Happy Halloween!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!!

So I thought I would be festive today and write in orange even though I´m sure it is going to look funky on my background.

Back to Halloween... I hope you all are having a fantastic day and that you eat lots of candy! Things here are actually pretty festive for All Saints Day, which is tomorrow. We don´t have classes or anything! But, the holiday tomorrow is very different from Halloween. We don´t get candy at all really, and there is much more meaning to All Saints Day. At least we get some dulces... my host mom (who thinks she is fat and never keeps anything sweet around the house) even baked some delicious little cookies and things! I´m not quite sure what I´ll be doing for my 4 day weekend... I thought about traveling, but tickets to anywhere are about two or three times as expensive this weekend than any other weekend. AND, I have midterms next week, unfortunately. So, I´ll probably just hang around here joining in on some of the festivities while taking advantage of all the time to study.

Meanwhile, there isn´t much else going on here right now. It is getting colder, but I´m sure it isn´t as cold as it is in Indiana. It´s weird to me, though, that I just can´t seem to get warm here! Every day it seems like I just go from class to class and shiver... it doesn´t even matter what shirt I wear anymore because my coat never comes off, so nobody sees it! Anywho, that´s pretty much all the excitement I have for you today. I´ll have better stories later.

And in response to some of your comments... to Nick, no, I already paid $100 and took two trips to Chicago to get my visa, the 5 euros here are to pay for the student card that they are giving me... it´s been a pretty long process that started in the beginning of July and is just now being completed, YAY!! And good luck with your French... if you decide to follow her back to France, let me know and maybe I can come meet you there!! Tanasha... yes, the leaves do change colors here too, kind of. There aren´t really too many trees for me to appreciate the changing of colors since I am in the city. This past weekend when we went up to the northern part of Spain, I saw the most green I´ve seen since leaving Noblesville! I´ll try to post pictures soon. Mike - I love you too, my lil´ bro. I am so proud of you. And to Laura: the Catalan isn´t really too difficult, but I´ve unfortunately picked up the habit of starting to pronounce some of my Spanish words the catalan way... But I will gladly teach you what I know when we get back. Btw, hows the smoking and dancing coming along?

Okay, that´s all for now. Bye!

Random Excitement...

So... I am thinking about going on a cruise. WHAT?!?! I know!!! See, here´s the thing, it probably won´t happen, but for now I´m just going to be excited while I´m thinking about it. I have the whole month of January off and want to travel around Europe. Stacey is supposed to be coming here and we were going to travel together. However, we need to plan SOON if we are going to do it so that we can book our hostels and all that fun stuff. And, she and I just haven´t been having the best communication about it recently. So, I was thinking, what would help me to see a lot of different places and not have to plan so much? Right, a CRUISE!!! So, I´m just looking right now to see if there are any cheap cruises that I can talk Stacey into going on with me and another friend around Europe or the Mediterranean. Fun, huh?

Another random thing, I get to go get my student card this week from the immigration police! I already had my appointment a month ago to turn in all of my documents and get fingerprinted and stuff, but then I had to wait a month to be able to get my card. So, I´m thinking tomorrow´s agenda will include visiting the bank to pay my 5 euro fee and the immigration police to pick up my card. How exciting!

Okay, now for something weird... yesterday was kind of strange at my apartment. First off, I slept in until 10ish and took a shower. After my shower I could not get warm. I was huddled in a sweatshirt and sweatpants underneath my 3 blankets shivering for about an hour when my host mom walked in to hand me some clean clothes. (Yes, my host mom does my laundry for me, I know, AWESOME!) She asked if I was okay and I just told her I was cold, but that I was fine. Then, the buzzer rang and she was like "Oh, mi hija!" Meaning, once again, I was not informed that the family was coming over for lunch! So her daughter, husband, and two kids came for lunch and while we were eating, my host mom told everyone that I was cold. They had a long discussion about it and decided that I need to start eating breakfast because that is why I was so cold. The son-in-law also decided that I need to start drinking juice with my breakfast because it will help me a lot. So he told my host mom what to buy to make the juice that I should drink every morning. Finally, lunch ended.

