The first day was literally miserable, we were all freezing and rather unprepared since the guides and faculty had told us that the weather would be warmer (it was literally about 35 degrees and windy). We first arrived in Montblanc, a fortified royal town that hd once been under the direct jurisdiction of the king. It has a castle wall that surrounds the entirety of the city. It was really beautiful, though at the present state that I was in, it was hard to concentrate on the historical significance of it when my fingers were about to turn blue Quite unfortunate, but it was very pretty. We were also able to have a taste of cava, which is just what the Spanish call their form of champagne since they didn't want to copy the French in the use of the term. Anywho, we also went to Poblet and Paraje Natural, where we were able to see these beautiful austere chapels and monasteries.
Paraje Natural was a little humorous because they had told us that we were going to hike. A lot of us showed up prepared to hike with athletic clothes and tennis shoes, but when we arrived, we saw that the 'hike' was actually a leisurely stroll on cemented ground on a slight incline up into this forest area. The guide was this lumberjack-type guy with this long golden hair and scruffy beard thing. He went through this thing where we'd walk and then he'd stop and talk a bit about he mountain area, then walk and then stop to tell us more information about the area we were in.
At one point he stops us and is like: "Here is a waterfall..." We all looked down and its literally like a 3 foot tall 'waterfall'. And the most hilarious part about it was that we didn't even have a destination we were hiking to. It was literally like we walked for an hour, then just turned around. It was altogether quite pointless, if you ask me. We then checked into hotels in Tarragona (the entire program obviously couldn't fit into just one hotel--there are 400 or more of us, so we were separated into 4 different hotels based on our spanish level). It was funny that we were all trying to find a place to go to that night because it wasn't like Tarragona was exactly party capital compared to what we had all already experienced in Barcelona, but of course we went out and it seemed like the entirety of IES was in this Highland pub. It wasn't that interesting, even though they had live music, so we ended up leaving early.
The second day, we woke up early and walked around Tarragona itself, to the Roman Ampitheater (SO cool....probably the most worthwhile thing I saw on this trip), the circus, city wall and cathedral. The rest of the time, we went to the MNAT museum (which wasn't that great....I like museums but this one wasn't exactly thrilling..) and the Local Forum. At the end, we got dinner at the hotel and my friends and I went to bed early since we were feeling sick from having been freezing the day before.
The third day, we went to some more Roman ruins and then went to the waterfront for lunch. It was really beautiful and it was a bit surreal because the landscape was so breathtaking. We spent some time on the beach (it was a beautiful day too....it was about 60 degrees and sunny) and walked to this peninsula that was about a mile or two down. We had paella for lunch and it was delicious! We then went to this winery for wine-tasting and a tour before we headed back to Barcelona. The wine there was delicious...apparently its a winery that has been in business for over three centuries. I've decided that I really like white wine, the red wine doesn't sit as well with me as the white does. I wish I could've gotten my parents a bottle, but I figured they'll be here soon and it would really be a royal hassle to try to get alcohol back to the states since on that side of the world, I'm not exactly legal to drink.
Anyway, it was an alright trip in the end. I was able to meet and get closer with some friends, and I also realized that my floormates in my dorm are really like a family. When we all arrived back home, we ran and gave each other hugs and were talking about how much we really missed one another. Haha we really are like a dysfunctional family, we're all so different yet we all just work well with one another. We have a functional dynamic, I guess.
Oh god, well on that really corny note, I'm going to take a shower and go to bed. I'm planning on going to Interlaken, Switzerland this weekend! Maybe/Hopefully I'll get to do some extreme sports, if financials/parents/weather allow. More later!
Wonderful pictures. Sounds like you are having a great time. Wish I could have tasted some of that wine and Spanish Champagne and, of course, the paella. Glad you are among the survivors in the Spanish class!
ReplyDelete