I'm actually going to post about my day before it's too late and I forget all the details, because that's what happened with my last post and I just ended up doing a picture dump on you guys. I realized that I put a lot of these pictures on Facebook so there's no reason for a lot of people to even look at my blog, but now I'm starting to put more of pictures of me and other people on Facebook and putting the rest on here as well as talking about the day and what it was like. A picture is worth a thousand words, but it's worth even more with a story behind it.
So today was our last Maryland-in-Barcelona orientation event, the hike up to Tibidabo through Parc de Collserola. This place is at the peak of the mountains near Barcelona, but it's still accessible by metro. I love the metro! It's so easy to get anywhere and it's cheap, too. One trip to anywhere costs 1 euro, unless you get a T-Jove card which costs 105 euro and gives you an unlimited amount of trips on any public transportation in Barcelona within the span of three months. That's the one I plan on getting, if I ever get off my butt and actually go buy it...
Last night I made my first home cooked meal because eating at restaurants all the time has seriously been adding up and although it's delicious, I can only afford that lifestyle for so long. Luckily, groceries are cheap here. I made fusilli pasta with tomato sauce from scratch, and it was pretty freakin' good. I don't know what I'm going to eat tonight but hopefully it's something with less carbs. I'm starting to really miss Korean food. There's a Korean restaurant down my street (did I already say that?) so I'm definitely going to go there soon. I just wish they had take out... that's another thing that's different, restaurants here don't do take out. You either finish your food or they will throw it away, you don't get to take it home.
This was weird because we got on the metro in a completely metropolitan area (haha) and then we got off and it was silent and kind of peaceful because there were so many trees.
A map of the park was carved into this rock. This is when Ryan talked about how we need to be careful for wild boars running around. Apparently they won't hurt you, but if you're close to a baby boar then you need to get out of there because the mother could come after you and possibly try to kill you. Which would be no fun, unless you're into that kind of thing. Luckily, we didn't see any boars, although I would have liked to see the baby ones because they're supposed to be really cute. He also talked about how the Olympics in 1992 TOTALLY transformed Barcelona and put it on the map as a major tourist destination. Before then, people outside of Europe didn't even know where Barcelona was. He talked about how he chose to start a study abroad program here because he had a feeling it would totally blow up in the next decade, and his friend started one in Madrid and wishes he had chosen Barcelona as well.
The hike was completely uphill, and I was seriously running out of breath multiple times. I'm seriously out of shape... I would get back into running here but I injured my foot over the summer (I wiped out at a trampoline park and bent my left foot with all my weight on it, lame) and today's hike made it flare up again, so I'm currently sitting in bed with a makeshift cold pack on it. I can definitely say it's been a roller coaster of a first week...
The longer I'm here, the more I realize that pretty much everything is in Catalan first, and then maybe Castellano. When you get to more remote areas, you can forget about hoping to see any English words. Everyone I passed by said "Bon Dia" to me (which is "good day" in Catalan), instead of "Buenos días".
We hiked all the way up to that church. This is the point where it started getting a little more challenging. Thank god it wasn't hot out today... I brought no form of sun protection whatsoever, plus, the trees provided plenty of shade.
We made it!! Check out the creepy moon face thing on the left.
Group picutre outside Templo del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús. I'm gonna take an educated guess and say it means the Temple of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Am I right? Do I win anything?
The pictures really don't do the view justice. I'm definitely coming back, since it's super easy to get here (by that I mean the metro ride... the hike up is not so easy). I have a feeling I'm going to be saying "I'm definitely coming back" a lot of times, and I hope I actually follow through haha. I'm definitely going to bring my parents and Daniel here, so I guess I'll be back at least two more times.
They had a tiny little amusement park at the top. This place is called Tibidabo, but I think it's still in the city limits of Barcelona.
Patatas! Apparently Catalonians say "patatas" which is "potatoes" when taking a picture, instead of saying cheese. It doesn't really make sense because when you say "patatas" your mouth is just gaping wide open instead of in a smile...
Gotta get the panorama shot. I think it came out pretty nicely! I'm always terrible at taking these...
It was very quiet in some areas, even though it was crawling with tourists by the time we got up to the top and started walking around a bit. Am I still considered a tourist? I guess not really, because I live here... (for a few months) Speaking of tourists, the pickpocketing situation in Barcelona is really not that bad. I probably jinxed myself, oops. I haven't had anyone even try to steal my things or anything like that, but that's probably because I keep an iron grip on my bag and look straight ahead and walk fast when I'm in the streets so I look like I know what I'm doing. I still don't yet, but it's all about faking it until you make it.
Eventually we started heading back down the mountain to get some lunch and go back home. This is when my foot really started to hurt, because the path wasn't paved at all and was a bunch of bumpy rocks.
A cool piece of graffiti we found on the way. I had to ask an old Catalonian man who had his mountain bike, and he didn't know a word of English. It's okay because I asked him in Spanish. He took like twenty pictures and then asked if I liked them and if I wanted him to retake any. Nice guy!
We saw a bunch of cacti along the road, and these were some cactus leaves (are they leaves?) that fell on the ground. I thought cacti only grew in the Americas.
We stopped for lunch at a pretty touristy restaurant, with an amazing view over Barcelona. I knew it was touristy because A) everyone around us was American b) the bathrooms said "women" and "men". It was weird because 10 of us walked in, and they just told us to sit at our own tables separately. That has never happened to me before. They didn't even offer to shuffle some tables around so we could all sit together, so we had to do it ourselves. It wasn't a big deal, but I just thought it was weird. There's no tipping system in Europe, so sometimes the service is kind of lacking because the servers actually make a decent enough salary to live off of (cough cough America), so they aren't at the mercy of the customers.
I ordered the salmon tartare and patatas bravas. I love patatas bravas! I think they're my favorite tapas food. It's fried potatoes with a tomato sauce (almost like ketchup but a little spicy) and a mayonnaise-like sauce. It's been different at every restaurant I've been to so far. The salmon tartare wasn't really my favorite, because I hate raw onions and it was diced with raw onions and parsley. The actual fish was very good and fresh, though.
Ryan ordered some fried peppers and passed them around. I tried one, it wasn't my favorite, but hey, at least I tried it right? Making progress over here. I'd hate to get home in January and wish I had tried more foods, so I'm just gonna go for it all while I can.
After lunch, we walked further down the mountain until we hit sea level and started walking towards the metro to get back home. I don't know what street we were on, but there were so many beautiful houses that were mostly being used as places of business. There was one building that was newer, and it was literally a grey square with windows. Ryan (did I ever explain who Ryan is? He's our Barcelona resident director. And no, he doesn't live in our building like they do in College Park. He's more like our mentor and program director. He's awesome) expressed his frustration that they had ruined such a beautiful street with such an ugly, uninspired building. I mean, I saw it, I thought it was ridiculous that they planned a thing like that. Like, someone looked at the blueprint for this thing and thought "Yep, this is good. It'll do." I'm sure it was a matter of building costs, but still.
Finally back at the metro! It seems like no matter where you are in Barcelona, you can get home in 20 minutes. So right now, I'm lying in bed with an injured foot and an increasingly sore body. You know that feeling when you had a really physically active day and as it gets later at night you can feel all the soreness building up and you're dreading waking up the next morning paralyzed because of how sore you are... yep. That's me right now.
Tomorrow is my last free day before school starts, so wish me luck! I have about 24 hours to get my life together, AKA buying school supplies, some more groceries, my T-jove card, and maybe a Spanish phone if I'm feeling really productive.