Barcelona, I'll miss you

Short summaries, lots of pictures

Day 2

• Attempted to go the Picasso museum. Line was way too long. Instead, we walked around the Gothic Quarter for a while just looking at stuff. It was at this point that we discovered Placa Sant Jaume, which we got pretty sick of because every time we tried to get anywhere in the Gothic Quarter we ended up back there. In our wanderings we saw the Barcelona cathedral and some odd stores.

• Walked to Parc de la Ciutadella, a huge and really nice park. Canoed on the man-made lake there for only 2€! and had tons of fun.
  

• Walked back towards Las Ramblas along the water, looked at the boats, and searched through a tiny flea market where I bought an incredibly tacky model of what Sagrada Familia will look like when it's done. Tried to eat lunch at the market on Las Ramblas, but it was closed!
• After lunch, took the bus up to Parc Güell, a park designed by Gaudi. Walked up to see something Joy called the three crosses, basically three crosses on the top of a hill (Parc Güell is already on a hill, so there was a great view). Wandered around the park and went in the very small Gaudi museum in the park, housed in Gaudi's former residence.

• Went back to the Gothic Quarter and finally were able to go to the Picasso museum. The main exhibit traced his evolution from "normal" painting to cubism. Definitely one of the highlights of my trip. Unfortunately we were only able to spend about an hour in the museum.
• After the museum, we ate delicious paella! It was a little expensive for budget travelling, but worth it.

Day 3

• Started our day off by going to Casa Mila, one of the two more famous Gaudi-designed houses in Barcelona (the other one cost 16.50€ to go in, so we opted for the one that was onlz 8€). Spent the whole morning in there. Really awesome house, plus an interesting exhibit about Gaudi's designs and methods.

• Spent most of the afternoon wandering around the Gothic Quarter looking in the weird and funky stores, and searching for some of the Gaudi buildings scattered around that area. Finally ate lunch at the market since it was open--the cheapest meal I had on the entire trip. 2 euros total for watermelon and bread, which we split.
  

• Walked down to the beach so that I could see it and say I'd been to the beach. I managed to stick my hand in the Mediterranean! And get some Mediterranean sand in my shoes.

• Went with Joy to pick up her girls from kindergarten and school, and then said goodbye. Afterward I went to see a few more Gaudi houses and the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau. Tried to visit the Palau Reial, but the grounds were closed by the time I got there.
  

The end!

To sum up, Barcelona is amazing. And so are student discounts. If you go to USC, use that sucker anywhere you go! Since it has no date on it, I'm gonna use that thing until someone turns it down.

If you want to look at all of my pictures, click on my Picasa link to the right. I just spent an enjoyable afternoon looking through a bunch of my old pictures. All of my pictures from my trips are posted on there.

Before I continue with Barcelona....

I had a great weekend! I met up with three other aupairs on Saturday for a day in Heidenheim (I know, super duper fun). One of them, Carole, I met for the first time about two weeks ago. She had posted a little ad on the bulletin board in the library saying that she was an aupair and was looking for other aupairs to hang out with, so I called her up and we met. We hit it off right away and made plans to meet up again (Saturday). She invited Raffaella, an aupair she knows from her German class, and Milka, an aupair their German teacher said was also looking for people to hang out with. Here's the rundown of countries: Carole=France, Raffaella=Italy, Milka=Namibia. And yes, Milka's name is really spelled that way, like the chocolate. I was surprised that we all hit it off so well! It ended up being a great day, and we're gonna try to meet up again soon.

Obligatory cute friendship pic:

I feel like that's straight out of the Babysitters' Club. Man, I wish the Babysitters' Club was my life. Mostly I wish I could date Logan.

Also, we saw "27 Dresses". I gotta admit, I was disappointed. I mean, obviously I knew going in that it would be a chick-flick, but from the premise and the trailer it looked like it would be at least an exceptionally fun chick-flick. Wrong. It didn't deviate one iota from the chick-flick movie formula. It was moderately entertaining, but it's nowhere near as good as, say, "Something's Gotta Give", which is probably my second-favorite movie ever (yes, I know, that makes me about 45). If you know me, you already know my favorite movie.

