so when i started this "blog" it was just for traveling, because i dont consider my life here at CBU very interesting or worth writing about. I am about to travel somewhere again so i guess that makes it ok to write about it right? well i have to say i havent been my usual positive self relating to this upcoming trip. i mean i should be right im going to see my boyfriend and i am going someplace i have been before. so why shouldnt i be freaking bouncing off the walls? well this week i wasnt. i was rolling around in my bed feeling extreme anxiety that i have never in my life experienced. i was anxious because when i landed in spain the first time i had the most horrible first week of anything i have ever in my young life had the privilege to experience. and i was literally having flashbacks to that trip and every bone in my body didnt want to go. i actually spent two days crying about not going. then finally my dad, mom, and boyfriend all cornered me (not at the same time) and asked me what was going on. so i then had a small breakdown and explained what i thought what was going on. i soon found out that its ok and many people have had that before. i also found out that if your not nervous or excited about the future then you arent really living life to the fullest. i disagree slightly because if you felt what i felt then you would not agree with that previous statement. then i considered the latter. if i was completely apathetic about the trip then why would i be going? i have to be excited because if not im not really even interested in going. but i am excited, nervous, and anxious. i dont like traveling alone, and i dont like sitting on a plane for 7 hours, i hate airports, i dont like the food on airplanes, nor do i like airline employees. they are always telling you "sit down, get out of the way, move your feet, move your bag" well LEAVE me be.
i seemed to recover because today im feeling only excitement to be taking off, but im still a little anxious.

some videos for your viewing pleasure

st. Jordi's day

some crazy jewlery that Dali made, imagine wearing that!


barca ties with chelsea!!!!

fun in the sun

well it probably has been the longest time inbetween when i have updated. but i guess that just means im having a ton of fun right? right! our group of friends here has started to grow slightly. now instead of just me rosario phillip justin and mario, we are joined by new people like two girls named Bia and Thais from brasil, a guy from brasil and these two guys from norway. the guys from norway are really nice but we always just happen to run into them places and then we go somewhere together. we are also occasionally joined by a girl from france and this guy from south africa. so our ameba shaped group is quite multicultural and an interesting crowd to hangout with. most people in the group speak spanish, but two or three dont so we all end up speaking english. which im sure is quite a sight to see by any by-standard. we always wonder what will happen if one night we get stopped by the la guardia (police) here. and one night it actually did happen! everyone had gone home from this bar we played pool at except phillip and Gabriel ( the guy from brasil) and the police came in and started questioning their whereabouts the night before. they said it was pretty scary but all in all they came out ok. apparently someone had called the police about a disturbance and they picked on the 6ft 3 brasillain and phillip.

shortly after that incident, the next week was spent going to the beach most of the days and playing futbol. which i have come to decide is not a sport made for the beach. every time someone passes the ball there is sand flying in the air. by the end of the game everyone looks like fried catfish and woah wait till you see what it does to your feet. the beach at barceloneta is not sandy by any means. it was created for the 1991 (wrong year maybe) olympics and its rocky dirt. everyone was bleeding afterwards. our soccer ball is really hardcore it has bite marks from this dog that stole it temporarly and about 6 peoples blood on it. yea we dont mess around.

this week right now is La Salle festival. which is probably the most looked forward to week of the whole year. it is one week of all day sporting events from volleyball to swimming, and a party on saturday night afterwards. today is volleyball, which i didnt sign up for, and tomorrow is mens soccer and a cookout. me and phillip and justin are going to be grilling out along with some other students. its going to be really great but really tiring. so im excited. the rule is if your in an activity you dont have to go to class, so i made sure i signed up for everything ;) !

last weekend was a three day weekend from labor day, and i went on a short road trip to carcasonne in france, and then after to Figueras in the north of spain. im going to put a bunch of pictures up on the next post because there are just too many cool things that i have to post. carcasonne was a lame city or a ciudad segunda but we went there to see this castle which is the oldest intact castle. its from the middle ages and is in almost perfect condicion. then Figueras which is Salvador Dali´s hometown and we went to the Dali museum there. it was also awesome.

