Mi Vida en Valencia: Barcelonaaaa!!!!

This past weekend a group of 9 of us from the program traveled to "Barthelona." We decided to fly RyanAir (which was a horrible idea, which you'll soon read about...)

We arrived at Valencia Airport at approximately 8 p.m. for our 10 p.m. flight. The flight kept getting more and more delayed..to the point where we didn't end up taking off until 2 in the morning!! And mind you, there was as huge thunderstorm as well. We ended up taking off right into it and I'm not overexaggerating when I say we almost crashed in the plane. BECAUSE WE ALMOST DID! The turbulence was so bad that the plane dropped like 100 feet in the air. I was squeezing Shannon and Jess's hands so tight. I made Keaton promise me we wouldn't die!! It was so scary. I've been in really bad turbulence before, but definitely not that bad. We landed about a half an hour later and everyone clapped on the plane because we made it through the storm!! I know it sounds dumb, but it made me appreciate everything I have a lot more. Because I was honestly thinking of my family and friends back at home during all this..and I was afraid I would never see them again...

Anyways, moving onto the good news...

We got into Barcelona around 3 or 4 a.m. and the guy who ran the hostel/villa we were staying at was nice enough to pick us up. This villa we stayed at for 20 euros/night was gorgeous!! It was on a little hill about 20 minutes from the center of Barcelona. It had a tennis court, pool and we ate the meals for only 5 euros. And it was good food! We also met a couple other people who were staying there as well, and these boys from England who were working there for a few months. They were all so nice and I loved their accents!! They showed us the "party basement" right when we got there, but we were all so exhausted from waiting at the airport that we went to bed.

The next day (Sat.) we got up somewhat early and took a metro to meet Ariel's friend who showed us around the city a bit. We saw cathedrals, little coffee shops, gift stores, and even the parliament building! It rained all day Saturday, so that wasn't cool, but other than that, it was a great day. Later, we had "paella" for dinner (this is a popular Valenciano dish, yet the first time I actually ate it was in Barcelona this weekend). A guy from Holland who was working there made a HUGE dish of it and we all tried it. His parents were staying there as well and were really nice people.

Oh and did I mention there was endless sangria with our dinner? It was such a great meal for only 5 euros!! After we were all having fun around the dinner table we went to a carnival time thing that was right down the road from the villa. Nope, we didn't go out in the city (one of the clubs was like 15 euros just to get in). The carnival was fun, even though we didn't go on any rides. They had really cheap drinks, and we ended up going to some folk dancing concert. When some of us decided to leave, we got really lost and I was so sore the next day from walking so much. We finally made it back to the Villa and life was good.

Sunday was the day that we did most of our sight-seeing. We saw all of those people who dress up and pretend to be statues to get money...we went to an expensive McDonald's but it was sooo worth it, we saw the cathedral in Barcelona (I forgot the name) that is still being built after like 200 years, and we went to the Galdi Park (spelling?) which you will definitely see in the pictures I'm about to post. It was beautiful and overlooked the whole city of Barcelona. We fit a lot in for just a weekend!! We took a lot of trains, but we split the ticket everytime so it was cheaper for all of us! :)

So all in all, it was such a great weekend!! The 9 of us would now like to be called "The Brady Bunch." I'm Alice :)

I really want to post some pics from Barcelona for all of you to see, so here they are....