Buena Sera! SB '12 Florence and Umbria

After saying goodbye to my parents and Clara in Madrid I was on my way to Florence for the rest of my Spring Break. The easiest way for me to get to Florence on April 1 was to fly from Madrid to Bologna and then take an hour long train from Bologna into Florence. While this probably wasn't the fastest way to get to Florence, I ended up loving having a couple hours to kill in Bologna between my flight landing and my train leaving. Bologna is pretty small, so in the couple hours I had I managed to find a little cafe and have some pizza for lunch and then walk into the main town square. Bologna was a very pretty and typically Italian town. All of the buildings were a earthy reddish color and all had spanish shingles for roofs. The main square was very busy with street performers and people walking around seeing some of the sights. I went into the Bologna Cathedral which was very cool and then just kind of wandered around the square. I also saw the Bologna towers, something Bologna is pretty well known for and what looked like an old palace before I headed back to the station to board my train to Florence.

The Bologna Towers

The Bologna Cathedral

The main square in Bologna

I loved having my afternoon in Bologna but was very excited to get on the train to Florence. After about an hour long train ride I had arrived in Firenze! I got off the train and was immediately greeted by my friend Brian and his two roommates Mike and Austin. I had met his roommates when they visited Barcelona about two weeks before and we had a great time talking and catching up on the way back to their apartment. Their apartment was about a 5 minute walk from the train station and after grabbing a quick star kebab for dinner we were hanging out in their living room having a great time. We hung out there for awhile and then Brian and I headed out to go to a couple of pubs in Florence. It blew my mind that when we were walking to the pub we passed the Duomo. It was so cool to see for the first time at night and I stopped to take some pictures with Brian. We also passed by the old city hall and the fake sculpture of David on our way out. It was incredible! After having a couple of drinks at the Lions Fountain and meeting some of Brian's friends, we headed back, skyped our friend Ellie, my parents and my brother and then headed to bed.

Thumbs down to fake David

The Duomo...at night

We slept in that Monday (4/2) and after Brian, Austin, Mike and I were all up we went to the Florence Central Market to grab some roastbeef sandwiches and cappuccino for a late breakfast/early lunch. We had sandwiches from this stand called Nerbone and they were honestly the best roastbeef sandwiches I have ever had. Definitely recommended if you travel to Florence! After sandwiches and cappuccino for lunch, we wandered around the market a little bit and bought food to make shrimp ceviche for dinner that night. We then headed back to the apartment to drop off the food before Brian and I went and did some sightseeing while Austin and Mike were in class. We walked all over Florence that afternoon. I loved seeing the Duomo again during the day and some of the sculptures around the city hall. We then walked across the river because we wanted to go up and see the Baboli gardens. Unfortunately, the gardens were closed that day so we decided to buy some cigars and some wine and hang out on Brian's balcony for the rest of the evening. We had a great time hanging out and listening to music, I've really missed having a balcony or a deck to do that on! After a couple of hours, Mike and Austin were back from class and we headed over to Mostodolce, a bar that sells delicious Italian craft beers and bar food. After a couple beers and some delicious fried mozzarella we headed back to the apartment for some ceviche for dinner. Dinner was delicious and after dinner Brian and I headed back out to the Lion's Fountain and then YAZ night club. I ran into a a few people I knew from high school there which was fun and after a little while Brian and I called it a night.

The Duomo during the day

The old city hall

On Tuesday, we all got up and decided that we wanted to go to the American Diner for a good American breakfast. That was not a good place. The service was awful, it took forever to get our food and even after we got it, the food wasn't great. We were also stuck in a booth that was not even close to big enough for four grown humans. Anyways, we had our lunch we met up with some of Brian's friends and went to buy tickets for the Lloyd Banks concert that night at the Space Club. After doing that, Mike and Austin had to head to class and Brian and I decided to go see the Uffize. I loved the Uffize, it was a very pretty building with some incredible Renaissance art inside. Seeing some of the Da Vinci and Botticelli works was amazing. The museum had also just opened a tapestry exhibit and that was my favorite part. The tapestry's were huge and amazing to look at. After going through the Uffizi, we decided to walk around a bit longer and then head back to the apartment. That night, Brian, Austin, Mike and I went out to Baldovino for dinner. We had a great dinner there. I had a pasta with Italian sausage and a truffle cream sauce and it was delicious. We had a great dinner and spent awhile at the restaurant talking and drinking wine in our blazers. After dinner we headed back to the apartment for a bit and then met some of Brian's friends at the Astro bar before heading to Lloyd Banks. It was a very funny night, Lloyd Banks is a washed up rapper and it was hilarious to see him try to put on a show. We had a blast though, skyped Kate when we got home and then headed to bed.

