Welcome to Barcelona

Hello to all friends and family. I hope this kick-off blog post finds you all happily beginning the new year. The purpose of this blog is to simply relay the highlights of my time abroad in an entertaining way. I'll tell you what I've learned, share photos, and try and show you how life in the states differs from life here.

Upon arriving in Barcelona after 19 hours of travel, my mom would be worried to know that my first use of Spanish was outside the airport talking to a program coordinator - "Dónde está mi guitarra? Uh oh...pienso que la dejó en el reclamo de equipaje..." I can safely say that after some fretting (no pun intended), all is well now and "mi guitarra" is safe with me in my room here.

Yesterday, we arrived at a 4-star hotel called La Gran Havana for our orientation and a one night stay before moving into our residencias. The hotel was nice enough that I was worried that a large part of our tuition was spent on the first day. Megan and I were split up into different groups and we met a lot of nice people from Indiana, Fordham, Minnesota, and Skidmore. The vibe of the program so far has been "fiesta fiesta fiesta" so far, but most of the people are nice and fun to talk to. I'm still not used to being in the "what -the-heck-day-is-it" time zone, so I fell asleep around 10 o'clock in La Gran Havana to get ready for another day of orientation.

For day two, Megan and I were split up into 2 groups - BC1 and BC2 - to get lectures on academics and housing. These two groups are broken up into smaller groups of 8 with leaders called "Guardian Angels" that are Spanish students here. They have toured us around the city both days, and they're good at answering all of our questions about the city. Barcelona is incredible so far - street after street of ornately constructed, old buildings. The city, however, has a very modern feel to it. My Guardian Angel, David, is 22 and he said after studying abroad in London he found that he never wanted to live outside Barcelona.

After our orientations and tour, Megan and I moved into our separate residencias - District Melon and District Marina - that are about 50 minute walks and 25 minute metro rides from each other. There's a chance she'll be able to change to mine, which is in a section of downtown that has lots of places to eat and a nice park behind it. Our rooms are single rooms that look European, modern, and lime green. They're pretty cool and make a good use of space for how small they are! Here's an example of the room (I'm in Poble Sec and she's Marina): Melon District. It feels like I'm living in a Spaceship pod.

I went on a nice adventure through the city to find Megan tonight...without cell phones it's hard to plan when to meet and what time. I took the metro (very nice subway system), and proceeded to get a little lost on the streets before heading the right direction. The streets are complicated - I'll get back to you on that because I'm still confused by them. The names of streets, rather than hanging above the street, are the sides of buildings in small print. It's crazy! Once I was walking in the right direction, I stumbled upon   the temple de la Sagrada Familia that looked really cool at night.

After that, Megan and I wandered around to find a place to eat (there aren't many restaurants around her complex) and stumbled upon, you guessed it - an American sports bar. Our first full night in Barcelona and we end up at a place called "The Sports Tavern" with vintage American sports decor - (Wrigley Field, Home of the Cubs...Tarheels 1926, 1928, and 1930 NCAA champions...). The owner served us, and he was a young Spanish guy. The Seahawks/Rams game was on (midnight our time, afternoon on the West coast) and we asked him who owns the place...an American? He said he did, and he loves everything American. He proceeded to look at the game and say "What sport is this?" We said football. He said, do you like cricket? We said no one in America really does. It turns out he doesn't really know American sports, and his bar was decorated by a professional company that decorates bars in Zaragoza. He was fun to talk to...we spoke Spanish to him and he spoke 'Merican to us. We topped off our burger and pizza (ok, we ate Spanish food at lunch we promise) with the local beer of choice. This is particularly funny because Megan and I don't drink, haven't in college, and haven't together...so we said "cheers" and tried it and turns out "La Estrella" is too intensely disgusting for her. She didn't finish half...memorable quotes: "I'm drinking death..." "My face is stuck in a disgusted position..." "Why did you order me the cheapest beer for my first drink?" It was fun though, and we laughed a lot.

After a less stressful trip back to Poble Sec, I'm ready for another fun day in Barcelona. Stay tuned for a lot more pictures and videos!