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)

Me llamo "Neck" & "Harlem Jazz Club"

So, I had to do a group project over the weekend.

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECK

Everyone decided that Starbucks was a good meeting spot (don't know why, the coffee is bad, and the internet is unusable). The only really enjoyable thing that happened was that when I told the "Barista" that my name was "Nick" (because they HAVE to write it on the cup), she wrote "Neck".
Background : With a Spanish accent, my name is not pronounced "Nick", it is pronounced "Neeck". This is because with the Spanish language, an "I" is pronounced as an "E" and the opposite is also true. So, whenever a Spaniard sees my name written, they pronounce is as "Neeck", or "Nee-cohlas".

And I love it more than anything in the world.

I felt bad for this girl on the Saxophone. The reed
broke maybe 30 seconds into the first of two songs
making her performance pretty off.

Also, finally found the Jazz club. And my gosh.
It was so much fun.
Just random people switching in and out with the house band playing the Blues all last night. Some people were amazing, some were okay, but overall it was great. The crowd was so enthusiastic, and everyone was completely into it.
Furthermore, like 5 minutes into the show some random dude sat next to me wearing a shinny (AND I MEAN SHINNY) leather jacket and a fedora. I decided that he had to be playing tonight because you can't just wear a fedora into a jazz club and not play. That's just... wrong. So I spent like 45 minutes trying to decide as to what I thought he was going to play. I ended up split between drummer and pianist because he didn't have an instrument with him. But then I happened to look down and see his WHITE Jazz Oxfords (don't know how I missed them). I knew instantly that no drummer would ever wear those and that he had to be a pianist.

That's him on the piano. Sitting down just wasn't
his thing.

I. Was. Right.
HAHAHA
This dude was a blue's playing machine. He was jumping around (while playing the piano AND singing,) and cuing off for others to solo and everything.


And (this I found hilarious) blues and jazz are only sung in English. I don't know if that's true for everywhere, but in Spain it is. So I absolutely love how they sing, in English, with the most American "blues" accent and then after the song is over they immediately switch back and ramble off in Catalan or Spanish at 2198712893 words-per-second. It was just astonishing how American they sounded when they sang and then when they spoke they completely lost any semblance of Americanism. It was wonderful.

Just a note, in the pictures, there are people sitting. There were maybe 10 people sitting, with the rest standing/clapping/jumping/cheering for the musicians.

My, What Loud Fireworks You Have...

So, San Juan is basically the Fourth of July, but bigger and louder in every way.

I don't know if you can see, but those little bumps are heads.
Just bagillions of them.

The beach was completely packed. Like thousands and thousands down the entire coast, just infinite people. All setting off fireworks (but us, I could not find anywhere to buy fireworks for the life of me).

These were no ordinary fireworks. It sounded like they dropped us in the middle of a warzone while a protest was going on. Every firecracker is like a shotgun next to your ear, it's ridiculous. I don't know how they do it, but those... those are fireworks. Not this sissy american nonsense.
It's not a pop, it's a BANG.

Otherwise, it's basically just 3209483094 people sitting on a beach.

You know, all night.

(FYI, the only people that go into the water at midnight are... well, tourists.)

We left sometime after two. We were all pretty tired, and nothing was really happening. I'm all for just sitting and relaxing, but the food and the drinks were way too expensive to sit there all night (note to self, bring food to the beach).

It was pretty awe inspiring to see that many people in the same place. I can't quite emphasize that all of Barcelona was there. That just blew my mind.

Because you can totally use mortar fireworks
in the middle of the crowd...

Also, don't worry. I won't become a photographer anytime soon. Obviously don't have the skill set.

These Bands...

Before the show...

For the past few days, everywhere I go, I always run into these
street performers.

But these are no ordinary street performers, these guys are grade A acts. The latest group I saw was very lively and still decent musicians. The bassist was jumping around and the guitarist/singer was dancing while playing.

Thoroughly entertaining.

My host mother said that yesterday, or maybe the day before was international music day or something(?)

I'm not sure, but I am enjoying these pop-up bands.

