Hey everyone!
Let me fill you in on what I did for my last weekend of break. I met up with a few friends in Barcelona after spending 24 hours in Lisbon. The first thing we did was go to see the Sagrada Familia, which is soo much bigger than I expected it to be. Also, it’s not even finished! Throughout my semester in Italy, I have been visiting a lot of churches with my art history class and on other school trips. The Sagrada Familia is so different than anything I have ever seen before. From the outside it looks like a drippy sandcastle, which is very different from the marble facade of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Walking into the Sagrada Familia, it felt like walking into a hollowed tree. The columns and supports near the ceiling reminded me of branches. I thought it was really interesting how there were no paintings on the walls. The stained glass windows were just different colors that seemed random and not arranged in a way that were images. We had better weather the second day in Barcelona so we went to Parc Guell. Instead of paying to take a picture on the bench with the overlook, we decided to climb to the top of the park. It was really windy and definitely not the best time to be wearing a dress, but the view was worth it! On the last day in Barcelona, we walked to the Arc de Triomf and spent time in Citadel Park. The park was crowded with people out for a Sunday morning stroll, kids playing, and street performers doing tricks! It felt very tropical with palm trees everywhere (and there was definitely a big temperature difference compared to Prague a few days earlier).
The food in Barcelona was soo good!! We went to La Boqueria food market and tried the fresh juices, artichokes, tapas, and other foods including a plate that consisted of rice, beans, peppers, chicken, ribs, guacamole and a really yummy sauce. It took 3 people to finish the mountain on the plate. We also tried the fish and chicken paella for dinner one night. Of course we had to stop for donuts when we passed this donut shop (how can you not…just look at them).
After getting back from break and having to live in the same 3 outfits for 10 days, I have been happy to stay in Florence. The past two weeks here have pretty much consisted of me doing homework, working on presentations and final papers. The end of the semester is coming up very quickly and I still have things to do and see! One night I decided to go for a walk around the center of Florence and I saw a movie in an Art Deco theater (it reminded me of the Campus Theater in Lewisburg). Stay tuned because I am going to Milan this weekend!
