Life Update: Week 2 and 3 of classes

Classes were pretty boring still. I love the second class that I have, Cultura y Civilizacion. We are learning cool things in that class, and Maria, the teacher, is awesome. One of our conversations had to do with Don Simon, the 2 Euro boxed wine that she told us never to drink. Its also the same wine some people drank in Barcelona since it was only 2 Euros. She went on a whole rant about it when it had just started talking about the wine industry and such. My first class we are learning new things yes but at the same time I don't respect the teacher as a teacher at all and cannot wait to be out of that class. We did have a class day where we taught the teacher the Billy la Bufanda song, which probably is our theme song now and the Vamos a la playa song.

My volunteering is going better. One of the volunteers/workers speaks English and finally explained to me that everyone there speaks Gallego and that's why I don't understand anything. I mean he could have just explained it in Spanish if he wanted but for some reason he wanted to speak in English. He also told me that he doesn't always understand everything either, even though he can speak Gallego, so now I don't feel bad for fake understanding the people with Azheimer's when they start telling stories to me. He also told me that all the workers thought I was from the UK, which I already knew and was just going with because they didn't really care. I cleared the air when he point blank asked me where I was from though.

My internship is starting to get a little frustrating. We have a book club as part of the internship, which I'm thrilled with because a book club in Spanish, but at the same time I don't have a lot of time to read a book every week considering we are kept so busy. I don't even get a lot of free time to myself, and I crave free time like none other. I also don't like that I have to buy a book every week for my internship? That just seems rather ridiculous. The rest of my internship wasn't that bad I guess. I enjoy working with the people but some things are just slightly annoying about it. We have meetings for our internships next week though so hopefully we will be told we aren't required to buy books and read them for our internship. 

During these last two weeks, my host mom had surgery on her hand, which I suspect she has something like carpal tunnel so #twinning. I got to watch the adorableness of her son taking care of her and let me tell you, it was so cute. Three French girls stayed at our apartment for a couple days before the surgery and then disappeared the day before the surgery happened. I didn't really chat with them must because they only spoke French around me. Things at the apartment are going great. My host mom and I are chatting a lot more now, I'm pretty sure she has felt out my awkwardness and now is combatting it for me. She will let me finish eating my food, which I'm pretty sure she just knows I hate talking while eating, and then she starts a conversation with me after that. She also moves dinner into the living room to watch tv while eating quite frequently so we would just sit and watch tv together. One of the things she stressed was that I don't have to go out if I don't want to go out. I can just hang out with her and its no big deal. She knows I don't drink and she made sure I knew that I didn't have to drink. Apparently I'm a lot like either her daughter or some other young person in her family because I don't like going out. I like hanging out with her so its great on the nights she's around. She works late some days so we don't always get to eat dinner and hang out together. Home life is good though.

