White boys don't tan, they burn (May 7th)
I woke up today ready to finally start enjoying some quality beaches. The day started off well as I got up in time for breakfast...something that rarely occurs. The nice part about this was that they had free pre-wrapped muffins, so I now have about 6 sitting in my bag at all times.
After breakfast it was time for the beach. Possessing very little sunscreen, I prioritized which parts of my body would be spared from the harmful rays of the sun...face, neck, ears and arms. By the end of the day, they were all fine, so my sunscreen worked. However the rest of my body looks like a dark pink ink blot, which I showed to this one guy and he saw the image of a bat on it. Huh, weird.
The beach was really nice. The wind helped keep me from sweating off the sunscreen, which was quite nice. There were also a lot more topless sunbathers...this time not so old. It´s funny how it´s not a big deal here at all. There aren´t pervy old men sitting around gawking or anything. It´s just the culture and people don´t think it´s a big deal.
After I was fully cooked, I went inside and got ready to see some sites. I was to go on the Gaudi tour, where we would see some of the great works of Something Gaudi. I got to the meeting point and I found out that there would be only four people in total on the tour and we were all from the same hostel. I met Sarah, Jaimie, and Casey, who were all from the Detroit area (the nice, rich part), and we were on our way to learn up on Gaudi.
Our tour guide was Polish, which made her pronunciation of Spanish words that much harder to understand, but we got through it.
So Gaudi was, from what I gathered, pretty much the father of mosaics, which are pieces of artwork formed from broken pieces of glass or ceramic. His works were quite intriguing...the San Grada Familia was my favorite...construction began in 1882 and is still going on today! Only one of the facade´s was finished before he died. And we also so the worldest longest bench! Very cool sites to see though.
It was kind of annoying because the tour ended very far from our seaside hostel, so we had quite a walk ahead of us. But it gave us time to figure out our plans for the evening.
After not having spoken much American English with anyone, I wasn't in any rush to get away from my new friends, so I sort of latched onto them for the night. We decided to shower up and then eat and watch the Barcelona/Real Madrid football match.
We settled on El-something, where we had some pretty delicious paella...which is rice mixed with a variety of seafood and meats with added spices. All in all it was quite delicious, though there were bones you had to look out for when you were chewing...almost broke several teeth!
Real Madrid POUNDED Barcelona and we were all deeply shaken...after all we'd been big fans of them for about 2 1/2 hours. But we got over it and decided to head back to the hostel rather then finding a bar or discoteque.
The night ended with me waiting up about 2 hours to use the computer only to find that they were working slower than molasses. Not wanting to punch the computer in exhausted frustration I turned in and climbed up to my bunk.
The sucky thing about his hostel was that they only gave you a sheet for free, so I was stuck trying find a way to cover my neck and feet with a blanket that was just too short to do both. Oh well, I drifted off to sleep and tried to block out the numerous voices in the hostel room.
Oh how fun it is to budget travel. Hopefully this whole lottery thing will work out so I can become independently wealthy and travel in style.
After breakfast it was time for the beach. Possessing very little sunscreen, I prioritized which parts of my body would be spared from the harmful rays of the sun...face, neck, ears and arms. By the end of the day, they were all fine, so my sunscreen worked. However the rest of my body looks like a dark pink ink blot, which I showed to this one guy and he saw the image of a bat on it. Huh, weird.
The beach was really nice. The wind helped keep me from sweating off the sunscreen, which was quite nice. There were also a lot more topless sunbathers...this time not so old. It´s funny how it´s not a big deal here at all. There aren´t pervy old men sitting around gawking or anything. It´s just the culture and people don´t think it´s a big deal.
After I was fully cooked, I went inside and got ready to see some sites. I was to go on the Gaudi tour, where we would see some of the great works of Something Gaudi. I got to the meeting point and I found out that there would be only four people in total on the tour and we were all from the same hostel. I met Sarah, Jaimie, and Casey, who were all from the Detroit area (the nice, rich part), and we were on our way to learn up on Gaudi.
Our tour guide was Polish, which made her pronunciation of Spanish words that much harder to understand, but we got through it.
So Gaudi was, from what I gathered, pretty much the father of mosaics, which are pieces of artwork formed from broken pieces of glass or ceramic. His works were quite intriguing...the San Grada Familia was my favorite...construction began in 1882 and is still going on today! Only one of the facade´s was finished before he died. And we also so the worldest longest bench! Very cool sites to see though.
It was kind of annoying because the tour ended very far from our seaside hostel, so we had quite a walk ahead of us. But it gave us time to figure out our plans for the evening.
After not having spoken much American English with anyone, I wasn't in any rush to get away from my new friends, so I sort of latched onto them for the night. We decided to shower up and then eat and watch the Barcelona/Real Madrid football match.
We settled on El-something, where we had some pretty delicious paella...which is rice mixed with a variety of seafood and meats with added spices. All in all it was quite delicious, though there were bones you had to look out for when you were chewing...almost broke several teeth!
Real Madrid POUNDED Barcelona and we were all deeply shaken...after all we'd been big fans of them for about 2 1/2 hours. But we got over it and decided to head back to the hostel rather then finding a bar or discoteque.
The night ended with me waiting up about 2 hours to use the computer only to find that they were working slower than molasses. Not wanting to punch the computer in exhausted frustration I turned in and climbed up to my bunk.
The sucky thing about his hostel was that they only gave you a sheet for free, so I was stuck trying find a way to cover my neck and feet with a blanket that was just too short to do both. Oh well, I drifted off to sleep and tried to block out the numerous voices in the hostel room.
Oh how fun it is to budget travel. Hopefully this whole lottery thing will work out so I can become independently wealthy and travel in style.
posted by jordan @ 8:18 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
I die a little inside every time you talk about a famous artist. Gaudi is quite possibly my favorite architect of ALL TIME. He did things with buildings that nobody did and has done since. His style is very organic and his buildings look almost like building-shaped caves. Do a google image search on him and check it out. Also, he didn't really invent Mosaics, they have been around for thousands of years, but he redefined the genre with his creativity. He was cut down in his prime; hit by a car on the way to one of his construction sites.
yes! GET on JORDAN about art!
YES!
thank god.
:)
actually though, he was hit by a TRAM --- not a car. It's more ironic, and sorry to say, FUNNIER.
ok back off! i didn´t take art history! and yes, it was a tram. and by ¨prime¨, did you mean when he was 74? ha! take that!
and what do I need to do a google image search for? i just walked by a ton of his work today! he´s great...i really like his style.
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