Anything built in “BC” is worth my time

Yet another update for my blog… this was my fourth weekend in Barcelona and I still haven’t seen a fraction of what there is to see here. Even some of the big sights I haven’t seen, but I guess that’s not a problem when I have another three months here.

It’s strange to think that I’ve been here close to four weeks. Yet today was my first day of real classes. It’s a relief to finally have something that resembles a set routine. I’m taking Spanish grammar (required, and boring), Barcelona: History and City (includes five field trips, which will be great), Society and Politics of Spain, and Spain and Catalonia through the arts. Taking a language class, history course, political science course, and an art history class are all as far away from my major as I can get. But maybe that’s a good thing. All the classes are in Spanish, which is difficult. I understand approximately half of what’s being said. Hopefully that percentage goes up dramatically, and soon. I’m trying not to freak out too much… if I was at home and I only understood half of the material I would be panicking. But I remain optimistic.

A plus to my school schedule is that I finish class at noon on Tuesday and Thursday, which in this city is mid-morning, so I will have a lot of time to explore on my own. I’ve declared Tuesdays to be “Museum Tuesdays” because I have figured out there are exactly the same number of museums in this city as there are weeks of class, and that way I’m being productive with my time. As I was typing that last sentence, I came to the realization that I am one of the biggest nerds I know.

This past weekend was pretty interesting. The weather has been less than perfect, with cold temperatures (40 degrees Fahrenheit), wind, and overcast skies. My program (about 30 of us in the Advanced Program… it’s a joke that I’m considered advanced) made a trip to Tarragona, about an hour south of Barcelona. Tarragona was the capital of Spain when it was occupied by the Romans. The central area of the city is boxed in within the remaining walls of the Roman city. This oldest part of the town was built around 300 B.C. Pretty incredible.

Here’s a picture of modern buildings within the Roman city walls of Tarragona. My friend Mike is trying to avoid a car in the narrow streets. This part of the city is fascinating and quiet, while the rest of Tarragona is industrial and ugly.

A picture of me standing in front of a church. The church was built in the 12th century, making it the most modern building we saw on the tour. The steps I’m standing on are about 1,000 years older than the church. I was freezing cold.

This was the creepy part. This is part of the old Roman ruins (I didn’t include a picture because it didn’t look like much from the outside). I couldn’t understand enough of our tour guide’s fast talking Spanish (with Catalan thrown in) to figure out more about this tunnel, but every 10 yards was another small dark room. He told us to imagine the movie “Glatiator” was we walked through the tunnel.

There was also a gladiator-type stadium at the base of the town, next to the sea. It could be filled with sea water during the summer for water sports and swimming competitions… so awesome!!

Here’s the best view of Tarragona from the top of the Roman tower. Don’t let the beach and blue sky fool you. It was so so cold! The statue is of Julius Caesar.

After leaving Tarragona, we drove an hour west to a monastery. The drive was mostly through the countryside, but to me it looked identical to the western slope of Colorado. It’s arid even though it’s next to the sea, but still manages to be a huge area for agriculture and vineyards. (Again, sounds like western slope CO) Kind of pretty, but not extraordinarily interesting. The monastery, however, was incredible. As far as I could tell no one is there permanently, but it used to house many monks, living there continuously for centuries. Also very old, and that’s basically all I know about it. I’ll include two pictures.


On Sunday, my friend Maggie and I toured a neighborhood called El Eixample, which is considered an outdoor museum of Modernism architecture. In the early 1900s there was basically a competition to create the most eccentric building in the neighborhood. The coolest/ craziest houses were built by Gaudi, and we toured the inside of La Padrera, the coolest of the Gaudi houses. I won’t include many pictures because to be honest I’m kind of sick of everything related to Gaudi (Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, and various other places I’ve written about are also by Gaudi). Anyway, the weekend was pretty mellow and educational, and I’m excited to change things up a bit this next weekend.
Picture of my in front of La Padrera. Again, pictures don't do these buildings justice so this is the only one I'll put up.

