The One With Messi's Record

I was lucky enough to witness Lionel Messi break Barcelona's record for the most goals in their team's history from less than 50 feet away. On March 16, 2014 Travis and I went to see Barcelona take on a team in La Liga called Osasuna. Barcelona won the match by a score of 7-0 and it was amazing. We got tickets right behind the goal and we had a perfect view of Barcelona's scoring down pour. Messi scored a hat trick on the day that he broke the record which is pretty incredible as well. Paulino had the record for Barca for 87 straight years before Messi broke it.

Here is an article about the game: ESPN Game Article

Take a look at some of my pictures from the game and the video Travis made:

The One With Tibidabo

Right on the edge of Barcelona lies a mountain with an amusement park at the top called Tibidabo. It provides incredible views of the city and coastline below. There is also an incredible Catholic church that took 60 years to build at the top called the Temple de Sagrat Cor which can be seen from most of the city of Barcelona. On top of the church there is a huge sculpture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

At night the entire church is illuminated and it reminds me of Magic Kingdom's Castle at Disney World. The amusement park is also the oldest in Barcelona (Over 100 years old) and still has most of the original rides. Also the amusement park is in Woody Allen's movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona, if yo have ever seen it. Take a look at my trip:

The One With Ireland

I ended up skipping my Thursday class (Shh don't tell my parents) so that I could get a head start on my weekend in Ireland. Over the weekend it was Unofficial St. Patrick's Day which is U of I's biggest holiday on campus. Students that are abroad during Unofficial always make their way to Dublin for the weekend festivities. Lucky for me, my friend Spencer is studying abroad in Dublin and allowed me to stay at his house over the weekend. However I was not the only one staying at his place, about eight other people stayed at his place as well. I did get extremely lucky though because I somehow managed to have my own bed and room during the entire duration that I was there.

Friday was Unofficial which started bright and early at 6:00am. Spencer woke everyone up by blaring Illinois' Alma Mater song throughout the house exactly at six. I have to admit that while it was painful getting up that early, it was pretty cool waking up to that song. Also I do realize that it does sound crazy to wake up at 6:00am to drink but one simply must wake up early on Unofficial. When I came downstairs, Spencer and his roommate Joel were making breakfast for everyone which was actually pretty good. The drinking began immediately with most people clutching a beer in their hand. I decided to start with the hard cider which is apparently a pretty big thing in Dublin. Eventually more and more people made their way over to Spencer's place and at one point we must have had 50 people at his house. People were scattered around having a good time chatting and playing drinking games. I am proud to say that I can now check "Beating British kids in beer pong" off of my bucket list.

We then all made our way over to my other friend Bridget's house and continued the party at her place. After that we made our way into the city center for lunch at a place called Tolteca which is exactly like Chipotle. If you didn't see the sign out front you definitely would have thought that you were in a Chipotle. After lunch, we made our way to the bars. We managed to continuously get kicked out of each bar that we went to, so we had to hop from place to place. After hitting up a few bars we went back to Spencer's to nap for a little while before heading out again for the night. Later that night we went to an awesome bar that had a live band performing. They were performing American classics and it was a really good time. All in all it was one of my favorite nights out in Europe so far.

After getting very little sleep, I woke up again at 6:00am on Saturday morning in order to make the bus for the all day Ireland tour. The major destination of the day tour were the famous Cliffs of Moher in Galway. There were also various stops along the way their and back that were quite interesting as well. We went with a company called Extreme Ireland Irish Day Tours that I would strongly recommend. After we got back from the tour we went out to the famous Temple Bar in Dublin. It was a huge place that had live music as well. If you go to Dublin, Temple Bar is definitely a place to check out.






On Sunday we had more of a casual day. We went to a restaurant for breakfast that served traditional Irish breakfasts. After breakfast, we went on a free walking tour of Dublin. Walking tours are always a solid option to city the highlights of a city in a short amount of time. One of my favorite parts of the tour was seeing the Dublin Castle, which you can see above.

The One With The Observations

As we are now around the midway point of the semester, I would like to share some of my observations so far while in Barcelona. Some things may be obvious, but others may not. This is just a random assortment of information that I have picked up on throughout my time here.  If you ever decide to travel to Barcelona, some of this information may be useful to you and some you may find pointless. Nonetheless:

1. Strangers will stare you in the eye and not look away.

2. Waiters have no incentive to provide quality service because there are no tips.

3. There is PDA everywhere you look.

4. Siestas are a real thing and can last anywhere from 3-5 hours.

5. Almost everything is closed on Sundays, and many things are closed on Mondays.

6. Bull Fighting has been outlawed in Barcelona.

7. The easiest way to signify that you are a tourist is to take a picture with an IPad. I will never understand it.

8.Wine and water are often times pretty similar in price here in restaurants.

