It's a beautiful day for a strike.

Fact: it really is a lovely day. Fact: I didn't have any classes today due to the general strike in Spain against labor reforms. Fact: this sadly also prevented me from going to the zoo, like I had planned to today. Fact: there have already been "violent incidents" and arrests and for once, I'm glad I live in the mountains so far from the city center. Myth: this will be an exciting blog post.

Well I guess it might be exciting, I wouldn't know. I haven't written it yet, but it will only contain information from Monday until now. I'm doing it this way because Sunday night I will be in Morocco and don't plan to bring my computer. I'll start out the blog with a little summary of what my Semana Santa (holy week, which is a countrywide religious holiday and equals no class/spring break) trip will entail. I leave bright and early tomorrow morning to catch a flight at 7 am to Marrakesh. Then, on Saturday, my group and I will head out into the desert on camels (I am not making this up, regardless of how shocked anyone who knows me may be) where we will spend the night and then ride back to Marrakesh the next day. Then on Monday we fly from Marrakesh to Seville, where we will spend two nights and hopefully see some flamenco, among other things.  Then on the 4th of April, we will be in three different cities in less than 24 hours. We leave Seville on a train to Cordoba, where we will only be for about 6 hours, but all we want to see is La Mezquita, a really beautiful mosque, and then from there we will take a bus to Granada, where that same night we have tickets for the Alhambra (which I am SUPER excited about!! Number one on my list of things to see while in Spain! I've already printed my ticket :)). We spend one night in Granada and head back to Barcelona late the next night, arriving around 11:15 pm. So it's certainly a whirlwind tour of the south of Spain (+Marrakesh), but I'm super excited and it shouldn't be too bad because I'm also super organized, as always. Of course I was the nerd of the group who made an itinerary with all of our transportation and hostel information for everyone, but it made me feel much better. Today I tried to pack my bag (one backpack for a week, yikes) to Ryanair standards, which are tiny, and I still have some work to do. I'm just really hoping they won't check, but they're the super budget airline and apparently really strict because they absolutely pack the planes full and can't have anyone disobeying the baggage size rules. Luckily, only one of our flights is through Ryanair, the others are through Vueling, which is also a budget airline, but much, much nicer. Anyways, so you'll get to hear all about that not this coming Sunday, but the next. That'll likely be a monster of a post. I may have to split it into two parts. Onto this past week:

Monday, as it typically is, was uneventful. So really this blog only covers three days, haha. Oh well, on to Tuesday! Tuesday was more exciting because I don't have class until 4, so in the morning I took the metro, funicular, and then a bus up to the Tibidabo church I tried to go to a few weeks ago. This time I made it :). It was really neat and I'm glad I went. The church is literally on top of a mountain (not like a huge rocky mountain, it's like a little green mountain with trees, but still!) So the views were really great and it's also right next to an amusement park. I didn't think it would be open, but I wanted to just go in and look around because it's pretty old and I thought "Old, abandoned-looking theme park? Awesome!" I wasn't disappointed, it was pretty cool in a somewhat creepy ghost town kinda way, with the carnival music still playing but no one on the rides. So I walked around it and there actually were a few people, but not many, and not many of the rides were open, like I expected. But then, as I was leaving, I heard the roller coaster running! Turns out it opened at noon, which was like a few minutes after I got there. I was by myself on this adventure, so it wouldn't have been as fun, but hopefully sometime before I leave we can get a group up there to go ride the top-of-the-mountain roller coaster.  Then I walked over to the nearby (although not quite as near as it looks) Collserola Tower, which is basically just a giant telecommunications tower. It's apparently architecturally significant, but I don't see why, it's kinda ugly. But that's not why I went anyways. There's an elevator that goes up to the top and I wanted to see if that was open, because those would be even better views than at the church, but it wasn't open yet. Tourism is a pretty big industry here, but I'm here during the off-season, so a lot of touristy things like that aren't open right now. Maybe if I go back with some friends to ride the roller coaster, we can take the elevator to the top of the tower, too.  Afterwards, instead of taking the bus back (because I didn't really know where to get on it and since I had already walked like half the distance back to where I got on the funicular by this time) I just walked back to Vallvidrera, the cute town I had ended up in last time I had attempted this journey, where I could get on the funicular and head back down the mountain. Thing is, I wasn't dressed for a hike (jeans, flats, jewelry, etc.) but that was what I got, because the signs pointing to Vallvidrera pointed to on trails in the woods. Luckily, it was a beautiful day up on the mountain so it was a pleasant walk, but my feet did not thank me and I ended up with blisters for pinkie toes, among other locations on my feet. Oh well, goal accomplished anyways, one thing I can check off my list.

I ate my peanut butter and jelly sandwich in Vallvidrera and then headed back down the mountain and into the city.  I still had about two hours before class so I decided to cross another thing off my list and visit the store Vincon. We had learned about it in one of my classes because it's been around since the early 20th century and played a big role in Barcelona becoming a sort of high-design city, but with unique design for the general public instead of for only the upper class (this was on my final I took the next day, so I know all about it ;)). So it's this really cool (surprising huge for being in the middle of the city) design store that just carries all kinds of unique objects. It ended up being a good place for gifts ;). It was really neat and I'll probably go back again before I leave, sometime when I'm not carrying a backpack and my feet aren't screaming at me. Anyways, I made my purchases and then decided to stop and get sorbet and do some studying at a cafe instead of at school (I deserved it after my hike, obviously). It was a good choice. Eventually I made my way to school, had class, turned in a ten-page research paper, and that was it for Tuesday.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I had my first final! That means I'm done with a class! I only have three now instead of four. And I counted the other day, we only have 5 days of class left, counting finals. What!? Insanity. I have a lot of studio work to do before those days are over. (It's what I was doing before I decided to blog instead.) The final was for my City in Visual Culture class, which is the elective I'm taking (I took!) in Spanish, meaning I wrote the essay test in Spanish. I don't know how it went, not as well as I would've liked though, I fear. I'm still worried about Spanish grading standards tanking my GPA back home. Oh well, what can you do? It's not like it wasn't worth it. After the final, Hailey and I finally returned to the school where we volunteer, after I'd been gone for probably a month and Hailey almost as long. The kids didn't hold it against us. Never a dull moment with those kids, that's for sure. I didn't have my gloves this time, of course, so this time they were after my jewelry. (Good choice, Megan, wear a dangle-y bracelet on the day you're going to hang out with small children.) They also like Hailey's hair, as it is long and bright blonde (the whole situation is probably more painful for her than it is for me, although having your earrings pulled on isn't enjoyable either.) But of course, I also got lots of hugs and kisses, and I danced with one little boy who remembered me; it was a good time, overall. We spent most of the time with one girl, Paula, who is literally the happiest, most enthusiastic person I've ever met. She's probably 13 or 14 if I had to guess and the whole time she was listening to the same song on her mp3 player and having Hailey and I listen too. It's like the most popular song in Europe right now and I've probably heard it 100 times since I've been here, and she kept saying "otra vez!" which is like "another time" meaning she was going to listen to it again. She spoke so fast and excitedly we of course didn't understand it all (at least it was Spanish and not Catalan), but the great part is that she didn't care at all whether we understood or not, she just wanted to talk to us and tell us we were her "mejores amigas", best friends.

