Grammar Queen 2010

Taking a brief moment to update for the cheap seats in the back- today is basically the last day of my program, since tomorrow consists only of coming in to get our pictures taken with our ridiculously hard earned certificates, huzzah!!

This weekend was both exhausting/wicked fun, as my friend Peter and his bf Schuyler were visiting so i tried to see them as much as possible, aside from studying my face off for most of the weekend. I met up with them on Friday after they got back from hanging out in Andorra for a few days, and I had been in a frenzy all morning seeing 3 more apartments.
and finally.. I found a place!!! It was the last one I saw on Friday, and the one I was the least excited about, but as soon as I walked in, I loved the vibe of the place! The room is actually bigger than the shoebox I'm currently sleeping standing up in, and the kitchen is brand new so I'll love cooking in there. Marcelo, a Catalan guy showed me the place and another roommate Ana was there who is from Georgia the country. Apparently there is also a German girl, Sandra, and another Catalan guy, Ariel. It's very much reminisicent of L'Auberge Espagnole movie in which this french kid moves to Barcelona and lives in some crappy apt with people from places all around the world. I'm so so excited!! I ran right home and emailed them to let them know I was in, and they called me that night to tell me to move in whenever I want. Thursday!!!! yayayaya!! Plus, its way cheap, and includes everything and is between 2 major metro lines. Fabulous.

Friday night was chill, as Peter and I watched musicals and then met up with some of my friends for a drink in my favourite part of town, called Gracia. Saturday we met up with Schuyler's friend Bruno who's from Barcelona and he gallantly showed us the sights, and made dinner for us on Saturday night which was delicious and suprisingly, no ham was consumed! We hit up the club circuit which is always an experience, and stayed out until about 6 AM (my NYC friends should be so proud of me). The weekend was gorgeous weather, with bright blue skies and Saturday was about 68 F, so there were loads of people on the beach.

Yesterday was the horrific grammar test in which I spent Sunday with my friend Sari studying for 5 hours, instead of hanging out with my guests. Sad! But it paid off, as I found out yesterday that I actually got the highest grade in the class, a 97!! eeeee!! I was so incredibly stoked!

I also taught a class from scratch yesterday, which we could choose any topic but I had elementary students and needed it to be somewhat simple, so I chose Summer Activities in Chicago, and had the students do charades of playing volleyball and even wrote some fairly lame texts about summer activities, and had them do gap-fill exercises as well as discussion questions about their summer plans. It went so well!The first part of the class was taught by another classmate of mine, Gabe, who is from Oakland, CA and taught our elementary students about the Black Panthers, it was pretty much hysterical and they loved it.

Fun quote of the class: ¨We want to not make the war, we want to make the love¨- in reference to making their own Top Ten Demands, following Gabe´s presentation.

Oh, and I also randomly got my nose pierced on Saturday, which looks very suave and I'm in love with it!

Onwards to my last teaching of the course, yay!

chocolate y churros

Well I am thisclose to finding an apartment, hurray! Fricking finally. i have several ridiculous stories, including seeing a dump of a place last night that would have me living with a 50 year old Asian man and no bed in the room (um. no) as well as not even attempting to go inside an apt to see it since the area was so sketchy. I DID see one today that has a glorious balcony and a really awesome location and roommate, but am waiting til tomorrow to see 2 more just to make sure.

Otherwise, this week has been seriously hectic. My gay boys came into town on Tuesday night and I met up with them and their Barcelonan friend Bruno who took us to several neat tapas places and we organized a dinner party at Bruno's place for this Friday, which is when Peter and Schuyler will have returned from their spa vacay in Andorra, which is in between Spain and France and is supposedly lovely and incredibly tiny. They'll be staying with me over the weekend until Monday, which I'm really excited about. I have a gigantic grammar test and projects to complete for Monday so I might be running around more than I'd like but still! I love having people here to show how fabulous this city is, so come visit!

I have yet to go an entire day without eating some sort of ham. it's starting to make me feel kind of wibbly, yet I'm really enjoying all the varieties offered! I also am noticing how my eating schedule has totally changed- I now eat a slightly big lunch at like 1 Pm and then don't eat again til 5ish, and then eat a dinner around 10:30ish or 11, sometimes with my roommates. My roommates are into this communal style living, which Irene explained means putting money into a wallet and using that money to buy things to share, such as toliet paper, eggs and.. milk, which I don't drink. I don't totally want to participate, yet she gave me a hard time about not putting money in since I washed my clothes last night. Kind of glad to be moving onwards to a new place next week!(wherever that is!)

positive note: I treated myself to chocolate and churros today near Sagrada Familia. There is really nothing like steaming hot chocolate and warm, doughy sticks with sugar to drip into the chocolate, to make everything feel at ease in the world.

