Opium Nightclub

The nightlife in Barcelona is much more crazy than I could have ever imagined. It is almost as if the people here are nocturnal. It seems that things do not really begin until 2am, and people stay out until about 6am. Many times I cannot keep up with the lack of sleep. Some of my favorite clubs to go to are the ones by Port Olimpic, by the Marina. These clubs are Shoko, Opium and Catwalk. I enjoy these clubs because there is the option of enjoying myself outside near the beach as well. I do enjoy going out as a break from the week when I am going to class each day. I also like to get dressed up nicely to go out and get to wear heels! The clubs in this area are very nice inside, and decorated very beautifully for nightclubs. I often do not like the stares and calls from the locals in these clubs, and it bothers me how forward they are to try and reach out and touch you, and try to get your attention. Many times it makes me feel uncomfortable. I also always keep an eye on my belongings to be sure my phone and wallet do not get stolen. Many Thursdays I find myself at Opium nightclub as that is when many of my American friends go there, and I enjoy going out with them. The drinks are extremely costly, however the club is enormous. I really enjoy when there is an electric violin player there, who plays along with the upbeat music. I find it funny to see the women who are dressed provocatively standing and dancing on the stage, as that is a job that I would never find myself doing. One of my favorite aspects of this club, is that when someone purchases a whole bottle of alcohol at this club, they serve it to you with a plate of fruit. I just like the size of this club, so it never gets too crowded and you don't feel that you are trapped, or being constantly stepped on. There are also so many areas where you can go to hang out that you can surround yourself with many different groups of people. One picture is of the men who are dressed outside in different costumes on stilts. I think they are so funny and I had one lift me up.

Labyrinth Park

The Labyrinth was one of the most fun parks I have ever been to. It is basically like a human maze. It features so many beautiful gardens, but the bushes in the center are shaped in such a way that you can walk through them and get lost between each entrance to the bushes. My friends and I went together in a group of 6 and we raced one another in two groups to see who could get out of the bushes the fastest. As well as the fact that you can get lost once inside the park, it was also puzzling how to actually reach the park from the metro. It was quite confusing to finally get to the long path of steps that led you to the entrance of the park. I would suggest this site to anyone on a beautiful day, as the cost to enter is only 2.17 euro and you can sit in the park for the entire day just in awe at all of the gardens you see. There are many benches to stop and sit at. There is also a little pond/pool area and some old and beautiful statues. The statues are meant to be mythological figures. My favorite area was the pavilion where you could stand from above and look out over the maze of bushes. You can see how it is crafted so neatly and evenly from above and it amazes me to see this. Supposedly there have been films made inside the park because of its immense beauty. It was great to go to for the day for a change of pace. As opposed to being in the middle of the city with so many cars and so much noise, the park was very peaceful and enjoyable to be in.

Casa Batllo - Gaudi House

During the month of February, I took one afternoon to go into Casa Batllo, one of Guadi's famous houses here in Barcelona. It is located right on Passeig Gracia and the entrance fee was only 14 euros for a student. The house is one of the most magnificent houses I have ever been in, and I wish that I lived there. It is said that the whole blue tiling interior of the house and all the walls and ceilings were meant to replicate fish scales. The house was many floors and was extremely interesting to go through. The house was originally built for a wealthy couple to live in along with their servants. It was constructed between 1906 and 1910. The house has no straight lines, instead it is all curved, even the banister for the staircase. The house is extremely colorful with many colored tiles especially on the rooftop and on the outside garden. My favorite part was the rooftop terrace. It has a great view of the entire city, and the roof top itself is beautifully designed with Gaudi's style of rounded edges and mixing of tiles. The house is also known as La Pedrera as a derogatory term for the design of the house which reminds people of a quarry. It was also great that this museum offered an audio guide which explained each room and each piece of artwork in the house. I would suggest to many other students abroad here that they make it to the house at some point or another. It is amazing to see Gaudi's artwork, especially inside of a house to see just how detailed his work can get into the walls, ceilings and door knobs. There are many places like this where I live at home. I always enjoyed going on school trips to places like Teddy Roosevelts' house because I think it is nice when they preserve things and leave them intact for later generations to see. The Gaudi House reminded me most of Monet's House and Garden in Paris. I am not sure why because Monet's house included the whole garden and was not set in a city, but for some reason I got the same feeling from the two places, possibly because I am in Europe and they were both two places preserved well from many years ago.

Los Caracoles

Los Caracoles means snails in Spanish. This is the name of the restaurant I ate at that had great paella. It is located on Calle Escudellers. They have a great variety of seafood as well as paella. I have been there twice and each time I was there I got the seafood paella. The restaurant is very large, with many different rooms and it scares me to see the meats hanging from the ceilings. My favorite part about this place is the men who sing and play guitar, 3 men specifically dressed in Spanish clothing. They go from table to table singing songs and they make for a great deal of entertainment. When you enter the restaurant through the main entrance, you walk past the cooks who are making all of the food which is fun to see all the paella being made. The price of the meal is not very costly, it varies between 20 and 30 euros. The only thing that upsets me about the seafood paella that I continue to order is the prawns. In the United States I am used to just having plain shrimp, and I do not usually have to remove the outer shell. However, at Caracoles, the seafood paella comes with large prawns and I must remove the shell and it disgusts me to have to see the head of the prawn with eyes. Also, I am not very good at removing the shell and many times I feel like my hands are being cut. Another fun part of the restaurant is the bread you are served that is in the shape of snails, like the name of the restaurant. I also must add that I love the mussels there, and I feel their seafood is extremely fresh. It is a fun place to dine with friends, and when it was my friend's birthday, the three men who go around singing, came and sang happy birthday to her which was nice.

