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Later that night, I saw Insurgent<\/em> with Marie, Roshni, and Katherine at a movie theater that was showing it in English. Before the movie, we had dinner at Da Bufetta and got gelato at Frigidarium right next door. Both were incredible! At Da Bufetta, I got a glimpse of how much dough the cooks had in the kitchen. It was enough to make at least two fully grown humans. Frigidarium was life-changing \u2013 gelato will never taste the same. The Frigidarium flavor tastes like my favorite cake batter flavor of froyo back at home. I combined it with a chocolate cr\u00e8me flavor, had it dipped in chocolate, and voila! The perfect gelato.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That Saturday, I took a pilgrimage to Assisi with the school. We started with a morning prayer on the bus before all falling fast asleep. We saw the\u00a0Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi, a beautiful building with two levels and a crypt where the tomb\u00a0of Francis is\u00a0kept. Our guide explained to us what all the murals in the upper church represented. Many of them depicted the life of Saint Francis, with allusions to the life of Jesus Christ. Our guide made the comment once that with all the progress of modern life, when it seems like man can do everything himself, many people don\u2019t feel a need for Heaven. I was overcome by a feeling of need for Heaven when he said that. The mere thought that man can do everything himself seems absolutely dismal to me — we clearly haven’t figured out to make the world a peaceful place for ourselves. Standing in the upper church beneath dozens of incredible murals, I realized just how much humanity is in need of Heaven.<\/p>\n We strolled around the streets of Assisi for a while, grabbed panini and gelato for lunch, and then went to the Basilica di Santa Chiara to see the cross relic that Francis was praying to when God told him to rebuild His church. We prayed once more in a side chapel. On the bus, I got to know some of the Deacons from JFRC, and they told me about their time spent studying in Assisi. We stopped at the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli at the bottom of the hill, which\u00a0interestingly had\u00a0a church inside a church, and said a final prayer. Our dinner that night, which lasted several hours, consisted of all kinds of locally grown and produced foods. Father Al and Father Bore hilariously teased each other from across the table. The table erupted in laughter every time Father Al would make an old-person joke about Father Bohr, to which Father Bohr would respond, \u201cYou will <\/em>burn!\u201d On our ride home, Father Al showed us a few of his dance moves as \u201cUptown Funk\u201d blasted from the speakers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The next day, I woke up bright and early to volunteer for the Rome Marathon. It was inspiring to see people from all over the world converge in the eternal city to accomplish one of the greatest physical feats. Two of our own J-Forcers, Joey and SLA Chandi, also completed the marathon!<\/p>\n On Wednesday, calcio was cancelled due to a torrential downpour. Instead, I went to an aperitivo bar called Foodoo with Bri, Ali, Reagan, and Reagan\u2019s sister who was visiting. We ordered delicious fruity drinks and had a refreshing girl\u2019s night out.<\/p>\n The next weekend, I flew off to Barcelona with Bri and Roshni. Naturally, I played the song \u201cBarcelona\u201d by the Plasticines when we were landing.<\/p>\n We took a taxi to our hostel, Hola Hostel, to drop off our luggage. Roshni parted ways with Bri and me because she was going to visit a friend from home who is also studying abroad. Bri and I almost immediately decided to head for the beach. On our way, we passed the Arc de Triumph, which I think I may love more than Rome\u2019s triumphal arches for its unique brickwork and patterns \u2013 the fact that it\u2019s surrounded by palm trees only adds to its beauty. There wasn\u2019t a cloud in the sky. Of course, neither of us had brought sunscreen. We bit the bullet and laid out our clothes as makeshift towels, and soon fell asleep in the sand (we\u2019d had an early flight). As you can imagine, I was soon looking a little lobster-like.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bri and I had lunch at a beach-side restaurant. We split a salad topped with berries and nuts, some bread, and delicious cod fritters\u2026and, of course, sangria. After over two hours of talking, enjoying the food, and wrapping our minds around where we were, Bri and I decided to head back to the hostel. We walked slowly along the beach. We kept walking slower. And slower, and slower. Until finally we found ourselves lying down fully clothed in the sand to take another nap. Bri woke up to a father telling his child, \u201cYou can do whatever you want here! Look at those girls!\u201d We decided it was time to leave.