Tarragona!

So the entirety of the IES Barcelona program went on a 'study journey' to Tarragona, this bi-millenial city by the Mediterranean. Its most commonly known for the amount of medieval history and Roman ruins that are located all over the city.

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!

Casa Batllo....last picture of it I swear!

On the roof of Casa Batllo with the famous crests!

Elephant

This was taken at a club called Elephant. The place was beautiful and is actually right next door to La Pedrera, one of Gaudi's works, most famously known for having the iron-fence dragon. The main area of Elephant is this almost circular ground area with a bar in the center and the 'walls' are actually thick drapes so that in the summer time, they can be pulled up so that the whole area turns into a terrace. Anywho, these are some guys on stilts who were mostly at Elephant for the sole purpose of having pictures taken and showing a good time.

External View of Casa Batllo

The entire house is set up so that everything aside from the floor is fluid, mimicking water.

Blue Tiling in Casa Batllo!

I took this picture from one of the top stair levels, so cool!

A Ceiling in the MNAC Museum of Art

Updates and Highlights

So I've been bad about posting blogs on here recently, so I'll do a quick recap of the past couple weeks:
--The classes are alright, though a part of me is worried that I won't really learn anything of substance throughout this semester (aside from Spanish, obviously)
--The majority of the professors I have are not native Spaniards. My art history professor is a British man who walks a bit like a velociraptor (with the butt sticking out and his torso permanently leaning forward), my sport and society professor is another British man who seems pretty chill actually and my psychology professor is a Swedish woman who....isn't the most articulate of people but I am constantly impressed by her good sense of fashion.
--I just booked my flight to Rome for my spring break in Rome, Greece and Corfu!
--There are creepy men in Spain. We like going to clubs and bars, but some of these guys are really aggressive!
--I met someone who has a legitimate foot fetish, and it was creepy. This guy kept on bending down and pretending to tie his shoe when my friends and I were out dancing. When one of our guy friends asked him what the hell he was doing, he simply replied "I like feet". CREEPER.
--Gaudi is amazing (already a known fact, but my love for the man has definitely magnified). We visited one of his houses, Casa Batllo and its gorgeous. The tiling, the bubbled windows, the wood-paneled doors, everything is perfected to a tee. Even the bronzed handles on the doors are sculpted to perfectly fit the hand.
--I love all my floormates! In the beginning, it felt like the most random group of people thrown together to live in this dormitory together, but we've definitely gotten close over the past several weeks and we are really like a family. We have the most diverse group of personalities and yea some clash more than others, but we just work. We've gotten a good dynamic, I think.
--Life here is very expensive (also already a known fact, but i'm reiterating it).
--There are some crazy cool hangout spots here. There's a bar called Dow Jones here where it acts like a stock market. When the 'market' crashes, there are drinks sold for one euro each. There's also a bar called Chupitos which is a shot bar, except these shots are tricked out (some of them are shots covered with cream, drizzled with sauce, and lit on fire!). Another bar is called OBAMA (before Barack, surprisingly - its only called that because they wanted a name that sounded exotic...haha) and apparently theres a house band that plays covers of Beatles songs.
--I met some Spanish students! Well, one of them was a Spanish guy at a club who I guess might not completely count, but a friend and I took this hip hop dance class at my dorm and we met some nice Spanish girls who also live in our dorm. The actual class, though, was hilarious. I was half laughing, half dying the entire time because my friend and I had to learn 2 weeks worth of choreography within the period of 30 minutes. And of course we looked ridiculous but I was just impressed with myself that I was able to actually learn it within that amount of time!
--I've been utilizing my Japanese more than I have in a while! I ran into a few Japanese tourists at Parc Guell earlier this semester and asked them, in Japanese, to take a picture of a friend and I in front of a lucky lizard sculpture. And I've seen other tourists and listened to their conversations. And even on the plane ride over to Barcelona, I wrote in Japanese a congratulatory message to these two guys' cousin who was getting married in Israel and they were trying to collect as many different languages to say 'congratulations' as they possibly could.
--People are all in their own world here. Like actually, its ridiculous how I'll be walking down the street with a couple other IES students and these other pedestrians would literally almost walk into me so I'd always have to get out of their way. At one point I just saw what it would be like if I didn't move. Of course they basically ran over me. *sigh*.
--The MNAC is the most AGGRAVATING museum to get into, but it is seriously the most beautiful museum I have ever seen. Its in a palace!!

And.....I'm going to bed because I have to leave for a study trip to Tarragona tomorrow. Its from Thursday until Saturday, so we'll have Saturday night to have some fun. More later!