First Day of School

Yesterday was my first day of school.  The way the program works is slightly complicated.  We have to take at least one class at the international student school here, called ESCI.  The other classes we take can be through our actual program, CIEE, who hire professors specifically for the students in the program, which is nice.  Tuesday was my first class at ESCI, market research.  We had trouble finding it, naturally.  We get there and manage to find the classroom and in walk these students from around Europe wearing heels, fur, and red lipstick.  This just seems unnecessary to me.  I get the whole no sweatpants thing, but heels?  Really?  The professor then comes in and his accent is so thick I proceed to spend the next two hours of my life not understanding a single word that is said.  Great.  My hardest class and I can't understand a word that's being said; perfect.  Today was my spanish class at CIEE.  It wasn't really a class.  The teacher spoke completely in Spanish, which I may have to remind you, I have no previous experience in (besides one year when I was a freshman in high school which I think is void at this point).  The last half of class we played that game where there's a famous person on a sticky note on your forehead and you have to ask yes or no questions to find out who there are.  That was actually fun, so I don't think I'll mind this class.  There's about 10 of us in that class so if I don't make a single friend in there then I'm just hopeless I guess.  But regardless, our school is so pretty.  It's in a little avenue off a main road in Barcelona with cobble stone and in two gorgeous houses.  See below.

Three Kings

This past Monday (January 6th) was Barcelona's big holiday, the Three Kings' Day.  Here, Santa and the whole Christmas ordeal aren't a big deal. Their holiday lasts until this day, when the three kings come and bring them gifts.  Everything in the city is shut down except for a few restaurants that remain open for the tourists I'm assuming.  The night before this holiday, I met up with my "Guardian Angel" and the other members of my group at 6pm for chocolate churros.  They were honestly so delicious.  You get a cup of melted chocolate and then churros on the side and you dip them into the cup and then when you're done you're suppose to drink all of the chocolate.  I do love chocolate, but drinking that cup full was just too much for me.  After, we went and watched the Three Kings Parade which was so beautiful.  I've never seen a parade like it before.

After the parade I met up with Ingrid and we went to our host mom's family friend's home for a holiday dinner.  We had a Kings' Cake so we could also experience the classic tradition.  Everyone at the table takes turns cutting a piece for themselves.  If you get a piece that includes a little king figurine, you are said to have good luck for the coming year.  If you get a piece that has the pea though, you need to pay for the cake, which can be surprisingly expensive depending on the size.  And I don't mean to brag, but I did get the piece with the king, and was way overly excited about it.  Hence me wearing the crown in the picture below.

Look at that crown, who will win??

Princess for a minute 

Let's Talk Wine

The wine here is fantastic.  You drink it at lunch and at dinner and, well, whenever you feel like it.  Out to lunch?  A glass of wine is 3 euros?  Ok, I'll just take the bottle for 7 euros then please.  No wonder everyone is so happy all the time here and just goes with the flow.  

Enjoying a glass of wine by Sagrada Familia.  Soooo classyyyy.  

 

Chocolate Box

Our resident director, Elizabeth, told us to challenge ourselves to really become a part of our local community.  She said a way to do this is to pick a spot you love and become a "regular" there.  Naturally, I managed to find this cafe called Chocolate Box, and well it was love at first site.  I've decided this will be "my spot".  I even have "claimed" my table.  So Chocolate Box has not seen the last of me, that's for sure.

 

Here she is in all her glory.  Chocolate Box = Love

How I am even expected to resist this????

My Spot.  

YUM YUM YUMMMMM

LOL how much I love this place, two pics of the food, and one with a filter.  

This is love

Getting Lost to Be Found

The only way to learn the city of Barcelona, I've been beginning to discover, is to get lost in it.  So that's what I've been starting to do.  After my initial scare Thursday night, I realized at one point I just need to start walking around and exploring the city.  People are friendly if you get lost too and need assistance, that is, if you can communicate with them.  Saturday we spent time on the metro by ourselves for the first time and walked around the city.  Sunday I rode the metro by myself for the first time and after only two days on it I already know it, which taking into consideration my horrible sense of direction, is highly impressive.  These next 2 weeks my goal is to walk around the city and start to connect the dots, since you obviously spend the time on the metro underground.  Here's some pictures of the city I took while exploring.  Isn't it gorgeous??

