BARCELONA!!!

Hey Everyone!!

I hope you are all enjoying your weather - it's been beautiful over here!

So what I forgot to write was that in Lisbon, I tried roasted chestnuts and they tasted pretty good! They were very warm so that helped since it was a cold night!

I have truly lost all concept of time so if there are inaccuracies in my stories, I apologize!

Sunday the 5th (I hope!) I left Lisbon at 11:39am to take a train in to the city of Porto where I would be catching a flight. The original plan was to explore Porto for a little while and then get to the airport which would have been nice. However, the airport was so far away from anything to do in the city and I didn't want to get lost so I stuck it out in the airport. Turned out alright because I picked up a Portuguese history book and some gummy worms and started reading! The flight went well - it was pouring rain as we headed out to the plane so we all got soaked.

I arrived at the airport and the hotel in Barcelona had a free transport so I took that to the hotel. I ended up having a king sized bed and a huge marble bathroom with a massive tub and it was pretty awesome although it would have been nice to share it with someone!

The next morning, I allowed myself to sleep in given the luxury of the room and then I headed off to find the hostel. Turns out the hotel was in a section called El Prat which is a town within Barcelona. I eventually was able to understand which bus line and metro line I needed to take to make it to the hostel. I arrived just fine after quite an adventure but I was able to laugh at my Spanish skills. I plan on asking people at home who know Spanish to only speak to me in Spanish from now on otherwise I will never learn! At the hostel, I hopped ont he computer to check the emails and such and figured out that Scotland is not a great place to be right now! The entire university shut down, buses and taxis barely run, trains are also very unreliable and no one can fly out or in. All of the exams are rescheduled as well! What this means is that I might be crossing Berlin off my European tour because if Lisa doesn't make it to Germany then I would like to head back to Scotland to see eeryone who is stuck there!

I was feeling a bit lonely yesterday just because it's been 5 days alone already but I met some really nice people here yesterday - a kid named Josh from Boston who asked if I went to WPI when I said I go to school in Worcester haha and a girl named Zainib from Morocco. She and I went out to dinner and walked around the market last night and then came back and called it a night - it's exhausting!

Today, Zainib and I headed out to Casa Museu Gaudí which is a beautiful park featuring the architecture of Gaudí. I took a lot of pictures but you don't to see those until later! After that, we headed back on the metro to go and see Temple de La Sagrada Familia and the two parks surrounding it. This is a very beautiful temple with gothic style architecture - it's actually huge but we didn't pay to go inside of it because the line was incredible! We had some lunch back near the hostel and then I left to take a walking tour of the city.

On the walking tour, we explored a lot of the old Barcelona where gothic architecture is still very present. We saw quite a lot of churches that I forget all the names of but all very beautiful and impressive structures. The church called Santa María del Mar was one of the ones that stuck out because it was built by the people with al of their money - the government wouldn't give them any aid. It was also built in the middle of the plague and famine so it is just that much more impressive. The patron saint of arcelona is Saint Eulalia who died at the age of 13 because she failed to convert religions. We also saw the art school that Picasso attended and a plaza dedicated to George Orwell because of the aid he gave Barcelona. You can still see all the remnants of the firing squad and bombs from earlier times in the walls of the plaza.

Barcelona is Spanish but more commonly, it identifies with it's ancient roots of Catalonia. Catalonia was a small territory that was stuck between Spain and France and has continually fought for their independence (once, the city was being attacked for 13 months with no chance of winning but they fought til the daeth anyway.) Barcelona is the main city and capital of Catalonia but it also includes Girona, Lledia and Tarragona. The tour guide put quite a lot of emphasis ont he fact that the people of Catalonia still identify with their roots. Here in Barcelona, they speak Catalan and then Spanish - all the signs are in both but Catalan comes first. It has a lot of French roots as well so it is quite a bit different from Spanish. There is your history lesson =]

After the tour, we stopped off for a drink and a girl I met came with me and we got a waffle (gofre) with nutella at their version of the Christmas market. There are loads of street performers here!! I think when I come back in the future, I will spend a lot more time here because there is just way too much to see when I only have two full days here!

Tomorrow, I move on to Seville bright and early in the morning! I already have the bus trip to the airport planned out and I looked up directions to get from the Seville airport to the hostel when I get there so for now we can all assume I will make it there without a problem! I was able to charge the lovely British phone tonight so I should be all set!

I took loads of pictures of everything I could since I have been here so you will all have a lot to see when I get home! Also, spell check here is in Spanish so it doesn't help me very much...My bad if there are errors!

Heading out for now to a late dinner and then bed early for the flight tomorrow! Love you all!!!