After arriving in Barcelona at 10:25am (that's 4:25 am Eastern time) and staying awake for the entire day, I was hardly in any shape to begin this blog. In other words, my first day in Barcelona was a big, hot mess. In order to become acclimated to the time difference, my program's director insisted that we try to stay awake until atleast 8:00 pm. This was probably the most difficult task I have had to undergo in quite sometime. Aside from a grueling battle with jetlag, very little happened yesterday. A few of us roamed around the neighborhood, Pedralbes, where our hotel is located, but in terms of major sites, there is very little in this area.
Today, however, was the (pseudo) first day of classes, which meant that we were able to take the metro to Ciutat Vella (what is essentially downtown Barcelona). Barcelona's metro is fairly extensive, but extremely easy to navigate, especially when compared to New York's subway. Ciutat Vella is beautiful--it's exactly what I pictured Barcelona to look like--and the Universitat de Barcelona (where I'm studying) is probably one of the most intimidating institutions of higher learning I've ever encountered. It has nothing to do with the level of difficulty, the intimidation factor lies in the sheer size of the institution. It makes Rutgers, UConn, and any other ridiculously large American university look like a small liberal arts college. The Universitat has 90,000 students. No, that is not a typo. Somehow, my tiny program operates within the monstrous institution, yet I love it! The classes we began today were standard intro to grammar/conversation courses that will only last 2-3 weeks until our real classes begin on February 7th. Eventhough they aren't official courses, we still received homework...which was kind of a buzzkill.
After classes were over, a group of us decided to stop at El Corte Ingles for outlet adapters because the super amazingly inexpensive one I bought at Coconuts (curse that going out of business sale) doesn't fit in the hotel's outlet. Words cannot describe Corte Ingles. I had heard of the store before coming to Spain and it was always described to me as a department store. But this place isn't just a Macy's or a Nordstrom's with Spanish signage everywhere, instead it's a strange hybrid of upscale department store, Ikea, and Target. What began as a simple stop for electronics became an all out JOURNEY. We trekked through rows of laundry machines, mattresses, Bulgari watches---each floor could have been (and probably should have been) a separate store. After 20 minutes of wandering around and asking several store clerks for assistance, we emerged victorious and arrived back at the hotel just in time for dinner (which wasn't very thrilling, so I'm not going to describe it).
Aside from this, very little has happened during these first two days; it's orientation week which means a lot of information sessions and very little exploration. Tonight a few of us are going to go out, but it won't be anything crazy...most of us are still a little jetlagged. The next time I update, I promise to have far more interesting tales as well as pictures (I keep forgetting that I own a camera)!!
Hasta luego!
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