The Medici's Pitti Palace

Brian ponders life while looking over the Arno River

On Wednesday, we got up and headed back over to Nerbone for some roastbeef sandwiches. Brian and I both had some work to do that afternoon so we headed over to his program's library so he could work and I could register for classes (senior year...yikes!). After doing that for a little bid, we headed over to the Galleria Accademia to see the David. Seeing the David was definitely a highlight of my trip. I didn't really know what to expect as I had obviously seen pictures of the David before, but seeing it in person blew me away. Brian had me not look at it until I was right at his feet and that made it all the more amazing. I just couldn't believe how huge it was and how perfect it looked, it was amazing. We spent some time in the galleria and then headed out to give the Baboli gardens another try. On the way to the gardens we bought some picnic supplies to have some food while there. It was open on Wednesday so we walked through the gardens for awhile. The gardens were beautiful and offered some great views over Florence and some of the Tuscan countryside. We stopped and had a couple sandwiches and sat in the grass for awhile before heading back to the apartment. That night Mike, Brian, Austin and I met their friend Allie Butters at Boccadama for dinner. It was another incredible dinner (pretty much all we did was eat that week), I had lasagna and Florentine sausage and beans, it was great! After dinner, Brian, Mike, Austin and I headed back to the apartment. We felt like taking it easy that night because we were leaving for Umbria in the morning. We spent the night hanging out on the porch and had a great time.

Brian and I at the Baboli gardens

The view back at Florence from the Baboli Gardens

The David!

My first gelato in Florence

On Thursday morning, we started our Umbrian adventure. Mike, Austin, Brian and I rented a car for the weekend to drive down to a villa we had rented for the weekend in the Umbrian countryside (I know, very romantic). Thanks to the combined efforts of Mike and Funny Austin, we made it safely out of Florence and onto the A-1 highway headed south to Umbria. The drive through the Tuscan and Umbrian countryside was gorgeous. It was exactly how I pictured it being with the rolling hills, villas, small hillside towns and the Italian Cypress trees. It was about an hour and a half to the villa. We were immediately amazed by this villa when we got there. It was in a very small town called Piegro and the villa used to be an old glassmaking factory dating from around the 1250s. We had a glassblowing furnace in the first floor apartment we had rented, a pool, a poolside terrace and a grill. We were set for the weekend. The views from the villa were also incredible. It was built right into the city wall and looked out over the countryside. As soon as we had unpacked, we were immediately sitting by the pool taking in the views. After a little while, it had begun to rain so we decided that was a good time to head to the grocery store. We stocked up on food and wine and then headed back to the villa to cook. We also walked into town to the local butcher for some steaks to grill for dinner (we were pretty psyched to be able to grill again). We grilled up the steaks, grilled some asparagus, sauteed some mushrooms and onions and had another delicious dinner. Brian made the bread and turned it into a huge crouton in the oven, it was still pretty good though. After dinner we hung out in the apartment and watched the thunderstorm outside while we drank some wine. We were in bed pretty early that night with plans to visit some other towns on Friday morning.

Our pool

Brian, Mike and Austin by the pool

The inside of our villa

The streets of Piegro

The view from in our villa

Brian and Mike having some pre-dinner sausage hour

On Friday morning, we got up and made some steak and eggs with the extra steak from dinner before heading out to see some Umbrian towns. After breakfast, we hopped in the car and drove to Panicale, one of the medieval Umbrian towns. Panicale was a very pretty little town. It was surrounded by a wall and contained many old, stone buildings. It also offered some beautiful views of Lake Trasimeno, one of the largest lakes in Italy. We walked around the town a bit, got some gelato from one of the cafes in the town square and then got back in the car to go to Castiglione del Lago, a town right on the lake.

