First week!

What a week. It is truly incredible here. It defiantly took some adjusting but I am finally getting to know the city better and settling in.

Hotel Gran Catalunya- the hotel we stayed in on the first two nights.
When we got there we had lunch at the hotel with our roommates, who are great. Grace is from Long Island and goes to Indiana with Sam who is from Westcester, ny. Funniest people ever. They are so much fun. Coley is from Minnesota and is a kappa at Wisconsin. Shes the nicest person ever, hilarious, and has the biggest accents its amazing. We have all gotten along so great. The first night we met a lot of girls. Went to a club called Shoko which is on the beach. It was really fun. Katie had two dfmo's (east coast word for Dance Floor Make Out....hahahhaah) and I made a spanish friend, not sure how I talked to him but we hung out for a while.

The apartment is actually pretty nice. We were upset originally because other ones are really, really nice, but now that we have settled in its really big and nice. Our landlord, Marta is the most adorable lady and speaks no english. Our rooms are big and the shower and bathroom is nice.

We live in Eixample which is a really cute and safe neighborhood. There are so many little kids running around a lot of old people. It is right in the center of the city and is a great location. We can walk to our classes, its about a 20 minute walk, or metro- we have two metro lines right here and its sooo easy to get around. We are close to Passeig de Gracia, the street with all the really nice designer shops and a lot of out door cafes. I ate at a cafe and ordered a spanish dish of fries with eggs and ham on top. The food is not that great, its all sea food and ham which I dont like, so ive been eating all carbs. We havent been to a good tapas place yet, but have had some good sangria. We went food shopping at this tiny local market right near our apartment, which was so much fun. The guy who worked there walked our groceries home with us. Food is cheap, the fruit is really good. There is an amazing peach juice we bought. And its so cool I can buy alcohol!

The clubs and bars are crazy. There is a promoter named "kike (key-kay) who hosts big parties at different clubs each night, and all the Americans abroad follow. Its really weird. Our roommates know a lot of Indiana kids on the program and are want to party with them so we have been going, and its fun, but just all americans from our progam, and mostly kids from new york and midwest. It was fun for the first week but I want to branch out and go to places with more locals. But the clubs are insane, they are really nice and so many people are there dancing until 5am. We have been leaving at around 4am, which is early. The clubs we have gone to are Shoko, Catwalk, Opium, Oshum, Otto Zuts, and Razmatazz. We have had people over at our apartment to pregame before the clubs which has been really fun. We have a big living room and its a good setting. Other kids on the program have already been evicted from their housing because of noise, but we are lucky were not above anyone.

Classes are fine. The are really boring but really easy. I am taking two photo classes, photography and photojournalism, with the same teacher so so far they have been almost exactly the same but hopefully they'll be more different. I was in Catalan, the language they speak in Catalunya and Barcelona, but i switched to spanish because everyone here speaks spanish. It was interesting but its pointless.



1/15/11
Went to tibidado in the Gracia barrio. It is a really wealthy part of down and it is known for this little amusment park at the top of the hill and a beautiful church overlooking the whole city. We went with a crew from Berkeley. We took a cute trolly up the hill past beautiful houses, but once we got to the top we heard the park was closed which was a bummer, but we walked around and saw the amazing views. There were a lot of spaniards there working out/hiking, and it reminded me of the spanish version of fryman canyon. Then we ate at a cute restaurant up there. After we metroed back to la rambla and shopped a little, but it was packed because it was saturday and every store is having sales. I havent bought anything yet. Off La rambla is an incredible outdoor market called La Boqueria. It was rows and rows of fresh fruit, produce, candy, chocolcate, smoothies, meat, and fish. The colors are incredible to look at the food is so good. We have been cooking some dinner at our apartment. My roommate Coley, whos from Minnesota and is a kappa at wisconsin knows how to cook, but the rest of us not so much. Weve been making pasta, eggs, salad, and microwaved things haha. We had all the berkeley people over to pregame, then went to some random apartment with them, then to the bar La Ovella Negra, which was really cool. Then we got these INCREDIBLE churros from a stand near the metro. Best thing ever.


1/16/11
Today, Katie and I walked to the beach from our apartment. It was a pretty long walk, maybe about two miles but it was beautiful. Waking down our street, Passeig Sant Joan, you hit Barcelona's Arch Di Triumph which is beautiful. There was a man playing great spanish music on his guitar. So many people were out and about the city. We then walked through a huge park called Citudadella which is very green and pretty. Once we got to the water we went to a restaurant on the pier. There was a long row of restaurants that were all packed with spanish people in large groups at 4pm. We have been having huge lunches and small dinners. I ordered Paella, a famous spanish dish which is rice and seafood, but I got it with chicken. And we had sangria which was AMAZING. Then we went to Santa Maria del mar in El Born and went to the Picasso museum. We came home, made din with the roomies and stayed in because we are all exhausted.