I'm Home!

I’m in the airport, and soon I’ll be home! Of course, by the time this makes it onto the internet, I’ll be home for sure, and by soon, I mean in 14 hours…woo…
But I’m really excited, even though it’s like 9 degrees at home (while it has been 55ish here), and it’s going to be a rather long day. Last night I had to say goodbye to everyone, which was tough, because all of the people that I’m close with here are from all over the place- I’m trying to convince them all to end up visiting Chicago somehow this summer.

SO I said that I would elaborate on Catalan Christmas stuff. Barcelona is actually beautiful during the Christmas season- there are lights all over the place, and even though it’s nowhere near Christmas weather, but if you go to the right places, there are a ton people out shopping, and then it feels like Christmas.

Each main street downtown has a unique sort of Christmas light thing that is suspended over the street. For example, in Barri Gotic down Porta de l’Angel, there are these giant lit up star things suspended over the street. Because it’s Europe, and they love to save energy, they only light them at night from 6-9. I was actually sitting on a bench there a couple of nights ago waiting for the lights to turn on, and when they did, you could hear everyone on the street simultaneously go “Ooooh!”

On to the Christmas traditions! So in the US we celebrate Christmas as our main holiday, and do all of the family togetherness and gift giving on that day. Well Spain (and also part of Latin America- Puerto Rico, for one) has more of an emphasis on Three King’s Day, which is January 6th. My understanding is that the holiday season is more of a private celebration, and they don’t really do big parades or celebrations outside.

On Christmas itself, they don’t really put up a Christmas tree. Now you’ll see people getting mini Christmas trees, like ones 3ish feet tall, just because the tradition has sort of been imported, but it’s not really popular. What is more popular is the nativity scene in miniature. I’m sure you’ve all seen them at home, with the little figures of Mary and Joseph and stuff, but Spanish ones are crazy. I mean, they are still normal cresche sized, though slightly bigger, but they are really intricate.

You can buy them with working lights, and little handmade bridges and palm trees, and figures of chickens and cows and pretty much any possible thing you would expect to be in a scene like that. And there are a fair amount of things that you would not expect there. The one that is most notable is the figure of the Caganer. By the way, the Caganer is purely a Catalan thing, not a rest of Spain thing, so if you talk to someone from Andalucía about this, and say it’s normal in Spain, they will call you a crazy person.

The caganer figure is this little guy that is dressed as a traditional Catalan peasant with a pipe and a red gorra (a cap-y sort of thing, like a smurf). The thing that makes this interesting is he’s not just standing there, he is…pooping. Welcome to Catalunya. Wikipedia says it may have something to do with pre-Christian fertility stuff, but my Catalan professor was like “Yeah, some Catalan probably made that up to excuse our weirdness. It’s not gonna work.”

You’d think the poop ends there, but it does not. Instead of Santa Claus delivering gifts on Christmas, they have this thing called a “Caga Tió” or a “Tió de Nadal,” which translate to “Poop Log” and “Christmas Log,” respectively. So the whole way this works is you have this log- I am not joking when I say that this is an actual log, from the woodpile- and on the front it’s got this creepy face and smile, and it wears the traditional red gorra too. It also has smaller sticks on the front to kind of prop it up like legs.

So when kids are little, on Christmas they but a blanket around the Caga Tió “to keep it warm,” and they sing a song, and hit it with a stick in the hopes that the log “poops” gifts. While the kids are singing this song, the parents sneak small gifts under the blanket and every once in a while go “Look! I think it just pooped something! What is it?!” According to my good friend Wikipedia, here is the song that they sing- Spanish kids I showed this to said its right, but different families have slightly different variations of it.

caga tió,
caga torró,
avellanes i mató,
si no cagues bé
et daré un cop de bastó.
caga tió!"

poop log,
poop turrón,
hazelnuts and cottage cheese,
if you don't poop well,
I'll hit you with a stick,
poop log!

Since the log is relatively small, obviously it can’t pass the larger gifts, so those are brought later by the Three Kings through methods that we consider more conventional. Other than that, I know of no other strange Catalan Christmas traditions… it’s just food and family, like here. I’m bringing home some turrón, which is their Christmas candy, and tons and tons of Christmas gifts.

I actually thought my giant suitcase would be pretty empty on the way home, but it was completely stuffed. I bought most of my Christmas gifts here, and they took up half the suitcase. Also I threw in a bunch of stuff that I had noticed I don’t use/need, some books I bought and finished reading, all my school stuff from this past semester, and other random and sundry stuff.

The thing was like 52 pounds, so it was kind of rough getting from my dorm, to the tram, to the metro to the bus, to the airport. Which was packed, I may add. Thank god for elevators. Of course, once I got off the metro, I had the good luck of using the only metro station in perhaps all of Barcelona that did not have an elevator. That was a great experience. Then I tripped all over myself trying the get the monster on to the bus, and looked ridiculous. But it’s on the plane now, and I don’t plan on actually carrying it anywhere until I come back to Barcelona (:

I leave Chicago on the 16th or so to come back. I probably won’t update over break, since the whole point of this thing is writing about Spain and travel, but who knows. Have a good holiday season everyone!

Last couple weeks of class!

I can't believe today was the last day of class! The last couple weeks have been pretty tame, mostly because everyone's got a ton of papers and projects and presentations that were shoved off onto the very last second. Also I've been sort of antisocial recently, because up until this point I was never overwhelmingly homesick, since I was so far away from being home the whole time. But as soon as we got within 2 weeks or so of leaving, I couldn't stop thinking "I WANT TO BE HOME RIGHT NOW." It's also kind of weird because most kids here are never going to come back, so they're all upset about leaving and everything... but the thing is, I'm going back for another 4 months, and I'll plenty of time for all of the nightlife and the going out (which I'll be way happier about when it warms up again). I am ready to go home now. But I'm sure I'll be ready to come back after break.

So I'm really excited about going home. Of course I get to see my favorite person ever (you only get one guess who this is), and his family, who I miss too. My grandfather is flying in from Tampa for Christmas, and my mom's cousin, his kids, wife and mother are also coming in from Ft. Lauderdale! I'm really really excited, our house is going to be crazy, but it'll be great to see family. And eat awesome Puerto Rican food (arapas!!!!).

AND everyone's coming home from school, so I get to see high school buddies! Of course Sarah's abandoning us for Ghana for a few weeks, but who can blame her for that :D Just don't get malaria! I am sad that I won't get to see my Case friends though... unless anyone is going to be in Chicagoland for Xmas. I miss you guys too! I will also miss some really cool people I have met here at IES that go to schools all over... We'll definitely keep in touch.

I'm actually kind of nervous about who I am going to have as friends next semester. The thing is that all of the new students (there are only about 6 full year students) are going to arrive the 7th or so, about a week and a half before classes, to start just their Spanish classes and have orientation. I think they're doing the orientation trip to Valencia again. Since I'm not taking a Spanish class yet, and already have done orientation and all that, I don't have to go again. Plus it means I get to spend about 4 weeks at home and have a normal break. The downside is that since I'm not going to be around the first week, my roomies and everyone else are already going to know each other, so it'll be a little bit harder to make friends. Hopefully they're going to be nice!

I'm actually really excited about a couple things for next semester. I've of course got the apartment on Gran Via. I haven't been to the actual apartment yet, but in general, all of the ones from the program are really nice. Also the housing coordinator gave me single!!! Wooo! They don't have that many singles, so I'm really happy they let me have it. The apartment is a couple blocks away from a metro stop 3 down from class, so it only takes me 15 minutes to get to class at Catalunya. It'll be so nice to not have a 45 minute commute anymore.

Also, I've finally got my schedule for next semester set! I don't think I'm going to have any problems at all with being bored... I'm going to have a lot on my plate. Technically, I'm only taking 15 hours again, but it'll be slightly crazier. I am taking: Church and State in Spain from 1492 to Modern, Nationalism in Modern Europe: Emphasis on the Catalonian Case, Barcelona: the City and its History, Gypsies in Spain, and the Research Methodology Seminar. Unfortunately, two of those classes are in English, but I didn't really have a choice. Oh well...

I wanted to continue with Catalan, since I think I've actually settled into the language recently, and it's gotten substantially easier for me to speak and understand. I think I've legitimately learned a 3rd language... :D Buuut unfortunately, the Catalan class is during the research one, which I need to take, because... I have an internship!!! I am actually disgustingly excited about this. I went and had my interview last week at the HR office for Dr. Echevarne labs. I should be all set- 8 hours a week in one of their microbio labs! Pretty much, I get to play around with bacteria all day! I'll set up and run cultures, learn how to id certain types of bacteria, how to tell if it's gram negative and such like that. Also I get scrubs, Hooray! Also, no Spanish class, means no Friday class (: I'm hoping I can use those Fridays a couple of times to shadow doctors in the area.

In other next semester news, I'm deciding on where to travel next semester, since I need to budget in order to not be in debt by the time the year is over. It's alright, because all the money I've saved from summer jobs and everything was always meant to be spent this year, and when am I ever going to have the chance to travel Europe like this again? Probably not for at least 15 more years. So I've made the list of the places I'm want to visit, looked at some flights and at how much I've spent this past semester, and made some guestimations.

I'll be over what I have left to spend by maybe 200 dollars, if estimates are correct, but that is really not much, considering how much the whole semester is going to be travel-wise. I've got another account that I can take it out of, although I would really prefer not to. Also once I get home for the summer, it's straight to a summer job. That is, assuming I can find a job in this economy. So I can earn back a little bit of money without to much trouble.

What I'm thinking so far is doing a long weekend in Marrakesh, Morocco. Morocco is one of my top places to go- I know a lot of kids who went this past semester, and they all said is was amazing. Another weekend or couple of days I'll go to Granada to see the Alhambra. If my parents come visit over spring break (as I hope they do!) with my brother and sister, I'll wait and take off a couple of days of school and go with them. Otherwise, I'll just pick a weekend and go then. Some weekend I will definitely be visiting my Case suitemate Joy in London. Also I've got Spring Break during Holy Week (called Semana Santa, here in Spain), so the planned itinerary is Berlin to Prague to Budapest to Istanbul. I plan to get back for Easter, since it's a biiiig deal here in Spain. Aaaand that will be it!