also by the way if you are watching sports at all and you dont live in a cave. Barça beat Real Madrid 6-2 last weekend in Madrid´s stadium. it was the best event of whopping ass i have ever seen (sorry for the lang) there was a two day party afterwards and every newspaper in town has about 6 pages talking about the game.

intensly-intense

what is there to talk about? well what isn't there to talk about?
Semana Santa was absolutely amazing. if you want to know anything about the trip, just look at the facebook pictures, i think that will tell a better story than me boring you with the details of every waking moment. Lets just say we didn't waste daylight. we were up at 6 or 7 am most of the days and in bed by 2 or 3 am. i think this week i have been sleeping so much to recover from that.
All four of us are now pretty much best friends, because on the last night we had to share a hotel room with two beds for all 5 of us! but we made it work dont worry.

Shortly after coming back here in spain there have been some interesting bouts of weather. supposedly all week while we were soaking up rays, it was raining here. Which is really odd because barcelona has gotten more rain this year than the last 5 years. And today while we were waiting in line at the police station to get our visas renewed it hailed! thats right it hailed. then it immediatley turned sunny again. Not 2 hours later it was thundering and lightening in the sky with only partial clouds. so either the spring and winter are fighting or somewhere in the world there is going to be a typhoon. so watch out.

speaking of the police station. i went today for the second time to get my spanish ID and my visa renewed. me phillip and rosario were there at 8:00 am, meaning i had to get up at 6:45, and we waited until 2 pm. now i get to the counter, and the lady is almost done entering in all my info into the computer and she starts telling me something in catalan. so im just staring at her. then she calls this guy over to speak spanish to me ( because why on earth would a person living in barcelona SPAIN not speak spanish) he tells me i dont need an ID. because im only going to be in spain for a total of 4 months. and the IDs are for people who are going to be here for 6 or more months. so FORGET you all those people who told me i needed to get an ID- consualt-teacher at La Salle-shengen visa place- and director of the residence- YOU ALL OWE ME 3 HOURS OF SLEEP and OVER 14 HOURS OF MY LIFE BACK. ( because i had to do other stuff besides going to the police station)

now for a more exciting moment. i was in Zara spending money that i shouldnt be spending, and a guy cuts in line in front of me. im just staring at him like what the hell. he is really tall, and very well dressed. he also had a man bag. i just keep staring at him like move, and he moves out of the way but he happens to bump into me. i had my jacket on my arm and i had completley forgotten that i had my wallett in my coat pocket. well i guess my keychain or something was sticking out because he grabbed it. and i think he miscalculated the sheer size of it because i had a whole package of klenex in it and the wallett caught on my jacket and he dropped it. he tried to cover it up by dropping some clothes he was holding on top of it but i like instantly went lunatic. i have never been so mad in my life. little 110 lb me GRABBED this huge guys arm and pushed him out of the way, while giving him the look of death, i moved the clothes and grabbed my keys and stared at him like at any moment i could kill him. i was so angry i couldnt say anything but he managed to mumble out in broken english umm sorry i bumped into you, and ran out the door. i didnt even realize what had really happened until about 3 minutes later when my heart rate returned to normal. so moral of the story is, keychains suck and always overstuff your wallett with klenexes.

sorry no pictures but im going to go to the grocery store now and workout for like 20 mins before dinner.
if your bored shoot me an email i like hearing from people and making sure everyone is still alive and having fun.

rain rain rain

Well i think it has been a little too long since i last wrote anything. My problem with annoying "person" is getting a little better, i think that our personalities just clash. I have pretty much decided to ignore anything this person says unless it is generally relevant. It has been raining for 3 days straight, not including the cloudy day before it started raining. The weather is SUCKY. Well the only good to come out of the rain is shopping. I havent been able to lay on the terrace so my roommate and I have been venturing to Placa Catalunya every day to "shop" i think there was only one day i actually did some damage. The other two days i just browsed.