Sadly, not all the children are that happy. Hailey and I noticed this time that one little girl, who we've seen every time we've been there and who always comes up to try to talk to us (unfortunately, she often speaks Catalan), hurts herself. She's probably 7 or 8, I think her name is Laia. We noticed yesterday that sometimes she just grabs handfuls of her hair and pulls them out, and she's made progress. Once we noticed, we could tell there were thin spots. She also took hard objects and pressed them into her skin to make an imprint, and in one of the conversations she tried to have with Hailey, the only word she kept saying that we understood was "sangre", blood.  Of course we don't know many of the children's individual stories and I'm far from an expert, but I suppose she goes to that school for some kind of emotional or behavioral disorder that causes her to do these things and it made us sad to see her doing that, but we didn't really know how to help. Any dilemmas notwithstanding, I'll probably only be there one more time at the most. Hopefully I can go, so that I can say goodbye to them. I don't know whether they'd care, but I'd feel kinda bad not letting them know I wasn't going to come back.

Today, my class was technically already cancelled because the professor was going to be out of town, but it turns out it would have been cancelled anyways, because the study center closed at 2 today because of the strike (class wasn't scheduled until 4). I had planned to go to the zoo today and then work in studio, but that darn strike prevented it from happening.  The bus and metro today were running at 1/3 frequency between 6:30 and 9:30 am and will be again at from 5-9pm, but for the rest of the day aren't running at all because the workers are striking (making it difficult to get to the zoo on the other side of town), almost no flights are going in or out of Spain today, lots of businesses are closed, etc. The study center closed early for safety reasons because it's so close to the city center. Quite a tumultuous little country right now. As I mentioned, the strikes have something to do with labor reform and the people (specifically unions and city workers) are not pleased, but that's all that I know. So I've just been doing studio work all morning and then Cara and I walked to the parrot restaurant, where we ate just last Thursday with Nathan, and hung out with Ricky the parrot while we had lunch. When we got back I painted my nails to prepare for my vacation (super important stuff) and then decided it was blog time. Unfortunately, seeing as I've reached the present, blog time is now over and it's back to studio time. I have a week after I get back from Semana Santa until our final review, so I want to get as much done today, before we leave, as I can. So that's the plan, and I'll be back next Sunday with all kinds of stories about my vacation!  Adéu ! (One of the only Catalan words I've picked up, and I had to look up the spelling, haha.)

So classy.

Hola! I realized recently that I really don't have many blog posts left! In fact, this is one of the last, there will just be four more after this and that fourth and final blog post I'll be writing in Minnesota! It was exactly four weeks until the end of the program last Thursday, so now it's less than four, and for one of those we'll be on spring break. Speaking of which, I might switch up my schedule a little, now that I think of it. I think my next blog post will be Thursday night because we leave on Friday. And then after that I'll post a blog that next weekend like normal and it'll be about our spring break trip. That'll be a lengthy one. We're going to Marrakesh (Morocco), and then Seville, Cordoba and Granada and we'll be gone for about a week. Don't worry, I already made an itinerary and a to-do list ;). (But really, I did.) But that's not for another two blog posts, back to the present!

So, Monday...I don't believe anything exciting happened on Monday. I really should take notes throughout the week so I can remember better, haha. Nope, pretty sure nothing on Monday. Oh! Except I got an email back from one of the internships I applied for. Unfortunately, he wanted to meet for an interview the next day and I felt a little bad explaining that I'm kind of out of the country and the best I could do is a Skype call.  Anyways, he asked when I would be available to start if I did get the position because they had been looking for someone to start on the 1st of April, which I obviously can't.  He said they'd be willing to wait for the right person, though, so maybe I still have a chance. I haven't heard from him since then though, or done any kind of phone interview because he went out of town. So I guess I wait and see. This one is unpaid, however, and the one I really want I haven't heard back from yet. But that was all for the excitement of Monday.

Tuesday, however, was actually exciting. The first part of the day was pretty uneventful, I went  grocery shopping, bought sunscreen (happy, mom? ;)) and tried to go to the library, but was outsmarted by the building and couldn't figure out how to actually get to the library part (design police! dysfunctional building!). Then I had class for a few hours, not particularly thrilling. After class, however, I went with some friends to a Barca soccer game! It was one of those things I felt I had to do before leaving Barcelona since their "futbol" team means so much to them.  I'm not a huge soccer person, nor sports in general, but I like to go to things like that occasionally for the experience and it was worth it. Our tickets were pretty cheap because we were high up, but I didn't mind. I thought it was actually a pretty good view, you can see a lot from up there. One downside is that it was kind of raining, but it didn't get too bad until towards the end of the game. Anyways, Barca won against Granada 5-3, so that was exciting, and their star player, Messi, broke a record for the amount of goals scored in his career in Barcelona! And I was at that game! Good timing, I'd say, on my part, that I chose that game to go to ;). Also, I felt that my professional soccer experience was complete because I saw one of the Granada players have *cough*fake*cough* a really dramatic injury.

Wednesday was pretty uneventful. I didn't get to go volunteer, yet again :(. This time because it was raining and seeing as we're recess monitors, we'd have nothing to do on a rainy day. However, this was literally only like the second time we'd had bad weather since I've been here. Apparently it usually rains all through February, but there was a drought this year. I didn't mind ;), but I'm glad thirsty Barcelona finally got some water. Now it's back to the typical 60s and sunny every single day. I can handle it. Also on Wednesday, I gave a 15 minute presentation speaking Spanish, not particularly enjoyable but I think it went pretty well. My professor told me afterwards she was glad I took the class in Spanish because I speak well :). Woohoo!

Thursday I didn't have class because I would usually only have one and it was cancelled :). Cara and another friend of ours, Nathan, who also lives up by us, went out for lunch at the parrot restaurant from quite a few blogs ago. It was fun and the food there is just really good. For the rest of the day I just did homework because it was still kind of rainy and because I've had a lot to do recently, with some classes starting to come to an end. Not a very exciting day, but that's okay, the weekend was pretty busy.

Friday we just have Spanish class and afterwards a group of 6 of us took the train to the town of Tarragona for a day trip.  It was an old Roman city and is said to be the best preserved Roman city in Spain, so it had a lot of really cool old ruins that we went and saw.  First we walked in the wrong direction and probably wasted roughly an hour, haha. I guess we should've had a map. But we had all day, so it wasn't a problem. By the time we actually found the old part of the city, we were starving, so we chose one of the cute little restaurants and sat outside (the weather had cleared up by this point in the week and it was a lovely day :)).  I plan on recommending that restaurant to anyone else in the program who visits Tarragona. It was so good and the guy was so friendly, and of course it was your typical Spanish meal meaning it was absolutely huge and took like 2 hours, probably. Restaurants in Spain always have a "menu del dia" or menu of the day for lunch and it's a three course meal (salad or pasta, main dish, dessert) and includes a beverage for usually around 10 euro and you just have like a few options to choose from for each course. It is so much food. I'm still not used to eating such huge lunches, but since the Spanish don't eat lunch until like 2 I would imagine they're starving! And no wonder they take a siesta afterwards! He gave us olives and potato chips and fuet (like salami) and then tons of bread with garlic, tomato, olive oil and salt so we could make our own pan con tomate, and this was all before the first course. After that we couldn't believe we seriously had two more courses coming. We eventually finished lunch and decided to actually see some ruins, since that was why we were there. We went and saw a few free ones and then went to the old Roman circus and the amphitheater and with the student discount each one was only 1,60 euro. It was so cool and Tarragona is right on the sea, so it's beautiful. It was a very successful day and then we took the train back to Barcelona to rest up for another day trip the next day!

