Hasta luego España...

Hola amigos! So after my time in Barcelona, it was time to prepare for finals! I studied and studied and studied some more! Which partly explains why these blog posts are so delayed. Obviously I was determined to do well in my classes! My Art and Architecture professor kept telling me to have faith in her--I was in her office hours every chance I got! I think the stress of finals or perhaps the lack of sleep in Barcelona contributed to me getting sick...so that wasn't fun...but after my finals were over, I recovered! I received my report card and found out I got As in both my classes! I was so proud of myself and truly feel as though I learned so incredibly much about topics I had never learned about before! I didn't know a single thing about Spanish architecture...and I knew very little about Spanish art and 20th century literature...but I now have so much confidence with these subjects! Needless to say, I was feeling pretty great!

In celebration we went to La Piedra for the last time. As a reminder, La Piedra is a huge rock outside the walls of Toledo. We hiked up once again, watched the sunset, and reflected on our time here in Spain...it was absolutely beautiful. I began to realize that while I would miss Spain, I would miss my newfound friends the most. Without my friends, this experience would not have been the same. I feel so lucky to have met such special people. They truly opened up to me...they shared some hard times they experienced in the past...told me about their families...told me about their friends...and simply let me into their lives. They taught me so much about life...they inspire me to be a better person...to be confident just being myself...and to appreciate the little moments. Our time on top of La Piedra will truly never be forgotten...NEVER.

On top of La Piedra! One of the most breathtaking views
I've ever laid eyes on!

And we're the luckiest people in the world!

The next day Paula, my host sister, painted my nails and accompanied me to my hair appointment! While I was a little nervous, I was determined to go out on a limb and get it cut! I mean, it'll grow back, right?! So I brought in a picture for the hairdresser, but my hair didn't quite turn out like the picture. In fact, it was a little lop-sided. I asked her to fix it and of course she did. We then walked out and I checked it out in the mirror at my host family's house. I wasn't a big fan at first, but thankfully my friends were very supportive and complimentary! They made me feel a lot better about it, and now I've grown to like it more! Overall I'm glad I tried something new and got my hair cut in Spain!

Paula and me!

Then it was time to get ready for the graduation ceremony! Paula and my host mom went with me, although my host dad drove us. I was surprised to find out that they drive a Range Rover! The streets we drove on to get to the university were so narrow, that the mirrors of the car scraped against the city's walls...and my host family didn't even seem to mind!

Lookin' good!

When we arrived at the university (after somewhat of a scary car ride), Paula told me she was nervous to meet my friends. She was so cute and hanging all over me! Perhaps she finally realized that it was my last day there, and for that reason, she was extra nice! Haha!

All cute before the ceremony!

I got my diploma, baby! 

After the ceremony, we had refreshments and I walked around saying my goodbyes! I especially wanted to thank both of my professors and the director of the program, Yuki! I wrote them all letters expressing my appreciation! Profesora Fernández, my professor for Spanish Art and Architecture, is the most passionate and energetic Spanish professor I've ever had! She made learning fun and really taught me a lot! Profesor Fuentes is also very passionate--while his class was a bit more challenging, I definitely improved and enjoyed it! And Yuki supported me from the moment I arrived in Spain! She checked in on me every so often, and then ended up taking me to my lovely doctor's appointments! I truly appreciate her!!!

Profesora Fernández!

Profesor Fuentes y Paula!

Gotta love Yuki!

Of course I had to thank my host mom as well! She was very generous and supportive throughout my 6 weeks in Spain. I wrote her a letter and gave her a beautiful butterfly magnet I got from Barcelona--she collects magnets and puts them all over her fridge! Interestingly enough, she gave me a Toledo magnet! Great minds think alike! And then I gave Paula a Violeta bracelet--her favorite Disney channel star!

Mi madre española y hermana española!

