Hasta Luego, Barcelona

4/30/09

I am finally done with all of my school work YES. Now all I have left to do is pack and, IF I have no problems on the flight home, I should be back in los Estados Unidos on Saturday afternoon.

I have only just really started thinking about leaving, up until now I have had too many other things to worry about, but it’s starting to hit me as we do all of our ‘last’ things. Today we all went to the beach for a few hours and tonight we’re heading back up to the bar on Tibidabo that has a great view of the city and then going to dinner. It’s going to be so bittersweet to go back. On the one hand I am incredibly excited to be back in Chicago, to see my friends, to hang out with my family; but on the other hand I’m sad to leave my friends here, to say goodbye to Antonia and not know when/if I will see anyone again.

When I thought about it at the beginning, the 4 months seemed like a very long time, but it really just went SO FAST. Some kids have left themselves about a week to travel after classes but the consensus is that most would rather just be going straight home. I’m happy that I’m just going back, as great as traveling is, it’s also stressful and takes some planning and I’m just ready to be home again. It’s funny that I’ll be going home to summer because I really don’t feel like it’s been ‘school’. Not that it wasn’t a lot of work or I didn’t have class everyday, but there were just so many more exciting things going on as well that they overshadowed the school part.

Well, this will be my last post. One of our assignments for Travel Writing was to write that 20 page story and we shared parts of them out loud in class. I was the last to read and my class/teacher really liked the ending paragraph and said it was a good way to end the class, so I figured it would be a good way to end my blog as well, so below is an excerpt from my story:

As much as she liked being organized and planning ahead, she could admit that some of their best times and all of their best stories had come from mistakes, mishaps, and straying off course. And she knew that in a way, Sophia was right. In the end the journey isn’t about the amount of landmarks that you can check off a list of must-sees. It’s about missed flights and late night buses, warm milk and pig legs, it’s about waking up in a dirty hostel not knowing what kind of weirdo is making noises in the bed next to you. It’s about ordering things to eat that you don’t even know how to pronounce. It’s about getting lost and caught in the rain. It’s about talking to toddlers who can speak the language better than you. It’s about praying to God you won’t see that naked man that hangs out in the Parc again. It’s about learning and enjoying the exciting differences of a new culture while rediscovering an appreciation for the familiar. It’s about building new relationships and finding friends that help you find yourself.

Terraza

4/23/09

            Today is Saint Jordi’s day in Barcelona. Saint Jordi is one of the patron saints of Barcelona, whose myth involves slaying a dragon. In the myth a rose grew out of the dragons blood and so it’s traditional for men to give women roses. It is also the day that Shakespeare and Cervante’s both died, so it’s traditional for women to give men books. All over Plaza Catalunya, and really everywhere in the city there are stands up selling books and roses. There are book readings and live music and dancing all over, it’s really pretty, and the weather could not be better for it, sunny and warm.

            So of course I have been inside most of the day, working on my papers…

But I have significantly widdled down my to-do list so I feel productive at least.

Things left to do:

Finish a 20 page story

Write 2 take home finals

Take 2 other finals

Later in the day...

And now it is the NIGHT of Saint Jordi and I am rebelling and sitting out on our terrace. Antonia doesn’t want me to because my sickness isn’t going away and she thinks it will be too cold, but I had to put my foot down because it is a gorgeous night and the temperature is incredibly warm… so I waited for her to leave for work and now I’m outside.

            We’re going to a rooftop bar tonight, I’m celebrating getting so much work done/taking a breather before alllll of my work next week. I am, however, officially donezo with classes. Only finals are left. Only 9 days remain so we’re trying to hang out everyday and soak up each other’s awesomeness.

            Welp, Wilfred the Hairy AKA Antonia’s son just came over. (as he always does), so I bettah go back inside.

12 Days and Counting

The end is approaching.

Things I still have to accomplish:

Register for Iowa classes

Finish a 20 page story

Finish an 8 page paper

Finish another 8 page paper

Write a 4 page paper

Do 3 presentations

Write 2 take home finals

Take 2 other finals

Die.

I really don't have time to squeeze in any enjoyment of the last days... hopefully by the end of this week I will have finished at least a chunk of that stuff and then the very last week I might have a day or two of free time. 

I finished one presentation today and my Barcelona class teacher says my paper sounds like it's going to be interesting and enjoyable to read. I beg to differ.

And then things went horribly wrong.

