Weekends in the Wilderness (Au Pair Experience Días 15, 16 and 17, Part Three)

Finally we´re on Saturday! And big thank you and well done to all of you for putting up with me thus far :)

So Saturday was the amazing Barcelona trip and it did not disappoint. I had to wake up slightly early with a slight hangover (or maybe my normal early-morning state - I can´t even tell anymore) and then we all bundled into the car and headed off. Jordi, Susana and Roger pointed out lots of interesting things on the way (like Roger´s favourite turning which was the kind of turning where you can´t sit up straight) while Gina was encouraged to sleep. After about half an hour I encouraged myself to sleep and magically, when I was woken up by a *poke* from Roger, we´d arrived. Here are some photos from the car:

I decided my hat was appropriate but it got annoying
carrying it around when visiting churches, restuarants
and I nearly left it in the shop when I bought stamps :)

This was there

This was there too

Our first stop was La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi´s famous church in Barcelona. This meant parking somewhere and getting out of the car to walk (</3).

On the way there were probably some interesting things but by this point I only remember what I took pictures of:



Once we arrived there was a long queue of tourists hungry for some modernist church vibes so we bought the tickets on the internet whilst in the queue, promptly escaped the queue (suckers) and got a coffee for half an hour before entering.

(They´re not real)

     

(Sorry my pciture formatting skills are kind of awful and they´re only filtered when I upload them directly from my phone for some reason.)

From the outside it´s grand enough, if a little grey for the most part, but there are so many intricate details that my camera couldn´t capture and you can´t see from the ground. IT´s truly beautiful. So naturally the inside, which Susana told me is based on a forest, the place took my breath away (and I nearly cried hahaha). It´s mainly the stained glass windows, they´re gorgeous and really make you feel like you´re in a really special place and that fairies might come and grant your every last wish.

After that was a general walk around the massive city (definitely exceeded my 10,000 steps per day goal) and we vistied La Plaza Catalunya, the port, Las Ramblas (great for souvenirs and postcards, art, didn´t try the food), the famous market and loads of other places, the names of which went completely over my head. Susana and Jordi were really clear explaining everything, I just don´t have a geography brain.

Gaudi´s Art School at La Sagrada Familia

Roger was so impressed by the
interactive geometry room

 

Gaudi´s Casa Mila

Spanish Military Government headquarters, I think

 

Either the Council building or... not

Obviously the port (we had lunch at the huge shopping centre here
and for once I wasn´t sucked into buying more clothes yay)

Barcelona Cathedral. We didn´t go inside because
the entrance fee was bit steep but I´m happy to note
that unlike in Milan where if you´re not covered from
your shoulders to your knees they won´t let you in
(even if you´re a 14 year old girl), ripped jeans and a
scoop neck top were not offensive. Unfortunately
short skirts were,
but so were short shorts so it wasn´t a sexist policy
 (like the one in Milan which was making me 

so anxious about all these church visits), just reserved.

                      

Barcelona at night from the steps of the National Museum of Art.

Lots of people were there and a guy played music on a keyboard.

Such a good atmosphere.

I have a few more pictures that you might see, if you´re lucky enough, but the layout thing is stressing me out right now. By this point, Gina was asleep in the car with Susana (she´d been so tired by the end of the day, her poor little legs). I´d taken off my shoes for the journey home, but then had to shove them back on to see this:

It was so beautiful. London from Alexandra Palace is pretty good, but here there are mountains in the distance, the old bull fighting arena and the general allure of being somewhere that´s not home. I love this city and I´m quite disappointed that I won´t be able to study there because I study castellano not catala, but I´m super excited to visit again with my mum and brother. I did get put off at some point by the policemen with massive machine guns on the edge of one of the plazas, apparently due to the heightened terrorist threat in Europe but wow, I never wanna see that again. 

Once we got home it was sleep for another early wake up the next day for a special trip through an around 150 year old canal in Montsonis (aka The Sticks)...

Weekends in the Wilderness (Au Pair Experience Días 15, 16 and 17, PartTwo)

This is a continuation of Friday:

My mystery friend had shown me exactly how the buses work (they're actually coaches here but you pay a normal bus fare) and just how infrequent they are. There's like a bus every two hours to get into the nearest city. As much as I moan about London, I need a good public transport system and some new places to explore.

As far as I can remember (which is not a lot #cfsproblems), not a lot happened Friday afternoon. I might've slept (between interacting with the kids) because I was awake all morning and lamented about not washing my hair or painting my nails. Probably cleaned my room and dreamed of Barcelona the next day. 

