ESPANA!

hola!

we realize that its now been two months since we've left home, but we do really have tons and tons to update y'all on. you can probably get that its erin now because of the y'all.

our first day here was nice, mainly because of our amazingly nice hotel room and shower. little do we know that we shouldn't have taken those showers for granted.  the morning we were allowed to move into our dorm, we had to first find our abroad program center which is in the middle of the most touristy part of Barcelona. unfortunately, it took us more time than we thought to find it, mostly because IES (our program) did not exactly tell us how to get there. This was just the first sign of the unorganization of their organization.  so eventually we found it and then found our dorm. then we found the 7 flights of stairs that we had to carry our massive bags up...once we got to our room and met our (awesome) roommate, we were both extremely winded. our room is WAY WAY WAY bigger than my dorm at UCLA. some of the other girls on our floor were complaining about how small they were, until i showed them a picture of my room in Hedrick Hall...which was about the size of a closet. Anyways, the dorm is really fun, we live with 18 american students and about 200 spanish students.  the only downside to our dorm experience is the food.  It's pretty much typical american disgusting dorm food, with some spanish dishes thrown in sometimes (white rice with tomato sauce and a fried egg is a favorite meal...and apparently the mystery meat somedays is rabbit. as you can guess, i haven't been eating that). they like to give us french fries alot, which at first was nice, but now, we've eaten more french fries that i could have ever imagined eating. caitlin thinks her body is made of french fries. our only other complaint are the showers- you know those sinks where you have to push to turn them on for like 20 seconds? yeah, that's our showers. but it makes us really appreciate real showers. at our last hostel visit, we felt like princesses in our continually running shower! living with the spanish students has been a really cool experience, we eat dinner/lunch with them and they like to take us out at nights. they like to laugh at our attempts to speak spanish, but talking with them really does help. a lot of them want to practice their english, so they will try to talk to us in english, which is good and bad- doesn't really help our language skills. but they are all very nice and funny- its interesting to see that college students really are the same in every country.

the first week we were here was exciting, we mostly hung out with the people in our dorm and explored the city, mostly nightlife. we had orientation with our IES program, but it was not very helpful! the first weekend, my friend Felipe stopped in Barcelona on his way to study in Paris. We did a lot of touristy activities, such as seeing all the Gaudi architecture in Barcelona, including Parc Guell, an amazing park that kind of looks like Candyland, and La Sagrada Familia, a strange cathedral that has been under construction since 1926 and won't be finished until 2026. Unfortunately, Felipe was also here during the Robbery of the Marc Jacobs Red Purse.  The first Sunday of our abroad experience here, we were at a cafe, and somehow (we still don't understand how, it's just one of those unsolved life mysteries), my purse disappeared from the table, which was right next to Caitlin's and Felipe's belongings. We decided the only plausable explanation must have been invisible ninjas. Anyways, everything was stolen, including my spanish phone, money, credit cards, license, student ID...even my new Stonehenge keychain. Luckily I still had my passport back in my dorm room! It was quite an inconvenient way to start out my abroad experience, but my mom was happy- we talked ALOT that week! Everything was straightened out eventually, but drinking a lot of sangria in front of La Sagrada Familia with Felipe definitely helped.

We also went to Mount Tibidabo with Felipe, which is the second highest mountain (hill) in Barcelona, and has an absolutely incredible view of the city. It also has the best chicken sandwiches we've ever had. The kiki sauce on the sandwiches was definitely worth the trek up the mountain. We've done it twice now. There is a pretty sketchy amusement park up at the top of the mountain where the movie Vicky Christina Barcelona was filmed. We both hate that movie, but it was kind of cool to see a slightly abandoned amusement park?

soaring over barcelona!

We have a lot a lot more to fill y'all in on...I guess that's what happens when you forget to post for two months. Coming soon...we go to Munich for Oktoberfest and Florence to eat!

love,
erin (and caitlin)