The second best thing to thinking (/acting) positively...

is whining in my blog.

One of the things I was most looking forward to was living with a host family. I had imagined that I would be staying with very warm, friendly people, who would take me under their wing and help me get to know Barcelona, get to know the culture, etc. I anticipated some awkward spots at times, but I imagined that after a while I'd feel like part of the family...

unfortunately, it hasn't been very much like that at all. I have been trying very, very hard to stay positive about it but today I'm not doing such a good job, and I'm going to indulge myself and complain because I've about had it and I'd like to vent.

Today wasn't even really their fault, I guess. They had some family/friends over for lunch (the main meal here). Usually I go out during the day but today I didn't feel like it, and was just hanging out in my room. But it was so awkward to just be in here by myself - they didn't even bother to introduce me or anything. And while I know it's not their obligation, for the number of times that I'm not here for dinner or away for the weekend, and the few times that I do happen to be in the house for lunch time (I'm usually not)... I feel like they maybe could have offered me lunch? I don't know. I do know that I felt kind of like the ugly stepchild all day, sitting in my room while they ate and chatted in the living room. It wasn't a great feeling.... and it made me miss my friends and family a lot :( ....

I mean they're basically very nice but just haven't been exactly "warm" - and I can be on the sensitive side, so when someone isn't "warm" to me, it might as well be cold... Meh!

I think a huge part of the problem is the little girl. She honestly is one of the most ill-behaved children I have ever met. For example, a couple weeks ago, we were watching a movie together with her Grandma (Dad was away on a business trip, Mom was at work)...everything was totally fine. Grandma then gets up to go into the kitchen.... as soon as she does, Noa gets up and bites my arm, and I mean, BITES - I had a bruise of her dental records for about two weeks. What four year old is evil enough to wait until no one's in the room to bite someone 5 times their age??? I keep thinking it's because I don't spend enough time with her, when when I do try to play with her or whatever, she's completely unbearable, kicking, biting, screaming, stealing my things, etc. It's ridiculous. The Spanish I'm learning mostly involves the indicative: "Don't pull my hair"/ "Don't touch my computer" / "Don't bite me" etc. Fun stuff, right?

I can understand why she acts the way she does, to some degree - for one, her parents let her act that way (she is an only child, with two giant rooms full of toys, sleeps with the parents still even though she's four, etc.!), for two, her mom works nights and her dad goes away on business trips every week for a few days, and it seems like they're not often together for family time (so she's acting out as a result of a lack of attention or something - and the parents themselves happen to fight often as well), and for three, me not being able to speak Spanish very well makes her think I'm an idiot and that she can get away with anything.

Her parents do yell at her when she's bad (which is 24/7, which also makes things awkward) but it's without any consistency, and I think she hears it so much that it just doesn't register. I would also say that she cries for at least 4 hours a day. And by cries, I mean wails and screams.

I really wish that they had a Spanish version of Supernanny :(

Noa's behavior and my general weariness of her in turn make things kind of awkward with her parents.... viscious cycle style. I don't know. To be fair, the dad is really quite nice to me, always asking me how my day was, etc. It's more the mother that's a little less than friendly at times... I think she's kind of stressed out (I would be too if I had such a devil of a kid.......)

Add to all this the fact that A) They don't believe in eating vegetables B) We live in the not-so-nice area of town (to be fair, so do 1/2 of the other students in my group, although I happen to be the furthest out) and C) She's only finally doing my laundry for the second time since I've been hereafter I specifically asked her to... makes me a little frustrated at times.

Yikes.

Blah. I can certainly handle it all but I honestly think I'm going to feel obligated to advise our program director to not situate another student in this house - or maybe at least someone who can speak Spanish better and can therefore potentially handle the little girl with more ease than I can. I don't know. We'll see. I'm going to continue to try to play with Noa once in a while (I'll just dress in layers to protect myself from the inevitable abuse) .... and I'm going to start trying harder to improve my Spanish so that I can communicate more with the parents, and with her. I'm sure part of the problem is simply the things that get lost in translation.

They say study abroad is character-building....

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Edit: After writing this Tony came to tell me it was time for dinner - apparently Noemi and Noa had already gone to bed because they weren't hungry. But he was very nice, and I really am grateful for it - even though he wasn't eating, he sat with me while I did (dinner was, coincidentally, delicious, as it was leftovers from lunch)... and when I said he didn't have to sit with me in my terrible Spanish, he said that I shouldn't eat by myself. Now I feel better. Somebody cares! Hurray! Haha.

Anyway.... just wanted to add that. Goodnight. <3

Emily in Barcelona.. and Paris!

Wednesday was the main day of the La Mercé (I can easily type accent marks on the computers at school, so for once I'll use them...). Although I had been up late the night before, I made sure to drag myself out of bed to go to see the uniquely Catalán ¨castells¨ - essentially, human towers. About 20 or so people, using a variety of specific climbing techniques, endurance, strength and pure craziness, climb up one another to form a typically 5-8 level-high pyramid. The lowest levels are comprised of older men, the uppermost, of young children, with teenagers and such in between. It took place in one of Barcelona's many main squares, Jaume I, between the two most important buildings of Catalán government, El Palau e la Generalitat and la Casa de la Ciutat.

