This past week, the McAvoy fam trekked across the Atlantic to visit Barcelona, and I had the chance to see some sights I had been saving up all semester.

- Montserrat

o Montserrat was for me, the best combination of culture (the usual church slash basilica slash chapel slash cathedral scene) and the most breathtaking natural views I could imagine. We took a train ride and then were treated to a gorgeous (though rather unnerving) gondola ride up to the top of Montserrat’s vast rocky surface. We heard the apparently famous Montserrat choir boys sing. Required to be prepubescent so as to preserve their lovely voices, the boys served up a few hymns with their high-pitched voices of angels. We then hiked the region and took a few funicular rides, enjoying the beautiful weather and the spectacular views. I could immediately tell that this week of family touristing was going to be one full of walking, walking, hiking, and more walking (and some yogging). Oh, and we touched the Black Madonna (apparently this is a big deal—good luck).

- Sitges round two

o I also had the chance to show off Sitges, the most beautiful Meditteranean beach in Cataluña. The views were plentiful, the weather was perfect, and the fam couldn’t have been more appreciative. We put our feet in the Meditteranean (In November!) and had a delicious paella lunch. Audrey also continued what seemed to be a trend of finding each and every cat in Cataluña. I have always noticed all the dogs this semester, but the second Audrey enters Spain, queue slews of cats of all shapes and sizes.

- Tarragona

o We took another wonderful day trip out to Tarragona, a region further down the Costa Daurada than Sitges, that has some of the oldest Roman ruins in Europe. We explored an amphitheatre, and old roman circus (where they had chariot races), parts of the old Roman wall around the port city, and had the most delicious meal I’ve had since I first arrived in Barcelona. I’m not kidding when I say this; I’ve been in Spain for three months now and I have to say that the random little restaurant we found in Tarragona and had the menú del día at was definitely the most delicious (and genuine i.e. not tapas) meal I have had this entire semester.

- Tibidabo

o The last day of the visit (and luckily the only day with remotely poor weather), we took another funicular ride up to the top of Tibidabo, the most unusual combination of an old church and an amusement park that overlooks the best view of Barcelona. Though we were rather chilly and pretty worn out from a very full week, we enjoyed the views and gawked at the synthesis of a church and a ferris wheel for the appropriate amount of time before making the ascent back down to warm our frozen feet.

- Other highlights:

o La Musclería: Another find that I’ve been saving up all semester, this restaurant coincidentally right around the corner from our apartment has a menu that consists almost entirely of mussels prepared in every way imagineable (and some that didn’t look all that appetizing in my opinion—who wants vanilla and ginger on their muscles I might ask).

o A newfound obsession with some strange Spanish gameshow that between the entire fam, we still could not entirely figure out. Oh, and Dad and Will’s renditions of the goings-on of Spanish-dubbed versions of Walker, Texas Ranger, and Spongebob Squarepants.

Recent Barcelona:

Queue appropriate bump in the road experience: Laptop versus English

Breakfast Tea

Winner: ¡Empate!

So I came out of the experience with my laptop intact, but Servicio Técnico Apple Barcelona came out of it with 150 euros of my hard-earned, supposed-to-be-for-traveling money. Turns out it may not have been the tea’s fault at all. I arrived at the repair store this afternoon and was informed that my memory had to be modified because I had too much information on my computer (likely the thousands of photos I’ve been downloading to Flickr on an almost daily basis); so it may be that my clumsiness wasn’t my downfall after all, although for the hundredth time I find myself lamenting my lack of external harddrive.

Thanksgiving in Barcelona (Twice): This past week also marked another American holiday that we of course had to give credit to despite not being in the U.S. We celebrated Thanksgiving twice (that’s more than the states, just to make up for being across the Atlantic), once Richmond/Bentley family dinner style complete with every Thanksgiving food possible compiled to make one huge, loud (as usual) feast. I then celebrated Thanksgiving again on the actual holiday with the fam as well as the international roommates. We again were treated to a feast and I got to explain Thanksgiving and it’s roots (Which Mom was actually better at since she has to explain it to five-year-olds every year), all the while piling on more and more delicious food. I still have leftovers in the fridge.

