Everything I've done Since July 5th

 Alright, so I haven't blogged in a while. Sorry. I got busy. But I went to Rome with Mom and Andy and it was a lot of fun. We also went to Pompeii, which was great and inspired me to take a class next semester on Pompeii. We saw and did everything you'd imagine in Rome, including the Vatican which was really cool. We also did a wine tasting that was spectacular, and came with delicious meats and cheeses. Best wine, cheese, and meat ever. Even the tuna was okay.

 This picture was Pompeii, the town that was completely destroyed (aka preserved perfectly) by Mt. Vesuvius erupting in 78AD and then was found totally accidentally a couple hundred years ago. It doesn't totally do it justice, but its a good one of the three of us. It was SO hot there! I actually thought I was going to faint, but luckily they turned one of the ruins into a cafeteria that sold bottled water.

This is us at the Vatican. Not really much to say except that the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica are awesome. Totally worthy of a guy who used to basically rule over all of Europe.

 Then they came to Barcelona and we did all of the touristy things. Sagrada Familia was awesome (this is a picture of the interior) and I would totally recommend it to anyone. We also went to the beach and other things like that, including the Rock Museum--which for the record is about music, not fossils. That week after they left I started my new internship at the IUEE (which stands for the University Insitute of European Studies in Catalan). The people are really nice, and I was sad I was only here for 11 days. While here I wrote a paper about the EU's Energy Roadmap 2050 that they published to their website! Here's a link to the article. If you don't want to read it I totally understand, but look at my name at the top all fancy!
http://www.iuee.eu/pdf-actuali​tat/512/eKBvIf6YcJjtGdNGbrhb.P​DF

 The last program of the trip was to Tossa de Mar on the Costa Brava. Like any proper European location there is a giant castle, but we didn't have enough time to go. We did have enough time to buy a delicious lunch and sit on the beach. Alissa and I went swimming, so now I can say I've swam in the Mediterranean! The water was really nice, but the rocks they had instead of sand hurt my feet :(.

And of course like any proper redhead, I got pretty badly sunburnt even though I put sunscreen on every two hours and immediately after swimming! Luckily I'll spare you pictures of those.

Even so, it was totally worth it. The beach was beautiful and it was such a nice day.

The last weekend was a free weekend, and I didn't go anywhere. But we did go out and have a great time in Barcelona! We went to the Ice Bar, which is entirely made out of ice and pretty awesome. On Sunday, Lindsay and I took sailing lessons! To be honest, they didn't teach us anything so I'm glad I knew--they just let us take turns steering with the tiller.

Dad got here Monday, and tonight I'm moving out of Bellaterra and into his hotel. Then we're going to Stockholm! Hopefully I'll blog about Stockholm, but no guarantees apparently.


I've had such a great time in Barcelona and I can't believe I'm leaving! But I also am excited to go home, especially to see everyone!

France and Figueres

I went to France Saturday afternoon, and it was really cool. We just went to this really small town called Carcassonne, which was a fortified castle built in the 13th century. It was sort of like being at a Rennaissance fair, except that the stuff was real and no one was pretending to be living in the Rennaissance. I wish we'd been in France for longer than just an afternoon and an evening, but I had a great time for the few hours I was there. The tour was interesting and then exploring on our own was great. I tried Cassoulet, which is basically like a white bean stew with chicken or duck or something, and it was pretty good. But I also discovered that anything in France tastes delicious, even when its just hotel restaurant food. In other words, I'd just really like to go back to France.

On our way back, we stopped at Teatro Museu Dalí, which is a museum that Salvador Dalí designed himself. Its in his hometown in a destroyed theater. The whole museum is like an experiment in modern art, which totally makes sense if you know anything about Dalí. There are more pictures on facebook. That was pretty much it though. Other than that, I was on a bus.

But I leave for Rome tomorrow! Yay!

Ireland and Dublin!

Sorry this post has been delayed, but I'll get to that later.

