Where'd the Time Go?!?!

Wow it’s been over 2 months since my last blog!! Time is just flying eeeek!! It’s a really bittersweet feeling.  I’m really sad that I’m leaving so soon because this whole experience has been so surreal and I’m not ready for it to end just yet!  I still can’t believe I decided to not graduate last May and stay in school for another year so I can do this whole study abroad thing.  On the other hand, I’m glad  that I’m finally coming home because over the past few weeks, I’ve been having some major cravings for all kinds of food I would normally eat at home…like my dad’s pho during the super cold weather, or a big fat greasy California burrito late at night, souplantation for my soup and salad fix, pad thai or spicy noodles from the best Thai restaurant near my brother’s house, or just taking random trips up to Santa Ana or L.A. for my food adventures.  Yeah, I really miss that.  A LOT.  Not only that, I really miss my dog, Bearrrrr!!!!  If you didn’t know already, he was attacked by a neighbor’s dog on Christmas and was in the hospital for 3 days.  Poor little guy.  I found out about it when I was visiting my friend in Rotterdam and it was so devastating because there I was, having a wonderful time and on the other side of the world, my little guy was hurt and I couldn’t do anything about it.  But he’s doing pretty well now and my brother told me he’s healing faster than expected so that’s good news.  But I don’t know if he’s just lying to me to make me feel better haha.  I just can’t wait to see him when I get back.  I’m actually much more excited to see him than my own family lol.  Actually, I won’t even get to see my parents because they’re going to Vietnam along with one of my brother’s to celebrate Vietnamese New Year for almost 4 weeks! So I’m just going to come home to my brother, how lame.  I was so looking forward to have a nice big feast prepared by my mom and dad, the best cooks I know, but that’s not even going to happen =(  But that’s ok because I’ll probably just head straight to the first taco shop I see and get my burrito and horchata. 

So I have to really talk about the café con leche here.  It’s something I’m REALLY going to miss when I’m back home.  The Spanish can sure make a mean cup of coffee with milk.  Sounds so simple, but after having this for the past 5 months, I don’t think I can ever go back to having coffee from the Living Room or Starbucks.  That’s saying a lot.  I mean, Starbucks is delicious but café con leche is so much better.  There’s no better way I can explain it, I guess you just have to have it yourself so you can see what I mean.  When my brother was here, he also fell in love with it and when Vicky’s mom and godsister came, they were addicted to it, too!!  Even if I bought myself an espresso machine, I don’t think I can make it the same way as they do here.  That’s how good this café con leche is.  I’m for sure gonna have café con leche withdrawals.  Wahhhhh.

Ok, on to New Years!!  I think it was my first time ever going out to celebrate New Years and although it was crazy fun, I don’t think I can ever do it again, at least not in big cities such as Barcelona.  It’s just too much madnesssss.  I went to the port with Vicky, her mom, godsister, and friend who came over to visit during the holidays.  There were a good amount of people there (half of which were already drunk) and that’s where we stayed for the countdown.  Once it was midnight, people around us were popping champagne, kissing each other, eating the 12 grapes (a Spanish and Mexican tradition that I learned from Vicky), and of course the usual pickpockets lurking around.  So we decided to walk down the Ramblas, which was a big mistake on my part because I suggested it, and DIOS MIO!!! There were SO many people and like twice amount of stupid pickpockets because apparently Vicky, her mom, godsister and friend were all touched and rubbed up on by those turds.  Then they went home and I met up with some of my friends and went to the bar with them to celebrate some more.  We didn’t leave til around 4 or 5, I don’t really remember haha.  But I do remember when we were all walking back to the metro station to head home, this guy that we met got his wallet stolen.  I felt awful that it happened to him so me and Cristhina, one of my girl friends from here decided to help him find it.  We all knew it was likely that he wasn’t going to find it, but God must have been on our side or something because we walked down a random small street and found his wallet with his ID on the ground.  Of course his money was taken but it’s good that his ID was still there.  It was a really fun night, but I don’t know, I think next time I’ll just celebrate it with my friends and family in the comfort of my own home where I won’t have to deal with a massive amount of crazy people.   

Then the day after New Years, we went to London!!!  I was excited because it was my first time and I was glad that everyone spoke English and that everyone was really good looking hahaha.  We were there for like 3 or 4 days and even though it rained and was reallyyy cold half the time, I still had a really good time.  I wished I had an extra day because I didn’t even get to check out any museums!!   And most of them are free!!  Shoulda taken advantage of that, ugh.  I know I’ll come back to London again, maybe in the next 2 years or something and I’ll make sure I stay for like a week because there’s so much to do there!  The highlight of my trip there was having my tea and scones with clotted cream at Harrod’s.  Yeah, I was really fancy HAHA…ok, not really.  Anyway, it was THE best scones I’ve ever had, EVERRR!!!  And the clotted cream, dear God, it was one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth (that’s what she said!!)  I made sure I took my time eating it because it was not only freaking delicious, but also freaking expensive, so I wanted to enjoy it as much as I can. 

I went to my last two classes yesterday and it sucked saying bye to some classmates and one of my professors.  They were really nice people.  So now I just have to study for another final on Monday and one more on Thursday, and that’s it!  Got another 11 days to live it up here as much as I can, but I’m gonna have to really study because I’m pretty sure I’m not doing very well in both of those classes.  I mean, I’m pretty sure lots of study abroad students don’t do very well in their classes anyway, so it’s alright, right? =)  I came here for the experience and that’s good enough haha!!

I have to set aside another blog post to talk about my legendary trip to Ibiza LOL.  Every time I think about it, I have to laugh and giggle a little bit because that was the most interesting trip I have ever taken and will definitely NEVER FORGET.  It was just a bunch of ultimate fails all within 2, actually 3 days.  I’ll try to get to it probably Sunday or something hahaha.

Cheers!

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!! Yaahooo!!!

Best Birthday Week EVERRRR

Last week, I turned 22.  I wasn’t too excited about it because I’m not really into birthdays and I really hate celebrating getting older…I just want to be forever young!!  I decided to throw a house party since they don’t have a lot of those here and I was excited to show my buddies some American drinking games haha.  I made jello shots for everyone and it was hilarious because some of them didn’t know what it was so when me and my friend Cristhina brought them out, she threw one at our other friend Jessee and he freaked out, not realizing jello shots are solid LOL.  So we all just hung out for a few hours and headed to the club and had some fun til the early morning hours.  I STILL don’t understand how everyone here can stay up for so long…they’re probably all vampires or something. 