Yesterday we had a day trip planned through our program to a Bodega Torres vineyards for a tour and wine tasting (I felt super classy) and then to a little village about 15 minutes out of Barcelona where Gaudi has (yet another) unfinished church that's one of his lesser known works.  We met our bus that morning and drove just a little over an hour to get to the vineyard and it was so pretty there. It's like the typical Spanish countryside with the perfect little vineyards and such and it was adorable. At first they weren't going to let us fully participate in the wine tasting because we were the last group to go and apparently the business students had behaved less than maturely on their trip (just not classy like me, I guess ;)). That's a common theme with the business students. They really don't even care what city they're in because they're just here to party. We don't get along with them particularly well and they refer to us as "those artsy kids" (we've toyed with the idea of playing it up just to mess with them: candlelight sketching sessions, dressing in black, reading poetry, etc., but we'd probably find it a lot funnier than they would) and are really puzzled by the purpose of our architecture studio. So there's that, but they decided we were classy enough to handle it without being stupid and immature so we did do the wine tasting in the end. But first, we went on a tour of the vineyard in a little train thing that was pulled by a minivan. It was so cheesy and great and there was one part where we went into the underground cellar and it was dark and creepy and it seemed like they tried to mix vineyard and haunted house because they like played creepy noises and I don't even know. It was very odd, the whole tour was like finding a golden ticket and touring Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. (That part reminded me of the part with the boat that always scared me when I was younger.)  Luckily no one turned into a blueberry or  fell into a chocolate waterfall and unfortunately I didn't see a Wonka-vator anywhere. After this and a short video, we went into the smell tunnel. Yes. Smell tunnel. We stood there and watched a video about the different seasons of grape growing and such and little canisters behind us sprayed smells. So we stood in a hallway and smelled the air. ("The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!" Similar, right?!) After that was the wine tasting (at 12 in the afternoon, just keeps gettin' classier). Apparently I'm still lacking the necessary amount of class, however, because I just don't like wine. We tried a white wine, a rose, and a red wine, and that's the order they went in my liking, with the red being my least favorite. It was an anti-beverage. Who in their right mind wants a dry beverage?! That completely defeats the purpose of drinking liquid! Anyways, after that it was then time to go to Colonia Guell and see some Gaudi.

Colonia Guell was a factory town and today it resembles a creepy little ghost town with Gaudi's unfinished church right in the middle, adding to the sense of its being abandoned. I'm pretty sure people still live there because there were lots of cars, but there were no people to actually be seen. All he ever finished of this church was the crypt and today it is a functioning church, but they don't plan to finish it like they do the Sagrada Familia, it's not nearly as big of a deal and hey, they've got a crypt, what more do they need? It was really pretty though, one of my favorite Gaudi works I've seen.  The tour guide, Ramon, was just adorable. He was so excited and passionate about this unfinished church and the genius who was Gaudi and with his really heavy accent it was just that much better. We had lunch in the town and then had some free time but there wasn't much to explore so instead we found a playground and played in it :). ('cause we classy, remember?) It was a fun time and then we came back and I did some more homework and tried to simulate packing for spring break, which is going to take some serious forethought.

Today, it's a good thing my iPod automatically changes with daylight savings time and knows I'm in Spain, because I completely forgot about it, but we're back to 7 hours apart from Minnesota again as of last night. If it hadn't changed on its own, I don't think I would've made it to the concert I went to today. I woke up this morning and was super confused as to why my iPod said 9:30 (the time I wasted to get up) but my clock still said 8:30. Anyways, I figured it out eventually and then got ready because some friends and I had tickets to see some sort of concert in the Palau de la Musica Catalana, which is an absolutely beautiful, fancy concert hall (Classy!). We had no idea what we were going to see because the website was in Catalan, but we really just wanted to see the building, so we didn't really care. We chose it because it was at a good time and it was cheap. So what was it, you ask? A family-oriented percussion show for children (so classy). It was wonderfully cheesy and really cute, so it was worth going to see the building and see all the cute kids, because they were totally loving it.  Afterwards we had to cut across the path of the runners in the marathon that was going on throughout the city when we decided to visit the Cathedral, because it's free on Sundays. So I got to go inside and look around, which I hadn't done yet, and it was very pretty, but I think the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar is prettier. I think they should've chosen that one for the Cathedral building. But that's just my opinion ;).

After that I reluctantly headed home to study for my final next week...and predictably, said studying has yet to happen. Instead I applied for another internship, this one is with HGA, which is a super popular and well-known firm in the cities, so I'm not getting my hopes up by any means, but it would be awesome and it never hurts to try, right? And then I decided to write this blog, but first of course I had to make a new iTunes playlist to listen to while I type. So all this has now happened and it's 5 pm and I should probably do some studying for real. Next week's blog might not be particularly exciting since it's only going to cover Monday through Thursday, but I'll make up for it afterwards with my spring break blog :)! Have a lovely week! Adios!

Complaints and Confusion (and Optimism)

Hola, another Sunday, another blog post. I've spent the day thus far fighting with Facebook because my Barcelona photo album malfunctions :(. I think it's because it's too big, so I want to move photos into other albums, and there's a feature that supposedly lets you do this, but it happens to be part of what my album won't do. So I've had to re-upload and caption and tag the photos I want to move, and then I lose all the comments :(. Sad. Anyways, I sent a problem report to Facebook, but I'm not particularly hopeful that they'll fix it. If you haven't been able to see my photos very well, I'm sorry and I'm quite sad about it. Hopefully I'll be able to fix it somehow. Now, about my week, because that's why we're all here, right?

On Monday, CIEE had a visitor from the University of Minnesota. Her name is Julia and she is the director of undergraduate studies for the College of Design. She was here to kind of evaluate the program and she wanted to meet with us to see if we had any suggestions or problems or anything like that. I think I've mentioned before, there's a pretty large group of students from the U, a little under a third of the architecture and design program. So we all met with her during lunch and that was fine, it was a really nice day out and we sat outside. I don't like Julia, however, after having met her for the first time that day. We had a bit of an altercation when she came into our studio class later that day to give us surprise critiques at our desks. I was just sitting at my desk, working on my floorplan, jammin' to some Mumford and Sons happy as can be, when she comes over. I was completely unprepared and didn't know what to show her since I was a little intimidated and had more than half a semester's work that's hard to condense when you're talking to someone who knows nothing about your project. So I just explained the floor plan I was working on and she  immediately came at me with aggressive, antagonistic, verging on sarcastic questions. After about a minute of that I was already a bit shaken, and then (still having seen only a floor plan and nothing else) she says to me "Well, to be honest, I just don't think you're very skilled as a designer".  Verbatim. I won't repeat the words going at her in my head at this moment, since I know a lot of family members read this blog ;), but needless to say, I didn't listen much to the rest of her critique. I was a bit distracted seeing as she had hit my Achilles' heel in attacking my design skills and my confidence in them and it had a sort of unraveling effect, leading me to question my career choices and my future in general.

