Friday began with the (now) usual Summer Student Lectures at CERN. These consist of three hours of lectures every morning (usually three different subjects) followed by a Q&A session at the end. So far they've been pretty interesting - over the course of the next month we'll be learning about the Standard Model of physics, accelerator physics, statistics, astrophysics, cosmology, and many many more cool subjects. But unfortunately I had to leave early to catch my flight to beautiful Barcelona, Spain!
I was very excited to get another stamp in my passport, proof I had visited more than three countries in my life. However, when we got there, we were able to simply exit the airport - no customs or anything. We found this a bit strange, but came to the conclusion that maybe it was because the airline we had used only flew to certain places around Europe so maybe it was different...I honestly have no idea. What if someone had gotten a visa for another European country but had malicious intentions against Spain? They would be able to simply fly into the country on this airline? That's a little disconcerting. In any case, I was a little disappointed I wouldn't get a stamp. We boarded the train and began our hour-long journey to our hostel, using the fantastic Metro system of Barcelona. We ended up taking the Metro almost everywhere during the course of the weekend, and walking wherever the Metro didn't go. The good news was there weren't many places it didn't go. We took turns buying ten-stamp tickets over the course of the three days we were there.
After getting all settled in at the hostel, we took a walk to explore around. The first thing I noticed was how many fruit/food markets there were everywhere. There was at least one, sometimes two, on every block! It was definitely my kind of place - fresh fruit for much cheaper than in Geneva, and it was good too! Our next stop was to see La Sagrada Familia lit up at night, but we didn't hang around too long. (More about this impressive cathedral later)
Eventually we decided to take the Metro closer to downtown to find somewhere to eat. We came above ground right at Las Ramblas, the biggest tourist trap street in Barcelona. There are performers, vendors, restaurants, people walking around advertising their stores...pretty much anything you could think of. At this point it was around 10:30 or so at night and the street was still full of people. All the shops were still open too - very different from Switzerland and France where everything is closed after 8pm. I sort of miss being able to go to the store after 8pm...when I get back to America, I might just go to the store at 11pm simply because I can.
One of our goals for the trip was to eat tapas somewhere. If you don't know, tapas are little snack-sized dishes that you can find for 1+ euros if you look hard enough. I had a kabob, a few desserts, and something else that I can't remember...another must-do in Spain was drink sangria, so we made sure this tapas place had sangria before we sat down. Everything was delicious, but the waiter was particularly rude to us, especially around closing time. By the way, closing time was 2am (!!!). Or so it appeared. We think he was just kicking us out because we were tourists/American - I looked back after we left and no one else was being forced to leave. But whatever, we brushed it off and decided that rude people were not worth our time. We wandered until around 3am, and we were probably some of the first to get off the streets. Everything in Barcelona is shifted by at least 3 hours - stores don't open until 10:30-11am and people fill the streets until who-knows-when. All I know is that people were still up and moving at 3am. Very odd, especially after becoming accustomed to Geneva culture. But it was my kind of place! Those hours are my ideal day!
Saturday began with a visit to the Barcelona soccer stadium, where we spent an hour poking around the gift shop. One of our group members has a friend from Barcelona, so we met up with him and he took us to a non-touristy restaurant for lunch. We had more tapas, and I could have eaten the potato dish all day. They were just potato pieces with a garlicky sauce (I think) but they were SO good! The whole meal cost about 6 euros per person (it's kind of depressing that that is extremely cheap for a meal...another thing I miss about America - dollar menus!). Then it was back to La Sagrada Familia for a tour of the inside of this magnificent feat of human engineering.
Here are some facts about La Sagrada Familia: it is a minor basilica of the Roman Catholic church that was designed by Antonio Gaudi and has been under construction for the last 130 years. And (according to models placed in locations around the basilica) it's only half done. However, its anticipated completion date is 2026 - I might have to make a point to go back to Barcelona if they really do finish it within my lifetime. It is a monster of a building, taking up an entire city block (I have not been able to find the square footage of this behemoth). Being the slightly paranoid person I am, I vaguely wondered how the thing would stay upright when it had hollowed-out Metro tunnels running directly beneath it. I just found out that this is a real concern. Well then. I really hope there's not some sort of disaster. I would love to see it when it's completed. Since its construction depends entirely on private donations, we will just have to wait and see if it really is completed by 2026. It is impossible to describe how breathtakingly, beautifully intricate and detailed this basilica was, so please, enjoy these pictures and see it for yourself.