I spent pretty much the rest of the day in my room just relaxing, playing war and solitaire with myself, and enjoying not doing anything since I went on a full day trip to a monastery in Girona and out to a club (until 3 AM) the day before. Here is the really awkward part... After dinner was over and we were still sitting at the table, I told my host mom that I was going out to get coffee at 10 with some friends. She then started talking to me about my classes and everything. I told her the classes were okay but that I just didn´t like the subject matter very much. Then, she told me that I was just feeling homesick and that of course I didn´t like my classes because I couldn´t understand. She went on to tell me that I don´t go out with friends enough just because I spent the whole day in the apartment! It was so strange! For about 10 minutes I was told by both my host mom and dad that I would be happier when my friend got here in January to travel with me and that I would be happier if I were to just go out more and not think about home so much. She also told me that I should take some vitamins and they would make me happier... The irony here is that I always feel guilty for spending so much time out and no time in the apartment! On the one day that I decided to just relax and not go out, it is interpreted that I am incredibly homesick!!! WEIRD! So, I guess the moral of the story is that cultural differences really do come out here at times. On the other hand, I won´t feel so bad about spending lots of time out and away from the apartment anymore!

That´s all for today... updates soon to come on the cruise!!!

Thank you.

Today is a good day. In the last few days I have recieved some emails from some of my closest friends... it is in the kind words they send that I find I can go on each day. I love hearing from home from all of the people that have touched my life over the years. Somehow, being across the ocean from all of them makes me truly realize how important every single one of them is. I know it is a sad thing that it takes me being so far away for this to hit me, but I think we all take what we have for granted every once in a while. While I was at home, I become so comfortable with who and what was around me that I didn´t realize how lucky I was to have all of them. So today is a wonderful day. I am feeling much better with no sneezes, it is the first day of my 3 day weekend, I get to go on a trip to visit a beautiful monastery tomorrow for free, and the sunshine is absolutely gorgeous outside today... I couldn´t really ask for anything more! So thank you to each and every one of you who has sent any sort of encouragement my way in the last few months. You know, the grandfather of one of the other girls in my program died this week, and she immediately left to go home for the funeral. At first I was really jealous that she had the financial ability to go home like that and that I was stuck here when my grandpa died. Then, after thinking about it, I realized that I didn´t really need to go home for the sad funeral service just to be jetlagged and way behind in schoolwork when I got back, because I had so much support from everyone at home while I was here. So thank you all for helping me to be strong while I am here. You all know how much I hate change, and yet how I tend to throw myself into unusual and continually changing situations... but you all still support me. Thank you. I love you all.

More sad news...

Okay, so I know I keep posting not so happy things up here, but I got another phone call from home earlier and my little sister told me that they had to put Grizzly, one of our 3 dogs, to sleep on Monday. For any of you that have ever been to my house, I´m sure you never forgot Grizzly, the big fat brown dog that looked like a mixture of a pig and a bear... but he was really sweet. Apparently he just got really sick in the last few weeks and there wasn´t anything more that could be done for him. This is the second one of my dogs that has died since I went to college. The first one died in the fall of my Freshman year and now Grizzly... They were both 12 or 13 when they died, so they lived good lives, but it will be very strange to go home in May and only have 2 dogs there. The other sad news is that another one of my dogs is pretty sick with arthritis and everything. He is already 13, and my mom isn´t sure that he will make it through the winter. I hope he does because I´m not sure how much more death I can deal with. So here´s to my good old Grizzly Bear...

More not so great news is I AM SICK!!! Like, I thought that I might just get over the cough and feel better, but NO! Now I have moved to nonstop sneezing (I´ve already sneezed 6 times since entering the computer lab) and a very runny nose. I think and I´m hoping this is just sinus problems due to the quick change in temperature here in Barcelona and that a couple days of psuedophedrine will solve the problem... since I only have a 3 day supply of the medicine left. At least the cough has stopped for the most part, right? The good thing is that I only have 3 classes left, one tonight and two tomorrow, and then I am done for the week. Hopefully my three day weekend will be full of plenty of rest and help me to get better.

Hmm... let´s see. I want to give you some good news... I did recieve a package last week as well as a letter from my grandma, so those were both very good things. My package was from Gould Farm, where I lived and worked two summers ago on a Pathways grant. It was a yellow tie-dyed t-shirt from Roadside Cafe, the cafe owned by the farm that I worked at every day. It made me pretty happy! And the letter from my grandma was very sweet and included a copy of my grandpa´s obituary made into a very pretty bookmark. (Oops... 7 sneezes) I also got a couple emails last week that made me very happy. So, life isn´t so bad, it is just full of getting through sicknesses and working past deaths... Hope you all are doing well!

