The End

I got back on Friday at about 2PM. The trip was amazing and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to "share" it with everyone, via this blog. Thanks, for following, I'm sure that I'll talk to you all soon if I haven't already.

Second To Last Post...

So, this is probably my last post before I leave for the United States on Friday and then I'll probably do one more when I'm home, but that's it.

I had two presentations today, the first in English and the second in Spanish... I can assure you that it was zero fun, but at least I'm done with my Spanish Class, and I just have my final for International Business tomorrow. I'm also done with the 22 page paper (kill me now), that wasn't quite as bad as I thought that it would be, but it still wasn't pleasant.

Story time.
Yesterday, I was taking out the trash becasue... I just do. And as the elevator doors were opening (no one ever uses the elevator), Raquel stepped around the corner, jumped and did a little "Aye!". These people are so easily startled, and I absolutely love how they actually yelp when scared... It's hilarious.

Also, my host mother had me run to the market to get some... of something (I don't actually know what I bought) for my birthday cake, because my birthday is tomorrow so she's making a cake. I think that it's going to be an ice cream cake, but I'm not entirely sure...

Oh, and by the way. They are filming a movie in the building next door. There are lights and.... Well. Cameras, and people. You know. Movie stuff.
Ooo. And the all important catering service. Don't forget that.

What Can I Say In French?

Couldn't tell you where this photo was taken.
We visited too many places. But there was
some Gladiatorial stuff.

Hmm.
Well, I can say yes. I can say no. I can say hello. And I can say thank you.

That's all.

I had to make notes throughout my entire trip (in France), so I wouldn't forget anything.

So, my favorite (two) thing(s).
The mini-jam jars that our hotel had. They were just so cool. And so unnecessary, but I think that's why I linked them. Everyone doesn't need their own mini-jam jar everyday, but I won't complain.
The other thing was the sugar cubes for the coffee. Sugar cubes are so awesome. Well kind of. They're so cool, and I feel so sophisticated when I use them, but they are horrible for adding sugar. It takes forever for them to dissolve, and they give(?) less sugar than they appear to.
That brings me to the next thing I noticed.

Tell me that this dog's sadness isn't funny. It's too cute.

French Coffee sucks.
Well, maybe that's not right. But they serve coffee that's not espresso, so it's bad. If it's not an espresso, then it just tastes weak/bad/watery. I feel like I can't drink anything but espressos now, oh well. Long story short, French Coffee is basically the same as American Coffee.
Next, I'd really like to say that I wish I spoke French. ANY French, really. It was very hard for me to go from being able to communicate and talk to people in Spain, to becoming a mute in France. I had to laugh because when I got back to Spain, I realized that Spain was now inside of my comfort zone. That says something.

Something great about France? FREE WATER. YEAH. That's so exciting it's not even funny.
So yes, I drank French tap water. Didn't get sick. I am invinsible.
Watch out.
Also, I saw maybe 5 or 6 clothing stores in France, and 95% of the clothing was completely white. It was really strange. Every store was just filled with all white clothing. And the men's shirts that weren't white, were the stereotypical blue and white stripped shirt. It was... I don't even know. Just odd.
(Whew) We also saw a kid almost get hit by a car. The car stopped maybe 3 inches from the child. Then a bunch of Frenchmen started yelling at each other. And that's basically the story.

Famous garden that Van Gogh painted.

Next.... So while we we're in some random French city, there was a car that was all "weddinged-up" and they were beeping the horn and all of the other wedding stuff. We briefly joked about crashing the wedding, but when the car left earshot, we didn't really think anything of it. So when we walked into this giant old bulding (just exploring) and as we ran of the stairs, we heard like 500 people clap and cheer. Quickly panicking and running outside, we noticed that the car that was going to the wedding was out front.
Oops. So we almost crashed a French Wedding. That's a bucket-lister.
One of the more important things I did there was that I tried Gelato.
Just wow. I now understand why it's such a big deal right now. it's amazing. Ice Cream has nothing on Gelato. Nothing. Do yourself a favor and go and buy some right now. Stopping reading, start buying. Don't waste your life.

The sweets store that gave out more free samples than Costco's

Annnnnnd. Last but not least. My favorite place that we visited, ironically in Spain, was before we went over the border, we stopped in Girona. A fantastically relaxing (some may call it boring), and old/historic city. It was where we had Gelato (for the first time, after we realized how great it was, it became a daily affair), and it's apparently where quite a few movies are filmed.
A small side note, in my experiences, the French were not the nicest people (to Americans only? not sure), a lot of the time they were down right rude.



So here are some pictures in no apparent order.

You think barbed-wire is scary. These people do it right.
No one will climb over this. Not a soul.

Classy.

The building to the left was where the wedding-incident occurred.
Haha, and you can actually see (barely) the silver wedding car...
Way left.

Don't know where or why I
took this picture, but it looks
important.
Right?

Where we stayed. It was gorgeous. Montpellier, France.

Girona. So pretty. It was a very pleasant city. But I'm
not sure if I'd want to spend an extended period of time there.
Not a huge amount of things to do.

