After that I had fussballtennis and one of the last crazy mondays. I think it was the last official one before exams, after that, populaire no longer cleared out the tables for dancing and Irish closed so early you had to go to Rock Cafe before 3am! (It's no good until then). Next day was probably art history which I probably skipped and then African Dance with Esther and her sisters, who don't speak French, but loved the teachers acting and were cracking up the entire time. It was great.
Wednesday during genres litteraires, Allison Dotts (another American on my program who is a good seed) had her presentation, and instead of leaving last week in the past, the teacher had to once again bring up my accent comparing it to Allison's presentation. I really appreciated it seeing as she had never brought someone else's mistakes up again after their presentation.
That Thursday, I flew out from Geneva to Barcelona! I almost didn't want to go, I had just got back from Paris and was all-traveled out. I arrived in the airport and used my verrry basic spanish to find the trains. Then I bought a more expensive ticket than I needed because I couldn't change the language settings of the machine. Soon I was out near my hostel (it was Urbany Hostel, brand new and really good and not too expensive if you're ever in the area). After walking the wrong direction for several blocks and almost getting hit by a car when I didn't see the pedestrian red light, I finally found the hostel. It was big and new and came complete with gym and swimming pool access. I was meeting Rachel and a friend of hers from Geneva-James-but their flight wasn't coming in until night time. So i dropped off my stuff, and since those two weren't in yet, Graham had a take-home exam to finish, and Julie Mitarotondo had I think exams too, I got a map from the front desk and went exploring on my own for the day.
First stop was Sagrada Familia (although on the way, I finally stopped and bought a towel after a semester of using the hand towel from my dorm. It is black with a spanish bull and I was able to bargain with the tourist shop guy--still way over priced--but I felt accomplished for changing it at all). It's this huge cathedrale designed mostly by Gaudi that will be finished in about 30 years. I didn't know it wasn't finished yet, so I just assumed all the cranes and construction were part of the never-ending trend of renovations at every major monument I've visited this semester.
It was really cool though. Gaudi's side looked like the building was melting 
and the spires looked like lollipops with the little colorful balls on top.
It was so refreshing to see architecture that wasn't gothic. The front of the building was done by someone after Gaudi's death and it seemed like the Star Wars version of Jesus Christ's life. I thought it was really cool too, even though the style totally clashed with the other half.
I spent awhile in the park next to it and then went to see more of Gaudi's creations. I followed the icons on the map through several of his museums and other people's cathedrals. I almost tried to go into one of the museums posing as a member of a school group, but then realized how bad an idea this was considering they were half my age and I didn't really blend at all.
I continued down a major road and passed tons of shops, a major park where people were putting birdseed all over their arms and bodies and waiting for the pigeons to go to town, and a reggae band in the middle of the street. 
It was fun to people watch and wander around, but it did kind of suck that I was there to visit friends and still had seen none. After watching the band for awhile, I continued down into their old-gothic city. Finally like the rest of touristy Europe! 
It was an interesting maze of buildings around a central cathedral (which was naturally under construction). I got some chocolate truffle gelato and sat down in the shade to cool off.
I kept heading down the same road towards the water. I got to the beach around 5pm, but it was still hot and sunny and the beach was packed. I dragged out a lawn chair--which apparently you are supposed to pay for?--and set up camp. I felt like such a loser with my economie internationale notes (studying for my final exam) alone on the beach surrounded by tons of groups of friends sitting and drinking or playing with soccer balls. I didn't get much studying done though, because of the beach sales(wo)men. There were so many of them and they were so annoying and persistant. I can't even tell you how many people tried to sell me "water, fanta, beer, soda", sunglasses, and massages. I kept saying no no no and they kept being like come on, would move on, and then the next guy would come bother me. There was one cool salesman though. He was dressed in a toga-like outfit with a large plate of fresh donuts balanced on his head. He would dance around the sand to the beat of his small triangle and then spin and sit down, never losing the plate, next to a group of beach-goers. Respect.