4/13/09

            I realize I am shockingly far behind on updating this, but now that I have loads of work I need to do, it seems like the perfect time to write again.

            The rest of my mom’s trip went splendidly, despite the fact that we both got violently ill and I went deaf in one ear. Montserrat was beautiful, but on the tram down my ears popped so bad and because I was congested, one of them wouldn’t unpop… this problem still persists today. The train ride on the way back from Montserrat took forever and we almost got separated as we went to get on the last metro home and I jumped on the train before mom knew what was going on. We both quickly put our arms in the door to force it back open, which is quite risky I might add, as the Barcelona metro doors do NOT respond to that. But more people on the train were trying to help and the drivier noticed and opened the door. Mom got a little tsk tsk finger from one of the metro security guards. Always causing trouble.

My ear popped again on our flight to Sevilla which made our first night bittersweet as I just lazed in pain. But our hotel room was really cute and the weather cleared up from cloudy to sunny and we had a great time. We both really liked Sevilla, it was much more “Spanish” than Barcelona, it’s more what I pictured Spain to be. The people were great and the sites were really pretty. The favorite was probably the day we walked around Alcázar palace and through the gardens and saw the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world. We also went to see a Flamenco show that was really cool, we got some “free” drinks there, due to the fact that both the waitress and us failed to remember the bill, we didn’t realize until we were already on the way back to the hotel, and come on, at that point what are you gonna do? All in all Sevilla was one of my favorite trips.

            The last days in Barcelona were depressingly rainy and cold that went perfectly with our colds that were in full swing, but we made the best of it, took the bus turistíc that took us to some parts of Barcelona that I hadn’t even seen yet. Probably not the best idea for our cold to sit on top of a cold and windy bus, but we don’t let the weather ruin our plans. We also went and visited Parc Guell but there was NO naked man waiting for us in the bushes, what a disappointment, I think it might have been a little too chilly for him that day.

We had a fun last night, dinner and some cocktail del dia’s (that ended up matching our dinner bill) at a place near the B&B. I left mom on Thursday, and took off to Greece and she left on Friday with no problems.

            Greece was amazing. The weather in Athens was beautiful and prefect for walking around the Acropolis and through the Ancient Agora. The food was wonderfulll, we didn’t think we could order anything we wouldn’t like (I would later prove us wrong by ordering Bacalao, which is a fish served VERY different in Greece than Barcelona… more like a salt lick in Greece.)

Come to think of it… I kept Lauren and mom updated pretty much errday in Greece so I’ll post the excerpts from emails I sent them.

-- Today we set the alarm for 7:30... so we wake up around 9:30, which is good, we are both on the same page as far as the importance of relaxation on this journey compared to when we were in Rome. We went to the Acropolis today, actually we are totes following the guide book's "two days in Athens" suggestions... we really didnt start out meaning to but about halfway through the day we were reading the book and realized that we had been doing exactly what the guide says, so we decided to finish the day with their suggestions too. I didn't get a Parthenon burn, thanks to the large aerosol spray can of sunscreen that the Barcelona airport let me travel with. Thank you lax security. But I've already had to take a picture with an old greek man named yurgos who owned the restaurant we ate at, and I'm seeing them stray dogs everywhere. We booked our ferries today, we have decided not to do another island and just stay at Santorini. We went into Anek ferries but they were sold out for the days we wanted to we got bluestar... womp womp. But the travel agent insisted they were 'bery nice boats'. Our hostel for santorini looks amazing, like a second away from Perissa beach and its just the two of us in a room and theres a pool and free laundry and they pick you up and take you to the port for free and its all for just 12 euro a night, scizore. (oh and you can rent ATV's from them too. Scizore more). Funny things... today while walking down from the Acropolis this old lady just grabs my hand to help her down the stairs, no words were exchanged I dont know what language she spoke but we walked hand in hand down all the stairs and then she gave me a kiss on the hand and a tap on the bum for a thank you. She was a cutie. Also while standing in the hostel we heard this old greek couple and the lady was trying to tell the man the name of the guy at the front desk and she was like "jonathon" and he goes "shonoashoan" and she goes "No... Jonathon.. THON" and he tried again and this conversation must have gone on for 2-5 minutes and he never got it right and it was the cutest thing ever.

--Today we went to the National Archeological museum and then to watch the changing of the guards. The weather continues to be beautiful, sunny and clear and in the 70's. I got a little red today, but nothing obnox, should be gone tomorrow.

