Barca, Barca, Go Barca!

Barcelona trip part two

Saturday I slept in until noon (which was much needed) and spent the afternoon exploring La Rambla and some of the side streets that surround it. La Rambla is a 1.2km long pedestrian street that begins at Placa de Catalunya and stretches all the way to the water front, ending at the Monument a Colon, a statue of Columbus on top of a tall pedestal. La Rambla is always packed and there are some really interesting street performers that line it. There is a market, Mercat de la Boqueria, that is HUGE and was great fun to explore as well. Any type of shop you are looking to find (including XXX ones) you are probably going to find on La Rambla.
In my wanderings I ended up finding this Gothic church, the Church of Santa Maria del Pi, whose origins date back to the 10th century.

Saturday night was the all important FC Barcelona vs Sevilla Spanish Cup Game at Camp Nou. Camp Nou is supposedly one of the best stadiums in Europe and it is also the largest. It has a capacity of over 120,000 spectators!! The boys were especially excited to go to the game. It was sold out and the noise was deafening. People don't leave the game early like they do in the States so it was packed until the very end. Of the 23 people on the Spain World Cup squad (for those of you living under a rock Spain won), 7 came from Barcelona so that, by proxy, makes Barcelona one of the best soccer teams in the world. The final score was 4-0 Barcelona. Lionel Messi (considered one of the best players in the world) scored 3 and Pedro Ledesma (who was on the World Cup team) scored 1.
After the game I went back to my hostel and ended up having a repeat of Thursday night with some people from my hostel. We went to Espit Chupitos and Shoko and although it wasn't as fun as Thurs night was, I still had a blast.

Sunday afternoon I hit the beach again with some French guys from my hostel. Olivier and I laid on the beach while the others went swimming and it was super relaxing. Once again, many topless women on the beach. It's not uncommon at all in Europe. People just aren't as shy here as they are in the States.

I started not feeling well that afternoon and stopped at a Spanish pharmacy on the way home. I managed to find somebody who spoke English (not very many people do in Barca I discovered) and she gave me cough syrup that tasted like banana laffy taffy. It actually wasn't bad.

Monday morning we left for Girona. I spent the entire day in bed sick as a dog and spent all of Tuesday in bed as well. I started feeling a little better and managed to drag myself out of bed to go for a last dinner with Nick, Daniel, Lacey, and Nikki. From what I saw of Girona that night it was gorgeous. It was quiet and had a more upscale feeling to it than Barcelona did. I would've liked to have been able to explore it for an afternoon.

Wednesday morning at 4:30am we left for the airport to fly back to Aarhus. We were all sortof ready to come back, mostly because we had run out of clean clothes and wanted comfortable beds again. We got off the plane and were blasted by 55 degree air. Quite the difference!

I'm still sick and I miss the excitement of Barca but I'm glad to have my own bathroom again and it was good to see everybody again. I made an appearance Friday night to the party here at Vilhelm so I could see all my other friends. I'm also really appreciating being able to actually communicate with people here and not being paranoid I'm going to get robbed at any moment.

Classes start at the university tomorrow. My first class isn't until Wednesday so I've got 2 more days of freedom. It's been cold and cloudy here. Fall comes a lot earlier here than back home! I've already had to turn my heat on overnight.

See Flickr for some pictures! (I can only upload a certain amount per month so lots more will be added on Wednesday)

Sangria Por Favor!

I have just returned from my amazing trip to Barcelona and I thought I'd share some things I learned while I was there.


1. If you have been walking around the city in circles with your backpack for 2+ hours lost it's okay to give up and take a taxi.

2. Under no circumstances should you do anything that will make you look like a tourist. Walk with confidence, don't pull out a giant map (if you have to, go into a bathroom or somewhere semiprivate), and don't wear any clothing that doesn't look like something you could buy in Europe

3. ALWAYS be aware of your surroundings. Don't pull out any cash until you're ready to pay for something (don't hold it in your hand, set it on the bar/table etc), keep one hand on your bag/purse/whatever at all times, and pay attention to who is watching you



and most importantly:

4. Spanish cough syrup tastes like banana laffy taffy



The group:
Me, Nikki, Lacey, Daniel, Nick, Orhan, Jess, Sally


Departure:
Taxi from Vilhelm Kiers to Aarhus Airport then flight to Girona. ETA 12:15pm. Bus from Girona to Barcelona.



Weather in Barcelona: 90 degrees F and sunny



Once we arrived in Barcelona we set off in search of our hostels. We were in three different ones so Jess, Sally, and Orhan left to go find theirs and I went with everybody else. We ended up doing a lot of walking in the wrong direction, backtracking, and walking in circles. After finally finding their hostel I decided to try to find mine. Terrible idea. I ended up doing more walking and finally gave up and took a taxi. Good thing I did because I probably wouldn't have found it otherwise.

