Hola! This week was another fun, busy week of travel and adventures. I received the last of my midterm exam grades for school, and I ended up doing better than I thought on all of my exams, so that was exciting news! I can’t believe that finals are only in 3 weeks. My friend and I have also been busy working on our end of the year project. We have to create a brochure advising future international students about « sports in Grenoble. » We have to collect statistics from the sports office in Grenoble, we have to write advice, and we have to interview somebody in the field. It’s a very interesting project, and it allows us to practice our French! Consequently, we’ve been keeping busy with that project during the week. Thursday we had a fun crêpe making session in Miranda’s office. We even got to try Beaujolais Noveau which is a famous wine around France in the holiday times. It was pretty good; it tasted a lot like juice more than wine.
Thursday night was an adventure for me because I could not figure out how to check into my flight for Barcelona, Spain on my phone. This meant that I did not have a seat on the plane and I would be on standby Friday morning. We got to the airport at 5am (which meant we had to wake up around 3 :(,) and I just had to wait and pray that a seat opened up. It was a very stressful time, but thankfully everything worked out and I was able to make it to Barcelona. Im thankful for this trip because I’ve learned a lot about travel, how to travel on my own, and how to make traveling easier. I’ve made a lot of mistakes (like the one above,) but now I know what to do for next time. Studying abroad has made me so much more comfortable with navigating public transportation, especially by myself. I’m really happy everything worked out because Barcelona was amazing!
We got there very early Friday, but we decided to climb all the way up to the beautiful Montjuïc Castle. We saw the place d’Espagne and the beautiful skyline of Barcelona. However, the walk to the castle was harder than we thought because it was straight up and lots of stairs. The view was so worth it though (see pictures.) we had so much fun exploring the castle and taking pictures! We then decided to head back to the place d’espagnol and visit the famous arenas de Barcelona (the big mall.) it was exceptionally pretty at night time with all the Christmas lights. We even got to travel to the top and see the Barcelona skyline at night. It was so beautiful! Then, for dinner we had a very traditional Spanish meal with Tapes and Paella. It was SO MUCH food, but very very delicious 😍. One of the many things that I loved about Barcelona was that good food was affordable!
Saturday morning we woke up early to see the Sagrada Familia (the big church in Barcelona.) unfortunately, we could not go inside because the cost was too expensive (17€,) and we are college kids 😂. Nevertheless, the outside was amazing. I love the architecture in Barcelona. After we saw the church we just walked around the streets and saw more casas that Gaudí (the architect) created. Every single one was incredible, and they all had their similarities/differences. Barcelona was the perfect city to just walk around and see the beautiful sights. We averaged about 35,000 steps a day. It was soo fun. Finally, we decided to go to Park Guëll where one of my favorite childhood movies, the cheetah girls, was filmed. I decided to stay in the park instead of going to the beach because it had been a dream of mine for so long, and I don’t really like beaches, and I’m so happy with my decision. The park had a free nature area which was beautiful with a great view of the city, and then we had to pay to see more of Gaudí’s tile art and the famous staircase with the chameleon. I thought it was so amazing. We took our pictures like the cheetah girls, and we spent about 4 hours just in the park walking around. Around the time of sunset we walked up to the top where there was a BEAUTIFUL view of the city. It was so peaceful and relaxing to just walk around and see the city/park. That night we went out to celebrate my friend, Bryan’s birthday. We found a nice honky tonk in Barcelona with a live guitar player. It was very fun! We just explored the night life and went to sleep because we had to catch our flight the next day.
I'm now on the flight back to Grenoble, but I can say that Barcelona was one of my favorite trips of this semester. I loved everything about it, and I would really love to come back to Spain and explore more. I’m glad we are getting back to Grenoble at a decent time so I will have time to decompress and finish some homework. This next week will continue being busy with school work and the project, but we do have a big group thanksgiving Thursday and then our LAST trip of the semester to Frankfurt, Germany that weekend. We are starting the list of our « lasts » this semester, and it makes me very sad! I’ve loved getting to explore Europe.
Thanks,
Rachel