Espana

Friday

We arrived in Barcelona in the evening and immediately had a 3 hour walking tour.  Barcelona is nowhere near what I was expecting.  It's a huge city the size of Texas and the inhabitants do not consider themselves  part of Spain.  They are actually Catalonians and speak Catalon, a version of Spanish.  Our walking tour was more about architecture, so we visited the Sagrada Familia, a huge church in the city that is very important to it's citizens.  Afterwards, we went looking for food and I had my first authentic Spanish dinner of seafood paella and Sangria.  It was worth every penny.  Yum.

Saturday

We had a free day so I went around the city with a friend.  The first thing we did was a cable car tour, where you get an entire view of Barcelona.  That was great.  It takes you up to the top of a mountain where there is also a castle.  We walked around and looked at the view of the city and the ocean.  Beautiful.  Since Barcelona was not exactly my favorite  city, I just walked around the rest of the day and mentally prepared myself to go back to Cyprus and start classes!!  It was Barcelona day so there was a big celebration at night.  I saw fireworks from my balcony and one of the city's large towers was all lit up.

Sunday

We spent the day on planes, making our way back to Cyprus!  Yay!

Monday

This was my first day of classes!  I only had GLS classes (my program is called Global Learning Semesters and some of our classes are just in their building, not in the university).  My first class was Greek, and in two and a half hours we learned A LOT.  I feel really good about actually learning the native language now!  The big chunk of my day I spent grocery shopping.  I'm finally able to feel at home here now that we aren't traveling anymore and have time to get used to our surroundings.  The local grocery store is just a two minute walk and has a lot of local foods.  It's still somewhat frustrating to not be able to find certain things that I have become accustomed to at home, but I'm ready to embrace the culture!  At night I had my photography class, which I'm very excited for.

Tuesday

Today I had two classes, both in the university.  A lot more people have moved into our apartment complex since school started and we're all excited to meet some locals.  The classes are very different here but I feel like I will be able to make friends in my classes and also learn a lot and participate a lot, despite what I was expecting.  It was great to start classes!  Tomorrow is my first Greek quiz!