It sounds like a lot, but it's about the same amount of travel that I did this past semester (Valencia, Tarragona, Zurich, Lucerne, Florence, Rome, Copenhagen, Paris, Pyrenees). But I'm really psyched for all the places I'm going. I know at least one person who's been to each of those places, so I've been emailing them about what hostels they stayed in and stuff like that, just to get an opinion from someone who I know.

The only thing I have left to do is convince people to go with me now (and book everything lol)... that does make me slightly nervous, but hopefully I'll meet some people who are thinking of going to the same places I am! I would like to go to Madrid too, since I've heard good things and it is the actual capital, but we'll see if I can afford it. I had also thought of doing Lisbon, Vienna or Greece (Santorini, or a nearby island), but I had to narrow it down. Hopefully I'll be back sometime before I die...

Well enough about all this travel business. This weekend I'm going to ski in the Pyrenees for the day, then I have finals, and then I am going HOME! It's ok Spain, I'll be back. How did I manage to write a lot about virtually nothing? Guess I'm talented... I'll update at the end of finals. Someone please remind me to elaborate on Catalan Christmas traditions, because they are very very strange. Because the notion of a fat man bringing gifts down a chimney isn't strange at all...

Wish me luck on finals!

Paris

Things since Copenhagen have been pretty uneventful- I've finalized plans for moving to an apartment (I get a single, yay!), my schedule, and I have an interview with a hospital set up for this Friday. The weekend before last I just spent finishing off a final paper to turn in early, so the next weekend (this past weekend), I wouldn't have any work. Because...this past weekend we had yet another Friday off, so I headed off to Paris with Zoe, Lindsey, Steve and Margaret to meet up with some friends of Lindsey's!

We got into Paris on Thursday evening, and a little more than an hour later finally made it to our hostel. We stayed in St. Christoper's, a new hostel in the north of Paris, in the neighborhood where Amelie was filmed. If you ever go to Paris, stay here, because it was pretty much one of the nicest hostels I have stayed in. Good price too.

Anyways, there we met up with Lindsey's friend Alyssa, who is studying abroad in Copenhagen with the same program that Ariella is. We were all kind of tired from travel and planing on getting up early, so we found a restaurant around the corner from the hostel and ate there. It was good- one of those places with little grills on your table, so you cook the food yourself. You'd think the food would cost less, since you're the one doing the cooking, but you would be wrong. Still delicious.

Steve met up with us in the hostel, and we made plans for the next day. We woke up pretty early on Friday, and headed out to Montmartre to see Sacre Coeur, the giant palace-y looking basilica. On the way there I misread the map, and we ended up going the wrong direction for a couple blocks, and ended up in the Red Light Disctrict Pigalle. It was pretty much a 4 or 5 block strip of sex shops, strip clubs and bars that include the original Moulin Rouge. I should probably see that movie sometime, huh?

Once we figured out that we were going in the wrong direction, we got to Sacre Coeur quickly, and climbed up the big stairs at the bottom of the hill to the top. On the way up, Steve got tricked into buying a bracelet- some guy approached him and had him hold some strings that he wove into a bracelet and tied around his wrist before Steve could say anything. Some people aren't just mean enough to ignore people like that.... :D

The view from the top was pretty, but it was foggy out, so the Eiffel Tower in the distance was kind of dim. After that we went back to the metro station and navigated our way to Versailles, the palace built by Louis XIV, the sun king. Versailles was huge but we spent several hours there and saw almost everything. We started with the main palace, and toured through all of the rooms there that we were allowed.

The rooms were gorgeous- they had preserved all of the original room decorations and everything was either pretty french patterned cloth or gold leaf. I really liked this palace in general, compared to other ones I have been too, because it had a lot of windows. The back of Versailles into this gigantic garden, so a lot of the windows were open to the garden. My favorite part was the hall of mirrors... it was still beautiful, and so easy to imagine courtiers running around in there. This would have been where Anne Boleyn learned to be French when he parents sent her to France as punishment.

We also saw Marie Antoinette's old room, where she had to close her balcony doors because the public was starving and demanding bread outside of her balcony, and about to attack her. One thing sort of annoying about Versailles was that there were these Jeff Koons pieces put in the middle of those elegant rooms- they were trying to show some comparison between modern art and the art of Versailles, but it was not a good juxtaposition. I mean, you would have this beautiful ballroom, and then a giant pink balloon animal in the middle of the room, or a lobster hanging from the ceiling, or a bunch of vacuum cleaners standing in front of an original portrait of Marie Antoinette. Strange...

Afterward 4ish hours there we went out to the gardens, which you could spend hours and hours in. They were pretty already, so they must be amazing in the Spring. I would most definitely go back there. Out in the giant gardens there were a few other buildings that we walking around in, including another royal residence that was used mostly by the Bonaparte family, and Marie Antoinette's private retreat.

There were also sheep and cows all the way back there! There were a lot of swans too- one of the guys in a work truck who was doing landscaping was driving around, and this swan-goose (it was too ugly to be a swan, but not the right coloring to be a goose. It was swan size though) just went and sat right where he was trying to drive. He honked at it a few times, yelled out the window at it, and when it finally started moving, tried to run it over. Ah, french road rage. Anyways the place is so big that they also rent out golfcarts so you can ride those around. Lets just say I was really happy to sit for that half an hour train ride back around 5:30.

Once we were back into Paris proper, we went to the Louvre. The Louvre is open till 10 and free for people under 25 on Fridays, so we had about 4 hours there. I was actually able to walk through almost every exhibit (I really wanted to see the Islamic art exhibit, but it was closed ): ), but I can completely see how you could spend a week there. Especially if you can read French- the little paragraphs they usually have under paintings and stuff were only written in French, which I can read if I try really hard. Even then I get maybe 50-75%, but it was just taking too long, so I stopped and just wandered around.

Every so often I'd see something that I'd recognize from textbooks or my mom's art stuff, and take a picture of it. They're surprisingly lax about cameras there. Of course I saw the famous stuff, the Mona Lisa, a few more things by Da Vinci, some Botticelli, Cezanne, Monet, the victory statue, and a lot more. I really liked the exhibit with Etruscan stuff.

We got kicked out around 10, and walked out the pyramid entrance. It was dark, and with the pyramid all lit up, the blue Eiffel Tower and the lit up ferris wheel at Place de la Concorde, it was pretty. But also freezing, like 35ish degrees. Oh well. We found a reasonably priced cafe in front of Palais Royal, ate, and then hopped the metro to get back to the hostel. It would have been nice to enjoy Parisian night life, but the metro closes around 1:30, it had been a really long day, and the next day was only going to get longer. We got back around 12:45 and crashed.

On Saturday morning we got up to meet Lindsey's friend Olivia near Notre Dame. She is a french history major and has been in Paris for the semester. Her french is also good, so she was really really helpful, and took us on a walk through the city to some really cool places, describing the history as she went. She was really nice to have spent her entire day playing tour guide with us.

She started us off at Notre Dame. Outside in the front is a plaque from which all points in Paris are measured- it's the center of the city. Notre Dame itself really doesn't look that big (compared to other giant churches I have been to) on the outside, but from the inside, it is gigantic. There's not really much you can say about the church itself that will do it justice; it's one of those you have to be there kind of things.

It did make me want to watch the Hunchback of Notre Dame though. Maybe I'll watch that this week (: Anyways we were lucky and there wasn't really a line, which was the case with most places we went during the day. We didn't go up to the towers, but just toured around the inside and then continued down Ile de la Cité.

Next we went to Sainte Chapelle, the old royal church attached the the Conciergerie, the royal palace used before the royal family moved to Versailles. I think of all of the churches that I have been to before, this one is my favorite. Please look at my pictures, or google image it or something, because it is so so so pretty. Even the part of the church that wasn't for the royal family was beautiful.

Since St. Chappelle is right next to the Conciergerie, we wet there next. If Olivia hadn't been there, I would know almost nothing about this building. It's sort of difficult to imagine the place as a palace, since it is preserved in "it's last historically significant condition," as a prison that it was converted to after the royal family moved. It's actually pretty neat to see how they had converted area to prison cells, and it has some artifacts from the French Revolution and Terror, when it housed a lot of political prisoners. This is where prisoners were kept before they were executed.

You could actually see where Marie Antoinette spent her last days- where her old cells used to be and things like that. The whole thing was slightly creepy, but still pretty cool. From there we walked down Rue St. Honoré next to the Seine on our way to Place de la Concorde. On the way there, Olivia took us into the courtyard of the apartment where Robespierre lived with the Dantons. Next door was this really cute bakery, the Delices de Manon, which had a penguin chocolate wafer thing. It was delicious.

Sometime on our way Olivia took us through this enclosed plaza with trees and stuff that was surrounded with little shops, all of which were either extremely expensive old cafes from the 1700s, or high priced antique places. Here there was a café where Napoleon used to hang out when he was a student in Paris, and in front of another café, the place where the French revolution pretty much started was marked on the wall.

From there we ended up at Place de la Concorde, which has had a few different names, and used to be the place where prisoners were guillotined. This is where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were publicly executed. There was this giant Ferris wheel called the Grande Roue there, and also a big obelisk that the French stole from Egypt. From there we went down the Champs Elysee toward Arc de Triomphe. There was actually a Christmas market going on there, and it was fun to walk around. Arc de Triomphe is pretty, it just sort of sits there, so we hopped the metro to go over the Musee Carnavalet.

Musee Carnavalet is a museum on French history spread out across a few fancy houses of the old nobility. It's smaller, but pretty interesting, so we stayed there until we got kicked out around 6. From there Olivia took us to where the Bastille used to be. The building itself is gone, there are just some markers on the plaza, but now the area is big for nightlife. We walked around the streets and found a restaurant, and just relaxed for a bit.

Afterwards we took the metro again over to the Eiffel Tower, which was lit up all blue to look like the EU symbol. We went up to the top in the elevator and you could see the whole city lit up- it was so pretty. Although it was windy and freezing up there, it was worth it. It was also pretty cool to see all of the different places that we had been to during the day from up there. While we were up there, it "sparkled-" they had attached strobe light aaaall over the tower, and they turn then all on when the hour changes at night.

