delayed-

I'm currently sitting on my dear old friend Julia's couch in Zürich watching a dubbed version of a James Bond movie. Sean Connery has lost a significant amount of his star power without that accent, but it's still entertaining. I havn't updated this in a while because I havn't really been spending any lengthy amount of time on the computer since Prague. So let me pick up where I left off, or at least try to...

Barcelona is unreal. People there are wild. They are loud and stay up late and give you no personal bubble on the street. Even though Barcelona easily had as many tourists as Prague (if not more), the city seemed to just swallow them up with it's madness so that it wasn't so obvious. Within the first couple of hours of Alyssa and I checking into our hostel right in the center of the city, we heard a bunch of screaming outside our room (which was the size of a closet and smelled like one too). We leaned out over the balcony to look down and see an old man yelling curse words at a bunch of police men on the street. The best part was that all of the surrounding neighbors were also leaning out over thier balconies, some on the phone, some in their underwear-all curious and all with something fresh to gossip about.

Alyssa and I walked along Las Ramblas, the main pedestrian street and went to the market. There was abosolutely everything in the booths - from candy to fish to pig's heads. We walked around the back stalls and came across a kid sitting on the ground, surrounded by a bunch of butchers. It looked like he had been working in one of the stalls and had cut his hand pretty badly. It was pretty unnerving, very unnerving actually, but very real.

Alyssa and I soaked up Barcelona's amazing architecture, particularly Gaudi, seeing as much as possible. It was aahhhmazing. I think that sometimes when you see the works of famous architects, it's a tad anticlimatic in some way. But not Gaudi! It exceeded my expectations! I think I had a religious experiance at the Guell Park. haha. So beautiful! He must have been insane.

The afternoon that we had been in the park, Alyssa and I decided to take a break with some churros and chocolate sauce, when I happened to see my friend from UT, Natalia walk by the cafe. It was awesome! It turned out that her and a few other people from UT that are currently studying in Italy were also in Barcelona for their fall break. We met up later that night for Tapas and ended the evening at the clubbing district on the beach. The clubs ended up being really pretentious and instead of dancing to bad techno, we just sat next to the water and talked. At one point this guy ran by looking as though he was being chased by his friend, leading us to comment 'Barcelona is so free, everyones just running wild and happy,' when we realized the guy's 'friend' was actually a cop, who quickly caught up, overtook his prey and proceeded to serve out a heavy beating with his club. We left. and made it home safe and sound.

Dispite all the drama that we came across though, Barcelona is fantastic! Definately one of my favorite places. I guess the things that really are sticking out in my mind are these dramatic moments that were a bit shocking. Its like everything that happens in Barcelona happens right out on the street, in public view, as opposed to behind closed doors like in Copenhagen or the US. I took a ton of pictures, and which I'll post when I get back to Denmark.


.....Alright, so I'm still not caught up to my current situation in Zürich, but at least it's a start....