For the past week, I've been watching a bunch of Disney movies (Prince of Egypt, Mulan 1 and 2, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pocahontas) and non-Disney movies (Dennis the Menace, Angels in the Outfield, Thumbelina). I just missed being a kid, missed not having to worry about all the bullshit that goes on in my life, and of course missed singing along to all the awesome songs. I totally forgot how amazinggg the soundtrack to the Prince of Egypt was, especially the opening song with the mom singing to baby Moses and then the song that Moses' sister and wife sings after Ramses let's everyone go free. Vicky and I were belting it out because we reallyyy needed a miracle since we're STILL waiting on our school to give us the thumbs up to take the 4 classes we found and to be enrolled in that department. Vicky's mom was telling us that God hears our prayers, but He's just busy with everyone else's right now and can't get to ours yet haha. We talked to the international relations office this morning and they said they should get an answer from the department on Monday, so that's when we'll find out if we can stay here, or go home. That means God has 3 days to work his magic!!
The 4 classes we found seem pretty interesting and what's even better is that we only have to take them to get credit instead of grades, meaning we don't have to take it too seriously, just enough to pass, woo hoo!! One of the classes is History and Culture of Britain. I looove the professor because he's the one who helped us find some of our classes. Really great and funny guy. Oh and he's gay, so I love him even more haha. Another class also has something to do with the British, but I'm not really sure because so far, that's my least favorite class, but one of my classmates told me the professor passes everyone as long as you participate, so yayy!! The other 2 classes are "teaching" classes. The professors pretty much teach the students how to teach English to other students. Vicky and I have been going to these 2 classes for a week so far, and we really like it, but we think it's so weird that we're sitting in a classroom, with a professor teaching you how to teach. I don't know, it's just odd.
I was talking to some classmates and they were saying that all the students call the professor's by their first names. I didn't know the teacher-student relationship here was so informal. I'm so used to calling my professors "professor," so that's something I'm going to have to get used to while I'm here. Another thing about the student to teacher relationship here is that the student's are really disrespectful to their professors. I don't know if it's true in every class, but last week when I was crashing a Political Thoughts class, one of the girl's just verbally attacked the professor because she didn't know that the class was being taught in English. I had no idea what she was saying (because she was talking to him in Spanish or Catalan), but it got pretty bad because other students joined in, and he ended up ending the class when it was only just 10 minutes in. How crazy is that?? Throughout my 4 years at State, I've never seen a student disrespect any professor. I felt so bad for the guy and I wonder what that class is going to be like throughout the semester. Too bad I couldn't take it, so I wouldn't know. I just hope he'll be okay.
As much as I hate my school, I really love that they have instant coffee vending machines all over campus and inside buildings. What sucks is that all the coffee here is in teeeeny tiiiiiiny cups, like the size of two shot glasses. There's no such thing as tall, grande, or venti here, unless you go to Starbucks, which by the way is so ridiculously overpriced here, it's not even worth it. So every morning when I get on campus (usually around 8:15), I go to one of the machines, insert my 50 cents, and within a minute, I get my cappuccino so I can make it through my 8:30 class. The last time I had a class that early was sophomore year, and it was HELL. Another thing I kind of like about my school is the cafeteria. The cafeteria food here is actually quite good, and everyone eats out of plates and use forks and knives (not plastic!) because they're just fancy like that. It's also pretty cheap compared to what you would pay for it you were at a restaurant.
I feel like such a loser not going out and exploring more of Barcelona and it's nightlife since I've been here. I've been sooo stressed out over finding classes and trying to get transferred to another department and all the crap that just keeps coming. But I did have a chance to make a few friends who are locals of Barcelona, so maybe when everything is settled, I'll get to have a life again and go out and party til 6 a.m. like everyone else haha!
Today, Vicky and I decided we should celebrate a little because we're so close to getting everything fixed and probably won't have to go back home, so we wanted to find a nice restaurant to have a celebratory lunch. We wanted to try a restaurant on our street because we have so many, so we went around and looked at their fixed menu of the day because it's a little cheaper to get that than order from their regular menu. We found a restaurant on the side of our building, and best of all, it was only 5.90 euro for a 3 course meal. SCORE! We got to choose from two starters (salad or pasta), two entrees (beef and rice stuffed in a bell pepper, or oven roasted chicken and rice with mushrooms) and 3 desserts (flan, ice cream, or cake). I got the salad with chicken and rice and I'm going to say that it's the best Spanish meal I've had since being here. Not only was it uber cheap, it was also REALLY good. Vicky also liked her stuffed bell pepper, so we're definitely going to come back here, or even make it a weekly thing.
Oh! Almost forgot to mention another thing. So after classes yesterday, we went to Las Ramblas (that's like our go-to place because there's always so much going on there and it's also a great place to people watch) and got some McDonald's haha! We were craving something American and the only thing we could come up with was good ol' Mickey D's. We wanted to see if everything tastes the same and if there was anything different about their menus. So they have onion rings here, and pizza, and a barbeque chicken sandwich (kind of like a McRib I guess?? But with chicken??) and waffle sundaes, and that's all I can remember right now. You know how the McChicken's at home are on the dollar menu?? They sell them for 3.55 euro here!!! That's like $5 for a tiny sandwich with a piece of chicken in it!!! There's also KFC and Burger King here, so we'll try that another time when we're craving for some American fast-food =)
After getting our food, we went out and sat on the benches and people-watched for about a half hour. We saw a group of African guys carrying huge bags behind their backs standing around Las Ramblas. And then they opened their bags and out came all the knock-off designer purses and sunglasses. It was fun watching them because the whole time, they were holding 4 strings that were attached to each corner of the sheet with the purses on top of it, so when they got a signal from someone who was looking out for the police, all they had to do was lift up those 4 strings and throw the bag of purses behind them and run off. Me and Vicky wanted to stay and see how fast they were going to pack up everything and leave, so we sat and watched for a good 20-30 minutes before they got the signal from someone, and literally within 3 seconds, they were able to pack up everything and make it look like nothing ever happened. It was sooo cool because a minute after the whole group left, 2 officers came walking down the street.
This weekend, there's some huge festival that's being celebrated by everyone in the city, so we've seen a whole lot more people out on the streets and lots of tourists. We're not exactly sure what the festival is about, but we're going to check it out, we just don't know where to go yet because there's a bunch of stages set up all around the city, so we're guessing we can just go to any of them. Hopefully it'll be super dee duper fun!!
No comments:
Post a Comment