The first two weeks of March had its ups and downs.
The week was relatively warm, so one day I grabbed a drink similar to a “Yoo-Hoo”, sat on a bench in a park, and read my psychology book for a while in the sun. I think I’ll have to start doing this more often, especially with the way my psychology grade looks right now…
My nights that week were all very exciting. One night, I went with a group of people to an indie rock bar in a neighborhood in Barcelona that is known for its welcoming and original bar scene full of locals. While some people studying here stray away from this area for that exact reason, my friends and I embrace it. Each time we have bar-hopped there, we met interesting people and got great prices on drinks. Anyways, the indie bar was interesting, but the band was really bad. I like indie music, but this band only sang Spanish indie songs that were just awful. They also performed one of the worst covers of The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” that I have ever heard. Another night, we went to another live music club in a different area of the city. This place was a lot more classy and calm. We bought a bottle of wine for the concert and it came in an ice bucket and a waiter to pour it for us. I felt so special. The musician was an Argentine guitarist who was excellent. He played for about 2 full hours and kept us entertained the whole time. One of his songs was exceptional, and I tried to find it on youtube, but my search was fruitless. One of the other nights we went to one of the most fun bars I have ever been to. It is a giant warehouse that is full of tables (Hofbrahaus style), foosball, and pool tables. At this bar you can order “towers” of beer. It is a giant container of beer that comes with its own tap. There are students from all over the world at this bar, and it always makes for a good time.
On Saturday afternoon, my friend Emily and I ventured to a beautiful garden/park on the northern city limits. Parc Laberint is a garden with a confusing hedgemaze, a pond, a waterfall, many statues, and an extensive romantic garden which was extremely peaceful. 
I couldn’t help but feel I was in the Tri-wizard Tournament from the Harry Potter series. At the entrance to the parc, there was even a giant trophy-like cup that was similar to what I imagined the Tri-Wizard cup to look like. I had a blast walking around the gardens and taking pictures. It was exhausting though, so I took a nap next to a hermit hut that reminded me of the Shire. After the nap, we stopped to get a small bite to eat. Next to the food stand was a playground. Of course I had to go play on it! Spanish playgrounds are so much cooler than American ones! Maybe is the safety rules and restrictions that are set up in the States. As a 21 year old, I had so much fun playing on the playground; I would have been overwhelmed with excitement if I went there as a child. I am definitely going to back to the park to take more pictures because unfortunately I don’t have any to share. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
Sunday I hopped on a train to the city of Sitges, which is a small city about 45 minutes south of Barcelona. Travis, Eric, and I were going to Sitges for our second Carnaval fiesta. I knew it was going to be an interesting night; Carnival and the fact that Sitges is the homosexual capital of Spain is a dangerous combination. I had bought a cheap mask and a glittery hat, but I wasn’t dressing up as anything too fancy. Travis painted his whole face silver and wore a batman mask. It looked awesome. We got there and explored the city a little bit. We walked down to the beach and watched the sunset from the seaside church. It was really beautiful with green palm trees and golden beaches and the blue sea. After dinner we found a place to watch the parade. After witnessing the elaborate floats and costumes of Nice’s Carnival parade, I guess you could say I was a little bit spoiled. The parade was good, but it was not as extravagant or as fun as Nice. There were less clothes on the people in the parade, though. It was still a good time
After the parade, the streets were absolutely crazy. It was like one giant club, people were everywhere and loud music was blaring from every bar. To make a long story short, when we left one of the bars, I know I had my camera on a string around my wrist because I was spinning it. Then, as we meandered through the crowd while we looked for the train station, I went to take a picture of something and noticed my camera was gone. I have no idea how it disappeared, but I assume somebody cut the string without me realizing it. So of course I was pretty distraught. I had taken over 150 pictures throughout the day, some of which were very funny.
