Paris: The City of Louvre

Ok, so this past weekend, we went to Paris. No big deal.

After another week of class that wasn't different enough from any of the first couple to warrant a full description, we had our third Thursday group trip. We all got up and on the bus around 8:00am and slept for most of the 2 hour ride to Lleida, an old town to the south-southwest of Barcelona.

We woke up as we arrived at the San Miguel brewery just outside of the town. We took a tour of the brewery, the mixing rooms, the boilers, the filters, the fermentation tanks, more filters, the bottling/packaging warehouse, and a boat-shaped theater where we watched a video about the history of San Miguel. After the tour, we were led into a bar area which I decided is the best possible environment to enjoy a beer. There was a table laid out with chips, nuts, little sandwiches, and other snacks. There were artifacts from the history of San Miguel, and a view of the rest of the brewhouse. There was a bar with 4 San Miguel (and family) beers on tap, and about a dozen more in bottles. Most importantly, there was a Spanish man behind the bar who was a master of his craft. I tried a couple of the beers that they brew at San Miguel, and then tried sips of a bunch of the other ones that my friends were drinking. They were all ice cold, fresh, well poured, delicious, and most importantly: completely free. We spent about an hour or so hanging out there before it was time to go. On the way out we all got gift bags that included 2 beer glasses like the ones in the bar at the brewhouse. Overall, San Miguel was a good time, but we still had a lot of day ahead of us.

We got back on the bus and headed into Lleida where we had some free time to eat lunch and hang out before our next tour. The next part of our afternoon was spent at a communications office, where regional TV, Radio, and Newspaper media were developed. That was pretty cool, but not cool enough to write any more about. It was pretty much what you would imagine.

We then got back on the bus and headed up to a hilltop where an old Cathedral/military fort/castle stood. I use all three words to identify it because it has been used as all three during its history. It's now back to the Cathedral state as it was originally intended to be. We took a tour of it, which was cool, then headed up the cramped spiral staircase (280-something steps) to the top of the bell tower, on the top of the Cathedral, on the top of the hill. It was I pretty high vantage point to say the least... Pretty sweet. We hurried back down to be out of the tower by 7 when the bells would ring, boarded the bus, and headed back to the hotel at UAB.

About half of our 30+ person group went to sleep after we got back, but for the other half, there was no time for sleep, yet. We had a 7:00am plane to catch in Girona (about an hour from Barcelona). It is way cheaper in Europe to fly out of and in to small airports and then take buses into the big cities, so that's how we booked our flight to Paris, but it meant that our travels would be much more complicated than one might think.

Since our train into town stops running at midnight, we caught the 11:30pm train into Barcelona. Once there, we walked around a little bit, some people ate, and we ultimately headed to the bus station on foot. Our bus didn't leave til 3:00am, so some of us (including myself) caught a couple hours of sleep on the steps at the bus station. At 3:00, we got up and rushed to beat the line at the ticket counter (there are a limited number of tickets for each bus-run, and the tickets go on sale right before departure.. it's kind of sick. So, we got on the bus and headed to Girona (sleeping for most of the ride). We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to get checked and catch another little bit of sleep before boarding, take-off and more sleep. We touched down in another little town outside of Paris about an hour and a half later, and boarded yet another bus for a 2-hour ride into Paris and another 2 hours of sleep. Once we reached the bus station in Paris, we hopped on the subway to get closer to our hostel, Blue Planet. We arrived there around 9:00 or 9:30 maybe and checked in and put our backpacks down for the first time since 11:30 the night before.

I guess I'll take this opportunity to run down who I was with in Paris:

Scott (the roommate at UAB, fellow Business Honors guy, former peer-leader in HFBI with me, and a good friend)

Tara (Peer-leading partner in HFBI, Whoop!)

Christina (Another HFBI peer-leader, and another good friend)

Bailey (met her in HFBI as a freshman, gotten to know her better on the trip)

Kyle (good guy that I met on the trip, carries a video camera, impossibly handsome)

Kyle 2.0 (likes to wander, but a good dude)

Josh (funny guy that writes a funny blog)

Tyler (5th-year PPA guy, been to Europe before, hilarious)

Mallory (a PPA girl, vegetarian, says funny things like "Donde Barcelona")

Katie (in my project group for class, takes lots of pictures)

There was another group from our trip that stayed in a different place, but those ten and myself were together for the weekend in Paris.

