So, last Saturday. Saturday it seemed many people were out of town, so I decided I wanted to go to Park Guell. It was a gamble, because it had been raining off and on throughout the day. Ultimately I decided to go. I knew the park was on a hill overlooking the city, but other than that I didn’t really know what to expect. I bought a 7-euro ticket online and downloaded it to my phone. The ticket said I had to show up between 5:00pm and 5:30pm otherwise I could not get in. Expecting to be walking up some hills, I put on my new hiking shoes and headed to the metro.

The metro took me to the part of the city where the mountains meets the flat ground. Conveniently, there were several large escalators going up the hill so I wouldn’t have to walk up hundreds of stairs. Inconveniently, half of them were broken. I didn’t realize it would be such a trek just to get to the base of the park and I was starting to worry I wouldn’t make it to the ticket entrance in time. I learned that there were multiple entrances to the park, and it appeared that I went into the “free” section. The path I was following spiraled up into a peak, which had a fantastic view of the city. I was trying to drink it all in, but I still didn’t know where the section was that I paid for.

I continued down a different path walking frantically in a race against time while trying to navigate on my phone. Eventually I got to what my phone said was the entrance with minutes to spare, only to find it was wide open. No one was at the gate, quite a bit of panic for nothing. I guess the park has times when it is free to get in, which I should’ve looked into. The 7 euros will probably go towards park preservation anyway. After all that, I found a good spot to watch the sunset while listening to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack.

That night, my house mom invited me and my other roommate Sam to dinner at her friend’s apartment (Cole was in France). There were three of her friends there, and one of her friends was also had a student, Annika, who came to dinner as well. It was quite the dinner. The food was good, but seeing Mami with all of her friends drinking together was even better. It was a little exhausting trying to keep up with the switches between Spanish, Catalan, and English. Also now I had four women forcing food on me instead of just one. There were lots of smiles and lots of laughs, but half the time I just laughed cause everyone else was.

During dinner Sam, Annika and I went downstairs to observe a celebration happening in the streets. When it was being explained to me, I didn’t really understand, but it was something about farmers and the devil. I am not exaggerating when I say I have never seen anything like this celebration. People dressed as devils lit these staffs of fireworks that when lit, were extremely loud and shot sparks in every direction. There were lots of bystanders watching in a narrow alley, including us. These firework devils would point the staffs right at people and shoot the fireworks into their faces, also including us! There were also dragons and gargoyles made of plaster that they carried around. Those shot fireworks as well. The whole event was absolutely absurd but I loved it.

We returned to dinner after the parade of fire had passed. We then gorged ourselves further. After dinner, the cuatro amigas took us down the street to a plaza where there was live music and dancing. People formed in circles and danced in unison to the music. My house mom tried to join in the circle, but she is very short so she was bumped around until she quit trying. She was enthusiastic about it, and that’s what counts. All of her friends are very short as well, and they walk so slow that they could easily be mistaken for standing still. I am almost twice their height, so maybe I just take giant steps. Those four made a fun little crew.

Sam invited Annika and I to drink with some of his friends at a nearby bar, so we said goodbye to our Mamis and their friends. The rest of the night was low-key, we just stayed at the one bar for about an hour. The best part: no Americans. I’m finally starting to blend in, except when I say anything to anyone. My American accent is a dead giveaway so many people just switch to English after they hear me talk. Overall, it was a very eventful day.

On Sunday, Cole returned, but not much else happened. Monday was equally uneventful. Tuesday we tried to get into a club called Apollo, which I was hoping was space-themed. Sam insisted we go because he heard it was SO cool. There was some mix up with the guest list, so we never saw the inside. After hanging at a bar for a while we called it an early night. Wednesday, Cole, Eva, Sam, Allison and I all met up to plan some trips. After an hour or two of talking we finalized nothing, but we ruled out some things. On Thursday a big group of us went out for a girl’s 21^st birthday. If you’re a girl and if it’s your birthday, you can get free bottle service and a VIP section at certain clubs. I never got to go to the VIP section, they weren’t too keen on letting guys in. Despite that rejection, the night as a whole was fun. Also here is a picture of (from right to left) Cole, Sam, and I.

Mom and Dad if you’re reading, I made it to all of my classes this week, and I even took notes. This week wasn’t super eventful until Friday. That being said, I am still in Barcelona so everywhere I walk is beautiful. The food on the streets is great and dinners that Mami cooks are better. Every dinner my Spanish improves a tiny bit. I’ve gotten to the point where I can understand most of what she and Sam talk about to each other, but formulating my own thoughts is still a major problem.

