Beautiful day

Great day today in the middle 60s. We ended up taking our paddles to class and heading to the park right after our 11 am lecture. We got a few games in and headed to the beloved Jaume I stop to grab some bagels before class.

As I am typing, I am watching the opening ceremonies of the barcelona 1992 olympics for the 2nd time today.

Museums

The last week has been extremely busy! I had a final in my International Strategic Management class and it went very well. I am incredibly happy to have that class over with since it was so late in the evening on Monday and Wednesday.

During the week I went to quite a few museums.Last Tuesday I went to the CosmoCaixa science museum. We have to write up a marketing proposal for any cultural attraction so we figured it'd be a good idea to pick one in Barcelona and check it out. It's pretty funny, the Spaniards really talk up this museum, but honestly wasn't that great. They had a pretty cool Dinosaurs and evolution section, a physics area, a sea tank with cat fish and turtles, and lastly they have a section for how the human brain works.

Like I said the museum was ok. They had english write ups for each station so were able to get the whole feel for the museum. There just wasn't that many interactive learning experiences like there is at the science museum in Arizona. There were so many little kids on here too; I felt the museum could have done a lot better job creating hands on learning games.

The next museum I went to was for my Past and Present class. I basically just have to give a report on a museum, so I ended up choosing the Design museum. A little gay sounding at first, however I was really interested in checking out the 3d printed objects and their lab where the 3d architecture and printing occurs. Needless to say, the exhibit was really cool and I was able to watch how these things are made and designed. Being American and "clueless" can get you into a lot of places because Spaniards just think we don't know any better. So I wondered past the ropes and into their lab and at one point was behind a guy designing an action figure that will be printed in 3D. He spoke a little english and obviously said I wasn't supposed to be back here, but I told him how interesting I thought it was and he actually walked me through the basic process, which was awesome!

The other exhibits there were kind of lame, one was a room that had a bunch of fashion tips on what to wear in the 1970s or some crap. The next one was somewhat interesting, just because the idea behind it was so out there. It was a save the environment exhibition. I'll sum it up with one idea that was in the exhibit: Basically, this person wanted to put cows onto a pasteurized ship and they will travel around our earth in the sky freeing our lands from them...Ridiculous

The next place we went was CaixaForum for my class Marketing Cultural Heritage. It had pretty dull exhibitions. One was an art museum filled with famous communists and kind of told a story about the history of communism. The other exhibition was really interesting though. It was a combination of documentary interviews turned into movies. It was crazy to see the production from square 1. They tied in every interview into the movie in someway. It really made you think and I liked that -- it was a big change of pace from the communist art exhibition.

As for the weekend, we enjoyed a lot of sunny days at the beach and a significant amount of ping pong. Having a beautiful park and an endless amount of tables less than 10 minutes away is incredibly nice. You all would be proud of how often I go out and do things here!

The weekend

Very relaxed weekend; I have just been enjoying the sun of Barcelona. On Friday and Saturday we went and hung out at the beach the majority of the day. After the beach, we went and played some ping pong at the nearby park tables. Today I am planning on going to the Design museum -- which has full 3d printed objects -- so it should be pretty interesting!

Montjuich

It was an incredibly nice day yesterday so we headed to another Mountain to check it out. We have now successfully gone to the 3 largest mountains in Spain. This one is called MontJuich. It is beautiful mountain that has a big park leading up the mountain and then at the very top there is a castle. So we went and walked through the castle then hung out in the park for a little bit.

It was really cool because we were able to take a Gondola up to the top of the mountain and see the beautiful views. It was a really quick ride -- I really wish it would have been longer or lasted longer since the view was so nice.

I also picked up some ping pong paddles and balls yesterday. We wanted to hit the courts at the park near us but it is pretty rainy today so we will have to wait for another day.

Sitting in class right now learning about the past and present of Barcelona. Good times!

London

Day 1

I got in about middle of the day and took a tram from London City airport to Russell Square, which was where our hostel was located. I checked in threw my stuff down and immediately started walking around the city. Getting hungry, I stopped in at a burrito place called Adobe since I hadn't had a decent burrito in forever. This place was incredibly good. It started getting later so I went back to the hostel to find Dave who should be at the hostel. I meet up with Dave and we go out grab some food and head to the pubs.

Later that night arriving back at the hostel around 2. Our room was an 18 person room mind you. We walk into our room to lay down, music is blasting from some kids bunk. Other kids are up chatting, lights are on. We decide that no way we would be able to sleep and be able to see the city. We immediately check out and cancel our reservations for the rest of the upcoming nights. Across the street we find a hotel at almost the same price for the night.

