La Catedral

 On Monday we were finally able to tour the inside of the town cathedral. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to live in a city with such an intriguing and beautiful past. Every time I walk past the cathedral I stare in awe and try to imagine what this great building would have looked like over a hundred years ago. This cathedral was built during the gothic movement in Europe and has been the center of Leon for hundreds of years.

They still hold mass in the cathedral. I'm so impressed that the cathedral is still a part of the people's everyday life. I am lucky to be able to walk past this building everyday for the next two months. 

Ciao. XX

Bar "tha" lona

As soon as I informed my host mom that I would be going to Barcelona for a weekend she said one of two things: "It's Bar "tha" lona Kaitlin" and second, "I am so jealous of you because I have lived in Spain my entire life and never visited." Needless to say, I need to work on my accent a bit and I am very lucky to have had the opportunity to visit this wonderful city. This last weekend in Barcelona was truly amazing and I have decided that it is my favorite city that I have visited thus far in Spain.

I was able to stay in Barcelona for three days and saw almost all of the tourist attractions. On Saturday some of the girls and I went to La Sagrada Familia, Parque Guell and to a few of the other Gaudi houses. 

 Inside La Sagrada Famila

 Luckily, we were smart enough to purchase tickets to go up into the tower of the La Sagrada Familia. The view is impressive isn't it? I never thought that I was scared of heights until it was time to climb down from the tower (we took an elevator up the 65m tower). The climb down consisted of a NARROW (I emphasize the word narrow) spiral staircase. My legs were trembling the entire time and I was shocked when I made it to the bottom without tripping.

  After La Sagrada Familia we stopped for lunch at a pizza place nearby. We were all craving American food and decided this would be the perfect place to stop and rest for a bit. I did not regret eating this entire mini pizza all by myself.

  After lunch we started our trek up into the hills of Barcelona to find Parque Guell, designed by Gaudi. I was exhausted by the time we reached the park, but quickly realized that it was well worth the long walk. I have to say this was my favorite stop that we made that day and I could have easily spent the entire day wandering the park and feasting on picnic food.

 Gaudi's house, turned museum. Unfortunately I did not pay to go inside of the house,  but if we had had more time to wander I definitely would have.

 View of Barcelona from the top of the Park. Sorry for the dark picture but the lighting was terrible for everyone that day.

 Downtown Barcelona there is a building known as Casa Batllo, which is another famous architectural design by Gaudi.

 View from our room in the Hostel. I can't remember the name of this odd looking building, but it sure looked beautiful at night.

Three days was not nearly enough time to spend in Barcelona. I hope that one day I can return to this beautiful city.

Chocolate & Gijón

This past week two amazing things have happened.

One, my host mom recommended a great chocolate shop/ cafe to study and it was absolutely wonderful. This may or may not be a good thing though seeing as every time I go in I consume my weight in calories. 

 Roun's strawberry ice cream!

Death by chocolate (my name for this delicious thing): crepe covered in chocolate sauce with a scoop of chocolate brownie ice cream. P.S. Chocolate in Spain is way better then chocolate in the U.S.

I also ventured out of León on Friday for the day with Roun to find some sun and the beach. It was an almost perfect 80 degree day and I fell asleep on the beach for a good few hours after we arrived to the city of Gijón. After hanging out at the beach we proceeded to wander around the city aimlessly looking for good places to shop, but we had no luck. Instead we ended up cafe hopping around town until it was time to get on the bus back home. We had a lovely day at the beach, but are still having a hard time adjusting to the fact that we cannot use our Iphone's to google map anything! Sometimes it's a little frustrating. It also doesn't help to ask people for directions here because we have no clue what any of the street names are!

 I love the little tea cups on the wall of this cafe that we found!

I love the mini muffins here! We found this great cafe in Gijón that served many yummy chocolate desserts and great tea. Gijón was the perfect combination of a relaxing getaway at the beach and a bustling Spanish city.

Ciao