Berlin

So this weekend we decided to make a trip to Berlin with our new bus passes. We left early Saturday morning, and yes early means before 7 am. We arrived and headed to the Berlin design festival. It was very cool despite all the hipsters. The exhibition seemed composed of all very young designers work which was cool. The work itself was very on the artistic side of design which was interesting to see. After getting our fill of design we headed out to see the city. We had some dinner and of course watched the world cup while eating with the endless televisions set up to watch it on. After dinner we went and found our hostel which seemed almost too nice to be a hostel. After that we headed out to this old apartment complex that has been turned into basically a squatters place for artists who pay I think one euro a week in rent, ha. It was very neat, not sure if I could live there though like I'm told some of the people do.

This concluded the end of the daytime and it was time to head out. We found an English bar to watch the England vs. USA game. We were vastly outnumbered to say the least. During the national anthem I was singing pretty much as loudly as I could while getting cursed at and booed, awesome. That only inspired Chet, Will, and I to chant louder and more often during the game. Chants such as

"Drink some tea" clap clap clap "Eat some Crumpets" clap clap clap

"You've got bad teeth" clap clap clap "You've got bad teeth"

Just an example of a few of them, it seemed almost to easy to make fun of them, ha. To my surprise most people seemed to be really cool about it and most everybody realized it was all in good fun and we were getting taunted as well. One example

"Hey you can't do that he's too close to the end zone."

Anyways that was fun. The next day we spent walking around in the park, we visited the Berlin wall, and then it was game time again. This time it was the opening game for Germany. We went to the public viewing put on by FIFA. There was probably somewhere from 40,000 to 60,000 people there hard to tell when you're in the middle of the swarm. After the game we caught the train home around 1 am and got back at 5:30 am just in time for class at 9 am, ha.

Berlin overall was a very cool city. Seemed very down to earth and not packed with tourists. The town feel was very blue collar, which I liked. We will probably be going back.

La Boqueria (The Market)

Barcelona

It was quite the journey getting to Barcelona. We found great tickets that were only about 75 dollars round trip. However we landed in Girona around midnight which is about and hour north of Barcelona. We really had no plans for a hotel that night. We ended up spending the night at the Girona bus station until about six in the morning when the train came. In between the times of setting high scores in tetris on my phone I learned some things while sitting the night outside. First of all, this may sound weird but you start to feel like a wild animal (besides the tetris). When you walk past somebody in the street you treat it almost unhumanly, you start judging their body language, you try and look dominant, and all your senses are going. Mom don't freak out it really wasn't that bad a place. Secondly I was once again reaffirmed that my life is pretty easy, there were a few people who walked into the bus station at about 4 am looking like they had just got off work and had about a half hour bus ride home. Thirdly, I don't want to be homeless.

Anyways we ended up catching the train at about 6:11 in the morning and took it into Barcelona. Needless to say I was pretty much unconscious the whole way there. We ended up walking around and looked over the city from a hill that we had walked up. Then we hunted down our hostel and checked in. We resisted the temptation to sleep but ultimately took an hour nap. We then spent the rest of the day sight seeing and going to the beach. That was quite the long blur of two days.

Our hostel was in the lower gothic which was a perfect location to the beach and all the sight seeing. It was definitely the old part of Barcelona, all small side streets and cobblestone streets that were nearly impossible to navigate where you were. They had lots of cool little shops, restaurants, and bars. All usually small and locally owned. Very cool stuff.

The days that proceeded that were full of usually sight seeing, then a late afternoon visit to the beach, proceeded by a nap, then out for the night. Inserted in the sight seeing rituals were many Gaudi works and museums.

Some of the places I can remember seeing were Gaudi's church, La Boqueria (Best market ever), the bull fighting ring, Casa Mila (Gaudi Building), MontJuic (Olympic Park), Parc Guell (Gaudi Park), Barcelona History Museum, Contemporary Art Museum, Barcelona Art Museum, the Barcelona Pavilion, the '92 Olympic Stadium, the whole beach front, and lots more.

Overall Barcelona is a very cool city. It was a great experience and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again, awesome 6 days.

View from Gaudi's Parc Guell

Pictures wouldn't do it justice and neither did this little video.

It's hard to tell but the background is the ocean.