School oh yea school...thats why im here right? well im sorry to all those business majors out there but that major is probably the eaisest thing i have ever done. Maybe not all schools are easy but in europe if you know for a fact you want to study business then you dont have to take any pre-recs you just jump right into business classes. Because the classes are so long we dont really have any homework at all, so when i get out of class i am a free woman. Im pretty sure that going back to Biochem is going to be a really rude awakening. I have a few friends here that are engineers and architects and they all study about 24/7 so im pretty sure its just business. In fact right now i have ABSOLOUTLEY nothing to do, my friends are all napping becuase they just got out of class, and i am here in my room getting ready to go out (cause its magical thursday). though i have crazy lady tomorrow im not going to be out too late maybe just until 5 am....just kidding. thats everyone else but me.

So here at the residence there are probably 400 or more people that live here (prob more i just guessed) and only about 60 of them are girls. and everyday i seem to eat lunch or run into someone who i have never seen before, but because i am a girl they know "about" me. today in the elevator someone spoke to me and knew my name and i had never seen them before. it was very interesting. as well as at lunch I sat with three people i had never seen, it was a strange day. NOT to mention that i went to go get my spanish ID and i ended up not getting it. BEcause the man who handed out the numbers for line, didnt tell me there was a different building for temporary people, not future residents. it was sooo annoying, i waited for nothing. then on the way into the subway i slipped on the wet stairs and fell down a whole flight on my butt. it sucked.

But the day began to cheer up because tomorrow i am leaving for the beach! even though it will possibly be raining, i will be at the beach and not here at the residence being bored. tonight we are having a little before easter going away dinner with some girls from the residence THEN i am on a train headed south trying to run away from the rain. maybe next time i write i will be rediculiously tan and put brittly to shame. ( sry brittly but im going to be tanner than you at least once in my life)

annoying people suck

this week was awesome, and this weekend was well on its way to being just as awesome. all week i was working on a huge presentation with ( i use the word with loosely because i met with my partner one time) my russian partner who im convinced wears the same thing everyday. and i had finally finished it and presented it on friday, which we both did amazing on. he came through actually and did a good job, i think i was a little nervous becuase the presentation could have been either amazing or sucky due to the very vage topic. but it turned out great, and i had a talk with my teacher and she doesnt hate me anymore she understands that its 8:30 in the morning. and then i laid out in the sun all afternoon (and fell asleep out there for a bit). then my friend called me and we headed to placa catalunya for some shopping/starbucks. so thats when i realized that i have the ability to put up with/like anyone in the world as long as they are not annoying. because i soon found out that my mexican/spanish/german ( what a combo) friend is a TOTAL FLAMING redneck!!! he likes guns and shootin crap, and killin crap, and he likes knives, the country, mccain, bullfighting. and he wants to shoot vegeterians in the face. but we get along great and we dont argue. hes a tolerant redneck i shall say. i came to this conclusion about annoying people later that night when i went to Irish bar with a "friend" who will remain anonymous. we were sitting around enjoying live music and people watching drinking cheapo-shmeapo beer and nasty bar food. and this "freind" starts to get really drunk, and then peer pressures my other friend to get drunk as well. while im just like ok i just wanna chill. (remember its only 3 of us) so its allllmooooosssttt time for us to go back to the residence and he (being drunk) makes us go to this club and dance for maybe 30 mins, which is fine but the two moods of "chilling listening to music" and "dance club" are at such opposite ends of the spectrum that i wasnt even interested in going. but we go anyway, and this "friend" procedes to make as much noise as possible walking down the street that everyone in the street is staring at us, and he walks down the street in a Zig Zag motion as to annoy as many passerbys as possible. then when we get to the place he wont go in until he finds "the guy" that hands out paper for free shots. i would like you to remember that we have approx 20 mins before we have to leave. so we go in and this security guy stops us and gets pissed and yells "cuantos anos tienes" which is how old are you. and then proceeds to call us all "ninos" or kids and tries to make us leave. but we go in anyway cause the drinking age is like 15 in spain, so we get in there and the place is full of bachelorettes and gay guys with no shirts. and by then i was pretty tired of everything but i danced a little but i wasnt dressed for a club, or in the club mood so i was kinda standing there. then "the friend" starts yelling, and him and the other person i was with start dancing all over each other and yelling, and im left on the side being a bump on a log. finally when we get back to the residence the "friend" starts singing and yelling and asking everyone on the street what their name is and just being a total drunkie. and since the other person was drunk they were just feeding off each other being crazy loons while everyone in our neighborhood was staring at us like bafoons. and this is not like the first time its ever happened. every time me and the "friend" go out its like this, so its kind of a recurring theme. and its getting old REALLY fast.