--Santorini is just so beautiful. Today we did the volcano tour, I swam in the hot springs, Tejas didnt have trunks - WHATEV he totally could have gone in his shorts. Then we rode badonk a donk donkeys back up. HAWesome! It was real sunny all day today. Ill look for Panos' tomorrow because I think I am going to rent the ATV again (this time by myself so I don't have Tejas all up ons) And he doesn’t want to go cause I think he was really uncomfortable on the back the whole time - I had my big backpack on LoLZzZ!

-- I met Panos today! I ATVed out to Oia again and found the hotel. He was super nice and made me some tea and we sat and chatted for a while. He was a cutie. I went to the "Red Beach" today, which was beautiful, and I laid out and read my book for my class, still not looking forward to the MOUNTAINS of work I have to do when I get back

to Barcelona. Tonight is the last night in Santorini, back to Athens tomorrow

AND THEN THINGS WENT HORRIBLY WRONG.

Due to ridiculous Greek trains taking us in all kinds of wrong directions into the middle of nowhere with no cabs to be found OR called, we ended up waiting for/ traveling on trains for SIX HOURS on what should have been a 50 minute trip to the airport, missing both of our flights, having to drop many euros on new plane tickets and wait about 8 MORE hours in the airport for our 2:30am flight which was then DELAYED 2 hours. We didn’t fly home until 5am, and I got back to my apartment at about 9am, making it 24 full hours of traveling…

            But whatev, I had the best spring break. I can’t complain.

MOM'S VISIT photo album

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018613&id=1149720713&l=5c8fe69153

GREECE photo albums

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018637&id=1149720713&l=e0261f1301

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018634&id=1149720713&l=9fac3feaee

Madre

3/24/09

My moms is here yay! We are having a great time.

She got here on Sunday afternoon which was the day after the concert (which by the way I felt like I was going to be trampled to death in, but was still fun when we moved to the back of the crowd). I left late, ended up taking a cab, couldn’t get into where I said I would meet her, it was a lupe fiasco but we ended up spotting each other through the arrival gate doors just like in them movies and had a teary embrace.

On Sunday we just brought all of her stuff and found the B&B (mistake on my part to take the train and metro which left us hauling the luggage up and down flights of stairs). We found the place right away though, and it’s a really cute apartment run by 2 guys (A couple? I think yes) Kiku and John : Kiku is nice and funny and helpful : We heard John puking last night. Guess which one we like more.

On Monday after my classes we met up and went to lunch at the restaurant with the culinary students that has a nice menu and atmosphere but is still inexpensive because we are the guinea pigs from the students work. I’ll give ours an A+. After that we walked down La Rambla and went to the Boqueria market, a lot of it was closing already, but we saw a lot and bought some fruit from one of the stands. Then I gave mom a little walking tour of the Gothic Quarter (I had just had to give a tour with a group for my Spanish class so I had the info.).

That night Antonia had us over for dinner back at my apartment. Mom actually understood a lot of what Antonia was saying, (that high school Spanish pays off.) and I interpreted the rest. Antonia made the traditional stuff – tortilla de patatas, pan con tomate, fried calamari and a fruit salad. We sat in the living room and chatted and I gave mom the tour of the apartment. (She mentioned my room looked bigger in pictures/on the webcam… so if you thought my room looked small before… it’s smaller). I also introduced mom to Maria on the way to dinner (my friend, the dancer who works at the store on my block) and Marta (the sweet little cleaning lady). Both of them, and Antonia and Chessie said right away that we look a lot alike, especially in the eyes. What a great compliment to my mom.

As we left Antonia told mom some nice things about me (of course who wouldn’t) And I went with mom back to the B and B. Today we walked to La Sagrada Familia, which is incredibly close to the bed and breakfast, and then walked down to the Picasso museum (which is not so close). We had some great Tapas tonight at a little bar, from Kiku’s recommendation. Tomorrow we are heading for a pretty big trek at Montserrat, I have never been there before, but I hear it’s beautiful. 

Jamón Jamón

I saw my second Spanish film today in which someone is beaten to death with a ham leg.

Sitges

     We took a day trip to Sitges on Fer's last day.