We took the stairs down, and by the time we had gotten all the way back up past the gardens, it sparkled again! We grabbed some warm up hot chocolate at a cafe looking out at the Eiffel Tower, and then got back to the hostel around one again. It was such a long day, that most of us were practically falling asleep at the cafe, so we just went to bed. Sort of- I stayed up a little to finish some postcards. I was facing the window of the hostel, and while I was there it started to snow! It was a pretty snow, with giant snowflakes- so I saw my first snow of the season in Paris this year!!!

On Sunday morning we packed up our stuff and checked out of the hospital. From there we were to Luxembourg Gardens to walk around, and passed by the Danton statue on the way. Everyone went to grab some crepes, but I went on a mad search to find stamps. On the way to find stamps I actually walked by the Sorbonne, and some Cluny remains. Then it was off to the airport, and home to Barcelona!!

It was a really good weekend, and although I didn't expect to, I really loved it. I liked all of the different neighborhoods, and the history behind everything and it was just a really nice city. It was beautiful even in the winter, and in the spring I bet it is ridiculously gorgeous. I would go back there in a second.

Copenhagen

General notice: So I know my English in this blog is terrible- I try to read stuff over and screen for some of the worse mistakes, but I still miss a lot. I forget words in English too now, it’s terrible. You’d think my Spanish would be getting better and my English worse, so they’d even out a bit, but it just seems like my English is getting worse, and that’s it… Apologies for the atrocious English…

During the two weeks after fall break, I had some papers due, 4 scholarships to apply for, a few midterm exams, 800 pictures to upload and tag, a mountain of laundry to wash, and an election to follow. It was rather busy. Election Day was crazy, or rather, Election Night, since all the exciting stuff was happening from 12-6:30 am my time, and I don’t have access to a tv, so I had to keep refreshing the internet every few minutes. Of course at this time, the internet decided it would be the perfect time to break on me. At the same time I was supposed to be editing a 10 page history paper... What ended up happening was I fell asleep for a half an hour about every hour, and finally went to sleep for good around 4:30 am my time, without finishing my paper, once Obama had won 200 or so electoral votes. I figure he was going to be ok then, but asked my mom to call me when it was official.

Apparently my mom called me around 6:00 to tell me, and I answered the phone and talked to her, but I completely don’t remember. So I woke up at 7:45, approximately when I should be eating, and had to quickly put the finishing touches on my essay, shower, get to IES early and print my paper. I was not very awake all day. Spain is obsessed with American politics, so Obama was on the front page of every newspaper, but I really wish I could have been home then. It was just really strange to walk around and feel filled with energy and like something is different, when everyone around you is going on as if it’s just another boring day. I slept a lot on Thursday (:

This past weekend we had Friday off, so I went up to Copenhagen, Denmark to see Ariella and Stephanie from Case. My (extremely expensive) flight left on Thursday afternoon, and after almost missing my connecting flight in Zurich, I got into Copenhagen, where Ariella met me in the airport. We took the metro and bus back to her place, a collegium, or dorm for Danish students. Her dorm was really strange, it was called Keops, and was made up of singles, with doors that opened to the outside. Instead of having hallways inside, the hallways were outside, where it was freezing cold.

But the room itself was nice sized, with a little mini kitchen, AND the bathroom had heated floor tiles. I was really excited about that last part for some reason… We just stayed up late that night talked and caught up- it was just nice to be around someone who’s known me for more than 3 months.

The next morning we got up and took the bus to downtown Copenhagen to walk down the pedestrian street with all of the shops. We stopped in a few of them and I bought a new hat, since it was ridiculously cold there. As we kept walking we went by the Round Tower, the Rundetårn in Danish, and took a quick look inside Helligaands Kirken. Ariella had me buy some Danish pastries, which were delicious, and also try a bunch of different types of licorice, which were apparently “very Danish” but in my opinion, very disgusting.

We got lunch at a kebab place near where she’s got class, and the guy made me order in Danish. Apparently Ariella goes there a lot, and so do a lot of students, so since he guy there knows that it’s all students, he makes them order in Danish. He would be like “Do you want cucumber?” And wouldn’t do anything unless you said “Yes, I want cucumber please, or no I do not want cucumber, thank you.” When I went “mmhmm” for yes to something, he was like “No, no mmhmm,” and repeated whatever it was I was supposed t say in Danish. It was funny.

Danish itself is funny… it sounds sort of like you’re gagging and about to be sick when it is spoken, and it apparently isn’t pronounced anything like how it’s written. Also they don’t have a word for please- you just say thank you after everything, like “Could you move your chair, thank you?” Interesting. So we ate where Ariella had classes, and I said hi to Stephanie, who knew I was there. I also said hi to 2 other Case kids I know who are studying there as well, and who were really surprised to see me in Copenhagen.

Then Ariella had a health and disease class, so I went with her and studied for my Catalan test while she took notes. It was kind of nice to have a science class, but I found her professors more interesting- they were 2 Danish residents from the hospital that the classes were at. They barely had accents. For most Danish people, when they speak English, it doesn’t really sound like they have an accent, but rather that they just speak a little bit different, like maybe they had a slight speech impediment as a little kid that they’re over now. The younger people have even more perfect English, and even know all of our slang, because their TV is actually all American shows, that are still in the original English- they’re not even dubbed or subtitled in Danish. That makes me feel pretty unaccomplished, language wise…

After her class we went grocery shopping, headed back to the dorm, cooked dinner, and chatted some more. Stephanie and her friend Katie came over, and we caught up, and got ready to go out. They all knew this girl named Karen, and it was her birthday, so they were all meeting up at Studenthuset, the bar for Copenhagen students. They had me drink something that pretty much tasted like mouthwash- again, something “Very Danish” to make the most of my time there, and we chatted with some of their Danish and Finnish friends from the Copenhagen Business School. There were plans for a dance club, but for some reason there was a cover charge (there wasn’t supposed to be), and it was late, so we just headed back and crashed.
On Saturday, about 30 minutes after we were supposed to, we got up and headed out to be touristy for the day. The day started at Rosenburg Palace, where the royal gardens and the treasury are located. Denmark still has a figurehead royal family, who everyone there loves, so she still had a lot of the jewels, but the ones that she had given to the museum were gorgeous. I want to steal aaaaall of them! The palace itself was also very pretty on the inside, although a big dark. Because it’s so cold there, all of the walls were covered either in giant tapestries, or gilt leather.

From there we went over to the harbor, where all of the pretty pictures of Copenhagen are taken. Unfortunately, it was raining and cloudy and freezing all weekend, my pictures aren’t as pretty, but they’re still cute. It’s this one part of the canal that has a bunch of boats moored by the side, and it lined on either side by multicolor houses. Along the canal there was actually set up a little Christmas market, with Christmas carols being played by the post office band and lots of people wandering around. There Ariella had me try a Pølser, which is again, “very Danish.” It’s pretty much just a hot dog, with everything on it.

Afterwards we continued past Frederikskirken to Amelienborg Palace, where the royal family lives today. Queen Margareth was actually not home, but since we couldn’t go in anyways, we went to the shore and walking along to the Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid is the symbol of Copenhagen, and about the size of a normal person. It’s head and arm have been cut off before and it’s been spray paint and in general abused, but somehow it’s still a symbol of the city.

Then we looped back around toward the Danish National Museum (Nationalmuseet), went by an Anglican stone church and soldier’s barracks on the way, and stayed at the museum till it closed. We grabbed dinner at a restaurant and went back to her place. Later on we met up with a few of her friends at a local club, called Rust to go dancing.

Clubs there are very different than in Barcelona… apparently bar culture is so strong that when people go to clubs, they just stand around the bar and talk- the only guys on the dance floor are usually foreigners. In general Copenhagen seemed less European than everywhere else I’ve been- people actually give you personal space, guys don’t do the manpurse thing, nor do they dance, and of course everyone speaks perfect English. Strange…

On Sunday morning I packed up all of my stuff and we went over to the island that the airport is on (which is still part of Copenhagen), and met up with a Danish friend of Ariella’s. He lives in Christianshavn, the harbor area of the island, and he had offered to walk us around Christiania since Ariella hadn’t been there either. Christiania is interesting… It’s this town of 850ish people that’s right in the middle of Copenhagen, and is sort of self-governing. In the 70s the area was unoccupied army barracks, and so the people who lived near broke in and started building stuff there. It eventually turned into a squatter’s town, where people governed themselves and just built houses on the land. It actually made for some really interesting architecture, since everything there was done by hand, as cars are prohibited there. Around the area encircling Christiania we stopped into a few other churches, and then I hopped onto the metro toward the airport.

Fall Break- Rome

On Thursday morning we went over to the train station around 8 to catch our train to Rome. The ride was only about 45 minutes and relatively uneventful, unless you count Alex getting on the completely wrong train… It’s alright, somehow he ended up in Rome 10 minutes after we did. So we go down to the metro to head over to our hostel, but for some reason it’s packed. Can’t turn around in one spot without getting pushed in some direction by mobs of people packed. This was, of course, not actually IN the metro, but on the platform thing that you wait at before getting on. I was afraid people were going to accidentally push people onto the tracks…

The mobs were composed of a lot of kids- anywhere from elementary to university age, and some older adults carrying flags and whistles. Everyone was singing and yelling, and some people had drums and were banging them, and there was just a lot of noise in general. 2 metro train things had to go by before we finally got on, and even then, we were still smashed up next to people with our suitcases. Since there were so many people around, we decided to pretend to be Spanish.

The metro cleared out pretty quick, and we noticed this group of 3ish Italian guys across from us. I’ve never actually heard Italian being spoken before, so I didn’t know how easy it is to understand when you’re paying attention… well they were trying to guess where we were from, since it was obviously from the suitcases that we were foreigners. They decided we were Spanish, and one of them finally asked Lindsey if we were Italian. When she told them that we were American, they were really surprised, and started yelling things in English- “I love you!” and “50 cent!” It was just gratifying to be able to pass as Spanish… At the hostel (really a camping ground- Camping Village Roma), we checked in, grabbed lunch, and went back into town.

The metro was again still packed- at lunch we had seen the news and learned that the tons of people we saw we actually protesters- the Italian government was considering privatizing their entire educational system, so teachers all across the city had taken their students out of class (they were supposed to have school that day), and took them downtown to several plazas and the middle of the city to protest. I guess the whistles and flags were to make sure that all the classes stayed together. Anyways, there were so many people that the Italian government actually closed a few metro stations in order to stop more protesters from showing up there. There were police all over the place and the Italian version of the Green Berets running around.