While this was all going on in my head, she babbled on about convents or something or other and I just wanted her to shut up and leave. Finally she did and I held it together until a really genuinely caring and nice friend of mine asked how it had went. Then I cried and was embarrassed and felt bad for making him feel awkward, so I hurried out of studio because class was over. It was a relatively traumatic day and I'm sure I overreacted but I was just so embarrassed and offended, and she really had hit a sore spot, that I couldn't really think rationally. Now that I've gotten over the initial shock, I know that she was being unprofessional, that that was not constructive criticism in any way, it wasn't even criticism of my project, it was of me, as if she had some vendetta to settle against me. But I've realized she had nothing to base that on after looking at just a floor plan for less than a few minutes and that basically she's a malicious woman and there's no reason I should take her seriously. A few friends have said I should take it up with the U, since it was so uncalled for, but I don't really know how to, especially without just coming off as whiny. Anyways, I suppose I had some other classes that day, but they were pretty uneventful compared to that.

The next morning I slept in, still nursing my wounds a little, and then went to studio to work. Who did I see there but none other than Julia herself, and she had the nerve to smile and cheerily say "Hi, how are you?" as if nothing had happened and then continue to compliment my desktop background and ask if I took the photo...Seriously?! What is wrong with this woman?! By this point, I was more angry than upset, and that just made me a lot angrier. Luckily, that was her last day here and then she was off to terrorize the poor students on the Rome program. Class that day was silly and pointless. We were supposed to spend it researching for our upcoming paper, but the wifi was down in the whole CIEE building, so we went to a nearby library instead, where the wifi was so slow it may as well have not worked. I got my midterm back and was a little disappointed (darn Spanish grading system..), but hopefully I'll be able to raise my grade a little with the paper and the final.  It's kind of infuriating sometimes because only the U and like one other school is making their students take their classes here for a grade that transfers back. Everyone else's will transfer back as pass/fail, so they can slack off a lot more since all they have to do is pass. I don't want my classes to transfer back as pass/fail because I feel like a whole semester of that looks bad, but I just wish it were consistent and everyone had to do it one way or another because I know for a fact that I work a lot harder than the people whose grades here don't matter. I guess that just means I'll have more to be proud of, right? I mean I know I'm studying abroad right now, but I'd still feel so lazy if I didn't try my hardest and just slacked off for a whole semester.

Sorry Monday and Tuesday were so whiny, but that's really how they were, and then on Wednesday we made our whining official. Magda (our program director) wanted to talk to the U of M students since there's always such a large, consistent group of us on their program about what we thought could be done differently. I think she also kind of wanted to know what we'd said to Julia (which was actually only good things) because she had been so nervous and on edge the whole time she had visited. She bribed us with sandwiches and we got to sit outside on a secret little staff patio. It was nice, we got to tell her our concerns about our grades, since we were all having that issue, especially with our classes in Spanish.  In my case and a few others, we are taking advanced Spanish and we're taking an elective in Spanish that could be in English, so we're challenging ourselves with our courses. Because of this, obviously we aren't doing as well as we would if we were in intermediate Spanish or the English section of the elective. We all know it would be better for our GPAs to take the easier classes, especially with the tough grading system, and so we almost feel like we're being penalized for trying to improve our Spanish. She told us to talk to our Spanish teacher and let her know the situation and (she's the teacher of the elective) didn't understand why we hadn't just talked to her about it earlier. I thought that was strange, maybe because I'm used to such a huge school like the U where you're sort of on your own (which I don't mind), but I had just figured if I was having a problem, it was my problem and I just had to try harder. But it was a successful meeting because she agreed to give us a review session in English for our elective before the final (the language barrier makes it harder to understand and think about the topics really deeply and the essay tests ask you to do just that) and I think that'll be really helpful. We also mentioned how there just wasn't much information available to us before choosing the program and that maybe some recruiting/advertising would be helpful and that overall there's just a bit of a communication breakdown between CIEE and the U sometimes. So it won't affect us much, but hopefully we helped some future students.

As far as the rest of Wednesday goes, we had an on site class for said Spanish elective, so it went longer than usual and I was yet again unable to go volunteer at the school, but I'm hopeful that I'll be able to go this week (I'm not going to wear my gloves, though). I talked with my studio professor about what had happened with Julia because she had heard that her visit had been rough at best, overall. Thankfully, she's on my side. She said that she thought Julia was being unprofessional and that she actually really liked my project, so I'm happy about that. I like my project too. I think it took Julia bashing me for me to realize how much I actually am proud of my work. That night I went with some friends to one of the residencias (student apartments) where some other girls in the program live and we hung out for awhile in this weird spare room that's like in a parking garage. That's just where the residencia people go, I guess, (their rooms are tiny) when it's too early by Spanish standards to go out.  There were a lot of people there who we didn't know who were the type of people (all Americans) I would generally avoid at all costs, back in the States. There were frat-type boys, all wearing different variations of the same outfit, and girls wearing hardly anything (my friend Sandra and I played fashion police ;) and that made it entertaining). I didn't mind that we didn't stay long. After we left we went to a nightclub called Sutton, the first one I have ever been to. It was a really nice-looking place, not some like dirty club. We had all dressed nicely because they won't let you in in sneakers. They played pretty good music, so dancing was fun, and we met some more of our friends there.  It was really crowded though and I don't think I heard a single word of Spanish, it was all Americans. Now, this wouldn't be a problem on it's own, but like I said, it was the type of Americans who I avoid in America, so I would like to also avoid them here also. In true Spanish style, we got back at 4 am (which, okay, if I'm being completely honest, is actually relatively modest in the eyes of a Spaniard).

The reason I agreed to come out on a Wednesday was because Thursday we didn't have class until 4, so I got to sleep in :). It was supposed to go from 4 to 7 but we were just giving presentations on what our papers were going to be about and it didn't take long, so we got done a little after 6. Then Cara, Joe (another U of M student) and I decided to go shopping. Cara and I need clothes we can wear in the warm weather in Morocco and still not offend anyone, (Did I mention in a previous blog I'm going to Morocco over Spring Break? I am, and also southern Spain. More on that as it gets closer) and Joe just likes shopping, but I can't really shop seriously carrying my computer-filled backpack, so I didn't look hard enough to get anything. Then we decided to get dinner and Joe took us to this awesome Mexican restaurant (so much better and more autthentic than the one I've mentioned in previous blogs) that he knew of. Cara had to leave then to go home and work on studio, but Joe and I were going to the intercambio later, so we hung around. As we were finishing, another girl from the program walked in with her family, who was visiting her, so that was a funny coincidence. But that's not all, as we were getting ready to leave, another girl from our program comes in with a friend of hers! Apparently it's a popular place among CIEE students. Then we headed over towards where the intercambio was, back towards school, but we got distracted by gelato along the way (I got a cone with chocolate and cinnamon) and decided to stop and eat it in front of the cathedral. So my life's pretty cool ;). We got the the intercambio a bit late (on time by Spanish standards!), but there weren't many others there. The ratio of Spanish to American students wasn't quite so overwhelmingly American this time. We were at a nice bar with pool tables in the back, so we played pool. I am terrible. There were two tables that we were playing at and one was people who actually knew a thing or two about pool, and the other was the table I was at, with other people who hadn't played pool in years, if ever. In the time it took the other table to play like three games, we played one. And that was with Nando, our assistant program director, coming over to help two different times (sinking two balls for my team the first time, and two for the other team the second time)! But it was fun, and I was good and actually spoke Spanish! I underestimated the time it would take me to get to the metro and had to hurry to get there before it closed at midnight, but I made it :).

