March flew by

Saturday, March 24

Turns out I’m really not good at keeping a consistent blog. The month of March has flown by, and now I’m realizing I haven’t written in my blog for a good three weeks. Thinking of what I’ve been doing three weeks ago seems like too much to write about at the moment, so I’ll take it easy on myself and start with today.

Today (Saturday, when I’m writing this) was great. I’m pretty picky about what a good Saturday consists of, and this one was close to perfect. I think anyone who has a rigid schedule of school or work can appreciate a good Saturday. I woke up at 11:00, met some friends for brunch… and I had PANCAKES for the first time in months. So delicious. When we finished brunch around 2:00 pm it was raining, and spring rain is one of my favorite things… like when the sky is clear (never quite figured that one out) and the air is warm and it’s sprinkling lightly, just perfect. Even more perfect since I brought my umbrella. So following pancakes and rainstorm was a great after-rain-before-dusk run through my neighborhood and up towards Mt. Tibidabo. The neighborhood above where I live is filled with old early 1900s mansions and beautiful churches and parks. After my awesome pain-free run was dinner (always a dreaded event, refer to past entries) and tonight’s dinner was incredible followed by crepes for dessert, which I’ve been missing dearly since gorging myself of crepes with my brother last weekend in Paris. So to sum it up, sleep + pancakes + spring rain + good run + crepes = stellar Saturday.

Tonight was interesting, but also good. I met two friends, Natalie and Brendon, for a movie. Natalie spotted a movie theater that shows American movies in English with Spanish subtitles, so we decided to go there and get our English fix. She picked a movie with the Spanish subtitles “Infiltrados” which anyone can guess would be “Infiltrated” in English. So thinking this is a new movie that came out since leaving home, we thought we’d take a chance knowing nothing about it and decided to see it. Basically “Infiltrados” somehow translates to “The Departed.” Now I have seen “The Departed” three times in the theater and tonight I paid thinking it was something I’d never seen before. Oh, the thrills of wasting money due to language barriers. I’ve gotten so good at that. At least I like the movie. And it was really good to hang with some people I don’t socialize with very often, and I got home before the metro closed at 2:00 am, meaning I saved 15 euro on a cab. So in the end it was a good night.

And now it’s really late, and I haven’t written about the most exciting events of the past few weeks… family visiting and going to Paris! It’s kind of daunting to sit down and try to write about Paris and spending time with the fam, because they were both such huge events. So I’m going to sleep, and writing again tomorrow will me on my list of things to do.



Sunday, March 25

Today was uneventful, but altogether a good Sunday in Barcelona. Katie and I met to study and ended up playing around the city until the sunset. Studying is overrated, anyway. I have to confess, I made my first trip to McDonald’s today. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it was worth the lowering of standards. Their ice cream cones are 60 cents (about 5 euro less than any other ice cream in this city), and they had a promotional sign near the door that had a big picture of a happy meal and big letters saying, in English, “Do you wanting?” which we thought was entertaining, I guess we’re easily amused.

Anyway, I want to write about how great March has been, which will take awhile. I’ll try to re-cap the past two weeks. The second week of March was the week I’ve been waiting for more or less since I got here. Not to say I haven’t enjoyed myself, but of course I’ve been waiting anxiously for the arrival of my family. My cousin Megan flew in on Friday, and my parents and brother flew in on Saturday night. I dragged the jet-lagged group to the much-anticipated FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid futbol game. This is one of the biggest games in Europe, more or less the Spanish Super Bowl but with a lot more rivalry and political stuff behind it. I think most of my excitement was that I could watch it with my Bryant, who is actually a soccer fan, as opposed to my friends here who don’t know a thing about it. We wondered through the university area and found a packed bar to watch the game. I felt bad dragging everyone to the bar the night they got here, but I think everyone (especially the boys) really enjoyed the game, or at least the first-night together in Europe. Tie game, therefore no rowdy fans in the streets, at least in our area.

The next week I tried to split my time between school and hanging with the family, and in the end I basically ignored school for a week. We covered more of Barcelona than I thought we would, and I was able to skip class and join them to Montserrat, a really cool monastery in the mountains about an hour outside of the city. (This was the one thing they were seeing that I hadn’t seen yet.) My parents had rented a really cool apartment in Barrio Gotic, and I definitely benefited from this and was able to get a 10 day break from my host-home. Not that it’s that bad, but it was a welcomed break… in many aspects. That week is kind of a blur, but it was mostly sight-seeing, attempting to find enough food and water for Bryant, a constant search for public restrooms, lots of wine, and a whole ton of walking. It felt good to be familiar with the city that my family was visiting, and I think I was helped them navigate the city as best I could. And also, for the record, I think Megan is truly a saint for going along with my slightly insane family (I’m including myself in that category).

On Thursday Megan flew to Amsterdam, and the Masons flew to Paris. The only thing more hilarious to me than a Mason family trip, is a Mason family trip to a country with a language that none of us speak. I don’t know who reads this blog, but if any of you know the family dynamics and can imagine us trying not to stick out as foreigners, it’s kind of a joke. Paris was good to us. The weather was incredible (no rain!) and on Friday Bryant and I had something like 5 crepes a piece from stands around the city. Our hotel was about as bizarre as it gets, I don’t really know how to describe that. In one day we saw the Louvre (or a fraction of it; and as I expected the Mona Lisa is a let-down and Venus de Milo is incredible), Notre Dame, D’Orsay museum, took a boat tour down the Seine, and met up with our good friends Mike and Cathy Byrne for dinner and a trip up the Eiffel Tower at night. (Gorgeous, totally exceeded my expectations, twice as big as I thought it would be!) The next day we met up with a family friend Pierre, a Parisian that my dad went to grad school with. I don’t know when the last time we saw Pierre was, but I think it’s been 15+ years. Getting to know him confirmed there is in fact a man on earth goofier than my dad; he was awesome. He took us and the Byrnes for a pretty intense walking tour of the city. We started at Montmartre (saw a sweet parade, not sure if the occasion was the France-Scotland rugby game or St. Patrick ’s Day, or a combination of the two), then to Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Elysees, had a coffee at the Pompidou, and walked around the right bank (basically all over, I never knew where I was exactly)… we took the metro later on that day to have dinner at Pierre’s, which I think will be one of the those random memories of my youth that I will sill have when I am 80. I spent well over half of the night laughing and I think we had five bottles of wine. You can do that and still be classy when you’re in Europe, which is awesome. Paris was also kind of a blur. It’s sad that I’ll never remember every detail, but I do know that I had an absolute blast the entire time.

Bryant flew home on Monday (I was so sad, but tried not to let it show) and my parents took off for southern France. They came back and spent this past Friday with me before flying home, so it was good to slowly be weaned from them and adjust to Europe without family. It was nice to have them, and now it’s kind of lonely to come home to a family that you don’t actually know all that well. I really, really do like being here, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be sad to see my family go. I got spoiled big time when they were here, so now I have to switch back to living painfully cheaply and going to class. So sad.

However, before I get all sad and weepy about school, I can’t feel too bad for myself. Semana Santa (Holy Week, their spring break always coincides with Easter, Easter is the biggest holiday in Spain and everyone gets vacation) is coming up. I’m actually leaving this Thursday, which is pretty crazy to think about. I feel pretty unprepared to pick up and leave for 12 days. I’m sure there will be lengthy blog posts about this trip. Two weeks after Semana Santa is finals, so I really need to do something academic this week… which is unlikely. Studying abroad has ruined any study skills I once possessed.

Write more later, who knows when.
Much love,
Laura