We wandered around once we got off the metro, and eventually found our way to the Trevi Fountain. I threw in a coin- so I’ll go back someday! Of course, I’ll probably be 80 by the time I can travel again, but whatever. From there we went up the Spanish Steps, walked an obelisk with hieroglyphics on it, passed by the Column of Traja (which we couldn’t get near, because the green beret guys had blocked that plaza off), and ended at the Pantheon. It actually just started to pour as we walked into the Pantheon, so we had pretty good timing. You could see the rain coming through the big hole in the ceiling, and they had the area right under the hole roped off, where the rain was getting all over the marble floors. It was pretty cool looking.

We kept walking and passed by the Victor Emmanuel Monument, and by that time it had cleared up a little bit, so we weren’t getting as wet. We passed by the Roman Forum and the Arch of Constantine to get to the Capitoline Museum. The Capitoline Museum was all statues, so there were lots of old Roman and Greek busts, huge statues of Athena and Apollo, giant feet and hands that had broken off of larger stuff, and the bronze statue of Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf was there. Do you know how old that thing is? It’s from like the 5th century B.C!! OLD. Lindsey and I took some awkward pictures next to it…

After the museum we found an out of the way restaurant, with great food, and the most hilarious waiter. It was this old guy, with this giant white beard, who was trying to teach us words in Italian. He actually spoke Spanish, so we just ordered that way. The entire week actually, in both Switzerland and Italy I was kind of surprised to find that our Spanish was usually just as useful as English, if not more so. After the restaurant there was a hookah bar just a few doors down, so we chilled on the pillows there and got desert. Mmm, baklava…

Around 11:15 ish we started walking toward the metro, which was really far away, hoping to catch it before they closed. On the way there some people at the front walked really fast, and ended up getting separated from the slowpokes in the back (me, Grant, Lindsey). Of course, I was the only person with a working phone, and when we got to the metro, it was not only closed (at like 11:45), but the rest of our group was nowhere to be seen. Lovely. We just grabbed a taxi, and hoped that they had either made the metro before it closed, or would think to get a taxi too. Of course, it would have been easier if someone other than me had brought a phone…

Back at the hostel we had to wait around for them to get back, since my stuff was in one of their tents: since there were 7 of us, and the tents were 3-person occupancy, one of us was the odd man out, and might be sleeping with random strangers. That person was me. I had put my stuff in one of our other tents just so no one else could get to them. It was colder than I thought it would be that night, since it had been raining all day, so sleeping was not really that fun…

The next day we got up really early, grabbed breakfast, and went over to the Vatican, since we had heard a lot about the terrible terrible lines that are there. When we got there around 9 there were enough people, but not enough to be forming a real sort of a line, so we went to the Vatican Museum first. The museum is pretty much just a walk through the different rooms and hallways of the Vatican… except it feels like a museum, because every tiny surface, the ceilings and the walls and the floor are covered in such exquisite detail that I can’t imagine anyone actually living here. Of everywhere I have been so far, there has been nothing so rich as the Vatican.

You walk through the different hallways, with their gold encrusted walls, 20 by 20 feet paintings, and rooms down completely by Raphael, and you can sort of see how some rooms have ropes at the entrances for when it’s so completely packed that they have to move people through like cattle. It wasn’t like that for us, and we got to the Sistine Chapel on our own time, not being slowed down by people in font, or pushed by people behind.

We stepped into the Sistine Chapel, and to be honest, I was kind of surprised by how small it was. I guess I have been so used to all of the Gothic style churches, with their huge windows and giant doors that I expected something like that. It was about the size of my church at home, a little bit longer lengthwise though, and obviously way more elegant. The thing that was to be impressed by was that ever surface, on the walls and the ceiling, every single little surface was covered by the originals done by Michelangelo and Botticelli, among others. Also the way that Michelangelo had to get the proportions right on the curved ceiling in order for them to look normal from the floor was amazing for his time.

From there we went back outside to go to St. Peters Basilica, but by that time- around 12- there were so many people that there was a big line. There was also a huge line for the museum; while we got to walk how we wanted, the people in line were going to be in line throughout the whole museum, and some of them were stretched out the door, and around the wall encircling the Vatican itself.
Afterwards we jumped onto the metro and went to the Coliseum. We were lucky again to miss the worst of the lines, and were able to wander around pretty easily. It was actually really pretty- you could see though the main playing arena, to where the animals and the gladiators used to be held, and it now had grass growing in the different cells- it was actually very pretty. Right across from the Coliseum were Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum, with lots of ruins that we walked around. There were a few different temples, the ruins of the emperor’s residence, and the Stadium of Domitian. The stadium was my favorite.

We grabbed dinner somewhere, walked around some plaza that is good for nightlife to see everyone in their Halloween costumes, and went back to the hostel. The journey back to the hostel was not cool, since once we got to the metro, the bus running back and forth from our metro stop to the camping place was no longer running, so we had to walk like a mile in the rain, past some hookers… you know… And then in my tent there was this random guy sleeping when I got in there, so I had Lindsey sleep in the other bed just in case.

The next morning we got up early, packed our stuff, and headed over to the Vatican to see St. Peter’s Basilica. Someone needed to stay outside with bags, and my feet were killing me, so I just sat out and read. It had finally gotten nice out, and there was a marathon going on, and it was just good to have some alone time. 7 forms of transportation and about just as many hours later, I was back in Barcelona, and exhausted.

The end!

Fall Break- Florence

Yes, I'm still extremely behind on telling things... so here we go..

After the long train ride, we got into Florence in the late afternoon. We stayed at Hostel Harmony, which was behind the train station, but well priced and only about a 20 minute walk from the Duomo. The Duomo is this gigantic church that has the most intricate façade that I have seen. I could probably rock-climb up the front, if I was allowed. It’s right across from the Baptistery, with its famous golden door- it was made by Lorenzo Ghiberti, who competed against other artists for the right, and died even before it was finished.

We decided to do the Uffizi Museum and the Galleria, since it was getting dark out. The Galleria is actually a small covered section outside, with the originals of Perseus and Medusa and The Rape of the Sabine Woman. There were a few other sculptures there, but none of them were labeled, so I have no idea what they are or who they are by… which in unfortunate, since there is a pretty high chance that they’re famous somehow. That’s what I get for never taking an art history class…
The Uffizi Museum has a very large art collection from the Renaissance, so we were there until they closed. The two things that stuck out in that museum were the Birth of Venus, and la Primavera by Botticelli. There were a lot of works there by Vasari as well.

That night we headed back up the main street toward our hostel, but stopped off somewhere for dinner first. Yay for Italian food!!!! Later on we headed back out to meet some of Alex’s friends, who happened to be in Florence at the same time that we were. They took us to some Irish pub, which I was kind of annoyed about- I mean, we were in Italy, why weren’t we going to an Italian place? Oh well…

The next day we got up early and started off at the Medici Palace. The outside was actually not that impressive, but inside it was ridiculous. On the first floor they had some old Medici church stuff, which included a lot of reliquaries. There were two glass goblets, each with a vertebra in them, a glass and gilt box with an entire lower jaw, and a thin tube with what looked like an ulna suspended on the inside. Very strange. The next level of the palace was extremely opulent- it was the Medici’s private chapel, and now houses the remains of Lorenzo di Medici the Magnificent, the Medici who inspired Machiavelli’s The Prince. The sepulchers were adorned with sculptures by Michelangelo and others. The chapel was having renovations done, but it was still gorgeous, The whole walls were done in marble, with extremely oversized marble figures of Medicis in alcoves in the walls. I tried to take some pictures, but got yelled at ):

The leather market is right around the corner from the Medici Palace, so we walked through there on our way to the Duomo. We wandered around inside the Duomo for a bit, which was large, but much simpler than the outside. There was a huge line for going up to the Cuppola, the dome that covers the Duomo. The line only took about a half an hour, but the walk up the Duomo took just about as long- 463 stairs! I can’t believe this whole thing was constructed more or less by hand. The stairs to the top took you on a pathway around the inside of the Cuppola, so you could look down onto the people below, and the paintings on the ceiling were very close.
The top of the Cuppola was beautiful. It was small, with a small tower in the middle. All day it had actually been kind of rainy, but once we got to the top, it cleared up, there was a strong breeze and the sun was out. It was perfect, we got up there at 12, so all of the church bells across the city were ringing. The view was worth it- you could see the entire city, with the tiled roofs, the large churches off in the distance and the hills in the background.

Then we went to the Accademia Galleria, which was surprisingly relatively small, but the whole point of going was to see the David. I had no idea it was so big- I expected it to be maybe 8 or 9 feet tall. I had to sneak a few pictures of the David, since absolutely no pictures were allowed, and if a security guard saw you, they would take your camera and delete the photo. Afterwards we walked over to St. Croce church, which also has a pretty white façade. Inside there were the remains of Niccolo Machiavelli, Galileo, Michelangelo, Napoleon’s wife and Dante. Most of the carvings around their graves were done by Vasari.

It was getting sort of dark, so we finished off the day at the San Marco Museum, which is a converted 15th century convent and really pretty. It's got a ton of stuff on the inside, mostly done by people who I had never heard of though. Afterward we walked over to Pont Vecchio, which is a big crazy bridge that goes over the Arno. But it's like a bridge on steroids- it has small jewelry shops crowding both sides, so the bridge looks kind of like its going to fall down at any second. It would be a shame, considering all the jewelry on the thing. We just grabbed dinner at a grocery store, and sat by the river eating. It started to rain then, and we were exhausted, so we went back to the hostel to sleep and plan for Rome.

Fall Break- Lucerne

Monday morning we had to catch a train really early out of Zurich HB, the main train station. That meant catching a train from the Hostel at 7:35 am, having previously gotten up, eaten breakfast, packed lunch, checked out, and walked to our train stop. Well, apparently not everyone is so great at doing all of that quickly, since we ended up having to sprint down this giant hill to catch the train to Zurich HB. I guess it was good in the end... I felt like I was going to tumble over and start rolling with my bag, so I guess it helped to wake me up :D

So we had to run around the train station to jump the right train, but found it just in time, and were all set for getting to Lucerne. The ride was only about 45 minutes. I think it may have been the first time in all of our train use that someone walked by to check that we actually had tickets- the times we took the train into Zurich's Old Town, there was never anyone there to check. GUess buying that train pass was pretty much a waste of money, oh well.