After Spanish on Friday morning, I went with two other girls, Sandra and Vanessa, back up to Montjuic. We tried to take a cable car there that goes over the sea, but it's under construction. It was supposed to only last three weeks in January, but it still going on...*cough* so Spanish *cough*. But a lady helped us get there by bus and funicular instead. We got to about the middle of the mountain and then walked the rest of the way up to the castle, which they hadn't seen yet. I had seen it already, but it's a castle. I'm not about to complain about going to a castle. After the castle, we went to the Botanical Gardens, which was huge. It was pretty and quiet and it was nice to be out of the city for a little while, even though not many flowers and things were blooming at this time. Also, I got sunburned. Whoops. After we were done on the mountain, we went to catch the metro in Plaza Espanya, but I got distracted by the big bull ring-turned-shopping mall that I had seen like one of our first days here and hadn't been in yet. I didn't have my backpack or computer this time, so I was able to find two new shirts :), and it was when I was trying those on that I looked in the mirror and noticed the sunburn. Oh well. It's still there, but getting better. I don't know what I was thinking, but it literally hadn't even crossed my mind and I was completely shocked when I noticed it. Silly Megan. Guess it's time to buy some sunscreen. Anyways, the mall is pretty average, but it's cool that it used to be a bull ring and the coolest part is to go up to the roof terrace area. There were lots of cool restaurants there that would be fun to go to and there were pretty views of the city. After that I came back and watched my sunburn develop...

Yesterday was Saturday (duh) and Cara and I decided to go for a hike up Mt. Tibidabo, which is like right behind our neighborhood. We had gone once with our program when they took us for the calcotada, if you remember that, and it's so pretty and so close that we thought that would be a nice thing to do on a Saturday morning. It's really more of a hike to just get there than it is once you're on the mountain, because the trails are cut at a really low incline, so it's kind of funny. We hiked up and then Cara ran down and I kept going to try to get to the church at the top because it looks so pretty and it's all lit up every night. I made it up to a little mountain village called Vallvidrera, which was really cute, but not where the church is. I couldn't figure out how to get to it and after I exhausted my options, I decided to just head back and try another day. But it's okay, because it was a really nice day and I got to be outside and get some exercise in the pretty scenery. I looked it up when I got home (which I obviously should've done before I left but I thought the trail just went all the way up) and I could've gotten there from Vallvidrera if I had just known to get on a bus. Oh well, now I know and like I said, it's super close, so I will get there :).

For the main part of the day then I just worked on homework and also managed to send in applications for 3 internships :). They're very clearly ranked, too. One I really want and it's a paid position at an architectural firm in St. Paul, I think I meet their qualifications too. I was really nervous to send that one in. Another is also paid but it's at a landscape design company, so I'm not quite as qualified, but I'd be happy to take it and learn. The third is at a solar energy company and would involve making 3D models on the computer, which I like to do, but it's not paid. But it's only like 10 hours a week, so I would be getting experience while still not spending too much of my time at a job where I don't make money. Even though it's my least favorite of the three, I'd still gladly take it, if they want me. I probably won't hear back for awhile so I guess for now I'll just keep looking and applying everywhere I can.

Then last night Cara convinced me to come out with everyone for St. Patrick's Day, which isn't really recognized in Spain, so we were going to go to Irish pubs. However, I was gone for about 2 hours and was not inside a building for more than 5 minutes.  First we got to the metro stop where we were meeting our group. This involved waiting for three different groups of people to come meet us where we were waiting and took at least half an hour. After that we were late and trying to meet up with another group of friends but finding the bar they were at took at least another half hour. We finally found them after walking up and down one block of La Rambla three times and getting harassed all the way by promoters and such (it's a super touristy area). We found them and I thought we were all going to go somewhere together, but when I turned around, Cara and my group were gone and I was with the other group. There was confusion, etc. Someone got a hold of Cara and told me where they were so they took me back to that bar to look for them, but they weren't there. I tried to call her and a few others in my group but they didn't answer. The other group was going to some fancy nightclub and I didn't wanna go (nor would they have probably let me in in my jeans and Nikes) so I said screw it and texted Cara to tell her I was just going back home (never got an answer to that either, but oh well).  I wasn't upset about not getting to go anywhere because honestly I hadn't wanted to go out in the first place and I don't drink so I just go to hang out with my friends, but I was annoyed that I had wasted my time and a little sad that my group had abandoned me. However, I do like to be optimistic and because of all this I happened to still be awake and on Skype at 1 am and got to Skype with my parents and little brother :).

So really, everything happens for a reason.
Hasta luego.

Valencia and More!

Hola! Well I just got back from our weekend trip to Valencia, and just finished posting the pictures on Facebook. Unfortunately my camera battery died this morning :( so I'll have to steal some pictures from my friends. That's the beauty of Facebook :). I should likely be doing homework right now, but psh, my blog is more important. Plus I'll have enough homework in the next week or so, I deserve at least the rest of tonight to not worry about it. I don't know why, I guess it's just because we're getting towards the end of the program (what?!), but I have a lot of things due in the next few weeks. Specifically the 21st. I swear, my professors collaborated to have me turn in everything on that day. Anyways, now about my weekend in Valencia and other little things throughout the week :).

Starting with Monday, of course. It was hard to go back to class after the long weekend in Dublin. Nothing very exciting happened, really. Just class. So on to Tuesday, I guess. Again, I mostly did homework and worked on applying for internships and stuff back in Minneapolis for the summer (and wrote my Dublin blog :)). That's kept me pretty busy; after I finish my homework, I usually work on that. There's one internship I really want, but there's only one spot available and I'm really nervous to send my stuff in. I just keep editing and reviewing and all that, it'll be hard for me to just tell myself it's good enough and to send it in. But I'm going to have to because if I don't meet the deadline, I definitely won't get it. Anyways, I had one class on Tuesday and it was a giant walking tour. We walked all over the city to look at examples of architecture. It was a pretty nice evening, so it was nice :). After that, I went to a Mexican restaurant with some friends. It's one we've gone to a few times and it's pretty good. We all realize the slight irony of going to a Mexican restaurant in Spain, but we all kind of like Mexican food a little more than Spanish... Whoops, haha. Spanish food is just a little bland. Some of it is really good, but overall it's just bland. They don't like spice or anything like that, from my experience. Also, a strange thing is the temperatures of the food in Spain. Nothing is really either hot or cold. It's very often room temperature. I feel that people exaggerated the quality of the food here, in general. I'd have people tell me "oh the food is great in Spain, you'll love it!" and I really wonder what they were eating. It's just very in-the-middle in all ways. It's not bad, it's not particularly good, it's not hot, it's not cold. Extremes seem to not exist. It's a strange thing to get used to. But like I said, that's just in general. Some Spanish food I've come across is very good (and some is not).

On Wednesday I had class most of the day. I had to skip volunteering to work on studio :(. But I got it all done in time for the review. It was a pretty informal review, but after presenting my work, my professor said the words "I really like it", so I must be doing something right. Then we had a program-organized activity that night where we got to go see a movie with our guardian angels. Well, actually there was only one. And like 11 of us. I always feel bad that they're so outnumbered. Anyways, we went to a really neat theater (with really comfy seats) and saw The Artist. It's a silent movie, so language didn't matter. There were some written words that would flash up to show dialogue, in typical silent  movie fashion, but they were in English with Spanish subtitles, so I didn't have to think too much, which is nice. Watching a movie in Spanish is not a leisure activity like it is in English, it takes so much more effort haha. But I really loved the movie. I can see why it won so many awards. I laughed a lot, I may have cried a little (spoiler alert: I did.) and it was just a really cute story. I'd recommend it.

