Finnishing up Week 2

Yesterday we had our last day of language/grammar classes at the UB. Tomorrow we are leaving (early) for Leon in the region of Castilla--this is in the northwestern corner of the country. The weather is supposed to be much cooler and maybe rainy there, so that could be a nice change of pace from the constant hot and humid that we've had in Barca so far.

Last night a group of us went to a nightclub called Bikini. It is the second biggest club in Barcelona, next to the Razzmatazz (which is only three blocks from my apartment). The Bikini, however, is where more Spaniards and fewer "extranjeros" go. Most of the group went at 10:30, but following the advice of my host family I didn't head out till around midnight. This was fine, since it was still fairly empty at that time, as most Spaniards start heading to clubs around 1 or 2 am. There were three big dance rooms, each with its own DJ--one for techno, one for American and Brit hip-hop, and the other for Spanish House music. We spent most of our time in the hip-hop room. I had a lot of fun, and surprisingly met a lot of people there too. The club was open until 5am, but I took off around 4am. I had a lot of fun, but I dont think I'll be able to go back there very often at all, since the cover alone costs 18 Euro (about $28 USD).

Luckily, today is a holliday, as I mentioned in an earlier post (a holliday celebrating when Cataluna was defeated by the Spanish). This means that everything is closed, and there is no class, but fortunately also all the museums in the city are free. I went with Lexi to Montjuic (the Jewish Mountain) where there are three or four different museums. Since they all closed at 2:30, we only visited one, but it was fascinating. It is called the MNAC, or Museu Nacional D'Art de Cataluna. It has various exhibits, including Romanesque art, Gothic art, Renaissance/Baroque art, and Modern art. There are also two seasonal exhibits, but we didn't have time to see those. It was fascinating to see, especially the Romanesque and Gothic exhibits, becasuse we saw pieces that we had just talked about in our Art History class, and pieces from some of the Cathedrals and buildings that we are going to see on our upcoming trip to Leon. I will definitely be going back up to Montjuic when I get a chance, to take another look at this museum as well as to see the other museums that are close by like the Joan Miro museum (he was a surrealist artist similar to the likes of Salvador Dali).

So I just finnished lunch, and am planning a relaxing afternoon of either reading here or at the beach. We have to meet the bus tomorrow at 7:30am for the 12 hour drive to Leon. I will have another update when I get back from that trip in 5 days.

Peace.