Rule of the day: Mira arriba! Look up!

Being away this weekend in Sevilla and Cordoba, sometimes I forget how much I love it here. 

And sometimes I forget to look up when I'm walking down the street to class!  But not today, today I remembered.  

Francesco and Daniel (two of my housemates) were in Rome last week, and we left while they were gone. It feels great to have everyone home!

I am uploading pictures now, post them soon!

Sickness, Independence, and Good Chocolate

Life here is independence.  Two days ago I got lost trying to find a medical clinic to get my cold looked at, and wandered around the city for a while.  Apparently there is more than one system of public transportation in this city! I left the house aiming to take the metro, Line 6 or 7.  Turns out lines 6 and 7 are part of the Ferrocaril system, a different metro-like underground railway.  After asking a number of Catalan people questions, I made it to the clinic! 

I then waited for 2 hours to be seen by a doctor who examined me in both spanish and english.  After the appointment, I asked him a couple of questions in Spanish and he looked at me and said, you speak Castellano? Que bueno! Next time you should tell people. Haha. 

I also got this super awesome x-ray of my head while at the doc...and I got to keep it! Francesco told me it would make a good poster for the living room wall, so we put it up last night. hahaha. Apparently from the xray they could tell that I have a sinus infection. BOO. I'm on antibiotics for a week.  But hey, at least I got some cool home decorations out of it all!

For the past couple of days I have been laying low in my flat, trying to get better. It is SO frustrating to be sick in Barcelona.  All I want to do is go out and explore and do fun things...but I know I need to get rest.  

On my way home from the clinic, I saw parts of Barcelona I hadn't before.  And everything feels so full of life here.  This city is the definition of bustling.  Children fresh out of school for the day clinging to their mother's hand...running through the streets, so many different languages swirling in the air, the smell of pastries from little bakeries on every corner...these are the things that make me love it here so much.

I hope to start traveling this upcoming weekend, and this week I hope to figure out and finalize my classes.  We will see how it goes! 

Miss you all, love you all!

Helen and I on the roof of Casa Mila/ La Pedrera!

Beautiful building

YUM

Adriana and I at the Catedral close to our homestay :)

Dolly and I at the FC Barcelona soccer game! They won 5-0! 

Backstreet Boys Karaoke..enough said...

Adriana, Francesco, and I...looking our best as always.

Francesco, Me, Adriana, Daniel

"How to be an Artist"

Al Principio...

The beginning of my long-overdue blog of my semester abroad in Barcelona, Spain.  Where to begin!?  I have been here for almost a month, a little over three weeks...and time passes so differently here.  I can't believe it has almost been a month!  

The first two weeks of our time here I spent living in a homestay in the piso (apartment) of Señora Isabel. She is the best- she is about as tall as the middle of my waist, gave us cookies for breakfast every morning, made us picnic lunches (bocadillos), showed us videos of her performances from her theatre class, made me café con leche, and always greeted us with a good attitude. We got so lucky. We being myself and my homestay roommate, Adriana. I also happen to have insanely good luck with randomly chosen roommates (i.e. Jenna Nakano, freshman year), because Adriana and I get along SO well. I couldn't have asked for a better person to spend my first two weeks away from home with. 

During those first two weeks we were given an assignment- to find an apartment to live in for the rest of our time here. Needless to say, not an easy thing to do when you don't know the city or the metro system. Again, I was insanely lucky and Adriana and I found a piso in the center of L'Exiample, four blocks from our University. Now our home includes myself, Adriana, Sarah (from France), Daniel (from Mexico), and Francesco (from Sicily). 

Sarah has my exact same taste in television shows, Daniel has extremely good taste in music and a music library that would put anyone's to shame, and Francesco cooks incredibly good pasta dishes and plays FIFA xbox and makes me laugh all day long. We also have a cat named Hi bu (debatably also spelled I Bu, I Boo, etc) that is blind in one eye and is all white. He holds the position of power in the household and also enjoys long walks in bags on Francesco's shoulder and the occasional swan dive into the toilet bowl. 

Living in this piso is exactly what I wanted out of Barcelona- a real home away from home, not just a place to sleep for 6 months.  We are friends, not just compañeros de piso. I couldn't be happier here. 

There is so much to say, I don't know how to put my experiences into words. I have seen Parc Guell, many museums of the history of Catalunya and Barcelona, Casa Mila, Casa Batló, Las Ramblas, Barceloneta and the beach, cathedrals in Barri Gotic, Plaza Catalunya...the list goes on and there are so many places to explore here, it's neverending.

I went grocery shopping for the first time the other day and one of my bags ripped on the way up the stairs.  Sara, laugh away. haha. There are no such things as dryers or dishwashers here. I have no microwave in my kitchen.  For many doors you need a key to get out as well as in.  Showering everyday is overrated. Eating dinner at 9pm is the norm. Siestas are not as prevalent as I thought they would be here.  Dred locks, piercings, and the grunge movement are pretty popular here. People enjoy life here, and don't care if they are 15 minutes late to things. 

I have just booked a flight to Paris in March to visit Allison and Zoe! I am SO excited to start traveling. I hope to go to Granada next weekend. 

I fit well in this city. Call me Laurena. ;)  Love you all.