(if anyone wants to move into one of these apartments with me, just say the word)

(don't ask me where this is, I have no idea.  Really embracing the whole "get lost" thing)

(oh, this is just our neighborhood.  our host mom works at that castle looking thing in the middle of the two buildings)

(Was lost wondering in the streets and saw this cool church, from behind)

(why are even their streets so pretty here??)

(Sagrada Familia - these pictures don't do it justice.  It is absolutely breathtaking and I could stare at it all day.  Only 10 minutes from our house.  #barcelonalife)

(another angle of Sagrada Familia)

The Hunger Games

The above statement basically sums up my eating schedule here.  People were not joking when they said that people in Europe eat later, especially Spain.  Let me give you a run down of how this works so when I mention several times in  my blogs how I'm slowly starving to death, you understand.

Breakfast - You get up and eat a croissant and expresso.  This is not filling.  At all.  Our host mom was kind enough to get us cereal so I'm extremely thankful for that.  But cereal doesn't work when you don't have milk, so back to the croissants it is.  And I don't know how to work her expresso machine.  So no expresso. 

Lunch - This is so backwards to me.  Lunch is one heck of an ordeal over here.  I thought people might be over exaggerating when they say people eat lunch for two hours.  How is that even possible?  In 9th grade when my french teacher told me that I thought she was crazy.  It was not a joke.  Two.  Hours.  Each.  Time.  It's the biggest meal of the day.  You usually start with bread, then a salad, a pasta, a meat, and a dessert.  Over the span of two hours. The bring it out to you very slowly, and you eat each dish for like 20 minutes.  It's so peculiar to me, but now I understand why it takes 2 hours.  Oh, and don't forget the wine.  That better go with every lunch or it isn't a complete lunch.  

Dinner - This takes place between 9pm and 10pm.  Dinner is very delicious and considered a "smaller" meal during the day, though it seems sometimes just as big as lunch, just over a shorter period of time.  An example of our host mom's home cooked meal.  It was delicious thought the wait is difficult.

This is the hard part.    Because we obviously don't go out and eat a huge lunch since we have class so you eat this little sandwich, spend all day walking around, spend a long period of time at the gym, and then need to wait until 9pm to eat.  So today, this was the result.  Spending a day in class, walking for a total of two hours around town, and spending 2 hours at the gym and only haven eaten breakfast, this was our 4:30pm "lunch".  

Too Much Stuff

January 2nd was the first day of orientation.  The day we get to see who our host mom is.  Deciding whether to live in a dorm or in a homestay was a huge decision and both had its pros and cons.  In the end, the homestay won out.

Considering you are living with this person for 4 months, it's a pretty big deal.  So I arrive at orientation and all I can think about through everything is who is this mystery lady going to be.  I can't even recall what was said during the hour long presentation. After that was all over we finally are off to our homestays.  All of the people that were living in the dorms leave and we just have to sit and wait for our names to be called.  Mine is finally called and I start to get nervous.  Ingrid and I go to grab our luggage (all three suitcases, yes I'm being serious) and head out to meet her.  I'm not sure what I expected, but my first impression of her was great.  She seemed so nice, but spoke little english.  The first thing she says is "mama mia, SO much stuff".  We roll up to her car.  It's a compact.  How we even got 6 pieces of luggage, 2 backpacks, and 3 people in that car is still beyond me.  Just take a look at it below.  It was an LOL worthy moment, that's for sure.

We make it to her house and now have to take this elevator that can fit maybe three people.  So that was a pain.  The apartment is small since she lives by herself but very nice and open.  The view from the roof and the balcony is amazing and I love it.

