Offically the Worst Blogger Ever!

So it has been exactly one month since the last time I posted on my blog. I thought the blog route would be the easiest to keep up with once abroad. I didn't take into account that it would actually take time to write each post and that I had to stay on top of it. Once I got behind it was easier to just put it off a littler longer. I am now going to attempt to catch you up as best as possible.

Today marks not only the month mark from the last time I posted on here, but my first Thanksgiving away from my family, and a month until I will be home and it will be Christmas! I cannot believe how amazing this experience has been and how fast it has flown by. I am so excited for the last month and thinking that when the time comes to get on that plane to fly back to the US, it will be a bittersweet moment. There is a great chance that I will cry because this journey is over, but I think I will be happy to be home for Christmas and ready to spend some time at home. I do know that after a couple of weeks I will want nothing more than to be back in España. So with that, I plan to take advantage of every moment I have left and enjoy it all!

Carpe Diem! (Not Spanish but it sums up my time in Europe perfectly!)

Happy Thanksgiving from Berlin to all you Americans may you eat yourself into a coma today and be thankful for the fact that you can! As for me, I'm thankful for my time in Europe, making new friends from around the world and my family that has supported every second of my time here and I know they can't wait for me to be home to hear all about my adventures!

Backtracking to Sitges

In mid September, ISA took us on an excursion for the say to a small town on the coast called Sitges (seat-ges, as in gesture). We met outside the University of Barcelona and loaded the busses.

We made a stop along the way to a vineyard and winery called Codorníu. The winery has been a family owned operation since the 16th century and is located on an absolutely breathtaking property. In 1872, the first bottle of Cava (Spanish sparkling wine, like Champagne) was produced! The cellars are enormous and we took a tour through them on trains pulled by 4x4s. It is not a place I would want to be lost in that is for sure! At the end of the tour we headed to the tasting room and got to try a Rosé and a blanc cava.

We hopped back on the busses and headed for Sitges, where we had the whole afternoon free. The beach in Sitges had fine white sand and the water was wonderfully! We took a long swim and then laid out to enjoy the warmth and sun of Spain! After a while, Lauren (a friend of mine also in the homestays) and I headed into the quaint town to find some paella (very typical Spanish dish). We had lunch and then spent the rest of the time wandering the town and finished our adventure with a much needed ice cream. We then crammed back on the busses to head back to Barcelona.

Not enough hours in a day

So as I am writing this, I should be doing about 10 other things. My blog is WAY behind and so are my pictures! So here goes for a quick update with more details to come later, they are already late so what's another 4 days.

Between the beginning of school and right now I have been to one of Spain's oldest Winerys, named Codorniu. They invented Cava. It was absolutely HUGE and gorgeous! But like I said, more about that later. After the tour of the winery we had the customary cava tasting then heading to another beach town named Sitges. Again, beautiful! We spent some time at the beach and wandering around.

The next weekend was a pretty relaxed one. Getting to know more local places of Barcelona, falling in love with art by local artists and I went to a Spanish Guitarist concert, he too was amazing. My friend Amy's dad came into town and Sunday night we spent time at a bar called The George Payne, and Irish pub that shows American football and Rugby and has traditional American bar food! Sometimes you just need a little dose of familiarity.

The next weekend was the largest festival in Barcelona called La Mercè. I cannot do this festival justice with an overview, so know there is A LOT to come related to it.

Last weekend 15 of us rented 3 cars and drove to the south of France to stay in a friend's country house. It was quite a different experience but so much fun! More about the 370 year old house without electricity to come, I promise!

Back to the present, I should be charging my camera batteries, charging my phone, packing, making sure I have my passport, wallet, boarding pass and anything else that I will need to get to and enjoy a long weekend in PORTUGAL. Eight of us are heading to Lisbon tomorrow and cannot wait! That being said, I have to wake up in a little over 5 hours to start the many metro and train rides to get to the airport on time. I feel like a broken record, but more about Portugal when I get back on Monday!!

Hasta Luego!

Uhh...School and Public Transportation??

