Random International Update (28.9.13)

It is a thing to stand still in a speedo on the beach, either facing the sun directly with the front of your body or with the back, and tan. For hours. It took me a while to figure out just what this one old guy was doing... he was looking kinda off into the distance for an hour or so at the beach. My friends and I were all very concerned. I could still be wrong, but it is most likely (and slightly more reassuring than just pure creepiness) that he was just tanning in such a way as to get a more direct angle of incidence of the UV sunlight with his skin.

On to more fascinating tales. I had my first two days of Spanish university on Wednesday and Thursday. I went to six classes, although I think I will only be staying in two of them. I purposefully sat in on a linguistics class, but accidentally sat in on a linguistics class that is taught in Catalan. I actually understood it all! Maybe 1 word every other sentence did not register completely. Regardless of how accomplished I felt, I am not ready to take a class in Catalan. Although it was a very interesting classroom dynamic because the students ask questions in Spanish, but the professor responds to questions and lectures in Catalan. 

It is shaping up to be a great semester with respect to my major requirements. I will be doing probably 2 and likely 3 classes for my Hispanic Studies major, fulfilling the "Post-1900 Latin American Literature and Culture" requirement with Literatura del siglo XX, and the "Pre-1800 Peninsular Literature and Culture" requirement with Culturas hispanicas en la edad media. For Economics, Pricing Policies is a preapproved class for the major, and hopefully I can get approval by the department for the other class I am taking, called International Finance Economics. My last class (to make 5 total) is my Spanish language class. Officially I am only in 3 of the five right now. The add/drop day is next Wednesday. Hopefully it all works out!

I suppose I have adjusted to the odd time schedule here, because it is 5 AM and I am not sleepy (I took a nap and had a cup of tea though... all after 8 PM). I'll give a rundown of the night: went to a bar to watch the Real Madrid - Athletico Madrid game with some English friends. They study at King's College, although it might be spelled Kings' College with an apostrophe after the "s"; I am not sure how many kings are associated with the university. Anyways, the game finished a little before midnight, and afterwards all of us meandered over to the flat (read: apartment) of other British people and hung out there (on the balcony/porch mostly for me; it was toasty inside). I would really like to live in an apartment like that one next semester. That would be really awesome. After probably an hour and a half, we left their flat (with the hosts) and walked to some smaller clubs nearby (the huge clubs are on the beach) and had some fun there. It was quite the mix of countries of origin. We had Uruguay, Mexico, England, France, and The United States all represented. It is always very interesting here in Barcelona. So many people from all over the place. To get back home, I took the "Night bus" for the first time, and it was really easy and left with within a minute's walk of my apartment complex.

General plans for the next two weeks: attend all classes, register for all classes, try out for the UPF soccer team, fly to Munich (!) on Friday for Oktoberfest. And go to the beach as much as possible before it gets cold!

Now for some more photos, sans horse captions.

Here we go. So, last weekend was a four-day long festival called "Mercè". It was a really great way to celebrate the official end to my summer, because I started school on the Wednesday after these four days. The photo here is from Piknik Electronik, a free all-day electro rave concert thing that took place on Montjuïc, a hill with a fort on top which I will talk about later. The rave was really awesome... but I was so tired (and dehydrated! ah!) by about 9:00 PM that I didn't even go out to any clubs that night. We had all been there since 1:30 PM, and it was sunny outside, and we were done. The four or five of us who live on the same floor in the apartment complex just popped popcorn and watched way too many episodes of Orange is the New Black. 

One of the many street parties during Mercè. We were walking down the small, cozy streets of Barceloneta, a nearby neighborhood, when we heard music and saw people down this whole street that had been closed off for the festival. We just stayed there all night. It was very cool. And it was a family event! I swear I think there were five-year-olds who stayed up later than I did. Oh! And before this street party, there were really cool fireworks over the sea, which I watched from the boardwalk area.

The Boston College crew visited the Olympic museum on Friday. It was interesting, but this particular gem caught my attention. I am pretty sure 15% of these "sports" are fabrications of the imagination of whoever translated the Spanish into English for this part of the display. If you read the sport that is fourth from the bottom, you will understand why I feel this way.

