Short update

So after ancient castles, Roman arenas and aquaducts, fields of sunflowers, monasteries and gothic churches, amazing food and cute towns, we have finally finished up with beautiful Provence and its amazingly nice people and headed towards Nice. Nice has been an interesting little city, much bigger than any of the towns in provence, and is a cutesy little french town with tons of sidewalk cafes and tons of little shops (as well as all of your high end french designer fashion super stars like louis votton dulche and gabonna however you spell those things and others) the beach boardwalk was very pretty but there was no sand, simply rocks that heated like an oven under your butt. so it was a nice place to spend a half day but I am ready to move on. So tomorrow is an almost all day train ride to the awesome city of Florence, I cant wait to see what is in store for me there!

Meeting up with the Family

So my days in Barcelona are officially over :( I took my spanish final, had a few fiestas with my friends and then bid them goodbye. well technically barca is not completely over because I am going back for one day, but essentially over. My dad and marlys came out for a few days, took the roommates out to some awesome place to eat amazing seafood, and I took them on a tour around the city. Then my mom and John and kelly came out so I took them around barca as their official tour guide showing them some of my favorite things that I have experienced over the past month. From cool sites such as Arc de Triumf and La Sagrada Familia, to good food such as doner kabobs and this place CDLC, to entertainment, sights, and plenty of cool Gaudi. I think they got a good feel for the city and hopefully they had a good time, even if I did walk them about ten miles every day.

So we took an early train to Southern France and are currently staying at a nice hotel in Sant Reme de Provence which is South of Avignon. Intial prognosis of France is the following: the food is absolutely amazing. It comes awesomely prepared and is some of the best dishes I have had. The wine is awesome and cheap, the people are really really nice (I know right! maybe its cuz we are in small cities or something) the landscape is awesome, and its unbelievable the history that is behind this place. We went and visited the castle fortress of Lea Baux which was first built in the 12th century. The ruins still show an awesome amount of history and turmoil. We also saw a monastery first built in 98 AD and also visited ancient Roman churches and arenas. And this was only in our first real day here! Its a good thing we rented a car which allows us to get from place to place much easier. Tommorrow we are going to visit some wineries as well as one of the biggest Roman acuadeucts. There is other stuff ont the agenda, but I let the parents figure it out, it is nice not having to do all the planning for the first time in a month. oh and its also awesome not to have to really pay for anything, yeah it will only last so long but ive got to take advantage of it while its here.

In two days we are going to drive over to Niece and spend a day there and then take a train to Florence. I am extremely excited for what lays in store for me. This place is as different from Barcelona as I could possibly imagine, but it has so many awesome qualities that Barca didnt. Oh, and btw, this language is impossibly hard. But everyone here sounds so cool, their language is so beautiful, they even manage to make english sound good with their accents! The only things I know how to say are hello, good-bye, good night, good day, and the check please. Yeah it makes things a little difficult but we manage haha. well this was only a short post as Im sure a lot are going to be from here on out but hope everyone is having a good summer!

David

Last week in Barcelona :(

So this is officially my last week in Barcelona which is kind of sad, and I cant believe how fast this month has flown by. I have done things every single day here and there is still things that I havent had the chance to do. Well to update you on the past few days...

I went to Madrid this weekend, and decided it was a cool city, but different from Barcelona and no where near as cool. It is a very big and crowded city, very modern. There were a ton of banks and financial districts, i didnt like the architecture anywhere near as much as barca, it just seemed like a really big city. One thing about it that I thought was cooler than barca was the fact that it was an extremly clean city, and also the fact that there was lots of green mixed in with the city (trees bushes parks and actually a prak with a lake in the middle that you could rent paddle boats and paddle around) We stayed in a relatively nice hotel in the city center and prob the best thing I did there was visit the Palacio Real which is the royal palace there. It was an absolutely incredible building (the inside) there were gold plated tapestries and gigantic silver chandiliers and the coolest paintings everywhere. The entire building was completely over the top decorated with wild things, gigantic carpets and every room had different themes to them. It was another place where you couldnt take pictures which was unfortunate cuz its hard to explain it but if you have ever been to hearst castle it is similar in design.

I also went into the Prado museum because it is supposedly one of the best museums in Europe or something, but I was honestly really bored. It was a bunch of paintings (mostly religous) from a long long time ago (14th to 19th century)

I also went into the photographic exhibition of Annie Leibowitz who took photos of many famous people/things (one of her popular ones was pregnant demi moore for vanity fair i believe) but it was really cool and interesting

Then I was suppossed to fly home to meet up with my dad and marlys, however I forgot my passport and they said they wouldnt allow copies. So I had to scramble around trying to find a way to get back to barca and eventually got to the train station and took a high speed train back home which took only 2.5 hours (9.5 by bus and 1.5 by plane so it was a pretty cool way to go)

Then the next day with my dad we went around the city, got a good lunch, went down to the beach, checked out a few cool sites including some old catholic churches and roman fortress (stuff ive already seen earlier) and the cool gothic quarter, then went and saw this light show at Montjuic. It is Belagio like display in the middle of one of the squares and was pretty cool.