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| The darker brown is what has been completed. |
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| A close-up of the intricate carvings that cover the front |
I know pictures hardly capture anything, but I had to try...it blew any cathedral I had ever seen out of the water and possibly to the moon. I really hope I get a chance to go back.
After La Sagrada Familia, we found dinner at a restaurant that was reasonably close to the basilica and wasn't out of our price range. The portions were a bit small, but everything was delicious and well worth the cost. And the waiter was nice to us! At least it wasn't everyone in Barcelona that hated tourists, just that one rude waiter...We decided to take the Metro to the beach, and we found an outdoor bar that turned out to be extremely expensive, so we just walked away. I took my first steps into the Mediterranean Sea, and was pleasantly surprised at how warm it was. It's warmer than the Great Lakes are at this time of year. We spent a fair amount of time at the beach, just enjoying the long-awaited (for me, at least) feeling of sand between our toes. As a Michigander, I'm used to beaches at least a few times a year, and I'd been deprived of the peace and enjoyment beaches give me. It was very nice to see endless water again. We began the long walk back to the Metro, and once we arrived back at our hostel, a few of our group got ready to experience the nightlife of Barcelona (I didn't really have an interest in that, so I stayed at the hostel and relaxed).
Sunday began with a trip to Park Guell, a pleasant ten-minute or so walk from our hostel. This park reminded me of a mix between a desert and Florida and was exactly what my original expectations of Spain were. There were cacti alongside palm trees, with green grass and beautiful flowers throughout the park. We climbed to the highest point in the park and looked out across the massive sprawl that is Barcelona:
It was quite beautiful. We walked on to see the viaducts (or aquaducts, as they are more commonly called), and the main entrance. We were sucked into a tourist trap that advertised paella for only 8 euros - we didn't think it would get cheaper than that! But unfortunately, it wasn't very good paella...oh well, live and learn.
Our next stop was the Barcenoleta beach, the dirtiest and most crowed of all Barcelona beaches, although we picked a spot that wasn't too dirty. It was most definitely crowded though! We spent two hours taking shifts watching all the bags and swimming in the waves before heading to the Barcelona Olympic stadium and the Montjuic Castle. Both were very cool and well worth the out-of-the-way trip it took to get there. We walked around both for a few hours, and the view the castle offered from the top of its own mountain/hill thing was better than that of Park Guell. We were closer to the sea now, so there was more water visible, but we still had the same beautiful view of the city. Since my camera doesn't have a panorama setting, I've begun simply taking a short movie of the view. It's better than trying to figure out the view from several successive pictures. Look for all my "panoramas" on my picture page!
Anyway, once we had taken in our fill of all the beautiful views, we headed back to the Barcenoleta beach area to find some dinner and to watch the sunset. However, we forgot that we had been well above the rest of the city, so once we had gotten back to sea level the sun had already set behind the mountains that surround Barcelona. So much for that idea! We found a restaurant that offered a first course, second course, drink, and dessert all for 15.90 euros, a great deal anywhere in Europe! (Of course, all you guys in the States could just go to Applebee's and get the 2 for $20 meal...it would probably be more food at the same price. My sense of expense has been totally shot here!) We enjoyed a European-style meal, meaning they made us wait for some time before bringing out the next course, which was fine by me. By the time we finished, it was approaching midnight and since we had to get up not-so-bright and early at 4:30am sharp to catch our flight back to Geneva we decided to skip our planned walk on the beach and head straight back to the hostel.
All in all, this was a fantastic trip. The only thing I regret about it is not planning it out more, because that resulted in a lot of waiting around and excessive traveling. I think we could have optimized our time there much better and seen much more of the city. But this was just my first trip outside of Switzerland, so I've learned something that I will definitely use for my next trip - plan, plan, plan!! Looking back, we actually saw a lot more than it seemed like, so it all works out in the end. Stay tuned for pictures and panorama videos - coming soon!
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