By Christian DeFine & Chris Laska
On Wednesday, May 17th, the main objective was to travel to Barcelona from Nimes. Overall, during the day it was relatively chill, but at night we had a great time. When we first woke up in Nimes, it was time to get breakfast. The breakfast I would say was average; that’s been a common reoccurrence unfortunately, but I wasn’t very hungry so it didn’t really matter to me. I made sure to eat some croissants, mainly because those have tasted so good here in Europe. After we ate breakfast, it was time to travel to Barcelona, the city that I was most excited to visit.
During the long bus ride, we had a successful group meeting, with Dr.Turner and Dr. Kraft, and during that meeting, they emphasized how all of us as a group need to try to and stop saying “like” so much in order to communicate better when we are presenting.
They also talked about how collectively as a group we need to make sure we put a bigger emphasis on arriving on time, because people have made the mistake of being late on this trip on several different occasions. Overall, it was a great meeting, and after the meeting it was time to get lunch.
Before we arrived in Spain, we ended up stopping halfway through the trip to stop at a pit stop, and the food we had there was really good. I had the steak along with the fries, and I will say it was delicious, and it most importantly filled me up. After we all got to chill and relax, it was time to continue our route to Barcelona, and on that route all I did was sleep. This was must needed because it did helped reenergize myself so that i was ready for the da, as long bus rides drain you both physically and mentally. After we got lunch, and on the bus ride, for the brief moments that I was up, and wasn’t sleeping, I was able to check out all of the cool sights to look at along the way, and wow were some of them beautiful.
Once we got to our hotel in Barcelona, we knew that we had a pool at our hotel, so a group of us knew it was time to go to the pool that we were dying to go to. The pool itself ended up being a little smaller than expected, but it was so nice to chill with everyone and enjoy the beautiful weather that we all got to soak in.
After we spent a couple hours around the pool, it was time to all get dinner, and as as soon as I got down to the lobby, it was cool seeing everyone all dressed in their nice clothes, because this was a special occasion. Right then and there I knew it was going to be a great night. The restaurant was fancy, the food was good, and after a small group of us all went to a bar, got some drinks and had fun time together. I can’t wait to continue to tour this beautiful city of Barcelona!
We started Thursday, May 18th by waking up at around 8:30 a.m. as we had to all meet in the hotel lobby at 9:15 a.m. After hitting snooze a boatload of times, we eventually got up and headed down to the lobby for breakfast, where I had two chocolate croissants and some tasty pineapple juice to drink. After finishing up breakfast, we walked to our tour bus and headed to CAR, or the city of Barcelona’s Olympic training center.
The tour of the center started with a presentation that was very interesting. The presentation was very informational; it gave us the history of the center, all the renovations that have been done, along with its mission and goals. The coolest part of the presentation, at least for me, is that they view the athletes more as people than athletes. For example, for the Spanish athletes they go and train for free as the center wants the best of the best, not just the richest athletes.
After the presentation was completed, we split up into 2 groups and toured the Olympic Training Center.
My favorite part of the tour was seeing the athletes train. We saw a girl’s synchronized swimming team training for an upcoming competition. We also saw the gymnastics athletes train, which was amazing to watch. At one point, the athletes were on trampolines, and the amount of height that they got just jumping on the trampolines was mesmerizing. After the tour of the CAR Center, we got back on the bus and went to the town center, where we had a little over an hour to explore and get some food before our next activity. We decided to go to the Rock Cafe, where we all got some water, and most of us got a good old Burger. The burgers were really good, and as an added bonus, the music in the restaurant was fantastic.
After lunch, we headed back on the bus and headed to the Olympic and Sports Museum, where we got to tour the Museum. At this point in the day, I estimate that at least 30% of the entire group hit a wall and were struggling to stay awake. The Museum was cool, but it was not what I was expecting. It was cool to see all the artifacts and the dresses used in the opening and closing ceremonies for the 1992 Olympics. One thing I loved about this tour was that we got to see the Olympic stadium, which is where FC Barcelona will be playing as Camp Nou is getting renovations done. After the tour, we headed to a new hotel where we had free time for the rest of the night.
We decided to head to a bar near our hotel, where we said goodbye to our tour guide Sjoerd. After this, we went to an Arabian restaurant where I decided to get the Lamb, and it was so tasty. After the restaurant, wee decided to go to this cool bar called Jamboree. This was easily one of the coolest bars I went to. All in all, this was easily one of my favorite days on this trip so far.
