Bienvenido a Barcelona!

We had our official welcome party here in Barcelona last night.  My roommates and I went with our senora and a senora and three girls from our program who live around the corner.  I think we were supposed to have dinner there but there was definitely not enough food.  Every time a new plate of food would come out, there would be a stampede to grab whatever was on the plate and it was all gone in seconds.  Our senora was really cute though and kept on taking food for us and bringing it over to make sure that we had enough to eat.  Here is a picture of me, Sarah and our other roommate Dana.

After the welcome party, we went to a sangria bar with some other people from school called L'Ovella Negra (The Black Sheep).  It was this cool dungeon kind of place.  It looked really old and there was a wooden-beam ceiling.  Plus the sangria was muy bien!!

Another girl is coming to live with us for four weeks.  She arrives today, I think.  Our homestay family hosts girls from China who are coming to study here.  They stay in a homestay for four weeks while looking for an independent apartment and taking classes at a local university.  It seems like a cool idea!

My intensive Spanish class was really good today.  The three hours didn't seem too long and it gave me more confidence to speak Spanish.  This hasn't been much of an issue because I want to improve my Spanish but it was an extra push.  Instead of wandering around the bookstore today looking for my Spanish book, I asked someone where it was. 

Afterward, Sarah and I went to get lunch.  Here is a picture of the market:

There are so many stalls, as I mentioned yesterday.  Today I saw whole chickens and sheep-heads (with the eyes!!).  We were talking about Spanish food in my class today (my stomach was growling pretty loudly since it had been... about two and a half hours since I'd eaten) and our teacher told us that a traditional dish here is chuletas de cordero.  We don't speak a lot of English in class here so she started "bahhh-ing" to tell us what it was and then pointed to her ribs.  Things started clicking in my mind and I realized that I had eaten sheep's ribs over the weekend for dinner.

This is going to sound really bad but I got a tiny bit excited because even though the idea of eating a cute little sheep may not be that pleasant, I am glad that I have been eating the local food.  I don't know what half the meat I've eaten is (and maybe I don't really want to) but I will say that I enjoy being able to eat whatever food is given to me.  I don't love the taste of meat but it is nice not to have to ask if there's meat in a dish....

This afternoon, Sarah and I went down to the port.  Okay.  The water is a 15 minute walk from school!!  It's not a beach but I don't even mind (the beach is a bit further and I haven't been there yet).  I LOVE being on the water and it is so cool to be able to sit on a dock in the sun and look out at sea gulls and boats and get whiffs of the salt air and hear strains of music coming from some of the boats.