So I had a bit of a rough week/weekend. Thursday after classes I wasn´t feeling well so I went home and slept for a couple hours. When I woke up I felt really sick and unfortunately that turned out to be a terrible stomach bug. I was getting sick every five minutes for 2 hours and that´s when I got a bit concerned because I could tell I was extremely dehydrated. My señora took very good care of me though and did take me to a clinic nearby. I had to get an I.V. of Zofran and a liter of liquid to rehydrate. It was hell. But I´m lucky Elena was there to take care of me! And I´m feeling so much better now. It really made me miss home though because it was scary and I didn´t have anyone I was really comfortable with, Elena wasn´t even allowed in the room when the doctors were either asking me questions or putting the I.V. in. It was tough because I could barely talk and I had to speak Spanish! I couldn´t even hold my own head up. So I obviously really wanted to be home, at least it´s all over now!

The other thing making me a bit homesick right now is that it´s Thanksgiving week. I love Thanksgiving and that it´s a holiday all about eating and family, my cousins from Maine are coming down to Connecticut this year and I´m going to miss them :( I´m hoping to be able to video Skype with my family at some point. And they are holding a Thanksgiving dinner for our program here with all the traditional foods like turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple and pumpkin pie of course. It´ll be nice to be with other Americans who are also missing home, but I really wish I could be there for the holiday. At least I´ll be home for Christmas!

I only have three weekends left here, only two in Barcelona! Ah the countdown continues. I plan on enjoying every last second I have here, but I am really looking forward to coming home. Mostly I just want my work for the semester to be done! Granted I know I´ve had a pretty easy time here being abroad as far as workload goes. But the downfall is that all the work that really counts is at the end. So I have two papers, a presentation, and 3 finals to prepare for all within the next couple weeks. I´m pretty confident with 3 out of my 4 classes, I´m doing well in those. I´m struggling a bit with Intro to the European Union though and need to focus on that paper and final. Anyone want to write a paper about the collapse of the Berlin wall and how it affected the European Union because of the subsequent fall of socialism for me? Oh and then while you´re at it just look up all the committees of the EU and their policies :)

My friend Chris from Boston is here visiting this week! It´s so good to see a familiar face and it´s made me even more excited to see the rest of my friends from home. I can´t wait to reunite with everyone! I know it´s only been a few months, but I feel like I´ve been gone for ages. I think coming back might be a bit of a shock, especially with the weather I´ve been hearing about. It´s still pretty mild here, this week is the coldest it´s been so far and it´s still in the 50s and sunny during the day. Then on top of that I need to start making money as soon as possible! I miss making money, I´ve never been one to like just spending and not having an income. Although I guess who would like that unless you have a bottomless savings account. I think I should have some money left over to hopefully at least get me through the first month of groceries. And real classes...dun dun dun.

Oh! I almost forgot, I got to go to an FC Barça game last night with Hannah! It was such an awesome experience. We were sitting literally four rows back from the field in a stadium that holds almost 100,000 people. The atmosphere was amazing and literally buzzing with energy, I´ve never heard refs take so much crap and not say anything, they must be used to it ha. I felt like any little thing called against Barça warranted a flood of insults from the fans. And on the other end, I can´t imagine what the players must feel when 100,000 people are chanting Barça, must be pretty intense. I´m not even a big fan of soccer, but I just love sporting events and the energy that comes along with being at a game. I´m so happy that we got to see that and I´ll post pictures from the game sometime soon.

I guess that about sums up this week. I´ll try and keep updating about my last few weeks here!

Bonjour from Paree!

Well, I'm actually back in Barca now, but just spent the weekend in Paris! I can't believe it's over, it was the first trip I booked a while back, and now it's done...time flies. Before I get into Paris, I'm sorry I haven't blogged in awhile, I've actually been busy with school work (imagine that!), and there hasn't really been too many new or interesting things to update about.

