day 3 - Sintra, the angry ocean and the oldest trolley ever

On Sunday we took a day trip to a place called Sintra which is like a “suburb” of Lisbon, but really it felt like a totally different city. So, we woke up at 9:30 again and went downstairs to have our amazing breakfast. Today we were hoping the menu would be a little different, maybe a muffin or bagel today instead of just bread. No. Same bread and coffee. So we ate without complaints and got ready for the day. We actually split up into two groups, the catholic people went to Fatima, which is another city where a famous saint is or something like that, and the rest of us to Sintra. We rode a metro to the huge multi-transportation center and then caught a regional rail to Sintra. It was an hour ride, but it went by rather quickly. When we got off the train a huge smile spread across my face because it was like I had stepped into a postcard. It was BEAUTIFUL! First of all it was the first I’ve seen of actual “countryside” and natural greenery since I left so that was almost heartwarming. Second, the town is in a valley of sorts with mountains and hills all around and the beach on one side. Third, there are a lot of cool castles and churches and palaces all over the city. After stopping by tourist information, we decided to go to the Park and Palace of Pena. We hopped on a bus and rode almost to the top of the highest mountain around. Talk about scary. Drivers in Portugal, and here for that matter, are insane. The road was winding all up this mountain with a drop off on one side, and only one lane, but both directions of traffic, and no speed limits. The guy was hauling and every time we would go around a corner he would lay on his horn to let people coming down to move out of the way. On one of the turns the driver didn’t honk and of course there was a car coming. It was a very near disaster, but luckily the car swerved just in time. But just barely. At the last stop we got off, and right there you had to buy tickets to get into the grounds of the palace. Once we were in, we stopped right away at a little outdoor café on the mountain. Of course we got espresso, and like always it was so good! I also had this little ham and cheese pastry thing which was good, but it kinda coated your mouth when you ate it. One of the girls with us decided to get this desert thing, but not hommade, like factory made…I don’t know what to call it. Like all our snacks, in a wrapper, but it was bread with chocolate sauce in the middle and it was so good, so we all got one! So much for just stopping for espresso. When we were done we started the trek to the top of the mountain. There was a trolley to take you there, but it was 1.50 euros so we just decided to walk. Bad idea. It was like straight up for quite a ways. It was rather funny because we were all making jokes and stuff about how we shoulda just paid 1.50. When we made it to the top it was all worth it! It was such a pretty palace and you could see so much from up there. I took a million pictures. We walked all around the place, to every spot you could go both inside and outside. By the time we were done, we were all tired and in need of some lunch. We got back on the bus and rode it into town and just got off at a random spot. We stopped at this close resturaunt and sat down. The food wasn’t really that great, but it was alright. Then we decided to go to the beach because the pictures in our tourist pamphlet looked cool. We went to the bus stop and one of the girls with us had a map and asked the bus driver if he took us to the beach we wanted to go to. He told her no to wait for the next bus and it would. So when the next bus came, she asked again and he said no, he only went as far as the train station. On the map it looked like no buses went to the beach, only the trolley and the trolley was close to the train station so we got on the bus. At the train station we got off and started walking. It wasn’t very far at all, but when we got to the trolley stop it said they only came every hour on the hour, so we had to wait 30 minutes. When the trolley got there it was like a mad dash to get on this thing and get a seat. It started out that all 6 of us were in the same bench made for max four people, and it was rather entertaining...Bhavika was on my lap and another girl was sitting totally sideways on the edge of the seat. Then, right before we left, this couple sitting right in front of us decided to get off, so two people sat in their seat and we got to "stretch out" a little. We sat on the trolley for like 15 minutes before it started going, and for the first 10 they didnt ask for any money or anything so we were definitely thinking it was a free ride, and getting pretty excited about that. On of the guys even said, "everyone take note of this, it is something free in Europe...this never happens..." Not even a minute after he said that, a guy came around saying it was two euros to ride. Um. Crazy. The bus is only 1.30 and its much nicer than the trolley. But, we paid anyway, cause we had no choice. The trolley started right on time and im telling you i thought it was a huge joke when this thing started moving. Not kidding i could have walked beside it and win. seriously. At first we thought, oh we're just getting started, it will pick up. No. It didnt. About 10 minutes into the ride, it was the most hilarious thing of my life. I wish all of you could have been there to experience this moment and laugh as hard as i did, becuase words just dont do it justice. So just imagine, we're all agitated that we have to take this dumb trolley in the first place, then we have to wait 30 minutes for it, then we have to pay 2 euros, and then it is slower than a snail. Not only that, its on these really old metal tracks and the "wheels" havent been greased probably since jesus was here so about every 30 seconds, the most god-awful sound would come from the trolley. Like think of the worst squeal/squeak you can, and that was this noise. Metal grinding on metal...most likely sparks flying from the bottom of this thing. awful. At this point what other option do you have besides for laughing? About this time we were talking about how funny it would be if a bus passed us. No joke maybe 5 seconds later a bus came speeding past us. Hilarious. So we dont really know how long the trip is, and we go around this turn and the trolley starts slowing down so we are like awesome, we're almost there. Nope. It was just slowing down to slow down. About that time, a horse and buggy passed us on the road. Yes, for real. I think i might have peed my pants it was so funny. We started making jokes about how we could get out, get a coke at the market and then still get back on without even having to run for it, and other similar