El Desnudo

3/7/09

Fer is gone, even though it was fun having her here, I am glad to have some alone time now so I can get some things done. Parc Guell was great, the weather stayed beautiful while we walked around and we decided to sit at the café for a little while and get a coffee. We walked up to what we THOUGHT was going to be the little room in which you order your food and drinks. As it turns out: Men’s Urinal. Woops. Didn’t even realize it until we were too close for comfort and were definitely noticed by everyone inside.

Oh but that was not the last uncomfortable encounter we would have with indecent men that day…

After sitting outside while the sun went down, it started to get a little bit colder, we were both in T-shirts so we decided to walk home. As we were leaving the park I hear a ‘psst psst’ coming from somewhere above me. I look up on the ridge and lo and behold. Naked Man.

I don’t know if I’ve written about it before but this is the THIRD time a naked man has approached me and/or my friends. The first was by Montjuic and the last two were in Parc Guell. I’m pretty sure it is the same guy because he always uses the ‘psst psst’ technique to get our attention. A harmless fellow really, just getting his kicks out of shocking people I guess, he waved at us while standing proudly as we scurried away. I’ll go to Parc Guell again with my mom. Perhaps she’ll get the pleasure of spotting him as well. Always a treat…

Thea and I are supposed to be switching rooms so she can have her own room and I will be moving in with Chessie, as it was agreed upon in the beginning. I’ve taken down all my décor and organized my clothes and stuff for the move, but Thea seems to still just be chillin. Bettah him than me – I’d rather keep the room. I do feel bad for Chessie though, I know she wants to be done dealing with Thea, who rarely emerges from her room. I think we may stop seeing her altogether when/if she gets her own room.

Warning: I start rambling right about herrrrre so feel free to stop reading…

I’m sitting in El Mos right now,  the cheap sandwich place we usually go to, I bought a café con leche simply because it’s one of the cheapest things to buy. Just trying to kill some time before my next class/presentation. I’ve made a to-do list for myself, but of course left all of the supplies needed TO DO the list at my apartment. I did book Sevilla tickets for me and mom for a weekend she is here, which I am excited about because I have been really wanting to see the south of Spain. I need to get on booking my Greece hostel as well. Spring Break 2009 WOO ((SB shuffle))

I got a ticket for Girl Talk (A DJ) for this Friday night because he is coming to Razzmatazz (the biggest night club in Barcelona, one of the biggest in Spain). I’ve been to one of his concerts before at Iowa and it was crazy so I’m sure this one will be even more so. It was only 12 euro, which is a great deal considering Razzmatazz usually costs 12-15 Euro just to get into on a regular night anyway.

I think the pigeons had some sort of game going amongst themselves today to see who could make me flinch the most. (It was a tie amongst all of them for the win.) A while ago I decided I would not fear the pigeons in Plaza Catalunya, I would walk through them with confidence and they would make a path for me and sometimes they would all take off in a swirl around me and I would feel like some sort of deity. But todayyy they were NOT havin it. They were literally flying right for my face and would swerve at the last second. I’ve ducked in panic at least 3 times today so far. Embarrassing.            

Nietas

Blanca and Lucia, Antonia's granddaughters. Don't mind the oversized chin bandage, there was a minor bump.

Catching Up

3/14/08

I’ve finally got a bit of break from working - 3 tests and a project this week so it was a little rough. But I should start from where I left off because I’ve gotten behind on things.

London was a blast. I went with 9 of my friends and we got there pretty late on a Thursday night so we went right to the hostel where we filled up our 5 bunk room. On Friday we did the typical sightseeing, Parliament, Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, the Palace (Of course always exciting to be in the land of Princess Diana), had some delicious fish and chips, the real London thing. We went to Westminster Abbey later that night to see the choral evensong, which was really pretty. Unfortunately my phone wasn’t working so I couldn’t get a hold of Sara or Katie right away, but eventually we  got in touch so I met up with Sara that night. Sara, Mateo and I went to dinner while the rest of the group went to go see Wicked (I had already seen it and Mateo says ‘musical theatre isn’t exactly his thing’). It was great being able to catch up with her.

