Full Days and Montserrat

Fridays in Barcelona are great. I have no school, so I can sleep in and then just meander around the city. My neighborhood is great because it's not touristy at all, and I can see the locals just going about their day. All the shops are open and I can wonder around.

As I wondered around on this past Friday, I ran into a a fruit stand and bought 4 of these (I had eaten 2 at the time of this picture) :Oh, and they're sitting on my bed, just to let you know. I wasn't really sure what they were, but they were ,30€ for four, so I couldn't go wrong. I thought they were some kind of green plum. I bit into the first one and juice sprayed everywhere. They were tiny, green orange-things. Tasty, but required peeling the very thin peel. Biting into them doesn't work too well, haha.

Later that day I went to the supermarcado and got some things, including horchata (or-cha-tah). Here's a picture of it and the meat and cheese that I was using to make a sandwich.
Horchata is a Spanish drink and it tastes okay in small amounts. I don't know if I can really describe it. Maybe after I have it more. Very unique. In fact, I'll pour myself a drink right now and have one with my housemate. We'll try to describe it. *pouring*

Housemate: "I really like it."

Beyond that, we couldn't really describe it so we looked up the ingredients and translated them (with the help of the terrible Internet here). It has chufa in it, which is tiger nuts. I still don't really know what that is, but it's what makes horchata in Spain different than it in Mexico (where it's made of rice, I guess).

It reminds my housemate of rice milk, but it is a lot thinner than it looks. Even thinner than the regular milk here. Has a slight minty taste as well.

Okay, moving on, I did some things Friday afternoon/evening, including planning our Montserrat trip on Saturday. This trip included waking up at 7am, which posed a problem. Some of my friends (read Derek) wanted to go to a club. In Spain, you can't really go to a club before 2am. At around 11pm, I decided that I would attempt to take a quick nap, wake up at 1:30, catch the metro, and meet up with Derek at the club.

Napping at night isn't the greatest (and I hate napping to begin with). I got up, passing my housemate who was coming in for the night, and left for the club. I had a lot of fun and left at around 5am when the metro opened back up. Got back to my house at 6am-ish and decided it would be best to not go to sleep. However, by 6:30 I was so tired that I had to.

At the kitchen table my housemate asked how I was doing, and for the rest of the day he would quote what I said to everyone we were with, "Dude, I went to bed 30 minutes ago."

He thought it was hilarious.

I was surprising fine though, and we got the the station right on time and met up with our group. They were friends and acquaintances of my housemate. Not people I would have chosen to hang out with, but it was good to be with new, different people.

As we took the 1 hour train ride, we were all excited to get away from the mopeds and get some fresh, mountain air. We stepped off the train and were immediately disappointed. It smelled out here too. Thankfully, though, once we got up the mountain it was good. The hike was wonderful. My lungs loved it, too.

Here's me on our way up to the Monastery that is halfway to the top
Some crazy stairs
The monastery and other touristy things
Me at the very top. Boy, I take awesome pictures!
Can't escape the Catalonia pride, even up here. It was very foggy and cloudy that day, so you couldn't see to far, but it made for some cool, maybe eerie, photos.
The woods were great to hike through After our hike we walked around the tourist area and the gift shops. Also went into the basilica. Here's a statue of Mary.
I'm not sure on all the details, but apparently someone saw Mary in the mountains back in the day. Actually, I hear all kinds of stories about Montserrat, but basically there's a monastery there with a statue of the patroness of Catalonia.

I also had this Catalonian food called queso mató. I guess the queso mató at this monastery is quite famous. It's "fresh cheese without salt" and honey. Very tasty.

We took the tram back down and then took our metro trains to home. It felt great to shower and shave (something I hadn't done in 2 days. Okay, so I let myself go for a bit there).

I stayed up late enough to see Nebraska win and Oklahoma lose =) and then went to sleep at midnight. Woke up at 10am feeling great. That's what a solid 10 hours of sleep will do for ya.

Now it's time for some homework and studying. Have a great week, everyone!

Dinner with the señor's son

To begin with, I guess my señor went to a concert. Ahhhhh.... That makes a little more sense, haha. And he went with a lady. We are all very confused about our mysterious señor. We don't think he has a wife. Practically all the information we have on Jaume, our señor, comes from the German guy who stayed here a bit. Apparently Jaume is fairly well off, used to "produce" movies and make ads in Hollywood, and wants to have the best homestay in all of Barcelona. However, with the language barrier, we're still a tad bit confused.

