Barcelona with my parents

So I know it has been a while, but I finally found a spare moment after my midterms finished. So now I must catch you all up on my weekend in Barcelona with my parents!!

It was so great having my parents with me in Sevilla for a few days. I loved being able to show them where I live and what I have been up to the past few months. It was definitely one of my best weeks here! Not to mention I had missed them a ton J

In Barcelona the language that they speak is not spanish, but Catalan, so I was worried how communication would be. But basically everywhere we went someone spoke either spanish or English so we didn't have a problem.

Our adventure to Barcelona began on Friday morning, with a very eventful airport experience. We couldn’t get tickets for the same flight, so I flew on a flight an hour earlier and we planned on meeting at baggage claim. The problem with that, however, was that we didn’t realize how insanely huge the airport was, and that we both landed in different terminals. But after an hour and a half of me trying to figure out how in the world to get to terminal 2, I eventually met up with my parents. 

After dropping our bags off at the hotel, we decided to buy 2 day tickets to those cheesy bus tours, so that we could use it as our form of transportation. This was definitely one of the best ideas we had, since Barcelona is a HUGE city and the sites we wanted to see were too far away to walk. The first site we went to was the Castle of Montjuïc which used to be an old military fortress. We got to take a tram up which had an AMAZING view of the city. One thing about my dad, is that if you take him to a Museum you have to plan on being there for almost a whole day because he has to read EVERYTHING. And even though the whole exhibit was written in Catalan or spanish, he still looked at everything. But that's why we love him!

On Friday we also went to the Picasso Museum, which was very cool for me because I have been learning a lot about Picasso in my art history class this semester. Being able to see all of his art in person after seeing so many copies of it my whole life was very cool.  Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take pictures in there (which I learned the hard way after some woman yelled at my VERY angrily... Oops!)

This is Barcelona's cathedral which was pretty stunning. My favorite classic cathedral will always be the one in Sevilla, however, which is the 3rd largest cathedral in the world. 

This is just some of the stunning architecture by Goudí that can be seen all throughout Barcelona. 

On Saturday Morning we did a tour of the Sagrada Familia, which is perhaps my favorite thing I have ever seen in my life. It is something I definitely recommend seeing if anyone is ever in spain. This was Gaudí's baby, which he worked on all the way up until his tragic death. The detail and innovative architecture everywhere is outstanding.

This is the Passion Facade which depicts the last few years of Jesus' life. It is much more plain and cold than the facade on the other side of the Cathedral.

This is the nativity facade, which is much more elaborate and detailed than the passion facade. This side depicts scenes from Jesus' childhood.

This is Park Güell, which was originally part of a commercially unsucessful housing site designed by Gaudí.

This is my dad in the Nativity Tower of the Sagrada Familia

The interior of the Sagrada Familia (sorry I have no idea how to flip it)

On Saturday we did a little shopping on Las Ramblas, which our guide book described as "the most beautiful street in the world", which definitely got our hopes up. Maybe we were missing something, but we were definitely a little disappointed with Las Ramblas, it was just very crowded and huge. But they did have good stores nonetheless. 

On saturday night we went to this awesome seafood restaurant near our hotel where you pick out the exact fish or lobster you want so that you know it is fresh. This was probably one of my favorite meals I have had. 

This city was the perfect mixture of old classic Spanish architecture, and new modern architecture. It was very evident that the arab influence in Barcelona was much less than in Andalucia (the province Sevilla is in). I was so glad that I was able to experience it with my parents!!