This past week was absolutely incredible...exhausting, but nevertheless incredible. The first adventure started early on Thursday morning as my roommate and I drudgingly stumbled out of bed to our 5am alarms, ready to get on a bus for the next 6 hours as we headed north to Toledo! Our school took us on this amazing excursion that was complete with a stop at the windmills of Don Quijote de La Mancha (for those of you who may not know, this book is very famous and is based right here in España), which was so cool because I am actually taking a class that is entirely on Don Quijote and therefore, this famous knight-wanna who has a run in with these so called "giants" that came to life right before my eyes. I love it when you can actually witness the things you are learning about in school...it's like the textbooks have come to life (cue the "magic school bus" theme song!).
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| Looking out towards the patio of the monastery |
We then made our way to our very nice hotel in Toledo to drop off our stuff and head to see the famous "El entierro del Conde de Orgaz" painting by El Greco as well as the monastery, "San Juan de los Reyes." I don't ever want to lose the awe that I'm instantly overcome with when I see the amazing detailed architecture and thought that has been put into all of these historical buildings.
Friday morning started with a hotel-spread lack of all things hot water. Yep, I am seeing quite the trend in my showers becoming encounters with icebergs here in Spain as when I came home from my weekend travels, I proceeded to have 3 more days of chilly showers! But alas, I am getting ahead of myself because the weekend did not end before first going to the Cathedral of Toledo on Friday morning and then 2 friends and I made our way to the beautiful Barcelona on Friday evening.
We made it to the hostel as very happy campers as the process of just getting there was an achievement in itself because the majority of people in Barcelona don't speak Spanish but Catalan, a mix of Spanish and French. It was as if we had stepped into another country! We walked in and were also instantly pleasantly surprised by the fun and cute atmosphere because you never know what you're going to get with a hostel....and they upgraded us from an 8 person room to our own private 3 person room for free! We were living the life at this point. We now had our own room to ourselves with what appeared to not be the cleanest sheets I've ever seen...and 40 cent loaves of bread, jam, and bananas to cover most of our meals for the rest of the weekend. What can I say, when traveling on Europe on a college budget, we go all out.
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| Me and Emma in front of La Sagrada Familia |
Saturday started off with freezing temperatures and...snow?! Once we began the day at about 9am though, it just proceeded to rain for the next few hours. Luckily during this time we were inside the Sagrada Familia and the rest of the day continued to be
freezing but full of clear skies and sun! Our day was then filled with the most amazing sights in our 12 hours of walking...yes, 12 hours! Of course we stopped for lunch but that was about it! With so many things to see and only 1 day to do it all, we walked and walked and...walked.
We feasted our eyes on the amazing, crazy architecture of La Sagrada Familia by Gaudi, the fun and famous street of Las Ramblas that was full of fun shops and restaurants and also lead us all the way down to the piers, the BEACH (it really was as amazing as it sounds even with the need to be all bundled up and wearing boots on the sand), the huge Cathedral of Barcelona, and finally this amazing light show at an even more amazing fountain complete with music and the makings of the perfect ending to our packed day. Our night however was not as packed as we only had about 4 hours to sleep and then got up at 3:15am to catch our 6am flight back to Sevilla. Needless to say we were quite the weary, but very happy travelers.
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| Me and Jana taking in the ocean view |
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| This beautiful city became one of my new favorites |
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| The famous fountain light show at Fuente Mágica de Montjuic |
This past week was absolutely incredible...exhausting, but nevertheless incredible. The first adventure started early on Thursday morning as my roommate and I drudgingly stumbled out of bed to our 5am alarms, ready to get on a bus for the next 6 hours as we headed north to Toledo! Our school took us on this amazing excursion that was complete with a stop at the windmills of Don Quijote de La Mancha (for those of you who may not know, this book is very famous and is based right here in España), which was so cool because I am actually taking a class that is entirely on Don Quijote and therefore, this famous knight-wanna who has a run in with these so called "giants" that came to life right before my eyes. I love it when you can actually witness the things you are learning about in school...it's like the textbooks have come to life (cue the "magic school bus" theme song!).
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