Last one? Maybe?

So, depending on how seriously I take finals (little joke there), or how much having someone visit me the weekend before finals distracts me...this could be the LAST BARCELONA BLOG ENTRY. It's actually getting that late. Wows. I'll probably throw one in the night before I leave or while I'm in the airport (Barcelona, free internet? I'm just SO funny tonight). But anyway, if this is the last, bye bye bye!

Continuing on with my springlike adventures, at 6AM I took a plane from Venice to Amsterdam, sitting next to a kid who had just come back from Ibiza and smelled like hangover. He was very nice, though. As much as I hate flying, this flight was actually pretty nice. A couple from Amsterdam was sitting in front of Hangoverboy and I, and told us that we better go to Vondelpark while we were there.

Best advice ever.

I have a theory that the merit of cities can be loosely based on the number and quality of their parks. There is just NO way to start out your introduction to a city by checking out their best park, and if it also happens to be the best park in the WORLD (and a two minute walk from your hostel) then you're pretty much set. The weather was also spectacular, so you could just walk into this absolutely huge park with TONS of people just milling around, but nobody's rushed or unhappy, just all out enjoying the great weather. Even the bums with beer cans in plastic bags (no picture, sorry). Another great thing about Amsterdam (get ready to hear that phrase a million times) is that it's kind of too small to have a separate tourist and local area. So you got to see the people with their suitcases peering around confusedly, and the people zooming around on their bikes in their work suits.

About bikes. I thought it was funny that I saw little business women in heels riding MOTORCYCLES around Spain? Wait until you see a 6-foot dutch man dressed like a CEO riding his bicycle through the middle of the park, chiming his little bell at people going too slowly. People in Amsterdam do NOT screw around with their bikes. I honestly could have spent hours just watching bike traffic, it was so entertaining.

Apparently I failed to mention earlier that I flew in on my birthday, and the lovely and aforementioned (see: Rome) Sarah Kane was SO kind as to meet me in Amsterdam. Or so kind as to try. Because of course, the SIM card on my phone stops working as soon as I get into the Netherlands. Obviously. After the man at the Phone House tried to sell me a new SIM card I finally remembered that Skype existed. Crisis averted, but Nora's birthdays continue to make sure she's unhappy for at least an hour. Just in case anyone was worried.

Anyway, the weather continued to be SPECTACULAR the whole time we were there, Sarah's friend from school studying in Utrecht came to visit and told us some in the Dutch culture ins and outs, and we had some amazing food (BAGELS. And french fries dipped in mayo...by dipped in I mean drowned in). The Rembrandt house was amazing, they had a huge collection of his etchings, and (close your eyes mom and dad) the Red Light District was just a whole other WORLD. Then I hopped on another train to Paris, where I arrived and passed out at my hostel, skipping the Eiffel tower that I had planned for my first night.

Which pretty much sums up my time in Paris. I had prepped for this one: I bought the museum pass and a day-long unlimited metro pass. Unfortunately I decided that since I paid for one day of metro I shouldn't use it the other day, and should walk everywhere.

Which would be fine except Paris is HUGE. By the end of the first day I'd knocked off half of my list, seen some ridiculously famous art, but returned to the hostel with feet that hurt so much I could not even come close to bringing myself to stand in line to go up the Eiffel Tower. I promise I thought about it, then realized that whenever I stood still my ankles started shaking. So back to the hostel, where I ran into a boy and I knew in HIGH SCHOOL who was staying at the same hostel as me. WHAAAT.

Having the metro pass improved my second day significantly. I got to shuffle off to the all the museums I wanted, be impressed by how developed my metro-reading skills have become, and even ordered a chocolate croissant and half a baguette in "French" (don't worry that I originally wanted the whole baguette).

Probably my highlight of Paris was the Rodin Museum.

Back to my park theory, there is a sculpture garden all around the (beautiful) building that the museum is in, so you get to go in, see models and molds for all of his AMAZING sculptures, and then go outside and see the real things in the middle of one of the most beautiful parks ever. It might have been my favorite museum ever.

THEN I hopped on an overnight train to Port Bou, Catalonia (there was a girl with her CAT and it sat in her lap the whole time and the guy next to me thought it was hilarious how much I was freaking out), where I got to watch the train to Barcelona leave as I walked into the station, and notice that the next one didn't leave for another two hours. As THAT train moved through the province more and more hungover old people (St. Jordi's Day, the Spanish equivalent of Valentines with the added benefit of being the day before Easter, had just happened) piled onto the train, finally I got out into the blazing sunshine, screwed up buying a metro card, and knew for sure that I was back in Barcelona :)

How many wolf boobs can you see in 4 days?

Back from Spring Break! And ima just JUMP into it. In Spain they call it "Semana Santa," which means holy week, 'causeit's the week before Easter! Pretty much everyone gets time off, andthere are supposed to be all sorts of cool festivalsall over Spain.

