School has started! YAY!

Sooo much has been going on in the past couple days. First of all, yesterday I slept in and when I woke up I had already planned to conquer the bus system as well as the post office to mail out the letter that I wrote to my family in Finland. So, it was definitely pouring the rain for most of the day yesterday which made it hard to be outside, this was also the first time since being in Europe that I truly missed my fabulous Honda civic. lol So I walked down the Ramblas until I saw a bus stop and just happened to get on the right bus! Lucky me!! I got off at the third stop past Christopher Columbus just like John told me, righto! I had to cross some streets but eventually I was inside. Now, let me say this, their post office was much more organized than the one that I had to go to in Greece!! So, I couldn’t really figure out if I needed to take a number or not. I also had to go online the night before to make sure that I had the letter addressed correctly and in the right places. – Things like this are always important in different countries. So, after I got inside I decided myself that I didn’t need to talk to anyone, I just needed a stamp and then low and behold…a stamp machine just appeared out of nowhere!! Haha AND, it could be changed to English, so I was pretty happy at this point. So, I put it in English and selected a whole bunch of different things to send it within Europe, then after this I tried to put in money but the stupid machine only took exact change and I needed 62 cents for one stamp!! Which I thought was pretty expensive, so I thought I was going to get off the hook when it came to having to talk to someone, of course I was wrong though. I had to ask a couple different people for change until someone understood what I was talking about. So, I got some pennies and got my stamp, now the only left was to figure out which box to put it in. I dropped it in the one that I thought said other destinations but there is no way to really know for sure! Haha So, I guess if they write me back then I’ll know that it made it!! Lol I took the bus back, this bus driver was really nice, she was a lady but the bus driver that I had on the way to the post office was mean.

After this adventure of learning the bus system and the post office I tried to get a metro pass and this even more of a task. The woman of course didn’t speak any English and I had to break out the phrase book, haha, it was a little embarrassing, anyways, she knew by the end of the conversation what I wanted but gave me a paper and told me I needed something from the school and my passporte! So, obviously I couldn’t do anything about it yesterday because school hadn’t started yet. Instead I came back lounged around for a while, got a shower and decided to go for a walk down the Ramblas to get some postcards for everyone and then ended up at the mall. I didn’t buy anything but I saw some stuff that I liked. After the mall, on the way back I stopped and got a geofre – I think that’s how you spell it but I’m not sure, it was like a mini waffle with chocolate sauce on it, there were other flavors but I had a hard time reading the menu, so I just settled for the original. Lol So, it was a nice night out and I decided to sit down on the port area there and eat it. Well as I was eating my waffle I saw something out of the corner of my eye moving so I look over and there was RAT!!! OMG!! I mean, I’ve seen mice before and big mice but this thing was the size of a New York City rat!! EWWW!! As soon as I looked at it, it saw me and ran back the other way so I just continued eating and then left! Hahahaha…I was still pretty grossed out though. After I got back it was like 11 or so and everyone was going to bed so I went to sleep too.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!

I got up around 9 to get ready because we had to be there by 10:45 and we wanted to allow plenty of time to get there on the metro. After we made it to the school, no sweat, we had to wait around for a while before it started. So, this was our first time inside the school and it was absolutely beautiful. We found out that it used to be a Jesuit seminary and that is why no photos are allowed because it is considered such a historic site. So, we go into the orientation room, which is very nice and modern, and they had little backpacks for all us of full of interesting information and such. We got a schedule of this week’s orientation things and blah blah blah, it was pretty boring and I quite frankly would have rather been taking a nap. So during orientation though we got to see where everyone was from, there were about 4 students from Norway, 2 or 3 from Great Britian, 2 from Germany, 2 from Russia, a few from some other places and THEN there are about 5 or 6 kids from FINLAND!! I was like, no way!! So, I didn’t get a chance to talk to them today but I intended to befriend them tomorrow. After the orientation we got a tour of the facilities and it is just beautiful! They of course have like a church in the school and the architecture is just amazing. They also have a whole recreation center behind the school, it’s a little old school in ways but they have a swimming pool and that’s an A+ in my book! I will try to sneak in some pics. Lol

After the tour they told us that we would be having some snacks in one of the courtyards with some of the incoming freshman students and that they were all a little nervous because their English isn’t excellent. So, we got to this orientation thing and there was a little pond with turtles in it and I thought that was pretty cool, so I mingled with some people and met a girl from Germany named Angela and she seems really nice but I didn’t get to talk to her long. Then, one of the teachers brought over this one girl who was interested in meeting “the americans,” I think she was the only one brave enough because they were all looking at us but no one was talking, lol. She was like, “when we heard there were going to be American’s here we all couldn’t wait to meet you!” – I was like WTF???? We were like freaking celebrities. Haha I thought it was cute! So, of course she asked us the question that people always ask Americans – “Do you live in New York? Have you been? – people seem to be fascinated with this over here, and it was like this everywhere in Greece as well. Lol So, anyways she turned out to be really cool and she grew up here in Barcelona, I could talk forever about our convo. She wanted to know all about what music, books, TV shows, movies, and shopping that we liked. She loves Abercrombie, Hollister, and American Eagle….so the first thing I said after that was, “Hey come by and I’ll give you all my clothes and you give me yours! We’ll just switch!! Haha. She got very excited. So anywho, she seems really great and so I invited her to come to the beach with us and she did! After that thing was over we came back, got ready, grabbed a pita, and headed to the beach and she met us there. We had fun and she helped us with some Spanish. Her dad’s a doctor and her mom’s a dentist and she said if we didn’t want to go to the beach that we could go to her pool whenever…haha so I think I made friends with the right person! She also said that she would take me shopping with her to help me pick out some things, so I’m excited! She seems really nice. As for the beach, I didn’t really get a lot of sun, it was really windy but we hung out for about 3 hours and then came back. We’ve been relaxing but we are getting ready to go down to an Irish pub to watch the Barcelona vs. Milan game tonight that is going to be on TV. Tomorrow at school we are going to get some introductory classes and then they are going to give us a TEST to see how much Spanish we know to determine what class to put us in. lol I’m a little nervous, all these kids from other countries said that they knew a little so I’m not sure what that means. I also found out that all of them have been here for 4 weeks already and got to go to a Spanish class that the school offered early!! I was like, why the hell weren’t we invited!?? My answer to this is probably because Kendrick Delaney, our study abroad coordinator in charge of the exchanges was too busy looking for a new job because he quit as of September the 4^th!!! Hahaha How freaking convenient right? Gezzzz…..AGAIN, if all else fails, Johnson and Wales…. Don’t even get me started on this rampage….

That’s all for now, look for another post within the next day or so, it’s starting to pick up over here so I’m starting to get excited…