Barca Game

This last Tuesday night (March 20) I had the unbelievable experience of going to see FC Barcelona play Granada. This city is absolutely crazy about their soccer team, and I knew as soon as I got here that going to a game would definitely be a priority for the semester. Seeing the game in person didn't let me down! My friends Mari, Melissa, Mike and I all bought tickets online last weekend and were excited about the game right up until the start. On the Monday before the game, my friend Brian Broccolo called me from Plaza Catalunya (the main plaza in Barcelona) telling me that he was here for the next couple of days and wanted to hang out. I couldn't believe that he was visiting and immediately met up with him and told him about my plans for the game.

So it turned out that Brian, his roommates Mike and Austin and Austin's girlfriend all bought tickets as well and came to the game. The game time was set for 9pm on Tuesday so naturally we made plans to grab dinner and hang out at Ryan's Irish Pub to have some drinks before going over to the game. After waiting in a frustratingly long line at Bo de B for one of the best sandwiches in Barcelona, we all met up at the bar. My Fiji brother Edward Ruiz and his girlfriend Johanna met up with us there too. They were there for CC's Spring Break and I loved getting the chance to catch up with Edward and hear about the great things my Fiji chapter has been up to. So we all had some drinks at the pub and then took the metro over to the game.

After finding our tickets at will call we made our way up to our seats. And when I say up to our seats, I mean wayyyy up to our seats! We bought the cheapest available seats and were in the highest section, but that ended up being great because it offered the best views of the field and we could always see all of the players. We got to the game a little late and by the time we had arrived in about the 10th minute, Xavi (one of the players on Barcelona) had already scored a goal. We were a little bummed to have missed the first goal, but it didn't end up mattering because Messi (Barcelona's star player) scored another goal in the 17th minute.

After Messi scored that goal the whole stadium went crazy. The stadium wasn't packed because Granada is not a very good team and it was raining and kind of cold on the night of the game, but once Messi scored, the place sounded like it was full. The atmosphere at this game was unlike any US sporting game I had ever been to. Almost everyone was very quiet and paying extremely close attention to the game, until a goal was scored and then the whole stadium started yelling. This made it seem even louder after goals were scored.

There wasn't anymore scoring until after half time. Messi scored his second goal of the night in the 67th minute. We didn't realize it going into the game, but that goal tied Messi for the all time scoring record for a Barcelona player! The record had previously been held by Cesar Rodriguez in the 1950s. We thought seeing two Messi goals and him tying the record was enough, but then in the 86th minute he scored again for a hat trick and the new scoring record! The whole crowd began bowing to Messi and chanting his name while a congratulations went up on the score board. The celebration went on for a few minutes and then Barcelona went on to win the game 5-3. I couldn't believe we were lucky enough to see a Messi hat trick, Messi's record breaking goal and a Barcelona win on the same night! It was one of the best memories I'll have of this semester and I couldn't be happier that my friends and I went!

My mom, dad and Clara are on a flight headed here right now and I couldn't be more excited to see them tomorrow afternoon! We're headed up the Mediterranean coast to the Costa Brava near the Spanish/French border for the weekend. I'll be sure to put up another post and some pictures! Hasta luego!

Pictures (from top): Brian and I at Camp Nou; Mike, Melissa, Edward, Johanna and I at the pub; the view from our seats; another view from our seats; Mike, Melissa and I at the game; Congradulations Messi on 232nd career goal

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Porto for the Weekend

I had Friday off this last week and travelled with some friends to Porto, Portugal for the weekend. It was pretty crazy, first of all to be travelling to Portugal for the weekend, but even more so because we were a group of 11 and really had no idea what there was to do in Porto and decided to just take it as it came. We ended up having an absolute blast and it was definitely one of the more memorable weekends of the semester! Travelling as a group of 11 definitely presented some challenges and for us it started very early on.

Most of our group decided to take a train to the airport because it's faster than the city bus that runs there and it's free. Our plan was to meet at the train platform and all get there together. Most of us got to the platform with about a minute to spare for our 8:10 train and hopped while my friends Mari and Melissa were late. We thought they had missed the train and would have to find another way to the airport but soon after leaving, we realized we were actually the ones who got on the wrong train entirely. The 5 of us on that train asked around and found out that our train was actually headed to Tarragona, a city about 40 minutes south of Barcelona. Even worse, the train didn't make any stops until getting to Tarragona. Fortunately, we began talking with a woman who spoke good English and she was able to get on her iphone and call a van to take us to the airport from Tarragona. After our initial panic we started to calm down and realized we had plenty of time to make it to the airport even with the additional 40 minute cab ride. It was a rocky start to the trip, but we were soon laughing about it when we finally made it to the airport and met up with the rest of the group!

Our plane landed in Porto at about midnight on Thursday and after about a 30 minute metro ride, we had arrived at our hostel, The Garden House Hostel. The hostel was right in the center of town and was a great hostel with a really nice kitchen, living room, patio and lots of big bunk rooms. After getting all checked in, we immediately went to bed, it was an exhausting few hours of travelling! The next morning, we were all up and at the hostel-provided breakfast at about 10 and ready to see the city. We found out at breakfast that the hostel offered a free, 2 and a half hour walking tour of he city and decided that it would be a better alternative to us wandering aimlessly around the city to see sights. The tour ended up being a perfect way to see the city. Our group of 11 ended up pretty much having a private tour since we made up most of the tour group.