A slight state of melancholy

This might very well be my first sad-ish post. I'm not particularly sad, or homesick, just haven't had the best of days, which I really had thought was impossible living in this city! It wasn't the best of mornings as I kept waking up practically every hour of the hour with that stupid worrying about the future crap- worrying about this incredibly busy week of class, and how I have to somehow find an apartment in the midst of all the teaching and schooling. Not entirely a huge deal since I'm starting my search early, but apparently my brain decided to have quite a few nightcaps and stay up musing all night, not fun. And there was no hot water, super bien!

I also went to go check out 2 apartments- I dragged my friend Sari with me to the first one which was in a boring area and the guy seemed sketchy on the phone, plus the place was way out of my price range- went with my instincts and said "no gracias" and then went to see another apartment which seemed incredibly promising but after a stroll through the neighborhood, I realized I was one of maybe only 5 other women I'd seen and I didn't like the way it felt, so I also bailed on that one. Too bad! Thus, the search continues, but I have 2 appointments set up for Wed and Thurs so hopefully something comes up.

It's funny, I'm guessing people assume I'm super happy all the time, that things are so easy here and all that, but it's really challenging in so many ways. Not just the whole stupid struggle with me thinking I speak English wayyyy too much and not enough spanish, but just not understanding how to do things here, like this whole apartment search, or finding a place to buy rye bread! I'm reminded though, when I have these bad days, of how much it took me to get here, and how I worked so fricking hard to make things fall into place so I could be here, knowing that it wasn't going to be all sunshine and rainbows all the time (except for the pattern on my socks). I've just had a frustrating day, but tomorrow will definitely be better.

I miss people. I miss fam, friends, cats, clothes dryers. but I did manage to find peanut butter so that's a bit of home right there!

buenas noches

The Black Madonna and an aRRRRhhh rated night

Trying unsuccessfully to wind down and get ready for bed before at least 11:30 tonight. I've been studying for a grammar exam we have tomorrow, and also trying to finish sending in necessary paperwork for Boston College Social Work (I got accepted!!), and also eating a weird pasta dinner concoction because I felt too college-y eating just pudding and an apple for dinner.

Another lovely, whirlwind of a weekend! Friday I went over to the house of Kate and Angela, 2 girls from Michigan who came together to the TEFl program, and they are just absolutely wonderful. Sari and Stacy also came so the 5 of us made this gigantic delicious dinner of roasted chicken, roasted veggies, garlic bread, and of course, ample red wine and dark chocolate (making my mother proud). We watched the Sex and the City movie, cliche as that sounds, and it was just a low key night and so so needed, as our week of classes is getting seriously more and more intense, we're done to only a week or so left!

Saturday the same 5 of us took this ridiculously long train ride to Montserrat, where we then took a funicular (!!) up into the mountains to see a Benedictine monk monastery! The funicular was beyond amazing, except for a few people who had some really bad B.O situations behind me, but the views were spectacular even though Barcelona was really hazy yesterday. The monastery was nothing like I though it would be- I was expecting monks wandering around with Birkenstock-like sandals and hearing chanting, but instead it was like a tiny city, complete with hotels and tourists abound. The basilica was breathtaking- churchs or cathedrals in Europe never fail to take my breath away; I always have a hard time contemplating and really wrapping my head around the fact of how ancient everything is, and how many people have come to visit the basilica before me. Gorgeous, huge stained windows and lots of gilded hanging medieval-like lamps in the cathedral, and there was even someone practicing the organ when we were there so we stopped to listen, which was probably one of my favourite parts of the trip.

One of the most astounding things about this monastery was, there was a Black Madonna at this church! I've always wanted to see one, after reading this fascinating book called "Traveling with Pomegranates" by Sue Monk Kidd, who explains how rare they are and how so many of the Black Madonnas were often destroyed because people way back when used to worship them and viewed them as the Feminine Face of God and the Catholic church wasn't a huge fan of that (don't let me get on my feminist soapbox, alright?) So we waited in line to see this Virgin and she was so much bigger than I thought she would be, and holding a black baby Jesus on her lap! I was so awestruck, I couldn't really handle staring at her for too long but just seeing it was really something.

