Correfoc

Among the other small things that I did on Saturday, The Correfoc was the highlight...not just of that day but of Merce as a whole. It is a tradition in which a major street is shut down because the devils take it over. During the celebration, the gates to hell are opened. There is this giant red arch with a huge door and a bunch of devils come out onto this stage. They all proceeded to do some ritual, chanted a bunch, and then proceeded to start the parade. These troops of people would come through the gates of hell one at a time. Each one started with a drum line of about 20 people. Then they would each have a moving dragon float, or some kind of demonic looking creature that would come through. After that they would have a troop of like 20 people dressed up in devil costumes that were flame retardant and kind of reminded me of where the wild things are. The catch is that the devils floats are continually reloading massive amounts of sparklers and shooting them into and directly at the spectators. Additionally, a bunch of people go out into the parade and start dancing with sparklers flying all over them. They all had a lot of protective clothing like baggy sweaters and bandanas. I on the other hand, was wearing a long sleeved shirt...so I popped the collar and threw on my sunglasses for protection and joined in. IT WAS SOOO MUCH FUN and a huge adrenaline rush. Brent and I charged in and started chanting and dancing with the devils one time. It was crazy. I got burn marks on the back of my shirt because sparks were burning it haha. On top of that, at the very end of the parade, there was this giant pig and Brent and I went right up next to it to take a picture and right as we got there we were covered in a massive amount of sparks. We may or may not have a picture as we practically hit the deck and dove for cover from the sparks. It was also funny because the whole event smelled like...you guessed it HAM. Everything in SPAIN REVOLVES AROUND HAM! aside-my lunch today was a bacon and cheese bocadillo--o and after all of that I saw fireworks! CRAZY!

La Fuente y senor kenneth dowling

After the Castiles had finished, we decided to head back and get some tapas. It was hot. So hot that one of our friends fainted! She recovered quickly enough and, after we ate, Brent and I decided to venture off and try and meet up with some other friends at the Picasso museum. Our sense of direction got us there after many minutes of wandering around and finding a place to eat some pizza para llegar on the way. We spent the rest of the day hanging out in a park and then went to watch the fountains that night! Much more layed back then the morning and the activities in the following days. The next morning, we slept in...and thank God because getting up on Thursday was early after going to sleep on Wednesday so late. Brent and I met up in the afternoon and wandered around Las Ramblas to a place called The Fairy Bar. It is a little hidden restaurant off by the wax museum that closes every night at 10 o clock...which is not normal at all. It seemed like Rainforest Cafe meets haunted mansion meets pirates of the Carribean. It was a pretty cool little spot. At some point during our wandering we also found the D-Diva store. Anyone from ERC will understand why this was important haha. We got a call from Kenneth soon after and went over to say hi. It was nice to see another UCSD face up visiting from Grenada. We might plan a trip to go down and visit him. Brent and I grabbed some Sangria and had a laid back afternoon. We saw an amazing break dancing performance in the middle of Las Ramblas which I am sure you will see more of on Brent's blog haha. That night, we hung out around the beach at Barceloneta and then headed off to the Forum! It was a super fun night minus the subpar Spanish rap music at the concert.

Spanish Castiles!

After standing in the crowd for over 3 hours, I was getting a little anxious and a little bit hot...I am not sure why I chose to wear black...anyway the Spanish Castiles finally started. This tradition traces back to the days when pirate attacks were a problem in Spain and young people would make towers at the beach on eachothers shoulders to see if there were ships on the horizon. Today it has evolved into an amazing tradition/competition. There are 5 teams from the five different barrios of Barcelona all dressed in different colors to represent their area. They come in with stacks of 4 people and parade through the square pushing the crowd out of the way as they go. Once they arrive they have all come in, there is a competition for the fastest towers, tallest, best type and such. Unfortunately, we could not understand the scoring as it was all in Catalan. However, the majority of the towers are about 5 layers of people tall and after the five layers are in place, little kids with helmets climb to the top to signify that it is completed. We had the unfortunate experience of watching one of the little kids fall off of the top of the tower to the ground! She was okay when all was said and done, but it was definitely a scare. I felt bad for the guy on the bottom that everyone was supporting because he was getting groped like it was nobody's business haha. All of the castle building took place right in front of the Catalan government capital building in Barcelona and a bunch of what must be important people were out on the balcony watching the kids. Of course, being the ignorant person that I am, I had no idea who any of them were. I got a video of the castle building, but I accidentally held my camera sideways not knowing that you cannot rotate videos as you can pictures...I will see if I can get it up a little later.