Paris was incredible. It is such a beautiful city, and I wish I had more time there. We got there Friday morning (I met up with Mark who flew in from Scotland) and the bus dropped us off right near Arc de Triomphe. So we got to see that, although the lift to the top was closed that day for some reason. Then we walked down Champs Elysees, a beautiful street although quite expensive. We actually didn't have a place to stay yet as our Couchsurfing had kind of fallen through. Couchsurfing is a program through the internet that allows young travelers to contact people in different cities who have a couch that they can stay on for free. It's really a great program and saves people a ton of money that would be spent on hostels or hotels. And it's a perfect way to meet new people, native to the area who a lot of times will show you around the city you're staying in. Anyway, our plans hadn't quite worked out so we ended up roaming the city for awhile, which ended up being great. I enjoyed just wandering down random streets and taking in the sights.

Luckily, most people in Paris speak English, at least enough to get by in, because both Mark and my knowledge of the language doesn't go far past bonjour, bonsoir, merci, etc. But we got pointed in the right direction to go for hostels and internet cafes. We ended up finding a reasonably priced hotel, dropped our stuff off and headed out to an internet cafe to try and contact the Couchsurfer for the next night. We ended up being successful with this, and got to stay for free with him on Saturday night, his name was Olivier. Anyway, after the internet cafe we headed down to the Lourve, which is free after 6, and got to roam through Egyptian and Greek artifacts. It is such a beautiful building and area! I'm really happy I got to see both the inside and outside of it. After that, we were exhausted from traveling and walking around so we just called it a night.

Saturday morning we started out by going to Notre Dame. The cathedral was just as impressive as I thought it would be. The inside is amazing with the high ceilings and stained glass windows. We were going to go up to the top, but the belfry was closed because it is in use from 11:30-2:30; we thought we'd head back later, but ended up running out of time. Paris is not a small city, and the metro is not the easiest to navigate, so travel time definitely affected some of our plans! But we walked from Notre Dame to Sainte Chapelle. This church had a beautiful room of huge stained glass windows, I only wish we had been there on a sunny day because I'd imagine the light coming through would be incredible. After that we had a nice long lunch and then made our way over to the Eiffel Tower of course. We actually got there at a good time, the line wasn't too long and we got up when it was still light, but then changing over to dark. There was no sunset as it was too cloudy, but the views were still breathtaking. I really liked seeing the city light up from above as it got darker. (I have so many pictures of everything, I made two albums that I'll post to this site, so check them out!) When we got down, the tower was lit up blue and every once in awhile they have white glittering lights with the blue lighting underneath. The tower was twinkling when we got to the bottom of it, it was perfect.

After that we met up with Olivier who brought us to his apartment just outside of Paris. For dinner we went to a great little crepes place and then just had a relaxing night hanging out at his apartment. The next morning we had to leave at about 9:30 to catch the bus back for our flights, but it was a very satisfying trip.

I found that being in Paris was almost surreal because there are so many things there that I grew up seeing pictures of and hearing about, and then to actually be seeing them for myself was just incredible. I'm so lucky to have had the opportunity to go there, and I hope I can make it back some day and spend a little more time exploring the city. (Aunt Kath and Aunt Sue, I'll go back there anytime with you!!)

Now I have just one trip left to Venice in December. I only have four weekends left in Europe! I say it every time I think, but it's mind-blowing how fast the time goes by here and how much I've seen since September. I can't wait to catch up with everyone over the holidays and tell more stories :)

Sí se Puedes!

Which is the translation chant for Yes, we can! and what we were chanting here in Barcelona on Wednesday morning as results rolled in. The Democrats Abroad election night party was a lot of fun. I went with Hannah and my friend Max and then ran into some other people we know from school while there. The energy was incredible, and it was a great place to be. When Obama won states like Pennsylvania and Ohio the excitement was palpable and the cheers drowned out the voice of the newscasters. Throughout the night I kept realizing how big this night was, even before the results started coming in, and how amazing it is to be a part of it. I can say that I cast a vote during this historical election and I've never been prouder to partake in something. The results of it all are unreal. Not only the fact that Obama won, but everything that comes with that victory. Our first black president, to be honest I wasn't sure that I would ever live to see that. The way the country came together to elect Obama; people put aside their differences and maybe vote democrat for the first time in their life. And it was because they knew it wasn't about democrats vs. republicans this time, it was about needing a change not only for our country but for the whole world. I'm just so happy and so proud that I'm part of this. I can't wait to be home for the inauguration, and I heard I missed some pretty great victory night rallies in Boston.

