Today is Thursday – as you can see from the title. My friends and I are leaving for a weekend trip to Sevilla tomorrow and are staying through Sunday. We leave early tomorrow morning (around 5:30) and will be staying in a hostel. This past week was a blast full of travel, sightseeing, and school! To start, last Friday our UMD program took a day trip to Tarragona – a city south of Spain. The hour-long bus ride wasn’t so bad as we played several rounds of 20 questions!
When we first arrived, we took a little walk and grabbed some breakfast to get acquainted with the city. Here are some of the pictures from our first impression of Tarragona.
After breakfast, we met our tour guides. Ours, a quirky middle-aged Spaniard, was very knowledgeable and made the tour funny and engaging. We started the tour with a view of the ancient Roman amphitheater – seating around 30,000 viewers.
After that, we walked up some beautiful marble stairs and saw what remained of an ancient Roman Circus and Praetorium. Then, our tour guide took us through a tunnel beneath the Praetorium that was used as an entrance to the amphitheater and as a concession stand of sorts where fans could buy food and wine. The tour guide explained how in ancient times, the “wine” was more of a soup. Then, we continued on and were led to a giant palace where we traveled up ~6 flights of stairs. Close to the top, we had one final staircase to the outlook. It was a wild, narrow, spiral staircase that was quite claustrophobic. But, it was like a fun little adventure and it paid off when we got to the top and were met with a beautiful panoramic view of the city and the Mediterranean.
While up here, I also ran into one of my old friends from sleepaway camp who I hadn’t seen in like 8 years! I actually knew he was in Barcelona studying abroad but I had no idea he would be in Tarragona or at this exact outlook at the same time I was. It was wild seeing him after so long and we talked about meeting up again sometime while in Barcelona. After we left this palace outlook, we headed back to our busses and drove another 40 minutes to our lunch spot, Masia Fontscaldes. At the restaurant, we enjoyed Calçota, a winter Catalunya tradition consisting of green onions, lamb, chicken, sausage, wine, toast(with tomato and olive oil), and a creme brulee-like dessert. It was a lot of fun! As you can see from the pictures, the meal can get a bit messy so we were gifted bibs.
The first dish, the green onions, was a bit of a puzzle to eat. They were all grilled and you had to peel back each of the layers to get to the actual edible part of the plant. Then, you take the onion, dip it in this garlic tomato sauce, and savor the flavor!
Another part of the Catalan tradition is a little game you play where you take the pitcher of wine and attempt to pour wine into your mouth and get the stream of wine as long as possible without spilling. This was a lot of fun. But, it did prove challenging. After my third attempt, I had a fair amount of spillage on my face and neck region. But, it was worth it. For the Culture! Plus, the wine made it easy to fall asleep on our bus ride home 🙂
Then, on Saturday, we took a tour of the interior of the Sagrada Familia – The most famous work of Antoni Gaudi and the place of his burial. It was amazing. We took an audio tour of the structure and learned a lot about the building’s history and the design choices behind its’ construction. Truly inspirational to see someone pour so much passion into one project like this. Everything in the building was done intentionally with meaning. Much of the building is actually still under construction and they estimate it will be done by 2026, although it seems likely it will be after that. Many components of the building were designed with nature in mind. The interior columns are mesmerizing and we learned they were designed to represent trees in a forest. In fact, the entirety of the interior was supposed to exist like a forest, with plenty of open space – allowing for plenty of natural light and all sorts of beautiful colors to pour in. We also learned that when the building is finished, the highest point will reach 170 meters tall. However, this will still be 1 meter shorter than nearby Montjuic Mountain. This was because Gaudi believed that the work of man should never surpass that of god.
After our trip to La Sagrada Familia, most of my friends wanted to go home and rest but my friend Dan and I decided to take advantage of our free time and go visit another local Museum. We decided to go to the Moco museum – an “independent museum with a wide range of inspiring modern, contemporary, and street art.” The museum was first launched in Amsterdam and after its success, they launched another location here in Barcelona. I loved it. Although it was relatively small, there were a handful of popular modern and urban artists whose work I recognized. Some of the featured artists included Banksy, KAWS, Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Takashi Murakami, Salvador Dali, Kehinde Wiley, and more. I recognized Basquiat’s style but didn’t really know who he was prior. I really liked his collection. All the works were superhero inspired and although they didn’t hold a ton of social or political significance, I thought they were nostalgic and meaningful.
(Jean-Michel Basquiat)
(Jean-Michel Basquiat)
(Yago Hortal)
(Takashi Murakami)
(Banksy)
(Kehinde Wiley)
(KAWS)
That’s all for this week. I am looking forward to our trip tomorrow and I will be sure to update the blog with where our adventure takes us! I hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!
Nick Henderson
12:00pm
Barcelona, Spain