WE'RE SURROUNDED

On the day of the Merce, I did not want to miss anything so I woke up at 8:30. Keep in mind I went to bed around 4. I headed over to Jaume I because at 11 o clock, the giants parade was going to happen and then at 12:30, the famous Castillos of people were going to happen. I met up with the gentle strawberry Mr. Costa and we headed over to the square. It was not that packed yet and when we got there we heard fireworks from around the corner. We decided to go check it out. As we got closer and closer, it was getting louder and louder. That was when we realized that we were walking towards a troop of locals that were shooting gunpowder rifles into the air and marching towards us. We had to turn around to walk away because it was getting so loud. They then proceededd to move into the center of the square that we were in and start shooting off the guns in the air and at everyone. Brent and I thought it would be a good idea to go to the edges of the square but then we found ourselves standing right next to the soldiers while everyone else was surrounded in the middle. They put on a really good show and were doing massive simultaneous firing as well as circle shots which I got a video of. Our ears were ringing for sure by the end of it and we realized that all the soldiers had earplugs...except for one who we decided must already be deaf.

After we finished watching the firing squad, which we had not planned on, we watched the giants parade...which turned out to really be a dance competition in these giant outfits...sounds cool and it was for the first performance, but we ended up watching about 14 performances which lasted for over 2 hours...why did we do this you might ask? We were saving our spots for the Castillos that were coming up next!

No se mueve este metro

And so begins the multiple part blog story of the festival of Merce. Because so much has happened and I don't want to laundry list it all in one blog post, I felt I would write a miniseries recounting some of the things that have happened in this crazy weekend that has not even finished yet. The festival of the Merce was on a Thursday, but it really starts the night before. We decided that we were going to go to a jazz music festival in one of the parks. While we were at the jazz festival during the day, we saw this little kid going crazy in the rows in front of us. I of course took a picture. He is a future rock star. After realizing that the target audience was a few years older than what we were expecting, we headed over to a giant concert by the beach. These were both mildly entertaining, but I wanted more! One of the students in the program said that I should go to Forum, a metro stop, because that was where all the young people were going. We got on the metro and it was packed...i mean packed. It was to the point where, when the doors would open at a stop, people would spill out. Everyone in the metro was chanting all these songs about the Merce as well as my personal favorite "No se mueve este metro!" -This metro will not move. Everytime we would get to a stop people would hold the door handles so that people on the outside could not open their metro doors. It was crazy ridiculous. On top of that, people were drinking from the bottle, smoking weed and cigarettes, and one person even threw up! It was crazy! We arrived at Forum which happened to be a giant fair with a huge dance. We actually never ended up going into the dance section of it, but I did get a GIANT order of fries for 5 euros. They were the best fries I had ever had in my entire life and I soaked them in ketchup haha. After a while we headed home....I got to sleep about 4 in the morning. VALE!

Dublin, Guacamole, and Gummy Pandas

I am going to Dublin, Ireland Wednesday, November 4th through the 8th to visit Cassie! Ideally Brent will be going with me...we will see what happens :p haha. Chupitos was amazing last night. I ordered 4 shots. I started off with the Willy Wonka which had a piece of Hershey's Chocolate at the top as well as a bunch of whipped cream. I then proceeded to get a Boy Scout where I roasted a marshmellow on the counter, plunged it into my drink to put out the fire, and then ate it. After that, I told the bar tender I wanted something special with Vodka so she made me something that was similar to the Harry Potter! It was vodka with a lime on the top except she started sprinkling sugar on it and lighting it on fire and making sparks fly everywhere. After that one, I went for the FURBY-haha nothing special about that one except for the name haha. Good times!

Tomorrow is our first test...worth 10% of our grade! Dios Mio...instead of studying, I just got back from making guacamole which was

amazing...LOOK AT IT! it was so amazing. I just got back to my room and there was a care

package from my Mom with the two most random

things in the world-Blueberry Acai

Gummy Pandas and Badger Foot Balm. There was no note...I think I am supposed to

understand why they were sent but there

definitely does not seem to be any reason at all. OK...now I am off to study for real real.

