I can dance the Sardana!

So the last few days have been absolutely fun filled and packed with La Mercè activities. Yesterday was manic – but amazing! We meet in the early morning with the plan to watch more events as the 24^th is the main day of celebration, however it started to absolutely poor down with rain – I bought a three euro umbrella but it meant that the “Castellers” or human towers were cancelled. After some yummy scrummy hot chocolate and a croissant we decided to go to a wine tasting event. However we got there and decided against the idea as it was a complete rip off; 10 euros for 6 tickets which may only mean 2 wines if you were to pick ones of good quality. So instead we went to a little grocery store and spent 17 euros on a bottle of red, white and a cava and sat drinking wine, eating cheese/bread/meat/pizza and listening to music at Adrian’s flat.

We then went to see the Virgin La Mercè before attempting to do the Sardana. It may look slow and boring but infact is extremely difficult and involves a lot of footwork! After multiple elderly Spanish people helping us we finally got the hang of it and decided that we quite like this Sardana-ing after all. :)

We then went to a jazz concert which was pretty cool before heading up to watch a couple of Catalan groups perform before Fangoria! Adrian and I decided to do the Sardana to all different types of music from electro to pop to rock and decided it is pretty darn cool – we even got invited to join a Sardana dance troop – result! We were also part of the most posh botellon ever – drinking cava at an open air concert. 

Fangoria was simply amazing – great dancing, great singing and absolutely amazing costumes – but who could expect anything else from the legendary Alaska. After this we went down to some more concerts, where Adrian taught me to do the Charleston before I finally turned in at about half five this morning.

Then up to watch the Castellers today, take a look at my photos – they were simply breath taking – the participants are so brave and well practiced, I would advise everyone to watch them, they are beautiful! The children who climb to the very top are tiny and resemble monkeys in their movements.

So now after composing this I shall relax, I start taking Catalan classes tomorrow, with my brand new dictionary :)

Adios!

La Merce begins...

So i began to compose this at 23.59, which could not be more at the end of my day. :) Today was packed full of things and was unbelievably fun. I had my first catalan telephone conversation to arrange a test, which I took later on this afternoon and then popped around the corner to the library to pick up my library card; geeky I know but they have a really good language learning section. After this I headed up and sat my test and was an entire level better than I thought which pleased me thoroughly :) So as of Monday I start taking 4 hours a week of catalan classes – molt bé!

I went straight from here to meet Adrian and Katie, we drank some Sangria and Cerveza before heading for the start of La Merce, a huge 4 day festival in Barcelona. There was amazing marching band music with giants, including a dragon which blew fire into the crowds, the dance of the devils with loads of fireworks and homage to kings and queens past with dancing giants. We then watched an amazing light show which was projected onto the town hall. Lemins and Pacman and pinball played out infront of us. It was stunning – I took photos but only wish I had filmed it.

We then went for a coffee before finally turning in for the night – it’s going to be a late night tomorrow and Saturday to celebrate this fiesta properly!

Fins demà  

What's a stone? It's 14 pounds... this is what happens when you meet an American :p

Today was absolutely AMAZING! (yes it requires capitalising). After setting up my Spanish bank account and making the transfer across from my English bank I went to the beach and sat reading my book, where a lovely old Spanish man gave me half of his cardboard to sit on. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it guys, it makes concrete much more comfy J After that I met up with Adrian and Katie, two other language assistants from Florida and New York  who were really nice and six hours soon disappeared, I also learnt that I do not understand American! “Hang a left” huh? Translates to turn left, lovely. Although I did educate the “colonials” in the wonders of how to pronounce words such as participle, wander, wonder, water... the list goes on. No they really were lovely and really interested in Catalan so we have founded the Catalan club. J I also taught them what a stone is (yes 14lb’s) as they did not have a clue what this was.

I got home, a little sunburnt... oopsie, and went out for tea with the Spanish to a lovely local tapas place, where I tried octopus – complete with tentacles and pigs ear! I wasn’t a fan of the latter, far too fatty but the octopus was nice, it tasted kind of like tinned salmon....

Anyway I’m keeping it short, my day was much more fun filled but I’m off to bed J zzzzzzz

xxx   

Una siesta es la cura para cada problema....

I HAVE AN NIE!! :) It took me almost five and a half hours of queuing but I finally have a piece of green paper that says I am allowed to be here, which I knew already but at least now I can set up my bank account and such. So after getting up at 6.30am to get to the comisaria for 7.30 to wait for it to open at 9 it was fair to say that by quarter to one when I eventually got the NIE I was pretty tired. You have to queue with ticket a for them to type some details on a form, which you then take to a bank and pay 10.20 euros then come back and queue with ticket B before you get it. Phew! Anyway after all this bureaucracy I needed some air, I drifted down la Rambla de Cataluna before deciding what I really needed was a true Spanish siesta. :) I popped home and slept passed out for a few hours before popping down to the supermarket for some stuff for tea.

I know not a very interesting day , but I do now have plans for the weekend, I’m going to go out and also see some bits of la merce with a couple of friends I made in all the epic queues. So at least the NIE has helped my social life, although that seems to be it’s only real use so far.....  

Hasta mañana :)

El problema de la tarjeta de NIE...

After Dan convincing me to Blog my adventures whilst on my year abroad I finally decided to sit down and write, so children, make sure you're all sitting nice and quietly... Let's begin!
Once upon a time.... I awoke upon my first morning in Barcelona, a lovely sunny day - much better than the torrential rain in which I arrived, leaving myself (and half of my suitcase) completed soaked. I’ll quickly fill you in on last night which was lovely, after being picked up from the airport by Nuri and Nando I unpacked and we went for a walk around alot of Barcelona before stopping off for “empanadas” which were delicious. And that was pretty much that.

So anyway, back to today – after reading in my official letters from the ministry of education that I can get my tarjeta de NIE (basically a national insurance card) from ANY, I’ll repeat that ANY police station I decided to get it sorted. So off I trot 10 minutes away on the metro to my nearest police station, where the police man tells me that in fact everyone has to go to one station, 45 minutes away... or only half an hour if I had already known this.. urg... oh well... let the fun begin.

After quickly popping home to work out my route I got to the former mentioned police station to encounter a horrifically long line, outside in the boiling heat;  but luckily I discover this is not the line I need because I live in the EU, so around to the much nicer foyer with seats and air-con. J I have my numero and wait for just over an hour to discover I must come back tomorrow at 7/8am, as my enquiry is no longer being served, my heart sunk, I panicked/felt upset/angry for all of ten seconds then sucked it up and went to enjoy the Catalan capital.

And boy was I glad that I did! Firstly I went to la pedrera, a gorgeous Gaudí apartment building, with such beautiful modernist features, the rooftop terrace was simply stunning, even if it does seem to have been inspired by a cheese dream....

I then continued my adventure by visiting La Sagrada Familiar, where I easily spent 2 or 3 hours in awe and wonder, I cannot even explain it, if a picture is worth a thousand words I have enough for a short novel, maybe even a trilogy of them.

I headed home, where I now sit on a very comfy sofa with my lovely flatmate/landlady watching Spanish tv, although that is definitely not something to write home about. J

I nearly forgot I ordered successfully at La Fleca today in Catalan – bonus points for me.

Besos y hasta manaña

x-x-x