On Friday night I took the train out to East Croydon which is bout a half hour outside London, so that I could stay with Katie fo free at her 4 star hotel that her work put her up in. It was good to get away from the big group for a little which and pretty nice being able to be in a real hotel and a big bed. We had a free breakfast buffet in the morning too which was swizeet to finally have real breakfast. On Saturday Katie and I took the train in and met up with some of the group for lunch and then headed to the British museum where we got to see the Rosetta Stone and Katie and I highly enjoyed some African Dancing demonstrations. After that I broke off with Katie and we decided to head to Covent Garden, which is a cool area with lots of shops, performers and the like, I remembered it from my last time in London and wanted to see it again. We did some more wandering on foot before it was time to meet up with the every body at Big Ben. It was really beautiful to see everything lit up at night, Parliament, Big Ben and the London eye on the river. Since our flight was leaving so early on Sunday, we decided not to book the hostel for Saturday night and live the hobo life instead. Unfortunately everything in our area seemed to close down by midnight so we ended up riding the double deckers for a few hours before making it to the airport around 5am. All in all, London trip: success.

The week after that was our “study week” which is an absurd name to call it because you actually don’t have any time to study for your 3 midterms that will be happening in one day when you get back! It was basically 3 days of conferences in Barcelona and then we went to Navarre, Spain (stayed in Pamplona) from Thursday till Saturday. All in all Pamplona trip: FAIL. The biggest question on everyone’s mind was WHY they would take us NORTH in the winter. It was cold. There was snow. There was rain. There was sleet. There were walking tours. We did go to a vineyard, which was pretty cool, but we had a horrible tour guide for the rest of the sites who claimed English was his native language (as he was from England). But I would beg to differ. He seemed to know little to nothing about the sites we visited and when he DID talk it was long and drawn out and random and weird. I wasn’t havin it.

The good part of the trip was that we got to spend a lot of time with our friends and new friends from the program. We stayed at a nice hotel and hanging out there was a lot of fun. We also spent about 7-9 hours on the bus trips there and back and god knows how long in between our “interesting” site visits. We had to fill out an eval. At the end because this is the first time they have tried to do this. We are like the experimental group for IES. I assume they will not be going north next year. (And I hear the kids will also get a computer lab where the computers actually WORK.)  How lucky.

This week, like I said, has been busy. Katie was here from Saturday to Tuesday and my friend Fer has been here since Saturday and leaves on Monday. I felt bad I wasn’t able to tour them around as much as I would have liked, but I was glad that they had each other for the times I had to leave them to study or work. We did manage to get some fun stuff in, they went on the bus touristic and  we went on a boat tour on the Mediterranean which was gorgeous. We have been having some really nice weather lately. Fer, Chessie, Mateo and I had a long walk on the beach yesterday, which was beautiful. And now I’m writing this outside on my balcony. The sun is really bright and the sky is cloudless, the temperature is perfect, I’m sitting in the shade in a T-shirt, I think it will be beach time very soon.

In other news, my mom is coming to visit next week so I am very excited for that! I’m off now to go meet Fer, we’re going to see Parc Guell.

M.I.A

I have been quite behind lately with blog/responding to emails and messages because I've got some busy times right now with 2 visitors and 3 midterms this week.

Things I will remember to blog about: Trips to London and Navarra

I highly enjoy getting the emails/messages (and the actual letters of course, always the most exciting), so thanks and sorry if I'm slacking lately but after this week hopefully I'll have a litttle more time on my hands. 

Today we went to Jazz Si again and we asked Antonia to just have some sandwiches to go instead of cooking a dinner b/c we had to leave early. So she made us our sandwiches, wrapped them, and left them on the counter with our "names" on them:

Chesi, Tía and... Queli

Sickos

"How did you lose your voice? Did you drink something cold?"

-Antonia to Chessie-

Thea and Chessie are both sick right now. Needless to say, the slippers in the house rule is on crack down.

Antonia completely lost her voice last week and I was talking to her about it. Here is a lil excerpt:

"Well, I'm glad you're doing better. I hope I don't get sick."

"Yes, well I went to lunch with my friend last week and she likes to drink her beer cold. So she put some ice in my beer. That's why I got sick."

Obviously.

Roma Tomatoes.

2/25/09

Ohh the things I should be doing right now instead of writing this. But I guess it is technically homework, so I’ll justify it.

Rome was amazing, we were there for four full days and we packed so much stuff into all of it. We walked the entire city on foot and by the end of it our feet were literally throbbing and our bodies were exhausted. We worked that city over. We saw… I want to say… EVERYTHING there is to see in Rome. We even got into the Vatican museum for free because it was the last Sunday of the month. We got blessed by the Pope in St.Peter’s square and went to a mass in the Basilica, so many things. Tejas and Chessie basically mapped out the whole thing because they both had specific things they wanted to do and I just wanted to do everything.