Historic Girona.

More historic Girona.

Busy Busy Busy Busy Busy.....

You get the idea. I hope.
I have a huge paper due next week, as well as a presentation and two finals, so the posts may be a little less frequent.
We're also going to the south of France this weekend, so it's cram time for homework...

Anyway, yesterday I walked around the city with my French/Spanish neighbor, Raquel. I could not understand her French, and I could not understand her Catalan, but when she spoke in Spanish, I could actually understand 100% of it. And more so, I could usually respond fairly quickly and my speaking was definitely faster than normal (in Spanish that is). It was fairly exciting for me.

Not all fountains need names!
(Or purposes)

We basically just walked around for a while, and ended up finding this giant fountain thing. (See photo) I feel like it's important just because of its sheer size, but I have no idea as to what it is, or what it's called. Actually, she didn't know either so.... Eh. It was kind of cool though, I'll give it that.
Also, sometime earlier she had mentioned that her friends usually hang around the "Arc" (Arc of Triomf), but I didn't think anything of it. So, when we just stumbled upon the arc I just walked to it because.... Why not? I mean it's large (tourist sensors were going crazy).
But when we got to it, we actually ran into several of her friends. One of them I talked to a little bit and he spoke a decent amount of English (I always ask, only because I'm curious, I don't actually want to speak in English to them thank you).
So, that's that. We're going to hangout again tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes.

Also, my host mother made something that I had never seen before (that happens often), but it was actually really good. Don't know what it was (usually don't), but it was a fairly pleasant surprise  Not that it's usually bad or anything, but I usually don't love any new type of food the first time that I try it.
In addition to this, she purchased microwaveable popcorn when she was at the market, so I'm pretty content.
She finally understands me.

I even bought some shoes today. I figured it out. All you have to do, is find 2394082 pairs that you like on the shelf, and just hope that a few are in your size. Then try those on and
once again hope that one of them fits because asking for your size just isn't worth it. It also doesn't help that the sizes are wonky here. Apparently there are quarter sizes and there are two sets of sizes..... Why. Just why.

And last, but not least, I went to a new cafe today to buy coffee (der).
The problem was that the owner was.... definitely from a southern Spanish city, he did not have a Barcelonian (?) accent. He spoke like he was from southern Spain, meaning he "ate" his words. Bascially he would just not say the last syllable or just not use the last few letters of the word when he was talking, so communication was interesting at best. I asked my host mother about it and she said that he was probably from Granada or some of place down there.

Summer Sales, Popcorn, & I'm Terrible At Spanish Social Norms

I want one of these so badly. Their eyes move back and
forth as the second hand ticks. It makes me happy...

So, the woman that I sat next to on the plane down here (like 283 years ago) told me that sales begin in July. I didn't really think that they began July 1st, but oh, they do.
In a huge way.
It's apparently going to be like Black Friday everyday for 2(?) weeks. It's just ridiculous. Every major store is absolutely packed and they all have fairly decent sales, not life changing, but still good. The lines to the cash register and to the changing rooms are just obscene. I feel like there's at least 40 people inline for the changing room. At this point I'd rather just assume it fits, and then return it if it doesn't. Even if I have to go through the return in Spanish.
Furthermore, in my exploration, I found a cool little clothing boutique  I decided to look it up before going in and I learned that is actually the clothing made by an underground dance/funk/rap record label. Like what. So, I think I'm going to investigate that later on in the week, it seem pretty interesting.

Also, I found a place that I can buy popcorn. Everything is going to be okay now.
I've had this life or death craving for the past two weeks, but I finally managed to get some. Just some good salty and buttery popcorn.


Another thing, my host mother has asked "our" neighbor's daughter if she wanted to help me with Spanish for the next week or two, so today my host mother and her mother introduced us. I didn't realize that the mother was french, which makes her (the mother's) Spanish VERY difficult for me to understand because of her French accent. I also learned that the daughter speaks French to her mother and Catalan to her father and Spanish the rest of the time. That blows my mind. Someone can speak that many languages and it's not even interesting to these people, it's just normal. She does not have a french accent, whew, because that would just add another level to an already difficult conversation.
To complicate things further, I'm still not entirely comfortable with the greetings in this country. I'm not entriely sure what happens when two men meet each other (literally everyone I've met has been a girl, kind of weird now that I think about it), but when two girls meet each other and most of the time/some of the time when a guy and a girl meet each other  they're suppose to do the kiss on both cheeks thing. This always throws me for a loop because older women don't do this, but the younger ones seem to, so I'm always standing there (super awkwardly may I add) while I try to figure out what they want me to do.
This time is/was especially funny (and awkward for me) because I just stood there, completely unaware of what I should do, until she started to step forward, so I thought "Okay, normal handshake."
Nope. Like half a second after I decided to commit on the handshake, she went for the cheek kiss. I realized this a little late and in return got a very weak/lame handshake until I realized that she was trying to do that cheek thing and then I was able to correct myself.
Gosh. Make it easy for me please. With Spanish social norms, I need all the help I can get.
After that debacle was over with, we tried to coordinate when we would meet.
(Just a note, whenever I meet someone new in Spain, I can't fully understand them until I get used to their particular accent, this case was no different.)
At first, I assumed that they were asking when I was busy (so they could figure out when I free), but then I realized that they were asking the opposite. After stumbling around trying to understand what they were saying and after formulating some "sentences", I think that we're supposed to meet tomorrow at six. Even with that I'm not 100% sure and I"m also not sure as to who is suppose to come to who's door (we live right next door to each other. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but everyone seem to make a big deal out of it....
As usual, I have no idea as to what I'm doing and no idea as to what I'm getting myself into.

