I hate to admit it, but the last week or so I was very touristy.  As much as I enjoy taking pictures of everything, I hate being looked at as a tourist since I am actually living in the city.  But when IES (the study abroad company I am studying with) offered a two day bus tour of the city for €20, I couldn’t pass it up.  So for Saturday and Sunday of last week I spent the days riding around town in a double-decker tourist bus.  There were three different bus routes which went to different parts of the city, and every major monument, house, or museum had a bus stop right in front of it.  So I was free to get off of the bus and walk around.

THE TOURIST BUS

 On Saturday (January 22) I decided to take the bus to Montjuic, the mountain to the west of Barcelona.  This mountain offered fantastic panorama views of the whole city of Barcelona and the port.  It was a fantastic day of sightseeing.  The only problem was that it was a little bit cold, and sitting on the exposed upper deck of the bus I encountered a lot of wind.  Montjuic is also home to the Olympic Stadium that housed the opening and closing ceremonies in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.  This Olympic Park was absolutely breathtaking.  It was so massive, so open, and so majestic.  It was truly something special.

After spending a lot of time walking around the Olympic Park, I took the bus to the gondola that would take me up to Montjuic Castle.  Just when I thought the mountain couldn’t get any more beautiful, there is a castle at the top!  The views from the gondola were spectacular.  And the castle was very cool.  To be fair, I would say it was more of a fort than a castle.  It overlooked the Mediterranean on one side and the city on the other.  From this spot, I saw one of the most amazing sunsets in my life.

On Sunday I took the bus tour to the northern part of the city which was a little bit less exciting, but still impressive. I didn’t take nearly as many pictures because most of the stops on this route were museums.  I found a lot of places I will like to go to later in the semester, but they are very close to metro stations so I didn’t want to waste my last day of unlimited bus tourism.

So I set off to find the third bus route which would take me along the beaches.  I get to the place where the bus stop is supposed to be, but I can’t find it anywhere.  So I decided to walk along the bus route because the bus would have to pass me at some point, or I would find another one of the bus stops.  After about an hour of walking I looked at the map again only to realize that the beach route is only open in the summer months. I just laughed and kept walking.  I figured I had already walked for over an hour, so I might as well just keep walking.   Armed with my camera and an eye for the extraordinary, I made my way through the neighborhoods and along the beaches taking picture after picture of anything that looked interesting.  It was dark by the time I made my way to Port Forum, which is a giant open area that opens up to the Mediterranean Sea and provides interesting landscape architecture for the local skateboarders.  I spent some good time watching the skateboarders and enjoying the view of the sea before I headed home on the metro.  It was almost a 45 minute ride back.  That was when I realized just how far I had walked.  It was actually a lot of fun spending time with myself, sightseeing and adventuring on my own.

Monday and Tuesday I had classes.  The classes that I am taking are: Intermediate Spanish 2, Sustainability in the Spanish Context, Contemporary Spanish Film, Human Development in Spain, and Sport and Society in Spain.  Classes here are surprisingly difficult.  The courseload isn’t too much different than what I get at Penn State, in fact maybe it is a little bit less.  The problem is that some of the teachers are not 100% fluent in English so it is hard to understand what they are trying to say and to have the teachers understand you.  Also two of the classes have teachers that think it is a good idea for the students to teach the class.  I think this is a very difficult way for the students to learn the correct material.  Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to make due.

VALENCIA, TORTOSA, AND TORRES WINERY

Early on Wednesday morning, I boarded a bus to go to Valencia for 2 nights and 3 days on the IES orientation field trip.  Our first destination was the river town of Tortosa.  It is located on the Ebre River and was home to Roman, Muslim, and Jewish peoples throughout its history.  There is a large castle at the top, but once again, it is more like a fort than a castle.  From the top of the castle is a fantastic view of the river, the city, and the mountains in the background.  Also from the top of the castle you can see a view of the Cathedral, which is a large building but was never finished.  A lot of people on the trip were complaining about the walk to the top and the cold, rainy weather, but in my opinion the view of the mountains and the architecture of the Cathedral were worth every minute.  I wish tourists were allowed to go into the cathedral though.

