Let's get 5 euro ducks!!

11 Sept 2008

Happy something Catalan day! I think it’s their independence day or something…someone probably should have told us what it was. Last night we went to the bar, but it was pretty dull there. It seemed like they just wanted to close the bar instead of letting us stay. I mean, I guess it makes sense—it was only Wednesday night after all. Probably would have been different on a weekend. So after we left, we went to Bar Hawaii, or something to that effect, and had some huge and delicious 7 euro drinks! Mine was called Perla de Vicio…scandalous. It tasted like strawberries!! Afterwards, Mark got locked out of our room so we all had a sleepover. Apparently I was talking in my sleep about how “my legs are sooooo cold!” Today we went to Sitges again. It was partly cloudy most of the day, but that didn’t stop us from going native again. Lovely, lovely beach! I also saw a really cute dog. It was sitting near me on the train to Sitges and I think I stared at it the entire time. The lady owner probably hated me for staring at her dog. Me, a scrappy looking American, staring at her upper class little pup…bitch, si us plau. Kelly and I took some stuff over to the piso before dinner, yay! Last dinner was kind of crappy, which made me sad. I’m just sad to leave this area in general. Sad to leave my OpenCor, sad to leave the bar, sad the leave the Maria Cristina, sad to leave the air conditioned dorms…I guess I’ll just have to come back for visits!! Also, Kelly Gawne is my idol. The end.

12 Sept 2008

Official move-out day started terribly. We all agreed to meet for dinner at 9:10 so we would have about 20 minutes to eat our final breakfast in the dorms, but it turns out it ended at 9:00, so we were left hungry and grumpy. To make things more frustrating, the maids were coming around like 3 hours before we were supposed to leave and were like “Are you out? Are you leaving soon? When are you leaving? Will it be soon?” Putas. So we packed up our remaining stuff but then left it in the rooms while we went to El Fornet for some delicious, and rather cheap, breakfast. Why have I never been there before!? I should have caught that train a while ago! Whatever. I took a picture of OpenCor (my lover) and then we took the overly crowded (for some reason) bus numero 16 to the piso and moved everything in. Yay! Then Amy, Carolyn, Kelly, and I went out to run some errands/play! We were going to go to Vodafone first to put some more euros on our phones, but they were super crowded so we decided to go to Blanco instead. They have SUCH CUTE STUFF! I ended up getting a pair of gladiator sandals and an awesome black tank top! LOVE IT! Then we went back to Vodafone which still took a while. Meh. By then, we were starving so we went back to Happy Bar & Grill for the menu del dia otra vez. Very delicious! This time I had macaronis al pesto, pizza catalunya, y something that was like éclair cake? Afterwards, we headed down the Boqueria—the biiiiig outdoor market along la rambla. I ended up getting 2 huge apples and 2 huge nectarines for 2 euros! The fruit stands seriously made my mouth water! The fish and meat stands…not so much. On the way back home, we walked along la rambla and decided we wanted to get ducks, iguanas, turtles, rabbits, guinea pigs, fish, or plants for our home. Seriously, ducks were only 5 euros! I wanted one so bad =(. Then we found an actual little grocery store about a half a block from our piso—sweet! I got some yogurt, little croissants, jelly, milk, golden grahams, and some wine of course! The wine was for later in the night when we went to Karen’s piso. Umm, that place is ridic! It’s huge, its got wooden floors, Karen has her own huge room with her own bathroom and balcony (and is paying less than me), they have a living room, her roommates are cool as hell, and they have a marijuana plant growing on their communal terrasa! Umm, WHAT?! Fun night though! Her roomies and their friends are super cool. They helped us with our Spanish, yay! AND THEN ALLIE AND HOLLY WOOD SHOWED UP!!! Yay! Chupitos de güisqui y vino para todos!!