Get ready for more Barcelona!

Spain, the second-greatest country in Europe

February 16-19

At least, that's my opinion so far. If you can't tell, I LOVED Barcelona! While I was there I met up with Joy, who was the aupair before me for my family. She's working as an aupair again, for a family that lives right outside Barcelona and she's been there about three weeks. It was actually a huge coincidence how we even ended up talking. I only met her once, when she was here for a day before she went back home, right after I got here. I never talked to her after that, but then she called about a month ago while I was here alone, and I saw the 001 country code so I assumed that someone was calling for me (I usually only answer the phone while upstairs when I know who's calling, like Stefan or Stephanie), so I picked up. It turned out it was her calling to talk to the fam but they weren't there, so we chatted a little bit. She asked where I'd traveled, and I told her what I'd done and that I was going to Barcelona soon. I knew that she was going to be an aupair again in Spain, but I had no idea that she would be in the city I was going to! We ended up spending all three days that I was there together, and it was a lot of fun. I definitely don't mind traveling alone, but it was a nice change to have someone to tour around with.

Anyway, I'll try to keep this fairly short and chock full of pictures.

Day 1
I had stayed overnight in Stuttgart, where I was flying out of, because my flight left at 7 AM. That meant that my day started at 4 AM. I got to the train station around 4:45, planning to take an S-Bahn to the airport that left about 5. Well, it turns out I looked at the M-F schedule and not the weekend one, so I had to wait until 5:25. This kind of ruined my plan of being to the airport of 5:30, but luckily getting there around 6 still turned out to be plenty of time. But umm there's not really much to do in a train station at 5 AM, so after wandering around and looking at all of the closed stores that I had already seen the night before, I went and sat in the waiting room which was full of three kinds of people: people starting their day early, people just finishing their night, and bums. Most of the people in there were harmless, but at one point one creepy dude started talking to me about his beer and cigars, and then farted while standing right next to me. I decided that was an excellent time to leave.

Once I got to Barcelona, I made it to my hostel with no problems (although the metro took twice as long as they said it would!). Joy met me there around 11 and we set off for Sagrada Família, a church designed by Gaudí. Well, at least at first. He started working on it in 1883, but then like all big projects it was delayed--a lot. It still wasn't finished by the time of his death in 1926, and then of course the plans mysteriously disappeared and there was no way to finish it the right way. So, they just kind of sat around for a couple decades, and now they're working on it again semi-based on Gaudí's plans, but largely not. One side of the church is clearly designed by Gaudí, and the other side is in a completely different style. It's expected to be finished in 2021 or something like that. Unfortunately we wasted 8 euros paying to go inside. Biggest rip-off of the trip. It would have been worth it if there had been anything at all to see. As it was, we saw a couple nice stained glass windows, and a ton of construction equipment. Oh yes, and an exhibit on what kind of stones are being used to build the church. That's right. Stones. I don't think it gets more boring than that. The plus side was that you could go up to the top of one of the towers--if you were willing to pay another 2 euros. We were willing, but it was an hour long wait, so we skipped it. Long story short: if you ever go to Barcelona, don't pay to go in the church (unless you really love stones).


Once we left the church, we ate lunch and then walked down Avenue Diagonal, a loooong diagonal (duh) street that runs pretty much through the entire city. We looked at a couple of the cool houses there, and then from there walked down Passeig de Gràcia, where a couple Gaudí houses are.

We ended up at Plaça Catalunya, a big square in the center of town. We then walked down Las Ramblas, which I'm not sure how to describe. It's pretty much one big tourist trap. There are a couple of restaurants there selling over-priced paella and a bunch of kitschy souvenir stands. There are also a TON of "performance artists" who stand there dressed up until you give them some money, then they do something either stupid or really really creepy. I took a picture of some of the stupid ones, but the creepy ones were seriously too creepy to stop and hover by. From there we walked down to the port and looked at the boats and stuff, and saw the huge floating mall (apparently called Maremagnum). It was a really nice day, so it was nice to walk by the water.


