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.

Barcelona's Nightlife & The Beauty of Getting Lost

I'll try to recall everything that happened yesterday, but no promises, everyone should know that my memory is awful and that I can't write down every story...
Last night as we (my housemate and I) went to go to a group meeting and tour of the gothic section of the city, we got very lost. So much so, that we were late and completely missed the tour. This wasn't a huge deal, so we decided to walk around the gothic section ourselves, and just explore for a few hours.

What fun would Spain be without protests?

Overall the gothic section is very beautiful, it's one of the older if not the oldest part of the city (I assume anyway) and it certainly shows. Every building is huge and majestic, the streets are tiny (there are no cars or vehicles of any sort there), and there are shops and tiny stores everywhere, dozens, if not hundreds of them in this small little district.
Afterwards we went to the waterfront and grabbed some food from some of the many "Beer and Ice Cream" Stands (I feel like these would do well in the US?) and sat in one of Barcelona's many parks. The city seems similar to Boston in that respect, there isn't immense amounts of vegetation on every corner, but there's certainly a fair amount with plenty of parks and grassy areas.

Outside of the store where Rihanna was.

Once we went back to our host's house, we then went out to try and find one of our friends, but between our technicaly difficulties with phones and the fact that there are merely more cafes and bars than anything else, we were not able to find out friend, and just ended up sitting down in a place that looked fairly decent. (Also, somewhere in here I'm fairly certain that we walked by the jewelry store that Rihanna was at, there were hundreds of people packed outside trying to look in.)

Street performers a-plenty.

It was there that we met some (VERY) inebriated Englishmen and found some other American College students. After staying for a couple hours, we then decided to set out for places unknown, which ended up in us finding a, seemingly random, concert. A few songs later we wandered around, until eventually arriving back at roughly 1AM. (The nightlife here usually doesn't end until roughly 4AM or later, the streets were still packed when we left.)

All in all, we saw quite a few very interesting things (didn't get many pictures though), met some interesting people (one man spoke 5 languages not including his native tongue, which is completely crazy in my opinion), and experienced Barcelona at night fo the first time.

Columbus wearing a Barcelona jersey, I've seen it all now.

Four Minute showers & Feeling Like a Champion

It was reaffirmed this morning that water is more expensive here.

This picture was not sideways in my phone...

Este pasta.

Anyway, I was feeling fairly adventurous  so I decided to go out and buy a random pastry. After seeing 1029839021 people in the store (6 in reality) I decided to walk around the block a few times to get my courage up. After walking by the store three times (took me roughly 15 minutes) I decided that I knew what I was going to say and that I was ready for anything. (Huge mistake, I'm never ready for anything.) As I walked in I was relieved to find that there were only 2 people in the cafe(?) or pastry shop(?). I then approached the counter and ask for "this pastry" as I pointed to it in Spanish. Feeling very proud and self-assured for a moment, I was then cut-down in my pride when she (the cashier) responded in English. It seems that I have yet again forgotten my rule number one. (See previous post.)