Last but not least (for now): I’d like to include a brief clip from a website discussing Barcelona’s Christmas traditions. It turns out that over the next few weeks, we have quite a lot to look forward too, my favorites of which being the prospect of a field trip (Catalan clase) to the gorgeous Barcelona Christmas market, where we can find Caga Tío’s of every shape and size. If you don’t know what a Caga Tío is (and you don’t), take a look at this link:

http://www.villadesuenos.com/unusual_festivals_pooping_log.html

Barcelona’s weird, but I’m still in love.

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Besos,

Liz

Paris

A few more weeks have flown by and I still can´t seem to keep up with the pace. Paris a few weeks back was an absolute whirlwind of touristing.

The RyanAir Experience:

RyanAir, for those of you unacquainted with the measures taken by the broke college student, RyanAir is the budget airline to beat all budget airlines (but not really in a good way). Katie, Jeff, and I went to bed after midnight after planning out our Paris itinerary, and then had to get up again by around 2:30 to meet at around 3:00 to take a taxi to the Estacio Nord, where we had the privilege of taking a 4:00 bus to the Girona Airport. We then spent over two hours in the Girona airport before boarding a 8:00 flight that had us in Paris around 11:00. When I say Paris, I actually mean Paris´s Girona equivalent, where we then got to take another bus for another hour or so to the actual Paris city center. We then hopped on a few more metro rides before finally arriving at the foot of Poppy´s dorm. We then proceeded to thoroughly annoy and confuse the woman at the front desk of the dorm in trying to explain that we were friends staying with Poppy, but that she was in class and we wanted to leave our bags so we didn´t have to trek them all around Paris. Keep in mind that we speak English, and Spanish, and un poquito Catalan. We do not speak French. Said mean frontdesk lady does not speak English, only French. The whole transaction took about a half hour, all while Jeff had to linger outside, because he was technically not supposed to be staying with us. What seemed like a lifetime later, we finally ventured out into Paris to see the sights.

The Parisian Experience:

Previous mention of our experience with the feisty front-door lady brings me to mention the effect I’ve heard mentioned by everyone I know who’s studied in or visited Paris: Parisians are not nice. Apparently the rest of France is nice, just not Paris. We played the ignorant tourist role out pretty well though.

The Food:

Ohhhh, the food. My other travels so far had not revolved around food in the least. Apparently Amsterdam and the Netherlands in general don’t really have typical food (except delicious pancakes of course), and everyone knows the Brits aren’t exactly known for their eats. Witthin a few hours of our arrival in Paris, however, we were walking the Chanps Elysees (which coincidently reminded me a lot of Barcelona’s very own Passeig de Gracia) with crepes in hand, complete with cinnamon & sugar or Nutella or whatever we might have desired. We rounded out our weekend with:

- More Crepes

- French Onion Soup

- Steak Frites (Okay, so just the frites for me).

- Croissants galore.

- Oh, and Angelina’s—pastries and sweets and hot chocolate. And then only a slight stomach ache afterwards from chocolate overload.

Needless to say I absolutely cannot wait for Italy, when probably about fifty percent of my sightseeing focus will be centered entirely on the food experience.

Sightseeing Highlights:

- L´Orangerie: Monet’s famous waterlilies paintings, up close and personal, like I’d never seen before. It was thrilling both at Musee de l’Orangerie as well as the Musee D’Orsay that we visited to be seeing paintings I’d been hearing about and seeing in slides and photographs since I was in kindergarten, but the real thing, right in front of me, no denying it. It was overwhelming but I was hooked. I now plan to return to Paris just to see museums (there are a lot of them and we (what a faux pas!) didn’t go inside the Louvre.

- Eiffel Tower at night: We were lucky enough to see the Eiffel Tower just days after a new lightshow had been completed. Dressed in dresses and stockings prepped for a wonderful dinner afterwards, we did our time in the line and were finally able to take the somewhat frightening elevator up to the top. The Eiffel Tower is tall, much, much taller than I imagined. Once on the top, we were treated to a view not unlike that of a satellite plane, that’s how high up we were, with lights twinkling over the beautiful city of Paris. The only drawback was the part where it was approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit up there (probably colder), and my favorite part as we were waiting for our chance to take the elevator back down while jumping up and down trying to say warm:

(Katie): How long do you think it would be before we die up here?

