While at the airport we eventually met up with all the CMs for the conference and the bosses: Alicia, head of CM programs; Christine, head of Marketing & Sales; and Mike, VP of EFCB. Everyone was so excited about being there and I could tell right away this trip would be incredible...
It didn't actually hit me that we were really in Spain until we pulled out of the airport and began our first city tour with Sam enroute to the hotel. On the way he pointed out some places that we would be going and some other interesting spots.
I'll admit some of Sam's words became a blur of noise in the back of my head as I gazed out the window over looking and taking in a brand new city to me.
I was immediately drawn to the architecture and fell in love with the look of the European city I found myself immersed in and once we reached the hotel Amber and I checked into our room and then headed out for some free time about the city.
We met up with Nick, Chris, Nitza and Shakayla in the lobby and decided to take advantage of Spain and head up toward Tibadabo.
Chris and Nitza are both from Puerto Rico so it was awesome to have two Spanish speakers along for the ride. Chris was GREAT! He is nearly fluent in both Spanish and English so communication was fairly easy with him -- with the exception of some American-English slang he tried to understand (which was absolutely hilarious). He was trying to explain to us a slang word he had heard, it ended up being "FUGLY" (meaning freakin' ugly) he didn't really understand it and began to add "F" to the beginning of many english words. Such as I "FLOVE" you! To Chris meaning I "freakin' love" you! haha it was absolutely hysterical! Nitza however spoke VERY little english but her personality was so bright and joyus that we were able to communicate with her almost entirely without words. She was so funny, even in a foreign language to me.
After about 15 minutes walking up hill we boarded a "funicular" which is basically a train traveling at about 5 miles per hour up to the top of Tibadabo (Barcelona's highest hill) which is practically a mountain.
At the top of Tibadabo there is an old Catholic Cathedral adjacent to a small amusement park that we found interesting, the juxtaposition of a church and a theme park was funny to us.
(Tibadabo Cathedral and Theme Park)
The rides were unfortunately shut down, due to snow -- YES SNOW!!!! I was thrilled it being the coldest winter season in Europe in years, I was able to experience the top of Barcelona in snow, what a blessing! It was beautiful!
The view from the top of Barcelona was breathtaking - pictures will never do justice to the goosebumps that ran down my spine when I thanked God for the amazing opportunity I was being given to travel to a new and incredible place on this amazing earth!
(over-looking Barcelona)
After spending some time in the cold weather we retreated into a small cafe at the top of the hill, where I got my first Spanish "chocolatte" which might I say was very delicious and very highly reccomended next time you visit Spain.
When we decided to head back down the hill, while waiting on the funicular to come back up to get us, Shakayla and I found ourselves in front of a ridiculous circus mirror doing a dance -- clearly after such a long over night flight, jet lag, and excitement mafe us quite silly as we video taped about a minute of us making fools of ourselves in front of Spainiards and other tourists. Between that and me loosing my funicular ticket to get back down let's just say we left our mark on Tibadabo!
**To be continued...**
Great blog Jessica! Keep it coming!
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