No, unfortunately, I have not had pancakes recently, but I thought the title appropriate for what day it is. (hint: I hop, you hop, we all hop, it's leap day!) It's dumb, I know, but I think I'm stuck conjugating verbs for a while and I also have the "I scream, ice cream" song stuck in my head.
Now, back to touristy business, today was a trip about an hour by train outside Barcelona to Montserrat, a monestary up in pink (yes, pink) mountains. It was very cool and nice to get away from the city even if we were being very touristy.
Once again, the day started off with us going to the fruit stand across the street from our hostel and the supermarket around the corner. Then, we took the metro to Place Espanya (with a 'y' because it's Catalan), got tickets, and hopped on the R7 (I think) to Montserrat. When we arrived, it was with lots of Dutch tourists and a few German couples and we all bonded going up the mountain in the tiny cable car; which, by the way, was only supposed to have 42 people in it and we had 54.... We did make it up though and went straight to the cathedral where the boy's choir was going to perform at noon. We were there at 11:30, so we had excellent seats and the acoustics were amazing. I adore acappella music.
Then, from the cathedral, we left the main buildings of the monestary, took a 'furnicular' up the mountain (kind of like a small, sideways train that runs up instead of straight) and went off hiking down many paths and even found a veritable treasure trove of deer pellets - yay. I felt quite french picnicing on top of the mountain with my bread, cheese, and fruit. Around 4, we started heading back down and got back to the train station in time to catch the next train. (We thought we had missed it along with our whole cable car, who were quite angry, and then turns out we didn't.) Unfortunately, the train was so crowded, we had to stand up the entire way back - the. whole. hour. By the time we got back to the hostel, we basically collapsed. waited for dinner time (not until after 9pm unless you're deathly ill or an infant) and ordered pizza. It was quite good and is enabling me to be full enough to go straight to bed anticipating returning to Nantes tomorrow morning.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Gaudy Gaudi
Ah, today was gaudy! And not in a bad way whatsoever, a very Gaudi way.
This morning we started out at the supermarket again buying more food (since it's much cheaper than eating out) and we headed off to see La Sagrada Familia, which is this amazing cathedral designed by Gaudi which was started in 1882 and still isn't even close the being finished. It was amazing walking through it and then going down underneath the building to see the museum which includes all of the mock-ups and shows Gaudi's inspiration from nature for the designs within the architecture. (Wikipedia has a decent webpage if you'd like to know more.) On the way there, because we walked, we even saw a few of Gaudi's casas, which looked like they were made of peanut brittle, caramel, and candy - very whimsical and storybookish.
Then, in the afternoon, we met up with another IES-er who was supposed to be in Barcelona with us but arrived a little late. This time we decided to take the metro over to Park Guell since we walked for an hour over to La Sagrada Familia - or at least that's what the guidebook had told us. Turns out from the metro stop, it's about a mile hike straight up a hill to get to the park. And guess who was carrying the backpack with all the water and food? I suppose I shouldn't complain because Jess had been carrying it all morning, but man, that hill was steep. The whole time all I could think of was the runners from Kenya who train in the mountains.
Then finally, we had lunch and wandered around the park for a few hours (which was soo cool!), saw some street (park?) performers, and headed back to the hostel. We ended up going out for dinner to a Mexican restaurant called La Negra Rose and all had delicious burritos.
This morning we started out at the supermarket again buying more food (since it's much cheaper than eating out) and we headed off to see La Sagrada Familia, which is this amazing cathedral designed by Gaudi which was started in 1882 and still isn't even close the being finished. It was amazing walking through it and then going down underneath the building to see the museum which includes all of the mock-ups and shows Gaudi's inspiration from nature for the designs within the architecture. (Wikipedia has a decent webpage if you'd like to know more.) On the way there, because we walked, we even saw a few of Gaudi's casas, which looked like they were made of peanut brittle, caramel, and candy - very whimsical and storybookish.
Then, in the afternoon, we met up with another IES-er who was supposed to be in Barcelona with us but arrived a little late. This time we decided to take the metro over to Park Guell since we walked for an hour over to La Sagrada Familia - or at least that's what the guidebook had told us. Turns out from the metro stop, it's about a mile hike straight up a hill to get to the park. And guess who was carrying the backpack with all the water and food? I suppose I shouldn't complain because Jess had been carrying it all morning, but man, that hill was steep. The whole time all I could think of was the runners from Kenya who train in the mountains.
