travel plans

I just booked a flight from Barcelona to Budapest for the weekend of the 13th. That should be fun, and a little bit of a relief since my roommate's boyfriend is coming to Barcelona that weekend.

This past weekend I went to Girona (a Catalonian city, just over an hour outside of Barcelona by train) with a friend from class and two of her roommates. Girona has a ton to offer (like Arabic baths, an archaeological museum, a beautiful wall that you can climb and walk on, and multiple beautiful churches), but because the weather was really crappy the day we went it wasn't as good an experience as it would have been on a nicer day. We saw a bunch of cool stuff, but ended up getting soaked in the rain and paid way too much for a kind of crappy lunch. Oh well. I have pictures from that trip which I'll put online eventually.

Just because I have been thinking about travel a lot lately, here are other plans I have for this semester:

Dublin: February 26 - March 2
Vienna: sometime in March...?
Navarre: (study trip with IES) March 5 - 7
Italy: April 3 - 13
London/other historical sites in England: May 1 - May 5ish
Budapest (again): May 5ish - May 11?
Granada: sometime before I leave

I'd also like to take some day-trips to different places in Catalonia, like Sitges, Figueres (birthplace of Salvador Dalí!), and La Costa Brava (there's an amazing beach in a town called Lloret de Mar that has a castle! I know this because I saw a picture of it on a postcard).

I may end up going to Figueres one day this weekend; if not, I'm totally fine with staying in Barcelona and exploring. I'm planning to go to a concert at the Palau de la Música Catalana on Friday--they're playing Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and his Piano Concerto No. 5. Should be pretty amazing.

a few reflections

I'm not trying to be all "AMERICA IS SO BETTER THAN SPAIN" or "SPAIN IS SO WEIRD," but here are some things I've noted about Barcelona in the last week and a half:

- About 96% of the women here wear skinny jeans and leather boots. Even little children dress fashionably. It makes me feel like a frumpy, sloppy American for wearing casual shoes and hoodies all the time.

- There is this cool thing called Bicing which allows Barcelonans to check out bikes and return them at various points throughout the city. Yay eco-friendliness + exercise!

- McDonald's and Starbucks are everywhere. There are also Dunkin' Donuts and Burger Kings. I expected far less of a fast food presence, but clearly I was wrong.

- All the stores play American music. I think I've heard "Disturbia" by Rihanna and the Temptations' "My Girl" more than 100 times in metro stations by this point.

- Lined paper is very hard to come by. Apparently people here really like blank or grid paper. Also, they do not seem to have two-pocket folders anywhere!

- Mullets are really popular.

- It's really hard to find a place that will sell you chocolate chip cookies. There are wonderful little bakeries everywhere, though.

That's all for now. I have a lot of pictures to post, but I'll get to those sometime when I'm less sleepy and hungry.