Barcelona: Gratis No Significa Gratis

My last big excursion: Barcelona.  This is also probably my second to last blog post since I return to the states in 10 days.  But let's drop the countdown because life is better when you don't fixate on the future or the past and just live in the present.  That is actually similar to the ideology of Gaudi, a Spanish, Barcelonan, architect from the late 1800's.  But more on him later.

We woke up bright and early on Thursday, missed our classes, and headed to Barcelona via plane.  We made a killing, 32 € round trip.  That's unheard of anywhere else.  So we land and we take the metro, which is super easy to use, and find the street near our hostel called Las Ramblas.  This is actually one of the main streets of the city and it had lots of street vendors and La Boquería, a marketplace where they have fresh food every day at low prices.  This became our new favorite spot and I even got to try out some pitaya, or dragonfruit.  The first thing I bought was a dragonfruit slushie.

Next, we had heard about this Museo de Chocolate, or in Catalan (a dialect of Spanish) Museue de la Xocolata, or in plain English: The Chocolate Museum.  A quick side note on Catalan: Barcelona is in a section of Spain called Cataluña and their official language is actually Catalan.  This means that all of their signs are in Catalan, which I can make out some of the words because it is so similar to Spanish, but there are definitely words that threw me for a loop or two.  There was (and still is) a time when Cataluña wanted to be separate from Spain and be their own country.  Nowadays, if you see a bandera, or flag, with 4 red and yellow stripes with a blue triangle and white star, it is someone who supports the nation of Cataluña. The official flag of Cataluña is without the blue triangle and star.

Let's return to the Chocolate Museum.  Upon entry, you receive a free mini chocolate bar, which was good because I was getting tired.  Then we walked through where we found out about the manufacturing, the history, and what chocolate can be used for.  We also saw exquisite art made entirely by chocolate.  There was Spongebob, Tom and Jerry wearing the two Barcelona team shirts, and even a model of the Sagrada Familia.  We'll talk about that beautiful thing later.


After we finished in the museum, we went to their cafe and sat down and drank a coffee.  After about 20 minutes, la camarera, or the waitress, came over and brought us a pile of broken pieces of chocolate.  They were going to throw it away, but because we were there, they gave it to us.

Then we went to Park Guell, a Gaudi creation, on a hill that overlooks the entire city.  It was simply amazing.  We stayed there for hours and even made friends with a kid from New York.  We just talked and watched the shadow come over the city.  Then we took the metro back to our hostel.

That was essentially our first day.  Now, onto the free tour.

On our second day, we went to this plaza where we utilized Runner Bean tours, a "free" tour group that asks for donations at the end.  On this Friday we chose the Gaudi tour.  He is the most famous Spanish architect and has constructed plenty of the buildings in Barcelona.  Gaudi really is a genius.  At every stop your breath would escape in awe.  But the cherry on top of the cake is the Sagrada Familia, which means the Sacred Family.

The Sagrada Familia is a huge cathedral that is still in the process of being built.  Estimates say that it will be completed in 13 years for the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death.  The reason that it has been taking so long is because Gaudi was meticulous in his execution.  There is so much detail on the outside depicting the nativity scene.  But the outside is nothing compared to the inside.  The inside has brilliant stained glass and columns that reach all the way to the top an then branch off giving a tree like sensation.  It looks so modern and is definitely the best church, and even basilica that I have ever seen.

After we saw the basilica as thoroughly as possible, we went to the pier.  Here, we started to hear music, so obviously we followed it and happened upon a free concert.  We stayed and chatted with Spaniards and listened to this alternative rock band that the audience loved.  Though we ran into two French people who thought that the band stunk.


So that was day two, and with all the walking and metro, we were exhausted.  But we still had one more full day, so we had to take advantage of it.  We did another Runner Bean tour where we explored the old part of the city.  This is where they had the cathedral and other churches and the Jewish quarter.  We saw roman ruins built right into walls of places where people currently live and, since it was wedding week in Barcelona, we saw future grooms dressed up in dresses.


