"I think I'm going to spend a lot of time here."

Hi everyone,

This Friday I went with some friends to the beach and then to Parc de la Ciudadela, and in both places I said, "I think I'm going to spend a lot of time here," and then I realized I had been saying that about lots of places. But really, I want to spend a lot of time on the beach and hanging out in Parc de la Ciudadela. The beach was delightful. We sat out on a blanket, had a picnic, laid down and napped/chatted/read for a while out under the sun. It looked much warmer than it actually was, since it is still February, so after a while we decided to go walk around in Parc de la Ciudadela.

Parc de la Cuidadela was the discovery of the weekend for sure. It's entrance is the Arco de Triunfo, followed by a plaza-like space, and then the park with a huge and gorgeous fountain, a pond with paddle boats, benches and grassy areas, and a huge statue of a Mammoth. Some pictures:

There's not a whole lot else to tell about this week. It was really tough to get back in the mood to go to class and do homework after that weekend in Sevilla. I keep feeling like I'm on vacation, which makes it hard to be productive. On Thursday I had my first meeting with GBU (grupos biblicos universitarios) and we started planning a study of John that we will be publicizing on campus and trying to get people to come. The group is made up of 5 or 6 Americans, 3 Spaniards, 1 Colombian, and 1 Brit, so it's quite international. On Saturday I went to a GBU seminar on how to prepare and lead an inductive Bible study. This time, the group was mostly Spaniards with a few Americans mixed in. I tried to add to the conversation a couple of times, but was a little frustrated because I couldn't express myself in Spanish as well as I would have liked. I went to church this morning, and absolutely loved it once again. 

I guess that's all for now. Take care, everyone!

Trip to Sevilla and Cádiz!

Hola Queridos! (Hello dear ones)

Time to update you on my latest adventure! This weekend was our big program-organized trip to Sevilla and Cádiz, two beautiful cities in Andalucia. Almost all 30ish of us, as well as our director, Alberto, and my Catalan professor, Laia, left bright and early on Friday morning to explore and bond in Southern Spain. It was a wonderful trip!

When we got there we took a tour around the city, through the Cathedral, and finished with a trip up the Cathedral's tower. The Cathedral used to be a Mosque, and the Muslims used to have someone go up to the top of the tower five times a day to call everyone to come to pray. Because they had to climb up the tower so often, they built a ramp inside instead of stairs so that they could ride horses up the tower. So we walked up said ramp to the top of the tower where we had a 360 degree view of Sevilla, and it was beautiful. Here are some pictures:

That night we went and saw some Flamenco dancing, which was absolutely incredible. It was smaller than I expected, an audience of about 100 people or so in a little courtyard with a stage in the middle. They started off the show with just the guitar and the singing, and that alone was beautiful and impressive enough. Then the lady dancer came out and danced some Flamenco, followed by the guy dancer. With each part it got more and more impressive, and at one point in the guy's performance there was an audible "woah!" from the audience. Pictures can't really do it justice, so I'll skip that, but being there in person was absolutely amazing. That performance might have been one of my most memorable experiences of the semester. 

On Saturday we got on a bus and took a day trip to Cádiz, a smaller city on the coast. It's actually on a peninsula: it looks like this from the air:

It was fun to get an even smaller-town feeling of Spain. We took a tour around the city and then had some free time to see what we wanted to see. We walked to the beach and out along a bridge to an old castle, and then back through the town again, stopping to eat in a little local place, and to check out some of the stores. 

On Sunday we went and visited the Royal Palace in Sevilla, which was probably the prettiest place we saw in Sevilla. When the royal family isn't staying there, it's open for people to come and visit. We got to take a self-guided tour around the palace, and then wander through the gardens. Here are some pictures:

Overall it was a wonderful weekend. I took around 400 pictures, some of which I will be putting up on facebook soon. I can't believe I ever seriously considered not studying abroad.

First week of classes and Las fiestas de Santa Eulalia

Hello:)

I've now had one week of classes, and I think I'm going to survive. It might actually be pretty fun, who knows. I'm taking Intro to Catalan and Masterworks of Catalan Art from the study abroad center, and I'm sure that they will both be lots of fun, not stressful, and very useful for living here. My classes at the UB, however, are going to be a little bit more challenging, mostly because I don't know the system very well. I'm taking Panorama of Modern Spanish Literature, and Morfology/Lexicology of Spanish. I can understand both of the professors well enough, I think. It's just going to be tough to gauge how much work I need to be doing outside of class. The library is beautiful, so that's a plus, but so are all the other places that I'd love to be exploring instead of studying. Let's just hope I find the right balance.

