Barcelona

Well Friday we left from AIDICO and headed to Barcelona for the weekend. It was about a three hour drive so it wasn't too bad especially since the view was really nice. Lots of mountains and the ocean. We got to the hotel and the concierge was a total asshole but we're kinda used to the customer service here by now. He tried to rip us off with the parking and then lied to us too! Then we go out and start exploring. It was all so pretty. We went down this big walkway and there were so many street performers and cool things to look at.

They have cute recycling bins! 

Then we walked back to the hotel and got some tequila and fanta. We stopped to get something to eat and they surprising let us make our own drinks.

Then me and Kavitha and Ariel went to walk down Las Ramblas to check out the night life. OMG so many people trying to scam you. We kinda got scammed but it wasn't that much of a rip off. We paid 10€ a piece for three drinks and a bus to these clubs. But then we went to get the drinks and it was only disgusting cheap drinks. We decided to make a big deal about it since we've been ripped of so much here. And it worked we finally got our way. The guys at the clubs were so annoying and pushy. It was funny When I met them he said "hey have you ever met an American?!" Because his friend was from Cali. And I just laughed and was like sorry you picked the wrong girl to use that pick up line on. But it was all down hill after that and I actually yelled at one of them out because he was being so obnoxious. Then he told me I can't tell at him like that because I'm in Barcelona now. But there's a difference betweent cultural differences and people just being assholes. We ditched them and hung out on the beach some then went home. 

The next day I ate at this cafe and it was really good and the waitress was soo nice! She was Italian and so sweet to us. I had xurros (churros) they were so good! Then we went to Parc Güel which was so beautiful. The walk was rough my calves are still sore!! It was such a steep hill and so many steps but once we made it to the top it was worth it! We could see the whole city and the ocean and the mountains. Then on our way back to the hotel we stopped at this little shop snd had a really good tuna empanada and kiwi melon juice! Then we went to las Ramblas again and shopped around. I finally found some cute and comfy sandals. Then we went to get a bite to eat and omg it was so weird. 

So we saw a sign that said 12€ for two tapas and paella so we thought that was a good deal and went in. We weren't super hungry so we just wanted to share one order. Well the guy acted like we were insane for asking that. He told us we weren't allowed to and it was against the rules here. Finally we argued with him enough and I noticed the guys next to is were sharing so he let us order only 2 intead of 3 orders. It was so ridiculous. The guys next to us were Spanish so they probably thought they could rip Df the tourists. We got seafood paella and I think I'm done with the seafood for now. lol I've tried to have an open mind about it. I don't think they even gave us sangria either it was really strong I think it was a mixed drink. 

Snuck past the rail for a better pic

We went out again and got into the club for free so it was really nice. Then we hung out on the beach with these two French guys. It was so much fun. They weren't trying to hit on us just have a nice convo! It was so fun talking in English/Spanish/French with them. They didn't even try to befriend us on Facebook or anything. Just accepted that we had a cool hour convo and we'll probably never see eachother again. 

Were going to France next week and we asked if people are gonna hate us for being Americans that don't know French and he just laughed and said at least you guys are pretty but yeah. 

The last day we were exhausted! But we kept going and rode the metro to see the cathedral. My metro card got chewed up in the machine the night before so I had to sneak in! It was kinda scary Sneaking into the subway in a foreign country. But I had my card as proof so I would have been fine. On the way back there was actually an attendant there so she gave me a new one. But both the cathedrals were so beautiful! All the buildings here are. Then we got a ride in a pedicab with a cute Romanian guy! Or maybe German we don't know lol since he may have said Alamania. Anyways he was really nice and it was a really cute ride down the beach.

Almost half way done :/

This past weekend we went to Benicassim for a music festival. It was pretty fun, the venue was outside and right between the beach and the mountatins. On the drive there we even saw some castles. During one of the days we went to Opresa to go to the beach which was like 30 minutes away. We went to a Cala, which means little beach. It was so cute! The view was beautiful.

