Concierto y futbol!

Ahh! Sorry it's been so long! I've been busy with classes and applying for internships for the summer. Anyways, last week I went to play some pickup soccer at ISA and found out that no other people from the program had showed up. That left me alone with a group of Spanish boys that only spoke in rapid spanish. It was still really fun! I played on their team against a group of other boys in a small sided (8 v 8) game. It felt so good to be playing again and their level of play was really high. I think it's great that there's so much more pickup soccer here, and at a much higher level than home. Futbol is truly a huge part of the culture here. I could play with them but had a little difficulty with my running sneakers on turf after it had been raining earlier that day. They told me that it was really uncommon for girls to play futbol in Spain and sure enough a group of girls came to cheer some of the boys on. I was the only girl on the field! The boys on the other team had no idea what to do with me. They were really physical with each other but were afraid to touch me! The guys on my team were really nice. A couple of them walked me home after and we had a really interesting conversation about our different cultures. One of the guys asked me if parties in America were like the ones in the movies, like American Pie! A few of them knew little bits of english and would throw them in (in thick spanish accents) whenever they could. Like one guy said to meet back there next week at 6 in spanish and another said "six o'clock". They were really sweet and I'd love to get to know them better. They'll especially be able to help me with my spanish. Now I just need some legit soccer shoes and to learn soccer vocab and I'll be set! Unfortunately this week it's been really rainy so I didn't get to play. :(
I also went to a free concert on Sunday! 35,000 people attended!!! It was so crowded but the atmosphere was awesome. It took place between all the Center of Artes y Ciencias buildings. It was so fun! The main band that played was the Arctic Monkeys, a British band. I was familiar with their music before, but didn't really know the words to any of their songs. Their performance was great and three other bands that played before them were pretty good too. We got pretty close to the stage, enough that we were somewhat in the mosh pit which was preeetty interesting. In the end, confetti sprayed up and out over the whole crowd! It was amazing! Our shoes and pants were really disgusting after though because it was raining and dirty in the crowd. For Valentine's day the next day, me and my chicas went to get chocolate con churros! Que rico!
Today, we helped our Senora with some english! She had a friend calling from Paris who was trying to figure out what an english hotel offered. Senora spelled out the word to us (with spanish letters) and we translated it into spanish! That was actually really exciting for me...for once my english was useful! And I was able to translate my native language into something that made sense to her! The end for now...but my weekend is just beginning!

Barcelona!

