I thought I graduated...

Ok so my weekend wasn't as long as I have been bragging about. At 8:30 Monday morning I had to take a language proficiency test. This week, I started a two week long spanish class that runs from 9:30-1:30. After that, I power-walk 20 minutes to work and grab some food on the way. I'll talk more about that in a minute though. After the test, the 12 or so of us were placed into different classes that have already been in session for a couple weeks. From what I've gathered, students come and go during the length of the class. This week I have been the only American in my class. There is a boy and girl from Italy, a girl from Russia, a girl from Taiwan, a guy from China, and two girls from Brazil. The Brazilians come to class so rarely that the teacher made fun of them for actually being there yesterday. Luckily, I only had class and no work Monday.

Wednesday was a loooooooong day. I had class from 9:30 to 1:30. Then arrived at work at 2, where I ate lunch at my desk and then worked till 7. After I left work, I hurried to meet up with my program for a tour of one of the neighborhoods in Barcelona. The tour lasted from 7:30 till 9 and I finally returned home at 9:30. I ate dinner and then fought to stay awake while doing my homework and then finally passed out. I thought I already graduated so I wouldn't have class and homework anymore. 

La Mercé Part 2

The second half of my long weekend was just as exciting as the first part. Sunday, was the first time I've left the city since arriving to Barcelona. I went with a couple friends to a seaside town 30 minutes outside the city by train. The town is called Sitges (See-chase). It is exactly how you would imagine a seaside Mediterranean town, lined with with houses and crooked streets. It is absolutely beautiful. The beach itself wasn't that impressive for me. The sand is really fine and soft and the water wasn't too cold, but that is where the magic stops. There weren't any waves really so there was no body surfing. Before going, Spanish people told me that there are a lot of gays in Sitges. I didn't really think about what that might mean, other than the possibility of seeing some dudes hold hands which really didn't bother me. What I didn't expect was very flamboyant speedos. The designs were oddly entertaining. After a few hours of getting our tan on, we returned home.

I'll talk about Monday in my next post...

Tuesday: The actual day of La Mercé was pretty awesome. I got up early and went to go see the human towers, Castellers. The name pretty much means castle makers or castle people. I was "lucky" enough to get there in time to see the "Giants Parade" which are the giant people figures that most of you have already seen the pictures of. They were cool to look at for long enough to snap a few pictures, but that whole event was really boring and way too long. Not to mention it was in Catalan, a Spanish variant that I don't speak or understand. (The "Spanish" we know is actually one of five languages spoken in Spain known as Castilian.) After an hour and a half of watching the giants, an hour into when the castellers were supposed to start, I finally saw a human tower. Each of the teams paraded in with a 1x4 tower at first. Then they started getting progressively more exciting. My friend Jazmin has tagged me on a video she posted on Facebook that displays a 5x7 tower. Notice how small the children are that go to the very top. They can't be older than 5 probably. After the castellers, I returned home, content with my Mercé experience.

La Mercé

I'm a little over halfway through my glorious five day weekend now so I thought I'd tell you all a little about it. As I mentioned before there is a festival going on called La Mercé to honor the patron saint of Barcelona. Each of the neighborhoods have stuff going on, but the major events take place in the city's main squares. Since I live near La Sagrada Familia, there were some events going on nearby my apartment, but nothing huge. There was a stage setup in the street where live music was played a block over from my house last night.
Friday night was when the opening ceremonies took place. I went with a couple friends to the top of the old bull fighting arena turned shopping mall in the main city square for dinner where we could hear live music from a nearby stage. Then we walked down into the festivities that were still just starting. After we figured out that we just missed the live music we left the stage area and ventured up to the magic fountain to take some pictures and get a scenic view. The fountain is at the base of the Museu Nacional d'art de Catalunya (MNAC) which was beautifully lit up as well. We had been pretty busy all day so we decided to return home before the next band started playing. Saturday we spent most of the day resting, so we were better prepared for the late night activities. One of the main attractions last night was a parade of fire-breathing dragons. Not prepared for the crowd that would be present, we planned on meeting in the plaza where it was taking place. When I arrived, it became evident that there would be no meeting up until afterwards so I waded into the crowd. I miraculously ended up towards the front of the crowd and I could see pretty well. For about 30-45 minutes I watched as various dragons emerged from the city's municipal building. There was even some sort of faun and a devil pig. In between monsters, percussion bands formed part of the procession. The parade ended and as the crowd cleared I was able to find my friends. Then we made our way to the beach to watch a pretty amazing fireworks display. When the fireworks came to a close, we waited for the crowd to calm down and then met up with more friends and proceeded to the carnival for churros. Finally, we returned to the beach where we relaxed and finished our beers. Oh... and a couple of the girls might have taken some of their clothes off and partially skinny dipped in the Mediterranean Sea.