Anyway, after we dropped our stuff off at the hostel, we grabbed some breakfast at a bakery around the corner, which was delicious, and kept walking, just kind of exploring the part of the city we were in. We were right near the memorial of the Bastille (the famous prison from the French Revolution), and we saw some other things too, before heading up the river to some of the more famous sights. We spent a few hours in the Louvre, which was enough time to see the main things and a few other interesting parts (they say that if you wanted to see every single thing there, it would take about two weeks open-to-close). I saw the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Napoleons apartments, some treasures of the monarchy, countless Roman and Greek sculptures, some Egyptian artifacts, and a ton of Italian, French, and Spanish paintings from all eras. It was pretty cool, but we had to leave so that we could eat and get on with our evening.

Tyler and I were given restaurant duty, and we succeeded greatly. We headed straight for backstreets away from the touristy streets and sights and found a little place on a corner between the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. We all sat down and eat to our stomachs' content and our tongues' delight. Bailey and I pulled a great move and got two things and shared them both (so we basically each got to try 2 meals). We all shared some tomato and mozzarella salad (an Italian dish traditionally, but still good in Paris). Bailey and I had ravioli filled with herb goat cheese in a light olive oil sauce and then lamb chops with green beans and pepper sauce. I sampled everyone else's plates too and had some turkey, some roasted duck, and some salmon pasta. We all shared a crepe with chocolate sauce and the best vanilla ice cream I've ever had for dessert.

With our stomachs full, we headed to the south leg of the Eiffel Tower, the meeting place for the Fat Tire Bike Tour. If you've been reading, you know that we did the one in Barcelona and that it was awesome. We were running a little late, most of us sprinted about 3/4 of a mile while Bailey, Mallory, and Josh got lazy and took a taxi. Either way, we all made it on time and got started on the "night bike" tour. On the bike tour it was us eleven Aggies, a couple from Australia, two girls from Canada, and a few English-speaking Europeans, maybe a South African or two. Our tour guide was Ned. He's a really cheesy guy from Durham, North Carolina, and ended up being a really good tour guide.

Anyway, we got on our bikes and started through the city, through the Latin Quarter, along the river, through parks, with stops at Notre Dame, an ice cream place, the prison where Mary Antoinette was held, another Cathedral, the Louvre, some famous bridges, etc. We then parked our bikes and got on a boat that went up and down the river where we saw even more sights and where Ned started pulling bottles of wine out of his packs. After about an hour on the boat, our 20 people had drained a solid number of bottles of wine together (I won't say how many). So, we got back to the dock and got back on the bikes (a bit tougher riding them at this point for some reason). Anyway, we stopped at the Eiffel Tower again just in time to see it "sparkle". (This is where 20,000 or so white lights turn off and on randomly... they did it for the first time at on New Years as the century turned in 2000, and the people loved it so much -legend has it that the roar of the people registered on the Richter scale- that they kept doing it. Every night, on the hour at ten, eleven, and midnight.) Anyway, we hopped back on the bikes and rode around the corner to the bike shop, thanked Ned, and headed back to the Eiffel Tower to spend the rest of the night enjoying some champagne in one of the most famous places in the world. Around 1:00 or so, we caught cabs back to our hostel. Luckily, Scott, Christina, and I found a language in common with our cab driver... it was Spanish. Anyway, he found our hostel and we basically went straight to sleep in a bed, for a change, after a night of sleeping on steps, a bus, an airport chair, a plane, and another bus.

We woke up the next morning and headed out for another full day. We went back to the Eiffel Tower (this time to go up to the top). As we waited in line, we saw something very interesting. There were a bunch of guys walking around under and around the tower selling little souvenir Eiffel Tower keychains. There were also cops on bikes trying to sneak up on them to arrest them. As soon as one Eiffel Tower salesman spotted the cop, they would all sprint away, only to return no more than a minute later to sell their mini-Eiffels. This was enough to keep us entertained while we waited. Kyle even got a nice video of things getting way out of hand between law enforcement and the Eiffel pushers while we were on the first level (about 20 stories up). So anyway.. we took the stairs up (680-something of them I think) until there were no stairs. Then we took the elevator up to the very top. I'm not a fan of heights, but the view was quite spectacular. It also just felt really cool to be at the top of the Eiffel Tower, such a famous place.

After a while we made our way down and met back up with the whole group. We decided to split up for the afternoon, and it started to rain.. so my group found a place inside to eat. I had a steak and it was good... Not quite as good as dinner the night before, though. Anyway once the rain let up, we headed to Notre Dame. Once again, it felt really cool to be inside such a famous place. The history of Notre Dame is really cool too, you should all read about it... or go there.