The Catalonian president and his family were actually on the balcony of the Casa de la Ciutat watching the event - the plaza itself was packed with people. There were all different teams of castellers from various regions of Catalonia - while the crowd held its breath (and their pocketbooks - being in such a large crowd made me a little nervous) each team would build their tower, one at a time, until the littlest casteller (who is usually about 5 years old), would climb to the top, blow a kiss, and then all would commence to come back down... which was about as scary as when they are going up.

That was probably the most exciting part of the day. My friend and I also happened to wander back to the square later that day when it was less sardine-can-like, and saw that one of the two government buildings, El Palau e la Generalitat, had free public entrance for the day. It was quite pretty. We went to a parade later that was a little on the ridiculous side - mostly just creepy figures dancing around awkwardly. The fireworks that night were spectacular, set to music at the plaza de España.

Inside the Palau:

The next morning it was off to France with my friends Anjali, Max, and Marcelo. It was a a bit of a project getting to Paris, I must say. We took a bus from Barcelona to Girona (Spain), a plane from Girona to Beavauis (France) and a bus from Beauvais to Paris. Ah, the joys of being too poor to afford direct flights...

Anyway, overall, Paris was more wonderful than I could have expected. I suppose I knew I would like it; being a romantic and all - but at the same time, I was a little weary of the French themselves, and how they would treat us in light of our limited language skills (¨bonjour, ¨parlez-vous l'anglais¨, and ¨baguette¨just about summarize the extent of my vocabulary). I was pleasantly surprised by how much I truly did love it, and how nice most people were. Of course we did spend most of our time in touristy areas, with Parisians that are likely used to people like us.

We didn´t do much on Thursday night, being tired from travelling and wanting to be able to wake up early Friday for a full day of exploring - so we walked around a bit and had dinner at a local restaurant (nothing too extravagant - we decided to eat cheaply for most of the trip and then have a nice sit-down meal on Saturday). We then went to the oldest bar in Paris, which was rather disappointing, honestly. It was more Irish pub than antiquated French tavern. Far more exciting was the scrum-diddly-umptious crepé we had on the side of the road, made with nutella (a type of chocolate/hazelnut spread) and banana. Mmm.

The next day was quite productive: our first stop was Notre Dame, which was completely gorgeous. (Mildly funny story: we only knew which metro stop to get off of to go to Notre Dame, but lacked specific directions - we assumed to first church we saw was it - commence excitement, picture-taking, etc... got in line to go in - and promptly realized it was a completely different cathedral). Here are some pictures, not that they do it justice (by the way, this trip has really made me wish I had a better camera... if anyone´s feeling generous???):

I was just amazed at how beautifu the whole city was. We picked a perfect time to go, too - the weather was like a perfect fall day, every day - the leaves were just starting to change, and it was cold at night and in the evenings - but warm and sunny throughout the afternoon. After Notre Dame we went to meet at Luxembourg Garden with my friend Peter, a fellow English major from Northeastern, who is studying abroad in Paris (and luckily for us, happens to speak French very well). Chessie, this one´s for you!:


The park was one of the loveliest I have ever seen. There were so many people out, chatting, reading, sunbathing. The gelato we had afterwards was coincidentally some of the best I've ever tasted.. I love parks and ice cream in general, but combined = magical. Haha.



After the park we wandered through the city towards the Louvre, which is free (hurray!) for people under 26 after 6 pm. The building was magnificent - and enormous (it holds over 35,000 pieces of art).

The Louvre closes at 9 - three hours is hardly enough time to see everything (try three days) - but we picked out a few highlights and set off running to get to them - the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, the Code of Hammurabi, Liberty Leading the People, to name a few. It was so exhausting that we ended up not even being able to stay for the full three hours... Here I am with Liberty Leading the People:

The following day we went to see the Arc de Triomphe, which was pretty impressive. From there we walked down the Champs d´Elysee, a famous street that runs from the Arc to the Louvre. We stopped along the way to eat our aforementioned ¨nice¨meal, which included escargot, paté, french onion soup, etc. It was quite delicious.

The latter half of the Champs d´Elysee was completely gorgeous, again, running through a beautiful little park which we took our time exploring...

After that Anjali and I went to take a little boat cruise along the Seine - it was a pleasant change to be able to sit and have the scenes and sites of Paris pass by us instead of vice versa. Our final stop of the day (and of the trip) was to the one and only Eiffel Tower. We had hoped to be able to get up to the top in time for sunset, but of course, everyone and their mother had the same idea, apparently - the lines were huge (and it was a Saturday, after all). It was about an hour and a half before we were able to get into the lift. Either way, it was pretty spectacular to be able to see the ¨City of Lights¨ at night from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

After the Eiffel tower, we wandered around and ate more crepés and delicious baguettes, and met up with Peter to do as the French youth apparently do - drink in front of national monuments. Our national monument of choice was the Pantheon. It was interesting, to say the least.

The following morning we had to be up at 5:30 AM to catch our 9 AM flight - we anticipated that being a disaster, and were right... to make a long story short there was mass confusion at the bus terminal to Beauvais, and Anjali actually ended up missing her flight :( thankfully, the three of us made it, though it was a pretty close call.

A few more pictures (PS - you can click on the pictures to make them larger):



We started our ¨real¨classes here on Monday - apparently the reason I´m here is to learn or something....? (Ha) I will try to write about those and some other various topics in the next couple days - I´ve been slacking and end up having to write novels when I do get around to posting in order to cover all that´s happened, and even then, I´m leaving out a lot.

Until then! Abrazos y besos (hugs and kisses)!