Semester at Sea | Valencia & Barcelona, Spain

I have been putting off writing the rest of my Semester at Sea posts since I got home. I like to say it’s because I’ve been too busy, but the truth is: I miss it a ton and it’s hard sometimes to look back at all of my photos and read in my journal and not get sad. Post-SAS depression is a real thing, but I think I’m on the mend. 🙂

Many of my Semester at Sea blog posts have already been composed, so I’m going to leave them as-is when I post them because I wrote them when the details were fresh in my mind and included where we were at when I was writing. 🙂 I am SO happy that I took very detailed journal entries every day so that I could look back on these memories and continue to match the photos with my experiences without forgetting any details. I was still blogging – just the old fashioned pen & paper way. 😉 So, here’s the Spain post, our last port in Europe before we ventured to Africa!

We’ve been to two cities in Spain and two countries in Africa and crossed the Atlantic Ocean since my last post! It’s been a great few weeks of exploring very different cultures as well as getting some time to bond as a community aboard the ship. While we traveled through Europe we had so few days between ports so it was more difficult to catch up with and see everyone – not to mention trying to build on material in class! When you only have one or two classes before leaving for four or five days it’s a bit more difficult to keep up with all of the concepts. We did have our midterms on this stretch across the ocean and I’m happy to say that they all went really well. 🙂

Spain was the exact opposite of Greece for me. I was expecting it to be amazing and it definitely was! We spent two days in Valencia and three in Barcelona and both of the cities were incredible. The architecture, the people, the weather, the food – everything we experienced was wonderful. 🙂

I had a field lab for Managerial Finance on our first day in Valencia and that was quite the adventure! We began the day touring the Valencia Stock Exchange that used to be an old palace. We weren’t allowed to take any photos of the inside of the stock exchange but it was such a unique space. I have never been to Wall Street or anything like that so being able to actually see a stock exchange in another country was a really cool experience! There was a group of four elderly men dressed to the nines who sat and watched the ticker tape for the entire two hours we were there and they spoke in very fast Spanish with passionate hand gestures to each other. It was quite funny to watch. 🙂

The second part of our field lab was a scavenger hunt. We had to find as many of the businesses from the stock exchange as possible in the city and take a picture of them as well as interview a consumer for extra points. Sound a little difficult? It was! But it was also really fun and we had such a great time getting lost in the city. All of the businesses we found were exclusively Spanish so sometimes they were tucked in random alleys or hidden between bigger stores. The competition was fierce because the top two teams got to get an automatic 100% on quizzes. First place got to omit two quizzes and second place one. My team got second! 🙂

While we were still in Valencia we went to the Oceanogràfic – the largest aquarium in Europe, and ate at Ernest Hemingway’s favorite restaurant, La Pepica. We had a traditional Spanish dish, paella, and dined on the beach. The whole Voyage I had been dying to do photoshoots with all of my new friends, but since a lot of them had made plans to travel in port before they got on the ship it was pretty difficult. However, my beautiful friend Erin didn’t have any plans our last day in Valencia so after we ate at La Pepica we ventured onto the beach to do a quick shoot, and I love the way the photos turned out! I told Erin that the things I would remember most about her is her mane of wild, curly hair and her contagious laugh. She is one of the sweetest, most genuine, beautiful – inside and out – people that I know and I am so thankful to have met her!

After we finished our photoshoot we walked back to the ship and got ready to leave for Barcelona! One of the highlights of Barcelona was getting to go to a Barca game! I have never followed professional soccer, but Nathan was really pumped about it, and there were tons of SAS students that went. 🙂 We had so much fun! Luckily, Barcelona won so we didn’t have to worry about any rioting happening after. 😉

Barcelona is a city I could see myself living in. It has the perfect mixture of classic and modern and the people were so kind. And the city is easy to navigate, which is a huge plus for me. 😉 We took a bike tour our first day in the city and had a blast!  I also saw a Spanish wedding and a Dalmatian in real life for the first time ever while we were riding through the city. 🙂

What is most remarkable about Barcelona is its architecture. Antoni Gaudí is the genius behind most of the beautiful buildings in Spain. His largest project, Sagrada Familia, was started in 1883 and has yet to be completed. He died in 1926 and is buried in the crypt of his beautiful church. The Sagrada Familia is easily one of the most beautiful sights in the world. I think if they were to add an 8th wonder, this would be in the running. The photos that I took of it do absolutely NO justice at all. And I would love to go back to see it when it is finished; they are projecting it will be completed by 2026.

Gaudí’s plan was for a group of 18 towers: 12 shorter ones on the facades (bell towers which will be 100 metres high, representing the Apostles), and six taller ones in the center in a pyramidal layout reflecting the hierarchy of their symbolism. You can definitely make the distinction between the areas Gaudí built and oversaw and the areas that are more modern. The back of the cathedral is very, very different from the front. But you can see Gaudí’s influence everywhere; he loved movement, geometry, and asymmetry. Though there were none when we visited, there are public masses scheduled throughout the year, but you must have an invitation to attend. I can only imagine how difficult it would be trying to arrange to be married there! The photographer in me says it would be worth every penny. 😉 I seriously stood with my mouth open and stared the ENTIRE time we were there. It’s a jaw-dropping site.

Spain was one of my favorite ports on the Voyage and somewhere I really want to go back to someday. Europe was an experience, but Africa, South America and the Caribbean were truly adventures. I cannot wait to share my favorite ports in the coming weeks!