spring break 1

i'm in paris!! we (julie, rachel, maegan, alison and i) arrived this morning. we flew in from barcelona, which was incredible. we had to wake up at 3:30am on friday to catch our plane. took a cab to the airport, got there on time, no stress. it was a good flight, about an hour long. we had to take a bus over an hour long into the actual city from the airport. julie's friend liz is studying in barcelona, so she met us at the bus station and took us around the whole weekend. we went to a bagel place (because there are none in rome) and then back to her apartment to drop off our bags because we couldn't check into our hostel until 4pm. we walked to sagrada familia, the giant cathedral designed by gaudi. it has been under construction for over 100 years! it is a veryy interesting and enormous building with many odd features. my favorite was on the front of the church. there is a pine-type tree that is actually green with white doves all over it. that was very unexpected to be on the front of a cathedral, which is cool.

we finally headed towards our hostel, which is accessible via commuter train. we knew the hostel was a little outside the city (it ended up being a 15 minute ride), and the directions the hostel gave us said the building was only 300 steps from the train stop. it turns out, that number was completely off. the hostel sits on top of a mountain that takes about 15 minutes to climb up. there are paved roads, but the hills are steep and there were like 4 of them.

so we slept in the second day and then went back into the city to meet liz again. we went to parc guell, a beautiful place again designed by gaudi. it is on top of a hill and the buildings look like candy castles. the park also hosts the longest bench in the world! in true gaudi fashion, the bench is decorated with bright mosaic. we went towards the evening, so the light was really nice. 

liz took us to the beach on our last day. it was windy and the water was cold, so we didn't go in...but it was really nice to see the water. we met my friend kellen, from fordham, for dinner. she is studying abroad in barcelona and i told her i would let her know when i visited. she took us all to a really good seafood restaurant by the water. i got paella, which was SO good. they gave me just the right amount and it was amazing.

we called it a very early night because we had to wake up really early for our flight. we ended up getting up at 4am to catch the train to take us into the city and then get on the metro to the bus terminal and FINALLY from there to the airport. travelling is tough work! the flight was fine...very short (only an hour). so the next post will concern today's adventures. maybe that will come later though because i am tired, and we are going to versailles tomorrow!