things. By this time we had probably been on the trolley for 15 minutes. Now some of us had this notion that the trip would only be about 15 minutes because it looked really close on the map, so we were getting ancy. But, the trolley just kept going and going and going. With no sign of beach anywhere ever. 20 minutes passes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes, we start winding through people's back yards, out into the country side, 40 minutes...finally 45 minutes after we left, we arrive at the beach! What a relief to finally get off the trolley! Since we got such a good ab workout from laughing we decided we deserved ice cream. :) we went to just this little store and got magnum ice cream bars (which eva longoria is the poster girl for). I got double carmel...heaven. So good. While we were eating our ice creams we walked down to the beach. It was real sand! (unlike the small pebbles that barcelona knows as sand). And, the waves were the biggest waves i've ever seen in my life. They were probably taller than me. Ok maybe not quite, but close. We didnt have bathing suits, so we just stood in the water. I was running back and forth kinda chasing the waves out and then running from them when the next one came in, playing around. It was really fun, but i didnt want to get my purse wet, so i walked up to give my purse to sloan, who wasnt standing with the rest of us, and just as i did, a huge wave came in and drenched the rest of them. AHAHA. it was really funny. They were all sandy and salty and such, and me who was playing the water...dry! The wave was so big that it came up the shore to where people had been laying sun bathing and got them, their towels, and their clothes wet too. With that, we decided to take a walk up the hill to view the ocean from a little farther away. At the top we took lots of pictures, and the came back down to go to the bus stop. While we were walking down to the bus stop (about a 3 minute walk), the stupid bus passed us. I wanted to cry. But once again all you could do was laugh. When we got to the bus stop, we couldn't understand the schedule, so I walked across the street to where the trolley was stoped and asked the driver. He spoke great english, but had no clue about the bus. We decided to just take our chances and wait for a bus...anything to avoid another repeat of the trolley ride. The bus came about 30 minutes later, and we all happily piled on. We were making jokes the whole ride back about how we were going to pass the trolley even though we left 30 minutes after it did. And, sure enough, we passed it. I waved at the driver when we passed and he recognized me, laughed, and waved back. Another hilarious moment on the sintra trip! We got off the bus at the train station and shortly after, a train came. Me and this other girl had to pee really bad, but of course the bathroom at the train station was closed and gated off, and contrary to popular beilef, the train did not have a bathroom on it. I checked. By the time we got back to Lisbon, my stomach hurt so bad I could barely walk from holding it in so long. I went to the bathroom there, but my stomach continued to hurt really bad all evening. We met the other people from our group that had gone to Fatima (a catholic must see city) back at the hostel and all went to dinner together. Since it was Sunday, we had a really hard time finding a place that was still open when we went. One place let us stay and eat, and it was actually quite good food. Since my stomach was still hurting i just had chicken and potatoes. It was getting pretty late, around 11:30, and one of the guys with us, Preston, had to get on the subway to get back to the apartment he was staying at. The metro closes at 12, so he hurried and left. The rest of us went back to the hostel and went to sleep because we had to get up early the next morning and meet our cab to go to the airport and fly back to bcn. At about 1:30 we get a call from the other girl staying at the apartment saying that Preston wasn't home yet and asking if we knew where he was. Well, we hadnt heard from him either, and it only should have taken him 30 minutes max to get back, not and hour and a half. So, of course we started freaking out, but there was nothing we could do. The next morning, we still hadn't heard anything, so we had no clue what had happened, or if he was even alive. It was really scary, but we had no choice other than to just pack up and go to the airport. We got there about and hour before our flight started boarding and they weren't there yet. No problem. But then, and hour later, the plane started boarding and they still weren't there and we hadn't heard from them at all. By now we were all sick to our stomachs and pretty worried about preston. Then, when we were fixing to get in line to board the plane, here both of them come, walking up like nothings wrong. We were all like what the crap. 1. Where have ya'll been? 2. Why the heck didn't you call us back last night when he got back? and 3. What happened, and are you ok? It turns out that Preston made it to the subway on time, but when he had to change lines, the other line had closed early for matinence. So he had to go out of the subway on a random part of town and figure out how to get to an apartment that he didnt have the address to in a country where he doesnt speak the language at 12:30 at night. He got on a bus and attempted to ask the driver if he went to the side of town he needed to be on and the driver said yes, and then started driving the complete opposite direction than he needed to go. So, Preston got dropped off on the opposite side of town and the bus was done for the night. He had to walk all the way back and every taxi was full when it passed him. And, he was alone at 2 in the morning, lost. No fun. Finally he made it to a bus that took him the right direction and made it back to the apartment. When he got back it was around 3:30 am. The flight back was good, I slept most of the way. A dude with super long dreds sat right in front of me and at one point i woke up and some of his dreds were laying on my knee. I almost puked, moved them, and went back to sleep. At another point, the flight attendants came by with the cart while i was sleeping, but i woke up and one of them had my leg in her hands and was moving it out of the aisle so they could get by. Talk about waking up to a surprise...a random lady holding your leg. awkward. And, yet another point, i woke up with drool all over my face and running down my chin! gotta love it. Anthony was sitting across the aisle from me and said i was definitely snoring as well. All of this in a less than 2 hour flight. When we got back we had to literally run to drop off our stuff, grab lunch on the go and run to class.

