Sunday, March 10, 2013

I got a pocket, got a pocket full of sunshine

¡Buenos Días chicos!
Its been a great week, and I was the first person to welcome the beautiful weather we had all weekend. I'd say this was the first normal week I've had here in Barcelona for a while! Nothing really new and exciting happened over the week. I had my usual salsa class on tuesday but we had to miss belly dancing on wednesday because Olga had another commitment. I was supposed to go away for the weekend with my intercambio partner but she had a family emergency. I was perfectly content with spending the weekend here in Barcelona, I needed to spend some more time taking it in!

I spent my Friday morning and afternoon soaking up the sun at the beach. This weekend was probably the best weather I've seen in Barcelona so far, I think Thursday was 68 °! After my time at the beach I was able to sneak in a quick nap before heading out for the night with my good friend Lyndsay and her visiting family. We ended up down by the touristy clubs that night because her sister wanted to check them out. We try to avoid the beach clubs because they're packed with American tourists. They call them "The American Clubs". But once in a while its okay to check it out.

Could life get any better?

On saturday I slept in and then headed out with a lot to do. I made sure that I was going to check off just about all of the places that I haven't seen yet on my "Must-See" list. First stop, check out Casa Batlló by Gaudí. It's probably Gaudí's most famous house. The Batlló family had purchased this building which was in a very prestigious location since it is in the middle of Passeig de Gràcia. They wanted their house to stand out, so they hired Gaudí to renovate it. Now, I'm pretty positive it stands apart from the rest. The outside has various bones being used as pilars and the balconies are skulls.

It's my favorite Gaudí house 
Next on the list was hiking around Montjuïc. Montjuïc is one of the two mountains Barcelona has. It's absolutely gorgeous and is located right in the middle of plaza España. It's huge though so although I had been there before, I needed to pay it a proper visit and dedicate a couple hours to it! There are so many gardens and little twists and turns, you could easily spend the entire day there. I didn't even make it to the top because after 3 hours of walking around I was tired! 
The walk to Montjuïc. That big building is The Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya
This is the amazing view on the steps of the museum. A lot of people (including myself) love to just sit here and take in the view and listen to the musician.
This guy win's for best seat. It still really amuses me when birds sit on top of the statues.
One of the many amazingly gorgeous gardens






Montjuïc is also home to the 1992 olympic stadiums. I walked around the entire main Olympic stadium, which took much longer than I had originally thought! 


The Olympic pool
The main arena



1992 was an important year for Barcelona. They hosted the Olympics and I was born this year ;)

On sunday (today) I checked out this market that takes place once a month. It's kind of like a flea market, but it was a little overwhelming and strange. I did snag a cute top for only 2 euros though. Afterwards I did a little more shopping at the end of Las Ramblas where there was a weekly craft fair. Finally, I ended my weekend the same way I started it, at the beach.

I will say that the merchants on the beach are SO annoying. Every 5 minutes someone comes up to you and asks you if you want to buy one of the following: Beer, coca-cola, Ice, airbrush tattoos, chopped coconuts, water, Mohitos, Sangria or a massage. The massage ladies are the worst though, they literally go up to people and wake them up and ask them if they'd like a massage! Also, it was a little strange because a lot of the men at the beach were just walking around in their underwear. There is a clear difference between underwear and bathing suits, but they didn't seem to care at all.

The market 
Just your every-day floating elephant man
I love my home 


The graffiti Artists here are really talented!

Well thats all folks! This Thursday we leave for MOROCCO!!!! I'm literally so excited I can't even contain myself. Have a good week xoxo

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