On Monday, April 20 I finished my final paper for my Spanish Cinema class. That night I met up with Carlota, my Spanish friend/GA for drinks before going clubbing at Apolo. Apolo ended up being my favorite club in Barcelona. I loved the music, I loved the vibe, I thought the people were great. The only drawback is that it gets suffocatingly hot. (Like an Austin 6th street club I suppose.) But it is still my favorite! Plus, we went to Anti Karaoke beforehand, and performed Bohemian Rhapsody! Anti Karaoke is supposedly karaoke for people with talent and you have to sign up weeks in advance etc. But they let our group of five go up anyway.
Anyway I had a fantastic time Monday night and took my last final in Spanish on Tuesday. After finishing the exam, I went to the beach, but because of a mix up met with my friends just as they were leaving. So instead we ended up hanging out and playing ping pong and Uno and cards for a while. A bunch of people went on a boat cruise, but I took a nap. Tuesday night was a last night of beer pong at Travel Bar. It ended up being a very late night with a little too much party.
Wednesday was another great day of beach with really lovely weather. I went swimming in the Mediterranean off the Barceloneta beach for the first time. I also had really good stir fry that I shared with my friend Julie. That night was the farewell party put on by the CIEE program. They rented out a club called El Dorado and brought in Pizza Hut. I thought the pizza was pretty lame. Plus it was cold and gross flavors like macaroni and cheese. The coolest thing happened though. There was a photo contest with three categories: our own experience, the most artistic, and we are the sexy ones. My photo for 'we are the sexy ones' won! So I got a Barcelona 2010 calendar. Yeeeaaahh.
Thursday was the last day that everyone was together. I packed in the morning, then headed over to the beach. It was a Catalunya holiday called Día de Sant Jordi, or St. George's Day. On this day in Barcelona men give women roses and women give men books. It is sort of like Valentine's day. There were people selling roses on literally every street corner. The Rambla was completely full of book sellers and roses. It was a really cool holiday to experience.
It had been a talked-about goal all semester to swim to a huge pile of rocks off the shore, so Mickey, Mike, Austin, Willie, Joe and I finally swam out to the rocks on the last day. It was pretty great to accomplish something we'd talked about for so long. Thursday was one of the warmest days of the whole year so the water, although cold, felt great. I also got to eat the good take out stir fry again. After the beach we walked down La Rambla and saw the Sant Jordi festivities. I had left my calendar at the club the night before, so I went to La Casa, the CIEE office building, one last time to get it. I ended up having dinner a friend of mine cooked and meeting up with everyone at Travel Bar. It was fitting to have our final night at Travel Bar since we were regulars there all semester.
On Friday everyone went home, but I stayed in Barcelona to meet up with my mom, Evelyn, my aunt Julie and my cousin (sort of?) Kathleen, who arrived that morning. Their visit is the subject of the next post.
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