<\/p>\n We went out with the hostel that night and met another student from Chicago who studies at John Cabbot in Rome. It\u2019s such a small world! We also met a girl from Canada who had just graduated and moved to Barcelona for an internship, even though she\u2019d never been there before. She\u2019s definitely another one of the many courageous people this semester. As for the clubs \u2013 the nightlife in Barcelona is everything everyone says it is.<\/p>\n The next day, Roshni reunited with us. We trekked about a dozen blocks in the heat to find a churreria. My chocolate-filled churro was more than worth it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We had a nourishing lunch \u2013 steak and eggs, for me \u2013 and then went to the Cathedral for a free historical walking tour through the Gothic Quarter. We saw Picasso\u2019s first donation to Barcelona, ancient Roman buildings, and Placa de Sant Felip Neri, where dozens of children were tragically killed by a bomb explosion in the Spanish Civil War. The plaza, however, also has happier history: it was the setting of a scene in a Woody Allen film! While we were there, an extremely talented a Capella group burst into song and dance. We visited the corner of Carrer d\u2019Avinyo, where Picasso stood waiting for his father after school every day. There used to be a lot of brothels on the street, and Picasso got to know the ladies well since he was there so often. According to our tour guide, they inspired his painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The tour ended at the port. Exhausted, we took another nap in the grass. A series of advertisements reading, \u201cCoffee lovers this way,\u201d each with an arrow, led us to Costa coffee. The coffee and cheesecake gave us the energy to trek onward to the magnificent Magic Fountains of Montjuic. The fountain lights turned off early due a technological problem, but I ran into Katie, a girl from my last semester\u2019s marketing class! It was the most unexpected place to run into someone from home \u2013 she\u2019s currently studying in England, but happened to be in Barcelona for her spring break.<\/p>\n Bri, Roshni and I entertained ourselves by finding hilarious English translations in a nearby clothing store. Then, we had empanadas, nachos, and fajitas from a vegetarian restaurant. Once again exhausted, we called it a night and headed back to the hostel (with an unplanned hour-long detour).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sunday morning, we woke up early enough to have breakfast at the hostel and set out to discover Gaudi\u2019s famous modernist architecture. It wasn\u2019t hard to spot \u2013 his buildings, Casa Botllo and Casa Mila, are marked by soft curves and whimsical balconies. The most astonishing of Gaudi\u2019s feats, however, is the Sagrada Familia (or as I like to call it, the Sangria Familia).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We bought tickets for 6:15 p.m., so we had time to kill before seeing it. We bought scarves, rocked the \u201cYacht mom\u201d look, and trekked up to Park Guell, and saw all of Barcelona sprawled out below us. We could clearly make out what we called the \u201cLarry the Cucumber\u201d building.<\/p>\n The Sagrada Familia was partially under construction, but it\u2019s the one building in the world that can\u2019t be ruined by it. The outside is decorated with creatures of all sorts, and culminates in points that look like melting candles. In typical Gaudi style, no part of the building is untouched by an unusual flair. The inside of the church is even more breathtaking, which I didn\u2019t think was possible. My jaw dropped when I walked in, and I couldn\u2019t stop gawking at the ceiling. The pillars look like trees rising into a heavenly canopy, illuminated by light shining through the colorful stained glass windows. Thanks to my art in Rome class, I recognized the Four Living Creatures in the transept of the church. I got dizzy from spinning around looking up at the ceiling and the unbelievable architecture.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For dinner, we had paella at a restaurant across from the hostel. Bri and I went out dancing for a few hours, and then all three of us caught a plane in the wee hours of the morning. Thanks to Holy Week traffic, it took less time to get from Barcelona to Rome than it did to get from the Rome airport to campus. Despite that minor annoyance, the weekend was a wonderful one!<\/p>\n Arrivederci, tutti!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So much has happened\u00a0in the past few weeks! I celebrated St. Patrick\u2019s Day in Rome and it was much more anticlimactic than you would imagine. The Irish pubs in the center of the city were all jam-packed, so a few friends and I just meandered around the city and returned home before midnight (no, dad, … <\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>