And speaking of the German guy, shortly after our señor left, he showed up. He had been in Germany for the last week or so. He had just finished his 3000km drive (roughly 1900 miles and reaching crazy German speeds of over 200km/h (124 mi/h)). I chatted with him a bit and then he took off for his apartment. I realize you're all probably a bit confused about all the different people here, and to be honest, I am too a little. Maybe I'll spell it all out in a future post.

ANYway, to the main topic of my post (boy, do I like to ramble...). It turns out that for dinner, it would be just my señor's son and I. He's a really cool kid (age 12). However, he speaks even less English than I speak Spanish, so we bumbled along, putting together dinner while I spoke in terrible Spanish. It was fun, though. We sat across from each other and I'd rack my brain, trying to think of how to say something in Spanish. We communicated, though, and it went well.

Today I plan on just relaxing a bit, going over some homework/studying and planning my trip to Montserrat tomorrow. It's about an hour outside of Barcelona. Should be cool and I'll let you know how it goes. That being said, I'm not sure what time I'll be home, so my next post might be in 2 days.

Barça

After studying and some homework, I hopped on the tram (light rail that's above ground) and went to the FC Barcelona soccer game. The FC stands for fútbol club, and people call the team Barça (Bar-tha or Bar-sah) for short. The tram dropped me off on the opposite side of the stadium where my friends were. I hiked it around and we went inside (well, only half of us because a couple girls were late and a couple of the guys had to wait for them to give them their tickets). We climbed up to our seats of this massive stadium just in time to see kickoff.

Here's one of the scoreboards with the city in the background. We were high up, but still good seats.
We apparently, though, were in the rowdy crowd section. Aside from the many joints being rolled in front of us, the group behind us made a ton of noise and was clearly quite drunk. They also hit on two of the girls non-stop, forcing them to get up and sit down in front of the rest of the group. However, they were the ones who were late, making one of the guys miss at least 2 goals, so we didn't feel too bad for them.

It was explained to me by one of the soccer enthusiasts in our group that Barça is a stacked team. They spend a lot of money on players. This was what I think is called a C league game, so it was much cheaper, but the competition isn't the greatest. Real Zaragoza had no chance. It was 3-1 in the first 20 min or so, and Barça just played with them the rest of the game. It ended up being 4-1.

Here's a picture of Derek and I. He was one of the soccer enthusiasts and will probably come up a few more times in this blog. I look fantastic in this photo, as usual. Here's me enjoying a nice 4€ bocadilla. Interesting to note, they do not serve alcohol at stadiums. I'm assuming that's to prevent those crazy European soccer brawls we get to see on TV ever once in a while.
I almost forgot to mention! After the game, I made my way over to where the light rail is. For some odd reason, even though 70,000+ people just attended a soccer game, the light rail closed at 12ish, right around the time the game ended. I got there, and it was gone. Wow. Spectacular. So I decided to follow the tracks home. It took me 40 min (time-wise that's not too bad here. 25-30 is more acceptable. Beyond that I usually take public transportation. More and this subject in a future blog.). However, that 40 minutes included some jogging, which was nice to do. I haven't been running too much lately.

I'm currently starving, but dinner isn't for another 2 hours. Ugh. Oh well. At least it's the weekend for me. Yea! Time to get a little organized for the next week and plan what I'm going to do for the rest of my time here in Europe. Some sleeping in is also in order.

P.S. Just as I was about to post this, my señor informed me that he is going to the police station (I think...). So apparently it is just his son, the 2 girls from Mexico, and I eating dinner. Yea! 100% Spanish meal... Oh well, maybe with him gone we can eat earlier! Hmm...

Spanish Clothes for Chad?

Hello everyone.

First off, I've received at least 2 random comments on my blog. One of them was in Chinese (translated into something like "the scenery is pleasant"). A little odd, I guess. Thanks for the comments though, and thanks especially to those who sign their name.

I'm sorry to say that I don't have much to share at the moment. I have a quiz to study for and then I'm going to an FC Barcelona game (their soccer team here).

The only thing of much interest to share is I'm keeping my eyes and ears peeled for a cool, cheap, European place to get some clothes. So far, the best store that I've found (and the most reasonably priced) is H&M. I'm liking the shirts and underwear that they're selling over here. I especially like the polos made just for Spaniards. Why bother putting buttons on them when you don't even use 'em? (Seriously, lots of bare chests exposed here) In the up coming weeks, I can definitely see myself getting something there.

I'll let you know how the soccer game goes tomorrow. Have a great day.

