Gaudi had a life-long fear of tram cars...

The last city on my European adventure was Barcelona. I would say that I loved the city.
On the first day we visited the Picasso Museum, which was great...and the Chocolate Museum, where Alli and I drank liquid chocolate bars.
The one thing that I would have changed would have been the weather...it rained quite a bit and it was colder than I had expected, but the city was vibrant, interesting and diverse. I enjoyed walking around the pedestrian streets and seeing the fabulous and bizarre architecture of Gaudi's city.
One of the first great things that we did was we took a tour of the Palau de Musica Catalina. This concert hall was stunningly beautiful on the inside. The architect designed each of the many sculptures on the walls and the stained glass. I couldn't stop looking at the "sun" of the room which was the stained glass sky light in the center, the orange and yellow glass bent in an upside-down bell shape over the audience and I can just imagine what that must look like on a very sunny day of when they use electricity to light it at night. I liked that tour very much.
We also took cable cars along the coast to view the city from above, which was nice. Once again, the weather could have been better, but the fog over the mountains created cool effects and the pictures came out well.
I loved the Park Guell, which was the park that Gaudi designed for his friend...everything in the park is colorful, vibrant, and interesting to look at. I loved seeing the city from this park. Off in the distance we saw what we thought was a creepy old castle but we later found out that it was an amusement park, which is less cool, so we didn't go to see it.
We were reading about Gaudi and his work while we sat in the park waiting for it to get dark and we found out that Gaudi was killed by a tram car. The next day we took a gothic tour in which we found out that Gaudi had a life-long fear of tram cars...which is horribly ironic.
We took a gothic tour the next day which was alright and the we signed up to take a Spanish cooking class the following day.
We met up with Scott's friend from Budapest, Salma, who lives in Barcelona. She was great and she took us to this wax museum/bar/jungle where we had sangria and talked for a while. It was a really fun night.
The next day, which was our last day, went to various Gaudi projects. We saw three that were particularly impressive. The Sagrada Familia (Gaudi's unfinished temple) which was mesmerizing. It is enormous and so so so unique. It was unlike anything I have ever seen and I love that.
I also loved his Casa Mila and Casa Batlla. After we saw those sights, we went to the outdoor market for some fresh fruit etc and then made our way to the cooking class.
We made sangria and tapas while the instructor explained the technique of cooking paella. It was good and interesting.
So early today I left Barcelona and now I'm here in New York again, more or less unpacked and I am happy that I already got to see Jeanette and her boyfriend Brad, Carly and Laura.
Now I'm going to go to sleep because to me it feels like 6 AM and I have been awake for 24 hours, eek.
It's nice to be home <3
Ciao.

PS...I don't really know what I'm going to write about in this blog now...and it seems to need a new title.

Parigi

My mom and I left London on my birthday on the train to Paris. The train only took a couple of hours and then we were in Paris. It was so nice to see Josh and to be in Paris again. This time I didn't feel as rushed or stressed because there were only a couple of things that I missed in March that I wanted to accomplish this time.
We did a few things with my mom before Scott and Alli arrived from Brussels. Later that night we went out to dinner at Hippo and then to a fun club where the guys served us drinks in their underwear.
The next night we cooked in Josh's building, which was good, I really missed cooking since leaving Florence. We were so used to cooking for ourselves every night.
We went to Orsay to see impressionist art. I was standing on line while I was waiting for Scott and Alli to get to the museum and I had been waiting for about twenty minutes when they arrived. I told them to come join me on the line and then a French man got all upset saying that everyone had seen us cut the line etc etc etc. It was ridiculous. At one point the man even said, "I am French and I have been waiting for a long time." I was like, really? Then the man continued to bad-talk us to other people in line and he asked Scott, "Do you feel good, in your mind?" Scott responded by saying, "Yes, and in my heart." The man was terrible but we finally got into the museum soon after. I liked the building that held the works- it used to be the main train station in Paris and I loved the high arched ceilings. Normally they would bring the much needed light to illuminate the paintings, but we went on kind of a gray day, so that wasn't so good. I enjoyed the collection very much.
We spent some time sunbathing in the Luxembourg gardens and we took a boat along the Seine. One of the highlights of this trip to Paris was going to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. I didn't know that one could go to the top of it but the view of the city at night was absolutely spectacular and I was so happy that we did that.
We went to the Pompidou Center (cool modern art museum) and the Picasso Museum, which were both very cool.
The last night Alli, Scott, my mom and I went up to Mont Martre to see Sacre Ceour and have fondue. The church was gorgeous and dinner was great. Alli and Scott got some really nice pieces of art up there and then we proceeded to check out the Moulin Rouge.
When we went to the Palais de Tokyo earlier that day, we were told to come back between 6-12 for the opening of a new exhibit. So after dinner we went back and there was this incredible party going on between the two buildings of the museum. The music was cool and funky and all of the Europeans were dancing and flailing around. We could see the Eiffel Tower flickering behind us...This was one of the coolest experiences I have had this semester. I felt like I was part of something cool and genuine, not to mention it was SUPER FUN.
The artist that was opening the exhibit was really great also, I liked most of his collection and even though you could tell he was influenced by Gauguin, he wasn't horribly boring like Gauguin.
On the last day we went to the top of the Pantheon, another terrific view of the city and then we were on our way to Barcelona.
My mom unfortunately decided that it was the most practical for her to cut her trip a bit short and go back to New York from Paris. Scott Alli and I left for Barcelona on the train and got there the next morning.