Arrival

I arrived safely in Barcelona three days ago. After having to wait two days later than I expected, I was able to get on the flight to NYC and then the flight to Barcelona with no problems.

After making a friend on the seven hour flight to Barcelona, I stayed up talking the whole time. When I arrived to Barcelona at 9:30 in the morning, I was so exhausted and slept nearly the entire day. It felt so great to be back in Spain. I love the relaxed, laid-back atmosphere and the wonderful food. The second day I was here, Albert and I walked around Barcelona and then spent most of the day at the beach. The weather is 75-85 degrees all of the time, which makes it perfect beach weather. The Mediterranean Sea is still very cold though. I'm planning on swimming this weekend, but I'll probably freeze to death.

Yesterday, I saw the most amazing magician on La Ramblas (a major street in Barcelona). The tricks he did were all so incredible- so much better than any I had seen on TV before. There are always so many surprises on La Ramblas. After all, all sides of the street are lined with human statues.

I am beginning to work hard on learning Catalan. Today, while Albert was working, I was left alone with his mother (who doesn't speak English). She and I sat on the couch for an hour, with a Catalan-English dictionary between us, trying our best to have a conversation. She is such a sweet lady. She really wants to learn English and I want to learn Catalan, so it works out well.

The food here is absolutely incredible, as always. The diet here is a lot like a typical Mediterranean diet, consisting of a lot of seafood, bread, olive oil and salads. However, they also eat a lot of pork. Breakfast consists of pastries and juice and lunch is usually pasta and salad. Dinner is always the largest meal with a ton of meat (usually 3 or 4 different kinds -both seafood and pork), bread, salad and wine. Dessert is usually fruit with dessert liquor.

Tomorrow, Albert and I will have dinner in downtown Barcelona again. After, we'll meet a group of friends at a bar for drinks. I will start working on Monday, so this week is almost like vacation to me. However, I will only be working 15 hours a week, so I'll still have plenty of time to enjoy Barcelona.

I am already having such a wonderful time here! :) I'll post again soon.
(Yes Grandma N., I'm sure there are lots of grammatical errors. Sorry, it's 3am and I'm too tired to check over what I've written.)

Ashley