After that we took the funicular up to Parc Montjuïc, a park on a mountain on top of the city.


We mostly wanted to see the castle, and we thought we were going to the right place--but apparently we were the only people who couldn't figure out the short way to get there. The funicular dropped us at almost the opposite end of the park from the castle, so we had another loong walk to it. We did get to see some nice gardens though. We had aimed to get to the castle by 7 PM to see the fountain and light show, but we were early, so we walked to the Olympic park. At 7 the light/fountain show started, and it was really cool! But...it only lasted 15 minutes (which was fine with me, because really, how long can you watch water and lights?).


Joy's host family had told her that you could easily sit there watching it for an hour. Well, 15 minutes was enough for us. Joy tried calling her family to tell them that she wasn't going to ride back home with them (they were in the city for a birthday party), but of course her phone was dead. So...we ended up having to walk to where the party was. And then we couldn't find it. By this point I was ready to lay down on the pavement and sleep. Eventually we found the family, and on their way home they dropped us off at a restaurant. By the time we actually sat down with our food, it was 10 PM. We might have been fitting right into the Spanish culture, but I was tired. I didn't end up getting back to my hostel until 11:30.

Hmm, it isn't working to keep it short, so I'll have to write this in sections. I know you people read my blog, so you better be grateful. And you better read every word I've written (that means you, Jonathan).

Johanna can ride a bike now!!

Some pictures, for you entertainment:

Johanna riding her bike!!! Seriously, adorable. Take notice of my bike in the background, with the huge red backpack filled with diaper, wipes, food, and drink that we have to take anywhere if we plan to be gone for more than 15 minutes. Parenthood=that giant red backpack

Johannski riding her bike!! She can start, stop, and ride without any help. We rode really far (for a 3-year-old) that day with a pretty strong wind, and she only fell off once.

Hahahah I love this picture because it looks like Johanna is the one doing the self-photo thing.

Eating her "picnic" snack of raisin bread. Not pictured: gummi bears



Johanna is really proud of that raisin bread! (She claimed she was using it to block the sun...? I guess when you're 3, that makes sense.)

So, Johanna can ride her bike now! She pretty much learned this weekend, and then on Sunday they all went on a "Fahrradtour" where she did really well, so me and Johanna did the same thing Monday afternoon. She even remembered the way! We packed a little "picnic snack" as Johanna called it, and I let her pick out two gummi bears to include. There is really nothing more adorable than a 3-year-old riding a tiny two-wheel bike.

On Tuesday I actually woke up early and went into Heidenheim to meet up with Carole, an aupair who posted a little advertisement in the library looking for other aupairs. I'd never met her before so I was a little worried how it would go, but it turned out she's really nice! We hit it off right away and we've already made plans to meet up again. She's from France and (claims) she speaks no English (I say "claims" because everyone I've met who says they speak no English really knows practically half the language, just isn't fluent), so we talked in German, which was fine with me. We're both on about the same German level, so it was good. I had a lot of fun with her, and I'm really glad to have met another aupair.

Tuesday afternoon ended up being another really good day with the kids. We've had a string of good days lately. They both behaved really well and we had a great time together. It was just the three of us for dinner, and they were being so silly and laughing a lot. It always makes me so happy when they behave! The only bad thing about that is that it makes me unhappy when they're bad. I hate that my perception of how good or bad a day I've had is based on their whims of if they'll talk back or not and if they'll behave well. Usually they behave well with me and we rarely have any real problems, but sometimes they are exceptionally good, like the past couple days.

Highlight of my day: I got a package from home containing..................potato chips!!!!!!!! There were only three small bags, but it's better than the none that I usually have. Not gonna lie, I already ate a bag of them. I couldn't resist. Man, has it really been 6 months since I've had regular chips? Ahh I miss the potato chip aisles in the grocery store. Those and Little Debbie brownies. Mmm. Chocolate here sure is good, but I really miss potato chips and brownies.

