This past weekend I was very, very blessed to be able to visit Barcelona with five of my friends. It’s such a beautiful city, and I really, really enjoyed my time there.

On Thursday night, we took a bus from Burgos and arrived in Barcelona around 8 on Friday morning. First stop: the Barcelona Cathedral, where, at first, the guard wouldn’t let us enter the church! We finally realized that we needed to be wearing more church-appropriate clothing; tank tops and shorts weren’t going to work. So, all six of us girls stood the steps of the cathedral, rummaging through our backpacks to find pants, skirts, and jackets to wear inside and pulling them over what we were already wearing. Meanwhile, the guard was watching us and trying so hard not to laugh – I think we made sure he had a memorable day!

Next, we went to the Picasso Museum. It wasn’t as impressive as we had hoped, but we were able to see many of Picasso’s early works as well as his famous interpretation of Velazquez’s “Las Meninas”.

Later that afternoon, my friend Bryleigh and I decided to visit the Casa Batlló, designed and constructed by leading Modernist architect Antoni Gaudí. (If you don’t know who Gaudí is, please look him up – his work is amazing and all over Barcelona!) The house displays so much creativity and attention to detail, and it’s impossible to describe it in words. It’s incredible to think that it was constructed in the early 1900s.

We spent the night at a hostel that was only five blocks from the Mediterranean Sea!! After going to the beach to watch the sunset on Friday night, we decided to go back on Saturday morning – it’s not every day that you can wake up and go for a swim in the Mediterranean!

We started off that day by going to see La Sagrada Familia, a famous cathedral that is Gaudí’s masterpiece. Once again, words can’t do it justice.

After the cathedral, we visited Parc Güell, a park designed by Gaudí that overlooks the city.

After all of that, we were pretty tired, so we spent the rest of the afternoon at Las Ramblas, which is the main stretch of historic Barcelona and a pedestrian mall with lots of shops.

At the end of the day, we boarded the bus to Burgos and returned home around 4 a.m. on Sunday. It was an eventful but wonderful weekend – I’m so glad I went!!

Hello, everyone! After a week and a half here, I think I’m getting the hang of daily life in Spain. To let you all get a feel for my life here, I thought I’d give you an idea of what a normal day looks like for me.

7:30 – Wake up and get ready for school.

8:15 – Eat breakfast. This usually consists of toast with marmelade or Nutella, coffee, and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

8:45 – Leave for school. The University of Burgos is only about a 10-15 minute walk from my house which is great. I’m very blessed because many of my friends’ houses are over an hour walk away, and they have to catch the bus in order to get there.

9:10 – class starts. I have two hours of language classes in the morning, which are my favorite. I was very blessed to be placed into the advanced language class, and my teacher (who happens to be named Jesús and was born on December 25th!) is both informative and friendly.

11:00 – Descanso (break). We usually go to the cafeteria to get a snack and chat with friends.

11:30 – History class (called “Cultural Keys of the 20th and 21st Centuries”), followed by a class about living in Spain, called Vivir España.

1:30 – Classes finish, and I walk home.

2:00 or 2:30 – Lunch, the largest meal of the day. I typically spend a long time chatting with my host mom, Marisol, during lunch.

3:30- 4:30 or 5:00 – Afternoon siesta. I love how people in Spain just stop everything to take a nap! I usually rest or hang out my room for a while.

5:00 – At this point, what I do depends on the day. Sometimes I hang out with friends, go downtown, or do homework.

9:00 – Dinner. People don’t eat until very late here! Dinner is a smaller meal than lunch, and sometimes I eat by myself if Marisol has other obligations.

10:00 – After dinner I usually spend time in my room reading, online, etc.

12:00 – Bedtime!

That’s a normal day, but in the past week there have been some things that have happened that are definitely not everyday occurrences:

First, I was interviewed for the newspaper in Burgos last week! They had an article about the group of American students studying here, complete with individual photos of the two students they interviewed and shot of the whole group. I was a little nervous that I would say something wrong or not speak well in Spanish, but it went well.

