H O M E O F P A E L L A

This is my first visit to Spain, therefore everything is very fresh to me. Growing up in Asia, we do not get much influence from Spain as it is far from us. We have a few Spanish restaurant in the capital city but just one two or no Spanish restaurant in smaller cities. I think not much of us know what is Tapas or Paella. But well done Spain, we all know Spanish wine.

Landed in Barcelona on Sunday and went straight to city centre where my hostel located. The moment I came out from the train station, I saw a few Gaudi's building and a lot of people around the city (been living in Stavanger for a while). That was my first picture of Barcelona.

Looking forward eagerly to try the real Spanish food, went out and started to look for Spanish restaurant after meeting up with my team mates We had Tapas as the first meal in Spain It was good, foods were fresh with stronger taste and heavier volume of spices

Went to university the next day for the programme and met a lot of new people from different universities with different background. Some from the same country as the university and some of them are international students, coordinators, coaches and professors. It was fun and interesting about sharing my culture and understand others culture. I learned more about other cultures, for example their daily diet (I eat rice everyday), how they spend their weekend (we seldom go to picnic, hiking or park, all our activities cost money), the price of their alcohol (a glass of beer is around 9 euro at the bar in Norway), etc.

We mostly go back to the city after the meeting and start going places. We went to La Sagrada Familia during a rainy day, roaming around the city looking for the best looking and highest google map's rating restaurant, we walked through and back of La Ramblas, we visited to the Gothic quarter, El Raval and El Poblenou areas as well

After saying goodbye, I got into a train and head to Valencia as my flight departs from there Spent two days in Valencia and found that is it a very nice city to visit. It was calm and less touristic but offers the same interesting attractions. Besides, the pricing here is lower as it is a smaller city compared to Barcelona. Definitely a recommended city to visit. And not to forget, Paella was originally from this city, Valencia. The main ingredient for paella was not seafood, not chicken but a cute little animal called rabbit.