A Mellow Thursday

First, here is a picture of everyone in my program, at the Montjiuc Olympic Stadium:

As you can see it's like 95% girls for some reason...

Today we had classes like regular, and during our one hour break a few of us went to the cafe across the street and got a nice glass of wine before heading to conversation class. Today we have a break from assignments, so all in all it has been a nice catch-up day.

So everyday we get "bocadillos" or snacks, from the Colegio as we leave for class, because lunch time is around 2 or so, but since traditionally breakfast doesn't consist of much, they eat again around 11 or so to hold them over until lunch. Well whatever they give us for the bocadillo always ends up being our lunch. It always consists of a small bread roll, then covered in tomato juice (meaning you rub a sliced tomato on the bread, generally then you add olive oil and some salt, its a popular tapa called "pan con tomate") Anyways the first day it was bread, tomato juice and tuna, the second day the tuna was instead a slice of cheese, yesterday it was like an egg potato omelette between bread and today it was tuna again. This story really has no value except to say that I really hate tuna unless it is covered in Miracle Whip, so today I opted for something a little more choice--chocolate gelato. Which took us to an upstairs cafe close to the University. We met an Indian immigrant now Spanish waiter who asked us where we were from, and when we said California he excitedly responded "Ah yeah, Arnold Schwarzenegger!!"

...I didn't know how to respond to that, so I just proceeded to order my ice cream.

Then we went to La Boqueria, right off of La Rambla, which is no more than 5 blocks 

from the University.

The street entrance

Lots of pre-cut fruit for sale for one euro

Right inside the entrance

Lots of yummy fruit juice drink. We tried kiwi-coconut and watermelon.

Then we walked around El Raval, which is the barrio surrounding Las Ramblas. Although it is a convenient location, everyone advised us not to look for apartments here. Over time it has become more and more dangerous in the side streets, and overall it is pretty dirty and broken. However, we got lost a little and ended up walking through some of these side areas. (which really pose no threat during the day). We found ourselves in one of the neighborhoods that is home to a lot of Indian and Pakistani immigrants. Here is a bad picture of one of the alleyways, unfortunately I didn't aim high enough, because the balconies looked really interesting with tons of clothes hanging off and blowing in the wind.

Then, somehow we ended up at one of the University Facultats. (Separate locations of the University of Barcelona that specialize in different areas of study. Where we go to the ILP everyday is the Falcultat de Filologia, but where I will be mostly is at the Factultat de Historia i Geografia, which we found.) It was really nice, although placed unexpectedly among the side streets of La Rambla. Here is a courtyard by where I will be taking the majority of my classes:

It was a really nice campus actually, we walked past the bookstore and several classes before realizing what it was though, so I didn't take anymore pictures. 

More soon to come!