Brian and I in Panicale

The view of Lake Trasimen from Panicale

The main square in Panicale

We got to Castiglione del Mar and walked around down by the lake for a bit. It was very hazy and very pretty down by the lake. Then we drove up into the main part of town. The town was built around a castle, so we parked by the castle and walked around it out to a point above the lake. There was an olive grove growing down to the lake from that point and the views were incredible. We then walked down the main street of Castiglione del Lago and stopped in some wine and cheese shops along the way. After buying some delicious cheese and walking down the whole street, we got back in the car because we wanted to get back and spend the rest of the evening by the pool. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to stock up for dinner and the headed back. Once back, we walked up to the local butcher to buy some sausage to go with the home made pasta Mike was going to make for dinner. It was so fun walking into town and going into the little butcher shop and the grocery store. We were clearly the only tourists that had been there in some time and it was great to get away from all of the tourists that were in Florence. We bought sausages and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out by the pool and eating. Dinner that night was Mike's home made pasta, asparagus, sausage all in a truffle cream sauce. It was incredible, I definitely put on a couple pounds during Spring break! After dinner, we went back out by the pool and sat around the table drinking wine for awhile. We then headed back inside, had a very bro-mantic night drinking wine and listening to music. The night ended with Austin and I jumping into the unheated pool (it was very cold, Brian and I tested it out earlier too. apparently some Norwegian kids were swimming in it but they swim in Fjords and could handle the cold) and then heading to bed.

Brian, Mike and Austin on the shores of Lake Trasimeno

The main street in Castiglione del Lago

The view from Castiglione del Lago

Unfortunately, the next morning we had to head out. We made some sausage and eggs for breakfast, cleaned up the Villa and said goodbye. After driving back to Florence, Brian and I grabbed a quick sandwich from Nerbone before I had to say my goodbyes and get on the train back to Bologna. It was a very teary goodbye for all of us after our romantic Umbrian getaway. I ended up having another afternoon to kill in Bologna, much of which was spent sitting at a cafe in the main square and reading my book. I got back to Barcelona very late that night but was happy to sleep in my own bed and have Sunday to sleep in. On Sunday, my friend Eric Syrjala was here so we met up for lunch at a Chinese restaurant and spent the afternoon hanging out down by Port Villa before he had to catch his flight back to Granada. It was great to see him and catch up with him. That pretty much does it for my Spring Break. It was very hard to go back to being in class this week after taking almost two weeks off! It was a great Spring Break though and I had a blast with my parents and Clara and in Italy with Brian, Mike and Austin. I've only got about two more weeks in Barcelona before heading off to travel throughout May! I'll be sure to keep updated! Ciao for now!

More pictures of my Italy trip at: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151492909845481.835640.588220480&type=3&l=0097f324ec

Madrid and Toledo! March 30-April 1

After our crazy last night in Barcelona we took an 8am train from Barcelona to Madrid. Surprisingly enough, everything in Barcelona from the night before appeared to be cleaned up and all of the public transportation was once again running normally. I was a big fan of the train ride to Madrid. It was a high-speed train that was very nice, Clara and I had seats next to each other and set around a table with two other seats. After the train left Barcelona, we went to the restaurant car almost immediately because we were so hungry. We brought our croissants and coffee back to our seats and ate while we read and looked out the window. It was a very pretty train ride, we passed through mostly rolling farmland but also through some small canyons and desert-like landscape. And after only about 3 hours we had arrived in Madrid. It was such a fast, easy and comfortable way to travel.

We took a cab to the Hotel Astoria where we were staying and got checked in and settled into our rooms. Since we only had two full days in Madrid, we immediately left to start walking around once we had settled in. The Hotel was on Gran Via, one of the biggest and busiest streets in Madrid. We were very centrally located in the city and had a very easy time taking the walking tour my mom had printed before we left. Our first stop on our walking tour was the Plaza del Sol. I was amazed during the walk there by how busy Madrid was compared to Barcelona. Madrid is has about twice the population as Barcelona and had the feeling of a much bigger, busier city. I wasn’t sure I like it, but as we walked more we found some quieter streets. Anyways, Plaza del Sol was a pretty large, busy plaza. We stopped for a few minutes to get our bearings and take some pictures with a couple people dressed up as Spongebob and Patrick before setting off for the Prado.

