Costa Brava

Our program organized a weekend trip for us to Costa Brava. For those of you who don't know, Costa Brava is a coastal region of northeastern Catalonia, Spain. It's known mostly as a tourist and holiday location.

Friday at 1:15 pm we all piled onto a bus and headed to Figueres. The town is the birthplace of artist Salvador Dalí, and houses the Teatre-Museu Gala Salvador Dalí, a large museum designed by Dalí himself. We spent about two hours in the museum. Usually I prefer to wander museums on my own, but I was glad we had a tour guide because I know nothing about art and she pointed out a lot of things I would have missed.

After the museum, we hopped back onto the bus for another hour and half ride to Besalú. We had about an hour of free time to do whatever we would like. I think my friends found it boring, but I'm the kind of person who loves just walking and looking at all the buildings. There's something about tiny, old side streets that whisper history and hide secrets of olden days. There was literally one bridge to get in and out of the town. How can you not find this incredible? It looks like a town inside a castle!

We drove another hour to Palamós, where we stayed for two nights. The hotel was beautiful, sparkling clean with incredible views:

We had enough time to change and make it back downstairs for dinner. I had some icy cold gazpacho and some unidentifiable but still delicious white fish. We had no idea they were going to bring us dessert like this though:

Legit fruit. It was an interesting dessert trying to peel and eat these while still being neat.

We were all exhausted after dinner so we went to bed around 11pm. Two of the girls went out and didn't return until the following morning.

The next morning we had a buffet breakfast in the dining room. It was probably the best part of the hotel! Tons of bread, cereal, hot and cold things, fruit... They sure do love their Nutella here! We knew we had a two hour hike ahead of us so we all loaded up. The two hour "walk" was not in fact a walk, but a hike. Like last time, they claimed it to be a stroll when in reality, it involved climbing lots of stairs and hills.

We passed a wedding on our hike! It was so intimate and beautiful!

Can you imagine getting married with a view like that?

We spent two hours at the beach and then headed back to the hotel. Some went kayaking, most of us stayed on the beach. A couple of my friends went hiking some more and found a really cool underwater cave after they dove off some rocks.

When we got back to the hotel, we had a few hours to shower, etc. before we needed to meet up to go to the cooking workshop. The cooking workshop, we were informed, was not like our cooking class. We would be fed a little, but not a full meal. We would also not be doing any of the cooking. Everyone was pretty sunburnt and tired, but we were not prepared for this though.
We stood in a dark back room with a glass window that overlooked some room with rows of chairs and a conveyer belt. It reeked of fish and other dead sea creatures. It was horrible. We were then forced to watch a ten minute video in which they showed the process of cleaning fish and preparing them to be eaten. Appetites were increasing by the second. The only interesting thing I learned from that video was that all fishing boats that go out from the Palamós port are allowed to leave at seven in the morning and must be back in port again by six in the evening. Only about thirty-six boats are allowed to fish; this is how they control the amount of fish caught. Each boat has the equivalent of an airplane's "Black Box", so the government in Madrid can ensure all boats are where they say they are, when they're supposed to be.
We were then led into a dining hall and two chefs began to explain how they prepare meals. They explained the ingredients and why they use them. We were given several different mini courses to try. I was willing to try all but the last dish, especially after the chef was waggling around a dead squid in front of us. I couldn't bring myself to ignore the suction cups:

Nope. Couldn't do it.

After the workshop, we were given the choice of visiting the fishing museum or going off on our own. My friends and I decided to head back and rest up before going out for the night. I took about a half hour nap and went down to find my friends around 10:30. Melissa was not ready (as predicted) and was not ready to go until midnight when we literally dragged her out the door. Molly was asleep but managed to get ready in five minutes; Ali and Karli never showed up because they fell asleep in their own rooms. Melissa, Molly and I went to one of the six bars Palamós has and met up with a lot the other kids from our program. We stayed out until about 4:30 and then crashed in our hotel rooms.
The next morning we had another wonderful breakfast and piled back on the bus. Girona was hot but really beautiful. The old cathedral (which we were not allowed to photograph inside of) had beautiful vaulted ceilings with stained glass windows and stone statues.

After another hour and half bus ride, with an infinite number of twists and turns, we reached Montserrat. We were all feeling a little dizzy and nauseous after all those turns. I had a minor panic attack; I looked out the back window of the bus, I could not see the ground or the small stone wall behind the bus so I suddenly had the feeling that we were going to fall off the edge of the mountain. It went something like, "GET ME OFF THIS TIN BOX!" We had about an hour of free time. We wandered and got gelato, but not before seeing the incredible views from this small town perched atop the mountain: