Valencia

Wow, again it has been wayy to long. We've had tons of visitors in over the past three weeks and have had almost 10 people sleeping in our house every night. That, coupled with final exams, are the two reasons I'm citing for a lack of updates. Enough excuses, here's the latest happening.

Last week, I took a trip to Valencia w/ Joel to get a glimpse of las Fallas and stayed w/ his friends from Singapore, Paul and Kelly. Las Fallas is basically this massive, 10-day firework and flame filled party that takes over the streets of Valencia in honor of Saint Joseph. The way it works, is that there are small groups of people in each neighborhood called Casal faller, who work all year fund raising to getenough money to produce a falla. A falla is essentially this massive painted, wooden construction created by an artist that is said to respresent some negative aspect of society. These fallas are placed in street intersections all around the city and go up in flames on the last day of the festival. Leading up to the burning, they have fireworks every single day, twice a day. First at 2pm (which you cannot see but it's the "rhythmn" of the explosions that is important) and then again at 2am. They also have constant parades, people and kids throwing fireworks EVERYWHERE, paella making contests and the whole city turns in to one big party from 2-6AM. Unfortunately, I missed the burning of the fallas, but was able to experience the general merryment and overall experience of the festival.

P.S. (If you haven't noticed by now, you can make the photos larger by clicking them!)

The largest magnolia tree I've ever seen

A Valencian girl in her traditional dress

Some Singaporean friends in the park

In the park near the City of Arts and Sciences

A typical "Falla"Women making traditional Valencian Paella (w/ chicken and rabbit)
Some people at the Paella making contest
Fallas decorations and craft booths
Parade w/ men and boys in traditional dress

Parade w/ women and girls in traditional dress
Joel hangin' out on the bridge
There are SO many people out at night (during the Fallas Valencia's population goes from 1 million to 2 million)
The smoke gave the fireworks a cool effect
Fuegos Artificiales

Amsterdam

This weekend 5 of my friends and I went to Amsterdam. The city itself is beautiful, but at this time of year the weather is not so much so. It was fairly cold and rainy the whole time, but we still had fun. The first day we walked around the city, visited some coffeeshops, and took a tour of the Heineken brewery. Well, it wasn't so much a tour of the brewery as it was a museum of Heineken's history that serves you three beers along the way. The Heineken beer in Amsterdam tastes so much better than it does in the U.S., it's amazing. The next day, we visited the Van Gogh museum and did some more sight-seeing. We took advantage of all of the delicious and cheap food in Amsterdam, much better than Barcelona. However, after a long weekend of vegging, it was nice to be back. A great weekend that I won't forget (mostly).

Ready to take on Amsterdam!

Heineken BreweryMiami posing next to Heineken's newest brew (Extra Cold, served at 0degrees c)

Mmm...nothing like a tour that comes w/ free beer!

Joel and Miami goofing around.
Canal by night (photocredit:Joel)

Awesome dutch fries (photocredit: Joel)

When in Rome...(photocredit: Joel)

I happen to run into Nicole Kidman and Barack Obama!

Typical Amsterdam street and canal

Tibidabo

Barcelona is geographically blessed, bordered on one end by the Mediterranean, and the other by Mount Tibidabo. The name Tibidabo comes from a Latin Bible verse of the story of Satan tempting Jesus "…et dixit illi haec tibi omnia dabo si cadens adoraveris me"^[2] — "And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me" (Matthew 4:9). Quite fitting seeing that from ontop of Tibidabo you can look down on all of Barcelona and its pleasures! A pretty tempting offer I must say. These pictures are from 2 weekends ago when Julien's girlfriend came in town from Paris. We left with the intention on reaching the summit of Tibidabo, but missed the last Funicular. But, we found a bunch of mountain biking trails that lead up the mountain and were still able to see some killer views. Hopefully soon I'll be able to climb all the way up.

A view of the southern part of the city and Montjuic (small mountain where the Olympic Park is located)

A view of the other side of the city

Julien doesn't like when I take pictures of him

Incredible view

There are some sweet (and famous) houses on the way up

Overdue Post

Wow, I've definitely been falling behind on my posts. The internet at school has been really bad the past couple weeks, so it's been hard to update. However, GOOD NEWS, I finally have internet in my house w/ speed that somewhat resembles "high speed internet" so now things will be much easier. Here are some pictures from 2 weekends ago when Joel had a couple Singaporean friends in from Valencia, along with some pictures from me and Joel's second trek to Parc Guell:

Entrance to Parc GuellWatching some kids play football (they were siiiick)
Typical Gaudi Mosaic
Parc Guell entrance w/ city in the background
This guy played the meanest violin, up until there was almost nobody left in the park

Joel snapping some photos of the great view

The way up (thank you Barcelona for installing these escalators)

Joel made Paella...delicious!

Enjoying the meal w/ friends and roommates

Some Pictures

Here are some photos from the past couple weekends I have yet to post. I wanted to post more, but our school's internet will not allow it at the moment. Until next time...The Magic Fountain

Joel examining the warez in a Chinese bazaar

A strange house on the way to Parc Guell (maximize and notice the Santa Clause hanging from the balcony on the left-hand side)

The climb up to Parc Guell

Some pictures I have yet to post:

Typical Barceloneta Street

Beach

Touching the Mediterranean

University Cafeteria

Our School (One single building)

Fotos de Andorra

We got to Andorra late on Friday night. The hotel was pretty nice, but our room was the only one they forgot to prepare. No towels, no sheets, cigarettes in the ashtray, trash in the bin...basically exactly as it was left. After about a 20 min. battle with the guy at the front desk, he finally caved and handed us sheets and 3 facial towels. The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and headed to the slopes. The slope was called VallNord and was only accessible via cable car. It snowed the entire day and the wind at the top got pretty intense at times, but it was tolerable and the views were incredible. That night, the hotel served us a three course dinner and we returned to a fully cleaned and stocked hotel room. We then went out to a bar for a couple drinks, but didn't stay too long because we wanted to rest up for the next day's skiing. The second day of skiing we had great weather, sunny the entire day which made for some great pictures. We also had a good snow the night before, so there was abundant fresh powder (wayyyy better than anywhere I've ever skied on the east coast). After skiing, we went back to the hotel and changed, got on the bus, and headed back to BCN. All in all, a great weekend.