cool because there was a giant field of grass right there and I almost cried out in joy.  I was going to post a picture of it but I figured that would be excessive and Oregonians have seen plenty of grass (But Spanish grass is rare!).  The guy that worked in our hostel told us about a tram that runs over the water, so we set off for that.  After what seemed like forever walking on a gimp foot (I don't know what it was but my heel really hurt, and I didn't do anything to injure it so tendinitis? whatever) we got there and they told us we had to start on the other side of the water.  After we chilled at the beach for a while.

Main street along the water, like six lanes, with six more under it. You can see Columbus at the end!

Marina, and the tram we tried to take in the back, even with the end of the boats.

The beach is made with sand imported from Egypt before the Olympic games in 1992

Open space!!!

One of many street acts. Couldn't figure out how he did it. So crazy.

The Christopher Columbus Monument sits at the bottom of the famous street La Rambla.  Funny thing is that instead of pointing towards the New World he points East (so I was told).  Well we worked our way up La Rambla, not really stopping to look at the repetitive vendors, until we found La Boquería.  Seeing that we were going to the Barcelona game and I didn't have much battery on my camera I didn't take any pictures, but I definitely should have.  So much fruit, pork, fish, "everything you need and more" as they say in Cabo.  I'll try and steal some of Jeff's pictures and give you an update.  At this point I felt like I had done a ton in the day, but it was only like 2:30 so we went and sat by the Metro station in Plaza Catalunya to wait for Kelsey (the plaza surrounded by Corte Ingléses...that looks weird).

But you went the other way to kill all the indigenous people!

Base of Columbus monument. If I ever get super billionaire power my monument(s) are going to look like the ones in Barcelona.

La Rambla La Rambla La Rambla... everyone kept rambling about La Rambla.

Mercado La Boqueria. So much crazy/fresh/everything food stands.

Another street performer. Only used his right foot, looked just like Rhonaldino, and was actually pretty damn good.

Had to get a moped shot in Plaza Catalunya.

Plaza de Catalunya. I'd say the main plaza in Barcelona. So many topless statues...

Thought this was a cool picture, and realized I hadn't taken any pictures of Corte Inglés while I've been here. This store owns spain. Basically Walmart, except there was another one on the other side of the plaza that was just as huge. They're even highlighted on maps.

We made it to Plaza Espanya with the help of a nice Catalunyan bum's help. He probably makes bank standing by the metro ticket station and helping clueless tourists.  My original plan had been to walk to the Olympic stadium, which we did, but it turned out to be so so so much more.  There was random stuff on the map in between the Plaza and the stadium but I had no idea it would be so cool.  I don't really know much about the places that we saw except that they were spectacular so I'll just stop making you read.

Plaza de Espanya (Catalan doesn't use ñ so-->ny)

Random towers that we found in my quest to see the Estadi Olîmpic. How are they not on the map? Turned out to be a really good decision to search for the stadium.

Palau Nacional/Museo Nacional d'Art de Catalunya... another random surprise on the way to the stadium.

Catalunya hates Spain. They don't have street signs in Spanish. If you're a Spanish person and you ask someone from Catalunya a question in Spanish, you'll probably get an answer in Catalan (which is a dick move because most people don't understand Catalan).

Barcelona. View from the Palau Nacional

Back view of Palau Nacional, that kid almost went down the escalator on his bike. I shouldn't have encourage it.

Estadi Olimpic

Inside the Estadi Olimpic

I don't really have much else to say other than this trip was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm working on the Barcelona game blog next, or like, now.

[Side note: the kitchen ladies are so nice :-)] 

[[Double side note: in case you didn't know you can click on the pictures to see them in original size, if you want.]]

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.