Second Week in Spain!

We have survived our second week in Spain, and things have started going better for us. A few of our classmates have become great friends of ours, we've found a few restaraunts with food naomi will eat, and, surprise, she tried something new the other day! (although, it was only because Jason convinced her it tasted liked potato cheese soup...). Jason is excelling at teaching, and is doing so well that our instuctors said they will be grading him harder than the rest of us newbies!



Last weekend we were able to see many of the great sights of Barcelona - Park Guell, Sagrada Familia, Plaza de Catalonia, and the "beach" (we didn't find the sand yet...just the boats and docks). Our next mission is to find a sand covered beach. We are adding a bunch of pictures of the things we've seen so far...enjoy!





We went to Park Guell - here is the view from the top:

The Sagrada Familia church - Gaudi's greatest masterpiece. It was breathtaking.

Another part of Park Guell - Gaudi designed this cave-like tunnel to represent the inside of an animal (like a Whale's stomach, I think...)

The benches were incredible - we were told they were all made from recycled mosaic tiles

Jason's favorite part of Park Guell - the dragon:

The rest are a combination of photos from Park Guell and Sagrada Famila...

Here we are with our new friends Jilly & Murray from Scottland:

And now some photo's of beautiful buildings we found...

We tried to go to the beach...but didn't find any sand :(

An official Spanish Boqueria!

Another highlight (although it is a bit sad how crammed the animals were)...pet shops! tons and tons of them just on the street. birds, guiney pigs, ferrets, and these cute little squirrel mouse creatures...

And a few photos of us...

The fountains at Plaza de Catalunia (the main square)...a snapshot of us in the miniature elevator...the ferrets...a group shot with some of our classmates...

OH! The funny street performers...

And a video from Park Guell - I thought it was the best way for you to really understand how incredible it is. And musicians were performing to top it off.

The Arrival to Barcelona

We made it to Barcelona! Although we've been off to a somewhat rocky start, we're thrilled to begin this new adventure.

A few of the good things:
our apartment is next door to the only grocery store we've seen yet...we're less than a block away from the metro...we've already seen three of Gaudi's amazing buildings...we haven't been mugged...roommates are nice (two Persian girls and one Japanese girl...lucky Jason!)...we've already started learing how to get around using the metro...it's funny seeing how much the Spaniards love American things like "FlinTstones" and Mickey Mouse and American surf brands of clothes (although they are twice as expensive - Jason was considering buying some Quicksilver board shorts but did not feel like giving up $100)...our airport pickup taxi waited an hour and a half for us and we didn't have to pay any extra (we were super late thanks to waiting in line to register our lost luggage)...at London's Heathrow Airport there were gummy snakes instead of gummy worms (that's obviously Jason's "good thing" haha)...

A few of the not so good things:
missed our connecting flight (thanks to Naomi leaving a water bottle in her carry-on and the London security taking their sweet time to give us clearance)...Heathrow airport forgot to send our luggage...had to wear the same disgusting clothes for three days (Naomi wised-up and went shopping, Jason, on the other hand, still looks like a bum)...Naomi getting mistaken for a "sir" on the airplane (Naomi questioning her new short "pixie" hair cut)...almost getting ripped off at our first store (when Naomi finally bought her new clothes, they charged us twice for two of the three items...fortunately Jason noticed she was up to something and made her refund us for the charges)...everything takes forever (really missing american efficiency)...maximum six items in the dressing room means "go back in line with the next six", not "I'll hold the rest and you can switch them out"... the only internet we can find is at McDonalds...food portions are much smaller (or maybe that's a good thing?)...our kitties are not here...

Wow...it must appear as if we have had a lot more bad experiences than good, but it just happened that they made for a funnier blog. All in all, we are so grateful to be here. The weather is amazing (some may consider it on the hot side, but we like it that way...especially in the evenings when everyone eats out on patio tables on the street and the breeze is incredible). We are enjoying public transportation and walking everywhere. We are already adjusted to the time change - we slept 12 hours our first night! Although there's lots of weird food, there's also pizza everywhere (Naomi won't starve...she just might put on a few LB's...haha). OK! more to come later...we love and miss you all!