We got off at Lucerne, and headed over to the hostel, which was really really close- it was just across the Reuss River, near the old city wall. Anyways we stayed at Tourist Hotel Lucerne, which was nice, and had the slogan "Lucerne is Fantastic!." Only slightly better than "Spain is different" and "Zurich- Downtown Switzerland." Since we were right up next to the remains of this old wall, we decided to head of there first after packing lunch.

The Musegg wall is what it sounds like- a wall with a walkway on top that connects lookout towers that are about 50 meters away from each other. From the top of the towers there's a pretty good view of the Alps, the Reuss River and Lake Luzern. We pretty much just climbed a bunch of stairs and took a bunch more pictures, because it was all so pretty. One thing that was sort of interesting about that wall was that there was a high school right next to it. We were actually walking on the track strip of the high school, which ran right next to the wall. There were kids outside for gym class- wouldn't it be weird to go to school and see that every day?

At the end of the wall, headed over to this big lion sculpture that is carved into a mountain, the Löwendenkmal. Zoe was in charge of Lucerne, so when she told us about the lion, I googled it to see what it looked at. Well my understanding was that it would be bigger than a normal lion, but not that big, judging from the pictures. Haha, I was very wrong. The thing is gigantic- take a look at my pictures. There's at least one with a person in the shot, so you can see just how big it is.

It's this big crying lion that had a spear sticking out of its side, and is lying over a French shield. The lion is a symbol of Switzerland, so the monument was to Swiss soldiers. So I thought- it's actually a monument to fallen Swiss mercenaries. Now I know mercenaries are still soldiers, but somehow knowing that they were mercenaries killed during the French revolution makes the whole thing less sad somehow. I mean, mercenaries?

Afterwards we went over to Hofkirche, built for the patron saint, St. Leodegar in the 1600s. It was pretty, with a giant wooden pulpit that was wound around one of the columns near the front. One thing kind of cool about this church was that you could see the old painted name placards in some pews, showing where certain people used to sit, or had given money to the church to "buy" their seat, like at a baseball stadium or something like that.

We walked over to Lake Luzern, and crossed the Reuss River over the Kappellbruke, the oldest covered bridge in Europe. Or rather, the rebuilt oldest covered bridge in Europe. Apparently about 15 years ago there was this giant fire at night that destroyed most of the wooden parts, but they reconstructed it. During the summer it must be gorgeous- it's covered with flowers, and had mountains in the background. Unfortunately it was cloudy most of the time that we were there. It was still pretty though.

On the other side of the river, we went into the Jesuitenkirche, another old church that looks sort of like the two bell towers are topped with giant things of garlic. I'm not sure when this one was built, but since the inside looks Baraque, it's got to be younger than the other church. Anyways the inside is all pink and white, since they used this pink marble for a lot of the inside details. This includes this giant marble and gold encrusted pulpit that's just sort of stuck onto the wall. It looks so heavy- I wish I knew how they got it to stay up there.

We crossed over another covered bridge, the Spreuerbrucke, to walk back to the hostel to rest, since it had already been a long day. The plan was to do a little more hiking afterwards. So We went back to the hostel and attempted to take a half an hour nap. This is when I learned that my watch alarm does not wake me up. Nor does it wake up Margaret, Zoe and Lindsey. Conveniently, no one else had set any sort of an alarm, so everyone woke up maybe two hours later. It was already dark, so going hiking some more was not really an option. We headed into town to eat, and just walked around, window shopping and everything.

It started to rain later on that night, so we headed pack to make sure we had all of our stuff together for the 7 hour train trip to Florence. The rain didn't go away until a couple days after we got back to Barcelona...yay. Anyways, I liked Lucerne. It's supposedly a really big tourist town, but it actually didn't feel touristy at all. Maybe it's because we were there sort of off-season, but I would suggest visiting there if you want something quiet.

Fall Break- Zurich

Alright, so there is much to tell regarding the past week and a half. I'll do each city separately, since it'll break things up a little bit, and hopefully make this less confusing.

I was traveling with 6 other Americans, all other students from my program, most of whom live on my floor here at the dorm. We had Friday off, so I spent most of the day packing and all that whatnot, and Saturday afternoon we were off to the airport!

The direct flight to Zurich, Switzerland was pretty uneventful. Unfortunately, I did not have a window seat, and couldn’t watch as we flew over the Pyrenees, but I caught a glimpse of this giant forest of trees when we were landing. You know I did not realize how much I missed trees until I saw that giant forest, with all of the red and gold and yellow… I mean, Barcelona has trees, but it’s Mediterranean, so the trees are either scrubby pines, palms, or these tall thin-trunked trees with really light bark that don’t appear to be doing fall properly.

Well, Switzerland had real trees. And grass. Barcelona has no fields, and the small parks it has don’t really have grass... I guess it was kind of nice to see something that looked more like home. It was also colder- the coldest it has gotten in Barcelona so far has been in the low 60s, and I didn’t think I would miss it almost snowing around Halloween, but apparently I did. We got in to the airport, money-changed (they use the Franc- crazy talk!), and walked across the street to the train station. Zurich doesn’t really have an underground system- it’s a combination of above-ground double decker trains (sort of like commuter trains to burbs in Chicago, except all of the trains actually stay in the city itself) that radiate out from the city center, and aboveground trams that run in the street, but whose routes are really only in certain geographic areas.

Anyways, we had to catch a doubledecker to Wollishofen, walked up a big hill to get to Youthostel Zurich. The hostel was nice and clean, but expensive. We headed right back into the city that night to just wander around, hoping to find somewhere interesting. Outside of the train station it was completely dead, so we kept walking, and ended up crossing the Rathausbrucke and walked toward Lake Zurich. It turns out that’s where all of the nightlife was, so we ducked into a couple of places and stayed for a while. We’re so used to Barcelona and things closing late that we were really surprised to find that bars close there around 12 or 1 am. It was good though, since the next morning we were planning on getting up early to go around the city.

The next morning we got up and took the train downtown to the main train station, the Hauptbahnhof. Since the Landesmuseum- the Swiss National Museum- was right by the train station, we went there first. The museum is in one of the old palaces, and so the inside was gorgeous. They had a really large collection of prehistorical stuff, and then a lot of things from the Carolingian era of the middle ages. There was a ton of stained glass, richly carved wooden doors and ceilings, and a ton of other things from that time period. I would really suggest going there if you go to Zurich- the place is huge and you could spend a ton of time there.

From inside the museum we heard some noise around lunch, which I assumed to be coming from a church nearby. Well someone happened to look out a window of the museum that was facing the park, and saw maybe about 10 people just sort of standing there, playing these gigantic horn things. I had no idea you could make music like that with Alphorns. We pretty much ran outside of the museum to see then, and at lunch in the park while listening to them. It had gotten a lot warmer out, so we decided to walk around Old Town.

I was in charge of Zurich, and had looked up some walking tours before. We started at Bahnofplatz, the plaza in front of the railway station, and walked down the Bahnofstrasse toward Lake Zurich. On the way, we passed by Pestalozzi Park, Paradeplatz, and made a detour toward the water to see St. Peter’s Church. This church apparently had the largest clock on a belltower for all churches in Europe. It’s also the oldest church built in Zurich, having being built in either the 7th or 8th centuries. Because it was built before Gothic and Baroque architecture were the norm, its not that ornate, which was kind of refreshing.

We kept walking, up a few sidestreets as we made our way to Fraumunster. The church was actually having services, so we couldn’t go in, but just walked around the outside. Fraumunster’s also really old, having been built in the 850s, and used a convent for noblewomen. It supposedly has stained glass windows done by Marc Chagall and Augusto Giacometti.

Oh well…We passed by the Munsterbrucke bridge and Grossmunster, the other large church, as we continued down the waterfront to the lake. Near the lake, we sat down for a bit at Burkliplatz to look over the water with the mountains in the background. All of Switzerland was kind of strange, simple because I couldn’t understand what people were saying any of the time. They speak a bunch of languages there- everyone speaks English, German and French, but I mostly overheard German. I mean in Barcelona, everyone speaks Catalan, but you hear Castilian every once in a while.

Anyways, we walked through Burkliplatz to the Arboretum, and ran around in a field there for a while. Afterwards we headed up toward the train station, and crossed the Munsterbruke to Grossmunster. We went inside the church, which has this gigantic ornately carved wooden door, and were surprised to find that there an orchestra playing inside.

Afterwards, we walked up towards the train station again, crossed the Rathausbrucke, and bought some dinner at a grocery store. We headed back to the park next to the Landesmuseum to eat by the water. Since it had gotten dark about two hours before, we headed back to the hostel. We just ended up chilling all night there, since it was freeeezing outside, and Switzerland is super super expensive, plus we had to get up early to catch a train to Lucerne

I'm back from my week of traveling! I'll probably update Tuesday, since it turns out I have more things to do than I anticipated. Anyways just letting people know that I'm alive. Exhausted, but alive. In general, the trip was a combination of amazing and annoying, which I will explain soon. Pictures probably won't make it up until later either- I took 755 of them....

Blaaaaah- a cranky entry. Beware.

I realize I haven't written in a while- it's just that nothing really big has honestly happened...

I have actually been sick for the past week, so I have not really been going out or doing any work ect. It was nothing too bad, just a stomach ache and a fever of a hundred or so. But it meant all I have wanted to do recently is curl up on my bed in the fetal position and either fall asleep or watch the entire first season of Boston Legal. I ended up doing both, in addition to getting caught up on Private Practice, Bones, Pushing Daisies and Heroes. Hah. This is probably the laziest week I've had in my entire life.

But I'm better now, so yay. Although it was all sort of to the detriment of my roomate, who is now sick as well. Sorry Zoe! Since before this week of being sick I had been ahead in homework, I'm about where everybody else is. Which means now I have 2 compositions due this week, a bunch of homework, and a big annoying history midterm. I'm not trying to complain, as I am fully aware that if I were at Case this week, I would probably be tearing my hair out. It's not the amount of work, it's the kind of work.