There was a ton of plants and stuff in the water though, it was kinda creeping me out. Then we went to this yacht club place to eat. It was really fancy but we shared meals. It was like a several course meal. First they brought out a salad, then a plate of ham and cheese, then bread, mussels, a lobster rice soup dish, and then lastly watermelon and chocolate cake for dessert. I think there might have been more i dont remember anymore. I just remember thinking Hillary would have loved it and would kill me if she knew I was eating seafood on the shore at a yacht club. By the way I´m not really a fan of mussels. They are so creepy looking. The spices and flavor were really good but man with that texture and look, I just couldn´t do it. We finally made it back to the festival and made it just in time to get to the first show we wanted to see.

We met a group of spanish girls from valencia there and they were so nice so we hung out with them and they shared sangria with us. We were having so much fun talking with them I forgot to go see one of my favorite artists!

 I didn´t get a chance to buy anything at the festival except for a "chicken fajita" at the "mexican" food stand. They should really call it a grilled chicken wrap though. I should have known better. We had Brazilian Pizza the other day?! I told one of my new Italian friends about it and it was so funny.. I said, "hmm I don´t remember the name of the place though I think its Xingu or something" and then he said, "Okay but the thing is, the name it´s not imiportant because I´d never go there." Then told me he´d tell me real places to eat pizza. Anyways the brazialian pizza wasn´t as bad as the italiano is making it seem. It was definitely different though. The cheeses were´t the same. We got 2 pizzas and got different flavors for each half. So one half was ham and pineapple and the other half was called Tropical but tasted like spaghettios so I have no idea what was going on there. The other pizza one half was spinach with tomatoes and brazilian style mozzarella which was my favorite, then the other half was kinda crazy.. it was banana pizza! They still used cheese and then put cinnamon and something else on it. It sounds crazy but it was surprisingly good.



The appetizer we got had lamb in it, and it was surprisingly good, way better than the stuff I had at this Kebab place. It was funny they gave us "hot sauce" to go with it and it was this tiny thing and it wasn´t even spicy. Tabasco sauce its literally the only spicy thing in this country!! I feel like I´m not even going to be able to handle a hot cheetoh when I get home after not eating anything spicy for so long! Even the peppers at the market aren´t like real peppers. I´m craving chips and salsa so bad. All I want is The other day, I walked around the city and took pictures of a bunch of statues and structures which was very peaceful and relaxing. This whole trip has been jam packed witht things to do so it was nice to just walk around.

Then I stopped in some shops and got a couple things. As soon as the clerk saw my credit card, he started talking to me in english. I was so disappointed because I wanted to try to speak in spanish. But it was alright because I was kinda forced to speak last night. There´s this bar that gives you three free beers if you speak english and help people learn english by having a convo with them. Me and two of the guys that are part of the program too decided to check it out. Well, none of our phones GPS works without wifi and we ended up getting a little lost. They don´t know much spanish at all so they told me I had to ask a police officer. Talk about a pop spanish quiz! I knew how to ask where the street was but he said the directions so fast I barely caught it. Thankfully everyone here talks with their hands so I kinda got what he was saying. We found the place but the english night was already over so we just ate and hung out. We´re going to go again tonight to check it out and hopefully make some new friends! When i told rachel about how they do this, she said "What how lucky?! But with free drinks, you won´t be speaking good english for long!" It was so funny! We´re going to Barcelona this weekend, i´ve heard so many great things about it so I can´t wait!

Akuarela

We went out as a group on Saturday and it was so stressful! They don´t really do receipts here at restaurants and they don´t like splitting checks either. So going out in a group of 8 people that all want individual receipts so that can get reimbursed from the university, is a spanish restaurant´s nightmare. We had indian food and it was good, I had vegetable Biryani which was spicy so it was a nice change since spanish food isn´t spicy at all. Saturday night was really fun. We walked to this beach bar called Akuarela Playa that everyone said was super fun. There were huge lines everywhere to get in and the parking lots were full of people basically tailgating!? Then there´s this plaza area right before the sand starts that everyone was hanging out at. We hung out there and bought drinks off people selling them out of their coolers lol. Then people tried to sell us fake tickets to get into the club. It was crazy. The bouncers were asking the girls in front of us all these questions about their IDs and it was taking a long time so i guess they were fake since he didn´t let them in. Then he took one look at ours and said "Oh nice Texas!" and then let us all in. The place was huge and had a bunch of different levels with different types of music. We ordered the shots that were on special and we realized why they were! It was like a liquer or like wine?? They really don´t like shots over here. It didn´t even taste like alcohol and was so sweet. We started dancing and then ran into italian guys we met the night before so we hung out with them for a while. I think I´m learning spanish with an Italian accent because all the people we meet are italian! Anyways the place was packed! They had people walking around on stilts and entertainers like that so it reminded me of Vegas. The venue was so beautiful with palm trees and a bunch of lights but I couldn´t get a good picture that showed it.

