Oye,

Ive been taking the advice of my teacher Susanna by not sleeping very much this weekend. Honestly, I dont even know how I could. There is just too much to do. La Merce is Barcelona´s grand festival to celebrate their patron saint St George and believe me, this guy should be dancing in his grave. He´s being thrown one heck of a party. There isnt one second from 5 in the afternoon to 6 in the morning that isnt crammed with awesome activities. Sit back and let me describe my restless weekend… (and stay tuned because at the end of the broadcast I reveal my new mobile phone number).
Friday I had my ILP exams. They were easy for the most part, except for my culture exam. We had three essays to do in 50 minutes. One involved memorizing an insanity amount of historic political dates from 1939 to 1978 (the Franquismo era). I sucked it up on that one, but whatever, its not important. After the tests I took a long nap, went
shopping for groceries at this cheap market called Lidel, and rushed home to prepare for my busy night.
My first stop of the night was a dinner with a new friend in the city. Its pretty odd how I made this connection. My mom works with a woman who has a sister who lives in Barcelona. She went on the same EAP program as I am on seven years ago and is now married to a Catalan guy (who happens to manage the hard rock cafe here) and has one 2 year old child and another on the way. Ive been communicating with her through email for a while, but having been able to meet up with her yet due to conflicting schedules. Anyway, I went to her house for one of the most amazing dinners I have ever had. Her husband went to culinary school and though he has never practised professionally, he has retained all his teachings. Wow, it was really good food. We talked for a few hours about differences in American and Spanish culture (which Ill have to spend a whole email on, later), agreed to meet again, and then I hurried off to meet up with a group of friends at Cafe Zurich in Placa Catalunya to catch a free concert.
Someone had convinced our teacher Susanna to hang out with us that night and we all had an awesome time roaming around La Rambla talking with her. We stopped by La Oveja Negra (a famous bar) and then walked back to Placa Espana to catch the Ojos de Brujo concert. This guy named Cheyenne played too. It was so crowded that people were climbing trees to see the show. It was really great, except for one scary moment in the show when the humongous display screens showed burning effigies (sp?) of american presidents and everyone starting cheering and clapping. They arent too big a fan of american politics here. After the show we walked around La Rambla a little more before crashing at a friend´s place close to the University.
I would normally have slept all day after something like that, but I awoke early to have breakfast with Juan and family and then go buy a mobile phone. Thats wasnt all too exciting, except for the fact that I now have a phone and got a really good deal on it. I spent the rest of the day with them, shopping, walking, eating, and talking. Around 7pm that night we all got prepared for one of La Merce´s best festivals, el CorreFoc.
El CorreFoc, or fire run, was one of the craziest things I have ever been a part of and something that would definatly never be allowed in the states. Its a parade like none other. People dress up like demons and carry poles with spinning fireworks tied to them while dancing around in the streets. Its a grand sport here to run through the parade, inbetween the exploding fireworks and shooting sparks, trying not to catch on fire. While I was with Juan and the girls I stayed near the back, but after they left for home and I had met up with some other friends we decided to take a better look and brave the flames. Wow I have some great pictures. Im so lucky I didnt catch of fire. There were times when I was crouched against a wall trying to avoid the showering sparks of a maniac demon guy dancing right above me. Im amazed the town hasnt burned down yet. Out of necessity I ran quickly through the heart of the parade to catch the fireworks competition going on a little further down at the beach called Barceloneta.
I got to the beach and miraculously found some other friends who had been there for a bit and saved a space for us. The fireworks show was very unique and amazing and included a few fireworks Ive never seen before. They even exploded a few in and on the water. Gorgeous. Afterwards we gathered our things and went to get some icecream.
Oh yeah, while on the beach there was this guy sitting in front of us with a rowing shirt from a ´99 rowing nationals competiton. He turned out to be a rower on the Argentinian national team. He was here in Barcelona rowing for some club for a couple years while he recieved his masters in sport eduction or something. He told me about all the
competitions he had won and all the places he had rowed in America and all over the world. It was very cool.
Anyway, we left the beach and while walking home found a reggae concert going on in some placa in El Reval. It was a really famous reggae guy named Lee … ahhh. What was his name. I dont remember, but he was famous. We stayed for a bit, but I wasnt too into the music so a few of us split off and went out back to La Rambla to find something to eat. We ate at some ripoff place that charged us 10€ for bread, but it was good and my spanish isnt good enough to argue yet. It was our fault for stopping there. Slept a few hours and woke up this morning for the Castillers competition in Placa St Juame.
Castillers are teams that build towers of people up to 30 meters in the air. Very catalan, very cool to see. While we were there, they did one of the most difficult figures, a 3 by 9. Nine levels, three people each level. It was only the fifth time the Barcelona team had ever been able to do it, so everyone was super excited. It was really amazing to see and we were really close so I got to take really great pictures. Again, Ill have them up soon I hope.
Later today I went to Badalona with Juan and had another great lunch. And then I came back to my piso. Im going to leave you here, because there is a fountain show in Placa Espana that I want to see at 9pm. If there´s anything you want to hear more about, just write and ask and Ill explain.
And finally, the moment you´ve all been waiting for… my mobile number. It probably a bit expensive, but if you have a few dollars to blow please give me a call. I would love to hear from all of you. 605950715. Dont forget to dial the country code 0034 before. I hope you´re all having great days. Keep writing.