Thursday wasn't particularly eventful. I went shopping before class and got some black flats for 10 euros at H&M and I've worn them everyday since, haha. Now that the weather is getting nicer, I feel like when I packed I erred too much on the side of cold weather. All I had for shoes were two pairs of tennis shoes, two pairs of boots, and a pair of magenta flats. Magenta flats do not match much, so now I have black ones too. I feel like I'm going to be wearing like the same four shirts for the rest of the program too unless I go shopping, because I can wear warmer and cooler clothes in colder weather as long as I layer, but now the warmer clothes are too warm and I can only wear like my t-shirts. I just packed too much warm clothing; my love of sweaters let me down. Anyways, after my shopping excursion we ate lunch outside and then it was just about time for class. Pretty uneventful the rest of the day.

Friday we all just had class in the morning and it was another beautiful day so none of us were willing to sit in studio and work. I wanted to go to the zoo; unfortunately my classmates were more interested in the Barcelona Beer Festival. Yes, the title was in English, hint much that it's geared towards tourists? Oh well. So instead of going to the zoo alone, I went with them. (But I will go to that zoo before I leave!) I got one glass of beer with my entrance fee, so Cara tried to find me the lightest, most un-Guinnessy one she could, but it was still just gross. I don't understand why anyone drinks beer when there are other options. I'm convinced everyone is just lying to themselves and each other and that no one actually likes beer and they all just pretend, and it's like this big conspiracy. Or at least that seems more logical in my brain than people actually genuinely enjoying the taste of beer. Anyways, I got to keep the glass, so I got a souvenir out of the whole deal (what a tourist..). I guess it was worth going because I got to be outside and hang out with friends, but I would have rather gone to the zoo. Afterwards we went to the beach, but by that time the sun was starting to go down and it was windy, so although it was far from cold, it wasn't really beach-sitting weather. So we all just decided to call it a day instead. The rest of the night was homework and then to bed early because we had to be to the train station at 8:30 the next morning.

So yesterday morning, we did just that. We met our group at the train station bright and early and then took a three hour train ride to Valencia. We slept while our assistant resident director, Nando, crept around and took embarrassing pictures of us. Thanks, Nando. I wonder when/where those will show up. We got to Valencia and I will remember this of the city: there were near-constant firecrackers and it smelled like gunpowder. The huge festival of Las Fallas takes place next weekend and they celebrate in like the two weeks leading up to it.  It's like a fireworks festival, hence the constant firecrackers (I'm still feeling jumpy), and little kids just walked around and lit off fireworks all day, everywhere we went. The main event is the burning of giant papier mache and styrofoam figures that they construct in the weeks leading up to it. We saw some of them and they were really cool, it seems a little strange that they spend so much time building these beautiful sculptures just to burn them.  Oh well. There are also fireworks every day around 2 o'clock. We saw them, but there wasn't much to see; the impressive part was definitely how loud it was. There were huge crowds watching/listening to them too. The whole city was like a huge carnival; it's all decorated and at night there are beautiful lights, and there are churro stands everywhere and other food stands, and souvenir shops.  It was a fun time to be in the city :). Anyways, back to arriving in the city: we checked into the hotel and then went and visited the Central Market of Valencia for lunch. It was pretty and really big. I got kiwi orange juice and then horchata, a typical Valencian drink (although you can get it other places, obviously). I had never had it before, but I thought it was pretty good. If I'm correct, I believe it's rice milk with cinnamon. And it's cold, so it was pretty refreshing. Afterwards we met to go on a guided tour of the historic center of Valencia. We visited the cathedral, saw the "Holy Grail" (whatever you say, Valencia...), and a few other old buildings. It was a nice tour, with nice weather, and the old town is quite pretty. Then we made a quick visit to the Ceramic Museum, located in an old palace. It was pretty neat, but we were all pretty toured out by that point. Gladly, after that we had free time. We went back to the hotel and just rested our feet for awhile from all that walking and then we went and walked around some more to see the festivities and get dinner. We walked around and saw all the pretty lights once it got dark and we bought pumpkin bunyuelos (typical Valencian pastries), which are similar to mini-donuts but not quite, and giant things of cotton candy. It was a fun time :), but I was exhausted so I went to bed relatively early. Needless to say, I didn't sleep particularly well with the fireworks.

This morning we got up, checked out, had breakfast, and then went to the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (city of arts and sciences), a giant complex by the architect Santiago Calatrava. I had thought it was one building, so I was not prepared for how absolutely huge it was. His architecture is pretty controversial because it's expensive and not particularly functional. We all agreed it looked like a theme park. It was just crazy. I really can't explain it, either look at my Facebook pictures or Google it, it's just a surreal place. We had a tour of the opera hall and then had free time at the museum, but in typical Calatrava style it wasn't a particularly functional museum and we weren't really feeling it. Some things were cool, however; there was an area where you could watch baby chicks hatch :) so we stood and watched one. It was really neat, we were all cheering it on. We really wanted to go to the aquarium part of the complex but it wasn't included in our ticket and it was expensive :(. Oh well. We ended up spending most of the time just hanging out outside in the beautiful weather; the outside of the buildings were cooler anyways, they were built to be photographed, essentially.  That was pretty much the end of our trip, though. We got on the bus and headed back to the hotel to pick up our stuff and then went to the train station to head back to Barcelona. It was a short trip but it was fun :). I like fairs and that's essentially what it was, but to the scale of a whole city. But I'm tired from all that activity so I think I'll end this blog now and get ready for bed. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and hopefully it was at least a little enjoyable, even though I'm sure it's a little scattered coming from my sleepy brain. Hasta luego!

My affair with Dublin. (Dublin, te quiero.)

Hola! Warning: this blog post has almost nothing to do with Spain because I was in Dublin for most of the week. But it was a wonderful weekend and I absolutely love Dublin. Referring to the title, the two friends I traveled with and I were talking about how the whole study abroad experience is a little like dating, where you kind of look around and figure out what works for you and what doesn't. We decided Barcelona was like a committed relationship and our weekend in Dublin was an affair, but we had to return to Barcelona because we signed a four month lease with it. Anyways, you probably had to be there, but I thought it was a funny analogy.  And Barcelona, I have a confession to make: there's a another city.. and I like it more than you. There. I said it. I liked Dublin more than Barcelona. (Don't judge me!) Of course this could have something to do with the fact that it was like a vacation and you're always destined to like a vacation destination more than where you live. It's not like I regret choosing to come to Barcelona and it's an awesome opportunity and experience, but after being in Dublin it was clear that it just fit my lifestyle a lot more closely than Spain does.  They don't stay up as late, they're on time for things, they eat at normal times, they speak English with really cool accents, customer service exists but you still don't have to tip, you can eat pancakes and cheeseburgers. These may seem like small things, but they make a big difference. There's nothing wrong with the Spanish lifestyle, obviously, it's just a little too leisurely and laid-back for me at times. Ah well, either way I'm back in Barcelona and getting back into my normal routine after the long weekend. (My favorite weekend, so far, for sure!)

