It's A Beautiful Life

Last Thursday we all went to Diplo at a club 2 blocks away called Razzmatazz. It was amazing and definitely one of my favorite nights here thus far.

Saturday we took a day trip to Montserrat. We took a train from Barcelona for a little over an hour and then took a cable car up the mountain. Our train/cable car tickets were 18€ but it was more than worth it. The cable car was pretty big and they pack 30 or so people in it and send you up.

When we got to the end of the cable car ride, we really wanted to hike to the very top of the mountain but had a minor freak out moment where we thought we didn't have enough time before the last train left to go back home to Barcelona so we started RUNNING up the mountain. Mistake #1. Hiking Montserrat isn't like casually hiking and enjoying yourself on a quiet wooded dirt path. No. Hiking Montserrat means climbing 193085743 of these stairs:

We did a 2.5 hour hike in just over an hour. I thought I was going to faint and fall down the mountain at one point but it was totally worth it to see views like this at the top:

Booty Wurk was going through my head the entire time haha

We got back from Montserrat around 9pm and definitely didn't feel like going out so we went to Ovella Negra (a casual bar down the street...I think I talked about it in a post before this?) and just got beer and popcorn and hung out with our new Norway friends that decided to come sit at our table. They were by far the funniest people I think I've ever met. Sorry for the ummm hand signals? in the following pictures.

A lot of things are closed on Sunday, so we took the day to lay out at Parc de la Ciutadella and read. The park was PACKED with Spanish couples and families picnicing, riding their bikes, and playing ping-pong on the outdoor ping-pong tables. I even watched one couple teach their little girl how to ride a 2-wheel bicycle and witnessed a makeshift choir of little kids singing in Catalan (wish I knew what they were saying). We stayed there until around 5 and then walked to a little cafe for lunch that we always pass on the way to the beach and see a sign for nachos (I don't know why but we'd all been talking about eating nachos nonstop for the last week). We got nachos (naturally) and sandwiches. I got a ham and brie sandwich and it was delicious. I love all the different kinds of cheese they use here! I feel like brie and goat cheese are the most common, and it's nearly impossible to find anything more familiar than gouda or havarti.

On our walk back to Marina, I got Tiramisu gelato. yummm. There's soooo much gelato here. It's heaven.



Monday was the start of our full schedule of classes. I thought I wouldn't like going to class and that I would dread making the commute everyday, but I couldn't have been more wrong. I lovvve my classes. I feel like I've switched around my schedule 12 times, but I finally finalized a schedule today and am taking Branding & Cultural Icons : The Case of Barcelona, Marketing Cultural Heritage, Past & Present Barcelona, Human Resources Management, and Spanish. Most of them don't have midterms or finals and for each of the first 3 classes listed, we have take anywhere from 5-10 field trips =) For Mkt Cult Heritage the only requirements are that we write one blog post per week about a cool place we went either in Barcelona or anywhere in Europe and then talk about it with the class. So not only will it be easy and interesting, but it'll be fun to hear about all the places people go and get ideas for where I want to go before I leave. I. love. class.

P.S. Sorry for the sentimental title of this post but I never know what to title each post and Ace of Base is timeless/what I was listening to when I started writing this post sooo now it's the title.