13 Sept 2008

I was soooo hot last night…I wasnt even wearing warm pj's and was still really warm. Tonight I think I’ll leave my bedroom door open to make a wind tunnel going through the room. So we got up and decided to do a little more shopping. However, we went to the BK Lounge first! SO DELICOUS, but quite expensive =/ Oh well. I got a tank top and a really really really cute necklace at Clockhouse! There were a bunch of cute clothes and dresses at the other places, but I didn’t want to spend more than 20 euros on an item of clothing. We’re going grocery shopping for real food tonight. I’m not looking forward to cooking for myself! I guess it will be hot dogs, toast, and pasta 4 lyfe!!1!!!!

I actually ended up having a hot dog, some yogurt, and a little of Carolyn’s cheese and raspberries. Meh. It will get better (ojalá). Lee and her friend Cheryl took us over to the bar across the street from the university (Bar Estudiantil?) where we had some drinks before heading out. Then we all took cabs over to this club called Elephant, where we got in for free since Cheryl knows, like, everyone that you should know to get into places free! It was fun! My feet were kiiiiiilling me though since I was wearing heels all night. Oof! There was this creeper dressed as a chief and walking around with a spear and stuff, and he gave me a grand welcome. First he just stared at me. Then he kissed my hand (sick, he was dirty). Then he made boob gestures, said something about me in spanish, Cheryl was like “she understands Spanish, you know,” then he looked at me all scared and made the boob gesture again. WTF?! YOU CREEPER! He kept jousting me with his spear from afar later as well. At least he didn’t do to me what he did to Megan, hahahh! Afterward, we just came home and crashed since I was like 5:30 am. Phew!

I'm still waiting on more pics, so check these links later for more!

Karen's Piso Party
Elephant
Random BCN Stuff

without portugal, spain looks like a t-shirt!

7 Sept 2008

It is currently 7:33 AM on a Sunday and me and 5 others just got home! So we went to our corner bar for some beer and cake (for Amy’s birthday) and then headed over to our usual club—Mojito. And the first person we see? The 29 year old creeper from last time!!!! Yeah! Ridic! The girls all danced together the whole time even though our bar buddies were there. Whatever. So we go to leave and they’re all, “Hey, where are you going now?” Initially, we were just going to take the metro home, but we decided we weren’t tired and we all went back to their bar for more dancing! We all felt bad though because when they opened it, the alarm went off, the police called, and they had to explain their way out of it. Oops. And then we basically danced til about 10 minutes ago. WTF!? Why are they all such good dancers?! Spanish boys y sus trucos! We all felt like shady ladies coming back in after the sun had come up in our dresses and such. Stores were just starting to open, and we were just coming home. Umm, whoa. Funny thing is, that we’ll probably be back there tonight for a beer, haha!

9 Sept 2008

EXAAAAAMS ARE TOMORROW & I’M GOING TO FAIL!

No, I wont fail. But I probably wont do well on the culture exam. Meh! What you gonna do? I can’t believe that ILP is over and that I have to move out completely by the end of this week!! That means I have to become a real person, yikes! It should be interesting having to buy my own groceries and stuff. Not to mention my complete lack of cooking skills! That’s where Kelly comes in—she said she’d teach me the ways. But yeah, I’m going to “go study” now. Hah, that’s a funny joke!

Love you all!

Abby

More pics from Amy's birthday!!

on 3...

5 Sept 2008

Last night we went to our regular bar and had a chill beer. It’s so nice to just sit around for an hour drinking a beer! Afterwards, we all came home, changed into pajamas and watched Eurotrip in our room! God I love that movie! Today we went to Sitges, which is a really great beach about half an hour away by train. We went through a couple of dark tunnels and I creepily massaged whoever was near me and then was all “mi scuzi” like the creeper in Eurotrip! The beach was GORGEOUS! I mean, like whoa! More than half of us decided to liberate the girls for a while while tanning. Speaking of, I am terrible at putting sunscreen on!! I have the most bizarre sunburn patterns right now, people probably think I have leprosy! But yeah, we went to Buddha Bar for some lunch and then went back to the beach for about 45 more minutes before heading back. We stopped at a gelato place on the way to the train, and it was sooooooo delicious. I got dark chocolate and it was gone within 5 minutes! There were 2 complete winners (read: Spanish losers) talking vulgarly about us. Ummmmm, we’re not stupid. Even if we didn’t speak Spanish, don’t you think we would notice you pointing at us? They eventually caught on that we understood them and were all “OH SHIT!” Whatever.

