More Festivals!

Every weekend there is festival somewhere in Barcelona. Most of the time it is in the Park Citadella. This festival had booths with vendors selling food, clothing, really anything you could think of from the Arc de Triumf and into the Park Citadella! Lots of samples and live music!

Huge cakes

Cheeeeseee!

Sant Jordi

Sant Jordi is a Spanish holiday similar to St. Valentine's Day. Men give women roses and women give men books. You can buy roses on every corner and ever person walking down the street has a rose in hand. No joke. By the end of the day, some four million roses and 800,000 books have been sold!

Books

I bought myself one of these cute mini books

Ninos Mutantes
A band we saw play later that night!

Un Dia per a l'Esperança

Today I was running through the Parque de la Ciutadella and found this great event. So I ran home and changed so I could get back and enjoy it! Courtney and I headed there and every thing was in Catalan so it was more difficult to understand, but from what we could make out, it pretty much translates to, "A Day of Hope." It was an event aimed to help the poor. Most events were aimed at kids. Kids could make t shirts, play games and even spray paint their name with graffiti artists. There was music and dance performances too. After the kids had graffiti-ed their names on the wall, real graffiti artists went over it and did their own. It was pretty awesome watching them. After we went to the last day of a film festival here in Barcelona. We got to see six films which were all pretty awesome. I wish we would have went to the first days. There were around 400 films shown from many different countries. Here is the link if anyone is interested!! http://eng.mecalbcn.org/

Courtney and the wall

Bolivan dancers

Outfit change

And apparently mimes can talk/sing

Sardana Dance!

So I keep running into people doing this dance on the streets. Normally they are all pretty old, but that does not keep them from bouncing around doing this Catalonia circle dance. It is adorable. A band plays and anyone can just join or start their own circle. Courtney and I are going to learn it so hopefully I can get a video of that on here!

This old gentleman in the purple shirt and brown sweater was the best dancer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY5GfREz1Jg

Tarragona, Spain

According to our guide...."The most famous part of Tarragona!"

I went with the IEP group to Tarragona today, just south of Barcelona. We took the train from Sants Estacion and arrived in Tarragona, Spain. In Roman times, it was named Tarraco when it was the capital of the Roman Colony the province of Hispania Tarraconesis. There are huge ruins for travelers to explore. There is an amphitheater where people fought to death with each other or animals like Lions brought from all over the globe. Its a beautiful town with an awesome beach. Too bad it wasn't beach weather, but we had a tour and lunch for our day trip!

Pretty fountain with Hippopotamuses

Cute flower shop

Roman Ruins

Fight to the death! Colosseum. In the center a church was built to commemorate a bishop killed there after the Romans had left. In the 1920's it was a prison!

First picture of me on the blog! That is Bethany from Boston!

Castle building monument

Some nice Andy Warhol street art

The Cathedral

Barca vs. Deportivo "Més que un club!"

Of course Barca wins!!! My friend and I decided to head to Camp Nou for a game! We went to a game that wasn't very important because tickets are can get very expensive. Barca is number one in Spain and Deportivo is pretty far down the list. Futbol is very serious here and it was really fun to experience. The songs and the chants are all in Catalan but really its the same sort of cheering and enthusiasm we have in the US. Lots of fun! I watch most of the games at bars but you have to even get to bars early for a good seat.

Flag/Band Section

The guys all lined up

Messi!!! Best player, waiting for action

Celebration! 3-0 victory!

Wall People

This is a really awesome event my friend found online. It started and is based in Barcelona but it has spread to Madrid, Valencia, Seville, Lisbon, Rome, Nicosia, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Istanbul and Mexico City. What you do is bring a photo and tape it to this wall and do not forget to write your email address on the back. Everyone puts up their photos and makes this huge wall. Lots of pictures are taken and eventually anyone can take any picture they want. It was great, I got two pictures and emailed the photographers. One has emailed me back and its fun chatting with her in Spanish about photography.

People even put paintings up

The picture I took is the tree w/ the really blue sky and red shoes in the bottom

All sorts of photos, there was no criteria

Tibidabo

A small group of us decided to make our way up the mountain and explore this Tibidabo place that is always looking down on us. From the city you can mostly see the Farris wheel and the church and its just so intriguing because there is this amusement park on top of the highest point in the Serra de Collserola mountains. It was an amazing view of Barcelona and just fun to walk around. There are beautiful houses on the way up to look at too. You also have to take a trolley car up to it! Its more for kids but definitely worth checking out for the view.

A Few Spring Break Activities

I had two weeks off for spring break because Lola went to Mallorca, Spain where she is from. Other than Milan I just explored Barcelona more. I really like the Parc de la Citadella. Its huge and everyone is just laying in the grass enjoying the sunshine. I did some drawing there but you have to watch out, its a hot spot for thieves. Two undercover cops actually ended up helping me from being robbed in the middle of the day. I caught the thief sneaking up on me and when I confronted him the cops came over and kicked him out. Despite Barcelona pickpockets the MACBA, the contemporary art museum was awesome! Other than the permanent collection I got to see traveling exhibits of John Baldessari, Rodney Graham and Armando Andrade. I also wandered up on other things, there is always some sort of festival going on.

Pond the the Park for renting boats

This is where the skateboarders hang out

Just stumbled upon this

Another Carnival that was stumbled upon

Milan, Italy!

The Duomo

I went to Milan with my Canadian friend Rachel and by some magical family connection we got to stay in the Park Hyatt for free. The city was amazing. The hotel was right next to the Duomo, the cathedral of Milan. Its obvious why shopping is their main source of industry, there are only shops. It was kind of hard finding somewhere to eat. We ventured all over the city. We went and had the best dinner I have had in Europe at this small mom and pop place. It was so good, it was super cheap and we got to speak with some locals. Luckily Spanish and Italian are rather similar languages so we communicated a lot easier than I thought. We went to discount outlet stores and found some really good deals. We went on a city tour and even had dinner at Roberto Cavalli's Club. We even got a whole 15 minutes with Da Vinci's Last Supper. Security was very tight.

Inside the Duomo

Shopping area

The Plaza in Front of the Duomo

The Best Restaurant

Discount Shopping

A nice vendor on our tour

The Courtyard by the Last Supper

Gelato creations

A fabric store with super expensive fabric