After the tour, we went to the Picasso Park which is right next to the museum.  It was really relaxing, but we actually almost got attacked by a family of geese.  The little geese-lings were walking around and eating near where people were sitting and the parents were hissing at all of us and at one point it looked like they were rearing up to attack us.

When we were done with the park, we started walking back to our hostel, but we came upon a wine tasting.  For 5 € we got 6 glasses of wine from all over Spain.  It was a lot of fun and I realized that it would've stunk to have gone to Europe and not have done a wine tasting.

Later that day, we returned to Park Guell and drank some beers and played cars and looked at the city.  We met up with our friend from New York and he joined us in a game of President.  Everyone has their own rules on how to play, but mine are definitely the best.  And since they were my cards, we played my rules that have been passed down through the Cotton family.  Unfortunately, I didn't represent and the girls we were playing with were dominating, but it was still extremely fun.


We got a little tired and decided to go to the hostel to nap for an hour.  Unfortunately, we napped too long and it turned into a 9 hour sleep.  We woke up and got packed and went to the airport to fly back to Granada.

Cádiz: Muchas Personas en La Bañera

Where we last Jacob on his adventures through Spain, he had just climbed the interesting mountain El Torcal.  On his dramatic descent, he closed his eyes and went to sleep for two hours.

When I awoke, we were in Cádiz. It was 9:00 PM, and we could see the sun setting through the clouds that were covering the majority of the sky.  We had looked at the weather report before we got there and were expecting a full day of rain for the following day, Saturday.

Once we landed at our hotel, we dropped off our bags in the hotel.  Not being one to waste any time, I told me roommates we should go out on the town and find something to do.  We left in search of a place to find a beer or something and we happened upon a small pastelería, or baked good shop, that sold Cruzcampo, a beer that beer-enthusiasts wouldn't touch with a 20 foot pole.  We took our beers to the beach and found a jetty, or éspigon and climbed out to the end of it.  We drank, shot the breeze, and just relaxed.  Drops of water would bounce off of the rocks and land on us like a mini rain cloud and the waves kept the rhythm in the background.  This was a great way to start a beach vacation.

The next day can be described as RAINY.  We had a panoramic tour of the city, historically known for the only part of Spain that Napoleon could not conquer and where the first Constitución de España was signed exactly 200 years ago in 1812.  We followed the tour guide and saw some monuments while fighting some strong winds and sometimes even stronger downpours.  Half of the group opted to stay in the bus when we needed to walk around, but not I.  The first place we went to was El Museo de Cádiz, which has ruins from the Phoenician times, which was a really, really long time ago.  Before the Greeks!


After the museum, we went to the cathedral, which was definitely one of the simpler churches we've seen thus far.  They did have a crypt under the church that held two saints, so we obviously had to go down there.  What I found more interesting was the echoing.  It had a sort of whisper spot where I could here my friend whisper from across the room.

Unfortunately, after we left the museum, the rain hadn't ceased.  There were puddles everywhere that formed a layer of water.  I immediately regretted wearing shoes instead of flip flops.  We swam, practically, to the bus stop and took the bus back to the hotel.  Needless to say, we were soaked through and through, so we changed right away.

Instead of putting on actual clothes, we put on bathing suits, t shirts, and grabbed a towel.  Even though it was still raining, or should I say downpouring, we didn't want to miss a beach day.  We ran across the street to the beach and started throwing a frisbee.  We tried to keep running to keep the blood flowing, so we ran back and forth throwing the frisbee.  Then we decided that it was too cold and that there was no way that the water could have been colder. We ran full throttle into the ocean.  Turns out it wasn't unbearable at all.  We actually spent more time in the water, but we soon became cold and returned to the safety of the hotel.  Within an hour things had changed.

The sun was out, it was warm, and it was only 4:00 PM.  We returned to the beach to make the most of our day.  Slowly, people from my program joined us and tanned and just relaxed along with us.  After, we decided to actually go into the town.  There was not a cloud in the sky.  We walked along the beach and we found this tide pool where there were many starfish, sea slugs, and coral pieces.  Though marine biology isn't my forte, I had a blast playing with all of the little creatures.  We also got to see the sun set, which means it just went over to the United State because Cádiz is on the Atlantic.  It was really nice.

