España: Finde en Barcelona!

From November 19th-22nd I spent the weekend in Barcelona! My roommate Jill's family was visiting for a week, so we planned a weekend trip to Barcelona for all of us. We flew from Granada to Barcelona which worked out well because it was a very short flight. We rented an apartment in the heart of Barcelona for the weekend, which turned out to be a lot cheaper than staying in a hotel and more convenient because we could make our own meals! It was so nice to actually have a real breakfast :) We made eggs, toast and cut up some fruit for breakfast! Not having a real breakfast here in Granada has definitely been one of the most difficult things for me to get used to.

When we arrived in Barcelona we spent the day walking around the city, which is absolutely beautiful! We walked down Barcelona's most famous street, Las Ramblas, which leads you down to the harbor. Las Ramblas is a very wide pedestrian street line with beautiful trees and filled with all kinds of vendors and interesting people dressed up in costumes. On the second day we went sightseeing and stopped at the various Gaudi buildings. Gaudi is a famous architect who designed many innovate buildings. One of his most famous designs is the cathedral called La Sagrada Familia. The cathedral is very different looking and monumental when you're standing next to it. We waited in line to go up one of the towers of La Sagrada Familia, which was definitely worth it beacuse of the beautiful view of Barcelona from the top. The construction of La Sagrada Familia began at the beginning of the twentieth century and it is still under construction. The whole project is funded by personal donations and entrance fees, so you can imagine how much longer it will take to complete! Jill's sister was very excited to see all these architectural masterpieces because she is an architect.

One of my favorite parts of the city was Park Guell, a park designed originally by Gaudi to be a development of homes. The park is set a little back from the city and up on a hill so it has gorgeous views of the city and the ocean. All of the benches in the park are beautiful mosaics. Gaudi wanted this park to show how architecture and nature can intertwine, which I think he did a great job of! The park is very peaceful to walk around in, I absolutely loved it! During the bus tour we stopped at the FC Barcelona soccer stadium, which was really fun for me to see! I really wanted to go see a game, but they were not playing that weekend :( On our last day we walked down the beach and through another beautiful park called Parque Ciutedella. It was pretty cold so there weren't many people on the beach, but it was still fun to walk around la playa! Another one of my favorite parts of the trip was eating at Maoz! Maoz is a delicious self serve vegetarian falafel restaurant. My cousin Quinn just opened a Maoz franchise in Washington DC, so it was really fun for me to try Maoz for the first time in Barcelona! I know he is going to do really well because Maoz is delicious! After packing in lots of sightseeing and visiting every part of Barcelona we could fit in, we headed back to Granada Sunday night. Overall it was an awesome weekend trip and very nice to spend time with Jill's family!