The next day we must have walked at least 10 miles, covering the entire city from one far end to the other (using a lot of metro of course) We went up to the highest point in barcelona called Tibidabo. There is a cable car that takes you up a good portion of the mountain (which we couldnt find and ended up walking the entire thing) and then a car/tram thing that is pretty vertical jutting through the side of the mountain that takes you the rest of the way up. Up at the top there is an amusement park (i know random right?) and some bars and restaurants and this early 19th century church with a statue of Jesus looking over the city which they allow you to walk up the windy staircases and get to the base of his feet. It was an amazing 360 degree view, and I didnt realize that behind barca away from the beach are lots of green mountain/hills which are really pretty.

Then we went back to the other side of the city and got onto this gondola-like thing that was built to connect Olympic village and the new modern area to where they built the stadiums and swimming pools etc. It was another good view from the other side of barca, and went over the harbor and dropped you off right down by the beach.

Then dad and marlys took my roommates and I out to eat at this amazing restaurant right on the Marina and we got a schmorgesborg of amazing seafood. It included everything from mussels, octopus, hake and other fish I have never heard of, to my dinner platter of lobster paella, which was probably the best thing I have eaten yet in Europe. The roommates and I then went out with lots of people from our program and had a fun night.

Next on the list is my Mom, John and Kelly coming out for a visit for a few days. I have a ten min oral presentation tomorrow morning which I made a cool powerpoint for earlier today. Thursday is my final and the family coming out (which is going to really help since I am running out of money much faster than I expected out here, too bad the dollar is so weak) so it will be nice to get some good food and take them around and show them my city for a few days before Italy. I dont know how much I am going to be able to blog after my program ends, but I will try to keep up with it as best as I can. Have a good week and see you soon Mom!

David

Relaxing week

So after my previous crazy weekend, I have the feeling that everything is going to seem pretty mellow from here forward. So far this week has been exactly that. I went to a few museums, the Museo de Maritim (which is a museum built from an old shipyard down by the harbor, and has lots of replicas and many preserved old items from Barcelona's maritim history. They were in fact the power of the sea a few centuries ago, and there was a lot of interesting information) and the FC Barcelona football museum, where they have the Champions Cup (the biggest award in club soccer, basically winning the Super Bowl here...) and got to see the 120,000 person stadium. It was absolutely massive, with all the seats packed together. I couldn't even imagine the place filled to capacity, with hundreds of thousands of screaming rambuncous fans. It is one thing I really wish I could see here.

Another day I went up the 200 meters to the top of one of the towers of La Sagrada Familia and had an excellent view of the city, albeit from a very precarious position. I also went to the Gaudi designed Parc Guell, which was originally designed to be a country club for elite Barcelonians, but after the financier died, the city commissioned it and turned it into a public park. It is a strange, almost fantasy land like park with weird houses that look like gingerbread house, cool sculptures, a leaning towers, strange caves; basically a very strange and surreal park designed by the cities most famous arcitect.

Other than that it has been a very mild, relaxing week where i seem to have done a lot of walking/exploring around districts and finding cool places to eat. Tommorrow our class is going to do an exchange thing with another spanish school where their students are learning english, and we are going to talk with them and do activiteis etc which should be really fun. After that I am going to take a train up north to nicer beaches away from the city and see how they are. This weekend I have an excursion with my school to Madrid, we are taking a 9 hour bus right (ugh!) and then get to stay in a hotel and the next day get a tour of the city. My dad and step mom are coming out this weekend as well so I am going to fly home early to show them around a bit. So, have a good weekend and ill try to post some pictures up if I can!

David

If you want to check out the video of my run, here is the link 

http://sanfermin.com/

look at videos or click the guy getting mauled (that was from my run)

Craziest weekend of my life

So I just had the craziest experience of my entire life this past weekend. I will try to give you a quick run through but I am tired and have early class tomorrow so I will go into a little more detail in a future blog.

We saw the tour de france on thursday, I camped out in the rain for 2 hours to get a good spot on the inside corner of one of the biggest turns on the stage through barcelona that was actually walking distance from our apartment. It was pretty incredible, I was close enough to touch them as they screamed by and I actually freaked out a little bit when the pentalon came through because I held my camera out to far over the side and the first person had to swerve a little bit. But it was really cool to be that close to one of the biggest sporting events in the world.

