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.