(host mom and I)

After we spend some time unpacking we head out to meet at the CIEE school where we will then go to get drinks with our Guardian Angels (spanish students who are basically leaders of small break out groups here).  The whole program walks to a bar to find out, surprise, they can't fit 140 people in there. So we have to break up resulting in Ingrid and I (who live together in the same home stay) being broken up.  I also have no phone at this point.  Situation = not good.  We make this plan to meet at a certain spot at a certain time and I don't know where this spot is anymore because I was led around town for like 30 minutes resulting in no sense of direction anymore.  I end up giving up trying to find Ingrid and taking a taxi home.  Ingrid's missing for like 30 more minutes and she finally makes her way home.   We didn't eat dinner until 10:30pm that night.  Yes, you read that right.  Oh, dinner is between 9pm and 10pm here.  Yeah, I'm barely surviving.

Hotel Days

All right, so as you can see according to my "Disclaimer" blog post, I suck at blogging.  My mom even had to send me a text telling me to blog.  So here it goes. 

This has been a crazy week, words can't describe it.  It's been a roller coaster to say the least.  There's times when I love it, there's times when I hate it and just want to go back to America.  It's ungodly hard to communicate with people here.  That whole line of "oh, you don't need to know how to speak Spanish, it's fine", yeah, that was false.  Believe it or not, you do need to know how to speak Spanish.  It's exhausting try to communicate and my brain physically hurts by the end.  

Anyways, Monday night was our first day in Barcelona.  We slept for so long from the jet lag that we didn't wake up until 2pm.  So over 14 hours of sleep and it was magical.  We managed to miss breakfast though and woke up in the middle of their "siesta", aka there was nothing open since all the restaurants and shops close for lunch and a mid-day nap, something we were definitely not use to.  We manage to find ONE restaurant that is open.  I think we must have looked so desperate he let us in even though technically it was closed.  We ate spring rolls with pork and after not eating for almost 24 hours, it was heaven.  I naturally had a glass of wine with it.   

 After dinner we decided it was necessary to explore the night life.  We went to this local bar and met a ton of people from all over Europe and even some who had studied previously in America.  We met a group of people from Finland who showed us this bar where you can walk right out onto the beach of the Mediterranean Sea, which was amazing.   

The next night was New Year's Eve and we went to one of the many plazas they have here to watch the fireworks and water light show.  I can't even explain what really happened because they have this HUGE stick man with people in it all dancing and moving so it looks sort of real.  I don't know, either way it was awesome.  This was me just chilling at the Plaza.  They handed out grapes to us and the first 12 seconds after midnight you are suppose to eat one each second for good luck.  I managed to mess it up....

The next day (Wednesday) we honestly stayed in bed because I think we hit rock bottom at this point.  It was too hard to try to communicate with people anymore and I just wanted a break from having to speak Spanish for the most simple of things.  We did manage to leave the hotel for food, but that was it.   

That summed up my time before orientation.  Add in a few frustrating conversations and starving because of their weird eating schedule and that was my life for 5 days.  See some pictures below from the area around the hotel.  Everywhere you go is so beautiful!  

And Here We Go

December 28^th began with rising early at 6am after only four hours of sleep.  It’s weird, it’s hard to sleep the night before you uproot your life and move to another city, no scratch that, country.  After the five hour drive to Chicago we finally arrive at the airport where I proceed to already struggle with checking myself in.  I leave my passport and wallet on the counter and look away from it, and am then instantly met with a lecture from my mom and Netti about my things being stolen.  Lesson noted.  I sit with my mom and Netti on the airport floor (classy, I know) and wait until my friend Ingrid, who I’m traveling to Barcelona with, arrives.  She checks in and it’s time to go through security.  I think this is one of the moments I’ve been dreading most, the last goodbye.  Once I say this, that’s it.  I’m leaving and there’s no turning back, not that there was really turning back once I paid the excessively large fee for the program anyways.  Either way, though saying goodbye to my mom was hard, I didn’t turn into the sobbing wreck of a person I though I would.  I’m pretty sure I was just too tired at this point to have emotions.  With one last wave to my mom, I turn and go through security, and we’re on our way.  Barcelona, ready or not, I’m coming for you.  

*Disclaimer*

I find it necessary to write a quick disclaimer about the fact I am a horrible writer.  There’s a reason that I’m not trying to be a professional blogger or writer, as you will soon see as you begin to read my blog.  If anything, my attempt will be comical.  Almost on the same level of me trying to speak the little Spanish I know to locals here.  Well, on that note, enjoy!