Alcoholic Ears

Warning: This is basically my complaining post

Barcelona bar crawling was always interesting the two times we went. I quite enjoyed the first night, hanging out with some new peoples. There was a Vincent from Canada who was hilarious and nice. Lots of Australians seem to travel in Spain, someone told me lots of Australians are always in Spain and Europe so I'm not making that up. I chatted with a few nice Aussies and a few nice French guys too.
So the first night was Tapas night, I probably already said something about that but my group started the night out with drinking there. We had a nice chat with some siblings from Madrid who were on holiday. The lady was actually a social worker in Madrid. They taught us some Spanish words that were fun to say and we taught them some English words. We taught them what Shady was, which was hilarious watching one of the guys explain it. His Spanish gets better as he drinks let me tell you. Shots were done and wine was drunk, not by me since I don't drink, but then it was time for the bar crawl aspect! At the first bar I met a girl named Ray, who was awesome, from South Korea I believe she said. We also chatted with the French guys a lot at the first bar. Then we went onto the club where things got slightly hectic. One of the girls in our groups started making out with one of the Aussies and Timothy was busting the moves, in his bee costume for Carnaval. Vincent told us the club was rather sucky and after awhile we all decided to leave, especially since Ray was falling asleep in the club. She literally was sleeping on a bench for awhile before we decided to leave.
Finding our way back to the hostel was interesting since Gerald, the Argentinian  wanted to take the metro and we just wanted to get there as fast as possible. Mind you the metro would have been fast, but we are also cheap. With the help of Steph, Vincent, and Timothy's phone, Sober Mildred was put in charge of getting everyone back to the hostel. It wasn't that hard to do either since Vincent knew what road we needed to walk up and Timothy's phone just disagreed with him completely. Sober Mildred trusted NotSoSober Vincent and disregarded the phone's directions (though she did make sure that it didn't matter which road they went up first, and since the road Vincent wanted and the road Timothy wanted were parallel to each other it didn't matter). Then we all sat in the kitchen of the hostel for an hour or so to chat, which was fun as well. (Okay they were working on sobering up but same thing).
So the second night wasn't as great. Our friends we made the first night weren't really interested in going out the second night. Some of them had to wake up early to head out the next day and they weren't willing to not sleep. The Aussies didn't go out that night and neither did the French guys. We met a different French guy, a guy from California, and two Ireland girls on the second night. I had a nice chat with the French guy at the bar we went to but he was definitely a partier. At the club, I was not having a good time at all. It was a richy club and we had said we were only going to be there for a little bit but of course by then everyone had drank too much and wanted to stay longer. I just sat on a comfy bench thing while they all danced out on the dance floor. By this time my ears were starting to bother me, probably because it was super loud in the clubs and bars plus my allergies probably weren't happy with the hostel. I could feel pain whenever someone talked to me at the club because they had to yell into my ear and man did that hurt. The second night we went home before Vincent wanted to and we relied on NotSoSoberSteph and Sober Mildred who was in an extremely bad mood. Some of the people in our group had drunk too much, okay all of them except Steph, and they were talking too loud and singing. One of them was sick and had decided it was a good idea to make out with someone on the dance floor while they were sick. All of it was just adding to Sober Mildred's bad mood so she went straight upstairs when she got back to the hostel.
On the third night, Sober Mildred was still in a not so great mood. It was not a good night. Sangria night at the hostel meant everyone paid 3 Euros or something for all they could drink Sangria. One of our group claimed she was being the mom, and was encouraging everyone to keep drinking long after they should have stopped. The third night didn't start out bad since I was talking to the French guys at first but then the drunks of my group interrupted the conversation and it just went downhill from there. The French guys were hilarious because they were purposefully speaking in English and busting out laughing because it was so funny to them that they were doing it. I quite enjoyed their antics since I got to understand the conversation and it was hilarious that they found the language they were speaking in hilarious. I mean, they were speaking to each other so why wouldn't it be funny right? Who speaks a different language to someone that speaks your native language? So one of the drunks drank from an Aussie's shoe, which was ridiculous. The mom made out with another guy when she was still slightly sick. And basically I was just done with them all so I left. Steph and I went to the bus station to head to the airport without them and let the drunks make their own way there because we couldn't handle their drunk attitudes anymore. After Steph and I left, someone's phone went in the toilet and someone's phone either got stolen or was lost. So we almost made it out of Barcelona without having any incidents and then two phones became victims.


On the plane, I slept about the whole way until the last 30 minutes or so of the flight. Then by that time I needed to get the fuck off the plane. My ear was ready to implode let me tell you, better known as perforate but you know. By the time we made it to the ground, I was in excruciating pain and couldn't hear out of my hell ear (right ear). It took about a week for my ear to recover from the plane ride and loud noises and allergies. I could have perforated without realizing it on the plane, but I have no clue. I thought I was going to get an ear infection, was pregaming one for a week after all, but it never became a full blown ear infection, thank god cause then I really would have perforated. Also pregaming is pretty painful without an ear infection. So yeah my ears are a piece of shit and I'm slightly terrified of flying again now.

Barcelona Adventures Part 3

So on the last day of our Barcelona trip, we woke up in time to check out and hit the road for the day. We got to leave our bags and such at the hostel until 11pm, which worked out fine for us since we were just going to go to the airport at the end of the day anyway to make sure we didn't miss the bus. Our first stop of the day was the Olympic Park where guess what? The Olympics were held there once! It was a beautiful park and definitely worth the trip, however I don't have many pictures to show since some people haven't uploaded their pictures yet! You'll just have to go to the park to see the cool stuff!

Photo Cred: Mary
Sleeping child

So the night before, Timothy obviously partied too hard and decided to take a nap in the park when we stopped to have our lunch. My lunch was kinda terrible, like it tasted pretty good but the bread wasn't super fresh so after awhile the roof of my mouth was killing me from the roughness of the bread.