However, due to my (lack of) religious awareness and the interest of my program in making sure we REALLY get the most out of our time in spain (again, lack of, don't even get me started), I, wanting to save as much monies as possible, scheduled my spring break really early for a RIDICULOUS trip all around Europe, for as much art exposure and seeing the places I wanted to that I could manage in 10 days. It wasn't until later that I realized Easter was happening, which I thought could be cool in Spain, and then was informed that Semana Santa even existed. The point of that anecdote is that I left wishing I was going around Spain for a week, not overly excited and a little scared about what was going to happen in my 5-city craziness of a Spreak.

The beginning of my trip kind of confirmed this. When I got to my first city, Siena, it was gross and cloudy. Also, Italian and Spanish tourism is EXTREMELY different. In Spain, wherever you go there is usually a tourist office IN the train station.

I don't even know if Italy HAS tourist offices. Anyway, I gave up on getting a map, and decided to take the bus up to the city center. I got on the bus, asked awkwardly (I HATE speaking english in other countries) if I could buy tickets on the bus. The driver told me no, closed the door (with me inside), and drove away. After the most terrifying free bus ride (cut to images of Italian police bringing me to jail) of my life, I booked it out of the bus at the next stop and started wandering around Siena. About halfway through, due to their abundance, I decided to take pictures of all the wolves with human babies that I saw, which will grace this post with their presence. Keep in mind, these aren't even all the ones I saw.Even if my experience wasn't of the BEST city in Italy, after I calmed down a little I got to kind of like Siena. There's this one square that you will CONSISTENTLY find around the corner, wherever you are, which is really comforting if you're really lost. (I'm always really lost) Then it started to rain. Terrified to take the bus again, I walked as quickly as I could back to the station, and ended up getting absolutely SOAKED. Not fun. From Siena I took the train to Florence and got really lost (you'll find this is a common theme) trying to find my hostel. I finally did, made some dinner and passed out.

Florence's weather was a little nicer, no rain, and even if I was cold a lot of the time, it is a LOVELY city just to walk around and see all the random statues and churches you run into. Also, the first thing I did the first day was to go to the Galleria Academia and see the David. It's a tiny museum, so I didn't get a map (also a common theme), and I'm so glad, because the statue is at the end of this hallway full of other Michaelangelo statues, which had my full attention as I turned the corner, and it wasn't until I randomly looked up that I saw it.

Ever since my first "no foto!" experience, and just because it forces me to actually look at the art, I've stopped taking pictures in museums, so I don't have any pics of the David (I DON'T get the obsession with taking pictures of famous things that wont look ANY better in a photograph - maybe I'm just bitter about my inability to handle crowds thus my inability to enjoy seeing REALLY famous art), but I'll throw in some from the Uffizi's plaza.

I LOVED how Florence was just full of art everywhere you went, no matter how backwater of an area it was. Anyway, the David really is such that it would NEVER look that amazing in a photograph. I really never appreciated it that much before. Even Michaelango's (am I spelling that wrong?) other statues really did look WORSE than it. Obviously not because of the artist, just because it's so beautiful. And WAY bigger than I realized. Ah I could go on and on. But don't worry, I wont. Also, for Steve's picture of the day, I include the apron I almost bought for his wife.

The rest of my stay in Flo was about the same: some wandering, some art. The Uffizi was a little overwhelming for me, but at the Palazzo Strozzi there was an exhibit about Picasso, Miro and Dali, probably the three most famous Catalan artists. The english newspaper of Florence, (little plug here) the Florentine, was the host for "Slow Art Day" that centered around this exhibit. In the interest of this already too-long post (and I'm barely halfway), here's an article that ARTNews wrote about Slow Art, if you're curious. I did that, and I really liked it. Not only was the tea they gave us afterward LOVELY but it was just an interesting take on looking at art that I TRIED to incorporate into the rest of my trip, though I'm not sure if I did it justice.

Also, the exhibition itsself, even if I wasn't SUPPOSED to see all of it, was REALLY well done. They organized it by topic and explained the whole organization in a way that made it really clear what they were trying to show. Also they had the contents of one of Picasso's workbooks where he did sketches for Demoiselles d'Avignon. SO cool! I also went out to dinner for the first time, hoping to waste time before my 2AM train to Venice.

Yes, 2AM. No, it was NOT a good idea. The dinner however, was recommended by my hostel, and was DELICIOUS (it's Italian food...), and was run by this man and his wife (there MIGHT have been one other helper back in the kitchen but I'm really not sure). She didn't speak English, or Spanish, but she understood "vegitarian," and aside from that I figured everything would be good, so she just recommended things in Italian and I said "si" (is that even Italian?). HE did speak English, and after a while came and greeted me, gave me a free glass of wine, and came back to check on me about 40 times. It was such a nice experience, he was so friendly and she WOULD have been and the food was GREAT.

