~January 8, 2014~
A few quirky things I quickly came to realize about
the apartment/my room while trying to catch some shut eye during my first
night. #1 My room is EXTREMELY cold #2 When the metro passes underneath the
building the floor shakes and #3 Walls and paper thin here. I am sure there
will be more surprises as my experience continues. Needless to say, I needed
some caffeine and food pronto before the morning academic meeting. Luckily
there was a Starbucks (don’t judge my inner white girl) right on the corner of
the designated meeting spot so I got a Chai Tea Latte with a shot of espresso.
Nice kick start and I finally started to warm my core temp up too. The meetings
covered academics, housing, and the cultural excursions that were planned. In the
afternoon, there was a city bus tour organized for us that lasted for a couple
hours. We drove around Barcelona through several different areas and then up to
the top of Montjuic. The views were incredible and the tour made me that much
more interested and excited to go exploring on my own.
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| View of the city from Montjuic |
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| View of the magnificent port from Montjuic |
At the end of my ‘school day,’ I met Sam for dinner
right up the street from my apartment. We got a few different things to try: a
tapas sampler (patatas bravas, king prawns, croquettes, and prosciutto) as well
as paella, and veal with parmesan. Patatas bravas are a very popular item here
– they are lightly fried potatoes with a spicy cream sauce. Prawns are very
common being on the sea, but they always come fully dressed aka eyeballs, legs,
the whole shebang. Croquettes are little fried balls of shredded chicken more
or less. Prosciutto is well prosciutto. Spain, particularly the coastal region
is best known for paella. It originates from Valencia and consists of rice with
saffron and meat or seafood and vegetables. The veal parmesan was delicious but not what we expected. The thinly sliced pieces of meat were raw or possibly
cured (hard to tell and difficult to ask given the language barrier).
Nonetheless, it was good and we tried something new. We were absolutely stuffed
and stayed at the restaurant for several hours just relaxing.
Peace, Love & Happiness,
Nicole
XOXO
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