A Day in the Life.

This past Saturday me and my friends decided to get up really early (6:45! The horror!) to take in Barcelona's gorgeous weather and some of the wonderful sites.  Everyone who comes to Barcelona sees La Sagrada Familia, the famous church started in 1882 by Gaudí. It's normally really expensive to get inside (it's how they're paying to finish the church), but on Saturdays in January it was free! Since it was the last free day, it's how we decided to start our day!

The outside of it always reminds me of a sandcastle . The detail is absolutely incredible!

My faith has always been very important to me and to see this gorgeous church still being built today was an absolutely breathtaking experience. 

This is the ceiling above the altar letting in sunlight.

The doors of the church had the gospels of John and Matthew engraved on them depicting the last days of Jesus' life.

I loved how the stained glass windows cast a rainbow on the pillars inside.

I can't wait to come back in 30 years when I can see it without all of the cranes and construction equipment!

 After seeing all the glory of La Sagrada Familia we went to a little cafe to get some coffee and decide what we were going to do with the rest of our day.  After some debate we decided to pack a picnic and go up onto Montjuic and explore around there. Montjuic is a mountain right on the edge of Barcelona where you can see gorgeous views of the city along with little parks, museums, and the olympic stadium.

This is the park we decided to eat lunch in.  It was absolutely gorgeous and the five of us were the only ones in the entire park!

Our picnic consisted of sandwiches made out of fresh baguettes with pesto and romesco sauce on them, fresh mozzarella, and spinach.  We also brought along strawberries and oranges. After all that delicious food we laid around in the sun for a couple of hours. It was so much fun!

We walked around Montjuic a bit more after that until it started to look like rain. We could see the rain already starting on the other side of the city!

Teresa, Julia, me, and Robyn with the view of the city in the background.

 After the rain started we decided to all split up and meet up later on in the night for tapas. I've been in Spain for almost a month and this was my first time actually getting tapas!  We found a little restaurant in the gothic quarter that had absolutely delicious tapas. We ordered patatas bravas (fried potatoes), croquettes, shrimp, bread, calamari, peppers, and mushrooms.

This the spicy shrimp we got.  The sauce was so delicious we ended up dipping our patatas bravas in it!

I loved being able to get tapas at this little restaurant we found.  Our waiter had the most ridiculous looking mustache and even though the rest of his hair was grey, his sideburns and mustache were pitch black.  We spent the entire dinner trying to decide if he colored them with a sharpie or shoe polish.  All in all, it was a great day spent all around Barcelona.