3.on the beach 4. in park guell
5-6 park guell
7. door at la sagrada familia 8 la sagrada familia(back)
9 inside sagrada familia 10 outside it(front)
11 catherdral 12 monseratt
13 mountains, 14roof of casa batllo
15-16casa batllo
17 roof of casa batllo 18 roof of casa mila
19 CASA MILA!
Barcelona basically amazing! everything about it is different, exciting, artistic, incredible. My favorite city so far.
1.OK first day there, we take the airplane and land like 7ish at night so its pretty dark, but it was WARM! and in spain so i was happy. before we even landed i said i love this country i want to move here someday its so beautiful. ok but then we get off the airplane and then get on a bus. the airport is like 1 hour from barcelona. Then seriously as we started to get into the city we were all like WOW look over here, look over there, it was amazing. So after that we met up with our spanish pen pals we have had all year. Most of the kids stayed in there families so most of the kids left then. It was pretty funny watching the swedes great the spanish, since they like to kiss your face and the swedes get very uncomfortale with that, it was awkward haha but its culture so i liked it. then when all the other kids left, they remaining 7 ventured our way to the hostel thing we were staying at. so we got to walk through barcelona at night and it was soo cool. then we went to eat. TAPAS of course. we ate alot of tapas which are appatizers and really good. i ate so much bread and nachos and everything it was good. then we went home and to bed.
2. We met at plaza de cataluna so we got to walk La Rambla which is the biggest street in barcelona, like huge tourist attraction, it goes from the statue of christopher columbus to the plaza de cataluna, and we lived like 2 blocks off of it. So we met the others there and then half of us went to Casa Mila and Casa Batllo, and the other half went to camp nau and the olympic stadium. I of course went to casa mila. This has to be my favorite thing on the schedule we did. Ok some history. both of the Casa's were designed and built by Antonio Gaudi which is a very different architect, he was very art nouveau. He was inspired alot by nature, and casa mila's walls look like waves and he also used no straight lines in either building. they were built on aches and pillars and he is incedible. Casa mila has his roof and on top you can see alot of the city, and its like a playground up there, random staircases and arches and the chimney stacks look like sci-fi warriors and its really incredible, i really loved it up there, i oculd spend all day up there. i have a little bias about casa mila since i did a project on it before we left so i knew alot about it and i could apprectiate it more. Then we went to casa batllo which is by gaudi, to be honest i was a little dissapointed with it, pics of it make it look so colorful and bizzar and what not, but i was way more impressed with casa mila which most people dont really think about as much as this one. you have to pay more to get into this house then mila. but thats probably just becasue of my bias. But it was still incredible, the outside of it looks like something in disneyland or something, its so colorful and looks like a dragon kind of. It was really cool and im super impressed with gaudi! then we went to lunch then we went up to the school of our pen pals. that as interesting. so let me just say i dont speak spanish, i dont understand it doesnt click for me so i had some difficulties when ever we hung out with our friends. luckily i had juliana to help me and save my butt a couple of times. Anyway my friend was Vanessa, well i had a pen pal but something happened and we never kept in contact and i dont know what went wrong there so when i got to school i met vanessa. she is so nice. but yeah we just listened to there projects and they would speak catalan so we didnt understand at all and it was crazy, after all the swedes came up to jul and me and was like now i know how you must feel in class at school and everything, i think now they realize that learning a language isnt an easy thing to do, like they have taken spanish for 4 years and they still couldnt understand what was being said, when i have never studied swedish at all. Then after school the spanish wanted to meet up and shop then eat. so we went with them and went looking in some shops, we were like a group of 50 so it was pretty insane going into stores and what not, but it was fun. then we went and ate tapas and the kids are so friendly i had a good time out with them. then we went back and tried to sleep. oh its funny the swedes were not used to the concept of eating dinner at 10 at night, they usually eat at 6 or 7 so they would look so tired the next morning, i did to im sure, but its cool the different cultures.