DD

Any good boyscout knows

After dinner tonight, I am going to Chupitos for a girl's bday party. All I can say is look at these pictures and wish me some major luck. Who would of thought that marshmellows go with hard liquor? Today was pretty chill. I got back my first grade with an 8.2 out of 10...DIOS MIO! I am not sure how that translates into American grades but I am sure it will all work out for the best. After class, I came home, ate my bocadillo, went to the ISA office...yes the bocadillos are getting old...and then headed back to Gaudi's parque otra vez to get to see some more of it. I got to the top of the mountain and found an area with four giant stone crosses that overlooked all of Barcelona...the view was amazing until this British guy came up and tried to sell me a Mojito that was apparently the best in Barcelona...after I refused, he tried to sell me a sandwich. I gave him the cold shoulder. Last night was the rainstorm of a lifetime with thunder, lighting, and a torrential downpour-I loved it! Peace out homies!

DD

Johnny Maraccas and the travelling band

Hola chicos! let me start this blog off with a shout out to everyone at ERC...I definitely found a poster of ERC in the middle of Barcelona...we truly are the global citizens that everyone speaks about I just got back from Valencia, the third largest city in Espana. In addition to its amazing architecture, this city made an interesting planning choice in the 50s. A major river used to run right through the city which in medieval times was a moat to protect the castle from intruders. However, after expanding past this river in present times, the river became a nuisance as every time there was major rainfall, it would flood. At one point, it flooded so badly that many homes were destroyed and people lost their lives. The city said, "SCREW THAT RIVER" so they took it out and rerouted it around the city and made a giant running park through the city where the river used to be...I know crazy.

I also found my fraternity name on top of

a church...

well thefraternity name plus a few letters...it looks like Lambda Chi Alpha Chi Lambda haha. At night we went out seeking a bar and wound up at a place called Johnny Maraccas. The bar tenders quickly took to us because we got there before anyone else and decided to give us a bunch of

instruments to play haha. It was amazingly fun! The drink of choice in Valencia is called "Agua de Valencia." It is basically a memosa with a twist and you get it by the pitcher. It was amazing. I definitely ate someone elses dessert that was sitting at the bar too...haha good times. I am super excited for my upcoming trip to Dublin, Ireland which I am going to be booking soon where I get to visit none other than Cassie Kerkhoff.

I just got off of Skype with Scott, Adithya, Bree, Erin, Deepak, Omead, and Jason and I must say that you guys truly are some of the best friends that I could ask for! I cannot wait until we all reunite again! It is going to be off the hook.

Misssing friends back home :(

Missing all of the OLs back home for the last day of Orientation :( have fun all of you guys and be fierce like I know all of you are. To everyone in ResLife-I know that you are going to have an amazing upcoming year. I am trying to live through your facebook albums so keep posting the pictures!

As far as Barcelona is going, I finally found a church and figured out when they have mass. Next Sunday, I will be heading to church in the middle of the Gothic Quarter to a Spanish mass at noon. I was very happy to find out that the Catalan masses were earlier in the morning and that the Castillian Spanish masses were later in the day because now I can stay out later and still go to mass woot woot!

A blog every day keeps the phone bill away

Amigos! It is 11:00 and let me tell you that I can really relate to Dr. Seuss today. The sun was not out, it was too wet to play so we sat inside all that wet, wet, rainy day...and booked our flights to Interlaken, Switzerland! That's right, I was somehow convinced that it would be a good idea to canyoning in Interlaken Switzerland. I will be jumping off ten meter drops into waterfalls and climbing through treacherous waters in the middle of October. Let's hope that this turns out well! As far as what I have been doing in the past couple of days, I went to the aquarium of Barcelona which is apparently a pretty big deal. I will just say that it aint got nothin on SeaWorld! Shamu will always hold a special place in my heart. I will post my favorite fish that I encountered for all of y'all to see. Today, it would rain torrentially in waves and then it would be totally fine and then it would downpour again. At night though, the lightning was crazy off the hook. I have never seen such scary looking skies. I decided that if there was an apocalypse in the near future, today's sky is what it would have looked like. Anyway, I am off to an early sleep like the good boy that I am so that I can be bright and fresh for whatever tomorrow throws at me. Keep it real you guys and keep me posted on whats going down in SD/when IHouse apps come out!