Getting More Comfortable

As of today I have planned a 4 day trip to Dublin, Ireland and another 4 day trip to Oslo,Norway!!!!!!!!! I wish that I could accurately convey in this blog the nervousness and excitement coursing through my veins when I hit the confirm button for my flight to Oslo. Those two trips are in mid-October. I can't wait to share the stories with you all!

This story is about growing up and having new experiences at work. Over the past week, I've been working on an excel spreadsheet at work that has become my baby. This is my first time at a job having a project of my own that I'm completely responsible for. I finally finished it yesterday, but then we decided it needed a few more fields. No problem. Today my Spanish boss finally came back from vacation and didn't know that I had been working on this project so much, so when we were talking about it she kept saying "ah I didn't realize they had finished this part" and stuff like that. The bad part is, she just copied and pasted some things into the spreadsheet. The point of me working on it was to make everything uniform and pretty, then she did that. It took me at least an hour to reorganize everything. So my new experience here was spending several full days of work on a project only to have my boss ruin it in a couple of minutes. 

Up to this point I only knew the other 5 interns in my program, but tonight I met the students.... The are almost all crazy party animals and super loud, stereotypical loud Americans. You may think I'm being a little harsh and to that I reply that I'm going easy on them. Tonight we had a group activity, but half of the students were late getting to the meeting point so they just met us at the end. When we all got together, they were all so loud and making a scene. The exact reason that some people from foreign countries think that we are annoying. While they were being loud, five of us interns just looked at each other and cringed. We also tried to momentarily stray away from the group too. But the good news is that there are a few cool guys in the group. One guy named Caspar is Polish enough to have an accent, but grew up in the states and is absolutely hilarious. He was the first student to make a point to introduce himself to the interns and walks straight up to me and does the double cheek kiss greeting which guys do not do to other guys here. Everybody laughed about it and then things were less awkward.

Yet again, this weekend is a holiday weekend in Barcelona. I'll have more information in my next post, but for now all I know is that I have a 5 day weekend because I'm off Friday-Tuesday. I'm going to try to hit up several different beaches during my long weekend.

The Highest Point, Tibidabo

Last night I was out until almost 4 and then slept till noon today. Therefore I felt that I needed to do something very active to balance out sleeping half of the day. Once I finally dragged myself out of bed around 1, I immediately started getting ready for a big day without knowing where I was going. After showering and eating a little lunch, I started looking over a map to decide whether I wanted to check out the Olympic Park or Tibidabo. I chose the latter and set about discussing how to get there with my host mother. The ride to the base of the mountain was relatively uneventful. I had to walk about a mile uphill where I saw some houses that were absolutely beautiful. On that walk, I ran into a guy from Azerbaijan named Vikrat. He and I walked together for the rest of the way because neither one of us knew exactly where we were going. We finally made it to a part where we had to take an incline lift the rest of the way up the hill. That was pretty fun and gave us the first samples of how high we were going to be. At the top, the view was even better than I could have expected. Since we were both traveling alone, Vikrat and I were able to take pictures for each other. After seeing about all there was to see, he went on his way to continue sight seeing and I stayed behind to play with my camera and just enjoy the view. About an hour later the wind started blowing stronger and it looked like it might rain, so I began my journey back to the apartment. Where it took an hour and a half to get up to the top, it only took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get back home. 