Photo Cred: Margaret

Photo Cred: Margaret

In this park, waterfalls were everywhere. It was awesome, like please give me more water sort of deal. So yeah the park was great. After the park, we split up since some people wanted to do some things and Steph needed to go back to the Sagrada Familia area. So Steph and I took the metro to Sagrada Familia, however we didn't make it all the way there before I had to get off for a bit. We hadn't had a lot of water that day, and by that I mean I didn't have anything to drink that day, and the metro makes me feel super motion sick, especially since we were standing. I thought I was gonna vomit before the next stop we got to, so we got to sit at a metro stop for a bit and the stop we had to get to to change train's I made sure I bought water immediately. It wasn't the cheapest water, but I needed it so had to do it.
After we did what Steph needed to do, which was just get a name on a jersey in case you're thinking I'm being suspicious, we went and got some gelato. It was yummy, like most gelato and then we walked to the beach. It was a really far walk, but totally worth it when we got to the ocean and sat watching the waves. I am such a sucker for the ocean. Though technically we were at the Mediterranean Sea, though that also may be wrong since google maps claims Barcelona is near the Balearic Sea. It's all connected though so I don't think it really matters what I call it! Once we were done chilling there for awhile, we took the metro back to the hostel area and had dinner at some restaurant near there. I made dinner last a super long time since we had a super long time until we had to get back to the hostel to pick up our stuff, except then we connected to wifi and found out everyone was already at the hostel.
We headed to the hostel and the rest of that will be in the bar crawl post!

Around 11:30 or so, Steph and I headed to the bus station to get to the airport. We found a spot on the floor in the airport to sleep and watch She's the Man. Around 5am we went through security and got on our plane close to 6:10ish.

Barcelona Adventures Part 2

Photo Cred: Mary... I think

Sagrada Familia

On Sunday the 6th, we went to Sagrada Familia. It's one of Gaudi's designs and has been in the process of being built since forever ago, as in construction started in 1882 according to wiki. The building is supposed to be done being built in 2026 and already is super gorgeous. We were only allowed on the main floor since the construction was going on, but it was still definitely worth it. I loved all the stain glass that there was. Also, Gaudi invented the elevator apparently, because there was an elevator there and Gaudi did design the building. Call me silly, but I'm pretty sure they are following his plan so he had to have invented it!

Photo Cred: Morgana
Outside Sagrada Familia

So all of the windows that Sagrada Familia had were stain glass basically and if you know me, I really like stain glass. All the colors and how they are lit up by the sun is wonderful. Since Barcelona hasn't had rain in over 80 days or something like that (its been a really really long time since they've had rain), the sun was shining brilliantly on the day that we were there so the windows were better than a rainy day would have had to offer us. 

Photo Cred: Mary
Gaudi: Inventor of Stain glass too?

Sagrada Familia also had a museum and a little schoolhouse to check out. The schoolhouse was adorable and apparently Gaudi was ahead of his time when he designed it too. I have no clue why, I just remember reading that on a sign. It probably was because he invented the heater that was in the schoolhouse. 

Once we were done with Sagrada Familia, we had to hussle (we didn't really) over to the Picasso Museum because it was free on the first Sunday of every month. On our way over to the museum, we found a cool park that had an Arch. 

Photo Cred: Timothy
Arc de Triomf

Behind that Arch is a park where we witnessed a street dancer dressed as Michael Jackson something some dancing moves and such. Then farther into the park there was also a zoo but we didn't make it to the zoo since we wanted to go to the Picasso Museum. Obviously I couldn't take pictures of paintings that I could easily find on the internet. It makes a lot of sense to me as to why people can't take pictures of paintings anymore. I can find all the pictures on the internet anyway, not that I really wanted to take pictures of the paintings. I was super bored by that time and ready to leave to be perfectly honest. The paintings were amazing but I don't take half a century to look at art, ya know what I'm saying? I enjoyed it at my pace, which was also Steph's pace, and then we took off and headed back to the hostel. 

One of the pictures that we saw at the museum I went through the trouble of finding on the internet for you all, because I don't understand it at all. So have fun examining this drawing Pablo Picasso did.

Photo Cred: Google
What happens when you google "Picasso+fish+woman

We had frozen pizza for dinner that night and then went on a bar crawl with the hostel again!

Barcelona Adventures Part 1

Photo Cred: Morgan
Our first 5 minutes of Barcelona, we obviously needed sunglasses

Photo Cred: Morgan's Phone no clue who took it

Alright so now that I'm done gushing over the hostel (Sant Jordi Hostels Rock Palace), I'll tell you what we did! So on Day 1 of Barcelona Adventures, which was Saturday Feb 6th in case someone forgot, we went to Parc Guell (after the hostel front desk guy gave us very specific and easy directions, a map, and advice on how to get there #supersuperhelpful #stillgushingabouthostel)

Photo Cred: Marge

Parc Guell was beautiful and also a must see. We did the free version of the Parc because who pays to see a park? I'm sure the inside of the park was cool, but we weren't planning on spending the money on it. So we walked around Parc Guell. There was a slight hill to climb (basically a mountain but the path was super sloped so it was k). At the top of the slight hill stood a rock structure that had three crosses on it. I have no clue why they were there but they were a great place to take a picture of Barcelona. We could see everything from there.

