In less than one week, I leave for Amsterdam. I couldn’t be more excited. It’s such a famous European city, steeped in history and dignity. By history and dignity, of course, I mean weed and prostitutes.

In the meantime, I’ve been passing my time with the usual. But of course, I haven’t told you much about what the usual is, here, have I? This information is particularly important if you’re considering applying to the CASB program for next fall. If you’re not, I won’t be offended if you skip it.

The CASB program appealed to me because it lets you enroll at three of the many universities in Barcelona: la Universitat de Barcelona (UB), la Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB), and la Universitat de Pompeu Fabra (UPF). Fall-semester students are only allowed to take courses at the latter two, because the UB final exams are in January. I decided to take my classes as UB, formerly being a full-year student, which means that I’ve had to speak to each of my teachers individually about taking the exam early, in December. Annoying, but they’ve been understanding.

I really wanted to take classes that interest me here, so I chose classes based on the subject matter. I’m taking Phonetics (taught in Spanish), Sociolinguistics (in Catalan), and Historical Linguistics (in Catalan), as well as the CASB-mandated course, which focuses on Catalan history. I hate history. I hate history. Despite the fact that the CASB course is imparted in a language that I understand (Spanish) rather than a language that I barely understand (Catalan), I still absolutely despise this course. My two Catalan courses assign me a shit-ton of reading in Catalan. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can definitely read Catalan. It just takes me about three times longer to read Catalan than it does to read English. In essence, even though I have a pretty normal amount of reading for my classes, I have three times as much homework here as I did at Northwestern. Truthfully, most of it just doesn’t get done.

I’m not supposed to tell you this, but in my Catalan classes, I’m allowed to turn in assignments (papers, etc) in English. The reason I’m not supposed to tell you this, I think, is because the Spanish department would flip a shit if I tried to get credit for these courses. I’m definitely not planning on petitioning for Spanish credit, though, since I’m neither a Spanish major nor minor. Really, if you’re a Spanish major or minor, you shouldn’t be going to Barcelona. There’s too much Catalan around to really learn Spanish. A side note about this, however: Realizing how much I suck at Catalan has really made me more confident in my Spanish, so that’s something. Switching from Catalan to Spanish has the same relief-factor that switching from Spanish to English; that sense of “Finally, I can articulate my thoughts!” I care much less about the perfection of my grammar, knowing that at least I’ll be understood.

A quick note about the status of Spanish in Catalonia. I like to think of Catalonia as a Spanish sandwich. A lot of immigrants from Cuba and Peru and other Spanish-speaking countries come here and, much like in the United States, end up working lower-end jobs, so Spanish has a lower status than Catalan. However, Spanish is also imposed upon Catalonia by the state (state here is a synonym for the federal government, kind of opposite to what we’re used to) and is thus also a higher-status language. Catalan is somewhere in the middle. It’s imposed by the Catalan government to be taught in schools, and is dominant in Barcelona, but not much revered outside of the city center. Hence, sandwich; Spanish is the bread. Pretty interesting.

Another thing that I’ve been passing my time here in Barcelona with is something amazing that the CASB program has organized for us: Las prácticas de escuelas. Essentially, for four hours a week, I get to teach English to small children. This is obviously not appealing for everyone, but I LOVE small children. Even though I have to wake up at 7:30 in the morning two days a week, it’s my favorite part of the day. Kids are awesome and hilarious, and it’s consistently unbelievable that at five years old, they’re already fluent in both Catalan and Spanish.

Another way that I’ve been using my English knowledge is through Language Exchange partners. The universities will match you up with another person based on what language you can teach and what language you want to learn. I got matched up with an incredibly attractive and intelligent Biology student who wanted to improve his English so he can do research in Edinburgh in a couple years. Did I mention he’s attractive?

