Pre-School School Fun
Hello friends!
I’m officially back at school, but before we get into that I did so many fun school things before classes even started that I need to share!
So Wind Ensemble takes a trip every year, and this year we got extra funding from the music department so we got to go Barcelona!!! So I flew back to Tufts a week early and went to the airport with my whole WE gang Tuesday night. Everyone was so excited! We could not believe we were about to be in Spain! Then after a few hours of waiting at the airport we learned that the airline could only send six of us to Spain. We were not about to be in Spain...Because one guy was flying on a different flight and was already in the air, we decided that we couldn’t just leave him to fend for himself in Spain for a week so we sent the six people with tickets to Barcelona while the rest of us rode the subway back to Tufts. After a long night of deliberating what to do and arguing with the airline, we were given free tickets on the airline’s next flight to Barcelona. Yay! However the next flight was not until late Friday night. After much more deliberating, about half of the band (including me) decided that a long weekend in Barcelona was still worth the jet lag and got ready to leave later in the week. But it was only Tuesday and we were stuck in beautiful Medford until Friday. What do we do?
Go to the Loj!!! To avoid being stuck in Medford with nothing to do and for some people, nowhere to sleep, four of us took the Mountain Club van and drove to the lodge that the mountain club owns in the White Mountains of NH. This was so fun! The Loj is built to comfortably hold at least 15 people so it really felt like our own vacation mansion with just the four of us living there. The kitchen is also fully stocked with food so we did lots of cooking and snacking and cocoa drinking. Highlights include pumpkin muffins and a beer-tasting of what others had left behind in the fridge. The muffins were fantastic, but in my opinion only one of the kinds of beers was even remotely worth having more than a sip of.
The Whites were beautifully covered in multiple feet of snow while were were there, and I was very excited to take advantage of the most winter I’ve ever seen in my life. After poking around a bit, we discovered that the Loj has both cross country skis and boots of various sizes and decided that we should try them, despite none of us ever having been cross country skiing before. So off we go! Well not really as it took us at least half an hour to put all eight skis on our feet. But then we went! Very close to the Loj are some railroad tracks that do not get used in the winter that had been completely covered in snow, creating a trail that ran along the river from the Loj into the nearest town four miles away. The trail was very flat and peaceful, but I still fell… a lot… but the learning curve was steep and by the time we got to town to eat lunch I was feeling a little more steady on my feet. The way back was much easier, although we all still had a couple of tumbles, and we got back just as the sun was setting, really making the skiing an all-day adventure. I’m not sure how cross country skiing is supposed to work, but it took us almost four hours to cover eight miles. I’m still proud.
(I realize that this is going to get long, so sorry about that. It was just such a good week!)
The only other eventful thing at the Loj was that we got guests on Thursday night! According to Mountain Club rules, if you open up the Loj you have to post about it on FB and the TMC website, and someone answered the call! An alumni from 2018 and his friend from home figured they might as well also enjoy the beautiful winter so came to just hang out and have a good time. I love the Loj because even if you don’t know someone, it is just the perfect space to sit and talk and get to know people you had never met and probably never would have met without the Loj. All of us were so tired and before our guest showed up had been struggling to imagine staying up past 8:00, but once the six of us were all hanging out it was easy to stay up past our bedtimes. Basically, having the airline mess up our flight and shorten our trip to Barcelona sucked, but I loved my 2 days at the Loj and am grateful for how such an unfortunate situation turned into a very happy one.
Now onto Barcelona! Three days after we intended to embark those of us left return to the airport and finally get on a plane! I slept for most of the way but I managed to watch Incredibles 2, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Then we were in Barcelona! It felt like 5 am but because our trip had been cut in half we didn’t want to waste any time on naps and getting un-jetlagged. That day we went to our AirBnB apartments then walked through much of downtown/touristy Barcelona, and ended up at the Picasso Museum. A lot of the works you normally associate with Picasso were on loan to a museum in France so the bulk of the museum showed Picasso’s early years (14-19) and his time at art school. This was interesting because not only were we seeing incredible impressionist and realistic paintings from Picasso, but they were from when he was 14! However there were also many “Picasso” Picasso paintings. My favorites were his series of Pigeons outside of his studio from when he was older. The night ended with many people clubbing (we were all legal, no worries), but also many of us staying in, but don’t be fooled! Spain doesn’t sleep and my “heading in early for the night” still meant I was up until 1 am.
The next day a bunch of us went on a hike to a monastery. This involved waking up very early, taking two subways, then getting on a real train. This was all very easy because Spain’s public transportation is incredible in so many ways. The monastery was called “Santa Maria de Montserrat” and was about half way up a mountain that reminded me very much of the Pinnacles in California. It was lots of fun walking around the monastery (apparently we could have gone in but it is an active monastery so we didn’t try too hard to find an entrance) and the views of the little town we started from as well as the surrounding mountains were extraordinary. Our original plan was to continue hiking to the very top of the mountain but because our trip was so short we decided that turning back and packing in more sight-seeing was more important to us than hiking more. However one friend still completed the hike and said that they could see the Pyrenees.