Then I went to the train station. It was full of Italian teenagers. Then they closed the train station, and we all had to wait on the platform, or in the sketchy area under the platform where all the bums were hanging out.

This Iranian woman and I pretty much just stood there and went "it's so cold" for an hour or so. Then I got on the train, to my compartment.

Compartments have six seats, and five of them were already full. Full of LARGE men. Like, no less than six feet each, and never less than 200 pounds. I felt like a hobbit, and must have looked much MORE ridiculous as I went to sit right in the middle of them.

Then I GOT to Venice after way less sleep than I had anticipated (who could have called that? That's right, anyone but me), and realized that my hostel didn't open until 8.

So Venice was essentially just a ton of picture taking. That's what I did while I was waiting for it to open, then they told me I actually couldn't check in until 1 and my bed wouldn't be ready 'til 4. So I went and took MORE pictures. Then some more. Also some gelato. Okay, a lot of gelato. It kept me going. Venice, though, is LOVELY. I couldn't have taken so many pictures if I didn't have so much to work with! :) People said it might smell, but all it smelled like to me was GELATO.

And then I went and bought some. Also, while trying not to fall asleep in the middle of St. Marco's I wandered to the front, right before the Palm Sunday procession. That's when I realized it was Palm Sunday. But it was cool to see, and the security guards were HILARIOUS to watch trying to keep this huge crowd under control. Or maybe I was just deliriously tired. Anyway, I fell in love with Venice, went back to my hostel, had some free dinner, which I think was exactly what I had had the night before but with olives (have I blogged about Mediterranean olives yet? If i haven't I SHOULD have), watched some YouTube videos with some other kids there, and passed out before my 6:30 departure to Treviso Airport.

And THAT was Italy. In a very small, stressful, beautiful nutshell.

I can't do homework anymore. No brain.

So THIS weekend (i decided to do this by weekends cause it makes me do them) I STAYED in Barcelona (Well, Catalunya). The only other IES field trip I signed up for was this weekend, which stopped me from going to Berlin with my roommate, which was lame. BUT anyway, our field trip was to an area of Catalunya called La Garrotxa (that spelling took a WHILE), where there are VOLCANOS!

This = Volcano. I don't remember the name, though the guide did write it down on a little whiteboard for us.

The volcanos were not that exciting...well they weren't erupting, and our guides actually ended up getting us so lost we didn't REALLY make it to the top. I think. It was a little silly. But we got to go weed-whacking and I got a little bit of adventuring down which was NICE. I really can't wait to get back to NH and walk in the woods for hours and hours (yeah, I'm a city girl, can't you tell?).

ALSO, before we made our perilous hike up to the not top of the volcano, we visited this WICKED cool cooperative, that is first and foremost a social service (totally not the right phrase but hey, I'm tired) project, to give jobs to the mentally handicapped. They are the third best-selling yoghurt company in Catalunya (which is the only place they sell), and they have everything a company needs to make yoghurt in the...place...I don't know what call it - facility? including cows and machinery.

We pet BABY COWS.

The cool thing is they've taken out some part of the machinery just to create jobs for mentally handicapped people to do.

There are actually no unemployed people with mental disabilities in La Garrotxa. And the unemployment rate in Spain is something terrifying (I wanna say 21 but that sounds insane so I'm probably making it up - maybe it's 12 - or 3 or 1000 or 42), so that's REALLY good. Also, their yoghurt (KDubs are you reading?) is DELICIOUS. Like, the best I've ever had. Like greek yoghurt but without being so rich you can't really take it. I could go on. And on. Regarding yoghurt.

THEN I got back to Barcelona and guess what I did for the rest of my weekend. Go on. Guess.

My friend Holly. At the BEACH.

Yeah that's right. Unfortunately, sunscreen is SUPER expensive in pharmacies and all the other stores were closed today, so I tried to make it through the day with only the tiny tube of sunscreen I brought in my carry-on. It's a blotchy mess. Ah well. Worth it, I haven't been so relaxed the whole time I've been here. Though, I cannot wait until I'm on a beach where huge groups of Pakistani men don't walk around with coolers SCREAMING about how they have "colafantacervezaagua." I almost fell asleep SO many times, just to wake up to their dulcet tones. Ugh.

Anyway, hows the flood season going? :)

NO MORE FOR A WHILE. I'm going to be wander vaguely around Europe for a week and a half after finals for one of my schools, which are happening right now. AHHH. Then a post-craziness post(s?) and MAYBE a post-Sarah Kane, pre-returning one. You never know what I'll manage.

Well that's not a lot of time...

OKAY. Two days ago I hit the month mark. Wow. Just wow.