Today, my plan for the day is to go grocery shopping, take a shower, and then relax outside in a park and do some reading. It’s 65 degrees Fahrenheit here, in November, and I might as well take advantage of it before I’m dumped into the worst part of a Chicago winter. I might go out tonight, but probably not. I’m pretty sick of the club/bar scene here. My favorite bar (Chupitos, see previous post) was ruined because the bouncer has a huge crush on me, and as much I enjoy free beer (impossible to get otherwise in a bar that only serves shots), it was starting to get a little awkward.

And that’s my daily life!

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Woo! It’s about time for an exciting post!

I just got back from Lisbon, where I went for a weekend trip, and even though I don’t have any insanely crazy stories to tell, it was still a great time — a great city and a new view of Europe. It kind of gave me the travel bug that I’ve been lacking — it almost made me want to go see something really different, like Africa or the Middle East or Asia. I’ve traveled a lot in my lifetime, but I’ve only traveled within the United States, Mexico and Europe.

Regardless, Lisbon wasn’t too far from home. Two of the people that I went with are from San Francisco, and they said Lisbon reminded them so much of home that it made them homesick.

If you ever go to Lisbon, you’re not allowed to stay at any other hostel than the Traveller’s House Hostel. Our only complaints were that the beds were too comfy, the staff was too helpful, and they gave us too much free stuff (free Internet, free breakfast, free tea/coffee all day, free towels). Not kidding.

Four reasons why Lisbon and San Francisco are basically the same city:

1. The hills. There were hills everywhere, which made for some incredible views almost everywhere in the city but especially at the Castelo de Saõ Jorge. The Castelo also was wonderful for its exotic collection of peacocks and cats. Yes, I said peacocks. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it for myself.
2. Cable cars. The metro system in Lisbon was tiny and mostly unhelpful, probably because of the hills. The bus system was rather amazing, complete with “your bus will arrive in ___ minutes” signs (something that even the El doesn’t have!) but the trams and cable cars really were our main method of transportation.
3. The fog. See pictures. It was pretty funny because it was pretty foggy the morning that we arrived, and the San Franciscans in our group were really a little bit too excited about it.
4. The Golden Gate Bridge. I kid you not, Lisbon has its own Golden Gate Bridge. Actually, I have no idea what it’s called in Lisbon, but it’s the exact same damn bridge, I swear. It was completely trippy to see it in another place, especially since I only saw the real thing for the first time about 4 days before I left for Europe. Again, I would not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.

One of the best experiences in Lisbon was seeing a live Fado show. Fado is a type of traditionally Lisbon-specific music/singing that has a reputation for being very sad but very patriotic. While watching the Fado singers, I couldn’t help but be astounded by the amount of power and emotion they put into each song. All of the singers were older and it was clear that each song was steeped in personal history. But enough of my rambling. Enjoy the video and pictures for yourself!

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About a month ago, I sent a panicked email to my parents about being stressed out and miserable, and asked if they’d be able to visit me. Luckily, they were able to plan a trip and came to talk with me last weekend.

I could tell the whole long story of their interest, but it’s not interesting. I showed them around some touristy sites, went to eat some nice expensive dinners that totally destroyed my diet, and talked a lot about whether or not I should stay the entire year.

Reasons why I should stay the entire year: Two months in is prime culture-shock time, and supposedly it’ll get better. After more time, I’ll learn to love the country and make great friends. More time would allow me to really learn about and explore this region (though I already feel like I’ve learned so much) and learn Catalan better. More time here would be an impressive feat that I could be proud of myself for. Staying here for a year would be the complete assimilation experience that I’ve always wanted.

Here’s the problem: I don’t want that anymore. I don’t want to learn to love the country. I don’t want to make awesome local friends and then leave them in June. To really assimilate, I feel like I’d have to give up a part of who I am, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to learn Catalan better, and I’m quite happy with my current level of Spanish. Although I see very clearly the benefits of staying here longer, I no longer place any importance on the value that I could potentially gain.

