Barcelona y Febrero!

It is February! Which means a) this semester is starting to move much more quickly than I anticipated, and b) my birthday is coming up! All in all, I'm pretty excited because it's finally starting to warm up a bit here and we are starting our university-sponsored excursions this Friday. We are heading to "the south of France", which isn't very specific at all but I'm not picky because I love France! I'm getting my hands on a fresh baguette if it kills me.

Anywho, this past weekend was spent in the beautiful yet quirky city of Barcelona! I say quirky because it had all the charms of a historical Spanish city like architecture and sightseeing, but it also had all the weirdo street-performers/prostitutes/pick-pocketers that you could find on St. Mark's Place in Manhattan. However, it was sunny every day and not too chilly so we walked everywhere and really got to know the heart of the city. We saw pretty much everything there is to see, minus the Tibidabo, the old monastery-turned-amusement park that sits on top of the highest mountain in the city and overlooks the ocean (pretty magical, if you ask me). La Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, La Pedrera, Las Ramblas, Estadi Olimpic, MNAC- we saw it all! I have pictures uploaded to Facebook that are available for anyone to see so check them out! (I took almost 200 pictures, yikes, but it definitely gives you an idea of the city!)

It was an odd feeling to come "home" after that trip, though. Although I've mentioned before how much I really do love it here and how at-home I am beginning to feel in my casa with the fam, it was still weird to come back to someone else's apartment and unpack, etc. This is technically my home for the next few months but it still feels like a vacation of sorts, and I didn't really come "home" from Barcelona, I just came back from a mini-vacation to my extended one. I guess I'm still in the first month of living/studying/just being here, so I'd be surprised/worried if I didn't feel a little homesick for the US after my weekend trips around Spain.

On a happier note, we officially registered for our classes today! So as of today I am a registered student at Deusto and now I can get credits for my classes/hopefully fufill my double-major-credit-fulfillment-business. Technically today (Feb. 1st) is the first day of the Spring semester for the real Deusto kids so the hallways were bustling and lively throughout the day. It was a nice change from the quiet and cold hallways we've been having classes in up until now, and who knows, maybe I'll get to meet some legit Spaniards outside of my family! The classes are starting to get a little harder, but mostly because of all the readings we are assigned. I thought doing all the assigned readings/books at FU was tricky enough (Dad's always saying college is a breeze if you can just keep up with that outside reading!), but this is wayyyy harder because I end up reading half of the assignment and then half of my pocket translation dictionary, so everything takes twice as long. Soon I think some of the new words will start to sink in, though, and then the readings won't be quite so tricky to manage on top of speaking a second language.

My spanish is definitely improving, thanks to those classes/readings, but mostly because of my host family. The best part of living with them is just sitting and listening/watching them interact because then it's much easier to learn the lingo/idiomatic expressions. Let me tell you, these Spaniards like to yell ALOT so half the time if you aren't watching them and are just listening to the convos, you can't tell if they are screaming words of enthusiasm and excitement, or horrible, terrifying anger. (The kids especially are fond of yelling out random words and emotions when they play, but when I am in my room they end up sounding more like angry shouts of frustration and insolence- multiply that times 4 kids = yikes.) Needless to say, I'm getting a hang of conjugating verbs faster in my head and using idiomatic expressions correctly, as well as learning some new ways to scream about how much fun I am having with the kiddos. Yay immersion!