Czeching Prague Out.

Last weekend I went to visit my friend Íngrid in Prague. It was such a lovely weekend and a perfect time to disconnect from the uni before the last week of classes. Lovely gardens, bridges, cobbled streets and squares welcomed us as we got the tram into town for our first day of sightseeing. We had lots of coffees in cute coffee shops to warm us up and did lots of touristy things too, such as looking at the little shops on Charles Bridge, visiting the John Lennon wall, the Castle and a trip to the national ballet (1 euro per ticket!!) to see a beautiful performance of "Cravate".

On my second day, we were walking around the centre and we found a little farmer's market. One of the stalls was selling vegetarian sweets, so we walked over and the man started speaking in Spanish straight away asking where we were from. Íngrid said Barcelona, so he changed language and told us he spoke a "miqueta" (little bit) of Catalan as he'd lived there himself, and then he helped us decide which sweet to buy by recommending his favourite. Far from the stereotype that Czech people are quite closed, this man was extremely helpful and open, and even invited us to a free lecture on vegetarianism at his vegetarian restaurant.

On my last night we went to the vegetarian restaurant for supper and as he welcomed us he asked us where we were from, and then he told us he spoke a little bit of Catalan... He obviously didn't recognise us at all, despite our long conversation the previous day, so we had a giggle before sitting down in the indian style room. He took our drinks orders, but told us he'd bring the food as it was a menu. A couple of minutes later we were presented with a soup, rice, vegetables, a small salad and a pudding each and we were told that if we were still hungry we could get refills... And all this for the less than 4 euros!! Full up, we went to pay and he gave us a short summary of his knowledge of Catalan history. We saw the sweets again by the till and decided to buy a one more each... Our dear friend said "I bet you can't guess which is my favourite".

To his surprise, we could.

Typical Czech pastry with chocolate in the middle to warm us up from the rain outside!!

Tea, Coffee, Chocolate..... 

A Bride and Groom at the Lennon wall

After the Storm... [Castelldefels]

Roadtrip: Aragon

Exams aren't too far away now, so I jumped at the opportunity when my friend Giselle invited me on a weekend away to Aragon to study. At 6pm on Friday afternoon, a minibus full of tennis racquets, food, suitcases and 7 girls set off, out of the neatly ordered grid system of Barcelona's Eixample and out onto the motorway. 3 hours later, having driven from the east to the west of Catalonia, we crossed the border into in Aragon and started driving up windy roads into the little town of Torreciudad to find the house we were going to stay in for the next couple of days. 

The main reason we went was to study, and we definitely did study! On Saturday we got up at 8am for breakfast and then did 5 hours of study before lunch. In the afternoon we headed over to the "santuario de Torreciudad" and we went on a small walk to a small church on a cliff from where we enjoyed stunning views of the lakes and the pyrenees in the distance. The beautiful colours of the water below us, the blues and turquoises reminded me of pirates of the caribbean or of Peter Pan. I'm sure the water would have been cold, but the warm blue colours of the lake made me want to jump in. 

April Showers in Ocata

The rain in Spain... Fell all weekend. 

Last weekend was campa Sed, the second GBU camp of the academic year. This time we all went away to a big house in Ocata, a 20 minute train ride up the coast from Barcelona. The rain kept us away from the beach, sheltered and warm with lots of things to do, eat yummy food, time to relax, read the Bible and time to hang out with friends.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." - Ecclesiastes 3:11