Thats right folks, after a great first weekend in Barcelona filled with sightseeing, going to the beach and talking to our friends about their homestays, it was time for school to start. I had almost forgotten that was part of the deal with my moving to Spain, darn. For the public transportation part, I thought the La Canada Shuttle was bad, then I took the Isla Vista bus when it rained in Santa Barbara, not my favorite but doable, except when you try and make the last bus before school starts and its hot and humid and stuffed full of freshman from FT (the dorm far away from campus). Welcome to REAL public transportation in Barcelona. The metro is the easiest (ha!) way to get around. Living up in Gracia like we do, there isn't actually a metro that runs up that high, so we take the FGC (an old subway train) to Plaza Catalunya, oneof the most central parts in Barcelona. To get to school we have to change from the FGC to themetro at Plaza Catalunya and then hop on another line to get closest to school, then its about a 3-4 block walk from there. So for those of you from LC, remember how we would complain about being stuck in traffic on Michigan hill for 10 minutes, PIECE OF CAKE! If I happen to miss the ideal train from my station, the next one doesn't come for another 15 minutes, then I have to sprint through the hot subway platforms and sprint to campus just to make it in time. If I am lucky it takes me 15 minutes to get to the stop I need then another 5 to campus, if I'm not lucky it could take about 30-40 minutes just to get to school. It is definitely a different lifestyle.

I am taking 3 class, Spanish Language, The Seven Wonders of Spain- Spanish Architecture, and New Tendencies in Contemporary Art. My Spanish class is just the right level for me, but I am hoping we do some review of verb tenses. The Seven Wonders of Spain class is built around UNESCO's World Heritage List and is pretty interesting. The New Tendencies in Spanish Contemporary Art is not one of my favorites yet but it could change. This is the first time since high school that I didn't feel like I needed to sell my liver on the black market to pay for textbooks though which is awesome. The only book I needed to buy was a Spanish workbook for 22 euros (about $25).

Monday of my second week of school marked the first time I was able to get from my house to campus without a hiccup, it felt great! My Spanish by then had slowly started coming back to me and I was more confident in talking in class and to the locals, which means, that when I do need help figuring out where to go, the directions they give me are more understood and therefore more helpful.

Life here is on a very different timetable than home, dinner is later (typically not until 9 or 10) and then my friends and I usually take a nap and then get ready to head out around midnight. Clubs here are only really getting started around 1:30am and the metro starts running again at 5am so most people just stay at the clubs until then (being completely honest right now-I have yet to stay out that late, its been close though!)

Those first two weeks were pretty much spent wandering around the city getting to know the different areas and finding places to get drinks or tapas or coffee. Going into week 3 I feel like I am starting to adjust to the lifestyle of Barcelona and that I live here and am not just visiting. If my time follows these last two weeks, this truly will be the greatest semester of my life!The pictures are: top- a view of Barcelona from the Parque Guell (Gaudi's park), center-part of the group at the Park (Dillon, Nikki, Elle, Brittania, Me and Rory), and bottom The Barcelona Cathedral

Welcome to Barcelona!

So its only taken me two and half weeks to write about the beginning of the Barcelona adventure. Bear with me as I try to bring you up so speed.

We left Toledo around 9am on Thursday September 3rd. We had 9 hours in the bus to look forward to. Naturally, everyone slept for pretty much the whole bus ride. We woke up as we were entering the city and everyone all of a sudden was wide awake and jittery with anticipation. My soon to be roommate, Nikki, and I were getting anxious to meet our Señora and see where we would be living for the next 4 months. As we pulled up to the meeting point, all the families were standing around with signs for their students. We spotted our names and I instantly felt nauseated, I was SO nervous! Our Madre de acogina (or host mom) is a very petite 73 year old woman named Rafaela. She is absolutely adorable and is so sweet. The three of us hopped in a cab and headed for our new home. Barcelona is divided up into "barrios" or neighborhoods and we live in an area called Gracia. It is a little ways outside of the hustle and bustle of the city center but a very easy metro ride to where we need to go. We got to the apartment and met the landlord who is also a very nice man. After managing to get our bags into the apartment and into our room, Rafaela showed us the closets and draws and how to open the window. Let the unpacking begin. (For anyone that has seen me move, you know the unpacking is a disaster for me). I managed to get everything unpacked and put away in a couple of hours (not too hard since I only had one suitcase) and then it was time for dinner. Again, Nikki and I were super nervous. We sit down for dinner and start the Spanish conversation. I tried my best and managed to do alright. Nikki doesn't speak any Spanish so I was trying to play translator. We also learned that Rafaela speaks absolutely no English. She pulled out a book of basic foods and asked us what we do and do not like and then we finished up dinner.

