Student Blogs

Halloween in Barcelona!

November 9th, 2009 ajmcgr11

Hola,

I’m gonna try to keep this short because I always seem to take so much longer writing my blogs than I do my papers. Haha. So last weekend I was in Barcelona for 3 days, one of which was HALLOWEEN! I flew from Palma at 11 at night with Annie (obviously it was a RyanAir flight) and after a slightly traumatic flight we arrived into Reus which is an hour an a half outside of Barcelona via bus (obviously it was a RyanAir flight). I definitely have to agree with Annie when she said that flying on RyanAir is like entering the Twilight Zone: passengers are rushed to their unassigned seats, people eerily burst out in laughter when someone’s luggage doesn’t fit into the overhead compartments, seats are made of bright yellow and blue plastic, and once the plane lands in it’s destination, no matter how far the trip was, triumphant horn music sounds–as if it were a godly feat that the plane actually arrived unharmed.

That aside, we arrived into Barcelona with no problems and on the next day we met up with all of the Holy Cross people that travelled there for the weekend: some from La Coruna and Leon, Spain, some from Florence, Italy, and some from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Together we saw the incredible sites that Barcelona has to offer including La Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera and La Parque Guell, all of which feature architecture by the famous modern architect Gaudi. We also saw the Gothic Cathedral, the Picasso Museum, Las Ramblas, and the boardwalk along the ocean. There is so much to see in Barcelona–we could have stayed the rest of the week and still not have seen everything!

After an awesome Halloween night (15 euro pub crawl…need I say more?)and some more siteseeing the next day, the whole group of HC students went to an All-You-Can-Eat Japanese sushi restaurant. 15 euros for a conveyor belt FULL of food. The night couldn’t have gotten any better. The next day we left to our respective sites feeling like we accomplished a lot during our time in Barca.

The past week was nice because we only had 4 days of classes. Once Saturday arrived, however, Jenny, Wan Yi and I were all work and no play. We had an excursion trip with our History of the Earth and Life class to a nearby beach where we spent the day (9am to 4pm) studying rock formations along the coast. Don’t let me forget the intense hiking/climbing we did to see all these different natural rock sites…and without safety harnesses/climbing paraphernalia. I thought I was gonna die at least 3 or 4 times! And we have 3 more of these lovely excursions before the end of the semester. And my professor is crazy. Sure, he’s a nice guy but he vehemently denies that global climate change is happening! I constantly have to bite my tongue in his class so not to break out in a heated debate. But I guess some good did come out of the trip: we got a lot closer with the other students in our class and some of the Masters students that came along as well. Plus, it was a beautiful day for hiking.  Once I got back home I was exhausted from the trip and took a nice long siesta to get me ready for the night’s activities…

Ok, that brings me up to present day. I’m not traveling outside of Palma at all during the month of November but I have a HC sponsored trip to the Cuevas del Drach (“Dragon Caves”) next weekend with the girls. Should be fun. I’ll post again soon.

Also, I’d just like to say that today is my sister Sinead’s 13th birthday (what?!) so HAPPY BIRTHDAY SINEAD! Hope the karaoke machine is a lot of fun!

Hasta pronto!

P.S. – So much for this post being short haha

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