It was a very Titanic moment as we shivered at the top, starting to think an elevator might never come.

- Jewish Quarter: The second day of our visit, Poppy took us to Paris’s Jewish quarter where we got to eat more food. We stood in line for the best falafel I’ve ever tasted, paired with hummus, cucumber salad, roasted eggplant, and some sort of unidentified but delicious sauce to top it all off. It was gone in five minutes and I seriously considered going back for more. Then we stopped by a vintage store where I got my very own French vintage boots and a 3 euro French vintage scarf.

Family visit post anytime now!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39332893@N03/

Besos,

Liz

Just touched down in Londontown

London calling, I never felt so much alive!

So these past few weeks have been a whirlwind, and there’s no end in sight. A few weeks ago, I hopped onto a plane once again, this time destined for London. The trip was pretty rushed, but I still had the chance to be a good little tourist and see the sights. I met up with Alex (friend from way back when at SJA) and we headed out into the dreary London afternoon to explore. Alex goes to the University of Southampton only about two hours outside of London, so it was much to my surprise when I realized that he knew absolutely nothing about the city. I had (of course) made a detailed itinerary for the weekend so I could fit in as much as possible, but I had originally expected to have Alex as my tour guide; Alex decided his role was more of a general sidekick than an information-giver, as he has apparently not visited London the million times I would have expected in the six years he’s lived in England.

Top sights:

- Big Ben

- Houses of Parliament

- London Eye

- Westminster Abbey

- Trafalgar Square

- Attempt at seeing St. Paul’s Cathedral: Ok, so this one didn’t quite go as planned. Who would have thought that when one types ‘Saint Paul’s Cathedral London’ into Google maps, one will be faced with approximately ten possible locations to choose from. I chose the first on the list, figuring that would be my best bet of having the correct location. There is only one St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and I did not see it. I instead saw the Southwark Cathedral, which coincidently is actually older than St. Paul’s (circa AD 606) though notably no as famous. This would have been another situation in which Alex having some knowledge about his capital city might have been useful.

- Victoria & Albert Museum

- Changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace: This was probably the most entertaining congregation of tourists I have yet seen in Europe—hundreds of people crowd around Buckingham Palace, but no one seems quite sure of where they’re supposed to be looking or what they’re looking for. Then, suddenly, the guard begins processing along the street, music, marching, and all, and the entire crowd perks up excitedly and shoves towards the fence, cameras aloft, as the guard marches inside, leaving every single person who isn’t a small child sitting on a parent’s shoulders, with no view at all. I luckily was able to guilt-trip a tall man into snapping a photo or two for my short-statured self.

- London Tower

- Jubilee Market

- London Bridge

I was also lucky enough to get an authentic British experience, when Alex and I, after sightseeing Friday and Saturday morning, headed out to Southampton to attend his baseball team’s awards function—which basically consisted of a British meal at a British pub followed by a British club, and then back to Alex’s house where I was greeted by approximately twenty boys, all apparently visitors of his other three housemates. Sleeping in the same house as twenty dirty (sorry Alex) boys is not the most pleasant of experiences.

I then got to round out the weekend by heading back to London Sunday morning and seeing Suz (!) for the afternoon before flying back to Barca.

Halloween weekend, we were treated to approximately a million visitors, making for a weekend jam-packed with sightseeing and catching up. Nicole, Patty, Colby, Amy, and Krisitn all came from various locations in Europe, and among the highlights were a visit to Parc Guell at sunset as well as a trip up to Montjuic to watch the Magic Fountain show held every Saturday night. We witnessed the most captivating light show I’ve ever seen set to cheesy movie soundtrack tunes. Perched on the steps at the foot of the Palau Nacional, armed with bread, cheese, wine, and good company, suffice it to say we felt too euro for words.

Next up:

PARIS (November 6-8)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39332893@N03/

Besos,

Liz

Here goes, a more interesting update of my adventures (I still go to classes and all, but only out of habit).