Monday through Wednesday were full of midterms, and therefore stressful and not worth writing about. However, we left late Wednesday night after my midsemester studio review (which I got an A- on, woohoo!) and with the time difference, we got to Dublin around midnight, their time.  We took a taxi to our hostel from the airport and our driver almost got lost. But he was a nice guy and took some money off the fare for the time spent navigating. We got the hostel and checked in, we were in a 6 bed female room and didn't know if anyone else would be there yet or not.  There was one girl there sleeping, we felt bad for waking her up. Her name was Gwen and she was from Germany, she had an internship in Dublin and had been staying at the hostel for awhile.  She was really nice and didn't get mad that we woke her up. Later in the weekend, two more German girls moved into the room, who were very nice as well :). It had been a long day by that point, so we didn't bother her for long and we went to bed.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hostel for 1 euro. It was actually pretty good. The milk was cold, which is something I have learned cannot be taken for granted. We had grabbed a bunch of pamphlets from the front desk and went over those while we ate breakfast to see what we wanted to do. We decided to go on a three hour, free walking tour of the city, but it didn't start until 1, so we went and got ready and explored a little on our own first. Dublin is a beautiful city, with the river running right through the middle and all the charm that European cities just seem to have by virtue of being European. We stopped at a little cafe and were psyched to see they sold bagels, since they don't in Spain. (Dublin was good for finding American foods we had missed in Spain.) We met up with the tour group right next to city hall.. or so we thought. We found out after about 10 minutes that we had accidentally tried to join a privately booked group of Austrian engineers.. Whoops. They weren't angry, but it was a little embarrassing. Either way, we backtracked a block or so back to the meeting point and there was another group about to head out that was not privately booked, so we joined them. Our tour guide was a girl named Ingrid, she was really funny and had a wonderful accent :). We found out at the end that we had only been her second group and we were super impressed. We saw all the main sights of Dublin, including Dublin Castle, which isn't much of a castle, but still cool, Christ Church Cathedral, which is beautiful, Trinity College,  and St. Stephen's Green, among other places. It was a good way to see all the main sights of the city and it ended up being helpful for us to do it on our first day because then it was a lot easier for us to navigate and orient ourselves in the city. It's a very walkable city, which I like, unlike Berlin. We walked everywhere except to and from the airport. We rarely got lost and everything was really pretty close, so it was great. After the tour, it was only like 4:30, but we were really hungry from walking for 3  hours (plus it's not quite as strange to eat that early in Ireland as it would be in Spain) so we went to a restaurant we had scoped out during our exploring before the tour. It was called Gourmet Burger Kitchen and that's exactly what it was and it was wonderful. They don't have American-type hamburgers in Spain, so we had all missed them a little. It was a really great meal; food in Dublin was a little more expensive than it is here in Barcelona, but the portions are bigger and the food was just really good, everywhere we went. We then went and bought pretty cupcakes from a little bakery stand really close by that we had also scoped out. We walked around a little afterwards, went into some really cute little shops, and then headed back to the hostel to eat our cupcakes and go to bed early, because we had places to be at 6:50 the next morning. However, we all had a little trouble sleeping. The hostel had pretty thin walls to begin with, being it was an old school building (it was a really cool place, by the way), and then there were people doing goodness knows what in the hallway. All. Night. I literally heard them right up until I left the room to go shower at 5:45 am. It was so loud. All I remember thinking in my half-asleep, irritated state was "how is it humanly possible to be that loud?" The funny thing is, guess what language they were speaking? Yep. Spanish. Apparently they aren't used to the earlier closing times of bars and such since they hardly even open until midnight in Spain, so since they were used to staying up until 6, they just partied in the hallway of the hostel. Awesome. The next day we had to reactivate our room keys (a security measure) and the worker at the desk, after seeing our room number, asked if we had had problems with noise and said they would take care of it and to come tell them if it was a problem that night too. Luckily, it ceased to be an issue after just the one night, but we appreciated that the hostel worker was on our side.

So the whole next day was taken up by our Cliffs of Moher day-trip on a tour bus. It was my favorite day/activity of the weekend.  The cool part was that we didn't just drive to the cliffs, hang out and then drive back. We stopped at all sorts of other places, which was why we chose the tour company we did. And we were particularly lucky because our tour guide took us to places that weren't even listed on the official itinerary on the website.  He was awesome (we had such good luck with tour guides!), his name was Bud and he was like someone's grandpa, a little old man with a great Irish accent, of course. He was really funny and he had obviously been giving the tour for many years, so he would ask us if we wanted to make extra stops and he just knew of other cool places he wanted to show us that were along the way, so it was great. He also played Irish music on the bus and sang along :). First we stopped in the town of Limerick [no oysters, though...(if you get that joke you win ten internet points)] and saw the remains of the Walls of Limerick and King John's Castle. We then stopped at another castle (a Bud addition to the tour), Bunratty Castle. We didn't get to go inside any castles during our stay in Ireland, but we saw the outside of quite a few! We then stopped in the seaside surfing town of Lahinch (Bud addition) to take pictures of the sea. There were actually surfers, too! And it was not a particularly warm day. After that we made it to our destination: the Cliffs of Moher! It was incredible, they were even more beautiful than I expected and we had really good weather as far as visibility, so we could see everything :). It was so unbelievably windy up there. We were worried about losing our scarves, if not falling over. It added some humor to some of the pictures, so it was good all around. We walked around there for about an hour and I of course purchased some souvenirs at the gift shop, including an Irish artisan chocolate bar. It was dark chocolate with crystallized ginger and almonds. Do you care? Probably not, but it was gone by the end of the day and I am remembering it fondly. Our big tourist group (about 40) then got back on the bus and headed to the little village of Doolin for lunch. First we stopped by the shore in Doolin where Bud orchestrated some very touristy photos of us all. After lunch we drove through the Burren region of Ireland, which if I remember correctly means something about a land with a lot of rocks. And that's what it was. Sounds lame, yes, but I had never seen a landscape like it before, so it was pretty neat. We stopped for a few more photo ops and everyone's hairstyles got better and better each time as the wind continued to be ferocious. It was entertaining watching them all come back on the bus (we sat in the front so we could see out the front window). I was very glad of my short hair. Next we visited the ruins of Corcomroe Abbey, which was really neat. It's literally the remains of a broken down abbey in the middle of nowhere in the Irish countryside. It was really cool and a little creepy. We drove on along Galway Bay, which was beautiful of course, stopped in another little town for coffee, saw the outside of Dunguaire Castle from a distance, and then got back on the "motorway" to head to Dublin. It was about a two hour drive back and since I had two seats to myself, I slept and listened to The Script :) one of my favorite bands who just happen to be Irish. Then we got dropped off back in Dublin around 7, Bud gave every one of us a hug, and we headed back to the hostel. On the way, we stopped at a McDonald's because one of us wanted french fries, and I noticed they were advertising Shamrock Shakes. How could I not get a Shamrock Shake in Ireland? So I did. I was a happy tourist. We went back to the hostel and then went just down the street where there were literally three Chinese restaurants in a row. We chose one and it was really good. We were almost the only ones there because we were eating at Spanish dinner time, since we hadn't had lunch on the tour until about Spanish lunch time. We were all pretty tired so we went back to the hostel then and went to bed.

