Well good news and bad news.
Good news: the
planned trip for our study abroad program actually ended up being really fun!
Bad news: classes
started and I need to get in somewhat of a school mindset.
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| Tarragona |
Tarragona. Our study abroad center had this trip planned
from Friday to Saturday where we took buses to see different sites and spend
the night in Tarragona with everyone from our program. Our buses were split up
by Spanish classes and conveniently Liz and I were on the same bus. I wasn't exactly looking forward to the trip but it ended up being the most fun I have had so far. We met a lot of really cool people on our bus from Indiana,
Virginia, University of Illinois, North Carolina, and UT. There are so many
kids from the suburbs of Chicago and this world really is so small. I felt like
I had at least a connection of knowing some person to almost everyone I talked
to which was really cool. And Liz of course found a Connecticut crew.
On Friday night, after hours of touring and a scarring papas bravas experience at lunch, we could do basically whatever we wanted. In the small town of Tarragona, there was approximately one bar open. After a couple of GroupMe texts, 20 minutes later and all 400 study abroad kids were at this bar. It went from having one bartender and one room to opening up a night club downstairs…so random but so fun.
The next day we saw a monastery in Santes Creus which was really interesting. After, we drove to a restaurant and had a traditional “Spanish BBQ” which was a 2 ½ hour lunch where we were introduced to the baron and calçotada. A baron is essentially a bong that holds wine and you pour it into your mouth. I can work with that. A calçotada is a blackened leek that you dip into a sauce and eat…yeah. It was a pretty fun (and interesting) lunch and after we headed back to Barcelona. It is so weird to me that just being in Barcelona a few weeks, it feels nice to come “home” after only being gone for a day and a half.
So you guys. I had the best and worst sushi of my life this
week. Liz and I were craving sushi after having bread, potatoes, chicken, and
cheese for the past two weeks and decided to venture out to a sushi place we
saw a couple days ago. It was terrible. I wondered why I ever
thought sushi in Barcelona was okay in the first place. Well after we got back from Tarragona, Liz and
I wanted something lighter for dinner and found a sushi place on Yelp with amazing reviews.So we convinced each other to bite the bullet and try it.
The location was awesome. It’s called Fishop and located
right off the metro stop in Passeig de Gracia near the Nespresso building. You
walk downstairs into a trendy, lively atmosphere and we were seated
immediately. Lesson learned #1: look at prices before you go to a restaurant. I
wasn’t looking to spend four euros on a single piece of nigiri, so Liz and I
decided to get three rolls (that only consist of four pieces.......) and split it.
Well that and two beers later and we were at 44 euros. How did that happen? I
have no idea. Oh and we had to pay four euros for our table. Don’t get me
wrong, the sushi was incredible and really fresh, but I can't justify spending 22 euros for six pieces.
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| Spicy Tuna |
Highlight: We’re going
to Interlaken, Switzerland this weekend. We’re staying with Angie (one of our best
friends from TCU), her roommates and their friends from college. We’re planning
on doing a pub crawl, hiking, and exploring so I think it will be a really fun
weekend. This is also probably going to be our only winter trip so
I’m glad that we decided to do it. I
Oh and Liz and I attempted to make pasta with meat sauce
this week to get out of our chicken and vegetable rut that we've done probably three times. Lesson
learned #2: tomato paste is not the same as tomato sauce. Liz accidentally
bought tomato paste instead of sauce and it was to say the least...disgusting. We ended up
straining it, saving the meat and concocting a red wine sauce that we made by sautéeing leftover red wine, olive oil, pepper, garlic salt, spinach, onions, and diced tomatoes. It ended
up being surprisingly good…need to get creative in this European city of ours.
We added mahón cheese on top which is AMAZING. One of my teachers recommended it to me and it comes from the island off of
Minorca which is on the Mediterranean cost of Spain. It is more of a sharp,
buttery taste with a hint of sweetness. I’m obsessed. I put it on everything.
Goals accomplished:
get my Spanish SIM card to work (hallelujah), spend an absurd amount of money
at the bar, switch out of one of my 9am classes, meet new friends and lose six
pairs of socks already.
Goals for this week:
get school supplies, go to Park Guell, make more dinners instead of eating out every
meal, not crave and spend money on a cappuccino each morning (they know my
order…I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or bad thing), and try something
new.
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| Liz, Angie and me |
See you later this week!
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