Bon dia!

Okay everyone, I'm back by popular demand (or because Tiffany and my mom asked). Let's see what I forgot about in the last entry. Well when we flew into Spain the first day of our program, we started in Madrid. My friend Ivan picked us up at the airport super early in the morning so we wouldn't have to wait around 3 hours for the ISA group to pick us up (thx Ivan!) Our hotel was really nice. We slept and then had our ISA initiation meeting thing. After 2 days and a couple of walking tours in Madrid (it's nice, but no Barcelona), we took a bus to Toledo, which (I think) is the oldest city in Spain, and so beautiful. Everything looks so...old. and preserved. We had a cool tour here where we saw an El Greco painting in a church up at the top of a hill. I love looking at old art, I just hate hills. Everything was at the top of a huge hill that had like 7 sets of escalators installed into the side of it to help fat Americans like us get up there to the city. Becca and I are kinda in love with one of our ISA guides named Antonio. He is so cute. On the bus from Toledo to Barcelona (7.freaking.hours.) he was telling us all kinds of things we can't say to Spanish people or they would think we were crazy. For example, the one that comes to mind is you can't say the word for "rabbit" (conejo) off-handedly because it means lady parts. As if Spanish men aren't creepy enough, that might make it worse. So after that bus ride we arrived in Barcelona and everyone was greeted by their host families. They all had signs with our names, it was so cute. Our mom's daughter and her boyfriend, who is a taxista, came to get Becca and I. They were very nice and carried our luggage for us. Then we met our mom, Josefina, who we call Mama Fina now. She is adorable, probably even shorter than me and has dyed bright reddish purple hair. She is a great cook, we had tortilla espanola our first night and it was much better than when I had it last time I came to Spain. Her husband was traveling on business so we didn't meet him for a few more days, but he is great too. He is obsessed with Barca futbol, but who isn't here? They have 2 grown daughters named Sandra and Cristina, both of whom we've met now. Sandra speaks a few words of English and told us she is moving to London to find work at the end of the month and she is nervous. 

So far we've done most of our exploring on our own, and not with a big group from ISA. We went to all the cheesy tourist clubs down by the beach at Port Olimpic, which are extremely over-priced and kind of a joke around here, but it's part of the experience and it's a good place to meet other young international travelers. We met a group of boys from Scotland that were around our age that we ended up hanging with for a few days, and a weird guy from Paris who was really good at doing the moonwalk. 

Well, Becca is on a Gothic walking tour right now, which I kind of wanted to go to but didn't for 3 reasons: 1. I twisted my ankle on Sunday and it's still pretty swollen. 2. I needed a little nap. and 3. It's been raining all day and it's gross out. Good news is, she left me home alone with her Oreos, so I'm gonna get to eating her food. It's what good roommates do. I'll make her update this soon.

Adios a todos,

Leah