First few days in Barcelona

Our hotel is small and basic, but in a great location. We’re right in the center of a lot of shops, restaurants and a few steps away from the metro. The rooms have two beds, a small kitchenette and a bathroom. 

Monday was my first day of classes. I got put in the advanced group, and some of the people speak spanish fluently! It’s really intimidating, but as long as I stay in that group, it should be a good challenge. There are four or five girls who speak it regularly at home with their parents, and about ten of us who have taken it for a while but clearly still need to work on our accents and grammar. 

After class I got lunch at a pita place and then headed off for the beach. Another girl in the program and I hopped on the bus, but ended up getting on on the wrong side of the street. Little did we know, that bus goes to the complete opposite side of town and then stops. We ran around the area laughing uncontrollably at the fact that it took us a good hour away from where we’re staying, and took the metro back to our hotel. It might have been the jet lag, but I swear we laughed for a good hour while struggling to find our way back. We then got on the bus on the right side of the street and five minutes later were at the beach...oops.

The beach is BEAUTIFUL! There’s white sand, blue water and lots of palm trees. Jess and I laid out for a good hour, before heading back to the school for our AIFS orientation session. We rode the bus back to our hotel and then went onto the metro stop closest to us. We got really cocky and thought that we were told to the farther metro stop because it’s less confusing than the rather large stop by our hotel. No, that's the only stop where we can actually get on the train. We ended up lost running around the metro stop by our hotel for a good half an hour looking for the right line. We thought we completely figured out the city and metro line....umm not quite. When we finally got to the school we were half an hour late. It was such a directionally challenged day, which just proves that I am my father’s daughter.

At night we got our meal debit cards finally, and went to the grocery store to buy basic food. I’m going to be living off of pasta, bread and hot dogs for the next few weeks, as London was extremely expensive and drained a good portion of my funds. We cooked pasta and drank wine and went to bed early. It's been an exhausting couple of days.