The first weekend in October I went to Barcelona, Spain. I went with five other people, which was a pretty good-sized group. We traveled there by RyanAir, the JetBlue of European travel. I heard many horror stories about the airline, and so was surprised that everything worked out well both coming and going. We arrived late on Thursday night and had to find our way 70 miles from the airport to downtown. Our hostel was in a great location - just off of Las Ramblas, the main street through town, and central to most of the sights we wanted to see. We walked all over the town, seeing most of the important sights: Antonio Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, his home and park overlooking the town, the Olympic Stadium, Montjuic Castle and cemetary (four sections to bury Protestants, Catholics, non-Christians, and aborted fetuses), as well as the beach. We spent two of our four days just laying on the beach since the weather was so nice. Of course we also enjoyed tapas at midnight and we watched the FC Barcelona vs. AT Madrid football match on a small TV in a cramped bar with tons of rowdy locals. All-in-all it was a great trip - we couldn't have picked a better time to go either. My next trip abroad is to Rome in mid-November.
Tonight I just got home from a weekend in the English countryside. Mountbatten sent the entire group to an activity center in Dorset to do some team-building, and I will say that it was much better than expected. From early Friday morning to mid-afternoon today, we did things like rock climb on cliffs over the ocean, build campfires, play around on a high-ropes course (basically an obstacle course 40 feet in the air), play football (soccer), storm castle ruins at midnight (Corfe Castle), walk along a ridge overlooking the Channel on one side and Poole Harbor (Brownsea Island) on the other, and play with some cool dogs. The food was excellent as well: 3-course meal the first night and a BBQ with hamburgers, chicken, sausages and steak on the second. It was also a great opportunity to meet more people in my program - there are still people I have never seen before.
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