After waking up in sweat (gross) Rafaela had breakfast put out for us this morning, but she wasn’t home. She had cornflakes, really hard bread (kinda small, almost like crackers), orange juice, and milk. They don’t keep their milk very cold, and I’m weird about milk to begin with, so after one bite of the cereal I had to switch to the bread. I accidentally put raspberry jelly on it instead of strawberry, because I thought they were the same, so I finished it and that was all I ate. She made us “picnics” (aka: brown bag lunches) to take with us for the day. My lunch was a “turkey sandwich” with an apple. The reason turkey sandwich is in quotations is because the sandwich was two thick pieces of white bread, two thick pieces of cheese, and one very thin slice of turkey in the middle; I guess I should call it a cheese sandwich? I ended up only eating the piece of turkey and the apple. We took our placement exam at 9:00 am in one of the rooms of the university and then went to look around. We walked around Barcelona and went into the market and a couple of small stores. The market was so cool! They had tons of fresh fruit, candy, slushies, etc., and they also had a lot of meat and fish (animals’ heads included). That part made me want to throw up. We met back up for a meeting in the same classroom at 12:30 and received our class assignments. Originally, I registered for intermediate on the internet so I ended up having to stay in that because that was what I chose. However, my friends all wanted advanced and placed into it, so I’m a little nervous about not being with them since I’ve done everything with them so far. I guess I’ll have to make new friends. We went and got our schedules, books, and folders and then went to the ISA office. The good thing about being in intermediate is that I have class from 9-2 and then can go to the beach, while my friends in advanced don’t get out of class until 5. Sara and I are having trouble finding internet in this apartment, so we tried asking the people at ISA, but RealCom only rents for 2 months at the least. We’re going to try to figure things out tomorrow, and I think Antonio (the housing director) is going to call Rafaela tomorrow. It just kind of sucks because Rafaela told us there is nowhere near her apartment with WIFI, and we would have to go into La Plaza Cataluña just to use the internet, which is a 40 minute walk. I think I’m going to buy the unlimited metro pass so I can get to places easier, since our apartment is so far away. It’s expensive, but it will be worth it rather than having to make a 40 minute walk every time I need to go somewhere. Oh! How could I forget? I went to take a shower today and had a nice surprise waiting for me. Not only did Rafaela ask us to turn the water off when we weren’t using it (ie: while shampooing hair, while conditioning hair, while washing my face and body, while shaving, etc.), but I also discovered that we have to hold the shower while we rinse off. Needless to say, I think I covered over half of the bathroom with water. At 5:30, we went on a bus tour around Barcelona and got to see La Sagrada Familia built by Gaudi, the port for the boats, Mont Juic (a big mountain here), and a lot of other famous stuff in the city. We went to Park Guell at the end, which Gaudi is famous for, and got to walk around and take pictures and stuff. They had an America’s Next Top Model finale there one year! It’s really pretty. We walked back to our house from there because it was the last stop and we live nearby. We were a couple of minutes late to dinner because we got a little bit lost, but she didn’t mind. She made us gazpacho (cold vegetable soup made with tomato, onion, cucumber, pepper, salt, and olive oil but the tomato is the main component because the consistency is similar to tomato soup), which was really good. Here they like to offer you seconds and thirds and fourths, so I had 2 cups thinking that it was our dinner. Then she brought us out fish and salad. I’m not sure what kind of fish it was, but it was a white fish and it was really good. Overall, the dinner was great! I knew I would like it more when I didn’t have to go to restaurants every night. And afterwards, we had fruit again for dessert. It’s definitely going to take some getting used to here, but I think it will become a lot easier to adapt to the culture changes once classes start. Hasta Luego!
PS – We found a store called Taste of America (the workers even speak pretty good English!) with peanut butter, Dr. Pepper, and kettle cooked salt and vinegar chips. I am a happy girl.
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