La Mercé

La Mercé is a 5 day long fest denoted the most important in Barcelona. Its like the 4th of July on steroids because there are SO many free activities you can't even come close to seeing it all. We decided to start at the traditional parade of the Gigantes (giants if that was too tough for ya). If you can tell, this particular Gigante was good ol MJ himself. As you can see, he is appreciated just as much in Barca.

Here is a picture of some friends and I waiting for the metro with drink in hand in true student style. In this instance, I am obviously the giant.

This is just mid-parade on La Rambla. Literally Midparade, we decided to walk in the parade like we were helping, even though I'm sure we made it more difficult for the Gigantes.

Here is my friend Coco in front of the farmer Gigante!

The metro was PACKED if you cant tell. So packed, that this here group of people broke the industrial strength escalator.

We heard there was a little house music concert down at the forum. And as many of you know, if I hear the words "house music" and "free" in proximity of each-other, I will be there with out a doubt.

In case you cant tell, the little house music concert turned out to be a MASSIVE show with thousands and thousands of people. It was incredible!

All the suckers stuck behind us!

During the day at La Mercé, there were castellers. Castellers are people who create human castles that go stories high. If you can see these were a good 6-7 people high held up by nothing but human strength. There were always little kids on the top which was super scary because one of the tries the little kid fell off! But dont worry, as you can see there were tons of people watching and waiting to catch.

More castellers.

After watching the Castellers for a while at placa san Jaume, we went to the fav sangria bar to take full advantage of the 2 for 1 special. Dont worry, they did the trick.

Blown up dragon and his "little" egg at Parc Ciutadel

Up next...OKTOBERFEST

MADRID!

For the weekend of September 19th our program (GSE) took us all to Madrid. It was a LONG 8 hour bus ride from Barcelona to Madrid, but luckily most of us slept a majority of the way. This is Heidi and I on the bus almost finally there.

The first place we stopped was Plaza Mayor, please observe the tubby spidey wandering around the plaza.

Of course we needed to get a picture with the legend.

Next stop on the tour was Museo del Prado. We saw alot of really famous paintings and learned alot, but by that time we were all so exhausted we didnt get to appreciate it.

That night we went out in Madrid for Heidi's 20th. Unfortunately the night life didnt compare to Barcelona!

The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn to go to the Valley of the Fallen just outside of Madrid where the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco himself laid.

Its hard to grasp the size in the pictures but that is the largest cross in the world!

From there we went to El Escorial which was a residence for the king of Spain and also a monastery. It was incredibly huge and housed some beautiful art and architecture. We werent supposed to take our cameras in but i snuck a few.

The beautiful gardens at El Escorial

I snuck this photo inside the church it was amazing!

That night was a huge festival in all the streets of Madrid called Noche en Blanco. There were concerts everywhere and all of the famous sights and museums were open until LATE. We decided to go to the Palace because we heard it was quite the sight. We were the last people to be let in at 3 am!

Unfortunately we were only given a tour of the kitchen. Which would have been great if there wasnt tons of freshly dead carcasses hanging and smelling everywhere! BUT I did find a little piece of home in all of these cake pans!

We then had to walk around for a good 2 hours just to find a cab home because we thought the metro was running all night. Apparently it closed at 330, but we got a good tour of the city on foot that night.

All in all i have to say Madrid has a lot of history to offer, but I still like Barcelona a lot more!

Calling Spain Home

Having been in Barcelona for almost 3 weeks now, there is more to say about all the adventures than I can even recall. Luckily, my friends and I have been taking MANY pictures, making it easier to remember all of the amazing things we have done!

After having a few snafus with my flight here (the plane literally broke!) touching down in Spain was one of the most anticipated and anxious moment imaginable. I had a hotel room to myself for the first 2 days which was scary but exciting at the same time because it was dead in the center of the gothic district.

8 roommates

Lindsey, Alex, Aly, Me, Lauren, Gina, Chloe, and Heidi

Meeting my roommates (all 7!) and all the other student on the program was like the first day in the dorms all over again, but luckily we all clicked right away. We got to our apartment/loft quickly after and walked around with our mouths open in awe for about 20 minutes.

View From my Balcony

Other Side of the Street

Lauren and I in the huge apartment

We have a huge apartment in a fabulous part of the city within walking distance of Gaudi's house, La Sagrada Familia, and Hospital de Sant Pau.

We have gone on a few guided tours of the city but my favorite part so far has been waking up before all the other girls and wandering the city by myself.

I go to the Universitat de Autonoma de Barcelona which claims Hospital de Sant Pau as it's campus. The school thus far hasn't been too hard but I am taking 8 hours of spanish a week so hopefully I will return knowing a good amount. One thing I do love is the coffee here! It is so strong and flavorful.

All 6 of us being tourist-y

Heidi and I at the Barceloneta, the beach

At Placa Catalunya

We already have a favorite sangria bar

The 6 of us at our beautiful school, Hospital de Sant Pau

The Cathedral

First Day in Barca at Parc Guell

The beautiful port

Sagrada Familia, walk by this every day to school

The fountain at Parc Citadel

This last weekend 4 of us took a little 48 hour trip to Ibiza, an island just off the coast. It was the craziest and most exciting 2 days of my life. I feel like the only way to describe it is if Vegas and Costa Rica had a baby and it was raised by Spain. We met people from all over the world that were there to enjoy the season because alot of the big clubs are only open from May until October. We were really lucky because we got to meet James Blunt, Erick Morillo, Dr Dre, and David Guetta (one of my favorites!).

Me, Heidi, Aly, and Lauren in Ibiza

View of Beautiful Ibiza

The 4 of us and Dr Dre

So far I have had the time of my life and taking advantage of every opportunity that has come my way. As most of you know I sleep alot at home, but here I have barely even been sleeping because there are so many things going on at every hour of the day.

This upcoming weekend were going to Madrid with our program. Then the weekend after that we are meeting up with some of my friends from school in Munich to go to Oktoberfest!

I will be sure to keep this updated as often as possible and take alot of pictures!

See you after Madrid.