The first real day...finishing up

...and you thought we couldn't possibly have done anything else our first day?!

We had our first "Let's flip a Euro for it..." moment...which had to be captured on camera!

Well, Christi informed us that due to the holiday we HAD to buy groceries in case everything was closed. We made the mistake of sending Billy, who, lacking spanish, brought home "Mano de Cerdo"....which, as you may not know, translates into "Pig Feet." I literally picked up the package and could see the little hoofs and hair on the knuckles! This is clearly a moment that will never be forgotten!

Due to this little Faux Pa we ended up with a schmorgasboard (spelling?) of random foods...including, but not limited to, hotdogs (with cheese in the middle) 50 centima (the Euro cent) bread, and cheese, as well as chicken that Mr. Perez bought for us!

We did a great job of eating all of the food put in front of us, and then, for entertainment (due to a lack thereof), Monica pulled out a sheet of paper and we all played charades! It was pretty much hilarious. The alcohol, seeing as how we are all of age here in Spain, clearly played a role in the humor of the night and we have a list of quotes from Sean and Rob to prove it! They are probably inappropriate for the wide range of audiences viewing, so I'll leave them out minus one:

Sean, one of the members of our group trying to do a charade about Bob, another member, points to Billy...

Me: "Billy!"
Ben: "James?"

Tom: "William!?"

Sean: "No...what ELSE do you call him?!"

Rob:"...ummm...Don Quixote?"
Sean (looks at me trying to ask for help): "Wait...who's Bob?!"

A classic moment in which 11 people forced to live together without tvs or internet found out how much they really had left to learn about each other...starting with names!

The first day...continued

We hit up the Port area and saw the statue of Columbus...supposedly pointing towards America?!

Then we trekked up Las Ramblas towards Christi's place in search of food, but to no avail. We got sick of searching for good prices and went back to Gran Via.

There is a ton of graffitti all over the city. It seems like some places have contracted walls for public art. I think it's a great idea. I'm always impressed with the abilities of graffiti artists, I just wish they would be more productive instead of using their skills to tag peoples' property. Here is one of the murals done along the port area.

Tom

Bobby

Bri

Sean

...chilling out at the craft/antiques/random "stuff" tents at the end of Las Ramblas before we head home for lunch/dinner (in the process of acclimating ourselves to the (literally) foreign eating times of Spain.

La primera dia verdadera: The first real day

So CUArch Barca 07 started today!

We basically did a session of exploration 101 on our own and discovered a little bit of the city we will learn to call "home."

After checking out apartment 3 (Calle Pique) we decided it's time to nix it and to save some serious Euros!

Then it was time to explore, and explore we did!

How many college kids do you know who can wander upon a playground and be amused for nearly an hour with a simple swing?? Count 'em up...I think there were 10 of us!

Bob on the fun swing!-->

Little did most of us know (I happened to, due some extensive Xmas break reading!) that we were at the base of Montjuic. We hiked up the mountainside to the Miramar hotel where we could view the city from above!

<------La Ciudad de Montjuic

We spent a while up there and, before we headed back down to search for food, Billy informed us that we had only covered "1/128th" of Montjuic...but we were hungry, so we had to save the rest for another day!