Mount Olympus

Yesterday, I went to the Olympic Stadium. In fact, I was not trying to go to the Olympic Stadium, but rather the Spanish Village...We never found the Spanish village. Needless to say, it was a good mistake. I feel like Olympic Stadiums everywhere make you so happy. They are always kept so clean and are just amazing to walk around in. Patrice decided that it would be fun to do cart wheels and Rachel started spinning around and then this really big guy in an Indians Jersey and hat came up and asked me to take a picture. He looked like the most American tourist ever, but he did not speak any English haha. After hitting up the Stadium, we wandered through what must have been the Olympic Gardens and found a miniature version of Old Faithful with my dog Skip running around. We decided to head back to the entrance to the Olympic Stadium where there just happened to be a professional volleyball tour going on. On our way, we followed the music to get back and accidentally found ourselves in front of a Spanish rap concert. U-turn. More wandering. Arrival at Volleyball courts. We sat down and watched the match of America versus Brazil. There were toooons of Brazilian fans going crazy which simply must have been the reason that team USA lost. tsk tsk tsk...Twas a super fun day and I am looking forward to more like it in the future. I am getting sick which means no going out!

Miss you guys back home

Dan

DOW JONES

I went to a really awesome themed bar last night called...well you guessed it, DOW JONES. It was a medium sized bar and it was not crowded...until about 30 Americans from our program made an entrance. The idea behind this bar is that it is supposed to be like the old New York stock exchange but instead of stock, the drink prices are constantly changing based on what people are ordering. There was a screen with all the most popular drinks and they would either have a red arrow down, a green arrow up, or a blue equals sign. They would always all change at the same time and there would be a flurry of ordering to get the best deals. One of my friends kept driving up the price of long islands all night haha.

Reality Check: In all reality, the drinks were all fluctuating about 50 cents to a Euro the whole night, but it felt like we were making the best deals of our lives.

The highlight of the night would have to be when the drink market crashed. These yellow sirens started flashing and all the drinks dropped to super low prices. This happens when people have not been ordering enough drinks. Everyone started screaming in the bar and flooded the bartender with orders. Super cool...I am hoping that there is something like that in the states so that I can hit it up when I get home.

Back from Sitges

Amigos! Valle! Everyone says valle-pronounced bah:ley- all the time here, its all crazy. So today was my first excursion with ISA and we went to the nice beach city of Sitges. The town is famous for its playas which had the clarity of lake tahoe, the sand of the Bahamas, and about 5x as many gay people as Tiger Heat in Los Angeles packed onto the beach wearing speedos. Definitely twas' the best beach that I have been to since I have been here...to top it all off, right when I left I found out that the town had Mexican food! This is one thing that I am definitely missing...I have not had tortilla chips and sals/guac since I left. I definitely know what my first meal is going to be when I get back to the States.

Before la playa, I also took a trip to one of the worlds oldest/most famous wineries. It is called Codorniu. Here we got to explore the cellars, learn about how they create their champagne and then...the best part...there was this random tram ride through the wine cellar at like 10 mph which felt like the indiana jones ride at Disney La

nd haha. After touring the facilities, they of course busted open some bottles and allowed everyone to try their famous brew

Note: No drinking is allowed on ISA excursions!

It worked to their advantage, because I definitely bought a souvenir haha

Nothing bad ever happens to me...

Soooo another crazy night happened and in order to explain the story I have to introduce some of my friends that I have been hanging out with. Gavin is my roommate; he goes to USD, is from Eugene, Oregon, and is a super chill guy. Patrice is from Ohio State and her roommate Rachel is from North Texas. Both girls are super fun and Rachel is not afraid of anything haha. Of course, Brent Costa makes a cameo in this story as well as Kelsey Schultz from UCSD, John from Ohio State, his roommate Mikel from Maryland and Katie Weisman from UMass.

Now that I got all the names right, lets see if I can do this night justice. The night started off with a simple plan, we were just going to head down to the beach and have a few beers and try to find a local bar to just hang out at. Of course, we bought a couple of six packs of estrella-the Spanish natty ice- to pregame so we wouldn't have to pay too much at the bar. After drinking for a while, Patrice, Rachel, Mikel, John, Gavin and I decided that we were going to meet up with Katie at her apartment. We start wandering through Las Ramblas-a district in Barce- and after getting totally lost end up calling a cab and instead of going to her place decide to go to the discotecha "Broadbar" where there is free entrance that night.

