Rivers & Roads

     After traveling every weekend for the past month, I was very much looking forward to staying in Barcelona for the next two weeks. I was also very excited because my two cousins, Rosy and Lulu, were coming to visit me for thanksgiving! This was very exciting for multiple reasons, number one: I hadn't seen any of my family in over three months, number two: this was the first time I would be out of the United States for thanksgiving, and number three: This was the first vacation we had ever taken without the older generation of our family!Both of them arrived on Thanksgiving day and Rosy was only going to be in Barcelona for a grand total of three days so we really had to pack a lot into each day.
Rosy landed first, so while we were waiting for Lulu to arrive I took her on a little tour of my neighborhood and to my favorite coffee place that served large coffee's (which equal the size of a small coffee in the states)!
Once Lulu arrived we walked down to the gothic quarter for some traditional pinchos (which is tapas with toothpicks in them, and you are later charged by how many toothpicks you have). We then strolled down to Ciutadella Park, which is like the central park of Barcelona, and then down to the beach to watch the sunset. Sounds like a romantic date or something but really the timing was just good, not at all planned. Since it was Thanksgiving I had planned a fancy dinner for us. Els Quatre Gats is a restaurant that used to be a hip bohemian bar that Gaudi and Picasso used to hang out at. It is now a fairly fancy restaurant with very traditional spanish food, it seemed like the perfect place to spend out first Thanksgiving out of the United states. We ate lots of delicious jamon and drank a lovely bottle of cava.
The next day we woke up and went to one of my favorite brunch places in my neighborhood. Brunch is one thing I greatly missed from the United States. Breakfast in general is not that big of a deal in Europe, so when I found this restaurant right by my apartment I was very excited. From there we made our way over to the Sagrada Familia for a self guided tour by yours truly. I thought about buying us a guided tour but I had visited the basilica multiple times with my program and classes and had been taking a class all about Gaudi's architecture, so I felt I knew most of the main concepts and visual things to point out. But no matter what tour you get, every time you walk into that church it is an amazing experience. From here we shopped the christmas markets and somehow ended up on a gondola over the city to the olympic stadiums. Once again we somehow made it there just as the sun was going down , which made for a beautiful view of the city. For dinner we went to my favorite little tapas restaurant just a block away from my apartment where you get a free tapa with every drink! 
We were all feeling a little tired from the crazy spanish night life of the past two days, so on the third day (Rosy's last day), we slowly walked around the Boqueria on las ramblas and then slowly admired the works of Picasso at the wonderful Picasso museum tucked away in the gothic quarter. Then as a calm last night for Rosy's farewell we went and saw the band of my friends cousin play some live music in a cozy little bar. 
After Rosy left and Lulu did not do as many touristy things, I had to go to school the rest of the days and she just kind of followed me around in my everyday life in Barcelona which was kind of nice. Overall it felt like a very quick but successful trip. It was really nice to have some of my family see what my life had been like for the past three months. Rosy and Lulu took a lot more pictures than I did during this trip so I will try to add in some of their photos at a later date, but here are a few that I took while they were in Barcelona.