Antique Newspaper

I found an old antique market yesterday and got a super cool Barcelona newspaper from 1930 to frame for my room next year!

 The little old antique man.

 This is a picture of a girl giving cyclists water.  Don't know why I picked this one, I just really like it!

Cadaques, Spain

Cadaques, Spain might by my favorite little town I have ever visited. 

First, we went to Figures, a town near by where Salvador Dalí lived and created his spectacular museum.

 Living Room

Frames=Eyes, Fireplace=Nose, Couch=Lips. There was also hair, but I couldn't get it into the pic.

(this one might be something you are most likely to recognize)

I don't really have any great captions for all of these pictures because they are all such crazy aspects of his work.. We learned a lot at his museum-- about his interesting thought process, techniques, and ways of life.  It was the coolest art museum I have ever been to.  He actually, personally,  worked for many years creating the museum inside a theater.  (He chose a theater because he thought his life was a "drama" in itself).  

This is one of his paintings of Cadaques, our next destination.

We contiuned our day in Cadaques, Spain, which was about a 30-45 minute mountain winding road drive.  It is the most beautiful town with so much life!!

As we were walking up some small streets on the way to a church at the top of the hill, we found these decorations... I LOVED them! How fun and festive, I wish I knew what the occasion was.

View from the church and high peak of the town.

Down below, back in the center of the town we had great times meeting some of the vendors and locals.  

 This dad and son were selling homemade chocolates.  They had samples, which drew us to the booth, and then of course led me to buying a bar.  It was great, nothing like the typical Hershey's bar.  I purchased a bar with the intention of giving it as a gift back home, but of course we ate on the bus ride back to Barcelona (opppsies sorry!!).

For lunch, the chocolate guys suggested that the Cuban food was the best to eat in the town.  It was great, and kind of took me back to the Dominican Republic days since they had fried bananas.

 Here is the Cuban food booth.

and here is Aly and I eating the Cuban food on la playa (the beach)! 

 

Memon... These next two are for you!

Look what I discovered--

 A Spanish lady sitting in the middle of the square sewing on her super old school Singer sewing machine. 

She made some very pretty things, but I was mostly intrigued by the vintage-ness of the machine itself.

Collioure, France

Collioure, France is another one of the small towns we went to along the Costa Brava.  It was, of course, beautiful, and quaint, and happened to be where a number of famous authors and artists lived and worked.  We visited Antonio Machado's grave (famous Spanish poet and writer).  Henri Matisse and André Derain did a lot of their paintings.  I loved this because I studied both of those artists in my art classes in high school. 

You might recognize this one of Derain's--

 It is called "Vue de Collioure"

Here is the town:

 

We were lucky enough to run into an older American couple who purchased a flat in Collioure ten years ago.  They showed us all around. 

The had us walk through this restaurant/bar/bed and breakfast--

 

The walls were covered in paintings.  Apparently artists used to come to stay in the bed and breakfast but wouldn't have enough money to pay, so their payment would be a painting.  Thus, all of the walls are covered in awesome paintings.  The couple told us that there were once several Matisse paintings, but were rumored to have been stolen by a guest in the middle of the night. 

 

There was the cutest chapel up over looking the water.

 And lots of colorful buildings.

We went to a great place called Chez Simone

 Aly and I ate the fish of the day, which was delish and super fresh.

This picture is a shout out to my dad and brother.  Amongst tons of beautiful boats, there was one little family on a raft heading out to sea.  It reminds me of a time that I think you two did the same.......

Girona, Spain

This weekend was the IES required field trip to Costa Brava.  Costa Brava translates to "rocky cost" and is a major vacation destination for Europeans heading to the beach and away from the city.  We stayed at a hotel in a town called Girona and visited other little towns each day.   Girona was great.  Super cute and small enough to get to know very quickly, which is quite different from Barcelona.  The main center of the town was this river, which had a beautiful reflection-- 

My friends and I had so much fun exploring Girona, despite the bad rainy/windy/cool weather, we walked along the old walls one afternoon during some free time.  These walls were all made of stones and built to protect the city during the medieval times (I think...).  Apparently they were a big deal because all roman built walls were in a square border, but Girona's were in a triangle shape.

 Me, Mary, and Caroline- the Girona Wall Explorers.

Here is my photo shoot in Girona, haha! The town was so pretty, surrounded by mountains and colorful buildings!

 We felt like we were walking across the Great Wall of China.. Except maybe the Great Wall of Spain/Girona, hehe.  Still pretty cool!  Along the way there were lots of little places you could climb up to get an even better view over the walls.  I really did think it was so neat that these walls protected the city and you could still, to this day, walk along the tops of them.  We probably took about 45 minutes from the starting point to the end.

 By the time we finished, there was another great view of the river and mosaic houses.  We explored the streets that were filled with Spanish people, and also other foreigners, shopping at the markets and exploring.

At the end of our little adventure, we walked through the middle of the town and found this New Orleans band playing!  They were such a hit, selling tons of CD's and had at least a couple hundred people gathered around.  What are the chances, a New Orleans jazz band in the little town of Girona, Spain?  So much fun to see!

FYI

If you scroll to the bottom of this blog page, there is a place you can enter your email address.  If you enter it and then click on a link from a confirmation email it will send, you will receive automatic email updates when I create new posts! 

We are off to Costa Brava (Northern Spain- lots of small coast towns) in the morning for our IES program field trip until Sunday night.

Castillo de Montijuic

Up on the top of a hill in an area called Montijuic, there is a castle that was built in in the 16th century. 

We had a nice litte walk up to a gondola that took us to the top of the hill.  

(sorry for bad quality iphone pics)

It is beautiful, just as any castle is, and over looks the entire city and ocean.

There are giant weapons surrounding it...

(pic stolen from my roomie Blair)

This castle is said to be one the most politically significant places in Barcelona's history.  It was where many executions took place, as well as where political prisoners were kept.  And is the only place you can see a statue of Franco (dictator up until his death in 1975). 

We recently had a discussion with our host mother about Franco since she was around while he was in power.  She obviously was not a fan since his main goal was to suppress the Cataluña culture that the people here cherish so very much (i.e. take away their Catalán language, traditions, music, etc).  She told us that quickly after his death every statue was torn down, the street signs were all replaced since they said his name on them, and they got rid of the coins with his face on them. 

Adiós Sarah!

It was so fun having mi amiga Sarah come to Barcelona for a few days! We go all the way back to the days of playing softball on the Shamrocks.  Now she is heading back to Houston :(

We did lots of fun things even though the weather wasn't the greatest.  It was super cold on the beach and has been raining on and off for the last couple of days!