Lo siento

I'm sorry for not keeping you posted and sharing with you at least some details of my current life here in Barcelona.
Since almost 2 months I already live here in Barcelona. Already? Only? I'm confused myself and don't know whether I should be happy about not even recognizing how fast time goes by or rather being sad about it.

A lot has happened in the last couples of weeks.
I guess the latest news comes first: On May 1st. I''m moving out of my old flat and into another shared apartment, 2 blocks away from Sagrada Familia, 3 other girls (France, Peru, Germany) all my age and well, I'm curious how it's gonna work out :)
I'm considering to move out since quite a time, because the actual situation is/was just not what I expected and how I imagine living in Barcelona and I don't want my (not so good) "shared-flat-experience" affecting my time here in Barca. The reasons I move out, actually are not as grave as some might think, but there are many little reasons, acumulated resulting in a state in which I'm not as happy as, I think, I could be. Still, it wasn't an easy decision, with pros and cons on both sides. But in the end I made a decision and I will see how it will turn out.

The next nice fact of april was, that my dad and his girlfriend came to Barcelona to visit me.
Unfortunately, during the week I had to work 'til 6/7pm but we always met for dinner and had a great time.
Friday evening, we went to a classic spanish guitar concert en el Palau de la Musica. What is a excessivelly overloaded concert hall in which the 4 guitarists looked slightly lost. But the music was wonderful and seeing 4 people playing "Bolero" on one guitar was sth. I've never seen bevore.

Saturday we went up all the way to the top of Montjuic, Barcelonas most famous hill.
From there you have a gorgeous view of the harbor and surroundings of Barcelona. ( I even could see the snow covered mountain peaks of the Pyrenees) On your way down you are passing by the Olympic Stadion and last but not least, the impressive Palau Nacional, which houses the National Art Museum.

Estadi Olimpíc

Palau Nacional

Spontaneous as we are, Saturday late afternoon, we decided to take the car (yes they took the car and did a little roadtrip, Germany-France-Barcelona)
and go to Sitges, a "little" town appr. 40km out of Barcelona.
I expected sth like a sleepy fishing village, but it turned out to be as touristic as, I guess, every place at the costa brava.

So we just strolled along the beach, ate ice cream and when it got cold we went back to big Barcelona.

stone coast

 1. mediterranean steps

Pascua en Madrid

Is there a better way to spend the long Easter Weekend but to visit Spains capital: Madrid?
Nope :)
Comparing all the options how to get to Madrid I came to the conclusion that taking the plane (oneway) would be the cheapest and fastest one: ~ 50€
Leaving Barcelona at 11 am, 23° ... arriving in Madrid: shower and 11°. I better should have missed my flight.
Luckily a few days before we left, we found a guy, Carlos, on couchsurfing.com who offered to host us for the entire 3 days.
For the ones who don't know what couchsurfing is:
It's a network for travelers, where you can send "couchrequests" if you go somewhere and need a place to stay. In return you offer your couch for free to other travelers.
And when you are lucky, you get free acommodation and meet cool local people who can show you around.
That's how lucky we were :)

So we spent the next 3 days in Madrid.
Madrid is quite nice and the center can easily be explored walking. The old town's a maze of many tiny crooked streets hidden behind grandiose historical building and cathedrals.
Cafés and tapas bars everywhere.
The challenge of the weekend was to fight the growing lack of sleep and force ourselves to get up and do, at least some sightseeing...which can be hard if you spend all night dancing and clubbing until 7am!

Parque del Rito

Saturday was by far the best and sunniest day and after doing some sightseeing: Puerta del Sol, Plaza España, Palacio Real y Almudena Catedral, we made use of the good weather, bought bread, salmon and guacamole and had picnic in el Parque del Retiro.

Picnic

Linda and our 2 hosts Carlos y Chimo

Strolling around and enjoying the relaxed spanish way of life, this is how we spent the rest of the day.
Coming back to Carlos place, hungry and tired, they were already awaiting us, to go out and celebrate Carlos Birthday, which was Sunday.
Well, that's what we did...it was a fun night, although Linda can't  remember it anymore.
Dinner, the spanish way, at 11:30pm.

Huevos rotos, Tapas

Sunday we slept in til 1pm, but didn't miss a thing. 
It was pouring buckets :(
But nevertheless we managed to pull ourselves together and made it to El Museo de la Reina Sofia, where one of Picassos most famous pictures " Guernica" is exhibited. Picasso painted it in response to the bombing of Guernica, a small village in northern Spain, by German and Italian warplanes. 3.5 meters tall and 7.8 meters wide, standing in front of it, it's impressive and depressing at the same time. It shows the tragedies of war and the suffering of particularly innocent civilians.