The other problem is that I feel completely alone in how much I’ve struggled with the study abroad experience. Everyone gets homesick, culture shock sucks for everyone, but no one seems to have it as bad as I do; this all-consuming sense of not-belonging, of time moving sluggishly inch by inch, day by day until I can finally escape. I’ve talked with other people and while homesickness is rampant, it’s always phrased as such: “I miss home, but I totally love [insert city here].”

Well, I don’t totally love Barcelona. In fact, I rather dislike it. I don’t know why, or what makes Chicago better than here, because it’s nothing big and it’s nothing specific. My classes are no more stressful than Northwestern, my friends on the program are beyond wonderful and supportive, the locals that I’ve met are friendly, interesting, welcoming and fun to talk to. The city is even everything that I’ve ever wanted in a city: great public transportation system, but also very walkable; multilingual, cosmopolitan, international; intelligent with great research-oriented universities; great weather; fun nightlife; beautiful beaches. There’s no logical reason for me to feel such antipathy toward being here, but I do.

I explained that to my parents, and they agreed with me that it’d be better for me to come back to Northwestern in January.

I want to emphasize that this post should in no way discourage you from studying abroad, or even from studying abroad for the whole year. There are many, many great things about being here: the people, the food, the experiences, the ability to travel. All are wonderful, but not enough to keep me here for six more months.

Part of me feels like a failure, like I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was, like I should be listening to reason and not emotions. But mostly, every fiber of my being just can’t wait to go back home.
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In the United States, classes usually start on time and sometimes end late. In Barcelona, classes never start until fifteen minutes after the scheduled time and the teacher gets mad if you don’t tell him when class is supposed to be over. (”We’ve been here for almost five minutes! I should get an alarm clock to tell me when class ends if you guys aren’t going to do it!”)

Other than this small adjustment, classes haven’t been all that different from Northwestern. Instead of having everything on Blackboard, everything is on Campus Virtual, which is lucky for me because you can access the course materials without logging in. Considering that I’ve been attending classes for a month and still haven’t been officially enrolled, this has been a lifesaver. Here’s the Web site for one of my classes.

I know I haven’t said much about my day-to-day life since being here, but truthfully it’s kind of boring. Living in a major metropolitan European city has its advantages and disadvantages. One might argue that the disadvantages are exactly the same as the advantages – everything makes me feel a little bit too at home.

While it’s true that everyone who is native here speaks Spanish, they speak Catalan first and Spanish only reluctantly and often grumpily. If you want to learn Spanish, go to another city in Spain. I’m even taking two (out of four) of my classes in Catalan and in a ten-person class, being the only one that can barely understand the language is quite the disadvantage. However, the teachers are totally understanding; they’re quite used to having foreigners in their classes.

Which brings me to the problem: I am so sick of Americans (and British people, to a lesser extent). Thankfully there aren’t any in my classes that are taught in Catalan, but otherwise they are everywhere. Walking down the street. On the trains. Looking confusedly at Metro maps. Asking me where I’m from. Telling me they go to the one school whose name I refuse to utter because of the pain of being waitlisted, bringing up feelings which I thought I left behind freshman year only to have them chase me down thousands of miles away from home.

The advantage is that, since Barcelona is such a tourist and expatriot destination, some of the comforts of home are quite helpful. Like Starbucks — there’s one right outside my school. Also, Bikram yoga. I started doing yoga this past summer and loved it, but thought I’d have to do without for a while. Fortunately, there are two Bikram studios in Spain, here and in Madrid, and one of them is a 20-minute walk from my dorm. There’s also a Starbucks on the way to yoga.

Sometimes I feel like I haven’t gone very far away at all.
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In our little manual of Consortium for Advanced Studies in Barcelona, we have a little page about the choque cultural, or culture shock, that study abroad students are expected to experience, complete with a graph of highs and lows numbered by week. The third week is the “honeymoon” week, emotions careening all the way up to the top of the graph; however, things go sour during the fifth week. Everything they say is true: The fifth week is the worst week, and I just survived it.

