Everytime I leave Italy, I find it hard to break the "grazies" and "ciaos" that so eagerly and naturally flow from my mouth. It takes a good 24 hours before I can start with "gracias" and "holas". I flew to Barcelona this weekend for a relaxing weekend on the coast with James. This blog post will be brief only because we had a quiet weekend of eating and enjoying each other's company combined with a little touring.
Ryanair flies from Pisa to Girona, two cities (cheaper, I'm sure) with small airports not far from the larger cities of Florence and Barcelona, respectively. So, I took a train from Pisa early Thursday morning, a flight to Girona, and a bus to Barcelona where I was supposed to meet James. After a fun night out, the boy overslept his alarm and had no way to get in contact with me. I am known for my plans, and in this case, third-back-up plan. I found myself at the bus station only with my luggage and some free wifi. After an hour of waiting around and a quick-address-look-up, I hailed a taxi and went to our hotel. Only 30 mins of Spanish MTV had to occupy my time before I got a call from James at the bus station. To the average reader, this seems like no major feat, but a diversion in a plan can send this Type A personality over the edge. And I could've taken this stress out on James when he arrived, but he brought Geoff, a Davidson Kappa Sig studying in Barcelona, with him to buffer the brunt of my wrath. In reality, we had only missed each other by a few mins, but I was proud of myself for being resourceful and not getting upset or angry. #abroadlessons
The three of us headed out for a 3:30 lunch. Luckily, this is almost appropriate in Spain. We spent the rest of the evening getting settled and taking a walk down Las Ramblas to meet Geoff and Myki for a late Chinese dinner. You'd think that by now I would have learned not to wear shoes that I am not certain of their comfortability out on what could've turned into a long night. After a 5:45 AM wake-up and a 6 blister evening, I pooped out on our "night out". Friday, we found a cute little lunch place where we spent all of our lunches in Barcelona testing out different cuisines. We decided to tour the city on one of the hop-on, hop-off buses. A tour of the port and some of Gaudi's architecture filled our afternoon followed by a night of people watching, 11 euro glasses of Sangria, and tapas on Las Ramblas. Saturday, we took the bus that takes tourists out of the city center to La Sagrada Familia (Gaudi's famous and unfinished church), Park Guell, and the Barcelona Club Stadium. We ate a yummy seafood dinner in the port (and a chocolate crepe if that wasn't enough). Sunday, my flight wasn't until around 7, but because of the additional transportation, I had to head to Girona at 3:30. We enjoyed a quiet lunch in the rain. Otherwise we had beautiful, sunny, 75 degree weather all weekend -- that's the kind of November I like. We tried to fill the time between check-out and bus-departure with some Spanish TV watching in the lounge of our hotel and we ended up on a cooking channel. Truly, food is universal.
I wasn't expecting the vastness of modernista architecture around every corner. Even our hotel boasted a modern white and black theme with red-lighting. Definitely a modern yet cultural city. I told James Barcelona seems to be a bustling city with a productive economy (unlike the rest of Spain unfortunately) but somehow able to preserve its rich Catalan culture. Barcelona proved to be the perfect place for a relaxing weekend without the overwhelming number of must-sees (like Paris or Rome for instance).
This weekend (and the next) we are in Florence! Our group heads to the Designer Outlets and the AC Milan vs. Florence soccer game on Saturday before all of our Davidson friends come to visit for Thanksgiving, a weekend I've been looking forward to all semester. Like I said when my family visit, it'll be nice to share all the reasons we love Florence with the people that are important to us. After that, only a few days until my 21st birthday, Sicily with James, finals, the back to the States. A little over a month to go and I'm appreciating everyday that I have here.
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