Barcelona!

Well I had a fantastic week with the family.  We went out to dinner a couple nights in Toledo and I saw them in between my classes.  I took Catherine and her friend, Cayla, out to the bars and discoteca (club) on Wednesday night.  It was a great night and a ton of my girlfriends were all going out, which has been rare in the past month or so.  We got these great Guinness St. Patrick Day hats at the club for free so they were fun to wear around.

On Thursday, after my classes, we took a train to Madrid and then Barcelona.  It was my first experience riding the train in Spain and I loved it!! Buses are long and uncomfortable and getting to the airport is expensive and annoying.  So this was a treat! I slept for most of the train ride because I didn't get much sleep the night before.

We got to Barcelona and checked into our hotel, got situated and did some walking around before dinner.  We went to see the outside of two buildings that were designed by Guadi. They were very interesting and cool.  It reminded me of the buildings from the Spy Kids movies.  Barcelona was not what I expected.  It was very much a city.  It wasn't bad, but every other Spanish city has had more of an old town feel.  It wasn't bad, but just different.  We went to a tapas bar for dinner which was delicious and had some great sangria there!  Apparently, Dad didn't care for the "tapas" kind of meal, which I enjoy very much.

Friday we woke up and went to do all of the touristy things.  We walked into the gothic district and looked at the old churches and buildings.  We got a little lost on the way to see the Picasso Museum.  The entire trip, it was very entertaining to watch my Dad attempt to speak Spanish in a very confident way... I enjoyed it.  I am anxious to see how Mom will do with her past Mexico experiences with Spanish...Good luck Sarah.  The Picasso Museum was very cool.  The building was probably my favorite part.  It was an old building that had a modern renovation done to it, but kept the old school vibe to it.  My favorite part of the museum was the painting I recreated in 6th grade by Picasso.  It was so incredible and cool to see the real one in real life.  I wish I could have taken a picture of it.

After that we grabbed lunch down by the water and walked down by the beach for a little bit.  It was beautiful.  The water was so blue. I only wish it was warm enough to stay there all day and tan.  Afterwards we went to the Sagrada Familia.  This is a church that is still in the process of being built some 100 years later.  It was designed by Guadi and is still a working progress.  They have a couple towers to build still and only about half of the stain glass is done.  It was very very cool and probably my favorite thing in Barcelona.

Mediterranean Sea

Sagrada Familia

That night we went to have a sea food dinner.  I had some shrimp scampi and lemon sorbet for dessert.

On Saturday morning, we all slept in a little bit accidentally.  Dad, Catherine, and Cayla went on a run, and Abby and I went to the store to get some food for breakfast and traveling.  Afterwards, we went to the Barcelona Campnou stadium where the soccer team plays.  It was so cool!! And they had some other interesting artifacts from their sports world including one of the torches from the 1992 Olympics that Barcelona hosted.

We walked around that day and did some window shopping and relaxed until we went for a Chinese dinner. Boy have I missed Chinese food!!

The next morning we all had to get up early to catch our flights and my train.  It was a good week and I was glad to see my family.