Diving In

July 23/24^th, 2012

I don’t think I have ever had a longer day.  It all started with O’Hare Airport and ended along a cobblestone streets and centuries old bars.  Saying good-bye to my family was by far one of the toughest things I have ever done, yes even more stressful than college finals or the LSAT.  However, I know this is a great experience and I wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity I have.  Or that is what I thought when I first got on the airplane in Chicago.  The next few days were, let’s say, like a rollercoaster.  I had a lot of ups and downs all within 48 hours.

I arrived to Barcelona safely and everything was going great.  The people I was sitting next to on both planes reassured me that I was going to love Barcelona and love traveling and very fortunate.  The flights were quicker than I thought and I did not sleep an ounce.  By the time I actually arrived to Barcelona I was running on excitement, which was not going to run out for another 16 hours.  Unfortunately, this is were my luck started to change-

Lost Baggage; I should have seen it coming.  My carry-on was checked while I was boarding the plane due to it splitting at the seam with all my necessities. El Prat Airport sercuity lady was kind enough to take a lost baggage claim from an American, which was not her highlight of the day; thus began the waiting game for the one bag I did not want to lose.

Moving on, I jumped in a cab and sped off to Bess International English School.  Stephen, my instructor was there to greet me and help me drag my 50lbs bags up two flights of stairs.  Then I went on a hunt for a bank that accepted traveler’s checks, in order to pay for the course and apartment.  Well, little to my knowledge, NO ONE accepted my checks.  And when I asked where a bank was that would accept them, no one seemed to have an answer.  I finally found the largest bank on La Rambla and they would cash and exchange them!  I was relieved, however still very frustrated with the other banks.  After I settled up with Stephen it was time to check out my hostel.

I get to my room and it had an amazing balcony looking over Calle Bailen.  I threw my stuff down and decided to take a walk to let off some steam and collect myself.  By this point I wasn’t just frustrated, I was upset with all mishaps.  I then decided to shower off and take an hour nap.  When I woke up there was someone else in the room with me; in case I didn’t mention before, I had never stayed at a hostel and this shocked me.  His name was Damian and he was an Aussie; he turned out to be my saving grace and my luck started to change.

Damian had earlier gone on a walking tour earlier and was going to walk around to some sites he wanted to revisit.  I decided to keep him company and walk with him, and he turned into my tour guide.  I started to feel better about the city walking around with someone who was more confident with his directions than I was.  We grabbed dinner at a Wok This Way fastfood place- yes; I had Chinese my first night in Barcelona, it was amazing though. We also stopped at a few bars along the way and then decided to meet up with some people he had met earlier from the mention walking tour.  We met up with the “Canadian girls” and decided to go for a barcrawl.

Estrella is the beer of choice here, similar to Bud Light or Coors Light.  So we had a few rounds of beer and finally called it quits around 3:30am, I was running low on energy and was happy to go to bed.  It is interesting here because guys walk around with a plastic bag of bottled water or cans of beer and you can buy them for 1 Euro.  So bars are not even a necessity, people are just drinking all over the street, and most of the streets are not for cars; except for the occasional Vespa.

July 25^th, 2012

Noon came around very fast the next day and I had decided to go for the walking tour Damien recommended.  For breakfast I walked to La Rambla and went to the open air market and got a cup of fruit; well I was hungry an hour later and did a very American thing- went to McDonald’s.  So by this time I have had Chinese and McDonald’s in Barcelona, but had not had tapas or sangria.  Who says traditional is the best way?

Next up, the walking tour.  This was the most influential and interesting 2.5 hour walking tour I had ever been on.  Joseph, our instructor was very passionate about the city; I want to go again to retain even more information.

After the tour the Aussie/American/Canadian group decided to go to el Parc Guell.  Stunning is the perfect word, it was very untraditional architecture and packed with runners. From there you could see the whole city of Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea.  After walking around for a while we decided to go for tapas and drinks. 

We stopped by a little place along the Parc Guell called Lumi. My first tapa in Barcelona was Jamon Iberico- a piece of bread with ham and cheese and some sauce. Barcelona is very prideful of their jamon, I guess that was a good starting point.  We then went to a larger tapas restaurant and order a ton of different platos and sangria ri.  It is interesting how sangria tastes differential depending on the restaurant; this sangria had about 2 inches of sugar on the bottle.  We stuck to wine after the first few pitchers of sugary sangria. 

Overall, we had a great farewell night for the Aussie and Canadians.

July 26, 2012

I decided to have a lazy day and went to exchange my clothes at the office for warmer clothes for London!  When I got there, my little carry-on was waiting for me.  I was very happy to have my make-up back!  After that I decided I needed a long nap, badly, I was starting to feel sick due to lack of sleep, lack of food, and over abundance of beer.  That nap was exactly what I needed, I felt refreshed afterwards and decided to go for a walk.  I stopped by and had tapas for dinner; I wasn’t sure what I was ordering so I ended up with calamari and cheesy French fries with chorizo on them.  Not the healthiest meal, but I guess if its your only meal of the day its ok once and awhile.

From there I decided to walk to the garden and around the Arc de Triomf.  And this is where I had my first encounter of a pit-pocketer.  I was sitting on the bench on my phone with my purse on my lap (not over my shoulder, which was my mistake) and an English man comes up to me and says to watch my purse because a 14-year old boy has been eyeing it.  When this very nice, non-Spanish man warned me, the boy sped off on his bike swearing.  I have been very careful the whole time I have been here about keeping an eye on my stuff, but somehow they catch you the one time you are distracted.  If that boy would have gotten my purse; he would have had everything; camera, nook, phone, wallet, passport, money, credit cards, ipod.  If that boy were successful with his plan, I would have been on a plane back to the states that night.

After that scare, I clutched my bag and was paranoid the rest of the night.  It is hard to shake that feeling of being watched all the time.  It is a large disadvantage for me because I stick out and do not look a bit of Spanish; so they see me as an easy target.  I found it ironic that another non-Spanish person was the one who warned me.

Hopefully that is the only pit-pocketing situation I will be in and I can have a more positive outlook on this beautiful city.  It is a big change I am willing to take on and will have to give myself time to fully understand the norms.

Off to London tomorrow to see Miss Anne Kaar!