Bonjour
tout le monde!
Jours
28-31
May
19-May 22
BARCELONA
This weekend was my optional
student travel weekend of my study abroad, and I had the wonderful opportunity
to go to Barcelona! It was such an amazing trip with amazing people, I had the
time of my life there.
On Thursday, May 19, my
group that went to Barcelona (Dina, Stephanie, Jessica, Melissa and me) left
straight from class to the airport. Our flight was supposed to leave at 3:30,
but of course, I was at the airport when the airport workers were on strike.
Classic Paris. So, unfortunately, our plane got delayed three hours. Then we
got there, had to take the metro to the complete other side of Barcelona, and
got to the hotel. Check-in took a while, there was a little bit of a mix up
with the room, but our lady Jennifer who ran the little hotel/apartment place
was probably one of the nicest people I had ever met. Finally, we left the
hotel at 10:30 to go find some food. After searching for forever for a place
that was good that was open, we just stopped at this hamburger place next to
the Place de Catalunya. Let me tell you, these hamburgers were actually the
best hamburgers I have ever eaten, probably because I hadn’t eaten anything for
the whole day.
 |
| Place de Catalunya |
The next day we started out
early and were on the metro by a little after five. We started our day getting
a little lost while trying to find the Park Guëll, but we eventually made it
there. This park was so pretty, and we were able to climb to the cross which is
in many of the backgrounds of post-card photos of Barcelona.
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| The view from the Cross at Park Guëll |
After, we walked
over to the Sagrada Familia, which was a beautiful cathedral. Unfortunately,
there was a lot of construction going on and the wait to go inside was over two
hours so we didn’t go inside.
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| Sagrada Familia |
After we went to lunch at the place called Brunch
and Cake. This place was also delicious; I swear my favorite part of Barcelona
might have been the food we ate. We had delicious smoothies and I had an açai
bowl in a pineapple, enough said.
 |
| Our lunch at brunch and cake |
After, we went back to the
hotel and rested for a bit before heading back to the Place de Catalunya. We
walked through the gothic quarter and went inside the Cathedral. There was so
much music and a lot of little performances going on in the gothic quarter it
was so much fun. We ended the day at the beach until sunset, and got a dinner
at a little restaurant near the beach.
 |
| The cathedral in the Gothic Quarter |
 |
| At the beach the first night |
The next day we ended up
leaving a little later than hoped, but that’s okay. We saw the arc de triomf of
Barcelona, and I have to say I think I might like it a little more than the one
in Paris.
 |
| At the Arc de Triomf |
We then headed over to the Place de Catalunya and walked down the
Ramblas and ended up the Columbus monument.
 |
| The Columbus Monument |
After, we spent the whole afternoon
at the beach. The water was actually a little colder than expected, but it was
so wonderful to be able to relax in the sun and I loved every second of it. I
had some Paella for dinner, and it was just a wonderful relaxing day.
 |
| In the freezing water |
The next day, Sunday, we went to the Monastery of Montserrat. However, we
missed our train by one hour so we went to the Place de l’Espanya and saw the
beautiful Art museum. After, we were able to catch the train to the Monastery.
This monastery was completely beautiful. Actually, the view from the Monastery was completely beautiful. We were able to
take the gondola up to the monastery and were very surprised when there was
actually a little town up there. We got some lunch, went inside the monastery
and took some pictures.
 |
| The view from the Monsatery |
We took the train back right when it started raining.
After the monastery we tried to go the Castle Monjuic, but you had to pay for
another gondola and we didn’t want to do that twice. We want back to the place
de Catalunya and got our luggage that we had left at Jennifer’s apartment. We
got some things for dinner and headed out to the airport. By 10:30 we were at
the airport and set up camp next to some outlets. We ended up sleeping at the
airport because we had a flight that left at six o’clock in the morning. Let me
tell you sleeping at the airport is NOT fun. The ground was hard and cold and I
essentially got no sleep. However, I was able to sleep the whole time on the
plane without waking up, which has never happened before so that was nice.
Overall, it was an amazing weekend.
Differences
between Barcelona and Paris:
Obviously there are a lot of
differences between Barcelona and Paris: The language, the country, the
environment. However, the biggest difference was the ambiance. Over here in
Paris, people are very melancholic. They take the train to work, work, and go
home without seeing any of the city. They wear all black, and tend to look kind
of sad. However, at Barcelona everyone is happy. People talk on the metro, they
wear bright colors, they smile, it was all very different. Also, the metro was
a lot cleaner than Paris, however, they were not nearly as many stops as Paris
and so everything was much farther apart. This meant it took a lot longer to
get places. The food was also a lot different here. In Paris, there are
Mcdonalds, but they seem so out of place next to all of the cute cafés. Here, restaurants
are very similar to the United States and they have much more of a modern feel.
Actually, when I first got out of the metro my friend, who lives in Santa Rosa,
remarked that it had a very similar look and feel to a bay area city, except
for of course the language difference. That all being said, I definitely prefer
living in Paris. I love the feel and the history and the people. I love it
here, even when it is pouring rain like it was when we got back from Barcelona.
À Bientôt,
Claire Hunsaker