But let's not think about that. Let's think about THE CAPITAL OF SPAIN. Because it is beautiful. And the people there are REALLY nice.

Anyway, my friends and I organized a kind of last minute trip to Madrid for last weekend (Last minute meaning I had to stay in a different hostel each night. blech.). So the day before I went to Sants (Barcelona's EVIL Train station) for three hours so that I could activate my rail pass and get a reservation on a train to Madrid.

About trains. I love them.

Planes are so difficult: you have to go through security, get there an hour early (meaning you wait around for a while), deal with horrible lines, Ryanair customer service, all that fun stuff. Trains are so EASY. You get your ticket, you put your bag through a little scanner, you wait for about 10 minutes, and then you get on the train.

Then you get to your destination, walk out of the station, and there's the city. Okay, you don't see it quite from that angle, but you get my drift. So nice. I'm so happy I only have two more plane flights left in Europe. And then I go home and have a million more. Oh well. They have Southwest at home. SO because of my newfound train-derived freedom I walked off in the completely wrong direction, and it took me at least two hou

rs to GET to the hostel where my friends were waiting for me. Oops. Luckily this gave them time to plan out an ABSURDLY busy day, so I dropped off my stuff and we were off.

Out of the list they found of the 10 must-sees of Madrid, we did all but one that first day.

And it was lovely. We found a place with 2.50 euro beers that come with free tapas, and promised the slightly sketchy guys we'd come back for lunch the next day, which we did, and tried Calamari sandwiches. Don't try them if you don't like salt. Luckily I do :). The next day we finished up our list of must-sees by convincing ourselves that the Botanical Garden was the Retiro and being offended that we had to pay to get in. Luckily we can READ so we figured it out, and went to the Retiro later, where two different spanish couples basically had sex in front of us. Huh.

Though SOME people might think that the botanical garden was a

mistake, just because we didn't actually want to go there, let me set you straight. It was BEAUTIFUL in there, the trees looked a LITTLE sad but the Tulips and Daffodils absolutely made up for it. The best part, though, is while we were walking along, minding our business, we saw these guys:

WHOA. First, they blew some bubbles and danced around.Ya know, no big deal. Except you're in SPARKLY GOLD SPANDEX! So we took some pics and kept walking, and when we got back, there were a couple children around them, either loving it or absolutely terrified. Then the fairypeople started walking off and gesturing for us (okay, probably the children, but we were THERE) to come with them. What we were SUPPOSED to do? They frolicked over to a fountian full of balls full of gold raffia and started playing with them, except now they had some gold rattles that they were playin around with as well. It was BIZZARE. And awesome. I loved it. :)

After that, I went to Toledo for a day trip on my own, which was nice, but the city is VERY dirty and it was rainy. Also, there is SO much to do there, so many different museums and churches, but very few of them are free, and I got there so late most of them were closed. Sad. I DID go to the El Greco house museum, which was very cool, and had one of his Apostleries(?) okay I don't remember the term at all, but it's just his depiction of all the Apostles and Jesus. I liked it a lot. Also, if the people in Madrid were nice, the people in Toledo were even nicer. I went into one store and the woman waited on me while her ADORABLE daughter just ran around and around with her husband. It was so much more ALIVE than the places you have to buy crappy cheap tourist stuff in Barcelona. But I guess that's what I get for buying crappy cheap tourist stuff. Also, they had suits of armor EVERYWHERE and I would have bought Andy a sword but I don't think airport security would be very happy about that. Probably that would even be stretching TRAIN security. :)

Why Nora should NOT plan her own trips/why Semana Santa is going to be a disaster.

FIRST of all I realized I'm really bad at blogging. Be prepared for a really frustrating post cause me+picture formatting is still very far from a match made in heaven, and I've got a LOT of pictures I want to share. Also, a lot to write about. Set aside a good hour, unless you don't care and then just skim it and look at the pictures. Maybe I'll try and tone it down a little.

Second of all it's IS Monday - congratulations to all the Wooster seniors who don't read this blog so don't really care. Third of all the real point of this blog post was to talk about my weekend! IES had a trip planned that gave us Friday off - so I organized my own little trip around the Costa Brava area (seacoast Catalunya). The plan was as such:

Friday: Day trip to Tarragona.

Saturday: Visit Girona, stay the night in order to get up for:

Sunday: Train to Figueres to catch a bus to Cadaques, reservation at Salvador Dali's house (converted to a museum), train back to Barcelona.

Not TOO complicated, right? Here's how the plan worked:

Thursday night: Up 'til 3am. Not for any good reason, just cause.

Friday: Alarm at 9. Look at alarm. Go back to sleep. Wake up eventually.

