This past week was fantastic for many reasons, the best being that my mom was here in Spain visiting me! I loved having her here and I know she loved being here, so naturally we had a great time.
She arrived on Tuesday morning, and we headed over to the hotel she booked in the Old City section of Barcelona. The hotel was really nice, and I had decided to stay there with her and take advantage of the time with her and the shower! We spent most of Tuesday sightseeing. I took Mom to see the Gaudi houses, Sagrada Familia, and Park Guell. We also wandered around the Old City and saw the Cathedral as well as some other churches (there is a church every two feet in Spain, or so it seems) and the Roman ruins. We also walked all the way up and down Las Ramblas. For dinner, I took her to my favorite tapas restaurant, where we pigged out. We both slept great that night in the hotel...it was nice and quiet.
On Wednesday, we found a great little pastry shop/restaurant just a few meters from the hotel and had a delicious breakfast. I had to go to class, so Mom walked Las Ramblas and did some exploring. After I got out of class, we met up at the hotel and went to the Chocolate Museum, which was really interesting. We learned all about the history of chocolate and of course sampled some delicious dark chocolate. Afterwards, we walked around the old city a bit more, then went back to the hotel for a quick nap.
That night, I had bought concert tickets for Mom's birthday to the finale of a piano competition at Palau de la Musica. We went over early to pick up the tickets, then had to wait to go into the main theater. I snuck a couple pictures (photography wasn't allowed inside the building) before the security guard caught me. Once we finally were allowed into the concert hall, we found our seats and took in the beauty of the room. It was so cool. The concert was great, too! There were three contestants in the final, one from Poland and two from Russia. They played backed by a whole orchestra. It was beautiful! The guy from Poland ended up winning, and he was the youngest contestant at only 22, so that was pretty neat.
Thursday I had class in the morning again, so Mom went to the Picasso Museum (which she loved). We met up afterwards and brought all of our stuff back to my apartment, as we were leaving for Valencia that night. I had another class in the late afternoon, so Mom went up to Montjuic and looked around until I came home. We packed and went to an early dinner at Toscana, a great restaurant near my apartment. We drank an entire pitcher of sangria and ate some yummy pizzas, then headed to the airport!
Our adventure began when our 11:15pm flight was canceled. There were only 12 people on our flight, so the airport got us a bus to Valencia, which 8 of the 12 decided to take. It was a tiny little bus! After the four hour bus ride, we finally arrived at the hotel. Thank goodness we had booked a hotel near the Valencia airport for that night...we slept for 7 hours and then checked out!
We took a bus into the Valencia city center and then decided (stupidly) to walk to our hotel, which ended up being further outside the city center than we initially thought. Once we finally got there, we dropped off our bags and then walked down to Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences. It was really different than anything I have ever seen. The buildings looked straight out of Star Trek! We didn't go in, because the only one that was open had a high admission fee that we did not feel was worth it, but we walked all around and took a ton of pictures.
After that, we decided to walk through the old riverbed, which is now a huge garden and park. The river in Valencia had to be rerouted because they were having so many problems with flooding. It was a long but beautiful walk before we reached the city center once again.
We checked out Plaza de Toros and the train station, as well as the Cathedral and some other churches and sights including the Lonja, an old building that used to be used for trading silk. We also sampled some Horchata, which is apparently a popular drink in Valencia and other parts of Spain. I did not like it at all, and Mom wasn't really a fan of it either (though she drank her whole glass!). We were pretty exhausted but it was still too early for dinner, so we decided to go find the bus stop we would need to get back to the hotel. We couldn't figure the bus stops out at first but eventually found the one we needed, and by then it was a somewhat reasonable time for dinner.
We headed to a restaurant that both Mom's travel guide and the receptionist at our hotel had recommended for paella. We were the only ones there for a long time, but the waiter/owner was THRILLED that we spoke and understood Spanish, so he treated us like queens. We had some delicious sangria along with a HUGE plate of seafood paella (which we ate all of!) and a shared plate of flan (Spanish custard-type dish) for dessert. We were eating dessert when an American family came into the restaurant (a mother, father, and son probably around my age). They were the epitome of what we called "ugly Americans" because they spoke no Spanish but expected everyone in Spain to somehow understand them. The poor waiter had no idea what they were saying when they asked if the restaurant accepted credit cards, and I had to step in and help out. Mom and I got out of there before we lost it, and went back to the hotel, where we slept soundly after a LONG day of walking.