Yes, it is true. Spain has yummy food. They also have great deals for lunch, where you pay a flat fee (usually 10-15€) for a drink, two big courses, and your choice of dessert or coffee. Six of the Boston College crew walked over to the Born district, a nearby walking neighborhood (walking in the sense of its having many pedestrian-friendly streets), and window shopped for a good menú del día until we found this one. These three pictures all cost 11,90€. I had a glass of wine with pasta, chicken paella, and cafe con leche. 

The Catalan flag on top of Montjuïc, a former fort on top of a hill that overlooks all of Barcelona. Some history: apparently the Jews were actually among the first people to live in Barcelona. "Montjuïc" literally translates to "Jewish mountain" in English from the medieval Catalan, and allegedly it is called that because of a Jewish cemetery that was found on the mountain in the middle ages. The Boston College crew all took a trip there on Friday with our program coordinator, Teresa. It was beautiful up there. This was the same day we went to the Olympic museum. 

See? Used to be a fort.

This is another museum which we did not go to, but which I plan to go to very soon. Honestly though. This city is crazy gorgeous (including the folks who live here). Every building is meticulously designed and maintained, there is a ton of history but also modern art and music and culture... it is astounding. The views are amazing, the weather is what you want when you're on vacation... I am so excited to be here for an entire school year! And I have still yet to be in Barcelona for even a month...

Case in point.

Random International Update (14.9.13)

A week has gone by, but due to what I think is sensory over-stimulation, it feels like I have been here anywhere between two and three weeks. Maybe it's just all the walking. I would love to go over in excruciating detail every last movement and adventure since my last random update. However, that is impractical and boring. For me, at least. Apologies. Instead, I'll go over what I did and when it happend in the photos that follow. But for now, some thoughts. 

Going to visit Boston College for a few days before leaving for Barcelona sounded like a great idea at the end of school last year. Mostly because exams are the absolute worst time to say goodbye in a meaningful way, or to say goodbye at all, for that matter. But when I got to BC and had a great time with my old roommates in their new casas, played soccer with all the guys, and made a deadline-day signing for BC club soccer with their new coach, a recently minted BC graduate and the dude who is almost directly responsible for me being in Barcelona (he studied at UPF for a semester, and in Buenos Aires for a semester) It felt really weird to leave all that. I had half a mind to petition the Office of International Programs to let me register for classes at BC and move in off-campus with everyone else. But no, that would be silly. Far-fetched. And after spending three months getting an FBI-issued proof of absence of criminal record in order to obtain a year long student visa... ha! What jocularity!

I have since ignored any and all second thoughts. After a week, I can safely say that I am going to not want to leave in June.

Barcelona is not what I expected. I was not aware such an amazing city existed. There is a criminal lack of information available to Americans about the amazing place that is Barcelona. The history, the people, the food, the things to do, the places to go, it is all quite overwhelming. Unfortunately, studying abroad in Europe is a privilege and not a right. It is hard to express how grateful I am to sit where I am sitting in my little apartment in this city and type this very sentence. 

The culture here breeds poor work ethics. Mind you, this is an American speaking. An American from a very structured academic and temporal culture. In America, assignments are due on time.  Things get done on time. People eat normal meals at certain normal times. People wake up at certain times. People do not venture out their abodes for the first time at 2:00 AM to hit up the beach clubs. On Tuesdays. For better or for worse, all this happens in Barcelona. It is quite relaxing well perhaps not the clubbing but nonetheless I have made my point. It all begs the questions: is one culture better than the other? What is normal?

I need to better organize my paragraphs. Sheesh.

 We went here on Tuesday after our first day of class. We took the Metro to a stop a little farther away from the center of town, and then took a series of outdoor escalators to the foot of a large hilly park named "Parc Güell". The park was originally planned to be the residence for the wealthy families of Barcelona, which each property outfitted with a pool, garden, etc. However, since it was too far away from the bare necessities of life (food, water), no one really ever lived here. Besides a certain architect.