After Notre Dame, we headed up to Montmarc, a hill on the northern edge of Paris (where Moulin Rouge is). We spent the evening up there, walking through another amazing church, sitting on the steps listening to musicians play, and just hanging out. We ate dinner at a place around there called La Maison Rose (The Pink House). We had another amazing meal there (shared Escargot, French Onion Soup, Chicken with rice and an herb-cream sauce for me; duck, steak, salads, etc for others). We headed back to the steps of the church again to hang out for another hour or two before journeying back to our hostel. Most of our group took the subway, but Christina and I decided to walk back across Paris to our hostel. Since it was our last night there, we didn't want to be traveling in a tunnel. We got back in time to sleep for about 3 hours before getting up at 5 to travel back to UAB (train to the bus station, bus to the airport, plane to Girona, bus to Barcelona, 2 trains back to the university, a walk back to the hotel).

We got back around 1:00pm on Sunday to the hotel, where I just took a much-needed shower, closed the curtains (creating the "Bat Cave" as I like to call it) and went to sleep for about 5 hours. I woke up to Eat dinner with Scott and Karen, played a little guitar, and then went back to sleep for the night.. another 7 hours or so to be ready for class on Monday.

Anyway.. it was a great weekend to say the least. I'll post pictures soon.

This week we have class Monday and Tuesday (today). Later today, Barcelona celebrates the longest day of the year but staying up all through the shortest night of the year hanging out by bonfires on the beach, shooting off fireworks, and just having a good time. The entire city has the day off on Wednesday, including us. Thursday we have another day-trip, and then Friday morning we leave for our group weekend in Madrid, so there should be plenty more to come!

I hope this post finds you all doing well and enjoying the summer. Oh by the way, the temperature in Paris never got above 69 Fahrenheit. How's Texas? Haha

Week 2: Back to reality

After our extraordinary weekend in Andorra (in Rome for some others from our group, and here in Barcelona for the rest), we had a full week of classes during our second week in Spain. A "full week" for us means Monday-Wednesday, 9:00am-1:00pm (usually runs a little late, though). Beyond that, the days have all kind of run together, so rather than reporting chronologically, I'll just generalize about different aspects of our days and hit the highlights. Sound good? (If it doesn't, that's fine, just drag your mouse cursor up to the top-right corner of your screen (top-left for Mac-users), find a little 'X', and click on it.) Haha ok here we go...

Class:

We generally struggle out of bed around 8:15 or so to get down to breakfast by 8:30. We eat breakfast in time to make our 10-minute walk down the hill to our classroom and arrive within ten minutes of the 9:00 start time. (Punctuality is not a huge concern in Spanish culture, so we are trying to embrace that.) Our first 2-hour session is a lecture-based course taught by a professor from the school here (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) named Rosella. In her cold-molasses-thick Spanish/Catalan accent, she teaches about the development of the European Union. So far, the class has been focused on explaining policies and problems with the EU using basic economic theory on a supply/demand graph. She's a pretty good teacher, and it's interesting being taught by someone from a completely different culture. She uses different types of examples and has a slightly different perception about many things. Unfortunately for most of our class, the room we are in is not air conditioned, so the temperature hovering around 80 degrees combined with a voice that is easy to tune out (because it takes such effort to decipher) leads to a superfluous level of heads on desks or at least bobbing down and up. She's pretty good about letting us take breaks in the middle of our long lectures, and the occasional breeze through the open windows is refreshing enough to keep most of us awake. Our grade is based on 3 problem sets (basically one per week after the first week) that we get to work on together outside of class, and a report/presentation at the end of the course that covers an EU issue of our choice. (No tests!)

Our second class session is 2 hours with our Texas A&M faculty group leader, Daria Panina. She is teaching a course about International Business (a management class). This is a really broad topic, but so far we have covered some European Union development and economic theory that overlaps with the first class, some analysis of how culture effects economy and vise-versa, and some trade theory. It's pretty cumbersome, but pretty interesting at the same time. Even though Dr. Panina is a native Russian, the (relative) in-severity of her accent is a welcomed change for the second 2 hours. On top of that, the fact that she lives and works in the United States gives her the ability to relate concepts to our perception and worldview on a different level than Rosella can. Our grade in Dr. Panina's class is based on a group assignment, 2 small quizzes over important chapters, and a group project at the end of the class. (No tests here either!)

The class load is just enough to require some work and thought to earn the credit-hours, but isn't so much that it takes up a huge amount of our time here. An hour or two per week outside of class is about all we need to get everything done. The grade distributions for these classes in past years have been ridiculously high, so we can focus more on learning and the experience of studying abroad rather than worrying about our grades like we do during the fall and spring in College Station.