Not to mention I would now have to buy a new camera in Europe which mean shelling out more cash than I already was. (Good thing I had a 1,000 dollar bill!) Then we realized we had no idea where the train station was. So I had just lost my camera and now we were lost in a foreign city. At least we weren’t alone. We ran into others who were lost as well. Eventually we could see the train station, but could not get to it because the police had blocked all the roads and bridges leading to the station except for one road. It took us a half hour to get on that road and get in line for the train. This was the 5:30 am train back to Barcelona and hundreds of people packed into the train like sardines after a long night of celebrating Carnival. It was a long, exhausting trip back. I didn’t get back to my homestay until almost 8 am. That afternoon, I dreamed that I still had my camera. It was brutal.
I had two field trips to museums in Barcelona the following week. On Wednesday March 9th, I went to the “Sun Factory” with my Sustainability class. It is an interesting building near the beach that used to be home to the gas company. Since the gas company moved into a much bigger, better, and more beautiful building, the old building has become a museum dedicated to explaining ways to be more sustainable, and in particular how to fully utilize the sun. It was interesting, but a little bit boring. The following day I went to the Olympic Museum with my Sport and Society class. I really enjoyed this museum. It had thousands of artifacts from the 1992 Olympics that were held in Barcelona. They had memorabilia from sports I had never even heard of before!
The weekend had terrible weather. I think it rained every day. I stayed in Barcelona and relaxed. Eric and I bought an “Articket”. It is an entrance ticket to 7 museums in Barcelona, including “La Pedrera” and the Picasso Museum. It cost 21 euros, which comes out to only 3 euros per museum! We visited MACBA, which is the Museum of Contemporary Art. I’m not a fan of contemporary art, but I keep going to art museums hoping one of them will change my mind. We went on a tour (in English) hoping to understand some of the works of “art” in the museum, but to be honest it just confused me more. I simply don’t see the complexities in some of the mundane and simplistic paintings and sculptures. Some works of art were interesting, but most just made absolutely no sense and seemed to require no artistic skill whatsoever. That night, Penn State basketball played Michigan State in the Big Ten semi-final game. I had met a whole group of MSU students earlier in the week who were in Barcelona for the weekend. They convinced the owner of an English pub to play the game. It was me vs. 21 Michigan State fans. I cheered on our Nittany Lions to a victory! I should congratulate the team for making the NCAA tournament for the first time in a while. Unfortunately, I was not able to see the game vs Temple because it coincided with football (soccer) games, so the football games took precedence in all of the bars. Sunday night we found a small bar to watch the FC Barcelona game in. Watching the games with locals is so intense and their passion is contagious. I can’t wait to go to a Bar�a game on April 10th! It is going to be unbelievable. First I need to buy a Messi jersey!
So if you were wondering why I don’t have many pictures from the two weeks covered in this entry, it is because somebody else somewhere is looking through the pictures on my camera. I eventually did buy a new camera, which is actually better than the one that was stolen. It cost a lot of money, but I had to buy one to document the craziness that was Las Fallas. I will be posting an entry about Las Fallas and another about my trip to Ireland as soon as I have time.
Hasta luego!
~Sean
Location: Sitges, Spain
orld famous museums all through out the city. I had the opportunity to visit both the Pompidou and the Louvre. And the best part: both of my visits were free! (You can get in for free by showing a student ID card and an ID card that shows you live in the EU). The Lourve is massive. I think you could spend weeks in there and still not see everything. If you are able to go give yourself a few hours to walk around (and of course time to see the Mona Lisa even though she was named the second most disappointing tourist attraction in the world because of her size).
p we stopped at the Love Lock bridge to put up our own locks. We accidentally put our locks on the wrong bridge (oops!) but turns out that was not such a bad idea since the original bridge had begun falling apart and all of those love locks have been taken down. It is easy to find locks in the tourist shops around Paris especially by the bridge.
there worked better with our schedule. Nice is absolutely gorgeous. It boasts a large market in town with delicious fruit and beautiful crafts and paintings. If you like soap you will find lots of handmade soap here especially lavender. Climb up castle hill for a great view of Nice and of its rock beach.
nd on the people in the parade. And everyone on the floats was doing the same. The floats were very elaborate and there were a lot of performers walking through the parade too.