Decide to stay in Barcelona (Note: I've been freaking out about how little time she has left in Barcelona for the past week/month/century) Explore a nearby park and do some reading for class. Go home for lunch, and then decide to wander around Gracia (The neighborhood next to mine, and home of much fewer old people). Luckily, being a child of the 20th century and by definition addicted to facebook, I posted a status and another girl who was around on Friday came with me, and had a MAP (a novel idea) of Gracia with a bunch of cool places marked on it. I got what is rumored to be the best Gelato in Spain - and it was on par with my Italian gelato, I must admit (yes, I know I should just change the topic of this blog to be all about Gelato but it's just SO DELICIOUS). Nice, fun day. More into Barcelona than I was before. Which pretty much happens every day.

Saturday: Wake up and take the train to Girona. See the Cinema Museum and then meet up with my Intercambio (Language Exchange) for lunch. He has an apartment in Barcelona but is from Girona and goes there most weekends, and so showed me around the old city. It was beautiful - apparently the best preserved Jewish Quarter in Catalunya (which is a big deal cause they kicked the whole Jewish population out in the late 1400s. I think. I should know, because he told me, and then I went to the Jewish Museum. Ah well). It was VERY cool - all sorts of tiny streets and twists and turns, and there was a wall around the old city that you could walk on and see the whole thing. Very gorgeous. Stayed the night in the best hostel I can hope to stay in the rest of my time here (I can tell the accommodation is just going to go downhill).

Sunday: Wake up, eat breakfast, hurry to the train station. Get there, can't find the ticket I want on the machine, go to the ticket counter to ask the guy.

He informs me of what I SHOULD have known. Spanish phones, you know, my source of time-telling, don't change automatically for daylight savings (or the phone I bought was cheap enough not to change). So I missed my train by a good hour and decide get the next ticket to Figueres in the hopes that there will be another bus. It doesn't leave until 1:30 and takes a little over an hour. My reservation for the Dali House needs tobe picked up by 2:30.

I get the bus ticket just in case. Walk around some in Figueres, where there's a 10 euro Dali museum that I figure I just might be seeing more Dali soon anyway, so I don't go in, and then after my little stint wandering around a town that really doesn't have anything that any small spanish town wouldn't have but the Dali museum and a cute cathedral (I got the appeal of the town in ONE picture) I get on the bus in the hopes that it'll go super-fast. I obviously don't make it in time.

The only thing that made the trip worth it is that Cadaques is very similar to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, if Portsmouth was the most beautiful city(?) I've seen in my life.

I want to post EVERY picture I took. Again, I'll try to tone it down. Also, when I was wandering around, taking so many pictures it was probably embarrassing, I noticed it was pure tourist candy, but, as I learned in class (I learned something in an abroad class - whoa) it's spanish tourism. Cadaques is where Dali and his family would go for summers to go and be wealthy and laze around (thus his house being there...). There were groups of Spanish teens running around taking just as many pictures as I was (and being more annoying cause they're teenagers :) )

I even trekked the road to the house (I made the picture big so it was easier to see) so that I didn't TOTALLY miss it - and now I know how to get there if I go back. Then back to Cadaques, where I was wandering around saw this pitch black cat running toward one of the bright blue doors that were all OVER, and I started creeping so that I could get a picture. It ran away, but I ended up realizing that it was walking along with this older woman and her even older dog. It then started walking with me, and her and I started talking. She put up with my awkwardness and crazy inability to speak clearly in Spanish, and even in those four minutes I talked with a 50 year old woman about cats I felt more comfortable and at home than I may ever have felt in Barcelona. After a couple of hours I've seen at least 2/3 of the center city and a lot of what's around it (that's how tiny), and my feet HURT, so I hope back onto the bus and make my way back to Barcelona, where there's a cheese sandwich waiting for me. At the residencia, dinner would have been closed already. :)

I'm HOPING such ridiculous things will not happen during the stressful - wow I cannot think of any words to describe my spring break that do not have swears in them. Well then, pardon my french but - clusterfuck of traveling that will be Semana Santa (EVERYBODY in Europe's spring break), but apparently with my luck SOMETHING is guaranteed to go wrong. So, look forward to THAT post, and I'll leave you with some words of wisdom from a German lady living in Cadaques:

Los gatos de Cadaques no son como los gatos de los Estados Unidos, o de Alemania.

Me encanta visitar!

SO I have made my first excursion outside these Spanish shores, all the way across the Mediterranean to Italia! I went to see ALMOST the entire Kane family (I missed Senor Kane by a day). It was WONDERFUL. It being my first time visiting somewhere else, I was surprised (not THAT surprised) when I didn't even come close to seeing everything I wanted to, but now at least I know, and I wont expect as much out of my other travels.

One really cool thing is that the day I got there it was the 150th anniversary of Italy, and the celebrations went all weekend. By cool I mean really inconvenient. But seriously, I got to see the Marathon of Rome, and it almost made me miss my flight and all that fun, but it was so nice to see the city like that - it makes the character just that much more interesting.

