Friends at Last

A double meaning sort of title.

1. I really did make some friends and have enjoyed having company.

2. Granada and I made amends.  The last time I was there I thoroughly disliked the city. Now I quite enjoy her.

A few of the highlights...

Almost all of the above.

Delicious!

Alhambra at night.

I promise I will start writing more detailed descriptions soon!

Barcelona Recap

I just arrived in Granada so it's probably a good idea to give you the run down of Barcelona. Here is the brief overview of my week. (Sorry if this is repeat information!)

Monday - returned from Taize sick so I just wandered a little and slept.
Tuesday - Parc Guell, Casa Batlló, late lunch at Petra, more wandering.
Wednesday - cava tour, El Xampenet
Thursday - Sagrada Familia, Santa Caterina market (love!), long hike up to include Olympic Stadium, La Boqueria, Magic Fountain and tapas.
Friday - Cathedral, Camp Nou (FC Barcelona stadium), amazing menú lunch, beach, trenhotel to Granada.

Here are some highlight pictures from the end of the week:

Sagrada Familia

Main doors of Sagrada Familia

Santa Caterina Market - coolest roof over the building, but I forgot to take a picture!

Olympic Park - the Junior World Championships were going on at the same time.

I swear I'm wearing a shirt, but I just hiked up that hill

Magic Fountain - went with my host Miriam.

Found a store that sells Toms and the whole alley was decorated

Inside the Cathedral.  I walked by it everyday on my way to and from "my" house. Took until the last day to go see it!

This one is for the brothers. I went to the stadium for you. Love you :)

El Setial in Barrio Gótico - best menú by far! It included this salad...

this amazing salmon and another salad?

Plus this delicious lemon tart and a Diet Coke! Seriously for 9€ = $10.80!!!

Then I decided it was a good idea to change in their bathroom and go to the beach.  I tried going on this boat cruise, but it kept getting postponed due to big boats in the harbor :( I went back to shower and pack and lug my broken suitcase to the train station.  Thank goodness I was greeted by this room.

 

Coolest experience! I experienced a bit of loneliness on the last day, but it's much better now.

I'll do a little more of a reflective post later.


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Taize 1

The journey was long and included a panic attack, going far too long without food, a very comforting sandwich fromage, and two 3€ Diet Cokes. The panic attack was caused by almost missing my train to Macon from Lyon because none of the machines were working.  I got on the train sans ticket per the barely English-speaking helper and proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes freaking out about how I would explain in a language I don't speak. Luckily, they never asked.

After a flight, tram ride, and train ride, I still had a short bus ride to get to Taizé. This was the highlight of the journey for its amazingly picturesque views.

Upon arrival, I was "welcomed" before dropping off my stuff in the room I would staying in for Saturday night only. We then proceeded to the special Saturday evening prayer.  [Thursday through Sunday of every week are meant to represent the Triduum.] It included a candle light ritual that was extremely touching. I forgot to mention that it started pouring and hailing as soon as I left my room for church. HAIL! I'm 97% sure my trip is cursed.

After the service, I went back to the book I shared with 2 Slovenians, 1 Hungarian, 2 Germans, and a Russian. The Slovenians were only 16 & 17 years old and thought my life was the coolest. HA!


Stay tuned for the next installment!

Cava!

My stomach is soo full right now. Not like the "I had a big dinner and need to lay down" kind of full, but rather the "If I even look at food right now, I might pass out" kind of full. I blame the cava. Or possibly the fact that we started drinking it at 11am.

So I did the tour I mentioned yesterday and it was hands down the best use of my money so far. The morning started by finding the office which just happened to be across from the Palau de la Musica.  I also came across Santa Caterina Market which I will be checking out tomorrow. According to a local, it's better than La Boqueria. Anyway, I met up with my "group" which turned out to be one other guy and our guide. The three of us piled into a van and started out for Sant Saudmí d'Anoia to begin the tours. 

The first tour was Freixenet. It's an internationally known company and the production facility was massive. Even the tour portion was strictly business.  They had a video screening room, large boards with timed-lights, and even a little tram.  Sorta kinda like an adult Disney World. This brand you can try anywhere therefore I didn't purchase any.

The products.

All the sizes.

They spend a lot on Marketing. Freixenet scooter!

The second stop, in the same town, was a family run business called Gramona. It's very old and they still do half of their Reserve and Grand Reserve production by hand.

3/5 of the productions staff cleaning the bottles.

The man in the video is one of the two remaining members of the production staff.  Here he is opening a six year old cava bottle to remove the sediments.  They have to do it by hand and he can do about 1,000 in a day. After he opened this bottle, he let us taste it! Our guide said that rarely happens and was a complete contrast between this small, family run company and the one before. It tasted delicious!