9. Apple products are incredibly expensive relative to its competition here. Much more so than in the United States.

10. Having a clothes dryer in your apartment is not very common.

11. Quality dry-cleaners are also not that easy to find.

12. Spaniards walk very slowly. Life moves a little slower in Barcelona.

13. Pringles are very popular here for some reason.

14. Many Spaniards seem to say "gracia" instead of "gracias"

15. In the Barcelona area, a lot of signs will actually be written in three different languages: Spanish, Catalan, and English.

16. The metro system in Barcelona is great and taxis are also relatively inexpensive compared to other major European cities.

17. If you are studying abroad, and looking to travel a lot within Europe then Barcelona is a fantastic home location.

18. Bocadillos (sandwiches) are very popular, especially ones with Spanish ham.

19. The most popular/standard tapas are patatas bravas, croquettes, Spanish omelettes, and bread with tomato. Cerveseria Catalana is a fantastic tapas restaurant.

20. Pickpocketing is definitely very common here. Most likely scenarios include: going out and drinking at night in clubs, standing in large crowds watching a performer, and especially on the metro.

21. This being said, wearing your backpack in front of you is not necessary and it is the ultimate tourist move. Pickpocketing is done in a nonviolent way in Barcelona almost 99% of the time.

22. Barca is not an abbreviation for the city of Barcelona, but rather for the FC Barcelona soccer team.

23. The street called Diagonal runs through the entire city of Barcelona basically cutting it into two halves. South of Diagonal is the touristy side of the city.

24. Catalan Independence is a huge deal and Catalonians are a very proud people.

25. There are amazing nightclubs right on the beach that stay open until six in the morning. See: Opium

The One With Carnival

Clowning Around

Pictures on the beach

This past weekend was absolutely incredible. It was the week leading up to Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent, which meant that it was time to party in Spain. On Sunday a group of 30 students from my school (ESADE Business School) got on a Coach Bus at 6:30pm and drove to Sitges. Sitges is a beautiful, small beach town about 45 minutes away from Barcelona. 

Sitges is also the host city of the number one Carnival celebration in the entire country. For those of you unfamiliar, Carnival in Spain seems to be a combination of Mardi Gras, Halloween, and a Pride Parade all in one event. Almost everyone was dressed up in random costumes whether they were young or old. Carnival really allowed people to let their creativity shine whether good or bad. I took part in wearing a costume as well but my mask and wig combination ended up being scarier than I originally anticipated. I never really understood why people were afraid of clowns but after seeing my costume, I could somewhat see their point. I had fun with it though by attempting to scare people when they weren't looking. Also multiple strangers came up to me and asked me to pose in a photo with them, which I was really surprised to see. 

The Streets and Clubs were packed

We ended up watching the parade for a couple of hours which I definitely enjoyed. We then went to a party at a friend's beach house before going back out to the bars. The streets outside of the bars, and inside of the bars, were so crowded it was insane. 
We eventually made it into a couple of different bar/clubs and had a great time. We took the bus back to Barcelona and ended up getting back at 6:00am and as a result I then proceeded to sleep until 3:00pm on Monday because I don't have class.

Elvis and Michael Jackson shared a float

Bright colors were a popular theme throughout the parade

On Monday there was another celebration called Sant Medir Festival in Barcelona. This festival is known as the "Sweetest Festival" because of the 100 tons of sweets that are given away every year. A good summary of how it works is, "The Parade is a big procession of decorated horse drawn carts, wagons, and carriages which hand out sweets to the crowds lining the procession route shouting "aqui!" which means "here!"" Travis and I brought pillowcases and filled up on candy just like during the Trick Or Treating days. We were actually complimented on our pillowcase idea because everyone else was just using plastic bags. 

