"Study Journey"

Well. just got home (Barcelona homestay home) from the most beautiful weekend. IES throws down a mandatory study journey for all of its students each semester, and we were lucky enough to be able to visit Costa Brava, Cadaques, La Jonquera, Girona, and Collioure. Friday morning bright and early we departed for La Jonquera to see the Spanish Exile museum. It depicted the lives of those who were exiled during the Spanish Inquisition. Not only was it just as depressing as a holocaust museum, but it was also unreasonably hard to understand what anything said. The writing on the exhibits were in Catalan (which is a mix of Spanish and French basically), and they were not prepared for the amount of people with us, so I didnt get a headset to hear the information in English. Oh well.

                                                         Past and present living exiles.

From there we crossed the border into the south of France (Collioure), where we visited the grave of the Spanish poet Antonio Macheto in a small coastal town. He fled during the inquisition and refused to be buried in the Spanish ground. After an awkwardly silent tour of the graveyard, we got some free time to find lunch and play on the beach. It was so beautiful. I must say though, I give a lot of credit to the kids that came to Barcelona knowing not one word of Spanish. I don't know a single French word, and trying to order a sandwich at the cafe was the most stressful situation I experienced all day. I blindly managed to order a chicken sandwich... but I could not imagine trying to do that all semester. Props, children. You're brave.

When our free time was through, we boarded our big touristy buses and went to our hotel in Girona, Spain. I was assigned a random roommate (adorable girl named Plamena) who I watched too much of a Spanish game show with before dinner. No wonder Spaniards have such enriching lives... their TV shows are horrible. This is probably a good thing. We got a free buffet dinner (score) and spent the evening out on the town of Girona. Very cute city... not a lot to do. The one Placa Independencia was the only place in the whole city that wasn't a ghost town past 11pm. Yikes.

The next day we had an enormous breakfast at the hotel and embarked on a guided walking tour of Girona's history. We saw cathedrals, old city streets that were basically stairs between the buildings, a man playing a "magical drum-like instrument" in the words of Casey, and another shopping area also named La Rambla. Real original, Spain. The best part? Our tour guide looked like Oscar Bluth (reference: Arrested 
Development).

                                                  VVVV Oscar Bluth VVVV

We spent the rest of the day doing a walk down to the beach down a very Cliff Walk-esque (Newport, RI) trail in Costa Brava. By the time we got to the beach the only thing I could do with myself was throw my body into the ice-blue waves and love my life a whole lot. It was the most beautiful beach I've ever been to. We lazed in the sun and swam over to some rocks, but mostly I just got to meet some new IES friends. Thank you IES, by the way, for putting me on a bus with only one person I knew. I was pissed at first but I got to meet some awesome people this weekend. We then mosied on back to our hotel, showered, and ventured into the city to see a Jazz Fest! So funny to see a Spanish sax player jumping around in the street. I also bought a pair of Aladin shaped pants for 18 euros... they may never come off me. I've never owned more comfortable pants. We then had dinner (during which I ate my weight in yummy Spanish food and then complained to my friend Sam about being so full for an hour), and went out on the town. All I can say about the evening... absinthe. I had fun, but some people did not, seeing as multiple kids puked on the bus ride the next morning. I slept through all of it, thank god I have the ability to sleep upside down if I had to.

Today we saw the Salvador Dali museum. Might have been my favorite part of the trip. The place is a (excuse my language) fucking circus. Dali was a mastermind to say the least. His art and his exhibits are all a mentally interactive and have the strangest meanings. The famous melting clocks are just the tip of the iceberg. For instance, one picture looked like a Venus figure, but if you turned your head her torso became the bottom of a mans face. There were toilets and fake bread liking the walls, a full size car in which it rained if you gave it 1 euro, a statue of a foot wrapped in gold foil (like candy)... it was ripped open (the way one would rip open a candy bar) and the foot looked half eaten. There was also a photo of a woman looking out of a window, but if you backed up 18 meters it was a pixilated image of Abe Lincoln. One room had a ceiling painted to look like a glass floor so you could see the bottom of two figures' feet and the perspective of an entire room from below... one room had an entire apartment (furniture, etc) on the ceiling as if you could flip the room upside down and live comfortably. It was nuts to say the least. I hated how tired I was the entire time though, I kept yawning (which is incredibly rude here, and everywhere) and probably looked like I wasn't having any fun. Yet it was my favorite part of the trip. Sorry, tour guide. 

                                                    (On the Ceiling)

                                                             (Abe)




Woof this was a long one. Hope you all enjoi. Missin' you America (esp you Matt).