Then finally, we had lunch and wandered around the park for a few hours (which was soo cool!), saw some street (park?) performers, and headed back to the hostel. We ended up going out for dinner to a Mexican restaurant called La Negra Rose and all had delicious burritos.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Poor Pieds
My poor feet. We walked a lot today, but it was totally worth it!
This morning, we went to a grocery store around the corner, grabbed stuff for a picnic lunch, and hiked up Montjuic, which is a rather large hill (or small mountain) right on the edges of Barcelona. It's actually where the Olympic facilities from '92 are. It was so cool to walk up there, look out over the (urban) sprawl of Barcelona, and see all the gardens, pools, stadium, and the torch from 1992. I sort of vaguely remember those Olympics and I definitely remember how the torch was lit, but mostly I remember the opening and closing ceremonies - all the dancing and singing! It was a little sad seeing how run-down it sort of is after the spotlight is taken off of it. I mean, everything was still nice, it was just overrun with feral cats and algae. (Which make for an interesting eau de cologne.) It was still very cool to be up there though and there were quite a few other tourists and lots of tourist buses, so it's not a ghostown or anything by a long stretch.
After that, we hiked back down the mountain and cut across Barcelona to visit the Gothic Quarter (barri gothique). Not Gothic like 'goth' like Addams family (that's what my host mom thought I meant! Hee.) But actually Gothic like the style of architecture. The streets were very small and it felt like the buildings were going to fall in on me, but the ornateness of all of it was just amazing! After walking around, we went to the Picasso Museum (with apparently about 3 middle school's worth of loud kids from France). It was really neat seeing his version of "Las Meninas" after being in the Prado Sunday where Velasquez's is. We left and went to get gelato as a pick-me-up down the street, and okay, it wasn't Italian, but it was delish!
Tonight we hit up the grocery store again (not the robbing kind, the buying kind) and made a delicious pasta dinner with peanut-buttered mini biscotti, which weren't actually like biscotti at all, but were still good as an appetizer. I thought it was really nice that the hostel had a kitchen and refridgerators we could use (eggs for breakfast tomorrow maybe?). It makes eating for me more about gusto and less about worrying about the costs.
This morning, we went to a grocery store around the corner, grabbed stuff for a picnic lunch, and hiked up Montjuic, which is a rather large hill (or small mountain) right on the edges of Barcelona. It's actually where the Olympic facilities from '92 are. It was so cool to walk up there, look out over the (urban) sprawl of Barcelona, and see all the gardens, pools, stadium, and the torch from 1992. I sort of vaguely remember those Olympics and I definitely remember how the torch was lit, but mostly I remember the opening and closing ceremonies - all the dancing and singing! It was a little sad seeing how run-down it sort of is after the spotlight is taken off of it. I mean, everything was still nice, it was just overrun with feral cats and algae. (Which make for an interesting eau de cologne.) It was still very cool to be up there though and there were quite a few other tourists and lots of tourist buses, so it's not a ghostown or anything by a long stretch.
After that, we hiked back down the mountain and cut across Barcelona to visit the Gothic Quarter (barri gothique). Not Gothic like 'goth' like Addams family (that's what my host mom thought I meant! Hee.) But actually Gothic like the style of architecture. The streets were very small and it felt like the buildings were going to fall in on me, but the ornateness of all of it was just amazing! After walking around, we went to the Picasso Museum (with apparently about 3 middle school's worth of loud kids from France). It was really neat seeing his version of "Las Meninas" after being in the Prado Sunday where Velasquez's is. We left and went to get gelato as a pick-me-up down the street, and okay, it wasn't Italian, but it was delish!
Tonight we hit up the grocery store again (not the robbing kind, the buying kind) and made a delicious pasta dinner with peanut-buttered mini biscotti, which weren't actually like biscotti at all, but were still good as an appetizer. I thought it was really nice that the hostel had a kitchen and refridgerators we could use (eggs for breakfast tomorrow maybe?). It makes eating for me more about gusto and less about worrying about the costs.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
HelloBCN!
Today we were back on the road - packing up, taking the metro (which we are obviously pros at now) back to the aeropuerto de Madrid, and waiting, waiting, waiting. Instead of getting right to the airport 20 minutes before boarding, we were there around 2 hours ahead of time. Unfortunately, we also chose apparently the wrong ticket option (electronic tickets), which meant we were the last three people to board the plane. I was a little worried when the flight attendant told me to "wait over there" that I wouldn't be able to get on at all! (We had booked through an airline none of us had ever heard of before - Spanair- no, that is not a typo, and we didn't know how it worked as far as tickets and stuff, but we did end up being on the plane when it took off with all our stuff.)
