Trials and Tribulations

So after a fun weekend in London and watching Arsenal tie. Sunday its started to snow. And I've never seen so many amused British people in my life. It was like it was raining Earl Gray. They just stood and watched it snow in amazement. It never crossed their minds that they should shovel or plow or salt anything.. Consequently everything turned to hell come Monday morning. But I got out of London just delayed a few hours. It was nice to take a break from Spanish speaking people, even though some Brits are even harder to understand. But now that everyone is back to Spain, we must deal with Spanish again. I've come up with a strategy of not listening when the Senora doesn't look at me. She usually looks at Ian but that all might change. Since he got railed about how crappy his Spanish is. She asked him if he understood what she was saying. He asked her to repeat 3 times then I had to help him out and then he actually replied by saying Yes he did understand her. Ironic and classic

So I almost had to shank a B

So I was a victim to a failed pickpocket attempt. While this 17 year old was playing "imaginary soccer" with me, he pushed me hard enough for my hands to come out of my pockets. He then decided it would be a good idea to put his hand in the pockets America. And in typical American fashion I said, "Get the hell out" and grabbed my phone from his hands. Kids these days. You'd think they'd learned by now that its a bad idea to mess with people who bleed red, white and blue. Besides that Spanish classes have started. I have a crazy person for a teacher. Him and a classmate of mine shared a cigarette on a field trip down to the Market. Things like that make me realize how different this place is. My mama speaks crazy fast and none of us understand her but if she asks us a question, we all converse and answer back as one. I watched my first Barca game in Barcelona. We went to the "famous" Bar Sans and yelled at the TV with the 20 other Spaniards. Besides that seiestas es mi favoritos and Spanish people are asking me questions so my attempt to not look like a complete tourist is working, unlike Alex's roommate. I leave for London in 14 days and 22 hours. But I'm out. Adios. In case I don't make it back alive, its because I died from the Black Lung due to running around the city during Rush Hour. Disgusting.

Another day

Well another day in Espana, we had orientation today which was thrilling to say the least. All the traveling has caught up to me and I feel quite dehydrated today and did not sleep well. But I did as the Spanish do and took a nap during the middle of the day. Its really easy since we have steel curtains (not communism) for our windows. So feeling a little better. Starting to understand the city a little better. We found a tiny local pub that we went to last night as well as a grocery store for our lunches so we dont have to drop $15 a day. but my bag finally came today so now I dont have to smell like smoke all day, since everyone over is pretty much a chain smoker. now we're just hanging out before we eat another excellent meal, then its out for another night then a tour of two Roman and Medievel towns tomorrow. Buenos noches.

Day 1

Finally, we're in Barcelona. Many setbacks occurred in getting here. First, we sat around in Chicago's airport eating McDonalds and making fun of people as they ran to their plane. Then we walked to what we thought was our gate and realized that we were in the wrong terminal, so we had to sprint to a train, sprint off the train and were the last ones on the plane. In London we sat around for a few hours. We got on a plane to Barcelona and they just sat around and took off an hour late again. We get to Barcelona and wait an hour, they say they lost like half of the customers luggage which included my big backpack. So I wait in line for another hour to do lost luggage. Then go checkin with IES for another hour. We live with a lady who is in her late 60's. She has children who have their own homes. Ian and I share a tiny room so that should be fun. She made us an 4 course meal, howevvvvvvver she does not speak a word of English. So it should be an interesting semester.
After an eventful arrival day, we searched the city. We tried to limit being tourists to only one day. We saw Segrada Familia (one of the most amazing things I've ever seen) and Casa Mila. We Found out where our classes are and had a tiny lunch because we thought it was cheap haha. We walked around the city and down to the sea. After having a few setbacks with the subways, we are finally back in our house, tired and hungry. Orentation starts tomorrow at 9am so time for reality. Well I'm off. Adios