The next morning, Saturday, we got up and went to the Temple Bar food market Ingrid had told us about. It was really neat and everything looked delicious. Having never had them and being in Europe as I am, I went with the crepes, Nutella and banana. It was a good decision. We then headed to our scheduled noon tour of the old Jameson Distillery. It was really neat old building, but the tour itself was nothing special. We got a free drink at the end and I didn't think I'd be able to swallow whiskey, but I got it mixed with cranberry juice, so it wasn't too bad (better than the Guinness, but more on that later).  Then we went to this neat store that was like an artists' collective and I got a hat I had seen on the first day and had thought about ever since. It's hand crocheted Irish wool and I love it :). It's a good souvenir. Then we headed to the train station, as we had decided the night before to take a little day trip to the town of Malahide to see Malahide Castle. On the way we took a detour to Christ Church Cathedral so we could go inside and see the crypt. It was beautiful on the inside, too, and we happened to visit while there was a Norwegian Gospel choir singing, so that was fun :). We explored the church a little and went down to the crypt to see the most photographed attraction in Dublin: Tom and Jerry. A cat and a mouse that had gotten stuck in a organ (the cat obviously chasing the mouse) and preserved. For whatever reason, when this was discovered someone decided instead of getting rid of them, they should be kept and are now displayed in the crypt. So there's that.. Also, we found it hilarious that there was a cafe in the crypt. Who wants to eat in a crypt? Apparently, some people do because there were quite a few people there eating, actually. After we were finished exploring, we headed out and happened to pass by the coffin of Strongbow in the main part of the crypt. It was funny because he was a very important Irish rebel leader, I believe, (either way, very important to Irish history) and Ingrid had even mentioned how more people go to see Tom and Jerry than Strongbow, and sure enough, we had forgotten he was there too and just sort of stumbled across his coffin as we were leaving. I took his picture too, though, to try to even it out. We found the train station and got on a train to Malahide, just about a half hour away. When we got out of the train, we saw... a rainbow! In Ireland! Even cooler than the Shamrock Shake. As we excitedly took pictures like the tourists we were, it developed into a perfect whole rainbow with a hint of a double rainbow above it. Awesome. After we got that out of our systems, we moved onward towards the castle. Approaching it from the grounds takes quite a while, as they're very extensive. They're absolutely beautiful though, all wooded with some huge green fields where kids were playing soccer and rugby. You walk on a little path through the tree and there were little parks and playgrounds too and we could tell it was a really popular place to take your kids to play. We finally got to the castle, only to find out it was in fact closed for renovations until summer and it was destined to be yet another outside-only castle. Luckily, we're all pretty optimistic, easygoing people and the weather was beautiful (not sure what rain made the rainbow, because we never got rained on) so we just sat down in a field and looked at the castle for awhile. Then we decided to do some spontaneous gymnastics, just for fun. (Erica and I both used to be gymnasts and Sandra does an awesome cartwheel ;).) I can still do a front-walkover, yay! After chilling there for awhile, we headed into the town to explore. That didn't take long, because it's a pretty small little village. Very cute and quaint, though, and right on the sea, so we walked along the boardwalk for awhile. Then we headed back to Dublin on the train (where it was raining when we got back, unfortunately, but not much) and found a pub with live music to have dinner. It was really fun and felt very Irish. Erica and I got burgers again because we just really missed them and they're just really good in Ireland because they're big on natural, locally produced things (maybe why the food was a little more expensive). We realized it was our two month study abroad anniversary that day and thought there was no better way to celebrate than by not being in Barcelona, haha. Not really, it was just kind of ironic, especially since by that time we really didn't want to ever leave Dublin. We headed back to the hostel and Erica and I just hung out in the lobby. She had homework to do, unfortunately. Sandra went on a pub crawl and I feel like I probably should've gone because it seems very Irish, but I had been in Spanish mindset thinking that if I did that I probably wouldn't get back until 5 or 6 am, not realizing that duh, it's not Spain and people don't stay out that late here. Sandra was only gone until like 1 or 2. Also, it didn't cross my mind until afterwards that since I don't drink, I wouldn't have even needed to buy the wristband deal that got you free drinks and I could have in fact just tagged along. Oh well. That's what I get for being a lame-o.

Sunday we got up and wandered the city a little more. It was kind of early, so not many things were open, although more than are open in Barcelona on a Sunday. Dublin doesn't completely shut down, it just opens a little later, like most cities. Anyways, we found another cute little cafe that advertised pancakes for 4 euros, so we got a pot of chai (I'm becoming a tea drinker since being in Europe!) and pancakes and it was wonderful. Afterwards we hit up some souvenir shops and then headed to the Guinness Storehouse for a tour. The museum was so awesome. It was so well-done and really neat. Also, it was a self-guided tour and the route was really clear, so that's always better. We started at the ground floor (duh) and the exhibit made its way up to the 7th floor, where the Gravity Bar is located. It's a round room made all of glass, so you can see the Wicklow mountains, the sea, and the whole city of Dublin. It was really pretty. Of course, the tour came with a free pint of Guinness. After a tasting session on the second floor of the exhibit, I was pretty sure I wasn't a fan, so instead I opted for the half pint + soft drink option and after essentially chasing every sip of Guinness with Diet Coke, I cannot understand why anyone would drink it when Diet Coke exists. Bleh. I had a really hard time finishing even that little glass, and Erica actually couldn't. She said it was giving her a stomach ache and only drank about half. Sandra didn't have as many problems with it since she had gone on the pub crawl, apparently it's an acquired taste (one which I have to desire to acquire, at that). So I'm sorry, people of Ireland. Please don't hate me. I love your country, just not your beer (although it could have something to do with the fact that I just don't drink beer in general, who knows). After that we went back down to the first floor where they were asking everyone to sign a pledge to make St. Patrick's day the friendliest day of the year and set a world record of some sort. They were trying to get 50,000 and had almost 30,000 when we were there. You just had to pledge to be nice on St. Patrick's day and I figured I could handle that. Then we got to take photo booth pictures and print them :). While we were waiting in line, we were trying to figure out how to email the pictures to yourself, so we were watching the ladies in front of us as they typed in an email address with the exact same format as my school address, ending in umn.edu. What are the chances? Sure enough, we talked to them and they were professors at the University of Minnesota. Crazy. After that, there were still a few more things we wanted to squeeze in before our flight. We visited Butler's Chocolate Cafe, which is as awesome as it sounds, and then really quickly (we were literally there for 10 minutes) went to the National Irish Archaeology Museum to see an exhibit Ingrid had told us about. It was free, so we figured, why not? It looked like a really neat museum and it would've been cool to spend more time in there, but the exhibit Ingrid recommended was one about Irish bog men from like 200-400 BC. I believe they were just people who lived in bog areas, hence the name, and one day they were digging in the bogs and found these people and a bunch of artifacts like really well preserved. It was definitely a little disturbing, but worth seeing. We considered going to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College, but it costed 8 euro per person, so we didn't. We then went back to the hostel and collected our bags and then went and waited for the bus. It was a double-decker, so that was fun. We got to the airport, checked in, all that jazz. We were all pretty sad to leave. We got back to Barcelona around 9, Barcelona time and then I took the train, metro, and then walked to get back here to the apartment. It's quite the journey. I always took for granted traveling with my parents who simply parked their car at the airport. Needless to say, I was quite tired and not looking forward to going back to school the next day after such a wonderful long weekend. So I skyped with the family for a little while and then went to bed. 

Now it's Tuesday and I'm back in Barcelona. Still a little sad, but it'll be okay. Sorry I was a tad late with the blog this week, but as I said I got back late on Sunday and just didn't have time yesterday, so here you go :). Moral of the story: I love Dublin. It was such a successful trip, everything went smoothly, we had good weather, good food, everything was good. Maybe it's my small amount of Irish heritage, but I just felt at home there. This coming weekend we have a program-organized trip to Valencia for one night, so that'll be in next week's post, along with whatever other thrilling things happen to me this week ;). Adios!