Went to see Mamma Mia! Instead of going to Mojito since we were all so drained from the beach. SO GREAT! I mean, I had already seen it, but it was still fabulous. There were Spanish subtitles which I enjoyed reading, and a really nice usher who asked us where we were from and got all excited. What a nice old guy. We saw him when we were leaving and he was all smiley and “did you like it!?” What a nice Barcelonean (?).

6 Sept 2008

Move in part 1!! I’ve got the smaller of my 2 suitcases, the front part of my backpack, and my purse. I’ve got SO MUCH to get IKEA, so that might have to be a 2-tripper.

Yeah, so it’s actually turned out to be quite a shitty day. We got to the apartment with no trouble, but we couldn’t open the front door. Jesus had given us like 5 different keys and there are 2 different locks on the front door, so we were all throwing different keys in there and we finally got it after like 5 minutes. I found some sheets, a comforter, & pillows in the closet thing, but they seemed pretty ratty so I threw them above the door and was showered in dust bunnies. Whatever. So we threw our stuff down, yada yada yada. IKEA sucked! No joke, all of Spain and their screaming children were there. We couldn’t find anything we needed since everything was unorganized and in Catalan and kept having to ask questions. We quit half way through and started over on the bottom floor at one point and then we had to wait in line for about 20 minutes to pay, where I also had to PAY for the bag I carried my stuff out in. Really? Whatever, IKEA. We took a very crowded bus back and couldn’t get in yet again. This time we were out there for at least 10 minutes. We had originally planned on making our beds and stuff, but we were all tired, hungry, and wanting to go home. But of course, I had to find the dead cockroach on the floor before I left. Perfect. I still have to buy some Clorox wipes and a power strip since I need more powwwah!! The momster also thinks a nose piercing would get infected easily….crap. Now I’ll actually have to put some thought into this. Everyone else wants me to do it though, hahah! I guess we shall see!

More pictures are up in old albums!!

New Photos:
Sitges

16 Snoopy's, por favor!

2 Sept 2008

So it is/was Kelly’s birthday today! We went out to lunch after classes, came home and did some homework, hung out, went to dinner, and then headed out to the chupiteria (a place that sells all shots). SO COOL! No joke, they had a wall of hundreds of shots like Harry Potter (which they light on fire), Finding Nemo (involves fishing a M&M out of a top layer of cool whip before taking it), Willy Wonka (has a piece of chocolate at the bottom), Sants Jordi (our dorm / the dragon slayer), Teletubbie, Snoopy, crème de la crème, top less, bin laden, exorcist, son of a bitch, etc…ALL FOR 2 EUROS EACH! I ended up getting five and buying Kelly 2 for her birthday. I’m super excited that the place is really close to our flat—I want to try most of the shots before I leave!

3 Sept 2008

We hiked over to the Cultural Museum today. Our culture teacher made us walk there so we could go through the Barri Gotic, which was very cool (but dirty). We got to see a church that had a bunch of scars on it from being bombarded during the Guerra Civil. We also walked past the Palacio Real where the royal family was staying when Columbus asked for permission to sail to the States. We actually saw the stairs he walked up!! Ridiculous! We also went into this huge (and famous) church. Insane! Apparently its rarely open for the public to just walk through, so we got lucky! Then we walked through the port area in what I believe was Barceloneta. We were able to see the Barcelona head (yay) and the statue of Cristobal Colon pointing to Italy, his homeland. The museum was really cool! All of it was really interactive and I learned a LOT! Unfortunately, we had to be back at the UB at 12:00 for our last 2 classes…laaaaaame!