I started trying to contact Julie, because we were supposed to meet up at my dinner time/before hers. She didn't reply though, so around 6 I headed back in the opposite direction hoping to get to a more central location to meet her when she called. Then I get a text that she was running late, but could see me real quick (like for maybe 30 mins) and gave me a location I couldn't find on the map. Turns out it was a small street along the same beach I was chilling at earlier but had walked far away from to get closer to her? I had so little time to see her though that I ended up just booking it--yes running--back down the very same main street. When I got to the outside of her homestay I was out of breath and kinda gross, but yay! I finally got to see someone. I couldn't see the inside of her homestay because of strict rules, but I could see that it was 4th floor on the coastline, so not too shabby a place to stay. She led me to a good sandwich place and helped me order a good sandwich and then watched me eat it, since she was about to get dinner cooked for her in the 4th floor apartment. It dripped all over my pants, but it was tasty and I got to have a verrrry brief catch up with Julie.
Then I decided to pass the time by walking all the way from the beach back to the hostel. I walked a different way and got to see Barcelona's version of the arc de triomphe, a small dog park, and some sketchy back streets. The rest of the walk was along a highway with a view of the ugly modern building thats shaped like a giant bullet.
I was getting nervous because it was taking so long to get back and the sun was setting and I was alone as a girl where I didn't speak the language.
I did get back okay, but Rachel and James weren't there yet. They didn't reply to my texts and I had no idea what happened. So I went online to contact Graham--apparently his phone wasn't working either which is why he didn't contact me after finishing his exam 5 hours earlier--and he invited me and Rachel to a plaza to drink wine with him and his friends who were celebrating the end of exams. As I'm messaging with Graham in the computer room and saying how I was worried about Rachel, guess who pops out of the elevator onto the wrong floor? Rachel herself, I heard her say oops this isnt our floor and I was like waiiiitt!
They were too tired from traveling and too hungry from not eating to meet Graham, so instead we went on a quest to find them dinner. We were told there was a mall nearby with tons of restaurants (the hostel wasn't too centrally located) so we followed the instructions and couldn't find anything for ages. We eventually did find a strip mall, which may have been the one they were talking about, where the 2 of them got pretty bad sandwichs at a chain restaurant. They were way happier though after eating. We called it an early night, because we knew we'd be staying up really late the next night and have a long day tomorrow.
Our hostel room was shared with 5 others, mostly girls who were not on the same sleep schedule with us but whatever. The next morning we had breakfast included and it wasn't half bad. There was cereal and muesli, and bread and nutella, and a machine that served juices and hot chocolate and coffee. We ate it outside on the deck. Then of course, the two of them hadn't seen Sagrada Familia yet, so I showed them the way and we did an abbreviated version of the exact same walk I had done by myself the day before.
Then we changed it up by heading to Las Ramblas instead of the old city. Las Ramblas is this incredibly busy street, with tons of live statues 
and street vendors selling everything from flowers to pet rabbits and birds.
You had to make sure to hold your bag shut, to avoid pick pockets. Rachel dropped a coin in one of the large statue bins, but refused to go in a picture with them so James and I did instead.
Then we branched off the street into this incredddible food market, with tons of fresh looking fruits, veggies, fish, meet, nuts, everything! They got a mango, but since we were headed to meet Julie and Graham for lunch by the water I made a note of the market and would return there to get supplies for our picnic dinner.
We passed by the monument for Cristoph Colomb (yay for the guy who nearly annihilated an entire race of indigenous people by disease and slavery), and then headed along the coastline to meet Graham and Julie for lunch. Julie was running late so we went to get food without her. We picked up some eats along the beach and sat outside to eat them. Then we walked to the far end of the beach to find Grahams friends. They weren't there, but we set up camp anyway. Julie never made it. The 4 of us tanned and observed. There were waaaaay more boobs out in the open than one is accustomed to in the US. Apparently no one wants any tan lines. To make matters worse, the high PDA level which I already discussed in my Madrid entry coupled with topless girls = what some might define as softcore porn right next to us. Hey, at least she got an even tan.
Rachel and James went off on their own and me and Graham stayed a bit longer and then went for a walk past Las Ramblas. I got to see more of the old city and his university, and a Spanish Starbucks. Then went back to that food market I had gone to earlier. I got ripped off at the entrance for a mango-4 euro for 1 mango which is like $8 for a piece of fruit. I was like Graham isn't this a lot for a mango? And he was like no, no it's a big mango. Then you walk past the entrance and all of the mangos are going for 1 euro to maybe 1.50 at most. Anyway I got a combo fruit salad and regular salad for less than the price of that one mango. At least it was delicious! All this food was for the picnic I was going to have with Rachel and James at Park Guell for the sunset.
