Barcelona!

On the sail from Cadiz to Barcelona, 3 very awesome events happened: We crossed through the strait of Gibraltar, and I was up in the rigging at the time and I personally think that I got the best view of Europe and Africa (At the same time!). The second awesome event was my Sweet 16! During 4-6am watch the AB whi was working at the time made me a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich, During colors (our daily morning all-crew meeting) I got about 8 buckets of water dumped on me as they all sang happy birthday to me, Madeline took my morning galley for me and let me sleep in, and then Marta made me a birthday cake that night! I love my crew so much! And the third most awesome event was knowing that we were only a few days away from seeing our parents in Barcelona!

On arrival day, we were scheduled to arrive at around 3 so we spent most of the day preparing for that and having school. When we were able to see the port we were gonna be moored at, the Chief officers sent selected people to dress the yards of the fore mast (which is where we climb onto the yards as were pulling in, its for show mainly, I’ll post a picture below) I was assigned to the Upper Topsail Yard which is the 3^rd from the top. As we were up there and we got closer to our destination we were able to see a large crowd of over excited people, which happened to be our family members! They started cheering as we got closer and were in earshot distance. You could hear the parents calling their kids names and it was so cool!

We also had a few people on the boat deck playing the pirated of the Caribbean theme song on French horn, guitar, and drums. We thought the music was very suitable for the time being! We pulled into our spot and we could easily see our parents, my mom documented the whole thing! So we were dockside and then the oolice wouldn’t let the parents on for like 30 minutes, so we just talked to them while we were on the ship and they were dockside. Any who, when I was reunited with my mother we went off to a gourmet meal at McDonald’s and then went back to the hotel my mom was staying at. I finally got to enjoy the luxuries of normal life, a real bed, not a bunk. And a real shower with unlimited water, on the ship we are only allowed 3 shower pumps a day! And Internet! It’s quite hard to get Internet sometimes. We skyped people and I chatted with my friends and family and I finally got to relax and it was simply wonderful! The next day Nadia and her mom and my mom and I went out for Tapas and to go to the big Supermarket on Las Ramblas. They have so much fruit and meat there, it’s unreal! They had these fruit juices/smoothies and they were like 1 euro each and they were freshly made each day and I swear to god it was one of the best things I have tasted, my favorite flavor was chocolate/banana/coconut, and the honorable mentions are mango/coconut, guava/coconut, and just plain coconut (as you can see… I like coconut!). After the super market extravaganza mother and I walked around the city just looking  around and we also went back to Nadia’s apartment just to socialize, following that the student crew put together a little presentation for the parents for them to really see what a typical day on Class Afloat is like, we made different stations consisting of meal times, school, bed time, rigging, and safety and we walked them through each one trying our best to recreate our day in 10 minutes per station. I started the next day with a nice hotel breakfast where I could actually choos what I got to eat and how much I got to choose of it, it was actually like the best thing ever, I chose so many pastrieds and TOAST! We don’t have a toaster on the ship! L we got a full day of shore leave where Mom and I and some friends took one of the Barcelona red tour busses around the city and stopped at some of the famous places around the city. We stopped at Barcelona Cathedral which was so gorgeous there were gold statues and walls lining the whole chapel and they had a service going at the time and they were making music and it sounded awesome in there. The next “stop” was Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia we didn’t exactly go in there, but we drove past it for a while and all the architecture is just mind-bending. It’s so awesome to think that this guy designed this amazingly intricate cathedral more than 300 years ago using the very limited resources he had. The guy’s a genius. Our next stop was Park Guell, which was also designed by Gaudi, It has the worlds longest bench there, everything there looks like it cam from Whoville/Candyland. Its all tiled and so colorful, it’s filled with all the colors of the rainbow and it’s a very happy place in my opinon! Ihad to be back at the ship at 4 to do Gangway watch until 6 so we headed back and then after watch, A few people invited some of the ships orphans (the kids whose parents planned to not come to the first parent port) to come out for dinner. We went to an Italianesque restaurant, and just to conclude my thoughts about food: all of the food in spain is delicious. End of story, no questions asked! Afterwards a few of the orphans came up to the hotel right next to the ship that a lot of parents were staying at to come chill in the hot-tub. We did that a lot and its amazing because we obviously don’t have a hot tub on the ship so it’s a real treat!

The final day of full shore leave, we went to  Montserrat which is basically a cathedral in the mountains of Spain. It was very cloudy when we wet but it lightened up for a while and it is so pretty there, all the architecture was so finely detailed and it makes you think how a human can make all of this by hand and have everything perfectly symmetrical and placed. We went inside the cathedral and listened to the Montserrat boys choir sing. These kids are highly gifted, they go to school there and do music lessons everyday and they’re also training to become monks because Montserrat is also a monastery. That night Nadia’s mom organized and my mom helped out too to host a spaghetti dinner for some of the orphans. We walked to the apartment and just had a nice home cooked meal followed by gelato and Canadian chocolate bars. I’d say that that was one of my favorite meals in a long time! J

On the final day (the final day we got to see our parents) mother and I bought me some earrings and we made one last stop at the hotel and the supermarket to get some of the delish fruit smoothies and then headed back to say our goodbyes. But as it turned out our departure got delayed so we got our shore leave extended until 9 O’Clock at night which gave us a few more hours ot spend with our families. My mom and I made one last stop at the hotel to pick up the stuff she brought me from home, and then we went out for another gourmet meal, this time it was burger king! Then came back to the ship to say a nice long goodbye. And now  I won’t see my mother until March! I miss her, and the rest of my family and friends, I miss you all!! And that’s all I have to report from Barcelona J

the fruit juices!

Barcelona Cathedral!

Sagrada Familia

Park Guell

The Black Madonna (Montserrat)

Looooove, megan!