The thing is, it's not real work. Spanish and Catalan are language classes, and there's nothing much you can do with those, except exercises and compositions and things like that, so I don't mind. But my history class is different. I know a lot of people hate history and how it doesn't pertain to real life, and other people then go on rants about history repeating itself and being always relevant and all of that. Well that doesn't really concern me. The thing that I love about history is the specifics, the monarchs and the public icons, plays of power and obscure social undercurrents, years, dates, names and faces.

So far in my history class, it has been none of that. It has been fluff. And so it follows, the essay I have to write will be fluff. It hasn't been written yet, and I have no intention of writing a fluffy essay, but the prompt itself is fluff. Bad news. The class has been a lot about trying to break down stereotypes about the middle ages- how from the western point of view, the middle ages were backward, a sinkhole of science, tolerance and scholarly thinking. Well any self-respecting college student (or self-respecting anything, in my opinion, except maybe those beneath the age of 13) should know that you can't form any opinion about anything without considering the whole thing- whether it be the whole thing in terms of geography, age group, nationality, whatever.

I'd sort of expect people to know that already. If not, ok, introduce the idea, and get on with the rest of the class, instead of making that idea the class. Augh! Anyways, the essay is pretty much to choose a topic, and argue how it breaks stereotypes of the Western idea of the Middle Ages. Also challenge ideas of periodization of history into discrete sections. Sounds easy right? That's because it is. It is too easy. It asks us to prove exactly what has been drilled into our heads for half the semester (and what should have only been used as an introduction to the content instead of the actual content of the class). I've been trying all day to write it, and I just can't bring myself to do it.

I just want a challenge here. I want someone to make me think, to let me argue and discuss and turn what the professor is saying on his head. Or I could just sit and listen, and implode. It'll be an interesting year. I'm going to try to talk to the director about letting me do an independent study or something next semester. The thing is that the universities here have some really interesting sounding classes, but we're not allowed to take them since we're with foreign programs. All their study abroad students take classes with each other and are not allowed to take any of the real classes. I only have one class at the university, and it drives me crazy because the professor assumes we're all idiots and dumbs everything down, speaking extremely slow. Urg. At least I'll have an internship at a hospital or a lab next semester, so hopefully that will be interesting.

Around the beginning of November I start figuring out what classes to take, and I also need to decide if I'm going to live here next semester or not. I'll have first pick of all of their apartments, if I decide to move. Which I might. I've got some time still to figure it out, but right now I'm leaning toward moving. Realistically, the spanish kids are never going to be my friends. They are nice , and sometimes invite us out, but they have their own friend groups and their own drama to tend to. Also, they don't speak Spanish.

Well they do, but not really. It's sort of hard to understand. They can speak Spanish, but the important language here is Catalan. Catalan is the language that they speak to their parents and grandparents in. On the bus, it's the language that you address someone in, and the language of any sort of government form you have to fill out. Catalan is the official language of the elementary schools, of high school and colleges. You speak to your friends in Catalan, and if your friends don't speak Catalan, well it puts them in a separate category. You're still friends, but it's different. Because when you think, you think in Catalan, and you can't tell your friends exactly what you're thinking- you have to translate it into another language, one that you're not entirely comfortable with.

Don't take this at 100%, since this is what my impression has been, talking with students and strangers, living here for just a month. The students on my floor have been really nice in trying to speak Spanish around us, but they've said that it feels weird for them to be talking to their friends and each other in Spanish. Also a lot of strangers I talked to have mentioned how annoying it is when people come to Catalunya not even trying to learn any Catalan- they almost view you the way people at home view people who move to the country without learning english. Not with as much disdain, but it's there.

So no one's openly mean about it, but not knowing Catalan here is just as bad as not knowing Spanish is Madrid. One of the weirdest things that I miss is being able to overhear and understand people having casual conversations. People on the metro, at bars, and especially in the cafeteria. That's actually an especially poignant one, probably because that's the one that keeps me feeling like an outsider here. Mostly, the Americans all eat together because we go to meals earlier than everyone else. So in general, we don't sit with the Spanish kids since they're never there at the same time as we are.

But also, we can't understand a thing they are saying. If we sit with them, we force them to change languages just to accomodate us. It feels extremely rude to do, especially since the Japanese kids sit with us sometimes, and so I know the feeling of "Maaan, I just don't want to speak in Spanish right now. Fine..." Most of the time I just sit with the Americans, wondering what all of those students are talking about, and feeling like I did something wrong because the intelligible sounds of Catalan tend to blend and create a sort of enveloping white noise that emphasizes how really alone you are amid all of those people. Although I've got to say, as soon as someone switches to Spanish, even for just a second, I can pick it out from that fog of Catalan, and understand everything. The feeling of being able to lock onto just a phrase in Spanish amid all that Catalan as if it were English is refreshing. For a second, I actually feel like I live here. Of course, I can count the number of times this has happened on one hand.

So after all that, I haven't decided whether or not to move. But again, I'm leaning toward moving- because here I feel like I can only ever have superficial friendships with the Spanish students (and they are the whole reason I decided to live in a dorm...), plus the apartments have some nice amenities that I'm not going to complain about...

In other news, if anyone has actually made it down this far, Mary Beth from Case who is studying in Malaga, came up to visit last weekend, so we hung out and it was just sort of nice to feel like myself for a little bit. Also my salsa class started last week, which has been fun. It's taught it Catalan, which is not that hard to understand when it's enunciated, not spoken super fast, and free from slang. Also there are a lot of older women who are ridiculously good at salsa already, and it's funny to watch them try to teach Steve, who is taking the class with me, and one of 4 guys in a class of maybe 20.

The next entry for this will probably not be till the 1st or 2nd of november. I'm excited about the week we have off (That's right, I'm excited about something. This entry isn't all angry. Probably has something to do with the weather and it being straight rain for 3 days. SAD is not a fun thing guys.). We've got a week following midterms off to travel, so me and six buddies are going first to Zurich, then Lucerne, Florence and finally Rome. It will be the first time I am actually doing some travel here, so hopefully everything goes well.

Wish me luck writing that essay! Technically it's not due until after that break, but I just want to get it over with now. I should get on that now :/

End of La Merce, Visit to Tarragona, Novatos

The end of La Merce was pretty unspectacular, mostly because i had classes the whole time. There were a lot of concerts all over the city and at the end, on Wednesday was the Piromusical. The Piromusical is sort of like a fireworks show on steroids, set to music above Plaza Espanya. I wouldn't go again, because it´s hugely packed, and impossible to even see the fireworks. And also the music they set it all to was strange- the theme was television, so it was all themes to tv shows, like Teletubbies (why? i don't know).

In other news, the Spanish kids in our dorm just started to talk to us...yaaaay! They let us hang out with them last weekend. First, we went somewhere for dinner around 9:30 pm. After like 3 hours, since Spanish service is terrible and its normal to have 2-3 courses per meal, we left for some bar. We stayed at the bar until around 2:30, and then left for a discotec, Razzmatazz, which is this gigantic multistory and multibuilding dance club that's got like 5 or 6 different areas for dancing, all with different types of music playing. It was really fun there, but around 5ish I got tired, so me, Zoe and Lindsay left "early" with a few of the kids we came with, and got back to bed a little bit before 6. This is pretty typical for going out (according to Spaniards) here, but I would definitely not be able to do it this often.

I don't really think the students do it that often though, since the majority of them go home every weekend; most of them are either from Lleida or Girona, cities about an hour's train ride away. Most Spanish students go to college very close to home, and it's normal for them to live at home the whole time- so when students live in a dorm, they go home pretty much every chance they get. Unless they're from the Baleares (island system in the medit.) or Canarias (island system off of the African coast).

Last week they invited us to come and watch the novatos ("newbies" in Catalan.) In Spain the dorms are really big on hazing, so the first couple of weeks they take all of the new kids outside of the dorm and make them stand in lines and hold their hands up for like 3 hours, while they yell things at them in Catalan. I could understand maybe 50% of what was being said, since Catalan is like half Spanish, half French, so I caught some things about how Sant Jordi (the dorm) is a family, and how the new kids are not welcome and have to abide by dorm rules. I didn't catch most of the dorm rules, but I think they were just ridiculous things, since everyone was laughing during that time. Normally, they include every new kid in the dorm in this novato thing, even when they are third years and it's just their first time living in that particular dorm. But all the yelling was done in Catalan, so they just leave the American and Japanese kids out of it.

Apparently though, my dorm's not that bad- I know some people in other dorms where they will break into their rooms, rearrange their furniture, and then tie all of their clothes in a rope and throw them outside. At my dorm, they just sort of yell at the new kids, make a bunch of noise when they come into the dining hall, and do smaller, but still annoying pranks. The Spanish kids explained to us that the whole process helps the kids who have been there get to know the newer kids- it's really important to them that the people in the dorm all know each other and are friends. I suppose totally embarassing each other sort of breaks the ice a little easier... At one point they had all of the novato guys pull their pants down their ankles and hop around in their underwear. What is with european guys and their aversion to boxers?

But for the novatos they did other things that I can see how it helps to form a sort of dorm camaraderie. A couple of nights ago they went over to another dorm nearby (the closest dorm being a 15 minutes walk away) and started a waterballoon fight, yelling the dorm song and in general being annoying. Last night was the last night of the novatos, when they stop being "the black sheep of the dorm" and turn into real people. Of course, not before totally embarassing them again. Around 11, they had all of the novatos wear shower caps, clown noses, diapers outside their pants, and signs that said (Catalan versions of) "I'm a Sant Jordi goldigger/cradlerobber" or "I'm a Sant Jordi Don Juan," depending on gender.

They all gathered on Avinguda Diagonal, the biggest street near the dorm, and just sang and yelled and passed bottles of who-knows-what around for about 3 hours. I'm really surprised the cops didn't come, and that we didn't even get yelled at by anyone. Then we walked about 15 minutes down the street, and all went into a smaller discotec that some guys at the dorm had worked out a deal with previously. The entire place was filled with kids from the dorm, which was pretty cool. Being lame americans, me, Lindsay and Zoe came home early around 4ish, since Zoe had to get up around 7 to travel.

