Hello from Barcelona!
Today we arrived in Barcelona after a 12 hour, over-night train ride across Spain. The train had little compartments where the seats folded out into bunk beds. Three beds stacked on top of each other. Calli, Katie, Katie and I shared our compartment with a nice lady from Salamanca who used to be an english teacher but now doesn't remember any english. She said that she barely spoke english in the classroom when she was teaching it anyway. We were a little confused.
So who wants to guess the first place we went to in Barcelona? Of course we went to starbucks. I love spain's coffee (Café con Leche), but my iced caramel machiatto was refreshing and reminded me of home. We hung out for a few hours and wandered around Madrid until we could check into our hotel. Our hotel is nice. The four of us are sharing one room with two twin beds, so we'll just have to squeeze tight for the next few nights.
Today we went on a Fat Tire Bike Tour of Barcelona. It was a four hour tour, and we saw all the important sites of the city. We saw Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, we went to a pretty park with a beautiful fountain, also by Gaudi called "Cascades". In the park there were lots of people picnicking and enjoying the beautiful day. We ended the tour at the beach where we ate dinner with the rest of the people on the tour. Every person on our tour went to A&M. It was the four of us and then 6 other finance students studying abroad with the A&M. The aggie network is everwhere!!
...i had left off here in Barcelona and now i will finish:
The next day we went to the park where we saw Gaudi's cascades and read for hours and that night we saw a movie in english--What Happens in Vegas. It wasn't a great movie but we were so glad to be watching a movie that we understood that we didn't really care! After the movie we went to Hard Rock Cafe. Needless to say, we had a very American night.
Our last day in Barcelona we went to the beach. The beaches in Barcelona are part of the Mediterranean and it was absolutely beautiful. We laid out all afternoon. The sell everything at the beach. There were men walking around singing little songs about all the cold drinks they had for sale, and Calli and I both got massages from Asian women walking around saying "massage?" I'm not sure how certified their services were, but Calli and I both enjoyed it very much. If we decide not to come home, we can just give people massages at the beach to make a living...That night we ate at a nice restaurant on the beach called "Arenal". There we celebrated Katie Crawford's 21st birthday and enjoyed watching people at the beach. Later that night we went to watch the "magic fountains" of Barcelona. They are these huge fountains that turn all different colors and change as music plays. I'm going to try to post a video of that on this blog. I took about 5. I'll do that in just a little while.
We took an 11 hour train ride home on Sunday. It was almost too much to handle, but we survived. The trains are a very nerve racking thing because they don't give you much time to get on or get off. The four of us brought 2 gigantic suitcases to Barcelona (we packed for 3 weeks instead of 3 days) and they were hard to get on and off the train. So in all the hustle and bustle of getting everything off the train I forgot to grab my school work from under my seat. Every single handout and every single note I've taken in the last 2 weeks is gone. I started from scratch on Monday. Oops. I don't think it'll be that big of a deal though because I'll just study with Katie and the tests shouldn't be that hard. I can't believe we only have 2 weeks left! It's flown by!
Tonight we will probably lay low and start studying for exams. Clemen has lots of movies so we might try to find one that has english subtitles. I think that's all for now! Thanks for checking in! OH...i'll post that video in a sec.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Santander
Hello friends!
I'm sorry that it has been awhile since I've blogged. Our internet was out at the house for the majority of last week and we were out of town this weekend. So let me start where I left off last time and take you up to this very moment.
The weather in Salamanca got better starting on Tuesday, and our moods got better too. The cold weather was really starting to wear on us and we have been so happy to welcome the warm sun each afternoon after our classes. It still starts off a little chilly in the mornings, but by the time we're done with class the weather is perfect. It's probably been in the 80's every afternoon here. Muy bien.
We have really been wanting to try this Spanish/European fast food company called "Pans & Company" so on Thursday we decided that we would skip lunch at our respective houses and eat Pans together in the Plaza. The food, the company, and the weather was all very good as we sat and talked and read together in the Plaza for the majority of the afternoon. There has been a big festival going on for the last 2 weeks (as I mentioned in my previous blog, the video is from the festival) so on Thursday there was a Spanish radio station there to hear what the people of Salamanca had to say about all of it. Katie and katie left at about 5 and Calli and I stayed to read a little more and we listened to the DJ's as they interviewed different people walking through the plaza. When I saw one of the DJ's walking toward Calli and I, I had a moment of panic and then calmed myself as she chose to interview Calli first. She started speaking very fast asking Calli lots of questions. I guess Calli kind of got nervous too and couldn't really understand the girl and so when she put the microphone to Calli's mouth all Calli could say was "No hablo mucho Ingles". Oops. She meant spanish. Everyone knew that, so it was OK. So then the girl says (in spanish), OK then we will talk to your friend here and put the microphone up to my mouth and all I could think to say was "I speak even worse than her" but what came out was "mas menor" which means "more smaller" or "more younger" to which Calli burst out laughing and I just put down my head. Every eye in Salamanca zeroed in on us and the main DJ at the front just kept repeating "mas menor...hmm....mas menor".