 

After 4 days of class, I had my first 3 day weekend! That's a change that is not going to be hard to get used to at all, and it might just make up for Vanderbilt's annoying habit of ignoring Monday holidays. On Friday, I went shopping with some friends. The stores here are amazing, and I can walk to most of them. I'm going to miss that when I get back. This weekend was also one of Barcelona's big festivals, Las fiestas de Santa Eulalia, so on Saturday, we went exploring to see what was going on with that. We found Catalan music, dancing Spanish children, vendors selling all sorts of fun things,parades, and Castellers. Castellers are teams of people that build huge human towers. The smallest are little kids- they looked like they could have been as young as four. It was really fun to watch them, but it made me nervous because I thought they were going to fall. I'll put up some pictures: 

And here's a short video clip:

Crazy, huh?!

This morning (Sunday) I went to church again, heard a really good sermon, met some more new people, got phone numbers and email addresses, information about bible studies, and set up lunch or coffee dates with a few of the people. I love how impossible it is to leave-there's just alway someone else coming up to introduce themselves and talk for a little while. I guess that's exactly the way it should be. 

Next weekend we have a trip with all 30-something of us to Sevilla and Cadiz. I'm super excited for that too, and I can't wait to tell you all about it!

The Beach, Montserrat, and Getting Lost

Well friends, today marks three weeks since I got here. It's strange that it's only been that long, since it feels like I've been here forever. Maybe it has something to do with jumping from winter straight into what feels like almost summer to me, or just the fact that I still can't believe I'm here and everywhere I go seems surreal to me, but something strange has happened to my sense of time. Anyway, whether I feel like this was week three or not, it was a good week,complete with a trip to the beach, and to Montserrat, and oh yeah, me getting lost. 

A friend and I ventured to the beach on Thursday after class, and it was beautiful. Our plan was to sit on the beach and read, but we ended up getting there just before sunset. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to read on the beach though, because I can't stop staring at it. The sea is just so big, and I can't get over how big it is, so I just keep looking at it. My fascination with the sea could be as problematic as reading, however, because while we were watching the waves, we almost got robbed. We were talking and I happened to look to the side a little bit, and I saw this hand reaching toward our bags. I jumped and screamed a little because I'm jumpy I guess, and then the kid pretended that he was just seeing if we had any cigarettes. Yeah right. Apparently 99% of the robbing that goes on in Barcelona is the sneaky kind of stealing, not the violent kind, but still, not cool. I guess I'll have to be careful not to relax too much or get too absorbed in anything when I go to the beach, but I still loved being there, and I think I'll be going back there quite a bit. 

I took Friday afternoon/evening just to relax, which meant watching House and Chuck and The Pianist in Spanish, and on Saturday some friends and I set out for Montserrat. I saw Montserrat from the plane on the way in to Barcelona, and decided I had to go there. Montserrat literally means "serrated mountain," and that's a good way to describe it. Here's a picture from the plane:

We took a cable car up to the Monastery and then took something else a little higher up, had a picnic, and then went on a hike from there. From the top we had a 360 degree view. We could see Barcelona, and the Pyrenees Mountains off in the distance all covered with snow. From the top we took another path down toward the monastery and went down tons and tons of stairs. We were lucky to have decided to go up first and then to the monastery, because otherwise we would have been going up all those stairs instead of down. We walked through the monastery and that was beautiful too. When we got back to Barcelona we went to a little, very Spanish cafe, and ate some churros con chocolate, which proved to be a very good ending to a very good day. 

On to Sunday. The morning was awesome. I went with a couple of friends to a little church that we had found online, and it was wonderful. It's called Iglesia Evangelical de la Gracia (Evangelical Church of Grace), and it's probably about the size of my church in Rifle. The sermon was in Spanish and I understood everything he said (yay!). Some of the songs were in Catalan, but it was cool because they were songs that I knew. We sang "Mighty to Save," "Amazing Grace," "Above All," and a couple of other songs that I hadn't heard before. They had an open prayer time, and it was really beautiful to hear people praying in Spanish. We took communion, and after the service we were greeted very warmly by lots of people, with a kiss on each cheek, like they do in Spain, and they made sure that we stayed for a fellowship lunch/dinner. The only problem with the dinner was that we were eating and talking for so long that I was late for my plans that I had that afternoon. I was going to meet up with some people and go see Silvia (my "guardian angel") in her hometown. I was going to be late so I told them to go on without me and I'd catch up. Bad idea. I ended up buying a ticked for the right train, but then getting on the wrong train, which I didn't find out until the guy came by to check our tickets. After a few efforts to try to meet up with people in various places, I ended up just getting on a train (the right one, luckily) back to Barcelona. I figured that was better than getting more lost. On the bright side, the view from the train was beautiful- the sea on one side, and pretty Spanish countryside on the other.

We officially finished our 2-week intensive Spanish class last Friday, and tomorrow, our real classes start-Ah!!! I'm not sure that anyone from my program is in my first class tomorrow morning (panorama of contemporary and modern Spanish lit), so I might be the only international student. I'm a little nervous, but also really excited to see if I can do it. We'll see how it goes!