Hasta luego, Barcelona!

We are on our way to Italy! We pulled out of Barcelona around 9pm tonight, I can’t believe how fast these last 4 days have gone! As much as I enjoyed our SAS tours of the city, I am really looking forward to doing Rome independently and on our own time. The city tours were very rushed, and we will have three full days in Rome to do whatever we want! So although I’m sad to be leaving Barcelona without seeing everything I wanted to see, I am so excited for Italy!

After getting another 4 hours of sleep last night (ahhhhh!), Steve and I were up bright and early to grab breakfast and head to the metro station. La Sagrada Familia opened at 9am, and we wanted to be at the front of the line so we had time to do other things. While waiting in line, we read that the towers were closed today. Major bummer!!!! There is an elevator that goes up to the top of one of the spires, but for some reason or another, it wasn’t operating today. We were really upset, apparently we have really bad luck with this cathedral! Anyway, we got our tickets (hooray for student discounts!) and an audio tour and set off to finally see the inside of the cathedral. The entire interior is a major construction zone, and visitors are only able to walk around along the outer walls. I was so glad we got the audio tour because it pointed out many things we would have missed. The stained glass is gorgeous from the inside! Usually the stained glass in churches depict scenes from the Bible, but the stained glass there was just a beautiful rainbow of colors representing the sun, water, earth, and fire. There were large pillars in the area I’m assuming the mass will congregate, and the pillars are made from stone from all over Spain. The seats for the choir are carved into the wall over the back door. We went to the museum in the basement of the cathedral and got to see some of Gaudi’s original sketches (most of them were lost in a fire during the Spanish civil war). There was also a “Gaudi and Nature” exhibit where we could see models of some of his architecture alongside his influences from nature. Most of his structures are actually designed after plants and natural patterns. Everything looks amazing now, I can’t wait for all of the construction to finish and to see it in its completion! Sign me up for Semester at Sea Summer 2026!

Back to the metro to catch a train to (near) Park Guell. The metro station was so far away from the park, and the park was perched atop an extremely steep hill. We finally made it to the top, turned the corner and saw the buildings and mosaics I have always seen in pictures. I battled people in order to get a picture with the famous lizard fountain! We walked around on a trail and then came to the roof of the building with the mosaic benches. We could see the entire city from up there! There were so many different places to go, but we had to start heading back because I had to attend an FDP on the ship at 1600. Along the way back to the metro station, we stopped at a little restaurant (the ONLY one open that we could find) and got personal pizzas. About 98% of the shops and restaurants in the city are closed on Sundays, basically the only places open are the touristy shops. Anyway, we made it back to the ship, I took a much-needed shower, and I went to my FDP on Doctors Without Borders in Spain. It was very informative, but the woman who spoke was a psychologist and could really only speak on mental health.

While we were watching the ship pull out of port, we asked The Voice what the latest scoop was. He said he has heard of 66 people who got pick-pocketed, and he’s estimating that about 60 more got pick-pocketed and either didn’t tell him or didn’t realize it yet. One person was sent home due to “conduct issues” and 3 guys claimed they were roofied. Several people got dock time (one guy has 36 hours of dock time!) because they couldn’t manage to make it back on the ship by 6pm, even some faculty members! Tsk tsk!

Current Location: 41 degrees N latitude, 2 degrees E longitude, traveling at 13 knots! Tomorrow we’ll be sailing between the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, hopefully we see some land!