And here are a couple shirts with some odd English on them. The first one was written like this (Note: the white periods are for spacing purposes):

up
..up
....away
and

It could be a completely normal shirt, but I just found the placing of the words a little weird.

And this one, well, I don't know what to say:

sex live life dangerously better

La Mercé Wrap Up

Time to wrap up Barcelona's big festival and move onto other topics. It was a crazy, fun weekend, and I hope reading about it was at least a quarter as entertaining as being here. And don't worry, I will work on maintaining topic quality in my blog.

I left you guys in a rush to go see some dancing. According to the English brochure, "The sardana is a serene, popular and very sociable dance which originated in northern Catalonia." I probably would have worded it a little differently, but whatever. The dancing was held in Plaça de La Mercé:
I heard the music playing, but where was this famous dancing? It turns out, there were no performers of the Sardana, just the public. Circles would just sprout up.



I'm not kidding you. Spontaneous circles of people would just pop up. As I watched, an old man came up to me and motioned for me to join in. He attempted to talk to me in Catalan and I told him in Spanish that I don't know it. He asked if I knew Spanish, I told him I spoke very little. He then asked about English, and upon my affirmative, he explained the Sardana. Apparently it's easy for beginners, but very complicated to follow the beat if you're good.

I watched a little bit and then was pulled into a circle of other greenhorns. A guy was teaching us the movements. With your arms up, you do three steps (left, right, left) then sidestep and do three more steps (right, left, right). Arms down you kind of skip a little more, but I have a feeling this was the dumbed down version of the dance.

It was fun, and I can now say I've danced the Sardana.

As I was leaving, I ran into the old man again and this lady gave me a sticker. She then was apparently asking for a donation. Me, being rather cheap, did what I usually do: pretend I don't have any money. However, upon further pressing by this woman, I dug into my pocket and pulled out 5 cents. There, take that.

Ah, and I also went inside the church that was in the plaza. A type of service was going on. It was pretty cool to see.
Next I made my way to Montjuïc where a massive fireworks show was going to close the festival. Along the way I ran into another parade that had more of those giants, dragons, and other creatures.
And apparently the Spanish just love things with bare breasts.
Here's another picture of the place where the fireworks were going to be. The show also involved a massive fountain.
Here's the square that would soon be packed with people. People tell me 10-15,000 show up for this event. I could believe it.



Here's the fountain warming up before the event started
And I have to say, this 30 minute fireworks display was definitely on par with anything Disney does. It was nuts.
And at one point, I guess they handed out sparklers to some people and about 20 minutes into it, everyone was told to light them. Those who did not have any held up other things, including cigarettes. Oh Europeans...
Again quoting the English brochure, the fireworks show "will feature the greatest moments of rock and pop." This basically meant American music, which composed of 80% of the songs played (the remaining 20% was split between British, 15%, and Spanish, 5%).

I must say though, it was a great show. The finale was also the loudest and brightest finale I've ever seen. It basically consisted of dozens of fireworks that just went up into the air and made a loud bang with a bright, white flash.

Whew, that was a lot of work. The Internet has been sketchy lately (not working for half of yesterday) and uploading all of these photos took forever! That said, I think that pretty much wraps up La Mercé.

Today, Tuesday, it was back to class and it went well. I'm now going to go make up some flashcards or something. Gotta start learning this language officially.

Have a great day/night everyone. Oh, and feel free to post any questions on things you may be curious about or whatever.

And today's shirt of the day is brought to us by one of my amigas here:

100% Virus Free

I wonder if that shirt is a good way to pick up chicks... Hmm...

Quieter La Mercé

Following the crazy events of the previous 24 hours, things have been a lot tamer (boy, that's funny looking word).

I saw a parade with more dragons, but with much smaller, quieter fireworks.
There were also the giants that danced around. They were kinda funny.



There were also some rather inappropriate ones (click to enlarge to get the full effect).


After seeing some of this stuff, some friends and I went down to the beach area to get in place to see the fireworks. We walked by some fun stuff by the beach: vendors, museum, eateries, and a small carnival. We also stumbled by a pub that was being promoted by these two guys from Denver. It was Sunday night, and they were showing some NFL games. We felt a little silly at such an American venue, but we kinda wanted a cheeseburger and see some football. However, the cheeseburger wasn't really a cheeseburger (I'll save my next attempt at one for when I get back to the states), but it was fun being there nonetheless.

Next we saw a nice fireworks display and then headed home for bed.


I just finished all more homework. I'm now going to go rush off to see some Sardanas, which is traditional Catalan dancing I guess.

