MAMMA MIA

I’m sitting in my room right now watching “The Voice” and am trying to multi-task and write this blog at the same time. So as you can imagine, it’s taking me a long time to think back to the beginning of last week before Semana Santa (Spanish Spring Break) even started. DISCLAIMER: get ready for the longest blog post of your life, it might take a few sittings, but you can do it.

So let’s see … last Wednesday I left Spanish class at 10:15am heading in the direction of the Alma Hotel. Whyyyy you ask? Because aunt Lynne and uncle Clark finally arrived in Barcelona! After walking in circles for about an hour trying to find this hotel because it lacked a properly sized hotel sign, I finally found the upscale monastery … oops, I mean hotel.  I had one class that day but the rest of the time I got to spend with them walking around the city and showing them my Residencia!

But the next day was not an ordinary day in Barcelona. On Thursday, March 29^th there was a National Strike all over Spain, and of course, Barcelona was hit the worst. 90% of flights were cancelled from the airports (I actually just made up that number, but I know it was a lot), and most stores and restaurants were closed for the day. What was supposed to be a peaceful, empowering protest turned sour when a group of dangerous anti-system people decided to run through the streets setting things on fire, slashing windows, destroying ATM machines, and blowing up trashcans. The Alma hotel was even blocked off and you needed to have a security man open the door for you as you squeezed through the bars to get in.

I’ve always been one to love how so many people can come together and protest with hopes of making changes in their society. But people are dumb to take their frustrations out on the city and other protesters who are there. After walking around Barcelona that night and smelling the burnt plastic from the blown up trashcans looming in the air, I was extremely surprised that the strike had turned out this way, and wonder what blowing up trashcans actually does to solve any problems.

But, moving along … Friday morning once again making my way from Spanish class to yet another hotel to pick up my parents, I watched city workers clean up the left over trash on the streets and have never seen the city so sad looking. But things quickly changed when I got my parents from their hotel! We went for breakfast, and the sun seemed to shine a little brighter in the afternoon. We did all the Gaudi sights (Casa Mila and Sagrada Familia), sat outside and had a cup of cava at my dad’s request, and met Aunt Lynne and Uncle Clark at Park Guell. That night we walked around the Gracia neighborhood and eventually made our way back to our respective hotels/residencias.

Forgot to mention that we met the former President of Catalonia and Mayor or Barcelona, Pasqual Maroguell! Who I actually realized was listed in my class notes for my Spanish Politics course, makes sense I guess.

Mom and me in front of the Hospital Sant Pau

Aunt Lynne and mom in Park Guell

Dad, myself, and mom in Park Guell

Dad, mom, aunt Lynne, and uncle Clark in Park Guell (I guess I don't really need to write each person's name seeing as half the people who read this blog are in the picture, but, thats okay, I will continue on)

The next day I woke up early, packed myself an overnight bag, and metro'd to the Gallery Hotel. This day was our busiest of the entire week! Non-stop walking and rushing to fit everything in! Here’s what we did that day:

-walked down las ramblas and to la boqueria to try Spain’s famous Spanish Omelette

-walked down and along the beach

-walked back to las ramblas for paella lunch

-metro'd to montjuic and spent the afternoon walking up and around the mountain and inside the castle

-quickly went back to las ramblas for churros con chocolate and northern tapas (since I couldn’t find the tapas bar at first, we had dessert first and tapas after, we were so hungry that we scarfed our food down without realizing how fast we were eating)

-metro'd to placa espanya to watch the beautiful magic fountain show

-and finally we metro'd to Dow Jones bar to watch FCBarcelona crush Bilboa in futbol

Ordering the spanish omelette at la bouqueria

On the beach!

A cool thing they apparently really liked at the Miro museum

Me and mom in the middle of the statue of the Sardana dancers! (Typical Catalan dance which we saw the live version of the next morning)

Magic fountain in action

Sunday was a bit more relaxed, we walked to the old city to see the Sardana Dance and got to visit the inside of the gaudi cathedral which I had been waiting to see all semester. We walked and saw the old synagogue, and then spent the afternoon walking the streets of the old roman city. Mom and dad saw the Picasso museum while I waited outside for them, and then we finally met up with Aunt Lynne and Uncle Clark for cocktails at their hotel, and to top off the day, we ate at this amazing mussels restaurant for dinner.

cool street performer that we saw

mom and dad in front of the oldest synagogue in Europe (so they say)

All of us near the Cathedral in the Old city. This "B" and "A" is just the beginning of the display of the word BARCINO, which is the name of the roman city in Barcelona. We are at the entrance to the old city.

