Kelsey in Barcelona

Hey Everyone

Well as most of you know Mom and Dad came to visit me last week. We had a very busy but definitely fun time. The first five nights we stayed in Barcelona. Our hotel was in a great little plaza right in the center of the city. There were a ton of shops and restaurants around, which was great because they could have fun exploring while I was in class. I showed them around the city, hitting all of the major sights and a lot of Gaudi architecture. One day we toured one of his most famous buildings called Casa Mila. The building itself is a large white wavy thing with these cool seaweed like balconies. And there are no straight lines in the entire building! It was originally built as an apartment building back in the early 1900’s. People still live there today actually but there are parts of the building that you can tour. We saw a model of what an apartment would have looked like, the attic (which was like a Gaudi Museum) and the roof. All of it was very cool.

We also had a lot of great meals, but what else would you expect? It was fun because we just picked restaurants that we had seen during the day that looked like fun places to eat. Dining in Spain is always a little bit of an adventure. It can be difficult to figure out if you should seat yourself or to wait to be seated. And it is always hard to figure out how to pay, especially in lunch places where sometimes you go up to the counter and sometimes you wait for a bill (which you have to ask for or they never bring it). Then there is always the mystery of whether or not the place will accept a credit card. Tipping is also different, because it isn’t required and 15% isn’t even expected. So trying to figure out how much to leave ends up being a five minute conversation about who has cash or change on them (they don’t leave a spot on the receipt to pay with a credit card).

There was a great market near our hotel where you can buy pretty much every type of fresh food imaginable. They have all kinds of sea food practically still alive laying on ice, with about fifteen different stands to choose from. Then there are the meat stands which have legs of meat hanging all over, sausages, hams, some even have the heads of animals with their creepy eyeballs still in them staring up at you. The fruit stands are absolutely amazing, they are so pretty because the fruits are so vibrant, but there are also so many options. Fruit that we couldn’t identify was all over the place. Then there are bakeries, nut stands, cheese shops, chocolates and more! Needless to say the parents spent at least an hour wandering around and taking picture of all of the weird stuff (thankfully I was in class at the time so I didn’t spend my entire day grocery shopping).

On Friday we headed to a beach town about a half hour out of the city called Sitges. Unfortunately the trek to the town was a bit difficult for Mom and Dad who chose to pack their entire wardrobes for their weeklong stay, and then had to haul their suitcases up and down stairs. Then, after arriving in the town I thought that the hotel was only about a 10 minute walk, but it was more like a 30 minute walk (at least the way we ended up going) so they had to drag their suitcases along cobblestone too! Good thing our room was nice, it cheered us all up after the struggle to the hotel. We had a great balcony and a view of the sea from our hotel room. The hotel itself was very modern and had lots of cool couches and chairs all over, and our room was really airy and big and had only one ugly picture of flowers in it, unlike most hotels that cover every square inch of the walls with them. There was a great boardwalk in the town that followed the sea and provided a great place to stroll and people watch. We had some good weather, they days were warm and sunny and we did a lot of walking around the town (which had lots of fun shopping) and along the beach. We found a lot of cool shells, beach glass, during our walks which we used to decorate our hotel room.

The days in Sitges were very relaxing, full of walks, card games (I made them play trump with me), and sangria on our balcony. It was nice to wind down a bit after our energetic time in the city. We also did a lot of “dog shopping.� There were tons of dogs in the town and it was fun to watch them all go by and pick out our favorites, we even saw a viszla! Again we had some great meals, two at this fun pizza restaurant with really good food and this appetizer thing with bread and a bunch of different dipping sauces. Of course Paella was almost always one of the dishes on our table as Mom and Dad wanted to compare the local specialty with their own home made concoction.

The last day there was a car rally that came through the city, so we got to see a bunch of cool old cars and people dressed up in costumes from the 1920s which was fun. Dad took about a million pictures even though we didn’t really know anything about the cars so if anyone is an expert on old automobiles maybe you could explain the cars in the pictures to us. Dad and I also decided to swim in the Mediterranean. It wasn’t bad as soon as you got in, and it definitely wasn’t as cold as the Pacific that I insist upon body surfing in every summer. The waves weren’t quite as powerful though, so there were only a couple that we could actually body surf on.

The next morning it was back to the train station (in a taxi this time), back to the airport for them, and back to school for me. I wish you could all come visit me, this city is great and I loved showing my family where I have been living!

Kelsey