21

So in typical Barcelona fashion, I had a great birthday. I went out with my friends both nights and spent the day checking out some amazing views at Tibidabo.

Definitely 24 hours to remember. I missed being at home with all of my friends but it was still a great day. The rest of last week and this week have also been great. I've been making sure to get done everything else in the city I haven't had a chance to yet. I've been super productive and done a ton so here are a few highlights. 

Evan and I went to the chocolate museum yesterday which was tiny but pretty cool. Also got to check out the aquarium. It was a little expensive but also very interesting.

Alex and I also got a chance to go rowing! Unfortunately, it will probably be the only time that happens this semester. Everyone at the rowing club was so nice and very welcoming but it was a little too expensive for what we were getting. Alex and I would have unlimited use of the gym but would only get to go out on the water on the weekends. Since I'm spending all the rest of my weekends traveling or with friends, we figured it wasn't worth 50 euros a month. Rowing in the ocean was an experience. In Spain, they don't have the same water traffic rules so Alex and I definitely almost got run over my cruise boats and huge sail boats several times. We didn't row out to the open ocean and only stayed near the dock so we didn't have to deal with huge waves but the wake from the boats and salt water was something new.

I had an amazing time at the Barca vs. Copenhagen game to start off my birthday celebrations. I don't know too much about soccer but was really entertained and got really into the game since the crowd was so great. 

The stadium is so incredibly huge. It seats 100,000 people. They only sold 75,000 tickets for this game but it still looked packed to me. Everyone was so into the game that it was hard not to share in the excitement. I was also really impressed by the fans from Copenhagen. They had their own little section at the very top of the stadium but there were tons of them and they were all dressed in white. They also had many more chants and synchronized dances than any of the Barca fans. Even though they lost and Barca dominated them in possession of the ball, they were still very proud of their team. It was a very different game than anything that would happen in the US but was tons of fun.

Wooo so excited for Barca adventures with Richard and Linda next weekend! Too bad I need to actually do my first homework of the semester this week and start studying for midterms. Barca spoils me.

London!

So for my first trip of the semester, I headed to London this past weekend. I've wanted to go to London for years so it was a natural first choice to make. I was really excited for the trip before it even started and it definitely lived up to expectations.

I was a little worried about everything working out before I left since I've never really traveled by myself before, but it was all very easy and I didn't have to worry about anything. On the day of my flight, I got to airport wayyyy too early. I think I need to learn from that. I sat at the gate playing pokemon on my gameboy for two and a half hours. Time well spent. Easy Jet is great. The plane left on time and everything was much simpler to figure out that I thought it would be. I lucked out once I got to London and just barley got onto the Tube before it closed. 


The whole weekend was a ton of fun and I got to do a lot. I loved the neighborhood Tim is living in. He is staying in the middle of Notting Hill, very close to Hyde Park. All the buildings are incredible. I'm a big architecture fan in general and was very impressed by how classy and up scale the whole neighborhood seemed to be. London in general was also much more diverse than I expected it to be. There were tons of ethnic restaurants and people from all different backgrounds. Also, British accents are one of my favorite things in the world, so I couldn't stop smiling whenever anyone said anything.

Some highlights:

The British Museum

Maybe the biggest museum I've ever been in. It was huge. I was there for a little less than four hours and I didn't even get to see everything. The museum was full of artifacts from all over the world and from a ton of different time periods. One of my favorite rooms was the one in the picture above. It had a ton of artifacts from the Enlightenment. I also really liked all the Mummies and info on ancient Egypt along with parts of the Parthenon that the museum owns. Apparently, Greece wants the pieces of the wall back and the museum was handing out little pamphlets defending their right to keep the parts they have.

National Gallery/ National Portrait Gallery

Also two wonderful museums. The National Gallery is close to as big as the British Museum. They have tons of art from places around the world. The Degas were my favorite, as always. It was pretty crowded when I went but not too bad. The Portrait Gallery was maybe more interesting. It was no where near as big but was filled with portraits of important people from England. Some of the art was incredible. I can't even imagine how some people are so talented. My favorite was a temporary instillation about British citizens living in New York. 

Oxford

So two of my friends from school are up at Oxford for the year and Tim hadn't been there yet so Saturday we decided to take the bus up to see them. Conveniently, there is a bus that runs from the end of Tim's block to Oxford every 15 minutes. Oxford is about an hour and a half outside of central London. I loved the city. The old buildings make the city look incredible. Some scenes from Harry Potter where shot in some of the buildings we saw. Oxford is a little different than I imagined since it is not actually one school, but 30 smaller ones with around 300 kids each. I loved the campus my friends are living on. The buildings were gorgeous and all the plants were so green and perfectly manicured. My also snuck into another college, Trinity. It looked very different but also beautiful. I also loved how important crew is at Oxford. As we were walking on the streets, we passed a ton of people wearing crew apparel. Both of my friends from school are also rowing for the first time up there. I was so happy to hear that. 


My hotel was adorable too and had a free tea and coffee room all day. I probably could have stayed somewhere a little cheaper but it was a good deal and was super close to Tim. I also got to see another friend from school, Frank, which I was very happy about. He is studying on the other side of London but seems to be having a great time too.


I also got a chance to see Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the London Eye, a huge ferris wheel, but there was so much more I wanted to do. I'm definitely going to need to go back to explore some more very soon.

6 Day Weekend?

This week has been excellent. On Tuesday, Alex, Daven and I went hiking to Montserrat. After our hiking adventure last week, Daven and I were a little disappointed, but we all still had a great time. Montserrat is famous for a huge church that they built on top of a mountain, about an hour outside of Barcelona.

It really is beautiful but was very crowded while we were there. Daven has complained so much about hiking with other people I've started to share his view. There is something to be said about an incredible hike where you see no one for four hours. The church itself was beautiful and the hike was very different that the one we had done previously. I also really liked the cable car ride from the train station to the church. Maybe not worth all the money I spent on that trip but a good day.

Wednesday, there was a national general strike. When I first heard about the strike, I thought the entire city would be shut down. Our university classes got cancelled since the university was going to be closed and there would be no public transportation. I was very surprised at how aware every Spaniard seemed to be. The whole nation seemed to know what was coming. However, when I first left the house on Wednesday, I noticed more than half of the restaurants near my street where open along with a couple  stores. I saw two demonstrations during the day but nothing that seemed out of hand. I did see a lot of new spray paint on banks blaming them for the current economic conditions. While a bunch of us where on a friend's roof, we also saw black smoke in the sky which we later learned came from burning tires. I also found out later about the rioting. Turns out some of these demonstrations got a little violent.

Check it:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703882404575521034043471518.html#project%3DSLIDESHOW08%26s%3DSB10001424052748704116004575521493516554702%26articleTabs%3Dslideshow

I found the whole strike really interesting. I feel like talking to my home stay brother about the current state of Spanish politics. Things here right now aren't going too well and seeing how Spaniards and the politicians try to deal with it is teaching me a lot about the culture how and how another government works.

Thursday, Daven and I went hiking again. I'm officially hooked. I never thought of myself as a big hiker before but now I'm in love. We went back to Montseny, the mountain from the week before and took a different trail. It's so beautiful up there. The view is hard to beat.

I will definitely be back again. 

Today we went to the beach at Sitges. I loved it. It reminded me a lot of Tossa de Mar, where I went with the fam three years ago. It's a old beach town that has a lot of charm because of the old buildings and small streets that line the beach. It's only 35 minutes from my house so also super easy to get to. The weather was great and I even got a little tan. A win win.