Mom, dad and Clara in Plaza del Sol

The walk to the Prado was gorgeous. We decided that Madrid was very similar to Paris because it has many wide boulevards and very ornate buildings. It seemed like every other building was some sort of government building and all of them were a similar shade of white with heavy ornamentation. I was used to seeing buildings somewhat similar to them in Barcelona, but was not ready for the sheer number of these buildings. We also walked by a few traffic circles with incredible fountains in the middle. After some walking, we made it to the Prado. I expected the outside of the Prado to be nicer looking but was happy to see a small park around the front entrance filled with people lying in the sun and street performers playing music.

One of the buildings we passed on the way to the Prado

Inside, the Prado blew me away. I couldn’t believe the amount of paintings in the museum and was disappointed that we couldn’t spend all day there (guess I’ll have to go back!). We had a map of the museum and used it to see as many of the masterpieces as we could. I loved seeing the paintings of Velasquez, El Greco, Goya. We spent a couple hours wandering around looking at the artwork. I really loved seeing Goya’s 1^st and 3^rd of March paintings as well as some of his Black paintings. We were very hungry when we left the museum and decided to find a café to have some lunch. We ended up wandering into the El Retiro gardens, a huge garden in the middle of Madrid. There was a very large pond in the middle of the garden where people could rent rowboats and there was a big fountain on one side of it. At that point, I was pretty hungry and would have loved to grab lunch and spend the rest of the day lying in the sun in this park! We found an exit from the park and had lunch at a small café along Independence Circle. After lunch we walked down Calle Alcala past some more of the ornate buildings.

El Retiro gardens in Madrid

One of the buildings on Alcala

Eventually, we got to Plaza Mayor. Plaza Mayor is a huge plaza surrounded entirely by buildings. The plaza was perfectly symmetrical with a large fountain in the middle and identical, red buildings surrounding the space. It reminded me of a larger, busier version of Plaza Reial in Barcelona. There was so much activity in that plaza; people were walking through, eating at cafes, street performers were making rounds of all the cafes. We decided to stop there for some drinks and tapas that we quickly found a one of the cafes. In the middle of our meal, a street performer came up to us for pictures. The performer called himself fat Spiderman and we couldn’t stop laughing at the guy so we decided we had to take pictures. This guy was hilarious and kept us laughing while we took all sorts of ridiculous pictures. After he left, we finished our tapas and headed out of the plaza in the direction of the national palace.

Clara and I with Fat Spiderman in Plaza Mayor

My Mom and Fat Spiderman

The Palace was just a few blocks away and was amazing to see. It reminded me a little bit of Buckingham Palace, although it wasn’t as well kept. There was a big square in front of the palace and, directly across from the palace, was a large, beautiful church. The two buildings and the square between them made for a beautiful, open space. We took some pictures there, sat for a few minutes on the church steps and then headed out to get a cup of coffee at a café (we were totally wiped out at this point!). After having coffee, we headed back to the hotel to get ready to go to dinner.

Clara at the National Palace

The church across from the Palace

For dinner that night, we met up with my dad’s friend Antoine and his wife Elena. My dad worked with Antoine in Amsterdam and they hadn’t seen each other in 18 years. We met at a restaurant called Tartan, which was apparently one of the hottest restaurants in Madrid. The whole place had a plaid theme (hence the name Tartan!) and the meal was easily the best I’ve had in awhile. Elena was from Madrid so she ordered all of us some amazing tapas to share while we drank wine and my parents caught up with her and Antoine. Dinner and dessert was amazing as well, I understand why you have to call weeks in advance to get a table at that restaurant! We had a lot of fun that night meeting/catching up with Antoine and Elena and got back pretty late!

On Saturday we got up early and had breakfast at a café before getting on a bus to take a half day tour of Toledo. We were all wiped from being up late the night before and slept for most of the ride to Toledo. Toledo was an amazing city to see. It was pretty similar to some of the medieval towns we saw during our weekend in Costa Brava but had Jewish and Islamic influences along with Christian influence. The tour was a great way to see the town. We started by going to see the city’s cathedral, which was much larger than I expected and had many, very ornate carvings around it.

