The Biggest Loser

   So the explination of the title is interesting. So I think I have figured out the trick to the Europeans success to being thin! Hills... They are everywhere! My group and I on our orientation for Wednesday was to walk up the Collserola Mountains. It was about a 3 hour hike up mountains, scary stairs, but the most beautiful views ever possible of Barcelona! Well at one of our last stops for pictures up the mountain, Rich, the man who has basically planned our whole orientation was like oh its another 45 minutes until our next stop.Well it was the steepest hills ever possible and at the end I reminded myself of the people on the biggest loser and they are walking up a crazy hill. But unlike the Biggest loser there was a huge meal waiting for us! First we had calcotada which is just simply grilled green onions but you have to eat them a certain way. You have to peel the burnt outer layer of the onions then dip them in a bowl of olive oil, tomatoes, and garlic and eat it. Well like a dork I thought you could eat all of it so I did but you are only supposed to eat the white part and not the greens. The picture is the aftermath. They were tasty especially the sauce and they are also messy! There was a salad, bread with tomato and garlic, tortilla espanola which is eggs and potatoes, There was meat, lamb taste and looks like pork, also sausage, and potatoes. To finish all off there was a sharing of a communal non-alcholic beer, ice cream, and coffee.

   Walking up all those hills had  the most beautiful views of Barcelona.

    Thursday we went on a bus tour of places in Barcelona. We got to see the many works of Gaudi, and we went up the other mountain in Barcelona but luckily the bus took us up! We got off the bus and walked around the Olympic Stadium. Learning time: the 1992 Olympic games was the first Olympic Games the had unified nations and the introduction of baseball and brought alot of prosperity to Barcelona and Spain after the Civil War of Spain. After the bus tour my group was dropped off in a location and we had 2 hours to get something to eat and find our way to the Gothic Quarters. Well our leaders ended up showing us where to eat and there I tried Calamari, its a fancy way of saying octopus. It was really weird, it had a texture that was different and I had my first European Coke, Barcelona is a Coke country but I think I am still a Pepsi fan. After eating we found the Mediterranean Sea and I did not go in it was too cold but I still have 3.5 months in Spain to but my feet in.

    The Gothic Quarters are really old. They were the center of Barcelona in the B.C well I think that it is what our guide said. It is also an area where alot of ladrons(robbers) are because it is a big spot for unsuspecting tourists. The architecture is alot of neo-gothic since it was built after the Gothic time period.

   Today, Friday we went to the Dali Museum. There are 3 in total and we saw the one in Figures, Spain. I studied Dali in my spanish classes so I was prepared for some of the strangeness I was going to see but Dali is beyond weird. However there are plenty of his works that are very pleasing to the eyes and there are some that I really enjoyed but there are some that had me scratching my head. We had lunch in Girona. It was 12 euros for a 2 course meals that could each have passed for a meal in itself. It was free so it was so good. I had what is called helado chocolate del toro which is chocolate ice cream, that is served for festivals, holidays, and birthdays so good.  I was told by someone that Girona was going to be the most beautiful place that I had seen. Well it was beautiful but I haven't seen everything so I keep that slot open. It was more Gothic Quarters but it had a beautiful Cathedral which is the widest Cathedral in the world. It had a Great Wall were you could see the whole city and the mountains that was a beautiful site.

  I have a free weekend until classes start Monday. I am nervous for them to start because this trip has started to feel like a vacation more than studying abroad but when classes start is definitely when this adventure gets tricky.