last weekend

so, last weekend was fantastic. on thursday it was my friend grants birthday so a group of us went out to celebrate and it was so cute because his girlfriend came to visit him from the states (she came in a day early to surprise him) and it was nice to see him so happy especially for his birthday.

friday i was lame, just did some hw, but then saturday my friend steve, grant, grants girlfriend, elizabeth, and i hung out and went to montjuic which is one of the mountains here. we took a gondola ride to the top and checked out the fortress which was pretty cool. surprisingly, there were a lot of stray cats... but it was a beautiful sunny day and relatively warm which was nice. we then went to the olympic stadium which was not as cool or big as i was hoping it would be. but it was cool to think that it was were the olympics had taken place. there were more stray cats there and one of them fell in a trash can which sounds really mean in retrospect, but its tail was sticking up and it was pretty entertaining. we then walked down the rest of the mountain to plaza espanyol. we were going to go into the palau nacional which is where the catalan art museum is but it cost money and we were tired and hungry, so instead we walked to get food. after that we all went home because we were exhausted.

sunday, the four of us met up again and went to tibidabo which is the other mountain here. we took a cable car up part of the way and then it just dropped us off so we ended up hiking up the rest of the mountain. it was a very pleasant walk though. the views of the city were the best i have seen and even though the weather was not ideal (cooler and overcast) it was still beautiful. we saw the amusement park (yes there is an amusement park at the top of the mountain) but did not go in since it cost 24 euros and frankly, i dont like amusement parks anyways. we then continued to trek up the mountain and by this time it was sunset, which was absolutely breath taking from the top of the mountain. so we took a break to relish in the beauty. it also is interesting because when im in the city, it doesnt seem that big because i go to my certain places and know how to get there, but looking at the city from up there, its amazing to me how large it is and how there are still so many places and areas ive never even seen and need to explore. i feel like there is just not enough time to see and do everything here let alone everything i want to do in europe in general.

anyways, so after taking in the view we continued up the mountain to the very top to the monistary. by this time it was dark and the monistary was all lit up. we went in and the church on tibidabo is by far the prettiest church ive visited. it was amazing. we then went up to the top of it which i believe is something like 542 meters up. im not sure, but when we climbed all the way to the very top my stomach was doing little flips and i realized that i am somewhat afraid of heights. after chilling (literally we were starting to freeze with the wind) at the top for awhile we headed back down, stopped in a cafe and headed home.

all in all i would say a good successful weekend of being able to see more of my current city :)