orientation etc.

Yesterday, orientation officially started. I was in the group that started at 11, not at 9, so that was great. I had told Ana (mistakenly, obviously) that I had class at 9:30, so at 10 Paula timidly knocked on my door to see if I had overslept. Showering is a bit of a fiasco, since I can never remember which way is hot, I'm constantly worrying about taking too long or too much water or too much energy, and I'm usually really out of it. Anyway. I had my extremely Spanish breakfast of Corn Flakes and then went to orientation. We just talked about Barcelona, classes, and adjusting to living abroad. Pretty uneventful. Then I had about 45 minutes before I had to meet with the academic adviser about my UPF classes, so I ran out and ate the greasiest chocolate croissant I have ever seen, and a cup of coffee which I awkwardly drank alone at the bar in a cafe. There were some other old men at the bar, but they were chatting with the server, so I mostly just admired their vast wine collection that was all over the wall. Also, they serve FERNET(!) which I didn't think existed outside Argentina.

It turns out my classes aren't really cancelled, they're just sort of renamed, and might have different schedules, but we don't know yet. But I can continue to take both Islam History and Spanish Lit, so that's fantastic. Jane gave me a new list of the available UPF courses, and they have a Latin Am. Lit class too, so maybe I won't take classes at UB, just at UPF, since the UB classes are Estudios Hispanicos, meaning they are designed for study abroad students. There would probably be students from a lot of different countries, not just America, but I don't know if I would prefer taking more regular UPF courses or Estudios Hispanicos at UB.

That afternoon we had an opening ceremony, which was beyond scary because half of the program is from Santa Clara, and the other half is from Wake Forest. So it was just crowds of people (literally crowds, since there are 300 students in the program) hanging out with their friends from home, and me wandering trying to find someone else who didn't know anyone. The problem is, most people have roommates, so they know at least one other person, whereas I am all alone. I found a couple cool people, including one who is in my language class AND on the same bus to Valencia, which was beyond reassuring, and we hung out for a while before leaving early to roam the streets. They were shocked to hear I had been wandering the city alone and going out to tapas on my own, and told me how dangerous it was (but Ana has told me that I can go pretty much everywhere in the city without trouble, I just have to hold on to my purse). During the course of the event, I turned off my phone because it was frozen, only to discover I needed a PIN to turn it back on - and only vaguely remembered the saleswoman showing me the PIN. So I had to go home and find my PIN, so that I could turn my phone back on and find my RA for our neighborhood visit. Once I got ahold of Alicia, they were at La Sagrada Familia, so I booked it over there and the 9 of us had tapas. Mind you, 5 of these students were friends from Santa Clara, 2 were roommates, and then there was me and Alicia. Thank god for the other girls, because I ended up having a nice time, until they left and I got to spend the rest of the night listening to stories about parties at Santa Clara, the drunken mishaps they have already found themselves in since arriving the day before, and their plans for the night. They invited me to go out to a club with them; apparently most of our program was going, because all of the Santa Clara kids were going, but instead I ate dinner with my host family, iced my foot, and went to bed early (really living it up here in Spain) because this morning I had my placement exam at UPF.

UPF has some really cool buildings (and by some I mean two) - it's only 18 years old, so everything is really new. The test was relatively manageable, 80 mulitple choice questions ("Madrid ____ en el centro del país. A: es B: está C: esta D: ese), a short essay, and a 5 minute oral examination, in which the woman and I talked about Pedro Almodóvar and learning catalan. I felt bad though, because some of the people from IES are only taking classes at UPF in English, didn't speak more than a few words of Spanish, and were handed an 80-question test. Except I didn't feel all that bad, because there are so many people who it seems are only here because Barcelona is a great party city, and don't seem to care much about immersing themselves in the culture. I mean, I'm being a big snob, but... I call it like I see it. I met another girl who is in my language class and on my bus to Valencia, which means I now know TWO other people in my class. Great news. I'm the only IES student taking either of my UPF courses though, so I guess I'll be on my own there. Also, the guy who gave us our orientation talk said, "If you go to a class that was listed to be in Spanish and it is taught in Catalan, please talk to the teacher and let us know as soon as possible." Does that mean there is a chance that I will show up and the professor will have decided to teach in another language? That scares me a little.

Well, tomorrow we're off to Valencia, and in the mean time I am going to go find myself some food, since I looked up from my book to find I had taken another siesta this afternooon, and now I'm starving.