Barcelona

¡Hola amigos!
I'm back from Spain!
I had a really nice trip! I went with a friend and we spent five days in Barcelona. We unfortunately did get a few days of rain, but the days that were sunny were really beautiful and warm.

Spain was definitely quite a cultural change from what I'm used to. The Spanish are very relaxed and are very leisurely with their time. Everyday, all the shops and businesses close from 1-3 p.m. so that everyone can go home and take a siesta. They live a much slower-paced lifestyle which was a little hard to adjust to, but actually really nice once you get used to it.

There is a lot to do in Barcelona! One of my favorite things was going to see the Olympic stadium. It's on the top of a big hill and you can see the whole city. The stadium itself was really impressive too. It was amazing to walk around and imagine what it must have been like to have been there in 1992.

I also really enjoyed going to the Picasso museum. They had a lot of pieces from his Blue period and Las Meninas. He spent a lot of time in Barcelona and so he donated many of the pieces in the museum himself. They also had a lot of his more modern art and it was interesting to see how different each period of his work was.
There is an incredible outdoor market in Barcelona called Mercat de la Boqueria. It is just of the main road, La Rambla. They sell almost anything you can imagine. They have tons of stands with the most amazing fruits and vegetables. There is also a lot of fish and meat stands which sell some very unique things. Some of my pictures of the meat stands are a little graphic but I just thought it was really fascinating. People in Spain are definitely very bold with their food and you can find some very strange things like whole sheep's heads, pig and cow hooves, brain, tongue, etc. We tried to be adventurous with our meals, but I'm afraid that I'm not quite brave enough to try any of those things. We did have some really good tapas and paella though. (The Spanish don't usually eat dinner until about 9 p.m. or later).

The city is full of some truly amazing architecture. We stumbled across some really beautiful buildings just by walking around the streets but we also sought out a few particularly famous monuments. Much of the city's prominent architecture was designed by Antoni Gaudi and the few that we saw were the main Cathedral near La Rambla and Segrada Familia which is a very well-known church that has been under construction since 1909. We also tried to see Gaudi's Parc Guell but we got really lost and just ended up walking around very confused in the rain for two hours.

I was a bit reluctant to leave the warm weather (even when it was raining, it was still much warmer than Ireland) but finally we left. We had a little bad luck on our return trip though. Our flight was delayed so we missed the last bus out of Dublin and had to sleep in the Airport until we could get a later bus in the morning. Not a lot of fun, but we did eventually make it back. Unfortunately I had to come back and take midterms and now I'm definitely in need of another vacation!
All in all, it was a very good trip and I definitely liked Spain, although I don't really think I would say anything bad about a country that has a legalized naptime!

Adiós

I'm leaving tonight for a long weekend in Barcelona! The weather forecast says it might rain while I'm there but I'm hoping it holds off because I am definitely in need of some warm, sunny weather! Supposedly it may snow here in Ireland while I am gone which I am a little sad to miss because I didn't get to see the snow they had over Christmas. We'll see what happens but hopefully it will be a fun, relaxing, WARM weekend! I'll post pictures when I get back!

Coming Soon

Hi Everybody!
So sorry for the extremely long delay in posts! School has kept me pretty busy with lots of reading assignments so I haven't had a chance to go have any adventures lately. I've been busy this weekend booking my trips for the semester though! So here is a little preview of what you can expect in the next few weeks....Barcelona, Prague, London, Spring Break in Tuscany, and hopefully also a few little outings around Ireland!
Hope you all have a nice Valentine's Day weekend!
~Em

Moving Day!

As you can all probably imagine, I wasn't exactly thrilled with my house here and the fact that it had been broken into twice. I was starting to feel really unsafe and it wasn't much fun to always have to wonder what I would find when coming home. So rather than wait and just hope that it didn't happen again, I decided to move out. Luckily, my friend Meredith had a room available in her apartment complex and after posting a few ads, I was able to find someone who was willing to rent my room in the house.
Facilitating the moving process in addition to starting all of my classes did not make for the easiest of first two weeks back, but it has all worked out pretty well. It was a little difficult to get out of my lease and my old roommates weren't too pleased with my decision, but I think ultimately it was something that I needed to do.
So this week, I've been moving my stuff into the new place and, let me tell you, moving across town with no car is no picnic! But I'm now finally settled in the new place and everything seems good!

Semester 2 Classes

So, I just finished figuring out my class schedule for 2nd semester. I'm taking more English classes than anything, which is odd considering that I am a Psychology major. Unfortunately, they weren't offering very many Psych courses. However, the ones that I did enroll in seem pretty good and all of the English classes are really interesting. Here's what I decided to take--

Psych classes:
-Forensic, Abnormal, and Clinical Psych
-Perception, Attention, and Performance

English classes:
-20th Century Literaure
-Devolving English Literature
-Gothic Lit and Literature of the American South

History:
-The Tudors

New Friend

Last night, I was just sitting in my room when this wet little rat came into my life. My roommates found her outside in the rain! She is such a cute and playful little puppy! I had fun playing with her last night but unfortunately my roommate sent her to the pound this morning. I hope they find her family!

Back to school...

Just letting you all know that I got back to Ireland safely! I had such a nice break and really enjoyed the warm California sunshine. It was a long day of traveling, but I finally made it. It was a bit of a shock to leave LAX with 80 degree weather and come to Ireland where there was snow on the ground. I'm still adjusting to the cold but I think I'm finally getting the hang of this clothes-layering system.
Much to my disappointment, I came back to find that my house had been broken into again and the pipes were frozen so we had no water! Luckily there wasn't much left for the burglars to take and the pipes seem to have thawed by now. It wasn't exactly the most ideal situation to come back to after 30 hours of traveling. For now though, I am just trying to sort out my class schedule and avoid patches of ice.
I hope you all had as good of a holiday break as I did!