Blog Entry for 10-25-10 and Barcelona

Blog Entry for 10-25-10 and Barcelona

            Hola readers, I’ve had another super busy and super fast week.  In school we continued on with our normal class work, covering a lot of material and doing a lot of homework.  I missed my first day of class last week.  I was sick on Tuesday.  I woke up with a pretty rough headache that I had hints of the night before.  The day before I was on the tennis court for five hours without much water so that’s what I think was the cause.  Anyway, that put me behind for the rest of the week kind of, and I struggled to get stuff done last week.  It all turned out fine as far as I know assuming I didn’t forget to turn in homework J.  The next day in our culture class we watched El Cid which is a famous movie about a Spanish War hero.  It was an older movie but we all enjoyed it.  It was very long, and we had to get to school earlier than usual.  The day after that in our culture class we went to a street called “Calle Fería” which is a street long garage sale more or less.  It was fun.  We all had to buy something cheap, under 3 euros, and bring it back to class.  I bought two coins from the dictatorship of Franko.  I like what I bought but some other people got better stuff I would say.  I also worked several days last week, and it continued well.  On Mondays and Wednesdays the other coaches are letting me act as a member of the class.  The students in that class play very well, and it is a lot of fun to play with them.  I’m still trying to get my body back to where it should be to be able to play proper tennis.  It is going to be a while still…..  my leg is, however, doing pretty well I think. 

            This weekend from Friday until Sunday morning I was on a trip to Barcelona.  On Friday morning I met a classmate not far from my house, and we took at taxi at 6am to the airport.  Our flight left at 8am that morning.  It was a rough morning, but it all worked out fine.  In total 11 students from my school went to Barcelona this weekend.  However, a group of them were required to go for their Roman Classics class.  They met with a professor there and had to do some specific things.  The rest of us kind of had the time free to do whatever we wanted.  Pretty much all of us bought a unlimited metro/bus/tram pass that worked for 48 hours and that turned out to be a great idea.  On Friday we went to our hostel which was not necessarily close to where we wanted to be, but it was located in some mountains and was very pretty.  It was only 15 euros for one night, and all of us got to have one big room so it honestly worked out great.  We went into Barcelona and met with our Professor, and all went walking around a bit.  We went to a huge market that was very interesting, where I only bought a smoothie and chocolate J.  We then walked around a street called “Las Ramblas” which is full of people.  There were a ton of people dressed up as all sorts of different things and people.  We ended up at a museum.  The museum was awesome.  Underneath the building there was a big section of Roman town that was excavated.  We walked around on an elevated path and were able to see the entire place.  It was one of my favorite museums we have visited.

            The next day the others all had to go to the required sites for their class.  So it was just three of us all of Saturday which worked out great because there wasn’t as much argument about where or what to do.  We kind of planned out what we wanted to do the night before, and we toured Barcelona the whole next day.  It was a really great day but also SUPER EXHAUSTING.  We walked all day and saw some awesome stuff.  My favorite things were the Mediterranean Sea and the Sagrada Familia.  The Sagrada Familia is a church that is under construction to this day and has been for something like the last 200 years.  It was really impressive.  I took a ton of pictures of it.  You will know it when you see it in the pictures that are online.  It has several kind of cone shaped towers and is very decorated. 

            After touring around all day, we had to decide our plans for the night.  We decided to eat and then watch a movie.  We watched The Social Network.  It was good.  We then had to get to the airport, and it was about 12:45am and our flight left at 6am.  The rest of our group was already sleeping in the airport.  We navigated to the nearest metro station which happened to be packed with quite a variety of people as I’m sure you can image.  We had to change metro lines several times.  In our treck through the underground of Barcelona, I was almost pickpocketed.  A guy was actually messing with my backpack which I didn’t notice then one of the girls I was with, Christina, turned and saw him and said “HEY” he also said “HEY” but then left us alone.  Also a drunk man fell on me in the subway when the metro was turning he lost his balance.  It was quite an experience.  We finally got to the metro line that goes to the airport and of course it is the online line that closes from Saturday to Sunday.  So we retracked our steps to a place we were earlier and had to take a bus.  The bus took forever, and all of us were fading in and out of sleep.  We finally arrived at the airport at about 3:45 am.  The check in counters opened at 4am so we didn’t get to sleep.  I finally got a little sleep when we passed security and were waiting at our gate.  I also slept on the plane.  We got to Sevilla at about 7:30am.  We waited at the airport FOREVER for the bus to come because we were all too poor to take a taxi.  Finally the bus came, and I got home at around 9:00 am.  My trip to Barcelona was over.  It was a great trip, but it drained my body big time.  I slept from 9 until 2:30, ate lunch, then slept from 3 to 8.  I’m back functioning finally today.

            Other news, my sister Christina is going to be able to come to Spain, and while she is here we are going to ATHENS!  I’m very excited.  She will be going along with my school on our “Madrid Trip” which will go to several places along with Madrid.

And as for Isa, my host mom, she is growing on me.  We have been getting along well as of lately haha so that is good. 

Oh just a quick tip, do NOT go into a little supermarket with your backpack on your pack.  I went into supermarket called “El Jamon,” which means “The Ham” so I think they were already bitter about their terrible name but…, to buy some jelly to liven up my toast and butter breakfast that I’ve been blessed with for the last 10 weeks.  I picked up my 75 cent jelly got to the counter and started getting yelled at.  Of course I didn’t understand what was going on because they were yelling.  I said “no entiendo” (I don’t understand) and then they just continued to yell and talk faster so that was pretty much a disaster.  Anyway, “The Ham” and I are not friends.  They were upset that I had already gone through the whole store and made it to the check out counter with my bag.  They checked my bag and believe it or not I didn’t have any merchandise hidden away.  Typical Spain moment for Joe; I wouldn’t say that Spain has the most friendly people around.