The next morning, we had signed up for a tour at the Lladró Museum in a town outside the city of Valencia called Tabernes Blanques. For those of you who don't know, Lladró is a company that makes beautiful porcelain figures and sculptures. My mom collects them, as do both of my grandmothers, so we wanted to see how they were made. It was really cool, we got to see the finished products of most of the pieces in the collection as well as how they are made. The craziest part, which we kept commenting on for the rest of the weekend, was the flower-making. These people literally sit there 8 hours a day and make tiny little clay flowers, averaging a hundred a day. Not only that, but they have to go through three years of school and training to do so! We thought that was nuts...at least the people who hand paint or assemble the porcelain have some variety in their lives. Can you imagine at a desk 8 hours a day making tiny clay flowers for the rest of your life? Wow.
After the museum, we took a bus back to the city center and had some bocadillos for lunch. We then walked over to the Illustration and Design museum, only to discover that it was about to close. Too tired to do any more walking, we went back to the hotel to rest for a couple hours. We then headed back into the city center and went out for gelato, then to the Ceramics museum. We walked around for a bit more, then decided to go back and have dinner near the hotel. Here is where our brief interlude of being ugly Americans happened. We were tired and just wanted a quiet dinner, so we were slightly annoyed that there was a soccer game on and therefore all the bar-restaurants near our hotel were crawling with men. We did not think that as two foreign women we should be going there to eat. We decided to eat at the hotel restaurant, only to find that it was closed because there was some sort of business conference. Annoyed because we had not been told this, we were kind of whiny to the receptionist, who gave us a recommendation for a restaurant a block from the hotel. Grumbling, we set off to the restaurant, which was empty but ended up being delicious. We felt so bad that we had been whiny so we went back and thanked the receptionist afterwards and said the food was great. With that, we went to bed.
Our flight was the next morning, so we got up, got ready, and took a taxi to the airport, where we had breakfast and waited for our flight. I was joking around saying wouldn't it be just our luck that this flight got canceled too, and Mom was not amused. She was even less amused when our scheduled boarding time came and went with no plane in sight. But the plane ended up being there, we just had to get bused to another part of the tarmac. So that was a relief!
We got back to Barcelona and hung out at my apartment for a little while, then went out to tapas at Cuidad Condal, a famous and delicious tapas restaurant on the same road as my school. Mom was dismayed to see that they did not have the tapa she wanted, gambas al ajillo, so we decided to go back to Toscana afterwards, where we knew they had it. Problem was, once we finished at Cuidad Condal, we were STUFFED. So we went to see the outside of my school (it is closed on Sundays) and then to see Casa Batilo again and Casa Mila, the other Gaudi-designed house to kill some time. I also showed her the University of Barcelona, which was also closed, but still pretty magnificent from the outside. Even though we were tired, we decided to walk the 20 minutes to Toscana to work up more of an appetite. It worked, and we got there and downed the gambas and a whole basket of bread. After, we headed back to my apartment where we talked with my roommate Caroline and then went to sleep (which was not very restful...I live on a very busy street where the sounds of traffic go late into the night. Mom was not used to it at all, and after a week of quiet hotels, I was not used to it anymore either).
I was very sad to say goodbye to Mom this morning. I loved being able to share Spain with her, and it was really comforting to have her here. But it's only another 7 weeks until I see her and the rest of my family and friends at home, so I have to make the most of it and enjoy the time I have left in Europe!
Next up in my travel adventures: Spring Break! I will be attending the Morocco program for four days, then venturing with a couple friends to Prague and taking a train from there to Vienna. Should be quite an experience, and it's less than two weeks away!
I am also going on a daytrip to the Dali Museum and Cadaques on Friday, which I am really excited about, so I will update you all after that!
Hope you are all happy and well. :)
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