Quick update...

I went to Tarragona this weekend, which is about an hour train ride south of Barcelona. It was BEAUTIFUL!! It is known for its Roman aquaducts and amphitheater (wow... it was really hard to spell those words in English...). I have pictures, but it will take me a few days to get them posted on here since I have to do it through someone´s laptop rather than the lab ones. Anywho, we left about 9:30 Saturday morning and spent a good part of the day there, just walking around and taking pictures. It was pretty fun. Then we came back. Yep, that was about it.

Meanwhile, there isn´t really anything else going on except that it is starting to get pretty chilly here in Barca. Changing of temperatures apparently means that everyone has to get sick. This means that we have all recently begun to cough, a lot. And, since you can´t just go and easily buy some cold medicine here, it is a pain to get "pastillas" (pills), which is all our host parents can tell us to do. Every time they hear a cough, "Do you have pills?" So, I am afraid that my supply of Dayquil and Nyquil that I brought with me are soon to be depleted and I, too, will be forced to buy pastillas from the farmacia.

On a really random note, I talked to my mom this weekend, and I have decided that I shouldn´t be allowed to leave the country ever again. My mom told me that Mr. Kirk, the janitor of my preschool/kind. died last week. He was one of the nicest men I ever met in my entire life. Years after I left the school, I would go back and visit, and he still remembered my name and everything he knew about me. I was even fortunate enough once to win the raffle of our spring festival, so I got to go out to ice cream and a bookstore with Mr. Kirk. I have only ever been to Ben & Jerry´s that one time, and I still have the book that he bought me. It was called Hailstones and Halibut Bones and was a book of poetry that I must have read about 3 million times. I know that he was ready to go considering he signed a do-not-rescusitate form, but it is still sad to know that such a nice man is gone now. I think I´ll dig that book up when I get home in May...

So nothing too exciting has really happened since I posted on Tuesday. However, I have had closer to 99% days since then, which is a good thing. I don´t know if I have mentioned it yet, but I am taking a Catalan class through the University on Monday and Wednesday nights. Catalan is the other language spoken in Catalunya, which is where Barcelona is located. It sounds very strange, sort of like a mixture of french, spanish, and latin? I´m not sure... anyway, my reason for telling you that I am in this class is because of something funny that happened at dinner lastnight. My host mom speaks Catalan and Castillano (Spanish), but my host dad only speaks Castillano. They know I am in this class and it makes me late to dinner on Monday and Wednesday nights. Lastnight when I came in, my host mom asked me how class went, and I said three things to her: "Em dic Melissa. Soc dels Estats Units. Estudio psicologia." Now, though this looks very similar to spanish, it sounds like "Om deek Melissa. Soak dehls Ehstots Uneets. Ehstudeeu seekulujiya." When you´ve been working on getting the spanish accent down for over a month, it is sort of difficult to forget it and pronounce things completely differently! Anyway, after I said my three basic phrases in Catalan, my host mom got so excited and couldn´t stop telling me for the next half hour that I had such great pronunciation and that she was very proud of me for learning those phrases. (Did I mention that this is after 4 classes, and all I can really say is "My name is Melissa. I am from the United States. I am studying Psychology."?!?!) Meanwhile, my host dad just looked at me like I was crazy because I was trying to learn a new language when I am not yet really great at Spanish... but, I was happy to make my host mom happy. And now, she has decided that it is a good idea to speak to me only in Catalan... which is not so much fun. Hmm, lunch today should be interesting...

1% day

I don´t know what it is that makes me feel like I just want to go home sometimes. 99% of the time I am happy to be here experiencing new things and meeting new people, but there is that 1% of the time that I just miss everything that is familiar. I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss my school, I miss my professors, I miss driving my car, I miss AIM... Today, for some reason, is one of those days.

