Madrid

On our final night in Barcelona, we took an overnight bus to Madrid. Upon arrival at the station, I was pretty wary about the trip (I never have high expectations for journeys like this, but the station was quite rank). Luckily, the bus itself was fine and we found ourselves in Madrid the next morning.



We immediately headed to Retiro Park, which was a close and peaceful walk from our hostel. Filled with whimsically groomed trees and shrubbery, the park was a scene out of Alice in Wonderland. We came across a random photorealism gallery and then enjoyed a rowboat ride in the park while the sun warmed up the afternoon.

Our first museum stop in Madrid was the Prado. The period of 1000 to 1850 has never really been of that much interest to me, so I can't say that this was a favorite. However, there were some great works by Goya that were fascinating (and disturbing) to see in person. After the museum, we explored the many plazas in our area. We went to Botin for dinner, the oldest restaurant in the world! I enjoyed a feast of artichokes (literally just a mountain of artichokes) sprinkled with Iberian ham. The first thing that I noticed upon our arrival in Spain was the artichoke fields, so I was glad that that came around full circle. Some medical school students caused a delightful interruption to dinner, performing songs of choice in traditional costumes.

The next day we visited Palacio Real. This may be one of my favorite palaces, as the rooms were very unique and styled in incredibly different manners. Unfortunately, you can rarely photograph palaces, so this will remain as images in my mind. We stopped for lunch, where I had my first enjoyable salad in Europe (and actually probably my only enjoyable one still…). Our next stop was the Reina Sofia, an art museum almost too modern for any understanding (or reason). The group went to La Lateral, a very nice tapas restaurant (but with really nice prices as well). While we were at dinner, Madrid defeated Barcelona in a big match, so we joined in on the celebrations in the street. There was so much energy throughout the city and certainly something worth experiencing.

On our final day in Madrid, we walked up many a hill to a site of an ancient Egyptian building. This seemed pretty random, but the Templo de Debod was moved from Egypt when a dam threatened the location of the temple. Torrential rain put a damper on the evening, but we ran from our hostel to Di Bocca, a really delicious Italian restaurant, for our final feast. After so much paella and tapas, it was a nice break. After all, there was still Lisbon to conquer.

Barcelona

Even though it seemed like we had to wait forever for our break to come, it couldn't have come at a more perfect time. With about 2 weeks of work left and summer in a month, spring break was perfectly positioned after the major hump of our program. The journey to Barcelona began at 3:15 am, which has been a general trend in my traveling. After passing out on the bus to the airport and the plane, we set foot in sunny Barca. The weather in London was great, but nothing compared to this.

Our first stop after checking bags into the hostel was La Boqueria, an impressive market off of the scenic path, La Rambla. So many things on my trip reminded me of Cleveland (...weird.) and La Boqueria was definitely the West Side Market, Euro style. After passing through aisles of temptingly vibrant fruits and terrifying fish (we witnessed the pre, during, and post phases of many decapitations and guttings), we arrived in Heaven.

I am obsessed with juice. I would even say weirdly devoted to it. Bliss was certainly achieved at the many stands of fresh exotic juices at La Boqueria. After gulping down a cup of raspberry (incredible beyond belief), I went straight for strawberry mango coconut. I would have only had juice the entire time in Barcelona if I could have.

Our next stop was lunch at a very strange cafe, and then to check out the Gothic architecture. One of my favorite parts of the day was the Picasso museum. Although I was disappointed that his series of animal sketches was nowhere to be found, I felt rather catchy humming "Blue Period Picasso" by Peter, Bjorn and John at the appropriate moment:

I'm a Blue Period Picasso
Stuck on a wall
In the middle of a hall
In barcelona...

(Yeah. It was like that.)

Anyway, one thing that I didn't get out of my Art History education was a look into Picasso's concentration on ceramics in his later years. Out of everything in the extensive collection, that was definitely my favorite part.

After the first of many daily siestas, we headed towards the coast to check out a massive fountain show. Outside of a beautifully constructed museum, water jets put on a show that was far from anything I'd ever seen. If the spray was enough to soak us a little, I can't imagine how powerful the fountain itself was.

The last stops of the night were for Paella (we broke out those dusty Spanish skills to make sure that we got mussels and chicken...) and Shoko, an awesome club so close to the water that you could step onto the beach in between dancing. We met some other kids from the B-School for the night and had a great time.

After getting off to a later start in the afternoon, we picked up sandwiches at a really cool streetside restaurant (basically Dave's Cosmic Subs goes to Barcelona). We took our lunches, packed with grilled meat, a garden of veggies and really ambiguous but delicious sauces to the beach. On the way, we ran into the guys that we hung out with the night before, and sat down to enjoy a music group performing right by the port. It's so strange that this wasn't the first time in Europe
that I randomly ran into people I knew. We hung out on the beach for the entire day, and then I met up with a good friend and her mom for dinner. That night, we went to a massive club that kept randomly opening new doors to create a seemingly endless space. Again, it was right on the beach, which was really awesome.

We finished our last day in Barcelona with more juice from La Boqueria and a day filled with Gaudi. He had always been the architect that interested me the most during school, but seeing his work in person cannot be described. The movement, color, detail and liveliness of his work certainly could not be replicated. We saw a couple of his apartment buildings, but decided on the Sagrada Familia to tour. We climbed to the highest tower and worked our way down, ensuring that we soaked in all of the details. The day ended with a tapas dinner in a beautiful square, a perfect farewell to Barcelona.

...and this is when I get lazy

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind with work, more work and attempting to be a regular study abroad student, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

(oxford v. cambridge boat race)








(oxford in one day)








(the tower of london)