On my actual birthday (Wednesday), Vicky surprised me with some balloons that she had taped throughout the flat.  I noticed that they looked really weird because I saw these two things hanging out of the balloons that made them look like udders.  WTF right?!  I asked her why she bought me udder balloons and she said they weren’t suppose to be udders, they’re supposed to be bunny ear balloons, but they didn’t come out the way it was supposed to.  I guess it’s the thought that counts, right? HAHA.  That night, she took me out to the fancy pancy restaurant down the street from our flat.  I told her I didn’t want to because it was too expensive, but she insisted, so we went.  We had the Russian salad, which was just like a potato salad, but with some extra stuff like salmon eggs and biscuit things.  Then we had steak cubes with garlic sauce and omggg it was delicious because we usually just eat a lot of chicken since beef is pretty expensive here.  Then we had chicken with two kinds of sauces and I’ll say it was one of the best chicken dishes I’ve ever had.  For dessert, we had a mango and strawberry custard pie thing.  The top part wasn’t that great because they really burned the brown sugar so it tasted BAD. But the custard was sooo creamy and perfect!  On our way home, we stopped by the store next to the house and bought a lighter because Vicky wanted me to blow out my candles.  The stupid storeowner knew we weren’t from here so he overcharged us because when I asked how much, he stood there and had to think about it for a few seconds before giving us a price.  What a turd!  Anyway, we came home and had my giant puff pastry cake that Vicky bought the day before.  We were already so full from dinner but Vicky said we had to eat it, so that’s what we did!  I already told Vicky, but I’m gonna say it again here…THANK YOU Vicky for one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had =)

The next day, Vicky and I had our 2 presentations, which went ok, we were glad to just get it over with.  Then one of our other friends, Meri took us to her house to have lunch.  I looove her mom’s cooking because it reminds me of my mom and how she always makes a bunch of food and forcing me to keep eating.  She made this sauce to put on our pasta and said it was just mayo with ketchup with a bit of orange juice!!  It doesn’t sound yummy, but it wasss!!! A side not about mayo: I never use to eat it as much, I’ll just put a littttle bit of it on my sandwiches, but since I’ve been here, I’ve been eating it with my fries, or the patatas bravas that me and Vicky always order when we’re eating out.  I think I’m gonna come back and ask for mayo instead of ketchup to dip my fries x__x lol.  Then we had meatballs with potatoes and peas with a sauce that went really well with the potatoes.  I liked it a lot and I wish I could’ve stuffed my face with some more of it but I was so full!!! 

We were waiting for Meri’s boyfriend, Raul to get out of class, so in the meantime, we had some fun playing dress up LOL.  Her parents bought her a kimono from Japan for her birthday a few years ago, and it was reallyyyy pretty, so we all took turns trying it on.  You can see it on facebook ^__^  Her dad and Raul came home around the same time, so there’s this tradition they have here where you tug at the birthday person’s ears, depending on how old they’re turning.  I think I like this tradition a lot more than the one back home where you pinch or punch the birthday girl/boy…it’s a lot less painful!  So the whole family took turns tugging at my ears, and it was so cute and funny.  Definitely something I won’t forget haha.  It was just a whole day of surprises for me because they brought out this apple cake that Meri, Raul and her mom had made the night before.  I guess Vicky told them that she normally makes me her famous apple pie every year for my birthday, so they decided to make their own version of an apple pie, and ahhhh it was sooo gooood.  And to add on to the surprises, Vicky and I got gifts from them.  First gift was HILARIOUS.  They got us 2 huuuge rolls of paper towels because they know that every time we go out to eat, we’ll steal all the napkins (handfuls and handfuls of them) so we don’t have to go buy any HAHA.  Seriously the best gag gift I’ve ever gotten.  Second gift was an uber cute keychain and mug & I loved itttt!!!  So then Meri had to go into work for a little bit, so Raul took me and Vicky around the town of Granollers.  He was telling us there’s this place that has vending machines for anything you can think of, and that includes condoms and sex toys, so we went and checked it out.  Funny because I didn’t know what half of those things were, so yayyy me for still having an innocent mind LOL!

After Meri got off work, they took us to a Japanese Teppanyaki and Sushi restaurant, ahhhhh!!!!!  I had some gyoza, yakisoba, some rolls and some chicken…just A LOT of food haha.  We didn’t get back home til like midnight or something, and our flight to Milan was at 7:05 in the morning.  We both hadn’t packed yet, and Vicky still had to write a paper so that Meri can turn it in for us, and she only had a few hours to do it.  I’m glad I finished with mine a few days before because I would’ve freaked if I had to write a paper at the very last minute…it’s just too much pressure!!  I was able to squeeze in 2 hours of sleep, but Vicky didn’t sleep at all because we had to catch the bus at 5:30 to get to the airport and make it in time for our flight. 

We landed around 9 a.m. and took a bus from the airport to the city center, which was also where our hostel was located.  We checked into our hostel and our first impression: not bad at all!!  It was a great location, the girl working there was really nice, and everything was very clean.  We literally just dropped our stuff in the room and headed out for some exploring.  But the first thing on my mind was getting some FOOOD!!!  I got a panini and a slice of pizza and the lady working the counter thought it was 1 for me and 1 for Vicky so she handed my panini to me and my pizza to Vicky, but I told her it was for me haha.  Obviously, she doesn’t know that I’m a beast =)  We took a bus tour through the city, and that was about 2 1/2  hours long.  Milan is a pretty small city and their public transportation is amazing, just like any other European city.  I really wish ours was better because I would so take public transportation everywhere or even walk if San Diego was a “walkable” city. 

After the tour, we decided to go back to the places we liked best during the tour.  We went to the castle since it was right next to where the bus stop dropped us off.  There were these African guys walking around trying to sell people these string bracelets.  So as Vicky and I were taking pictures, he came up to us and took my arm and tied it around my wrist, even when I told him I didn’t want it!!  I thought “no” was a universal word!!  I just walked away from him with his bracelet on my wrist without giving him any money because I told him I didn’t want it in the first place haha! 

For dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant that was near our hostel and made our bellies really happy.  We had bruschetta, pizza, lasagna, a fruit salad for dessert, and topped it off with a cappuccino.  It was delizioso!!  We were sitting next to this older guy and a girl that looked like she was in her late 20s and the whole time, they kept getting up and sitting down and chatting with the waiters at the restaurant.  Vicky said it could be the owner, but I didn’t think so…they were just odd people.  I think it was a pimp and one of his ho’s haha. 

The next morning, we had to check in to our other hostel since the hostel we were staying at didn’t have any room for us for our 2^nd night.  The other hostel was just about a 10 minute walk up the street.  We got there and see that it’s run by kids!! LOL…well, not kids, they were like 19 or 20 years old.  So we’re in one of the big rooms to check in, and there’s like 3 of them in the room and they’re all just standing there, looking at us, and to make it worse, the girl at the computer talked to us through google translate!! LOL She told us we couldn’t check in until 2 and said we could leave our stuff in the room until then.  Since I already didn’t have a lot of trust in this place based on my first impression of it, I only left my clothes with them, and took everything else that was important to me and stuffed it in my little tiny bag. 

So we left and walked down Corta Buenos Aires, one of the famous shopping streets in Milan.  We passed by this café and 2 guys were outside prepping for something and we saw a HUGE chunk of some kind of meat and fresh bread, so we thought we’d give it a try.  As I’m writing this, my mouth is watering and I regret sooo badly that I didn’t buy more.  It was a good sized sandwich and it was only 2 euro!!!  I could’ve eaten another 2 or 3 of those!! 

We arrived at the public park of Milan and there were a bunch of trees all in different colors.  I’ve never seen leaves change colors before, so I thought it was so beautiful to be able to experience the seasons!  But I’m really not looking forward to winter, though, because even though it was fall, I was freezing my butt off!!  Then, I wanted to go to this other famous street called Montenapoleone (something like that), which was like the Rodeo Drive of Milan.  As we were walking there, this man stopped us and told us that we had good auras, and asked if he could read our palms because it would make him very happy haha.  My first impression of him was that he was very….eccentric.  We didn’t feel threatened by him or anything, he seemed like a very nice man…and I think he was gay (well, he told us he was a transgender), so I think he was harmless lol.  We spent around 15 minutes with him and the only thing I remember him telling me is that I was going to be doing a lot of travelling for work, specifically in Australia and England (yayy!!).  So I hope he’s right =)  Oh and he said my aura was blue and yellow.  I don’t even know what that means, but I hope it’s a good thing. 

After that, we walked through Montenapoleone, but just to window shop because there’s no way I could ever afford anything in there, but maybe someday I’ll be able to!  Instead, we found a really fancy pastry/coffee shop, so we went and bought ourselves some bite-sized pastries.  We got 5 kinds and it was 7.50 euro.  Expensive, but whatever, it was damn good!!

When we got back to the hostel to check in, we found that our bags were already put in a room.  The room was bigger than the room from the night before, but Vicky found out that there were 4 different light functions for the room, and one of them was a blue light that lined the walls…kinda strange lol.  That room must have been used for some sketchy stuff hahaha.  We ended up getting dinner at McDonald’s because I wanted to try their menu.  I got a burger called the 1955 and it came with a real-tasting beef patty, grilled onions, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, special sauce AND barbeque sauce.  It wasn’t bad at all!!  But there was one problem.  Vicky and I have an addiction to ketchup, so when we asked for ketchup, they said they charge 20 cents per ketchup bag.  We loooove ketuchup, but not enough to pay 20 cents for each freaking package!! I’d only be able to dip like 10 french fries with that!!  So we ended up eating our food without ketchup =(

We got back to Barcelona the next day at around 3 and we were welcomed by the rain. Yayy.  I had a great time in Milan and I would go back in the future, but not until I make some good money so I can do major damage on Montenapoleone =)

My brother just got here tonight, yayyy!!! I’m so excited because I really want to show him the good life that I’ve been living, and of course to eat some amazing food for free, since he’ll pay for everything muahahaha.  I’m going to take a week off of school and go to Paris and Rome with him.  It’s his first time in Europe, and it’ll be my 2^nd time going to Paris and Rome and I’m so so sooo happy that I get to go back and spend it with my brother.  We’re both in love with travelling and food, so it should be a fun trip.  I know I shouldn’t be taking a week of school off because I found out a failed my exam for my Brit. History class yesterday and I got a 5/10 on my 1 page paper for my Teaching Methods class HAHA!! My excuse is that I’m a business student and I know nothing about teaching or the history of anything! =P  I guess I’ll put in some extra effort next time…it’s just so hard to focus on school because I have MAJOR senioritis and I’ve been having it since last year!!  Not only that, I’m in freaking Spain!  Gotta live a little, or a lot!!!

Can’t believe I’ve already reached my half way point…2 ½ more months to go and I’ve got so much planned out until then, there’s just not enough time!!!  After my brother leaves, 2 weeks later, my friend  Merel from Amsterdam is coming to visit, and then I’m going to Andorra with my buddies the following weekend for a snowboarding/ski trip, and then it’s Christmas, and I’ll be flying to Amsterdam to spend it with Merel and her family, and then I’ll be back in time to celebrate New Year’s in Barca, and then me, Vicky and her mom and god-sister and friend are planning to go to London for a few days after New Year’s, and then my childhood best friend is coming to visit for a few days, and then I’ll only have 2 weeks left before I go home.  Ahhhh it’s so sad to think about it because I’m loving it here so soooo much and it just sucks that I’m going to leave the friends that I’ve made, I’m just going to stop now…goodnight/morning =’’’’(

So Much to Do, So Little Time to Write About It!! :p

It’s been a longggg while since my last post I know, and a lot has happened (good and bad) since then haha.  I think I’m going to start off with the bad.  So on the 12^th, I took a trip to Zaragoza to celebrate a festival called El Pilar with a bunch (like 300+) of international students.  It was about  a 3 ½ hour bus ride and on the way there, I talked to some girls who were on my bus.  Their names were Josephine, Nina, and Delphin from Germany, Poland, and France.  They seemed like nice people so I hung out with them all day.  Vicky couldn’t go on the trip because she didn’t have any money at the time =(.  So we get to Zaragoza and we see a lot of people, old and young, dressed up in really beautiful traditional Spanish clothing.  The purpose of the festival was to offer flowers to the Virgin Mary. LOTS of flowers.  There was a huge pyramid in the center of the square with a statue of Mary on the top and the pyramid was made entirely of flowers.  After exploring the town a little bit, my new friends and I decide to check out this huge park that seemed really cool according to what the brochure said.  Little did we know, it was going to take us over an hour to get there, and we were going to walk!  I love walking, but Jesus!  It seemed like an eternity.  It was disappointing too because there wasn’t even anything that special.  It was reallyyy big, but it just didn’t have anything that was worth taking pictures of.  I was glad that we decided to take the bus back to the city square because I wouldn’t have been happy if they wanted to walk all the back. 