More on that later!

Shirt of the day:

San Francisco & Idaho

La Mercé Craziness

Editors Note: I'm sorry for the very ugly photo of me a couple days ago when I got my hair cut. I swear I'm better looking than that. It was suggested I take it down. I might. And also, this post is long...

La Mercé is a massive festival. Rumored to have over 600 events, and that's not too hard to believe. Here are some of the key events that I saw. I'll have more to share on my next post.

My housemates and I started out going to a museum that was for free (there are a bunch of free museums this weekend). We got there, eventually, and got to see some cool stuff on the first floor about this whole festival, especially stuff about the parades. Apparently those different creatures, such as the dragons, used to stand for different guilds. And, while I missed the parade of giants, here's me standing next to two

We then went upstairs, where apparently the orginal focus of this museum lies... It's a modern art type museum, and this one was about kids. Let me tell you, it was the creepiest museum ever. It was about children and how they've evolved in society over time. According to one part of the English brochure, children are struggling to survive in today's world. It talked about the death of children, weird modern versions of fairy tales, and other stuff. Yeah... no me gusta. That's all on that.

As I mentioned before, there's stuff everywhere. Vendors, music, shows, etc. However, the main event on Saturday night was the Correfoc (Fire Run). Oh goodness. It was Kah-wazy. People were telling us about it, especially our RA, and told us that if we go, we need to dress up. Here's me (not a great picture):

And yes, sunglasses at night.

You will soon see why one dresses like this. I wasn't told much about this fire run, but I learned quite a bit from experience. Here's a picture of the kid version, which started beforehand.



Basically, in the Correfoc, there are these "devil" people that run around with these sticks that hold these fireworks that spin around, shooting out showers of sparks. That may explain the presence of these:

It's kinda like the running of the bulls. Hmm... Apparently Spaniards love running with dangerous things. I was the only one in my group properly suited, so I went it alone. Here's a good picture of the "devils" not in action.

You get carried away with the crowd and quickly learn the ropes. As the "devils" run around, you grab onto them so you're right under the Giant Sparkler From Hell. This way you're away from the sparks. Everyone's jumping and chanting. Crazy stuff. Here are some actions shots. And yes, this was slightly terrifying.

































They aren't the greatest pictures, but I hope the reader can forgive me. In the second one, you can see people sitting down. I soon realized that the "point" was to try to stop or slow these devils down. Of course, as we sat, they would shower sparks onto you. The people would also chant something that sounded like "no government" at first, but I'm pretty sure it's something else. And probably in Catalan like everything else at this festival.

These things were the most intense:
They came in all types of creature shapes. And yes, they targeted people.

I'm glad I suited up the way I did (and had ear plugs). Some of my friends got scared in the beginning when they saw everyone else and me all decked out, and not merely wearing athletic shorts and t-shirts. Let's just say I don't feel like a wimp. I also didn't get out of there without burns. I got a couple small ones on my right hand. My sweatshirt (just a free one I got from school. It says "ACE" on it, which is this business honors program I'm in) has a few burns in it that I'm quite proud of.

This event was also the best Barcelona has ever smelled. Mmm... Like the Fourth of July... on 'roid rage causing steroids.

So, that was that. The rest of the night was a little more tame. Just went to this club that was pretty nice.

Today, Sunday, I saw the Matí Casteller (human castles or towers). It's appears to be a mild competition between about 5 groups.
They try to build a tower as tall as they can, and a little kid climbs to the top. A few of them did collapse, and it's funny because if it gets too shaky or scary, the kid comes down before he/she reaches the top.
It was pretty entertaining.

Well, there are more parades, concerts, and fireworks tonight. I'm going to get a little homework done now. I hope you all enjoyed this post. Take care, everyone! :)

Shirt of the day:

Uncool

First Night of La Mercé & cookies

Friday night kicked off La Mercé. I'll post more about it tomorrow, but La Mercé is Catalan for Lady of Mercy, or something like that. As I said, I'll get more info, but several hundred years ago, there was a plague of locust in Barcelona. The people prayed to Mary (Lady of Mercy...? Sorry, Catholics, correct me if I'm wrong. Why can't there just be Jesus? So complicated) and the plague ended. So, since then, they celebrate hardcore and it's been a huge festival since. Fireworks, concerts everywhere
and much more. Last night we caught this parade of dragons and stuff. They had fire at first, but then for some reason, towards the end, they were put out.















I've gotta run (a museum is open for free right now), but I'll try to come up with more information on all this stuff later.

