Ciao!

Today I got down to my 9 AM class about 15 minutes early which game me some time to grab a newspaper and catch up on some of the local news. Of course the front page covered the tragedy that happened with the children who were killed after a roof collapsed in the gym they were in. The entire city seems to be taking this to heart as it was all my professors were talking about today. Last night when I was watching the fútbol game they had a moment of silence which was pretty cool.

One thing I have noticed out here is that on the Spanish and even the Catalonia news channels..they have international news. It really is interesting and I was very surprised about how much US coverage is out here. Last night I watched my first Spanish TV show and it was pretty good, but not as good as the US shows. However, every day there are American movies on or American TV shows which is crazy. I wasn't really aware of how global the American entertainment industry. In random restaurants there is American music playing, and even in the gym they play American songs. Maybe it is just because Barcelona is such a diverse city, but Anna was telling me about how popular it really is.

I actually was talking with my RA Irene who lived in the US for some time, and I asked her what she thought was the biggest difference between Spain and the US. Everything is obviously different, different culture, different food, different values...but I wanted to get a perspective from an española. Her response was that television was one of the aspects that was very different. She said that in Spain...you hear about the US and other countries..their politics, economy, culture, etc.. In the US she said that for the 6 months she was there she didn't see one thing about Spain on US television. Which is true..I was trying to think of a time I saw something about Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland? I couldn't think of any..I honestly couldn't think of one time I saw anything on television. It's always about America..I mean we probably have 10 different news stations..and they all talk about the same news. It really is interesting once you think of it.

Anyways, my first class today was a lecture..thankfully the class is interesting so it wasn't too bad. We have to go on a self-guided field study to Museu d'historia de la Ciutat, so me and one of my classmates are going tomorrow which will be interesting. We need to write a short reflection and analysis of the museum in our journal, and we get reimbursed which is nice.

I got a caffe at Il Caffe' di Roma and relaxed before class. I had my first Spanish prueba (quiz) today, which wasn't too bad. But since the class is 7 credit hours, and two classes combined..we move at a very fast pace. After class I went out to an American Bagel store with some of my friends from class, and we ran into some other classmates. The restaurant was filled with tourists, mostly American..but I had some sandwich which was pretty good. This is the only "bagel" place in town..so the prices are pretty high.

After lunch we all went to the IES 2 Center which is located down the street off of Passeig de Gracia. IES shares the building with other businesses and caffes, but I really am surprised how nice their facilities are. I just wanted to check out the center, and everyone else was staying to study because they had class in a couple hours, As I was walking down the stairs a woman approached me and began speaking to me. She works for IES and we walked to the IES 1 center together and talked. She was from Italy which I thought was awesome, and has family in Rome and Sicily. I tried speaking in my broken Italian to her..but she said it wasn't too bad.

Since I was done with class I decided to go to the gym and workout. After relaxing in the sauna and showering, I headed to the metro to return home.

Tonight we are ordering pizza (I guess that they deliver pizzas here) because Anna will be in the hospital visiting her brother. I'm interested to see what this pizza will be like, but I have yet to have food that I don't like. Hopefully I will get some nice pictures tomorrow that I can post.

Ciao!