Barcelona

Last Thursday several people from the program and I took the overnight bus to Barcelona. When we got there in the morning and couldn't check into the hostel, we started our tour of the city. We walked through Parc De La Ciutadella and went to the Olympic village on the beach. We also made it to the Picasso Museum; they had a lot of his early work, which is not my favorite, but it was quite interesting. We walked up and down Las Ramblas and went to the Market La Boqueria, which had amazing fruit.
Our hostel was in Placa Reial, on La Rambla; it was fine except for a couple really unpleasant British girls in our room.. The best part of the hostel was definitely the location. They had free breakfast and first come first serve free dinner, but it consisted of "meat and potatoes. don't ask us what the meat is because we don't know. watch out for bones." No thank you.
We had lunch in the Placa and I finally ate paella here, but I was pretty underwhelmed. We did more walking, around the Barri Gotic area. Btw they speak Catalán here which is muy bonita pero no lo entiendo.
That night we went to the Magic Fountain, which, just around sunset, has a fountain/light/music show. It was really lovely; I highly recommend it : ) Later, we went around to find nightlife, and we just ended up at this one big club that was supposed to be quite touristy. We go there around 1, which of course by Spanish standards was much too early, so it was quite empty. Soon it was packed though, and we were elatedly surprised by the arrival of Grandmaster Flash! I had seen posters for his tour in Madrid, and I was bummed that I would be missing him there, but I had no idea he was in Barcelona in the same weekend.. que suerte! His set was fantastic; it was one of the most fun nights I've had in Spain so far.
Even though we got just about no sleep, we got up early for more sight seeing. We saw the major Gaudi edifices- Casa Batllón, Casa Mila La Pedreda, and La Grada Familia. His architecture is fascinating, and definitely what I think of when I think of Barcelona.
My favorite sight by far was Parc Guell. Designed by Gaudi, it was so fantastical and had the most amazing details. Someone was playing the trumpet in the park, and we just sat there for almost an hour; the whole place was just unreal.
The next morning before we left, we took the gondola up MontJuic. It was the perfect way to end the trip; we had a great view of the city from the top. One thing that I would have like to do was rent a bike while I was there; for that reason and for Parc Guell, I would love to return.