Last weekend I also went on a day trip with Zoe, Lindsay and Grant to Tarragona. Lindsay and I had to go for a history project, so we got up early on Sunday and took the train out. It's about a hour ride, and the city is small enough that you can walk everywhere. About 5 minutes away from the train station is a Roman Ampitheatre, that was built in the 3rd century AD, with the ruins of a church that was built later in the middle. I know it's really nerdy, but Caesar Augustus visited the city, and you know that he for sure went to the Ampitheatre, and just being able to stand there with all of that history surrounding you is amazing.

Nearby was the Roman Circus, which they used to store food items. The circus was also used by Napoleon's army when they camped in the area, and converted part of the circus to a prison. I mean, there was only one way to get in, so Napoleon had to have walked through the exact same tunnel that did, and probably Augustus. !!!!! Tarragona also has this huuuuge cathedral that's really pretty- it's got a lot of gothic architecture around the outside, including gothic style stone faces encircling the whole roof.

We wandered around some more and found the main plaza, where there were remains of the Roman Forum. It looked like everyone had cleared our their basements and were having a giant garage sale. Apparently the day we went was a festival for them, which was why all of the Roman landmarks were free to enter. We ate lunch outside, and walked around the neighborhood somemore, ending up at the old Roman wall that used to encircle the city. After that we just wandered back to the train station, which was on the coast, and sat on the beach for an hour while we waited for our train. We were home by dinner. It was probably one of the most perfect days I have had here.

This weekend a lot of IES students are traveling, since IES gave us a three day weekend, and it's also Octoberfest. Three guesses what country half the Americans on our floor are in. We might do a day trip on Sunday again out to the small mountains (actually, I doubt they qualify as mountains...) that border Barcelona. Hopefully, we can find somewhere to go hiking and kayaking. It's cooled down a lot here, so it's not disgustingly hot, but it sticks around 65-70 with lots of sun, so it's good walking-around weather. Other than that, I guess I should put up some pictures on Flickr and start working on that history project...

Beginning of la Merce, 2nd Week of Classes

This past week the big festival in Barcelona started- la Mercé. Last time I wrote I actually had no idea what the festival was about, or why they have it, but now I know that the festival is in honor of their female patron saint, Mercedes. Anyways, it started on Friday night with a parade that led to Plaza Sant Jaume- the plaza in Barri Gotic that houses the Generalitat and important government buildings. They opened the festival with some speeches, all in Catalan, which meant that I could understand maybe every other word. On the way there we also saw some older people in giant circles of 30 or 40 dancing the Sardana, the Catalan folk dance.

They had the "balls de gegants," where guys carry these giant statues that are made to look like old kings and queens, and move around in a sort of a dance. Apparently, they are really heavy, and the guys carrying the giants need to switch out every once in a while. In general, not that exciting. Right in the middle, it started pouring, so we missed the fun part of the opening cermeony(the part that included a ton of confetti). Apparently, its a tradition for it to rain during la Mercé, supposedly because the other saints are upset that Mercedes gets a festival and they don't, so they're crying about it. After dinner, we went to see the fireworks over the beach at Barceloneta. Very pretty, but nothing you couldn't see at home.

Saturday and Sunday were different. There were two things that you definitely would not see at home here. Saturday night was the Correfoc, which means "fire run" in Catalan. Pretty much, you just run around with fire. That's putting it simply though. It's a parade that starts near the Cathedral and winds it way down to the waterfront near Barceloneta for about an hour and a half. The parade has groups of middle/high school kid with drums, alternating with groups of 15 or so people dressed like demons, with their faces painted and carrying pitchforks. The parade starts around 8:30 pm when its already dark, so the demon guys are actually kind of scary.

What makes it crazy is that at the top of the pitchforks a few roman candle-esque fireworks are attached that spin around and spit sparks everywhere. So imagine 10 or 15 guys running, dancing and shouting like crazy people through the street with drums in the background, and carrying the pitchforks above their heads, spraying sparks all over the crowd on purpose, and grabbing people to run with. The fun part is that the crowd is supposed to run the Correfoc, so you get in the middle of the guys with the fireworks, and run with them, yelling and just making noise in general.

Fortunately, my professor told me to wear long sleeves and pants, nothing really flammable, and to have something to cover my head with. I was wearing a couple of layers, with a hood pulled up, a scarf around my face and sunglasses on. I felt silly, but when I got there, everyone else was wearing the same thing. It was ridiculous. At home the city would be sued in 2 seconds, since the demons were all chasing people, aiming the sparks at them, or grabbing people and running with them. I did get a few sparks on my hand, but they only blistered up a little, so they're really not that bad, considering that there were guys running around without shirts. They probably regretted that pretty quick... I took a few 30-seconds long videos and put them on Flickr. Really, take a look at those. It's hard to describe. They're really chaotic, so sorry about that , also once or twice I was too preocuppied with running that I completely forgot I was even taking video. There are also some pictures of my floormates and me with our faces all covered, and of the demons with the pitchforks.

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure where the tradition comes from, because when I went on the web to look it up, I couldn't find anything on it. We asked some random bystander, and he said that in the 1600s, demons were all over Barcelona, so the church called upon the angels to help. The angels drove the demons out, but the demons responded by running with fire on their way out, so every year they reenact it with the correfoc. But he might have made that one up on the spot, who knows. Anyways again that night we ended up in Barceloneta, so we stuck around for the fireworks on the beach with hundreds of other people around us. If you're ever going to visit Barcelona for one day, I'd do it for this one Saturday.

A close second (so far) is the festa de los Castellers. The Castellers are the guys I was talking about who make the giant pyramids of people. Except before I thought the teams were like 40ish, and there were only a few levels of people, but actually the teams are around 400ish, and there were usually 7-10 levels of people. That took place at Plaza Sant Jaume in the middle of the day on Sunday. We were actually really lucky in that on the metro on the way there, we sat right across from this older guy who was wearing the castellers uniform of Vilafranca (one of the best teams, they win a lot of competitions. Yes, there are competitions for this type of thing.)

So Zoe goes up to the guy and talks to him about it, since we both needed to write about it for our spanish classes. He said that the original purpose of building human towers was to scale castle walls in the middle ages, but now it is more of a way for people to get together and work toward a common goal. The casteller teams are familial- there are certain families that have been doing it for like 200 years. The guy said that his family was like that, and now his son is part of the team with him.

We got to the plaza early, which was good, becase me, Zoe and Lindsey are not exactly the tallest people, and we knew that the plaza gets so packed that you're pretty much smushed up against everyone on all sides. For someone my size, that makes it sort of hard to breathe, since you're always getting shouldered and elbowed in the face. Fun. So we were looking around for somewhere to stand, like stairs up to the government buildings or something. Well, there was nothing. But I noticed that a few of the lamposts were big enough to stand on, so we grabbed a random lampost. Unfortunately, that particular lampost have a bunch of policemen around it, and we figured we'd get yelled out, so we moved across the plaza to the only other lampost that was big enough for 3 people to climb on top.

It started getting really crowded about 15 minutes till the beginning, so we all hopped up on top of the lampost. The lamposts were all around the edge of the plaza, so I didn't think we'd be that close to the action, which I assumed to be in the middle of the plaza. I was wrong. Once up on the lampost, I notice a bunch of guys in green uniforms about 10 feet in front of us, a bunch of guys in red about 20 feet to the right, and more guys in purple 10 feet behind the red team. They were making the pyramids right in front of us.

Of course, my camera decided this was going to be a great time to die, so Zoe mostly took the videos i'll be posting, and I borrowed Lindsey's camera a buncha times to take some close ups. Those will be up soon. You should really take a look at them- it's amazing how huge these things were, and especially how intricate the whole process was. Since we were lampost monkeys, we could see from the top how they were setting up the different torres. For example, you'd have 4 guys making a square, then four more guys would stand in the middle, and grab onto each other, and then the whole mob of people would smush up around the outside, and hold onto the guy in front of them. On top of them, they would have another four guys, and another, and another ect, sometimes varying the number of people in each layer.

But really, it's hard to explain, take a look at the videos, at least one of them. One of them should be of one of the torres that fell- it's really scary, especially because you can see the little kids sort of tumbling down, but if you watch, the base is actually pretty good about cushioning the fall and pulling people out of the mess to get them medical care. Again, ridiculous. Take a look at it.

What was great about the castellers was that because we were so close the whole time, we made friends with the green team from Vilafranca. Along with the guy who we met on the metra (who we could see was part of the base, and who was waving at us a lot), the whole team was all making faces at us and talking to us throughout, yelling at us about being monkeys.

That's pretty much been my last 3 days... In other news, University of Barcelona decided to move my geography class to MW, so now I have 4 classes on MW from 9 AM to 9 pm, and I have one class on Tuesday, Thurs and Friday. Nothing like balance. I always signed up for a salsa class at the civic center near one of my friend's apartments. I know that I can pretty much learn salsa whenever and wherever I want, but when am I going to have the time?

When I talked to my advisor here, he said that for the most part, you can't volunteer at a hospital unless you have a formal internship (which i'll do next semester in a lab or hospital), and he also said that the university doesn't really have clubs or activities. Lovely. Well the Red Cross had some student volunteers running around Plaza Catalunya the other day, and when I talked with them they said even though my Spanish isn't perfect, I could probably help out somehow. I'll probably call the Red Cross here pretty soon too to ask about volunteering, once I get an idea of my class load. Also I hope Salva is wrong about that whole no activities at the university thing- I just need to research and see what all is going on.

I've got my first UB geography class in about an hour, so hopefully it will not be as boring as I'm expecting it to be. I'll write about how the class went and the end of the Mercé soon!

Diada, Barri Gotic, Parque Guell

This past week went by very quickly, since we had a few days off from our Spanish classes. September 11th here is a holiday (which is weird considering things at home), and since it was a Thursday, most everyone had Friday off too. Sept 11th is Diada Catalunya, or Catalonia Day, and pretty much functions as Catalonia's national holiday, even though Catalonia is not a nation, but a semi-autonomous province. It's sort of like if Illinois had some extra governing powers that other states didn't, their own language and culture, and wanted to have their own 4th of July.

The funny thing is that while most nations celebrate the day that they declared their independence, or their first king or president was inaugurated, or their bill of rights was passed, here they celebrate the day that their independance was taken away. On Sept 11th, 1714, Barcelona fell to a months-long siege that was conucted by the armies of the Bourbon claimant to the Spanish throne, during the War of the Spanish Succession. Catalonia, in the hopes of remaining independent, supported the Hapsburg claimant, but was absorbed by Spain as punishment for supporting the wrong guy. I put up a few pictures online.