 Our hostel was Ok, Chessie and I were in a room with 6 other girls who inexplicably went to bed AND got up before we did even though we were slumbering and rising very early, so we never really met anyone there. But one night we decided to go get some crepes, and on the way we stopped at a grocery store to buy these little pops called “Sanbitter” that we had been seeing everywhere, because we figured they must be good and also the bottle was tiny and cute and the pop was red. Turns out these things tasted sanBITTER and were disgusting. We asked these three girls who were in the store to take a picture of us being disgusted… because these are the things we think are important to document. It turns out they were Americans as well, who just graduated from college within the past two years and were all playing professional volleyball in Switzerland. We talked for a while and they ended up coming to get crepes with us and hanging out for a long time. They said if we do end up taking a trip to Switzerland at any point while we’re here that we can stay with them for free. International connections. (crepes by the way: delicious, gelato: deluxe, pizza: of the gods.)

I went with Chessie and Matt to Sitges (a city on the beach) last night for Carnaval, which, if you haven’t heard of it, is a huge mardi-gras like celebration where everyone dresses up and there are DJ’s on the beach and parades and stuff. It was so much fun, we ended up not getting back until 7:30 the next morning. Spain be crazy.

I leave for London tomorrow night. I’m very excited, I loved London when I went there the first time in high school and I have already done all of the touristy things. Sara and Katie will be there so it will be nice and I can just hang out with them and visit the places again that I liked the best.

After London I’m bout to be hit with a wave of homework, papers and exams…

Roma Album

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016419&id=1149720713&l=129cb

Writing to come later. Laziness to occur now.

Perfecto

2/15/09

            Where to begin with this glorious weekend…

The boys went off to ski in Andorra, so originally we thought we would just be jealous of them and have a regalar type weekend here. We ended up having a great time in Barcelona.

            Things did not start off THAT great, Chessie had some friends visiting and the first night they were here, right after we left them to go to a dinner at our RA’s apartment, one of the girls got her purse stolen. Womp womp. What a nice welcome to the city. But she was a trooper about it and didn’t let it ruin her time.

            We also met up with more intercambio’s on Friday. This time Chessie and I met with young Spanish University students, one girl and one guy, Jordi and Marta. We went to a café and talked with them for a couple hours, they were both really great and we like them a lot.

So Saturday we decided to try going out to a new place, one that was really close to our house, right up on Tibidabo (the mountain behind our apt) It was a great place, very class class, and since it is embedded in the mountain it had a gorgeous view of the city at night. I wish I brought my camera, but o’course, I did not. We sat at a table by one of the windows overlooking Barcelona all 5 of us ordered one over-priced cocktail. We sat and chatted for a long time and thought we had better make it an early (3am at this point) night since three of us wanted to go to the Gothic Cathedral for mass in the morning. Before we left we went downstairs to go to the bathroom and that is when the music drew us in… none of us can resist dancing when we like the music so we ended up staying a couple more hours. What was really great about this place is that it was NOT a tourist spot. We were the only Americans in there. It also seemed to be an attraction for the middle aged crowd, which was fine with us because there were less of the creepers we usually encounter… though the creepers that WERE there were middle-aged… There was one group of younger, attractive Spanish chicos but they, like us, only seemed interested in dancing in a circle with each other this night, which was both hilarious and awesome to see.

So Sunday morning rolls around, I (like always) seriously consider not waking up when I planned to and just going back to sleep for hours. Somehow I managed to roll myself out of bed and made it to mass with Chessie and Meg. The cathedral was beautiful and we spent a while in there after mass to look at all the art. Then, as we’re leaving we hear this band and procession of people in the street, so we go to look at what it is and we see all these people with these matching outfits on. We weren’t sure what they were doing, and we were walking in the opposite direction of them, but luckily Meg saw a label on one of their shirts that said “castellers” which she had learned about. These are the people that make the human towers (as shown in the picture). We went and watched them for about an hour, it was so amazing to see. I was most terrified for the littleun’s who had to be like 4 or 5 years old who would just scale these peoples bodies to get to the top like no big deal. I don’t think I ever possessed that kind of fearlessness, def. not at the age of 4. We were just really excited that we happened to walk out of the cathedral at the perfect moment to see them, we had heard about them before and always wanted to watch it but didn’t know when it would happen. I still don’t know why they were there, there is definitely some sort of festival going on but I have no clue what, Carnival isn’t until next week.

