Days 15, 16, & 17

Sorry it's been so long! It was a really busy weekend and a really busy Monday. Saturday in Barcelona was amazing, the weather was perfect, the city was beautiful...and there were so many American tourists! It was a nice change.

We almost didn't make it to our bike tour, but we finally found Placa de Sant Jaume and headed off on our beach cruisers. Mine was way too big for me so it kind of hurt to start and stop. I sort of got the hang of it towards the end...sort of. The tour really was awesome though...

Placa de Sant Jaume, where we started off

Big cathedral in the city...can't remember the name, but it's not Gaudi's work

Gorgeous Oprea house

Arc de Triomf...apparently Napoleon had them built all over Europe. I didn't know that!

This beautiful fountain at the best park I've ever seen. 

The park was so, so beautiful. And the Barcelona Zoo was there!

Gaudi's Cathedral...I didn't know that he died from getting hit by a tram...so tragic! He was so talented!

That's the W hotel right on the beach. It has six stars! Only the W in Dubai has more (it has seven). I wish we would have had time to go inside, I'm sure it was crazy awesome.

Beautiful beach!

Dangerously Delicious sangria!

Really yummy and fresh Greek salad!

Sunday in Barcelona was pretty lazy. We had to check out by noon. We slept as late as possible and then headed out to shop until our train came at 9 p.m. We didn't know that everything is closed on Sunday so our plan didn't really work. Bummer, but we still saw all the pretty architecture and the Picasso Museum! It was really neat; they even had drawings from when he was in high school. But we weren't allowed to take pictures, so that was annoying.

We finally got on our train, and we actually had normal females as our bunk mates! So that was nice. But it's still pretty nerve-racking to sleep on those trains. I'm always scared to sleep through the stop or something, so I really didn't sleep well...

As soon as we got to Paris we had to meet our group at Musee' L'Orangerie. It was a museum that had all of the huge Monet Waterlilly paintings. They were set up in these oval rooms and the paintings cover the walls. I took a video of the paintings instead of pictures because they were so huge, so I'll have you show you that when I get back. We did get to see some beautiful Renoirs and other paintings too, but it was a really small museum.

Musee L'Orangerie

Renoir

Chaim Soutine

Andre Derain...he did such beautiful work. I have a lot more pictures!

We had class basically all afternoon yesterday and then we had to go watch a movie on Camille Claudel (Rodin's mistress that was eventually committed to an insane asylum) at 9 p.m. The movie wasn't bad, but it was 2 hours and 40 minutes long, and it was subtitled in English.  I can't believe I stayed awake for the whole thing.

And so this morning I had class again. I have a break right now before I have my other class at 11. Then we have to go on a field trip to some small town or something. I'm really not sure, but I am sure that it will probably be pretty terrible because it's supposed to rain all day and we have to go to a graveyard. Blegh. We won't be back til 7 p.m. so I'll talk to you later!

Love and miss  y'all!
Allie

P.S. On a sad note, a boy I graduated high school with, Jonathan Daly, passed away from injuries in a car crash last night. So keep him and his family in your prayers.