Weekend’s tentative agenda:

Beach

Move in (partially) to 41 Muntaner

IKEA to get lots of stuff for my room

Discoteca!!

Lots of homework =(

PICTURES!! I've been putting more pictures into old folders as they surface, so there are usually new pictures in the old links!

Stuff from this blog:

Barcelona

Barri Gotic

Chupiteria

41 Muntaner!

1 Sept 2008

Sorry for the quick update, just wanted to send out a FYI that there were no problems whatsoever with the money situation! I got 300 euros out of the ATM at school, and then got the remaining 350 as a cash advance during break. I feel SO much better now! So we went early to give him the stuff—no problems there either. Me and Amy picked rooms. I chose the smaller of the 2, but it has a mini walk out balcony that faces diagonally out onto the street! It’s so pretty! I also like cozy rooms =). So we got keys to our rooms, the flat, the elevator, and the apartment building door. Sweet thing is that they’re all skeleton keys! So I’ve not a nice little ring o’ keys now! We also found out our landlord’s name today. We were all chatting while he showed us how all keys work and he goes “oh, happy birthday Kelly,” since her birthday’s tomorrow. Yada yada, then he says “yeah, I was born on the 25th of December!” So naturally, his name is Jesus! He said the Taiwan girl is quiet and that the British girl just moved in on Wednesday, but whatever! We don’t have to be best friends. I know there are some German girls around our age in the flat across the hall as well. Afterwards, we went to Pans for lunch, which was SUPER delicious! I'm still not used to this wacky eating schedule here! Well, I’m super tired from all of yesterday’s anxiety, so I’m going to have a bit of a siesta!

Here are some more pictures of the room...I'll put new ones up once I've messed with it!

Un fuerte abrazo,

Abby

old men, speedos, 3 o'clock

25 Aug 2008

Classes sucked. The way we learn things here totally clashes with the way we learned things back home. Sooo, I’m at the point where I don’t know anything anymore =( After class, Amy, Carolyn, Kelly, and I went to Clots to look at an apartment. Nice, but out of the way. Then we went to Happy Bar & Grill where we had the day’s special for 9,95—gazpacho, margarita pizza, & tiramisu…SO GOOD! And our waiter was adorable, so yeah. He spoke to us in Spanish the whole time, and was just a little giggly guy who winked at us!

27 Aug 2008

So my sickness, or whatever, escalated for a day or two, but now I think its winding down (OJALÁ). Today after class we went to a store by school called “Blanco,” and they had the cutest stuff! I could have easily dropped 100€ in there, but I decided to restrain myself and just bought a rockin’ pair of earrings! A couple of us went to see a group of apartments yesterday, but there was only one room I liked, mainly because it had a balcony that lead out to the street. I figured I could do better so I called another place and went to see it. So it’s on the first floor (not the ground floor, but one up), we get to the door, and Karol opens the door and my first thought was, “Oh, hello Karol…I see you’re not wearing any pants!” No joke! She was wearing a tank top and either swim suit bottoms or underwear. But whatever, she didn’t seem to care, so I just went with it! Then we see her creeper bohemian buddy chillin on the couch—he doesn’t live there. So I see the place, and it’s real cute. However, it was really messy and 4 girls would have to share 1 bathroom…and idk about that. I told her I wanted to rent it anyways since I was sick of looking and she gave me the whole “I’m glad you liked it, but I’ve got other people coming to look at it. I’ll let you know by the end of the weekend.” Whatever!!

