Adventures with Linda and Richard

I spend last weekend with Linda and Richard on the last four days of their two and a half week tour of Spain. I got to hear all of their stories about the cities and sites they had seen in Portugal and the south of Spain. It made me super jealous and made me feel a little bad that I'm not going to get there this semester. It just gives me an excuse to come back and see them later. All my weekends for the rest of the trip are full so  I won't even make it to Madrid. Oops.

From the top of their hotel

Since we've all been to Barcelona before, the visit was very relaxed and we took our time checking out some of the sites they missed when we were all here last. Two of our main adventures were Tibidabu and Mont Juic. I've been to both a ton before but they are definitely two of my favorite parts of the city. Tibidabu is my favorite view of the entire city. The top of the mountain is really high up and you have almost a 360 degree view of the surrounding area.  You can see the mountains, ocean and city without moving. It's beautiful. There is a huge church up there and a small amusement park. The amusement park looks like a ton of fun but for about 23 euros for 5 rides, I don't think that is going to happen.

This is the view of the church on the top of the hill from about 5 minutes from the top

We spent the previous day on Mont Juic. Three years ago, we walked to the mountain but didn't have time to walk up it. This time we made it all the way to the top to see the old fort. We also went to the Joan Miro museum which I really loved. I didn't know anything about Miro before so I was very impressed by his unique art style.

RGut at the top of Mont Juic

 Finally, we stopped at Poble Espanol, a small collection of buildings built for one of the World's Fairs held in Barcelona.  There are a bunch of typical building from different architectural styles from different regions of Spain. Since the architecture is one of my favorite aspects of Barcelona and something I really feel like I'm missing out on by not traveling more around Spain, I was really impressed with the buildings we saw. The buildings are now used as restaurants or store fronts for artisans. 

 

Some of the buildings from Poble Espanol

We also got to explore some of the city by the water and the Born neighborhood. We had a ton of incredibly amazing food and I definitely enjoyed the chance to go out to restaurants. Overall, I really like all the meals I get at home but I feel like I'm missing out on all the local restaurants. My favorite one we went to was a restaurant called Les Quinze Nits. A friend of mine told me about this restaurant where the chefs are gourmets chefs in training so they don't get paid a ton but make amazing food. The entrees are super cheap and delicious. I ended up going back this past weekend since I was so in love and I will be back for sure with the Tufts crowd at the end of the month. It was so good to see the parents so I was definitely sad when they left. The whole visit made me kinda home sick and excited for December.

During the week, we had midterms and I did some of the first work I've actually done all semester. This semester has proven to be much much easier than a semester at Tufts. No comparison. While I'm a little lost in my history of Spain class, the others are all pretty easy to follow. I studied a ton compared to what I've done the rest of the semester so I didn't think any of the tests were too hard. It's definitely an experience taking tests in spanish though. 

This weekend, had some adventures showing Tim around. We ate some delicious food again in typical Barcelona fashion. I've definitely discovered my two favorite restaurants in the city. Rome in two days! I've been in the city for so long without leaving that I'm definitely ready to explore somewhere else. This starts off a ton of traveling for me until the end which I am very excited about. I'm hoping for a ton of adventures and I'm sure Europe will come through for me.