I also got super lost last night, and ended up doing nothing. (Although I did find the coolest of music stores, just so many instruments that I've never even seen. Like they were selling Lutes.)
BUT MARK MY WORDS. TONIGHT WILL NOT BE A BUST.
 

During, these guys had some moves...

Plans Change..

So, as of now, Estrella's parents have decided that she isn't allowed to go out for San Juan, so she's trying to get me to go with her cousin, and her cousins friends... In Gava, I think(?) Not entirely sure if I want to go, but we'll see. I'm just going with the flow right now.
Also, I've decided that I want to go to a Jazz Club tonight. I'm pretty excited for this. My host mother knows one of them fairly well and she thinks that there's a Cuban band playing there tonight. So I'll see if I can find this place. It strikes me as "very local", which means that it's super hard to find.
Another topic, it turns out that during my last weekend here, I'll be in France for at least most of it, if not all, so next weekend is kind of IT. Even if I have a night free on the weekend I go to France, I'm pretty sure that I'll just use it to ponder as to where did my six weeks go...
 But back to next weekend, I think I'm going to take the train to madrid for a day/night/some period of time. I'm going to try to anyway. No promises... I mean it's like a 6-9 hour ride with stops, for the overnight so... I don't know. That's a lot of travel for one day.

Midterm, More Intercambio Than I Can Handle, & San Juan

Sorry for the lack of anything. I had a midterm this morning. It was the first oral midterm that I've ever had and I was fairly nervous because everyone that went before did very poorly. But when it was my classes turn, I sucked it up and went first.
We had to pick a random piece of paper with four questions on it. We could change pieces of paper once, but you never know what you'll get, it could be worse. So when I knew three of the four questions fairly well, I kept mine.
I ended up answering the first three very easily and completely correctly, on the fourth I had to think a little, and when I took my best guess, I ended up getting it correct.
Things here are graded on a 0-10 scale, 10 being a 100 etc.
So, long story short, I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person who got a hundred, so woo.

Also, yesterday I went out and walked around with my Intercambio. It seems that her English has improved immensely (I think that she's just more comfortable around me, so she isn't scared to speak in English.) I feel like she's the least stereotypical Spaniard (that I've met), she doesn't like coffee and she doesn't like Barcelona (and think's that it's boring, not sure as to what she's comparing too, but okay..). Even so, she complains about the weather just like everyone else here, "Oh no, it's only 65 degrees, put on a coat," or "Ahh so hot, it's 75." These people don't know weather. I love em, but they don't know what real weather is.
"Gotcha" still seems to be the leading word in her English vocabulary (much to my amusement), and I helped to reinforce her understand of "Under", "Over", "Above", "In-Between", and "Here". Just an FYI, does anyone know how hard it is to explain any of those terms, without English, just using hand-signals AND without looking like a moron?
I'm sure that I looked especially stupid while explaining In-Between. I ran over to a tree, point at it VERY enthusiastically, ran over to her, pointed very enthusiastically, then ran and stood in the middle of her and the tree while saying In-Between like 3928423 times and jumping up and down. There's no going half-way in my explanation hah. I mean, I'll probably look like an idiot anyway, so she might as well learn something.
Just before she left, she invited me to come out with her and her friends for San Juan, and I'm a little concerned. On a scale of 1-10, these people party like a 30 on the weekdays, and like a 60 on the weekends. San Juan is the biggest party holiday that they have here.
She told me to take a train to Sitges, the beach town I visited earlier, and that I would then have to take a train back to Barcelona on monday, (we have monday off from school for recuperation purposes, if that says anything). Naturally I asked where everyone slept, because you know.... we'll be there for a night. Apparently there is no sleeping on San Juan. None. Nada. Zilch. Cero. Zero. So, we'll see how this goes, as usually, I have no idea as to what I'm getting myself into. Cheers.

Last, but not least (whew, just imagine that I'm saying this entire post without any pauses, it'll be more interesting, I promise), I was tired of being with Americans, I mean I'm in Spain right? So I just went to my favorite little (literally) cafe, the "Petit Pot", and asked the bartender where I could meet some locals and where I could practice Spanish. He told me that I should basically just walk into some bar or cafe, and talk to people, but then he stopped and told me about a bar/cafe that was nearby and that had an Intercambio program. Basically people go there on thursdays, and they practice languages, (I think it's all languages, not just English and Spanish), so a friend and I are going to that tonight because... I mean if I love having one intercambio, then having several will just be the greatest thing ever, right?