Photo Cred: Mary
The rock structure on top of the slight hill

Photo Cred: Mary
The view from on top of the slight hill

The pictures really don't do Parc Guell justice, but whatever we tried! Well I didn't try because I forgot my camera (Abigail's camera) in Santiago. To be fair though, I have yet to use the camera on this trip and just mooch off everyone else's photos. It's just so much easier to grab their photos than take photos. I get more soaking in the view time with mooching off their photos after all.

Photo Cred: Mary
Unthrilled Mary

On the way back down from the mountain climbing, Mary was not amused with our climbing a wall and sitting on it. She couldn't see the one story drop behind us (that may have been a two story drop) so she didn't know it was perfectly safe for us rebels to have jumped up there.

Well after Parc Guell we went back to Sant Jordi Hostels Rock Palace (I'm just going to keep saying the name so you get how much I enjoyed my stay there). Right next door there was a 24 hour food store so we bought spaghetti noodles and used the amazing kitchen for dinner since we didn't really want to do tapas that night. We made some friends while we were there, chatted people up, all that fun stuff. Around 10:30 we returned to the kitchen are, since we didn't stay there in case we were in the way of tapas, and the drinking began. I mean they started drinking with tapas, but the people in my group started drinking with people at that time. They probably were drinking the boxed wine way before then though, I don't remember that much.
We went on the bar crawl and clubbing after that!

The Schematics of Barcelona: The Hostel

Saturday, Feb 6th (Don't ask me what Schematics means in this sentence, it just sounded nice. Like I know what it means but if it doesn't make sense in this sentence its cause I'm a Mildred).
I woke up bright and early (6am before it was even bright out) in order to get to the bus stop on time for my morning  flight to Barcelona. So blah blah blah flew there, no ear problems, which is always good. blah blah blah took an aerobus into Barcelona to plaza cataloyna or something like that. It was gorgeous there and the view from the bus and just everything really. Barcelona is just a gorgeous place that I highly recommend.
So we stayed at Sant Jordi Hostels Rock Palace for 2 days. Amazing Hostel, I highly recommend going to that hostel if you are ever going to Barcelona. In fact I linked the name so you can easily book a room there that's how serious I am about the amazingness of the hostel. The staff there is just amazing, ready and willing to help whenever its needed. The only thing I didn't like about the hostel was the lights and that was literally just me wanting them off during the day because save the environment please. At the Hostel all the staff that I talked to could speak English so we didn't have any miscommunication. Basically this hostel probably spoiled all other hostels for us in the future, but it was so worth being spoiled. The hostel has its own events every day that people can participate in. The first night we were there they had a Tapas night, the second was a Pasta night and the night we just kinda creeped on the hostel (to be explained in a different post) was Sangria night. After they have their "in hostel" event they also take everyone who wants to go on a "bar crawl", taking people to one bar and one club with free admittance to both places.

Photo Cred: Sant Jordi Hostels Rock Palace Website (linked above)
The bedroom

The hostel room we stayed in was a 8 person room with 7 people from our group and one random person. Basically Timothy got to sleep with 7 girls. One of my favorite quotes from setting up this trip was when Timothy was asked if he was okay with sleeping with 6 girls. Everyone had their own bed don't worry. Each bed as you can see has a green panel which is a little nightstand really where you can put stuff place your own charging station and light. Our room was super secure because while there was a balcony, you had to have the front desk unlock the balcony for you and they would relock all balconies every night. The room was also super secure for leaving personal, such as passports which the hostel specifically told us not to be walking around with. In order to get to our room, you had to use the key card at the front door, then at our room door, and then our valuables were locked in a locker that you had to use the key card to open. It was very secure and safe feeling in the hostel. 

I really feel like I'm bragging about how great this hostel is, but you have to understand, this hostel was really great, way better than I expected. I've had past hostel experiences that were never as nice as this one so I wasn't expecting much but this was superb and if I ever went back to Barcelona it would be the place I stay at. In fact, I love this hostel so much this is just gonna be a post about the hostel now! 