Determined to make up for the previous night, my friend Jazmin and I went to the bar next door to my building. Earlier this week I stopped in for a beer and discovered that it had at least 300 different board games, so I was really excited to return with a friend and play something. We arrived sometime between 10:30 and 11:00. After ordering a couple beers we decided to play Canasta, a pretty popular Uruguayan card game similar to Rummy. I played this a few times in high school, but I didn't remember any of the rules. The owner asked if we needed any help and ended up joining us at the table to oversee our first game. When we were ready to start the second game, he made sure everything was setup right and then just stayed to talk with us. That man is absolutely hilarious. When we would be in a tough spot, he would make sounds like the twilight zone music among other things. At 2:30, when the bar closed I won the game with a completely lucky best case scenario drawing of two cards. The owner attended to everyone paying while we put up the game and then we stuck around and talked to him for a bit more before leaving. I didn't get home until about 3 AM. Jazmin and I vowed that we will go back at least once a week for the next 11 weeks.

My First Party Night in Barcelona

I can now safely say that I'm almost an expert in what not to do when going out to enjoy the nightlife in Barcelona. Before going out, I did quite a bit of research on tripadvisor to figure out where the best place would be to go that wasn't just filled with Americans and wasn't really dirty. So that was nice and everything except for the part where it wasn't as helpful as it appeared. I was only reading reviews from tourists. So long story short, four of us ended up in a part of town that we maybe shouldn't have been in at 1:30 AM. After finally finding the bar, it looked incredibly shady from the outside. We discussed whether or not to go in for a couple minutes and finally decided that we had come too far not to go inside. Once we entered, we discovered that it was no different than any other bar that we could have gone to in any neighborhood. The reviews on tripadvisor were more than just misleading. They were dead wrong. We all got drinks and ended up having a pretty good night overall though.
Here is the moral of the story: If you want to go to a discoteca in Barcelona you are probably fine to go out at 1 AM. If you just want to go to a bar and relax and have a good time, there is no point in going to a bar outside of your own neighborhood. Chances are that there is one within 2-3 blocks. Next time, we will meet up in someone's neighborhood and do just that. Staying out of tourist areas also makes it much less likely of getting robbed too.

My Homestay and Friends

So I just realized that I haven't said anything about the people I'm living with. I elected to do a homestay for this trip which means that I get a host family. I was assigned to a woman in her mid-60s that takes in three international students.
-Conxita (Conchita) is my host mother. She has a son that I haven't met, but is older and has his own family. So far I haven't been able to spend much time with her because she leaves the apartment for work at 7:30 AM and doesn't get home until around 9 PM or later. I have taken full advantage of the time I've been around her though. We usually have deep conversations that would last forever if we let her keep talking while eating dinner.
-Choi Chen? and Yen? ...ok so I live with two Chinese boys and to be honest I have no clue what their names are. They both arrived a week before me and are part of a different program. They are both really quiet and if they are home you can bet that they will be in their rooms with the doors closed, so I don't even know if they are ever home.

My friends from the program:
When arriving Monday and being ushered straight into a brief orientation with hardly any sleep, I met the five other interns that are starting at the same time as me. They are all girls. Up until today I only knew how to contact one of them, Jazmin. Tomorrow we will all meet up again for orientation and hopefully we will be able to share phone numbers and whatnot.

Walking Tour of Barcelona

Yesterday was a statewide holiday. It was a holiday to celebrate the Independence of Catalunya (my state) from Spain. The strange thing is that Catalunya never gained independence from Spain. It is a holiday that gets people riled up because they are still fighting for independence, but it will probably never happen. The politicians are divided on the issue and so they make a big show of the holiday. Anyway, what yesterday was to me was a day that I didn't have to work and an opportunity to explore the city. I did just that. I met up with my friend Jazmin and we set off to see as much as possible of the city. My pictures are posted on facebook so I won't bore you with the play by play. The important thing is that we walked... a lot! I left my apartment at 2:30 in the afternoon and didn't return home for dinner until a little after 9. During that whole time we were intently navigating the city, trying to discover as much as possible on our day off. We ended the day by climbing to the top of Parc Guell, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and famous Gaudi creation. From there we were able to see how huge this city actually is. Then we had an agonizing mile and a half walk downhill to the nearest metro station. Once at the metro station, my journey wasn't over. I got off the green train at a hub that I thought was supposed to have a stop for a purple train that would take me the rest of the way home, but when I looked for directions to the purple line, none existed. There were only directions for 4 other lines that would only take me farther away from where I needed to go... or so I thought. After a small panic, I figured out that there was a blue line stop in this hub. Conveniently, there is a blue station about the same distance from my apartment as the purple station.

