A Barcelonia Adventure

Our trip to Barcelona for Christmas was interesting. It had its ups and downs, and in general was not quite what we were expecting. We mostly just walked around the city, as many of the museums were closed for the holidays. We did manage to get into the Gaudi museum, and La Sagrada Familia (Gaudi's unfinished church), both of which were fantastic. The weather was wonderful -- cool but warm enough to not need a jacket much of the time. One of the major perks in our view was that it was sunny. Properly sunny. Sunny where you don't have to squint your eyes from the sun never getting above the horizon. It was also really thrilling to try out our language skills, speaking Spanish for the first time to people who, um, actually expected you to. We didn't quite realize that Barcelona was one of those places where people don't just automatically speak English once they realize you're an American. Many of the people we came across didn't seem to know much English at all. This made it all the more rewarding when we were able to converse with them, and they apparently understood us! Aaron did most of the talking since I knew about 10 words in Spanish (I know more now -- maybe 20), but as my confidence grew I started ordering my own food, and asking for the check at the end of the meal. It really was quite a learning experience.

Now for the, um, rough spots of the vacation. So that you, too, may learn from our mistakes, here is a list of tips for visiting Barcelona:

1. Beware of pickpockets. Luckily we learned this lesson secondhand. We were on the train from the airport to the city center when the lady standing next to us started shrieking things in Spanish that we eventually interpreted to mean she had just been pickpocketed. We were paranoidly careful with our money and passports for the rest of the trip.

2. If something seems like it should be "complimentary" its probably not. The bread that is customarily served at the beginning of the meal kept showing up on the bill, despite us never having ordered it. The "complimentary" breakfast (you know, bad toast and cereal served buffet style) at the hotel ended up costing us 8 euros per person per day. We paid 8 euros to get into Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, only to find out upon entering that it would cost another 2 euros to actually go upstairs in the church.

3. Don't order something on the menu if it doesn't have a price listed. At one restaurant I ended up getting charged about $7 for a diet coke.

4. La Sagrada Familia has 2 gift shops. So if you, say, make plans to split up and then meet back at the gift shop in 20 minutes, make sure you both know which gift shop you're talking about. Enough said.

5. Good food is expensive. We ate at middle-range restaurants, which typically cost about 15-20 euros per person for a meal. We tried to eat at the restaurants that were recommended in the guidebook. But in all honesty we were consistently disappointed. Our hunch is that really great food does exist in Barcelona...but that you need to be dining at the expensive places to find it -- or you need to just be lucky and find the random places with good food. Or maybe we were just there at the wrong time -- fresh produce seemed to be lacking, maybe because it was winter. Incidentally, some of the best food we had was at a fast-food vegetarian falafel place. That figures.

6. They don't speak Spanish in Barcelona. Yep, that's right. They speak Catalan, a kind of hybrid language between Spanish and French. They all also speak Castilian (normal Spanish), but the signs are all in Catalan, and by default people speak Catalan. Also good to know is that the Spanish you learned in school was most likely Latin-American Spanish, which is slightly different from Castilian Spanish.

Some pictures:

A marching band we inadvertently ran into while they were parading the streets playing Christmas music:


A huge and elaborate nativity display:

The entrance to Parc Guell (a Gaudi-designed park):

Aaron and I getting eaten by a shark outside the aquarium:

The Telefonica tower on Montjuic by the old Olympic stadium:

View of Barcelona from Montjuic:

La Sagrada Familia:

Our trip to London

Last weekend Aaron and I took the train down to London and did some sightseeing. London really is a fabulous city -- beautiful, better weather than Edinburgh, and lots to do and see.

Aaron, somewhere near St. James Park:


Buckingham Palace:


Me, looking dorky in front of the Tower of London:


Westminster Abbey:


Big Ben, of course:


Trafalgar Square, I think:


Besides the places in the photos, we also went to the Tate Modern, where I decided I needed to learn how to draw (that is my new project for during Christmas break). We went to the National Gallery, the British Museum, and Portabello Market. Plus we got to meet up with my old co-worker who is now working in London, so that was nice as well.

And tomorrow: off to Barcelona for Christmas! Cassie just got picked up by the Pet Taxi to be taken to the kennel, and I just need to pack and, um, learn Spanish. Yeah.

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Winter Solstice!

....and what a nice day for a solstice it is here. Clear, mild, and not too windy (a welcome change from the month or so of daily wind and rain we've just had). So what is it like at the shortest day of the year in Edinburgh? Well, sunrise this morning was at 8:42, and sunset will be at 3:40 this afternoon. The sun only gets to 10 degrees in the sky, so the entire daylight hours have you squinting into the sunset/sunrise. To commemorate this shortest of days, I took a couple pictures at noon so you can get an idea of how strange it feels.

Long shadows:

The sun is behind the roof of this building:

Cassie, enjoying solstice :)

Also, Aaron and I went to his company's annual Christmas dinner last night, and we have a photo (albeit a fuzzy one) from that:

Thanksgiving!

At long last, here are some pictures from Thanksgiving!

Aaron's lovely rolls:

Apple turkeys!

The group lining up to get food:

Everyone was so enthusiastic about this newly discovered holiday. Natalie came up with the idea of wearing feathers to represent the Native Americans.

Cassie was in the holiday spirit this weekend while she was being dogsit for by my friend Sierra.(Not a thanksgiving picture, but cute all the same).

Thanksgiving here was a great success. Despite having a small oven and refrigerator we managed to feed around 25 people (with the help of some of the other Americans). Since it was such an international group, we ended up having some international touches added to the festivities. Christina, who is from Greece, brought Spanikopita. Leo, from Spain, made a ridiculously large amount of sangria (which ended up rivaling the turkey for being the hit of the party). And we learned that in Spain turkeys say 'glu glu' instead of gobble gobble. It was wonderful to have such an enthusiastic, fun, and caring group of friends around for the holiday. I am very thankful for that.

First semester completed!

Well, my first semester as a Master's student is officially over! I've handed in all my papers and taken all my exams. Exams, I might add, are much nicer in the US in my opinion. Here they are worth a full 50% of your grade, and they consist of 2 essay questions to be completed in 2 hours. Not my idea of fun. But its over now!! Hurray!

Here is some British exam terminology, if you're interested:
revising: studying
invigilator: proctor
external examiner: the person who actually grades your exam (yep, not the professor)
marks: grades
bollocks: the exclamation you make when you realize that only one of the many topics you "revised" for the exam is on the exam (yes, this did happen to me, but I winged it and I think I did pretty well considering)

So what else have I been up to since my last (distant) blog entry? Well, Thanksgiving of course, but that will be in a separate entry. Other than that, mostly just writing papers, avoiding writing papers, "revising" for exams, and avoiding "revising" for exams. I really do have procrastination down to an art.

But for now, I have to go run to meet Brighid at our local fair trade coffee shop for some serious reading of a very serious book (crime/mystery: Black and Blue by Ian Rankin. I would highly recommend his books if you like mysteries and you want a flavor of Edinburgh, as all his novels are set here (and the main character likes to hang out at the bar across the street from my flat)).

Upcoming blog entries:

• Thanksgiving!
• Where did the sun go?
• What I plan to do with my 3 1/2 weeks of vacation besides sleep a lot :)