Dublin was awesome! I don't want this to be too long, so I won't go into incredible detail about everything. But I will start at the beginning:

We arrived in Dublin at 12:10 am on Thursday morning. I got to sleep in the hotel (which was really nice) by around 2:30. Then I was awake at 5:15 so we could meet our bus to the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher are far from Dublin, so I decided to make a little map of our trip so you could all see:

 Our first stop was this castle. We'd already driven through Limerick at this point. We never made it inside the castle because there were some nice stores to go to, but we did buy some cheap fleeces that ended up being great for the cold weather in Ireland!

 We drove through a lot of Irish countryside, but it's hard to show good pictures of that for three reasons:
1) I had gotten like 3 hours of sleep. I was really tired and therefore slept through some of the driving.
2) No cameras take good pictures behind glass bus windows.
3) It was raining on and off, so most of the pictures show really gross weather and are pretty dreary.
So this is one of the ones I would deem good.

 Our guide took us to Clare, which is on the Atlantic Coast. Apparently it isn't a stop on the official tour, but it was gorgeous. There are more pictures of it (and ones with me) in my facebook album.

 We finally got to the Cliffs of Moher and it was really beautiful. This was one of the better pictures I got after it stopped raining. Once again, there are more pictures in the facebook album.

 Another picture of the Cliffs of Moher, this time the other side. That tower was built to better observe the side above. The Cliffs were really cool but there were signs all over warning us that they were unstable and we could die at any second. Crazy!

 After the Cliffs of Moher we went to another place our guide wasn't supposed to take us. It was really pretty, too, but I'm not really exactly sure what it was. So this picture is of me there!

Our last stop before the three hour drive back to Dublin was Corcomroe Abbey, built in the early 13th century. That roof you see at the top is the only non-original part, built to preserve the stuff under it (its the alter? whatever its called, the part in a Church with the table and Crucifix). It was kind of cool that it hadn't been disturbed, but it was also a little sad that no one seemed to care about its preservation.


After we got back from the tour, we ate dinner and then pretty much crashed. We still didn't get back to the hotel until around 9 or 10. The next day we bought 3-day passes that included the Hop-on-Hop-off Bus Tour, the Dublin public buses, and the airport shuttle. They made it super easy to get around the city, including to and from our hotel.

This day, Friday, was our first actual look at Dublin during the day. It was really pretty and clean. Even though it was cold and rainy outside people seemed pretty cheery. And there were so many redheads!!

We decided our first stop in Dublin should be the Guinness Storehouse (what else?) because already we'd seen "Guinness" all over the place. That, and basically everyone who's been to Dublin has asked if we were going to go there or not. Unfortunately the bus tour decided they should be stop 13 and not 2.


That gave us a great view of the city and a good uninterrupted tour of what we were seeing! I took a lot of pictures of exteriors of Dublin, but I doubt you all want to see random pictures of buildings in Dublin.

 By the time we got there it was almost 1 and we were hungry, but we knew we weren't near anything to eat anyway. So we went in, paid the 11€ student entry fee, and started the museum. So we learned a lot of things. First, Guinness is a stout, not a beer. More importantly, they started brewing at this location in 1759 when Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease on the property for £45 per year. Yes, I'm for real. It was a nine thousand year lease. Guinness is made with four ingredients: hops, barley, yeast, and

 water. They had exhibits on each ingredient (including water). I tried some roasted barley--it wasn't very good. The whole process of making Guinness takes 9 days. Then we went to the Guinness Taste Experience where the bartenders "taught" us how to drink Guinness, which involves drinking it and then exhaling through your nose to get the whole taste. Then there were exhibits on things like advertising campaigns.

 There was a small part about the Guinness Book of World Records, which was started by a member of the Guinness family. Apparently he was having an argument in a pub one night about what the fastest flying bird was and didn't know how he could look up the answer, so he decided to make a book so people arguing in pubs could know the answer to things like that (a.k.a. for people like me pre-iPhone). Ironically, the fastest bird was NOT in the first edition of the book. Then there were parts about Guinness worldwide (including a picture of the Chicago River dyed green for St. Patrick's Day) and some other stuff.