The second unusual thing that happened this past week was that two of my dearest friends from WMU, Kelsey and Sydney, came to visit me in Burgos!! They’ve been participating in another study abroad program in northern Spain this summer and will return to the U.S. next week. It was SO wonderful to catch up with them and spend some time together this past weekend. I felt very honored and very grateful that they would come here to see me!

I spent some time showing them the city, and we also were able to see the inside of the Catedral de Burgos for the first time. All of the Gothic architecture is really awesome, and the visit was even more valuable since we had all learned about the cathedral in school. I took tons of pictures, but the ceilings were my favorite. What beautiful architecture!

Wow, what an eventful week!

My flight from Chicago went smoothly, and we (10 girls, including myself) arrived safely in Madrid on Thursday morning. We were able to check into our hotel early, took a quick nap, then decided to explore the city.

One girl from our group had arrived the day before, so she showed us how to take the metro downtown. We found a place to eat, then walked around for a while, visiting places like la Puerta del Sol, la Plaza Mayor (main square/plaza), and a small market, el Mercado de San Miguel.

After walking farther than we intended to, three of us broke off from the group and decided to take a tour of El Palacio Real (the Royal Palace), which was incredible and definitely worth the price of 10 euros to see!! It was amazing to be in the same rooms in which the kings and queens of Spain lived. Things I vaguely remembered from my classes began to come alive! There were a few things about the palace that I found to be especially interesting: 1) the walls were decorated so intricately – some had designs in porcelain, others were covered in embroidered silk, and others featured amazing tapestries, 2) I was able to see FOUR Stradivarius string instruments that were given to Spanish royalty – two violins, a viola, and a cello – that were on display in glass cases. SO cool! 3) The ceilings of the rooms were covered in frescoes painted by professional artists. I can’t imagine living in the kind of splendor that these kings and queens enjoyed; I don’t think I could live there, but I really enjoyed visiting.

On Friday I went with two friends to explore the city again, planning to visit two  art museums. First, we visited la Puerta de Alcalá, which is one of the old gates to the city, walked through el Parque Retiro, one of the most famous parks in Madrid, and peeked inside a cathedral. We ended up walking through el Museo del Prado, a famous and historical art museum for about three hours, stopped for lunch, and then went to  a more modern art museum, la Reina Sofía, for a while. In el Museo del Prado, I saw works by artists like Goya, Velazquez, el Greco, and more. In la Reina Sofía I stood in front of paintings by Dalí, Miró, and Picasso. Again, the opportunity to see things in person that I had studied in class was absolutely fascinating! I was blown away by both the quantity and quality of the art that was there.

By Friday night sixteen of the eighteen members of our group had arrived in Madrid, and we all went out to eat together. I was definitely tired after the busyness of these two days, but I loved almost every minute of it!

Wow, the big day is almost here! Only two days away…incredible.

Over the past few days I’ve had to say several goodbyes to family and friends. There haven’t been any tears yet, but my brother jokes that my mom’s eyes water every times someone says the word “Spain”.  The most frequent question people have asked me during our goodbyes is, “Are you ready?” And YES, absolutely, I am. I am so ready to experience this new adventure and learn as much as I can! My suitcase isn’t quite as ready as my brain is, though – it’s hard to fit four months’ worth of stuff into a 50 pound bag! However, I’m confident that everything  I need to accomplish will get done before Wednesday.

I fly out of Chicago with several other students on Wednesday afternoon, and I’ll be arriving in Madrid on Thursday morning. There is a six hour time difference, and the flight is eight hours long. Upon our arrival in Madrid, we will drop our suitcases off at a hotel and have two days of sightseeing and adjustment to the culture and the time (6 hours ahead). On Saturday, we will take a bus from Madrid to Burgos, where we will meet our host families.

I’m not too nervous about flying or traveling – I’ve flown to Europe twice before for mission trips, so I think everything will work out fine. I’m just hoping the other people on my trip will still like me after the long hours of traveling together. I’ve been known to get pretty grumpy when I’m sleep deprived.

I am SO looking forward to this trip! Thanks for joining me on this part of the adventure. The next time I post, I’ll be in España!