This past week I started traveling around the city and some close destinations, which were Sitges and Tarragona. But let me start from the beginning of the week.
Last Friday I participated in my program's Photo Treasure Hunt, where we had a list of clues of places to find, and when we thought we found them, we took a picture. The team who had the points at the end wins a free lunch at a really nice restaurant. My team came in second, but it was fun to walk around and really just get lost for 3.5 hours, because getting somewhat lost and finding your way back helps in getting to know the city. I have the photos from the treasure hunt on my camera, but unfortunately, since my camera is broken, it might be awhile until I get those photos up.
Since the photo treasure hunt took up a day of traveling I could have done, my group of friends and I did a day trip instead of a weekend trip. Last Saturday we went to Sitges, a pretty costal town about 30 min south of Barcelona by train. So pretty! We mainly hung out on the beach and ate a nice restaurant on the beach/waterfront. It was my favorite restaurante by far because they served us pink champagne sangria with strawberries in it! So good! We explored the town a little bit after our lunch, but mostly saw the same pretty architecture, no monuments or anything.
A friend of mine and I went to Park Guell on Wednesday, and it was amazing! Almost like a Candyland with Gaudi's houses painted so differently. A must see if you are ever in Barcelona! The only thing is getting up to see the houses; the hills were so steep they remind me of posters of San Francisco, and some of the hill was too steep to walk, so we took escalators. I'm not kidding when I say the hill was probably steeper than a 50 degree angle. But so worth it! Gaudi was so original with all of his work, and every detail is distinct and fascinating to look at.
Thursday night I headed out to Tarragona, which is an ancient city with lots of ruins. I had just learned about it in my Spanish Civilization and Culture class, and it was the first major Roman city/stronghold in Spain. I stayed the night with half of the group and the other half met us in the morning (they only wanted to do the day trip). It was amazing to see the ampitheatre lit up at night, and our hostel was right in the middle of an ancient plaza called Circ Roma. The reason why I know this is because we asked a lady where an open bar was (it was very strange to us that the city shut down at 10, when Barcelona is open until 7am), and while taking us to the one open bar, she gave us semi-tour of Tarragona and all of the ruins. She worked in the Tarragona Archeological Society and Museum, and she was so incredibly nice. She spoke to us in Spanish, and while my group has diverse levels of speaking/understanding Spanish, we all were able to understand her and appreciate the majesty of the ancient history we were standing on. The following morning we met our group and saw the cathedral, ancient murralls, some more ruins, and then went shoe shopping! I know it sounds weird that we all went shoe shopping, but it was nice to get out of cold wind (it was 7 degrees celcius out, but the wind made it feel like 0 degrees!) and look at some deals.
We came back on Friday night, so that Saturday we could go to the FC Barcelona futbol match! We played a bad team, but it was still fun to attend my first professional soccer match and see the famous Barcelona futbol team! I bought a jersey to wear to the game, but it was so cold that no one could really see it.
Speaking of the weather, when we came here, it was so beautiful. It reminded me of Phoenix's warmer winter weather, but recently it's gotten really cold here. When it's sunny, it's great; clear blue skies, low 70's to high 60's type weather, but when it's cold, it's so gray, darkness comes earlier, and recently it decided to rain. No matter what the weather, people here dress for the season. I could be sweating in my winter coat, or shivering, just depends on the day.
That's all for now! Take care and I'll post more updates in a week!
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