It was nighttime and everyone met up to go to the club, so I was excited about that even though I was dead tired.  I met a few more people there—some girls from the states, an Italian guy, and some Portuguese guys.  It was getting super hot and muggy in the club so me and one of the guys went outside for some air.  We were talking for a while and were completely fine, but I noticed a group of kids who were maybe 17 years old who looked like trouble.  They walked away and I was like, ok whatever, but  about 10 minutes later, they walked back and came up to me and my friend and asked if we had a lighter.  And right when I answered, one of the kids quickly snatched my camera that was sitting on my lap and my friend’s bag (she was still in the club and she asked me to watch it for her).  I was in so much shock and for a few seconds, I just looked at them running away and then it hit me that I had just been robbed!! Ohh I was fuming mad and just full of rage.  Me and my friend started running after those little hood rats, but they had already gotten really far.  A guy saw us running after them and he pointed in which direction those kids went, and we turned into a small street and found my friends bag and everything she had inside it, scattered all around the street (her extra clothes and makeup bag).  I thought they took her wallet because I couldn’t find it when I was picking everything up, so I was freaking out because not only did I got my camera stolen, but my friend’s money and identification was also taken.  I’ve never been so angry in my whole life because I thought I’d be smarter than that.  I knew that I was supposed to be aware of my surroundings and keep alert since it was around 2:30 in the morning.  What made me even angrier was that I was robbed by freakin 16-17 year olds!! Ugh!!!  Everyone was supposed to meet at the bus stop at 3 a.m. to get back to Barcelona, but my friend suggested that we talk to the police and tell them what happened.  Then my friend (the one who’s purse I was watching) called me, and I told her everything that happened and that her wallet was missing.  She then told me that she had her wallet and phone on her, and all she had in her bag were extra clothes.  Thank God because I would’ve felt so guilty if they had taken everything from her. 

We got to the police station and reported the incident.  I’m so glad my friend was there with me because the cop that was writing the report didn’t know a word of English and I didn’t know a word of Spanish, so he had to translate everything for me.  By then, our bus had already left us so we would have to catch another bus later.  We left the police station around 3:30, and took a taxi to the bus station where we found out the next bus leaving for Barcelona wouldn’t be until 7 a.m., meaning we’d have to sleep at the bus station on those uncomfortable chairs.  I felt really bad because my friend had an appointment to register for his classes at 11 a.m. at school, and it was likely that he was going to miss it.  It was just like one bad thing happening after another.  Oh and also, my phone ran out of my minutes so I couldn’t even call Vicky to let her know what the heck I’ve been through for the past couple hours. 

I finally got home around 11:30, took a shower, ate, and told Vicky the ordeal I went through.  Even though my camera was stolen along with all the pictures I had taken from the previous day, I guess I was kind of glad that nothing else was taken from me and that I wasn’t hurt.  I was just angry with myself that I let that happen!!  That same day, I went and got myself a new camera haha.  It wasn’t the same as the other one but I guess it’ll do for now.  I was really angry about it for a few days or maybe a week but I’m finally over it now and I’m moving on!!

That weekend, Vicky and I wanted to look for the Olympic Stadium from the ’92 Olympics, and funny thing is that we only lived like a 10 minute walk from it, and this whole time, we didn’t even know!!   It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, like only half the size of Qualcomm Stadium so I don’t even know how they were able to fit so many people back in ’92 during the Olympics.  The next day, we went out for lunch with Josefine (I found out that she lived only a few buildings down my street!)  We went to this Italian restaurant near the flat, and here’s something I’ve learned about eating out in Barcelona, and maybe even everywhere else around Europe.  If you sit outside, they charge 1 euro per person, which is ridiculous because you’re pretty much paying extra for flies to come and attack your food, loud cars zooming by and just an overall unpleasant experience.  I guess it depends on where you go because sometimes, it’s actually really nice to sit outside and enjoy the sites and people watching, but other times, it’s just not very fun, so I think I’d rather sit inside from now on. 

Monday came around and we both didn’t feel like going to class, so we didn’t.  Haha!  Back home, I would never miss class just because I didn’t feel like going.  I’d go even when I was deathly sick!!  But it’s completely different here and I just don’t really care about it, especially when I’m only taking these 4 classes for credit and not for a grade, so all I have to do is barely get by, yayyy!!  We went out for dinner because Vicky’s getting tired of cooking all time, and I don’t really cook, unless I feel inspired to lol.  Vicky says I can only cook “special dishes” and not “daily dishes” and I think she’s right.  I’ll probably go to an Asian market sometime this week and make my uber delicious garlic noodles.  We get a lot of flyers from restaurants with their menus and the deals they have, so we thought we’d give this pizza/doner kebab place a try since we lived really close to it.  There are restaurants everywhere here so it’s not always easy to decide where to eat because we’re both so indecisive.  But this place had a 2 doner, a large pizza, and a 2 liter Coke deal for 14 euro and we thought that was a deal right there.  Once we were close to the place, we realized we probably weren’t in the safest of places because it was in small dirty street with a bunch of Indians and Middle Easterners. I’m not racist I swear! I’m just saying it was different, and we were probably in India town or something lol.  Anyway, the food there was fantastical and I was even more happy because it was sooo cheap!!  The doner kebab was the size of a burrito from back home and they had this amazing sauce that I really loved, and the pizza was also really big, maybe ¾ the size of a Costco pizza, PLUS a 2 liter of Coke! 

I’m going to skip to Thursday now when the weekend starts again for me and Vicky haha.  Me and a group of my friends were suppose to go out to this bar that this girl suggested I go to (she studied here last semester and we’ve been exchanging emails).  Anyway, she recommended that I check out Espit Chupitos, which is this bar that has over 500 kinds of shots and 200 kinds of cocktails, and I just thought, hell yeah, seems really cool!! I was a little bummed though because a lot of buddies cancelled at the last minute so it ended up being only me and Jessee (Vicky didn’t go because she doesn’t like going out—BOOO!!!)  But  we had a lot of fun, a little too much fun lol. 

