poorly-organized thoughts

Classes started on Monday. Two of them are going to be fun and two of them are going to be lame. I'm really excited about my Mediterranean environment class because my professor is awesome and chill and is taking us on a trip to Girona! Excellent. Plus there is an interesting character w/ a mustache in that class who is friends w/ my friend Lisa and seems pretty sweet. We have to write a term paper w/ a partner and I hope to partner with him because (a) he is an environmental science major and (b) HE HAS A MUSTACHE.

The other class that I really like is my billion-hour-a-week Spanish class. My professor is nice and gives us interesting things to do in class. We speak a lot, which is exactly what I want to be doing. I am surprised that I'm one of the better students. No one here can speak. It's just Spanish, guys. It's pretty much the easiest language to learn. Anyway, that class is teensy bit of a bummer because I have homework every night and my first quiz tomorrow, but I think I'm going to get a lot out of it.

My art history class (with a focus on Barcelona) should be awesome, but my professor has thus far completely failed to make it at all interesting. And my literature class ("The Spanish Picaresque") sucks because it's full of English majors (read: faux-intellectual blowha). The professor is nice enough but asks really stupid questions like "What /is/ 'normal,' anyway?" Gag me.

In other news, all my apartmentmates decided to take classes at 8:30 in the morning (WHAT? THIS IS /STUDY ABROAD/. HONESTLY.), and on Monday they woke me up 2 hours before I needed to start getting ready. Luckily, Megan has a bag of the most amazing ear plugs ever and I've been sleeping well for the past couple nights.

(I am so excited for Aisling and Marjorie to get to Euroland. I cannot WAIT.)

Here is my tentative travel itinerary for my time "studying" abroad:
-January: Valencia, Spain (check); Terragona, Spain (check)
-February: Budapest, Hungary (if Marjorie is down)
-March: Girona, Spain; Paris, France; Amsterdam, Netherlands
-April: Prague, Czech Republic (if Aisling is down); then the cheapest flight I can find to anywhere -- probably to Rome, Italy or Dublin, Ireland

Some observations about Barcelona/Espana:
-All the Spaniards think it's freezing here. It's usually 55-60 degrees F.
-The street signs are on the sides of buildings. ¡Que dificil!
-The street corners aren't squared. I don't know how to explain it.
-"Vale, vale, vale, vale, vale, vale!"
-Spaniards <3 ham. They call ham and cheese sandwiches 'biquinis' or 'bikinis.' (<-- Only in Barcelona.) And their cheese (manchego, I think) is way better than ours.
-There are bars in the metro stations.
-I've only encountered one person who didn't speak any Castillian Spanish, and it was an 80-year-old man in a chess bar. But most of the signs on the street are in Catalan and so are a lot of the menus.
-The ladies wear boots a LOT (you know, because they think it's freezing), and they're really into wearing the same color boots as their tights or the same color boots as their pants. A monochromatic leg. I'm kind of into it.
-Rebajas/Rebaixes (Boxing Day sales) are about to end, so I bought an excellent shirt, some short boots, and a school bag (how did I forget to bring a bag big enough for books/notebooks?).
-H&Ms here have a lot more shoes, and they're pretty cheap (except for the boots).
-BB+ is the best bar in town.
-The bakeries are so, so, so, so appetizing.
-Tapas are kind of expensive.
-Everything is kind of expensive, except groceries and BB+.
-Women wear wedding rings on their right hand, men wear them on the left.
-Everyone has a balcony. There really aren't any houses at all in the city. Maybe, like, two.
-The average Spaniard dresses about 20x better than Americans do.
-Where I live is really, really sweet.


Every night for dinner, I eat diced tomatoes and zucchini simmered in white wine, garlic, and black pepper. Sometimes I add chick peas. It's delicious.

I can't think of anything more to say.