Long time, No Blog

Hola from Barcelona! I know I haven't kept up very well with this but it takes FOREVER to upload the pictures. Over the past few weeks I have spent 2 weekends here in Barcelona (including Halloween) and 2 weekends away, which I will get to in the next few posts. Here are some pictures (in random order) of some of the exciting things were have done in and around the city.

One of the fridays, our program organized a "modernisme" tour of many of Gaudi's works. Including La Perdera, which is where we took the next few photos. If you cant tell, the weather in Barcelona was AMAZING, until monday.

Here is a view from La Perdera of Sagrada Familia and towards our apartment.

Yes, they actually based storm-troopers off of these guys.

The roof was like a crazy dream with all these sculptures and statues. I liked it ALOT and it was really interesting the way all the pieces flowed.

This is another house designed by Gaudi just down the street. Lucky for our apartment, we live about 5 minute walk from each.

That afternoon, we got Bo De B, my new FAV fast food restaurant in Barcelona. It's really nice to just sit on the post office steps with a sandwich and watch all the bums.

That next Thursday, Barcelona experienced torrential down-pour. Well it was more like a waterfall was coming out of the sky. Unfortunately, my balcony flooded with 2 inches of water and leaked into the room next to mine. Here, Aly is playing cinderella (janitor) and mopping up her room.

Here is a group of us enjoying a Barcelona Landmark, CHUPITOS. Yes, a shot bar.

We had a Monday off school recently for another nameless Spanish holiday (read: reason to party) and decided to take the 40 minute train ride to Sitges. Sitges is a stunning beach city just south of Barcelona famous for its huge gay population and a major film festival. We enjoyed the best calamari I have ever had and the major sunshine all day.

The walk along the beach in Sitges.

The weather was truly incredible!

We have been enjoying the Barcelona nightlife a lot since midterms just ended. Here I am with 3 of my friends just before going out!

On of my favorite things we've done so far is go to a winery! This reminded me so much of home.

Here they specialize in Cava, a Catalan champagne-type drink. It is SO delicious!

See just like home!

We had to toast to the view and the cava!

Another group shot

Here I am enjoying the Cava.

They really dont celebrate halloween like we do in the states, but we decided we all wanted to dress up. Naturally, I was a cat. My friend Heidi here was a black widow! So, basically we were the same thing

I felt it important to keep character all night. I can not tell you how many pictures I have of me making this anime-type face.

Another night at the local Irish bar, George Paynes!

Here is Alex and I at my FAVORITE place in Barcelona. Xampaneria, or Champagneria, has delicious tapas and cava by the bottle, and boy is it CHEAP!

Until next time....

SWITZERLAND

Our most recent travels took us to SWITZERLAND.

We started our journey off with an early train ride from Geneva that dumped us off in the capitol of Switzerland, BERN. We took a sunny walk around the charming streets. The main city center is almost completely encircled by a river so there are many beautiful views of important buildings and

Here is one of the beautiful rivers surrounding the city center.

Yours truly enjoying the Swiss life.

Defying gravity at the Einstein Museum. Yeah, we didn't actually enter it just looked at it from the outside and got a little smarter.

Had to include a picture of the famous Swiss Chocolate. I basically lived off it for the two and half days we were there.

A beautiful panoramic picture I took of Bern.

After that we took a train to Interlaken where we spent a majority of the trip. It looked just like Disneyland or Land Before Time. All the pictures and postcards in the world can't even do it justice.

Here we all are hiking through the beautiful Swiss farm country to the gorgeous Trummelbach Falls.

Here is a beautiful waterfall on the side of a cliff we we hiked by.

Here is one of the famous cave waterfalls. They were so beautiful!

View from the top of our hike!

A group of us kids posing in town.

The next day we went canyoning. Canyoning is where you Get all geared up and go into rivers that go through valleys cut by glaciers. You repel down huge boulders jump over waterfalls and slide down natural water slides.

Some happy adventurers!

From the town of Interlaken we had this stunning view. Tell me that isn't perfect!

The adorable downtown of Interlaken.

OKTOBERFEST

PROST! To Oktoberfest. Last weekend a group of 9 of us journeyed across Europe to Munich to partake in the "cultural" and "historical" festivities at Oktoberfest. We crammed 9 of us into a little hotel room for 3 nights and 3 days to cross Oktoberfest off of all of our bucket lists, and boy was it worth it. We started the two days at the fest at 5 in the morning. Here is the drinking team in our matching uniforms before the sun had even come up. That is what I call dedication.

The train station where we caught the first train over to the Munich city center. If you can tell, that right there is the beautiful German sunrise.

We waited in line, if you can even call it that, for about an hour until they opened the doors at around 8:30 am. We luckily chose a really good tent where there were a ton of young people that liked to sing and dance and chug. This is a picture of the beautiful Hacker tent. That in the middle is the gazebo where a polka band played German drinking songs that we would mutter along to.

Here I am with my very first litre! Such delicious beer.
Here is my friend Lindsey and I with our German friend who got kind of mad when we called his outfit a costume.

Here is one of the best parts of the festival. These PREEEETZLES were the size of your head and just as delicious as they look.

On day two, we decided to check out another tent. This is Lowenbrau where we got another early start.

Again, with a polka gazebo in the middle.

Enjoying my second day's drink of choice, half bier- half lemonade. FULL DELICIOUS

We made alot of friends from all over the world. Here are some of our Italian and Irish friends.

Prosting to our second day of fun!

The rides at the festival were INTENSE. Therefore, we HAD to ride the highest swings we've ever seen.

View from the top.

Heidi and I couldn't stop smiling!

All in all Oktoberfest was one of the funnest times I have ever had and probably ever will.