Campeones!

I feel very lucky to be studying abroad during a season when FC Barcelona is the Champions league winner. Needless to say, witnessing the riots and celebrations that took place after the game was certainly an experience, and one of the best parts about being here for the game. I went with a group of friends to watch the game at Barcelona's Arc de Triumf. There was a large screen put up on the arc, and tens of thousands of people flocked here to watch the game together.

This is a photo of the arc, the screen, and part of the crowd. 

This portion of the crowd was behind us... 

As the sun went down, the game got more intense.

Whenever Barca scored, people set of flares, fireworks, and would throw stuff throughout the crowd. Clearly not the safest environment, but it was SO much fun.  

It felt like the entire city was bursting with excitement leading up to this game, and our group was equally excited to be there to witness it. 

After the victory, the celebration headed to Plaza Catalunya and La Rambla - The center and main part of the city. It was all out madness with people setting of fireworks in the streets (which were crawling with people), people climbing up the trees and light posts, and the unending sounds of Barca chants, blow horns, and just plain screaming. 

This is a photo of Plaza Catalunya - wall to wall with people. The game ended at about 11 pm, and these celebrations continued into the night to about 5 am. 

The rest of these photos are attempts to capture the amount of people on La Rambla. The street stretches for well over a mile from Plaza Catalunya to the port, and all you could see were people lining the streets. It was intense. 

Being here for this game, and seeing the following celebrations was really amazing. I feel real lucky that I got to experience it. 

We stayed at the celebrations for about 2 hours. One of us had a close call with a firework that was set off in the middle of the crowd, and we all decided that we should leave before things got dangerously intense. We heard that only a half hour after we left, the police began taking action, and for a few HOURS, there was a legitimate battle between the police and the Barca fans who were not ready to quit! 

You've gotta love these Spaniards for being crazy. Visca Barca!

Portugal

One of the best parts about living in Europe is the availability of many different cultures and countries being so close in proximity. A few weeks ago, two friends and I found some flights to Portugal and back for a total of 65 US dollars... we thought this was too good to pass up. Here are some photos of the city of Porto:

The first bit of sightseeing that we did was in the Porto train station... apparently this place is the location of the oldest tile murals in the country.

Porto is the second largest city in Portugal, but it didn't really feel like a big city at all. It was mostly residences and restaurants. 

Porto and the city of Guia are separated by the Douda river. the next couple photos were all taken from the bridge that connects the two cities. 

As the sun kept going down, the view kept getting better.

Guia is a much more primitive setting, and was really cool to walk through. We were told that this area does not get a lot of tourists, because most people looking for a trip to Portugal go to Lisbon. We were the only Americans that we saw while we were in this country. 

We ate in Guia, on the river with a pretty sweet view of Porto at night.

The night time view of Porto looking to the North...

And the view looking to the South.

The next day we went on a little cruise of the Douda river

After the cruise we went searching for a location to do a Port wine tasting... this lead to a pretty long walk uphill through what seemed like deserted neighborhoods. 

The view of Porto, Guia, and the Douda river from the wine storehouse. 

This is the storing house for Graham company's Port wines.

The next day we went on a canyoning adventure. Canyoning is basically hiking, but you are following a river the entire time. 

Following the river includes its waterfalls, there were times when we would repel down next to them, 

And times when we would jump off of them.

The hike took us all over a mountain, through a river, and even through an old WW2 mine. 

Besides surfing in Morocco, Canyoning in Portugal was one of the main highlights of my experiences in Europe. 

Spring Break

For spring break I went on a backpacking trip with friends. Stops included Dublin, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, and Oslo.

Edinburgh was probably my favorite because it was so scenic everywhere you looked. I met up with a friend from home who was in town on business (perfect timing), and we started off the weekend with a guided tour of the city which brought us to the following locations:

The building in the distance is the school that was J.K. Rowling's inspiration for Hogwartz in the Harry Potter books... all the books were written here in Edinburgh, and the tour included the cafe where she wrote them. 