Later that night we went to a concert put on by the biggest DJ in the world right now, DJ Tiesto (he's from Sweeden I believe) he plays this crazy electronic techno dance music and builds the crowd into a frenzy it was pretty wild. There were probably 4000 people in one of the biggest clubs in Barca but it was so packed you had a tough time moving.

Then we caught the early train to san sebastian and hung out there for basically 2 days. It is a cool little beachy town that reminds me a lot of Santa Barbara. The whole town has a really laid back vibe and everything is slow moving. The food there was awesome, I forgot off the top of my head what there famous dish is, something with an x in it oh well. I got to see my buddy from school there, hung out in a cool hostel and then caught a bus to Pamplona, adorned in the traditional white pants white shirt red belt and red bandanna around your neck.

San Fermin (running of the bulls) was the craziest 24 hrs of my life. There is a gigantic party where everyone is dressed all the same run around crowding the street hanging on balconies bar hopping and just having a blast. The popular drink there is red wine mixed with coca cola and you put it in this wine satchel and spray people in the streets with it, it was pretty wild.

After a quick nap in the park with tons of other people, I proceeded to make my way down to the street where the running of the bulls takes place. the street were absurdly crowded and very narrow, and I had no idea what to expect. we started our run right after dead mans corner and waited a little bit letting people run past in order to be able to actually run besides the bulls. Suddenly you heard thundering hooves on concrete and everyone sprinting towards us and knew that was the time to take off. soon enough 5 of the 6 bulls went sprinting by me about 4 feet to my right. we then followed them into the sold out 15000 person stadium where everyone is cheering and chanting. The last bull finally made it into the stadium (after mauling and goring 5 people, one very badly) and then they have a festivity.

They release one bull at a time (he jumps over a group of people sitting on the ground in front of the release gatte), with corked horns, and let him run around the stadium attempting to buck people. Everyone tries to run by and touch the bull (except if you grab his tail the crowd starts booing and chanting puto because it is really disrespectful to the bull) I was able to slap one of the bulls on the butt a few times, but then one of our friends got bucked pretty hard and so we jumped out of the stadium to take care of him. after a 9 hour train ride i am back home, alive, with no gorings, and ready to chill in barca after a wild weekend. talk to everyone soon.

Arc del Triomf, parc de la Ciutadella, Jardins de Fontsere, Parc Zoologic, Museo de Picasso and Esglesia de Santa MAria del Mar

So as you can see from the title of this post, I have kept myself very busy the past few days. I visited the Arc del Triomf which is this gigantic arched structure in the middle of these three really beautiful parks. It is pretty amazing and was supposedly a "triumphant" accomplishment (hence the name) because the finished building it on time, something like 40 years...I will try and post a picture online of it, but if not just look it up, it is really cool. The parks around the area were tranquil and beautiful, it kind of reminded me of central park with this peacful scene of people lounging around, playing games, excersising, relaxing and talking, smack in the middle of a bustling ruidoso city. There were also a few museums but since I went on monday I was not able to go into any of them. There is also a zoo with some thousands of animals, however I think I wil pass on that one considering we have one of the best zoos in the world in san diego.

The next day I made a trip down into one of the older districts and saw the Picasso museum. A few cosas sobre lo:I dont like museums that much, so this wasnt the most exciting thing for me (the Dali museum being a great exception) I never really liked picasso that much either, i thought he was just a weird expressionis, cubist artist. But i heard it was something worthwhile to see so I went. I took away a few things from it first off, I didnt realize that Picasso was actually an amazing artist, he didnt just paint weird cubist things. The museum contained most of Picasso's earlier works, from when he was a little biy until around his 30 somethings. In this time he went through many experiemental phases where he tried many different artistic styles. He copied famous styles from his era and the ones earlier than his, mastered them and then got bored and experimented doing differet things. So it was kinda cool to see him progress through the beginning of his life and how he kind of morphed into the strange cubist style he is mostly known for. I was not allowed to take any pictures (there were actually guards in every single room) so there is not any visual evidence of what I saw there...

Then I checked out the Esglesia de Santa Maria del Mar which is a gigantic gothic catholic church in the middle of what is now a cute shopping district. The church was amazing! the walls were covered in stained class windows (some which were upwards of 50ft tall) and the ceilings were upwards of 100 feet. There were many statues and scultptures etc and the whole scene was very somber with locals there praying and buring candels saying hail mary's etc. It was very dark and I therefore was not able to take very many pictures either, but it was a really cool thing to see.

For the nightlife, we found a cool Irish pub called George Paynes, went to an "Ice Bar" where you need to put on a parka and hat (its 4 degrees celcius) and gloves and go inside this freezer where everything is made out of ice-the bar the tables the counters the glasses the seats (with fur on top of it) the ground, everything! it was really cool but you couldnt stay in there long because it just got too cold after a while. So hopefully you enjoyed the update talk to you soon!

David