A few weeks back, in full sightseeing mode, we made the trek up to Montjuic, a full-blown tourist’s Mecca complete with the gorgeous Museo Nacional d’Art de Cataluña (National Cataluñan Art Museum) housed in the Palau Nacional (National Palace) at the top of a huge hill. The Palace also overlooks fountains that, on Saturday nights, are the sight of an astounding light show. We walked a little further up and were treated to sights of some of the most famous structures of the 1992 Olympics held in Barcelona, including the Estadi Olímpic (Olympic Stadium). Montjuic also houses a number of museums and at the very top, after a worthwhile gondola ride, we experienced some great views from the Castell de Montjuic (Your standard fortress structure). Definitely a day well spent.

Next on the list:

A la Richmond’s study abroad program, we were treated to a trip to two beautiful areas of Cataluña, the riverside town of Girona, and the coastal region called Costa Brava. At Girona, we got the chance to do some sightseeing including Banys Arabs (Some of the best-preserved Arabic baths in Spain), and of course a Cathedral that’s been around since Roman times (Europe's go-to tourist highlights usually seem to be cathedrals or churches).

Next, it was bus time as we headed towards the coast to Costa Brava, where we explored vast Roman and Greek ruins the following day. After a beachside lunch, it was back on the bus for a long ride back to Barcelona. I must note how unpleasant for one’s stomach a four-hour bumpy, rickety, jerky bus ride can be.

And next, during our first semblance of a break from class (actually a single day off tacked onto a weekend), Katie, Courtney, Jess and I headed off to Amsterdam, excited but completely unsure of what to expect.

As we were informed by our tour guide on our three-hour free (sort of) tour of the city, Amsterdam has three rules of toleration:

1) Be discreet.

2) Don’t hurt anyone with your behavior.

3) Do what’s good for business.

And as we learned as we explored this fascinating old city, these three rules are what each and every Dutch individual governs him or herself by. After a bleak past marked by the war and repression, Amsterdam has rejected conventionalism and is all the better for it. Through the numerous coffee houses we passed in our wanderings and the multiple times we walked through the Red Light District, I was in awe of this people who insist on doing things their way. Biggest regret of the weekend: not paying a prostitute to just talk to us about herself and her city—definitely would have been an unforgettable experience (though I’m still unsure whether any of them would have actually taken us up on the offer).

Another of my favorite experiences of the weekend was our visit to the Anne Frank Museum (the actual house Anne Frank and her family hid in during Hitler’s regime). Though much to my despair, we were not permitted to take photos inside of the museums, it was nonetheless a memory that I’ll retain for years to come.

My biggest surprise was remembering the clarity and maturity with which the young girl wrote, as the museum included segments of Anne’s book on the walls:

I know what I want,

I have a goal,

I have opinions,

a religion

and love (April 9, 1944).

I can shake off everything

if I write,

my sorrows disappear,

my courage is reborn (April 5, 1944).

(No one ever said anything about not being allowed to frantically jot notes into my dorky Oh, the Places You’ll Go journal).

The rest of our weekend was packed with visits to Waterlooplein (A huge flea market), Bloemenmarkt (Only floating flower market in the Europe), and the Heineken Experience (I now officially know how to drink a beer), to name a few.

We were also treated to two food indulgences that I never would have suspected I would like:

1) French fries with mayonnaise? Surprisingly delicious.

2) Pancakes—But these are not your run-of-the-mill pancakes and syrup pancakes. At The Pancake Bakery we were faced with decisions such as whether to have the Cheese, mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes pancake…or the Nutella, powdered sugar, and bananas route. Though vastly different, I went with the savory route and my decadent mushroom and cheese pancake more closely resembled a crepe morphed with a pizza, most certainly 10 euros well-spent. Plus I got to snag a bite or four of Jess’s Nutella and caramelized banana pancake.

A few more weeks passed and another UR field trip sent us to Figueres, another Cataluñan town, which houses the Dalí Museum. In a (in my artsy opinion) way too short-lived tour of this crazy museum, we got to see Salvador Dalí’s extensive and eccentric body of work. I spent most of the day with my head tilted sideways like a confused puppy trying to understand what the hell this crazy guy was thinking—but the finished result was always impressive if strange.

Next up:

London (Ok, so I already went here, but I’m saving the writing about it part for another time when I’m more inspired)

Paris: November 6-8

And everything in between!

Absolutely cannot believe it’s already November...

As usual: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39332893@N03/ (Reverse chronological order)

Besos,

Liz