1/9- 1/12

Hello everybody! hope all is well back in the states!

woo wooo! Packers won!!! :)

On Sunday 1/9 we had to meet back at our hotel at 9:30 for an academic meeting. After the meeting there was a free salsa lesson. Lexie and I couldn't resist so we participated in this lesson! Of course I had to be the guy though because Ms. Bales is much shorter than me! haha. Here is a short video clip of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAaIEKrjrR0It. was a lot of fun, and we told them we were interested in possibly taking a class once or twice a week while we are here. After the lesson Lexie and I went shopping! Right now in Barcelona there are suuuch great shopping deals, it is almost like black Friday back home. They have what they call  'rebajas' going on right now. Basically, everything is like 30-50% off. We went into some really cool stores, some way out of our price range unfortunately lol. At this one store called Zara, I found some success, I bought 2 shirts and a belt. After shopping for quite some time, we grabbed some lunch at this pizzeria. The lunch deal they had was bread, salad, pizza, dessert and wine for 9 euro, it was a great deal and was really good! It was a ton of food though, Lexie and I had wanted to share a meal but they wouldn't let us, so we had a lot of left over food. After lunch we made our way back to our apartment and went to Corte Ingles, a huge department store to buy a pillow. On our walk back to our apartment from Corte Ingles (5 min walk) we wandered into a shoe store where I ended up buying a pair of boots. These rebajas need to end or I'm going to be broke! When we got back to our apartment we relaxed for a while until dinner. After dinner we got ready and made our way to the Irish pub we were at the other night to watch my Packer boys! There Lexie and I met a few new friends. I made a bet with this one guy that the Packers would win and since they did he had to buy me a drink :). It was so cool to be able to watch the game in a different country, although my favorite place to watch them is at home with my mom dad and sister- and max of course! So the packers won and it ended up being a really fun night! :)

On Monday, January 10th, I had to wake up at about 7:45 because I had orientation at my school, University of Pompeu Fabra. My school is about a 25 minute metro ride. This was my first metro ride along and it was successful, I made it to my school on time! The metro system is very cool and very easy to use! You have to be very careful  on the metro though, because that is where the most pick-pocketing occurs because it is a very crowded area. Don't worry though, I have been very aware of this and hold my bag in front of me so I can see it and feel it at all times. My orientation was really boring, but my school is really cool! After the orientation my friend Lily, a girl that is in the same program as me, walked all around the area of our school. Lily lives very close to the school so she showed me some pretty cool stuff! We walked through this absolutly beautiful park that had a huge castle surrounded by fountains, it was amazing. Then she took me to see this gym that she is probably joining, it was really cool- there was a pool on the room, pool inside with a hot tub, weight room, various exercise rooms, etc. I am still figuring out which gym would make most sense for me to join, living 25 min away from UPF. Enrique, our host dad told me about this one that is really close to our house (15 minutes walking distance). Then Lily and I, as we were searching for a metro to get on, saw this beautiful arch called Arc de Triomf. I didn't bring my camera that day, but Lily and I took some fun pictures on her camerea of the things we saw. We had to meet at the University of Autonoma, Lexie's school here, for yet another meeting. As the others were, this one was not very fun as well, but I guess the staff has to tell us this stuff and it is useful. We just want to explore though, not sit inside! After the meeting, Lexie and I were beat so we made our way back to our apartment. When we got back we took like a 3 hour nap and then woke up for dinner. Our new roomies had just gotten here for dinner time. They are very nice, they are from Chicago though :-/  (BOO BEARS! GO PACK GO!) haha. Their names are Alex, Danny, and Parker. We didn't end up going out because I had class at 8:00am the next morning. So we just hung out at our apartment and got a good nights rest.

beach with mountains in the backround, so beautiful

stickin our feet in the mediteranean, it was a little chilly!

1/11- Today I had to wake up at 6:45am to make it to class on time. Lexie came with me, not to class but to the area so we could hang out later. Class was terrible. It was Financial Economics II, which is odd that I am enrolled in that since I haven't taken I. The guy said if we took finance and an economics class before we would be fine, but I had no idea what was going on. By the way, this class was in English. I think I am dropping it though because I hate it and it will not count towards my Finance major anyways- this way I can just focus on my Spanish classes. After this class we had to take a Spanish placement test that I think went really well, so lets hope it did! After this placement test I met up with Lexie and we explored the area around my school. We walked to the beach (5 minute walk from my school) and stuck our feet in the water, it was sooo much fun! We walked all over Barcelona and saw some really amazing things. We made our way to Las Ramblas, where we had lunch. After lunch we did a little more shopping. We found some success at the gigantic H&M they have here, and we each bought a FC Barcelona Jersey-Messi #10. My shopping is now officially done for a while, I need to same some money!!! We came back home, relaxed, showered, ate dinner - spaghetti with Mati's homemade sauce :) Then we got ready and went out with our new roomies. We met some of their friends at this bar called Club Primer. When we got there Lex and I were just talking to this older guy, just to be friendly and meet some locals and we told him we were from Canada haha. After a couple minutes of talking we went buy our friends and then about 10 minutes later a bartender brought us a bottle of champagne and said it was from the man we were talking to! It was so cool!! haha. We then went to this disco called club Opium. It was a really cool place where there were a ton of people. We took a cab home with our new roomies and called it a night.

me, lexie, parker, danny, alex, and their friend at club primer

1/12- Today I woke up at about noon, because my school doesn't have classes today or tomorrow or friday this week, those classes start this upcoming Monday. Lexie went to class and I went to the cafe underneath our apartment to journal and got a fresh squeezed orange juice and a chocolate crossaint. I think that I am getting sick, and didnt feel well at all- I was going to take a walk to the gym to sign up for a membership and go for a run, but I came back and slept because I did not feel well at all. I have pretty much been resting all day, I am feeling a little bit better now, just have a little cough and am a little achey.