day 2

The second day started off with “continental breakfast” at the hostel. Breakfast ended at 10 so we all got up at 9:30 and went downstairs in our pjs to have breakfast. We walked into the room and there was a bar type area that had cups, baskets and trays set out. Then to left of that was a table about the size of a 3x5 desk. On that table was a basket with some bread rolls in it, some butter and jelly, and a coffee pot. That was it. Continental breakfast! We were all like seriously? Where’s the real breakfast. So, we all got a roll and some coffee and sat down and enjoyed our first meal of the day. Now, I will give them some credit, the bread was extremely fresh and very good, and the coffee was great too, but still. Not exactly what I would consider a meal. Then we all went upstairs and got ready to meet the other two in the group and their friend from Portugal that they stayed with. The girl from Portugal, Felipa, came along to show us around the city. While we were waiting for them to show up we got espresso shots from the same bar we went to the night before. The espresso in Portugal is amazing! It’s very thick and rich, not like the nasty espresso we have in America or in Spain. Gross. We walked all around the city passing beautiful buildings, plazas, statues and so on. I know I’ve said this before but it’s so amazing how you’ll be walking down a street and it just opens up to this round-about with a huge, breathtaking statue in the middle. I love it! We snuck into a hotel and rode the elevator all the way to the top and then went out on the roof deck and got an awesome view of the city. Then we continued, looking in souvenir shops and such until we got to the bay I think…or maybe it was the river, I’m not sure. Right before the body of water, there was this huge plaza with a really big arch into it and then a huge statue in the middle. It was really pretty. Next, Felipa wanted to take us to the Monastery, but it was on a different side of town. We had to ride an old trolley and a new tram to get there. On our way to the trolley stop we passed a street full of artists so we stopped and looked at all the paintings. I bought two small paintings of Lisbon for 8 euros all together! So much cheaper in Portugal. When we were waiting for the trolley to come, a guy came by trying to sell us “hashish”, which we declined. The trolley ride was fun but very jerky. Luckily I was sitting or I probably would have fallen on my face. From the trolley we caught the tram and rode that to the Monastery. When we got there, about 2 or 3, we were all starving so stopped at this little restaurant and had lunch. I got the cod fish again because it was so good for dinner, but I decided to be brave and get it cooked differently…the way felipa suggested to get it. If I was in the situation again, I probably wouldn’t order it again, but it was alright for one meal. It was braised and VERY fishy and salty. It was really weird. But, it came with these cooked potatoes too, and I figured out about half way through the meal if you eat the fish and potato at the same time it was really good. After the meal we ordered espresso shots, because that’s what you are supposed to do…order coffee after the meal. I like it, we should do the in the US. After lunch we walked to the Monastery and took lots of pictures and then when inside the cathedral. We were so lucky to get to go in because there was a wedding fixing to start. We could only go a little ways before they made you stop in preparation for the wedding and when we left, they weren’t letting anybody but wedding guests in. Then we crossed the street and went to the most boring museum ever. It was the museum of contemporary art, and I almost fell asleep standing up. We left shortly after and split up. Me and one other girl, Shanna, went shopping back in the main part of town. It was quite a disappointment because we got there at about 6:15 and all the shops in Portugal close at 6…opposed to Spain where they close at 10. Anyway we had a lot of time to kill because we planned to all meet up again at 9 at the hostel, so we just wandered around…like usual. When we finally all met back up we went out to get dinner and then out to some bars. We couldn’t find anywhere to eat in the area we were at, so we stopped at Subway. I’m obsessed! It is so good here for some reason. I mean it probably tastes just the same but to us it’s amazing because it’s the only thing that tastes like home. Even McDonalds here is totally different. Turkey on wheat with pickles and lettuce and a double chocolate cookie….heaven. After dinner we went bar hopping on this one street, but everything was so crowded and we couldn’t find a single place to sit down so we just called it an early night and went back to the hostel. Tonight, me and Anthony switched beds because mine was like a board and his was one of those that forms to your body and it was right by the window so much cooler. I was asleep in like 5 minutes and didn’t wake up once. Oh, and i forgot...one of the coolest things in portugal. All the sidewalks are cobblestone, black and white and its gorgeous. they have super intricate designs and it is different all over the city.