Today I learned something very interesting at work. Under necessity, I discovered that I can read French. I'd like to note that I've never had a French lesson in my life. With the work I was doing I had to dig through many French blogs; which I was very amazed to discover that I could navigate quite easily.

With a little more exploring today, I'm sad to say that I know where there is a McDonald's, Subway, Burger King, KFC, and Dominoes Pizza within less than a 15 minute walk from where I live. My goal is to not eat at them for as long as possible...

My First Day of Work

Day 2: Today was my first day of work. The morning went more smooth than I could have imagined. I woke up to an empty apartment with breakfast waiting for me on the table. I got ready, checked my map, and left the house. Somehow I managed to walk straight to the correct metro station, exit at the correct stop, and walk straight to the correct building without an problems and only briefly checking my map once. I was introduced to my supervisor for the day because my real supervisor is on vacation in San Francisco, CA for the week. The supervisor today turned out to be from Pittsburgh which immediately made me less nervous. The other three employees I met today are Spanish. Before coming here I asked what the dress code was and they informed me that it would be business casual. I think that "business casual" must be some strange Spanish term that I've never heard that holds a completely different meaning than what it means in English because all of the guys in our office were wearing jeans and t-shirts. Meanwhile, I was pretty warm in my dress shirt and slacks. About an hour after I started working and was getting settled I heard some employees discussing something and excitedly pointing out the window. I started listening closer and decided they were arguing over whether a car on the street was a Lamborghini or a Ferrari. Naturally, I joined them at the window to see what was up. It turned out there was no dispute; both a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Ferrari F40 were sitting at the gas station across the street. The rest of the day was not that eventful. Around 2 I went to lunch with a few of my coworkers. After that I was free to go home, but I decided to stay and finish up a little more work before heading home. On the way home I was waiting at a crosswalk and an older woman came up to me and asked for directions to the nearest metro station. When I replied, her eyes got really big and she started apologizing right and left because she didn't realize that I was a foreigner. I told her not to worry and pointed her in the right direction. The only reason I knew was because I was going to the same place. After returning home the rest of the day went by without being too eventful. I explored a little more of the city and got dinner with a friend.

My Arrival in Barcelona

Day 1: Kudos to Delta and SkyTeam. They really had their crap together which made for a very enjoyable and painless trip over here. The weather was nice the entire way, meaning no turbulence or delays. When I arrived in Amsterdam, Netherlands at then end of the second of three legs of my journey I had to go through customs. THOSE WERE THE NICEST CUSTOMS OFFICIALS EVER! I finally arrived in Barcelona and claimed my bags around 12:30 local time, making my travel time about 15 hours. Next up was dropping my bags off at my homestay apartment and meeting my new host mom. She is a very nice woman named Conchita. At this point I really wanted nothing more than to sleep, but I was not able to because of a mandatory orientation. Conchita helped me navigate the Metro to my destination and then I was on my own with nothing, but a few maps to help me find my way home. Orientation was... well it was orientation. The five other interns that arrived yesterday and myself sat in a classroom and for a little over 2 hours learned about how to be safe in the city. Miraculously, none of us fell asleep. Afterwards, we took a short walk around the original city center and got ice cream. Then after asking if we knew how to make it home, our guide left us. It had been a long day, but no one was in a hurry to get home so we went out for a beer before returning to our respective homes in different parts of the city. I finally walked back into my apartment around 9:30 and spoke with my host mom a bit while she prepared dinner. Finally after 30 hours of being up and at it (minus two on the plane), I dragged myself to bed.