My life on Instagram

(Mostly) Instagram pictures from the past month and a half:)

Polina & I in Barcelona

 UCL Law Library

 Main entrance of UCL

 Pretty close:)

Tower Bridge & HMS Belfast 

 Reading outside in a small park

 Walking through Hyde Park on a pretty day:) 

 DUCKIES. Although I'm not sure if that's a duck...

 Laura's 21st birthday!

New skincare products

My friend at Hyde Park

BARCELONA Part 2

This has been a longgg time coming because of the 4 week break I took to study for my test & it's going to be super picture dense again sorry!

So after we did sightseeing at the Sagrada Familia (see Barcelona Part 1) and hung at at the hostel, we passed out for the night and woke up pretty early on Saturday to keep sightseeing. We went to Parc Guell first & saw more of Gaudi's creations :) Tip for going to Parc Guell... figure out how to get there well ahead of time and don't be like us & climb these steep hills (think SF but definitely worse). There was an official entrance somewhere with a series of escalators that takes you to the top but we trekked it to the top, oops. We also got lost and a nice old Spanish man directed/led/took us to it also. If you're like me, either let your friends do all the talking or just keep repeating Parc Guell until they understand you're lost:)

 Gaudi's home in the middle of Parc Guell

 bathroom in his house, designed by him.. isn't it so pretty?

 a baby cradle!

 designs on the ceiling

 this tunnel was right behind his house! 

 the parc sits on top of a hill so it kind of overlooks the city-- if you climb to the top apparently the view is spectacular but prepare for San Francisco like hills to climb

 Then we found this band that was playing! They were SO FUN & really good and we actually ended up buying their CD. They were probably the highlight of my visit to Parc Guell

 very foresty

 zebras.. I thought they were cool at the time haha

 THE ESCALATORS!! of course we find them while going down... also something that was interesting about Barcelona was that they always had up escalators but usually no down escalators & only stairs for going down. I mean it makes sense but its the only city I've seen it implemented so widely (subways/stores/tourist attractions)

After Parc Guell we went to the beach and had paella by the beach and then laid out/napped on the beach. The 3 of us literally passed out on some towels and it was amazing. In late March it was warm enough to be laying out but still too cold to be wearing swimsuits so sooo many people were out laying out.

 seafood paella!

 then we walked by a sand castle competition by the boardwalk

yep, that's a fire

this little spigot actually had water running out of it

the dragon actually breathed fire!

We had sangria at a restaurant on the beach, said goodbye & headed back to Polina's apartment. We went out again that night to Razmataz and we got back around 5 AM. I packed, slept for an hour or so & then at 7 AM headed to the airport to fly back to London. So far, Barcelona has been my favorite city and I would love, love, love to come back again sometime

BARCELONA part 1

so this is realllly late since I went to Barcelona March 12th-16th but it was by far the best place I've been to so far & I wanted to upload pics

I took an afternoon flight out to Barcelona on Wednesday and came back Sunday morning so I would have a hope of working on a paper I had due on Monday. When I got into Barcelona, I took a bus to Placa de Catalunya and Polina met me there. We got tapas (patatas bravas, best thing ever) and then took the subway to her apartment. Her apartment had an extra room so I stayed there and the next morning she went to school early and I walked to her school in the early afternoon.

We spent a couple of hours between her classes going shopping around Catalunya and then we briefly ducked into La Boqueria, which is the best place ever

 1 euro fruit cups and fresh juices-- I got a minimum of 2 juices everytime we came back to the Boqueria 

 dried fruits and nuts

 fresh fruits that were SO CHEAP

 candies

 JUICES

 towers of strawberries. coming from London where fruit is expensive AF, seeing these were AMAZING

 hunks of cured meat

 also so much seafood

 GIANT crabs & sea urchins

 LOBSTERS... one tried to attack me

 A SNOUT. THAT IS A SNOUT.

 Tongues, bulls balls

 brains & HEADS. COW HEADS

eggs are so much cheaper than in london :(

So on Thursday, after the Boqueria, Polina went back to class and I stayed at her lounge thing at her school and did some work. After, we just went back to her apartment and got dinner at a Greek place with her roommates and went out to Bling Bling. 

They eat dinner SO LATE in Barca.. like 9 pm is normal and even at midnight you see people still at restaurants eating or hanging out after a meal. So that's about when we went and after we went to a bar that was about 3 euro & you could add as much alcohol as you want. Also, chupitos. I didn't bring my phone out with me cuz I didn't want it to get stolen, but CHUPITOS and the flaming shots. It was sooo cool, the entire bar was blacklighted and we got an Australian and an American to buy us more sugary shots. We also saw some weird guys get the "Monica Lewinsky" and.... just do it, if you go to chupitos :)

On Friday, we met up with one of Polina's roommates friends, who was also in Barcelona visiting. Her roommate went out of town for a day and a half and so she went sightseeing with us. We had brunch at this cute place and the food was amazing

Then we saw Casa Batllo, which is one of Gaudi's manyyyyy houses/architectural pieces in Barcelona

 the back of the house

front

and thennn we went to the Sagrada Familia, which is this huge Catholic cathedral that Gaudi also built

 he died during the middle of Construction, so they're still constructing now

 we walked out of the subway station and we were like wait... where is it... and then we turned around and saw this haha

 not too sure which side was the front or back but this was one side...

 the inside was HUGE

 artwork on the other side of the cathedral, it's so different than the first side

 me and Polina bought tower tickets and so we went up into the spirals of the cathedral. these are some of the views from outside and from the windows inside

 looking down

 narrow spiral staircase in the towers

 view outside

 a staircase that took us back down and it was in the shape of a sea shell :)

 more art

 a model of what it's supposed to look like when its finished

 the ceiling

 us 3

 more ceiling

After Sagrada, we headed back to Ella's hostel, where she was staying for that one night and went out to dinner after. Then we also went to a sangria making night that the hostel was hosting and talked to some of the other people that were staying there & also the staff. STAY AT SANT JORDI HOSTELS if you go to Barca!!! The hostel is soooo clean, the rooms are nice, there are computers in the lobby with free internet, and the staff is awesome. The one we were at was in Gracia. Stay there :) Heck, me and Polina had a nice apartment to go back to and we wanted to stay at that hostel with Ella.

sangria!

Daylights savings just happened here and we just bumped up an hour so.. Part 2 later:)