Second Week

This week we visited the Arc de Triomf (turns out there is one in Barcelona and one in France). It's located at one end of a pedestrian street while at the other end is Parc Citudella.

At the end of Las Ramblas (opposite Plaza Catalunya) there is a statue of Christopher Columbus, seeing as he was funded by the Spanish to "discover" the Americas. The port is very near here and we walked past the marina on the Mediterranean.

Tuesday we went to a place called "Sports Bar" after class to watch Obama's speech, which was pretty awesome by the way. It's kind of an American/British bar that has a bunch of TVs and show NFL and English Premier League Soccer and apparently important political events. I was quite surprised to walk into a fairly full bar that was silently engrossed with Obama's speech...here in Barcelona. Every Spaniard that I have talked to has told me that they really like Obama. Awesome.

I've been thinking about how strange it is that I am already pretty comfortable with myself here. I can pretty well communicate and have even had a few conversations with Spaniards. The last two days I have been asked questions by locals and have been able to answer both of the (by sheer luck, of course). One thing that is difficult is that many, if not most, speak English as it is the main language taught in schools beginning at a young age. So often I will speak to them in Spanish and they reply in English to me, but I just try to keep talking in Spanish because I want to learn it!

Ciao