The rest of the weekend was also swell- I found this nerdy pirate themed bar called Hook and persuaded like 10 other kids from my class to go, and it was completely worth it! Everything was pirate themed, even the waiters, and it wasn't tacky or cheesy( or maybe I'm just too into that to notice). Then we skipped over to the beach since it was so mild out, and I found myself being dragged to a really disgusting trashy area called Port Olympic which is filled to the brim with really expensive bars and girls who apprently don't need to wear clothing to be out in public. The dancing to "Greased Lightning" and other American pop songs with my crew was really big fun, and I lasted until 3 AM when I headed home.

Thus begins the really busy week of : grammar test, finding a new apartment to move into after my course ends on March 31st, prepping for my bff Peter and his boyfriend Schuyler to come visit, and also applying to jobs. Oh, and getting ready to head to LONDON in 2 weeks to meet up with my mom! Huzzah!

Parc Guell, tofu, and Jane Austen

Apparently there aren't a lot of vegans, or vegetarians, in this city or else they're all shopping at some hidden hotspots I'm unaware of! After my second day of teaching on Tuesday (relatively better as it was an advanced class with 5 people, and we read this LONG WINDED article on Nelson Mandela but overall I'd say I'm getting slightly better, or at least attempting to not bang my head against the wall as much), I headed to the mecca known as Corte Ingles, which has about 76 chains all over this city, and about 4 within walking distance of each other. Reason? Probably not.

So anyways, I managed to find TOFU of all things, which I was completely craving, as well as almond milk. The box I first touched looked suspiciously dusty and cost about 3 euros, and the tofu was translated weirdly and said it was a "chemically engineered product". Um, gross, I hope not. But I was psyched anyways to find some things I usually ate a lot back home, and although the tofu is subpar compared to Trader Joe's, it was still comforting!

I also went to Parc Guell today. I really don't know what to say about this fanciful park other than that it was everything I'd hoped it would be, and yet I only saw a teeny part of it. Gaudi really loved his city of Barcelona and it shows, not only in the Sagrada Familia church but here in this parc that he designed and gave to the city. There are mosaics everywhere, fountains, odd little refuges made out of different kinds of stone, and this gorgeous outlook that was featured in one of my favourite films, "L'Auberge Espagnole" and I really couldn't believe I was there, seeing it for my very own eyes, and that I live in this city!! Sometimes it's all a bit too surreal, but in a really delightful way. I will need to go back to this park many times before it gets swamped in the summer.

On the way to Parc Guell, I found a second hand used English bookstore with my friends, Kate and Sari! We were so pumped, we spent about an hour wandering around. It's interesting, most of the books are classic ones so I'm finally reading "Emma" by Jane Austen. I was getting that panicky feeling I get (weird, I know) this morning because I finished all the books I brought, and had no idea what to do with myself. Problem solved, hurray!

Aqui viene la professora...

First day of teaching? Check! Awkward silences and teaching older men all about party invitations in a classroom that's about 900 degrees? Check!

Not entirely horrible, but very nervewracking nonetheless. I planned for about 10 students and only 3 ended up coming so it completely threw me off, and I got very nervous and ended up talking too much. They really seemed to like listening to the song "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" and discuss who Judy, Johnny and the hostess are and why she was crying. Really funny!

I get to teach again tomorrow for 45 mins, and this time it'll be with an advanced class instead of intermediate, which is what I taught today. We get about 2 hours or so to plan, with help from the TEFL professors who really guide us through the themes and if we'll be teaching grammar or vocabulary for the day. I think this is just one of those things that gets a whole lot easier with time, I was just upset that I got nervous and sweaty and didn't correct them as much as I should. Ah well!

I made up for the first day of teaching by purchasing lots of chocolate digestive cookies at the COOLEST supermercado ever, Carrefour! Its basically like a huge, cheap Target but for food only. They even sell legs of ham, should you need any to gnaw on on the way home from work.

On to the next teaching adventure!

Barrels of fun and other cava related puns

This has truly been an epic weekend. Granted, it's only early Sunday so technically it's not over yet but anyways! Friday was a slightly monotonous and long-winded day of classes. Learning pronunciation and how to teach it was interesting but in the afternoon we did fake lesson plans in groups of 4 and none of us could even feign enthusiasm because we were so drained from the intense week. This program is really really awesome in how it does prepare you to be a teacher in only 4 weeks, but every single day is SO PACKED with information, sometimes I just want to go home and sleep for about 16 hours/days.