Graham had to go back to his homestay for dinner and Rachel/James were running late, so I sat down in the same park with the pigeons from the day before and entertained myself by watching adolescent spanish kids interact. They seem like they do things so old for their age compared to our pre-teens. They are already smoking, wearing make up, drinking, PDA-ing with their boyfriends, and having dance-offs. By the time Rachel met up with me, the sun was setting and my tank-top and shorts were not keeping me warm. I was freeeeezing and had no more clothes--the thought of the sunset on a hill was not looking good. Instead we went and got wine for the picnic and they went to park guell, but I went the other way--back to the hostel. I really regret not going after seeing pictures--the park looks incredible. But I would have probably been too cold to enjoy it.
At the hostel I ate my picnic and took advantage of the gym access, waiting for the others to return. They had met up with a girl from their program and changed their minds about going out with Julie and her friends. So i met up with Julie, Graham, and friends with my wine and went to celebrate the birthday of a girl I'd never met.
Everyone I met from Julie's program was really nice and welcoming to me and Graham. Eventually we went from their apartment along the beach to go to a club (it felt like it took 3 days to get there!) whose name I forgot, but whose list we were all on for the party. They cut off entry right when we got to the front, so we went to the club next door. Graham must frequent this second club, because he was already on the list and we all got in. It was a really nice club, that was big and spacious with good music and effects. We danced for a long time until Graham got tired and left, and then I was with Julie and her friends. Meanwhile I met a friend of a friend of Julie's who is from the same area of New York as me. When Julie wanted to call it a night (it was only around 3am which is early on Barcelona/Spain time) I decided to stay with this friend of a friend and his friends.
It was these two boys and a female friend that was visiting them. We hung out at the club until about 5am and then left. We walked out of the club, took off our shoes, and went onto the beach. The beach was really relaxing at night. Turns out the girl who was visiting was studying abroad in Paris... on Sarah Tishler's program! Small world. We talked about that for awhile.
Then we all took a taxi to the kids' apartment. After a day where I was in the sun at the beach, worked out at the gym, didn't have any water with me (long story short, the first day I filled my bottle with the hostel's water and drank it, not knowing that it was recycled water and non-potable) and a bottle of wine, I nearly passed out from dehydration in their kitchen. After this fiasco, we sat in the kitchen talking and drinking water until about 7am, when I took the metro back to the hostel. Interesting night, but very very nice people.
The next morning I had only slept for 2 hours when we got up to get breakfast together--and this time the hot chocolate machine was broken! I was a mess, but had to make the most of my last half day in Barca. The three of us went to some outlying area where there was a bull fighting arena and then walked up the hill to a complex of sorts. There were incredible views of the city as you got higher up, and at the top was the old olympic stadium. It was a really cool stadium and HUGE.
We got to go into the soccer stadium where Spain's national football team still plays. 
After that we stumbled upon a reception for a good cause, I think AIDS, and then up to the botanic gardens, which we didn't enter,
and up and up and up to a castle at the top!
The castle also had a good view, and after we got there, I had to go to make sure I got to my plane in time (I was really nervous after missing the train home from Paris that Sunday). I walked down through the windy streets and just before I got on the metro, a waiter was standing outside his restaurant taking orders. I hadn't had some spanish paella yet, so I decided to risk being late and get some to go. It was funny ordering and trying to make sure I could get it quickly to go to the airport in spanish.
Eventually I got to the airport and enjoyed my super hot paella-- I had arrived more than 2 hours early and there was almost no line for security. Better safe than sorry? I had to empty my bottle to get through security though, so I asked a man at a restaurant to fill it. He only had hot water, like for tea, and this made a problem. He filled it all the way up and then you couldn't touch it, it is aluminum, so we couldnt get the cap on. He finally screwed it on while holding the bottle with 2 towels and put it in a plastic bag for me. Obviously I couldn't drink it and it was a hazard on the plane.
Anyway, long story short, I eventually took the plane, eventually took the train, and eventually got home.
Catalan Observations:
-Catan looks like spanish minus the last letter or two.
-Very "mature" teenagers.
-A lot of very expressive clothing styles.
-Good night life.
-Big fan of Gaudi's architecture.
-You can buy your pets from street vendors.
-Beachs are topless.
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