At the top was the Gravity Bar, the highest pub in Dublin. There you get to exchange part of your ticket for a free pint of Guinness! For the record, I actually liked it better than any beer I've tried before. Not saying it's my new drink of choice, but if I had to get some sort of beer I'd probably choose Guinness. Or it might have been better since we were at their factory.

After Guinness, we stopped for lunch and then went to Kilmainham Gaol, which is a prison that was open from 1794-1924. It was designed as a "new prison" meant for rehabilitation which basically meant that there was sunlight and the cells were originally designed for one person instead of the large rooms that held dozens. It was also built that way to keep people from dying from disease.  Even though these were the plans, it didn't quite work out. For example, during the Irish Potato Famine people would intentionally break the law to get the meager food provided in prison, and more than five people would be in the same cell. This picture is from the newer section--the picture below is from the original prison in 1794:

Those two things took up most of the day. Also, it was really cold and raining by the time we got back. Therefore, we decided the best thing to do was to go see the Green Lantern. I was of course supportive because Ryan Reynolds is the star of that movie. That, and it was in English with no subtitles!

The next day we decided to start earlier and had made a list of priorities. The first place we went was Trinity College, which was founded in 1592 because the Queen didn't like that the Irish Protestants had to go to France for their education--Catholics weren't allowed in. Then we went shopping on Grafton Street which is their main upscale shopping street. They also had a lot of souvenir shops. After that we went to Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Dublin Castle.

 Christ Church Cathedral was built as a Catholic Church c.1030 by the Normans. Its now a protestant church (meaning Anglican) and has a crypt in the basement. The crypt is less creepy than the rest of the church though because they built a cafe and a gift shop down there. They did have a mummified cat and rat on display that got trapped in the organ sometime in the 15th century, so that was cool.

 After that we went to St Patrick's Cathedral, named after St. Patrick who is known in Ireland for bringing Christianity and in the US for bringing lots of alcohol (which he does in Ireland, too). We opted to not go in though because it cost money and that seemed weird to us (Christ Church did, too, but we'd already paid at that point). Even Notre Dame is free!

Did I mention that we were there during their Pride weekend (well, everyone's Pride weekend)? The parade marched (no floats, so it didn't roll) right past the cathedrals and our next stop, Dublin Castle so we got to see it. It was very well-attended considering the whole population of Ireland is only 4.5 million.

 Dublin Castle was the only thing we had to wait for. We signed up for a tour and waited for it, and it was pretty cool when we went. The castle was originally built by the Vikings in the 12th or 13th century but burned down, so only one of the original towers remains. It was rebuilt and used as the residence of the Viceroy (the representative from England) during the British control of Ireland and Dublin.

This was one of the rooms in the palace. Apparently it was the women's dressing room. We also went into a part that was still built by the Vikings (it was stone and looked nothing like this) and they showed us where the original moat and stuff were.

After the Dublin Castle tour pretty much everything touristy shut down because it was already 5. We decided to go check out a pub in Temple Bar, the sort-of-touristy pub area right near the River Liffey. We ended up at a pub called the Porter House.

Alissa and I knew we wanted Irish Coffees before we left, so we got them here. I was surprised at how good it was! (for those who don't know, an Irish coffee is coffee with Bailey's Irish Cream in it) Then we got dinner.

Have I mentioned yet that Saturday I got sick? Just a bad cold, but enough that by the end of dinner I was ready to go home and go to sleep. So that's what I did while Lindsay and Alissa went to see another movie (we'd already done the pub thing and that's the only nightlife they really have in Dublin).

Sunday we knew nothing was open until noon because more than half of the Irish still go to church on Sundays, but we decided to go to the National Gallery of Ireland in the afternoon before we had to go to the airport. When we got there we didn't realize that the vast majority of the gallery was closed for renovations, so we quickly looked and went to the airport. We finally landed at about 10:30 pm (an hour late) and ran for the train after the bus to get home.

But now we're back and I'm headed to France on Saturday morning, then Wednesday I go to Rome to meet Mom and Andy! Can't wait!