Lisbon and Sintra...the weekend of a lifetime

Sorry its taken me so long to write about portugal, the weekend was so tiring and then coming back to a lot of work left all of very exhausted. I'm finaly caught up on my sleep! And then i wrote all this and our internet went out in our apartment since friday and we still dont have it. I'm using the internet in our studio right now. I decided to post it in three different posts, one per day. So, here we go. We called a taxi for 4:30 in the morning. It met us outside of where we live and took us to the airport. On the way there the driver was listening to that famous song from dirty dancing, and we were jamin along in the back seat. then when we got to the airport he jipped us and said it was 30 euros. ridiculous. The airline we took is one of the cheaper, smaller companies, but the plane was actually very nice. it had tv screens every 5 seats that popped out of the ceiling and we got to watch cartoons...Pink Panther, Tweety, and something else. It was a two hour flight and i was exhausted from not sleeping much the night before, so once we got going, i tried to fall asleep. Every time I would finally fall asleep, the guy sitting next to me, Preston, would wake me up to tell me something funny about Pink Panther. It was so annoying, but hilarious at the same time because he had no idea he was waking me up...he thought i was watching pink panther with him. The show actually turned out to be really funny, but im thinking that was because of the lack of sleep. When we got to Portugal it was 8 in the morning. In the airport, the first thing we see is this huge ad featuring none other than george clooney. then we turn the corner and there is another one for a different product. they were all over the place...it was so funny. We spent our morning walking around the newer part of the city that was built up for the expo of 1998, when they build all these cool buildings and ppl from all over europe come and showcase the newest stuff. All that to say the architecture was really cool. There was this cool bridge, and a tower, and an amazing train station designed by calatrava. he's insanely good at design. dont worry, i took lots of pictures. the theme of the morning was definitely to find sculptures and water features and take pictures with them. we got some cool pics jumping off this lime green sculpture! We also visited the aquarium...the largest in europe or something like that. personally, aquariums dont really impress me much, but i went because i didnt really have a choice. to me, a fish is a fish and i could have seen any of that in the US, but whatever. there was this huge, ugly fish i took a picture of, and some really cute otters, but nothing too impressive or exciting. We ate lunch at the mall that is attached to the cool train station. We ate at this really good italian place. Right away we learned that lisbon is much much cheaper than barcelona. our cab ride was 4 euro compared to 30, and lunch was about 6 compared to 15 or more. We were all so exhausted that we spent about two hours at lunch and then milled around the mall for another hour. Then we went over and checked out the station. One of the girls with us has a friend that lives in lisbon, so we had left our bags in her apartment that morning, and we had to go back and get them and then get into the old city to try and find a place to stay. being smart college kids we decided not to book a hostel, just to find one when we got there. so, we get back to the girls apartment and go to the second floor, but the doors were to the side of the elevator in her apartment and these doors were straight ahead. problem. so we get back on the elevator and go to floor three, wrong, floor 1 wrong, floor -2 still wrong. we were laughing hysterically by now. then we figured it out. we were in the wrong part of the apartment building and had to walk outside and reenter a little further down. very confusing. we got our bags and headed into town (by bus and metro). the metro system there was ridiculously easy compared to here. there it is four lines that all cross once and i figured it out after riding the metro once. here, the metro is so confusing and i have yet to figure it out. im pretty sure people who grew up here still need a map for the metro in barcelona. anyway, we got off the metro and just started walking looking for hostels. we were all very tired and carrying heavy bags all over up these massive hills, similar to san fransico and some people were getting extremely grumpy. here in barcelona, there are literally 5 hostels on every road and they are so easy to find. not the case there. we couldnt find any at all. we had to get help from this guy who spoke spanish and he took us to a place. when you walked in it smelled like cat pee, and it looked like it was in the worst part of town imaginable. we were all very leery and definitely didnt want to stay there. it was kind of a relief when the guy said he only had 4 beds...we needed 7. he gave us a map of some different hostels and we set out walking more. every hostel we went to was booked. n either. they were all full. as a last resort, we tried the number to a hostel we had been given buy another hostel guy. Surprisingly, the guy said they had exactly 7 beds open. They had a room with four beds and a room with three beds. We hike all the way over to where this hostel is and realize when we turned the corner we were at the same exact place we started. SO funny. we were desperate so we just decided to stay there and see how it was. When we got to our rooms we were pleasantly surprised. each room had their own bathroom, and it was fine. better than we had expected, but definitely no holiday inn. we dropped off our stuff and went to get some dinner. the guy at the front desk, who turned out to be such an amazing help all weekend, toot such a good feeling being in a foreign country where you dont speak the language, about 7 pm and 7 college kids having no place to stay :) it was actually quite funny to me, but not to some people with us. we finally decided to just suck it up and start calling hotels. that didnt workld us a good place to go that was just around the block. Best food of my life. I had cod fish with rice and seriously i wanted to lick the plate. It was so good, and you get so much food compared to here and it was so cheap. Then we went to this famous bar that a lady on the food network channel went to and had some drinks. I just had some cappuccino and it was so good. We went back around midnight and fell asleep. My bed was definitely hard as a rock and I couldnt sleep that well. Then around 3 in the morning anthony's cell phone went off with some super annoying circus alarm. It was so loud and I couldnt sleep and it just kept going. Finally, i got up and went over to his bed and had to wake him up and tell him to turn it off. He said he did so i went back to bed. Then like 10 minutes later the stupid circus song went off again. This time i got up and was like anthony give me your phone. I turned it off and went back to bed. I will put some more pics later the internet here is really slow and taking way too long to do this.