This morning I woke up in no mood to speak or even hear any Spanish, which is pretty ridiculous considering I live in Spain. BUT, I didn´t want to talk to my host parents or go to class and listen to my professors or do anything that required stretching myself. I think that is the real problem.. I have always struggled with change and clung to anything familiar. Here, it isn´t really possible not to change. Whether I want to or not, I have to think in Spanish to be able to communicate with the people I live with. I have been stretching myself since the moment I left my family at the security gates in the Detroit airport. I had to fly here alone, which is the first time I´ve ever flown alone in my life. Then, I had to find all of the BCA students in the airport in Paris and try to make friends with them since I am the only MC student in Barcelona this semester. Then, I had to start the Spanish part of living here, which has obviously been a constant stretching of myself. I know all of these things are helping me to grow, and for the most part I look at the positively. But sometimes it is hard. It is hard to deal with your grandpa´s death alone without the rest of your family. It is hard to listen to all the other groups of students from the same schools talk about people from back home that they all know when you can´t talk about people from your own school. It is hard to feel like you are a member of a family just because you have a room in their apartment and eat dinner with them every day. It is hard to get news about what is going on at home and to realize how much you are missing...

Meanwhile, I want to be here or else I could change it, couldn´t I? Or am I just doing this to prove something? To prove it to myself.. or my family.. or my friends.. or my professors? No, I am the one who decided to come, and I am the one who wants to stay. I´ll just have to live with the 1% of the time that I want to run back to my comfortable life in Indiana knowing that you will all be there for me when I return...

Construction:

Alright, so outside my window they are building a new apartment building, meaning the loud construction begins at about 7:30 every morning, waking me up way before I need to get out of bed. Yesterday was a national holiday in Spain, so luckily there was no construction to wake me up and I definitely slept in. Well.. last night I didn't want to drink when we went out to this bar, so I made the mistake of drinking half of an energy drink that was leftover from one of my friend's vodka and red bull. I didn't really think anything of it.. then I came back home before 2 so I could use the metro instead of a night bus or taxi. Trisha has lovingly left her computer in my apartment this weekend because we discovered that we can get internet from here and I also need it to read some stuff for homework by Tuesday. So I was playing on the computer, then talked to my mom and dad and little sister until 4 AM!!! It was good to talk to them since I only get to about once a week or so, but I still wasn't tired when I got off the phone thanks to that half of an energy drink. I forced myself to lay down at about 4:30 and I think I finally fell asleep sometime after 5... and then the CONSTRUCTION starts at 8:00 in the morning!!! It is a Saturday, and a holiday weekend, why is there construction on a Saturday?!? I just don't understand.. so I was hoping to get a nap today, but my host parents came home from their weekend away and wanted to talk to me forever. Now, I get to look forward to another awkward lunch with their three kids, spouses, and children tomorrow... YAY!!!! (That was a very sarcastic yay considering there are 10 of them when they all come over and it is just really overwhelming.) This is the fourth weekend that I have been here (because one of them I was in Galicia and the other in London) and each weekend at least one of their children and his/her family has come over for lunch.... AHHH!

Anywho.. life is actually good right now. Since I did have the apartment to myself since Thursday morning, I've had a pretty relaxing weekend so far. Some of the girls came over Thursday night and we all hung out here, which was a lot of fun. Lastnight we went to La Fira, which is a pretty fun bar that is decorated like a carnival, so I had fun just people watching like I do most of the time when we go out. I finished reading a book that I was reading.. it was weird. And I get the unusual pleasure of using the internet from my apartment... all in all I would say I have had a great weekend and I even have one day left of it! Maybe I'll try to find a way of getting out of the family lunch tomorrow... I'll have to think about that one a bit.

Pictures

Fun telephone booth... :)

There were statue people all over the place, and this guy looked like the real Captian Jack Sparrow!!!

Parliament from across the river!! Our hostel was about a 10 minute walk from here.

Yes, my entire goal of going to London was to see Platform 9 3/4... I know I am a nerd, but I LOVED it!!!

I don't have enough time to really write much right now, so I just posted a few pictures from my trip to London and I'll try to write more either tomorrow or Monday... Hope you enjoy!

Since I´ve been here:

Okay... so I know that I´ve talked to or written most of you so far about my time here in Spain. However, I know there are others that I haven´t talked to at all. So, I am going to give you all a quick update on everything I´ve done here in Spain over the last month.

My plane flew out of Detroit on the evening of September 2nd. I spent the night before and the whole day with my aunt, cousin, her husband, their three kids, and her dad, stepmom, and half sister on a lake in Michigan. Since I usually only get to see all of my family twice a year, it was fun to see them to make up for not seeing them this coming Christmas. We went tubing and swimming and stayed up late playing cards and it was really fun. My mom and sisters were with me, and my dad drove up in the morning to meet us so he could go to the airport too. At the airport, it was really hard to say goodbye for 8 or 9 months to my family. I managed, though, and only cried a bit on the flight to Paris.

