First few hours!

Greetings from  in Barcelona, Spain!! The past 24 hours have been a great start to my study abroad adventure. Margaret (my roommate at Wofford and here in Barca) and I boarded the plane in Columbia at 1:30 on Sunday, we changed over in Philadelphia, then flew to Madrid. We had a really short layover in Madrid, which is where we experienced our one, serious moment of panic when we thought we were going to miss our flight to Barcelona. Luckily, we made it to our plane and landed in Barcelona. All of our luggage made it too, so our trip here went very smooth. We got in our taxi still not believing that we were going to spend the next 4 months in Europe and it all became real once we were dropped off at our apartment building and left standing there with 2 huge suitcases each, not really knowing what to do next. We knew our host family lived on the 3rd floor, but we didn't know if they had any previous warning of what time we would arrive. Thank goodness we located a small elevator that looked like it dated back to the early 1900s, and it could only fit one of us at a time. I got on and waited for Margaret on the "3rd floor" which was actually like the 5th, but oh well. We rang the doorbell and waited for awhile until a nice woman, Berta, answered the door. We asked if we were in the right place. She told us we were indeed and welcomed us in. After unpacking and napping for a few hours (neither one of us really slept the plane ride) we met Berta's husband Jordi, who immediately put his iPhone in our face to take a caller id picture. Well when he turned the phone around both Margaret and I yelped at the sight of our unruly appearance. Jordi, showed us a map of Barcelona and the "dangerous places" to avoid at night. Once we were settled we were ready explore a little bit. We walked along the streets and looked at all the stores and architecture. The downtown area of Barcelona has lots of modern stores with old pretty architecture surrounding them. It was a very nice day and everyone was bundled up on the streets so we brought our coats, but we thought the 50+ degree weather was wonderful for this time of year. We went to this huge 9-story walmart/target/macy's called El Corte Ingles. Which literally has everything under the sun. We bought a straightener, hair dryer, and shampoo like things there. After getting a bit overwhelmed by Corte Ingles, we decided it was time for Happy Hour. We stopped at a tapas bar called Brasserie and ate calamari and pizza. Not being used to the 9:30 dinner time, I figured this late "snack" would hold us over for awhile. Tonight we are hoping to meet up with our two other good friends from Wofford, Kate and Maggie, to watch the National Championship game. It comes on at 2:30 am our time, so we might only make it to the half. Sorry if this sounds sporadic and all over the place, but there is a lot going on and I am loving every second of it. We have the whole day to explore tomorrow, so we might venture out a little further and try and take pictures.

view from our room at the apartment!

Keep reading for more adventures from this first week!