Today Dale and I decided we would do a little exploring and shopping around Barcelona. We had originally planned to go on a day trip to Tarragona, a city built on the Mediterranean by the Romans, but we have both been suffering from headaches for the past few days and decided it would be in our better interest to sleep in and take the day fairly easy, little did we know that sleeping in wasn't in the cards for us!
Tomorrow marks the start of Carnival in Barcelona and the people have already begun celebrating! People are dressed in costumes and face paint and many other interesting ensembles. I haven't quite decided if I like it or not, but only time will tell! The Residencia is situated next to an elementary school and our rooms are right next to the play ground. We were awakened (not early, but early enough) by the sound of music (such as Gangnam Style...yes, it is a fad here too. I can't get rid of American music) and cheering from the kids next door. Don't get me wrong, hearing the laughter of the children is one of my favorite parts of the day, but seeing as I was fighting a headache, I was slightly annoyed today. Anyways, we decided we would head out about 1 and see what we could get into. We headed out to Glories which is un centro commercial or mall. We weren't really looking for much in particular. I knew I wanted a new pair of shoes (a girl can never have too many and I only packed 4 pairs) and a jacket that a girl in our program had. The first store we went in had the cutest clothes, but was a touch pricey. However, I had yet to purchase anything besides essentials in Barcelona so I felt I could splurge a bit. I bought a cute dark blue/possibly black jacket with brown leather trim and am so excited to wear it! After making our purchase, we decided it was time to eat lunch and ended up at a noodle restaurant where you could choose your type of noodle and sauce. It was pretty good! Next, we headed to an area called Diagonal so we could look for shoes. We came out of the wrong exit and ended up at the higher end shops that we couldn't afford, but could ogle at through the windows. After walking around for awhile we decided we would head to a different stop to try and find something to eat for dinner. Little did we know, the real adventure was about to begin!
Neither of us had been to this stop before so we chose an exit and decided we would wander around looking for cafe or restaurant. We found a place to eat that had Black Bean Paella, or that's what we thought it was. Dale and I always have a fun, yet awkward time, when we go to dinner together. We walked into the restaurant and sat at a table and began looking at the menu. The menu at the tables in the front, however, wasn't the official dinner menu. So when it came time to order and we asked for paella, the guy went further into the restaurant to grab the dinner menu. We ordered the black bean paella, patatas bravas (potatoes with hot sauce), and bread. The patatas bravas and bread were delicious! However, the black bean paella wasn't truly black bean paella; it ended up being paella with shrimp and some other unidentifiable sea creatures (I think octopus?) and some kind of black sauce on it. Dale is vegetarian so as soon as she scooped it out and noticed the shrimp she couldn't eat it. That left me to eat a huge pan of paella myself! Dale was asked repeatedly by the waiter if she liked the paella or not, and she replied with the usual "I'm full from the appetizers!" but I'm pretty sure he didn't believe her. I managed to eat her portion she had spooned out and my portion, but I was stuffed by the end of it! I have plenty of leftovers that I can hopefully share with some of the other students in the program. Dinner definitely got awkward when the man from the table behind us watched me scoop Dale's portion onto my plate because she wasn't going to eat it. The conversation that ensued between the waiter and the old man was pretty interesting. The main thing I caught was about la morena (which means brown hair), so after that we quickly paid and left. After dinner I had my first Spanish cafe con leche (coffee with milk) and it was delicious. Definitely don't want to make a habit of drinking them since I don't drink much caffeine normally. They will be a treat!
I hope everyone has had a great week and will have a wonderful weekend!
xoxo
Kelcey
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