Sant Jordi Rock Palace had basically everything you could need. There was a computer lab, a pool (which was closed because Spain is in winter time right now (don't laugh too hard at that....its hilarious though) and the pool was on the room), a fully stocked kitchen (which was amazing to use), and a chill area to name a few. Okay there were multiple chill areas, but we really only used the one in the basement next to the kitchen where all the night events took place since we weren't really in the hostel during the day. 

Also fun fact, the maximum group size that I could possibly book at Sant Jordi Rock Palace is 140 people. How cool is that?

So yeah Sant Jordi Rock Palace is a must stay at place! 

Life Update: First Week of Classes

Well I have to admit, classes have so far not met my expectations. I admit to having really high expectations too since I have had Spanish classes abroad before. This is a heck of a lot more boring though. Right now everyone in my class is probably at about the same level, however we are being taught at a lower level. Sure we get to talk more and all, but its so easy that I am super bored. I hate easy classes (dumb American schooling system ruined me). I need a challenge but not like a super challenge. But anyhoo since we are all at the same level, hopefully we can get the class sped up a bit and the teacher will get on our level so we don't have to be on her level.
My internship, which I started Monday and had twice during the first week, is pretty interesting. On Monday they have a skills building day and a book club. Both of which the individuals (who knows what they call em here so falling back on REM speak) speak Gallego. You may not know what Gallego is, but its the language of Galicia which is the state of Spain I am living in this semester. I don't know if I've mentioned it before. Gallego is a mix of Spanish and Portuguese and I do not understand it. So Monday I was mostly thinking "what the fuck is going on right now". Thursday was a lot better though! Thursday was movie and discussion day with dance class after that.

La tierra nadie because we watched it in Spanish

The movie was super confusing to Mary and I because we both thought it took place during a World War. The entire movie I was thinking, "Why the fuck is the United Nations a thing right now and why are they in no man's land during a world war." I was super confused until the end when Carlos, our boss, informed us that we had it all wrong and it was some war, the Yugoslavia one maybe if that's a thing. I have no clue! It was about a war though but not a war movie! The reason they watched it at my internship place, which by the way is a place for people with mental disabilities to go and build skills basically if you hadn't caught that, was to show the miscommunication going on. Basically the whole movie was about miscommunication since no one understood anyone else with all the different languages going on.

After the movie we had dance class (okay there was an hour break but meh). For dance class you literally just gotta dance whatever and chat with your dance partner, you know skill building exercises. I obviously need these exercises too so its probably a good thing. Not to boast or anything, but my boss and I danced the Beauty and the Beast ballroom dance to some random music. Someday I might get used to the Spanish personal space bubble that doesn't exist, but Thursday was not that day! 

Except I was looking at the ground the whole time lol

So on Tuesday, I had my volunteering. I can't exactly say it went well. Only the office knew I was coming and then I was super overwhelmed with all the Spanish and talking and stuff that I just wasn't comprehending anything. I also had a super bad headache that day so basically was worthless at that time. Anyhoo, they thought I was dumb as hell and couldn't speak Spanish basically at all. I just sat awkwardly watching people do stuff. Oh and my volunteering is with people with alzheimer's in case you didn't know.

Wednesday night we had an outing provided by the school where we ate chocolate churros. I didn't really want them but tried them and I can still say I dislike chocolate and churros and when they are together too. We also had an outing to meet our godparents who are like slightly older than us. I have no clue why they are called godparents, especially since I don't even remember their names. They were part of ENS which I still need to sign up for. I such at getting shit ton apparently. 

On Thursday we went out after dancing too! Woo party. Before I could go I had to eat though and that was really eefing hard to do because it was just one of those nights where it was like "NO IM NOT HUNGRY GTFO" plus the food was super salty so it was super hard to eat. Anyhoo we "partied". Met a guy from South Africa and another from Britain. They were both great and hilarious to chat with. Returned to the apartment at like 230am, almost a Spanish person I tell ya! I just need to add a few more hours to that....

ON FRIDAY! We had a mini class celebration of Carnaval which is the local holiday that happens over the weekend/Monday/Tuesday. It literally is like a week long Halloween celebration in Spain without the candy but with the costumes. So I dressed in typical Mildred style clothes for it, because thats not allowed on most days ya know. It was kinda boring but kinda hilarious I guess?

So yeah that was my first week of classes <.<

Photo Cred: Eun Gil Jo or Christian (facebook told me so)
Our Costumes: 3 bees, a sailor, and idk what everyone else was