Friday night was a different story. Susana had picked the kids up and they'd gone to visit their mum for an hour so I thought we'd have time for a film before I went out but we didn't - I went out before they even came back. 

My mystery friend (MF from now on) and I met at her place though apparently I was meant to wait downstairs instead of going through the open door and catching her mum in her pyjamas (which were super cute but apparently embarrassing). She said I was dressed up (the same t-shirt from the morning and midi skirt?) but I'm glad I didn't keep my jeans on because we would've looked like twins. 

After excitedly announcing to everyone in the street that MF was my girlfriend whilst linking her arm I spotted our Irish wallflower outside the supermarket and invited her along. She has my number so I said she could text me and we'd probably still be out but of course she didn't which I wouldn't have minded if her SIM wasn't now working and she hadn't said she would. Anyway, we eventually made it to the bar that I'd sulked in last weekend and got a couple of beers, talked about the boys we love, uni, Balaguer, travelling and then got hungry. The €1 montaditos (small bites, little sandwiches) were tempting but I really fancied pizza so we had to find some. We looked at some expensive menus then wound up in her regular bar where she knows everyone, especially the barman who introduced us to his girlfriend who spoke English. 

So we had a 3 way English conversation and  so annoyingly refused his requests to speak Spanish except when speaking directly to him. Half a pizza (with extra olives on my half, one of which MF stole and I will not forgive her for) each later, the girlfriend eventually left and it was just us again. Apparently she'd been quite interested in me and excluding MF a bit which is noticed in my slightly less than sober state but thought it was just because I was the cool English girl.

Ooo I nearly forgot to mention that I got a bit anxious and didn't wanna go past all the men to the toilets (it was a proper rowdy men's bar, complete with a football table and thousands of men) Ali sat there for about 10 minutes making a twat of myself before eventually going. And when I did go, did I gracefully ask perdona and slide into the ladies? NO OF COURSE NOT. I BARGED PAST THE MANLY MEN AND FELT SO MASCULINE I WALKED INTO THE MENS AND ONLY REALISED WHEN I SAW SOME GUY STANDING IN FRONT OF THE TOILET READY TO DO HIS THING (so gross). Godsake, I fled and when I eventually plucked up the courage to go back to the ladies, another awkward encounter made it look like I was going to the men's again before I finally made it -.- 

Thankfully we left pretty soon after that ordeal. Some young black African men annoyed me by calling me beautiful negra so I told them to shut up. I wouldn't mind if one of them wanted a quick conversation or was genuinely interested but I knewwww from the moment I saw them coming towards us that they'd say something to me. They made us walk through the middle of them and mimicked our laughter before saying their stupidity and it put a dampener on my mood. You know when something's a compliment or an insult and this was definitely the latter. 

Back at Sulk Bar we got some more beers and this sausage sandwich thing which I'm sure bent my teeth slightly but it tasted quite nice. A good level of tipsy and another awkward encounter later, we walked home. Admittedly I was a little cold in my typically English night out no coat ensemble but it was a short walk and I got MF to walk me to my door. 

Honestly felt so good after that little adventure, making a friend and so happy to be going to Barcelona the next morning with my host family!

More to come,

Antonia xx 

Weekends in the Wilderness (Au Pair Experience Días 15, 16 and 17, Part One)

So yes I've been a little quiet this weekend but this is good news because I have developed something called *a life*. This weekend has actually been full of interesting things instead of lie ins (though I made up for that by sleeping from 3pm to 8pm yesterday hahaha) and I'm exhausted but it was amazing.

I'll start with Friday:

These are pictures from the banks of the River Segre, near where I live. I don't know why but I love graffiti art. It makes me look like such a tourist taking pictures of it all the time but there's something about it I really admire. Not the stupid stuff like 'Bob waz ere' which there's actually a lot of, everywhere, but the creative stuff that makes you wonder why someone drew that. How long did it take them? Why?!

This time I had a friend on the walk. Apparently we were meant to be speed walking but that must've been lost in translation because I turned up in jeans and cute boots and she was in jogging gear. She wasn't impressed with my 'slow walking' (I'm a Londoner I don't was slowly at all so I'm sure she was exaggerating) or picture taking but I gave up my siesta for that so speed walking wasn't on the agenda. It was fun though, we spoke in Spanish and English and wow I'd missed having full English conversations with no dodgy connections. She's gonna remain a mystery friend because her position in this town is so prestigious and I might ruin her rep seeing as I'm so... Me-like

More to come xx