Packing

Tonight, I nearly finished packing my bags. Although I've been spending the last month clearing out unneeded clothes and old stuff, I still had a lot of sorting to do. Now, after a few hours of strenuous packing, I am completely exhausted.

I leave for Barcelona on Friday. (As long as I have no trouble getting on a flight with my grandfather's buddy passes.) I will stay in Barcelona until August 24th, and from there fly to London where I will be studying for 2 years to complete by BA. It still seems completely surreal to me that my life is about to change so quickly. In a matter of days I will be living across the world immersed in a different culture and living amongst completely different people who speak another language (Catalan) that I don't even understand. However, I'm not very nervous. They way that I view it is that I have an endless amount of adventures ahead of me. I am so excited about all the new experiences I'll have and the new life that I am creating for myself.

I will be working in Barcelona this summer. I'll be helping to tutor students in writing, reading, grammar and spelling in English to students. The students that I will work with will have a relatively good grasp of the English language, but poor writing and reading skills. I'll be working with a variety of age groups, but mainly with middle-school aged kids.
I will be staying with my boyfriend's family in their guest room for the summer. They have a beautiful house in a neighborhood of Barcelona, located about 10 minutes from downtown. His family is so nice for hosting me this summer. I'm really glad to be staying with such kind people and am so thankful for all that they're doing for me.
My boyfriend, Albert, who is fluent in English, has begun to teach me his first language, Catalan. (Which is a not very well known language used in Catalonia, an area of eastern Spain. Although it's not particularly close to any other Romance language, it sounds closest to Italian.) He will also help me to improve my limited Spanish skills, because Spanish is his second language. I will also continue to study French. Hopefully, I will be multilingual someday!
I have made many friends in Barcelona through Albert; All who are so sweet and so much fun.
I'm so glad to have a group of friends awaiting my arrival!

Although getting around a city of non-native English speakers by myself will be both challenging and scary at times, I think it will be such a wonderful experience for me. Also, living in London will be a really great for me as well.

After I arrive in Barcelona and sleep off my jet lag, I'll write again. I will to try to write in this blog several days a week and a minimum of once a week. I'll try my best to keep everyone updated on how everything is going and on the things that I'm doing!

Ashley