Drink count at this point, 3-4

Time: Approximately 1AM

Upon arriving, we decided that we would go across the street and drink a little before we went into the club. So, among other things we all either had a couple shots or a red bull vodka or a couple beers. We all had a pretty good buzz on so we decided to go into the club.

Drink count at this point, 5-6

Time: Approximately 1:30 AM

As I cross the street, who rolls up but the gentle strawberry himself Brent Costa and we all pour into the club to find our other friends Katie and Kelsey. After immediately getting separated in the crowd of hundreds of people, Brent and I go to the bar and order a couple red bull vodkas for 12 euros. That was the last of the money I wanted to spend that night which was good because immediately after, Kyke, a local club promoter, announced that the bar was totally free for the next hour. Immediately, we ordered two more drinks and then Rachel, Katie, and Patrice worked the bar tender like no other ordering five drinks at a time and passing them out. It gets pretty blurry after this point in the club but I do remember Patrice drinking three drinks at once and not giving me one, and everyone going literally crazy on the dance floor.

Drink count at this point, 12-18

Time: Approximately 3:30 AM

Being the responsible drunk I am, Katie tasked me with rounding up our group of people which had made out with eachother and strangers, took friends into the bathroom, and managed to find and break a bottle of wine in the street. The first cab went to McDonalds, and I went in the second cab. Brent went in his own cab as he did not live anywhere near us haha. Our cab included Gavin, myself, Patrice, and Rachel.

Drink count at this point...

Time Approximately 4:30 am

We had the cab driver drop off Patrice and Rachel first at the metro stop by their house...and they thought they were supposed to go down into the metro. After setting them straight, I told them to call me when they got home. After getting back to our place, I got a frantic phone call from Patrice because Rachel had been mugged and Patrice wanted to go after the guy. Needless to say, it was one crazy night...and the next day I found out that Rachel and Patrice had also taken 4 shots before we left for the very first bar.

Of course, this had to take place all before the first day of class

Jamon

There are certain things in Spain that you just have to accept. One of them is that ham is the country´s breakfast, lunch and dinner of choice. The country revolves around all pork products. For instance, in Madris we saw un museo de jamon in 5 different places...translated this means ham museum. Upon further examination, we realized that this actually was a butchery/bar. Pringles have a different flavor here...you guessed it ham. When we got to my homestay, I found out that my roommate does not eat pork products. Our homestay mom would not believe it! She proceeded to go through about 6 different pork products in her refrigerator and asked him if he liked each one individually. Now she talks to me about him while he is in the room saying that he won´t eat anything. Now for lunch every day, I get a sandwhich with a ham product and my roommate gets whatever she can find in the refrigerator. Yesterday for lunch, I had bread and ham...haha. Needless to say, it must be hard for Jewish people to survive in this country.

DD

The Journey Begins

So after my repeated efforts not to create a blog, I have decided that it is definitely the way to go. Where do I begin? I love this city and the lifestyle. A typical days involves waking at around 10:00 to breakfast, which is usually cereal or toast. I know, not that exciting. Lunch around 2-4:30 which also happens to be siesta when every shop not catering to the tourist population shuts down. I have had a bocadilla-the Spanish answer to the sandwich-every day since I have been in Barcelona for lunch. Then we are off again until dinner which seems to change every night but is usually somewhere around 9:30-10:30. After dinner, we get ready for the night. We will usually heard out around 11:00, which is also concidentally when stores stop selling alchol. The metro closes at 12:00 on weekdays, 2:00 on Friday nights, and stays open all night for Saturday. We usually get home around 4:30 after going crazy, then rinse and repeat.

The typical schedule is kind of like a college students dream come true...except the people in Spain do it for their whole lives. It is very common to see families with small children out at midnight walking around and enjoying the city. Can you really blame them though? The city is so beautiful that you want to stay out late every night. Sleep deprivation does not matter here and people are content talking late into the night.

As far as my living situation, I decided to go with a homestay which was as of yet an amazing choice. I live 2 blocks from La Sagrada Familia and right across from the Plaza de Torros in Barcelona. My room is pretty big, i wound up with a single, and my window looks right at the bull ring. So far I have been doing a lot of travelling, but mainly within the city. I just put a down payment on a trip to Morrocco and am slowly watching all of my Euros disappear. I am going to try and post some pictures to wrap up what I have done so far...