sun, sand, and sangrias.

man oh man. i am WAY behind on updating this.

i want to to write down as much as possible on my short but AMAZING weekend in barcelona. mostly for me, of course, but just in case any of my diligent readers wanted to know...

barcelona is my favorite city in spain. sure, granted it was the only one i went to, but i already can tell that it's my favorite.

thursday, march 13th, we arrived super late and caught a taxi from BCN airport. that was the first time i'd been in a car since my last day in New York! it was so relaxing because we were driving through the city at night and it was quiet and the man was playing spanish radio and he offered us gum. yeah, maybe not the smartest thing to do, take candy from a stranger, but hey, i'm still kickin' and breathin'. once at the hotel, we settled in and passed out from the day's events.

friday morning was a blur. met up with some other sju kids (notable fact: our entire hostel was taken over by sju. there had to be close to 40-50 sju people there). walked down the las ramblas and to the port and soaked in this amazing sun. i overestimated the weather and brought my scarf AND sweater, both highly unneccessary. after taking in some sun and breeze, we walked back and dropped our winter clothes off and headed back out in search of a place to eat. as we deciphered streets and turned corners, we stumbled upon a ...FILIPINO RESTAURANT. i'd never felt more at home. barcelona was becoming more and more comfortable by the minute. originally, we wanted a real "spain-ish" restaurant. but as we saw that the spainard place next door was really flimsy, we opted for the real pinoy food.

i think i forgot to mention that i gave up pork AND beef for Lent so i was definitely suffering as i watched Camay eat lumpia (beef for her) but they called it something else...not exactly sure what they were named. but it was comforting to hear the language being spoken in such proximity to me. after that we headed to st. josep's market and got this really awesome euro smoothie.

walked around for a bit before heading to the Cathedral of Barcelona which was stunning. said my prayers and my petitions and went off into the music of the streets. as we began searching for the water again, we stumbled onto a cute street with lots of little stores. i was tempted to buy this long dress just 'cause for 25 euro but camay convinced me not to.

the sun had set and night had fallen onto barcelona. we found the water and passed boats and overlooked the mont juic from the port. breath. taking. being the courageous people we were, we were adament about finding the beach and so we took off for the other side of the city and nearly an hour later found the beautiful, sandy shore. even in darkness it was amazing. we settled down, boots first, into the sand and watched the black waters crashing while listening to our ipods.

the next day consisted of an early wake-up call. since we stayed in a hostel (my first!), the 9 other people we didn't know in the room were hustling and bustling around at like 7am. it was, undoubtedly, annoying, but we got up and began to hustle for breakfast not too soon afterwards. we headed outside and literally 5 steps from our hostel was a gaudi house! i had always been fascinated by his architecture, especially after seeing them on the travel channel. then we decided to go to his unfinished materpiece, La Sagrada Familia.

camay and i have become pros at navigating through cities. we've gone around all of rome, florence, pisa, venice, sort-of paris, and barcelona all on foot. all we need os a trusty street map and we're good. and so that's how barcelona went. we located La Sagrada Familia and were on our way. one of the highlights of the walk was seeing a huge owl on top of a building. upon arrival to la sagrada familia, i was taken aback by its architecture. this was one landmark i did not remember watching on the travel channel, so it was a happy surprise. we waited the long line to enter an unfinished cathedral (supposedly will take 50-70 more years to complete) and to climb all the way to the top. the view was ridiculous! a hot sunny day in barcelona with a killer view! then we took a break for lunch at a place called donde jorge (forreal) for some paellas. my first time havin' 'em and they were goood!

after a hearty meal, we trekked up towards 'arc de triomf' listening to jason mraz the entire time. i must admit, this arc is prettier than the one in paris. then we bump into katie from our cohort! crazy and random. we walk through the major park (i forget the name) and then along the edge and cross train tracks to get to the beach. o.m.g. the beach during the day was the best. i definitely felt spoiled because it was freakin' march and i was at the beach. i took off my sneakers, switched to my flipflops, and happily walked along the sand. we went to the edge and walked along this rock dock and sat there listening to more music, sunbathing.

to get some food before our trek back, we stopped by this restaurant and as camay went ot the bathroom i literally closed my eyes and let my finger point out my meal. it turned out to be little fried fish. i don't normally eat that stuff when my dad cooked it so when it arrived i sucked in air and had to tell myself that i was paying for it. it ended up being decent and i got to keep my liter water bottle that the waiter provided us.

we found ourselves walking back to the cathedral of barcelona and caught the WHOLE SQUARE joined together in hands, dancing the famous 'sardona' dance. there was a live band outside playing and the young and old were in many circles just dancing. it was incredible! i can't believe that happens all the time. we need stuff like that in new york.

after i finished recording videos of the dances, got some sangrias and chocolate and churros and we were on our way up to mont juic and the "magic fountain". after sadly realizing the airtram didn't work past 6pm, we found ourselves somehow getting to the magic fountain on accident. it was incredible! it was an entire show matched to music and lights and afterwards we climbed up the steps and had a whole night time view of all of barcelona. it was the best way to end my stay in the beautiful city.

viva barcelona!


i promise to update about my last few weeks in paris and my first week and a half in dublin ASAP because I will definitely be blogging while in grand ole London over spring break.

inbox wisdom.

"Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don’t all have the courage to confront our own dream.

Why?

There are four obstacles: First: we are told from childhood onward that everything we want to do is impossible. … If we have the courage to disinter dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle: love. We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream. …Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path. … Then comes the fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives.… But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here."


a part of the introduction from the alchemist by paulo coelho.i love it.and for some reason what you wrote reminded me of it.
&
esp. the love part.
love never enslaves us, it supports us.


this was in my myspace inbox after i posted a bulletin in the wee early hours of the morning, alone in the computer lab. i read it the next day. it is probably the most comforting ( and substantial ) literary piece of work that's been shared with me in a while.



thanks greci.

a weekend in barcelona.

off to barcelona. pray for me!
p-p-peace.

happy hour and jazz nights.

another successful week in paris. sure, i love rome to pieces but paris is definitely growing on me.

this week i had my usual classes. i went to the louvre twice for art class on wednesday and thursday. i went to a theatre class, which was super fun. try and memorize this: cows graze in groves on grass where grass on grooves on groves. and then try to walk quickly around a dark room with 6 other people without running into eachother. i attended a self-defense workshop and looked a handful of trusty manuevers. i can surely kick your ass now while i say, "prends ca dans ta geoul!'" (take that in your face!).

i went to versailles on friday and basked in louis 14th's (the sun king's) palace of wonders. i cannot believe how much dough this guy had. later that night, a group of us went to the eiffel tower and caught it RIGHT as it began to sparkle. this only happens on every hour. then camay and i, of course, took jumping pictures. we were headed to a jazz club and then the longhop and didn't want to go on the metro so we opted for the long walk. we kept trying to walk by the river, under the bridges, but it was either all roads or cut off. it was becoming the longest walk of my life! i didn't realize how long the river seine was. i caught the louvre pyramid at night and the obelisk at night, as well. as our feet began to lose feeling and our bladders began acting up ("guys, i gotta pop a squat."), we finally reached cafe universal. we sat down and then unfortunately were told we missed the live jazz music. had some drinks and then began our long trek home.

saturday, i woke up relatively early (for someone who got home 3am), and bought some breakfast. then my aunt, from here in paris, called me up and said that she'd like to meet me! so then, i met up with her and she kindly took us to sacre coeur (sacred heart basilica) in montmarte. it had an incredible view of paris. she bought us OUR souvenirs, which was ridiculously kind of her and then took us out for some food. she showed us around to where all these painters were and then we departed. we headed for the moulin rouge, only to be taken aback by the amount of sex shops/bars that led up to it. i mean, sure, duh, moulin rouge = sex. but i wasn't expecting some of the things that were right out in the open! the moulin rouge was a huge disappointment even thought i'd been warned by my book and others. seeing it for myself was lame. so then we went to cafe oz in tha area and enjoyed happy hour while watching a football game (soccer game): paris st. germain vs FC lauriant (i believe?). we were surrounded by a bar full of extremely good-looking french men. it was hard to leave, lol. after getting back home and resting a little, we headed back out to catch some of the jazz music we missed from the night before and it was a success! 3 more stjohns kids joined in and then after the music was done, we sat there listening to jew jokes (told by a jew, of course).

my sunday began with a wonderful phone call from my wonderful guy back home where he left me in surprise by saying that he basically set up audio for jesse mccartney! i was officially jealous. he apparently stole me a set list though. =]. he described how the party mr. jmac was playing at was for a girls batmitzvah! this was at the mandarin hotel! ridonkulous! then i had breakfast and headed downstairs in the quiet cafeteria, made some tea, ate a banana, and read through the first 3 chapters of slumdog millionare. i'm officially sad that the book is nothing like the movie. or should i be mad that the movie is nothing like the book? hm. then we headed to the flea market at the end of line 4, porte de clignancourt, and i went cuhrazy! i bought some boots, some sneakers, a shirt, a dress, and a beret! all for around 50 euros! then we headed back to the latin quarter, got some gyros, and headed for les deux magots for desserts. we attempted to have a philosophical conversation. i guess talking about robert de niro lookalikes and where albert einstein was from could count as philosophical? and out of nowhere the rain and wind came. i think that's where my headache is from.

anyways, that's all i can remember.
oh and by the way, my laptop is dead.
thank you computer labs!

