Avinguda Diagonal at sunset
Beautiful bridge in the Barri Gotic
La Boqueria - one of the world's largest marketplaces
Placa Catalunya - very close to the Arcadia Center.
Here is me in the Parliament Building!September 13, 2010
Pictures!
Beautiful bridge in the Barri GoticLa Boqueria - one of the world's largest marketplacesHere is me in the Parliament Building!
First day of Class
I placed into the B-level for UB, so my schedule is finally set. I had my first two classes today, which were good. My language teacher at Arcadia is very nice. We read a fun story today. As far as History of Spanish Art, the professor is a trip!!! He is hilarious and reminds me of Doc McFarland a bit. He kind of lectures in a confusing style, but is definitely passionate about his subject matter. He speaks almost no English, so he absolutely destroyed everyone's names in the roll call. Especially since there are kids from the US, Japan, China, Brazil, Canada, and Norway in our class. It was hilarious to listen to his pronunciation attempts. I was literally laughing out loud. For some reason, there are students with very minimal Spanish in my class. He just lectures away in Spanish, which I can mostly understand and take notes. Some of the people looked so lost though, I don't know how they will survive!
Tomorrow, I have four classes, so I need to head off to bed soon. However, I wanted to post some pictures because I promised them!
September 12, 2010
Heels
Just one more quick thought. Fashion, again. Okay, so the ladies here do not wear heels to go out. They only wear flats or sandals or even flip-flops. Why? Because the metro is ridiculous. Once you get underground, you often have to walk for over 5 minutes to get to the correct track. Transferring lines is even worse. You can easily spend 10 minutes of your 20 minute trip just walking underground. So no heels! Women here see no reason to torture their feet, so they don't.
Walking all over creation
Hello friends!
On Saturday, I (along with Jake) met up with a couple who are Christian leaders here in Barcelona. Saturday was the National Day of Catalunya, so we met in the Parc Ciutadella. It was absolutely teeming with people and there was an extensive program with music, poetry, performances, speeches, etc. After spending a good bit of time trying to locate the group, I finally met up with everyone. After the official ceremony was over, we walked over to sit on the grass to pray for Spain and Catalunya. After that, we had a picnic lunch and then went to see the Parliament building. The building was absolutely amazing! It was extremely lavish, and mixed modern and historic architecture and design.
After this, Jake and I decided to stick with our new acquaintances to see if we could locate some more of the festivities. We walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked! All the way through Barri Gotic and out onto Placa Catalunya. We went through the old Jewish Quarter and got to peek into a window of a tiny synagogue that was just recently re-discovered. There was also a stone inscription in Hebrew on one of the walls! Cool stuff! After walking for so long, it was time for a little merienda - nothing like a cone of ice cream for 1 euro.
Jumping forward to today, I was going to get up early and visit a church, but I slept until 12:30. I have done so much this week, it all finally caught up to me. So today, my main goal was to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I succeeded. I lounged around until about 5 pm, hanging out with my host family. At that point, I decided I needed to get out in the sunshine and have some fresh air. So, my senora told me about a nearby park and I went over there to read. It was very pleasant outside, and the park was filled with families and people walking their dogs. It felt very communal. I sat on a bench and read for a few hours. I was feeling a bit down earlier today, but I pushed through and this evening was lovely. I just hung out at home with my senora, and my sister Ana and her boyfriend Christian. Que tranquilo! How relaxing!
Before I sign off, here are a few more things to add to my growing list of differences that I have seen:
1) Party time - The normal time here to go out to a bar is 11:00 pm. Although people pretty much socially drink all the time here. Bars are open until between 1-3 am. Clubs do not open until 1:00 am and stay open until 4-6 am! But no worries, there is also no such thing as an 8:00 am class. 9:30 is an early time to have class.
2) Strollers - The guys are the ones who push the strollers. I have maybe seen 1 woman pushing a stroller in the time that I have been here. All of the other times, it was the dude. And I have walked around a LOT, so I have seen a lot of stroller-pushing.