It was nice to arrive and not have a connection to make and it was not late at night either, which just made everything seem (literally and figuratively) sunnier. We decided to wait around the Barcelona airport for an hour, eat, and see if our friend who was coming in later that afternoon would arrive so we could all go to the hostel together. However, since we didn't know Jess' flight number (we did know the airline though), we decided to go ahead without her after 2 hours of sitting around. This time we had to take a shuttle bus to the train station (there weren't really any signs and we had no idea where the bus was actually going until we got there) and then there was a guy in an orange jumpsuit standing at the entrance to the station handing out what I thought were pamphlets. I said I didn't want one. Ooops! They were the tickets for the train, which apparently is completely free because when BCN built the rail line, it wrecked many waterways or something like that and as a result, it's freeeeeee! We found our metro line, got tickets, and got to the hostel all in quite good time. The hostel itself was very different from the last one - very modern with lots of steel and bright colors, and very, very clean.
We checked in and found a bunch of books on Spain and BCN, so we sat around doing some research on what to do while waiting for Jess to show up. When she finally made it, it was still only about 4pm, and we decided to walk around a little and go to the centre ville. We ended up finding a great Indian place a little ways off of La Rambala (where everyone gets pick pocketed and smokes lots of illegal drugs - illegal in the US at least...), went back to the hostel after eating, and another IES-er, Julie was there. Then lots of planning for the rest of the week was done and done and sleeping was achieved.
It was nice to arrive and not have a connection to make and it was not late at night either, which just made everything seem (literally and figuratively) sunnier. We decided to wait around the Barcelona airport for an hour, eat, and see if our friend who was coming in later that afternoon would arrive so we could all go to the hostel together. However, since we didn't know Jess' flight number (we did know the airline though), we decided to go ahead without her after 2 hours of sitting around. This time we had to take a shuttle bus to the train station (there weren't really any signs and we had no idea where the bus was actually going until we got there) and then there was a guy in an orange jumpsuit standing at the entrance to the station handing out what I thought were pamphlets. I said I didn't want one. Ooops! They were the tickets for the train, which apparently is completely free because when BCN built the rail line, it wrecked many waterways or something like that and as a result, it's freeeeeee! We found our metro line, got tickets, and got to the hostel all in quite good time. The hostel itself was very different from the last one - very modern with lots of steel and bright colors, and very, very clean.
We checked in and found a bunch of books on Spain and BCN, so we sat around doing some research on what to do while waiting for Jess to show up. When she finally made it, it was still only about 4pm, and we decided to walk around a little and go to the centre ville. We ended up finding a great Indian place a little ways off of La Rambala (where everyone gets pick pocketed and smokes lots of illegal drugs - illegal in the US at least...), went back to the hostel after eating, and another IES-er, Julie was there. Then lots of planning for the rest of the week was done and done and sleeping was achieved.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Palais! Which one?
This morning started out a little later because Vanessa and I ended up meeting a Canadian girl, Laura, who was just settling into our room and also travelling by herself and we thought she'd like to come with us. So about 30 minutes later we started off walking down the Avenue del Prado to see all the great big landmarks of Madrid. We did see quite a few ornate buildings, including the Agricultural Center, Communications Center, and the National Library. Then instead of finding the royal palace like we had planned, we ended up finding the Palace of Justice (whoops) and a few fantastic cathedrals.
Eventually, later that afternoon, we did make our way over to the Royal Palace and Cathedral, which was very cool. We didn't pay to go in though (a little museum-ed out from yesterday) and instead headed back to the hostel for a siesta. Later on, we met the Quebequoise, Isabelle, and we all went out to dinner together, mingling a bunch of French and English together for a language understood by all.
The other two French girls and the girls from New Zealand had left this morning, and we had an older Spanish lady in our room as well as another girl no one really saw (but her stuff was there). I have to say, Spain is much more vibrant late at night than France, partially because of the late dinner time, and also a little because of the warmer weather, I think.
Eventually, later that afternoon, we did make our way over to the Royal Palace and Cathedral, which was very cool. We didn't pay to go in though (a little museum-ed out from yesterday) and instead headed back to the hostel for a siesta. Later on, we met the Quebequoise, Isabelle, and we all went out to dinner together, mingling a bunch of French and English together for a language understood by all.
The other two French girls and the girls from New Zealand had left this morning, and we had an older Spanish lady in our room as well as another girl no one really saw (but her stuff was there). I have to say, Spain is much more vibrant late at night than France, partially because of the late dinner time, and also a little because of the warmer weather, I think.
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