After class on Friday a bunch of us went to this rather hip lounge-y place in Gracia, this area of the city that I'm kind of interested in possibly living next month. I guess it used to be its own city way back in the day and you can pretty much tell right away when you've entered into the area from the way the streets are very narrow and there are barely any sidewalks. So there's a meet-up for the Barcelona TEFL Teacher Association which is a way for past and present TEFL teachers and program participants to meet up, mingle, share tales of woe and hope about the job market, and drink kind of pricey drinks. There was about 9 of us there from our class of 16, and it was sufficiently awkward so I bailed after like 2 hours. Not a great place to get a job but I was glad I went to check it out- met one English guy who was especially socially awkward, that was pretty great. Then headed to a local neighborhood place to get some tapas and a bottle of wine- for 3 of us, it cost a mere 12 Euros. Unbelievable!

Saturday was a really fricking fabulous day! My friend Stacy found a cava vineyard about 45 mins outside the city so a group of 6 of us met up early Sat morning to take the train out to Sant Sadurni d´Anoia, which is this very Catalan tiny town that has loads of cava stores and this one amazing vineyard, Freixenet ( pronounced Freshenet). The tour was 2 hours in English and was only 6 Euros, such a STEAL, and we spent a lot of time actually wandering in the cellars, hearing about the process in making this sparkling wine. I guess the word "champagne" is trademarked so back in the day when they wanted to start making sparkling wine, they had to rename it and Cava literally translated means "cave".. that's a terrible explanation but anyways, cava is basically just sparkling wine that makes you feel really incredibly happy about your life when you drink it.

The best part was when our guide took us through all this huge, underground cellars that smelled so earthy and clean, and then a tram appeared out of nowhere and our group got on this tiny train which took us through more cellars, and up the hill to the tasting center! This place is #9 in the world in terms of cava and wine production and it was so impressive how they had this plush tasting center where we got to try this Reserva Real one that's pricey and delicious, all while looking out the huge windows over the tiny town. It was barrels of fun, no one wined or anything!

After the tour I bought a mini cava bottle to celebrate, well, anything, and then Stacy, Sari and I ( two girls I especially like here) wandered to La Barceloneta, which is the main beach/boardwalk in Barcelona. We got delicious pizza slices and sat on the beach, where we heard the most English yet so far on this trip, and could pick out Americans from 6 miles away from their North Face jackets( please, go out of business) and being generally loud and annoying! This is a paradox- I'm not an Anti-American by any means but generally I'd like to pretend like I assimilate as much as possible and blend in. Therefore sometimes I feel like I'm being snobby, or whatever. Vicious cycle in my head!

We walked down the boardwalk where SO MANY people were rollerblading, making giant sandcastles, and sitting in the sand- THIS is why I came to Barcelona. So beautiful, so tranquil being near the water, I just loved it. Ciutat Velle is the name of the area near the water and its super duper pricey but I don't think I could handle the huge influx of tourists there that will inevitably happen in like 2 impending months, or something. We got delicious gelato as we wandered near the beach and Shannon was a very happy girl.

I went home and hung out with my roommate Estel who was packing to go to Mexico with her novio ( boyfriend) for a month and we shared some macaroni his mom made, delicious. Then a flurry of phone calls to plan the evening and I ended up going back to the lounge-y place from Friday night as a meeting spot to see a few girls from the program, and we ended up bar hopping to several bars with lovely names like La Bolsa ( The purse), next to a bar called The Legs ( I took a picture) and ended up at this swanky club that would have cost about 15 E to get in but Stacy's roommate is some journalist on TV here and gave us the name of the bouncer, so we got in for FREE! I'm very classy, did you know that? Danced ourselves crazy to USA pop music and had a grand time which ended around 5 AM when I got some chocolate croissants and then headed home.

Yes, there are bakeries open at all hours of the night selling chocolate croissants and other pastries. Amaz.ing.

Now I'm off for some much needed Shannon-time and to perhaps hit up Parc Guell, Gaudi's magical playground that I've been DYING to see for years. SO EXCITED! and then off to the beach to meet up with a friend for wine and wandering. Yay!

I'm not a smoker but I might as well be

Dear Barcelona, please pass the smoking ban in bars as lately I have become a walking cigarette. Gross!

In other words, I'm slightly disgruntled as of today because I am not going to be able to teach my first class until fricking Monday! Everyone else was able to go yesterday and today but because there aren't enough spots, I have to wait til Monday. I feel so ready and antsy, I just want to get this started to figure out where I can improve to be the best teacher possible.