3) Dog Walking - Sitting in the park today, I noticed that the people were letting their dogs go up and play with other dogs or sniff them. However, the dog owners did not seem to exchange some chit chat while their dogs were communing. In the U.S., it is pretty common to exchange a few words with someone if your dogs are playing together in the dog park. Here, people are very affectionate with people they know, but don't really greet people they don't know who are passing by.
That's it for now ladies and gents. My first class is tomorrow at 12:30 pm.
Besos!
On Saturday, I (along with Jake) met up with a couple who are Christian leaders here in Barcelona. Saturday was the National Day of Catalunya, so we met in the Parc Ciutadella. It was absolutely teeming with people and there was an extensive program with music, poetry, performances, speeches, etc. After spending a good bit of time trying to locate the group, I finally met up with everyone. After the official ceremony was over, we walked over to sit on the grass to pray for Spain and Catalunya. After that, we had a picnic lunch and then went to see the Parliament building. The building was absolutely amazing! It was extremely lavish, and mixed modern and historic architecture and design.
After this, Jake and I decided to stick with our new acquaintances to see if we could locate some more of the festivities. We walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked! All the way through Barri Gotic and out onto Placa Catalunya. We went through the old Jewish Quarter and got to peek into a window of a tiny synagogue that was just recently re-discovered. There was also a stone inscription in Hebrew on one of the walls! Cool stuff! After walking for so long, it was time for a little merienda - nothing like a cone of ice cream for 1 euro.
Jumping forward to today, I was going to get up early and visit a church, but I slept until 12:30. I have done so much this week, it all finally caught up to me. So today, my main goal was to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I succeeded. I lounged around until about 5 pm, hanging out with my host family. At that point, I decided I needed to get out in the sunshine and have some fresh air. So, my senora told me about a nearby park and I went over there to read. It was very pleasant outside, and the park was filled with families and people walking their dogs. It felt very communal. I sat on a bench and read for a few hours. I was feeling a bit down earlier today, but I pushed through and this evening was lovely. I just hung out at home with my senora, and my sister Ana and her boyfriend Christian. Que tranquilo! How relaxing!
Before I sign off, here are a few more things to add to my growing list of differences that I have seen:
1) Party time - The normal time here to go out to a bar is 11:00 pm. Although people pretty much socially drink all the time here. Bars are open until between 1-3 am. Clubs do not open until 1:00 am and stay open until 4-6 am! But no worries, there is also no such thing as an 8:00 am class. 9:30 is an early time to have class.
2) Strollers - The guys are the ones who push the strollers. I have maybe seen 1 woman pushing a stroller in the time that I have been here. All of the other times, it was the dude. And I have walked around a LOT, so I have seen a lot of stroller-pushing.
3) Dog Walking - Sitting in the park today, I noticed that the people were letting their dogs go up and play with other dogs or sniff them. However, the dog owners did not seem to exchange some chit chat while their dogs were communing. In the U.S., it is pretty common to exchange a few words with someone if your dogs are playing together in the dog park. Here, people are very affectionate with people they know, but don't really greet people they don't know who are passing by.
That's it for now ladies and gents. My first class is tomorrow at 12:30 pm.
Besos!
September 11, 2010
September 10, 2010
Universitat de Barcelona
Today I took the UB exam In the morning. UB is beautiful. It’s in this huge historic building, with stone archways and courtyards with benches. Its unreal. The exam was not too bad. I think I will probably place in level B, but I am not completely sure. Anyway, it doesn’t matter much since both of the classes I would like to take have both levels. But seriously, I dont know how I am going to deal with Drexel after this.
A word about fashion: Thank goodness that I am from the U.S. If I lived here, I would probably be an outcast from lack of fashion ingenuity. When I first got here, everyone seemed to dress very similarly to the U.S. Now I am starting to see that what I read before coming here is true. The women dress very nicely, with well-cut clothing in neutral colors. But there is definitely an element of whimsy and creativity. They all wear those pants which are cut loosely and then cuff at the bottom and any variations on this. It looks like I will be getting myself a pair or two very shortly.
