blob of events

Okay.  It's time for an update, finally.

Day 33:

I can barely remember what happened this day.  Work.  Lunch.  Did..something.  I had my telebears appointment at 7:30pm.  I'm super excited for my last year at Berkeley.. plus my schedule tells me I have Fridays off and perhaps Wednesdays too!  Made bomb quesadillas and went to Montjuic to meet up for another outdoor film.  They played "Waltz with Bashir", an Israeli film about the Lebanon War in the 80's.  Despite my failure to really understand the film (it was in Hebrew with Spanish subtitles), I enjoyed the animation and soundtrack.

Day 34:

Got off work, siesta-ed, headed to the beach near Poble Nou with a few friends.  So much more quiet, no annoying vendors, mysteriously sparkly water.  I liked.  Freshened up at Cherilyn's place, then headed to...*drumroll* WOK TO WALK.  I was so excited.  My first "Chinese" meal in over a month!  Yeah, it costed €9-10, but the servings were huge, an Asian guy cooked it, and... it just felt good.  My tummy was happy.

Later that evening we sipped on absinthe (illegal in the US) in the oldest bar in Barcelona.. or Spain (forgetting now..).  Not my favorite drink at all, but Hemingway used to sip on absinthe there too.  'Cause that made it so much cooler.

Day 35:

Another adventure seeking contemporary architecture in Barcelona

Also saw a completely naked man strapped in a motorized wheelchair.  Find him in my photos!

Later a bunch of people ended up at Opium Mar, one of the *classiest* clubs in Barcelona.  It's totally overrated and the bouncers somehow think they're privileged.  But.. Armin van Buuren was playing.  So, obviously, I was there.

 

One of many photos I have of him..I am a creeper.

It was a successful night.  Front row, a thumbs-up and a "everything ok?" from him during the show *swoon*, captured on his iphone video, and an autographed ticket.  Oh, and really good music of course.  Will post a few videos sometime.


-edit-
Wow I wrote this a few days ago and I just never had time to finish the update.  I just feel like posting this now so you all have something to read while I take a short hiatus!  Tonight is my last night in Barcy and I'm basically not sleeping due to overload of things left to do here.  Anyway, I have to update about the past week but it doesn't look like it will happen for a long time :(.  Tomorrow, Cherilyn, Stella and I will be in Granada.  After that, Sevilla, Madrid, Paris, London, and Cambridge.  It's going to be CRAZY.  But we'll work hard to make this go right (despite our horrible luck thus far..)!!

Wish us luck!

"spur of the moment"

Day 28:

Arc de Triomf

After work, met up with Natalie to wander around El Parc de la Ciutadella.  It was a nice area, but way hot.  We wanted to visit the zoo but it didn't seem worth fifteen euro, especially since Snowflake (albino gorilla) is now gone :(  We headed into El Born area to walk around shops, where I found cheaper postcards for sale at an Asian market.  I also found a load of overpriced Asian foods.

Too bad a cup noodle costed €1,70.

Day 29:
My boss and fellow co-worker let me shadow them for a visit to an apartment that they will remodel within the next week or so.  I didn't really do much but watch them talk with the contractor and talk about the plans, but it was still interesting to observe.  The apartment was also very unique and had a lot of potential.  I hope to see the results someday.
After work, I decided to begin my check-off-buildings-in-book adventure by walking uphill to El Institut Microcirurgia Ocular.  It took half an hour and some sweat to get up there, but the visit was worth it.  I had the opportunity to take some photos as well as sit and sketch in peace, with no one to bother or stare at me.

It was only 5:30 by the time I was done, so I decided to head to Parc de la Creueta del Coll, which was down the highway a little bit.  I had my handy dandy map on me, but I still got lost.  Took me an hour to find the park and it was not worth it!  I did not realize the park was on another hill and that the streets would be so confusing.  I also did not do enough research about the Horta neighborhood.. and got a little worried when the sun started to set and I was in this run-down area.  Nevertheless I found the park.  I was too tired to stay any longer (plus it wasn't too sketchbook-worthy) so I just took a bus back home.

 

At least I got some good views from the top!

Later, went out with some friends in El Born.  Was peer pressured into going to Tarragona with the program, but decided to make up mind in the morning.

Day 30:  (my one month mark!)

At 7:30am I decided to go.  I hopped on the train with the program and was in Tarragona within an hour and a half.  We took a two hour tour of the Roman ruins around town, had a super yum lunch, and hung out at the beach for a couple of hours.  It was a spontaneous trip and I was exhausted, but I'm glad I ended up going in the end.