The first night was rediculously fun. In Barcelona apparently each neighborhood organizes a festival and decorates the streets and there's live music and lots of dancing and drinking and craziness. We went down to a neighborhood where there was a festival and this great Australian guy, Shannon, who had met some of the others earlier, came with. The 9 of us took over this small restaurant and had a great first meal in Spain. Then we took to the streets and Barcelona certainly did not disappoint! Pictures are on Flickr. The decorations ranged from giant spiders to aliens to flying saucers... it was strange but it all seemed to fit together. After the festival Shannon and I decided to hunt down a bar or club and ended up way down on La Rambla (the famous pedestrian street) at Boulevard Culture Club. It made for a great night!


Thursday was even better.
We met up at the Sagrada Familia Temple and I think we would've all liked to go inside but the line was honestly at least 1000 people long. We would've been there all day. The Sagrada Familia Temple was Gaudi's dream and he started working on it in 1883. It is still not completed and will probably finally be finished sometime around 2020. It will eventually have 18 spires, one for each apostle, the 4 evangelists, one for the virgin mary and one for jesus. It will have 3 facades, the Nativity, the Glory, and the Passion. The entire thing is funded by private donations. I suggest you look it up online; the symbolism is insane and it truly is a masterpiece.
Next, I decided to do the most touristy thing possible. I took one of those double decker tour the city bus trips. And it was totally worth it! I got to see almost the entire city and I didn't have to walk anywhere (by then I needed to just sit for a couple hours) and I got to listen to the guided audio thing. It was perfect. Lots of pictures on Flickr

Thursday night we did a pub crawl, which is not the same thing as what we consider a pub crawl to be in the ville. This one was guided and we paid 15 euro for 3 drinks at the hostel and that also included entrance into Shoko (exclusive club on the beach). There were about 30 of us and it was a blast. It was POURING rain the entire walk to the first bar so we were all soaked by the time we got there. Espit Chupitos is a shots bar that has a menu of almost 600 shots and really really smart bartenders who remember them all. It was absolutely rediculous and the shots include such things as Animal Balls, Harry Potter, Halloween, Coco Loco, Bin Laden, La Cucaracha, King Kong, Kangaroo... I could go on forever. It was cheap and an absolute blast. A lot of the shots involve fire, straws and things like that (they aren't just straight alcohol shots) so it's fun to just watch too. Then it was on to Shoko, this awesome club located right on the beach. The atmosphere was really cool with giant round LCD screens hanging from the ceiling playing 50s dance clips and gigantic bamboo sticks going from floor to ceiling. The house music was awesome as well.

Friday we went up to Camp Nou to pick up our tickets for the FC Barcelona vs Sevilla Spanish Super Cup game which was on Saturday. Then I hit the beach for the afternoon with Shannon and some random people he met on his way down there. He's an expert at that. It was really hot out that day so it was awesome to just lay on the beach, drink sangria and have awesome conversation. The Mediterranean Sea is REALLY salty and it wasn't exactly clean there so I just got in for a few minutes just to say that I swam there. Friday night a couple of us went to a small bar and sat outside with some sangria for a while. It was really chill and a perfect way to balance out Thursday night.

Saturday through Tuesday will be described tomorrow. :)

Meet Some of My Friends!

The last two days have been crazy. Here at Vilhelm Kiers Kollegium we have a full working bar and so Alejandro (aka Alex) organized a party here and invited all the international students plus everybody who lives here. It was INSANE! There were tons of people here (I won't guess but at least 200+) and it started around 8 and ended around 4:30am. It was really really fun and it was nice to not have to walk home or get a taxi from Downtown. Elliot made a hat with a Danish flag on it (see it in the flickr photos) and it ended up as the rotating hat. Nobody's sure where it ended up but pretty much everybody wore it at some point. Sparklers and Glow Sticks made an appearance at one point as well as Limbo.. nobody's sure where those came from either. Put briefly we all enjoyed more than one adult beverage, some more than others. It was great fun.

Last night Studenterhus Aarhus hosted a party for us with BBQ and drinks at the bar there. It was awesome and there were tons of people there. Around 11:30 some of us left to go downtown. We went to Sam's Bar (modeled after the Cheers bar from the TV show) first and then went over to Social Club which is one door down. Social Club was AMAZING and it was packed. We danced to Danish and American music and it was really really hot but really fun! I even ran into the guy who lives next door to me, Rasmus. Nikki Lacey and I left around 3 and got a taxi home. I'm sure the boys were there until closing time.

So I thought I should go over some of my friends here so you guys don't get too confused.
I'll just explain those who are on the flickr photo page.

Alejandro (aka Alex)- from Munich
Elliot- born in London, lives in Belfast
Daniel-from Australia
Hayley- also from Australia
Heidi- from London
Jake- from San Francisco
Jeff- from Toronto
Jordan- Jake's girlfriend. She has to go back to the States tomorrow; we're all going to miss her!
Jordi- from Barcelona
Kenny- my first Danish friend! He lives down the hall from me
Lutz- from Berlin
Marco- from Italy
Thise- from Austria
Nikki- from California
Lacey- from California

We leave for Barcelona Wednesday morning. The group consists of me, Lacey, Nikki, Daniel, Sally, Jess, and Nick (all from Australia). I am more than excited! We'll be in Barcelona for 5 days and Girona for 2.
There's a trip planned for Greece at the end of September which should be amazing as well.

