Greetings 2009ers

Hola everyone!! that is the extent of my spanish SPEAKING skills currently. I sadly realized while I was in Spain that I cannot speak the language. I can understand it almost perfectly...I could even slightly understand the Catalan because its a mixture of French and Spanish...but when I tried to blubber my thoughts in good ole espagnol everything tumbled out of my mouth in français! It was like my brain was being torn in 2 different directions..horrible and frusterating. But other than that little letdown I had an amazing time in Catalunya.

Here is a little summary of my 16 day vacation in northeastern Spain....

The first week was spent in Barcelona. We left on Friday the 19th right after work and we arrived in Spain that night. I had already booked the hostal and the hotel for that first week. Our hostal was in the Barri Gothic and as soon as we finally got there we saw some amazing street dancers on Ls Ramblas...one of the main boulevards in the city. At about 11pm we found this little restaurant called La Concha where we ate some amazing jamon iberico (a specialty there), an epanada and some bomb sangria which Jerome soon became obsessed with. The next few days were spent walking around and stuffing ourselves with amazing Spanish tapas and Sangria...i was a fan of the typical Spanish Tortilla...basically a potato and onion omelette...because it was tasty and cheap. While living in Europe I have also become a fan of squid and octopus...We did all of the "must do" tourist things like the Park Guell, La Sagrada Familia, La Casa Mila etc...all Gaudi all the time! I loved it...it was a very cultural vacationt o say the least...i think we went to almost every museum in Barcelona by the time we were done. We even got to hit up the aquarium at the port. We spent most of the day walking around exploring, playing chess whenever we got a chance and finding new places to learn about. My favorite visit in Barcelona was actually the Palau de la Musica Catalan...it was an amazing piece of art and architecture. On Christmas Eve we moved from out little hostal into an amazing 4 star hotel called the Hotel Condes de Barcelona which was located on the Passeig de Gracia ( basically the Champs Elysees of Barcelona) right across from La Casa Mila. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas night there and lived the life of luxury for a couple days. There was a sauna and everything..and we definitely took advantage of all of it. On the 26th of December we checked out of the hotel and caught a train about an hour south of Barcelona to this small seaside town called Stiges. It was absolutely beautiful but absolutely dead as well. We decided not to spend the night there and headed about another hour south to this town called Tarragona which actually used to be an ancient Roman territory, so therewere ruins of the old forum that used to be there. We spent 2 days there and sw the famous Cathedral de Tarragona, which was one of my favorite things I must admit, and the old Roman amphitheater and 'Circus' (the part of the ancient forum where the horses would race). From Tarragona we headed north to Figueres...about 3 hour train ride, then caught a night bus to Cadaques, this small seaside town surrounded by mountains, where Salvador Dali is actually from. This was my favorite stop of the trip. We spent about 3 days there and we hitchiked to the lighthouse at the end of the peninsula and hiked all the way back to the town, we got to visit Dali's house, and the town itself was something out of a dream. From Cadaques we traveled back to Figueres for a night to see the Theatre Museu Dali...the super famous Dali museum that he commissioned and designed himself out of an old theater. For New Years, we headed from Figueres to Girona, another ancient Roman territory with a giant cathedral. It took us a while to find a hostal on New Years, but in the end we got the best one. It was right next to the cathedral and it was the coziest, cutest little hostal ever. It was decorated with French country linens and we got a free breakfast FEAST...which was most important for me. On New Years Eve we went to this chic restaurant with amazing tapas and rang in 2009 complete with Sangria and grapes. We spent another day there and ate at that same restaurant 3 times because Jerome LOVED the tapas. After Girona we went back to Barcelona and spent the last day and a half there, eating our last tapas and visting the Museu Picasso, which basically saturated my head with Picasso for at least the next year. We got back to Paris on Sunday the 4th late at night and moved into our new apt. the next day!

....no worries I will be posting pictures of the new abode.
Right now I am just living the high life in Paris while I can...finishing finals and then starting my last semester as an undergrad! (ahhhhhhhhhhhhh) I dont really know where I am going to end up at this point....but thats just another adventure in itself!!

à la prochaine!
moi