Visitas Especiales

The past two weeks, I've had some very special visitors!  I spent the weekend with my mom and her friend in Barcelona, which was fabulous. We had just enough time to get a good taste of everything that the city has to offer: delicious seafood, impressive architecture, astonishing churches, and the lively boardwalk along the beautiful Mediterranean coast.

When I say Barcelona, all you really need to know is Gaudi and La Rambla.  Antonio Gaudi was an apparently crazy, yet genius, architect that designed the Sagrada Familia and my favorite, Park Güell.  His designs are whimsical and impressive, with an obsessive attention to detail.  For example, the construction of the Sagrada Familia has been so complicated and intensive that it has already been in process for 128 years, and they "hope" to finish in the next 20 years...  Lucky for us, the unfinished project is still astonishing since many important and beautiful parts are complete.  Even luckier, the actual church interior was recently finished so that the Pope could finally bless it as a basilica, which just happened to be the same weekend we were there.  Yes, I got a glimpse of Pope Benedict XVI in his Pope-Mobile as I waved my "Benet XVI Benvingut a Catalunya" flag (Welcome to Cataluña).  He's got a pretty sweet ride.

Hola, Papa

Anyways, back to Guadi.  His numerous extraordinary fairytale buildings are scattered throughout Barcelona, but none impressed/delighted me more than Park Güell. First of all, it is an enormous green park, filled with pretty trees, flowers, and shrubbery that was impressive enough on its own, seeing as it is practically a forest in the middle of the city.  Then add in the charming little paths that lead to incredible views of the city, followed by an awesome mosaic bench that snakes around the entire plaza, which is above the "Room" of a Hundred Columns (really an outdoor area with columns, but still cool), and you've got yourself a great park.  But it gets better! I forgot to mention that this is the entrance to the park:

Notice the gate where the car is parked, that is where we enter.

I know, it is pretty spectacular, but my camera (or maybe my photography expertise) was hardly good enough to capture everything at once.  There are two crazy looking gingerbread-like houses that sit on each side of the front entrance, looking enchanted and delicious, with this grand opening to the Room of a Hundred Columns up ahead that was magnified by a happy little tune that a street performer was playing.  It felt like I was in Disneyworld.   Everything in the park was designed by Gaudi, which means that everything is cool to look at. He also lived in the park for 20 years, and I certainly don't blame him.

La Rambla was the second coolest thing in Barcelona, and it is essentially a neighborhood of the city in the form of a boardwalk that spills into the heart of the city's shopping (including a great food market and lots of fun booths along the pedestrian street) and entertainment.  The boardwalk is gorgeous along the water with the boats all lined up in perfect fashion, and there are tons of restaurants where you can find great seafood.  Walking past the boardwalk, the street continues into a fun and busy area with interesting sculptures, street performers, and cozy little coffee shops. 

We had a great time exploring Barcelona, but it was time to get back to Madrid.  My mom was able to stay and see all of the sights of Madrid, which was fun, too.  She met my host mom and got a glimpse of what my life is like living here. It was nice to have a piece of home here with me :) Her departure was coupled with the arrival of another special visitor: Nick, along with some other friends from DU.  As their official tour guide, I showed them around the sights of the city and even discovered a few places I'd never seen before, like the Glass Palace and the beautiful pond/nook of park behind it.

Nick came over for lunch with my host family, and he ate an authentic Spanish meal.  My host mom made a HUGE meal, with paella, meat, and potatoes (and fresh bread, of course) followed by fruit, dessert, and coffee, and I think he really enjoyed it.  The conversations were pretty entertaining since my host mom only knows a few words in English, and Nick knows about the same amount in Spanish. There was a little confusion at times, but my roommate and I were able to translate everything pretty smoothly, and Nick did well with what I had taught him beforehand. We sat around the table enjoying the food and company for over 2 hours.  My host mom really wanted him to come back for another big lunch the next day, but he couldn’t, so she was happy to see him stay around for dinner that night.  I'm pretty sure she loves him, and she asks me about him almost every day now.

Nick and I had a fun time going out with friends, eating the most delicious pastries, and walking around the city.  In the midst of all our crazy traveling, I think it was a much-needed relaxing weekend for both of us.  Despite some rain on Sunday, he was able to soak up a little bit of sun and enjoy the comparatively warm weather before heading back to London (although it was much too short a trip!).

After spending a week and half translating for both my mom and Nick, I realized how much my Spanish has indeed improved.  I have been frustrated because the fluency hasn't come to me as quickly as I'd expected it to.  Of course, I use Spanish in all of my classes and when talking to my host mom or the occasional Spanish friend, but there has never seemed to be much improvement from when I first arrived.  However, having others depend on my knowledge of Spanish really forced me to use it more, like asking for directions and recommendations in Barcelona or translating a menu, which made me very aware of my speaking abilities.  I have become more comfortable with the language and definitely have improved my diction, but I still have a long way to go before I would consider myself to be fluent.  That means I need to aprovechar  (make the most of) my remaining time here in Spain because it's almost December, and I'll be home before you know it!