Dad and Clara outside the Toledo cathedral

The Toledo Cathedral

After the cathedral, we walked down the street to a smaller church that contained a painting by El Greco. El Greco focused many of his paintings on Toledo, so it was great to see on in its original church. After visiting that small church, we went to one of the synagogues in the city. The synagogue was my favorite building we saw in Toledo. I may have the order a little bit wrong, but I think the synagogue was built originally as a synagogue but over the years had been turned into a mosque and then turned into a church. I loved that the synagogue showed all three of Toledo’s religious influences in on building. It was beautiful!

The inside of the Synagogue

Mom outside the synagogue doors

From the synagogue we went to a house where a famous sculptor lived (I forgot his name!) and where he had a porch with some great views down into the river surrounding Toledo and it’s valley.

View from the sculptor's house

Mom, Dad and Clara

We then left the sculptor’s house and went to a monastery and it’s adjoining church. The monastery had a gorgeous courtyard and was very ornately decorated. The church adjoined to it was equally as impressive and it was great to be able to take pictures in each of them. We then left the church and headed back out the city gates and towards the bus. It was a very fast trip to Toledo, but I’m so glad we went. The different religious influences were very interesting to see and the town was very pretty. We were exhausted by the time we got back on the bus and slept most of the way back to Madrid.

The courtyard garden at the monestary

The cathedral at the monestary

Clara, Mom and I on our way out of Toledo

When we got back to Madrid, we were starving and set out to find some lunch. We had some salad and tapas at a café and then decided to walk down into the Latin district since we didn’t get there on Friday and Saturday afternoon was our last in Madrid. It was a nice walk down, although none of us loved the neighborhood. It was not like the rest of Madrid and we soon decided we wanted to get back to the big streets and ornate buildings. We walked back up toward our hotel and did some shopping on Gran Via. After shopping, it was getting late in the afternoon so we decided to head back to the hotel to pack before going to dinner.

We got some ideas of where to go to dinner from the person working at the front desk and decided before we went to grab some drinks at Montadito’s Café just down the street. After having a couple beers and some tapa-like sandwiches at Montaditos, we walked over to the Carpe Diem café. We had walked by this café during lunch over the past two days and decided that it looked good and we wanted to try dinner there. It ended up being great. We ordered a whole variety of tapas and had a long dinner while we shared them all. It was on a little, pedestrian-only street and we had a great time people watching and enjoying our last dinner of the trip. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel, grabbed a drink from the bar and brought them up to the balcony off my parent’s room. It was a perfect way to end our night and the trip.

On Sunday morning, we got to sleep a little later, grabbed some breakfast from a café across the street and then headed to the airport. My parents and Clara left for home and I went on my way to Florence to visit my friend Brian. It was such a fun week being with my parents and Clara. I loved being able to show them around Barcelona and was even happier to explore to Costa Brava and Madrid with them. We really missed having Erik with us, it was definitely weird not having the whole family together. It was one of my favorite weeks of my semester here but I’m so excited for Florence! I’ll be sure to keep the blog updated throughout the week!

to see more pictures from this trip go to: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151486440835481.834572.588220480&type=3&l=60ebf55ae0

Barcelona with the Meeks! March 26-29

We got back to Barcelona that Monday (March 26^th) just in time for me to make it to class while my parents and Clara went and returned the car and checked into our hotel there. After class I met them once again in Plaza Catalunya and we walked over to the hotel so I could drop of my stuff. We stayed in the Hotel Pulitzer, which was about half a block away from Plaza Catalunya and very conveniently located right in the middle of the city. We walked toward the cathedral and found a little café to have lunch outside. After lunch, we wandered around a little bit, I showed them parts of the medieval quarter of town, Plaza Reial and Las Ramblas. I had to get back to class for a bit that evening so I told them to walk down to Port Vell and then along the water and we agreed to meet up again at the hotel after I had class.

When I got back to the hotel after class, my parents and Clara were completely exhausted and filled me in on their evening. Turns out, they had walked down the entire beach, through Ciutadella Park and then back to the hotel. It was way more than I thought they’d walk and I could see why they were so wiped! We hung out on the rooftop terrace at our hotel for a bit after that, and then had our usual dinner on the balcony of the room Clara and I shared. If you’re still reading, I’m sure you’ve noticed our dinner trend, we just loved trying the different wines, meats and cheeses and usually had such a huge lunch and did so much walking that all we wanted to do was have a mellow dinner! After eating and hanging out for a little bit, we walked down the street to Scobies Irish Pub where we had a couple pints of Guinness and watched the end of a Manchester United match.

