Day Cuatro!

5/24/12

Today wasn’t very eventful until after school was over! But after school we went over to some of the boy’s apartment and hung out for a bit before we had to leave for La Rambla for our walking tour of the city! We wanted to see their flat because it is in a different building a few blocks away from ours. It was smaller than ours because there are only 3 boys living there but the area they are in is so pretty! There is a long path in between the roads to walk on that is almost like park on the way to their flat.

After we left there we went to La Rambla a little bit early before our walking tour and walked around to explore with the guys cause they hadn’t been yet! On our way we found a HUGE market on the side of the street. There was tons of fresh fruit and chocolate everywhere. It was crazy, but so awesome as well. I really wish we had something like that back home. We had to try some of the fruit because it looked so amazing and it was the freshest fruit I have ever tasted in my life! Probably because it doesn’t have all the preservatives in it like the fruit in America. After the market we walked over to the place we were meeting in front of called Café Zurich and had some sangria, which was delicious.

Then we began our walking tour of the city and the gothic quarter. We had 2 tour guides and the one who was leading us was actually from Belgium, which I thought was neat. She has lived in Barcelona for years though and she knew so much of the history. She told us about how the city was built in a way so that there would be no classes of people and all the buildings that everyone lived in and the areas would be the same. They built it so that there would be a park for children to play every 10 blocks or so and the same with the schools and hospitals so that everyone would have equal access to these things and no where would be better to live than another place. But eventually people wanted to be different from others, which is how most countries are, so she said the wealthy really show that they have money here. But most countries are typically like this I would think.

Walking Tour

Casa Batillo

About halfway through the tour we all were having a hard time hearing the guides and it was hard to keep up with such a big group so a few of us girls decided to break off and go shopping for a little bit! We went to Zara, which is a European store here, but is also in the U.S. But the one here is HUGE compared to the tiny one we have at the Domain in Austin. It had the most amazing selection and it was so hard not to buy everything I saw! But I got 2 good outfits, so I was happy. :)

After this we all went back to our apartment to get ready for our group dinner with the whole study abroad group. Dr. Shah takes us out for dinner once a week and sometimes more. He’s so awesome. We had this huge big table and one whole side of the restaurant to ourselves. We had such a variety of food in front of us as well. We had salad, bread with tomatoes and garlic, corn & fries, a smorgasbord of meat, an assortment of fried foods, and to end the night we had tiramisu. It was literally a feast and so much fun to hangout with everyone all at once!

After dinner we went home to get ready for the night. We wanted to start the night at Dow Jones, which is a bar based of Wall Street in NYC!  And it was really close to our apartment too, which was nice. There weren’t very many people there when we first got there, but we ended up meeting a bunch of Americans in there throughout the night! And the drink prices were all listed up on the TV. Basically as you bought more of each drink the prices went up and up until the stock market crashed and the drinks went down in price a ton! Then it evened back out! 

We had a lot of fun here, but then decided to try out this bar called Opium! This bar was literally insane and HUGE! We had so much fun dancing and having a good time together though. The only bad part was the drinks were ridiculously expensive! I had one vodka water and it was 12 Euros….ridiculous. But overall a great time and a great night.