After that we made our way to Valencia.  The city of Valencia was very interesting.  The architecture was different than Barcelona and there were so many parks.  There used to be a river than ran through Valencia, but after a few major floods, they re-routed the river and turned the whole old riverbed into a very long park.  It was really something to see.  With all the bridges, I felt like I was back home in Pittsburgh, only instead of crossing over rivers, I was crossing over soccer (football) fields, baseball fields, flowery gardens, and beautiful park areas. 

That night, the hotel gave us a buffet dinner with many types of food including paella, a Valencia staple.  I’m not a fan of seafood, which is usually the main part of paella, so I was excited to see that the paella at this buffet consisted of chicken.  After the buffet dinner, we explored Valencia’s nightlife and even got to try “Agua de Valencia” which is a cocktail consisting of vodka, gin, cava (champagne) and orange juice.  It was really good but the bad weather scared the locals from venturing out at night so the nightlife was not as “hoppin'” as all the guidebooks say it is.

The next morning we got on a bus and toured the city by bus for about an hour, which I was thankful for because it was raining.  After the bus tour, we did a walking tour of the city in the rain.  It was miserable, but I didn’t care that much because I was anxious to see one of the most mysterious artifacts in all of history (or at least to Indiana Jones).  The Cathedral of Valencia is home to the supposed Holy Grail.  Of course, nobody is sure what cup was actually used at the Last Supper, but I would like to believe this is the chalice.  It makes my adventure story better.  Although unlike the final trap in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the chalice is actually adorned in gold and jewels.

After the walking tour, we had a few hours to explore Valencia on our own.  I made my way to the local market, which is HUGE.  Valencia is known for its oranges, so I figured I had to try a fresh Valencia orange.  I paid €0.25 for a gigantic orange which might have been the juiciest orange I have ever had, and subsequently the best orange I have ever had.  I was feeling adventurous so I tried a local treat called “horchata de chufa”.  It is a milk-like drink made of crushed tigernuts, water, and sugar.  It was a little bit thicker and much sweeter than normal milk, but it was still very refreshing.  Then a group of friends and I sat down in a chocolate shop and ordered “churros con chocolate”.  Wow. Talk about a delicious treat.  It is basically a bowl of melted chocolate and plate of churros to dip into the chocolate.  And the hot chocolate here is very different from the hot chocolate in the states.  Here, they melt chocolate, add a little bit of milk, and mix.  Trust me, it is so much better than the watered down garbage they sell back home.  I don’t know if I can go back to the old ways…

Then we headed to La Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias or “The City of Arts and Sciences” which is an entertainment complex in Valencia that includes an opera house, an IMAX theater, a science museum, and an outdoor art gallery.  The architecture here is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.  It almost looks like it came from another planet.  It was beautiful, weird, and cool.  One of the buildings in the complex is called “L’Oceonografic” which is the largest aquarium in Europe.  We were lucky enough to visit the aquarium and even see a dolphin show.  My favorite part of the aquarium was a tunnel that was underneath a shark tank.  The sharks were so close to me that I could make out every feature of their magnificently graceful bodies.

The next morning the group (there were 6 full buses of students) made our way to the Torres Winery where we were only allowed to sample one wine.  I know I’m not speaking only for myself when I say that pretty much everybody felt ripped off.  Then they took us on a tram and gave us a multi-media tour of the grounds where we learned how wine was made, barreled, and aged.

