Authentic Espanol! June 28th

We woke up today at 8:15 a.m. We ate breakfast which consisted of strong coffee and chocolate pastries. Delicious. We went to see some of Gaudi’s architecture. He was a modernist architect forever ago. I learned a lot of cool things about him. He never used drawings because he thought they were limiting. So, instead, he made small replicas of what he was planning to build. He was funded back then by some fabulously wealthy person and built two homes in Barcelona. We went into one of them because it was 10 euro. The place was awesome. The outside was cool and curvy and had these cool towers on the roof. Yet, the inside looked like it was from back in his day. He also designed la Sagrida Familia which is the HUGE church in Barcelona. He didn’t live to finish it because he was hit by a streetcar and died. The church is still under construction and is thought to not be finished for another 25 years. He died in 1912! Crazy huh? Anyways, the side entrance is done and when I saw it, I thought it was the front! I definitely plan to come back and see it when it is finished . We grabbed some tapas after seeing the sites at a restaurant where the waitress spoke no English. It was the first time that that happened to us. Almost everyone spoke English which was also an interesting twist to the trip. We tried to speak it though. We had sausage, gazpacho, and churros that you dip in chocolate.

We saw a little of the economic problems in Spain. In the main square called Placa Catalunya there were protestors camped out in tents and tree houses. It was like Swiss Family Robinson. 60% of the city is unemployed, and the citizens of the city are not happy with how the government is handling it. We also saw a small protest outside of some government building. It was peaceful, but it does show a deeper side of the country. They have been camped out in that square since May.

Later that night we went to an authentic flamenco show which is a Spanish type of dance. I wasn’t dying to go to it, but I am SO glad I did. It was awesome and honestly the most Spanish thing I did while in Spain. They wear long, flowy dresses and clap and stomp a lot. It was really cool. There were three dancers, a Spanish guitarist, and a Spanish singer. The music was really cool too. Different from what I am used to that’s for sure. For the finale, this guy came out who I think might be a professional or famous or something, but he was really good. It was in a cool, basement restaurant too with authentic Spanish décor. I loved it. We were sitting right in front of the stage and got free sangria! Can’t get better than that! After dinner, we went to find this tapas restaurant that Kelsey recommended and we FINALLY found it! We had been looking for it for like 2 days, but it was AMAZING. The food was SO good. Definitely the best tapas we had. We had to wait an hour to get in, but it was totally worth it. We had amazing croquettes, this goat cheese, eggplant, and red pepper thing that was my favorite, some spicy potato fries and prawns. It was the best food we had while in Spain. Thanks for the recommendation Kelsey!!! We then got gelato from around the corner and chilled outside. We heard these explosions that sounded like bombs, and Katie was scared of them. Katie, Megan, and Maggie headed back early because they had to get up early, but Candice and I wandered around a little and found out the explosions were just fireworks. So, we headed back to the ship around 1 or 1:30 am.