So as hard as it was to believe...it was our last night in Spain...and my host mom told me to go out and stay out! We had to be at the Toledo bus station at 5:45am, so she said to just stay out all night! She explained that it's bad to get only a couple hours of sleep so I might as well just sleep on the plane. I had to listen to my mother of course, so we went out! I got back around 4am, made sure I had everything packed, called my boyfriend and parents, and then we left for the airport! My host mom got up just before I left and said goodbye. Paula was so groggy...she didn't even know I was leaving! It all happened so fast. It was very anticlimactic! I felt incredibly numb. I thought I was supposed to be sad to leave Spain, but I couldn't have been happier! I missed my family and friends so very much...I missed America in general so much. I knew I would miss my new friends who all went to different universities, but I was excited to get back to my normal way of life. I felt so very fortunate to have lived in Spain for 6 weeks, but it was extremely difficult for me to reflect on my experience at the time. All I could think about was getting home to see my family--not too much else was on my mind! But in an effort to recount my experience, I wrote letters to my friends and we promised to see each other again someday. For some reason it felt like I was breaking up with them! I already miss 'em so much! Thankfully my good and new friend Sarah was flying back to Ohio--and we were on the same flight! It helped to be with her during this time of mixed emotions!

Adiós España! I hope to see you again
someday!

After a very long flight (that I slept through thankfully!) we finally landed in America! I couldn't help but shed some tears! I was so thankful to be back! I couldn't wait to see my family! Sarah and I navigated Customs and Chicago O'Hare beautifully! While the Customs officer interrogated me with a couple basic questions (Where were you? How long were you there? Why were you there? Where were you born?), it all went smoothly. I must say though, I can't imagine how nervewrecking it would be if I were not an American citizen. I mean, I was nervous to answer just these basic questions! But before long I was on my flight to Cleveland Hopkins! We had a ton of turbulence...it was pretty scary going through the storms. I heard there were even several tornado warnings in the area. But I thankfully met a girl who was just at a Dance Marathon conference in Chicago--she was sitting right next to me and we talked a ton about BuckeyeThon and the DM at her university. She made the flight much less scary!

Eventually we landed safely and I walked off the plane and through the airport. Then I saw my family standing right next to baggage claim! I hugged them and was simply so grateful to see them! As I turned the corner I saw Chris, my boyfriend. He told me that he wouldn't be able to come to the airport because he had class early the next day--he's taking summer classes at OSU and I of course live a little over 2 hours away from campus. I knew it would have been hard for him to make it with his class schedule, but I was so glad to see him! I missed him so much! It was such a nice surprise!

So now that it's been two weeks since I returned to America, I've had some time to wind down and get back to the swing of things. Overall my time in Spain has helped me become more independent and confident. Not only am I more confident about my Spanish skills, but I am more confident about who I am as a person and what I am capable of doing. I realized how much I appreciate the people I love...and how much I need those people in my life. I realized how lucky I am to live in America but at the same time how lucky I am to have had the opportunity to experience a different culture. The Spanish culture has taught me to "go with the flow" more often and to take some time for a "siesta." More than that, I now have a much greater appreciation for America, Ohio, and Stow, my hometown. I have a new sense of adventure and now want to take advantage of any opportunity to explore my surroundings--even if that means traveling to different places in Ohio! Beyond that, I am so very grateful for air conditioning...American food...ice in my drinks...boy I could go on forever! But the main emotion I feel is gratitude. I'd especially like to thank all who made this trip possible. Thank you to everyone who has supported me in this endeavor. And thank you to all of the friends, professors, directors, and many other people who made this an experience of a lifetime!

THANK YOU!

So with that, instead of saying adiós--it's hasta luego! I'll reunite with my friends sometime down the road and I'll be back to Spain in the future!

Barcelona, BABY!

Hola amigos! Yes, yes...I know what you're thinking...how could I have waited this long to update my blog?! Well, I apologize! The last week and a half in Spain was full of traveling, studying for exams, and saying my "hasta luegos." Now that I've been at home for two weeks, I've finally settled back in to life here in the good ole US of A. Honestly I felt very "numb" the last week I was in Spain. I'll explain more in my next post but I wanted to provide you all with some reasons as to why my post about Barcelona has been delayed! So without further ado, I'll recount my weekend in Barcelona! 

First of all, I've wanted to go to Barcelona for the last 6 years....or since the first time I learned about Barcelona in 8th grade. Notably, when I was in 8th grade my Spanish teacher gave us a project...we were asked to recreate Las Ramblas, a mile or so long street in Barcelona full of shops, restaurants, markets, museums, and street performers. My friend and I chose to be lip syncing street performers for our part of the project...and boy were we talented! Beyond that, I learned about La Sagrada Familia, La Casa Botlló, and more. I fell in love with the idea of traveling to Barcelona...I fell in love with the architecture...with the famous sites...and I determined that I would one day travel to this beautiful city. 

