Forte!: May 2013

Spanien!

So I know some of you have been waiting for a post about Spain...and your in luck. I have nothing to do in English class today so I've got some time! At the moment I don't have many pictures, but I should be getting a flashdrive with photos from the whole trip from a friend soon.

Day 1.
My alarm goes off at the ungodly hour of 4am. I roll over, shut it off and resist the urge to hit the snooze button. I have to be on my way to the airport in half an hour. I'm going to Barcelona for 10 days with my class and I'm waiting for the excitement to do its job and wake me up. So far its not working. Like usual I end up running out the door at the last minute, purse slung over my shoulder, suitcase in one hand and in the other a roll hastily spread with nutella. Breakfast on the go. I get in the car and am soon speeding towards the airport. I was so tired at one point I thought I was dreaming. It isn't until takeoff that the excitement finally sets in. When we land we take a bus to the main portion of the airport where our host families are waiting to pic us up. Suddenly I'm nervous. It feels like the first day in Austria except worse because my Spanish is way worse than my German. Luckily this was an English project so the Catalan students were supposed to speak English with us anyway. I was to share a host family with Lara from my class. Our host sister's name was Paula. She was an average height with shoulder length brown hair that was held in a high ponytail. She greeted Lara and I with a friendly smile and showed us the way to her car. Her English was pretty good but her accent was so thick sometimes Lara had to translate what she said into German! Lara is much better at understanding accents than I am.
We were both exhausted but when we got home they were planning a big family lunch. We just had time to unpack our things, and walk with Paula to the grocery store before people started arriving. The first thing I noticed was how incredibly friendly and open everyone was. It was like were already a part of the family after only an hour! The second thing I noticed is that I was not in Spain. Let me explain. The region of Spain I was staying in is called Catalonia. This area has been trying to win their independence for awhile now and I was told four times in about 10 minutes that Catalonia is NOT Spain. The culture from what I know isn't hugely different but the language is definitely not the same. Catalan is a mixture of French, Italian, and Spanish. My hopes of evening understanding a few words were crushed. The third thing I noticed is how much people in Catalonia eat. I have never ever eaten so much food in my life as I did in those ten days, and I'm an Engstrand so thats saying something! At the family lunch what I thought was the main dish was actually just the appetizer! And then right after I finished dessert I was asked if I would like to go out for ice cream! I opted out, and instead had a "siesta" which is the opposite of a "fiesta" basically a fancy word for a nap.
That night we had a welcome party at the kids school. They did the whole speech thing, then of course we ate. It was traditional Tappas. I had a close call with calamari. Being American I thought the calamari was onion rings. For those of you who don't know I'm allergic to squid. After taking a bite I realized what I rather than barfing my guts out later I quickly spit it out. My teacher was a little shocked, thought I was being rude, I explained I was allergic and she proceeded to tell my guest family. The next day when we went out for Tappas (again) for dinner they came over a limited the menu for me. Unfortunately they thought I was allergic to anything that came out of the ocean and although I tried to explain that I could eat fish they didn't get the message. After the dinner at the welcome party they did a typical Catalan dance. Its hard to explain, i'll post pictures as soon as I get them from a friend of mine.

Day 2.
Breakfast was cereal, chocolate granola, cocoa crispies, and chocolate croissants (see a pattern here?). They had warm milk and cold milk on the table. I had never eaten cereal with warm milk before, it was interesting. After I had poured myself a bowl of cereal I was asked if I wanted cocoa, I assumed to put in a glass of milk. I was wrong. I was offered cocoa to put on my already chocolate cereal. That was a lot of chocolate. After breakfast I was asked what I wanted for my SECOND breakfast. My first thought was "Hobbits" (for those of you who are not LOTR fans, hobbits eat a ton and always have second breakfasts). My second thought was, I think i'm going to like it here. And my third thought was, I might gain some weight.
We met up with the other kids at school and got on a bus to Barcelona. In Barcelona we walked along "la Rambla" a large shopping street near the coast. It was a beautiful day and Lili and I rented bikes. I have always wanted to bike around a European city, its just so picturesque! True to the stereotype I was at one point chased by some bike racers all yelling "rubia rubia!" (blondie, blondie). At first I was freaked out and started biking super fast....being racer bikers they caught up pretty easily but all they did was smile and wave as they road past. I really was pretty much the only blond in Barcelona.

Day 3
We went walked around the town of Manresa where my host family lives. All the girls got lunch at a restaurant where again I had a close call with squid. I didn't know they died noodles with squid ink....
It was St. Jordi's day which is similar to Valentines day. All the girls get roses and all the guys get a book...not sure why. It comes from the legend of St. George and the dragon. The whole street was lined with rose boothes and book sellers. It was like people had taken the town library, emptied it on the street and then some!

I got a rose from one of the boys in the Catalonian class. He didn't say two words to me the whole trip haha, but he gave me a rose! To bad he was so short ;)
After we got back from Manresa us girls did a bit of a photo shoot with our roses.

Day...?
One day we went to the beach. In the sun it was probably about 75 but the wind was SO COLD. We went swimming anyway. I actually stayed in the water for about half an hour, but I couldn't feel my entire body when I got out and I was completely red. And my towel and bag and ears and eyes and food and hair and everything was FULL of sand. To escape the wind I walked around with a good friend of mine Caro as well as two other girls Gloria and Kathi. It was an old seaside town, we got ice cream and wandered around laughing through the city streets.