Barcelona was soo amazing, it’s definitely one of my favorite cities in Europe. Arrived late Thursday night, passed out on Natalies couch to prepare for a day full of shenanigans. Friday was spent generally wandering around, we saw the Mediterranean Sea, the Gothic Quarter, Las Ramblas….all of it- very cool. Definitely had a lot of fun wandering and looking at all the shopping. That night we did a cooking class for like 15 euros a person, which is really cheap considering the fact that we got unlimited sangria…. Anyways I paid very little attention to the actual “class” part of the evening, and spent most of my time enjoying the food and hanging out with cool Australians. I did cut up some peppers tho, I wasn’t completely useless… Well long story short, we had a lot of fun at the class, then went out to this bar with a cool Jazz band who played Janis Joplin and other equally awesome songs. Next day was spent mostly wasting time in the city- we went to a bunch of cool markets that were open on Saturdays; I bought a funky one-of-a-kind skirt that makes me happy when I think about it. We ran into Amy, one of the Australians from the cooking class and hung out with her all day. She is nuts- she told us all about her 2 months spent in northern France hitchhiking, living in tents, and living on a budget of 1.50 Euros a day!!! Crazy. Anyways we went out with her that night, got delicious tapas and fun drinks with obscene names… Sunday was spent with John seeing Sagrada Famillia, Gaudi’s unfinished cathedral masterpiece, and the Picasso museum which was very cool, topped off by sunset at the Gaudi park. I wasn’t that impressed with the Sagrada Famillia, it seemed too bizarre and disjointed to constitute a beautiful church in my opinion, but Park Güell was so cool, probably the highlight of my trip- It is this huge park built into the side of a mountain looking out over the city with all these cool structures designed by Gaudi like caves, fountains, and a million little niches to sit in and think… Basically Candyland + Disneyland + a gingerbread world all mixed together. Gaudi is definitely one of the elements of Barcelona that makes it so unique. It’s hard to believe that this guy built these crazy houses at the end of the 19th century!! Just thinking of what the people of that era must have thought of him blows my mind. For me Gaudi seems to represent the city of Barcelona as it exists today, a crazy metropolis of unique artistic individuality and distinctively colorful culture which expresses itself all the way down to their Catalan language. To separate Gaudi from Barcelona would be like separating the sand from the beach in my opinion, a point which adds to the charm of the city. For me, its always the cities with the most personality (good or bad) that are my favorites…