farwell for a couple of days

today was a lot of crap with class. we had studio today and our professor is ridiculous. he assigned all this stuff, but he was super vague. plus on top of that, he just assigned it today and we had class until 2 and he said the information we needed to do our assignments was emailed to us. we got back to the apartment to do our work, but oh wait he didnt email us. he didnt email us until 7 and each group had to go get a book, except the library is literally across town and it closes at 9. we got there at 8:30. crazy. and seriously, we have so much work its not even funny, and we couldnt start until we had the book, which is huge by the way. and to make things even worse, we are leaving for portugal at four thirty in the morning. right now it is 1 and we are waking up at 3:30 to catch a cab. it sucks that we got all this work for the weekend and we wont be here to work on it but im Super excited to go to portugal! its gonna be so fun! i wont be posting until we get back obviously (which is monday) and probably not until we finish all our work for studio, so tuesday most likely!

La Diada y miercoles

Tuesday was a holiday here...meaning no classes! The holiday was la diada and it marks when Catalonia lost their independence, so in a sense it is a somber holiday, but at the same time they have a very strong "national" identity/feel very proud to be Catalan, so it's like a celebration of their awesomeness in their own eyes. Since we had no class, we again decided to go to the beach. We went to a different beach thinking it would be less touristy, but they plan failed because everybody was off work, so it was crazy. It was still fun and super relaxing. We were talking though saying it still feels like we are on vacation because again we missed studio, so we havent started the hard work yet for class. At the beach me and anthony decided to go on a walk. We passed McDonalds, and of course he wanted to go in. It was so awkward because i was just in a bathing suit with no shoes, and he was just wearing some shorts. We sat outside while he ate his big mac, and while we were sitting there this family got up and left their trash on the table and as soon as they turned around, this homeless guy sat down and started eating their scraps and drinking their leftover drink...and the family could still see him. It was really nasty. Then when he finished all he could on their trays, he got up and moved tables. He did this almost the whole time anthony was eating. seriously it was so gross, but i had to feel bad for him. i wanted to buy him a meal of his own but of course i had no money on me. Anyway, after mcdonalds, we continued down the beach, and stumbled upon a nude beach. pretty sure im scarred for life. im not going to go into any details about that experience for ya'lls sake, but just know there were all ages in attendance. We chilled in the room for a while and then that night we went to this restaurant/club/bar. It was actually set up really cool. It was all white inside and it was kinda like a long corridor, only about 12 feet wide. on one half was little "booths" and then you could dance kinda in the walkway if you wanted.
Wednesday we slept in and just piddled around until class at three. Our wednesday we have class with a group of students from monterrey and they are interesting. they seem extremely stuck up and they were so rude and disruptive during class. After class (we got out 2 hours early!) we went shopping. at least that was the plan. we were trying to find some other people in our group but we ended up a little lost, but it was a really cool part of the city to be lost in. we found the best gelato place ever, and a really cool bakery. then while we were wandering, we stumbled upon the museum of catalan history which was beautiful old building. Then we walked right into the barcelona cathedral. Oh my Lord. I honestly have no words to describe this place. I was and still am very upset because they are renovating the outside so there was a huge poster covering the whole thing except for some tall spires. But, it was free to go inside so we did. When we walked it i felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. It was beautiful. It's weird because i have been studying about these sorts of buildings for two years now, but this was the first time i have actually been in a structure like this. The scale is just so impressive! That evening, we had a pot luck dinner with 6 other people in our group. We all met in one room and brought a dish. It was so fun to all eat together and have a home cooked meal granted we have no microwave or oven. we had to get creative. we had pasta with chicken in it, pork, and mashed potatoes, and ice cream! how amazing.

we live in the ghetto?

