A Field Trip, Good Food, & Ice Skating

My International Relations professor is amazing. He took us on a field trip today instead of having a regular class. I never thought I would get to take a field trip in college.

In Spanish Life and Culture, we learned about the Spanish Civil War. We've been learning about bombs and nuclear weaponry in International Relations. So to combine the topics my professor took us to Bomb Shelter #307. It is one of the only bomb shelters open to the public here in Barcelona.

During the Spanish Civil War, Barcelona was bombed continuously by Franco's army. The city could only finance 25 bomb shelters so the citizens of Barcelona built their own. By the end of the Civil War, there were about 1,000 bomb shelters throughout Barcelona. This shelter was built to hold 2,000 people and is one of the bigger shelters from that time. It is at the base of Montjuic. While building it, they discovered a spring. Taking advantage of this, they put in toilets and sinks that ran off of this water.

Our tour guide told us that they get visitors all the time who used this shelter during the war. This tour made all that I've learned about bombs and the Spanish Civil War have even more of an impact on me. People had to leave their homes in the middle of the night to rush to these shelters in hope that it would keep them alive. The worst bomb raid was a period when Barcelona was bombed for 3 days straight. People did not leave the bomb shelters for 3 days. 

From interviews with people who were in the shelters during this time say the worst part was not being in the shelter but not knowing what was going on outside and what would it look like once they left. This was one amazing field trip and I hope I get to have more field trips like this in college. I probably won't but I can hope!

My Pintxos from one of the restaurants

As pointed out by my professor, a few blocks down from the shelter there is a street lined with €1 Pintxos restaurants. Pintxos are like Tapas but the Basque version. Brett, Ariel, Nora, Daniel and I decided to go after the tour for lunch. We went to 2 different places to try their Pintxos. Oh my gosh they were good. Who doesn't love cheap, delicious food?!? After Pintxos we got Gelato as a treat. I'm not really sure what the flavor I got was but it was delicious.

We all got on the metro to head our separate ways. I had to go back to school to take a Spanish test. My wonderful Spanish professor let me take our final Spanish test today instead of yesterday because I wasn't in class on Monday when she talked about it. I also didn't find out about the test until right before class on Wednesday so I'm very thankful she let me take it today. I studied yesterday after class and today. I think I did really well. Fingers crossed!

I quickly went home and changed to go ice skating! I've been so excited to go since I signed up a month ago. I went with a large group from my school. There were at least 70 people if not more. It is usually held in Plaça Catalunya, but with the what has happened in the past few weeks they moved it to a less popular location and indoors. Non the less it was still so much fun! It made me miss ice skating in Union Square. I hope it's still open when I get back.

Most of us stayed till closing at 9:00 pm. I turned in my skates and was about to head home when I saw the girls who live downstairs. I asked them if they were going home. They said no because they were going to get food and invited me to join them. I hadn't eaten yet so I accepted the invitation.

We went to a poplar place called Wok to Walk. Almost everyone at our school has been talking about it and I had yet to try it. I told them and they were shocked yet excited to be taking me for my first time. There was a lot of hype for this food and it thankfully lived up to it. It's a build your own noodle dish place. You choose your noodles, toppings, and sauce. I got Udon noodles with vegetables, an egg, pineapple, and sweet and sour sauce. It was the best noodles I've had this whole trip. I'm very impressed as most places with this much hype aren't usually good.

To end this great day and I'm sitting cozily with a blanket on my couch, drinking tea and listening to music. It has really been a great day. Oh, and I'm wearing my Ravenclaw socks today and any day in these bad boys is a good day all on its own.