  

After all of these tours, I'm an expert in cava making.  And for those of you who are wondering, cava is really just champagne, but since it is not made in the Champagne region of France it has to have a different name. Cava = cave in Spanish.

Hey, I know her! She knows so much about cava.

The best part.

 At Gramona, they opened bottle after bottle for us.  Since you cannot buy this anywhere outside of a few places near Barcelona, I purchased one for myself of a dessert cava and a mini for my hosts.

After another menú del día of salad, salmon, roasted red peppers, coconut ice cream, and yes, more wine we were on to the last stop, Parés Balta.  This winery is 100% certified organic and again family run. The two sons are the business men and their wives are the winemakers. At this stop we actually went out into the vineyards to see the grapes. You can buy some of these wines in Whole Foods and I high recommend them!

The most homey tasting room, by far.

The goods - cava (x2), red wine, white wine (x2), the best olive oil I've ever tasted.

Afterwards, I went to Xampenyet for tapas and more bubbly drinks. Hence, the food coma. I completely adore this place and that old man.  It was crazy busy, but since I stood at the bar like a good Spanny, I was able to have conversations with the employees. Definitely the best part. 

To conclude this incredibly long post, I'm usually not a fan of pre-planned tours, but for something like a wine tour, it was awesome.  I highly highly recommend touring the wine country in Spain!

Tuesday Things - Spanish Version 1

1. Old buildings with no A/C are not my cup of tea.

2. Chia tea when sick, however, is delicious.

A study in proportions - huge bowl of sugar and a tiiiiny glass.

3. Meeting people from around the world is awesome.  Last week I exchanged email addresses with people from: South Africa, Czech Republic, Hungary, England, Holland, France, Spain, Colombia, Bolivia, and Mexico.

4. Old Spanish men still blatantly stare at any youngish girl. (For some reason I thought this might have changed since the last time.)

5. I miss cooking and eating lots of vegetables.

6. I personally think it's hard to take pictures of one's self. As evidenced by this picture. Scary!

But this woman has it all figured out. She brought her own arm-extender!?!

This is when I wish I knew how to put in those arrows and stuff.

7. In case you were wondering, The Help in Spanish is not called La ayuda or even Los Ayudantes, but rather

8. I apparently have decided that traveling allows me to eat whatever I want, whenever I want. Gelato and cookies for dinner!


9. Speaking of food, the whole menú del día thing really needs to catch on in the US.  Today for lunch (at 3:30pm) I had a an appetizer of some noodle dish, fish with potatos, bread, a glass of wine, and a coffee or 12€.  See what I mean about no vegetables?

10. Tomorrow I am going on this tour. I'm pretty excited about it! And no, I did not pay that price for this trip. Frugal Aaron exists in Spain, too.

Coming "home" to Barcelona.

I'm finally back to the civilized world! Leaving France and coming back to Spain felt like I was coming home.  I returned to a place where I know the language, where I knew how to get to my "house," and generally knew what the heck was happening!

Taizé was overall a good experience, but definitely not what I was anticipating.  If I ever return, I definitely know what I will and won't be doing. In the next few days, I will be posting some of the entries I wrote while there with pictures! I'll do my best to keep them in chronological order and as concise as possible.  If you have other questions or want to hear the full story, let me know!

Now, since I returned sick and I'm in bed at 8:00pm I will leave you with a little ¡yay! story and a few pictures before I type up those other posts.  The people I'm staying with must think I'm über lame.

Today I was on the bus to Parc Güell (whoa - two umlauts in one post) and this woman sat beside me.  I wasn't 100% sure of where I was going but from eavesdropping I found out lots of people were headed in the same direction. Seeing as I kept craning over her to look for the next stop, the woman asked where I was going. I told her and she informed me she worked there.  We began to chat a bit and eventually she asked where I was from because my Spanish was really good!!! Oh yeah, doing all of my Bible reflections in Spanish last week was worth it. (More on that later.) And for all of my readers from the Valdivia clan, she was Cuban :)

Now for fotos...

My view from the bus. So quaint.

The top of the church which has a very interesting interior. There were a few of these.

A little waterfall - part of the "silence" garden.

The view from Taizé. Umm I think I stepped into a painting or a set from Pride & Prejudice.

ACErs, I found Kubb!

And just in case you missed me.

Taizè Intro

I am here! This post will be brief as the French keyboard is quite difficult and the flies are flocking. There were a few hiccups of course in my travels, but the beautiful French countryside more than made up for it. Taizè is remarkable. The music is of course quite famous, but I am in awe of the international community more than anything else. I hqve been ''blogging'' on paper until I can get to a computer so until then think about me without diet coke for 8 days...

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