I saw some amazing Roman ruins (duh), ate more delicious pizza than one person should put in their body in a lifetime, much less three days, and had the best company I could ask for (well, maybe I shouldn't have spent that whole day walking around with Adam :) ). Sarah is studying in Rome for the semester, so she took us to get the "best gelato in the world" and I don't even know why that is in quotes because I'm pretty sure it was the best gelato in the world. She also has housing in the Jewish Ghet-to (Italians of course have to emphasize the t), and it took me until my last day to experience the "Jewish Bakery" that the whole family kept talking about.

Best lemon-flavored food item I have EVER eaten. Becca was lovely and gave me an extra cookie to take on the plane. Better than 5 euro packets of pretzels, am i right?

ANYWAY I managed to miss both the Sistine Chapel AND the Lacoon Group - but a threw a euro penny into Trevi Fountain so apparently that guarantees that I'll go back. Let's HOPE so!

aaand here's a lovely picture of a lady at the palantine.

And HERE'S how lovely the weather was (not that lovely - but makes for pretty pics!)

Long Past Due

Hello errbody! Yes it's been a while since I wrote a *real* blog post. Like, months. But hey, I think I explained all of it with some lovely pictures so I wont make any more excuses. The good news is that I decided not that I'm steppin up my game. Maybe. We'll see.

ANYWAY. I guess the big news is that I moved from the residencia to a homestay. I'm staying with a woman who used to host with her husband - who isn't hre anymore for whatever reason (I didn't really ask) and we think she likes having people around. Her son lives downstairs and half hosts two boys that come up to her apartment for meals. It's kind of a strange situation because she seems to do all the work, but it's really nice to have a group of people to eat dinner with - we have fun. I also got a new roommate and housemate (essentially roommate) who are just lovely.

I've been staying in Barcelona mostly- haven't gotten it together to start traveling but I'm planning on doing a daytrip sometime this weekend when I'm all alone AND in ONE WEEK I will be in Rome visiting some LOVELY people known as the Kanes. In Rome. I'm excited.

I did make one night trip to Sitges for the Carnival Parade, which was SO much fun. Since I got contacts in the residencia, I got a place on the bus they rented, and was able to go with all the Spanish students. The night ends with me speaking spanish with two of the students on a beach, after trying to wade in the water and realizing that APPARENTLY Spanish people don't walk around in the ocean in March at 4 AM. Weirdos.

While I'm a little desperate to start seeing the rest of the world, being stuck here has allowed me to really get to experience a lot of Barcelona - and there's still so much to do, it's ridiculous. When Dirgo was here, I loved being able to show him everything I'd learned - to know what was worth it and what wasn't (...if there was anything that wasn't...). One of the things we didn't have time/energy to do I managed to get my roommate to do with me this weekend. Which leads me to the picture of the...month. Wow it's really good I'm not paying Steve everytime I miss a picture of the day.

So there's this mountain in the north of Barcelona, called Mount Tibidabo. There's an amusement park on the top, and a big church that gets lit up at night. I spent my first - month (?) here seeing that church from every vista, not knowing what it was. Finally I figured it out, and ANOTHER month later I got it together to visit. So you walk up this path -

Get to THIS view of Barcelona -

And eventually get to the church and park-

It was WONDERFUL. And I've seen so many other wonderful things - from other parks to cathedrals to electric violinists in clubs. It sounds lame and cliche but Barcelona really has everything to offer.

WHEW. Sorry for the novel!

Excuses

Reasons I haven't been blogging:

Montserrat -

Walked up this stairway, got attacked by a giant spider.

Seriously I did walk down that

(The angle of the picture is funny but it looks more badass if I don't tell people that).

Field Trips -

What a drag.

Fishing villages,

beaches,

Museu Picasso...

Visitors -

Most walking I've ever done in four days.

Also, It took me until uploading the pictures to realize that I could have gotten one of these pictures and it would have made sense

Moving Out -

Not joking,

even if it looks like I should be.

When I might get myself together enough to write a real entry:

After a big day tomorrow -

Okay, this was probably taken in August.

And it might rain tomorrow.

Whatever.

After Midterms -

(Nora Studying in Barcelona)

After Carnival -

Sitges: one of the most famous Spanish Carnival celebrations

apparently also one of the most gay-friendly

yay?

We'll see what happens! At least one full blog post before I leave!

Rain and a couple oranges. And food.

VALENCIA. Apparently my program does a "study journey" each semester or some such business, thus i have just returned from a three-day tour of southern Catalonia and the city of Valencia. Enjoy the Tolkien-esque blog post.

