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¿Dónde está Parker?

Page 4

March 29, 2007 - 5:00 PM Romance Daylight Time (EDT + 6)
(That's what Windows XP calls it, and I like it)

Last weekend, my friend Dave and I went to Barcelona. We had Friday off class, so we were there from Thursday evening until Saturday evening. It was probably about my favorite city in Spain so far. We visited some really cool sights and a pretty cool museum.

We arrived Thursday around 7 PM and stayed in a hostel in central Barcelona called Centric Pointe. It was really well-located, well-kept, and clean. We shared a room with 10 others (12 of us, total), though, so that was a new challenge. We met some cool people as a result, though, including an Italian guy, two Greek girls, 5 or 6 American girls who are studying in Italy, and a couple guys who go to Dave's high school.

I'll spare you (my fans) from having to read about everything we saw, and just include some highlights. A picture's worth a thousand words, and I took a lot of pictures.

Our first "touristy" stop was the Sagrada Familia church. It was designed by Antoní Gaudí and begun around 1890. It's still not finished, and may not be finished any time soon. It's pretty amazing, though, and unlike any other church you'll see in the world.

The second night in town, we made our way to the Plaça de Espanya (forgive me if my Catalan isn't quite perfect) for the "magic fountains" (I forget how to write that one in Catalan). We didn't really know much about it, but it turned out to be my favority part of the trip. I've never been to Vegas, but I imagine it's similar to the show at the fountains at the Bellagio (lights, sound, fountains). It was really cool.

Saturday, we spent a lot of time in Parc Güell, which is a park designed largely by Gaudí. It contains a common area with a bench around the border that he designed, a few famous statues, and a couple of buildings. That afternoon, we visited the Picasso museum. It's one of about three Picasso museums in the world. Unfortunately, I couldn't take any photos. The museum is full of paintings by Picasso, but doesn't have many of his "famous" works. The most prominent works are a portait of his father and a few interpretations of "Las Meninas" by Diego Velásquez. My highlight in that museum was recognizing a painting that I had seen before, in the Art Institute in Chicago.

We didn't see everything in Barcelona, but we still have another day or so to visit the city, at the end of our Spring Break. I'm leaving a week from yesterday (April 4) and heading to Paris, Munich, Prague, and Vienna (yeah, I lead a rough life). I won't have any updates (probably) until I get back around April 22, but expect a flood of new stuff around that time.

Barcelona: Sagrada Familia
  Dave approves of the stairway
 

Barcelona: Magic Fountains

Barcelona: Parc Güell
Famous statue: about 50 tourists per second have their pictures taken with this  
 

Barcelona: Other Stuff
House by Gaudí Cathedral Market
Didn't eat here, unfortunately
 

March 21, 2007 - 1:45 PM Alicante Time (EDT + 5)
(We don't change for DST until this Sunday)

This will be a two-part entry, as a few different things have happened since my last entry, over two weeks ago.

Part One: Benidorm

Last week, starting March 11, my friend Dan came to visit from Purdue on Spring Break. We had a pretty good time, and I got to be touristy again. Sunday, We found a great restaurant near the bus station in Alicante with rabo de toro (tail of bull) and a good paella. He stayed in a hotel between Benidorm and Altea, which is about an hour away from me. It made for some nice, peaceful bus rides, though.

During the week, we visited Altea and Benidorm and checked out some of the sights around Alicante (castle, port, beach, etc.) I have included some pictures from a day we spent in Benidorm, when we explored the older part of town and managed (amazingly) to find some Spanish restaurants and tapas bars (not topless bars) amongst all the British restaurants.

Part Two: Valencia

The past weekend, March 16-19, was Las Fallas de Valencia. It's the feast of San José, who is the patron saint of Valencia. Therefore, the city holds a huge celebration where they make statues, burn them, play with fireworks, and get drunk. The fallas are the statues, which are built during the course of the year out of some kind of fiber-board or something. Friday, we took a CIEE (my study abroad program) trip to Valencia. Dan came along. We visited the cathedral (of course) before going to the government plaza for la mascleta, which is a huge fireworks event in the afternoon. It's not much of a display, as it takes place in the middle of the day, but it's more of a 10-minute long series of explosions. I've never experienced anything like it. After that, we wandered around for a few hours and went back to the bus.

After Dan left to fly back to "the states," a couple friends and I rented a car and went back to Valencia for Saturday night. We met up with some Europeans (Germans, British, etc.) for a while and saw an American-style fireworks display at 1 AM. After that, the city pretty much went crazy. The streets were full of thousands of people, almost all drinking, and many finding pleasure in throwing fireworks into the crowds of people. We spent a matter of hours trying to meet up with various sets of American friends. By 3:45 AM we were pretty tired (and tired of running from fireworks) and headed back to the car. After a combination of sleep and driving (not at the same time), we made it back to Alicante around 10:15 AM. (I didn't take my camera with me on Saturday night, so there aren't any photos.)

Benidorm
Our first falla of the week  

Valencia
  Dan, me, and Jerry...and...others
 
Before and after la mascleta  
 

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