Torres Winery, Montserrat, and Mount Tibidabo

Ok, so this weekend we did a lot. On Saturday was the organized tour of the winery and Montserrat. I thought that the winery was in Montserrat and that it was just a winery tour that we happened to be doing in Montserrat, but it turns out that isn't the case. The winery was pretty far from there, but since Montserrat was different it didn't matter.

The winery was the Miguel Torres Winery, who make Torres wine that is apparently pretty well-known in Spain and worldwide. The King of Spain (who doesn't work at Pizza Pizza) even went to commemorate their 125th anniversary. Anyway, we toured their vineyards in a tram and then there were some sort of creepy, sort of Disney-like videos that we watched on the tram. Then there was another video we watched in a theater about the people in the Torres family, the wines they make and the awards they've won. Afterwards we tasted one of their white wines (it was really good!) and then they dropped us in the gift shop. Overall, it was similar to an alcoholic Disneyworld ride.

the main building of the winery

us in the tram!

some of the grape vines

vats that they use for making wine

After these pictures my camera died, so the rest are all coming from Lindsay at the winery and Stephanie at Montserrat. Anyway, they explained to us how different wines are made:
1. white wine grapes are immediately separated between the juice part and the skin and such. it ferments for only a few days/weeks/months and then is bottled and sold pretty quickly.
2. red wine grapes ferment for a little while with the skin and such--that's where the red color comes from. then they ferment/age again for a long time without the skin, and then they bottle and age it again for anywhere from 6 months to years and years.
3. rose wine is when they use red grapes but only let them ferment with the skin for 24-48 hours. then its the same as white wine.

So it was fun and informative!

After the winery we went to lunch, where they served us paella. I haven't had paella before, but when I saw/ate it I was reminded of something I learned at Tulane freshman year: paella and jambalaya are more or less the same thing. When the Spanish got to New Orleans, they didn't have saffron or the other necessary spices, so they substituted New Orleanian spices and vegetables and called it jambalaya. And I can't lie, either--I like jambalaya better. But I'm glad I tried paella, and I would probably order it again.






















Then we went to Montserrat, which as the name could imply, is a mountain. But at the top of the mountain are beautiful views and a very old monastery. There isn't much more to say about it, but here are some pictures:

whatever a Catholic sanctuary is called, this is it

 The monastery looked really old, but I'm pretty sure they said most of it was destroyed in the civil war in 1939 (that whole Franco thing). So it was rebuilt/restored. But I tried to find info online (they were out of brochures in English and Castillian--regular Spanish) and it all said the monastery dated back to the 11th or 12th century.

 Not sure who this guy is, but we were hoping the view would come out in the background of the window. When its bigger it kind of does.

After Montserrat, we went back to the campus. But Sunday four of us decided to go to Mount Tibidabo.

"I was just outside Barcelona hiking in the foothills of Mount Tibidabo. I was at the end of this path and I came to a clearing and there was a lake, very secluded. And there were tall trees all around. It was dead silent. Gorgeous. And across the lake I saw…a beautiful woman…bathing herself…but she was crying…"

Ok, so that didn't happen to me.  But upon hearing that Mount Tibidabo was a real place, I knew I had to go. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the link). That, and I read online that it was pretty cool. So four of us went, two of us who were excited because of said Friends quote. After two trains and a bus we got to this clearing that looked pretty disappointing.

Luckily we noticed that there was a cable car we were supposed to take to the top. So after eating a rather delicious lunch at the bottom, we took the cable car (that was more of a steep trolley--it had tracks below and cables above) to the top of Mount Tibidabo.

 As soon as we walked out of the cable car, this is what we saw. Immediately in front of us. I had known there was a church there, but I had no idea it was one of this magnitude. Stephanie quickly noticed that there were people all the way at the top, just below the statue of Jesus. We entered the church and it was pretty, but not as pretty as the one at Montserrat. However, this one we could climb. So Alissa opted out, but Lindsay, Stephanie, and I paid the 2€ elevator fee to get to the middle and then walked up four flights of stairs to get to the top. I'll put one picture of me all the way at the top here, but the rest are all in a facebook album I am about to post so look there if you want to. 

