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?