Final Friday Excursion

Here's a photo of my friends walking along the beach sidewalk to the W Hotel where we went up to the top for drinks and an amazing view of the entire city and the sea. We decided that years down the road, when we've all made enough money, this hotel is where we'll stay for our LSA reunions ;)

Today was our last Friday excursion. First, we went to the castle on top of Montjuic. The castle has a huge terrace where they show outdoor movies in the summer, apparently. Sounds pretty cool! The castle was impressive and I found it especially interesting because I'm reading Shadow of the Wind (link), which takes place in Barcelona and mentions the Montjuic castle.

This is another view of the castle, with the designs in the gardens, and you can see the Meditteranean Sea off in the distance behind the tree.

The castle also provides a wonderful view of the city. It was awesome to see Tibidabo, which I visited yesterday, across the way on top of the mountain, in the center of this photo (click it to enlarge).

The second part of today's excursion was a guided visit to the Fundación Miró, which is a museum filled with Miró's art. To put this nicely, I don't think I've come to fully appreciate Miró's work yet. The brightly colored statues were my favorite part.

After the excursion, I went home for lunch. I took a nap on the terrace and then met my friend Eve for a late-afternoon run through Montjuic. Montjuic is the best place to run near where I live for 3 reasons:

1. there aren't a million cross streets like regular city blocks so you don't have to stop every 30 seconds

2. there are hills, which makes it a little more interesting, and gives you cool viewpoints over the city

3. there is a lot to see, from the olympic stadiums to gardens and the castle, every time I run in Montjuic I find something new. Today, Eve and I ran past the olympic swimming facility, which overlooks the entire city. Check it out!

I had dinner at home and did a little homework (on a Friday?! yeah!). Then I met up with a friend from my program, Eve, another American girl who's living with Eve's host mom, and a girl who goes to Smith College and is studying on Eve's program. We all met up in the neighborhood called Gracia, which is known to be a very vibrant, young community. It was a lot of fun to see a new part of the city. The way people were gathered in the streets felt very similar to Barrio Alto that we visited in Lisbon. Here's a photo of people sitting in circles on the ground in Plaza del Sol from earlier tonight.