Bailando en Barcelona

Last weekend started on Thursday.  I took a train out to Sevilla at 9 AM, arrived at about 10:15 AM, and started a solo walking tour of the city.  It was beautiful.  I had no map, just my eyes, mind, and their attraction to the sights in front of me.  Basically if I saw something that looked interesting to see I'd walk in that direction, no matter how far it looked.  I didn't have anywhere to be until 10:30 that night so time was not a factor.  After 8 hours of walking, no joke, I had seen basically an entire corner of the city, or so I thought.  In reality I had walked over just about half of it, which was fine with me, I loved every second of it.  I sat and read in front of the capitol, found a huge park and laid in the grass for a little bit, walked around an orange grove, practiced my spanish, saw tons of sights, had a snack on the edge of the river, it was pretty much the perfect little walking excursion.  Will never forget it.

So after 8 hours I called the rest of the Cádiz kids, who were supposed to be in Sevilla by this time, and met up with them on the other side of town.  No biggy.  We met up and walked to the apartment of some of out friends from orientation that live in Sevilla and just hung out

there while my body rested a little.  For dinner someone had the grand idea to go to the oldest tapas bar, like a snack meal type thing, in Sevilla that's been owned by the same family since like the 15th century.  That's old.  

That night I slept super well in our hotel besides the fact that I knew I'd be getting up at 6 the next morning to catch a plane to Barcelona and was going to see the one and only Josh Jeter.  

Barcelona was ridiculous.  There is just way too much to see. API, the program I'm here with, set us up on this bus tour, but it wasn't very good.  It was fast a

nd we were in a bus.  Not too enjoyable.  We did get 2 1/2 days of free time though, so we were able to re-visit just about everything.  But like I said, there's just way too much to see so I'll be making another trek back there soon.

I could go off about how cool everything was but since I lack in textual expression I just wouldn't be able to get the words out to express it in the way each attraction deserves.  All I can say is La Sagrada Familia is probably the most impressive building I've ever seen.  To have a mind to bring something so detailed and unreal to life is remarkable.  Props to Gaudi for his brilliance in all he did.  I've made the goal that as soon as the Sagrada Familia is done, in about 20-25 years, I will be back to see it. I've seen it under construction and was impressed, I can't imagine its beauty when complete.

Besides seeing all the sights it was really cool to see Josh.  It made me sad that I didn't end up in Barcelona, but I know that I was meant for Cádiz for a purpose so I'll continue to seek that.  Josh and I had a great time.  We caught up on life, talked about our experiences, laughed a but load, and basically just had a chance to feel like we were 100% back home.  It was nice. We also ate dinner at the oldest

restaurant in Barcelona, Can Culleretes.  That was an unforgettable experience and definitely a story that stands alone from my whole trip to Barcelona.  We've definitely got a long way to go on being refined.  Josh more so than I.

Who knows when I will make it back to Barcelona but God willing it will be soon.  It's a beautiful place.  The culture, the architecture, the language, the air, the people, the sounds, they're all so different from the rest of Spain.  Madrid seems to compare, but then it doesn't at all.  I can see why many Catalan people say that their not part of Spain, it's truly like entering a different country.  I can't wait to see what other regions of Spain are like.

P.S. One thing API has really impressed me on is the location of the hotels that they book for us.  This beautiful sight was literally right across the plaza from me.  I'll forgive the bus trip.