Visca el Barça, Visca Catalunya!!!!

HOLA!!!

So since the Canary Islands, I have just been enjoying my life in Barcelona. I have no more trips planned, so I am able to chill and get work done in Barcelona. I am currently very depressed because I know I only have 1 month left here. Time seriously does FLY. I have never had 6 months go by so quickly. I remember the first day I arrived in Barcelona, and I am SO jealous of that day because I have my whole semester in front of me. Now, my time abroad is dwindling down. It is going to be such a culture shock going back to real life, to a schedule, to waking up early, to going to bed at a reasonable hour, to be surrounded completely by English. I love every aspect of Barcelona. Like seriously EVERYTHING. The culture, the food, the people, EVERYTHING. This is the life definitely meant for me. I am seriously considering moving back here after I graduate. If I end up taking a full-time job with PwC after graduation, I did some research and they have an office in Barcelona :). I cannot wait to move back here, knowing that I can stay for as long as I want! I know I say this with every post, but I have never been happier in my entire life. Being abroad has been such a valuable experience that I am lucky enough to have lived.

Alright well enough with that sentimental talk, what have I been up to for the past couple weeks? Barcelona has been having a lot of futbol games. They had the "Clasico" against Madrid (we hate Madrid here) which consisted of 5 games. So, all my friends and I have been going to a local bar and going loca for our players. We ended up winning the Clasico, which was amazing!!! There is a spot in the city where EVERYONE goes to celebrate any futbol win. IT IS LITERALLY INSANE. Like, I have never experienced anything like it. People are drunk dressed up in all Barcelona gear and it is literally like a riot. People are on top of lampposts, you can barely move in the ocean of people, fireworks are going off, bottles are being thrown everywhere, horns are going off, and everyone is chanting "Visca el Barça, Visca Catalunya!" It was so incredible to experience, and I got to show my Barcelona pride! I ended up with a huge Catalunya flag, so I was running around waving it everywhere, and at least 20 people stopped me and asked for a picture with me! So I guess I was one of those crazy Barcelona fans.

But then it got scary. All of a sudden people were screaming and running in every direction, so I look behind me and there are these guys with swords running at people (some say they were Madrid rebels, some say they were undercover police). So then the riot got broken up and everyone was screaming. So I ran away with my friends and started walking back to my apartment. Then, a stampede of people are running at me and I look behind and 2 SWAT trucks pull up, 6 people in each truck jump out, then they start chasing people and beating people. I literally couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was quite an experience. But, I got home safely, and have an amazing memory of Barcelona pride after beating Madrid. Cannot wait for the next riot when we play Manchester United in the championship!!!

Take a look of a couple videos of what it was like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-APgypHKRnA
And when it got broken up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN6SxikGxlw


Anyways, that was that. School is good. Oh my gosh, for those who don't know, my Economics professor died! We had a different teacher for a couple days, so I asked my friend and he told me! He had pancreatic cancer I guess, but so sad! He was not a very good teacher though, and our new professor is REALLY good (I am actually learning stuff). So yeah, that was quite a shock to me!

I am in a really big project for my psychology of sexuality class. I am working with other exchange students from Brasil and they are super nice! We ended up going out together one night and it was SO fun! In my teaching English class, Sophie and I asked our teacher if we could voluntarily do a presentation to the class. Everyone in that class is super nice to us and curious about the US, so we are doing a presentation encouraging everyone to study abroad. We are explaining how amazing our experience has been here, and giving them a presentation on UCSB and why it's amazing. Hopefully we will encourage at least one student to consider studying abroad at UCSB! My history of Catalunya class is good, we went cava tasting a couple weeks ago which was really fun. Now, I just have to write a big paper on changing economic policies during Franco's regime. Fun.

I have some exciting things coming up as well. There is a huge beach music festival the day before I leave, so I bought my ticket for that. There are some amazing DJ's coming (I guess, I don't really know DJ's) but it should be super fun, and a great last day before my dreadful arrival back to the US. Shakira is also coming to Barcelona, so I am going to buy my ticket for that with my friends. Also, David Guetta and 50 Cent are coming to my FAVORITE club, so I am going to buy tickets for that too.

I don't really know what else to share. The days and weeks and months fly by here. Still going out a lot but also getting into a regular exercise routine. Oh, and my Ultimate Frisbee team won Regionals, so now they are the 1 seed at Nationals!! I am so jealous, I want to be playing with them right now! And if they win Nationals this year I am going to be very upset, not going to lie. My apartment is great as always, love my roommates!

That is it for now, I will try to write more, but it is hard since I don't have trips to write about. LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

Canary Islands and Barcelona!

 I went to the Canary Islands last weekend! I know I always say that every weekend is the BEST WEEKEND EVER but really this is up there! Like seriously, it was SO MUCH FUN and SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! It literally felt like an amazing vacation that I never wanted to leave, the whole weekend was so relaxing without a single worry in the world. It was just Emily and I that went but people that know us know that we can entertain each other for hours. No joke, we are literally wild together and it is great.

