Once upon a fortnight...

So it’s been almost two weeks since I last wrote anything.  Sorry about that.  So what’s new?  Let’s see…

Classes

I’ve started two of my five classes.  Tuesday’s and Thursday’s I have Ancient Mediterranean History from 9-11.  It’s completely in Spanish which automatically makes it ten times harder than any other class I’ve ever taken. There are about 30 Spaniards and 2 other Americans in this class.  One difference that I noticed right away was that of those 30, I would say 10 are 40 or older.  The other class I have right now is an intensive language class, every day, for 3 hours… I only have one week left of this and then I’ll start my three other classes: Art and Artists from Picasso to Topias, Modern Spanish Literature, and Spanish Language and Society (although I’m thinking of switching that to another Spanish grammar class).

Food

I love the food here.  I even like things here that I didn’t like before.  For example, one night for dinner this week we had pizza with not only cheese and ham, but also mushrooms, onions, and olives.   And I liked it! Other things I like here include croquetas (an assortment of meat inside a breaded crust), tortillas de patatas (basically potato chunks fried in eggs), patatas bravas (potatoes, again, cubed, fried, and topped with a delicious sauce), wine, sangria, salad with tuna in it, breaded fish, pan con tomate (I must admit this isn’t my favorite- it’s bread (hard bread) with tomato juice squeezed on top),  hamburgers, lamb, rice, some sort of bean thing that I don’t know the English or Spanish name of, and probably a lot more that I’m not thinking of right now.

Daily habits

Eating habits are pretty straight forward.  Spaniards eat all the time.  Technically the meals are only: desayuno (breakfast) -around 8 or so they have coffee or tea and maybe some toast or cereal; almuerzo (lunch)- around 2 or 3 they have a bocadillo (basically just a sandwhich but it’s made with one loaf of French bread and not slices of bread like we’re used to) with ham and cheese; and cena (dinner)-around 8 or 9 they have any one (or more) of the various things mentioned above.  Besides the three meals, they pinchar (snack) during the rest of the day, well, mostly at 11am and 5 or 6pm.  During my class from 9-11 we have a 15 minute break in which most of the students leave the class to either smoke, or buy/eat food.  We also have a 20 minute break during my 3 hour class to eat something if we want. 

Everything is later here, not just the main meals.  Max and Berta have school from 9-5 everyday.  Stores don’t open until 10ish and most are open until 8 or 9. 

What else?  … Everyone smokes (basically).  Thankfully, it is now illegal (as of December 26^th) to smoke inside any public building or within so many meters (50?) of a school.

Language Ability

 They say having dreams in another language is when you know you’ve really mastered a language.  Well, I haven’t mastered Spanish, that’s for sure, but I have had two dreams that I remember in which someone spoke in Spanish.  Don’t get too excited though, it was the same short phrases and broken Spanish that I attempt to use during the day.  Apparently, now I’m trying to use it at night too. I thought I would be doing a lot better by now.  I guess I had unrealistic expectations.  I must admit, I am getting better.  I can tell when one word ends and another begins when people talk to me now.  I’m not (too) afraid to say something in the past tense and future isn’t too bad either.  Maybe my feeling of not getting any better is really because I make the same number of mistakes and forget just as many words as before but now I’m trying to use more obscure words and more complicated phrases (at least I can hope, right?). 

Other things

I’m freezing right now.  I know all of you back in Michigan are thinking “it’s nowhere near as cold in Barcelona as it is here.”  And you are correct, however, you don’t have to walk outside for 20 minutes to get to/from your car, and your heating systems actually keep your house warm.  It’s around 60-63 degrees in my room right now.  The house is heated by a couple of space heaters.  There is one in the living/dining room and one in the bathroom.  That area of the apartment isn’t too bad…  Another thing, I didn’t bring sweatshirts/sweatpants to wear around the house like I normally would in the US if our house ever got this cold.

I have a correction to make.  In my last post I said that there were only two days every year on which things go on sale.  I was wrong.  Las rebajas are still underway and apparently they last until the end of February and each week things are marked down more and more in order to get rid of the winter inventory.  This happens again throughout July and August.

So, to recap, I love it here.  The language is difficult at times which makes other things difficult but I love my family here and they make delicious food for me every night.   What more could I ask for?

