Perdóneme...

Sooo I was correct in thinking I would get very, very lost.  Last night around 8, I was supposed to meet up with Jasmine and Jackie for dinner.  GoogleMaps made it look simple enough; our hotels were on two main streets and we decided to meet at the intersection.

However, once I started walking outside, it was nighttime and none of the streets seemed "straight."  I also had a hard time distinguishing which were main streets among the multitude of smaller ones and alley ways, as well as finding the actual street signs (they are mainly plaques on the corner of buildings, and are written in Catalán). I eventually started asking locals, shop owners, and hotel/hostel staff if they could help direct me.  I now know several ways to say excuse me: "perdóneme," excúseme," y "discúlpeme."  Luckily, after requesting the help of a couple in a candy store, I walked outside only to find Jasmine and Jackie on the sidewalk.  All 3 of us had gotten turned around, and I was so excited to miraculously have bumped into them!  We decided to eat at some grill that was close by.  I had a sandwich with Catalán sausage, served with mini-french fries that tasted like potato chips and an assortment of pickles/pickled onions.

After dinner, we headed into El Corte Inglés, a large chain department store that has several floors and sells everything from clothes, to home appliances, to food.  We stopped by the supermarket to pick up some bottled water, and then attempted the journey home.  I say journey because I still had to ask for directions multiple times.  Jasmine and Jackie were nice enough to help walk me back first since they could then find their hotel together.

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This morning, I woke up, checked out of the hotel, and walked to the University of Barcelona.  Thank goodness it was very close - only a couple blocks away.  I was fortunate enough to get there at exactly the same time as 4 other girls on my program who arrived by taxi.  So the 5 of us, heavy luggage and all, started asking where room 0.2 was in the Facultad de Filología.  We found the room, dropped off our bags, and then went to a restaurant called La Flauta for lunch.  Since it was still early-ish (around 1 p.m.), they were only serving tapas.  I'm still not exactly sure what the tapas consisted of, but there were some green peppers, shrimp-like things with eyeballs and legs intact, creamy croquettes, some sort of salty fish, and very fishy clams(?).

We got an order of pan con tomate, thin slices of toasted bread smothered in olive oil and topped with some sort of light tomato spread.  I also ordered my first legal drink - a San Miguel beer.  Hooray!

After lunch, being exhausted, we found seats in some plaza and decided to rest before heading to La Rambla, a street/area with lots of different shops.

We had to be back at the University by 4 p.m.  Then, we gathered into a classroom with the other UC students as well as a few from the University of Illinois, met our program directors, received a bound packet of informative papers and a map, and then met our host families.  My señora, Susana, is very nice and made me feel super comfortable right away.  I was nervous because I wasn't paired with another student (I was supposed to be, but she withdrew), but Susana made me feel right at home.  I had dinner with her and one of her sons, Daniel, who is 26 years old and works nearby.  We had fresh bread, vegetable soup, some sort of yummy meat, salad, and fruit.  I can definitely get used to Spanish food.

Tomorrow, I am supposed to meet my "tutor" Diego - a student who has been in Barcelona for a semester already, and the rest of our group around 2 p.m. to explore the city - maybe to get a phone, see more of Barcelona, visit a bar or two.  That being said, my next main challenge will be to figure out the Metro, as the University of Barcelona is about a 20 min. ride away from home.