The Super Bowl starts at 1:00 am on Sunday night, and apparently the place to watch it is at the Hard Rock Café. (Go figure) So I guess I need to decide how much I care about the Bears and decide if they are worth staying up all night for. It would be different if four of my friends here weren’t from Chicago.

Anyway, sorry again for the lengthy update. It will get more interesting from here… I won’t reveal my upcoming trips to keep you in suspense and to give you reason to keep checking up on me.

All for now,
Love,
Laura

escaping the city

This weekend I had a strong urge to ditch out on the congested and noisy city and find something more my pace... so I found two gorgeous parks within the city but far enough away to feel like I finally had some breathing room... Read on if you have a lot of time on your hands. :)

Exploring a city such as Barcelona is exhausting. Even when my days are considerably free compared to my busy days in Colorado, I come home exhausted and warn out. The city, the language, the endless public transportation, the signs written in Catalan… everything is difficult. It’s one of the most compact cities in Europe, which makes it very accessible but also very claustrophobic. Considering how compact everything is and how efficient the metro system is, it’s a mystery why some of the most popular places are the ones that are most inaccessible. I spent the entire weekend seeing things that I kept hearing about but hadn’t figured out how to get to, and I took plenty of pictures to post online.

Saturday I found my way to Parc Güell, a city space that once had the intention of being a “gated community” of sorts for the ultra-rich of the early 1900s. Mr. Güell, the ultra-ultra rich namesake, hired Gaudi (of course, he’s popular around here) to build a community on the outskirts of Barcelona. Basically a mini garden city, which never came through and is now a pretty remarkable and famous park. Here’s a picture of the park from the highest point I could find.

Here’s a picture of me standing in a tunnel in the Parc. I think the official name is a viaduct, but I don’t actually know if it has a function, or if it’s just one of Gaudi’s over-the-top details that is gorgeous but pointless.

A picture of the girls I do 90% of my sightseeing with. From left to right: Mara, Katie, Kate, myself, and Maggie. We are sitting in Parc Güell on the world’s largest bench made entirely of mosaic tiles.

And another picture just for fun: The entry to the park, essentially the gate, two candy-land type buildings by Gaudi.

After exploring the park I felt so happy and thankful to be out of the congested city. But avoiding the city can’t last forever, and I went back downtown right around sunset to explore the neighborhood right around the University of Barcelona (which I do not have the privilege of attending). (On a side note, looking at this picture reminded me of an event today. I saw my first SUV while in Europe. It was an Escalade in my neighborhood and it kind of took me by surprise because it looked so out of place driving behind a Smart Car. You never realize how big Americans’ cars are until you walk the streets for weeks without seeing an SUV or pickup truck.)

Saturday night we ate well and drank well at a chic tapas bar on Passeig de Grácia, a hip and expensive shopping strip by day and just as popular at night. I was totally against the idea of tapas until this place… there was more to it than pork and sausage, and everything wasn’t fried, so I finally found tapas that I enjoyed. I laugh when I think about Bryant coming to visit, because everything is in miniature portions… one bite of food per plate. Bryant eats about 5,000 calories per day and tapas just aren’t going to cut it for him! Anyway, I went home exhausted at 1:30 am, which was about 5 hours earlier than the rest of the group went home.

The next day, Sunday, the same group of girls took the metro to the funicular stop, and then took the funicular to Mounjüic. I actually don’t know what a funicular is, but it starts out like a metro and suddenly it’s above ground, and then all of a sudden you’re suspended above ground going up a hill. A little bit unnerving! Monjüic an area at the edge of Barcelona filled with museums, a castle, gardens, and all the Olympic facilities from the 1992 Olympics. We also discovered that Mounjüic is home to the most disgusting homeless men to ever exist.