After a train ride home and a quick nap, we went to a FC Barcelona game! So exciting! Because we had missed the first few days of the trip the money that was supposed to go towards group dinners went towards purchasing tickets for everyone to see Barca play! Soccer is so fun to watch and Barca won 3-0 so there was no shortage of excitement and we got to see people like Messi in-person which made it such a fun night. After the game we split off to get dinner, and I got my first (and only. Yay for vegetarians) taste of tapas. Also my first Sangria, which was really good. We ended the night by going to a bar where we got our own private room with comfy couches and chairs.
The next day was our concert! We were supposed to have three concerts during the trip but had missed the first two so this was our only one, but it was a children’s concert so my favorite anyways. We played at an American k-12 school which from what I can tell is a school for kids from non-Spanish-speaking countries because although it was taught completely in English and many of the teachers were from America, most of the kids were from all around the world. We played one concert for the middle-schoolers and then one concert for the elementary schoolers, both of which were really fun.
That afternoon we went to the Sagrada Familia, which was cool but also kind of underwhelming as it is supposed to be the greatest thing in all of Barcelona. We then all watched the sunset from the Civil War Bunkers, which look over all of Barcelona. I thought this might be cooler than the La Sagrada Familia. Then after a nap from 9:30-10:30, we went clubbing, which I actually enjoyed, however our schedule really cracked me up. Not only was it a Monday night, but the club didn’t open until midnight (early for Barcelona) and didn’t close until 6am. I was one of the first to leave, at 3 am.
The next day was our travel day, but because we had so few days and our flight was in the late afternoon we still made the most of our days. I woke up and ran to see the sunrise on the beach (others had done this the day before but I slept through it. oops) then a couple of us walked to Park Guell, a big park designed by Gaudi. This was cool because it was a fun mix of architecture and design and also nature and public space. Finally, we packed up and got on a plane home. I watched lots of movies, but really my only recommendation is that you watch BlacKkKlansman.
So yeah! Sorry for the long post. I am now at school and classes have started but I don’t really have work yet so I have lots of time to read, bake, and write blog posts.
I’m officially back at school, but before we get into that I did so many fun school things before classes even started that I need to share!
So Wind Ensemble takes a trip every year, and this year we got extra funding from the music department so we got to go Barcelona!!! So I flew back to Tufts a week early and went to the airport with my whole WE gang Tuesday night. Everyone was so excited! We could not believe we were about to be in Spain! Then after a few hours of waiting at the airport we learned that the airline could only send six of us to Spain. We were not about to be in Spain...Because one guy was flying on a different flight and was already in the air, we decided that we couldn’t just leave him to fend for himself in Spain for a week so we sent the six people with tickets to Barcelona while the rest of us rode the subway back to Tufts. After a long night of deliberating what to do and arguing with the airline, we were given free tickets on the airline’s next flight to Barcelona. Yay! However the next flight was not until late Friday night. After much more deliberating, about half of the band (including me) decided that a long weekend in Barcelona was still worth the jet lag and got ready to leave later in the week. But it was only Tuesday and we were stuck in beautiful Medford until Friday. What do we do?
Go to the Loj!!! To avoid being stuck in Medford with nothing to do and for some people, nowhere to sleep, four of us took the Mountain Club van and drove to the lodge that the mountain club owns in the White Mountains of NH. This was so fun! The Loj is built to comfortably hold at least 15 people so it really felt like our own vacation mansion with just the four of us living there. The kitchen is also fully stocked with food so we did lots of cooking and snacking and cocoa drinking. Highlights include pumpkin muffins and a beer-tasting of what others had left behind in the fridge. The muffins were fantastic, but in my opinion only one of the kinds of beers was even remotely worth having more than a sip of.
The Whites were beautifully covered in multiple feet of snow while were were there, and I was very excited to take advantage of the most winter I’ve ever seen in my life. After poking around a bit, we discovered that the Loj has both cross country skis and boots of various sizes and decided that we should try them, despite none of us ever having been cross country skiing before. So off we go! Well not really as it took us at least half an hour to put all eight skis on our feet. But then we went! Very close to the Loj are some railroad tracks that do not get used in the winter that had been completely covered in snow, creating a trail that ran along the river from the Loj into the nearest town four miles away. The trail was very flat and peaceful, but I still fell… a lot… but the learning curve was steep and by the time we got to town to eat lunch I was feeling a little more steady on my feet. The way back was much easier, although we all still had a couple of tumbles, and we got back just as the sun was setting, really making the skiing an all-day adventure. I’m not sure how cross country skiing is supposed to work, but it took us almost four hours to cover eight miles. I’m still proud.
