Okay, so I think that I've been doing a pretty good job of keeping the blog up to date, especially since all my roomies lost their internet and I have to got to a locutorio all the time! Well, when I have time! Which I didn't have at all this week. This past weekend was the Festival of San Joan and it was a pretty wild time... These people aren't very strict about rules and regulations when it comes to fireworks for festivals! It was insane and there was so much ash and stuff in the air, I almost wasn't able to take a proper picture but my lovely roomies helped out (alot!)

That's me and Barbara before things got really crazy... we had just arrived at the beach and started watching the fireworks. This was before she scared off the stupid group of hooligans next to us who were lighting about 20 firecrackers off at once in the middle of our beach area. She's awesome. Well.... my tiempo is running out so I will put more up tomorrow, Ciao!

More Pictures and Stuff...

Las Ramblas is just the place to start when you want to go somewhere! We were being touristy on this trip because Nina's friend Carmen was visiting that weekend from Germany. The first is this gorgeous mosaic façade of a cafe and the second is the Boqueria (MarketPlace).

Who would I be without some ridiculous pictures of me making a fool of myself? I was eating a lemon after bocadillos (it reminded me of you, Paul!) and Carmen caught me mid-mouthful!

These are pictures of the Plaça Espanya, three blocks from our apartment building. The netro and about a hundred buses stop here! They host a bunch of different fairs here. This past few weeks has been the Car Fair... and since loads of people get around on motorbikes, they go to the fair (or the museum behind it) and they park right out front in the plaza. Its a sea of bikes!

So this is me in front od the big, half naked, half gone, broken winged bronxe at the Caixa. Last Saturday we took a tour of the Museums around Montjuic and this is the Entrance to the Caixa Forum.

The next three are pictures from and around the Joan Miró Foundation Museum. Its also a teaching school (uhhh, I dunno what other kind of school there is?) First picture: some funny little E.T. looking statue in front of the building. I wish they made keychains out of him... And yes, its a "he", look closely at the picture! The middle is a walk way around the back of the museum... its actually part of the Montjuic park.

And finally, the most random picture of the week! We were walking home and found an entire set of china (tea cups and plates) just in a box in the middle of the road... sooooo, since we're volunteers and not earning money, any dishes that are free are good dishes! This is me pretending to be that creepy person selling stuff from the back of an unmarked white van, LOL!

Now how's that for weird? Talk to you all later!!!!!

Just Pictures...

And maybe a description or two...

First outing with the roomies at Hook, this hilarious bar/cafe with a Pirate motif. The second pic is when we went for tapas in Barcenoleta near the beach. There were like nine of us and we nearly took over the front room!!

I took these pictures when we went museum hopping around Montjuic this past Saturday... Talk about gorgeous! It was perfect weather and you could see green everywhere, then, this pop of color where the purple flowers are... The building is a museum (National Art of Catalunya I think, they call it the MNAC here).

On Sunday we took a stroll around Ciutadella, this huge park where the Congressional building can be found. There was a nice lake and this random Mammoth. I like it! We had a picnic and lolled about for a couple of hours... It was good.

This is the huge foutain in the park. No one ever wants to take pictures but I made them do it!

Soooooo, basically everything is going great and we´re trying to plan on seeing at least a hundred more sights of Barcelona before we all have to leave! `The List´ is HUGE! I´m glad that I can at least share a little bit of everything with all of you...Night!

Making time for everything is impossible!

But, its not like I´m complaining or anything like that. Yesterday the reunion went really great and I got off of work at around 8 pm. The time here is really different not only because of the traditional siesta but also because of the way the sun sets here. These folk stay up till like one or two in the morning everyday! And weekends? Well, friday and saturday night are meant for staying out till four or six in the morning... Party animals. Nothing actually starts till ten... We went to Gracia last night (sorry no pictures, my camera battery was charging) and had late night snacks at some random palestinian restaurant/bar (and the slashie award goes to....... Fabio, lol, I miss having a dvd player) where we got these gorgeous platters of hummus with spiced meat and cucmber dip... how do you call it?? Tzlatziki? You hungry? Okay, I make you something. It was aromatic and delicious and the mood was really kick back.

I really cannot believe that I´ve already been here two weeks and that I´ve only been here two weeks. Somethings are becoming second nature; like now I can ride the metro without gripping the handrails for dear life and somethings are still a little strange; like always missing the time that the stupid grocery store is open! What supermarket closes for siesta? Like, then, don´t call yourself a supermarket! Okay, Picture time!!

My Send Off Party... They look so happy to see me go.

I have three wonderful roomamtes; Nina (middle) and Monika (right), both from Germany and Daniele (not pictured tee hee), from Italy, Sardenia to be exact, I think. We live about three minutes walk away from the biggest park in the city Montjuic and there is a fountain show every weekend. We sit up on top of this huge hill where a museum is and we watch the show.

I know that I owe everyone way more pictures but I need to stop by the grocery store (before it closes!) and I am also running out of tiempo on this computadora. I miss everyone and I hope that you all are doing well and having a good summer. :) Hey Pankaj, thank you so much for the camera.... I wish you were here!

It´s been awhile.

I thought orange would be a good color because I´m feeling pretty orange right now :) things are going great and I really couldn´t have asked for nicer roomies or better bosses here in the Catalunya. I think that the only thing I´m going to have a hard time with here is the fact that these people speak castellano and catalan... Its kind of confusing sometimes especially at work but that is a-okay because like I said before everything is pretty fantabulous :) I know that I promised some photos soon but the battery is down and I don´t have it with me right now but this weekend I will definitely make the time to put some pics up. I´ve been to Las Ramblas, Plaça Catalunya, the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter), and two different beaches. We also went to a few tapas bars and an incredible bocadillos place somewhere near or around Plaça Catalunya. We went exploring the Parc Montjuïc which is about 2 minutes behind our apartment building for hours yesterday... I´ve never seen so many different parks all together. They even had a free climbing tunnel, so I tried a few routes, and nearly tore my arms out of their sockets but I had a great time! Okay, tomorrow I will put up pics of all things Anna and Barcelona!!!

I Made It Alive!!!!!

Although there were more then enough problems throughout the trip! When I first said goodbye to the familia at the airport, I felt like the trip was gonna go real smooth, but then the security guard made me take of all my bracelets and the thing still kept going off, so while they were ushering me (the obvious TWA) to the special area to get patted down, they didn´t run my box of stuff then claimed that I had lost them. I hate LAX security, like, really, really hate them. Dad woulda been a little annoyed that I lost the bracelet that he gave me and I hadn´t even made it across the security check yet!!! LOL!!! But everything was good. I sat next to a really funny guy on the way to London and then a really snobby woman on the flight to barcelona :) The food was aight and the timing was great. I think that I´m not really gonna have jet lag so that´s a good thing. Anyways... Ummmmmm so I took the airporter bus (aerobus) into town and dragged my massive luggage to my apartment where I met one of my roommates at the door outside. She let me in and we had good greet and meet times. She´s from Germany but will be leaving next week. There are two other roomies, a guy and another girl... it was about an hour ago that I met them so don´t ask me names!!!! Sorry :) We all have our own rooms, mine has a tiny balcony overlooking the main street. Its perfect... welllll... very tiny and kind ghetto but we can all remember the F Street apartment and ghetto is just fine with me! Okay, one of the roomies is supposed to take me grocery shopping or tell me where things are or something so ADIOS!!!!!!
Hi Mom!!! Hi Dad!! How are you doing??? Sonya, Smita, Gabe I miss you!!!!