therefore i came to the conclusion that i can hangout, like, enjoy and be friends with anyone in the world. doesnt matter if you are a lazy russian partner of mine on a class project, or a FLAMING redneck from mexico. but i can not, will not, and never want to hang out with annoying loud, crazy, rude, and/or stupid people.

p.s. i might be getting a bicycle monday!!

Buen Idea

this week/weekend has been more than fun filled, pretty much above fun filled. so in order not to bore anyone im going to abridge this weekend into a short list

• sat-mom came in town, rented a car and headed south for the winter. Had a huge ammount of trouble finding a map of spain (?) and paid a fortune in toll booth fees.
  
• sunday- laid in the sun all day and got sun burnt. was the best day in a while. the weather was amazing and we drank fresh OJ with amazing food. Mira (my cousin) was really sick with some virius so we didnt see her at all really
• mon- went to the valencia zoo (where koen works) and got a really great tour. the zoo is awesome ( im going to have pics on facebook) we were supposed to go back to barcelona afterwards but we decided to stay another day.
  
• tuesday- got up kinda early and read out in the sun. relaxed. then we headed back to the big city, the weather was amazing as well. i followed these crazy girls around the residence and watched them terrorize the boys. we were in the bous building and i noticed there was hair EVERYWHERE. like all over the stairs and floor. i went into shock for a min because it looked like they had a shaving party in the hallway then swept it down the stairs. boys are gross and smelly.eewww.
  
• wednesday- I played in probably the most fun soccer game so far. It was like 6 girls agaisnt 4 guys and we had so much fun. it was definitley a free for all and about halfway through we gave up on the rules as well. me and rosario made a great foward team and scored most of the goals. my friend mario was the goalee for the other team and he kept trying to mess with us so we would miss. then me mario and rosario went for a short run after the game. it was more like a long sprint, we only had 30 mins total before the gate was locked for the night so we did have a sense of urgentcy.
  

So as you can see the weekend/week was fun. however i didnt really go to class. but i dont think anyone missed me, and i sure didnt miss them. i had a group project due on wednesday about the development of the blackberry and my group and i met and talked on the internet. i sent the my powerpoint and when i got the final product it looked like they had deleted just about everything i sent them and made up their own information. so i was pretty pissed. but i found this out about 10 mins before the presentation so i couldnt do anything about it. i had to wing it.

on my way up to my room i stopped on the 2nd floor study room and some people were in there talking politics. i found out that yesterday was the anniversary of a terrorist attack that happened in madrid. it was about as equally as horrible as 9/11. not only did i not know that it even happened, but i didnt even notice anything going on. apparently police were everywhere with their noses in everyones business. it kind of made me realize how much control our governemnt has on our lives. its supposed to be for the people by the people. but unknowingly they have gained all the control and no one even has realized it. there is a system of checks and balances in state ( i learned that in 8th grade) but what happens if every section of the checks and balances are equally corrupt? then what? im really happy with obama and what he is doing, he is scratching the surface of the corrupt-ness with his tax audits. but really its the whole system. i think mainly im upset with the news. i think if people had a more objective news then we would be a little more open minded. news in the US is not news. its propoganda. newspapers and news here are pretty much amazing. its pretty wierd to walk into the cafeteria and see students my age all reading the wall street journal europe. thats a sight to see.