On Tuesday, my parents and Clara came with me for a tour of the medieval Jewish quarter that my History of the Mediterranean class took. It was an interesting tour and went thorough a part of the city where I hadn’t spent much time before. The tour only took about an hour, and after wards I took my parents and Clara on another tour of the entire medieval quarter of the city that I had taken on another one of my classes. We walked through the cathedral, Plaza San Felipe, the Temple of Augustus and a few other places. Wandering around with them was a ton of fun, I loved being able to play tour guide and show them around some of my favorite parts of the city. We stopped for a coffee in Plaza del Pi and then decided to head over to the Sagrada Familia.

Seeing the inside of the Sagrada Familia for the second time was just as incredible as the first time I had been inside. We spend awhile inside the cathedral taking pictures and we took the elevator to the top and walked down the steps in one of the towers. We also went into a museum in the basement where many of Gaudi’s original models and his crypt were. I hadn’t been in that museum the first time I was in the cathedral so it was fun to see all of that. It was also really interesting to see Barcelona’s gothic cathedral and then the very non-traditional Sagrada Familia on the same day. We left the cathedral, grabbed some kebabs for lunch and then headed up to Park Guell.

Park Guell is one of my favorite places in Barcelona and I loved being there with my parents and Clara and showing them the views of the city and all of the Gaudi designs that are there. We walked through the park for a while and took lots of pictures. I’ve been to Park Guell quite a few times now but still manage to notice something new each time I go. That time, we found the house Gaudi lived in while designing the park and saw some of his wrought iron work that was displayed outside. I’ve got to apologize again, most of the pictures from us being in Barcelona are on my parent’s camera so I couldn’t post them here, but I’ll post what I’ve got! Anyways, we then left Park Guell, grabbed some beers from a café, and drank them on a very awkwardly slanted bench on the hill leading down from the park, and then head back to the hotel.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! At Parc Guell

We hung out and read on the rooftop terrace before heading out to dinner. For dinner that night, I wanted to take my parents and Clara to Can Paixano, my favorite champagne and sandwiches restaurant. It turns out the restaurant doesn’t sell champagne by the bottle for dinner so we decided we’d go back for lunch and then headed out to find a place for dinner. We walked around down by Port Vell until we found a little restaurant on the water that looked allright. The restaurant wasn’t great and we all realized this around the same time after we ordered but we still had a good time eating down by the water. We had some questionable paella for dinner there and afterwards set off to walk back along the port and up Las Ramblas toward the hotel. It was a great after dinner walk and it was fun to see my parents and Clara take in how busy the city still was even around midnight on a Tuesday, definitely very different from most American cities!

I had class again that Wednesday morning, so my parents and I got up early and had a croissant and some coffee at Café Zurich before I had to leave for class. While I was in class, they spent some of the morning at the café, and then wandered around in the area near the University of Barcelona, which was right up the street from our hotel. We met up at the hotel after I had class and then set off for Montjuic. We walk through Plaza Espanya and up to the MNAC built up on the mountain. We spent some time sitting on the steps in front of the MNAC museum listening to a Spanish guitar player and then walk further up the mountain to the Olympic stadiums. We walked around the Olympic plaza for a little while and had some sandwiches for lunch inside the main Olympic stadium. It was pretty cool to be having our lunch in the main Olympic stadium!

After lunch we kept walking up the mountain to the Joan Miro museum. Miro was one of Catalonia’s most renowned modern artists and the museum was definitely interesting. I didn’t love a lot of the art (I guess modern art is just over my head) but the actual building was beautiful and the views it offered looking out over the city were spectacular. We walked around the museum for a little while and then decided to head over to take a gondola ride up to the castle on top of the mountain. Montjuic castle is another one of my favorite places in Barcelona and we spent a couple hours up there looking out over the city and the Mediterranean. We also spent a long time (this was actually mostly my dad) looking at the port and watching the freight ships being unloaded and watching the trucks and trains being loaded with freight to be shipped elsewhere. It was actually really cool to see! Then we took the gondola back down and took the metro back to our hotel.