On Friday after class we left to go to a town called Santander for the weekend. Santander is a beach town in north Spain. We were a little nervous about the weather because when we got there it was really cold, but the next morning when we walked out of our hotel the sun was shining and it was a really pretty day! We stayed at the beach all afternoon. We had lunch at telepizza, which is another European fast food place and went back out to the beach. We've all been reading a lot on this trip. I started a new book, A Severe Mercy, and I have not been able to take my nose out of it since I opened it. Santander was beautiful. We went to the cutest little park on Saturday afternoon. We saw 2 brides getting married, lots of little kids playing in beautiful green fields, and a beautiful, old palace. In the park there was also a small zoo that had penguins, ducks and sea lions. Dinner Saturday night was kind of an adventure. We took a taxi to a Mexican food restaurant (yes, they have mexican food in Spain) but the restaurant was completely empty so we wandered around the town until we found somewhere better. Dinner was very good, and Santander was fun to walk around in at night. Calli got a lot of pictures of Santander, so I will steal them from her and post them soon.
We just got home and are worn out and ready to go to bed. I will try to be better about updating more frequently. What an adventure we are having here in Spain! I hope that who ever is reading this is getting to experience it a little bit with us :) more later...
I'm sorry that it has been awhile since I've blogged. Our internet was out at the house for the majority of last week and we were out of town this weekend. So let me start where I left off last time and take you up to this very moment.
The weather in Salamanca got better starting on Tuesday, and our moods got better too. The cold weather was really starting to wear on us and we have been so happy to welcome the warm sun each afternoon after our classes. It still starts off a little chilly in the mornings, but by the time we're done with class the weather is perfect. It's probably been in the 80's every afternoon here. Muy bien.
We have really been wanting to try this Spanish/European fast food company called "Pans & Company" so on Thursday we decided that we would skip lunch at our respective houses and eat Pans together in the Plaza. The food, the company, and the weather was all very good as we sat and talked and read together in the Plaza for the majority of the afternoon. There has been a big festival going on for the last 2 weeks (as I mentioned in my previous blog, the video is from the festival) so on Thursday there was a Spanish radio station there to hear what the people of Salamanca had to say about all of it. Katie and katie left at about 5 and Calli and I stayed to read a little more and we listened to the DJ's as they interviewed different people walking through the plaza. When I saw one of the DJ's walking toward Calli and I, I had a moment of panic and then calmed myself as she chose to interview Calli first. She started speaking very fast asking Calli lots of questions. I guess Calli kind of got nervous too and couldn't really understand the girl and so when she put the microphone to Calli's mouth all Calli could say was "No hablo mucho Ingles". Oops. She meant spanish. Everyone knew that, so it was OK. So then the girl says (in spanish), OK then we will talk to your friend here and put the microphone up to my mouth and all I could think to say was "I speak even worse than her" but what came out was "mas menor" which means "more smaller" or "more younger" to which Calli burst out laughing and I just put down my head. Every eye in Salamanca zeroed in on us and the main DJ at the front just kept repeating "mas menor...hmm....mas menor".
On Friday after class we left to go to a town called Santander for the weekend. Santander is a beach town in north Spain. We were a little nervous about the weather because when we got there it was really cold, but the next morning when we walked out of our hotel the sun was shining and it was a really pretty day! We stayed at the beach all afternoon. We had lunch at telepizza, which is another European fast food place and went back out to the beach. We've all been reading a lot on this trip. I started a new book, A Severe Mercy, and I have not been able to take my nose out of it since I opened it. Santander was beautiful. We went to the cutest little park on Saturday afternoon. We saw 2 brides getting married, lots of little kids playing in beautiful green fields, and a beautiful, old palace. In the park there was also a small zoo that had penguins, ducks and sea lions. Dinner Saturday night was kind of an adventure. We took a taxi to a Mexican food restaurant (yes, they have mexican food in Spain) but the restaurant was completely empty so we wandered around the town until we found somewhere better. Dinner was very good, and Santander was fun to walk around in at night. Calli got a lot of pictures of Santander, so I will steal them from her and post them soon.
We just got home and are worn out and ready to go to bed. I will try to be better about updating more frequently. What an adventure we are having here in Spain! I hope that who ever is reading this is getting to experience it a little bit with us :) more later...
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