28 August 2008

This morning we watched “La Colmena” (The Beehive) today instead of going to our first 3 classes. Interesting movie…Anyways, we were walking through the courtyard to get to our classes and there’s all these people there, lots of equipment, and makeup stations. As it turns out, they’re filming a movie in our courtyard! Our teacher told us we should all volunteer to be extras. They probably wouldn’t have taken me even if I wanted since I’m so incredibly white. Whatever. I’m going all out of order, but on the way to school we got told to “be quite! No one talks on the bus! Everyone’s staring at you! Like, you can talk, but don’t talk loud. Everyone’s looking, so don’t talk loud…” Yeah. WE GET IT! The bus has library etiquette for some reason. In other news, the zipper on my bag is broken, the little shit. It works, but you have to be holding it at a specific angle while pinching them together. How effing lame! Thanks a lot Urban Outfitters! We’ve got a meeting soon to discuss classes for the year. I really hope it doesn’t last long because I have got a ridiculous amount of homework to do. Booo!

30 Aug 2008

So we went to this suuuuper lame discoteca Friday. No joke—rave music all night, flashing lights, and a stage where a scary European woman was singing while people in scantily clad dominatrix outfits swayed behind her. Sooooo bizarre. Saturday night we went to Fiesta de Sants (like fiesta de gracia but in a different neighborhood). They had bands all over the place in all the crazy decorated streets. They sang some American songs (Grease medley, the song from the Venus commercial, and a Tom Jones song) which was hilarious. So we danced and sang along to their very incorrect lyrics, haha! So great.

31 August 2008

I still hadn’t heard from Karol, so we went to see on that is like 3 minutes walking distance from the UB. LOVE IT! Me, my current roommie, and one of my AGD sisters Kelly all got rooms in the same flat! We got so lucky. One girl who was going to live in one of our rooms agreed to switch into the other flat. We'll def going to give her some wine and thank you note for being so nice! There are 2 other girls in the flat--one is from Taiwan and has been living in that flat for 2 years, and the other chick is from England. But yada yada, i'll put pics up after I move in! So we somehow have to get enough money to pay 2 months rent (approx 920). But the effing ATM’s are giving me shit! I could only get 300 € out, and am at a loss for how I’m going to get the other 600 by tomorrow. Lucky me, I’ll end up having to skip class to get a cash advance and then pay like 6 billion euros in interest. Effing lame! I hate money! However, my mom is still my hero, even from across the world! I guess cash advance wont be so bad after all! She certainly is a doll. Those parents of mine can always make everything better! Anyways, after our successful rental, we went to Barceloneta and hit the beach! SO pretty! Even though everyone says it’s a dirty beach, I could really care less. I mean, its not like I’m licking the sand or anything!! Water was the perfect temperature and it was nice and sunny out! It’s still crazy to think that I’m living in a place where you can go swimming in the Mediterranean, see palm trees everywhere, and where you are surrounded by mountains….ridic! Anyways, tomorrow should be interesting. I’ll have to learn some banking terminology asap!

I'll be putting more pictures in these links as they surface, so stay tuned!!

Barceloneta
Festa de Sants
Pacha


Spanish Swing Orchestra? They were awesome!!

Week 1

8/16/08

The dorms are like mini hotels, with air & daily maid service—sweet! There’s a bar in the basement lounge along with a pop machine that sells cervesas (beer)!

First night out—we split into three groups because everyone kind of wanted to do something different. So me and 5 others headed over to the street festival in Gracia where it is permanently Unofficial! There were people from all over Europe, lots of pot, lots of sangria and Estrella, dancing on fake boxing rings, taking pics with polar bears and penguins, jess getting picked up and swung by singing Spaniards, talking in Spanish for the whole second half of the night, and meeting lots of funny people including some frenchies who were rolling joints, some dudes who sell beer there as well as at the university, & meeting up with the Californians, trying to convince some Spaniards that Charles barkley is funnier/cooler than Michael Jordan (23!!!!!!!!!!!!), figuring out how to use the sweet metro stations. Coolest night ever!