So with that, I planned out our Barcelona trip like no other! I wanted to take full advantage of my short time, so I made sure to buy tickets online to the most famous attractions and to find directions and addresses. Needless to say, I was prepared for a trip of a lifetime!

On July 25th our bus was to leave from Madrid to Barcelona at 12:30am on Thursday night/Friday morning, so we first had to take a bus from Toledo to Madrid. My host mom realized how important this trip was to me, so she packed me a "picnic" as she called it! It was perfect for our 8 hour bus trip, let me tell ya!

A sandwich, plum, nectarine, melon, and
donuts/pastries for breakfast the next morning!

Thankfully we navigated the Toledo bus station, two Madrid bus stations and the Madrid metro swimmingly! And then buckled down for our overnight bus ride to Barcelona. Before long we arrived on Friday morning at 8:30am or so. We found our hostel and then headed to La Sagrada Familia! This has to be the most incredible building I've ever been in...EVER. Antoni Gaudí, a famous architect, began constructing this church in 1882 and it still isn't finished! As you can see, there are cranes in this picture! Even when we were inside the church, the construction workers were busily at work! The amount of detail is simply unbelievable! I heard it's expected to be complete in 2016, but who knows!?

Nativity side of La Sagrada Familia 

Beautiful stained-glass windows that I'm
sure are as tall as my house, if not taller!

I find it so interesting that Gaudí dedicated his life to this building, believing that it represented his journey to salvation. As I learned in my architecture class, in gothic architecture it is believed that God is in the heavens and God is light. Therefore, everything is as tall as possible in order to "reach out" to God. Similarly, there are tons of stained-glass windows to let in light. But wait, there's more! Gaudí's architectural plans consisted of 3 different parts: La Natividad, La Pasión, and La Gloria. The Nativity facade is shown in the picture above. This was the only side that was complete by the time Gaudí died. Afterwards a committee was developed to interpret his designs in order to construct La Pasión and La Gloria. Things became more complicated when the design plans were burned during the Spanish Civil War...so the committee is vital in determining Gaudí's original plans.

Moreover, there are 2 main towers, one that represents Christ and one that represents the Virgin Mary. Then there are 4 towers for the evangelists and 12 for the apostles. CRAZY, right?! What I find most humbling is that Gaudí didn't do any of this for money; he simply wanted to demonstrate his love for God. He even lived in La Sagrada Familia in miserable conditions. My Spanish professor explained that Gaudí was staring at La Sagrada Familia in the street one day...he wasn't paying attention and was hit by a car. Based on his appearance, everyone assumed he was just another beggar--he didn't receive immediate aid and soon passed away. While his death was unfortunate...especially in such a manner...I admire his passion so very much, and his death only further demonstrates how dedicated he was to La Sagrada Familia, to his journey to salvation, and to his relationship with God.

After touring La Sagrada Familia for some time, we walked to La Casa Milà and La Casa Botlló, two very famous houses that were also constructed by Gaudí earlier in his life. Unfortunately La Casa Milà was covered up by some tarp/construction/renovation type of thing, so we couldn't see it :( but we were able to see La Casa Botlló! Gorgeous architecture!!!

La Casa Milà, popularly known as
 La Pedrera (thank you Google!)

La Casa Botlló

Afterwards we went to a delicious burger place! We were craving this...and thankfully this burger was as big as my face. At this point I really missed American food if you couldn't tell!

PURE HAPPINESS. 

With more energy after eating...or perhaps feeling more fatigued after eating too much...I can't quite remember...we explored more of the city and then hit up the beach! Sasa, a friend from Northwestern, taught me some ultimate frisbee tricks! While I nearly hit several people on the beach, I finally managed to master the ultimate frisbee skills! Well...to some extent. We had fun! But it unfortunately began to rain so we decided to do the next best thing...get gelato!

Relaxin' at the beach!

After gelato, grabbing dinner, and showering, we headed to The Magic Fountain of Montjüic! It was here that we watched a beautiful light and color spectacle synced to music! 

Magic Fountain of Montjüic!

The next day we got up bright and early to go to Park Güell, a garden complex designed by the one and only...ANTONI GUADÍ. The most popular part of the park is a sea serpent bench made out of broken tiles. It's absolutely beautiful! 

Sea serpent bench with Houa, Mary, and Hannah!

Afterwards we strolled in and out of some tourist shops and stopped to check out Barcelona's Cathedral.

