Barcelona, and a bit more

The past three weekends have been filled up with (or were supposed to have been filled up with... I'll explain in a bit) three difference excursions: Valle de los caídos, Barcelona, and La granja.

Valle de los caídos 2/09/13: 
On this Saturday my group and I visited a place called "valle de los caídos", or in English "valley of the fallen".  It's located outside of the town San Lorenzo de Escorial where we first visited "El Escorial" which is a historical residence of the king of Spain.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The "valle de los caídos" is most notably known to be the place where Francisco Franco (not the actor, James Franco, who's name was automatically typed by my fingers before I realized what I was doing) is buried.

If you don't know, Franco was the dictator of Spain from May of 1939, when he and the nationalists won the Spanish civil war, to his death in 1975... just shy of 40 years - the longest dictatorship in all of European history.  He is buried on a mountain where some other 40,000 war soldiers are also buried.  His grave is inside a massive church built into the mountain with a massive cross on top which he had built while he was still alive so he could honor himself in death.

Franco's final resting place

The cross can be easily seen from far away

I don't want to get into opinions of Franco, as there are many, and they vary from love to hatred, although I'm going to go on a ledge and say most people didn't like him, as from I've heard the only people that liked him were the rich people.  But my point is, that even just visiting his grave upset a lot of our host parents, and also a few members of our group.  It's a very touchy subject.

I was going to talk about La Escorial, but then I realized that it was three weeks ago, and I hardly remember anything.  So, I apologize, and I'll try harder to remember next time!

Barcelona 2/15/13 - 2/19/13:

For me (and I believe many others in my group) this weekend holds the prize for best weekend yet in Spain.  Barcelona is an incredibly city, full of life, seemingly kind people (although my host mom says they are the New Yorkers of Spain) and great ways to spend free time.  The only problem with the city is that they don't speak Spanish, but Catalan.  It's a variation of Spanish, but still a different language.  Were it not for that, I would have loved to live there for a while someday in my never-ending attempt to improve my Spanish.  

I would love to sit here and spend my entire night writing about the weekend in Barcelona, but the problem is I could do just that... spend the entire night writing - and that's not something that appeals to me right now.  So I'm just going to highlight the basics via bullet points as they come to my mind, and let my photo's do the talking:

• Gondola.  We took a ride above the city in a box attached to a cable.  It was really cool, but also really short which made it very overpriced (15 Euro).
• Las ramblas:  The name of the most popular street in Barcelona, also the street we lived on.  It was almost always pumping with enough people to compare to New York city at closing time, touristy shops, and after 11 PM many, many prostitutes.  
•  Olympic stadium of 1992.  On our free day I visited the olympic stadium of 1992 with a few others.  It was thrilling seeing it all, and imagining what it must have been like 21 years ago when the world's best competed in front of everyone.
• Our hotel.  The rooms were completely pink, and it had a 24 hour long buffet, including drinks.  Even though a few of us got sick, I was a big fan of unlimited and free food whenever I wanted it.
• La Sagrada Familia.  An amazing church designed by Gaudi which has been in development for over 100 years due to a lack of funding.  I wondered how they could build something for so long, especially with the entrance fees being as high as they were (13.5 Euro with a seemingly never ending line of tourists) but when I got in I was able to tell how.  It was incredible.  I don't have any pictures from the inside, but it was incredibly, and very much had a sort of "new age" feel to it.  Also, the church itself is so tall that it could easily be seen from every high vantage we ended up being at anywhere in the city.  This site will bring to a lot of information if you speak Spanish.  If not... there are really good pictures on the homepage which I promise are worth looking at.  La Sagrada Familia

Fountains 

Pink hotel room

woo!  Reminded me of Disney World - the fountains were timed to music

Street performers and our director - Gladys

Entrance to the mall - beautiful

Just having some fun in the mall :)

Just outside the mall

La Sagrada Familia

Bridge leading to the mall

View from the park designed by Gaudi

Gondola

Gaudi's park

Gondola

Gondola

Olympic staduim

My Olympic sport: Basketball

Fútbol

The old bull fighting stadium now converted into a modern mall 

View over the industrial side of the port

La granja 2/23/13:

Just kidding.  We were supposed to go here, but it was canceled because of the snow.  Honestly, all I know about it is that it's outside, so I'll tell you more about it later when we actually visit it!  

That's all folks.