this weekend

this weekend has been awesome (shocker). yesterday i got up and jill and i went into to placa catalyuna to meet up with our friends lindsey, katie, and eda to go to la sagrada familia. it was pretty cool. the detail on it is ridiculous/awesome, but in my opinion, it was not worth the 8 euros (10 euros without the international student card which thank goodness i have). i mean, it is very pretty but again, in my opinion, not worth the money. so then, we got lost on the metro trying to get to parc guell (which is where all of the famous mosaics are). but we finally got there after stopping at a cafe to grab some lunch. it was absolutely beautiful. for me, seeing the mosaics was the one thing i really wanted to do in barcelona. one of my favorite movies, l'auberge espagnol, is set in barcelona and the main character goes there a few times. honetly, i was so happy/excited i teared up a little bit. i definitely plan on going back there (especially since it is FREE) to spend some more time looking around.

then today, a bunch of us went on a day trip to Tarragona, which was about an hour away by train. It was very interesting to me because there are a lot of roman ruins there and I am all about history, so I found it to be quite exciting. Christian, Sean, and I were the only ones that went to the ruins though. No one else wanted to pay to get in (even though it was less than 5 euros for entrance to every roman ruin, which there were many) so they went on and did their own thing. So we explored the ruins which was a lot of fun and again, very interesting. After that we met up with the rest of them for lunch, but we couldnt all decide on where to go so we split up again. My group ended up getting a little tour from this guy (we aren't sure what his real name is, but we decided he looked like a Louis) because he was trying to help us find a good place to eat. The first place would have been good but there was no seating. It was nice though because he knew the owner and was like, "These are good people, take care of them!" So then we followed him around Tarragona, looking for a place to eat. We finally found a place (without Louis) and just kind of chilled. We then went to look at the cathedral (which was pretty, large, and we weren't allowed in) and just walked around some more. After that, we all met up and headed home which is where I stayed tonight since I am exhausted from all of the walking I have done the last couple of days.

On a different note, I would like to reiterate how much I enjoy my living situation. My host mom is the best. The last few nights she has been teaching me different things in the kitchen (like the names of things) and then last night quizzed me and I pretty much aced it. She was impressed. She then started working with me on my numbers to work on my pronunciation and again she commented on how well I am doing and how quickly I am picking it up. I like to think of her as my personal Spanish coach, only without all of the yelling. And then this evening, we discussed food and cooking (she is an excellent cook) and she told me the names of more things (like a pot, the burners on the stove, a cutting board, etc) and said that if I want I can watch her cook stuff and she will definitely give me recipes. So, I am very pumped about that.

Thats pretty much all I've got for now, tomorrow is my last day before classes start on Monday. Here are the links to a couple more albums I have from this weekend. I am still working on putting them all on one website, but until then, this will have to do.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=46585042&l=761c0&id=6855160

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2496763&l=bbedb&id=6855160