The great thing about this TEFL program is how intense it is- we have grammar and vocab lessons and how to teach them in the mornings for about 4 hours, as well as weekly job guidance and time to work on our CVs. One thing I found interesting about those if how if you don't have a photo of yourself, they won't even bother looking at it. So different in the States. We're getting loads of good information about the TEFL job market- apparently Madrid, Istanbul and any part of Germany and Thailand are booming at the moment, but they expect Barcelona to get better by June, as soon as the summer camps start hiring. The Spanish school year ends in June/July and begins in October so hiring again starts a lot in September. I have a lot of confidence though after talking to one of my teachers as she said it's easy to get private lessons which will definitely sustain me. Cruza los dedos!

Yesterday I spent the afternoon wandering around with Stacy, Kate and Sari- fellow TEFLers who didn't have to teach, and we just spent hours meandering through the city and came up La Boqueria- which is the most INTENSE and colourful and wonderful food market I have ever been to. If you need lambs heads with eyes, they've got it. Cow brains and sheep intestines? done. And any kind of chocolate you could ever want. I saw some chocolate hedgehogs for sale ( at least, I hope they were fake...) Pure bliss, I need to go back at least 4-5 times a week. We also went to this Basque region restaurant for a Basque bottle of wine, it was wonderful. There aren't a lot of tourists here now so it's bearable in the touristy areas, I can only imagine though how it is in May-August, oi. The area near La Rambla has a lot of bars advertising for English/Spanish speaking waitresses so I shelved that information for later, you never know!

I like a lot of the people in my program, apart from these 3 wicked annoying Canadians who seem to only be here to partay it up and go to the beach, but I think most of us actually want to teach English and most, like 8 of us or so, are planning to stay for a few months in Barcelona, if not indefinitely in Europe. How refreshing to be surrounded by other people who have such insane wanderlust, and who aren't totally sure what to do with their lives besides live in Europe and explore language. Found my Barcelona niche!
I'm also loving living with Estel and Irene, as Irene and I just made lunch today and discussed the differences with the Catalan school system and the American school system, as well as me trying and failing to describe the plot of the movie Kinsey to her. I think we're actually going to do an exchange where I begin to teach her English, as she knows very little, and in return she will cook me Spanish dishes. Ole!

I'm off tonight to meet up with this girl Erin who coincidentally was in an Italian class I took back at DePaul a million years ago. She did the same program back in Jan so she's going to impart many words of wisdom on me, I hope. Or at least a 1 Euro bottle of wine.

Hasta luego!

Snow day like the first day of class

oh my goodness, what a LONNNNNGGGG day! Left the apartment at 8, got home at 9, whooo.

Today was the first day of the TEFL course! I was wicked early since I wasn't quite sure where it was located but luckily found it with a slightly awkward 30 minutes to spare. The school shares space with a tourism university so there are tons of different people coming in and out of the building all day. 

The class is made up of 16 people- 1 girl from Romania, 1 from England, 3 from Canada and the rest from various parts of the States. The teachers are all from England and seem really knowledgeable and fantastic! They were so excited which made all of us really excited for this 4 week course. It's going to be really intense, and we even start practice teaching on Wednesday, what?! The first couple of hours were spent doing nerdy icebreakers, hearing of our schedule for the week- basically we have 3 weeks of intense classes and then the 4rth week we take a test and get our certificates. There is a job guidance counselor who we can meet with once a week, which is really awesome. Plus a great job board in which jobs all over the world are posted on, neat!

It was nice, relatively easy first day- a few of the girls and I grabbed bread, jamon, mandarins and cheese and HOUMMOUS which we randomly found and made sandwiches and got to know each other. I'd say about 8 of the 16 plan on leaving right after the month, and the rest of us plan on staying for a few months/indefinitely. I think I'm really going to enjoy working with these people, and learning how to be a teacher .I just got sad from speaking English all day, how weird is that? I know that if I'm an English teacher that's obviously my job but still, what can I say, I'm a Spanish fanatic.

We each had to pick something to teach to the rest of the class for peer teaching- some people chose how to teach self defense, how to make a good cup of English tea, how to fold a napkin, how to make drinks with Canadian whiskey- I chose how to do a sun salutation in yoga, and it was hilarious, people were groaning and laughing, so I think it went fairly well.

We ended the day by observing practiced English teachers and that was pretty awesome, I guess we do that at least 4-5 hours a week and we will eventually be teaching at least every other day, wow! There was also an informal tapas/sangria dinner thing at a close by restaurant so we got to do that awkward first-day-mingling that inevitably happens, but was really nice. I like a lot of the people!

