My Weekend

Today is Tuesday, March 13. March is going to be a very busy month for me, and it is already half way through. Last week, I spent a lot of time studying and reading. Although I don't have class on Tuesdays, I always find it more difficult to study on Tuesdays because I'm not forced to leave my apartment. I have been doing a lot of reading outside of the CIEE Study Center. There is a beautiful patio with a lot of sunshine. If I am ever having a rough day, I go read on the patio and it usually relaxes me. I have found that the worst days are when I am sitting in my apartment by myself. Even when I read, I need to go somewhere so that I am not lonely. 

This is the last week of my Catalan class. I will miss going to the class everyday, especially since I have met some very nice friends through the course. The class is made up of students from many different countries. Although we are trying to learn Catalan, the common language that we all speak is Spanish. Last night, I went out to dinner with my friends Flavia and Giulia to celebrate Giulia's Birthday. We went to a restaurant called La Bodegueta and ordered calamari, patatas bravas, a spinach croquette, and tomato bread. I ordered a glass of white wine, Giulia ordered a beer, and Flavia ordered a glass of Cava. I enjoyed the food and the company very much. We talked about the importance of exploring the world and traveling. Although I sometimes miss home here, I am so grateful for this opportunity and am completely in love with Barcelona. 

This weekend was very fun. Although I had plans to study for the majority of the weekend, my friends invited me to a science museum, and I didn't want to pass up the opportunity. All of the Americans met up at around 2:00 and walked to the museum. Then, when we got to the museum, we met up with Danni's Catalan friend Carol and her friend Marta.  

After we payed for admission, we headed down a giant ramp to get to the bottom floor of the museum. When we got to the bottom floor, we found a dinosaur exhibit. Being children at heart, we were all excited to explore. We took pictures with the dinosaurs and talked about how much we used to love Land Before Time.

After we left the dinosaur exhibit, we went upstairs to explore the rest of the museum. Danni and I wanted to take an IU picture. Go Hoosiers!

This device had several balls in a giant glass box. Each ball had one of the words from the opening line of Don Quijote written on it. Every time you pressed the button, the balls would scramble and show a different order of the words. I liked it because of the Don Quijote class I am taking.

This was the most intense sand box that I have seen in my entire life. Every time you pressed a button, air pressure would cause the sand to jump.

 

DNA!

 Cave woman!

Cave man with fish! Success!

One of the coolest things about the museum was the animal life. They had a huge tank with many large fish. One of the fist was even bigger than I am. There was also an are where you could walk around with some of the animals and get up close to them.

This is the skeleton of a bear. I thought it was funny because I have a friend named Bear in the Skulls Fraternity.

This is where we went to get patatas bravas. They were delicious, but I didn't think they were very spicy. I will probably take my parents here when they come to visit in eleven days.

Friday night, Alejandra's host mother was out of town and said that she could invite her friends over, so we all went to make dinner and watch a movie at her apartment. Her host mother is a fashion designer, so her apartment was very artsy. She had some of the clothing she is working on laying out and it is all very beautiful and unique. 

For dinner, we had tortellini, cheese, bread, chorizo, wine, and chocolate. I decided to sleep at Alejandra's apartment that night, so I fell asleep while everyone else was watching the movie.

The next day, I woke up around 11:00 and went to go see if Alejandra was awake. We ate cereal and yogurt for breakfast, and then we got ready to go to Beer Fest. Everyone else got to the apartment around 1:00, and we walked over to the festival. It was all outside, and there were beers from all over the world. My favorite beer was a Honey Orange Wheat Beer called Rouge from Oregon. I also had a Cranberry Stout which was very good.

After beer fest, we went back to Alejandra's, made up all of the leftovers, took a nap, and then went back to our apartments. I ate dinner with my family, read, talked to some friends from home, and then went to sleep. 

I spent Sunday studying and trying to get caught up in my classes. Yesterday in my Catalan class, our professor was asking us in Catalan what we think of certain people of the class. One of the guys said that he thinks I am very studious. I took that as a compliment. I am working hard to play hard here, and it is a great experience. To be honest, I am reading more here than I ever read in the United States, but I am also taking advantage of every possible opportunity. I am having a very balanced experience, and I am enjoying myself very much.

11 days until my parents come!