Barcelona was amazing! Everything about it was wonderful. The architecture, the markets, the nightlife...it's definitely a city that everyone should visit at some point in their lives. The drive to Barcelona was beautiful. One one side of us were mountains, and on the other, the Mediterranean for the entire trip. When we arrived mid afternoon we had the entire day to do whatever we wanted. A group of us went to visit the nearby Sagrada Familia, the intricate cathedral designed by Gaudi. Words cannot describe how amazing it was. It's so unlike any building you've ever seen. Every part was incredibly intricate and beautiful. I couldn't stop taking pictures, but I realized there's no way to capture its magnificence. You simply have to stand in front of it and stare. We walked around and checked out a few stores before getting some bread and cheese for dinner. That night, we went to the "Dow Jones" Bar. It had tv screens around the bar that told you the prices of drinks. The prices would fluctuate with supply and demand. So, if you bought a beer, you would watch the price of that particular beer go up. If a drink wasn't bought for a while it would start to drop in price. It was so fun! And every once in a while the stock market would crash and all prices would plummet for a short time. It was definitely one of the most interesting bars I've ever been to.
The second day, we got a tour around the older part of the city that included a very old cathedral and columns from a 2000 year old Roman temple that used to be there. The cathedral was absolutely gorgeous on the inside. All of the carvings, vaulted ceilings, and stained glass were jaw-dropping. It was just gorgeous. The Roman columns were left over from when the Romans had taken over Spain. In modern times, building was built over them to help preserve them. They're so old! Standing in front of them I felt a profound need to learn more about the ancient world. I want to understand more about different cultures, how they created such beautiful things without our modern tools, but mostly I want to know the stories of all the humans who lived and died long before me. I can't really describe it, that just sounded kind of cheesy, but seeing something that old is powerful. The world has changed so much. What will it be like in another 2000 years? What will the world know about me?
Later on that day, a group of us girls walked along Las Ramblas, a street with a huge market. It was really cool, and the venders were really friendly. There were also lots of performers doing strange things like pretending to be statues, making strange sounds, or pretending that their head was disconnected from their bodies. It was very strange, but quite fascinating. That night we went out with a large group of ISA students to a couple bars. The first was technically supposed to be a Lord of the Rings bar, which made a number of us very excited. However, it turned out just to be fantasy themed, with lots of trees and waterfalls. It was very different from anything I've seen before. After that we went to a bar called Chupitos, which means shots in Spanish. They had over 100 shots with random names. We ordered Harry Potter shots and to our delight, watched them set on fire. Then the bartender sprinkled some "magical" powder over top of them and the fire burst up! It was amazing! Barcelona definitely has the most exciting nightlife I've ever experienced.
Sunday morning we went to visit Parc Guell, a park designed by Gaudi. Everything was gorgeous. His architecture is ingenious. Everything flows together rather than having harsh lines, and he uses so much color. He also recycled broken cups and plates and such to make up his tiling. It was awesome. After that we visited a couple of houses in the city that he designed. I wish we had been able to go inside, but we didn't. We all met up at a really tall statue of Christopher Columbus (cristobol colon en espanol), which was covered in what I considered ironic pictures and statues of him helping the natives. Overall, Barcelona was an amazing city to spend a weekend in, but I think I prefer Valencia. It isn't quite as insane and touristy, but it's just as beautiful. I'll write again soon!

Oranges and future expeditions

I'm off to Barcelona tomorrow! I'm really excited. All the Gaudi architecture is going to be amazing! I originally wanted to study abroad there, but I learned that people mainly speak english or Catalan, a strange version of spanish that is regional. I suppose it's similar to the Valenciana that's spoken here, but here at least everything that's posted in Valenciana is also posted in Spanish. However, apparently everyone speaks Catalan there, and I wanted to learn Spanish! Speaking of Spanish, I feel like my comprehension is improving immensely. The only difficulty is actually speaking it. When I speak with my host mom, it's like playing a combination of charades and taboo to try to get her to understand what I'm trying to say but don't know the Spanish word for. Luckily I'm good at both of those. Haha. However, it's hard being with ISA people, because you can talk with and understand them in Spanish, but if you don't know the wordfor something you revert to the English one since they know english. Playing spanish taboo probably makes you a better speaker. I really want to improve and I think my accent is terrible.
On Wednesday night I went to the intercambio at the english speaking bar. It was packed! I met a Valencian woman who I talked to for a while. She had studied abroad in Australia for a while so her english was a lot better than my spanish. She told me about some art festivals and plays that were happening soon, as well as a movie theatre that showed spanish films for 1 euro! I'll definitely have to check them out. It was really fun and I think I'll go back. Next Monday, there's a huge sailboat race here called America's Cup. We're going to go down to the port after class and check it out. And, on Monday, I guess there's a group of Spaniards who invited anyone from our ISA group to join them in small sided futbol games! yay! I'll definitely be doing that.
Another thing: I tried orange Fanta here and it is the best thing ever. And I thought lemon was amazing. This orange fanta is so different from US fanta. I don't know what it is, but it has real orange juice and real sugar in it and it is AMAZING. Also, we tried "Agua de Valencia" which is a local mixed drink that has fresh orange juice, champagne, and I think vodka in it. It was pretty good. Almost every place we go around here has a machine to squeeze oranges, just like everywhere has alcohol. Both are present in the heladeria (ice cream store) we went to and school cafeteria. Craziness!
On another note, Jenna and I have been checking out lots of local bookstores. I'm hoping to find some young adult novel to attempt to read in Spanish...I'm thinking Harry Potter. Also, right now I have the strange tango from Chien Andaluz stuck in my head. Chien Andaluz is a very strange movie that we watched in Cine and part of in AvanGuardia. It's an old surrealismo film that was partially directed by Salvador Dali. It is very strange, fascinating, and has a very catchy tango as background music. I guess this is hasta luego now.