(I realize that this is going to get long, so sorry about that. It was just such a good week!)
The only other eventful thing at the Loj was that we got guests on Thursday night! According to Mountain Club rules, if you open up the Loj you have to post about it on FB and the TMC website, and someone answered the call! An alumni from 2018 and his friend from home figured they might as well also enjoy the beautiful winter so came to just hang out and have a good time. I love the Loj because even if you don’t know someone, it is just the perfect space to sit and talk and get to know people you had never met and probably never would have met without the Loj. All of us were so tired and before our guest showed up had been struggling to imagine staying up past 8:00, but once the six of us were all hanging out it was easy to stay up past our bedtimes. Basically, having the airline mess up our flight and shorten our trip to Barcelona sucked, but I loved my 2 days at the Loj and am grateful for how such an unfortunate situation turned into a very happy one.
Now onto Barcelona! Three days after we intended to embark those of us left return to the airport and finally get on a plane! I slept for most of the way but I managed to watch Incredibles 2, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Then we were in Barcelona! It felt like 5 am but because our trip had been cut in half we didn’t want to waste any time on naps and getting un-jetlagged. That day we went to our AirBnB apartments then walked through much of downtown/touristy Barcelona, and ended up at the Picasso Museum. A lot of the works you normally associate with Picasso were on loan to a museum in France so the bulk of the museum showed Picasso’s early years (14-19) and his time at art school. This was interesting because not only were we seeing incredible impressionist and realistic paintings from Picasso, but they were from when he was 14! However there were also many “Picasso” Picasso paintings. My favorites were his series of Pigeons outside of his studio from when he was older. The night ended with many people clubbing (we were all legal, no worries), but also many of us staying in, but don’t be fooled! Spain doesn’t sleep and my “heading in early for the night” still meant I was up until 1 am.
Church from our walk
Pigeons!
The next day a bunch of us went on a hike to a monastery. This involved waking up very early, taking two subways, then getting on a real train. This was all very easy because Spain’s public transportation is incredible in so many ways. The monastery was called “Santa Maria de Montserrat” and was about half way up a mountain that reminded me very much of the Pinnacles in California. It was lots of fun walking around the monastery (apparently we could have gone in but it is an active monastery so we didn’t try too hard to find an entrance) and the views of the little town we started from as well as the surrounding mountains were extraordinary. Our original plan was to continue hiking to the very top of the mountain but because our trip was so short we decided that turning back and packing in more sight-seeing was more important to us than hiking more. However one friend still completed the hike and said that they could see the Pyrenees.
Sunrise from the train station
Barcelona and the ocean is out there somewhere
The town next to the Monastary
Spanish countryside
After a train ride home and a quick nap, we went to a FC Barcelona game! So exciting! Because we had missed the first few days of the trip the money that was supposed to go towards group dinners went towards purchasing tickets for everyone to see Barca play! Soccer is so fun to watch and Barca won 3-0 so there was no shortage of excitement and we got to see people like Messi in-person which made it such a fun night. After the game we split off to get dinner, and I got my first (and only. Yay for vegetarians) taste of tapas. Also my first Sangria, which was really good. We ended the night by going to a bar where we got our own private room with comfy couches and chairs.
My view of Camp Nou
The next day was our concert! We were supposed to have three concerts during the trip but had missed the first two so this was our only one, but it was a children’s concert so my favorite anyways. We played at an American k-12 school which from what I can tell is a school for kids from non-Spanish-speaking countries because although it was taught completely in English and many of the teachers were from America, most of the kids were from all around the world. We played one concert for the middle-schoolers and then one concert for the elementary schoolers, both of which were really fun.
That afternoon we went to the Sagrada Familia, which was cool but also kind of underwhelming as it is supposed to be the greatest thing in all of Barcelona. We then all watched the sunset from the Civil War Bunkers, which look over all of Barcelona. I thought this might be cooler than the La Sagrada Familia. Then after a nap from 9:30-10:30, we went clubbing, which I actually enjoyed, however our schedule really cracked me up. Not only was it a Monday night, but the club didn’t open until midnight (early for Barcelona) and didn’t close until 6am. I was one of the first to leave, at 3 am.
View from the Bunkers
The next day was our travel day, but because we had so few days and our flight was in the late afternoon we still made the most of our days. I woke up and ran to see the sunrise on the beach (others had done this the day before but I slept through it. oops) then a couple of us walked to Park Guell, a big park designed by Gaudi. This was cool because it was a fun mix of architecture and design and also nature and public space. Finally, we packed up and got on a plane home. I watched lots of movies, but really my only recommendation is that you watch BlacKkKlansman.
sunrise
Center of Park Guell
View from Park Guell
Famous lizard
So yeah! Sorry for the long post. I am now at school and classes have started but I don’t really have work yet so I have lots of time to read, bake, and write blog posts.
This is fantastic, sounds like a lot of fun!
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