My new straigtener

I went to go plug in my straightener and it wouldnt turn on. so either i blew it up plugging it into a 220v outlet, even though I had a converter on there, or its just being annoying. Normally I would not care what my hair was doing, and usually its pretty straight all on its own. but recently its been doing this thing where it poofs out and has some waves in it????? so i had to buy one for fear of looking like a 12 year old. the cheapest one i could find was, yep you gessed it, a hannah montanna straightener. YAY

Ok enough of that. My dad came in on saturday to Barcelona and I went to go pick him up from the airport, it was quite an event. I have determined that spanish people are all skinny because it is SO hard to do anything here. It takes so much effort to do the simplest things. It took me an hour and 2 trains get to the airport not to mention the walking i had to do to get to the train station and to get from the train station to the airport. ouch. by then i was pooped. so we took a cab to the hotel. I stayed at the hotel that night and in the morning i had a nice continental breakfast that I managed to spill all over myself. So i then blew up another hair appliance by trying to dry my clothes with the hair dryer. It got too hot or something and just stopped working. The main thing we did this weekend was walk, and go to the museum which is free every first sunday of the month. On monday he headed off to England to visit some cousins that we have never met, and i stayed here to take a test ahhhh. the test wasnt that bad, i just dont know how this guy grades so i think i could do really good as long as he wasnt expecting me to write him a book, He did give us like 5 sheets of paper and I only used one front and back. (i wrote small dont fret)

I managed to do all that while coming down with something horrible I think i have yet another cold or something. at least this time my nose isnt running for the hills, last cold i had (only 2 weeks ago) was horrible, i think i went through 3 rolls of toilet paper. in two days.

Nothing too super exciting has been going on, i have started to get alot more homework and that is taking up most of my time. the weekends are still jam packed with stuff to do so I always look foward to them. I got invited again to go out this thursday with some peple from the residence. i keep telling them i have a class on friday at 8.30 and they are like ahhhh nooo just come out its nothing just come party. i dont know how they do it. i have decided that spanish people dont sleep. it must be how they eat all this horrible food, because they are so tired that they dont realize what they are eating and the residence can just feed them anything and they wont notice.

I also have some rediculious paperwork to do by the end of this week, it is for the renewal of my student visa and my international student card. Its kind of annoying. but right now i am waiting on a letter from carlos (head of the residence) so that the visa place will believe me that I am living here and going to school. Phillip and Justin went today and phillip got his accepted but justin didnt, apparently they didnt have the right paperwork and the guy didnt notice at first but he had already processed phillp's. lucky. They make it so hard to do its almost impossible to get done in a timely manner. its like they want us to fail......booooo
ok im hungry and its dinnertime so hopefully i wont have fried mystery meat again like I did last night...

Well i realized today that I start every blog with the word "SO" soooo i'm not going to do that anymore. Hopefully if the video works there will be a nice video of some carnival parade above, but i havent had any luck so far uploading videos because the internet is really slow here. I noticed today that our main electical line is hanging from the roof down to the door where it conviently connects to us in the building. I am so hoping that there isnt a big storm with lightning while Im here because that would be tragic. Yesterday I played on this girls soccer team here at the residence and I think that it is a little tournamet that the residence is having inbetween itself. a week ago we played another team that was ok, but the team we played this week was amazing. they pretty much juggled the ball the whole time and when they felt like it was time to score they headed it in or something. luckily they werent too mean and didnt let the score go above ohhhh 20 to 2. i scored one of those 2 goals on a penalty kick, for some reason they always pick me to do the penalty kick and i havent missed one yet. Last weekend however me Rosario and phillip went to this city called Sitigs about 30 mins away and celebrated carnival. it was nice, supposedly it was going to be way better than mardi gras in new orleans, but honestly i think it was about the same. the only plus sitgis has on new orleans is that its on the beach. but the city is really small, and is also the gay capital of spain. why? im not sure. we left on the last train that went out at 10;20 but when we were walking in a policeman stopped us and told us we couldnt go in the door, i almost had a heart attack because that was the last train and we were going to have to camp out or something if we didnt get on it. So i already had a plan in my head about how i was going to james bond repel myself down the side of the train station and hop on the top of the train or something, but then the police man told us that we had to walk around and that the train was free tonight. so the night was saved and all of our anxiety was due to some miscommunication. whew* This weekend is probably going to be fun, my parents are coming to visit for spring break and we are going to hit up some more tourist hot spots, and go eat *hopefully* some good food for once. today at lunch we had ...suckatash, this omlete thing, and mystery mashed potatoes. i swear they put those mashed potatoes in everything here its scary. spainards also eat alot of bread, so all i eat is pastries and bread, so either im going to have a heart attack soon or nothing at all is going to happen im not sure. my friend kendra would probably be in heaven here cause they love bread and so does she.
its starting to warm up here, so Im just waiting for that perfect day where i can rush out to the beach and begin work on my spanish tan.

