City Tour

So the past couple of days have been great just walking around, getting to know the city. The day after we arrived, we woke up early for a long day of sightseeing with our own personal tour guide, my cousin Ricky. We first walked and saw some buildings that Gaudí had designed, one of them called La Pedrera. The lines to get in were outrageous, so we just took pictures and admired them from the outside. We then had our first metro experience, and took it to go see Parc Guell. We climbed a steep hill to get to the top, but it was definitely worth it-- we had a gorgeous view of the entire city! Then we headed down to the lower part of the park, which is famous for Gaudí´s signature architectural style, complete with lots of wavy, mosaic benches. We also walked through La Ola, a rock cave that looks like you´re inside a wave. Otherwise (at least for my purposes) known as the place where they filmed the final runway for a season of America´s Next Top Model! From there, we caught the metro to see La Sagrada Familia, the enormous church designed by Gaudí that was never completed. Pictures do not do this place justice--it´s absolutely MASSIVE! That pretty much concluded our first day of sightseeing. The next day, we took it pretty easy. We walked around the city and found where my classes are going to be and where I´m living! We then headed over to the Olympic Village, and had lunch right on the beach. We have been fortunate to have gorgeous weather thus far, knock on wood...

I am now writing this from Palma de Mallorca, one of the Balearic islands off the coast of Spain. We are spending New Years with my aunt, uncle and cousins who live here, and had a nice tour of the city today. But it´s time to get ready for the celebration, I hope everyone has a wonderful New Years, FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!