This will probably be my last blog entry from Europe. It's hard to wrap my mind around that. It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in the airport terminal in Indy with my mom and dad, being nervous about flying for the first time. Yet now, here I am almost 4 months later, and it seems like no time has passed between the two events, coming and going home. However on the other hand it feels like I've been gone from home for about a thousand years. Funny how that works. Well, Barcelona was very fun. It was a very short trip, but it was well worth it. The weather in Spain was great, not hot, but definitely not cold. It was in the mid to low 60's during the day. We got to see a lot of things in Barcelona, and basically we were doing things the whole day. The first day that we were there we saw 2 cathedrals, the Barcelona Cathedral and the Cathedral of St. Mary. Both were beautiful, and we were able to go up to the roof on the Barcelona Cathedral and get an amazing view of the city. Unfortunately the batteries on my camera died while we were still in the cathedral, so I wasn't able to get any pictures from the roof. The next day we had an intricately planned trek across the city to see all of the sites that we wanted to see. We started out exploring the main park in the city, which was very pretty. Then we went to the zoo, because we all said that we hadn't gone to a zoo in Europe, and that we should have that experience. It was mostly a joke, but we went with it anyway. The zoo was neat, because it had been a long time since I had been to a zoo even in the States. We even got to see some animals from home, which was somewhat comforting, in a weird "these-animals-are-as-far-away-from-home-as-me" kind of way. After the zoo we went to see the bull-ring of the city. Unfortunately it wasn't open, but we did get to see the outside, which was at least something. We then went to one of Barcelona's main attractions, La Sagrada Familia. Started in the early 1900's, it looks like the architect used some questionable mind-altering substances while listening to Pink Floyd (or maybe the grandfathers of Pink Floyd, given the time) and set to work designing this cathedral. It looks like the cathedral used to be a giant candle and it was half-burned, and then lots of religious figures were shaped in the melty-wax. It was weird and pretty at the same time. The other weird thing was that the cathedral was only about 1/3 built, just the front and back, with the middle still under construction even today. They hope to have it completed within the next 10 or 20 years. After that we went to a park that was up on a hill and offered a great view of the city. It was a long walk, but the view was worth it. We then walked to the Archaeological Museum of Barcelona. It was pretty interesting, although there weren’t a whole lot of artifacts. Most of the museum was full of Roman artifacts, as the Romans did colonize Spain right around the big BC/AD switch. After that we made a long trek to the Olympic Stadium, as the Olympics were held there in 1992. By this time it was dark, so we just snapped a few pictures and left. The last thing we were going to do was to see a musical lighted fountain show in the main plaza, but we found out that they only do that in the summer/fall time. So that was Barcelona. I really enjoyed it, and I would go back in a heartbeat if I had a chance. Here at the manor things have been winding down. I got word about a week ago that I got the job as an RA back at Evansville, so come January I will be living in Hughes Hall with a single room in charge of about 20 or so guys. I was really excited about that, because it means that I can spend more time on campus and maybe actually be involved a little more. It also means that I have more freedom to go home when I want to and also to visit Olivia, so that’s good. I’m done with both of my independent studies, Greek and Latin, except that sometime over break I have to take my Latin final by e-mail. We didn’t have enough time to get it set up here, so it was pushed back. I have my British Studies final tomorrow, and then I’m done with school here altogether. I’ve been packing little by little, so I’m about halfway done or so. Thursday my friends and I are going to leave on our trip to Italy and Greece, and then we will leave for home from London the following Thursday. I’m very much looking forward to Italy and Greece, because now I’m actually going to see the places that we’ve talked about in my classes and such. It will be amazing. However it’s kinda depressing to think about leaving, but it’s also a happy time because I get to go home to all of the people that I care about. Not that there aren’t people that I care about here; I have my friends that I came here with, and I’ve made lots of new friends, both from other schools and from my own, and I’m really glad that I’ve met these people. I will miss the people from other schools a lot, and I hope that I will get to see them at some point in the future. It’s nice that I have a wider friend-base at Evansville also. But I’m really glad to go back to the familiarity of home. I’ve missed my family and friends a lot, and I guess I sort-of missed my girlfriend. Ok, so I missed her a lot, and I’m really glad that I will get to see her again :). All in all coming home will be a great thing, especially being back for Christmas, when I can see all of my family at once. I’m really thankful for the time that I had here, the people that I met, and just the overall experience. It will be bittersweet going back home, but there are definite pros to make up for the cons.
