Gaudi's House of Bones, Casa Battlò.
Gaudi's La Pedrera.
Famous turn-of-the-century farmacia on Roger de Lluria. Lady with mono (monkey).
Fundacio Antoni Tapeis (an art museum).
It has been raining nonstop since noon today and as I look out my window now, as it nears midnight, it is still pouring.
On Sunday I got up to eat breakfast and then walked around l'Eixample (lay-shom-pluh) for about two hours taking lots of pictures. I will post them soon. The orientation started pretty late in the day, at 4:00, so I spent a lot of time waiting around for things to get going. After meeting the pople from CIEE (the company running my program here) I met my "guardian angel," a name that none of us will be using, called Carlota. She is a 22-year-old Spanish student who helps me and like 8 other American students with finding where to buy things, getting around town, practicing Spanish, etc.
With my GA and new group, I walked around the city for 2 1/2 hours. We went to the Barcelona Catedral, which was very beautiful and an excellent example of Gothic architecture (a contrast to all the Modernisme of l'Eixample). We also walked to Placa de Catalunya, las Ramblas, El Raval, and some other places. We then had a banquet-style dinner at the Hotel Catalonia Berna with people from my program, Liberal Arts, as well as from one of the other programs, Language and Culture (all run by CIEE). At dinner we had a salad with tuna, which was a similar consistency to tinned sardines, not like the canned tuna in the States. Then we had some hashbrown-like potatoes with pork loin and tomatoes, and we finished with some kind of ice cream with nuts.
The next day, Monday, we got up and had several Charlas, or chats, about different topics (academics, cultural activities, housing, etc). We took a Spanish test so the teachers can gauge our level of Spanish. It was quite difficult, sort of like an SAT in Spanish. We had lunch with our GA and found out housing assignments. More on that later. The lunch was pretty bad. All the fish here has tons of bones in it.
After some more charlas we had several more hours of walking with the GA to buy phones and go to the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, where we will have our classes starting tomorrow. January 6 is a holiday in Spain, called the Day of the Holy Kings or Epiphany. We saw a little of the parade going by for children, but there was such a large crowd that it was hard to see. After a long day we went back to the hotel, where we met up with our hosts for our homestays.
I had a unique experience with this when I was introduced to the wrong señora. Most of the homestays, or a least many of them, are not host families but instead just a single older woman. I had already gone to her house, gotten the keys, and started to unpack when she asked me how to pronounce my last name. She said, "Is it Mitchell?" and I said, "No, I'm Nicole." Then she looked at my housing assignment sheet and said, "No eres mi chica!" (You're not my girl!) We had to go back to the hotel and switch with the one girl and one señora who were still there. I think the confusion came because both ladies have the same first name, Angels.
My señora is very nice and my room is very cute. The first night she made me a very nice supper of broth with small pasta in it (sopa), poached fish (pescado), salad (ensalada), and bread (pan). However it was extremely, extremely cold despite my sweater and sweatpants, and I asked her this morning if I could have a warmer blanket. This morning we had a nice breakfast of tostada (toast) with marmalade (marmalada de naranja), coffee (cafe), and cheerios. I gave her the Houston calendar and gave her my Texas chocolate pecans, both of which she seemed to like quite a bit.
Communication has been pretty hard. I only understand like 70% of what she says to me, so there is quite often total incomprehension. I express myself like a toddler. But so far we have been getting by. A lot of people were saying today that they wish they'd chosen a residencia, or dorm, but I guess living with her will force me to learn Spanish because she really does not speak a word of English.
Today I got up and had to walk back to the hotel for another charlas about the difference between the Spanish and American education systems. I got very lost and arrived 45 minutes late. However it turns out that there was another group of Liberal Arts students there who had only started a few minutes before I came, so I could join in with them, even though it meant I didn't get to see my friends in the other group. We went on a bus tour of the city down to the waterside and back, which was very interesting and informative. I also learned a lot more about la Sagrada Familia. It is covered with animals and foods because apparently Gaudi was both "supercatolico" and really into Darwin, evolution and the natural world. He spent all his money on Sagrada Familia and died by being hit by a tram because "they thought he was a homeless." Our guide was very funny; he said Gaudi was "a freaky" and like bin Laden for Catholics--quite a remark in a Catholic country!
We had a free afternoon and I went with two American girls to lunch at a pretty good place called La Mafia. All the walls were covered with pictures from The Godfather. More modern than authentic Barcelona, but it was tasty. The only thing was that it was raining hard and absolutely freezing. On the bus tour it was actually hailing. They said that wasn't really the normal weather, but it sure was miserable. I was soaked when I got back to the apartment. For supper tonight my señora made me a tortilla con cebollas and sausage. Both were really incredibly delicious. The tortilla (basically sort of a quiche) had caramelized onions and the sausage was great. I had a banana for dessert.
I am going to start two of my classes tomorrow, Historia Medieval and my intensive Spanish class. Luckily I met a girl today who is in my same class and we are planning to meet on the Metro tomorrow and make our way together. Very scary...I'm not sure that if I can't understand my señora that I will be able to understand anything in class tomorrow.
Buenas noches,
Nicole
This is my breakfast from the hotel.
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