The streets were filled with candy

Catching the candy during the parade was surprising pretty difficult because some people were chucking the candy at the crowd. It was actually kind of dangerous to be watching the parade. I know I got nailed in the face a couple of times by incoming pieces of candy. We learned that the best strategy is to bring an umbrella and flip it inside out to catch the candy. People also were on their apartment balconies holding out their umbrellas trying to catch candy as well. What I found amusing was that no matter what age you were, people were going hard after the candy. Even grandparents were pushing and shoving their way in order to get it. I really enjoyed seeing the community come together for this event because it seemed like everyone had a great time. 

There were over 100 horses in the parade

Candy from Sant Medir Parade

The One With Messi and Neymar

Considering how much I love soccer, Barcelona really is the perfect place for me to study abroad. You won't find a city that loves its soccer team more than Barcelona does. Over the weekend I was lucky enough to get the chance to meet a bunch of the players on the FC Barcelona soccer team. FC Barcelona had an away game on Saturday against Real Sociedad and my friend Travis knew where to go to meet the team before they got on their plane. So we got to the airport early and waited out for the team in hopes of meeting the players when they arrived.

Surely enough the players came past security one by one towards their flight's gate. Coach Tata started the procession and the players soon followed after. We saw Iniesta, Pique, Song, Valdes, Busquets, and Dos Santos which was incredibly cool to witness. What was even more amazing was seeing two of the last players that came out: Neymar Jr. and Lionel Messi. Messi is undoubtedly one of the best players in the world, if not the very best. Neymar is already one of the best players in the world as well and he is just going to get better. It was unusual because I am used to seeing professional athletes that are freakishly large human beings, however these soccer players were not. For example Messi stands at 5'8" which is even shorter than I am.

The two souvenirs I got from meeting the players were a selfie with Neymar and a picture of me autographed by most of the team members including both Messi and Neymar. Overall it was such a cool experience being able to meet some of the best soccer players in the world. I am still very surprised that we found a way to actually meet the players though considering this would nearly be impossible in the United States with players of comparable celebrity status. Take a look:

The One with Jacob

This last week my friend Jacob from U of I visited for five days. It was a jam packed week filled with so many different things. I held off on doing some of the touristy things in Barcelona until I had friends visit so that I would not be visiting each place 10 times during the semester. By doing this I was able to see a lot of things for the first time as well.

We went to the FC Barcelona basketball game against Milan. The atmosphere was quite unique during the game. I would say it fell somewhere in between a college basketball game and an NBA game. There were flags all over the place and there were drums playing as well which created a great vibe throughout the relatively small 8,000 person arena.

We also went to a FC Barcelona soccer game for the first time ever. I had been to Camp Nou for a tour of the stadium but this was the first live game I had been to. The stadium is the biggest in Europe with a capacity of around 95,000 people. If it is not obvious already, the discrepancy in the stadium size should be a clue of how much bigger soccer is here than basketball. The game was dominated by Barcelona the entire way through and they ended up winning 6-0 against Rayo Vallecano. Messi had two goals and Neymar had a goal also. Overall it was a great experience and I can't wait to go back.

We went to see some of the famous sights in Barcelona as well such as Sagrada Familia and Park Guell. Both of them were beautiful and I can see why they are two of the top tourist destinations in Barcelona. We also went to the Magic Fountain Show at Montjuic. The fountain shines different colors and plays to music. 

Montjuic Overlooking the Fountain

Panorama of the Sagrada Familia

Stained Glass Windows of Sagrada Familia

On top of Park Guell

Park Guell

Park Guell's Mosaics

Magic Fountain

Magic Fountain

The week was also filled with Barcelona nightlife which is second to none in the world. Barcelona is filled with a great mix of unique bars and clubs. There is always a new place to go to ensure that you will never get bored. Over the course of the four nights of going out we went to Sutton, Opium, Chupitos, Dow Jones, and The Apartment. Sutton had a DJ named Rehab perform which was a really fun time. Dow Jones is a really cool bar that I would recommend checking out when coming to Barcelona. Basically the prices of the drinks fluctuate throughout the course of the night. If a drink is being purchased frequently then its price will increase and likewise if nobody is buying that drink the price will drop. 

Every so often the market will also crash and all of the drinks will be very cheap. There is a large ticker symbol in the party that is really cool because it actually scrolls through the price of every drink. Our strategy was to run over to the bar and buy up a bunch of one drink that we wanted when the market crashed before the price went back up. Chupitos is also up there as one of the best places to drink in Barcelona. Chupitos is a shot bar with 150 different types of shots. Every shot is two euros, except for a select few that are five. Tip: All shots on Monday's are only one euro.