Mucho Madrid y Barcelona....

Time has flown since my last post so I hope I can remember everything...
I've been trying to improve my Spanish by hanging out with locals more, and started off the week (two weeks ago) with a nice lunch on campus with my intercambio Natalia. Wednesday night I went with some people from my program to an exchange night at a bookstore by Tribunal. The night is hosted by a UC student studying at Carlos III and is meant to promote conversation among people learning English and Spanish. Most of the people there were late 20's, early 30's but it was still a good chance to practice conversation. Thursday night I had a fun night and went out to dinner with a Spanish friend at a really nice but inexpensive restaurant by Gran Via, had tasty mohitos in Chueca and went dancing in a pretty pijo (slang term for something like yuppy) club close to were we live by Salamanca. We got back in time for me to get some sleep and meet at the Royal Palace with my art class the next day. The palace has a beautiful large courtyard, and is opposite from the cathedral and next to nice gardens. Inside, the walls are full of Baroque decorations, frescos, paintings, wallpaper and sculpture. The throne room has seats where the monarchs stand in front of but don't actually sit on, and the ceilings are decorated with images from all the Spanish provinces. The palace even has its own pharmacy where the royal doctors prepared the meds! Next to the palace is the armory, and ruins of a Moorish fortress that stood on the site.

From the palace I used some downtime to walk through the beautiful Plaza Mayor, where they happened to be filming a movie at the time. But I didn't have too much time before I had to leave for the airport for Barcelona! Unfortunately on the way, the metro to the airport broke down, and I almost had a panic attack when our train started going backwards slowly and lurching in the tunnel..Luckily they fixed the problem in time and I made it to my flight.

After a short hour long flight to Barcelona, I met 3 friends at Las Ramblas, the tree lined paseo full of shops and monuments. In the center there are a bunch of stands and tourist traps, but it goes down all the way to the large column with the statue of Columbus at the top, on the edge of the harbor. After heading back to drop off bags at our faraway hostel, we met up with common friends from Berkeley studying in Barcelona. We had dinner at a tapas bar, and after wandering looking for some specific bar, went to a pub called the Oveja Negra. It had a cool atmosphere, but was full of tourists. The next morning, we took the metro to Casa Mila (in the picture above), the amazing apartment building designed by the Barcelona master architect Gaudi. The building apparently doesn't have a straight wall in the building, and is made of volumous forms and seaweed looking balconies. The roof has crazy shapes and mosaics, and you can look down into the inner courtyard that lets light into the apartments. You can see an impressive view of the city from the roof. Part of the tour took us to one of the apartments inside, which has natural light coming into every room, and has curved shapes on the doors, windows, etc. The design was just really cool and thought out! From the Casa Mila, we walked to the Manzana de Discordia, or block of discord, where there were several other Modernist buildings designed by rival architects. Even the lampposts lining the streets had cool curvy shapes and seats under them. Further on, we walked to see the huge Sagrada Familia church left unfinished by Gaudi. From far away it looks like a sandcastle made by dripping wet sand on the beach. It was left unfinished because Gaudi died before the construction was complete, and cranes and scafolding all around the building still show signs of the long years of construction left ahead. The building has a strange mix of styles and looks different from any other church I've seen. The tops of the spires have colorful fruit or wheat shapes, and the incredibly elaborate facade has religious figures telling various biblical stories. The most elaborate and interesting part was the facade that Gaudi had left finished.

From the Sagrada Familia, we met up with our other Madrid friend Janice and walked up the Park Guel, the Allison-in-Wonderland-looking park designed by Gaudi. The huge park is on a hill overlooking the water and the rest of the city. When you enter, there are steps that somehow reminded me of the Spanish Steps in Rome (but only in their shape). At the top, there is huge hall of colorful columns and more sculptures with colorful mosaics. In the sun, tourists and locals alike could sit and enjoy the beautiful view, and hike around the hidden trails and fantastic Gaudi structures. In the afternoon we walked through the Barrio Gotti, or Gothic district. We saw the steps were the Catholic Monarchs supposedly received Columbus on his return from the Americas, took a peak in the cathedral (though it was still half covered by scaffolding). After sampling some delicious local pastries, we continued on our way to another main plaza in the district with the city's government buildings. On the square an orchestra was playing traditional Catalan tunes, and groups of older Catalanians? formed spontaneously circles to dance around the square. It was a great show of the proud Catalan spirit. From there, we saw an even more magnificent church Santa Ana (I think that's the name), on the way to coffee and a ride back to the hostel. Dinner was on the Plaza Real at a delicious and very popular local restaurant. I called an old high school and Berkeley friend also studying in Barcelona, and he met up with us to show us some bars in the area. We met at the "tree bar" next to the city's wax museum. It was a bar decorated to look like a spooky forest, and had a cool vibe. From there we went to a chupita (shot) bar..and had a shot of "Harry Potter" and "Finding Nemo", complete with sparks and M & Ms to search for, respectively. But we knew it was time to leave when 90% of the bar was filled with obnoxious Americans. Our friend Janice called us to find her at discoteca she was at to celebrate her friend's birthday. After a long metro ride and finding the hotel the Villarreal soccer team was staying at before playing Barca the next day, we met up with Janice. A little negotiating with the bouncer later, we were dancing the night away...



The next morning we packed up, ate a hearty breakfast and metroed to the bus station next to Barcelona's version of the Arc de Triomphe. We took the bus an hour to the Ryanair airport, and were soon back in Madrid to catch up on homework and sleep in the afternoon. Overall I still like Madrid better, though walking around and taking in all the amazing architecture and beach views of the city were amazing. The city had a more relaxed, less Madrid bustle to it. It was definitely much more touristy, especially full with Americans. I felt like I hardly heard Spanish the entire weekend, though I did here a lot of Catalan that I don't understand! Well, I think I made the right choice to study in Marid but I hope to have more time to explore Barcelona again!