Wrong. That was basically the most intimidating thing I've ever tried to do. I have enough guts to do a lot of things here, but I cannot walk into a bar that I haven't been to, talk to a bunch of people who at least 10 years older than me, who I don't know, and in a language that I'm not comfortable with. So, I'd love to say how it went, but that's not possible because it didn't happen, for me anyway.
Furthermore, my host mother and I ran into one of her neighbors today, who apparently has a daughter who wants to learn english. So I'm pretty sure that my host mother is going to try and set up a "get together" for us so we can practice our respective languages. That's all. I'm drained and it's not even 9.

It's Not That I Didn't Like The Excursion... I'm Just Glad To Be In Barcelona Again

This picture would make the perfect "Come Visit Spain Commercial"
It was unreal.

So. We went to "Costa Brava", and it's okay.
I mean it's nice.
It's pretty.
There were so many cats. Just oh my gosh.
Lots of little local stores.
But I'm SO glad to be back in Barcelona.

It's just not the same.
I suppose that I didn't come to Spain to see small towns. Maybe that's it.

But anyway, it was still nice to do once. Lots of good scenery (cats) makes for good pictures...

Gato.

Overall, we visited... 3(?) towns, I think. The best part was the boat ride there. Hands down. Sitting on the front of the boat while the waves just slammed us. It was freezing, but so much fun.
For the actual towns, they were basically just small coastal towns, but everything was in Spanish. I didn't/don't find them nearly as interesting as I find Barcelona though.
I think what I found most interesting was the COMPLETE lack of big business anything. Literally not a single non-locally owned, big store; all were mom & pop shops. They didn't even have cash-registers, it was very different. But it was really cool in that respect, I was kind of amazed that such a beautiful place has not been completely overrun by Hiltons and Burger Kings (or whatever you think of when you think "BIG BUSINESS").

Wooooo... Sweet typical tourist photo-op.
(In it's defense, it was very pretty.)

Gato.

Gato. On the prowl. (This one was totally
hunting some poor bird down.)

Gato. (Not my hand, I didn't want to
touch random cats)

The streets were all like this. Cars were almost non-existant here.
(I really like these streets, it was a very interesting way of living, in my opinion.)

Walking On Sunshine? Gotcha.

So, yesterday I finally met up with my intercambio. (And her cousin.)
We basically just walked around, went into some stores, and got a little lost. (It seems that I know the city better than them.)
Anyway, it was really interesting to communicate with someone who doesn't really speak English for a long period of time. And by really interesting, I mean really difficult, but I suppose that's what makes it fun. Every time you communicate what you actually want to say it's like a small victory and all the while we both got to learn some of the other's language.

I'm on the left (duh), Estrella (my intercambio) is in the middle
and her cousin is on the right.

Which brings me to the title... She seems to have latched on to the word/phrase "Gotcha". I only said it once while we were on Skype, and now it's more or less her catchphrase. It's really quite hilarious to hear someone speak in a very heavy accent and then all of a sudden, they stop and say "gotcha" in the most American way possible. (Her pronunciation of Gotcha is stellar, it almost sounds American.) It just seems extremely out of place. She also wants to use Gotcha in place of "Vale", which is odd because they don't actually mean the same thing... But I suppose they are similar. In Spain, everyone says "Vale" whenever they would say "Okay" or "Let's Go" or "I understand" or "That's good". I wouldn't use gotcha for "let's go", but... Eh.
The only word that I learned that was really new to me was "Guay", which is basically cool or super. "Es guay" or "Muy Muy guay!" or even "Que guay". I don't enjoy the word guay half as much as she enjoys gotcha and I doubt that I ever will.

Tell me that this mannequin isn't creepy..

