A Productive 24 Hours

Wednesday (and Thursday) Dinner

Wednesday night I familiarized myself with the kitchen and made myself and a friend a delicious dinner (See above). Olive oil is extremely cheap here. We ate dinner on the rooftop "Refreshing Lounge" and watched the sunset.

Sunset from Roof

This morning, class was an hour shorter, so after a quick lunch back at camp I hit the Metro with three others to explore the older parts of the city. I mentioned before that the city is a labyrinth, no difference here. Each street led us to an even more beautiful street, and eventually always right back where we started.

Cathedral

More exploration happened once we got back and my friend, Haley, and I decided to head to the beach before dinner. We accidentally made a wrong turn, and stumbled upon a beautiful, gigantic park. We spent a long time basking in each wonder that we saw every time we turned a corner. We left after we took our share of photos and after a few more wrong turns (which led to a rack of delightfully cheap postcards) we made it to the beach two hours later than planned... but completely worth it.

One of the Ponds in the Park

Father and Daughter on a Boat in the Park

A Young Girl Enjoys the Park

One of the Trails (Good for Running!)

¡Hola Barcelona!

 One of the streets near downtown.

The view from my window.

I have reached day 3 of my stay in Barcelona.  I arrived with the majority of the students in my class Monday morning.  We flew in to the city briefly after the sun had risen which left me gawking at the beauty of the sky and sea. Since then I have tried some delicious seafood, walked in the midst of the city on La Rambla, had class, have taken the metro about 10 times, and went for a run by the Mediterranean sea.  Everyone here speaks Catalan, which is very similar to Spanish, but the endings of words are different.  For example "four cats" in Spanish is "cuatro gatos" while in Catalan its "quatre gats." I used this example because our professor treated us to dinner last night at a restaurant called "Quatre Gats," which was the restaurant Pablo Picasso hung out in the most during his time. As this is a photography trip, many of us had out cameras during the meal.  The waiter got a kick out of this and started doing crazy things to get us to take his picture, such as pose with his arms around students  shoulders, and take my headband and wave it above my head.
The weather here has been lovely, with temperatures in the 60s.  Tiny leaves are starting to appear on all of the trees.
Later this afternoon I have a tour of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Should be great!