Happy VE-day to everyone, or as we call it over here “Fête
de la Victoire 1945”. It is a holiday for the country meaning classes are
cancelled for the day. Aside from getting ahead on schoolwork I found some time
to begin writing about the first part of my spring break. Also significant about
today is that it marks exactly one month before I leave the country to return
to the US. It is hard to think about how fast time has gone over here, but I
still have one month to make the best of!
When you're really busy with school work during the
semester, events more than a week or two in the future seem to be really far
off. That is why I was taken by surprise when all of the sudden it was the last
week before our two week long spring break at ENSEA. I still had to do laundry,
catch up on emails and finish class registration, and hopefully clean the
apartment a bit since Kaitlin was due to arrive that week.
On Thursday afternoon I finished up a long circuits lecture
followed by some French speaking practice in class and walked out of ENSEA not
to return for almost twenty days! Kaitlin was on her school break as well so we
had some time to devote to travel. Our plan was to begin a counter-clockwise
loop of Western Europe. At the recommendation of several of my friends who
studied abroad in Spain, we began in Barcelona.
I have mentioned (complained might be a better word to use)
of the expense of flying out of Paris. As an alternative option, we decided to
take a night train down from Paris to Barcelona. We wouldn’t need lodging for
the night, I could use my rail card, and though the journey would be around ten
hours we would save a bit of money in the process.
We arrived at Gare d’Austerlitz just as it was getting dark
and checked into our train. We took our seats, larger than a usual train which
reclined back quite far. To say that we got a perfectly restful night’s sleep
would be an overstatement, but we arrived in Barcelona with a few good hours of
rest and were able to drop our bags off at our hostel so we wouldn’t have to
carry them around until check-in time.
Our hostel was very close to the city’s cathedral and in
walking distance of many of the main sights and the beach. We had beds in
separate rooms. Oddly enough I ended up in the room with a bunch of British
girls and Kaitlin ended up in a room with a bunch of French guys, quite ironic.
Both groups had plans to go out that night and invited us to join. We declined
their invitation as a real night’s sleep sounded infinitely more appealing. They
left the hostel at about 1am (night life starts much later in Spain and goes
just until dawn, there are some bars that do not open until 11pm or midnight)
and we had the whole building to ourselves.
Barcelona is the capital of the Catalona region, a lose
agglomeration of provinces which makes up their own sort of nationality within
Spain. Therefore the language that is spoken in Barcelona is not Spanish, but
rather Catalan a similar language but with enough differences to make the two
distinct. Most Barcelonans can speak both fluently, but English speaking isn’t
as high as it is in other countries. Luckily our hostel staff spoken English as
did the places where we went for dinner. As a result, the most Spanish that one
would need to know is enough to order lunch or ask for directions. Having both
studied Spanish in high school we did well enough on our own.
I would be lying if I said that Barcelona’s huge beach
didn’t factor into our decision to go there. However, the weather that greeted
us upon our arrival was not as agreeable as one would hope. This deterred us
little from walking along the marina and beach even in drizzly or cold weather.
Aside from the sights of the harbor and the architecture of
the city center we managed to make it farther away from the city center to Park
Güell which overlooks the waterfront of the city and is an excellently designed
park in its own right. After a days worth of exploring we found a restaurant
that specialized in two of Barcelona’s specialties: seafood paella and sangria
at a great price. I believe I have mentioned before that a paella is a rice
based dish with seafood and fish stock served in the dish it’s made in and in
huge proportions. I felt bad not being able to finish the whole thing!
From the beach my sense of exploration couldn’t ignore the
view of a building which appeared to be a church perched on the top of the
tallest hill in sight. We made it a point on our last day to venture out and
see what was up there. What we found out is that the mountain was called
Tibidabo and was indeed the tallest mountain of the range that surrounds
Barcelona. Not only was it indeed home to a church, but an amusement park as
well!
To reach the top we took a bus to the base of the hill and
bought a ticket for the funicular (a train that ascends on an angle, similar to
the one that goes to the top of Montmartre in Paris) which took us right to the
top. The amusement park was in full swing, with an assortment of rides and
children running around. We visited the church and had a look around at the
impressive vistas from which you could see for miles. In front of us stretched
the whole of Barcelona down to the beach. Behind was the countryside that rose
up along the horizon to a mountain range with several formidable looking peaks in
the distance. Also over the distance appeared a line of dark gray clouds so we
decided to descend before we were caught up in a rainstorm.
The final day we took some more time to head to the beach
and see the sights of the city center. We couldn’t stay for too long since we
had a flight to catch to head to our next city further to the southwest,
Madrid!
-Adam
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