fly like paper high like planes.....kinda

so i walk into my international business class and its covered in paper planes. they are everywhere and everyone in the class is throwing them at each other and screaming and laughing. so i missed what happened but it was cool nonetheless. we managed to postpone class for like 15 mins and the teacher made paper plane references for the next hour. but luckily thanks to everyone emailing me messages with "sun" in them the past two days have actually been pretty nice. there still is a huge amount of wind and i think there is dust or something in the mountains because when it is windy there is this brown haze that coveres everything. probably dust. but i was HOPING to have like 5 pictures of me and rosario's new apartment, but when we went to go look at it, not only was the lady we talked to not the landlord she was a tennant there, and there were two other guys living in the apartment so that would make it a total of 5 people if me and rosario moved in. so it would have been wierd, and it was a huge dissapointment because that apartment was perfect. but i called an agentcy for students today and made an apointment to go look at another apartment tomorrow which looks really promising.

so today is thursday which means the begining of the weekend, and i believe we are all headed to gecko again tonight. it would be a really nice place to hangout but i hate cigarette smoke and that place is the worst. the bar is really cool it has modern music playing but they play these old 70's music videos that are projected on the wall, its neat. ill try to take some pictures tonight.

yesterday inbetween class and apartment hunting me and rosario went and got crepes in placa catalunya at this place called patagonia. it was amazing. i had one with strawberries in it and i think i was in a diabetic coma for like 4 hours after because it had soooooo much chocolate on it. everything here has chocolate on it. i think actually everything tastes bad so they just put chocoltate on it and call it a day.

ummm my spanish is getting better, but no one really gives me a chance to try, most people at school speak english, and no one at the residence does, so people at school automatically talk to me in english, and people at the residence just dont talk to me cause they think i wont understand them. but all the same i mean catalyn is a silly language and its really difficult to understand because of the accent. most people speak mostly spanish but you can tell when you have met a native spainard because its like hearing another language. rosario says she cant understand them most of the time. heres an example from my phrase book
"que hora es" = what time is it in spanish
"quin es l'horari"= what time is it in catalyn. yea annoying i know
but im doing alot better homesick wise, i still miss everyone because well i dont have a WHOLE lot to do all the time, but im keeping busy trust me especially with trying to find an apartment. and sight seeing. so i should be pretty busy for a while.

what a weekend

well what havent we done this weekend, is the real question. on thursday ( cause the weekend starts on thursday here) phillip came with me to go appartment hunting in this neighborhood called gracia, and i found quite a few places but it was afternoon so everyone had left. then i tried some spanish mcDonalds, which was amazing, but im never going to eat it again, cause i eat mcdonalds about once a year which is more than enough. thursday night we went to a bar called gecko which a student from lasalle is the bar tender there, and i got to meet alot of students from lasalle, and everyone was very nice, but this was the PRE party, we ended up leaving at 2 and everyone else was going to this discoteque on the beach called opium until who knows when, but we were beat so me phillip, justin, and rosario left and got a cab home. well then we have friday where rosario and i went appartment hunting again, and had a little more luck but not that much, we got to see one this time but it was horrible so we moved on. later we met up with phillip after he got out of class and we went to placa de catalunya which is just downtown barcelona, we wandered around, and got something to eat at a place called ba-ba-bRea or something, and the food was SOOOOOO good, then as we were walking around we got handed some fliers for a bar called irsh bar, so we decided to go there, and it is a nice place. it is run by some irish guys and everyone there is either english or irish, so we fit right in. they also have a room for smoking and non smoking so we actually sit somewhere without getting a black lung. very important. THEN saturday we had big plans to go to guell park and the beach, but once we made it to the beach we walked for ever and ever so guell park was out of the question. after looking at the beach we decided to head back to placa de catalunya and find a place to sit. after making a pit stop at a store called decathalon to buy swim stuff and wait in line for a good 30 mins, we went yet again to irish bar, and sat around and watched a rugby game that everyone was really into. after a brief break one of rosario's friend paula invited us over for dinner, so we went there and had some amazing food. now tonight we are supposed to be heading over to irish bar agian for karoke, but since we cant leave the residence after 1130 on sundays we have to be back by then, so its going to be a short night for us.

