Jen C

Picasso Museum (1/18)-This was a pretty interesting museum. It had a few really famous pieces of art. It was broken down by period which was interesting as well.

Parc Guëll (1/19): This was a great time! Gaudí actually created this park. It´s in the mountains so the view is absolutely amazing! The art within the park-between sculptures, buildings, benches, etc-was sooo amazing! My friends and I actually ended up climbing a mountain that day and got to see Barcelona from an amazing angle!! This day was a lot of fun!

History Museum of Catalunya (1/25): This was cool, but very hard to appreciate because it was all Roman ruins aka rocks. You entered the museum, took an elevator down, and entered what used to be a Roman city (dating back to 11BC). It was preserved and studied to an extent that they were able to figure out where the laundry facilities were, where they made wine, etc. After about an hour of being there, I finally got really into it and started taking pictures of everything because I thought it was so cool. By the time I left, I had about 50 or more pictures that in reality looked like a bunch of rocks!!

Tarragona (1/26): I took a trip during the day here! It´s a beach city in the south of Catalunya, very calm and quaint, with Roman ruins scattered through the city. The biggest attraction was the Roman Ampitheater which was VERY well preserved and pretty cool! It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. It was really interesting to see how the atmosphere changes just by going a little bit south.

Sitges (2/2): I went here to celebrate Carnaval which I still don´t have too great of an understanding of! Basically Carnaval is a week-long thing where people dress up in crazy costumes. I´m pretty sure it has to do with lent because it was the week right before lent and the biggest night for the celebration was Fat Tuesday. This trip was pretty interesting...my friends and I tried to cram an extreme number of people into a small hotel room and ended up getting in trouble by the staff! I had to calm down the receptionist (in Spanish) and let him know that we would only have 3 people say in the room...it put a slight damper on the trip but was a worthwhile experience to say the least!

National Museum of Art in Catalunya (2/5): This was a trip for class, kind of boring, but cool! It had Roman art restored from churches. We learned a lot about the symbology of art during that time...blah blah blah The best part about the museum is that it´s a huge palace-looking building nestled in the mountains. The view of Barcelona is amazing as well! I´m going to go back sometime because at night there´s a light show and the ponds leading up to the top having fountains and lights...it should be pretty spectacular!

I think I´m missing a museum...I´m sorry, but I think you´ll be okay not knowing about it!!

Now that we have the logistics out of the way, I want to tell you about my life here in Barcelona!!

Home: I´m living with a 35 year old woman named Eli. She´s a VERY nice woman--easy to get along with, very helpful and caring, and fun-loving! I´m living in a 3-bedroom flat, not very big, but comfortable and in nice condition. The location is so great. I live right off of the street that runs all through Barcelona so I have good access to the bus (the metro is 6 blocks away). The neighborhood is more up-scale, so there are a lot of fancy restaurants and boutiques lining all of the streets. The atmosphere of my neighborhood is so great, especially in the morning. I´ve gone for runs numerous times and found myself in beautiful parks--it´s simply amazing, no words can describe!

Social: I have met SOO many great people here! Everyone gets along very well. We go out together at night, we go on weekend and day trips, we make lunch at the residency halls--it´s been alot of fun! Thinking about leaving them scares me because they have become a huge part of my life! The nightlife here is a lot of fun as well! Just like everything else, going out is pushed back--you don´t usually go to a big discoteca (club) until about 2 or 3am and you stay out until 6 or 7am! (It really is a part of the culture, even Eli goes out at this time!)

School: If I have one complaint about Barcelona, I´m going to have to say I don´t like school very much! No, not because it´s school and no one likes it; it´s more or less because everything is very unorganized. All of my teachers are foreign and they have a very different style and method of teaching. All of my classes except my Spanish class are in Englihs which is very nice. I have 2 marketing classes--one international and one managerial--with the same teacher! I also have an international management class (I´d say the most organized of them all) which is pretty challenging. I also have an art history class and I don´t really like my teacher here either. I think it´s mainly because of the cultural boundary. Oh well, ya can´t win em all!

Food: This is a tough category to write about! I guess the main difference is how they mix foods that I would never imagine would be mixed together. For example, rice, egg, and tomato sauce or egg and potato. Just things I wouldn´t typically think of. They eat a lot of pastries for breakfast...fortunately I let Eli know right off the bat that was NOT something I was into! For lunch, they have "Menu del día" which is menu of the day--they brink you an appetizer, a main dish, and a dessert. I don´t do that though. I usually go to a market and buy things to make a sandwhich or a salad or I get something from the café at my university. I´ve tried a lot of interesting things...and everyone knows how picky I am!! Well, things are changing! Since I´ve been here I´ve tried duck, squid, clams, muscles, snails, shrimp (with heads), mushrooms, raw meat, salmon, and probably an assortment of other things that I have no knowledge of! I´m actually getting very used to eating squid, although it´s not my favorite!

Culture: The first weekend I got here was huge for Spain. Here, they celebrate The Three Kings so there were huge parades and decorations everywhere! It was like Christmas all over again! With my program, I´ve gone to see Flamenco dancing and I took a cooking class! These were both really fun activities! The Flamenco dancer was male which was very unexpected and kind of amusing! I picked up some good recipes in the cooking class as well--one being my favorite dish here--potato tortilla.

These are all of the general categories I can think of for now!

Hi!!! Friends, family...I miss you all so much!!! But....

.....I LOVE IT HERE!!!

I´m so sorry that I´m late in getting this blog started! I´ve been so caught up here, living the life of a Catalan! What´s a Catalan? I´ll start off with a little explanation of Barcelona to get you acquainted....

Barcelona is the capital of Catalunya which is a region of spain consisting of 5 different cities. Here, they speak in Catalan which is latin, very similar to French and Italian and COMPLETELY different from Spanish. Fortunately, most people in the city can speak Spanish as well. Catalans have strong pride for this region, to such an extreme that they are striving to be separated from Spain altogether to form their own country. I had NO knowledge of any of this prior to coming to Barcelona so this has been a very interesting learning experience for me!

The city has a very ¨homie¨feeling. It´s metropolitan, but doesn´t have huge skyscrapers everywhere--rather beautifully crafted, intricate detailed buildings. Many of the buildings have significant meanings because they were created by famous Spanish artists. One of the most influential artists in this city is Gaudí (I´ve posted some pictures of his creations on webshots).

A huge part of the city´s infrastructure is the metro. I take it everywhere every day of the week! In the mornings, people pack in like sardines...it´s ridiculous! The bus is pretty useful as well. Now that I´m getting to know the city better, I´m starting to take advantage of the bus more and more.

Life in Spain is VERY relaxed. And it´s true, they have siesta from 2-5pm every day. Larger stores don´t close, but all of the little shops and markets do! At all hours of the day, you will find people relaxing in cafés, drinking café con leche (espresso and milk) and eating a croissant or some sort of pastry! Dinner is typically around 9:30pm, but it´s not unlikely for people to have dinner at 11pm.

In general, life here is very different than in the United States!!!