Weekend of La Merce!

This past weekend was Barcelona's annual festival to celebrate the patron saint of the city.  The actual holiday was on Friday, so we didn't have class that day!  However, the festival was a weekend long, city-wide event.  There were so many things going on all over the city, it was impossible to see them all.  On Thursday night, we went to see a concert in Plaza Catalunya, then walked through Barrio Gotico.  On Friday, many of the museums in the city were free, so I went to meet some girls at the Chocolate museum.  However, sadly, we got there 15 minutes after it closed.  We had a nice leisurely time walking back to Plaza St. Jaume, where many of the festivities take place during the weekend.  We heard a couple concerts and had some great gelato!  Later that afternoon, we saw la procesion de gigantes, a parade of all the giants.  This was really interesting to see, because each of the paper mache giants were controlled by only one person!!That night, we went to another concert in Plaza Espana.  I still am not sure of the name of the girl, but I know that she is very popular here because the plaza was filled with people. 

On Saturday, I met some friends at Montjuic, a large park with many attractions overlooking the city.  We wanted to visit the "castle," but got very lost trying to find it.  We did find some great views of the port, thought.  When we did finally find the castle, it turned out to be a fort...not quite as exciting.

On Sunday, I got to see the Castells, or human towers.  We learned about these in my Sports and Society class, and it was really exciting to see them competing.  In my class, we had to decide whether or not we would consider this a sport.  I was skeptical, but they are really fun to watch! When we got there, there was a small pre show onstage, but after that, the competition started between the 3 groups.  We also got free hats from the Barcelona tv crews because we were on the front row!

That night, we went to the closing event of La Merce, a fireworks and lights show at Plaza Espana with the magic fountain.  The magic fountain was built for the world fair in 1929, and it is rarely turned on, so it was really exciting to see it.  Also, the fireworks were amazing!  It was definitely the best show that I have seen.

Leaving the show was very interesting, because I'm pretty sure every person that lives in Barcelona was at the plaza....and everyone needed to take the metro or bus back.  Here's a look at the crowd on the way out of the plaza:

Also, as part of my food journal, I'm supposed to write about when I try new things.  For Sunday dinner, Angeles bought as chirimoyas to try.  Chirimoyas are a type of fruit grown in Spain.  The spanish-english dictionary calls it a "custard apple," but I'm not sure that's a very good description.  They were very good, but very weird to eat.  You cut it open and eat it with a spoon, because it does have a consistency like custard.  Here's a picture:

Costa Brava!!

This past weekend was the IES study journey, which was a trip organized by the program that I am participating in this semester.  This semester, the trip was to Costa Brava, which is the region along the coast north of Barcelona.

On Friday, we had to meet at Plaza Catalunya at 8 AM.  It happened to be the first day that we've had rain in Barcelona and it was pouring.  The buses were also late, so by the time we got on the bus, everyone was soaked, but we were all still really excited about our trip.  My program is huge, and so we took 6 buses total.  Also, there were 3 different itineraries so that we wouldn't bombard the small towns with 6 buses of students.  My group was the last two buses and our entire trip was in Spanish, which was good because I need practice. 
Anyways, we left around 9, and headed to Empuries which is a small town with both Greek and Roman ruins.  We had a quick tour of the ruins before getting back on the bus.  I thought that it was very interesting that the Greeks and the Romans were able to live so close to each other in peace.  We also had a very brief tour of the museum where a very famous statue of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine and healing, is stored.  The guide told us that it looks nothing like it used to when the Greeks were hear, not because of missing pieces, but because it used to be painted in vibrant red, brown, and tan paints.

After the tour, we took a short bus trip to the center of the town of Empuries to have lunch and explore the city.  After a delicious lunch of pizza and wine, we went to explore the town.  The town is extremely small, so you could see it all within about 15 minutes.  However, there was a jetty that you could walk out on and get a view of some nearby seaside towns.

After lunch and free time in Empuries, we headed to Girona to check into our hotel and tour the city.  Girona is said to be a mini Barcelona.  I don't know if I agree with this, but it is a pretty good sized city in Catalunya.  When we arrived in Girona, it was pouring down rain again, but we still had our tour.  I wasn't able to take very many great pictures due to the rain, but I did get a few!  Girona's Cathedral has the widest nave of a Catholic church besides that of St. Peter's in Rome.  We also got to see the old Roman city walls, which were very impressive.

After our tour, we checked into our hotel, which was very nice.  We had dinner at the hotel later that night.  Most people on the tour chose "carne" as our meal, which typically refers to beef in Spanish.  However, we were all surprised to find out that the carne was actually fried chicken and french fries.  We were slightly disappointed, haha.  It continued to storm all night, so we weren't able to leave the hotel for the night, but we had fun meeting new people in the program.
The next day we had breakfast at the hotel then headed to La Jonquera, a Spanish city near the border with France.  Here, we toured the exile museum which focused on the long journey that many Catalonians had to take in order to escape the reign of Franco during the Spanish Civil War.  This took place shortly before World War II and was one of the first instances in which concentration camps were used.  I found out from one of my teachers that the Catalonian government had to fight for a long time with the Spanish government in order to have this museum.  It is a part of the Spanish history that is usually swept under the rug.  The museum was in all Catalan, so we weren't able to understand any of the text.  However, many of the pictures were very moving. 
After La Jonquera, we crossed the border into France!  We visited the small border town of Collioure.  Collioure is in a region known as French Catalonia, so the people here speak both French and Catalan.  First we visited the grave of Antonio Machado, a famous Republican poet who also fled from Franco's reign.

