Well fall break is over with, I'm back from Spain and bored until classes start again tomorrow.

Break was awesome though and I got to see some really sweet stuff. The first stop was Barcelona, we show up at 1am in the rain and almost get lost finding the hostel. The next day we start off the adventure with a stop to an Architecture Mecca, the Barcelona Pavilion.



Spent at least an hour there wandering around, and then browsing through all the books in the gift shop/bookstore. After that we headed to a Contemporary art museum buy Richard Meier.



It was pretty cool, his usual totally washed out whiteness but with some interesting details and such(wow I better get off this description kick or else this journal is gonna be really boring...) After that we did the Gaudi circuit. This was definatly some of the best architecture I've seen close up.



It's amazing to think that all of his stuff was designed in the late 19th to early 20th century, and with the Sagrada Familia church is still being built!



The Next day was spent traveling to Madrid. I gotta say the hostel we stayed at there, Cat's Hostel, was definatly one of the sweetest places ever. The building itself was awesome, great atmosphere, great people, and great bar in the basement where you can buy a liter of beer for 3.50 euros. The rest of the time in Madrid wasn't too crazy, the Prado museum was closed so we wandered around the city for a bit through some huge park.



Finally we ended at the Reina Sophia(dunno about that spelling) Museum and saw their amazing collection, including some awesome photography, Picasso, Dali, and others.



Then we were off on a night train to Bilbao, we got there around 8am the next morning and wandered around the city for almost 2 hours trying to find the hostel, which turned out to be more like a budget hotel that was a mile away from the city, it was a really nice hotel for the price though just not what I was expecting.



Bilboa was pretty sweet we went to the Guggenheim Museum there by Frank Ghery(obviously) to see a traveling exhibit of American art from over the past 300 years, ironic huh? goto Bilbao to see American art. But whatever they had so many famous pieces that I've studied in varies classes that it was almost surreal to see them all. After that we went down the river a bit and saw a pedestrian bridge by Calatrava, cool bridge but has slightly fall victim to poor maintenance and upkeep.



Then we ended up spending another day in Bilbao, quick note: don't spend more than one day in Bilbao, there's nothing else to do besides hang out around the Guggenheim and watch people play with the fountain. After that we flew back to Barcelona, spent the night in the airport, went to the beach, and then flew back to Florence.

Great trip, lots of fun, no more money left though, but overall I am really happy about it.