So my dad and his assistant were here for the past week to present an exchange program for Catalan students at CU. This meant they were mostly busy with meetings during the day, and I saw one or both of them for dinner each night. Sharon was a little bit appalled that our idea of a great dinner was a five euro kebab from a couple of Cuban men on the street so sometimes she didn't join us. But one night she got a bit of a reprieve from engineering men, and Sharon and I went to a concert at Palau de la Musica Catalana en Barri Gotic. We went to dinner beforehand and had cava (basically famous Spanish champagne) and glass-filled empanadas. I think they were supposed to be chicken, but mine actually had glass in it, so that was a fun experience that ended in a free dinner. The Palau de la Musica is immensely beautiful. We watched a man play Spanish guitar which really meant he played a lot of Bach and Vivaldi who I'm sure are both not Spanish. The ceilings and walls are covered in beautiful, geometric mosaics, and the area behind the stage is home to the muses. These are sculpted busts of women playing instruments, with their lower bodies as mosaics. I probably stared at them more than the musician.
Friday was one of their only full days off so Pa and I spent the morning roaming around Barceloneta (the harbor/beach area) and Barri Gotic. Then, we grabbed Shar and went to Sitges, a notoriously gay beach town. Found a beach with fully nude old men. And another with just the usual topless old women. Still unsure whether we enjoyed that or the water more.
Mariko and I adventured to Montserrat, a monastery/national park an hour via train outside of Barcelona. Twelve hours of conversation that physically cannot get much deeper than "Are the sidewalks in Japan like here or no?" is quite a patience building experience. I think we went on Montserrat Cheese and Fig Cake Festival Day. The one street outside the monastery was lined with people giving out free samples of cheese and these strange fig cakes that basically tasted like large amounts of fruit leather. But the cheese part was wonderful and Mariko learned of my deep reverence for that food group. The monastery itself was beautiful and pretty incredible, seeing that it's perched in the middle of these rock columns that jut out of the ground like God's fingers. I keep having this tendency of going places and forgetting to read about them and then suddenly realizing why people go there. The most famous thing is a statue of the virgin Mary and Jesus that are carved out of black wood. Apparently, the monks couldn't move this statue (which is like maybe three feet tall) so they built the monastery around it and the Black Mary is one of the patron saints of Catalunya. We ended up waiting an hour in line to see this statue. By the time I realized how long we would have to wait, we were huddled in this teeny corridor with no way out except forward, so us and all the devout Catholics got to thoroughly enjoy one stained glass window every ten feet and some pretty mosaics. The better part of the park is the hiking above the monastery. I initiated Mariko on what I think was her first hike/extended period of movement. We climbed a couple hundred disintegrating stairs up to a path in the mountains that wound past little hermitages, climbing areas, and gorgeous views. The day was perfectly clear and we could see both the Pyrenees and the islands off the coast. We stopped every twenty steps to take a break, and Mariko would panic every time we approached a place with a slope of greater that 0.0001 degrees. I feel a teeny bit bad because every day since she's dissolved into laughter about her "dolor de mis musculos" (muscle pain) and shock over me adamantly still taking the stairs. On the way back, we sat amongst a group of little old ladies who fed us Montserrat caramels and cackled hysterically every time I tried to say something to them. 
When we got back to Barcelona we happened upon the Medieval Festival, which pretty much had nothing to do with Medieval times except for a few of the vendors were wearing assorted cloth that I assume were their costumes. This again was a plethora of free aged cheese samples and pastries of every color and size and my heart's song of street food. So that was wonderful, and I legitimately planned my Sunday around going back to eat the food again after church.
Sunday I went to church after having to explain to Mariko that she was welcome to come but it wasn't an "iglesia" that you go visit to take pictures. I didn't want her to get the wrong impression, because spending two hours in a basement singing with strangers probably isn't a tourist attraction. But we met up later with our roommates to spend the afternoon going to free museums around the city including the Palau Guell (one of Gaudi's famous constructions) and the Museo Picasso.
I have my first test Thursday and received my second every homework assignment that is "optional." I completely do not understand how school functions here. And, this week I learned that the engineering program used to be NINE YEARS because they had a course pass rate of like negative six percent. I can't imagine how long the PhD program must have taken.
Next post may be full of international adventures. Got one planned for tomorrow and another next week.
Love,
Allie
PS. In other news. Received my first letter from my dearest friend Michallynn today. So she'll be receiving a Spain Souv. Anyone else?
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