Life is good

Hola! So Friday night a bunch of us girls decided to go out to an American bar that we had heard about. It was soooo strange! We talked with the manager-in english! I hadn't realized how accustomed I'd become to speaking Spanish for most things, since a lot of the times the people I'm with are from the U.S. and we'll speak weird Spanglish. It was kind of refreshing just to know that I have a place to go where I'll feel at home. I feel like I can't really go there too much though, it's cheating. We had lots of fun there though and even found out that they're going to show the SuperBowl next Sunday! The 6 hour time difference makes it kind of difficult to watch since it won't end till about 6am here, but I'll probably go. It'll be a fun 8:40 class the next day :/ I think if I'm ever feeling homesick, that'll be a good place to go. They also have a trivia night in english and an intercambio on Wednesday night. I think I want to go to the intercambio. That's when native Spanish and English speakers meet and try to help each other with pronunciation and learning the other language. I think it'd be a great way to meet some Spaniards!
Last post I posted a goal. They are absolutely obsessed with soccer over here, which I love! There are always futbol games on and we always see reports about goals scored or Ronaldo's red card. Another sports player that is always on the news is Nadal, an amazing tennis player. Jenna and I have an ongoing debate about who is mas guapo, Nadal or Ronaldo. I'm naturally on the side of the soccer player, haha. Saturday day, Jenna and I went for a walk through the Rio(the dried up river that is now the parque). There are so many strange statues, as well as soccer fields, and lots of beautiful trees and fountains. There's also a lot of graffiti though. It was a gorgeous day and we took lots of pictures. Later on we met up with a few people in the park and kicked a soccer ball around for a while. I hadn't realized how much I missed soccer already. Saturday night a big group of us went out to another bar called "Eclectico". It had a cool atmosphere but it was a little more expensive. We tried glasses of Valencian red wine. They were pretty good, but Valencia isn't really known for its wine.
Yesterday, a few of us went out to get chocolate con churros. It's so delicious. The hot chocolate part is like a melted candy bar, and the pastries are so hot and fresh. Perfect. Today I had three classes, but for my Spanish Culture class we went into the center of town where we walked around a big market. It's indoors and is where lots of people buy all their food. The grossest parts were the meat vending stands that smelled horrible and had every part of various animals in them. This included chicken feet (do the chickens have large talons? haaaa), pig heads, turkey breast complete with whole legs attached, pig hooves, pig entire dried legs, and rabbit heads, still with eyes. It was a little bit gross but interesting. The professor also attempted to get us all to order beers at an outdoor bar, but most people didn't want to so we moved on. So different from the States! Overall, a pretty good weekend + Monday. Monday here is actually the first day of the week on calendars rather than Sunday. I think it makes more sense.
Oh! One other thing. Television here is really different. Normally we watch the not-public channels which means there are no commercials. However, when we watch the public ones, there are way less commercial breaks than in the US, but they're seriously like 10 minutes long. It's ridiculous. There are also some really funny/clever commercials. Overall though, I'm most surprised by what they're allowed to show on tv. Nothing is edited! We watched Knocked Up dubbed over and the showed EVERYTHING. Nudity is common. On a side note, there's also this dentist office nearby that has a big picture of a smiling woman...naked. It just makes me laugh. But back to tv, Jenna and I are obsessed with this show called Aguila Roja, which is pretty action packed and hilarious. This guy is basicly like a super hero, with his secret identity "Aguila Roja" which means red eagle. He saves people and has a ridiculous comical side kick.
And today, we found out that our senora has a turtle that she keeps in her room. And that the dog is afraid of it. Hahahaha. I guess that's it for now. Hasta Luego.