Exhausted, must rest up for another loooong day.

Interesting tidbit: Um, it SNOWED today?! Like SNOWED SNOWED, as in like a nor'easter in which people were tying plastic bags on their feet. They said it hasn't snowed here in 15 years and all of a sudden, we got to see this. Ridiculous! They closed the schools and the metro was running so slow, and some brat pelted me with a snowball haha! Really hilarious I got to see this. Love this city.

ZaragoZZZZZa

I'm really needing to head to bed right about now as my TEFL program starts tomorrow but had to brag about the wonderful weekend I spent in Zaragoza with my friend Nate. Last minute, Nate asked me to come and visit since he's been living and teaching English in Zaragoza til Jan and we were both stoked to be living in the same country and doing pretty much the same thing! It's about a 3.5 hour bus ride which was surprisingly easy to figure out. The bus station in Barcelona is like 30 mins from my apartment and there were assigned seats, which was great to not have to beat someone up for a good seat. It was hilarious- we watched the movie Sahara with Penelope Cruz but it was in Catalan and with Castellano subtitles, haha! Someone behind me had Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" ringtone so I felt quite at home.

Zaragoza is a lot smaller than Barcelona but it's really compact so you can walk or take the bus everywhere. Nate gave me a tour and we saw the gorgeous and HUGE cathedral, I think it was, which almost looked like it had minarets and should be in Istanbul. After having some tapas, watching a bit of TV and hanging out with his 2 spanish roommates for a bit, we hit up a dinner place that specialized in Aragon cuisine, which is the region where Zaragoza is in. We then went out to some gringo bar where some girls randomly came up to us and were like, "are you guys americans?! we LOVE america!!" so it was slightly awkward and hilarious at the same time. It's always a bit odd meeting other Americans, I seem to feel painful aware of the cultural american stereotypes when I meet people, since I'm always paranoid I'm a walking one myself! We then ended up going to a ton of bars and clubs with his friends and roommates until about 4 AM, so it was a really awesome time. I love that he is living in Spain because he really understands what I'm doing through, and I'm excited for when he can visit Barcelona.

I headed home this afternoon and met up with this one girl that a good friend of mine, Erin, randomly told me is in the same program as me! Her name is Stacy and she just got to Barcelona yesterday so we went near La Rambla, which is almost too touristy for me, but just grabbed some tapas and chatted. It's nice to know one person in my program for tomorrow, and I think she's only here for the month. 

Interesting observation: I discovered that even though we were only hanging out for about an hour or so and speaking English since she doesn't speak Spanish, a huge part of me really missed speaking in Spanish, even just for that hour. It's like a constant challenge for me, and one that I really really enjoy. I already love this city so much, it's impossible not to be intoxicated by the architecture, the quick and clean metro, the different parts of the city I have yet to explore.

Onwards to my class tomorrow, wish me luck!

Flexi Coco

what a whirlwind of a weekend! Even though I'm mostly exhausted, though it best to write it all down before I forget all the fabulous things that happened on my first weekend in Espana!

So first, the dinner party that I went to. It was AMAZING. I felt very nervous at the beginning going, but my roommate Irene and her friend Ari made me feel so comfortable right off the bat, as we all 3 rode the metro together to the house of Rosa and her boyfriend whose name I forget. We get there and do the spanish greeting of kissing both cheeks and I met Rosa's brother, Joan, who was so interested to talking to me and hearing why I was there in Barcelona. My other roommate Estelle came later with her friend from Madrid, Juan, so there was 8 of us all together. Rosa had made a Basque region themed dinner (Basque is in the northern part of Spain) so we had red peppers stuffed with bacalao, a kind of fish, bread with tuna and onions, this awesome salad with avocados and I forget what else, potato chips (?) and a lot of fruit for dessert, and of course bottles and bottles of wine!

None of them speak English except for a few words, and they all primarily speak Catalan so they kept switching back and forth from Catalan to Castellano, apologizing to me for forgetting I don't speak Catalan but I didn't mind at all! They asked me a lot about myself, about Obama, about the immigration problem in the States and also about our healthcare system- all stuff Im so used to talking about, but it felt totally different explaining it all in Spanish! I loved their interest in me, and how they all made me feel so welcomed.