Sunday night was the final world cup game so we went to a little place on our street to watch it. It was fun but we had to go to sleep for work so we came back early. All the people cheering and yelling ALAMANIAAAAA later woke us up though! Monday was pretty uneventful. We keep having problems with our bus tickets and it´s getting really frustrating but I keep reminding myself that I´m in Spain so I shouldn´t complain. I actually keep forgetting that I´m here since I don´t really feel like I´m on the other side of the world. The first week went by really fast so I´m sure the last 4 will too! My friends Zack and Zak got here last night and they´ll be here for three days so hopefully I´ll finally do some sight seeing. I´m gonna try to stop taking siestas! I can´t sleep my life away here. I finally feel like my sleep schedule is adjusting to spain time. This weekend we´re going to Benicassim (a city an hour away) for a music festival then next weekend we´re going to Barcelona.

Intercambio Cultural

Last night was so much fun at the cultural exchange. It was a party where you wear a flag sticker of the country you're from. It made it so easy for people to come up and talk to you. It also made me realize how much I don't know flags! I felt so dumb. It was such good practice for Spanish since I speak a lot better when I'm drinking lol. I even ordered in spanish. Everyone I knew was like what the heck Kelsey you Speak so much Spanish all of the sudden?? But There were people from all over the world there. It turned into a discotheque later and their clubs stay open until seven am! Afterwards we walked with these guys to watch the sunrise on the beach. They were so funny but they didn't speak much English so I only understood like half of what they said. The guys here are such sweet talkers! I was trying to explain that word to them since they didn't know it. And I tried to explain what a tongue twister was bc the word for engineering in Spanish is so hard to say!! It was really fun trying to communicate with all the people. We made a lot of friends and now we have too many plans tonight lol. One guy invited us to a classical guitar show and he plays too. He seemed really artistic and left the club Early because it wasn't his scene. The Italian guys we work with invited us to go to a chupiteria (a bad that serves different kinds of shots) and then to karaoke bars. (And mom we aren't drinking too much and were being safe!). And we have dinner plans at two different places lol so we have to figure this out. Also It's so weird, I'm not used to people thinking my name is hard to say. Everytime I introduce myself I have to repeat it and people keep calling me Kesley or Kasey or Keseli. I don't mind though. Also a lot of people thought I was Italian or Spanish last night and asked why I had the American flag on. One peruvian guy at the party had me write stuff down and he analyzed my handwriting. He said i was materialistic and didn't believe in god!!?! (unless i misunderstood his spanish lol). At the end I asked the guy Javi if it was normal to stay up until 8 am when they go out and he just laughed and said "welcome to spain."

Finally have time and wifi!

I got sick right before the trip, so it was a long tiring trip! First we flew to Chicago. I sat next to a really cool guy and made friends with him. His name was Salex, he was on his way to visit his mom in Germany. We talked the whole time so the flight literally flew by. He goes to TCU for international business and he is originally from Dubai. When we got to Chicago, we were going through security again and the TSA lady was so rude! We accidentally got in the business class line and she yells "alright we all know you aint business class, get in the other line!" We had to wait for four hours so we wondered around the airport for a while so it went by pretty fast. Then we boarded to go to Zurich!
Swiss air is so nice. They are all so helpful and happy and you get so much free stuff. The food is really tasty too. At the end of the flight they even give everyone a piece of chocolate and a hot towel?? I guess to wipe your face off or something I don't really know. It was interesting to see how the flight attendants knew who to speak to in english and who to speak to in german. They accidentally spoke to me in german once. Towards the end of the flight i was so antsy and my back hurt from the seat. I couldn't sleep at all on the flight. Then we arrived in Zurich, and Europe is so different! People can just walk around the airport drinking beer.
Everyone on the Valencia flight kept talking to me in spanish and i freaked out and probably looked really rude. Then I slept the whole way there since I didn't feel good at all. I made sure to wake up in time for the chocolate though and then left it in my lap on accident. So I got up and there was chocolate ALL over my lap. It looked disgusting. What a way to enter a country. Then a baby started throwing up everywhere behind me and I was about to throw up too because of it. Anyways we didn't even have to go through customs and we didn't get a stamp in our passport! I wanted one!

