New Apartment and New Sights!

I just spent my first night in my new apartment in downtown Barcelona. Surprisingly, it became really comfortable much sooner than I would have imagined. I got here in the morning, after sleeping in and showering at the Colegio and then checking out. I barely unpacked when I got here, and then went out and explored for a good 7 hours of so, pretty much walking throughout all of Barcelona and getting a feel for the neighborhood, and connection to the rest of the city. When i got home I talked with my Dad and sister on Skype, and then ate dinner with my roomates and their friends that they invited over. Teresa made a dish that is popular in her town near Valencia, that her grandparents used to cook for her. They were basically a version of pizza. She hand-made the dough from scratch and then made two types: one with a pool of olive oil on top and an anchovy laid across the top, the other with a mix of cooked vegetables and garlic and spices. I just had the veggie one, and it was really really good. They also made a lot of appetizers but I wasn't hungry enough to partake. We didn't eat dinner until 11:30pm!! The problem was I was STARVING at like 7pm, because I just had a bread role from the Colegio for lunch, and so I ate peanut butter and snacks around 7 which is my regular dinner time, and by the time it was time for actual dinner I was stuffed and ready for bed. I still have a lot of adjusting to do! The dinner crowd was quite eclectic. A guy from Brazil, a girl from Madrid, an English guy who was couch surfing with another Spanish guy who was also there, and my two roommates. At 12:30 when dinner was over they all went out to the bar and to go dancing, but I had to go right to bed.
Today I met up with Rachel and Catherine from my program and we went walking through the Gothis Quarter. Today is the Day of Catalunya, which basically marks their loss of the war in 1714, quite the masiquistic holiday if you ask me, but since it is more of a government holiday than anything else, the government building of the Generalitat de Catalunya were open to the public! They are only open 3 or 4 days a year, so it was really cool to see. Here are pictures from the buildings:

After walking through the building, we went to a free photography exhibit by Eugeni Forcano, a Barcelona-born artist who captured the regular and mundane people of the street in 1960's Barcelona, although in such a strange and captivating way. Dad--check him out! Then we walked around the barrio for a while before parking at a cafe on La Rambla. BIG MISTAKE. I have been fuming over this ever since. Okay, so we pass by a cafe and notice that the cups are really big, like mugs, full of diet coke. So i'm thinking, Great! Finally you get what you pay for. So we sat down and ordered. When we were ready to go, we get that check and...

They charged us almost 23 euro for TWO diets cokes!!! We were so pissed off, there was no drink menu, so there were no prices listed, but this was so ridiculous, that's about 30 dollars! I had all of the money with me that I have for a week, and it was supposed to go towards groceries, but NOOO, it all went to one friggin diet coke. I hate La Rambla, and from now on am protesting the entire street. Hurumph!

Anyways the rest of the afternoon was quite lovely, we saw a really pretty cathedral, and cute outdoor cafes at every corner.

Afterwards, Rachel and I went over to Claire's new apartment to have a BBQ with her and her roommates and their friends out of their roof-top terrace. It was really fun, they were all really nice. Although when I went over to get food, everyone watched as I got a piece of bread, put hummus on it, and then put what I though was tomato slices on-top which were actually hunks of raw meat. However no one said anything until I raised it to my mouth about to take a bite, I guess they didn't consider the fact that I am too daft to tell the difference between vegetables and hunks of beef...

Rachel came back to my apartment to hang out and watch movies and Catherine is about to join us. I just took a shower and to get hot water you have to go to the kitchen, open the gas tank, and light the pilot. The hot water works really well, I like that its different than what i'm used to. Then (THANK GOODNESS) I got to do my laundry. The machine is out on the balcony, and then I hung up my clothes to dry on the lines hanging over the balcony, careful not to send an innocent pair of socks accidentally into the abyss of lost laundry on the bottom floor. Over all it has been a great day, and tomorrow our plan is to head to the train station around 10, look at the map and pick a place that looks appealing for a fun day trip. More pictures to come!