Then they wanted to play games (oh dear) and so we played Tabu, which is very different. Of course it was all in Spanish, and I tried my hand at drawing words for one of the contests and wasn't as bad as I thought I would be. The BEST part of Spanish Tabu is the contest where you have to use the purple monster stuffed animal named Flexi Coco to act out actions or people, which was basically hysterical. The other game we played was called Compatabilities in which you have a word and then pick about 4-5 cards with images on them to best correspond with the word. One of the words was patriotism, and my roommate Estelle picked the card with a black man on and said it was supposed to be Obama, haha! After the games they played some American music, and Rosa and her brother Juan sang the song "Falling Slowly" from the movie Once, which I happen to love love love so it was like a mixture of cultures. A really fabulous evening, and not once did I turn off the Spanish switch in my brain so I felt pretty proud of myself. Of course I make constant mistakes but I don't even care anymore, I'm just so happy to be invited to things like that and to be here.

Best part of the evening: On the way home from the party, we got on the metro which was packed since it stops running at 2 AM on fridays. Well, wouldn't you know it, but we walked into a spanish cliche. A guy pulled out his guitar and began playing flamenco and a girl began clapping and singing flamenco songs! People came into our metro car and clapped along, and some guy walked down the aisle selling cans of beer, which apparently is typical here. It was hysterical, and I couldn't believe it. My roommate Irene was like "todo ha sido por ti, Channon!", meaning everything was done for you, Shannon! She thought it was funny that it was such a spanish-y cliche, and she even sang some flamenco songs. Fabulous night!

La Sagrada Familia, at last!

On my way to a spanish dinner party with my roommates, Irene and Estelle(this should be interesting!) and this is basically the first time I've sat down all day. This morning I got a lot of things done, such as seeing the Sagrada Familia for the first time!! It was incredible- there are still so many construction cranes all around it, and I guess it's been under construction for years and years and there are still no plans to finish it anytime soon. The church is so fanciful, with little strange details everywhere, such as sparkly looking rocks on the top and little baskets of fruit etched into the walls. I need to go back to check out inside, the line was too long for me this morning. This was the first place I saw a bunch of tourists, although it's not really tourist season yet. I only heard one person speaking English, which was weird, I did a double take since all I hear everyday is Spanish now! ( everyday meaning the past 1.5 days since I've only been here that long, I seem to forget)

I also located my Citibank which took me about 45 minutes to find, and bought a spanish cell phone, or a "movil" as they're called here. It makes me feel much more at place, even though the phone weighs nothing and is about the size of my big toe- still, I can receive calls and texts now, yay! 

My arm is hurting me too, which is hardly surprising since I was in a particularly rigorous raquetball game with my roommate Irene last night. She asked me to play and since apparently the theme of this trip is, "why not?" I headed out with her to the free outdoor courts near our apartment. It was really fun, and I'm still so grateful for her taking the initiative to invite me to do things. Such as this dinner party coming up in a few minutes, with some of her friends. Let's hope I don't make ridiculous language mistakes, like when earlier I asked my roommate if she was going to a "soccer juice" instead of "soccer game", since the words are similar. Yikes!

Heading out, will post more another time. Adieu!

Dunkin Donuts, stop following me

It's not even my second full day and already I've fallen a bit in love with Barthelona (the th added for the lispy effect). My jetlag is almost completely gone, which is super great, and getting on a spanish time schedule is getting way easier. This might have something to do with going to see "Hombre Lobo" last night with Irene and my other roommate, Christiana, who is from Munich and is in Barcelona for some biology gig. We didn't get home til around 1, which is relatively early for Spain standards. The movie sucked, and I think it would suck just as bad if I saw it in English. Ah well!

This morning I roused myself and excitedly hopped on the metro to head into the centro of Barcelona. It was about a 20 minute ride, which got greatly more exciting when this guy hopped on and started singing along to a boom box- one of the songs sounded suspiciously like the irish tune "whiskey in the jar".. but I doubt it was.. you never know. I got off at the Placa de Catalunya, which is where the main boulevard Las Ramblas begins. Las Ramblas is about a 1.5 mile walk in which there are tourist traps, bunnies and birds for sale, tons of human statues, lots of street musicians, and I even saw.. a Dunkin Donuts. But it was called Dunkin Coffee, but still, am I in Boston? 

