at home in the city.

benvingut! thats "welcome" in Catalan, the language that I am learning quickly to love and to hate.  if only i could actually pick it up, then, perhaps, i could understand the signs posted everywhere and what people everywhere were saying.  

i think that i might be starting to trick people... shaking this whole "stereotypical american" thing.  a club promoter on Las Ramblas asked if i was italian.  some kids the other day came up to me and asked "sabes donde esta un supermercado?" i think that i may just be getting the hang of this...

the city is beautiful, and i am absolutely in love with it.  yet being a pacific northwest girl through and through, i was starting to get a bit of cabin fever.  sure, seattle is a big city.  but you drive 30 min and you're smack dab in the middle of the cascades.  my friend amanda and i ventured off today to go park hunting and got much more than we had bargained for... we had seen on the map that there was a really big park a few blocks away from our school.  so we went walking... just walking.  we both forgot our maps (oops) and were just kind of making it up as we went.  we ended up finding the park alright... after trudging up hills that makes 6th ave. seem like a cake walk, and climbing more stairs than all of the spu campus combined, we reached the park.  the park turned out to be a giant hill, complete with switch-backs and some rough terrain, especially for my little feetsies, adorned in flip flops. so we hiked this hill.  and when we made it to the top, it was well worth it!  we made it to this look out, were you could see the entire city, all the way to the sea!  it was just exactly what i needed...

i have a cell phone now.  i went into the store on saturday afternoon to talk prices and such with the guy at the counter.  turns out, trying to figure out the most economical cell phone option while speaking a different language is not the easiest thing that i've ever done.  but he was patient, and i ended up legitimately getting the best deal.  score one for me.

just as i was beginning to feel this overwhelming sense of homesickness, the most unexpected of things completely shattered that feeling.  Saturday, i spent the day wandering with my friend jourdan, who by the way is quite wonderful.  in the afternoon, we wandered over to by where la universitat de barcelona was located.  in this big open square, i saw that there were maps and a turn table set up.  "theyre going to have a b boy battle!" we sat down and waited it out.  about 1o min later the guy at the turntable cranked up the jams and the dancing began.  lots of people gathered.  it was incredible... there was just something about hearing Run DMC, A Tribe Called Quest, Snoop and the rest of the homies that made me feel at home.  at that point, a guy mobbed by on a bright green and red fixie with a messenger bag and my heart just kicked back in its easy chair and the homesickness was no more.

well, amanda is on her way over, were going for a walk.  i start classes tomorrow, i'm super jazzed.  i signed up the other day for a winery tour and a bike tour through the city.  there are also some opportunities to do some volunteer work here and also, i just found out about the potential to do a four day exchange program with some students in morocco!  stoked, to say the least.  

hasta luego.