love
Gabe

Dear amigos,

Time here works differently. You know that old adage about 10 minutes before is early, 5 minutes before is on time, and on time is late? Its nearly the exact opposite for spaniards. For them, on time is early, 5 minutes late is a good time for a cigarette break, and 15 minutes late is just right.
My 10am Economia Espanyola class started this morning after the professor leasurly strolled into class 5 minutes late (at 10:20). This turned out to be an unusually great good thing however, because I was able to meet some very cool people. I met Marina, a Russian girl, while trying to explain to Manuel, a catalunian, what the professor had spoke about the day before. Both were extremely friendly and extremely understanding of my terrible spanish. During the 10 minute cigarette break (they have those here too) we hung out and talked about where we were from and where we were living now. Manuel is from Barcelona and speaks a little bit of english so our conversation was a mixture of terrible spanish and terrible english and Marina is from northern Russia somewhere and has been taking spanish for 14 years. Marina and I made plans to meet this weekend and go to some of the Merce festivals (which I´ll explain to you in a second). I think we worked out that I would call her friday and we would meet in front of La Sagrada Familia on the side of the park. Lets hope at least. With my terrible spanish you never know.
Its funny, because at this point in my spanish adventures, I am able to understand the general idea of everything, but get very confused when it comes down to some specifics. For example, take my spanish classes. Today I understood that he was giving us a timeline of spanish economic history and I understood what generally happened in each time period, but if you asked me to explain it to you in spanish I wouldn´t be able to. My vocabulary is at a certain point where I can understand most words in context, but can´t readily recall them individually when necessary. I hope that makes sense to you, because it doesnt to me.
Anyway, sorry for the sidetrack.
Barcelona´s Merce Festival starts this friday and runs until next wednesday night. I don´t know too much about it myself, except that our current composition teacher told us its the best festival of the whole year and we should skip classes and sleep as little as possible so we can catch every minute of it. Every day is full of different activities, from free concerts in Placa Espana to castillers competitions in Placa Sant Juame, and just from the decorations and stages being set up everywhere I can tell its going to be amazing. This friday I plan on going to the Corre Foc (a giant fireworks festival in the streets), saturday I think Im going to the fountain and orchestra show in Placa Espana, and sunday Im going to check out the castillers competition in Sant Juame. I still havent decided what Im going to see inbetween these things and the days following, but I picked up one of the humongous schedules and from the looks of it I wont have much trouble finding something. Who has time to study and go to class in Barcelona? There´s too much to do!
Tommorow I have my exit exams for the Intensive Language Program. I havent studied at all so tonight is going to be a massive cram session. After the exams tommorow we were invited to go out and have a drink with our composition teacher Susanna who is probably the coolest teacher there ever was. Everyone loves her. I might go to Badalona this weekend to visit my family as well. I don´t know, I need to call Juan this afternoon. And I know Ive said this before, but this weekend I think Im going to get a cell phone. Its really been a hassle not to have a phone and hopefully all works out this time. I´ll pass along the number when I get it.
Right now Im going to go to a chinese store (spanish slang for a store that sells a bunch of random cheap stuff) to pick up some hangers for my closet. Until next time…

Gabe

I only slept only one hour last night, which I guess is a bad start to any day, but why o why did it have to come before this one?
Last night a couple of us americans got together to make a nice dinner and chat at someone=B4s piso in north Gracia. Everyone arrived rather late so the dinner didnt get started until 12pm and we ended up talking until 4am. I decided to stay the night there rather than pay the 6euro taxi ride home and between the lumpy matress I slept on, the 3 other people sleeping in the room, and my nervousness for the start of class the next day I didnt sleep very well. This morning I woke early and took bus 74 to the Pedralbes campus to find my classes. My adventure begins here.
I suppose I should preface my story with a quick culture lesson. Barcelona is located in a region called Catalunya which encompases the north east of Spain and a small portion of the south of France. Catalunya has its own language, catalan, that its people are very proud of. Ive heard many of them say they are Catalan first and Spanish second. It follows then, and to no one´s surprise, the official language of the University of Barcelona is catalan. It seems at the moment though the UB is trying to expand its intercambio student base and has begun offering the same classes both in catalan and castellano.
However, since the econ department here decided to be extremely disorganized and not post the language the class is taught in ahead of time, I scheduled 8 classes to visit today hoping at least two I needed would be taught in castillano instead of catalan. What an adventure, what a crazy experience. I think this was one of the most stressful days of my life. Between the 8 classes I visited, only one was taught in castellano, and the lady spoke so fast and I was so nervous I didnt understand half of what she said. In that class we had to get into groups and discuss some newspaper article and I felt so lame when I had to tell my group I didnt really know what was going on. Jeez. Luckily there were some other american econ students that had been visiting different classes and we were able to work out which classes were castellano and which were catalan. Turns out only two fit into my schedule. Argh. Not many choices. I ended up with Economia de Espanol and Economia Mundial as my two regular university classes and I have yet to choose my special core class for american students.
One good thing is that my catalan comprehension increased at least three times today. By the end of the day I could understand a lot more of what the professors were saying than at the beginning. It was good practice. Also, I was very surprised to see that the spanish classroom appears exactly like an american one. If you ingnored the language you really wouldnt be able to tell the difference upon first glance.
This weekend begins the Merce festival. I can´t wait. Perhaps Ill describe that in detail next time. Just needed to vent right now. Thanks for listening.

Adios
Gabe