The "Magic" Fountain, Park Güell, & 2938732 Other Things.

So. On, Friday night, we went to go see the Magic mountain Fountain. What we didn't know, was that the Gay Pride Festival was going on right infront of it, with thousands and thousands of people because it's gay pride weekend here (didn't know that). So, after spending 25 minutes fighting through the crowd to get behind the "concert", we discovered that could simply walk around using the designated walking paths.
After all that, the sound to the Magic Fountain was turned off because of the concert. I mean, we got to see the water, and the lights.... But it wasn't the same (I'm assuming).
 So. That was an experience.

Next, we went to Park Güell today and it was pretty cool I suppose.
It's extremely far away, and it was quite a long metro ride/walk. And the hill leading up to it. My gosh. People weren't just complaining when they said that the hill was horrible, because it's basically a 45 degree angle. For like 2 miles. It's awful. That had a couple escalators, but not the entire way.... It was rough.

This guy was just off the wall crazy. I'm actually proud
that this picture seems to sum him up pretty well.

After getting there and looking around for a while, I discovered, much to my disappointment, that the mosaic lizard that everyone talks about, really isn't that big. I assumed it was massive... I guess that's more of my fault though.
I'd say the best part of that adventure was this random crazy dude at the top in a full leopard print "outfit". He was bells wrapped around his ankles, and he was basically just singing (screaming) at people, while playing (thrashing) his guitar in a way that may have resembled a rhythm, if you covered your ears and shook your head back and forth. This random guy was good fun to watch, but I'd have to say that I'm grateful that he didn't single me out and try to sing to me (like he did to some people), because I probably would have ran. He was grade-A crazy.

After that, today was mainly my shopping day (for gifts). Overall, that was uneventful, but after finishing (more or less) I discovered that buying shoes in Barcelona is borderline impossible, which maddens me because their shoes are so wonderful.
The problem is that there are SOO many more sizes available here, than in the US and the store employees really don't care about you (also that whole language barrier thing). The only employees that I have ever not liked here, are the "zapateria" employees. Just not nice, or attentive, or helpful, or anything
. Doesn't matter how expensive the shoes are, they just aren't helpful. Ugh. I'm going to get my shoes. It will happen. I don't care if I have to yell at some middle-aged store clerk, I'm going to get service! (And made in Spain shoes)

Bob Esponja Y La Estrella Rosada & Other Misadventures

"Spongebob and the Pink Star" is the direct translation.

I say this because during dinner, we usually watch "How I met your Mother" in spanish, but we finished all of the episodes that we had, so we watched Spongebob in spanish and it was great.
My host mother and I were singing "Bob Esponja, Bob Esponja" while cleaning up, it's actually catchy. If you hear them say it on TV anyway....

Also, a friend and I actually went to an intercambio exchange last night. The one I was going to go to before, but I didn't want to go alone. It turn out to be a great deal of fun. Everyone there was just from the most random countries and they were all trying to speak English, some more successfully than others. We ended up talking to an older Spanish woman for roughly an hour and a half (when I say older, I mean roughly 40) in English and in Spanish, just switching back in forth (at seemingly random times, may I add). We learned a lot about Spanish history, and it was quite interesting (even more so to actually learn about it in Spanish). You would think that this woman was a history teacher or something, it was ridiculous. It was also fairly funny because she would stand obnoxiously close to us, so throughout the entire conversation we were subconsciously backing away and by the time that the intercambio finished, we were outside of the bar and a good 10-15 feet away from it. Definitely not used to that.

We also went to a bookstore. My gosh. I don't find bookstores even remotely interesting in the US, but here... Just every book that I would normally read in English interests me 120938 times more in Spanish. I even picked up a Garfield comic book in Spanish. There were soo many things I wanted to buy, but I decided that I couldn't own the store, so maybe I'd just have to settle for a book or two. (I want to go back and buy "The Peanuts" comic and "Animal Farm" in Spanish.)

After all of this, I went back to the Jazz Club. It wasn't AS good as tuesday, but it was still pretty great. And for 6 euros, no complaints. I think the Blues crowd is more excitable than the Jazz crowd.
A Jazz trio was playing and they were pretty good. Guitar, organ (keyboard), and drums. I felt like they needed to be a little more in-synch  It seemed to be basically a 2 hour solo that was missing rhythm at times.

Once in a lifetime muffin.

Sometime during these adventures I had a once in a lifetime muffin.
You know it's good because I had to use a fork in knife. (Fact)