today began our first week of real classes. we have class everyday from about 3 to 7. its an interesting schedule because we only have one class a day but they are four hours long because instead of having a class two or three times a week, each class only meets once a week. 4 hours is a really long time to sit in a class and take notes, but our class today was really cool! im pretty excited about it. and our prof was like there's no way a four hour class will work. we are going to have to take breaks and stuff. the class is a "thematic course in contemporary european architecture." half of the classes we are going to spend in the classroom taking notes and the other half of the class we are going to be taking field trips around barcelona as a class! Next monday we are going on a walking tour with her around the part of the city we live in (called the old city) so she can kind of orient us and show us some useful things like architecture/art stores, printing stores and also some cool architecture. Its cool because she grew up in the states but has lived here practicing architecture for 18 years, so she is tied in with their culture but also very aware of our needs and is able to relate to us really well (like no one else at the school can). After class a group of us was really hungry because we hadnt anticipated the first day of class to actually take most of the time, so we decided to go out to eat. i have only been out to eat once for dinner, so it sounded good to me. instead of just staying around where we live we hopped on the subway and went to a nicer part of town. (during class our prof was telling us how they use students as a way to rejuvenate a part of the city and how thats what they were doing in our case. she said they place students in a bad part of town to help it become nicer.) I didnt really know i lived in the ghetto until we got off the subway. Im telling you it looks like a completely different city. I thought all the homeless and drunk people, dirty and smelly streets...was all just because i was in a huge city. No, wrong. Its because we seriously do live in the ghetto. mom don't be too scared. we're fine. When we got off the subway the first thing i noticed was the smell. it smelled so clean and fresh! the streets and apartments were beautiful and there were about half the amount of people (more like a third). We found this place to eat that was italian food and it was so good! it was the first good meal i've had since i've been here. It was pretty funny because in spain they don't eat until like 10, but we sat down at like 7. We were the only people in the entire restaurant. they brought us our menus and then didnt come back. the second we all closed our menus she was at the table to take our order, and we ordered our drinks and food at the same time. then we waited a while and sure enough they brought two plates at a time! i loved it because i felt like it was at a genuine european place, which you dont find much on our side of town because its so touristy. i had tortellini and it was different than what im used to but very good. After dinner we went walking around the side of town we were on (what else is new, we always go walking around). It was so pretty! I loved every minute of it becuase it was SO nice. we happened to be really close to this amazing building called casa mila by gaudi, the same guy who did the park we went to, so we walked over there and took some pictures. It's beautiful. I had seen pictures and studied it in class but in person it is amazing. its so different from whats around it and whats normal. it was all lit up too. we are going back at night and taking a tour...its an apartment building. A little down the street was another building he did called casa batlo which is cool too but it just doesnt compare. its named "batlo" meaning the house of bones because the design is very organic and shaped after bones. oh, also there were some guys selling "fake" prada purses on the street that im pretty sure were real. they were gorgeous...im going back to get one. Mom, it was like you said in new york where they could just pick up the cloth and it forms a bag so they can run. Megan if you want one or something like it, what color and size. i didnt check the prices so im not sure yet but just in case its a good deal. when we arrived back in our neck of the woods the smell was immediately there. on the walk back to our apartment i realized more than ever how run down the buildings are around us. crazy. we had a little window chat and half of us booked flights to london (me) and the other half to dublin. we are going sept. 28-oct. 1. Then we stayed up half the night working on our first assignment for studio :) some things just don't change, even if you are half way around the world. the first pic is casa mila, second is with us in it although it didnt turn out very good, and third is casa batlo.

lazy day

other than a little bit of shopping at some tent type stores we didnt do anything today. in barcelona, almost everything is closed all day on sundays. All the big supermarkets, clothing stores, department stores... The only reason i even bothered to post today is because we booked our first weekend trip tonight! im so excited! we are going to portugal next weekend. we leave friday morning really early and get back monday in time for class. We had some issues because the closer the date, the more expensive flights get. originally we wanted to go to prague that weekend but all the flights were over 200 euro. i dont think so. so we are just going to prague another weekend!

la playa!

relaxing by the beach, what else could you ask for? it was so nice to just lay there on the sand! today, a few of us actually forged the freezing cold water too. we ran down the sand straight into the water to make it go quicker. then we became numb and it was so fun! we rode the waves and just played around! The water is so clean....i was in the water up to my neck and i could still see my feet! i love it! After the beach we ate baguette sandwiches and drank fanta! the fanta here is amazing, im going to be so sad when i drink the nasty fanta at home :) and of course we finished the meal with some gelato and sat in placa real to eat it (one of my favorite places so far). i took this picture from where we were sitting eating the gelato...so its part of placa real. it looks like that on all four sides except that opening is the only one, so its totally enclosed! Later in the afternoon i went running for the first time. it was very much needed and very relieving. i ran down by the port and a cruise ship had just gotten in so there were gobs and gobs of people everywhere. while i was running, i had quite and experience. This spanish guy was roller blading down the street towards me and was looking at me with this weird smirk on his face. I made sure not to look at him or smile at him because they can be very flirtatious/crude. He started getting really close like he was just going to run right into me so i was freaking out but i had nowhere to go because of all the people. when he passed be he slapped my butt. i was pissed i wanted to turn around and go give him a piece of my mind, but i decided against it and just kept running. what nerve. Today i also lost my key to my room. no fun. not really sure what im gonna do about that yet...

Montjuic and the black sheep

We got home rather late last night, so today all of us slept in till about noon. it was definitely much needed rest. we started the day off by going to la boqueria, the outdoor market and got some amazing fruit. i got the best peaches ive ever had (i still have one in the fridge :)) and some fresh pineapple that comes cut for you, but is still laying on the outside and a kiwi! I pretty much live off of the great fruit over here...its definitely something i am going to miss when i get back home. As well as running down to the supermarket about 2 minutes away and getting a fresh baguette and some cheese...oh its so good! Then we went to Montjuic do take some pictures and research more the site for studio. Our professor told us to, so we were basically doing our "homework" but it was some of the best homework ive ever done! It was cool because you could see the whole city and the mountain is right on the coastline. on top there is a fortress/castle thats pretty cool....not like a breathtaking castle, but one used to protect barcelona in the past so there was some cool history up there. and it was kinda nice to be away from the city just for a couple of hours too. We had to ride a chair lift type thing to get up there, and then we just wandered around taking a lot of pictures for class of the industrial port (nothing beautiful). Then on the way down, we stoped and walked to the Olympic Village because its on the back side of Mountjuic about halfway down. the olympics were in barcelona in 92 so it was cool just to get to walk around the village. there is an awesome telephone tower designed by calatrava, a famous spanish architect there too. When we got back my roomate and i cooked dinner for the first time. it was good, but definitely not the cooking facilities im used too. i made some pasta and bought some sauce, very different from ours. For the night life we went to this bar that apparantly was very popular because it was packed. It was huge and cool because it was old.