I realize that I did not really bring enough clothes here, which is fine. I can buy some. I would love to buy some. But I need to find some good places. I did get a shirt at ZARA today. It was only 3.99€!!! I showed it to Ana (my "sister") when I got home and she thought it was really cute. Which is good, because she dresses really cute! And she asked if I was going to wear it to go out, which confirmed my idea that I could wear it to go out.
And these European guys. Seriously. They know how to dress. I mean, the average guy here knows how to dress himself better than the average girl. Which is weird and awesome. And that is pretty much all I have to say about that.
A word about fashion: Thank goodness that I am from the U.S. If I lived here, I would probably be an outcast from lack of fashion ingenuity. When I first got here, everyone seemed to dress very similarly to the U.S. Now I am starting to see that what I read before coming here is true. The women dress very nicely, with well-cut clothing in neutral colors. But there is definitely an element of whimsy and creativity. They all wear those pants which are cut loosely and then cuff at the bottom and any variations on this. It looks like I will be getting myself a pair or two very shortly.
I realize that I did not really bring enough clothes here, which is fine. I can buy some. I would love to buy some. But I need to find some good places. I did get a shirt at ZARA today. It was only 3.99€!!! I showed it to Ana (my "sister") when I got home and she thought it was really cute. Which is good, because she dresses really cute! And she asked if I was going to wear it to go out, which confirmed my idea that I could wear it to go out.
And these European guys. Seriously. They know how to dress. I mean, the average guy here knows how to dress himself better than the average girl. Which is weird and awesome. And that is pretty much all I have to say about that.
September 9, 2010
Bus Turistic
What a day! At 10:00 this morning, we got on the Bus Turistic to go to Park Guell, created by Antoni Gaudi. This is one of the places that I have wanted to visit for a very long time. Although it was beautiful, it was hot and very crowded. Gaudi really was an amazing man. He had such an unusual mind and crazy ideas! After visitng Park Guell, we were free to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the day. Isn't it funny how sometimes its hard to decide what to do, especially when there are so many possibilities? We decided to ride the rest of the Bus Turistic route to get back to Placa Catalunya (near our Center) to eat some lunch. We passed through a lot of different areas of Barcelona. I especially want to go back to visit the Ceramic museum in the north and some other things. After lunch, I decided to visit one of the houses of Gaudi. It was pretty cool.
Now, I am going to take a rest before going out for a little shopping. I need shampoo, an alarm clock, a water bottle, and some other small things. I will probably also stop for a bocadillo or a cafe.
I do have one entertaining story to share from last night. After our day was over, I decided to go for my second attempt at getting a SIM card. Hay caramba! It was such a pain. We waited for a whole hour in the phone shop and the poor guy at the counter was dealing with the worst. First this lady comes in and tries to butt in line. She goes straight up to the counter and starts talking to the guy, saying that she wants to buy this and that. He told her she had to wait her turn and she started protesting until this other Catalan woman gave her a few sharp words to set her straight. It was very interesting to watch all of this take place and understand what was going on. Then later, these two Italian women came in and started talking to the guy. Of course, they were speaking Italian, like he would understand. So the poor man got very annoyed Of course, they too claimed they weren't butting in line, they were just "getting some information." Anyway, despite all of these this nonsense, I managed to purchase my SIM card. Success!!!
Now, I am going to take a rest before going out for a little shopping. I need shampoo, an alarm clock, a water bottle, and some other small things. I will probably also stop for a bocadillo or a cafe.
I do have one entertaining story to share from last night. After our day was over, I decided to go for my second attempt at getting a SIM card. Hay caramba! It was such a pain. We waited for a whole hour in the phone shop and the poor guy at the counter was dealing with the worst. First this lady comes in and tries to butt in line. She goes straight up to the counter and starts talking to the guy, saying that she wants to buy this and that. He told her she had to wait her turn and she started protesting until this other Catalan woman gave her a few sharp words to set her straight. It was very interesting to watch all of this take place and understand what was going on. Then later, these two Italian women came in and started talking to the guy. Of course, they were speaking Italian, like he would understand. So the poor man got very annoyed Of course, they too claimed they weren't butting in line, they were just "getting some information." Anyway, despite all of these this nonsense, I managed to purchase my SIM card. Success!!!
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