The next day, one of our other classmates, Meri, and her boyfriend Raul, took us to this American restaurant that they’ve been dying to show us, and we’ve been dying to try.  I’ve been craving a burger for the longest time so I was so excited to see how they make their burgers here.  Me and Vicky go to McDonald’s maybe once a week to get our “American food” fix, but it’s just not really the same.  Their burgers aren’t even burgers.  AND the only reason why we go there so much is so we can steal their napkins because we don’t want to buy our own haha!  Oh but the McDonald’s ice cream cones that they have are uber delicious because they stick a kit-kat bar in it!  Ok back to the point.  So this restaurant we were at had bbq and burgers and you know, typical American stuff.  I ordered a burger, but not just the regular burger, the king-sized one and I don’t regret getting it because it was perfect.  It was the size of  a Hodad’s burger, actually bigger because the patty was gigantor, there were slices of thick ham or bacon on it, and a fried egg, plus fries and a side of cole slaw.  I was so close to finishing it, and now that I think about it, I wish that I had because it was so good and I probably won’t have it again for a while because it was expensive!!  I’ll probably just stick to good ol’ Mickey D’s =)

We spent the rest of the day with Meri and Raul.  They took us to a bunch of places we’ve never been and it was a lot fun.  Me and Vicky feel so lucky to have met them because they’re such a nice couple and they’re so fun to be around.  I don’t think they realize how ridiculously hilarious they are, and they don’t even try to be and I really like that about them.  They came over to our flat because we wanted to make them dinner.  I mean, Vicky wanted to make them dinner, since I never do the cooking lol.  They’ve never had tortillas before, and luckily, Vicky’s mom had shipped Vicky another care package a few days before so we had tortillas from home so they could try.  Vicky made chicken fajitas and they said they enjoyed it a lot.  At least we think they did.  And then to end our Friday night on good note, we got an email from State letting us know that they’ve deposited our financial aid and scholarship money to our bank accounts, so we should have our money by Tuesday!! Wooo hooo after almost 2 months of living like poor people!!

On Saturday, Vicky was just in bed the entire day because she was deathly sick.  And since I knew that money was coming, I wanted to celebrate!!! I did some major damage shopping at Placa Catalunya, spending a good 2-3 hours grabbing anything I could find.  I came home and showed Vicky what I got, and she liked my purchases so that made me happy that my little spree was a success.  Yayy for new clothes!!

Meri invited us over to her house on Sunday to meet her family and have lunch with them.  We were both so excited because Meri kept telling us that her mom cooks amazing food, so we were looking forward to have a home cooked meal.  We got to her house and were warmly welcomed by her mom and dad with kisses!  The Spanish are so friendly here lol!  Then we met their chinchilla, Blackie, and 2 parakeets, Naru and Shiro.  It was my first time seeing a chinchilla and I have to say that they’re the softest little animals I’ve ever touched and now I kind of want one when I get back…

Lunch was amazinggg.  I can’t remember what the first dishes were called, but they were like little appetizers consisting of cured ham and cheese, calamari, olives, and little tiny mussels in some kind of sauce.  After finishing that, we had paella with prawns, calamari, clams, and mussels!!!! Ohhh it was delicious and normally, I don’t eat any seafood back home besides shrimp/prawns and calamari, but now that I’ve had it, I just might start eating them because they’re damn good =)  We both had a wonderful time at Meri’s house, meeting her pets and her family who were so welcoming and overall really nice people.  I’m so glad to have met them!

I’m going to stop here, I still have to talk about going to see Coldplay in Madrid and going to my first soccer, or “futbol” match, but I’ll start on that another day.  Damn, if only I could write papers this fast haha.  Adios amigos!

And I Think to Myself, What a Wonderful World...

