Hasta pronto

Last week in BCN.

I love this city. As I write this entry (on a train to Chichester actually), I ache for Barcelona. I really had no idea what to expect from my time there—what the city would be like, how the people are, what the lifestyle would be like… but every day I was pleasantly surprised and grew to adore Barcelona more and more.

I spent my last week trying to soak up as much as I could and also finally do the “touristy” stuff I never got around to doing. Monday night, I went to see the Opening Ceremony of the European Athletic Championships! Barcelona hosted the 20th opening ceremony for the first time at Montjuic, one of my favorite places in Barcelona. The ceremony was really cool and interesting with women bungee-ing off the walls, and dancers dancing on the stage that was built literally on top of the magic fountain. I can't believe how lucky I've been to be in Barcelona during both the world cup championships and now this!

This was the crowd outside at Montjuic, waiting to get into the opening ceremony!

On Tuesday, I went to see La Sagrada Familia: a church that Gaudí started working on in 1882 but died before he could finish, and now it is STILL under construction with hopes of being completed around 2026. It’s incredible how huge La Sagrada is… I don’t really like how it looks on the outside but the inside is beautiful. I can’t believe how long it’s taking to complete… Mu-Ping and I also got the infamous chocolate churros that day =)

La Sagrada.

Wednesday night we had our farewell dinner with the program and said bye to our site director, Rich and the rest of the students. It’s funny how quickly cliques were formed… I wish I had had more time to get to know everyone but I’m fortunate for the friends I made =)

Thursday night was our last night out in celebration of Noah’s last night and we hit our favorite spots for the last time: Espit Chupitos and George Payne. It’s funny how comfortable I grew to feel in George Payne, the Irish pub where we celebrated the 4th of July and bonded together for the first time. Our favorite bartender was working at Espit Chupitos too. She makes me want to be one ;) We also went to Razzmatazz, what we thought was a 7 story club. Turns out there was just one floor in a giant warehouse, somewhere high up (maybe the 7th floor?). Um, yeah. Kinda sketch and weird. We managed to have our own fun though, as always heheh.

Friday and Saturday were spent revisiting el barrio gótico and el borne, two of my favorite districts in Barcelona, and hitting up the remaining tourist spots like Parque Guell, the Olympic stadium, and Arc de Triomf. We walked through Parque de la Ciutadella, which is huge but really peaceful and nice. We also went back to La Champagnería, where they have glasses of pink cava (champagne) for 1 euro, bottles of champagne for 2 and small but YUMMY hamburgers, called montaditos, with things like chorizo (sausage), and morcilla (this rice-like thing which according to google is pig's blood sausage?! oh well I liked it).

Parque Guell



MP, Stella and me at the Arc de Triomf!


Taken at the olympic stadium, where the European Athletic Championships were being held!

Gotta go, but promise to write more asap! I plan on blogging about all my backpacking adventures very soon, now that I have more time in Chichester.. (I'm currently staying with my Aunty Carol and cousin Rebecca at their home in Chichester, a lovely small town in the UK). AND we're going to Berlin in a week to visit my other cousin Jonathan! Can't wait. Cheers!