Weekend in Barcelona with Kyle Carbine

I recently had one of the more fun weekends that I have had in a while. I had the chance to go and visit my childhood and long time friend Kyle Carbine in Barcelona, Spain. He is there for the semester doing an internship, so I decided to buy a cheap flight (it was only about an hour and a half flight) over there to spend the weekend with him. My favorite part of the weekend was just to spend time with my good friend and catch up with him. I loved talking about good memories, old times and old friends together. It was also a cool experience to be able to visit the country that my Dad served his mission in. I have heard about Spain my whole life from him and how much he loves it there, so it was really neat to be able to see it. I was able to try some paella, which is his favorite food from there. It is a rice dish with shrimp and chicken inside of it, and it is very delicious. I had it twice actually, once in a restaurant and once in the home of some members that invited us over for dinner after church on Sunday. I got there to Barcelona on Friday night and left on Monday morning, but we were able to get a lot of sight seeing down in those two days. What Barcelona is most known for is the architecture down by the architect Antoni Gaudi, specifically the church called La Sagrada Familia. This, along with the other homes and parks of his that we visited, really blew me away and opened up my eyes to architecture in a way that I have never seen before. I have never really thought of architecture as a form of art, but after my weekend in Barcelona looking at Gaudi's work, I can see that architecture truly can be a work of art, and I can definitely say that I saw some masterpieces in the city of Barcelona. Almost all of the buildings in Barcelona were beautifully put together, even the shopping mall which was lit up in all different colors at night was beautiful. We enjoyed delicious food, desserts (including a mouth-watering waffle with ice cream and chocolate syrup called a gaufre), museums (including some paintings by Picasso), a lighted fountain show, an ancient castle, and the stadium where they held the Olympics. It was a memorable weekend with a great friend enjoying one of the most beautiful cities I have ever experienced, I am very grateful that I had this opportunity.