Bits and pieces of Tarragona

That night several of us decided to try out Espit Chupitos!  It was smaller than I had imagined, but it still met my expectations!  I was unable to order the Monica Lewinsky for someone, but I did witness someone else receive it down the bar.  Thanks Nicole :).  Overall, it was great entertainment for a good price.  One of my favorites was the Green Goblin.  I wonder why we don't have bars like Espit in the states..

Burn!

Day 31:

My first attempt at Photoshop cs5's content-aware fill :)

(find nude people in my other pictures on flickr!)

Headed to Parlavà in Costa Brava with Cherilyn and Toni.  The train ride was also only 1.5 hours.  Can I just say that I have never seen water so blue before?!  It was amazing.  We were able to take a dip in the water, walk around a few cities, and stroll along streets with shops.  Toni also suggested a free concert with Beatles music near the beach, so we checked that out as well (not so hot).  I was so exhausted all day and I was falling asleep everywhere.  Cher and I knocked out at 1am (earliest I've slept since I've been here) and woke at 11am (latest I've slept in since I've been here).  Felt so good - we needed it.

Day 32:

Snapshot of just one room in the huge summer house :)
 
Our room for the night, and self-portraits by Julia

Went to another (more secluded) beach with Cher and Veronica.  Got slapped by the Mediterranean waves, but it was quite liberating and fun.  I can't believe I'm still not really tan :/.  Drove back to Barcelona.  Rested for the rest of the afternoon.  Skyped with parents, got taunted by potstickers on the screen (sucked), was notified of brother's new macbook pro (jealous!), was also notified of my new itouch awaiting at home (excited!).  Now it's bed time.  Second to last week of work starts tomorrow!

suddenly

I realize I only have two and a half weeks left here in Barcelona.  What?!  After work, I went straight to La Padrera gift shop to purchase this book I was eyeing yesterday:

Check out all the tabs I stuck on the pages.  I have a lot of sight-seeing to do.

I usually never buy tourist books, especially from gift shops.  But this book contains a bunch of contemporary architecture around the city (and even lists their metro/bus stops!), which definitely caught my attention.   And it was only 12 euro (good deal, compared to the other ones I looked at).  I decided to purchase it to give me something to do for the last couple of weeks I have left here.  Tonight I pulled out my giant touristy Corte Inglés map and circled all of the building locations that I would like to visit.  I think there are around 24 that I want to hit up.  It seems like a lot to do, and I might get to them all, but if I skip siestas after work, I can definitely do a lot more in a day.  But those siestas are so hard to resist..

ANYWAY.  I will begin my adventures tomorrow!  I'm trying to visit this random ophthalmology clinic tomorrow just because it looks cool in the book.  I hope it's worth the walk..

yo "estoy" español, español, español, español.

I'm alive!  I survived a busy weekend - but it wasn't as hectic as I thought it'd be.  Transportation went pretty much as smoothly as possible and we did (almost) everything we planned to do :)

Day 23: SAN SEBASTIÁN

Cher and I hopped on the 6.5 hour train ride from BCN to San Sebastián early in the morning.  It wasn't too bad at all!  Plus there were awesome views (like the one above) and I just slept a lot.  We arrived by 1pm and walked around until we found Stella!  So glad we were able to find one another.  The day consisted of walking around the town, eating pinxtos/tapas, shopping, and laying on La Concha beach.  It was really relaxing, although not the best weather to be in San Sebastián.  Everyone was super nice there though, and the town was very clean.  They also don't lie when they say there's tons of tapas to eat (a pretty good deal too!), yum yum.

We ate more tapas for dinner, then headed to Pamplona by bus.  It took around an hour just to get on a bus, due to 1) overbooking 2) crowds of tipsy youngsters all ready to party up all night for San Fermín.  But we finally got on one and arrived in our strange little hostel 5 km outside of Pamplona.  Still, it was a super clean place!  We pushed our twin beds together to make a king size :)

Day 24: PAMPLONA / BILBAO

The bus station in Pamplona at 7 in the morning.

We got up a little TOO late to catch el encierro, or bull run.  We got there by 7 something, but we were kind of lost and it was wayyyy too crowded to find our way around.  We finally made it to the end of the bull run route at the stadium, but it was almost 8:00am already.  We knew we wouldn't see them when we heard the cannons go off within seconds, and another within another few seconds.  Crowds were crazy wild.  At least I was able to recognize when the bulls passed by my location - I heard yells, stomps, and a loud flood of people cross, but only for a few seconds.