After viewing the gravesite, we had free time to eat lunch and explore the city.  We had much better weather here and the city was beautiful!  I loved walking up and down the different streets.  Also, there was a beach that you could walk on that had beautiful views.  After a lunch of ham and cheese crepes, we walked out to a small church on a cliff to get a great view of the coast. 

After a great afternoon in France, we got back on the bus to return to our hotel in Girona.  We had much better weather tonight and after a dinner of hake (a typical type of fish in the region) and potatoes, we were able to go out for the night!
On Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and packed our bags for our last day.  Our first stop was in Figueres to see the Dali Museum.  The museum was extremely interesting and maybe my favorite part of the trip.  A lot of Dali's work, at first glance, seems very strange and confusing.  However, after having different pieces explained to me by a great tour guide, I learned to appreciate how intricate many of his pieces are.  Every detail of the museum was designed by Dali, so everything worked really well together.  There were so many details and symbols throughout all of his paintings and the museum itself, that you really would not be able to fully appreciate it without knowing how much thought went into it.  Overall, I loved the museum!

After touring the Dali museum, we took the bus to the small port town of Port-Iligat, where Dali used to have a house.  The town was very small but pretty. 

After a short walk around the beach, we took about a 20 minute walk to the town of Cadaques.  Cadaques was probably the prettiest place I have ever seen.  The water was a beautiful shade of blue and all of the houses were white with different colors of shutters.  The town was full of locals and I feel that we were the only tourists there.  We had a great afternoon walking through the different city alleys and taking pictures of all of the fantastic views. 

Sadly, we had to leave Cadaques that afternoon for a long bus ride back to Barcelona.  We got back just before dinner on Sunday night.  After a dinner of chicken stew with Angeles, Daniela and I both had tons of homework to do.  However, we had a great weekend in Costa Brava!!

And classes begin....

Monday started my regular schedule of classes at IES.  I still had my Business Spanish class at 9 that I've been having since last week.  So far, I'm liking this class because we're reviewing some common grammar mistakes, like the differences between SER and ESTAR, but within business articles.  This way, we also get a chance to use our Spanish to express our opinions on the articles.  We are not allowed to speak any English in this classroom, so I'm learning a lot of new vocabulary as well. 
This class ends at 10:30, and I don't have another class until 3:45.  So, during this long break, Daniela and I wandered through the Las Ramblas area, and found a place to have a cafe con leche.  Afterward, we continued walking around the area, wandering in and out of different stores.  We had lunch at a really great pasta bar that was run by some local Italians. 
After lunch, we headed back towards IES, and I began my 3:45 class, Management Across Borders.  This was the class that I was probably the least excited about, because I didn't think the topic sounded very interesting.  However, after attending the first class, I'm very excited about it.  We're going to learn about a lot of different cultures and how this culture affects how a business is run.  Throughout the semester, we have to get in groups and actually interview different people in Spanish businesses in Barcelona.  We also have to compare these business to one located in a country that we travel to during our time abroad. 
After Management, I have Art History: Great Catalonian artists of the 20th Century at 5:30.  I think that this class will be very interesting, but I also think it will be my hardest class.  We're focusing on Dali, Miro, and Picasso.  We also have several field studies throughout the semester in the Museo Picasso, MNAC (Museo Nacional de Arte de Catalunya), and the Miro Foundation.  So, I'm excited about visiting all of these places.  However, the workload for the class was kind of intimidating and I don't have as much of a background in art history as many of my classmates do.  Hopefully, I'll be able to catch up quickly, if not, I will still be exposed to a lot of great artwork!
After a long day of classes (9 to 7), Daniela and I headed home and Angeles cooked us a dinner of some sort of casserole with carrots, that was very good and a hamburger patty.

My Tuesday/Thursday classes start at 10:45 with Sport and Society in Spain.  I will be very knowledgeable about sports when I get out of this class, because, just in one day we were asked to research several different sports figures that I was not familiar with.  We're also taking several field trips in this class to the Olympic stadium and a tour of Poble Nou (where FC Barca plays).  I learned that this class is the most popular class in the program, so I'm hoping that its also a lot of fun!
After my class ended at 12:15, I walked around on my own for awhile in La Boqueria because I love looking at all of the different displays.  I then headed back home to make a sandwich and get started on some of my reading.  Class began again at 3:45 with Food as a Cultural Expression.  The teacher began the class by saying that it was going to be very difficult, and that it was not just a fun class.  However, after reading the syllabus and hearing her description of the class, I think that I'm going to learn a lot of really interesting things about, not only Spanish food, but the culture as well.  I've been asked to keep a food journal, with my reactions to different things that I try here.  So, I guess y'all will get to hear more about what I'm eating, haha....One of the projects in this class is to do a presentation on a typical Spanish food and to make this food for everyone in the class.  At dinner that night, I told Angeles that I would need her help with this, and she was so excited!  After discussing many options, we decided to make gazpacho.  Senora can't wait.
After dinner, we actually had a lot of homework to do.  I'm hoping that I'll get used to the workload as the semester goes on, because its hard to do work when it feels like you're on vacation!

