Barcelona & St Andrews Day

¡Hola todos! Espero que hayan tenido una gran acción de gracias. Or, in English, I hope you all had great Thanksgivings!!! I embarrassingly ate my Thanksgiving dinner at an Eddie Rockets, which is the Irish equivalent of a Johnny Rockets, because I was missing home and craving some American food. Chicken fingers and vanilla milkshakes definitely hit the spot :). This past weekend I was in Dublin for a night (hence the Irish Eddie Rockets) before making my way to Barcelona for the weekend (hence the Spanish). Overall it was a really amazing weekend, and Barcelona is probably one of my favorite cities that I've seen on this trip. This is partly because it was 65 degrees and I got to go to the beach (so exciting!) but also because the city has a really great atmosphere and I was having fun the entire time.

Some of the things we did in Barcelona included:

• Plaza Catalunya- a plaza in the middle of the city with beautiful waterfalls and a ton of aggressive pigeons. Seriously, I would never go anywhere near that place with food in my hands.
• Las Ramblas- a main street that goes through the city with a lot of great shopping and places to eat. On Sunday we sat outside to eat lunch and people watch for close to two hours, it was really fantastic.
• Parc Guell - a park on the outskirts of the city which was designed by Antonio Guadi. Although we literally had to walk up a 90 degree angel to get to the park, it really was beautifully designed and you could see all of Barcelona from up top.
• La Sagrida Familia- a cathedral designed by Gaudi as well, which was absolutely HUGE. I took a video of the place from the inside because a photograph could never illustrate how exquisite that place is. However, here is one so you can get an idea.

Also, we got to eat a lot of tapas and go to a chupitos bar, so fun!!! Overall, it was a really great trip and it was a little hard to come back to Scotland, which is now freezing cold. However, this past Wednesday was St Andrews Day in Scotland, which is a big holiday for them over here. He is the patron saint of Scotland, so he is the equivalent of what St Patrick is to Ireland. Exchange 360 which is a program Edinburgh University has for exchange students organized a ball and over 200 people go to it. The picture below is of Priyanka and I before we left :). It was at Dynamic Earth, which is a museum-type place which has exhibits about the earth. For example, the arctic room was literally an ice box with ice sculptures throughout.

Next up, ITALY!!!! I am so excited, I've been already but it's one of my favorite places in the world and I can't wait to just walk around and eat! I will be going to Rome and Florence, so it's going to be a great time. Anyways, I have to run because I'm leaving for the airport in 10 minutes! Have a great weekend everyone and I'll be home two weeks from Monday! Craziness I can't believe it!