1-Gee whiz, alcohol is cheap. Wine is actually cheaper than water in most restaurants. The cocktails are about four times stronger than the ones in Dublin, at half the price.
2-Alcohol is also everywhere--the skuzzy kebab place where we ate the first night, the Starbucks-type coffee shop at the bus station, they all had a variety of liquors just hanging out, I guess in case anyone wanted a bloody mary for breakfast.
3-Mercat de Sant Josef-It's this fantastic, enormous open-air fruit, fish, meat, cheese, and candy market. Extremely colorful, and pretty inexpensive. I could have wandered around all day, just gaping at the lovely food displays.
4-I know it's a cliche thing to notice, but the architecture in Barcelona is astounding. It's not just beautiful, like the architecture in Rome or Vienna, but also extremely innovative and interesting (sometimes to a fault, admittedly). If you'd like to gape at some architectural feats, here's a link to my Facebook album on this subject. It's a public access link, for those of you who have excommunicated yourselves from the Facebook world (Cameron? Breslin?). The big phallic thing is supposed to look like a geyser erupting. I don't know how it's supposed to look like anything but a dildo when it's lit up in electric blue and red at night.
5-The beach--60 degrees and sunny. In February. I merely dipped my toes into the Mediterranean, but there were definitely a few people swimming. One little old man in a speedo scared me to death, because I was sure he was going to get hypothermia and his little old body wouldn't be able to handle it. But then, I suppose he's been swimming in the Mediterranean for longer than I have, he probably knows better.
6-Our hosts were fantastic. A friend from my program had a few friends from Brown that are studying in Barcelona for the term, so he asked them to pick us up from the bus station when we got in. Not only did they pick us up, but they helped us order dinner, showed us around their neighborhood, and helped us find our hostel. We met up with the Brown boys for two more meals, one of which they cooked for us themselves, and they took us to this ancient absinthe bar (in which dusting and cleaning were strictly prohibited, lest it ruin the effect of maybe a hundred years of dust on the chandeliers) and a wild club called Razzmatazz. My flatmate Claire also had some friends from Trinity who met us for drinks and desert, took us to dinner to a charming restaurant on Las Ramblas, and circled places we should see on maps for us. To all those wonderful hosts and hostesses, thank you so much. It would've sucked to have to figure everything out on our own. If you're into social pictures, here's a link to my other Facebook album.
7-The subway system is very clean, and very intuitive, even for a person who doesn't know any Spanish or Catalan. I love me a good subway system.
8-The parks are beautiful. We went to two mountains on Sunday, and just bummed around in the greenery. The parks on the first mountain were mostly old palace gardens, and had the grandeur expected of such places. We went to the second mountain to see Gaudi's Park Guell, made famous by the ANTM screaming bride runway show.
9-I thought it would be too intense for me, but the whole delayed day thing is actually very intuitive, especially because the sun doesn't really come out in Barcelona until noon. I had very little trouble staying out until 5:30 a.m. Saturday night, even after having toured around all day long. I also really liked eating a small breakfast, and then eating afternoon meals closer together (maybe at 2 and 5 p.m., then dinner at 9 or 10 p.m.).
10-About 95% of Barcelona is breathtakingly beautiful. Just by design. Even the sidestreets are filled with the cutest apartment buildings, complete with laundry hanging off of tiny balconies and Venetian blinds pulled down over balcony railings. I took more pictures in two days in Barcelona than I have in the past month in Dublin.
In conclusion, it was a fantastic vacation.
However, I'm now feeling academically screwed--I was aiming to finish two ten page papers this week, but with my body recovering from so much excitement (and so much wine), I didn't feel up for it Monday. I almost broke down yesterday after one of my tutorial leaders told me my paper concept was confusing, and that I had better just stick to the given topics. However, I picked myself back up, and now I'm chugging along as fast as I can. My family is visiting next week, so I do have some light at the end of the tunnel. I can't wait to show them all of my favorite places in Dublin, nor can I wait for them to buy me some real groceries. I'm living so miserly right now, scrimping and saving for weekends and vacations. Hopefully my standard of living will improve, if only for a weekend.
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