I seriously can not believe that I have already been here for two weeks now! Time is flying by it is so crazy. The picture above I took while hiking the old bunkers at Mt. Carmel. It has the only 360 view of the city. Everything here is just so breathtakingly beautiful. Sorry I haven't blogged in awhile I have been so busy enjoying myself!
Saturday was spent on this hike and catching up on sleep from all the excitement from Friday and the independence day parade. I put more pictures up from the hike on facebook if you would like to see them (:
Sunday I went to this really cool science museum. Its called CosmoCaixa and I was astounded that it only cost 4 euros for entry. Nothing like museums at home. This museum was huge and had my favorite type of exhibits, hands on! You got to touch a lot of things to see how they worked or press a button to change something in an environment. It was really cool. Then they had an indoor rainforest exhibit that was mostly an aquarium. Of course all the fish looked like they could eat me, and wanted to! YUCK! My favorite part of the exhibit is that it actually rained periodically to stimulate the natural habitat, it was raining inside!! Then Sunday night I was really happy to be able to watch the Bills home opener even though the quality was sub par. It was really nice especially getting to see a bit of home, and the fact that they won doesnt hurt!
Monday I started my first day of intensive language classes. They are every day for the next two weeks Mon-Fri from 930am-130pm. I started them off by having to go in at 830 in the morning and take a proficiency test, written and oral. It was a lot for that early in the morning and was a bit harder than I was expecting. I think I was put in the right class though because I can understand what is going on but at the same time I am being challenged. Ending at 130 really doesn't give me much time at my internship. I go to my internship from 230-430 so I have time to get there and eat lunch in between. As I was approaching the school I got crazy butterflies because all I could hear was screaming and loud children, quite intimidating. Then I had my first class, everyone went around and introduced themselves the usual name age and favorite hobby. Then we went over the syllabus and it was funny to be on the other side of the classroom as I watched about 3 students struggle to keep their eyes open. I laughed because I know exactly how they feel.
Tuesday was the same as Monday but this time at my internship I had a younger class and they worked in groups on a worksheet. They were excited to have me in the classroom, being from America makes me kind of a celebrity in their eyes, which I don't mind (: I had a little trouble at first answering their questions because I wasn't a hundred percent sure what the worksheet even said because it was written in Catalan but they were happy to be my translators and together we figured it out.
I am writing this now on Wednesday because I just got out of my Spanish class but unfortunately couldn't go to my internship because the students don't have afternoon classes on Wednesdays or Fridays. I am about to go eat some delicious tapas with Cat, a friend of mine from the good old Case Western days. She's backpacking around Europe for 5 weeks and stopped in on me in Barcelona!
Also ONE WEEK UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!
and then after that one week until Mom, Aunt Ellen, and Aunt Sue come!! I cant wait to show them around
ciao for now!
Saturday was spent on this hike and catching up on sleep from all the excitement from Friday and the independence day parade. I put more pictures up from the hike on facebook if you would like to see them (:
Sunday I went to this really cool science museum. Its called CosmoCaixa and I was astounded that it only cost 4 euros for entry. Nothing like museums at home. This museum was huge and had my favorite type of exhibits, hands on! You got to touch a lot of things to see how they worked or press a button to change something in an environment. It was really cool. Then they had an indoor rainforest exhibit that was mostly an aquarium. Of course all the fish looked like they could eat me, and wanted to! YUCK! My favorite part of the exhibit is that it actually rained periodically to stimulate the natural habitat, it was raining inside!! Then Sunday night I was really happy to be able to watch the Bills home opener even though the quality was sub par. It was really nice especially getting to see a bit of home, and the fact that they won doesnt hurt!
Monday I started my first day of intensive language classes. They are every day for the next two weeks Mon-Fri from 930am-130pm. I started them off by having to go in at 830 in the morning and take a proficiency test, written and oral. It was a lot for that early in the morning and was a bit harder than I was expecting. I think I was put in the right class though because I can understand what is going on but at the same time I am being challenged. Ending at 130 really doesn't give me much time at my internship. I go to my internship from 230-430 so I have time to get there and eat lunch in between. As I was approaching the school I got crazy butterflies because all I could hear was screaming and loud children, quite intimidating. Then I had my first class, everyone went around and introduced themselves the usual name age and favorite hobby. Then we went over the syllabus and it was funny to be on the other side of the classroom as I watched about 3 students struggle to keep their eyes open. I laughed because I know exactly how they feel.
Tuesday was the same as Monday but this time at my internship I had a younger class and they worked in groups on a worksheet. They were excited to have me in the classroom, being from America makes me kind of a celebrity in their eyes, which I don't mind (: I had a little trouble at first answering their questions because I wasn't a hundred percent sure what the worksheet even said because it was written in Catalan but they were happy to be my translators and together we figured it out.
I am writing this now on Wednesday because I just got out of my Spanish class but unfortunately couldn't go to my internship because the students don't have afternoon classes on Wednesdays or Fridays. I am about to go eat some delicious tapas with Cat, a friend of mine from the good old Case Western days. She's backpacking around Europe for 5 weeks and stopped in on me in Barcelona!
Also ONE WEEK UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!
and then after that one week until Mom, Aunt Ellen, and Aunt Sue come!! I cant wait to show them around
ciao for now!