It's been an amazing experience so far and I've been really terrible about putting up posts, but I do have emails I have sent on a regular basis to friends and family that I will be posting up little by little.
January 30th:
Barcelona really does feel like a long lost home to me. It's a mix between Albania and New York in the best way. It's laid back, clean, organized, beautiful. It's beautiful in a very specific Spanish way. The buildings are decorated in a mixture of middle eastern and European tile and sculpted stone. The city itself is a work of architecture with cut corners on every block (Gaudi's work) to bring more sunlight into the streets. No buildings are too tall (the average height is about 10 floors) and there are plazas and squares everywhere, with fountains that work all year round, flowers blooming in January and palm trees (the oddly pleasant surprise).
The old city is, well, old. It has tiny streets, really old buildings among which are old preserved houses with open courtyards (with very obvious traces of the Moore and Jewish influence) that you can just walk into, and sit down and experience blissful quietness. Then there are the secret stores. They are secret because they exist inside other stores. This would defy about a zillion building codes in NY, but that's part of the reason they are so awesome. And so you wouldn't know you'd be able to stumble over the most amazing hot chocolate of all time unless you knew that there is a pastry shop downstairs from a soap shop which looks like a hole in the wall to begin with. After you have found this little treasure, the problem is finding it again. Because the old city has countless little streets and alleyways and it's way too easy to get lost.