8/18/08

I had total insomnia last night. I woke up at 3:50 for some reason and then couldnt fall back asleep =( First day of classes was fine. We're all broken into smaller groups that we travel around with (carolyn's in mine). We've already gotten homework (booooooo) but hopefully it shouldnt be too bad!

After class we went and got pay as you go phones (like 15 of us at once...all the store's workers were out trying to help us), and then wandered up to Las Ramblas to find some lunch. As it turns out the Hotel Jazz is right next to the metro station I take to the University! So we got some lunch, wandered around, then went to the Corte de Ingles. I couldnt get everything I needed, but I did get another beach towel and a mini blow dryer. I didnt get a straightener yet because i thought they were too expensive. Oh well...I'll check again next week. I also wanted to get a small notebook for ILP, but we were all too tired and just decided to come back home.

SO I'M POOPED! I swear, once i'm about 20 feet out the door of the colegio, i am sweating like a pig! Its so hot here! I guess my body will just have to get used to it!’

22 Aug 2008

Excursion day! First we went to La Pedrera which was so freaking amazing. We got to go on a tour of the whole place, including going on the roof to see the chimineas and water reservoirs, and seeing how the apartments looked 100 years ago with all the old toys, maids quarters, etc. Gaudí was a genius. He literally thought of everything needed to create this masterpiece and figured the majority of it out by observing and copying structures (winding stairs like twisted tree trunk, arches like our legs or the swing of a pendulum). After La Pedrera, we went to La Sagrada Familia which was even more mind-boggling as last time since we had some back story. It was Gaudí’s first and last project. He had only constructed 4 towers when he died, but there will be 18 when it is finished. The church tells the entire story of the bible on the outside facades. He even put the words "Hosana en Excelsis," which I think means God in Heaven, on there so people were praying, whether intentionally or not, when they read it. He predicted that people wouldn’t go to church in the future and wanted this to be a way for them to know the story or to draw them in. You can follow the pictures left to right, top to bottom to see the story of his birth on one side, his death on the opposite (on the side the sun sets), the side facing the sea was being worked on, and he was buried in a tomb on the side facing the mountains. The tour guide told us that one of the statues actually has the profile of Gaudí. After La Sagrada Familia, we went to Parc Guell, which was a place Gaudí and Guell built away from the city in hopes that the richer families would move out there. In the end, their little community was unsuccessful since Gaudí bought the only house that was built. The two buildings in front were for the gardener and some other dude (I forgot), but they look like the houses from Hansel and Gretel. One is a witch house with teacups on the top of it, and the other house has a cross over it, since it belonged to the children. We quickly seeked out the place where the finale of America’s Next Top Model occurred and took a bunch of pictures. I got an ice cream cone there, which I should have never been entrusted with. I seriously got it all over my face and all down my leg and on my purse. I guess I’m 5 or something. Next we went over to Montjuïc to check out the Olympic area, get a sweet view of the port, and go the Joan Miró Foundation. Gaudí’s way cooler, but whatever. It started raining at the end of our trip so the majority of us just came back for a long siesta! That night we went to the local bar where some of the group was friends with the bartenders. So we went there and then they took us to Mojito, a discoteca, because the ones on Las Ramblas are “all tourists.” SO much fun! So hot and sweaty and gross, but SO fun! I noticed that Spanish guys dance very differently from los americanos / know how to dance…interesting change of pace. Some 29 year old and a guy from Senegal kept creeping on us, so we had to pretend we were each others novias a veces. But it was all good, no harm was done and we came home at 6 AM. Too bad I had to be up in 3 hours to go look at an apartment, haha!

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Want to see more pictures? Check out these links!

Barcelona
University Life
Excursion
Fiestas de Gracia
Mojito
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But yeah, I think I'm going to break this up more because that was a lot of reading/writing for everyone. More to come later! If you want to be notified of new posts, I think there's somewhere you can subscribe on the left side of the page...if not, just let me know and I'll figure something out! Off to do homework now =(

Adeu!