May 30th - June 3rd

Sunset over the ocean

Sunset over the Atlantic

Sunrise over the Atlantic

Mountains outside Barcelona

First view of Barcelona

Day 1: - May 30th
Welcome to my trip to Barcelona summer of 2008 travel experience. I arrived in Barcelona on Friday morning the 30th at about 9:15AM. At the airport, I met another one of my classmates, Jesse whose flight arrived 20 minutes before mine. He and I then took a cab to the rental agency, SH Barcelona. He signed his paperwork and soon we got a key to his place. I had to wait until Monday to get my own place, so until then I'd be a guest on the floor of his living room.

A few horus later, my roommate Mark who is also from Northeast Ohio arrived. He and I were on the same flight from Cleveland to Newark, but he took a later flight from Newark to BCN. After Mark arrived, Jesse, Mark, and I headed off to look around the city. We found the city center, a fresh market, similar to the west side market in Cleveland or the Soulard market in St. Louis. It's got an amazing roof, colorful and really interesting. At some point later, I'll take some pictures and post them.

A few hours later, Katie arrived from Minnesota. Lots of "Oh"s and "yaaa"s were to follow. She wouldn't have her place available til Monday also, so she was also going to crash with Jesse and Sam. And a few hours later, just as we'd finished cooking dinner, Sam arrived to the place via cab. We all sat around a while and drank some nice, but CHEAP (1 euro per bottle) wine. Soon, the four bottles were gone and with that, so was everyone's desire to stay awake.

Day 2: - May 31st
With the bit of jet lag, the wine, and the general lack of sleep from the overnight flight, we all slept in fairly late. Katie had to go to the airport to meet T-bone, who would also be staying until her and Katie got their place on Monday. A bit later, T-bone arrived. Sam, Jesse, Mark, and I were again headed out to wonder the city, try to get cell phones, and wander. We headed all the way to the market, through one of the larger parks in el Born discrict and down to the Olympic village. By this time, we'd been walking for about 4 hours and decided it was time to eat. We stopped at a nice little place close to the beach and ate. When we got back it was time for more wine. Neil, Bloom, and Jav called to meet up, so we did. Neil, Jav, and I went into a bar while everyone else went back because some people didn't have the right foot wear on. At some point in the bar, i reached down to get money out of my wallet when I realized that my wallet was gone. Well, 2 days into the trip and I've already got pickpocketed. After that, Neil, Jav, and I went back to Bloom's place because that's where the two of them were staying until Monday when they got their place. After that, I went back to Sam and Jesse's and hit the floor again!

Day 3: - June 1st
Again, we woke up...this time a bit earlier...and decided to really see some of the sights of Barcelona. We walked out to the Arc de Triomf, which is just on the other side of the large park we'd seen the previous day (Parc de la Ciutadella). From there, we walked all the way to on of Gaudi's most famous pieces of architecture...Sagrada Familia. From there, we decided to walk back toward Las Rambles (the main street of the Old City) which was near where Sam and Jesse lived. On our way however we decided to stop and see a few more of Gaudi's works. A couple of apartments that he did. The first was Casa Mila and then further down the street to Casa Batllo. After that we wondered back to Jesse and Sam's for some more dinner and then get an early night's sleep.


Arc de Triomf

Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia

Casa Mila

Casa Batllo

Day 4: - June 2nd
We woke up about 9am, Mark, Katie, T-bone, and I decided that we'd had enough of Hotel Sam and Jesse and so we left to walk to SH Barcelona to sign the paperwork and take care of getting our own places. We arrived there, filled out the required paperwork and then got back on our way to check our our new places to stay for the next 2 months!

Ours is a nice little place, located fairly close to school in a neighborhood that is highly visited by the tourist, very close to Las Rambles. We didn't have enough time to get all our bags from Sam and Jesse's before our noon studio meeting, so we just went to studio and then decided to move out. After studio and getting the rest of our bags we made the trek rolling our luggage down to our new place. then we settled in, went to the market, cooked dinner and watched a few spanish game shows. We were in bed by about midnight or 1 AM.

Day 5: - June 3rd
Today, I woke up about 10:45, went to take a shower only to find out that we had no hot water. Then I went to studio to start our first assignment. Our studio is also hosting a flickr page where you can see all of our work. After studio, Neil, Jav, Mark, Sam, and I went to go try to find some more US/European adapters. Unfortunately we came up emptyhanded. Mark and I then went home, ate some leftover pasta and then I came back up to school to use the internet and write this update.