aside from all the walking i did this weekend i have had a huge cold, and the weather here has been sucky, all rainy, cold and windy, not fun. but luckily i have kept myself very busy and been getting my daily dose of excercise dont worry.

also in the picture there is a green parrott, they are everywhere, they make so much noise squaking and talking to each other, but they are pretty.

so, i rode the train back from valencia to barcelona again sunday night, and i think i got jyped, cause i looked online at the 4:00 train and it was the super cheap tourist train which is called Talgo and its 20 euros, so i was like super, so i go to the station and i guess something changed that i missed but the train that was there is euromed (doesnt that sound expensive?) and it is about 3x that and they made me buy preferente (1st class i soon found out) because the train was full, which they werent lying because the line to board it was out the door and down the sidewalk, but i get on the train and i sit down in first class, its actually nothing different than the other class, but the seats face each other with a table inbetween, and the lady in front of me was talking on her phone the first 15 mins so loud, i wanted to strangle her, they were talking on the loudspeaker telling us important train stuff and i couldnt hear it over her yapping. but it turned out i was in the wrong seat and i was two cars down in the same seat which was empty except for this old man so it worked out. but the ride was pretty nice, we got a meal and like a hot towel and everything.

so im back in barcelona, and its pretty lonley here still, i have way too much free time and all i can do i wander up and down the streets and see the sights cause i cant hangout in my tiny room that would be a prison sentance literally. so my first day of class was ok, my international business class is interesting, our teacher is irish i think, and its purley discussion socratic method stuff, he asks us a question and everyone in the class just speaks out and anwsers, i was taking notes like crazy but no one else was so im not sure what i missed about that maybe people in spain just absorb information. then i went to spanish class which is 3 hours long, and one day a month is 4 hours long. we get two breaks though but not very long. its really intensive, we arent allowed to speak english in the classroom and its the only class so far that has books. also most of the class is boys and most of them are german. but then we went to lunch in the cafeteria, which we have to pay for, i was informed that lunch at the residencia was horrible so i skipped that and got a ham and cheese. after class me and phillip wandered around downtown and ate dinner. pretty long tiring day. but im still homesick, its pretty lonley, i dont know anyone so im by myself or with phillip most of the day.

the pic is from the train window, the mediterrenan

so this is where i sleep, its not too exciting, and thats pretty much the whole room, my roommate rosairo is on the other side and then we have a bathroom. so yea. but after coming back from valencia i went to the school and toured around with phillip and we went for like a 2 hour walk. then we met up with justin and went out to eat at this place called bopan which was ok, im still getting used to the food, i hardly ever know what im ordering, so i always go to places that have pictures in the window so when all else fails i can point to something. im feeling better, im still really nervous all the time im not used to being THIS much on my own. but as long as i keep moving i dont get too homesick. the worst is when im going to bed and waking up, there is nothing to distract me from thinking about home. and when i wake up in the morning i still expect to be in my bed at home and i always go through a little shock when i realize that im still in spain and no it isnt a dream. last night after an early 10.00 dinner (yea early) phillip, rosario and i went to a bar down the street and had sangria, me and rosario split one because they were huge. but phillip seems to be adjusting the best out of all of us, he is ready to buy a house and move here, he loves it. rosario said it took her a whole month to get comfotable and justin seems to be just "there". today however we went to sagrada famillia, which is the church that Gaudi built/is building. yea its not going to be done for another 30 years from what i hear. but it was awesome to see, you would definitley need to go there 2 or three times just to see the whole thing in detail. i got a little backache from looking up so much, it is veryyyy tall. ( the pictures will be on facebook) in about an hour or so im going to go to valencia again just for two days, to hangout with my cousins, and make sure i have something to do, its supposed to rain again and i dont want to be cooped up here. today was actually pretty sunny the sun was trying to break the clouds but it never actually did. But i start class on monday for the first time so ill see how that goes.

