Mas Xipres Barcelona

... spot for Spanish people from this region in Spain- called Catalunyans) to the big Barcelona Cathedral. It is a huge, Catalunyan gothic style church. We went during a free entry time so it was beyond crowded, but still really cool. Below the main altar there is a crypt holding the sarcophagus of a patron saint of Barcelona: a 13-year-old girl who was tortured 13 times by Romans for her faith. She was finally crucified on a cross by the Romans. It ...

... clad men dancing on the top of a tour bus, throwing out condoms to the crowd, and couples holding hands and feeling the love all around. And OH THE FEATHERS! One float had a fan and was constantly blowing feathers through the crowd so they floated all around like little light blue snowflakes on the first day of snow in the North.
We slowly crept our way up the street to the grand Modern History Museum (actually called something else but ...

... tomato, and some secret sauce deliciously rolled up in a warm pita. El kebab sabe a gloria (Tastes glorious). We liked the kebabs so much that we decided to eat them 3 days in a row. That night, we got back to our residence and got ready to go out as our 1st 'big' night in Barcelona. I connected with my friend Hannah from WashU who was studying in Barcelona at the time. She told me to come to a bar near here where there ...

... where HECTICLY long! We then walked to the Sagrada Familia temple. The construction of this unique temple began in 1882 (and that's not a typo!) The temple was designed by Gaudi, a very influential designed in his time, a lot of Barcelona is designed by him, and most of them are UNESCO world heritage sites. When Gaudi was asked when ...

... up the ramblas once more where there was even more street markets - some really cool stuff was for sale here as well. Our last stop was to be park guell - located in the northern end of the city. We took the bus (which took forever) right to the main gate. The park was designed by Gaudi like many other places in the city and the architecture was amazing. We first went up to the several ...

... the big fish and I am networking to become the most connected man here. One of the club promoters named Kike Barcelona....slow down everyone its pronounced keekay, but initially alarming I concur, this dive bar called taberna. It is every night on Monday, actually kike calls it blackout monday at taberna, luckily I'm not a complete moron so I doesn't blackout like the rest of the Amercians here. But when you get there this black bird scary guy jumps out at ...

... quality meals with reasonable prices. I will have to consult a local the next time we go! We spent a relaxing and very expensive evening sitting at a sidewalk cafe. That evening on ship (we were docked overnight), we watched Casino Royal in the ship theater. Very appropriate! Day 7- Venice, Italy. We took a tour of a cathedral that included a short gondola ride. Again, I would not have booked a tour now that I have been there. The gondola ride is a must-go!! We reboarded ...

So i pretty much owned my Spanish Class. Seriously. I needed to get a 62% on my final to get a A in the class. Even less than that to get an A-. Talk about powning. Other than that, im sad that my friends are going to leave, and getting more homesick by the day. Barcelona with the program was good, but ridiculously hot. The first night we got there we walked to Las Ramblas, which is supposedly amazing. I thought it was alright, but really just like Third Street in Santa Monica ...

... Johno, Dean, and I decided to do this hostel event where 3 or 4 different hostels collaborated to set up an eventful night. We left with about 6 other people, and started the night out with some tapas and sangria. Met a lot of people there, and there was about 35 of us spending the night together. After that, we went to a flamenco show. The guitarist was phenomenal, and it was really good to see an authentic spanish show. Following that we went to ...

... Barcelona! "Oh, I don´t go outside of Barcelona," he said. Well, after little effort he complied and we were off. We checked into our hotel. Very basic but it had a bed. Sleep was all we needed. Sept. 9: (Barcelona - a day in the making) This is where you find us today. Because the hotel was booked up for Sunday night, we had to vacate early (7am) and go looking for accommodation for the night. We jumped on the metro with our Big Mutha backpacks strapped ...