Carnaval

Carnaval took place on Tuesday, February 16th. It was one of the most fun nights I have ever experienced. It is the celebration leading up to the holiday of Lent. It is so vigorously celebrated, as it was banned from being enjoyed during the dictatorship of Franco. The night was like nothing I have ever seen. I have never been to Mardi Gras in the United States but I imagine it is even more exciting than that. Almost every single person in attendance is dressed in some costume or another. I felt extremely out of place as I was not dressed up like everyone else. It seemed that there was some cross dressing, while other people on the floats were in the most beautiful costumes with great makeup and hair accessories. It amazes me how peaceful the people of Barcelona can be, while in the United States at parades similar to Carnival with a lot of drinking many people get violent, and police are needed many times. It just goes to show how different the drinking attitude is here when you compare it to the United States. People here do not need to be wildly drunk like people in the United States. Also, some of my friends who were hanging out by the beach got into a little argument, but obviously it was the American students which just further proves that people should adopt the European drinking ways. My favorite part of the night was when I got down to the beach with my friends. We loved dancing on the beach to the music. I also snacked on good french fries down by the beach and we made our way into and out of local bars which were also fun. I did not take the metro there, but I heard the metro was so crowded it was unbearable to move. So many women were wearing beautiful headdresses while other people dressed together in groups. It was funny to see people dressed as avatars, I did not realize it was so popular here. It is amazing to see just how many people could fit in one beach city - there must have been hundreds of thousands of people.

Field Trip 3 - Cathedral, Gothic Quarter, Santa Maria Church

Our most recent field trip was around the same area as the previous two. However this time, we took a closer look at the idea of workshops and we even got to see the Santa Maria church. Although I arrived late to the field trip, I got there in time to learn that many of the street names like Calle de Llena and Calle de Espejo are streets named after the trades that took place in that street. So the two examples above would be the street where wool was made, and the street where mirrors were made. I assume this was simple for the people to know what was taking place in each area. We were fortunate enough to have one woman come out from a small door in one alley way which turned out to be an old workshop. The door was not large at all, and there was a small winding staircase inside. I also found it most interesting to learn about the housing situation in the area, although it may not have been a main focus of the trip. It was sad to find out that landlords strategically try to force the elderly in the buildings to move out, because they are locked in to paying a low rent, so landlords cut their electricity and make it unliveable for them. Moreover, I learned that I should be overly thankful for the invention of the washing machine, or else I would have no career path, or education if I lived in barcelona. Women would have to wash clothing day in and day out, and without a washing machine I would be someone still doing that today. Finally we ended the trip by going inside the Santa Maria church. The church was one of the most beautiful religious buildings I have ever been in. Again, like I said about the first field trip, it amazes me how they could have created such nice stain glasses windows with little or no technology. I will never get over the craftsmanship in so many old buildings. Personally, I am not an extremely religious person and such places never really affect me much at all. I can appreciate the artwork but I do not feel connected in any ways to my religious self when I am in these kinds of places. I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing, but it is just the way I am.

Field Trip 2 - El Barrio Gotico, Cathedral

Our second field trip we walked around the area surrounding the Cathedral, also known as the Gothic Quarters. We met at the Cathedral and began walking around from there. The streets are all very narrow, not big enough for a car to pass through. It was great to see how the old city is preserved so well in this specific area. We passed through the Plaza St. Jaume where the capital building is located - where I have to be sure to get in the building on the last Sunday of the month free of charge. When walking through the streets it was fascinating to see signs still remain above where the street signs hang that show the directions the horses can travel in. Horse and carriage was the mode of transportation hundreds of years ago, so the streets had to be organized in order to direct the traffic flow of horses. My favorite part of the trip was the Jewish Quarter since I come from a Jewish family. It interested me to learn how important the Jews were in dealing with the business and finances of the royal family until the Jews were expelled from Barcelona and/or forced to convert when the Catholic monarchs took their reign. Lastly, some of the grafitti was very cool to look at with incredible craftsmanship although I am not sure if it is legal or not. Before taking this class I never really focused much on grafitti artwork because I saw it more as defacing property than artwork. However now, I usually pay more attention to grafitti and realize that who ever is responsible for the artwork is extremely talented. There is no area similar to this where I come from in New York. It would be great if everything were not so renovated so that you can enjoy some of the history. If you go into New York City there are certain areas that resemble the Gothic Quarters, but definitely not as well preserved, and filled with many more loiterers and homeless people so many people cannot enjoy these kinds of areas.

Field Trip 1 - Barcelona History Museum

Our first field trip took place at the Barcelona History Museum. To get to the museum we used the metro and got off at the Jaume I stop. The museum was very interesting because it held all the actual remains of stone from the very beggining of Barcelona. It is displayed underneath the Plaza del Rey, which means the King's Square. It is located very close to the Cathedral as well. It was fun that you got in the elevator and got to see the years going backwards until you arrived downstairs almost 2000 years in the past. You basically can walk through the Roman Barcino. It was upsetting that you were not allowed to take photos in the museum. I was most interested in the fact that people used the urine as a cleaning agent when doing laundry before any form of detergent was invented. I also was interested to learn that Barcelona is not well known for their wine, and the container that wine is held in can change it's taste. This was another museum where I was shocked by the amount of detail that people from so long ago were able to put into their architecture. Furthermore, all the kitchen tools and the personal care supplies displayed in the windows never cease to amaze me. It surprises me all the time that people were able to have such great craftsmanship without any form of advanced technology. In general I do not sense much differences between a museum in Barcelona and a museum in the United States. They are very similar to one another. However, I was upset that this museum was not more hands on. I always enjoy when I go into museums where you can somehow interact with what is being displayed, or sit and watch a short movie clip that explains more or try something on, or get more involved rather than just observing.