Back From Spring Break!

I'm back from spring break! Unfortunately, my only souvenirs are a cold, sore throat, pink eye, and an inability to hear out of my right ear. Luckily, I picked these up only in the last days of our trip. Jon and I spent the first couple days in awe at how magnificent the city was. Even the most ordinary buildings there were so ornately decorated that they could easily be the most attractive in other cities. We visited two parks while we were in Barcelona, one was the Park Guell, designed by the architect Gaudi, and the other was the Cuitadella Park, which has the Barcelona Zoo inside it. I didn't so much enjoy the Gaudi park (or his style in general), but it was interesting to walk through anyway. I didn't have my camera that day, so I can't show anything, but the park looked as if it was taken out of a Dr. Seuss book. To give an idea of the style of Gaudi, though, here is a picture of the Sagrada Familia Church, which is currently under construction:


This is supposed to be Gaudi's masterpiece. Anyway, the Ciutadella Park was probably to most amazing park I have ever seen. Walking through it was the most surreal experience I can remember. I can hardly describe how it felt, and the pictures probably won't do it justice, but here are a couple pictures of the park.
Bed's of tulips were everywhere, and all the bushes and trees were meticulously trimmed and shaped. Every little detail about this park was intented by the designers, and the end result was amazing.
Jon and I with some crazy trees.
There is a lake in the middle of the park, where people get in row boats and just paddle around.
This castle looking building is a museum in the park.
And this is the Arc De Triumph guarding the entrance to the park. As you can see from these pictures, the weather was treating us very well (at least for the first part of the trip).

The beaches were also really nice, although the got very crowded during the late afternoon. It was still a little too cold to swim, so we mostly just sat at the beach and played frisbee.

We also visited a big castle overlooking the port.


The castle is open for everyone. This guy is just practicing archery in the courtyard, and there were a group of old men playing hand ball against the castle walls. The military museum is located in the castle, so they had old artillery and cannons as decorations.


This is a mall on La Rambla, probably the coolest looking mall I've ever seen. La Rambla is a long street with a lot of shops, and entertainers trying to get tips. It was a lot of fun just to walk down it and check out the stores. Even though this probably isn't the most important building in Barcelona, I just really like the design.

I have to get back to studying for midterms, so I'll update more later with pictures of Madrid.

Happy Pi Day!

It's been a long time since my last update, mostly because school has finally started to pick up, and also I'm a little lazy about updating. I think I'm going to skip the pictures of Amsterdam, Bulgaria, and Romania because the weather was pretty bleak and the pictures aren't very exciting, but I will put up some of Greece, since it was really nice.

So, tomorrow I leave for Barcelona for spring break with my friend Jon. Basically, our plan is to stay the weekend in Barcelona and then make our way down the coast and see as much of Spain as we can. Also, the weather is supposed to be about 70 degrees and sunny, so a lot of beaching is to be expected also. My battery charger recently fell apart, so hopefully I have enough power left in it to last me through the trip.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Greece:

This is an amphiteatre at the Acropolis
And this is the Acropolis, as seen from the temple of Zeus.
This is the temple of Hephaestos. This shot in particular took me forever to get.
We went to a coastal city called Napflion, which was absolutely incredible. That hill has a big Mycenean castle on it which is famous for having to climb 999 steps to get up to. This next picture is a view from the top
The water was so blue, I wish it was a little warmer when we were there so we could have gone swimming. Hopefully the water in Barcelona will be as picturesque.

This is a picture of the bay which the city surrounds. On the other side of the peninsula there is a castle in the middle of the water. We didn't get to go to it, but it was pretty cool.
This is me on a ferry to Crete. Crete was pretty lame because there are no tourists in the winter (even though the weather is really nice), and so there is nothing to do. We went to a small restaurant on the island while we were waiting to leave, and this guy was amazed that we were from America so he bought us a lot of food and drinks.

So, Greece was probably my favorite country (it also had the cleanest metro system) and Paris was my favorite city. I want to go back to Greece someday, but that probably won't happen this semester. I still have to go to Croatia and Austria before I leave for the US, which is in about 7 weeks. Everytime I think about leaving, I realize how lucky and happy I am to be here. Anyway, the fun has got to stop sometime I suppose. I'll make another post when I get back from Barcelona.