I really can't wait until it gets warm

Woo, I must be on some kind of roll! Updating twice in one week! This week was really good. The weather wasn't so nice earlier in the week, but it's been amazing since Thursday. I've gotten a lot of good walking and bike-riding done.

I had off on Monday and Tuesday, so I took the time to just relax. Monday I didn't really do anything all day, mostly because the weather was not that great. Tuesday the weather still wasn't nice, but at least it wasn't raining. I rode with Stephanie to her practice and she checked my teeth (since I hadn't been to the dentist in a year). Her office is so nice! I'd been there before so I already knew what it looked like, but it was different being a "patient". Everything is so new and modern. Since it was Fastnacht (the day before Lent starts, Fat/Shrove Tuesday as we say in America) Stephanie was having a little celebration in the practice. She and her helpers were all dressed up. She had a crazy orange wig that she was going to wear, but Dominik put it on and was running around with it on. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, but imagine a tiny little blond-haired German kid with huge crazy orange hair! He looked like Thing 1 or Thing 2 from the Cat in the Hat.

After getting my teeth sufficiently prodded and scraped (no cavities!) I took the train to Ulm to meet up with Dianny, an aupair I met through my German class. She's from the Dominican Republic, and she's hilarious! I don't think she means to be, but she still is. She speaks Spanish originally, so we speak in German since that's our common language. Of course she says that she doesn't speak any English, but she knows a good amount! I don't even want to try to talking in English with her though, because even her German isn't very good. Actually, that just contributes to her hilariousness. We wandered around for a little bit, and she told me all about the awful family that she works for, as well as her friends (and boyfriend!) in Stuttgart who she met when she worked for a family there earlier. She hates her family here so she constantly lies to them about what she's doing--even though it's just stupid stuff. She told them that the friend she goes to see in Stuttgart is her aunt; seriously, why even lie about that?? It got confusing later on though, because she said she had to buy a birthday present for her "aunt"--I'm still not sure if she meant a real one or her fake one.

Smile, Dianny!!

(Also, awesomely enough, she has a sister named Diana, hahah)

The kids were really good yesterday. Dominik had off from school and Johanna stayed home from kindy. I love it when they're good! We all have such a good time! Here they are playing outside:

Notice the awesome chalk drawings me and Johanna made on Thursday

Last night Eveline and Irene (both from Gegenwind) came over and we watched "Little Miss Sunshine". Eveline was hilarious--she kept saying things like, "I hate the father. I hate him!" and "Leave him. She should leave him." and her favorite, "Oh, nein." After the movie was over we talked for awhile and we laughed A LOT. This morning Stefan asked, "So, did you guys just laugh all last night, or did you actually watch a movie too?"

They discovered my Mardi Gras beads (courtesy of Jonathan) and Irene kept checking herself out in the mirror afterwards. Irene and Eveline, imitating hippies

Irene also told me that she never wants to go to America to live, and not even for a vacation. Her reason? Because of what she sees on TV. I tried to tell her that America is NOT like it seems on TV, but she didn't seem very convinced. She thinks all we do there is "party". Message to all Germans: Grey's Anatomy is not real life.

Catch-up

Turns out it's been a while since I've updated. Today is kind of weird. It's some kind of holiday celebrating something, but I'm not really sure what. So, happy two days before Ash Wednesday? Fasching has been going on for a while and I know it has something to do with that, but I have no idea what today specifically is. I guess I'd make a terrible Catholic.

So, Fasching. Fasching is pretty much the German version of Mardi Gras, except it happens all over Germany and lasts a lot longer. It's actually kind of weird--at Halloween hardly anyone dresses up, but EVERYONE dresses up for Fasching. I was in C&A the other day, which is the closest approximation to a department store I've seen here, and there was a huge section of what I would call Halloween costumes, except I guess they're Fasching costumes. Apparently in Köln (Cologne for all you non-Germans) they celebrate Fasching starting in, like, November, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get up there at all. I also really wanted to go to a Fasching parade yesterday, but I couldn't find anyone to go with me. I guess that's the price I pay for knowing actual Germans. None of them want to go do any of the typical German stuff, either because they've done it a bunch times before or because they can do it next year.