After we watched them we went and got Hot chocolate and churros, which is just never a disappointment so no surprises there.

And then, we had the cake topper. As we are walking back to the metro we were thinking, the only thing that could make this day more perfect is if we run into those break dancers again. Lo and behold, there they are, performing in front of our metro stop. Clearly this was fate that brought us together ONCE again. So after the show, we really felt that we had no choice BUT to go and talk to them. So we went and asked them about how they all met (seeing as they are all from different countries). I guess there is a break dancing gym nearby where they all go to practice and that’s how they got together. So we finally talked to them and felt incredibly accomplished afterwards, having spoken to such awesomely talented chicos, and I left with their number, so we now really have break dancing friends to call our own. Que guay.

Directions

2/10/09

NOBODY can give directions in Spain.

Obviously within my first month here I have gotten turned around and/or lost a few times, whenever I need to find a store or like… my house, I ask people on the street for directions. Let me tell you - not once have they been correct. It is usually always the same sequence of events: They pause…express that they really have no idea where it is… take a random wild guess and send me on my way… stop me after I have gone 2 steps and admit that they really don’t know if what they told me was correct … point to another random person on the street and tell me to ask them. 

Repeat formula. 

The best part is, EVERY TIME the place I am looking for has been no more than 5 minutes away from where I asked them, and in one case, was literally two stores down.

The other day I accidentally walked down a different hallway and got off the metro at a different exit than I usually do so I asked a woman which way to Plaza Kennedy. This woman told me I was way off and that I would have to walk so far to get there. Luckily I have had enough experience with Spanish direction and also knew that there was no way that getting off at a different metro exit could place me THAT much farther away from the Plaza, so I politely thanked her but continued to walk in the opposite direction that she told me and found the plaza not 5 minutes away.  I have no idea why people don’t know where they are.

I had my intercambio meeting today and it was awesome. We went and got coffee and talked for about an hour before I had to get home for dinner. We spent about 80% of the time speaking in Spanish and it was great to actually be able to carry on a conversation, she said she thought I could speak and understand very well and she helped me clear up a few things I didn’t understand from my Spanish class because I have my first exam tomorrow. Then we talked in English for a while, which was also good because I love FINALLY being able to help someone else struggle through a language. She is actually better than I thought she would be, she understands a lot, but she hasn’t spoken English in the last 8 years so she still needs help with a lot. During our convo she also made me speak with a country accent at one point so she could hear it (but really probably so she could laugh at me, which she did). Let me just say, it is no easy thing to go from speaking in Spanish, to English, to a Southern drawl.

I got mail! Seriously so excited to receive letters today. 

Foreigner

2/9/09

I know I am getting less consistent with my updates, but luckily a journaling assignment has made me write again:

            I am sitting in a café across the street from my apartment, I ordered a café con leche, which I am quickly starting to become addicted to, which is weird because I generally don’t like coffee. Maybe I’m like a real grown up now.

            I came here to force myself to do work. I had nothing important this weekend and somehow managed to not do any of my homework for the week. I truly astound myself sometimes with the amount of time I can waste.

            I just finished doing the reading for my Barcelona class. I accidentally slept through it this morning. I will never understand the design of cell phone alarm clocks with the snooze button on one side and the off button located just one space away. When my alarm goes off in the morning the only thing I want is for it to shut up, so I slap it across the face with my finger and sometimes I hit the wrong button. That was the case today.

            The class I missed was a field trip to the Gotchic Quarter, which is a bummer because of any of the classes I would want to miss, a walking tour is not one of them. I have really been enjoying my Barcelona class. It’s gotten mixed reviews from a lot of students and generally the class is not that exciting, but getting to see and touch and visit the places we’re learning about has made it much more interesting. I really feel like I’m walking on history in a lot of places here.

            The reading we had to do talked a lot about Catalonia and the Catalan pride. It’s funny to see the differences in attitudes toward the Catalans. My senora hates Catalan, refuses to learn it, and gives her calendar, (written in Catalan), dirty looks when she has to look at the dates. My friends just got back from Valencia and said that they have their own language there too, which apparently was a fairly recent ‘take back the culture’ movement there. She was a little salty about the fact that, while in Spain, we have to decipher so many other languages. I haven’t really minded it. At first I was aggravated with Catalan, considering this IS Spain, why isn’t everything just in Spanish. But I have gotten used to it and I can see the point of wanting to preserve the language of your ancestors and taking pride in Catalunya. It was after all, a pretty powerful territory at one point. 

