Taragonna

Hello everyone!!

Molly and I just got back from a small town about 2 hours away from Barcelona called Tarragona with all of the other IES students. I am trying to upload pictures on facebook as you read (or I type) but facebook is being annoying. Anyways, we arrived early on thursday morning and toured the Roman ruins that were there - Agustus Caesar lived there for a couple of years. They were really neat, but honestly - it got a little old. But it was good to soak up some ancient history! We then all split up for lunch and the group I was with ended up going to this great place where you could get a 3 course meal and a ton of wine for only 12.50 euros. Needless to say, we were a little out of it for the rest of the tour - but I think everyone else was too! Then we got to the hotel, took naps and ate dinner. For dinner we had these veal tortillas and catfish, which was pretty good, but the catfish was super salty! We then went to a bar called Highlands after. The bartenders were SO overwhelmed - there were so many IES students and of course people were being so obnoxious. But I think it was the biggest crowd that bar has ever seen - they were opening up boxes of new glasses!

On Friday, we got a wake up call at 8 AM, semi-painful, and started off the day seeing more Roman ruins. We actually just went to a quarry which was in the middle of nowhere and it was literally a big piece of stone. I understand the importance of it, but it was a little pointless. Then we visted a place called El Medol where we hung out on the beach for a while then went to go see an ancient Roman villa that was really cool but people were getting restless because it was lunchtime! So for lunch, we ate some seafood paella. Paella is a mixture of rice with vegetables and some type of meat. THEY EAT SO MUCH SEAFOOD HERE! Honestly, I haven't found a Catalan dish that I am obsessed with, but I'm sure the day will come. They served the paella with a huge shrimp on top with the head still on and the poor shrimp's eyes were staring at me when they put the plate in front of me. I let some guy eat the shrimp. After lunch, I actually laid on the beach for a while and took a 20 minute nap, haha it was very peaceful. But then we went to the Bodega, to the Torres vineyard where we took a tour of the vineyard and then finished up with a wine tasting! I bought a bottle of wine called Vina Esmeralda and a Catalan cookbook for my mom! We then went back to the hotel and I took another nap before dinner. For dinner, we ate beef with mushrooms and some potatoes au gratin which were SO GOOD! I loved them! Molly and I, along with some other girls, decided to stay in last night since our wake up call this morning was at 7 AM! So, we got up at 7 this morning and went to a tiny town outside of Tarragona called Montblanc. It was really quaint, but very pretty. We visited some medieval churches and had a really funny tour guide. He reminded me exactly of Angel Batista from the show Dexter. Then for lunch, we had seafood paella, again. But for the 2nd course we had some roasted chicken with these really mushy french fries. They were okay. But the ice cream for desert was yummy! We then headed out to the town Poblet where we visted a Cistercian monastery founded by Saint Benedictine. I actually really liked visiting the monastery since i just learned about them in my medieval art class. And it was neat to see a couple of monks - but apparently they don't want to see us because they want "nothing to do with the outside world." Makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. Well, Elena just got home and is about to serve dinner (hopefully it won't be pasta - I am carb'ed out!) But I will blog in a couple of days! Adios everyone, thanks for reading!

Moo