People doing the Sardana!

Monday was our day to travel to Montserrat! We took the train to the mountain and the funicular to the top of the mountain. Although the walk and the scenery was beautiful, the forty minute downhill walk was a little rough on my oldddd, 21 year old knees. When walking into the church and monastery we got the chance to go the back of the church and rub the hand of the black mama, as aunt lynne likes to call it. It’s actually just a statue of the virgin mary darkened in color by the candle light over the years, but it’s supposed to give you good luck (cough. cough. dad … ). As we joked about the black baby jesus, the women behind us glared in disapproval as she was really there to pray, therefore I quickly scurried away from the scene. Its all religious mumbo jumbo to me anyway, and I have to say that after studying in Europe for 4 months, as bad as it sounds, there is only so much more religious art that I can appreciate, and I think that after Rome, I’ve hit my limit. Give me great paintings, architecture, and history, and I’ll love to study it, but over-embellished golden churches and paintings of the “adult looking, peace-sign giving" baby jesus just don’t mean much to me anymore.

 

On our way!

Geology lesson from uncle Clark

Beautiful mountains of Montserrat

That's me

Dad walking down the paths

Tuesday was, sadly, our last day in Barcelona, and not even a full day at that. We woke up and metro'd (because it was raining: imagine! rain in Barcelona oh no!) to my residencia. Then we walked to the arc de triumph, to my coffee shop (El Nostre Pa) where dad proceeded to video tape me paying for the meal and we got the waitress (who I see basically everyday) to talk to the camera, kind of cool actually. We walked around the old city a bit more and then through Park Ciutadella, but since it was still rainy, we quickly went back to melon to pack our things for Rome.

We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and I have to say I was confused, but not surprised when our flight was delayed over an hour because of a French air strike. It was complete chaos, with people yelling in Spanish and Italian and us standing there in confusion.

But we get on the plane, and when we land in Rome, I get a whisper in my ear stating, “OOOOh, ITALIA!, MAMMA MIA!” Thanks for the welcome to Italy mom.

But eventually we get off the flight, and OH WAIT, we forgot to do our research. Where was our hotel? How do we get there? How do you say hello or sorry or excuse me in Italian? All questions we had no answers to at the time. Although mom did know what bus to get on, I’ll give her that. Too bad we got on the wrong one. Oops. But, we finally made it to our bed and breakfast, and were greeted by a young italian guy, and one big cat! We went out for a late night dinner at our local restaurant just across the street. We had our first taste of real italian pizza and pasta, and were not let down. It was pretty much the best pasta I had ever tasted in my life.

Our first real day in Rome was another busy day of sightseeing. Our first stop was the Colosseum. Even more massive than I imagined and filled with tourists from all over the world. We took our time walking through it, and made our way to the forum afterwards. I have to say I was amazed at how immense the roman forum was, seeming bigger than even the entire roman city of Barcelona, let alone the just the center. 

Our first Italian Gelato!

The Roman Forum, with a view of the Colosseum in the background

Me and Mom in the Colosseum

Mom showing dad something about the Colosseum

Me!

We continued our walk through the city heading towards the Jewish Quarter of Rome. We were surprised to find that there were actually Jewish shops, kosher restaurants, and Jewish people walking around the neighborhood. In Barcelona, you get an old tiny synagogue and dark, narrow streets. But in Rome, we found a living Jewish community. It was really cool to see, and definitely worth our visit.

Some plaques on the outside wall

Snacking in the Jewish Quarter

We continued along to the spanish steps, but was interrupted by the huge pantheon along the way. We turned the corner and OH, what do you know, just the roman pantheon in the middle of the city, no big deal. After looking at the pantheon for some time, we pop our heads into a little purse shop with italian made purses and wallets. We look around and soon enough the shop owner came over to me and says, “chag sameach”. It took me a second to realize what he was saying, I haven’t heard Hebrew in a while, but he saw my necklace and said he was Jewish too. We found out that he is 100% Roman Jewish, which is something very unique. He told us some Jewish jokes that I don’t remember, and talked to us for about 30 minutes. Me and mom picked out 2 purses, and dad got a wallet, getting 5 euros off our purchase and putting money in his tzedakah box instead. It was a nice little treat.

