This weekend I went to Barcelona. It was, of course, a must do for an exchange student in Spain. Barcelona is really beautiful with modern (and crazy) architecture. Gaudi’s work really has a huge effect on the city. Gaudi’s stuff is incredible. It’s a lot of flowy, curvy, colorful stuff, up to the Sagrada Familia. The Sagrada Familia is huge and every inch has something special carved into it. It is unbelievable intricate.

I went up on Thursday and stayed with the host family of another exchange student, Jamie. Jamie’s current host sister, Adriana, was an exchange student in Florence, Oregon last year and I met her at the Oregon Rotary meetings. It was nice to see her and meet her family in Barcelona. On Friday I went to a fair with Jamie and another exchange student in Barcelona, Zoey. The fair was supposed to be a copy of the Seville fair of April, but it seemed a lot like a Spanish version of a country fair. There were rides and junk food and plenty of booths to buy stuff.

On Saturday I went out with the cousin of Adriana for the day. He took me to downtown Barcelona, the port and a few more places around the city. In the evening we watched the biggest game of the year in the Spanish Soccer League. F.C. Barcelona vs. Real Madrid. Barcelona won this game by 6-2  which is a huge defeat. So after the game we went to Placa Catalunya, the center of Barcelona, and to where the celebration of the victory was happening. Here there were a lot of people wearing Barcelona shirts and scarves and yelling and drinking and being crazy. The cars driving nearby were honking their horns and everyone seemed quite happy.

Sunday I met up with another exchange, Jordan. Jordan and I had gone to San Francisco together to apply for our Spanish visas. We also flew together on the way over to Europe. We visited some more of Barcelona including the 1992 Olympic Stadium at Monjuic and Parc Guell. Parc Guell was a park designed by Guadi and really beautiful. I think it was my favorite thing in Barcelona. Well, I don’t know if that’s true. Barcelona also has a bagel shop. To be exact, The Bagel Shop. The Bagel Shop makes bagels fresh and delicious. Madrid doesn’t have any places to get bagels (that I have found, and I have searched). It is probably the biggest flaw of Madrid.

I went with Jordan to Camp Nou, the stadium of F.C. Barcelona, on Monday. I also bought some more bagels before returning to Madrid.

I really enjoyed the trip. It wasn’t too rushed and I was able to catch up with a lot of people while also seeing a lot of Barcelona.