Day 2 - Las Ramblas, La Marcat de Boqueria, y primer día de clases

I feel like I have already settled into to my new home for the next 6 weeks. The past two days have been a blur of new food, new language and new culture.

Martes

The first day I was here, I had orientation. Jet lag snuck up on me, so I didn't get to run in the park in the morning like I wanted to. I barely got to my orientation on time. After orientation, some friends and I went and got Paella and pints from a street vendor on Las Ramblas. Soon after we'd finished, we walked South sightseeing and came across the most amazing public market I have ever seen, la Boqueria. 

Friends and I wandering around the market

The market! There was so much fish

The coolest candy store I have ever seen.

After doing some research, I realized that this market is almost 800 years old! It won the award for "best market in the world" in 2005. It was unbelievable. 

Martes noches

After that, my friends and I grabbed tapas, and hung out in my apartment until about 11. We then went to a really cool bar called the Dow Jones bar, where the prices of the drinks varied based on the current "stock" of the drink at the time. At one point, the market "crashed" and the prices of the drinks plummeted. Sirens went off and people started calling for the bartender, hoping to get a drink before the stock went back up. It was a lot of fun! We were there until about 3 am!

Dow Jones bar, the computer screens were the drink "stocks."

Miercoles

Let me reiterate... jet lag sucks. I slept through my alarm and woke up just in time to get to my first class, Intermediate Spanish. The class is conversation based, so we'll see how well I do. My grammar is not as good as some others in the class, but I am able to openly converse much easier than they do. Looking forward to the summer classes!

Day 0

Wing shot: Swiss Air over France

Well, after 15 hours of travel, I've have landed in Barcelona. I flew Swiss Air to Zurich, then to Barcelona. I am pretty tired, but I couldn't stop smiling as I walked to my new apartment. Barcelona is everything and more than what I expected.

My apartment off of Gran
Via de les Corts Catalanes

I live just off of Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, in a beautiful apartment. The building I live in is pretty old, but the apartment is nice. The building has a old manual lift, which, I have to admit, I was scared to use at first. But I used it, and it saved me a lot of effort, rickety as it was. But now I am in my room, relaxing and trying to get my bearings.

Later, I will go to the store and pick up all the amenities I need - food, toiletries, etc., etc. - and just come back and relax. I plan on going out for tapas and dinner later.

I have orientation tomorrow at 9 am. I am looking forward to going to class and experiencing this amazing city. However , I need to be cautious tomorrow. Apparently, there is going to be a protest in the afternoon and I don't want to get mixed up in anything violent. God knows that getting arrested would ruin my trip before it even started.

Regardless, I still can't believe I am in Barcelona! Here's to the next 6 weeks.

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