Ramble On

     Have you ever traveled somewhere alone? I’m not talking a foreign country, just somewhere that you typically go everyday with other people. A restaurant, movie theater, for a walk, to a café, out shopping (but not the grocery store), or any other place that we typically go with company. If you haven’t, you should try it. It’s a freeing experience. Gives you a chance to prove to yourself that you can do it on your own and strengthen your self-confidence. It gives you lots of time with your own thoughts, and it might be fun to observe the people around you and analyze their behavior, but that may just be the psychology major in me. Try it and enjoy it!

     I have this tendency to wander around the city, locating interesting buildings from afar and finding my way towards them. I stumbled upon a wonderful three-story flea market because I like to walk everywhere I go. Encants Barcelona was very cool to stroll through. There are so many different vendors offering their unique products, from undergarments with crazy designs to wooden walking canes. Especially with the high costs of everything in Barcelona, Encants offers very good prices for the non-tourist. The bottom floor of the flea market is filled with vendors that have laid out their ‘junk’ to be searched through. While most of it is not something most people would purchase, there are some very interesting finds if you get lucky! I found out in my Spanish class that one of our field trips will be to Encants this upcoming Wednesday, and I am pretty excited about it.

     La Mercé is a five-day festival here in Barcelona. There is a complete program list for each day of the festival. Today, September 24, is the main day of the festivities, and is the reason that classes were cancelled. Concerts, parades, fireworks, a carnival, castells, and performances occur nearly every day until the wee hours of the morning (Spanish people stay up very late here in Barcelona). Castells are human towers. They are a long-standing tradition in Spain and usually incorporate generations of families. At the top of these castells, sometimes three-story-in-building-height towers, are the children, and these towers can be built up to 10 levels of people. It takes about 600 or more individuals to create some of the tallest towers!

A Castell.

     The crowds are huge at all of these events as they are located in the central parts of the city. I was able to watch fireworks on the beach over the Mediterranean Sea one night with a few friends in celebration of the beginning of the festivities. I also got a very yummy churro stuffed with Nutella. It was delicious and I will be eating all of my future churros with Nutella!

     Classes are in full swing. With a 19 credit course load, the homework keeps me busy. In countries outside of the United States, classes are less lecture and more so guided class discussions. We are expected to read lots of pages of selections by the professor and to come to class prepared to discuss what we have read. This is definitely a change from what I am used to. Especially as I am on the shyer side of life, it has been kicking my butt and forcing me to voice my own opinion, but that’s good for me.

     Tonight, I will be attending a cooking class to learn how to make a few Mediterranean/Catalan inspired dishes and postres (desserts). Hopefully I don’t burn the building down and can come back with a few tricks in the kitchen up my sleeve! I have a new page dedicated to pictures: it is located at the top of the page on the black bar next to the "home" button.

     Until next time, hasta luego!