On Friday, the cleaning lady came at 3:00pm, as she always does. So the three amigos had to leave until at least 6:00pm. We usually decide what to do while we are walking around, this time we decided to go to the beach. The day was overcast and the high was below 60 degrees, but Cole and I hadn’t really been to the beach yet. The bus dropped us off at the beach, which cued the rain (as per usual). There was a casino about 100 yards from the beach, so we decided to wait out the rain in there. I was excited, this was my first time ever inside a casino. I couldn’t wait to gamble my entire checking account on roulette. Before doing that, Sam went to play a slot machine. After he lit those 5 euro on fire, I placed a bet on roulette. After I flushed those 5 euro down the drain, Cole went to play electronic roulette. Cole was the biggest loser by losing 15 euro. The bright side was we got in for free and they gave us a voucher for a free drink next time.

The Casino was exciting and stressful, even with my low-stakes bet. I now understand how my Dad feels in Vegas. Feeling defeated (while also laughing at Cole’s larger misfortune), we departed to la playa. It was like any public beach you might find in California, it even had an outdoor gym with pull up bars. The feeling of being on the beach was great, even if it was cold. We walked down the length of the beach, observing the culture and daily interactions. Near the sidewalk, people were making elaborate sand sculptures. People were also selling handmade jewelry and instruments. The area was relatively busy despite the weather.

 

Sam the tour guide then took us to the marina, where on land there were Ferrari’s and Audi R8’s and in the water were some of the biggest yachts I have ever seen. One of them sparked a debate on whether or not it was an actual cruise ship. All the while we never stopped to eat, because our house mom said dinner that night was going to be huge. Nothing upsets her more than us being at dinner anything less than starving. We made the trek back to home to eat a mountain of fresh paella. It was extremely fresh, because the shrimp and crabs Mami brought home were still alive before she threw them in the freezer to their icy demise. Seems cruel, but some people boil lobsters alive, so… Lesser of two evils? My plate was filled with these large crab-shrimp creatures, oysters, calamari, and smaller shrimp. It was the first dinner that I wasn’t a complete fan of. I felt terrible, Mami had worked so hard on it and she kept asking me if I was angry with her. I insisted that I wasn’t, and she was appreciative that I was honest with her. Perhaps I’m too used to beef and chicken, but she would literally eat the entire head of the shrimp-crab, brain and all. Unfortunately, I couldn’t handle it, but it was certainly an interesting meal.

I didn’t go out that night, because tomorrow we would hike Monserrat. Cole and I left to meet the rest of the people going at the metro stop at around 10:00am. We had two connecting trains that combined to a fifteen-minute wait on top of the travel time to the train station. Due to a mix of bad luck and poor planning, we missed the train by two minutes. The next one came in an hour so the rest of the group would be an hour ahead of us. As if I don’t spend enough damn time with Cole, now I had to wait an hour at the train stop with him, an hour on the train with him, and two hours of uphill hiking with him. The hike was way harder than we expected, but completely worth it. All I had heard about Monserrat prior to the hike was that there was a monastery at the top. Upon reaching the top, I could barely walk up two stairs without wanting to cry. We also found a small tourist town, with streets, stores, and restaurants. There was also a train and gondola that takes you right to the top, which explained why everyone wasn’t as sweaty as we were. We knew about the train, but opted not to take it. The small town was unexpected, but the food was welcome. We finally found the rest of the group in a cafeteria for lunch. The group totaled 8 or 9 with us joining them.

After lunch we visited the monastery. By the looks of it, the tourist town was built around the monastery. It was a very old, beautiful building decorated with many works of art. The walk around the building was brief, so then we had to decide what was next. The town acted as a base camp in which you could access multiple other parts of the mountain. I cannot understate the view, it was incredible. Just needed to reiterate that. We needed to get down in time to make the last train back to Barcelona, so we planned to hike to a small church built into the side of the mountain and then take the gondola down. The group we were with were fun people, but acted like the biggest tourists in the entire world. They stopped to take selfies every 30ft (mostly Cole actually, who was borrowing a selfie stick) and played electronic music from their phones at full volume. I’ve decided I want to go back someday soon, but either alone or with less people.

At the bottom of the mountain, we missed the second to last train by a few minutes. It seemed to be the recurring theme of the day. Near the train station there was a little outdoor bar with a bamboo canopy that we spent the next hour. On the train ride back, we made plans to go out that night. Once we got to the planned bar hours later, we decided to leave because it was too crowded and expensive. Trying to organize 9 college students to do something is never easy, but this was the least cohesive group. There was always someone who got lost or someone who didn’t want to go to a place everyone else agreed on. It was nightmare, so the we all split up and went our separate ways for the night.

The journey to Monserrat lasted all day long, that’s why I’m posting this on Sunday. Next weekend I’m going on an excursion to France through ISA, so I’ll be sure to write about that. I’ll also let you know what I do for the Superbowl, which airs at 12:30am Barcelona time. I hope everything in the States are good, besides politics of course. It’s been a pleasure typing this on the couch, thanks for reading.

Stay classy,

Jack