Bomb Shelter Field Trip

One thing I forgot I saw this past week was a bomb shelter used during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930's.  My Spanish Civilization and Culture class went to see it as a field trip. It's crazy to me that it happened in recent history, as in my grandparents were alive during that time. Albeit, they were very young, but still, very recent. Also, I learned that Franco's fascist regime (his side won the Spanish Civil War) lasted until the 70's, when my parents were young/teens. When we learned about communism, facism, dictatorships, and such in school, it always seemed like ancient history, nothing I have ever experienced. The mentality here is different; they remeber war, the bombs falling for 3 days straight on their homes. During the Spanish Civil War, which lasted about 3 years, Barcelona was the most bombed city. Touring the bomb shelter was a little eerie, but interesting at the same time. Even though Spain has been around for a long long time, it really has only been a free state for less than 40 years. My dreams were a little intense that night, but I'm glad I am learning about the history of Spain and how it affects people today.

Tarragona (again) and La Sagrada Familia

This week I did a day trip with my program. We were supposed to do a Jungle Trek adventure park with ziplining, but the rain caused the park to close and cancel our trip. Instead, the program took us to Tarragona, which we had just seen the previous weekend. Nevertheless, it was fun to go back and actually get into the amphitheater and another museum, which we didn't do last time because we spent our money on other things. Afterwards, we went to a town just outside Barcelona for a huge traditional Catalan lunch. The main specialty was a calcotada which is an onion burned in a fire and then served. You eat them by pulling the burned part off and tilt your head back, and drop the long narrow onion down your throat! Crazy, I know, but it was so good! Your fingers do get messy. The lunch was great (they served us more than onions), and the free champagne was great too! Apparently, Spain makes really good champagne, called cava here, as well as good wines. Later this semester, I would love to go on a wine/champagne tour when the weather is nice.

On Saturday, I went to see the inside of La Sagrada Familia, a famous Gaudi church still under construction. Every Saturday in January it is free to the public to see La Sagrada Familia, and since it was the last day to go, I got there early and got right in! Impresionante! No picture could ever capture the magnitude and attention to detail that Gaudi designed. The church is huge, and so beautiful!

That is all for now, but next weekend is my program's trip to Madrid! Should be fun!

Sitges, Tarragona, FC Barcelona Game, and more

This past week I started traveling around the city and some close destinations, which were Sitges and Tarragona. But let me start from the beginning of the week.

Last Friday I participated in my program's Photo Treasure Hunt, where we had a list of clues of places to find, and when we thought we found them, we took a picture. The team who had the points at the end wins a free lunch at a really nice restaurant. My team came in second, but it was fun to walk around and really just get lost for 3.5 hours, because getting somewhat lost and finding your way back helps in getting to know the city. I have the photos from the treasure hunt on my camera, but unfortunately, since my camera is broken, it might be awhile until I get those photos up.

Since the photo treasure hunt took up a day of traveling I could have done, my group of friends and I did a day trip instead of a weekend trip.  Last Saturday we went to Sitges, a pretty costal town about 30 min south of Barcelona by train. So pretty! We mainly hung out on the beach and ate a nice restaurant on the beach/waterfront. It was my favorite restaurante by far because they served us pink champagne sangria with strawberries in it! So good! We explored the town a little bit after our lunch, but mostly saw the same pretty architecture, no monuments or anything.

A friend of mine and I went to Park Guell on Wednesday, and it was amazing! Almost like a Candyland with Gaudi's houses painted so differently. A must see if you are ever in Barcelona! The only thing is getting up to see the houses; the hills were so steep they remind me of posters of San Francisco, and some of the hill was too steep to walk, so we took escalators. I'm not kidding when I say the hill was probably steeper than a 50 degree angle. But so worth it! Gaudi was so original with all of his work, and every detail is distinct and fascinating to look at.