Afternoons:

So yeah, we are usually done with class and back to the hotel by 1:30 or so. This leaves a plethora of options for the rest of the day. We found a grocery store a couple of train-stops away, so Scott and I have sandwich stuff in our hotel room to save some meal money. We usually make lunch out of that. Some days we'll head to the beach for the afternoon, some days we'll go sightseeing, some days we'll just stay in and nap.

On Tuesday this week, I went on the Fat Tire Bike Tour through Barcelona with a handful others from our group. Fat Tire is a small company that does bicycle tours through 4 cities (Barcelona, London, Berlin, Paris). It's basically designed to cater to young people from English-speaking countries. The tour guides are college students or wanderers from around the world (the three that we met were from St. Louis, Missouri; London, England; and South Africa). It's a really cool concept, and the company was actually started by a Mays Business School at Texas A&M graduate. (Whoop!)

Anyway, we met up with the tour guides around 4:00pm, grabbed our bikes, and headed out with our mean tour guide, JJ (the South African). We started in the Barri Gotic riding through crowded narrow allies among cathedrals and castles from the Gothic Era, stopping along the way to hear JJ explain the historical significance of the most important places (with plenty of his dry humor sprinkled in). The tour continued in the same fashion to some of the major sights of Barcelona including the Arc d'Triomf (rip-off of the more famous one in Paris), a couple of parks, the boardwalk and beach, and perhaps the most famous construction site in the world, La Sagrada Familia. This is a huge cathedral that was designed by the famous architect Gaudi. (He has basically an infinite about of work here in Barcelona.) He wasn't able to finish it before he died (it was designed to be a multi-century project), so the construction continues today as the construction company rakes in 11 Euro per visitor (multiplied by many million visitors per year). The building is already really impressive, and it's not even close to being finished. The tour finished around 8:00pm, we all had a really good time, and even got a discount card for the one in Paris (where we will be next weekend). With a student discount it costs 18 Euro (20 for everyone else), and we all agreed that between the entertainment, the information, and the ease of the tour (that is, seeing all the main stuff in one afternoon) that it was well worth it. We even got some restaurant tips from the tour guide, who has lived in Barcelona for 3 years.

Food:

The food here is really good; I haven't had a meal that I didn't enjoy yet. There is a lot of seafood, a lot of pork (especially ham), and some chicken, but almost no beef (unless you go to American restaurants like McDonalds or Hard Rock).

When you think Spanish food, you probably think of tapas and paella. These are definitely the most common foods here (and luckily, two of my favorites). These are not so much dishes as they are ways of eating...

Tapas is basically a bunch of smaller plates of food, usually served family style and shared by a group. These plates could have grilled or fried vegetables, fish, chicken, or pork, steamed mussels or clams, croquettes, Spanish omelets, bread, and calamari. The idea with tapas is to sit and eat over a longer period of time. We got a great tip from the Fat Tire tour guide on a local favorite tapas place call El Tropezon. 5 of us went and our food only costed about 45 Euro. The Sangria de Cava was also really good there. Cava is a sparkling white wine that is local to the Cataunya region. 

Paella is a dish that originated in the south of Spain, but it has become something of a national dish. Paella is a rice dish that is typically served family style in the vessel that it is cooked in (also called a paella). A paella (the pan) is a shallow pan with short, angled sides and two small handles. The dish is rice-based, with a saffron-based sauce. These are about the only limitations. In Barcelona, most of the paellas have seafood in them, which is delicious. I've tried a summer vegetable paella which was also good, but my favorite paella so far was from the buffet we ate at in Tarragona last Thursday. I don't know what it was called, but it was basically paella with roasted red peppers and mussels.

We've also found a lot of Mediterranean food that you would think of as Greek or Israeli. There are pita places and felafel bars dotting nearly every street. This food is really healthy and really good when it is fresh. Makes for a great quick lunch or dinner.

There is a huge open-air market here in Barcelona called La Boqueria. (There's really no direct translation, but it basically means like "the mouth place".) There are countless fruit stands, deli counters, and butcheries. For 1 Euro, you can get a fresh fruit juice in countless combinations of flavors. My favorites so far are pina-limon (pineapple-lime) and mango-fresca (mango-strawberry). There's a vegetarian food stand in the back called Organic. They offer some good pitas, pizzas, and a delicious rice and goat cheese stuffed roasted red pepper.