Hope everybody has been surviving the heat! The weather here has been great. Other than a few days with rain it's been 70 degrees or so and at night it gets down to about 50. I'm sure you guys are jealous! :)

Learning Danish is HARD!

Enter week two of my Danish class. Most of us have given up actually learning the language at this point. We've picked up the basics but grammer is rediculously hard and writing it is even harder. But it's still fun!

Sunday night some of the students had a BBQ at their house so I went to that with Elliot and Alex and we met everybody there. It was great fun and there was a huge mix of us there. Ireland, Japan, Italy, Spain, USA, Australia, Austria, England.. you get the point. BBQs here definitely aren't what they are in the States. Hamburgers and hot dogs don't cut it. You have to marinate the meat and make skewers and all sorts of other food. And of course, beer.

Monday night about 20 of us went out for dinner. It was a spur of the moment thing and we pretty much took over this little Italian restaurant. It was so much fun though! The food was amazing and it wasn't too expensive either. I didn't take any pictures but some other people did so hopefully I'll get copies.

Last night there was International Night at Studenterhus Aarhus and that was fabulous as well. Studenterhus Aarhus basically organizes tons of events for students and there's a huge place where we can all go hang out. There's a full working bar, table soccer.. it's really fun. Every Tuesday night there's international night so a lot of international students end up going to hang out with everybody. Last night was just a casual get together, but next week they're having a movie night and I think Karaoke is coming up soon as well. They also organize trips for us. Next weekend there's a trip to Legoland and in about a month there's a trip to Skagen on the very Northern part of Denmark that I can't wait to go on.

Today I went to Bazar Vest with two other girls from America, Nikki and Lacey. It's basically an indoor farmers market geared toward Middle Eastern people. We had falafals which were absolutely amazing and we all bought a lot of really fresh produce for not a lot of money. I spent about 75kr (about $15) and got 2 huge mangos, 5 kiwis, grapes, a huge thing of blueberries and 3 huge peaches. Pictures have been posted on Flickr.

Big news of the day: I leave for Barcelona in a week! There's a big group of exchange students going (I'm not sure what the total head count is) and we're going to stay for a week. Round trip flight cost about $100 and the hostels will cost about $35 a night. Definitely couldn't travel that cheaply in the States! I am rediculously excited and I'm really glad that there's a TON of stuff going on this weekend so the next week should go quickly!

Look for another update after this weekend :)

Jeg hedder Michelle. Jeg kommer fra United States.

Sorry it's been a while... things have been crazy here! Learning Dansk is a lot harder than I expected. The written language is different from the way you speak it which complicates things. My language class is FABULOUS though. We have a great teacher and there's 16 of us from 12 different countries. We've learned a lot but we have a lot of fun at the same time. I know the very basics such as jeg hedder (my name is) and jeg kommer fra (I come from) plus how to ask if somebody has a girlfriend... that will be useful! I can count (sortof) in Dansk as well.

I've met a ton of people from Germany, Poland, England, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, Italy, Spain... I could go on forever! There's only about 10 of us from the States but that's okay; all the exchange students speak English and they like to teach us their language too which is awesome.

There's a lot of exchange students who live at my Kollegium which makes things even more fun. We had a BBQ here Thursday which was really fun. A ton of people showed up including people from other Kollegiums. Friday one of the guys from the States threw a house party American style at his place. There had to be at least 200 people there, some Danish, lots of exchange students.. it was awesome. There was even beer pong!

Last night a girl from the States and I went out to a bar downtown with some Danish boys she knows. It was a blast even though they kept speaking in Danish and we had no idea what they were saying. They thought our accents were strange and it was entertaining listening to them try to imitate us. They were really nice to let us come over to their place and pregame and then let us tag along to the bar with them. I had soooo much fun! Danish music is better than American music by far. Everyone likes to dance, not sit at tables and hang out.. I definitely wasn't complaining! We left a little past 3am.. places are open really late and most people stay out until about 6am and just catch the first bus home. The boys stayed there but Nikki and I took a taxi home. It'll take some getting used to partying that late!

The weather here has been great. Only two days so far that it rained really hard for a long time. Usually it rains early in the morning for a little while and there's occasional pop-up showers but they don't last long. It's perfect weather for jeans and a t-shirt but you definitely don't go anywhere without a waterproof jacket or umbrella. I've gotten used to not having ice but I still miss it. I don't really miss drinks from home.. I've figured out where I can buy Diet Coke (Coke Light) and beer is actually really good. There's a huge variety of flavors including pear and apple.. definitely nothing like Bud Light or Coors. Lots of walking is involved though so I haven't gained any weight yet!

More to come in a couple days