The rest of the time was spent getting harassed and picked on by the Spaniards because we were a group of three vulnerable Asian girls.  It was the most annoying thing in the world, especially because I can barely take the constant stares I get around Europe.  I mean, being different is fine - I usually don't mind that much.  But being approached by EVERY SINGLE MAN/GROUP OF MEN and hearing the words "ni hao", "konichiwa", "china", "yellow", "guapa", etc.  50+ times was just not my idea of fun.  I had to swat some away and ignore almost all of them.  At that moment I really just wanted to throw them in the middle of Asia and see how they feel.  I know they were all drunk messes, but it was still no excuse for such extreme behavior.  This was actually the reason why I lack photos from Pamplona.  I was quite disgusted by the town.  I know it's an old tradition and it's all for fun, but seriously, people just cross the line.  I don't know; maybe being completely wasted on the streets, stepping in urine mixed with beer mixed with mystery water mixed with throw up (and probably some bull waste) just isn't my thing.  Nevertheless it was an experience.. I just wish I had planned the trip better so I would at least see a bull :(.

Anyway, we were able to meet up with studio folks!  After that, the day was much better.  The drunken men had knocked out (most of them somewhere in public) and we all went to eat and relax.  The city clean-up team is amazing..areas that were completely trashed looked completely normal again within the hour.  Families came out to enjoy the day.  It was really cute to see everyone participating and dressing up in white and red, even little babies, grandparents, and dogs!  Pamplona is actually a very beautiful city when it's calm.  We all just siesta-ed on the grass and wandered streets until it was time for our bus to Bilbao.

Bilbao is a wonderful place.  Yeah, there's not much to do, but I just loved the atmosphere.  It's calm, people are friendly, and the Guggenheim is there (or maybe I was just extremely relieved from leaving Pamplona)!  We checked in at our amazing find of a hotel (thanks Stella!) and showered from our hectic day.  Then we headed out to check out the old town for dinner.  Afterwards, we took pictures at the Zubizuri pedestrian bridge (so much more intriguing in person than in arch150..) and of course Gehry's Guggenheim!  I think I took way too many.  Here's a few:

We went to the park next to the museum and played like little kids too.  Such a fun night.

Day 25: BILBAO / BCN

The Goog by day.  Too bad it was cloudy. : /We headed back to Barcelona on a 7.5 hour bus ride.. When we arrived, España and the Netherlands were still playing in double overtime.  Right as I was stepping off the bus, people began honking, cheering, and I already knew we had made the goal.  So Cher and I ran to the nearest bar to watch the last five minutes.  And then we just stood there not knowing what to do.. because we chose the perfect country to be in at the perfect time.  So then we HAD to check out the crowds at the main plazas.. Exhausted, we met up with other interns (with our weekend bags) to celebrate our win in the WORLD CUP. :)
Olé, olé olé olé!
Plazas and metros were flooded with red and yellow jerseys and flags.   Streets were also flooded.. with Estrella Damms.  Only in Spain.
Check out the rest of the pics from my trip on flickr :)
Day 26:RECOVERY DAY.  Work.  Siesta.  Plus getting used to the Barcelona heat again.  haha, "heat".  It's not even that bad here.. but I'm not sleeping with sheets and still sweating.
Day 27:Work.  I'm kind of feeling more useful there!Tonight, several of us went to eat  *drumroll*.. SUSHI!  It was decent.. but way overpriced.  I could've eaten at Yoshi's for a better value.  Sigh.. oh well.  I REALLY needed something Asian, and everything Asian here is either way overpriced, bad, or just wrong.  I must try Wok to Walk..recommended by the Natalies.  Check out the tiniest piece of nigiri for the hungriest man ever:

I JUST CAN'T GET OVER HOW SMALL THAT THING WAS FOR THREE EURO HAHAHAAHA.  I'm so sorry Robert.
Anyway.  We had a good time.  Donny and I headed deeper in to Gràcia for some munchies after.  Found the bEST gelato everrrr (in Spain, at least) in Plaza de la Revolució de Septembre del 1868.  Must remember that name.  I'm for sure going back!  Then we found a small bar that had a jukebox that played music for free!  Cool beans.  Then I walked home, and I spent way too much time writing this overly-detailed blog.  I hope this entertained you, wherever you are. :)
This weekend was realllllly fun, but I'm kinda glad I'm back in Barcelona.  Never thought I'd feel more comfortable here..
More to come.  I must blog more often and stop loading entries like this.