Day 2

We checkout of the Lionsdale hotel and head out for a good English breakfast. We landed at Fullers Pub, since others had said they have good food. Each of us order this breakfast pie -- it was absolutely horrible. The only decent thing was "the chips" aka huge potato style french fries.

Since we didn't have a hotel for the next nights, we walked around Russell Square asking for all the prices. We roam around for a good hour and can't find anything. We finally stumble upon The Beaumont Hotel. It looked pretty nice we but took our chances. Fortunately for us, they were able to cut us a deal and were able to book an nice room for the remainder of our trip, as well as complimentary breakfast.

Next, we saw the London Eye -- this is basically a big enclosed ferris wheel right on the water that overlooks all of London. It took about 20-25 minutes to go on and was completely worth it we got some great pictures from up there.

After that we hunted down the only Chipotle in Europe. It was probably one of the best meals I have had while abroad.

The rest of the day we walked around and got acquainted with the city -- making stops at Big Ben, Parliament, and St. Paul's Cathedral.

Day 3

Today was changing of the guards. So we went to Buckingham Palace to see it take place. We had decent seating for it and were able to actually march behind the guards for a little -- it reminded me a lot of the Wisconsin marching band marching to the Humanities building. After they changed, they started playing movie classics like 007 and Star Wars on their instruments.

We then went to Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. The Tower of London was pretty weird since so many people have been beheaded there. A funny note about the Tower Bridge, apparently many get it confused with the London Bridge. There are actually 2 London Bridges. The one in London, is right across from the Tower Bridge, and the other one is located in Lake Havasu, Arizona.

Next, we went to Harrods which is a gigantic store with literally anything you could ever buy. Everything from clothes, to sports, dogs, art, furniture, food, and much more. It was pretty crazy walking around there. While we were there we had some of the best milkshakes known to man.

Day 4

We went and checked out the National Museum, which was incredibly interesting since they had so many artifacts from many different cultures. After that we went on a bus tour the rest of the day and got off at a lot of stops to take pictures and warm up. It was pretty cold, but we toughed it out and sat on top. The bus tour was awesome -- it took us literally everywhere we would want to see, as well as some good information behind everything. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Day 5

Woke up and headed to the airport for my flight home.

Overall, London was great and definitely one of the better cities I have gone too. One complaint I have is there Metro system or "underground" as they call it. It is way too small and takes so much time to get onto each train. Not to mention it is about $3.50 per ride, which is incredibly expensive, just like the rest of the city. Another last thought, is that I really didn't feel like I was in America at all like I thought I would have. Many people living there do not speak english, nor were english. I was pretty surprised about this.

London

After I finish these midterms I will be heading to London for the week. We have Friday and Monday off from school due to some Carnival like an hour away from Barcelona. We thought it'd be a good idea to travel during this time. Looking forward to seeing London, it is a place I have always wanted to go, but haven't been to.

School and Amsterdam

Sorry guys! I have been very busy studying for midterms. I had one last Thursday for International Strategic Management -- it was pretty tough. I then had 4 midterms today! I have taken 3 so far and all have went pretty well. I am waiting to take my last one which is in 2 hours, but should be pretty easy.

Anyways, Amsterdam was incredible. I was not expecting what we saw. I was expecting a more run down city. Possibly because everything is legal there, so I was expecting it to be shady, but it wasn't at all -- actually the exact opposite.

Amsterdam looks a lot like it is right out of a movie. Every street I turned on to I felt like I was walking straight through Hollywood. It is incredibly beautiful, especially when you walk over the canals. What was crazy about Amsterdam is that everyone rides bikes -- it is the most biked place in the world. We almost got ran over quite a few times, but by Saturday we were good to go and understood it was actually necessary to respect bikers.

We went February 18-20th -- ended up staying at a nice hotel located in the Leidseplein district. This was right in the middle of where we wanted to be. The Van Gogh museum, "I AM AMSTERDAM" sign, and Heineken factory were all within walking distance (15 min or so). We were conveniently located next to all of the big bars as well.

The Red Light District was unlike anything I have ever seen before. All of these girls were just sitting in the windows awaiting customers. What I found interesting though is that it seems like many of the Dutch people must not demean the profession. The two times we walked down the street there were a ton of children on the street, as well as old couples. The old couples seemed as if they were evaluating each prostitute