Doing anything on a Sunday is a little bit tedious, because 95% of all places of business are closed on Sundays. In fact, the only thing that was open was an old castle (famous for housing hundreds of executions during Franco’s reign) that is now an incredibly boring military museum. The castle itself is pretty remarkable and overlooks the Mediterranean, so we paid of the military museum just so we could check out the grounds. I’ve included a picture of the castle, and myself on top.

Roof of the castle, home to executions of all various types.

After the castle we wandered down the hill and through various gardens, which is the location of our encounter with Scary Homeless Man. We finally arrived at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, which was built in 1929 for the Worlds Fair and it was incredible. I didn’t get a great picture, but here’s a picture of part of the building and then a view of the city from the steps of the museum.

View from the steps of the museum, looking down on the fountain and plaza:

It was a great weekend and I feel like I know the city better. The weather was incredible, which I am now very thankful for considering that it has been cold, rainy, and windy for the past four days. I am going to a nearby town, Tarragona, this weekend and spending time with the daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren of my host family, so hopefully the weather will clear up by then!

Still missing everybody every day, hopefully these updates aren’t too boring! Lo siento!

continuation of the last update

Here is an explanation for the last picture from the last blog (right when I was getting kicked off the internet)

This is a shot of two of my friends, Kate and Maggie, walking through the narrow streets of El Born District, which is located within Barri Gotic. (to give you a reference to how old the “old town” is, Barri Gotic was the location of the Roman reign of Augustus starting in 27 BC). The first two weeks of my time in Barcelona mostly consisted of wandering through Barri Gotic finding cafes, museums, and shops. Good food, but the shopping doesn’t appeal to me (shopping never has appealed to me and European shopping doesn’t do it either). The central feature of Barri Gotic is the cathedral (see picture below), which was built in 1298… interesting fact: this was the location of the baptism of six native Caribbean who were brought back to Europe by Columbus in 1493. Columbus landed in Barcelona when he returned from his trip, and Spain thinks this is very important.

The Cathedral at night:

Another addition to my last post:

Here is a picture of Sagrada Familia (mentioned above) from the outside. Every inch is as intricate as this, and Gaudi’s detail like this explains why it’s still not finished (started in 1883). It also indicates his intense Catholicism, and how he probably did drugs when designing his stuff.

Sorry for all the nerdy historical detail in these updates. My friends make fun of me for always having my travel book out reading about everything we see, and making them listen to me explain all the significance behind stuff. I think I get this incredibly annoying trait from my father. (I have also picked up his habit of reading every word written in a museum, no matter how worthless it is)

I will write again soon about my past weekend... but this is all for now.
Congratulations to all the Bears fans (my relatives); I heard they will be playing in the Superbowl. I think I´ll be in London for the game but I think the game will be at 1:00 or 2:00 am so I don´t think I´ll see the whole thing.

Love and miss all of you,
Laura

despues dos semanas

Well two weeks in Barcelona and I haven’t quite managed to update this blog. Initially it seemed like staying in touch this way was a good idea, but now it’s daunting and difficult to explain these past two weeks to whomever is reading this. Instead of giving you the rundown of the first two weeks, I’ll let you guess that I came here, moved in with a family, started intensive Spanish classes, blah blah, and each day dealt with this culture a little bit better. Nevertheless, I spend every waking hour wondering how I got here and why everything works the way it does here. I thought studying in Western Europe was the path of least resistance when it came to studying abroad, but either a) I’m naïve to the number of differences between western Europe and US, or b) I’m less able to adapt to new situations than I thought. I will organize my thoughts regarding this strange city by providing a list of the things that I think are completely bizarre/ entertaining/ wonderful in this city.

First, here´s a picture of the city taken from the top of Sagrada Familia, a church designed by Gaudi that is still under construction.