Second Week!

This week we started language classes, and I got my first homework assignment, which reminded me that I'm not just here on a 4 month vacation.  It wasn't too bad though, so I'm hoping that will be the case all semester....we'll see. 
On Wednesday, Daniela and I decided that we wanted to explore our neighborhood some more.  So, instead of heading down to the Plaza Catalunya area for lunch, we took a walk around the area that we live in and found a really cute little restaurant called Isabella's.  It was very local and the people there were very friendly.  We enjoyed gourmet pizza and pasta with salmon, along with some vino tinto (red wine).  We spent the afternoon like the Spaniards do, spending almost 3 hours at lunch, talking, laughing, and enjoying our meal.  It was really nice!!

Lunch at Isabella's

After our relaxing afternoon, I had a meeting about my trip that I'm taking to Morocco with IES in November. I learned that I will be living with a family while I'm there, and spending my days with students studying English in the area.  All of the music, markets, and experiences that past students described made me really excited for the trip.  Later that night, I ate dinner with Angeles, and our neighborhood RA, Ana.  We had tortilla espanola, which is one of my favorite Spanish dishes.  It also known as a Spanish omlette, or a potato omlette.
Thursday continued with class at 9.  Afterward, I had cafe con leche y un croissant with some classmates.  We then walked in and out of some stores on Passeig de Gracia and I met up with people for lunch later that afternoon.  I hadn't been feeling too well lately, so I set up a doctor's appointment at a local office and headed back to my house for a nap.  Angeles made French Onion soup for dinner, which was delicious.
On Friday, I had class at 9, once again.  I then made my way to the doctor's office.  I was already feeling much better than I had been, but I'd been feeling sick for about a week, so I decided it was best that I still go to my appointment.  Everything turned out okay, I was just given some antibiotics to help clear up my sore throat.  I then met up with some girls at a local ATM, because this is the most common way to buy tickets to the soccer games.  We planned on buying tickets to the FC Barcelona game on Saturday night, but it was impossible to find seats together, so we ended up not being able to go to this game.  Hopefully, more seats will be available at later games!  We than returned home for a nap before dinner.  After dinner, we got ready to head out for the night!  We had a great night, but someone at the club that we went to dropped a glass on the floor.  Daniela ended up stepping on some broken glass, and needing stitches.  So, our night ended in the hospital.  It was so weird to see that the club was not concerned that there was broken glass, nonetheless blood, on the dance floor.  It was an interesting experience, but everything turned out okay! 
We took it easy on Saturday, but did want to see the local celebrations for Diada.  Diada is the national day of Catalunya, the region where Barcelona is located.  All of the stores were closed and there were Catalunyan flags everywhere.  Some people in Catalunya want to be separate from the rest of Spain.  So, today, there are several riots throughout the city expressing this opinion.  It was interesting to see this, but we kept our distance. 

Riot!

We found a local bar that was playing the FC Barcelona game that we had planned on attending, so we had some tapas and a glass of wine while watching the game.  Its a good thing that we didn't go...Barca ended up losing 2-0 to a team that they should have beaten.  The paper the next day said that it was the worst that they had played!  After the disappointing game, we walked around Barrio Gotico.  There was so much going on in the streets because of the holiday.  We saw opera, street dancers, and more in different alleyways.  I wanted to buy a scarf from a local vendor.  As I was holding the scarf that I was thinking about buying, the man pulled up all of his merchandise and ran!  The police had shown up, and I ended up with a free scarf!

Opera in the street

On Sunday, we decided to do some more sightseeing.  After a late breakfast with Angeles, we headed to Casa Batllo.  I had already seen the outside, but I had heard that the inside of the house was one of the best attractions in Barcelona.  Everything inside was so awesome!  Gaudi had designed the house without using straight lines.  The sea inspired many of his designs, and I loved the blues and greens were used to show this.  We were able to go all throughout the house, including the roof!  It was interesting to hear how everything about the house was for a purpose.  All of the designs not only were fun to look at, but were very practical, for lighting, airflow, etc.  The entrance fee for this house is much more than many places in the city, but very worth it!!

After seeing Casa Batllo, we took the metro to Plaza de Espana.  Here we were able to see a bull ring, "Las Arenas."  It was under a lot of construction, but still very cool to see.  We then walked to Palau Nacional, or the National Palace.  Now, this building is used as the National Museum of Catalonian Art.  We weren't able to go inside because it was closed on Sunday, but the area around it was beautiful.  We continued walking and found the Estadio Olimpic de Montjuic, or the Olympic Stadium.  That was also fun to see.  We plan on going back to the Montjuic area, because there is sooo much more to see!  After a long day, we headed back home.