Not such a bad weekend after all!

So the weekend kind of started badly, but it ended up being a lot of fun and I got to see some great things!

I met a really great catalan guy named Jordi who has bringing me around to some awesome local secrets. On Saturday he brought me up in the mountains near the beach castelldefers. The view of the ocean was magnificent! In the middle of the mountains was a small town with a monastery similar to the ones in Tibet. Jordi spent last summer studying in China and traveling in Tibet so he was excited to show me it. The monastery was really beautiful and it was such a relaxing break from the city.

Saturday night my roommates and I went to the Harlem Jazz Club in Barri Gotic to see a Cuban group. The group was absolutely amazing!!!! They didn't come on until 11:00 and ended around 2:00 so it was still a late night but it was such a refreshing break from the discos and the music was really quite impressive.

Yesterday was a great day as well! Jordi and I met up with his friend, Dosta, and his friends girlfriend, Merrii in their hometown Vic.  There was a medieval fair going on so we walked around through all of the various stands selling meat, cheese, jewelry, and other crafts. The town was small and old, and much more of a traditional catalan town.

After the fair we took a drive further into the mountains (we could see the Pyrenees!) to a lake where Dosta practices wake-boarding (He was the European wake-boarding champion this year!). We had lunch right by the lake and then went to Dosta's mountain house to say a quick hello to his family. The scenery was absolutely incredible!!! It was by far one of the most relaxing days I've had here and I didn't want to leave.

I realized that living here if you never really get to know the local people you are only going to see the main tourist attractions. But there is so much beauty beyond what the tourists see! One of my goals coming here was to make friends with locals and I'm proud that I have been able to do so. My only regret is that I didn't separate myself more from Americans, but everything here is truly a learning experience!

Can an easy button please appear?

Today was a pretty rough day. A girl in my class and I had decided this week that we would go to San Sebastian for the weekend. We don't have classes next week and everyone else had planned giant trips. We both had been last minute in planning (and my pocket was getting a little empty), so we thought going somewhere inside of the country would be easier. San Sebastian is supposed to be beautiful. It is a city located in the Basque country situated right on the Atlantic Ocean. Its a summer vacation city but also a lovely town in the winter with incredible food! It was my second choice study abroad city and sometimes I wonder if I would have been happier there than here in such a big cosmopolitan city.

We decided to be adventurous and rent a car because it was much cheaper than taking a train or bus and we thought it'd be fun to stop along the way and take pictures of the mountains and the scenery. Emily is over 21 so she can rent a car in Spain and it worked out perfectly. However, when we finally made it to the rent a car place today (after standing in line for over an hour I might add) they wouldn't let us rent it due to the fact that neither of us had an international license. We spent 5 hours in between the airport and the train station trying to find other rent a car companies that would let us rent cars. Other companies would let us but their prices were just to high. We finally made it to the train station and found a bus that was leaving in 45 minutes. We were ecstatic. But we should have knocked on wood - the bus was sold out!!!!

Finally around 5 pm we decided to give up and return to our apartments. Hollywood's movies make traveling around Europe seem like a piece of cake. In Eurotrip they wake up and say "hmm lets go here," and then they go there no problem. I guess real life isn't that easy?

We still really wanna make it to San Sebastian so I think we are gonna focus on getting some of our finals work done this weekend and go next week on Tuesday instead. Hopefully we will be more prepared this time!