so some of you may be wondering what amanda has been up to because no one has heard from me since i left, well lets see i was too busy freaking OUT to call anyone. basically heres how it went, wasnt really nervous about going when i got on the plane because hey ive been to spain before i know enough spanish to get around or order food at a resturant so im set. then i get off the plane, and i realize holy crap im going to be here for 4 months, crap i dont know anyone, crap im going to be living by myself. so i freakout. i ran to the bathroom to get a hold of myself then a guy named raul who was are leaizon to spain (sp?) was there to pick us up awesome i feel better. NOT, clearly by his demeanor someone had made him come get us, ive never seen anyone check his watch so many times. so me and phillip were in the car then we were like wait what about justin? the other guy, he was supposed to be here an hour ago. so we couldnt find him, and raul wasnt waiting, so we were forced to LEAVE him at the airport with no phone, no money, and no way to get where he was going. great. so raul basically kicks phillip out of the moving car onto the street and then he takes me to where im supposed to live and does the same. so after seeing the georgous picture in the email they sent me i am super excited and i waltz right into the main building like "luuucccyyy im hooommmeee" only to realize that the picture they sent me was of an elementary school, and im standing right in the hallway of it....so i wander around with my enormous ammount of luggage, and carlos the director finds me and yells for me to follow him. so he shows me around and the takes me all the way to the very back of the complex to this tinnnyy building that looks like a dungeon and hands me the keys, the he helps me with my luggage reluctantly and by the time we all reach the top floor we are out of breath and he is staring at me like im retarted. so i go to my tiny room and my roommate rosario greets me and i begin to freak out some more. then they all leave and im alone in the room, alone in spain, and have no food and no euros because its the weekend and the banks are closed. yea i was freaking out. i go down to try and eat but the food tastes like...ALFONSO food, yea thats right i think they shipped it right from cbu to my plate it was disgusting. so over the next two days i get lonlier and lonlier and more and more miserable, i cant get in touch with justin and phillip because there isnt a phone in the building, mine doesnt work, and the e-mail is slow so our e-mails are delayed. so by sunday night i asked my mom to put me on the next plane home. instead they sent me to my cousins house in valencia, to get over whatever stomach thing i have, get over jet lag, and figure out what the heck im going to do. oh yea and its been raining since i got here. super, not to mention for some reason im homesick, yea me amanda who has gone to 7 different countries in her lifetime is homesick. ive never ever been homesick. well i guess it gets the best of us sometimes.

getting ready

After reading a blog of a friend of mine who went out of the country i figured this would be a good idea, so that anyone who wants to check up on what I'm doing or even just look at some pictures can read along as Im going through spain.

so i am officially leaving in 6 days for a semester abroad in Barcelona for 5 months. yes i am very excited. however any ammout of excitment i have is rivaled by almost double the ammount of nervousness. I know where I am staying as in i have a reservation there, but i couldnt point to it on a map, nor do i even know how i will get there when I land. I have barley moved all my stuff out of the car from my appartment at school and havent even begun to think about packing. what should I pack i mean 5 months is a really long time. not to mention i will be living through winter and spring so i have to pack for both. I know what the weather will be like but that doesnt mean i will be able to predict what I am going to have to wear. And as i get ready to leave and say my goodbyes I realize that when i get back, alot of people i know will have graduated, tons of things will happen that i will not be there for, and not to mention i will be a semester behind on school. so is it worth it? well if i come back a bigger and better person with a better view on everything, and fluent in catalyn, then yes. but right now im not quite sure yet.