After the sun set, we ventured through the city to find food.  The first place we went to had fried fish, a favorite among Cadizians, but moriscos, or seafood, aren't my favorites.  Then we went to this classy burger place.  When I say classy, I mean it was nicer than five guys, but still not a 4 star restaurant.  That really quenched my hunger and we all decided to go home.  On the way, there were these fountains that changed color.  I had to stop and look due to my ADHD.

We got back to the hotel and decided we wanted to go swimming again, for the third time that day.  We got dressed in our suits and went into the water.  It was far colder, so we only ran in and then out.  Then we just sat on the beach and looked out into the ocean.

Sunday, an actual beach day.  We started the day off with a boat tour of the Cádiz Harbor which was really nice because we got to see the city from the water.  It lasted about an hour, which didn't feel like long enough.  Then we took advantage of the day and went straight to the beach.  I really didn't come to Cádiz for anything other than the beach.  I had a field day here because I found so many things wash up on the shore.  This included the remains of: una pez, a fish, un anguila, an eel, and un congrejo, a crab.  I won't show you the pictures because they are kind of disgusting.  But this was essentially our adventure through the beach paradise of Cádiz, my second favorite city of Spain thus far.  Tomorrow I leave for Barcelona, which will be my last big trip for the semester.  I'm sure you will get a long post about that as well, so keep checking back!

Playas, Cruces, y Piedra

Hi all, it's been a while since I wrote and now I have a decent amount of things to write about, so here we go.

Firstly, I went to a beach town last weekend called Nerja.  It's also known for its caves, but since this was a day trip, we didn't get a chance to see them.  Instead, we walked around the town and settled down on a beach.  Unfortunately, I fell asleep in the sun and got a pretty bad burn that has since healed.  It was still a lot of fun and it definitely has the best beaches within Granada's reach.  The sand was really fine and the weather and ocean were beautiful.  We actually took a minute and submerged ourselves in the Mediterranean.  All in all, it was a great beach day and I'm glad I can cross that off my bucket list.

Fast forward to this past week.  We had a half day on Thursday due to Día de la Cruz, a day dedicated to the cross that Jesus was hung on.  All over Granada were crosses decorated with red flowers.  Then, there would be scenes or objects or signs set up around it.  One common one was an apple, manzana, that was stabbed with tijeras, scissors.  The symbolism here is that apple is also known as pero in Andalucia, which is more commonly known as "but".  By stabbing it, the people of the church are saying that you shouldn't have anything bad to say on this day.  If you find yourself saying, es bueno pero-- you should cut yourself off.

Alhambra at night

This is also a big festival for the Albaicin, the originally Muslim area of Granada.  It feels like a big hike to get up there, but we made it up eventually and started Tapas Hopping, a term that is like bar hopping, but since tapas come with the beer we call it Tapas Hopping.  I wouldn't say that the food was better nor were the drinks cheaper, but it is something to say that you've been Tap-hopping in the Albaicin, ok I just made Tap-hopping up.

Friday, we are on the road to Cádiz, my favorite other Andalucian province besides Granada.  As you may recall, I went there for Carnaval back in February and I fell in love.  Since that's a blog post within itself, I'm going to save it for later.  However, I will talk about El Torcal, this interesting mountain range.  There is a legend that people from under the sea were banished by the sea god to live up in these mountains.  The scientific aspect is eerily similar.  Now, without going into tectonic plates, let's just say that he earth moved in such a way that pushed what used to be the sea floor up.   Since this material was softer than normal earth, the wind and rain carved a unique design that makes it appear as stacks of rock pancakes.  It was amazing and really fun to hike up.

At the end, we got to see the view of Málaga, and Andalucian province, from really high up.  We could see the capital, Málaga, and even the Mediterranean, though only faintly.  This is because the weather hadn't been too great.  We hit two patches of rain on the drive to El Torcal, but ultimately, the weather calmed itself while we were at the top.  There were a few people who slipped in the mud, me only barely, but it was still a hike worth doing.

So, that's all of the news I have for now, but expect the Cádiz post very, very soon.  It'll be worth the wait.