"Vacation" abroad

The last three weeks have been full of adventures. From fine-tuning my knowledge of the city of Madrid to the point where I feel like I've lived here for years, to traveling the last three weekends I have  had an amazing first month in Spain.

My trip to Gibraltar and Africa was a unique experience because that was the first time my roommates and I had planned a trip in Europe. It was a lot of last minute planning and deciding what to do as we went but it worked out well and it was certainly a memorable experience. The monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar were definitely the highlight that weekend.

A little over a week ago we traveled to Valencia, a city with a flair of old and new near the coast of Spain. There were calm waves on the beach and we got a good feel for the city when we rented bikes and biked about 15kms in two days. The Arts and Sciences Center was an experience unlike any other. It featured some of the most jaw-dropping architecture I have ever seen and there was so much to do it took us an entire day to explore.

Now Barcelona on the other hand has much more to do. Simple concept: bigger city, more touristy, thus, more to do. Highlights: climbing to the top of Park Guell, FC Barcelona game (more about this later), Sagrada Familia, the Chapel, the nightlife, La Rambla, the beach, and the IceBar. All-around excellent time in Barcelona. Minus a few quirks here and there in which I preferred the Madrid-style (i.e. the Metro) it was great!

As for the fútbol game...

To keep it simple, America does soccer an injustice. It is a beautiful sport that is made into an art form in Europe (Especially in Spain) and the insane, fanatic style of the crowd made it the experience of a lifetime. If you ever travel to Spain and are even a modest sports fan do yourself a favor and go watch Real Madrid or FC Barcelona play. Plain and simple.

Part of the motivation for staying within Spain (minus Gibraltar and Africa) for the first month was to get our feet wet. Learn the best ways to travel before having to ride trains for extended periods of time and clear customs. Also, I had a personal experiment to conduct on my own: Valencia v. Barcelona.

I had seen and heard amazing things from both cities leading up to my visits and I must say I was impressed with both in a different way. Having spent time in Valencia, Barcelona and Madrid I can safely say Valencia is like an offspring of Madrid and Barcelona - you get a little bit of everything.

Valencia was great for its history, contrast of old/new city, and a lovely golden, fine sand beach.

Barcelona, while I prefer it to Valencia, did not live up to the hype everyone had built for it. The best analogy I can give to describe the over-hype of Barcelona would be to think of a movie everyone said is "A MUST SEE!"..."It's the funniest movie you'll ever see"..."It will blow your mind"..."I can't believe you haven't seen it yet!" When you finally see this movie your expectations were SO HIGH there was no possible way it could ever compete. (Hangover and Avatar are great examples of this for me.)

Now, that's not to say the movie (or Barcelona in this case) wasn't fantastic, because I really enjoyed my time there. However, it did not live up to the expectations everyone had set for me.

In conclusion, if you ever visit Spain and have to choose between a day trip, or two days, in Valencia or Barcelona, go with the latter; assuming you can tolerate the pompous and ridiculousness that is Catalan. (You'll have to excuse me, my Madrid bias is showing).

We are headed to Paris and London this weekend so I will have more to come after those trips.

Good luck to everyone in the States, you know, not having a functioning government and all. If it makes you feel any better, next time you think about how poor our unemployment rate, our economy, or the differences that exist within our country remember it could be worse.

Spain's current unemployment rate is in the high teens (near 50% if you only look at the 18-25 demographic), their economy believe it or not rivals ours for disgustingly-horrible-ness (so bad it needed a new word), and hey, half their country wants to secede and start a new nation (that's not something to be proud of Cataloñans).