 Panoramic view from the top of the park, on a brown religious mound designed by a certain architect. 

Gaudí is the certain architect. He's quite the famous dude around here. His buildings are impressive. This, for example, was the front of his house in the park (he was one of the few who lived there).

I thought "Rome" when I was sitting out there twisting my head around and seeing nothing but Barcelona in all directions. But I've never been to Rome.

La Diada, it is called. Catalonia, the state/province in which Barcelona is located, very much does not consider itself a part of Spain. La Diada is traditionally a holiday commemorating the defeat of Catalonia to the French throne in 1714. Contemporarily, it is a celebration of Catalan nationalism and a springboard for political action. The big thing the Catalan people did on Wednesday was to make a big human chain throughout the whole province at 17:14 (read: 5:14 PM).

These guys played drums and walked up and down the path by Parc de la Ciutadella. Pretty cool.

Blaumut performed a free concert near the Arc de Triomf, a big red arc you can see me standing under in a photo from the last random update. They are a Catalan rock band. Very chill sound. 

Look! A small memorial to Pompeu Fabra, the dude who standardized the Catalan language in a dictionary and multiple books on its grammar. He is after whom my university is named.

Gràcia, perhaps my favorite barri in Barcelona. Full of walking streets and restaurants and beautiful buildings and cafes.

People enjoy hanging those yellow and red flags off the balconies. This is very much related to La Diada.

Gaudí is everywhere. Even in Gràcia.

The beach is named Barceloneta. I have gone the last two days, and it has been lovely. Today especially. I ventured down the left (right if you use the above photo as a reference) of the coast past the marina and out to a less crowded and more relaxing area with a few restaurant bar things on the beach back near the walking path. It is so great there. I have now swimmed, swam, or swum in the Mediterranean Sea!

The FC Barcelona store. I actually went here with Grady and Ryan, two BC students in our little group, on Thursday afternoon and not on gameday to check out Camp Nou. Grady had his phone stolen the night before. We decided to rendezvous at a Metro stop, but he was 15 minutes late, so we kinda just telepathically assumed that we would reconvene here in the store. Which we did. After the store, they went back to their apartments, I went to El Corte Ingles to buy some clothing and a pair of shoes. Unless you categorize "shoes" under "clothing" in which case I only went to buy "clothing".

Pièce de résistance: the first FC Barcelona game. Almost our whole group went, and despite not all being soccer fans, it would have been hard to find anyone who wasn't entertained. Barcelona scored mid first half, and mid second half, making it 2-0. However, Sevilla counterattacked twice late to tie the game with only a few minutes of stoppage time left to play. However. Messi is a magician, and in the last few seconds he bundled past a few defenders in the box and Alexis Sanchez scored to win 3-2. What. A. Show. I regret missing the first 15 minutes (I lost track of time at the beach. Whoops. However arriving late is a very Spanish thing to do...)

Barcelona's first half goal. Messi and Neymar were so CLOSE.

Random International Update (9.9.13)

I have since Saturday morning 1) caught up on sleep and 2) finished buying the things I need in my apartment, but need, as we all know, is a strong word. I have hence deemed a blog update necessary, as the outside familiar pressures to write one seem to have reached a critical mass of some sorts. I have even scrambled together, as best I can, some photographs to document some of what I have done, where I have been, and where I will be. I will avoid "horse captions" at all costs.

