Today, I went to the Alambra; it was incredible! The Alambra is this thousand year old Arab military fort that also contains one of the world's most impresive palaces. Imagine the palace of the sultan in one thousand and one arabian nights. That's the palace inside the Alambra! Its also ontop of this really tall hill that borders on being a mountain. The Alambra is probably the most impresive structure that I have seen in Spain to date. Another thing that's interesting about the alambra is that there is a second smaller palace inside the fort that was built by the Catholic king Carlos V when the arabs were finally expelled from Spain. Anyway, really I just want to put up some pictures of all the stuff that I've seen so far. Enjoy.

A week in Barcelona: recap

OK. So basically, I will attempt to recount everything (important) that I did in Barcelona this week. I went to several museums: the national museum of art of Cataluña, a Picaso museum, and a yesterday a Dali museum a couple hours outside of Barcelona. Far and away the most interesting one for me was the Dali museum. The museum itself was really a work of art and the paintings/sculptures were incredible. They even had the Persistence of Memory there, which is usually in Florida. Although to be honest that is definitely not my favorite Dali painting anymore. Hopefully I can upload some pictures soon. The Picaso museum was also incredible; I think I can safely say that I like Picaso now. It was really neat to see his early works (very realistic) and how he progressed as an artist. The whole exibit was set up in chronological order, so that wasn´t hard to do. Also, anyone who reads this should look up Joaquim Vaydera. Umm... What else? I saw the iglesia de la sagrada familia, a church designed by the famous architect, Gaudi. It´s a rather curious thing because the money for the constrcution of the church has to be donated, so the construction is taking forever. Its an incredible church though. It has something like tweleve or sixteen towers. Also, I went to Parq Guel, a park outside the city on an enormous hill, designed by the same architect. The views of the city were incredible! I also went out with some kids from Barcelona to discotecs a couple of times. My latest adventure was last night. I went to this place called RazMataz, which is the largest discotec in Barcelona. It was kind of like a cross between a circus and a Pink Floyd lazer light spectacular. I didn´t even get back to the residence until like 6:00 AM. Anywho, this afternoon at 5:00 we´re leaving for Granada by plane. As I said earlier, hopefully I can encounter some WIFI soon and upload some pictures. Until next time.

barcelona

Yesterday, we took a three hour train ride from Madrid to Barcelona. The train itself was pretty neat. It was a super high-speed train, but I don´t know if it qualified as a bullet train. When we arrived, we went straight to the dormitories to get settled, ate lunch and then went for a two or three hour paseo (tour) of the city. Afterward, a group of us went to this really trendy restaurante that serves Basque style food. There were all sort of trays with little tapas (of sorts) on tooth picks and you could just take what you wanted. At the end of the meal you just had to show the staff how many thoothpicks you had and they would ring up your meal. A number of us noted how trusting of a system it was. I don´t think any restaurantes in the states would use a system like that for fear of getting robbed. Well today, we´re going to the Don Quixote language school to take a langauge test and get placed in classes of the appropriate level for conversation. These classes are conversational only, there is nothing written at all! Until next time, ciao!