On another note, midterms are over, one was pretty rough, but the rest went well. I come home only 6 weeks from today. I can't believe it, that sounds like such a short amount of time. It's going to be weird to be home, but I can't wait.

Steph's last night here last Sunday was a lot of fun. We essentially ended up going on a bit of a walking tour around Barcelona and I got to know the city even more than before. I had been to all of the places that I took her, but I had never walked to all of them. A few times during the walk I had light bulb moments and though "Oh, I had no idea these things were so close to each other and that that little road connects it all." It's funny after being in this city for over two months that I still hadn't realized it, but at the same time it definitely took me more than two months to really know Boston. More like two years.

Last night I went out with a girl that I met at the election night party, Lou. She showed us this little bar in the Gothic Quarter that her and her friends go to and I loved it. The music, atmosphere, and people were just great and I had so much fun. It was really small, but that made it even better. I enjoyed hanging out with Lou and her friend a lot and I hope to continue hanging out with them. It's nice to still be making new friends.

As for now, I'm off to go boot shopping with Hannah and Anjali :) Look for pictures soon, I'm hoping to upload some from this past week as soon as possible!

So I had a pretty interesting weekend here. My friend Steph is here for the weekend, and it was great having someone from home here! Unfortunately the weather has been pretty awful, we did get to go see Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell yesterday though and the rain held up for us. I've been wanting to go to Sagrada Familia since before I came to Barcelona, so I'm very happy to have finally done that. The building is absolutely stunning; the detail and design make it unlike anything I've ever seen before. Gaudí was really a creative genius and I feel so lucky that I get to see his work up close. We decided to wait in the line to take the lift to the top and it was absolutely worth it. The view of the city was amazing, and then instead of taking the elevator back down, you walk down through one of the towers. This let us get unique views through different windows and also had some mini balconies that we got to stop and take pictures from. The spiral staircase for the second half of the way down was a bit scary. It had a railing on one side, but nothing on the other and the edge of the spiral only came up to about my ankle. (Mom, I don't think you could have done this part of the tour, your knees will probably go weak just from my pictures :P) Then we spent some time taking pictures around the outside facades, but again it's definitely one of those things that photos just don't do it justice.

After that we went up to Parc Guell. It was my first time back there since my first week here, even though it's only a 20 minute walk from me. Oh well, having a friend here was the perfect excuse to return. I enjoyed walking through it as much as I did the first time, even more really because this time I wasn't on a guided tour of it and was free to roam where I wanted. And again, Gaudí's works never fail to amaze me no matter how many times I see them. (I'll post pictures of everything as soon as I get some time to upload them!)

Hopefully today we'll get to see some more of the city, but it is raining a lot. And I have midterms to study for. I know! The horror of it!! I actually have work to do this weekend. 3 midterms between Monday and Tuesday. Oh well, at least I'll be done in time for Tuesday night an the election party. Hopefully I will have more than one reason to celebrate that night.

The large amount of rain this week has made me realize that I did not pack for wet weather. Not sure why, but I just didn't bring much rain appropriate gear. My biggest problem is shoes, I really need to buy some new shoes because flats just don't cut it in rain and mud. Ah well.

Oh yes, and it was Halloween on Friday. It was definitely amusing to see who dressed up and what the costumes were. Walking around that night, I saw a surprising amount of Spaniards dressed up. Halloween is not a traditional holiday here, the holiday they celebrate is called Castanyada. They eat these really sweet dessert things called panellets, they're kind of like marzipan, and made from flour, almonds, and sugar more or less. They drink some sweet wine and traditionally stay up all night (although I think that has become more of something just the young people do, and I'm not sure how common it is even with them anymore). Then the next day is All Soul's Day, and they visit the graves of their family and bring flowers. But Halloween has been catching on more and more and little kids of course love it, as well as people my age. I personally didn't dress up this year, but I have enjoyed seeing all the pictures from Boston of the Halloween parties!

So yeah, things are great here. Today starts week 10, which means I have less than 7 weeks left now. Mindblowing. I still miss home obviously, but I'm truly so happy right now too. I just still can't believe how lucky I am to be here and having this experience, and at the same time have so much to look forward to coming home to. Life is good :)