Barcelona!!

Hi everyone! Sorry's it's been so long since my last post and now I'm nearly a month behind. I don't have much work this week so I will really try and catch-up!

From October 31 - November 4, I went to Barcelona with Gordon, Mary-Ann, and Christina!! (My uncle, aunt, and cousin!) Because there was a Bank Holiday in Spain on Nov 1; I could leave on Wednesday night. I flew into Barcelona and spent the night with Aditi (a good friend from high school). Although we had originally talked about going out to celebrate Halloween, we both agreed that we were too tired and would rather stay in and catch-up.

The next day before the rest of the family arrived, I went on a walking tour of Barcelona with a few UConn friends who also happened to be visiting Barcelona that weekend. The tour went around the Old City and Las Ramblas; we went to the church where the famous architect, Antonio Gaudí, was traveling when he was hit by a tram. Because Gaudí was dressed in beggars clothing, no one rushed to save him, and he died.

Fountain of the church where Gaudí was going before his death.

When Gordon, Mary-Ann and Christina arrived, we went out for a tapas dinner! It was fun showing them a few of my favorite tapas, and trying new ones with them!

The next day we went to visit La Sagrada Família, a Catholic church designed by Gaudí, but the line was too long so we decided to check out La Pedrera or Casa Milá, another of Gaudí's designs. The walls of the facade are curved, and there's an enclosed patio in the inside. La Pedrera was designed as an apartment, but is now just a museum. We had a delicious lunch at a restaurant called La Rita after.

La Pedrera

After taking a quick siesta, we walked around the Gothic City and Las Ramblas and went to a market there called La Boqueria. La Boqueria had booths that sold all types of food, and really good fruit!

On Saturday, we headed to Park Güell, which is a garden and park with architectural elements that were designed by Gaudí. A lot of Gaudí's work is concentrated in Barcelona because he lived there for a majority of his life; he actually lived in Park Güell for about 20 years. Park Güell had a lot of really beautiful mosaic-like tile work that I loved. It also had great views of the city, and we could pick out some of the sites we had already seen!

After the Park, we went to see Gaudí's unfinished masterpiece, La Sagrada Família. Gaudí began to work on the church in 1883 and continued to do so until his death in 1926. The church is far from finished but it was easy to see the genius of Gaudí and how he drew inspiration from nature. For example, the columns of the church are similar to trees have branch out toward the ceiling. Outside, the two main facades were beautiful and it was amazing how each animal or statue on it represented something. The facades depicted images from Jesus' life; the Nativity facade shows the early life of Jesus while the Passion facade depicts his crucifixion. 

Ceiling of the church

The Nativity facade

Beautiful stained glass windows

We ended our day with the Picasso museum, which was also amazing. I really liked Picasso's study of Las Meninas (a painting by Velázquez). It was cool to see how Picasso interpreted the scene and how many different ways he could portray the same subject. We had a great dinner at La Luna, and finished up the night by getting drinks with Aditi. 

I had an amazing weekend in Barcelona, surely one I will never forget. I loved seeing my family there, and it especially meant a lot because it was the first time I had seen my family in so many months. Thank you Gordon, Mary-Ann, and Christina for making this such a special trip!!

Shout-out to Poppa - Happy Birthday!!!!! Love you!

Pictures of Granada

One of my friends from Madrid, Christoph, is a really good photographer. He shared some of his pictures of the city and the Alhambra with me, and they are just soo amazing, I had to share them with you. All photo credit goes to Christoph Hachmann!

Plaza Nueva

Up in the Albayzín 

View of the city from the Alhambra

Palace of Carlo X

The Alhambra

Frisbeeween!

The week before Halloween (Oct. 22-25) was filled with making preparations for the frisbee tournament my team in Granada would be hosting the upcoming weekend, and of course tapas.

I was especially excited for this tournament because I would get to see a lot of the friends I have made through frisbee here. The tournament was called Frisbeeween, for the Halloween festivities that would occur throughout the weekend. On Friday night (Oct. 26) people arrived in Granada from Madrid, Sevilla, Salamanca, and a few other smaller towns. We all met up for welcome tapas and then went out for the night.

The hat-tournament began on Saturday and lasted the entire afternoon. After getting tapas with everyone, we went to a bar called Dakota to celebrate Halloween. Everyone had amazing costumes, and the Spaniards really put in a lot of effort to make the costume, especially all the smaller details they had. The theme for costumes was famous people who died tragically. I couldn't think of any easy costumes, so I decided to be a band member from Kiss, Eric Carr, who died from heart cancer and other medical problems. I decided that because all I would have to do was face paint, it would be pretty easy. Luckily for me, during the week before I had won a t-shirt with a skeleton design on it, so I figured it would be perfect.

Me and my friend Hanna, who is from Granada. She was dressed up as Joan of Arc.

Everyone at Dakota celebrating Halloween!

On Sunday, there were championships for the hat-tournament and a real game between Sevilla and Granada, apparently there is a long-standing rivalry between the two teams. My team, the werewolves, won the hat tournament! Our cheer, consisted of: "Hombres. Lobos. Mujeres. Lobas," us howling, and then depicting the transition from man to werewolf and crawling around the field! So fun!

Lobos!

Everyone who played in the hat tournament!!

 The game between Sevilla and Granada was really fun, but unfortunately I hurt my ankle in the last hat-tournament game so I only played a few points. After losing the last couple of games, Granada finally beat Sevilla!! Wooohoooo!!!!

The Granada team!!! 

Beautiful view of the Sierra Nevadas from the field!