me on a bike? through a huge city?

For our first day of studio our professor took us on a bike ride field trip to look at the site where we will be designing protective housing. Its cool because we only have one project the whole semester instead of three or four, and its just going to be very intensive and thorough. There are students here from Canada, Monterrey, and Clemson. So for our field trip we went with the Clemson students and our professor (36 people) and there is a law in Barcelona that you can't ride bikes in more than groups of twenty, kinda funny, so we had to split up. Ok, so i havent ridden a bike since i was like 15, and even then i was not very skilled at it, so i was SO nervous. I mean i can't even ride a bike well in the country much less than in a city comparable to NYC. It was crazy....but so incredibly fun. We started on this side street so it wasnt too bad, just a few people to dodge, but then we went onto one of the busiest streets in Barcelona (la rambla). I almost got hit by a bus :) luckily i didnt. but there are no bike lanes and there are all these cars parallel parked too, it was interesting. then one of the girls with us freaked out and swerved her bike across the street right in front of me and almost knocked me off my bike in the middle of the street...keep in mind there are all these spanish guys laughing at us, and all these tourists just staring! so funny. Then we rode up this insanely steep bridge that went out over the mediterranean. talk about a good work out and a beautiful view. Later in the day we went to Park Guell which is a famous park in barcelona done by Antoni Guadi. It was our first time to ride the subway...which was fun and not as bad as people work it up to be. we got off pretty much in the ghetto, and then had to go up this hill that was the steepest road ive ever seen with buildings on it. it reminded me a lot of the roads in san fransico but much steeper. it was cool because the part of the city we are in is flat so its totally different. Anyway, so when you walk up this road there are built in escalators out in the open to take people up. crazy. The park is at the top and its beautiful. i bought some aviator sunglasses for 5 euro from a dude sitting at the entrance :) they're really cute! the park is really big and lots of people were there but we just walked through it and took pictures of the pavillion. Then we got lost in the park on the way back, seriously its huge, and we ended up in the forest! it was funny! For the night life we went out to a club that was really cool and fun! one of my friends, anthony, danced way crazy and had all of us about to pee in our pants. good day!

first day of classes

so today was our first day of classes. we met the program coordinator outside our apartment at noon and she walked us to the place where our classes are. its cool because its not very far away...maybe a ten minute walk. its just a building a street off the main Las Ramblas, like right in town. the main university is on the outskirts of Barcelona and very far from where we live, so its nice to have a place so close. Basically we had like a little introduction where all the professors introduced themselves and talked about the program. I was really nervous, and kinda still am, because everyone says Juan Carlos, our studio professor is very hard. He already told us he is going to look at us like actual architects, not students and expect that level of work. he said its basically equivalent to a graduate level studio. After the informational we had an hour break to go get lunch or do whatever. I wasnt really that hungry so my roommate and i went and got gelado and sat on the ground in a plaza and ate it. it was beautiful and so relaxing. Then we had class again...our first actual real class. it was a seminar class we have once a week called the contemporary city, studying barcelona and some other european cities from the present backwards. it sounds very interesting, but the professor is kinda hard to follow, so we'll see. When class was over, we went walking around the area we live once again. i feel like everytime we go walking around i see stuff that i havent seen before even though ive been down the street 50 times. its cool. we went to this place called zara which is like an express in the states...i think they might actually have one in New York. its really cute clothes, but different. their fashion here is more extreme and would be called weird there. (Mullets are way in style) ha. I didnt buy anything yet, but most likely i will. the pricing is very similar to there too...like the gap pricing. Then we split and my roommate and I went exploring down some streets we hadnt been down and found like the whole shopping district. Its almost like an outdoor mall, but not really. there we found some cute stores with more reasonable pricing. We looked at stuff for quite a while and by the time we were done, we were starving so we stopped at this little resturant and got baguette sandwiches and these amazing pastries for 5 euro! during the evening we all met upstairs in someone elses room and discussed where we are going to go on our weekend trips and potential weekends to travel, so we can start looking up airline tickets and such. it was so exciting to be talking about it! i guess we were really loud because the night guard, a grumpy old guy who already hates us, came up there banging on the door yelling at us. it was really funny. but we had to be really quite from there on out and leave soon after.

