Hello. I'm alive.

Hi there. I'm so sorry that I haven't blogged in ages! I guess I got so caught up in my life in Barcelona that I just never took the time to write about it and let you all what I've been up to. Anyway, I'm sitting here in Sants Estacio (Sants bus station) waiting for our overnight train to Granada and so, finally, I will blog. I decided it's probably best to recount what I did each weekend and week. Here goes!

Mi segundo fin de semana in España (My 2nd weekend in Spain):

Viernes.
Even though my first week was crazy busy, my first weekend was no different. On Friday, Mu-Ping and I met with our friend Stella in San Sebastian, a city in northern Spain. We had decided to be ambitious and go to 3 cities in 3 days: Friday - San Sebastian, Saturday - Pamplona, and Sunday - Bilbao. Overall, the weekend was a success. San Sebastian is a beautiful city. We met up with Stella and got tapas for lunch. We heard tapas were supposed to be excellent in San Sebastian and they were right! After, we just explored the city, went to the beach, and did some window shopping before catching our bus to Pamplona. Ended up having to wait an hour for our bus with drunk Pamplona-goers dressed completely in white and red, ready for the craziness that is San Fermín.

The gorgeous buildings along the water.

Tapas!

Las chicas! <3

Sábado.

Pamplona was... a bit of a disappointment. We stayed in a hostel/hotel which was decent for the price. We woke up the next morning around 515AM to get to the center of the city to see the bulls run at 7am. But we ended up barely making it and not even getting to see any bulls! I felt bad for the city because it was TRASHED. There were drunk people passed out on the streets, trash everywhere, and you can guess how it smelled. Disgusting. It's amazing that this tradition takes place over the course of 9 days, where each and every day, people come, drink, trash the city, and the city works to clean everything up during the morning/day after to get ready for the festivities to begin at night again. After the run, as the city slowly was cleaned up, I realized it really is a beautiful place as well. And it was amazing that all types of Pamplona locals really get into the spirit of San Fermín--not just the jovenes (young people) but families and the elderly all participated. The entire city was a slate of white and red. So of course, we had to join in :)

This is where we were when we tried to see the bulls. Obviously it was impossible unless we were on a balcony or something. Oh well, at least we had the experience of being there while it happened. And we got to hear the bulls run by!

Like our outfits? Mu-Ping and I bought white genie pants the previous day in San Sebastian just for Pamplona :) Good souvenir, I must say.

That afternoon we went to Bilbao! LOVED IT THERE. Bilbao is such a cute little city and we all felt really comfortable there. We stayed in an amazing hotel for only $40 each for one night. We spent the evening walking around the old town, and got dinner where our cute waiter kept making conversation in Spanish with us. That was until the entire Old Town lost power and we had to finish our dinner in the dark. Such a funny experience because no one really cared. Everyone just continued to eat in the dark. Oh how I love Spaniards. There's a saying that goes "No pasa nada" which literally means "Nothing happens" --it's the Spaniard's way of saying "No worries" or "No big deal." Love it. No pasa nada. Later we walked down to the Guggenheim Museum to see it at night. Beautiful.

The Guggenheim. I think I should make my own postcard.

Domingo.

Sunday we actually went inside the Guggenheim museum and got to see the exhibits and take more pictures of the museum during the day. Some of the exhibits were interesting.. others were a bit of a stretch. I particularly liked one exhibit of these gigantic metal pieces that were free standing and you're supposed to walk through them and as you do, you're supposed to lose your sense of time. It really does happen.

This is the art exhibit that I was talking about. I took this from above but these things were gigantic! You can see how the people were so small!


After, we bused back to Barcelona and were incredibly sad to miss the Final World Cup game. BUT we arrived back at around 10pm and the game was still going! Double overtime! We rushed to a bar across the street from the bus station and caught the last 10 minutes, including a replay of the winning goal. Perfect. There was no deciding, we had to go out and celebrate. And we did. The streets were filled with life! Fireworks, singing, music, chanting, and of course, seas of red. We met up with some friends in Placa Catalunya and also went to Placa Espanya to just be there and experience the festivities, the happiness, the pride. I am so proud to say that I was here, in Barcelona, when we won the World Cup. Yeah I just said we. There's a chant that everyone was singing that night that goes "Yo soy español, español, español!" Not gonna lie, I sang my heart out to that song that night, even though I'm not Spanish. I'm starting to feel like I am a little bit. I already gave part of my heart to Barcelona on this trip. <3>

This definitely doesn't capture the craziness and excitement of that night but it's a glimpse. I'll try to post videos later.

Mis amigos :)