Have You Had Your Calatrava Today?

Today we visited and got a tour of some of the most interesting modern architecture that I have ever seen in real life. We were privileged enough to be guided by one of the local Spanish architects that worked on the construction of Santiago Calatrava’s Opera House in Valencia. My first impression of the Opera House was that it was very monolithic and huge. It’s more than just architecture, it’s art and engineering as well. Well, I had never seen anything like it before, so I was very impressed.


By the end of our architectural tour of Valencia, we all split up depending on our plans for the weekend. About a third of the class is going to see the running of the bulls in Pamplona, a handful are going back to Guardamar and we – Edgar, Lu, Jinah, and I are headed to Barcelona!

The rest of the evening consisted of us walking down on one of the most famous streets in Barcelona, La Rambla! We walked through huge crowds of really interesting people… Barcelona has one heck of a night life! Eventually, we found a lit public space where we saw all kinds of groups of people sitting together in a circle on the ground. We thought it’d be appropriate if we participated in all the other kids and we, too, sat down in a circle in the middle of this public square haha. Aside from the fact that within minutes of sitting down we were approached and interrogated by a strange man asking us to talk to us, it was fun! Haha.

Anyway, the evening ended with our arrival at our hostel… our KOREAN hostel. You heard right! Haha Jinah found this Korean hostel that is very close to the downtown area of Barcelona… so we took it! Let me tell you, it has been an experience! Apparently the husband and wife that own the hostel have been living in Barcelona since the early 80’s so they know Spain pretty well; the husband even speaks relatively fluent Spanish! It. blew. my. mind. Anyway, the Korean woman is so sweet, she even cooked us some authentic Korean food for our late dinner today! Aye. But yeah, it has been great so far. Even if the room is extremely tiny and hot haha… we’re not here to sleep, baby! Anyway, we explored the streets for a couple of hours into the night before heading back to finally get some rest for the night.