Te Amo, Barcelona

Last weekend I went to Barcelona with eight other people from our group. I know I describe everything as amazing, but I literally cannot express to you how much I loved this city, so get ready for a lot of "amazing"s.
On Friday we took a bus to Madrid, a metro to the airport, and then a one hour plane ride to Barcelona. Once we got there, we took a bus to the city center and walked through Las Ramblas, which is the most famous and amaaazing street in Barcelona. It's full of street food, vendors, people, and culture. After we checked into our hostel, which was pretty close to Las Ramblas, we walked around and walked down to the beach! It was pretty late when we got to Barcelona, so we took a night walk on the beach and I stuck my toes in the Mediterranean! We met up with my roommate Veronica's friend from Chile who is getting his Bachelor's in Barcelona, and he took us to this really cool hole-in-the-wall bar where we just hung out and talked for a while.
We were all pretty tired, so we went back to the hostel to get some sleep. In the hostel room, there were six beds but only five of us. Since it was like 2:30 am when we got back, we were like oh, they probably won't rent out this bed tonight. So we go to sleep and at about 4 am, this man stumbles in, turns the light on for like 15 minutes, and collapses into the bed below me (we had assigned bunk beds). I kept my eyes closed cause I didn't want to interact with him/ I was half asleep. So as soon as this man falls asleep, he starts snoring the LOUDEST snore that any of us had ever heard in our lives. Picture the loudest snore you've heard and multiply it by ten- and that was this guy. It was actually surprising that a human being could create such a noise. There was literally a monster under my bed. Haha so I waited for awhile for the snoring to calm down, but oh no. This man must have not slept for days because the snoring continued at the same volume for the whole night. At one point me and two of my friends were awake just dying of laughter at the unlucky/hilarious situation. For the few seconds that he calmed down and snored a little more gently, my friend whispered "There, there now, sleep gently, great beast." Died. It was hilarious, but not hilarious because I slept for two hours that night. Haha so the next morning, I'm climbing down out of bed and I look at this man-- he's probably about forty years old and is wearing only.. wait for it.. a tshirt and a diaper. That's right folks, a diaper. I can only imagine what other hostel stories I'll have by the end of this trip!

So on Saturday we woke up decently early and went to see the Sagrada Familia! Which is a temple that's been under construction for over 100 years, designed by the famous architect Gaudi. It is absolutely incredible, and pretty funky! The designs are all inspired by nature, and the columns inside look like trees, and there's just so much detail everywhere. And the fact that it's ever changing and that Gaudi left plans for 40 years more worth of construction for after his death is crazy! So we spent awhile in there just looking at everything, we went up a tower where there was an amazing view of Barcelona. We took a lift up, but had to walk down a hugeeeee, long spiral staircase that was pretty trippy. It was one of the coolest things I've seen so far.
Next we went to a park with a bunch of buildings designed by Gaudi, which was also very cool. Afterwards we walked around Barcelona, and some of the group went to see the Barcelona futbol game. While they did that, a few of us sat on a boardwalk-like area (but without the tacky shops and rides) and watched the sunset over the water while listening to a band playing on the street and drinking sangria. The band was pretty good, and the coolest thing was that strangers started dancing with each other. We just sat and watched people, and I fell in love with it. I think that what I liked most about it was that at least for me, it seemed to be defined more by the people and the culture than by the historical monuments.
Needless to say, I didn't stay at that hostel again, and we went to Veronica's friends apartment for a while to eat mozzarella and tomato sandwiches and hang out. They all spoke in Spanish the whole time, and it was harder for me to understand them since they had Costa Rican accents, but it was cool to hear them all talking in slang and stuff, and Veronica helped me. Later, we all met up again and went hole-in-the-wall bar hopping. It was really fun, but I was absolutely exhausted from the monster under the bed extravaganza, so we went home and got some sleep. We woke up the next morning and went to the Picasso museum, which was luckily free just on the day that we went. The rest of the day was pretty much filled with traveling back to the apartment, back to the main part of the city to catch the bus to the airport, then going back to Madrid and finally back to Salamanca, where we arrived at about 10:30.

Such a good weekend full of street food (doner kebaps galore), culture, and fun. Before I came to Spain, I was having a kind of quarter-life crisis, and questioned whether or not I wanted to live in the US (which would basically make my whole undergrad and grad career a little pointless). But after spending some time in Salamanca, I thought I had decided that although I loved it, I would rather live in the US.. After going to Barcelona, I'm questioning it again. I can see myself living there, it was that amazing. So, if I don't come back to the States, you know where to find me! ;)

In Salamanca this week, I had almost the amount of work that I usually have at JMU, so it was pretty busy but I got everything done and tomorrow I leave for PARIS! Is this my life? I can't believe how lucky I am.

 ^^Interior of La Sagrada Familia

 ^Outside of Sagrada Familia

^Veronica and me on the top of the tower


<3 Besitos