This is a picture of the main square where the tour began, it was just a couple minutes walk from the hostel. The tour took us all through the city. It was actually pretty tiring, Porto is very hilly so we did a lot of walking up and down hills. We saw a lot of the small squares and learned a bit about some of the statues and monuments in them. One of my favorite things about the buildings in the city was that many of them had blue, ceramic tiles on the facade. Our tour guide told us the tiles are very characteristic of Portugese buildings. The were so beautiful and gave the city a very unique feel.

A couple other highlights of the tour were seeing the cathedral, the bridge and the Lello bookstore. The Lello bookstore is a beautiful book store (unfortunately they didn't allow us to take pictures inside but here's a link to some http://www.top10portugal.com/lello-bookstore-porto). The bookstore was incredible, our tour guide told us that J.K. Rowling did some of the initial work on Harry Potter while living in Porto and Lello was her inspiration for Flourish and Botts bookstore. It was incredible store, I'm really happy we got to see it. The views from the bridge were also gorgeous. The bridge is about 50 meters over the river and provides a view of the city going down into the river valley. All of the buildings where Port Wine is stored are also located down along the river because it made it easy to transport the wine from the vineyards further upstream.

The tour ended up being a perfect way to see the city. Porto is small enough that the 2 and a half hour tour allowed us to see pretty much the whole city, so we decided to find some lunch after the tour. We walked down next to the river in search of a restaurant that served franceschina sandwiches, a signature meal in Porto. These were some serious sandwiches. A franceschina consists of a sandwich stuffed with beef, ham, chorizo and cheese, then it's smothered in melted cheese and covered in a gravy-like sauce. It was an absolutely delicious sandwich, but we definitely all should have taken our tour guide's advice and split them. The walk back up the hill from the riverside was pretty brutal after that lunch and it didn't take any convincing to get our whole group back to the hostel to take a nap.

After our siesta, we decided that we were all still too full from lunch to do much for dinner so we went to a grocery store just down the street and bought a bunch of wine, bread, brie and crackers and drank and ate snacks at the hostel. The hostel also offered a pub crawl and port tasting that night so we all decided that's what we wanted to do. The port tasting was allright, I didn't love the port, it was very sweet. We had fun though and then had an absolute blast on the pub crawl. We ended up going to two different bars and a club and were given drinks at each place. The street the bars was on was packed with people drinking outside and it was just a fun, block-party like atmosphere to be a part of. Some late night cocoa puffs at the hostel was a perfect ending to the night.

We were off to a pretty slow start on Saturday, we all wanted to sleep in a bit and relax at the hostel after eating breakfast. We eventually left at around noon and went to go walk up the Clerigos Tower in the middle of town. The tower was about 240 steps up and provided an amazing view of the city. Luckily the weather was beautiful as well (it was supposed to rain all day but ended up being very sunny) and we could really take in the views. We could see the whole city, the river and even out to the Atlantic Ocean.

After taking in the views and taking some pictures, we walked back down the tower and decided to head to the beach. After wandering around a little bit, we found our way down to the river and found the bus that would take us over to the beach. The ride to the beach took about 20 minutes and followed the Douro River until it reached the Atlantic. We were starving when we got there, took a couple pictures at the beach and then set off to find a cafe for some lunch. We found a small cafe and had a long lunch outside, there were all sorts of delicious pastas that most of us ended up getting. After lunch, we walked to a nearby grocery store and bought some Super Bock (Portuguese beer) and some ice and then headed back down to the beach for the afternoon. The beach was gorgeous, it was very sunny and there were all sorts of large, jagged rocks that we could watch the waves break on. We spent the afternoon sitting on the beach, taking pictures and talking, it was a great time! After a couple hours, it looked like rain was approaching so we hopped back on the bus right as the rain hit.

We decided we all felt like cooking dinner that night, so after getting back to the hostel, we pooled some money and went to the grocery store to buy spaghetti, chicken, garlic bread, salad, more brie and more wine. We all split up the cooking and made a huge, delicious meal. Five of us had flights to catch at 6:30 Sunday morning, and we decided that instead of sleeping, we'd pack our stuff, go to a pub and leave right from the pub to the airport. We figured out how to get to the airport (had to catch a 4am bus) and all headed out to the pub to do some St. Patrick's day celebrating. After a few pints of Guiness and some Irish Car Bombs, we did a surprisingly great job of finding the bus to the airport and made it to our gate with time to spare. The flight felt like it took forever, but it was good to know I'd get back to Barcelona and have the whole day to nap and relax outside. It was a great weekend, Portugal was gorgeous and we had a great time!

It's going to be a pretty busy upcoming week, I'm headed to a soccer game on Tuesday night (I can't wait!) and then my parents and Clara get here Friday morning and we're heading to the Costa Brava for the weekend, it's going to be so great seeing them and showing them around Barcelona! Adios until then!