Catedral de Barcelona

Then we were asked to meet up with some of our other friends who just got back from Barcelona's chocolate museum. They raved and raved about this museum...so then we decided we HAD to go too! Before we went, we had to get some real food, so we went to a Chinese restaurant! IT WAS DELICIOUS. And we needed it! Again, as you can tell, we couldn't take anymore Spanish food! It had been 5 weeks straight of nothing but Spanish food, so we were dying for American and Chinese!

FINALLY we made it to the chocolate museum where we saw tons and tons of sculptures made entirely of chocolate! Our ticket to enter the museum was the wrapper of a chocolate bar we got to eat! It was pretty cool!

Messi, a famous soccer player, made entirely
out of chocolate!

After the chocolate museum we met up with our friends again to determine our plans for the evening. First we decided to go to Las Ramblas! I finally got to live out my 8th grade Spanish project! We had a ton of fun walking down Las Ramblas and exploring the shops, museums, and markets! In a crunch for time we went to Subway for dinner...it was the best! Haha! I have never loved Subway so much! And then we decided to go out and explore Barcelona's nightlife! As we were walking down the streets at around 12am or so, simply minding our own business, someone threw eggs at us from a window above. One egg landed all over my shoe and soaked the padding. I was not too happy. I don't know why we were targeted, especially because we were simply talking and walking...not being obnoxious at all. Nevertheless, we cleaned ourselves up a bit and continued on. We were determined to take advantage of our last night in Barcelona!

In order to take advantage of our time, a friend of mine signed us up for a list to get us into some clubs for free--so long as we arrived before 1am. Unfortunately we got a late dinner and transportation took a little longer than expected (we also got hit by eggs of course), so we didn't make it by 1am. Someone gave us some free vouchers, but then the bouncer told us there were too many people and we couldn't go inside. He asked us to step out of line...but then allowed the people behind us to go in! Again...I'm not sure why, but it really made us feel bad for a little while! We just were not lucking out at all! 

After all this bad luck, we decided to walk down to the beach and just relax for a little bit. I mean, we were still in Barcelona of course! While I continued to wonder why we were more or less discriminated against, some French guys came up to us. One of my friends "fell in love" with one of the French guys...so we decided to stay at the beach and talk to them until the wee hours of the morning. Then everyone wanted McDonald's all of a sudden, so we walked thirty minutes to finally find a McDonald's...to then discover that it's drive-thru only...and we of course didn't have a car! Let me just say...it was an interesting evening that didn't end until 7am when we finally got back to our hostel. We weren't drinking...we weren't clubbing...we were simply talking to people from all over the world! It was pretty cool to meet people from England, Italy, South Africa, France, and more! And we finally had a "true Spanish night!" What do I mean by this, you ask? Well the Spaniards stay up until 6am when they go out...and we finally pulled it off! I never thought I was capable...but we somehow were still functioning at 7am. JUST BARELY. After searching for our hostel for nearly 30 minutes, and unintentionally watching the sun rise...we immediately crashed in our beds. We only had two hours until we had to check out! Funny enough, the Russian girls who were sharing our room with us had an alarm that went off at just about 7am...they were waking up as we were going to bed! 

As I'm sure you can guess, I was a zombie the next day. Thankfully we had an 8 hour long bus ride for me to catch up on my sleep! That certainly helped!

Now as I reflect on my trip to Barcelona...I must say that my expectations may have been too high. Because I've wanted to travel here since I was in 8th grade, I expected this place to be amazing and almost magical! While the tourist attractions were certainly magical--I loved La Sagrada Familia and basically everything designed by Gaudí--the people were not so magical. Unfortunately people in restaurants and clubs were rude to us...multiple times for no apparent reason. And of course the whole egg scenario wasn't too fun. There were also men from around the world who were not very respectful.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity to go to Barcelona, and I truly enjoyed the majority of my time there, but it simply was not what I expected. I was sure Barcelona was going to be my favorite city in Spain, but based on what I've seen and now know, I am in love with Granada! Ironically I knew very little about Granada before my trip--I actually didn't even plan on going to Granada initially--but now Granada has my heart! It's funny how these types of experiences can generate mixed emotions and make you feel much more appreciative in general!

I think I got one more post in me--so stay tuned! Adiós for now!

Picture credits:
http://www.bestplacesinspain.com/994/casa-mila-la-pedrera-a-gaudi-building-barcelona/