Thursday night I headed out to Tarragona, which is an ancient city with lots of ruins. I had just learned about it in my Spanish Civilization and Culture class, and it was the first major Roman city/stronghold in Spain. I stayed the night with half of the group and the other half met us in the morning (they only wanted to do the day trip). It was amazing to see the ampitheatre lit up at night, and our hostel was right in the middle of an ancient plaza called Circ Roma. The reason why I know this is because we asked a lady where an open bar was (it was very strange to us that the city shut down at 10, when Barcelona is open until 7am), and while taking us to the one open bar, she gave us semi-tour of Tarragona and all of the ruins. She worked in the Tarragona Archeological Society and Museum, and she was so incredibly nice. She spoke to us in Spanish, and while my group has diverse levels of speaking/understanding Spanish, we all were able to understand her and appreciate the majesty of the ancient history we were standing on. The following morning we met our group and saw the cathedral, ancient murralls, some more ruins, and then went shoe shopping! I know it sounds weird that we all went shoe shopping, but it was nice to get out of cold wind (it was 7 degrees celcius out, but the wind made it feel like 0 degrees!) and look at some deals.

We came back on Friday night, so that Saturday we could go to the FC Barcelona futbol match! We played a bad team, but it was still fun to attend my first professional soccer match and see the famous Barcelona futbol team! I bought a jersey to wear to the game, but it was so cold that no one could really see it.

Speaking of the weather, when we came here, it was so beautiful. It reminded me of Phoenix's warmer winter weather, but recently it's gotten really cold here. When it's sunny, it's great; clear blue skies, low 70's to high 60's type weather, but when it's cold, it's so gray, darkness comes earlier, and recently it decided to rain. No matter what the weather, people here dress for the season. I could be sweating in my winter coat, or shivering, just depends on the day.

That's all for now! Take care and I'll post more updates in a week!

Hola de Barcelona!

Hi everyone! It's been an awesome week here in Barcelona. I love the city and I would love to live here in the future. So much has happened, so I'll try to remember as much as I can! I arrived in Barcelona around 8am Barcelona time, which is 8 hours ahead of Arizona and very different from my normal sleeping schedule. I took some tylenol pm on the plane so I could sleep, and I really think that helped my body adjust to the time quicker. But I was still so exhausted! During the middle of the day, all I wanted to do was sleep. The first two nights all of us from the study abroad program were in 4 separate hotels; there is over 200 of us in CEA this semester studying in Barcelona. We checked all checked into the hotel, and then instead of sleeping, I went out to lunch with some hallmates I just met. We walked about 30 min each way to Las Ramblas, which is a very touristy street, but the atmosphere is like none other. There is so much life here; people walking everywhere and speaking so many different languages. It's so different from anything in Arizona, where we just drive to and from. Anyway, we three walked to get something to eat, and of course you have to try what Spain is famous for: paella and sangria. So good! Paella is my new favorite food here, and the sangria just tastes better here. Later that night, I went out with some different friends I met, and we tried out the Spanish custom of staying out until 5am. The bars here are fun, but we all kept an eye out for each other too, cause jetlag and alcohol is not the best mix. They don't start going out here until like 11pm to 12am at the earliest, and then the clubs don't get busy until around 2:30am. We went to a bar first and then to a couple different clubs on Port Olympic, which is right on the water. It is such a scenic area! Not to mention the scenery of European men! Whew! Why wasn't I here before? haha. The group of girls I was with met a university soccer team from Amsterdam and hung out with them for a while before leaving for the night. Also speaking of bars and clubs, I went into the ice bar here in Barcelona, into a chilly -12 degrees, fully made of ice, bar. Very fun! They give you a huge parka like jacket with gloves, but it was still cold. And the cups were made entirely of ice. I'll have to go back there again.
After the first couple of nights, we moved into our permanent housing. I'm in a residencia, which is like the dorms. I got lucky with the handicapped room, so I have twice the floor and closet space all to my self! There are 10 girls on my hall, and we each have a single room and our own bathroom. We share the cooking lounge, and everything is very modern and nice here. I'm glad I chose to live instead of an apartment, because I heard great things but also bad things about different apartments. I like the area and the place I'm living, and it was well worth the extra money to know I'd have a safe and relaxing enviroment to come home to.
I love all of my classes! I'm taking International Business, Intenational Finance, MicroEconomics, MacroEconomics, and Spanish Civilization and Culture. All of my classes except for my Spanish culture class are taught in English. I do feel like I am expanding my vocabulary base for my spanish skills, but I wish I was more immersed too. I live with all American CEA students studying abroad, and my classes pretty much have only students studying abroad except for my international business class, which has some students from Germany. I really want to become fluent, or at least learn a lot of new vocabulary, so i'll have to branch out somehow to practice more. I think that is all I can remember for now. I'll post some more soon/when something "blog-worthy" happens and when I start traveling. For now, goodnight and adios!