From the grocery stores, we usually get sandwich stuff because it's easy and because it's delicious. The best meats are pork-based, but many of them are pretty fatty. We've stuck with regular old ham most of the time, and let the bread and cheese work around it. A wider variety of cheeses are available and affordable here in Europe. We've eaten a lot of havarti and edam cheeses with our ham. The grocery stores have regular sliced bread, but they also have full service bakeries with an unlimited variety of breads. Maybe the biggest difference in eating sandwiches here is what goes with them. When we walk down the chips aisle, we see flavors like Herb, Mediterranean (onion, pepper, and garlic.. tastes a lot like BBQ flavor though just lighter), Dill and Rosemary, and even meat flavors like Ham and Chicken! (They actually taste like ham or roasted chicken.) I found a flavor of Doritos called Tex-Mex... so I had to try them. I was disappointed, though, because they were basically just the Nacho Cheese flavor in an orange bag.

Anyway, I'm sure you can tell that we are not going hungry over here. I'm excited about going to Paris this weekend to try some new foods there as well.

MontJuic:

This weekend, on Saturday, we (Mallory, Tara, Christina, Bailey, Katie, Scott, and I) checked out MontJuic... a mountain on the edge of Barcelona. Once we got up there, we went through an art museum dedicated to Joan Miro, an artist from Catalunya. After that we walked around the Olympic Stadium and the Olympic plaza area which was really awesome. We then headed over to the steps of the National Museum of Art of Catalunya (the Catalan people think that that their state should be a nation independent from Spain like it was back in the day). Below (that is, down the slope of MontJuic) the Museum is Placa Espanya, and between the two is "The Magic Fountain". We went and ate over by the plaza and then came back over to the fountain around sunset for the show. The fountain and lights were timed with music (a lot of American and some Spanish) and it was really quite impressive. The area was packed with people, locals and tourists alike. If you can only see three things in Barcelona, I would recommend La Sagrada Familia, MontJuic, and Parc Guell (the next highlight).

Parc Guell:

The story behind Parc Guell goes something like this. Gaudi (before he started La Sagrada Familia) was commissioned to design and build something on this really rich guy's property (the guy was named Guell) for him to have as like his backyard for the house he was going to build. Gaudi built this park (pictures later) that is really hard to explain in words, but it is really cool and creative. As the story goes, Guell HATED it, so he decided to build his house elsewhere and eventually the park was opened to the public and named for the rich guy (Parc Guell). We checked that out on Friday this week and spent the whole afternoon there. There were Spanish Classical guitarists doing their thing for tips and selling CDs; they were really legit. From the top couple of levels, you can see over the whole city to the Mediterranean coast, its really cool.

Anyway.. That's just a little bit more of when we've been doing over here. I really appreciate your reads and comments. Hopefully I'll be able to post again soon with some more pictures from this week and weekend.

Tarragona and Andorra.. A good weekend

Hey everyone.. Sorry I haven't been great about updating. Here's a summary of last weekend (with pictures, finally!). The length here should make up for the delay. Don't be afraid to take a break to stretch while reading this novel:

Last Thursday (June 4th) we took a group day trip to Tarragona, Spain. We woke up and got on a bus, which took us about 90 minutes down the coast to this small town that is most well-known for being the capitol of the Roman province on the Iberian Peninsula during the height of the Roman Empire. Once we arrived, we took a guided tour through a museum that holds a plethora of Roman artifacts, and even a portion of the old Roman city wall on the bottom floor. After a while inside the museum, our tour guide took us on a walking tour through and around the town to some points of interest in the old Roman city like more of the city wall, the forums, the circus (chariot racing stadium, not clowns and trapeze in a tent), the amphitheater, etc. It was really cool that the modern city had been built right around and over the top of the old Roman stuff, but that we could still see a lot of the ruins, and kind of imagine in our minds how it used to look.

We ate lunch after the walking tour at a local buffet, which was fantastic. A lot of seafood, a lot of rice, a lot of things that I couldn't really identify, but they were all delicious. After lunch we had a couple hours of free time in the city. Christina, Scott, and I wandered around the city for a little while and found some more cool things ourselves. Sometime in the late afternoon, we hopped on the bus and headed back home (to the hotel, that is... Not to Texas). 

Up the Mediterranean Coast in Tarragona

The old Roman amphitheater in Tarragona. Still largely intact. To the far left of the shot you can see the ruins of a church built on the arena floor during the Middle Ages.

The path around the west side of Tarragona along the old Roman city wall.

The Cathedral in Tarragona that was built over the old Roman forum. Started during the end of the Roman Empire, finished in the Middle Ages.

When we got "home" after Tarragona, a handful of my group-mates hurried off to catch their flight out to Rome for the weekend, the rest of us continued the naps that we started on the bus ride. After the late lunch at the buffet, none of us were hungry early, so we went out for a late dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. This wasn't my first choice, but we had been looking at it right across the plaza from our Metro stop at Plaza Catalunya every day, and some of us were craving some good ol' American food.

