Okay, I didn’t have a guitarist follow me while I strut like I meant it, but I DID ride on a Vespa through a European city.
My first full week of classes has come and gone, and I have definitely learned a thing or two about business by now. My Spanish for Business class has been a little challenging, as I’ve never taken a single day of business in my life. Some of the content just goes over my head, but I nod like I understand it. Hello new vocabulary; in both languages!! We’ve quickly covered four full units of learning by now, and my classmates and I have also completed oral presentations over the biggest companies in Spain. Might as well start a Spanish business at this point. 👀
So I can’t actually say that I had a full week of classes. Last Wednesday, I flew to Barcelona for a site visit to SSA’s partner institutions in the “New York of Spain.” I stayed in a pretty nice hotel for two nights - camera scare aside, it was the TV light - and in a hostel for one night. Thursday was chock FULL of activities from 8:30am until 9:00pm. To say I was tired is a bit of an understatement.
I met the BCN Resident Director, María, and the Assistant, also María, outside of my hotel on Thursday morning. We taxied to our first university stop and had a small tour around the beautiful campus where I learned more about the opportunities that our students have in the international studies route. From there, we hopped over to the second university and essentially went over the same things. Side note - ISU could never with the architecture I saw! Queue the Vespa ride! There’s an app that allows citizens and travelers to rent Vespas, so Assistant María and I took a 15-minute ride around the city to get to our beachside lunch reservation. Adrenaline high, for sure! After lunch, we toured the last university and a student residence hall, then proceeded to go on a 2-hour bus tour of the city with the summer term students and their speaking partners. Assistant María was a better tour guide than the bus speaker man. I ended the night with a delicious veggie-filled meal near my hotel and zonked out immediately.
My Friday in Barcelona brought more adventure, though a quick few hours working at a Starbucks put a brief pause on my curiosity. No need to fret, as I was able to make my way around town to the iconic sites and a killer flea market via the metro. Another tattoo later, I met up with a girl from my hostel and a few others for a lovely tapas dinner. Who knew so many Australians were also having their hot girl European summer? It was a nice time, but the vibes weren’t fully being matched, so I made my way to the activity of which I booked the hostel for: free pub crawl.
The perfect way to quickly make friends and just unleash your true unhinged self (like you’ll never see them again), down some delicious G&T’s, maybe give a fake name? Sign me up. My hostel friend joined the shenanigans, and we made friends with a couple from Florida and all vibed. Somewhere along the way came novio numero dos, a man from (you guessed it) Australia who quickly became absolutely infatuated with me. Adding a few quotes to my ever-growing notes app of things people tell me about myself. Again, that god-complex really hits me. I blame it on being a Sagittarius. Unfortunately, the night brought very minimal sleep and a 10:30am check-out time on Saturday morning, but I’ll never be 24 in Spain again.
Feeling a bit unwell, I checked out and headed to Park Guell for my 11:00am ticket time. Oh. My. God. If someone had told me I had to hike up 10+ flights of stairs with my 25 lb. backpack and a slight hangover, I just would have skipped the experience. Nonetheless, we progressed. I did sing “Strut” in my head on repeat, do not worry. Though spoiler alert, in my state of mind I did not really think it was worth it. Just Google some pictures and you’ll be set. However, the tickets were only €10, so do with this information what you will if you ever make it to Barcelona. A cab to the airport, an airport vlog and some Burger King later, I arrived back in Seville on Saturday afternoon and shut down my body for the rest of the weekend.
Back to class bright and early Monday morning and a few meetings today have me back into the swing of things. Miss Universe, ma’am, I am telling you right now to promote me to solely the Marketing Coordinator asap. I have a quiz tomorrow, so I am off to study my vocab this evening.
Also though, I am quickly venting on my beef with the Spaniards. I am well on my way toward fluency and I have a literal Andalusian accent, though three times over this past week I have been responded to in English! One of those times, we had exchanged several sentences before they switched to English. Like? What happened? I simply want to converse in the language of the country I am in. I am here to improve! Okay, rant over.
Upcoming: a long weekend trip to Albufeira, Portugal with some girls from the program. We found €20 roundtrip bus tickets and had to jump the gun. If you know the Jennifer Lawrence meme of “What do you mean?” that was me in the café yesterday when I found the return ticket for €0. I promise the tickets are legit.
While this post was much more of a personal diary than some of my others, I’m still glad you stuck around. Season 24 is one of my favorites.
Besitos,
Amanda