Ttibidabo

So this entery will be brief. I am not sure how many of you saw Vicky Christina Barcelona, but there is one scene where they go to and old amusment park that looks over the entire city, if not no worries. Anyhow on my last full day in Barcelona I went there. It was perhaps one of the most amazing sites in Barcelona. You have to take a cable car up, to a tram and then tram to get up the mountain. Then once you make it up there it is absoulty huge! So here are a few pictures from our day trip up the mountain.

Cable Car

Then the tram

The church at the top

Fairist weel and view of the city

View of the mountians behind Barcelona

Views of the city

Mom and Mel come to BCN

Two weekends ago my mom and Melody came to Barcelona for a whirlwind weekend full of shanagines, eating, running around the city, and bonding with me! This was really a treat for me and I have to admit one of my favorite weekends in Barcelona. Partially because I got to show them around Barcelona from the view point of someone who has been living here. It was really cool, it taught me how much I actually knew about the city. This entry is not going to be full of too many words partially because I am about to grab dinner with my family soon.

Warning this maybe a bit disjointed partially because my room is a mess right now and I am having serious problems focusing, but anyhow here it goes.

Day 1: We started the first day walking around Las Ramblas and Plaza Real, then seeing the Cathedral, and Santa Maria del Pi (another church in the Bario Gotico) then grabbed traditional tapas, which we ended up eating lots and lots of.

Day 2: Picasso Museum with the group, there was a special exhibit of Picasso and Degas here so we also got to see that. Then it was more wondering around Barrio Gotico, Born, and near Las Ramblas. Then we hopped on the metro and headed over to Passeig de Gracia for a girls lunch with Chessie, Anna, and Anna's Aunt and Grandma. Then it was back to the house to nap and regain energy. Then it was off to Sampaxa (a chocolate shop which is just too yummy for words.) Then it was off to my host family's house for a dinner. Which was a blast! We brought over cupcakes! Which turned out to be a major success.

Girls Lunch

Family Dinner

Day 3: Was quite the day! We started at Sangrada Famila only from the outside and then went hopped on the tour bus and took it to Park Guell, which was spectacular. It has a view that looks over the whole city and is absolutely amazing. Parts of it look like ginger bread houses, and trees, and I think pictures will better demonstrate then my words can. Then it was off to the Boqueria: el mercat. Here we ate lunch at one of the many restaurants here and afterwards ran around picking up different, sweets, cheeses, meets, and pastas for dinner that night.

Sangrada Familia

Park Guell

boqueria: el mercat

Day 4: Beach day! We headed back to lower las ramblas where we looked at some of the shops and then headed towards Mar Magnum and looked at more of the stands here. Then it was time for Paella! We grabbed lunch at one of the Port restaurants and got both a vegetable and traditional Paella - so filling! Then it was time for mom and Melody to step on to the Mediterranean sand. Then it was up to the Sangrada Familia again via the tour bus and time to go inside. Here gorgeous stained glass windows illuminated the inside of the Cathedral. Then some dinner and off to bed.

Day 5: After class my mom and I headed to back to Passeig de Gracia and went into Gaudí's Casa Batllo and went by some of the other modernist buildings around here. Then grabbed one last dinner together before she was to head back to the states the next morning.

Well that was a quick summary of the weekend... sorry if its boring to read, but words are not really my forte, especially at the moment. Caio for now.

Couples

This trip is flying by... and one would expect right now that I would have had an atractive spaniard and had a spanish romance. Unfortunatly, but maybe fortunatly for my father, I have not. But me still living in my fairy tale world found people who have found love in Europe....

Love

Young Love

Couple on the go

a stroll on the beach

couples weekend viewing the city

more couples

love in paris

just for a stroll in the park

odd couple

New-Newly Weds

Sevilla

When you think stereotypical spain you think about you are thinking about Sevilla. I am talking about bright colors, warm weather, yummy tapas, flamenco dancing, and well a huge cathedral. I absolutely loved Sevilla. Sevilla is located in Andalusia (aka southern Spain).

Well where did we start here is a weekend recap start to end! here goes nothing....

Well day one upon arrival we discover the massive amounts of orange trees! Yes they are everywhere and all I wanted to pick one so badly but I didn't partially because I wasn't sure I was allowed to and number two some of them just didn't look to yummy.

one of the many, many plazas in the city filled with orange trees

Next up we made are way to our hotel! Yes we where officially done with hostels and well this was a very good life decisions. Most of the hotels in Sevilla have some historic meaning. I'm not really sure what ours was, but they are all historic sights. We stayed in the Santa Cruz district which was the old Jewish neighborhood. It was filled with small streets that where just big enough for a motorcycle.

Next up we went to tapas for a pre dinner - and ate delicious food! next up we went to an amazing tapas restaurant where we ended up devouring numerous amounts of tapas and freakish quantities of deserts in a matter of several minutes. They where presented on a lazy susan and well we took this as these where all for us... wrong!! After eating all of them we look around and found that the other tables selected the ones they wanted and well they took the rest back. Oppsie daisy. Then we went to that restaurants flamenco show! Which was very casual but a lot of fun.

A tapas menu out side one of the many tapas bars

The next day we went to a few of the flee markets around town and then off to a museum and then the cathedral. The cathedral was spectacular. I mean it is huge and when you walk up the tower you can see all of Sevilla, its absoutly stuning. It also has flying butresses! which is something none of the cathedrals have in Cataluna... so it was kind of exciting to see this.

The Cathedral

View from the top... aka walking a 33 story ramp that went around in a square!

While in Sevilla Will's mom rented an apartment (she was visiting Will in Spain) and well invited us all over for tapas before going out to dinner! We went up to the roof which was a patio set up and it looked over the cathedral and well this was one of the most spectacular views I have ever seen.

What else the next day was low key just walking around doing a little shopping... or window shopping in my case. It was poring rain and we all got soaked! because non of us bought an umbrella... I was having the time of my life running around in the rain! but hey... thats just me.

That night we went out to dinner at the muslim baths and well this was a gorgeous building as well... a small hole in the wall restaurant, meaning you could walk right past it, but once you got inside it is huge! and had a spanish guitar player right by are table.

Walking around at night

Sevilla was such a relaxing low key weekend, filled with strolling through plazas, passing various buildings, eating an un-normal (I don't think that is a word, but thats okay) amount of tapas.

This was one of the castles we past that is in sevilla.. I really don't know much about it to be honest.

Walking around we saw this building

These are the gardins that we went through on are way to the airport!

Ohhh! Also before I foget... one thing I loved about Sevilla is how there where horse carriages everywhere to talk you through out the streets!

Well this was my trip to Sevilla in a nutshell! If you are traveling to Spain you must go here it was absoultly amazing!