I haven't uploaded my Portugal pictures yet, but I'll be sure to post a link when I do!

Catching Up

It's been awhile since I've updated the blog, I've got a couple weekends to catch up on. Here goes! Two weekends ago (March 2-4), my CC friends Eric, Ariella and Laura all came to Barcelona for the weekend. It was great to see them all, especially Ariella who I haven't seen since last Spring! After a pretty mellow week for me, they all arrived late Friday night. I met up with them at Plaza Catalunya (the main plaza in the center of Barcelona) and made plans to meet them again later after Eric and Laura found a hostel for the night. We all ended up meeting at a club later that night and had a blast dancing together. Before parting ways that night we made plans to meet up in the morning so I could show Eric, Laura and Ariella around the city.

Woke up the next morning with my ears still ringing from the night before, and managed to meet up with Eric, Laura and Laura's friend Ben in Parc de Citutadella so we could begin walking around the city. We went through the historic Born district. It's narrow, winding streets and gothic style buildings make this neighborhood one of my favorite areas in Barcelona. We walked through most of the neighborhood and ended up at the Palau de la Musica Catalana.

This beautiful building hosts a number of different concerts. Unfortunately, we were not allowed inside and could only take pictures of the outside of the building. After leaving the Palau de la Musica, we walked out to Ramblas, one of the main streets in Barcelona, and up to the Boqueria. The Boqueria is a large, open air market where you can find any sort of food from candy to juice to rabbits. It's a very fun market to walk around in because of all the different kinds of foods and the colors. We stopped and tried some of the juices that were being sold there, they were all delicious! After walking through the Boqueria, we met up with Ariella and two of her friends that she came with. They were on their way back from a late breakfast and had their own plans for places to see that day, so we said a quick hello and goodbye and set off to show Eric and Laura more of the sites

We left the Boqueria and went to another nearby market to grab some baguettes, sandwich meat, fruit, chocolate and wine to go have a late picnic lunch at Park Guell. Park Guell is a park designed by Gaudi and features some incredible mosaic work, two cottages he designed, some of his signature wrought-iron work and a number of beautiful walkways he designed. We got to the park, walked up to the very top where there is an incredible view of the city. We took in the view for a little bit and then took a very long picnic, we were pretty tired from walking all day! Once we finished lunch, we walked around the park, and took in the sights. It was pretty late in the day at that point, so I headed back home to take a nap and have some dinner while Eric, Laura and Ben headed back to Ben's apartment where Eric and Laura were spending the night. We met up later that night and all went out to one of the clubs on the beach where we had a great time dancing.

We got to a pretty late start on Sunday, Eric, Ben and Laura went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch and I ended up meeting them afterwards at Sagrada Familia. The Sagrada Familia is the cathedral Gaudi designed. It was the last project he worked on until his death and one of the most recognized landmarks in Barcelona. Needless to say, I was so excited to go inside and look around! We went inside and I couldn't believe the sheer size of the place. I had seen the Sagrada Familia a few times before from the outside, but that view cannot do justice to how huge this cathedral actually is.

In designing the inside of the Cathedral, Gaudi was inspired by trees and wanted to make the viewer feel as though they are walking through a forest. I couldn't think of a better way to describe the inside other than forest-like. Huge columns rose up and branched out as they reached the ceiling. The stained glass windows let in all sorts of incredible colors. The mosaic work inside and on the ceiling also added to the colors. It was truly breath-taking to be in this cathedral and should be a priority for anyone visiting Barcelona!

When we bought our tickets, we also sprung the extra few euro to take the elevator to the top, definitely a great decision! The views from up there were amazing and it was so cool to be up in the towers that we saw from below just minutes earlier! We only spent a few minutes up there taking pictures and then began the walk down. The walk down was something like 220 stairs winding down the towers. It took some time and was definitely dizzying, but there were great views the whole way down.

Once we got down, we looked around the cathedral once more and then headed back outside to meet Ben and go over to Montjuic. Montjuic is one of my favorite areas of Barcelona, it is home to the MNAC (a palace-like art museum), the Olympic stadium, Montjuic castle and it offers great views of the city and of Plaza Espanya. Once we arrived, we walked up the mountain to the MNAC and the Olympic park to take in the views and see the stadiums. From there, we took a bus up to the castle. I had never been to the castle and was amazed at how beautiful the castle was and of the incredible views it offered looking out over the city and the Mediterranean. We walked around the castle for a little while, watched the sunset and then headed back down.

After dinner that night, Eric and I met up at one of my favorite bars, Ryan's Irish Pub, and had a great time hanging out together over a few beers. It was a great weekend, I was so happy to have Eric, Laura and Ariella visit, it's always so much fun to see my friends from school over here. I'll be sure to post again about what I did last weekend (March 23-25)!

Adios!

Pictures (from top): Eric, Laura and I in front of the Nativity Facade at Sagrada Familia, Palau de La Musica Catalana, two pictures inside the Boqueria, two different walkways in Park Guell, inside the Sagrada Familia, another picture inside Sagrada Familia, sunset on Montjuic, and Montjuic Castle

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