From the winery we stopped at a restaurant on the way back to Barcelona to enjoy a feast.  I got to partake in a special activity done in Spain that involves eating a unique onion that has been cooked and charred in a fire pit.  After peeling off the outer charred layers of the onion (remember from Shrek that onions have layers) the remaining inside layers of the onion is unscathed and is then smothered in a sauce and lowered into the mouth.  The onion is almost stick-like, it’s not like a conventional orb shaped onion.  Along with the onion ritual, we were able to drink wine out of a burrón, an interesting glass vessel.  It is almost like a tea pot.  You hold the burrón in the air and pull it away from your face, making a stream of wine from the spout of the burrón into your mouth.  As if that wasn’t enough, the waiters brought us huge plates of meats and vegetables, and then glasses of champagnes.  We ate like kings, but the meal was incredible sloppy.  I know that whole meal must be hard to picture, so I’ll let Anthony Bourdain from the Travel Channel explain it a little better in this video  (the meal starts at around the 3 minute mark):

BACK IN BARCELONA

After an exhausting but fun 3 days traveling around Spain, I decided to take the day and spend it exploring the city with friends.  We decided to go to the Chocolate Museum.  Yes, there is a museum solely dedicated to chocolate.  When we purchased entrance tickets, we were thrilled to find out that the ticket is actually a bar of chocolate.  So while learning about the history of chocolate and seeing some truly incredible chocolate sculptures, we could enjoy the savory 73% cocoa treat.

After the museum we ventured through the side streets of the city, visited small shops such as a venetian mask store, and even haggled with the foreigners who run the souvenir stores.  It was a fun day topped off by a visit to a candy store. MMMM!

That night we went to a discotheque in Barcelona called Catwalk.  We didn’t get into the club until 2:30 so I knew it was going to be a late night before I even got inside.  It was very crowded inside, with a lot of flashing lights, fog, bubbles, and loud music.  Luckily the metro runs all night on Saturdays so it was able to take me back to my homestay when I finally left the club at 5:30.  I wanted to leave much earlier, but I didn’t want to head home alone, so I thought it would be best to just suck it up and dance to the techno/R&B mashup that the DJ was spinning.

THE FOOD

I was very nervous about the food situation before I landed in Barcelona, but in all honesty everything so far has been just fine.  I’ve been exploring new foods, most of which are decent.  I ran into a problem tonight when my house mother brought out a seafood paella for dinner, complete with shrimp, mussels, and clams.  I managed to get down the shrimp and hide the shellfish, but it was a close call.  The meat here is excellent and so is the bread.  Nearly every day for lunch I buy a “bocadillo”, or sandwich, from a local restaurant.  I do run into some problems when ordering food at restaurants and some things get lost in translation, but for the most part all the food has been really good.

THE LANGUAGE

As I said before, I knew a little bit of Spanish before coming here which has really been helpful.  I find myself progressing slowly but surely in my grammar and vocabulary but still have some trouble orally forming sentences.  I can understand the language fairly well in conversation, but in Barcelona there is the troublesome Catalan language that often gets in the way.  There are actually four official languages in Spain, but Catalan and Castilian (Castilian is the type Spanish we learn in schools in the US)are the dominant two.  Catalan is more closely related to the French language than it is to the Spanish language, so if locals speak to me in Catalan, I just look back at them dumbfounded.  The locals are very proud of their Catalan and there is a push in local government to increase the use of Catalan in stores and throughout the city.  Most of the children in Barcelona are actually taught in schools in the Catalan language.  I find it to be a major distraction when trying to learn Castilian Spanish.  While the language is a nuisance, the Catalan history is fascinating and I will be posting more about the history of Barcelona and the surrounding area in future posts as I find out more about it for myself.

Maybe in the long run things aren’t so bad without all the comforts and routines of the life I was accustomed to back in the States.  Ranch and Dr. Pepper, two of my dietary staples, have seamlessly taken a backseat to vinaigrette and water.  I have traded Chicken fingers and French fries for paella and bruschetta.  I am experiencing something new every day and enjoying every second of my time in Europe.

But at the same time, some things are just too good to live without…

Hasta Luego,

~Sean

Location: Valencia, Spain / Tortosa, Spain / Barcelona, Spain