I'm going to start by saying that I'm feeling so happy and truly blessed to have met some really amazing people this past week.  I'm not even going to talk about classes anymore because they just bore me so much, although I'm really happy I've found enough classes to take so I can stay here.  I've got a meeting with some lady on Tuesday, so I'm hoping I can officially register for classes, FINALLY. Ok, that's all I'm going to say about school in this post.
So Vicky and I made some new friends (I know, it took a while, but yayyy we have friends to hang out with now if we ever get sick of seeing each other's faces haha!)  Here's a funny story...one of our classmates, Meri, wanted us to meet her boyfriend because they were going to take us to Montserrat during the weekend (I'll talk more about it later!)  Anyway, he approaches us and kisses us on both cheeks (Spanish way of greeting) and we're both in shock but try not to show it.  We totally didn't expect it and it was soooo funny because on our way home, we were just bursting out laughing because we had no idea what just happened.  We seriously had WTF expressions on our faces LOL.  It's something we're definitely going to have to get use to when we meet new people.  I guess no more handshakes for me for the next few months!
On Thursday, I went out and partied Spanish style with some new friends, yeah!!!.  We went to this hole-in-the-wall bar that had really cheap drinks, so we hung out there for a while.  It really sucks that all public transportation stops at midnight, so you'd have to either catch a taxi home, or wait til 6 a.m. when they open again (I went with the latter haha).  We got to the club (they call it disco here)  around 12 ish and it was by the port but I had no idea where exactly because at that point, I was a weeee bit tipsy.  I was completely fine in the club for about an hour, and then when I was outside, you guessed it, I puked everything out--3 times.  Funny because the last time that happened was on my birthday last year, and I remembered telling myself I wasn't going to let that happen again, and for 11 months, it didn't, until that night/morning (can't remember what time it was).  Vicky didn't go, so she wasn't able to hold my hair for me, but thank God, one of my new friends, Cristhina, was there to take care of me.  It reminded me that I'm such a lightweight and it was quite embarrassing but after I was done, two other people in my group started getting sick, and that made me feel a little better that I wasn't the only one =).  We all hung out by the port sitting and laying on benches probably from 4 a.m. until 5 ish when we started walking back to the metro to go home and sleep it off.  I can't wait to do it again, only next time, I'll learn how to control my alcohol intake so I won't be the first one to go down.
Then today, Vicky and I went with Meri and her boyfriend Raul to Montserrat.  It's about a half hour drive from Barcelona, and it was so nice being in a car again and not the bus or metro.  We were suppose to meet them on campus at 9 a.m., but since we're slowly turning Spanish now, we were 45 minutes late. Oops!  It wasn't really our fault though because we didn't know the bus runs every 30 minutes on Sundays, so we had to walk to the metro station instead and catch the train to the university.  We felt terrible that we had to make them wait so long, but they were really nice about it and told us it was fine.  We went on our way, and drove to the mountains to check out some caves where legend has it that some miracles happened there years and years ago and that the Virgin Mary appeared to some shepherds inside the caves.  I was so excited to see this, even though there were 245 steps of stairs I had to take to get to the caves.  I didn't really mind though because it was just like Cowles' Mountain.  Remember how in "The Bucket List," the #1 thing was to experience something majestic?? Well, being inside the caves is definitely up there on my list of seeing something majestic.  I'm just so bummed that they didn't allow flash photography, but it's understandable because they're trying to preserve it.  It was so much fun climbing up and down and crawling and weaving through it and seeing how beautiful it was inside.
After spending almost an hour in the caves, we drove and then took a ziptrain to the actual town of Montserrat, which is on top of a really beautiful mountain.  I think it's one of those really sacred and religious little towns because there were crosses everywhere and there were a lot of priests and monks living in the area as well as a basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary (the one who can work miracles!--yes, I'm a believer ok? Don't make fun of me).  There was a longggg line of people waiting to go inside the basilica to touch the statue and make their wishes or say their prayers, but it was worth the wait because I was able to say my little prayer and ask Mary for some things =).  I'm so happy that Meri and Raul took us here because Vicky and I probably wouldn't have ever gone if we didn't know them.  They're so funny because before going to the caves, they brought us a ton of snacks (energy bars, fruit juices, energy drinks) enough to feed 7 or 8 people, and it was just the 4 of us.  They were like our parents, worried that we wouldn't have enough energy to make it to the caves and the rest of the day haha!  They're such a cute couple and they're already planning our next few trips together and I'm so excited for it!!
One of mine and Vicky's goals while we were here was to go see Coldplay perform somewhere, since they tour through Europe more than the states.  Soooo, I got a text from my phone service provider letting me know that they were going to let their customers buy Coldplay tickets since they were going to have a show in Madrid at the end of August.  Immediately I thought, we're going, I don't even care if it's on a Wednesday, I'm going to fly to Madrid just for that one night to see them and fly back in the morning in time for my classes.  I saw them 2 years ago in San Diego, and it's on the top of my list of the best shows I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot).  However, Vicky wasn't going to be able to go since we still haven't gotten our money yet.  I'm still pretty good with my money, at least for the next 2 or 3 weeks, so seriously financial aid and scholarship peeps, where's our money at???  I was able to get Cristhina to go with me, so we booked our flight and got our tickets (~130 euro).  I can't believe I'm going to see them again, in freaking Madrid!!! How awesome is that??  I'm so sad that Vicky can't go though because we're both ultimate Coldplay fans, and while I'll be having one of the best nights of my life, she'll be at home =(  I'll just try to record the whole show for her so it'll be like she was there haha!
Also, more good news.  One of my good friends from Holland who studied abroad at SDSU last year is coming to visit me in December.  That was such a big surprise because I was already planning to visit her hometown to see her and our other friend again after Christmas.  She'll be visiting for 3 1/2 days and I'm so happy I'll get to see her again after saying a sad goodbye to her a few months ago.  It's gonna be a wonderful December!
I haven't been skyping with my parents for over a week because my brother is in Washington D.C. for some training for his work.  I usually skype with them through his iPhone since they don't have a webcam at home.  I miss them a lot, especially their amazing food.  I'm so sick of eating cereal for breakfast and turkey sandwiches with potato chips for lunch everyday.  I just really miss Asian food!!  Vicky and I went to this Thai restaurant last week because we were craving it and craving Thai tea, but when we asked if they had Thai tea, they said they didn't.  And I just thought to myself, why the hell did you open a Thai restaurant if you don't even have Thai tea??  Makes no sense!! I was not happy about that at all.  I was also not happy that my brother was having fun in D.C., going on his food adventures without me.  Me and him bond over our obsession for food, so I was a little annoyed when he was telling me about all the food he was eating and I couldn't even be there to have some of it with him.  It's ok though because I think he felt bad that I wasn't there, so he said he'll take me sometime next year so I can see for myself.  I love my brotha!
It's Monday tomorrow, meh.  I'm looking forward to Wednesday though because it's a holiday so no classes, yayy!! Soooo, I'm going on this trip for international students to another town called Zaragoza to celebrate some festival that they're having.  It should be fun, but very tiring since they're not taking us back until 3 a.m. and we won't be back on campus until 7 a.m., and then I have class at 8:30.  I'll probably just skip that class anyway haha.
Alright, gonna go shower and head to bed.  Peace and love =)  

Things Are Lookin Up!