Anyways, they celebrate it with a lot of official things in the morning, and then a lot of separatist groups have booths and demonstrations in the afternoon. Other than that, nothing much happens. The biggest festival here is actually next week- it's Barcelona's annual festival, and goes for about a week (sort of like the taste of Chicago, but supposedly more dangerous. My professor mentioned something about tossing a goat off the roof of some cathedral).

It's called la Merce, and starts the 19th. The biggest thing they usually have each year is the pyramid builders. Its almost like a sport- guys from different towns have "teams" of like 40 or so guys, and they stand on top of each other to make a pyramid that is usually 4-6 levels high. Usually its built with a core of 4 guys that are in the middle and extend up to almost the top, and sits on top of a base made up for 20 or so people. Around them in the plaza, the crowd pushes in so there is no space anywhere. None of them wear any protective gear, since Spain in general is not big on protective anything. At the very end, 1 little kid, like 5 or 6 years old, climbs to the very top. They're supposed to dismantle it by each person sliding down, but sometimes it's just too much, and the whole thing collapses down on itself. Which means that there's like layers of people on each other, including the crowd, since they are pushed up so close. Last year the kid at the top fell, and died right there, so now the kids who are climbing need to wear helmets (no one else does).

The only other interesting things that happened this week were my wanderings around the Gothic Quarter of the city and my visit to Parque Guell. Barri Gotic just borders on the area that I have my classes at, IES had a profesor take us around that area. It was really cool, because the whole area is the original city, which was occupied in turn by native Iberians, Romans, Carthaginians, Visigoths, Moors (briefly), and modern Christians. The professor who came with us has her masters in medieval history, so she knew a whole bunch of really cool things about the city and the history of the places that she took us too.

Walking we passed by Els Cuarto Gats, a small cafe that Picasso, Dali and a whole bunch of famous artists used to hang out there. We went by a 3rd AD (maybe it was 4th AD, I don't remember completely) Roman graveyard that was accidentally found when some company was building new apartment buildings there (Plaza Madrid), and also parts of an old Roman aqueduct just sorta standing in the middle of Plaza Nova. Near there was also an area with the leftover columns of an old Roman temple, which was later placed with this huuuuge Gothic Cathedral. I snapped a few pictures, but i'll have to go back to actully take good pictures.

We went by the old throne of Castile and Aragon, where Ferdinand and Isabella received Christopher Columbus when he returned from his first trip to the Americas (ridiculous). Also the original entrance to the city, Porta de l'Angel. We also stopped by Plaza de Sant Jaume, where the old Roman forum used to stand, and the modern Generalitat stands (town halls, gov buildings ect). Neus, another professor with us, had grown up in Barcelona, and she told us how if you wanted to get in trouble you'd come down to Plaza de Sant Jaume on Sunday mornings back in the 60s and early 70s to dance the Catalonian National Dance, the Sardana. During Franco's time, speaking Catalan and any exhibition of Catalan culture was prohibited- so Neus said she and her friends would dance in front of the government buildings to protest, and the police would come out to arrest them and they'd all have to run away. Also at this plaza the soccer team (The Barca) goes after they win games (never) to greet fans and everything.

The next day I went with some friends to Parque Guell, which is the gigantic park that was designed by the Spanish architect Gaudi. We had no idea where we were going, so we kind of just got of the metro and walked in what we thought was the right direction. We overshot the main entrance, but it turned out that the side entrance we went through was way more interesting. That side of the city is more hilly, and the park is built on the highest area there, so you need to walk up this 45 degree slope for a while, and then there's 6 or 7 outdoor escalators, one after another, that take you up the entrance. Then there's more stairs. It turns out the main entrance doesn't involve any stairs, and is the part where you can see all of the tile and the tiled dragon that you see pictures of. The tiled part makes a sort of terrance that is held up bye tens of romanesque columns underneath- there's maybe 30-40 of them. Pictures of that will be put up soon. Also a few pictures from the very top, where we can see 2 more Barcelona landmarks in the distance.

That's all for now... dinner's in a few. This week I start real classes, and then it's La Merce so I'll write all about that later. I'll be putting pictures on flickr pretty soon.

First Week in Barcelona and Weekend in Valencia

First Week:

So. I have been in Barcelona for a week, and it's gotten to the point where friends and relatives are demanding that I tell them everything. I set up this blog mostly for myself, just to record the places that I go so I don't forget, so don't be surprised if it's not written like a travel magazine or anything. I just don't want to forget anything, and some of you want to know everything, so here goes. Pictures of this famous "everything" are also available on Flickr, under the username ToriKSpain.

The flight in was uneventful, unless you count my phone deciding to not work once I got out of the country, and my mother subsequently worrying herself almost to death over me. But it was ok, as was navigating the airport, getting a taxi, and making it to my dorm. Right now the dorm is mostly empty, and so my floor has 10 or so Americans with our program (IES), and hardly any Spanish students yet. The students do not start class until around Sept 15-18, and should be moving in after Catalonia's National Holiday, Sept. 11th.

So right now the dorm is kind of quiet and lonely. My room is a nice double, and my roomate, Zoe, is from Maine and goes to Connecticut College. To be honest I was sort of expecting to have a Spanish roomate- I chose the dorms because of this, since I figured being forced to speak Spanish to native spanish speaker 24/7 would improve my fluency very quickly. I might be able to change my housing for next semester, but we'll see if I want to or not at the end of the semester.

It's ok though, since Zoe and really cool, and pretty close to my level in Spanish, so we've decided to start speaking Spanish all the time starting when the Spanish students move in. Hopefull we'll be able to make friends with them. The first few days I just took to settle in and figure out where I was in relation to my classes and the center of the city. We have class at Plaza Catalunya, right in the middle of the city, and a bus stop about 2 blocks takes us there in maybe 20 minutes.

Other IES students stay in dorms, apartments and homestays spread out through the city, so I didn't get to meet them until the third day, when everyone had gotten in and we had sort of a dinner meet and greet thing. The only problem with that was they had some bad techno music blaring the entire time, so conversation was mostly just screaming our names and where we were from at each other. Of course, I forget everyone's names right after I met them.

The same day we had Spanish language classes, where we met our professor and the group of kids who are going to be in the class. The professor, Pep, is the young catalan guy who is hilarious, and really helpful. Every week in class we're going to put together a newspaper, each of us writing an article or two for it. I'm excited for the class, although I was a little intimidated. I tested into the highest level, which just sort of assumes that you are a native spanish speaker, as were the majority of the kids in the class. But even though the professor spoke really fast I understood it all, so it'll be fine.

While the professor was really easy to understand, most people in the city aren't. They use a lot of slang that I haven't learned yet, or vocabulary that I just don't know, but I can usually get enough to understand what they are saying.

Weekend in Peniscola and Valencia:

This last weekend we had an orientation trip to Valencia and Peniscola. They separated us into the different Spanish levels, and had us in different hotels and buses according the proficiency level, which was nice because it meant that I got to meet people who are going to be in my classes. The bus drive down to Peniscola was about 2 hours, and then we had a guided tour around the fortified castle that belonged to some Spanish antipope from the 1300s. It was right on the coast and gorgeous, and there were no foreign tourists around. I guess the majority of their tourism comes from Spaniards who want to hang out at the beach for a few days.

After that we just headed down the coast for another 2 hours to get to Valencia, where we had even more guided tours of the sights before being allowed to relax at the hotel. The tours have all been really tedious and sort of annoying- some of the things that the guide was talking about was kind of interesting, but then there are the bored kids in the back who won't stop talking, so you can't really hear anything (I thought we grew out of the in high school guys). I kind of wish we had more time to look around some of the places that they took us though. Valencia was really nice and I plan on going back for their festival in March. I can't remember the name of the festival, but they have a contest to build the biggest, most elaborate statues and caricatures out of cardboard and papier mache, and after judging, they set everything on fire.

The next day of touring we went around the City of Arts and Sciences, and also the area where the orchestra plays and oceanarium are. That entire area is beautiful: Valencia barely touches the Mediterranean, but was originally built around a river, so the entire area we were at was at the edge of the city, right on the water. The oceanarium was huge- I'm pretty sure it's bigger than the Shedd, because instead of one compact building, it was composed of several large buildings spread out and connected that underground tunnels that went right through the aquariums, so you have fish and sharks swimming above and around you. Outside of each building was also exhibits with birds and sea lions. The aviary for the birds was ridiculous; it looked sort of like a large skeleton of a globe, probably about as tall as the ferris wheel at Navy Pier. The building for the Museum of Arts and Sciences and the Orchestra Hall looked equally ridiculous, as large, half footballs covered in brushed metal that sat on the water, and were hung with plants.

At night we just wandered around the city, eventually ending up at one of the gates of the old wall that used to enclose the city in the 1400s- there are 9 of the gates in the city now, and eahc is maybe 8-9 stories high, and completely made of stone. They still stand, although the city has grown around them, so you can walk through them to different barrios and neighborhoods.


One thing weird about Spain that everyone will tell you is that people are out all the time. It's like no one sleeps. Even on a Monday night, if you go the center of the city, at 3 am there will be an inordinate amount of people wandering around- going in and out of clubs and bars (a lot of which will stay open until 6 am or later, daily). Because of this, the American students I live with feel like they have to go out every night until 4 or 5, which I'm not really up to everyday. I'm hoping this is just a phase and people will get tired of spending 10 euro on a drink, or 20 euro cover charge to get into a club. Or they'll get tried of getting 2 hours of sleep before class, once we start actually having class.

To be honest, not having class is driving me a little crazy. I like having a schedule that I can plan around, because otherwise I'll waste my time sleeping in or going online or doing nothing, instead of making plans to go around the city. I'm also really excited for the types of classes that I am taking: I've got my Spanish 400 Composition Class, a History of the Mediterranean in the Medival Ages and Rennaissance, Catalan 101, Spanish Geography (not excited for that class), and US Political Perspectives of Latin America (or something like that... sounds interesting). Most of my classes will be in Spanish, with the exception of the history and catalan classes.

That's all for now... I'll try to update at least once a week or whenever anything worth sharing happens. (:

PS Sorry about the typos, I'm sure there are a bunch :/