1. For the first four days I was here, I was completely convinced that street signs do not exist. On the fifth day, a Spanish student named Elle who is paid to hang out with American students pointed out to me that the names of streets are located on little plaque about the size of a 8.5x11 piece of paper on the side of the building on the corner. Ultimately drivers in cars on the street would never be able to see a street sign. Furthermore, if the building happens to be rounded where the corner should be, or has windows, or deco, there simply won’t be a street sign. All streets run diagonally and random and I thank God every day that I will never have to use a motorized vehicle in this city.

2. There is a phenomenon of all things westernized and Americanized that has materialized in “Corte Ingles.” Imagine a beautiful old building in Barri Gotic (the Gothic Neighborhood/ Old Town) that is now a department store. But not just any department store. Imagine five Super Wallmarts stacked on top of each other in the middle of a Gothic Neighborhood. This place is insane. Five floors of mass chaos. I bet there are literally thousands of people in Corte Ingles at one time, right around 8:00 pm (rush hour) any given evening. You could live in Corte Ingles for your entire life and never be without a material object that you desire. There is a supermarket, a pharmacy, a post office, 3 restaurants, all the clothes you could ever need, a locksmith, a Hallmark, the equivalent of an OfficeMax and a BestBuy… and that’s just the part I’ve seen, floors 1 and 2. And you’ll pay too much also… a tube of toothpaste costs 5 euro, and you have to multiply that by 1.30 to figure out how much that is in American dollars. This place is by far the worst aspect of Spanish culture.

3. Every Spanish celebrity is a futbol player. When FC Barcelona is playing, every person from in Barcelona acts the equivalent of what I imagine my family would act if the Cubs were in the World Series. And from what I understand, when FC Barca beats FC Madrid, if you’re not partying and out in the streets you’re either senile or paralyzed… or foreign. A girl from my program touched Ronaldihno at a club on Sunday and my Spanish teacher said “she would pay a million dollars to touch him.” Creepy.

4. Spaniards are the laziest people I have ever encountered. Shops open at 10:00 or 10:30, if they feel like it, and promptly close again at 1:30 pm for siesta. Then they might open again around 3:00-5:00, but you can’t count on it. Restaurants serve lunch from 2-4 and dinner from 8-10 and if you want to eat when normal people it, you’re out of luck… only McDonald’s serves food throughout the entire day. On Saturdays about 60% of stores/restaurants are open, and on Sundays virtually nothing exists except sleeping and walking. I was out exploring last Sunday and it took me and a friend 45 minutes to find a place that was open and serving lunch. My host mom sleeps until noon and then takes a nap a few hours later, and from what I heard that’s pretty typical across the board for Sunday with all the host families of kids in the program.

5. If you suggest in public that Catalan is a useless language, you will get punched in the face. The region of Catalonia (Barcelona and the surrounding area) truly believes that they are not Spanish, they shouldn’t be associated with Spain, and their cultural identity is fierce. There is virtually no diversity (completely bizarre for a city!) aside from twenty-somethings studying abroad, and if you go to a café and ask for something in Castellano (standard Spanish) there’s a chance you will get blown off. I can only compare this to French Canadians trying to form their own country, and experiencing such intense nationalism and pride is sort of cool, but they also have a way of being very snooty and obnoxious about it. Someone suggested one of our professors was Spanish and he said “I’m certainly NOT Spanish, I was born in Barcelona, not Madrid, I’m Catalan, mi Dios (my God)” My host mom is French and she thinks Catalan is ridiculous, but if she said that to her friends she would be in trouble. (but being French she believes that the only city worth living in is Paris, so she’s got her own arrogance going on)

6. Order water at a restaurant and it’s $2.50. Order a latte (café con leche) it’s $1.50. Order a glass of wine (and here they fill up the glasses, no wasting time with half a glass) and it will cost you $1.00. So basically you could have two and a half full glasses of wine for the same it will cost you for some water.


Ok, I got a little caught up with expressing the strangeness of Spain. I will stop now, but first I’ll throw in some more pictures…



My bedroom:

I´m getting kicked out of the computer room, but I´ll add more later!