…maybe an extra blanket…

Los Reyes Magos

Los Reyes Magos (three wise kings, or wisemen) is a tradition in Spain in which on the night before epiphany (January 6) the three wisemen come to the house on their camels and deliver presents to the little girls and boys if they've been good all year.  If they've been bad they deliver coal.  So, the evening before the kings are supposed to come, every city (or so I'm told) has a parade for the three kings.  The parade in Barcelona is huge!  I would say it rivals the Macy's Thanksgiving's day parade except without the huge balloon figures.  There are dancers, and many floats, a "marching" band on horseback, candy, and of course the three kings.  Before the parade the kids write a letter to their favorite king telling them what they hope to get and the letters are collected in nets during the parade.  Afterward, everyone returns home, sets out food for the kings and their camels, the kids go to be early (11ish is early here) and the parents set out the gifts from the kings.  The next morning the kids wake up to presents much like Christmas morning in the US.  Because they have this tradition, they don't really celebrate Christmas with gifts from Santa Claus.  I'm not entirely sure but I think they do get something from Papa Noel (Santa) because Berta likes to ask people what they want from los tres reyes and papa noel next year. 

Just the beginning

So much has happened this week.  Let's see...  I arrived in Barcelona around noon (6am Michigan time) on Monday.  A bus took me and the other CIEE students to the hotel at 2 and we started orientation at 4.  After orientation we went on a scavenger hunt around Barcelona with our Guardian Angels (The GA's are current students at UPF, the university I'll take classes at.  There are about 6 of them for the liberal arts program and there are about 8 of us assigned to each GA.)  

Tuesday was mostly more orientation stuff but the highlight was meeting my host family.  I have a host mom and dad, an 11 year old brother, Max, and a 5 year old sister, Berta.  Berta is adorable.  She wasn't home when I first got there so when she got home the first thing she said was "¿dónde está?" which means "where is she?"

Wednesday CIEE took us on a bus tour of Barcelona.  I don't really remember what all we saw.  Honestly, my head hurt from thinking in Spanish so much so I didn't really pay attention to what was being said and just looked at the stuff.  I know we saw the "Sagrada Familia" though.  It's a huge cathedral designed by Gaudi (a famous Spanish architect).  It's been under construction for about 150 years so far.  They say it will be finished in 2025.  I will post more about this when I go to see it for myself and actually go inside.    After lunch and some cell phone shopping, I went to the parade of "los tres reyes"  (the three kings). (I will explain this in another post).

On Thursday all the stores were closed because of "La fiesta de los reyes Magos"  (the holiday of the wise kings, or just Epiphany in the US) , so Alice and I went to the Parc de Güell.  This Park is another thing designed by Gaudi.  It has a huge bench-like edge that is made entirely of mosaics.  A portion of this bench can be seen in my title picture.  The tower with the cross on top is also part of the Parc de Güell.  After that we went to see a movie, in Spanish.  I understood the jist of it but only about 60% of the words.

Friday, I got chocolate con churros with a group from CIEE.  Churros are dough formed into sticks and then fried and you eat it by dipping them in the melted chocolate.  That afternoon I went shopping with Alice because the 7th of January is the equivalent to our Black Friday and everything is on sale.  Things only go on sale twice a year in Spain, the 7th of January and the 1st of July.  I bought an FC Barcelona jersey.

Saturday, Alice and I went to the sea and walked along the pier.  We found a mall at the end of the pier.  When we were in a store called Lefties, someone came up to me and started asking something about a jacket.  It took me a minute before I realized what was going on and I told her that I didn't work there.  At least now I know it's not super obvious that I'm an American...

Well, this post is getting excessively long and it's also conveniently time for lunch (yes, at 3pm)... 

¡Hasta luego!

Almost there...

It's the night before I leave so of course I can't sleep.  I can't believe this day is actually here.  The last year has been spent in preparations for this: applying for permission from Hope, applying to CIEE (the study abroad program), getting a visa, booking flights, and finally packing.  Even so, now that it's finally here, I feel very unprepared; I feel like I don't know enough Spanish, or I forgot to pack something important.  There's not much I can do about it now though (besides study vocab and grammar on the flight over and go through my suitcase again...).  I guess I'll just have to have faith that everything will work out and that whatever I forget, I can buy (hopefully). 
I plan on updating this once a week but for now I should probably try and get some sleep (tomorrow's going to be a long day...)