Once in Paris, I met up with a lot of the other BCA students and after a 4 hour layover, we flew to Spain. Our first week here in Spain was actually spent in Castelldefels, which is on the outskirts of Barcelona. We were in a hotel and had a language class and a conversation class every day. It was an interesting and long week. At the end of the week, we loaded up all our luggage and headed into the center of Barcelona where we waited at a hotel for a few hours to meet our host families. Let me tell you, that was one of the scariest moments of my life!!! All I kept thinking was "I want to go home... I can´t communicate with them... What if they don´t like me?" Finally, after about a 3 hour wait, my host mom came to pick me up. We chatted for a few minutes there at the hotel and then left to head to my new home. My host family is actually just a couple who have three grown children. All three of their kids are married and have children of their own. My third day at the house (which is actually an apartment) all of the kids and grandchildren came over... which was more scary than fun. But I survived the meal and retreated to my room quickly afterwards.

We moved in with our host families on a Friday. The next week, we continued our conversation and grammar classes at the university in the city while also beginning a History of Art class. We had 3 days of class the following week and then took a trip to Santiago de Compestela in Galicia to finish up our Art History course. The trip was fun, but also somewhat boring because I had already learned so much in ETA about the art and whatnot that I felt it was very repetitious. The day after we got back from Galicia, we started our real classes for the semester. We had a final that Friday over the Art History Pre-semester course and another final the next Friday over the Grammar part of the Pre-semester course. Unfortunately (I know some of you know this), I received a phone call from my mom on the first day of classes to let me know that my grandpa (my dad´s dad) had died the previous day. This wasn´t really the greatest way to start out my semester, and it distracted me quite a bit from studying for the two finals, but I had a lot of support from my host parents, friends that I´ve made here, and Maika (the director of BCA).

Since then, I´ve talked to my mom a few times and feel like I am doing pretty well with my grandpa´s death. I still don´t think it will be real to me until I go back to Michigan and he isn´t there. Meanwhile, I´m trying to do the best I can here. I feel like my language skills have gotten better and hope that they really continue to do so. My host mom keeps telling me that I speak very well, so that is encouraging.

Besides classes, I´ve kept busy with all of the fiestas here in Barcelona! In our first month here, we have already had 2 holidays (meaning there were no classes on those days and lots of fiestas), one of which was the Dia de la Merced (one of the biggest celebrations in Barcelona). I went out with a few of the girls studying here from Elizabethtown who live down the street from me and we had a good time with all of the concerts and parades. There is another holiday this coming Friday, but I already have no classes on Fridays, so it isn´t too exciting. The exciting thing about this weekend is that my host parents are taking a trip, so I have the apartment to myself for 2 whole days!

Okay... so I think that about sums up my life since I´ve been here. Besides London, which I will be posting pictures from in a bit. I´ll write more about that trip in the next entry since this has already turned into a novel... Meanwhile, I hope you are all doing well and can´t wait to hear from you!

Excitement!

I´m going to London. Some of you know this, I think, but a lot don´t. I leave tonight for London and I´ll come back late Sunday night. I´m going with Emily, Wendy, and Trisha and don´t know what exactly we´ll do while we are there, but I KNOW I will be visiting platform 9 3/4!!! I am pretty easy to please... give me either Disney or Harry Potter and some food and I will be a happy camper. It should be exciting to find my way to the airport though since Wendy and Trisha left lastnight, Emily and I are going together tonight. I´m hoping we get to the airport alright and then easily find our hostel once we get there... if not, it should make for a good story!! Hmm, that´s about it for me right now. I´ll hopefully have good pictures and stories to post once I get back.

I did it!

So I finally decided that I suck at trying to write emails and send them out to everyone. After considering my other options, I have decided to try this whole blog thing. I know I probably won´t write in it every day, but I´m sure I´ll do better with this than emailing... and then everyone can choose whether or not they want to read about my life here in Spain. Meanwhile, it will take me some time to figure out this whole thing, so have patience. Okay, so that´s it for now... I´m going to try and see what else I can do with this...