Good news!!! I'm going to officially register for classes sometime next week AND FINALLY get my financial aid and scholarship money so I can start spending without having any guilt.  Can't wait to eat at nice fancy restaurants and buy all the sangria I want and book my mini trips that Vicky and I are planning to take (Paris, London, maybe Ibiza and Rome??)  Classes have been okay, still not used to waking up at 6 in the morning every Monday-Thursday, but it's nice that we're done by the afternoon.
Last week, there was a huge festival throughout Barcelona called La Merce.  I think it was a festival in honor of Barcelona's patron saint.  Anyway, it was the first time since I've been here where I felt "Spanish."  Vicky and I had some trouble figuring out what was going on because there are stages set up all around the city and the description of what was going on at each stage were in Catalan!  But thanks to Google Translate, we had a good idea of what was going down and where throughout the weekend.  We were able to see the Giants Parade, which is similar to what you see on the Macy´s Thanksgiving Day parade with the huge blow up balloons, but instead of seeing balloons, we saw huuuge giants.  They were maybe 15-20 feet tall, and a real person would be under it, but because it was probably reallyyy heavy, there would be other people around the giant, ready to switch with the person if they needed a break.
The next day, we saw the Castellers.  They were a group of people of all ages who would climb up on top of each other and make "castles."  The stronger men would always be at the bottom, then the women would be in the middle, then the teenagers and the little 5 year old kid would climb over everyone else and go to the top.  I wish I was that brave when I was 5 years old!  Then in the evening, we checked out the Correfoc.  But before that, we found this bakery that had really pretty displays so we thought we'd check it out.  I'm so glad we did because now, when we're craving for a macaroon fix, this is the place we're going to.  They were about 35 cents for one (it goes by weight), which is only like 50 cents!!!  Crazy right?!  I know back home, macaroons are freaking expensive and they aren't even as good as the ones I had at this place.  Definitely going to buy me a box when I get back.  Anyone want to put some orders down?? =P  So back to he Correfoc.  Vicky told me that this thing was pretty dangerous because the brochure advised people to cover their entire bodies, and wear a hate or scarf over their heads, and I just thought, no way can this thing be that dangerous, I'm just going to wear my dress.  I should've listened to Vicky (sorry Vicky haha) because this thing was scaryyy but at the same time so much fun because only in Spain would I be able to see people walking down the streets, shooting sparklers at everyone with the beating of louuud dreams for that extra effect.  It was just insanity, thousands and thousands of people running around the streets, people cheering and yelling, and in that moment, I wasn't sure how to react.  I was excited, but scared as fuck, but also really happy.  The happiest I've ever been since being here.  I was still feeling a little down with not having classes or money, but I just thought, if nothing was going to work out, and I would have to go home, this weekend alone would have been worth it.  I was that happy.
The fun wasn't going to end from there because the fireworks finale to mark the end of the festival was going to be at the Magic Fountains, right by the flat!  Vicky and I saw postcards of what it looked like, but we were excited to actually see what it was going to be like in real time.  I'm going to say that it was one of the most magical things I have ever seen.  The music from the fountains went along with the fireworks and everyone around us had their own little sparklers that they waved throughout the show.  I was a little sad that I didn't have my own sparkler, but it was okay because I still really enjoyed it.  It was so much better than the 4th of July fireworks and the New Year's Eve fireworks combined!  The show lasted about 35 minutes, and we were so glad that we lived only a few minutes walk away because there were tons of people scrambling to get on buses and the metro.
I forgot to mention that while we were hanging out by the pier, we saw some real pick-pocketers in action!  I almost had my camera stolen because I just left it sitting right next to me and wasn't really paying much attention to it.  But Vicky noticed from behind that some guy was approaching us and looked like he was ready to grab my camera and run, and when she took my camera, she noticed that he turned around and walked away.  Scary shit!!  He was hanging around the pier and we kept our eye on him.  We noticed that he had a partner, and they were acting kind of weird, so we decided to sit somewhere else.  As we were walking past them, one of them was talking to two old ladies, asking if they wanted him to take a picture of them, and they said no.  Good for them because he would've just taken their camera and make a run for it.  But then I would've chased and tackled him down haha!
This past weekend, Vicky and I didn't really get to do anything fun.  We knew we were behind with readings and some assignments, so we decided to dedicate the weekend to catch up on all our work.  We decided to go to a park and do it because we had already spent all day yesterday at home and I was going nuts.  I really enjoyed being out in the open and it was nice seeing families out having picnics and taking their dogs out for walks.  It made me miss my little Bear soooo much.  I swear, EVERYONE here owns a dog.  Everywhere I go, I see little tiny puppies and huuge dogs with their owners and it makes me so sad that I don't have my little guy with me.  Anywayyy, the parks here are so beautiful, clean and safe.  And there's wifi!!  Back home, the closest park I live by is Colina or the one behind the Rite Aid on El Cajon Blvd., and I would NEVER go there to do homework, or read a book or just to hang out.  So that's one thing I'll really miss when I go back home.
Later that night, we went to the mall near our flat because there's this really amazing gelato shop I'm really addicted to.  My favorite flavor is the strawberry tart.  Sounds kind of plain but trust me, it's ohhh soooo goooood.  I think it's just vanilla with strawberry glaze and crushed graham crackers or something.  Best thing about is that it's only 2.80 euro for 2 scoops which is like $4!!  Back home at Chocolat, two scoops costs me like 5 something!!  When we got there, I didn't see my flavor so I was really bummed!!  So I decided to try chocolate and churros because I saw some lady eat it and I almost drooled, so I just had to have it.  It was pure hot melted chocolate in a teacup with 2 churros.  They churros here are really different.  It's not cinnamon-y at all.  It's just fried and sprinkled with some sugar, and not even brown sugar, but it was okay because the chocolate made up for it.
Then on Sunday, we went to the museum near our flat because all museums are free every first Sundays and sometimes every Sunday after 3 p.m.  We take advantage of this because we would never pay to go in museums.  It was a nice hike up all those steps to the museum, but so worth it because we got some great views of the city.  Although our flat isn't the best, it's situated in THE best location because we're so close to everything--bus/metro station, grocery store, bakery, fruit and vegetable shop, restaurants, the mall, police and fire department, everything!
This Thursday, Vicky and I are going out for dinner and drinks with some new friends we made!  They're locals so we're soooo excited to get to know them better and hopefully they can show us around the city some more because it's just way too big with too much to see.  Even though we've been here for a month, we've only seen maybe half of the city.  But we're here until the end of January, so by then, we'll probably have seen everything.  Also on Sunday, one of our other classmates (also a local) is going to take us to another town called Montserrat.  I google imaged it and it's a really beautiful mountain city so I cannot wait to see it with my own eyes!!  Things are getting a little better here...all we have to do now is wait until next week when we can finally register for our classes and hooope and prayyy to the heavens above that we get our financial aid and scholarship money.  And then everything will be perfect!

There Can Be Miracles, When You Believe!!!!

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!!

So Why Don't We Go...Somewhere Only We Know...