So we stayed at a hotel/ resort on the beach that was ALL INCLUSIVE!!! (This is also what made the weekend great, because we are used to staying in cheap dirty hostels or couch surfing with random people) And let me tell you, we DEFINITELY took advantage of the all inclusive. We probably ate and drank enough for 4 all-inclusives. Everyday we woke up, ate, got beers and drank all day either at one of the 4 pools or on the beach. It was literally heaven. Then we would eat and drink SO much at dinner, then head to the hotel bar and drink gin and tonics late into the night. It was literally amazing. The only money we spent all weekend was transportation to and from the airport and the two pub crawls we did. The all-inclusive was probably one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Oh my gosh and one of the best moments of the entire trip was before it even began! We were waiting for the bus at the Canaria airport and I hear a familiar voice… who could it be?!?! I literally DIED when I turned around, it was Dana Hansen!! (best friend from high school, studying in Seville) Like seriously, we dropped all of our bags and jumped on each other, it was  a really surreal moment. So, we ended up hanging out with Dana and her friends during the weekend. We did a pub crawl with them and just chilled during the day. It was such a great surprise, and we were so confused why we didn’t know we were going to be there at the same time, because we talk frequently. Anyways, that was a major highlight of the trip and I loved hanging out with Dana in the Canary Islands… so random!

And our hotel was FULL of old people. Like, I am not even kidding. Emily and I were probably the only people under the age of 70. No joke, it was hilarious. There was Bingo everyday at 3 (we obviously played everyday, but never won… those old people don’t fool around when it comes to Bingo!) and water aerobics everyday (which we obviously did as well). We made SO many friends with all the old Spanish grandmas and grandpas. We would walk around the pools and everyone knew who we were and would just start talking to us, telling us their life story. There were moments when people would stop and start talking to us, and we would be like “have we met them before?” Our favorite couple was an old Spanish couple who have been together for 50 years, and it was the grandma’s birthday. It was so adorable. And they said I could marry their grandchild J.

We also made friends with ALL the workers in the hotel. I think we were the youngest people they have seen in quite a while. It was kind of dangerous though because then all the bartenders (who we obviously saw about every hour getting another drink) made our drinks so strong because they loved us. We just make friends wherever we go!

As for the nightlife, let me just tell you that laying out all day with a beer in hand everyday definitely cured all our hangovers. The bars were SO much fun and we did 2 really really fun pub crawls. We made so many friends and just danced the night away as usual.

And the hotel had shows every night. They had these African dancers one night and it was really entertaining watching them. And they had a dance floor every night where all the old people would dance. So obviously Emily and I danced with them and they taught us some Spanish dances. Then, during the daytime all the old people we ran into would be like “I loved watching young people like you dance last night! Will you dance again tonight?” So once again, all the old people loved us.

So that was pretty much my wonderful weekend getaway. It was SOOOOO much fun and I got SO tan! The Canary Islands are off of the coast of Africa, so the sun was quite strong. But I did wear a lot of sunscreen everyday so I never got burned!!

And now I will talk a little bit about my crazy life in Spain. First of all, school is a joke. Seriously, the Spanish school system is so whack. I went to class this morning but the teacher just decided she didn’t want to have class, so everyone left. And for some reason we don’t have class all next week for my Psychology class. And tomorrow for my Culture of Catalonia class we are going cava tasting (cava is sparkling wine, really popular in Catalonia). So I will be off drinking cava all day tomorrow! Like seriously though, Spanish school is so easy it is literally a joke. But I do have to do a lot of work in May (all the work I have not done for the past 4 months).

Emily is leaving Barcelona tomorrow so go back to America L so last night we had a huge dinner party at my apartment. We made DELICIOUS fajitas and drank a lot of wine and cava. There were about 12 girls that came and it was so great. I can’t even describe my friendships I have made here, they are indescribable. We have a solid group of girls and we go out all together. I think when people are abroad, they get super SUPER close because you are out of your comfort zone. We are all different in so many ways but that is what makes it wonderful. They are all of my best friends and I cannot imagine going back to Santa Barbara without them, it is really sad to think about. But the dinner party last night made me realize how close we have gotten. We know absolutely EVERYTHING about each other and there is no shame between us. We don’t hide anything from each other I really cannot explain how close we are. And we have SOOO much fun together, when we all head out to the bars or clubs everyone better watch out! But seriously, I will probably cry for days when I go back to the US and don’t see them everyday.

There have also been so many Barcelona-Madrid soccer games, and I have been getting really into it! Every night there is a game, the huge group of girls head to a local bar and go crazy rooting for Barcelona. It is so much fun, there is a game tonight I cannot wait to get my Barca on!

And last Saturday was a huge holiday in Barcelona. It is called Dia de St. Jordi and I don’t really understand it. But basically the streets were CRAZY with people. EVERYONE AND THEIR MOMS WERE OUT. I have never seen anything like it. But girls give boys books and boys give girls roses (I do not understand)… so I collected a lot of roses that day!

My apartment is great at usual. I love my roommates so much, they are so fun and so nice. And the apartment itself is super nice and literally PERFECT location.

Hmmm what else is new? I am making a lot of Catalan friends! They are so great. Still going out a lot, I think I have learned how to run on 2 hours of sleep multiple days during the week. I figured I am young in Barcelona, when else am I going to live it up? Seriously, I have to take advantage of my time living in Europe and you are only young once, right? So I am living my life as usual. Life is great. I seriously wake everyday thinking how much I love my life and never want to leave. Why do I have to go back to real life?

Well that is all for now, folks. I love you all and miss you!!!!