As is usually the case at any Hard Rock, we had to wait a while, but once we were seated we were happy. We tried Sangria blanca for the first time (White wine- as opposed to the traditional red - mixed with fruit, fruit juice, and usually some added liquor.. Vodka in this case) and dined on nachos and burgers that tasted just like home. We hung out for a while then caught the 1:05 bus back to the hotel. Scott, Christina, and I got to bed soon after in preparation for our weekend trip.

Scott pouring up some Sangria blanca

Karen (a new friend form the trip) and I with our nachos and burger.

Scott, Christina, and I woke up around 7:00, grabbed some breakfast from the hotel spread, and headed to the Barcelona Airport to catch our bus to Andorra. We were all pretty impressed with ourselves after we navigated our way through 4 different trains on 2 different systems without one wrong "turn". We got to the airport in plenty of time for our 10:30 departure to Andorra. The bus ride was a little over 3 hours of headphones, napping, and occasionally waking up to what we then perceived as some amazing views. (We hadn't hiked up in the mountains yet.)

We arrived in Andorra la Vella (the capitol of the tiny country) around 2:00pm Friday and explored the city, half-looking for our hostel. We found it and got settled, but wanted to explore some more. Though we were in the largest (by far) city in Andorra, we were able to explore the majority of it on foot in one afternoon. As we walked, we scouted out restaurants and a grocery store and took in the beauty of what we deemed the Aspen of Europe, surrounded by Pyrenees Mountains and split down the middle by a river that powers the whole city. Along the way we stopped at an information station where we met a student from the University of Barcelona who was living in Andorra for the summer. He gave us some maps and great tips on where to hike, and between his broken English and my broken Spanish, we all had a nice conversation about college and Barcelona. The weather was fantastic.. There was a threat of rain all weekend, but the air was crisp and the temperature was in the teens and low-twenties Celcius (basically in the 50s Fahrenheit.

We headed back to the hostel around 6:00 to clean up for dinner and maybe grab a quick nap. Our quick nap turned into 14 hours of sleep.. literally. I guess that after a day of walking, all of that traveling, and a week of adjusting to the time zone and our late-night habits and missing sleep. None of us were too disappointed about missing dinner, and we all agreed that we felt much more able to hike all day Saturday after recharging the batteries.

So, according to plan, we headed out around 8:30 Saturday morning, stopped by a grocery store to pick up some food for the day, packed up my North Face backpack (thanks Aunt Pat and Uncle Al... the backpack has been perfect, especially in Andorra), and caught a short 20 minute bus ride to Encamp (another town in Andorra).

We had a couple of treks (they call hiking "trekking" here) in mind, but weren't exactly sure of how to get to them, so we headed in the direction we thought was right. We started to head up a switchback road on a mountain and stopped at a hotel for directions. (We've found that hotels are the best places to find English-speakers.) They didn't speak English, but between my Spanish and our maps they were able to tell us that we were headed in the right direction. We heard there was a bus that went up this mountain, but we just kept walking anyway and figured we'd catch it if it came by.

That is exactly what happened after about a mile of uphill walking. We flagged down the bus and found that the driver was really nice, At this point we just wanted to hike (not on a road), so (in Spanish), I told him to take us to the best hiking trail he knew of. He very kindly did so, taking us to the end of the road (about half-way up the mountain) and pointing us in the direction of Llac D'Engolasters (Catalan for Lake Engolasters, a small lake situated in the mountains). We all agreed that we were extremely blessed to have come across that bus and the driver, especially after he gave us such great advice AND didn't charge us for the lift up the mountain (would have taken us hours on foot).

We happily hiked the 3km trail to the lake, taking pictures and admiring aloud the wonder of Creation along the way. When we arrived at the lake, we decided it was lunch time. There were a couple small restaurants there, and it was really looking like rain, but we had our own food to eat. The restaurants were practically empty, so I asked a waiter if we could eat our own food at a table under the awning, and he very kindly welcomed us. Just as we sat down, it started to rain, so we thanked him again.

The three of us devoured the majority of our groceries (fresh baguette, havarti cheese, herb-flavored chips-- incredible!, nectarines, and nuts). It was all delicious and we felt very satisfied. Just as we finished eating, the rain slowed and then stopped. We were starting to realize out loud that God was on this hike with us in a very real way. It was pretty chilly up in the mountains, especially after the rain, so we decided to get moving again. After thanking the waiter and some other restaurant employees again, we headed for the trail that went around the lake.