"please make my dreams come true!"

what a first week in Paris.

i'll be honest. i'm struggling to remember what i did but i will give you as much as i can remember.

i began my week with no classes. i love mondays because i have zero zero zero classes to go to. but then on tuesday, i attended my first french class (yes, in france!) and my professor is truly epic. he laughed and made faces at our attempts to speak the language and our accents when saying words. this is the best class because he rarely speaks in english, so you have no choice but to listen and grasp the language (like you're supposed to).

wednesday was my first art&architecture class and, although i was sketchy about it at first because of previous comments about it, its turning out to be pretty ok. like, for instance, i've got a free pass to the louvre until september and i basically get in free to practically all museums in paris! that first day, we went to the louvre to get our passes done and so i've got this nifty cool pass. it's pretty damn legit.

thursday, i had french again then art where we went to notre-dame. notre-dame is breathtaking and not at all like i had expected. no, i wasn't expecting the hunchback and esmerelda to pop up and start singing but it's decor is much more intense and somber than i had depicted.
friday was spent exploring the area 'round the eiffel tower. i took a plethora of pictures of the damned thing and i didn't even get to climb it! in the winter time, the eiffel isn't really anything. what brings out the eiffel would usually be the leaf-ridden trees lining up the sides and its big, green lawn which draws your attention to le tour eiffel, but i wasn't quite feeling it. it's just a big hunk of metal anyway, right? (lol, ok, don't shoot me. i know it's more than a big hunk of metal) i didn't realize how close the campus is to the tower, as well as arc de troimphe! the arc is quite intense, too, because it overlooks champs elysees and the obselisk at the end. walking down champs elysees was surreal, especially as i passed the huge louis vuitton flagship store (hm, is that the original one?). instead of heading towards the over 3,000 year old obelisk, we turned and headed to le grand palais and le petit palais and crossed pont alexander and then looked at hotel de invalides which had this sort of military exhibition goin on. then it was straight down boulevard invalides back to campus. we found these drawings on the side of buildings of the same woman. i have named her, Elizabeth.

saturday was super exciting because i went to DISNEYLAND PARIS! EuroDisney was so much fun. after a bit of a rough start, the large group of approximately maybe 15-20 of us caught the train to disneyland. more showed up to this than anything the school actually tried to put together, lol! anyways, so we couldn't get a student discounts even though we begged and i spent a ridiculous amount of euros (you don't even want to know the conversion to dollars). despite my desire to cry over money, i made sure i was going to enjoy myself. the first ride was space mountain: mission 2 and it 'rocked my world'. then did a bunch of stuff in fantasyland, then headed to disney studios to grab some lunch. went on the tower of terror, rock'n'rollercoaster with some fastpasses, back to disneyland to do a few more things and caught our last rollercoaster at around 8pm. we rode into the dark night filled with stars and overlooked the park all lit up. it was awesome. did a mediterranean buffet for dinner then ran for a train back to the heart of Paris.

on sunday i woke up and didn't eat breakfast. stupid me. i walked back to the grand palais, expecting it to be open. but alas, twas not. went to the petit palais instead and bullshitted some time there and then went back for a tour of the college of bernardins (i think that's what it was, lol). the tourguide was this super cute old french man with this hecka stylish little paisly scarf around his neck. he was the coolest. and apparantly we were the first ever english tour of the college! pretty damned cool. then i rushed back to campus, starving, but needing to go to mass. then had to find out the priest who served the english mass was called away to taiwan. of course. so i walked to a church called st. germain de pres (which is right across from the famous les deux magots!) and had my first french mass. it was beautiful. walking paris at night is such a treat.

and finally, today, i did my first morning of service in paris at a pre-school. i opted for little children rather than a soup kitchen again, lol. we all know how that went down in rome. the children are the CUTEST things EVER. forget the brats in America, i'd rather be a pre-school teacher here in paris. they are way more behaved and not causin' a ruckus everywhere they go. i love the way they say my name. hopefully, i can get a video of them saying it. haha. i spent most of my time with the youngest of the class which are 3-4 years old. they are the sweetest little darlings. sure, they love to pick their nose and sneeze on your face and cough on your hand as you pass them a green marker. but i love them to bits already! i can't wait for next week.

so here are some pictures because i'm being really nice this time:

au revoir for now!