Off we go. Like I mentioned, I arrived Saturday morning. I was first of the BC group; excitement, cheering, woohoo. I was quite tired due to the stereotypical crying baby and the not-so-stereotypical young girl who buckled and unbuckled her seat belt non-stop for three hours. Click. Slightly different click. Click. Slightly different click. Click. Slightly different click. For three hours. You catch my drift. Anywhoozle, I collected my conveniently together checked bags at the baggage claim with no troubles and left the terminal to meet our lovely coordinator, Teresa. I had Skyped her this summer (5:30 AM PST) however her video was broken and/or my WiFi was terrible so I only knew her by her choppy static Skype voice and her emails in Spanish. We emailed a lot in Spanish last summer. Picking classes in Spain is not a simple, formulaic formality. No. It is an art. An art I have not mastered. I am currently registered for 5 classes; two economics/business classes (perhaps in English... who knows!), two Spanish literature classes (God forbid in Catalan), and an intensive Spanish grammar class, which I will be beginning tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 9:30 AM (assuming things start on time here, which, they don't). But I digress. Teresa I met after baggage claim, and I enjoyed a private,chauffeured ride to Melon District apartments (I arrived two hours before everyone else, I'm special read: high maintenance, it would seem). 

I napped. From 9:30 to 12:30. It was lovely. The big white bed had pillows and blankets and I napped. 

I bought towels. I felt a shower was a good idea. I adventured to Glòries, the local big mall that, I was told by the receptionist as she walked outside and pointed, was "just beyond the big tower over there". So, off I went with the 65€ dad gave me to buy towels, which I did.

That night, 9 of the 10 Boston College students had our first orientation, we met each other, it was all very nice. One student was delayed in Heathrow for a day. How unfortunate that must have been. We ended up meeting three other BC students from another university in Barcelona for dinner, which we had at a nice place by the water (there was a big dock with sail boats outside). I ate some muscles; I am still unsure how I feel about this.

Sunday was Sunday. Everything is closed, people do even less than what they normally do. I woke up at 2:00 PM after 14 hours of sleep and went for a run along the beach. It is gorgeous. I'll take a camera next time I go for a walk down there. Truly stunning. AND may I just mention that it rained for the first two days? We were all told quite sternly that "It never rains in Barcelona" by many people who live here. It was almost as though they were embarrassed by the poor weather. Like they were somehow personally responsible for the good weather and our derived enjoyment from it in their city. Not much else to say about Sunday. We wandered around the cool gothic area of Barcelona (El Born). 

Today, Monday. We are almost caught up. A few of us BC kids met for breakfast around 9:00 AM before going over to Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF from now on) to take our Spanish language placement test. Somehow I am in the "native speaker" class. Which a horrendous mistake. My grammar is quite rusty. And the test was written. I think it must be my level relative to the other BC students. Not sure. Anyways, that class is tomorrow, which I think I mentioned earlier. After the test, we had another meeting with Teresa about school and classes at UPF. But she was 45 minutes late, so Bradon, Peter, and I walked around the Plac de la Ciutadella, a big park and zoo right beside the school.

So, we have these hotel-like cards to swipe into the building. But also these cards turn our rooms on and off. The lights won't turn on until the card is in its slot by the door.

A lovely bathroom. It is so white. I hope I can keep it that way. The small brown shag carpet was one of those things you buy, which afterwards makes you think "Yes. I sure did a good job buying that particular thing."

Mi casa. That's my laundry bag in the corner. Fun story: the Ronaldinho jersey was lost for a year and half with Pat's friend up in Maine. He tracked it down, we are happily reunited in Barcelona.

For the record: the bed is much bigger than I was expecting, the room a little smaller.

One of my lovely ladies. Those handles under Clint Dempsey are my closet doors. 

Ah, the other lovely lady. Rita. We have a TV. I shan't be using that too often.

Can anyone say rooftop pool? If I'm bored I go up here and meet random people. It's like an OnDemand new people finder app.

The view from my lounge/kitchen room is quite nice. That is the Sagrada Familia over yonder with the cranes. I have not been there yet. But I will.

Stopped by the local semi-pro club today. They took my name and contact information and position and experience playing and should get back to me soon. However, I'll probably end up bothering them every day in person until I get to go to a practice.

Parc de la Ciutadella

Building on right: before restoration. Building on left: after restoration. The university is expanding, but the owners of the building on the right are being stubborn. Le sigh.

Inside of UPF. This building won an award for architecture. I kinda saw why. 

BC Barcelona

Try clicking on this one. And zooming. It's the panoramic view from the rooftop of my apartment building.

I am here.