Also, I discovered the most amazing thing. Spaniards  (and other foreigners I would assume), love American music, but when they sing along they don't actually know what they're saying. They just make vague noises that sound somewhat similar to the lyrics of the song. While we were in some super-department store, "Walking on Sunshine" came on, and hearing Estrella attempt to sing what she thought they were saying was so funny. (And actually she was almost right, she just didn't know that the singer was saying "Sunshine", which is pretty crucial in my opinion.)
Overall, it was so much fun. I really enjoyed spending a few hours with a "local" (she isn't exactly a local, but she's from Spain and she goes to the University of Barcelona, so that's close enough for me). I'm pretty sure that we're going to hangout again sometime during next week and on the weekend on the 24 (it's a huge holiday here), probably more, but I don't know as of now.

Cake, Shopping, and A lack of noteworthy things

So, yesterday, I was helping my host mother cook, probably being a hinderance, but oh well, and she just randomly says that "we should make a cake". She went to closet, starting getting out ingredients and we quite literally just baked a cake then. From scratch. Because why not?

That hand right there, that'y my host mothers.
 Quite literally the hand that feeds me.

But what she didn't tell me was that the cake was for today, not yesterday, for the visitors that we are having, so I can't eat it until after dinner today (just kill me with anticipation, please).

I also went around and bought another scarf today, as well as a shirt. (That's a big step forward.)

Maybe someday I'll move up to pants. Or maybe even jackets. Possibly even some collared shirts.
Who knows?
The possibilities are not endless, but certainly plentiful.

Otherwise, I haven't done anything really. That's pretty much it for the last 48 hours.

So soft. You don't even know.

Oh. Except I met my intercambio, kind of. Via Skype. Tomorrow her cousin/sister (I totally forget and it's only been a few hours since we had this conversation, I feel bad but this is a wonderful example of some typical Nick memory), herself and I are going to go out and do something. Not sure to where or for what. So we'll see.
No idea as to what I'm in for.
(As is my usual methodology for everything.)

European Department Stores (Are Very American) & When They Say it's Half A Chicken.... It's Actually Half Of A Language Barrier

So, there's a Street that's about a block from my house and my housemate and I decided to explore it today. It's rather large (wide and long) and it has so many stores (3 Zaras within 4 blocks).

I'll look at least 30% more European now...

It's here that I experienced my first European department store. Kind of disappointing. It's basically any ordinary department store.
Granted, this one was 9 floors (thought there were only 5 at first) and every floor is huge. I could literally buy a scooter, a kiwi, laundry detergent, a saxophone, and insurance all in the same building. (This place would make any "respectable" Wal-Mart cry.) Aside from it's immense size, it was just an overpriced Macy's. (Except for their scarfs, which I totally bought one of.)

Also, don't get the wrong idea. This place was more clothes than everyday goods. Probably 5 floors of clothes. 1 floor of food. 1 of everyday items. 1 of nicknacks. And the top floor had a huge restaurant and a cafe.

Afterwards, went out for an awkwardly timed lunch, at 3ish, and I ordered "half of a chicken breast" which was fairly cheap, so I assumed that it wouldn't be too much...
I was wrong on new levels.
They gave me half of a chicken. Seriously. Half of a chicken. Like bones and everything. Quite literally half of a chicken. It would have been significantly funnier, but it was startling.  This chicken was the sole embodiment of "shock & awe". I'm really angry that I didn't take a picture because there's no way that anyone is going to have the same "half of a chicken" in their mind.

Just for the record. It was half of a chicken. Which is quite large, and a fair amount of food.

For say... 3 people.

I've Never Been Afraid of Shopping Before...

So, I just tried to go shopping.

That was disastrous and a half. I found something I wanted to purchase, but then it hit me. Where were the changing rooms? What size is anything? And european fashion, someone seriously needs to help me with that. I just don't get it... So, I'm going to hope that I can get together with my intercambio partner soon, and maybe she can help me because without help, I'm going to be looking like a stupid american for quite a bit longer.

Also, totally had the Cafe de Tricolor today. It was good, but very desserty.

I want to go here, but I was lost when I saw it so....

On another note, I got extremely lost today. Like walking around for 2-3 hours lost.

And I thought I already posted this yesterday.... Oh well.

Found a "local" Place & You Think That You've Had Good Coffee?

