koala bears and calculators...oh my!

okay... so im gonna backtrack a bit to keep you guys updated....

during our time in Tarquina, emily and i started to crave a couple different foods we hadnt had in a while... cereal and milk...and chips and salsa. so we went to the grocery store to remedy this...we got cereal/milk..but it was interesting because in italy... EVERYTHING has chocolate in it...we literally found only like 2 cereals that didnt have chocolate in it.. we just wanted a good ole fruit and oats type cereal..so we found it and then looked for chips and salsa. we thought we found that and bought our groceries and went home to have dinner. the cereal and milk were great... then we moved on. oh yeah... we couldnt find tortilla chips so we thought potato chips would do. then we opened the salsa....to find out it was spaghetti sauce. the sad thing is...we ate it anyway. potato chips and spaghetti sauce for dinner. how strange is that. we felt a little sick afterwards. seriously...who eats chips and spaghetti sauce??

speaking of food in italy... MAN. do they not get sick of pizza and pasta and gelato?? sure... all those things are great..but for every meal?? every day? im seriously surprised everyone who lives there doesnt weigh 1000 pounds each with the kind of diet they are on. to quote elizabeth gilbert (eat,pray,love)...Italy is on a ¨"No Carbs Left Behind" diet. even breakfast...croissants and sugary breads and chocolate pastries. hasnt anyone ever heard of fruit??

as i said in my last post...we had a pretty crazy day yesterday. i think all the details would be boring..but the reason we had to spend a lot more money than we were planning... and what messed up part of our traveling and made it more hectic than it already was... was because on our train from Tarquina to Rome, we had a stop in this one town in between. Normally, the train stops for about 5 min at most to drop people off and to pick up new passengers. When we pulled up to the station, we could see there were HUNDREDS of people at the station waiting to get on (there are normally like... 5-10) and they were chanting and hollering and yelling.... we found out that they were a bunch of half naked drunk (hmmm im sensing some similarities in other italians we have come across on this trip) soccer (or ¨football¨) fanatics..trying to get to Rome for some big game. they RUSHED onto the train all at once (another thing ive noticed about europe...huge generalization here...but they do not understand the concept of forming a line...ever)anyway... they rushed onto the train without tickets and were being very wild and obnoxious and the train driver couldnt stop them all.sooo..... the train completely stopped. they had to call the police and wouldnt really give us any information as to when the train would be running again... we sat around for over 2 hours waiting... and then started to kinda freak out because... we had a plane to catch!! so... we ended getting a cab..and there were 8 of us TOTAL...to take us the rest of the way to rome...it was a little over an hour and it cost EACH of us 35€. yikes. an expense we didnt intend on...

so.. to spare you some of the boring details...a few trains and buses later. we were on a plane from Italy to Spain. the only international flight i have been on was from the US to Athens on Continental...so it was an american airline. This was a european airline and it was just funky. first of all, they sell things...all SORTS of things... from lottery tickets to stuffed koala bears to calculators....and every other electronic advice you can think of. Also, as soon as the plane hit the ground for the landing... the ENTIRE plane erupted in applause. ive never seen anything like it. do planes not normally make it back okay?? its not like it was even a rough flight or terribly delayed. then when they made the announcement that we were there everyone started cheering again. i couldnt stop laughing...pretty sure i was crying i was laughing so hard at this (think "two blue moons--PM" type laughing ellen, kristen, adam, dan and aubrey)...really...laughing like that was a nice relief when youve had a stressful day of traveling. man bus stops and metro lines later.... we made it to barcelona, checked into our school and made it to our apartment!

we are sooooooo happy with everything here! we love barcelona! we love our apartment! we love our roomates! we love our school! we love each other!

we are SO loving that we are staying in one place for 3 weeks with no more heavy backpacking daily :) Our roomates are super nice. both of them have been at the school for about 3 months each (wow!) One is from Sweden and the other is from Holland...i think its gonna work out nicely. em and i are sharing a room... and the other girls are sharing a room... we have a living room with couch and chair and tv, a dining room, a bathroom, a balcony, our bedroom... hopefully pictures will come soon! ALSO. praise the Lord above... we have a WASHING MACHINE!!! you may never understand how wonderful that seems when you have been wearing the same 5 shirts/pants every day for 2 weeks.oh and i must add that packing up a slightly wet towel into your things every day really helps the smell as well. Thank God for deodorant. i must say... emily and i have done really well on this trip as far as being low maintenance goes (not that either of us are anyway)...but i didnt think i would be able to live without my flat iron. not only have i not used that in almost 3 weeks... i havent used a hair dryer at all (thats right.. its just one big frizzy mess piled ontop of my head everyday)...and no makeup either... for almost 3 weeks. thats pretty good. i dont think i could handle a trip like this if i was one of those people who had to fix their hair and makeup everyday. thank goodness neither of us are.

sooooo... we had our first day of classes today!! we met at 8 this morning...for those who have had any spanish training...they went and took a placement test (thats what emily did) And those who didnt know anything (me) they put in a beginner class. they broke it into small classes...so my class only has 6 people total!! you either get placed in morning (9 am-1pm) or afternoon (3-7pm) classes. unfortunately...i am in the morning classes and emily is in the afternoon. she is going to try to get hers switched to the morning timeslot too so we can have the whole day to do stuff after school. she is actually in class right now as im typing this (free internet.. at school!!)

my classes went well! like i said, only 6 people were in my class...and its an intensive course...so they only speak to you in spanish and everything you say (well...you are supposed to) is in spanish. pretty overwhelming when you havent had any spanish!!but it was so good! i already feel like i learned a lot just today! it makes you learn and pay attention when thats all thats being said around you and you know you will have to talk in front of others. there are 4 germans in my class and one person from holland. and then me...the lone american. there arent too many americans here... actually, emily and i are the only ones that i know of. makes if fun to meet people from all over the place. thank goodness...no matter where people are from..it seems that everyone knows english (it makes me kind of embarrassed that it is ALL i know...when these people are learning spanish as their 3rd or 4th language). oh well...im trying! maybe soon i will start typing these blogs in spanish. hah.. probably not, but maybe i will be able to hold a pretty basic conversation after this is done :)

we are really impressed with the school so far...they seem to really take in interest in the students and providing a community feel. they have activities planned for every day of the week pretty much...so people can hang out and get to know one another. Tonight we have a "welcome dinner" for new students!

sorry this was a big long ramble... hope my style of typing (i kinda type how i talk) isnt too difficult to read and follow along. i think we will get our charger situation fixed soon... so hopefully pictures will come soon!

barcelona is just so cute. i dont think i had really any expectations of what it would be like... but we love it so far!