Espana: Catching Up

Been a while, I'll try to recount the last couple weeks as well as I can. Probably going to start too detailed, get lazy, and become really vague. Ok:

After my last post it was apparently about 2 weeks until Barcelona. In between those two I can't remember anything important so I'll start with Barcelona. It was great. Went Thursday-Monday and stayed in an amazing hostel where the employees were really nice and cooked for everyone in the hostel every night at no extra cost. So we got there Thursday and didn't do much because we were tired. Went out that night and all that stuff. Over the course of the weekend we got to see all of cool touristy stuff for the most part: Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, and a couple other things built by Gaudi, all of which was amazing (I'll put all pictures at the bottom). We went to the beach, hit a really eurotrash bar, and the highlight was probably trekking up one of the many mountains that surround Barcelona and going to this ancient castle. It was huge and overlooked the sea as well as the whole city. Also, should mention the seafood. It was good.

Okay, so that's Barcelona. The next week I recovered and did school business. Had our final for Italian 101 and began Italian 102. Then, on Friday, a friend from home who is studying abroad in Dublin came to visit. We went out in Bologna Friday night and had a blast. Saturday morning we went, with my two room mates, to Brussels for 2 nights. Brussels was probably my favorite place I've been this whole trip besides possibly Makarska, Croatia. It was a beautiful old city that can be summed up with a list of the things that it seemed they prided themselves most on: beer, waffles, chocolate. Also, cheap city compared to most and very friendly people. So cheap for some of the best beer in the world (talking 2 euro for a glass at a bar). Some bars would have literally hundreds of different Belgian beers on tap. Liquor stores would have walls, walls, and more walls lined with it. And the waffles. 1 euro for fresh cooked waffles. When we got back my friend had one more night in Bologna before heading back.

Now Mom is here. It's been fun, and has provided a much needed break from cafeteria food. We've gone to some great restaurants and while I'm in class she's either touring the city, at a museum, or on a day trip to a surrounding city (today, Parma). We also went to Florence for a night which was a beautiful city where we went to the Academia and saw David as well as some other amazing stuff. There was also a "30's Art: Beyond Facism" exhibit going on at a different museum we checked out and we went to the Duomo. This past weekend we made a dar trip to Venice which was beautiful and went to an art museum.

Italian 102 is going well and I plan on taking 103 in the spring. I go to Dublin in a couple weeks and I'm trying to plan one more trip for Thanksgiving weekend (most likely Rome-Napoli-Avellino)