Oh, and a loved one brought up the concern of my weight. I'm doing fine, don't worry, and here's a picture to prove it.
Those cookies are amazing.

My Mess, Cleaned Up

Our RA finally came (over an hour late, haha) and to make a long story short, she helped sort things out. Basically, he wasn't happy I brought someone over and apparently his son has been uncomfortable around us. I'll admit, I/we screwed up, however I kind of wish he would have shared the rules with us ahead of time (they vary from homestay to homestay. I've visited other people at their homestays and their señoras didn't mind, but of course he has the right to have any rules he wants). And I also wish he told us if we were doing wrong instead of holding it in and then blowing up. I understand, though, that there's a language barrier, and it's time we've all moved and, and it looks like we're doing that. Dinner was much better last night.

So, thankfully, my mess has been cleaned up. I can now go back to writing about more fun things.

And speaking of messes, I'm going to go get a haircut now. Here is a shot of me before:

If it looks greasy, it's because I just showered. Don't worry Mom, I'm keeping good hygiene.

Okay, and I just got back. Wow, I don't think I'll need another haircut this year. I walked down a street where I knew I saw a bunch of peluquerías and ran into one where a lady was standing on the outside. I asked her how much it cost, and she said, "Diez Euros" (10€). I can handle that. She then said something about "poquito" and "media" and I eventually pieced together that there was a small wait so I should come back in about a half an hour. It's easy to walk around and kill a half hour, so I did just that.

I arrived and she said "poquito" again and had me sit down. I waited for almost 30 more minutes, when I asked her if I could get a haircut today (okay, no, I don't mean that in a rude way). She was just sitting there, but I then learned that she wasn't a hairstylist and the other lady would be done in 10 minutes. However, less than 10 minutes later, a guy comes in and greets me.

Talking to him was a little harder than talking to hairstylists in California, but barely. I got the point across that my hair was very long, and I wanted it shorter. I also wanted my patilla (sideburns) trimmed and cleaned up. He pinched his fingers together to show what appeared to be about a half inch to an inch. Man, it turned out to be about 2 inches.


Yeah, it's super short, but surprisingly nice. I just may go somewhere other than Fantastic Sam's when I get back to the U.S.. Maybe...

Also worth noting, they used disposable apron things and towels to dry my hair. Thought that was interesting.

One more quick story, we went to a club last night (pretty nice, and no smoking :) ) and it played some serious techno all night long. No American hip-hop there. There was also interesting "entertainment" on the stage. I think there were about 7 women and one male. Most of them were wearing odd, black leather attire. The one lady with the microphone spoke in some random English. Her favorite phrase was "get down," and later a song came on that said it in almost the exact same way she did. Oh techno... Oh Europeans...

The shirt of the day said:

Say No To Cages

Waiting for my RA...

Dinner last night (Wed) was a little awkward. My señor talked to the other two guys, but didn't really talk to me and I stayed fairly quiet. However, I got the feeling that if I can get things cleared up tonight with the RA, things will go back to normal. I'll let all of you know how it goes tomorrow.

Today marked the end of my first week of classes. It went pretty well, I believe. I'm looking forward to the weekend so I can get situated, but also this weekend marks the start of Barcelona's biggest fiesta: La Mercé. It celebrates the patron saint of this city, although I don't quite know who that is. I'll find out more this weekend.

Also, IES has an activity called the Cultural Passport. It is this booklet full of sights to see and various points award if each one is completed. One example, you get awarded 15 points for having your picture taken with a mammoth statue in the city's largest park. The idea is to make us kids go out and see the city. If you get 75 points, you get a free pass to 7 of the city's museums. If you get 125, you get entered into a raffle with various prizes.

The rules say you have to take in your camera and show them the pictures from it. I didn't read the rules until I was halfway done, so I figured I'd just place all the photos I needed on a USB drive (after I upload pictures onto my computer, I delete them from my camera). I went in to turn in my photos, and she would not except it. I tried to think of what I could do, and settled for taking pictures of my laptop monitor. I hefted it back to my place to attempt this jury rig of an idea. Here's how one of them turned out (my friend "made me" pose like that):


I went back to the IES building and she accepted them. I got up to 115 points. So close, but she wouldn't accept this photo because the directions say I have to be in it (whoops on my part):



So I rushed up the street several blocks and had a random person snap this quick photo (and yes, I need a haircut badly. I'm getting one tomorrow):


I completed the cultural passport! Yea! I'll let you know if I win anything.

And the random shirt of the day said:

I'm you're lust