So yesterday (Sunday) we moved into our apartment on this cute little street called Rita Bonnat. We are in between 2 little restaurants, and yesterday morning after we moved in we stopped at a nearby café and grabbed some breakfast. After settling in and taking much needed naps, we went to a really nice italian restaurant a block from our hotel and I had a really large and delicious helping of prosciutto/goat cheese pizza, which also served as my lunch and dinner today.
Today was the first day of classes, and I only had to go to one since our business classes start Wednesday. It was actually very easy to get around the city via the metro. We have about a 10-15 minute commute to the CEA campus. Today I had my Cultural Visions through Spanish Cinema class at the CEA Global Campus. Luckily, one of my roommates, Julia, is in my class and so far the class seems pretty interesting, as we are going to watch 3 Spanish movies.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
First Full Day in Barca
The morning was very slow for me as jet lag was hitting me hard. We took a bus to our hotel, the Catalonia Barcelona Plaza Hotel, where we would be staying for the weekend before arriving at our apartments. I settled into my room and took a shower before my roommate, Ali, who is also one of my apartment-mates, arrived. Once Ali arrived she and I, and another girl Alex, who Ali had met on her flight decided to get some lunch and explore Barcelona.
We decided to walk to Las Ramblas, which is a very popular hot spot for tourists. It's a 2 mile long street filled with little cafés/restaurants, shopping carts, and really elaborate street performers. We stopped at a little restaurant named Micky's and we all ordered "jamón y queso"sandwiches. (For all you non-Spanish speakers, jamón means ham, and queso means cheese) The sandwiches were really good, especially the french baguette the meat and cheese was on. After lunch we decided to walk around some more, and walked over to the marina, which was housing a rather large cruise ship, and off in the distance one could see the very new and fancy "W" hotel.
As we were walking up Las Ramblas to head back to our hotel, we came across a market hidden in a little side street. Let me tell you, this was the first Spanish market I've seen, but it sets the bar extremely high. The rows and rows of any food you could think of were amazing. What was especially amazing was the expansive set up of chocolates and other sweets.
After our trip at the market we walked and walked (and after getting somewhat lost, took a cab) and arrived back to the hotel to relax in the room and grab dinner.
The first day was not too busy, but it was really fun finally getting to experience the city I've been waiting to see for months now.
The Boarding Blunder Before Barcelona
Hi Everyone,
This is my first time doing a blog, and I'm really excited to be updating you all on my travels. So this morning at about 9 am Barcelona time, I landed in Barca after a nightmarish ordeal the night before. So what happened was, I had had a connection in Newark but had not been assigned a seat for the connecting flight to Barcelona. I didn't think much of it, as I figured I would just be assigned one at the gate before boarding.
Little did I know that Continental Airlines had oversold the plane by at least 5 seats, one of those seats being mine. As panic and stress started to settle in with the thought I may not get on this flight, I patiently had to wait 45 minutes in line for the ticket agent to arrive at the gate. I had been overhearing rumors that there might be 3 extra seats on the flight and as I was the second person in line at the ticket counter, in front of other students who didn't have seats, I was feeling a little better.
After the ticket agent arrived to the gate 45 mins later than we were told she would be, she said all she could do was to take our boarding passes and would call us if people would volunteer to give up their seats. Now realizing I was at the mercy of other people, I slowly started to freak out more and more. Seeing as my flight was 90% made up of college students studying abroad, I thought the chances of 5 people giving up their seats seemed impossible.
Meanwhile, the other CEA students and I who lost their seats were frantically trying to figure out if there were other flights available, and the ticket agent notified us that the next flight to Barcelona wasn't until 7:10 pm the next day. We students became very frustrated at this as we were told by CEA that we had to arrive in Barcelona in the midmorning if we wanted transportation to our hotels. Soon a Continental Airlines supervisor was called and he let us know that there were seats on a flight that connected in Lisbon, Portugal that would have us arrive in BCN at 4:30 pm. To make a very long story short, as I was preparing to have to accept the fact I would probably have to fly to Lisbon, Portugal, the ticket agent started calling off names of the students and hands me a boarding pass for my original flight to Barcelona.
I wanted to post this first anecdote of my trip because for those who know me, I am a worrywart when things aren't in my control. Dealing with this issue on my own, and not getting overly dramatic or frantic, was the first example of how the experience of traveling abroad makes one learn things about themselves they hadn't prior to the trip.
This is my first time doing a blog, and I'm really excited to be updating you all on my travels. So this morning at about 9 am Barcelona time, I landed in Barca after a nightmarish ordeal the night before. So what happened was, I had had a connection in Newark but had not been assigned a seat for the connecting flight to Barcelona. I didn't think much of it, as I figured I would just be assigned one at the gate before boarding.
Little did I know that Continental Airlines had oversold the plane by at least 5 seats, one of those seats being mine. As panic and stress started to settle in with the thought I may not get on this flight, I patiently had to wait 45 minutes in line for the ticket agent to arrive at the gate. I had been overhearing rumors that there might be 3 extra seats on the flight and as I was the second person in line at the ticket counter, in front of other students who didn't have seats, I was feeling a little better.
After the ticket agent arrived to the gate 45 mins later than we were told she would be, she said all she could do was to take our boarding passes and would call us if people would volunteer to give up their seats. Now realizing I was at the mercy of other people, I slowly started to freak out more and more. Seeing as my flight was 90% made up of college students studying abroad, I thought the chances of 5 people giving up their seats seemed impossible.
Meanwhile, the other CEA students and I who lost their seats were frantically trying to figure out if there were other flights available, and the ticket agent notified us that the next flight to Barcelona wasn't until 7:10 pm the next day. We students became very frustrated at this as we were told by CEA that we had to arrive in Barcelona in the midmorning if we wanted transportation to our hotels. Soon a Continental Airlines supervisor was called and he let us know that there were seats on a flight that connected in Lisbon, Portugal that would have us arrive in BCN at 4:30 pm. To make a very long story short, as I was preparing to have to accept the fact I would probably have to fly to Lisbon, Portugal, the ticket agent started calling off names of the students and hands me a boarding pass for my original flight to Barcelona.
I wanted to post this first anecdote of my trip because for those who know me, I am a worrywart when things aren't in my control. Dealing with this issue on my own, and not getting overly dramatic or frantic, was the first example of how the experience of traveling abroad makes one learn things about themselves they hadn't prior to the trip.
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