Aix-en-Provence 2013: ADVENTURES ABROAD!!!!: Fall Break...Wait, That's a Thing???

Well, here we are again...another two week break. This time, I'm not very sorry for it only because I was in Spain all of last week.

Barcelona from Saturday through Tuesday and Madrid from Tuesday night through Sunday afternoon. If I could have spent the last three or so days sleeping, I would have. It was a very very busy week of travelling.

I should warn you now, though. If you were looking for one of my typical deep and thought-provoking posts worthy only for the eyes of New York Times subscribers (HA!), you should probably just stop now and look for some other DU junior's most recent blog post.

This is going to be simply a recap of my week in Spain. Ok, maybe not simply, but I'm not planning on coming up with any earth-shattering revelations about life this time.

Anyways. Spain. It was fun.

Does that suffice?

I didn't think so. So I should probably go chronologically. It's the only way to go, I suppose.

Well, on the first Saturday of break, I had to wake up at 5 AM to catch the bus from Aix to Barcelona. I could sugar-coat it and tell you that it was one of the absolute hardest things to do after a Friday night abroad, but....actually we'll just leave it at that.

But the bright side of that whole situation was that we had a 6 hour bus ride ahead of us during which we could sleep. And you can bet your you-know-what that I did just that. The second the bus started moving, I was out.

Six hours later, we found ourselves in Barcelona and sure enough, we were dressed very poorly for the weather. Why? It was a casual 80 degrees Fahrenheit. As soon as we could, we all changed out of our pants and jackets and into shorts and tee-shirts.

After a lunch of some questionable paella, we began to wander around the touristy part of Barcelona, which turned out to be somewhat boring. Shocker.

So after this, we received the AMAZING news that Real Madrid was in town to play Barcelona in El Clasico. You know, just the biggest rivalry in all of sports. There is a reason why it's called "The Classic."

As soon as we found this out, we decided to head over to the stadium and find a bar with a TV so we could watch the game like a real fan, you know, with a beer in hand.

After we all bought scarves at a table vendor outside of the stadium, we started the search for a bar...which probably took ENTIRELY too long.

Once we finally found a bar about 10 minutes into the game, none of us left our seats until the game was over.

Barcelona ended up winning the game 2-1 and it was an amazing experience to be among such amazing fans of the game in the bar. For a sports fan like myself, being around people who actually know what they're watching was such a breath of fresh air. I was able to actually enjoy the game instead of spend most of the game explaining what was going on to someone who hasn't watched the sport before.

After the game, we went out to experience the legendary night-life of Barcelona...and it didn't disappoint.

The next day, we had a bus tour of the major parts of Barcelona and that was pretty darn breath-taking. We got to see some amazing views of the city from a hill above it and we saw Sagrada di Familia, a church designed by the famous Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi. It is actually currently being constructed in the center of Barcelona.

That night a lot of us went to the beach to hang out and listen to the waves and it was probably one of the highlights of my time in Barcelona.

The next day, we all woke up in the early afternoon, which was probably for the best. We were all extremely tired from the day before and we needed our sleep. During the day on Monday, we stayed in the area around our hostel, which was the touristy part of the city and spent some quality time with each other.

That night, our last one in Barcelona, we went to karaoke night at an Irish pub near the beach. That was an absolute blast! In fact, I sang Hakuna Matata with a girl from New Zealand and we nearly won first prize at the end of the night for it!

After karaoke, we all went to one of the hottest clubs in Barcelona called Opium. We got in for free and a number of us were able to get into the VIP area for no cost as well. It was the best club experience I've had since being in Europe, by far.

That night was hands-down the best night I've had since coming to Europe.

The next day, Diego, Jared, Peter, and I left Barcelona for Madrid on a high-speed train. It took us less than 3 hours to get to Madrid, which is actually a considerable distance from Barcelona.

That night, we all went to the center of town to meet up with some friends of Peter and Jared. To start the night, we went to a restaurant and had some really good paella.

After dinner, we went to another Irish pub to have a few drinks, further our new friendships, finalize plans for going to the Real Madrid-Sevilla futbol game the next night.

The next day, the only thing worth noting was the game. AND MY GOD IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!

I have never been in such an amazing sports atmosphere in my life. Let me just recap the game...

We saw 10 goals scored total (7-3 in favor of Real Madrid), which in itself was amazing, 3 penalty kicks (2 went in), Cristiano Ronaldo (yes, that Cristiano Ronaldo) had a hat trick, and we saw a red card given to a Sevilla player. WE SAW EVERYTHING!!!

The next day was Halloween...I will leave that one open to your imagination...we didn't really do anything special...except go to Museo Prado during the day. That was definitely amazing to see such amazing Renaissance artwork. We all were taken aback by the sheer detail so many of these artists were able to capture in their paintings.

On Friday, we woke up extremely late in the day. But instead of letting the day go to waste, we went to a nearby park called Parque del Retiro and rented bikes for about an hour. We biked all over the park and had an absolute blast doing this. It was an awesome workout and we got to see a gorgeous park at the same time. This was one of the major highlights of the entire trip to Spain, no doubt.

That night, I was feeling kind of under the weather, so I stayed in while the other three went to a 7-story club called Kapital. I definitely wish I had sucked it up and gone with them that night...I heard amazing things about it. I'll just have to go the next time I'm in Madrid!

The next day, we woke up fairly late again, but again, we didn't waste the day. While Diego went to go spend the afternoon with his cousin who lives in the Madrid area, Jared, Peter, and I went to Reina Sophia, one of the most famous modern art museums in the world.

We spent a solid 3 hours there and were absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of art in one building. The best part was probably the surrealism room...you know, Dali. Salvadore Dali is probably one of my favorite artists. His surrealist paintings capture so many different prevalent themes that it is difficult to dislike any of his work.

After the museum, we went back to the hostel, paid 2 euros and got to eat some AMAZING homemade (well, hostel-made) paella. This was by far my favorite meal of the entire week.

After dinner, we went on a bar-crawl that took us to four different bars and finished at a local club. It was definitely a great way to finish our trip to Spain.

As you might have guessed, we woke up the next day and headed straight to the airport to head back to Aix.

One thing I did notice while I was in Spain was how much I missed the French language. It was a very odd and scary feeling not being able to understand what anyone has to say. Thank goodness Diego is fluent in Spanish, otherwise our trip would not have been nearly as successful.

When I got back to Aix, I realized how much French I actually knew. It was as if this trip to Spain was a tipping point in my competence with the French language.

As soon as I returned to my host-mother's house, I was able to form fluid and concrete sentences. Since getting back, I have not stumbled over my words nearly as often. It is definitely something that I've been very pleasantly surprised about.

But there ya have it! That is about as brief a synopsis of my Fall Break as I can give you. Look below the text for some pictures from break. I know there aren't many, but many pictures I have are somewhat repetitive.

Next week, I'll try to have a deeper, more thought-provoking post. I promise. Maybe it will be about homesickness...or maybe it won't. There's only one way to find out!!

So, until next week, au revoir!