That night, we had dinner at an amazing fondue restaurant that my parents and Clara had found earlier that morning. I couldn’t believe that one of my favorite meals I’ve had so far this semester was fondue, but it was amazing! We had a great time sitting at this little restaurant and were very happy that our dinner was so much better than the night before! Clara had decided earlier that day that she wanted to go out that night, so after dinner we headed up into the neighborhood where I live to go to a couple nearby bars and a club. We met up with my roommate Mike, his sister, my friend Mari and her sister, my other roommate Travis and my friend Carl. We had a blast going to a couple different bars and then Clara and I headed to the club on our own. I don’t think the club was quite what she expected, it was really crowded and hot, but we had a great time dancing for a little bit before heading home. I really loved being able to show Clara some of the Barcelona nightlife and it was something totally different than what she had experienced at home.

That Thursday was the beginning of my spring break so I didn’t have any class. The night before, we decided we’d take it pretty easy on Thursday, so Clara and I were able to sleep in a little bit before heading out for the day. Although we had decided to take it easy, that Thursday ended up being one of the craziest I’ve had this semester. A general strike across all of Spain was planned for that day and as we left the door we were immediately met with protests and demonstrations. Almost everything was closed, people were marching and chanting in the streets and the city felt pretty chaotic. We had to walk around for a long time before finally finding a café that was open. We had some coffee and croissants in the café’s outdoor seating and stayed until a protest formed in front of one of the buildings right across from where we were sitting. It was unbelievable to see this protest suddenly form. People were chanting, yelling through megaphones, setting off fireworks and waving the flags of the unions that represented them. We recognized that the protest was forming and got out of there pretty fast because we weren’t sure if things were going to get violent. We decided that it would be best to head back down into the medieval neighborhood and the Born neighborhood where there wasn’t as much protest occurring.

Before leaving Chicago, my mom printed Frommer’s walking tours through Barcelona so we spent that afternoon following those tours through the medieval and Born neighborhoods. After touring the medieval district, we stopped for lunch at Cam Paixano. I had been looking forward to taking my parents there and loved seeing their reactions to the little hole in the wall restaurant. We had a great lunch and then headed into the Born neighborhood. Born is the neighborhood right next to the medieval district in Barcelona and is my favorite neighborhood in the city because of its old building, narrow streets and small plazas. We wandered around there for a while, and then stopped at a Farggi for some churros and chocolate. After eating, we headed back to the hotel. Once at the hotel, I had to go back to my home stay to pack some clothes for the weekend, so my mom and I hopped on the metro to go do that. It was so much fun showing my mom my neighborhood and home stay. She also got to meet Eulalia and her son Luis. She really loved getting to meet Eulalia and Eulalia was very happy to meet her too.

Lunch at Cam Paixano

When my mom and I got back to the hotel, the protest was getting huge. We had a view of Plaza Catalunya from the balcony in my parent’s room and immediately went out there to watch protesters gather in Plaza Catalunya. I had never seen protesting like that before and was amazed at the number of people gathered in the plaza and all of the noise they were making. After a while, the riot police around the plaza decided the protest had to end and began trying to get people to leave. This was met with some resistance from the protesters and then things really got crazy. The police began fighting the crowds out of the plaza using their batons and rubber balls fired from guns. The entire crowd took off running from the plaza and many of them ended up running down our street, right below our second floor balcony. We watched at the riot police formed a line and fired rubber balls into the crowd to keep them away from the plaza. In response, the crowd yelled and set trash on fire in the street. The police held their ground and eventually were able to get the protesters to back further down our street and around the corner. Watching all of this occur from our balcony was one an unbelievable experience and definitely not anything I thought I’d ever witness while in Spain. While watching the protests, we decided that leaving our building that night was a terrible idea so we had our usual bread, meat, cheese, and fruit and chocolate dinner on the rooftop terrace. We could still hear the protests occurring all around the city and could see the smoke from the fires protesters set in the streets. It was a very unusual way to spend our last night in Barcelona before heading to Madrid.

View of the Protesters in Plaza Catalunya from our hotel balcony

Protesters gathered down the street and burned trash

The police breaking up the protesters

Mom with the riot police

to see more pictures from this trip go to: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151486440835481.834572.588220480&type=3&l=60ebf55ae0