You might have been able to guess by my hair, but it was SOOO windy up at the top! And it was kind of cold! Not really cold, but way colder than it was at the bottom of the mountain, and still colder than at the bottom of the church. It was crazy! Oh, and the Jesus statue close-up is really creepy. It looks like he's about to swoop down on you like a hawk.





At the bottom of the church was an amusement park. For real. It was 25€ to get in and didn't look like it was worth it, so we skipped it. But you could enter without paying admission (they gave wristbands to people who'd paid so they could go on the rides) so of course we took some pictures:

 Seriously, the ticket booth was literally right in front of the giant church. It was a little weird, but kind of awesome.

 This carousel was the first ride that you see when you walk in. If you could see what we're all looking at, you'd see the giant church again. There were also roller coasters and a bunch of rides that took you over the edge of a cliff in different kinds of cars--like one that was an airplane that went very slowly in a circle but so that the riders ended up suspended over nothing but the ground thousands of feet below.

The tracks/cable for the cable car. Like I said, it was more similar to a streetcar/trolley that only went straight up and straight down.

After we got to the bottom, we waited for the bus and watched the government tow a bunch of cars that were illegally parked. I took some pictures of that but they definitely weren't blog-worthy.

By the time we got home we were tired, but Lindsay and I wanted dinner so we went back out to Sant Cugat (only three train stations away) and found the most delicious Mexican restaurant. We also decided that we are big fans of the Spanish national team that was playing soccer last night. They were all really cute.

Now I'm at work again. And I've been here an hour and done this the whole time (there are a lot of pictures on here and it takes a while to upload!). So looks like its going to be a fun three days. Three days, you ask? I'm going to Dublin Wednesday night! I'm so excited! 

Museo Picasso, Park Güell, and X-Men

I haven't posted in a while, but that's because I needed to upload the pictures first and I've finally done that!

On Sunday we went to Museo Picasso, which is about what it sounds like: the Picasso Museum.

It was the only museum Picasso himself actually wanted built while he was still alive, and mostly covers his early life (which he spent a lot of in Barcelona and Catalunya). So the museum doesn't really have that much that's particularly well-known. There was one textbook of his with his doodles from class (so save your textbooks if you think you might ever be a world-famous painter!) and some paintings from his Blue Period. There were two rather sexually explicit drawings--one with an oddly-placed cat. Also, they don't let you take pictures inside so I didn't. But here's a picture of the street it was on:

It was free when we went because its free every Sunday from 3-7, and now that I've seen it I don't think it would be worth the €10 admission price. And I have that picture because there was a really long line to get in. Long, but fast-moving so no big deal. But I'm also not that into art, so you might love it if you come to Barcelona!

Then, Monday was a holiday. Obviously all of our workplaces were closed, so the two RA/Counselor people (who from now on I will refer to as Meri and Tyler, which are their names) organized an "unsponsored" trip to Park Güell. That just means that if there's any cost it isn't included in the program.

Park Güell (pronounced Guay, like the end of Paraguay) was designed by Gaudí and built from 1900-1914. Those are all the details I have, but if you go to This Link they'll have plenty more information for you :). We kind of lost Meri and Tyler pretty early in the trip, so I think I might have to go back and check out the whole thing with either Mom and Andy or Dad. Or both, because I think my dad will especially like it since he's into the whole architecture thing, but I'm sure mom and Andy will want to check it out as well.

Here are some of the pictures. As you can tell, it isn't your typical park:

A Mosaic Park Bench

The Two Main Buildings At the Real Entrance

Lizard that Became the Barcelona Symbol

Main Entrance

This week has otherwise been pretty uneventful, except that Lindsay (the girl who works with me, and we're also going to Dublin together next week with another girl Alissa) and I decided that we wanted to go see X-Men: First Class after work one day. We found the nearest original language theater (shockingly, they air most movies here dubbed! I was so surprised (just kidding)) and went to go see it. I actually really liked it and would recommend it. Hopefully we'll see Green Lantern this weekend (did any of you think I'd miss the new Ryan Reynolds movie? Really?).

On Saturday we're going to Montserrat to go to a winery! It's only about 35km from here, but should definitely be awesome!