Mallory and I in front of Edinburgh Castle.

The Castle sits on this small mountain in the very middle of the city, its a really cool view and you can see it from just about anywhere in the main city area. 

Edinburgh has lots of hills, and this one had a random cluster of really colorful houses on it. 

There were lots of little nooks and backstreets to explore. Most had courtyards in them with homes and restaurants... I thought this one was cool because it had homes, and a random orange wall. 

I was lucky enough to hear some bagpipes while in Scotland... this guy was just standing outside of a church playing. 

This street is called "The Royal Mile." It is a mile long street that stretches from Edinburgh castle to the Queen's palace. 

A photo of our tour group in one of the town squares.

A shot of Edinburgh castle at night.

The structure below is a mountain called "Arthur's Seat." When you climb to the top you can see all of Edinburgh and the surrounding area.

I couldn't stop taking pictures of the castle...

Standing on Arthur's Seat looking at the city and coast. 

Copenhagen: The reasoning for traveling to Copenhagen is kind of funny. My group and I all wanted our spring break to include some places that we might not make trips across the Atlantic to see. This ruled out the typical travel locations like Italy, France, and Greece. We thought that while we live in Europe, we should see somewhat random cities that weren't necessarily a priority for us to return to. This resulted in locations like Copenhagen and Oslo. As it turns out, Copenhagen was awesome, and I would definitely return if given the opportunity. 

This is a row of apartment buildings.

We still don't know what this building is... when we went over to it, the only people there spoke Danish, and we had a hard time putting the phrase below into google translator. 

This is a government building

Every person and book that we consulted about things to do in Copenhagen mentioned Tivoli Gardens. It is this park with rides, exhibitions, restaurants, and really cool buildings like this one.

None of us had ever been this close to a peacock before. He walked around for a while, and we waited hoping that he would show us his feathers. After a few minutes, we started imitating what we thought peacocks sounded like. Almost immediately he started walking towards us with his feathers open. I'm still not sure if he was trying to intimidate us or choose a mate... either way we ended up getting some cool shots.

After Tivoli Gardens, we just decided to do grab a map and explore. We spent hours just walking and checking out the scenery. Buildings like this one were among the coolest that we saw. 

The port of Copenhagen is what you usually find on a postcard that you would receive from someone visiting this city. It was a busy spot with lots of offices, restaurants, tourists, and locals. 

We saw lots of these guys all over the city. These two are outside one of the buildings surrounding the royal palace. 

The building with the dome shaped roof is the royal palace. Unfortunately it is surrounded by less impressive buildings on all sides which made it difficult to get a great photo.

The rest of these Copenhagen photos are just scenes from our many walks around the city. We stopped at different locations for coffee, a beer, or to just sit and talk for a while. It was definitely the most unique spring break I've ever had, and we really enjoyed Copenhagen. I would recommend it for anyone traveling around Europe. 

Oslo was another one of our "random cities to see while we live in Europe." When we did more research  on Norway, it became apparent to us that exploring the fjords (canyons made of glaciers) would be the coolest thing to explore. However, Oslo was an 11 hour train ride away from the natural fjords, so we focused on learning about some viking history and seeing all that Oslo had to offer. 

I have experienced culture shock in many different ways while living in Spain, and am used to having a language in front of me that I don't understand (Barcelona has Spanish and Catalan, a latin language based on a combination of Spanish, French, and randomness)

It felt weird to look at Norwegian and literally have no idea what was being communicated. 

This was Oslo's City Hall. It had murals on all the walls, and the doors in the back look out over the port and Oslo Fjord. 

Here we were standing in Port Oslo, the body of water behind the port is the Oslo Fjord. It was man made (not made by glaciers like the really cool fjords on the other coast of the country)

This is the fortress that sits on top of a hill over looking the port. 

This is one of the government buildings 

We took a boat tour out into the Oslo fjord, the following photos are shots from that tour.