This was about a 45 minute hike which included a breathtaking view of what we deduced was Andorra la Vella back to the south. After our lap around the lake, we headed back down the 3km trail toward the switchback road, remembering some more intense climbing side-trails that were marked along the main one.

We took a short one that lead up to a historical marker of sorts that explained (to the best of my translation) a sort of man-made cave that was (in the 17th-19th centuries) packed with wood, dead animals, plants, and other organic material and left to make a sort of quick-fossil fuel. We went back down to the main trail and came upon another side-trail that we decided to take. This one had us climb around 200 meters on a pretty steep gradient for the most part, but it was well worth the burn. We took about 45 minutes (stopping along the way to admire our surroundings and take pictures) to reach the top of the trail, where we sat for a while before heading down.

We ran into a couple from northern Spain doing some Nordic-walking (hiking with 2 sticks, basically) when we got back to the main trail and talked with them for a while after they asked us for directions. They were interested in what some 20-year-old Americans were doing there, and they seemed interested in our American-ness in and of itself. When they heard that we were from Texas, they started to bash former-President Bush a little bit (something we have grown accustomed to). The conversation was interesting and good-natured though for the most part, and we all shook hands and headed our separate ways.

The afternoon was growing late, so we headed back to the switchback road, and eventually all the way back down that on foot into Encamp, greatly fatigued but carried by our extreme satisfaction with the days' happenings. We wandered around Encamp for a while, ending up in a nice little park before catching the bus for a quick ride back to the hostel in Andorra la Vella. 

We got there, showered, and changed for dinner with a surprising level of energy. We found a very affordable restaurant and then a little pub and enjoyed the evening, the food (a Menu del Dia combination of seafood soup - very weather appropriate -  paella Valenciano, along with the olives and bread on the table and a beer for me), the drinks (beer for Scott and I, red wine for Christina - at the pub), the billiards and darts, some good company, and some great conversation laced with reflections from the best day any of us had experienced in recent memory.

We all slept easily that night and woke up the next morning around 9 to check out and take a leisurely walk on an elevated walking trail on the edge of Andorra la Vella - another great tip that we received from the student at the information stand from Friday. After walking for a couple of hours, we headed to a park in the middle of the city that we had found in our previous exploration. We hung out there for the rest of the morning and wound up buying another round of groceries to eat in the park before boarding the bus for our ride back to reality.

As we rode back, the three of us reflected on our weekend between snoozes and favorite songs on iPods on shuffle mode. We agreed that our weekend had been extremely blessed. Too many seemingly random things had gone right -- the train-rides, the weather, the student in the information booth, the 14-hour sleep, the bus-driver in Encamp, the trail, the views that we witnessed, the lake, the restaurant staff and the timing of the rain, the Nordic-walkers, the dinner, the pub, the park -- to chalk up our experiences to coincidence or luck. I have found that one of God's favorite ways to work is through seemingly random turns of events, especially in combination, tied together with perfect timing. On a lighter note, we all agreed that with a 40 Euro (round-trip) bus ride, a 15 Euro/night hostel, a missed dinner, two 4 Euro meals out of the grocery store, and good economic finds in the restaurant and the pub, we had done a great job of having a phenomenal weekend that was light on the wallet (much lighter, at least, than our Rome-bound friends had). 

Ok.. now for some pictures:

That boy Scott on the bus ride...

Welcome to Andorra.

Puts Colorado to shame...

Scott.. with an even better background.

Waterfall/bridge.. the path to the lake.

Christina likes waterfalls...

Llac D'Engolasters

Scott and I at the top of the trail.

Looking down from the top.

We saw these on the way down. Who knew?

Paella Valenciana

This is what 15 Euro/night gets you...

Playing pool at Pub Corinthian

Sunday afternoon picnic in the park.

More coming soon! Things have been busy the past few days... But I'll have stories and pictures from the weekend in Andorra, and this week in Barcelona including the Fat Tire Bike Tour of the city, and the best meal that I've had in Europe so far... We have a day trip tomorrow to a monastery, some historic caves, and maybe a couple other stops. The rest of the long weekend will be spent in Barcelona, so it should be a little bit slower paced than the past week or so and I should be able to post about last weekend and this week. Stay tuned!

Miercoles, el 2 de Junio, 2009

Well we've been in Barcelona for 3 full days now. As we get to know the city better and find our way around more easily, we are all discovering that this is an awesome place. The architecture is absolutely amazing, the food is delicious, the beach is unlike anything I've ever seen, and the people are very friendly.

