Fall Break

Barcelona

The first 3 days of fall break I was in Barcelona. It's interesting because in Barcelona they don't speak Spanish, they speak Catalan. Two of the people I was traveling with were native Spanish speakers but Catalan was so different, that even they had trouble communicating with the Barcelonians sometimes.
By coincidence, the same weekend we were there, a festival was going on in one of the main plazas where a lot of restaurants from the area set up a sort of market and had free samples of the wine or food that they sell. They were also selling kebabs or sandwiches or plates with small samples of the food from their restaurant. It was wonderful because we got to a try a lot of different tapas and other food from Barcelona without spending a lot of money. We also visited two of Gaudi's churches. The first one, the less famous of the two, we went inside and even got to go up the roof for a view of the city. The architecture was so intricate, it was beautiful. The second Gaudi cathedral is the more famous one called "Sagrada Familia". In fact, it is still uncompleted even though Gaudi is no longer alive. Even when we were there, scaffolding surrounded the cathedral as if it were still a work in progress. The architecture really was breathtaking. The details all around the outside of the church were phenomenal. After visiting the churches we walked down to the beach and walked along the coastline. The beach was beautiful and FREE which is more than I can say for any beach I've been to in Italy so far. It was the end of October but the weather was still really nice. If I had my swimsuit with me, I wouldn't have been opposed to going for a swim. For dinner the first night we received coupons from the hostel for a free dinner from a restaurant that was located near the hostel. It was called "Travel Bar" so it was clearly not known for it's wonderful food, but a free meal is a free meal so we all had a traditional spanish meal of chicken curry for dinner that night.
The next day, I have to say one of the highlights was that for breakfast we went to a little restaurant called "Buenas Migas". I had focaccia bread with chocolate on the inside and a coffee. The restaurant was so cute. It reminded me a lot of a Panera Bread. Unfortunately, I don't think they actually served migas, but the chocolate focaccia was delicious. After that, we basically visited all the parks in Barcelona. First we just went to the regular ones with fountains and trees and things. We took a break in the middle of the day to visit the Chocolate Museum. I bought olive oil chocolate with salt. It actually didn't taste as gross as it sounds. We spent the rest of the afternoon in Park Guell which is the most famous park in Barcelona because it has on display a lot of Gaudi architecture including the mosaic lizard that has become a sort of symbol for Barcelona. There were also Gaudi houses (one of which Gaudi actually lived in when he was alive) that looked like gingerbread houses and caves that had designs carved into them. After the park, we stopped by the Arch of Triumph in Barcelona. Apparently every city in the world has one of those, at least in Europe. For dinner that night, our last night in Barcelona, we had paella. I had paella valencia which is rice with chicken and vegetables. We also drank sangria, so all in all it was a very Spanish meal. The last thing on our list to see was the Magic Fountain. At nighttime, it's supposed to light up so that's why we saved it for our last night. We walked over to what ended up being a pretty deserted side of town (granted it was midnight by the time we finished dinner and a Sunday) and unfortunately the Magic Fountain was not lit up and there was no one around. We still took plenty of pictures there though. It was a very scenic location with big white columns and the fountain set in front of a gigantic palace.

Lisbon

We only spent 2 nights in Lisbon and here, in case you didn't know, they speak Portuguese and once again we had a little trouble communicating sometimes. Our hostel was located outside of the main city center but in a well known district called Belem. Just down the street from our hostel was a beautiful garden and a free art museum. We were also only a few blocks away from the coastline so for dinner on the first night we had dinner at a restaurant that was on top of the water. I ate steak with the "house sauce" which was some kind of honey mustard with butter and mashed potatoes. It was delicious, although I'm not too sure if any part of the meal was Portuguese.
The next day we went to the free art museum and walked around the garden. For the afternoon, we took the bus into the city center and saw some famous monuments and statues and then, of course, went to a park. Parks are the best because they are free. After that we went to see St. George's Castle which is a gigantic castle in the middle of Lisbon. It took a little bit of work to find it, but there were some really wonderful views once we climbed to the top of it. That evening we walked around the more modern part of the city that has the aquarium and we even found a casino and a mall! It was the first real inside mall that I've seen since I've been in Europe. It had a movie theater and a gigantic food court with all different kinds of foods, so that's where we ate dinner obviously.