The AIDICO representatives Ana Marie and Pablo picked us up from the airport. They were so nice and Ana was super excited to see us. It was so funny fitting all our luggage in their tiny european cars but it actually fit! Then we went to see our flats and Ana asked us if we wanted to go to her summer home in the countryside to go swim or if we were too tired. Of course we were too excited to be tired even though we barely slept! So we went grocery shopping first. The food is so different here and really good. They make you wear gloves when you pick up the produce to put in the bags to be more sanitary too.

We get to Ana's home and meet her dad and her two kids and her cousin that lives down the street. The house is on the side of a mountain and is beautiful! They have a little garden and a pool and patio. Ana started cooking dinner around 8 pm (which is early here! but we hadn't eaten all day). She just started handing me potatoes and a knife and told me to start peeling. We made "Patatas de Pobres" which means potatoes for the poor and it was really good! She wrote the recipe in spanish and we wrote it in english under it. She really wants to learn english and is practicing with us a lot!
We finally slept at like 11 pm and didn't wake up until 11 am. They don't really use AC here but usually the weather is nice so they don't need it. The first two nights were hot though! (even for me!)


The next day we met her friend Marie Luz and she was really nice. She's a psychologist and takes care of elderly people at their homes. We swam more and had a nice lunch (at 3 pm lol) with the whole family. Ana's little boys started acting up since they were jealous of us taking their mom away from them. The nine year old, Jorge was so funny and sassy. The five year old Ugo was so cute! They play soccer constantly or watch it or watch racing. Later we went to eat Tapas at a restaurant with the Interns from Italy. They were really nice and helped us find the best phone and internet deals. I like speaking spanish with them since they don't speak english fluently. Its less intimidating. My mentor, Sara, told me to be careful of them though! lol But i'm pretty sure that's the case with all Italian guys. For us to get reimbursed for the food, we have to keep all the receipts, which is kinda inconvenient especially since they basically don't exist here. And they don't split checks. So at this restaurant was the first time to get yelled at by the spanish people.


So monday was the first day of work and it was such a disaster getting there. We have to ride a tram then switch to get on a bus and theres only two buses so we can't miss it. Well a tram derailed so we had to get off the one we were on. We asked around to see how far of a walk it was to our stop. A friendly german artist said he'd walk us and warned us it was far. He said about a kilometer walk. It was like 3 kilometers. So there's a famous Valencian holiday called Fallas and they make statues and then they burn them?? Idk but its a huge deal. He's one of the artists for that festival. He showed us photos of his work on the walk and it was amazing! The statues are like 60' tall! It was such a long walk we kinda started to worry he was leading us the wrong way but we finally got to the bus stop and he saw the yellow bus and told us to run so we'd catch it so we barely had time to thank him.

The next day we tried to ask the bus driver where to get a card so we didn't have to pay each time and he started yelling at us.
We went to the beach and it was nice but the Sicilian guys said it was nothing compared to theirs. Then on the walk home Ariel and I stopped at a cervezeria for the wifi and to get a drink and dinner an watch the world cup game. The paella and beer was really good. It was cool watching the game outside on the street like that because you could hear everyone down the street yelling when German scored.

Today I saw one of the experiments which was pretty cool. We had to make sure this anchor line would hold the weight of three people for three minutes. It's to simulate workers falling. So in the last second it broke and it was kinda scary there was a huge snap and the weight fell. We finally have wifi at "el piso" which is how they say flat or apartment so its so much nicer now! lol