So we get up at 7:30 to sit on a bus for about 4 hours. Fun. Actually, we did have a stop to buy some overpriced gas station food but more importantly were treated to a WINE TOUR of Torres Vineyards. The tour was a little silly (think holograms of monks drinking wine) and you could tell the people were giggling at us for coming in JANUARY to see all the shriveled vines and enjoy the cloudy weather, but it ended with a nice sample of - a rose? Yep. Officially the cheapest wine we could find

Vineyards in the Winter. Lame.

in the store with the exception of the sample-sized ones. You could tell they were PUMPED to have us there. ANYWAY it was still nice to have a break and they were perfectly nice so we continued on our bus ride into Valencia.

One thing i can say about those comunidades autonimonos (?) de Valencia and Catalunya. I have no idea why Spain has any interest in keeping the catalonians non-independent. (I do - but indulge my hyperbole for a second) They announced when we moved from Catalunya to Valencia and i could have honestly figured it out for myself. Crappy industrialized almost-cities reminiscent of parts of OHIO but (thankfully) with a slightly redeeming oceanic horizon give way to mountains and acres of orange farms. Valencia (the community) is really really pretty. I haven't seen much in Catalunya, with the exception of Barcelonaaaa (which is obviously gorgeous) and the immediate surrounding areas, that make it a really lovely place.

The city is pretty as well - i think. We got to the hotel in the evening with some vaugely cloudy weather - but we drove around to see a little of the city first.

This guy apparently designed the Tobin

It's like I'm back in New England!

They told us the

good places to go out, and left us to our own devices (with an actual DELICIOUS dinner in between - thank GOD for good food.) Blah blah bar blah blah Agua de Valencia = yum blah. first night, out of the way.

THEN we wake up to...rain. Valencia was NOT happy that we were there, and decided to rain the whole rest of the time. Fortunately the DOLPHIN SHOW at THE BIGGEST AQUARIUM IN EUROPE was under a roof! I officially LOVE aquariums, and this one was GREAT (besides the obvious freezing cold rain). blah penguins, sharks blah (pictures tell it better).

or maybe videos?! nope. stupid interwebs. if i go somewhere else i might add some DOLPHIN FOOTAGE. stay tuned.

then we lunched, and the restaurant (Pizza Roma -little plug there-) was so wonderful I left my first european tip (like 2euro - but whatever). THEN we had a lovely walking tour in the rain through downtown Valencia - right before the busses drove off they informed us that they would NOT be coming back so it was either miss the tour or take some other form of transportation back. Apparently this was the plan all along. I'm glad i'm paying these people for this. OH WELL we got soggy and took a cab back and had some MORE delicious buffet-style dinner. Then I decided to navigate back to the same bar as the night before and so we ended up wandering around the lame part of Valencia until we gave up (THAT'S how good i am).

Morning we woke up and left to go back and had a meal so intense i'm going to write a whole new blog post on it. after some friends put up silly pictures that will help me illustrate it. i didn't bring my camera :(

Catholicism?

Well it’s been a little while since I’ve blogged, which could be a result of any combination of laziness, business, or the fuzziness of all my new pictures. I’ve learned a lesson about taking photos at night: don’t. At least, not unless you have one of THESE cameras. Then you ask everyone to stand still for 2 hours until the picture is done. That’ll work, right?

Anyway, I’ve done some fun things. Sunday was declared exploration day when we realized it couldn’t be shopping day, so I went to the Cathedral. Again, like all the cathedrals I’ve seen here (read:2) it was breathtaking. If I lived here (huh-I do.) I’d probably become Catholic just so I could go there for any reason other than looking. And put a coin in the thing to light a candle and all those cool Catholic things. It’s amazing to think that these people designed these places to glorify their god, and impressive how successful they were (especially Gaudi – sorry Cathedral people).

Classes started as well. I’m taking some a different university, which hasn’t started yet, and I’m a little more excited about those because the program looks a lot better, honestly, than IES – they gave us catalan-english phrasebooks and a little book of tips and ID cards and in general seemed much more organized. But the IES classes are ok. My Spanish professor is this young Italian guy who has us using twitter and such – which is strange but he’s really funny and I feel like that class is much more useful than any of the stupid grammar classes I’ve taken (except with Senor, of course). Unfortunately, the Spanish students in the dorms are not being paid to teach me Spanish, and thus are not so forthcoming. Also I’ve found that the American students that were here last year did not integrate themselves well (were huge assholes) and I get the feeling that that is affecting how all of us are viewed as well. I’m looking into vegetarian options in a homestay to see if I could switch, which I think would make the whole experience more meaningful. So I’ll see how that goes.

Happy whiney depressing blog day! I’m gonna do some more exploring now, until my internet starts to work and I can actually post this.

I don't know how I'm going to survive Europe.

