Hola!

It is 11:08 pm on Saturday night of my last weekend in Spain, and I just got in from a pizza dinner with Maria, Lauren, Liz, Olalla (Lauren´s host sister), Meri (Liz´s host sister), and Bet (who is coming to Westtown with the exchange in April, but didn´t have her own host student). Before going to a pizzaria near    Bet´s apartment, we went to Los Fuentes Mágicas, famous fountains outside of the MNAC, Barcelona´s national art museum. These fountains (I got a video of the show) do a light, music, and water show on Saturday nights. Tonight some other girls and I went to see it. There were lots of people there, and whole buses had brought groups to witness the famous show.

Earlier today, Lauren, Liz and I watched our host sisters play their basketball game. In Spain, unlike at Westtown, each grade has their own team, and the three girls are on the same team at Aula. They won by somewhere like 45 points! Today happens to be father´s day in Spain, so after the game, we went out to lunch at a Chinese Restaurant with Maria, and her parents. The food was delicious! Then, we came back to the apartment and I took a long nap before we went back out again for the night. The girls try to keep us entertained at all times, and since they know how to get around the city, there is almost no limit to what they can do.

On Friday this week, we went to the beach. It was probably the nicest day since I´ve gotten to Spain, and we didn´t want to leave. We saw the famous port, and the most famous cathedral in Barcelona, La Santa Maria del Mar. We learned about the fishing culture of the coast from Profe Remy, who guided our group through Madrid, and now Barcelona, and is a teacher at Aula, originally from Paris. After that, we ate lunch, and then we went to the Picasso museum. There were about 30 of us, including the group from Boston and their teachers, so we split up into Philadelphia and Boston groups. I got a chance to see Las Meninas, and the progression of Picasso´s work, from his early stages, to much later in life. The difference is very striking to me.

After the museum, I went to a restaurant with some of the Philadelphia group, and then bought some gifts for people at home. And then, gofres! Gofres (waffles) con helado (ice cream/gelado) has become a staple of my diet in Spain. I get it whenever and wherever possible, usually with Nutella on top. Another one of my favorite foods here, are churros con chocolate: deep fried, twisted batter sticks, that you dip in a cup of thick, hot chocolate. Its delicious! I also like Spanish tortillas, and calçotades, an onion like vegetable, which you grill, slide the outer sheath off of, dip in some kind of delicious sauce, and eat while wearing a bib, by holding it by the end over your head. It is very messy, and very, very good.

I have about 4 days left in Spain, including one night in Madrid, and the end of my trip seems both so far and so close. I still have a lot of Barcelona to see, like La Sagrada Familia, so don´t think for a second that my days will be slowing down! They´ll still be filled with walking until my feet are ready to fall off, and snapping pictures of everything in sight, and straining my ears and brain to understand two foreign languages, not just one. But it´s definitely worth it.

Adeu!