Woke up. Got my pastry (una pasta apparently, not pastele, they need fewer words for pastries). Went to school. Nothing too unusual. Except that my Spanish Professor spent a good 15 minutes discussing (explaining) how bad American Coffee is and that it's complete "hogwash". At the time, I hadn't tried coffee here, so I was in no place to argue.
But... Despues la clase (after class), my housemate and I went to a local cafe (as opposed to a tourist bar, which are unnecessarily common).

Just oh my gosh. That was coffee. I don't know why, but the coffee is clearly superior here, it's just fantastic. I understand why he called American Coffee "hogwash" now, it's just that coffee here is so good and there's so many different ways to order it (each with their own ridiculous Spanish phrase).
 I'll be ordering "un cortado" everyday, which is coffee with a tiny bit of milk because if you order "cafe o cave con leche" they put obscene amounts of milk in it. They also had a "Cafe Tricolor" that I want to tri (that happened) because it has chocolate in it, with milk, and something else, but I don't know every Spanish word so, who knows...
Anyway, just to keep this short, I love this new cafe. It had 5 euro pizza, that was good, really good. It had great coffee. But above all..

It had a couch. Just a sofa. Next to the window. I ate at a cafe. Sitting on a sofa.
Incase anyone is searching, it doesn't get better than that. I can promise you that.

Another note, it had that chalkboard paint on the walls, so basically everything I could ever want.

Cheap. Check
Good. Check
Sofa. Check
Amusement for my inner child? (Who doesn't want to write on the walls? Come on..)


Check.

(I Am An) Accidental Teacher's Pet & My Favorite Cafe

So, straight to the stories this time. My International Business Professora sent us a DropBox link with what I assumed was what we went over in class yesterday, which it was, but it also had what we were doing today. So I assumed we needed to know it all for today, so I read it over, (quite thoroughly it seems).
Then in class, she started teaching it (oops), but I already knew every definition for every vocabulary term and the answer to every question she asked (I was the only one, the questions were very specific and fairly difficult). She noticed that I not only answered the first 10 questions that she asked the class, but that I answered them almost exactly as they should be answered. She asked me how I knew all of this, (infront of everyone) and if I had taken previous International business courses, which I haven't. I explained how I knew, and she stated that "everyone should do what Nick did today, everyday".
She knows my name, and I feel like a know-it-all.

On another note, I have been to the same cafe everyday that I've been here. Every morning I order "el mismo pastele", (the same pastry, I think, it's said differently in the different regions of Spain) and the people who work there now recognize me. It's kind of nice to be a regular in a foreign country...

Same note. I don't actually know what the Cafe's name is. Hah, I'm super observant.

Another random thing, Burger Kings here are ridiculously nice. They're almost legitimate restaurants.

Mi Primera Dia de Escuela al Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona y Mas (En Ingles)

I'm finally all caught up with this post. So, as you may, or may not have read in the title, today was my first day at UAB. We had some sort of orientation yesterday (snore fest 2013) and it was pretty dull expect for one professor's speech. That's not that important though...
Anyway, I managed to sleep 10 hours last night (first really good night's sleep) and I walked to school feeling fairly good. It was only a 15 minute walk and it was an easy one at that. At some point after I explored the school, but before class, I tried to go back inside and it was locked. I still don't know why, but it was eventually opened, no thanks to me.
I've since discovered, and to my horror, that the teaching style here is pretty much "call on random people". There is no hand raising, and the professors simply call on random students, (no rhyme or reason here I swear). It's as if they teach EVERYONE, then they check on random students to get a sample size and see if everyone understands. The whole thing was pretty traumatizing at first, but I got used to it in roughly 30 minutes. Otherwise class is pretty much like the US, but you can't eat or drink (except for water and coffee which is only some classes, most are water only), you cannot leave for any reason, but they have a 10-15 minute break halfway through, and no phones whatsoever.
Also, the most important thing, water is free there. WATER IS FREE. I apologize, but water is not free anywhere here. It costs anywhere from 1.50 - 3 euros for water a restaurant, like a normal beverage. So I went out and bought a couple of glass bottles today so that I can hoard water from UAB (I'll elaborate farther down).