Taken already halfway through the line - yes it was that far away

So today was La Sagrada Familia Day! They were offering free admission, so the line was RIDICULOUS, but it actually moved fairly quickly. So much of it is blocked off that it actually goes pretty quickly, if you’re not hanging around in awe (which I was). Right NOW I am going through and uploading all the pictures, and Ill just mention that I’m starting with 102 pictures, I believe one of which is not of the cathedral. We’ll see how many of them are bad and how many are almost the same, but I have to mention that pictures don’t even come close to justice. I was legitimately not having an easy time breathing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so amazing. It is nice to know that come 2026 (if we survive the apocalypse, my friend pointed out) I’ll be back in Barcelona, because there is no way I will not see this building finished, and walk up those stairs so I can take 102 pictures of just the floor. That’s how amazing it is. I don’t even know what’s going to happen when I go to Italy.

ANYWAY after some gushing we went on to wander down Las Ramblas, which is the big tourist street. There were shops selling all the good tourist things, and some pretty jewelry and scarves and such. This month is sales season, so all the REAL shops along the sides are really nicely priced, so my friend and I were going to do some more shopping, but first we decided to do lunch.

I had DELICIOUS fries and an equally wonderful sandwich at this sandwich place that seemed pretty touristy, but was tasty enough not to matter AT ALL. The only problem is that it’s tiny, so we had to wait forever for a table. Anyway, they just filled a baguette with all sorts of veggies and sauces. SO GOOD. And it was actually one of the few places to find ACTUAL vegetarian food in Spain. Apparently a “vegetarian” is someone who doesn’t eat meat, so there’s tuna in almost EVERY vegetarian dish (I don’t care, but it’s still funny). By the end of it, nobody felt like walking anywhere but to the metro, where we went home and sat around and blogged and felt fat.

Also, last night I had some TAPAS. They actually were pretty mediocre, but we went into a tapas bar at about 1:30am so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. And they were CHEAP. One came free with a drink and all the others were 1 euro. So now I’m done with all my Spanish things, time to go home.

Wait, I have four more months?

Colegio Mayor Ramon Llull: Where the internet goes to die.

I go to school right next to here (na na na na na na)

Well well. As previously anticipated picture of the day did NOT work out. However, I've got a picture for today and randomly is the best that this blog will be able to do, especially because nobody knows about it. However, I'm planning on changing that after I do this. SO since this is the REAL first post hello errbody! I'm in Barcelona. Here are the Barceloney things I've done so far:

Club (Otto Zutz): super american but my first club so still fun. I know, it's hard to believe that between Lee, NH and Wooster, OH I haven't clubbed it up but ya know, I keep it laid back.

Sangria (Ovilla Negra): A dirty looking but fun bar off of Las Ramblas - we travel in 20s so I wasn't TOO creeped out :)

Gaudi: Getting lost in Barcelona is one of the best things in the world.

FC Barcelona Game: That's right. They sold out of the cheapest tickets so we got some behind the goal. Messi got a hat trick. No big deal. Which leads to my last one:

Spending too much money: enough said. I don't want to talk about it.

Which leads even more into my list of things i haven't done enough of:

Shopping - I took warnings about overpacking too seriously. I have NO CLOTHES. They are super-fashionable here too. so much for not looking like a tourist.

Spanish - The college students are scary. Luckily, I'm starting to piggyback off my other friends being brave so crossed fingers i'll talk to one and they'll laugh at my spanish and etc. etc.

Anyway this has gone too long! Bye bye! I'll have more later (in a week).

Boston Logan. A wonderful place.

So I am extremely bored sitting in Logan. Mark that boredom is the reason this blogs exists. And a NEW CAMERA purchased by my mother. Anyway, I've never really blogged about anything that didn't involve Twilight, shoes or videos of cats, so this is going to be A LITTLE interesting. Or stupid. Take your pick. Hopefully Twilight wont come up, but no promises about the other two.

Also, I've been bullied into providing a "Photo of the Day" as well, which will most likely evolve into a "Photo of the Week" and then on and on until it is "The only photo Nora wasn't too lazy to put on this blog." So get ready for THAT. Right now, anyway, there's not anything to take any pictures of - i would feel weird if that guy with the dreads caught me photographing him. Just know there's a guy with some cool dreads sitting a little ways away. AND I put my camera-to-computer cord in my check baggage, so there will be no pictures that I took myself until I get THAT back, which will hopefully be soon.

So in lieu (a GOOD bananagrams word!) of my OWN pictures, this post will include some funny picture I found on the interwebs. This has to do with my theory that when you stay in a foreign country you start to take on some stereotypes.

As you can see, my only real stereotypes about Spain have been derived from Spanish textbooks, so here goes. Now I know how to deal with my new Spanish qualities. OK. Now time for a FUN couple of flights and a frantic run through Heathrow. At least I've got a Bagelry bagel!

Also I'm considering making some money off of this - so get ready for links to every product I mention - anyone know how to make those popup ads that come up every time someone moves the mouse?