I meandered down the Rambla to the end, which is near this huge statue of Crisofol Colom (Christopher Columbus) and then I decided to get purposely lost and ended up in this amazing neighborhood called Barri Gotic (Gothic quarter). Lots of winding roads, little hidden bars and shops, and tons of plazas everywhere. Plazas are huge in Spain, they're everywhere! I ran into the main cathedral in Barcelona and then stopped into this little cafe for a "cafe solo", which is basically a shot of espresso and you're there for like 3 minutes. I thought it best just to walk around as much as possible to figure things out, and ended up back where I started. The architecture is stunning, lots of old buildings, and lots of funny American chains scattered around, though I only saw one American Apparel and 2 Starbucks.

Came back to the apartment and met my other roommate, Estelle, who was in southern Spain until last night, and she is leaving for Mexico on Sunday so I won't see her much (ho hum, what a boring life!). Irene was interested in learning how to cook quinoa and I vaguely remembered, so I made this stirfry of quinoa with assorted vegetables that I bought at the fruteria which is literally right next door to my apartment building. Cooking together for the afternoon meal is a big deal to my roommates, and eating a large lunch is pretty much the norm. Then I had a siesta, and am now contemplating going back out to find a mobile phone.

So far, so good! My roommates have been very welcoming, and I've only been here not even a full 2 days! This city is intoxicating, I hope to move closer to the center after my program ends in 4 weeks. I start the TEFL program on Monday, so I have a few more days to explore and get to know ms. lovely barthelona.

Interesting Spanish Fact: everything is listed first in Catalan and then in Castellano, which is the Spanish that I learned to speak. One of my roommates, Estelle, speaks both fluently as she is from a Catalan family but the other, Irene, doesn't really speak it. I love hearing Catalan- it looks almost french but its entirely its own language. So far I've learned how to say please, "si us plau". yay!

Shannon Burke Barcelona

I almost wish there was a sequel to Vicky Chistina Barcelona about me- it'd be quite handy to have someone narrating everything that's happened thus far, preferably in a British accent. Quite!

I'm writing this from my bitsy twin bed that's adorned with a multicoloured bedspread (how did they know?!) and wishing the rain would let up so I can explore and try to beat back this awful jet-lag. I've definitely been lucky so far into this journey, and it still hasn't totally become real to me that I'm in Barcelona SPAIN. what?!

The beginning of the adventure out of Boston was painless, thanks to the lovely Mack who willfully took me to Logan airport where I managed to remain the composed, jetsetting woman that I am, until I grabbed my ridiculously packed bags and succumbed to a bit of sadness at leaving him, Boston, everything, stateside for 5 months.

Sadness shoved aside, I managed to get from Boston to JFK with no hassles, then spent some time getting wicked nervous over the flight to Barcelona. I must've looked at my pick-up info about 5,000 times. I was lucky that the flight was fairly empty as I got 2 whole seats to myself where I practiced contortionist postures and tried to sleep even though the person behind me had the worst in-flight gas EVER. Customs was a breeze, and I was picked up by this danish woman, Mette,who works for the program I'm starting on March 8th, and she took me and my junk to the flat where I'll be for the next 4 weeks. 

I'm staying high up in the hills above Barcelona, about a 20 min metro ride to the heart of it all. And the view is AMAZING. From my room I can glimpse the ocean, and there's a large balcony off of the living room that you can see the outline of Sagrada Familia in the distance, construction cranes and all! There are 2 other girls, one Spanish and one German, and I haven't met them yet- it's mid-afternoon and both don't get in til later. The one roommate I did met, Irene, has already impressed me with her patience for me butchering her native language in my fuzzy jetlagged state.  She's 26, from Barcelona, and speaks no English, but said she wants me to help her with English. I can already see this being great for me working on my Spanish, which is really reassuring.

I was unpacking my stuff a little while ago when she came to get me- she had made us lunch of chicken and salad, saying that we had to celebrate this special day of me arriving- how ridiculously sweet is that! She already let me in on the info that there are bici's everywhere- you can just rent a bike and ride it wherever, and then drop it off at another center, just like in Montreal! Going to check that out this week.

Spanish fun fact of the day: I just ran to the supermarket to get some food stuffs, and wished I had remembered what a ridiculous experience this can be here! Good thing I eat meat since there was about 67 different kinds of chorizo and ham, some awkward looking bread, tuna pizza ( in case I get cravings) and assorted weird Spanish brands that I forgot about. I also forgot that at this particular supermercado, you have to bring your own bags.. so I was carrying my 1 euro bottle of wine and my awkward looking bread down the street, classy! 

heading out soon to explore the rest of this neighborhood- thanks for all the good wishes, to anyone reading this, I truly have appreciated the outpouring of support I've received, and it makes it that much easier to get adjusted here!

amor,

Shannon