best day evverrrrrrr

today was great. but i can only give sparknotes, because i have to talk about yesterday and i have to get up attttt 3:45 tomorrow. omg.

yesterday we did la sagrada familia, which is this crazy cathedral church thats still being worked on and apparantly wont be done until the middle of the century. it was incredible, unlike anything ive ever seen before, incorporated modern art into religious themese, etc, with gorgeous stained glass windows and naturistic elements (the columsn looked like tree trunks). anyway, thats the famous church that everyone sees in pics of barcelona... it was weird and awesome at the same time and you could never get tired of looking at it.

then we went to L´economic for lunch, which wasnt very economical (harhar), but had delciious food, adorable service and very spanish decorations (the walsl were tiled hafl way up), i got a spinach salad with nuts and goat cheese, and chipped my friggin front tooth. fortunately you cant tell, but it still bothers me. i cant believe i did that!

before that we did the a chocolate museum...i never really realized how crucial spain was in the development of chocolate in europe, but i guess when you think of the timeline of america being discovered and where the cacao plants were, it kinda makes sense

after that we we to the foundacion joan miro, which was a ton a modern art by joan miro..... my favorite (sarcasm) was a white canvas with a black quadrilateral of paint entitled "patience." Catherine said "if you have patience, the meaning of this painting will come to you" and then everything made sense! hahaha... modern art is not my thing. another was a white canvas with a blue dot on the right side..... and i dont understand why modern artists think its cool to put boobs random on places and then call the painting "female nude." over it.

thennn we took a cable car up to the top of the hill for some great views of barcelona, a castle!!! (shaped like the st augustine fort, but a million times bigger) and watched an amazing sunset. for dinner we ate at Gran Cafe, whcih was ridiculously difficult to find, but was amazingly delicous: i got seafood paella!!!! and even ate the junk out of the clam shells...though i didnt enjoy it. ...but it was amazing to have paella. and yummy bread.

TODAYYYYY today was incredible. today was one of my favorite days of my semester. not only did i do something incredible, it was breathtaking, but i also felt the most carefree and happy. ... I was also on top of the world, so that kinda makes sense.

i took a train outside of barcelona to montserrat. on the train I met a girl named Gwyn who is from west palm beach! she went to NYU for a year, but is transfering to Western Washington (yeah far away), but took a semester off. She is doing hardcore spain for a month. She did fl state thespians in high school!!!! and knows one of my FACs, Doug Hanna, because they went to high school together. can anyone say, small world???? anyway, we swapped adventure stories and hung out all day, which was really nice.

once you get to monserrat, you take a tiny yellow cable car...directly up the mountain! it took like five minutes and we were on top of this HUGE mountain (spain style, which was INSANE, so rocky, it looked like mars). theres this monastery with a famous cathedral with a famous religious shrine of Mary and the baby jesus which used to be white but then turned black and youre supposed to rub the ball she´s holding (i guess im good then?). the cathedral was insane. we also did the museum of montserrat whcih was mostly artwork, but they had a lot of paintings that had montserrat in the background and you could really tell how important it was, spiritually and religiously to the spanish. like a gazillion people used to come there on pilgrimage... im pretty sure many still do today. the village was adorable and we got lunch in the only eatery there. and then we took a furnicular (pretty much means train that goes up sides of mountains) even HIGHER to go see these hermitages that were built into the side of the mountains in sortve cave-like features. we were so high that we could see the tops of the clouds. it was FREEZING. it was so cold, that just normal speaking you could see your breath. i was not prepared clothes wise, but it didnt matter because what we saw was incredible.... im trying to decide how best to explain it to you, but i think i might just skip it and post pics when i get back to florence. can you just trust me when i say it was one of the prettiest places i have ever been to or seen and completely different from any othe rpretty thing ive ever seen or been to before? it was breathtaking. I told gwyn that if someone proposed to me right now, up here, id probably say yes. haha. it was an adorable little village too. i could see honeymooners coming there to stay for a night or two... people were coming up for dinner as we were heading down.

i cant express myself seriously tonight. and i know i havent done this place justice. montserrat was a blurb in my guide book that said "an excellent day trip," but it was unbelievable. unnnnnbelievable. ill get pics up soon i promise.

overall, i loved spain and would love to come back some day... is there a country i havent felt that way about? negative. but at least i can read and understand spanish...unlike some other places.... and i loved barcelona. liiiike ridiculously. gwyn said she likes it better than madrid too, becuase madrid is so city... and barcelona has aspects of village (cobblestones, etc) but also big city too.

last night we saw some traditional catalan dancing in front of the cathedral, and i was like, man, spain is great.

i always wish my family could see what im seeing. its just not fair.

back to florence tomorrow at four am. oof.

love bec