Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Pyrenees and Barcelona

Finally Home, well as close to home as I can make Valencia. It's actually funny because when I was in Barcelona I missed my bed back in the study center. So let's talk about my trip shall we? We left last Monday and got to Jaca at about 4:00 in the afternoon. Bus drivers are required to stop for 15 minutes every two hours. So It was kind of nice to get out and stretch. When we arrived we got to our rooms. Sarah was my roommate. It took us the first night to figure out how to make the Air conditioning work. Let's just say that first night I didn't sleep well at all. I can remember waking up at 3 and wishing it was time to get up. So then at about 5:00 I got my iPod to listen to for a few hours. Okay enough complaining. This trip was really cool. at about 6:00 the night we arrived we went to this miniature museum and saw a bunch on the really important monuments throughout aragon that were all scaled. They even had miniature Pyrenees Mountains and there were bridges where we could walk on top of them and stuff like that. It was kind of a long tour and everyone was tired and hungry so not that many people were paying attention. That night after the tour, we went to the Pilgrim Cafe and I sat with lex, Abby, Galen, Colin and Ignacio, the program jefe. I hate this amazing sandwich with a fried egg, lettuce, tomato, ham, cheese, mayo and bread. It was so good and so yummy. I went back the next day and thought about getting it again but didn't, I got something else but I haven't gotten that far yet. Tuesday we woke up, ate a fantastic breakfast in the lobby-eatingish place and then as a big group, we set out for the mountains. It was pretty chilly. We went on an half hour bus ride up the mountains and then started to hike. We got to hike part of the Camino de Santiago. Such a cool experience. I thought it was really cool when you looked over the mountains and could see France.  The walk was about 3 hours long. There were some areas where I would trip I almost fell once but I didn't because my guardian angel Abby grabbed my backpack and saved me!!! Thanks Abby. She even helped save me from falling when we were in Javia and went on a hike there too. That night for dinner we went back to the Pilgrim cafe and I ordered something that I had no idea what it was. That's kind of my new thing, I order stuff that I don't know what it is. It was a thing piece of grilled red pepper stuffed with some type of fish and then had a creamy sauce all over it. By far the best thing I ate while not in Valencia. On Wednesday we went to a castle that I don't remember the name of. It was really cool. There was this one room that if you stood in a specific spot your voice amplified everywhere. It was awesome. The acoustics in the chapel section were cool too. Being a singer, I stayed back and sang a little to hear what it would sound like, I was amazed it was so beautiful. After the castle, we went white water rafting and kayaking. The water was freezing but they gave us full body suits. I got pulled off a few times but had a blast. Plus I got to jump off this rock. It wasn't that hight but was still fun. Some people did it more than once but I was being a baby and only went once. The next morning we left for Saragosa, I don't know if that's how you spell it but some people had different plans for the weekend. A group of us decided to go to Barcelona for the weekend. We hopped on a bus and were there in about 4 hours. The hostel we stayed at was St. Christopher's. I think we got really lucky because it was only a few weeks old and was super nice. They have different ones around Europe and I would stay there again. So Now we enter Barcelona. A beautiful city but unfortunately it rained the whole time we were there. On Friday we went on a walking tour that was a little too long for my liking but it was interesting. I saw a really big church that I don't know the name of, saw some of Gaudi's artwork and roman columns. After the walking tour we went to the Picasso Museum. I really enjoyed that but was pretty tired by the end of it and was hungry. We weren't allowed to take any pictures so that was kind of a bummer. The thing I liked most was just seeing the signature of his name on the paintings and ceramics. It made it more realistic to me. The next day it was really pouring but we went and saw la Sagrada Familia. Very incredibly beautiful. We didn't go inside because it was 11 euros and plus I'm going back to Barcelona in the spring with the school again. Sunday we left. It of course was beautiful in Barcelona that day but I was pretty sick and just wanted to get back to Valencia. 

Sorry it was so long but I thought you all would want to know what I was doing.


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