I know I haven't blogged anything in a while, only because I've had a rough week.  It was so bad that me and Vicky were ready to just pack up everything and go back home to San Diego to cry to our families.  We were at rock bottom, crying our eyes out.  We got an e-mail from the Faculty that we applied for telling us there was going to be an orientation for international students.  We were excited because we thought we'd be able to register for the classes we wanted.  We had already decided on what classes to take when we first applied to go to UAB so we figured we'll get to do that during orientation.
Friday came along and we took the 1 hour metro ride to campus and that's when we got the bad news.  Our faculty wasn't going to offer anymore classes taught in English because of budget cuts.  They said they sent SDSU a letter letting them know, but I think they're lying because I e-mailed my study abroad advisor that afternoon and he replied a few days later saying he didn't receive any letter.  So now we were on our own.  We would have to go around campus on Monday when school started and look for classes to crash and hopefully register for.  BUT their class registration has got to be the shittiest system ever!  You can't do it online, like at State, but rather, you have to walk around to every department and look at the list of classes that's printed out and posted on a bulletin board, write that class down somewhere, and attend it and try to get in.  By the way, UAB is 20x the size of State, they've got 90,000+ students, it's situated in the middle of the mountains and forests somewhere, and they've got their own bus routes within the campus because that's how big it is.  And they expected me and Vicky to go to every campus and look for classes -___-.
What made it harder was that not a lot of departments are offering classes taught in English anymore, and the reason why we applied to go to UAB in the first place was because they said they had English classes available for us in the department that we applied for (which was Education).  So now, not only were we without classes that we really wanted to take and had some interest in, we would now have to take crappy classes.  It sucks even more because we have to take 4 classes in order for us to get our financial aid and scholarship money so that we can live here.
It's been 4 days of us scrambling around campus looking for classes, and getting NO help from anyone.  I'd have to say that it was the most frustrating experience EVER.  I kept thinking, God!  If I were back home and had some questions about academics or which classes/electives I should take, all I had to do was go to the Academic Advising office or talk to my EOP counselor at State and get all the answers I needed.  I don't think there's even an Academic Advising office here!  We must have talked to 20 people and only 2 provided us with some help.  We went to a History and Culture of the British class and liked it a lot, and the professor was reallyy nice to us and understanding of the situation we were in, so he introduced us to another lady who I think helps international students around the world, except for students in the U.S.  It was ok though because she actually helped us a lot by giving us a a bunch of syllabi (syllabuses? syllabus'?...sorry, Ms. Page haha!) that was all in ENGLISH!!  Finally, after 4 days, we  were able to get some answers!  So next Monday and Tuesday, we're going to crash a couple other classes and prayyyy and hooooope to the Lord above that we get into just 3 more classes, but IF we don't, it's likely that we're going to go home and take this semester off.  Here's hoping that it won't have to come to that...
On to more happier news...last weekend, Vicky and I went to the Picasso Museum because it's free to everyone on Sunday's after 3 p.m (yayyy to free admission!!)  We got there, and waited about an hour to finally get in, but it was worth it because although we didn't really understand his art and the phases he went through during his life, a lot of his stuff was really beautiful (Vicky and I really liked the one he did of his mother and another one he did of his wife--I'm not sure which one because apparently, he had many lovers/wives).  It was a bummer because we couldn't take any photos in the museum, but those two were the ones that stuck out for us.
We also walked through the Barri Gotic, which is the old gothic quarters in Barcelona.  We found this huge cathedral that looked really pretty from the outside, but it cost 6 euro to get in.  Since it was being remodeled, I thought it'd be better to go when they were done with the remodeling.  Hopefully it'll be done before we leave.  Vicky and I have been really good with checking out all the free attractions in this city.  We've gone to pretty much all the parks, all of which are soooo beautiful in their own way (even better than Balboa Park I would say).  We went to Port Vell, which is kind of like Seaport Village, only a lot bigger and with a 2 story mall, maybe the size of the Mission Valley mall.  And today, we went to Parc Guell.  I'll say it one of the most amazing, beautiful, magical parks I've ever seen.  It was designed by a famous Spanish architect named Antoni Gaudi.  A lot of the famous sites in Barcelona such as the Sagrada Familia and Casa Mila were designed by him (we still haven't seen them yet because the admission is expensive).  I took tons of pics there so you'll see what I mean when you take a look at it.  Or even better, come visit me and I'll take you there myself!
On the way back from the park, we stopped by some shops to look for some FC Barcelona jerseys.  I know nothing about soccer, but I know my dad is in love with it and one of his favorite players is Messi.  We asked the owner how much he was selling it for and he told us 60 euro.  My eyes bug out and I walk away.  He calls me back and says he'll give it to me for 45...then 40...then 35...and I still say no. Then he says he'll give it to me for 25 euro, but that's the last offer because that's how much it costs him, so he's making no profit.  I consider it for a bit, but Vicky and I decide to walk out.  We go to another store and the same thing happens.    This time though, we tell the guy that we want it for 20 and he says, IMPOSSIBLE!  Like the other guy, he wants to sell it to us for 25, but both of us know we can probably get it for a little cheaper than 25, so we walk out.  He then calls Vicky some bad word in Spanish.  I didn't hear it, but she tells me that she thinks he just said "puta madre". =O  We stumble upon another shop and the guy also says 25, but after a few minutes of telling him to give it to us for 23, he accepts our offer!  Yayyy!!  I got the best souvenir gift I could ever get for my dad.  Took a lot of work, but I know he's gonna love it!
So being in love with food and all, I'm a little surprised at myself for not eating out as much as I've wanted to since I've been here.  We've eaten out at restaurants only about 3 times, but we've spent a lot on sandwiches from local sandwich and bakery shops.  Not only are they cheap, they're  also uber delicious!  I had my first paella in Barcelona last weekend at a restaurant down the street from our flat.  I'm not a big seafood person and paella mostly consists of prawns, mussels, clams, calamari, sometimes lobster, so I just got the meat paella, which came with chicken and RABBIT.  Yes, I had rabbit meat for the first time, and it wasn't bad!  It was a lot like chicken, only a little chewier.  I also got a glass of sangria for just 2 euro, so when I'm thirsty, I'll just head down over there and get my sangria fix =).  We've mostly been cooking our food at home.  Well, Vicky's been cooking and I've been washing dishes because our kitchen's a little too small for 2 people, and because Vicky doesn't like the way I do things and I find her way of doing things odd, too.  But at the end of the day, we still get some food on the table and we manage to eat happily.  She's almost done cooking, we're having some kind of chicken and potatoes tonight because the 3 lb. bag of potatoes we bought is about to go bad soon.  My next blog will probably be about Spanish fashion.  You won't believe the things I see people wear here..it's just so weird!!  I'll try to get some pictures of people on the street and I'll post them on Facebook so you can see what I mean haha.  Until then, please keep praying that we find 3 more classes next week so we won't have to go home!