As the night went on both of us started to relax and become more comfortable in our new home and looked forward for the adventures to come!

Holy Toledo!

Wednesday we all hopped on busses in Madrid bound for Toledo. Most people slept the 2ish hours to Toledo and there wasn't too much too see along the way. We pulled in and picked up our tour guides and then headed across the river and up a mountain to get a great view of the city. Historically, Toledo was situated perfectly with a river surrounding the majority of thecity making invasions very difficult, impossible actually.Toledo was the only major city in Spain that was never taken over by the Romans, mainly because they couldn't penetrate the city thanks to the river and the city walls. Undoubtedly one of the most beautiful cities I have beenin to date.

We crossed back over the river and headed to one of the oldest bridges, that is only wide enough for pedestrians and motorcycles. We crossed back over the river and headed into the city. We saw El Monestario de San Juan de Los

Reyes which has chains hanging on the outside to commemorate the Christians that were killed during the Muslim rule. We saw a couple of other cathedrals and then headed into the city center and saw the town hall with a really long line of people outside. Our tour guide casually informed us that the line was because the actual World Cup Trophy was inside! Naturally, I freaked out!! HOW COOL IS THAT!! The Trophy is on tour throughout Spain and just HAPPENS to be in the same tiny city that I am in on the same day! So all I

wanted to do was jump into line and go see it. We weren't quite finished with the tour though so we kept going. Note to self- must see the world cup!

We passed the Cathedral of Toledo, which is one of the largest and most beautiful cathedrals in Spain. We got into the center of the city and then had some free time for lunch. Hmmm, lunch or World Cup Trophy... I picked lunch at that point. A group of us headed to a tapas bar for lunch. Great tapas and a really great environment. After lunch part of our group split of to go see the World Cup, obviously! We got into line, and the line was much longer than the first

time. We got about half way through before we realized we would miss our bus if we didn't get out of line and RUN back to the meeting point.

We met the buses like we were supposed to and headed to the hotel. The second we got our room keys we ran up, dropped our bags off and headed back down to grab some cabs and head back to the city to stand in line to see the cup AGAIN. By the time we got into the cabs it had started to rain. We pull up and the line is AROUND THE BLOCK, great.... oh well, we waited anyway. It starts pouring rain, thunder, lightning, the whole deal. We figured oh well, as long as our umbrella doesn't get struck by

lightning we're good. We ended up standing in line in the rain for about an hour, completely soaking wet and then inside city hall for another 30 minutes before we got into the room where the cup was. All in all, our adventure was well worth being completely drenched and freezing cold and late to our mandatory meeting back at the hotel (oops). Who can say that they have actually touched the World Cup? I CAN!!!

After the meeting we went back into the city for some dinner at an Indian restaurant. Started raining some more and then we headed back to the hotel to hang out some more. After a while everyone was looking and feeling drained, and we had a 9 hour trip ahead of us the next morning, definitely time to head to bed. Tomorrow- Barcelona and meeting our host families!!!

Last day in Madrid

Well it has been a busy week so this is when I am finally getting around to writing aboutthe second and last day in Madrid and our day in Toledo. In Madrid on Tuesday we took a city walking tour. We met at La Plaza Mayor and toured the historic places around there, multiple beautiful churches, city hall and on to the Royal Palace of Madrid. An absolutely enormous palace with a huge courtyard and stunning gardens.

After seeing the palace we got a lunch break and picked up some bocadillas (traditional sandwiches) and sat in another park to enjoy lunch in Madrid. After lunch we headed to El Museo Del Prado, or the Prado Museum. We saw a bunch of paintings by people I have never heard of and then finally saw a painting by Picasso and the set of paintings by Fransico Goya, painted to commemorate a revolt in Spain on the 2nd of May 1808. The second painting, the 3rd of May 1808 is a painting I studied in an art history class last year, so it was a lot of fun to recognize something in the museum.

We found an Ice Bar just up from the Prado and went in for a cool down (Madrid is really hot) and a vodka beer called Sputnik. It was really cool, everything made out of ice, the walls, chairs, table and bar. Not many people can say they drank in an igloo.

Later that night we headed off to dinner with a group of people and then on to a club. We went to the Palace, seemed like a knock-off Vegas club, but didn't have too much going on so we headed out and decided to call it a night. We were leaving for Toledo at 9 the next morning and needed to pack and sleep.

The great adventure began the next day... Off to Toledo we go!