Madrid

The first thing we did in Madrid was go eat an early dinner because our flight got in at an odd time so we hadn't eaten all day. We went to a place near the Plaza del Sol and all of us ordered the exact same thing, hamburger with guacamole and black beans. We were all craving Mexican food. The guacamole was good, the burger part however was not. But at least we had guacamole!
The next day was a museum day. We visited the Museum del Prado which had paintings by Picasso, Caravaggio, Titian, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Bosch, El Greco, and Velazquez. I was most excited to see Las Meninas by Velazquez, Girl on a Ball by Picasso, and Saturn Devouring his Sons by Goya. We even got free entrance into this museum because we were students! Besides the Louvre, it is probably my favorite museum I've been to in Europe so far. After that we went to a park that had a huge pond in the middle of it that people were rowing boats on. It was beautiful. That evening, we followed the Rick Steve's guidebook on Madrid (thanks to Danyelle Evans) and did a tapas (basically like appetizers) crawl. This is something that we were all really excited for. The Rick Steve's guide was perfect because it gave us the names of 5 locations all within a few blocks of each other and it told us exactly what to order at each place. At the first place, "Museo del Jamon" (Museum of Ham) we ordered croquettes, which look like mozzarella sticks but have potatoes and ham inside instead of cheese. They were delicious. The next place, "Casa Abuelo" was famous for their wine made in house and their garlic shrimp. Since I don't like seafood, I just ordered the wine. It was a sweet red wine, and it's the first red wine I've had that I've actually enjoyed. The next place was called "La Oreja del Oro" (the ear of gold), and we ordered pimientos del padron. They were mostly sweet peppers, which I was little skeptical about eating because they looked exactly like mini jalepenos! The waiter told us that most of them are sweet, but a few of them are super spicy. I tentatively tried one, and it was so delicious I continued to eat them even with the possibility of getting a really spicy one. Luckily, I didn't! It might have been my favorite dish of the tapas crawl. The last place was called "Casa Toni" and we ordered patatas ali oli which are fried potatoes with a garlic mayonaise sauce, patatas bravas which are fried potatoes with a spicy red sauce and a plate of champinones (sauteed mushrooms). We also ordered a pitcher of sangria at  here. It was the perfect way to end our tapas crawl and we all applauded Rick Steves.
The next day we went to lunch at a Mexican place and ordered burritos and tacos and quesadillas. Not surprisingly, it was not like anything I've ever had in Texas, but we weren't expecting much. After that we went to another park and saw some botanical gardens and two old castles. That night we stumbled upon a restaurant called "Peggy Sue's American Diner", and we couldn't resist. It was decorated in true 1950s fashion with black and white checkered tile on the floor and red vinyl on the booths. It even had Dick Van Dyke show reruns playing on black and white TVs. I ordered an "Aretha Franklin" burger, onion rings and pink lemonade. The onion rings were divine. For dessert I had apple crumble with vanilla ice cream.
The next day, our last day, for breakfast we went back the "Museum of Ham" restaurant but this time actually sat at a table instead of just ordering tapas from the bar. It was breakfast, so I ordered a sandwich with egg and ham and cheese with orange juice. It was probably one of the best breakfasts I've had in Europe. They were famous for their ham, so I suppose it was a good choice. Afterwards, we visited "Mercado San Miguel" which is almost exactly like a Whole Foods, minus the grocery store part. There were a lot of different counters and each served a different kind of food or drink, like chocolate, olives, alcoholic drinks, hamburgers, chips, tapas, etc. I got some chocolate cookies and sangria. After that we went to a cathedral and a palace and an Egyptian tomb that was originally in Egypt but was relocated in Madrid, not sure why though. For dinner we ate at a Chinese restaurant. Not the best chinese food I've ever had but I got an egg roll, fried rice with vegetables, and chicken with mushrooms (not sure how that one is chinese) and a coke and dessert all for only 7 euro.

This concludes my fall break! I'm sure I forgot a lot of things, except for the food of course which I remember vividly.