1) I saw more Americans than Spaniards. I'm not exaggerating. This was a very touristy city (as one could assume), and Spanish is barely even spoken. Even when we attempted to speak Spanish, everyone spoke to us in English. It was interesting.
2) I saw half of the GW population. While this was very nice to surprisingly bump into my GW friends in a city across the world, part of the reason I went abroad was to have a break from GW and make some new friends. It was great seeing people though, it was very weird to be sitting outside eating lunch when all of a sudden my friend from AEPhi walks by! And then this happened again at every bar and club I went to! I even saw people from my camp! It was unreal.
3) Barcelona is the real city that never sleeps. It probably wasn't my best idea to go there the weekend right before midterms, but oh well. The nightlife is insane, it is normal to be out until 6 am every night of the week. Sunday, our flight left at 6:55 am, so we went straight from the club to the airport (with a quick pit stop at the hostel just to pick up our stuff). I'm still catching up on sleep from this weekend, and returned with a pretty bad cold, so I don't think my body would have appreciated an entire semester there.
Now, I'll give a quick play-by-play of the weekend's events. Friday evening we arrived and checked into our hostel. It was our first legitimate hostel experience- bunk beds, one common bathroom, etc. Not exactly what we're used to, but it was clean and in a perfect location, and we weren't sleeping there much anyway (we slept there a total of 5 hours the whole weekend...). After getting settled, we walked around until we found a hole-in-the-wall tapas place, where we ate some great food for a surprisingly cheap price (unusual for Barcelona). That night, we met up with my friend's friends, and we all went to a club where I happened to see my friend from camp, as well as a bunch of people from GW. The club was huge, packed, and a great time.
Saturday, after waking up early to take advantage of the hostel's free breakfast (which was just toast, unfortunately), we headed out to sightsee. I have never done so much walking in my life, but we managed to see alot of the city. Barcelona is known for Gaudi's architecture, which is extremely beautiful and unique. We first went to La Sagrada Familia, a church Gaudi began to build, but died before finishing, so it is still unfinished. We didn't have the opportunity to go in, but the outside was gorgeous. We then walked to Parque Guell, which is basically on top of a mountain, and you get a gorgeous view of the whole city. After stopping to eat, we walked along Las Ramblas, a famous pedestrian street of shopping and restaurants. We walked around a really cool market with every type of food stand you can think of - fruits, juice, smoothies, candies, meats, etc. They even had a stand with animal body parts, including heads, tongues, brains, and hearts. It was disgusting, but fascinating. After this, some of our friends had told us about a beer festival by the beach that was supposed to be cool, so we walked for about an hour trying to find it. We finally found it, and the line was absurdly long, so we decided to pass after all that. At least we got to have a long walk along the water, which was very nice (and a bit chilly compared to Seville...).
Saturday night was another crazy one. We first went to this famous bar called "Chupitos" which is the Spanish word for "shots." Here, they had over 200 types of shots, and it's a secret of what is in each one. My favorites were the Pop Rock shots and the Boy Scout shots. The Boy Scout shot consisted of lighting the bar on fire, roasting a marshmallow, dipping it in a shot, then eating the marshmallow then taking the shot. The Pop Rock shot was when you put the candy pop rocks in your mouth then take a shot and listen to the pop rocks sizzle. It was an odd sensation. Their most famous shot is the "Monica Lowinski." This is a shot that i did NOT partake in, but had the lucky opportunity to witness. I am not going to get into details of what this is (use your imagination..), but let me just say it was hilarious to watch. After Chupitos, we went to Catwalk, a club right by the beach, which was just as cool as the club the night before.
shots at Chupitos...Bob Marley on the left, Boy Scout on the right.
the market on ramblas...don't those animal parts look appetizing?
the views from Parque Güell
La Sagrada Familia
In conclusion, while I am still recovering from my crazy weekend in Barcelona, it was definitely worth it. It certainly deserves the reputation that it has, and I'm excited to go back for longer with my parents in a few weeks so I can see what else the city has to offer.
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