Si, si, si

After resting for most of the morning, my host mom and I went for a walk around noon. She showed me how to get to the University, which is only about a 15-20 minute walk. She pointed out a few good cafes to get bocadillos (sandwiches) after classes. We had lemonade and these little toasted bread things that had melted cheese or salmon on top in a cafe near the University. After that we walked around a little more and then we took the metro back home. On the metro, it's about five minutes from the apartment to the University.

When we got back home around 2pm, my host mom made an ensalada for lunch. Then we ate pan toastado, which is thick bread toasted with tomato and olive oil. And then she made this yummy soup with chicken broth and star-shaped pasta. And then she gave me this enormous piece of steak, which was very good, served with potato chips. After that she gave me a huge bowl of strawberries, topped with the biggest pile of whipped cream I had ever seen. At one point, I told her I was full and then she told me I was not full. So I kept eating.

My host mom is great, she is very sweet. I bet she feels like she's talking to a brick wall. I can understand a fair bit of what she is saying, but I just don't have the vocabulary to be able to produce a response. So I say "si... si..." to pretty much everything she says. Have to be careful with that though, because every once in a while she'll throw a question in, which usually needs a real response. The moral of the story is I'm really looking forward to classes, which begin on Monday, because I want to improve my Spanish.

After lunch we rested for a while and then went out to see more of the city. My host mom took me on a walk to see many of the big landmarks and famous streets so that I would get a sense of the city. Here are the three highlights of our afternoon walk:

1. Off the Ramblas, there is the biggest fresh food market I have ever seen. She told me that they have comidas de todas las países (food from every country) and it's true!! There were a lot of fruits and vegetables I had never seen or heard of and they had delicious smoothies.

2. We walked through the famous cathedral that Gaudí never finished. And still hasn't finished. There was a church service going on when we were in there. I think you can only get close if you're in the choir, so they show the priest on closed-circuit TVs. The cathedral is amazing inside and out.

3. Outside the cathedral, my host mom got really excited when she saw a big crowd of people and heard some music. I didn't know what she was talking about until we walked down and saw tons and tons of people dancing, holding hands in big circles. She explained that this is a traditional Catalan style of dance and then she told me to hold her jacket and she joined in. After the 15-piece band (see photo) finished the song, everyone cheered. She asked me if I wanted to learn and I said "¡si!" As mentioned above, that is my response to everything. When I got home, my host mom reminded me of the name of the style of dance so I could look it up. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iED6mW1n-qg&feature=related

Lastly, the title of my blog was true today on my very first day in Barcelona. Towards the end of our walk through the city, my host mom took me down this narrow street in the old part of town. She brought me to this restaurant that had a line out the door. When we were seated, she ordered without looking at the menu and 2 minutes later the waiter brought out a croissant covered with powdered sugar, a plate of little churros, and a cup of very viscous hot chocolate with about a baseball-sized dollop of whipped cream on top. We dunked pieces of the croissant and churro in the chocolate stuff and it was muy delicioso. Dessert first = all her idea.

Then we took the metro home and had tortolini for dinner and watched a movie in spanish. I'm pretty wiped out from having to pay 100% attention when people are speaking spanish and from travelling and to make matters worse, Spain decided that we should lose an hour of sleep tonight for daylight savings. Oh well, my internal clock was pretty messed up already, another hour is nothing. I think this means that I will be 6 hours ahead of eastern standard time.

Tomorrow I'm going to meet her daughters and granddaughters and meet up with some other Dartmouth kids on my program.

¡ Hasta luego !