Back to classes, my spanish class is slightly horrifying, but at the same time the professor is ridiculously nice and funny. It's scary because everyone has to participate, everyone. There is no hiding, you can't escape his gaze, he will call on everyone at least once every 10 minutes (that's quite a few times during every two hour class). It seems that he's a firm believer in the "call on random people" strategy.

Back to water again, (I feel like an old spice commercial at this point, look here, now back at me, now there, me again). Water is expensive here and that's probably the only thing that I really dislike about Barcelona. To fix that problem, I went around the streets of the older section of the city (a tad sketchy) and shopped around for an hour or so until I found some glass water bottles. They simply do not use water bottles like we do. There are no plastic ones, or bottles with nozzles, or anything. Just glass. One of the ones I bought has a cork, just come on.

Also, probably the most exciting part of my day was when ISA emailed me and told me that they had set me in the "intercambio" program, which is basically an exchange program where I help a local spanish student (my age) learn and speak english, and they help me learn and speak spanish. So now I'm waiting for a response from her, but I should be able to go and see the city with a local now, which is so, so exciting for me.

Some other random things that have happened to me in the past few days that I forgot to mention:
In Sitges, I walked into a "pub" to get a bottle of water before the drive back to Barcelona and the bartender was playing and humming along to an American Indie song that I really like. (Home by Edward Sharpie & The Magnetic Zeros)
There was a dude walking down the street with THE solar panel today. It was roughly 7 feet by 4 feet. Just huge. He was just strolling around with it like it was nothing and that it totally wasn't weird or anything like that.
My host mother had some musicians over last night to help her with her "storytelling", I'd try to explain, but I don't even know anymore. It's her job, as well as a translator, so they were planning and figuring out how to tell a story with music and words, but not a song. I think.
There's also another man over here to plan a different story with, but I'm still not even sure what telling a story at an event entails, or where one would tell one, or what about... Oh well.
Also, my Spotify ads are now in Spanish. That was startling.

La Sagrada Familia (The Sacred Family) & Not Getting Lost (A Welcome Change)

Yesterday we visited La Sagrada Familia, which translated means the sacred family. It's essentially the biggest church that you've ever seen. Some background:
They've been building it for roughly 130 years
Gaudi has created MOST of the design
Gaudi was not the original architect
The entire structure and
every sculpture is symbolic for something
It is beautiful (Fact)

It is so immense and large and big and grande and massive. No number of "and's" will do it justice. La Sagrada Familia is one of, if not the, most beautiful building that I've ever seen. Even though I have some pictures, you just have to google it. I cannot even begin to do it justice.

Oh and by the way, it's not done yet. The expected date of completion is 2026 I believe, which is the 100 anniversary of Gaudi's death.

A small note, I have not gotten lost in quite a bit. I think I may have just figured out how to get around here. Such a relief.

Sitges & A Spanish Vineyard

It was beautiful, it looked like it was straight out of movie

To entertain the masses (us), yesterday there was a trip/excursion/journey/etc to a "local" vineyard/winery and Sitges.

One of the original wine makers

The Codorníu winery was absolutely massive. Producing some 60 million bottles a year, the facilities were on a scale from which I have never seen. There was an underground train to drive around the wine cellar in because it would simply take too long any other way.
After going around on this tour for roughly an hour and a half (?), they gave us each a glass of red "sparkling wine" and a glass of white "sparkling wine", which is basically champagne, but not from the champagne region of france... So it's not as "oooo, fancy".

This place had the craziest trees.

Some people were also shotgunning them to get as drunk as possible  even though you aren't allowed to get drunk, or even drink on an excursion (expect for the two glasses they gave out). I cannot imagine shotgunning a glass of that, just repulsive.

Hard to see, but there were palets of bottles for several miles

Afterwards, my housemate and I met up with a few girls that were on the trip and got dragged around Sitges looking for bikini's and towels (not sure how we got ourselves into this). Eventually we ended up laying on the beach for a few hours and my housemate and I decided to go see if we could procure some comida (food).

We ended up at the sketchiest of Spanish hotels, trying to order food without a menu, from a waitress who didn't speak english. That whole meal was an adventure, so afterwards we decided to go back to the beach and do pretty well nothing for the rest of the day.