Dad, me, and our purse/wallet guy! (yep, we even asked to take a picture with him)

Continuing with our walk, we took some detours down some cute, narrow, italian-y streets, and finally made it to the spanish steps, trevi fountain, and piazza Navona. Piazza Navona is where we found the Steeler Bar! It was decked out in black and gold, steeler signs and college pennants. There was even a Wisconsin badgers pennant on the wall! We sat and had a drink and then went to dinner where dad ordered the best lasagna, and officially, the best food I have ever tasted in my life. I’m still to this day mad I wasn’t the one who ordered it. But the past is the past, and I have to move on…

At the Spanish Steps

Trevi Fountain: These might be the two most un-photogenic people, I showed them what their previous pictures looked like, and this is the reaction I got.

Steeler Bar

My favorite sign at the Steeler Bar

At our restaurant for dinner

Thursday we woke up and walked around a bit before our reservation to see Vatican city. Thanks to mom, we got to skip the line and make our way into the Vatican museums, where mom and dad proceeded to read the descriptions of each and every single statue and painting. My method was to walk though a room, see what was interesting, and then sit on the nearest bench and wait for them to eventually catch up. I will say though that the Sistine Chapel was, obviously, super cool to see. We stayed there for a while and admired Michelangelo’s work, for that’s a once in a lifetime chance to see that. Then we made our way to the dome, and went inside the church. I actually thought the church I saw in Toledo was more blinged-out with more gold embellishment, but this Roman church was the most massive thing I’ve seen, with so much famous artwork and gold design.

Hallway leading up to the Sistine Chapel

Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Mom and me in front of the Vatican

Afterwards, we walked back to piazza Navona before heading back to our b&b. We ate breakfast at our trusty neighborhood restaurant and I had gnocci for the first time. Yummmm it was great!

Then early Friday morning we catch a train to Florence yayyyy!!!! We get there at about 9:15am and made our way to our perfectly located bed and breakfast. We walked around the city, saw a museum filled with renaissance art, and then walked around more. Florence was like a little mini Rome, and I LOVED IT! A little less green than I imagined, but still beautiful and quaint. Kind of like an italian sevilla. Later in the afternoon we went to see david! No, not my brother david. The much more important David. Michelangelo’s David was standing tall at the end of a short hallway just as we turned the corner in the museum. We sat for about 15 minutes, and I managed to sneak some pictures in, but I think my mom was the most excited one of all of us.

Afterwards, we reverted back to college students, and we bought juice, bread, and cheese, to have hours de vours and pre-game dinner. We had a good time, created and video taped our own saturday night live skit, and then a few hours later ventured downstairs to get our last delicious italian meal. We walked some more of the Florence streets which were now very familiar to us even though it had only been a day, but the city is that small, and no map was needed.

Saturday morning we woke up and walked to a beautiful look-out point called Piazza Michelangelo, where we saw great views of the city and got to walk around a bit more before our train left that afternoon. We caught our train at 12:15pm and were on our way back to Rome, and immediately we caught the bus to the airport to catch our flight to Barcelona, arriving at about 6pm. It was sad to leave Italy, but at least the Italian man sitting next to mom on the flight who was basically straight off the jersey shore, offered us our last bit of Italian entertainment.

Apparently the author of Pinocchio was from Florence, so there were tons of pinocchio stores around the city!

View from across the river

Dad and mom on the bridge that I forget the name of. There are tons of shops lining the bridge that all sell gold.

Best shot I could ge

View from Piazza Michelangelo

In barcelona we walked around a bit more and then came back to my residencia to pack up our things. Before we knew it it was time for mom and dad to leave. I walked them to the metro and said my goodbyes, and went back to the residencia to watch hunger games with some friends. Which is such a crazy story I don’t understand how someone comes up with things like that. Anyway the next few days were kind of lazy days, filled with checking emails and getting some little things done.

I can’t believe my parents are gone already, and now I’m into my last week of studying abroad. This is my last Wednesday night in barcelona, tomorrow is my last Thursday night. But I don’t think the thought has really hit me yet. I’m too excited for my travel plans coming up, and then being home finally to be sad about leaving Spain. But I have no doubt that when I finally am gone, or when I'm leaving on the last day, I’ll be sad to leave behind such an amazing, unique, experience.

But, we won’t get into that just yet.