Barcelona!

I got back from 5 days in Barcelona last night and it was an amazingggg trip. It was me, amanda, sarah, alyse, and marianella. We had so much fun together. Barcelona was such a different city than anything I had ever seen before. The architecture was so crazy, lots of the buildings were designed by Gaudi. The hostel we stayed in was in a great location right in the center of the city and also about two doors down from one of Gaudi's super famous buildings the casa batllo. Here are some pictures:

The first day we were there we did a hop-on/hop-off bus tour, which is one of those tours that takes you all around the city and has a stop at every major tourist attraction or main sqaure/area and a bus comes to each stop every 15mins so u can spend as much time as you want at each thing and than just get on a bus to the next stop whenever u want. So that was super convenient and made it easy to see all the things we should see in barcelona! The first stop we made was the Sagrada Familia Church. Originally a Gaudi design but the church has been being worked on for hundreds of years and people think it is just never going to be completed. I have seen alot of churches being in Italy this semester but this one was so cool. Hayley calls it the "drippy church" hahah because the towers look like like they're dripping, here are some pictures:

 Sarah and Me on the hop-on/off bus!

 All of us on the bus!

 me in front of the church!

 Me Amanda and Alyse staring in awe at the church! haha

The second stop we made on the bus tour was Park Guell, which was a park also designed by Gaudi. There was lots of stuff going on in this park, live music and hiking and all sorts of cool things. There were lots of mosaic statues and weird buildings everywhere.

We did the bus tour all day and went through the Gothic quarter which was really interesting and saw everything we possible could. It was so much fun. Later that night we went out for our first night on the town in barcelona. Hayley was in barcelona also visiting Kim and Kailey from richmond (which is so funny too bc theyre now like best friends with some of the bentley kids who are studying in barcelona who we met up with towards the end of our trip, small world) who we went to oktoberfest with so we all met out to go to the clubs, which are all along the beach and absolutely gorgeous! The next day we got up and went to the picasso museum which was a really interesting art museum. They also had a lot of Degas stuff there, so lots of famous pieces of art. Picasso is probably one of my favorite artists so this muesum was super cool. We werent allowed to take pictures in the exhibits but it was so cool to see these amazing works of art in real life. Sometimes famous art work can be disappointing after hearing so much about a piece and than actually seeing it can be a letdown, but nothing in the museum was disappointing. We went to this restaurant called Tapa Tapas across fomr our hostel and it was decent but they didnt have meals, considering tapas is basically appetizers in spanish so u order a ton of little plates and the food was okay. Not the best restaurant we went to there. Later that night we went to an ice bar, which is literally a bar made completely of ice. They give u big puffy jackets and gloves before entering because its SO cold. I wore a dress and wish I had worn a snow suit even with my jacket haha but it was still a really cool experience even the cups were made of ice. The next day we went to the shopping district and all these famous spanish deisgner stores, which was pretty cool and we just watched marianella try on all these outrageous clothes and were laughing so hard hahah Marianella was so excited to speak spanish in barcelona but actually they speak Catalan which is pretty different than spanish so some ppl understood our english better than her spanish and she was not happy hahah That night we went to a restaurant called Egipt, which was sooooo delicious. I got fresh salmon and potatoes and veggies and a salad. Also our other roomate from our hostel who was from austrailia came out to dinner with us. Her name was Kate and shed been travelling aruond with her mom but her mom went somewhere else that weekend while she went to barcelona so she was by herself so we adopted her into our group for a few days haha later that night we met up with some bentley kids who are studying in barcelona. They took us to all their favorite bars like chupitos and dow jones. Dow jones was very funny it was like a "stock market", the more ppl you get to buy a drink or shot the price fluctuates with the market. That was hilarious. Chupitos was a shots bar and they have hundreds of crazy shots like the "boyscout" where they light the bar on fire and u roast a marchmellow than stick it in ur drink and eat it hahah it was so much fun! here are some more pictures:

 picasso museum entrance

 ice bar!

 Boyscout! (above), Marianella and her ridiculous jacket haha (below)

 Me and Sarah at Chupitos! (I wore a headband that night and everyone said i looked like a Manhattan socialite from gossip girl for some reason soooo never wearing one again hahahah)

dow jones bar!

All in all the trip was amazing. Only bad thing that happened on the way back was i was forced to check my carry on bag and had to pay 50dollars on the plane because this airline lady was ridiculous! But besides that all the traveling went smoothly and I got back to florence last night and am about to pack for greece now! so excited! Leave tomorrow morning :)