Adorable!!!

This week I did....pretty much nothing. I'm going to Ulm tomorrow, where I'll meet up with another aupair I know, so that should be fun, as long as it doesn't snow. I am such a snow Scrooge. OK OK, it looks nice, but for me pretty much what it means is that I have to wear my huge snow boots when I go outside, so I sound like an elephant when I'm walking. I don't know how big the other aupairs were, but they must have had some HUGE feet.

Oh yeah, I finished reading Pride and Prejudice! Why did no one ever tell me how good that book is?? I loved it! I now feel a little bit bad dissing the poor English-language-book selection in the Heidenheim library, because it's forcing me to resort to reading classic books that I really should have read before this point in my life. Although maybe it's good that I'd never read it, because I probably just would have hated it. I'm already biased against John Steinbeck from reading The Pearl in 8th grade. I would still hate F. Scott Fitzgerald because of The Great Gatsby if I hadn't read one of his stories in an English class two years ago. Next up: Mansfield Park, which I've already seen the movie version of. After that, I hope to conquer Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Poor Brontës. I'm sure they wrote those books with the intention that people should look forward to them with anticipation, not dread. I think that is unfortunately the trade in being a great writer; most of the world thinks that your books are a major contribution to literature, but most of the world also has no desire to read them. I would say 90% I want to read those books is that Brontë is such a cool last name, because of the ë. I wish my name had something cool like that. I really have the most boring name in the world. Actually, that's a lie. I have a boring name in the US, but Smith sounds surprisingly exotic here. When I tell people my name, they can tell from it right away that I'm not German and most likely English-speaking, therefore awesome (because that's how it goes: English-speaking => awesome). Mostly though, my name is dull.

And right now? I'm mostly looking forward to my trip to Barcelona in two weeks. It's not even that cold here right now, but I'm looking forward to being somewhere where the temps are in the 60s. And obviously I think it will just be a really cool trip. I'm getting excited for my upcoming trips and am trying to stop spending so that I'll have some money left.

Speaking of trips, I don't think I've said where I'm going. Obviously I'm going to Barcelona Feb 16-19, then in March I'm going to Copenhagen, April to Amsterdam, then I have a week off in May, where I'll be going to London, Belfast (N. Ireland, ooo scary), and Glasgow. I also have another long weekend in May where I right now plan to go to Paris. That one's not set in stone yet, because you can't buy train tickets until 3 months in advance. Way to thwart my travel-planning, Deutsche Bahn. I also plan to make some weekend trips to Prague, Salzburg, Vienna, and obviously some German cities too. It's kind of sad actually. I did so much more traveling in Germany the other times I was here, when I wasn't even living here.

Just realized that I didn't even comment on the Tupper-Party. It was kind of time-warpy. I sort of felt like I was in The Twilight Zone: I was at a '50s style party, but everyone was wearing modern clothes, and they were all speaking German. I never really knew that Tupperware made so many products until I came to Germany and started working for a Tupper-obsessed family, but at this party I found out that Tupperware is expensive. Fortunately I had absolutely no money, so it wasn't a problem. The woman who was selling the Tupper gave everyone a little Tupperware "gift", so I didn't leave empty-handed. As Stefan said, my first Tupper! Other than the sales pitch, the party was good. I knew most of the people there, and it was nice to catch up with them after I'd been gone for so long over Christmas.

Overall, I am at a contented point. My German is progressing nicely, to the point where I can watch movies in German (I saw P.S. I Love You with Eveline and Irene last week and understood almost the whole thing with little effort) and even read most websites pretty easily. I still feel like it's a constant struggle, but clearly things are getting better. I can't believe I've been here for five months, and that I only have six and a half left! I'm already thinking about looking for a German-related job for when I get back, just so I don't lose my speaking skills.

Since probably no one reading this is in Germany, I'll go ahead and wish myself a happy two days off. Now back to my new obsession: reading editorials on the Presidential primary.