            I have a meeting with my intercambio partner tomorrow, which should be interesting. I feel a lot more confident when I have conversations in Spanish now, since I have to do it so often. But still, sometimes I can’t help but think about HOW DUMB I must sound. It’s almost impossible to appear at all intelligent in a language you struggle to speak. The other day I caught myself having just said a sentence that must have sounded something like, “I no need the dinner this night. I go to bar for futbol.” Eventually I put it more eloquently, but still, I think I sound like a caveman a lot.

Salada

2/3/09

            I asked Antonia the word for salty today. I wanted to know because I often use the slang meaning in English, such as, “I think she is a little salty about the fact that she wasn’t invited.” Etc… but I made the mistake of asking the meaning of this word right after we ate our over salted dinner. I think ANOTNIA felt a little salty about the fact that I needed the meaning, so I quickly (and by quickly I mean struggled and acted out many different scenarios while trying to come up with the meaning of ‘slang’) explained to her the meaning in English. (P.S. slang=argot in Spanish). She got the gist and was no longer worried about her seasoning skills (though she should be).

            The first Sunday of every month is a free day for certain Museums in Barcelona so I went with some friends to the Catalan Museum of art this weekend. It was the perfect day because it has been a little damp and dreary ‘round these parts lately. Though today the sun did come out, I was so happy I decided to walk home to enjoy the weather, only to realize I needed to turn right back around as soon as I GOT home in order to go to the intercambio meeting I had forgotten about.

            An intercambio is when a Spanish student and an English student get together to talk and help each other learn the respective languages. There were way more American kids who showed up than Spanish, so we had to group up instead of one on one. Chessie and I got placed with the same person, a woman who is probably late 20’s maybe early 30’s, named Isabel. We were both kind of hoping for someone younger so that we could maybe merge groups and get some more Spanish friends, but oh well. I still might email someone else to get another partner. I think we’re starting next week and we have one on one meetings with her to chat. We spent the entire hour and a half this time speaking in Spanish and I really don’t think this woman can speak English well at all. She only said a few words in English, I think she was a little nervous to try it out cause she said she hasn’t spoken it in ten years. Bettah him than me, more time to practice my Spanish.

            Chessie and I stopped in to visit with Maria again, that girl who works in the store on our street, the one we interviewed for our project. She is a hip hop dancer so we were talking about music. There is so much American music Spain, almost all of it is, but it takes a while to get here so she hasn’t heard of a lot of the newer hip hop songs from the US, so I told her I would put a bunch of my music on my flashdrive so she can put it on her computer and she was pretty excited about that.

            In other news: I booked my trip to Greece! I’m going for Spring break with David in April, I’m really excited, it is one of the places that I have wanted to visit the most. I love looking through my day planner now, my life has never been this exciting. 

Explanations

1/31/09

            Everything makes sense now… Antonia’s mother passed away on Friday morning so she took off to Sevilla, leaving us each 30 euro to cover our food expenses until Monday when she will come back. She didn’t want to wake me up (and I assume didn’t want to explain everything) so she just creeped on into my room and left the money on my computer.

            As for the mustard and bags… it was a DIFFERENT creeper into my room who left those. Chessie had bought the Dijon and the sandwich bags the previous day and thought I might need them to pack my lunch so she left them on my floor so I would know where they were. It’s all seems clear NOW, yet I was by myself that entire day left to my own speculations as to what had occurred in the morning hours inside my room next to my sleeping face. Chessie and Thea both had a field trip that day and Antonia didn’t leave me a note or anything. When I came home in the afternoon Marta was there, jamming to her tunes and cleaning the kitchen, and she told me what had happened.

            We’ve had a 3 day weekend which means I have put off doing any homework and I have to finish Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” which means I need to start reading rigggghhhtt…. NOW.

Curious

I woke up this morning to a sound in my room, so I look over my shoulder and Antonia is shuffling out as if she has been caught red handed. I wait a little while and turn on my lights. There is 30 euro on my computer, a box of plastic bags on the ground, and a jar of mustard rolling across my floor.

Hopefully Some of this will be explained but I thought it would be more interesting for everyone if I gave them only this part of the story first...