still a little behind....day 2

today we went to the beach! i was on the Mediterranean! its still hard for me to believe. it was pretty, but very different from our beaches...different but better. Barcelona is a big port city so the beach has many places where goods are coming in as well as cruise ships. and there are no dunes or anything like texas beaches. its weird because ive never been to a beach in a big city. its like the city and the sand and water is just right there. also, as most of you probably already know, they are very comfortable with their bodies, so there were several women just laying topless...different. ha, there was this old lady like right in front of us tanning without her top on..it was really funny. The water is cold too. its like pacific coast water, but its clear. really its beautiful. blue green, clear water. the sand is more like fine gravel rather than our kind of sand. the beach is only like a twenty minute walk from our apartment/dorm, and only like a 3 minute walk to the port...theres just no sand and stuff there. We just layed out and took it all in and went on a little walk down the beach! amazing! after that i went a got a cell phone, finally. and then three of us just went walking around exploring more of the area around us. so fun! The top right of the picture is part of port vell which is more like yachts and things but there are also many industrial type ports (they just arent pretty) The next picture is while we were walking to the beach. you can see mountjuc...i really dont know how to spell it but thats how its said...anyway its like a small mountain bordering the city, set a part but still a part of the city. the statue in that picture is of christopher columbus, pointing out to sea. The last picture is just of a builing on the walk. the architecture in the city is amazing! they have such a mix of the old, beautiful stuff but also the new age, super modern stuff too!

My first day in Europe

When we got here, we took a cab from the airport to our apartment. The whole ride i was basically rubber-necking at everything. When we got dropped off at our apartment we all went to our rooms and dropped off our stuff. its really cool the way its set up because its like a rectangle, but after the first floor its open in the center and all our rooms face inward so we can just open our windows and talk to each other to figure out plans and stuff. Its really cool and convenient. The picture shows that! Anyway, when we got here we were all exhausted, but we were also really excited so we went out and explored. Barcelona is HUGE, so we still have seen less than an eighth of the city, but we very close to one of the main drags. It is called Las Ramblas which is like a street that has a big "sidewalk" down the middle for people to walk down and then traffic on both sides and then like normal sidewalks and buildings. Its cool, but it is extremely touristy so its very crowded, overpriced and pretty Americanized (McDonalds, KFC, Subway...). On the first day, mainly we just walked around and took in Las Ramblas and did little things like go grocery shopping and buy pillowcases and stuff like that. That is a picture just walking down Las Ramblas. Then, that night about 8 of us went out to dinner. We ate on Las Ramblas so it was pretty expensive, and it really wasnt that good or native for that matter. After that we went to some bar and some people got drinks and we just sat around and talked. It was a monday night and it was packed...i was surprised. (i guess im naive) Me and my roommate were exhausted so we came back at like 1 in the morning but everyone else went clubbing and didnt get back until 4. And we hadnt sleep the night before because we got here at like 4 US time. The picture is at the bar, and the girl in the picture is Bhavika and she is my roomate!

the flight

Ok well we flew out of Houston on Sunday (the 2nd). I flew with a group of ten students on the same trip as me which was really nice. We all got to sit in a group on the flight to paris, but then from paris to barcelona we were all spread out. The first plane was huge...it was a 777 and there were three rows of seats all with three seats in them. We flew Air France and the thing i didnt realized about that was that everything was in french, with english coming second, and the flight attendants were french as well. We were served dinner on the plane and it was amazing! The menu was a shrimp salad, a cup of grapes, a roll, some cheese, and also a lemon dessert thing(that was soo good). for the main course you could choose either penne with zucchini or barbeque chicken with mixed vegetables. After dinner they came by with tea and coffee too. On the plane we could watch movies and play all these games (i played hangman, and watched part of oceans 13) and much more. They turned out the lights on the plane around 7 our time, which was weird, and then turned them back on at like midnight our time (7 in the morning france time) and served us breakfast. It was kinda funny. When we got to Paris is was a crazy. We almost missed our connecting flight. The terminals were all backed up and everything so we got off the plane further out and then had to ride a shuttle to the terminal. Then we had to go through all this crap...up some stairs, wait in line to show our passports, go down the escalator just to walk 100 feet and then go up some more stairs. Then we had to go to a different terminal than we got dropped off at so we had to go get on another shuttle with an insanely long line and then go back through security. Needless to say we were running through the paris airport and we got to our gate late but luckily the plane was delayed! The flight from paris to barcelona was very nice and much shorter. I got a window seat and took a little nap until we were right over barcelona. The view was amazing! Its mountains on one side of the city and the beach perpendicular to that...gorgeous.

Disclaimer

Hey everyone! I just wanted to let anyone who reads this know that it is going to serve not only to inform all of you about my day to day life here and traveling, but also as my own personal journal/diary of my trip...all this just to say, it is going to be very detailed and most likely boring to many of you except possibly you mom! I think you will probably appreciate all the details. Also, at this point, I have been here for 2 and a half days so the first couple of entries are going to be all posted at the same time, and then after i finish all that, i am going to try and keep it updated very often. I love you all and miss you all too! I hope this works for everyone...its so much easier than emailing a million different people about what i am doing. :)