3.Today we met at the school to go up to monserrat. so we took a bus like an hour into the mountains. and we had to sit with our pen pal and i was trying to talk to her but it just got so confusing, i was trying to explain how i had a friend from barcelona and he inspired me to go on exchange and how i wanted originally to go to spain on exchange, but apparently thats really confusing and she did not understand my shit spanish and i couldnt understand her at all, so juliana had to be our 2 way translator hahah, it was a mess. anyways we get there and the mountains are so beautiful, like huge spicky rocks coming out of the ground. it was beautiful, but it was raining really hard and was cloudy and what not so we couldnt see so much of the view. So then we were supposed to hike the mountains, but it was raining to bad to we went to the monestary and watched the boys choir sing. it was kind of sad because some of the boys were like 7-8 and were practicing monks, i didnt even know that kind of thing was still around. OK the history of monserrat, someone saw a huge light in the mountains along time ago so they went to investigate and they found a statue of a lady and a child sitting on her lap and then they made it a very sacred place and bulit a monestary up in the mountains, so it was a very sacred place. then we went to a museum, then after it was pretty clear so some decided to do a fast hike out to this cross thing. so me and my friend basically ran up this mountain to this cross just goofing off taking pictures and having fun and we get there and its so beautiful, we are up in the clouds and the view was so cool, it would have been better with the sun but the fog gave it something mysterious. it was cool. then we took the bus back and then we met up with the spanish at maremagnum which is a mall in the harbour. so we went shopping. funny story. OK so we were in a souviner shop and one of the spanish started to talk to me and i thought he asked me if i liked anything in this store, and i thought i said, no not in this store but other places. then he was like "otro paises!!" and so then i started saying how i dont understand and what not, then i thought about it all night and turns out he really asked me if i like barcelona and i said no i like other countries. hahaha i was so embarrassed and then i tried talking to juliana to practice what i should say to him so that he knows i love barcelona and with her i ended up saying, i love myself alot and that im dumb in my house as i pointed to my head. so after that catastrophe, i decided to not try and speak spanish for everyones benifit.
4. so since it was still raining we decided not to do the beach walk and instead we walked around barrio gatico. its like a really old part of the city and the streets are really narrow and its like a maze in that part. its really old buildings and random streets and what not, really cool. then we went to the cathdral and it was so beautiful so we spent some time there and looked at gooses and gardens and statues and saints and everything, it was pretty cool, but i wanted to do the beach walk, but i enjoyed myself. then after we had a 3 hour lunch and most of the kids wanted to shop and walk la rambla which me and juliana did alot already so we didnt want to so we asked if we could go to La Sagrada Familia, and the teacher said yes so us three got to go see that. IT WAS ABSOLUTLY AMAZING! wow. ok La Sagrada Familia is Gaudi's last project, and its been in the building process for like 100 years now, like and its still not finished, they dont think it will be complely done until 2026, its insane and so much detail and is so beautiful. like just look at pics of it, its insane. i dont even know how to describe this place, just look at my pics on facebook http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=707045736&aid=283946 i have alot of pics on facebook that you should check out because a pictures worth 1000 words and everything is so indescriblable. but anyways, this place blew my mind away, you walk in through these 2 huge doors that have words all over it, i think it actually says something but its in spainsh so im not sure, then your inside and the ceiling goes up for ever and its like really white and the pillars are so beautiful and pointy at the top and the ceiling is so introcate i cant really describe it. then you go to the back side and it looks like a melting candle and there are scenes from bible stuff all over it and its so crazy. Gaudi is like crazy insane, its kind of sad that he'll never see this place finished, its awesome! then the teacher left us there and we had to find our way to park guell. it wasnt hard and we did it no problem. Park Guell is also another part of gaudi's insaneness. SO we got there pretty early and walked around to the top of this hill and there was a cross on top and you can see over the whole city, and there was this crazy guy singing it was funny. then we continued our walk to the main part with a bench that you can see the city. this whole park is on a hill so you can see so much of the city its awesome. then we walked to the highest part and yeah breathtaking of course. then we just kind of explored the park and had fun for a while there with the spanish kids. then we went back to there school becasue they made us tapas to eat. it was fun to hang out with them, and after dinner the group of like 50 went to a pub to play pool and chill and talk our last night together. it was a really good night, but it was sad to say goodbye to our new friends. but they are so nice and i will never forget them or this trip.
5. today was nicer and we had sometime in the morning so juliana and me did the beach walk. i went in the mediterranean sea!!! it was cold, but the beach was really nice and it was warm and i never wanted to leave, but we didnt have that much time so after playing in the waves a bit we walked paseo maritimo around the harbour with all the boats, by the statue of christopher columbus and back to the hotel to leave. then we had to walk back to the bus station, so we walked around and stoped in this park for a bit to sit and enjoy the sun and the heat and it was really sad to leave. i never wanted to leave Barcelona, there is still so much i want to see and do there, its absolutly amazing, i really recommend it for everyone to go there before they die. its amazing! then we took the bus to the airport and then flew home to sweden where it was snowing and really cold, but its home for now.