We are studying and living at the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, which is actually in a suburb called Sabadell. We have 2 classes Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in the morning (finishing just in time for a siesta) and the rest of the time is free. It's about a 25-minute Metro-train ride from the university to La Plaza Catalunya (in the center of Barcelona). From here, we have strolled La Rambla, a street with a wide median full of vendors, street performers and people, with restaurants, cafes, bars, and shops lining each block for the better part of a mile until the street dead-ends at the harbor of Barcelona. A short walk down the boardwalk along the Mediterranean takes us to the beaches of Barceloneta (the coastal district). We spent most of Monday at the beach, much to the chagrin of my now-bright-red torso. (Monday was a holiday in Barcelona, as the townspeople celebrated La Festa de Salud - the festival of health/good living - with countless little mini-parades on seemingly every street). We've walked around other districts of Barcelona during the day to see the world-renowned architecture. Every building is a masterpiece, especially the cathedrals. Around many of the cathedrals and other famous buildings, social areas have developed with outdoor restaurants and cafes, tapas bars, and street performers (including one awesome guy who had the entire crowd of people singing along to Bob Marley songs). We've found some great deals on food, drinks, and ice-cream ("gelato" in the regional Catalan language, helado in Spanish) in these areas. and in the back-streets surrounding them.

Meal times have consistently been some of my favorite times of the day. We have a complimentary breakfast spread at the hotel which includes all sorts of cured meats with cheeses and bread, cereals, breakfast pastries, some eggs, toast with Nutella (a European version of peanut butter - basically chocolate and hazelnut flavored spread... you can find it in most stores in the states nowadays), coffee, and juices. For lunch we usually choose to make sandwiches in the hotel rooms or something of the like to save some money. Dinners have been taken in the city. Paella, great pizzas, pastas, lots of seafood, and tapas make up the bulk of the fare. Local wines, some beers, and especially sangria are served with most meals and are delicious as well. I've enjoyed searching off the beaten path for some unusual or at least cheaper restaurants that most tourists probably don't encounter. 

The night life in Barcelona is very active. Bars and clubs are not hard to find and have treated us well. We've taken tips from past travelers, locals, and students that we've run into (even another big group from Texas A&M - whoop!) on where to go to have the best time at the best price. We've found some good spots already that I'm sure we'll be frequenting during our 5-week stay.

Since we only have class Monday through Wednesday, and then group day-trips on most Thursdays, we have 3-or-4-day weekends to do some traveling on our own. There are cheap flights within Europe (some for less than 15 Euro) and cheap hotels and hostels to stay in. Most of our group is flying to Rome this coming weekend, but Scott, Christina, and I have chosen a lesser-known destination: the tiny country of Andorra. Andorra is located right on the border of Spain and France in the Pyranees Mountains. It's about the size of a large city and it is mostly known for ski resorts and picturesque scenery. We found a great deal on a bus that will take us there form Barcelona in about 3 hours, and we got a hotel room for about 15 Euro (about 20 U.S. Dollars) a night each. There's a chance of rain, but we're excited anyway about doing some hiking and maybe some biking in the mountains!

Anyway, I hope to post some pictures soon, it just takes a while for everyone to gather them and load them up. Life is good for us in Barcelona, and I hope it is good for y'all too!

Arrived in Barcelona

After a 9-hour flight from Houston to London, a long enough layover for some fish and chips and a pint, a 3-hour flight from London to Barcelona, and a 30 minute bus ride from the airport to the university, we have arrived at our hotel. We were very lucky to have really no issues with the flights or anything. I was slightly unlucky to have a middle-seat on both planes, but I had my iPod and a good book (The Shack) to help pass the time. 

It's been a long day, and we travelled forward through 7 time-zones, so it is going to be an easy night to sleep, even on this tiny little European bed that I have. Haha.. the hotel is very nice, nice enough to love in for 5 weeks, but it is very small. Luckily, I have a cool roommate, Scott. He's a friend of mine from A&M in the Business Honors Program. He's nice enough to let me use his laptop to post this.

Anyway, we have a few pictures from the travels, the arrival, and the hotel that I will post soon. We have no classes on Monday, so the rest of the weekend should be both restful and very enjoyable.

Intro

So I've decided to set up a blog to document my five weeks studying abroad in Barcelona this summer. Hopefully I'll be able to post every few days or so with pictures, stories, and thoughts of my experiences. I'd rather do this once than write 50 e-mails a week to keep everyone updated. Speaking of e-mail, that will probably be the best way to get in touch with me while I'm gone. Facebook works too, but I should be able to check my email most every day (erictnewman@gmail.com).

Anyway, I'm really excited about the trip, especially since I fly out in just over 40 hours. I have a long day of laundry and packing ahead of me, but I've heard that I'm getting Chinese food for my last dinner at home. This trip is working out already!