Circuses and Colosseums.

     This past Friday our program brought us on a day trip to the town of Tarragona, a smaller city about an hour away from Barcelona.  I'm almost positive that no one reading this has ever heard of Tarragona and if you visit Barcelona, there's not much of a chance that you would visit this city.  That would be a horrible mistake.  Tarragona was the Roman capital of Spain two thousand years ago and the city still has many Roman ruins throughout it.  As the history nerd that I am, I was just in awe walking around the same areas that had been inhabited by people over 2000 years ago!  It was a beautiful city and we were lucky enough to have absolutely gorgeous weather.  I think it was around 70 degrees the entire day.  I loved it so much there that I actually ended up returning the next day with my friend Amanda.  When we were with our program we got to spend about an hour on the beach but due to the gorgeous weather, that was not even close to enough.  So on Saturday we packed sandwiches and headed down for the day early in the morning in order to spend as much time as possible lounging on the beach!  It was a positively perfect day, although I did finish the book that I had been hoping would last me until the end of my trip here. Oops!

One of my favorite parts about these ancient cities is how they don't barricade off the ruins.  They're included right alongside the newer apartment buildings!

I saw these cats alongside the road and thought they were absolutely adorable, hugging like that.

This was part of the Roman circus.  The circus is not like we think of a circus today.  The circus was where they raced their horses and chariots around.

This is me in the stands of Tarragona's colosseum where many gladiators and Christians came to meet their death.  

The sea was so beautiful, although freezing cold.  Amazingly enough, the beach was not crowded at all! 

     This may sound strange, but one of my favorite parts of being in a foreign country is meeting other Americans.  No matter where you are, if you hear someone with an American accent, you feel an instant connection to them.  On the train to Tarragona on Saturday we met a girl who was studying in Barcelona but was from Chicago.  She was very nice and was on her way to Valencia, a city about three hours south of Barcelona.  There was another boy in the same area as us that was also going to Valencia and he was from Minnesota.  It was a little Midwest party in our section of the train!  He asked where we were from and when I told him Wisconsin, we had a little Wisconsin geography discussion and it turns out he used to date a girl from Manitowoc (a small town about an hour from Appleton, for those of you not up to par on your Wisconsin geography).  You have no idea how exciting it is to meet someone who actually knows where Manitowoc is until you're thousands of miles away from it.  

     I'm very excited for next weekend as my friend Mara from school (the one I went to Prague with) is coming to visit me!  We have tons of adventures no matter where we go, so I'm very excited to see what we get up to while she visits me here!