It started when I was coming back from Oktoberfest. We’d survived three days of grueling early-morning drinking and it was a relief to be heading to the airport at 6 a.m, and not another tent. However, after my first cup of coffee, I realized: For the first time after a long vacation, I wasn’t going home. I was going back to Barcelona, to my dorm with very thin walls and new classes and new friends. I wasn’t going back someplace where I was comfortable; I was going from one uncomfortable, weird place to another. It was heartbreaking, and I spent the next four days locked in my room, watching How I Met Your Mother online, Skyping my boyfriend and crying. The fifth week is the worst week, but I’m still alive.

But Oktoberfest! I could tell you everything, but that’d reveal way too much about me and what I do when I’ve been drunk for 12 hours straight. I do, however, have a couple pieces of advice for Oktoberfest, when you decide to go. First off, it’s a must for study abroad students to go to Oktoberfest, but it’s hard to get flights and reasonably priced hotels if you don’t plan in advance. My friends did Couch Surfing, which is free, and it worked out well for them.

Secondly, even though it’s not your first instinct, resist the urge and don’t go to Oktoberfest on the weekend. It’s still a complete shitshow during the week, and you might actually have a chance at getting served beer in a timely fashion when you arrive at 9 a.m. If you come on the weekend, expect long lines and no seats, even in the beer gardens, even at 8 a.m. You can’t order a beer unless you’re sitting down, and Oktoberfestbier only comes in liters. There are 3.8 liters in a gallon. Yes, I drank a gallon of beer a day for three days straight and I’m somehow alive.

I also ate the types of food that should have killed me by coronary: Buttery onions and chives potatoes, buttered corn, chocolate-covered fruits, sugared nuts, pretzels, raw meat with a radish on a bun (don’t ask), chicken, cheese bread — you name it, everything high in calories was there to satisfy the most ravenous of the drunk munchies.

It’s also not uncommon to black out by noon, as evidenced by how early in the day I saw an ambulance. One of the friends that I was with blacked out around 2 p.m., to awaken on a grassy hill at 6 p.m. wondering where the fuck he was and why he was missing one hundred and fifty euro. My only story, other than the things that I can’t remember so therefore they didn’t happen, is that I lost my phone and half of my toenail. Yeah, that kind of hurt.

Also: everything the other study abroad blogger said about the ‘Fest is true, but I didn’t think that you’d believe me about the 12 Dutch men in matching lederhosen that we befriended, or the stuff she said about everyone using the riff from “Seven Nation Army” as a drinking song, so I have the video to prove it.

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Obvious alert: You can, in fact, get way, way too drunk off of just drinking wine.

This past weekend, the program had all of us go up to the Pyrenees mountains to visit medieval churches and appreciate medieval art and architecture. Although I’m sure many people on the trip enjoyed this aspect of it, I was bored out of my mind. (If you’re offended by my attitude toward Romanic art, I will grant that many Linguistics classes that I enjoy would bore and/or outright torture many people.) Once you’ve seen one old stone church, I personally think you’ve seen them all.

The program made a couple mistakes in planning this trip. The first was assuming that after seeing medieval churches in the morning, what we really wanted to was wander around a boring, empty small town for five hours. (What we really wanted was to nap.) Amusingly enough, after being stuck in the town for five hours, the only road big enough for our bus to travel on was blocked by a manifestación, or protest.

About twenty residents of this tiny town gathered together with signs that said, “El cotxe no puje per una carretera de promeses,” which is Catalan for “The car doesn’t drive on a highway of promises.” Apparently the Spanish government forgot to build the better highway that they promised to the town five years ago. They dispersed peacefully after about half an hour, but it was still pretty annoying. We got bored and joined the protest at the end, yelling, “CARRETERA! CARRETERA!” with the best of them.

The program also forgot to think about what happens when you put 45 bored college students in a hotel together; inevitably, both nights, there was rampant drunkenness and inexcusable loudness at odd hours of the night. I’m not entirely sure we’re welcome back at that formerly quiet hotel, nestled in the beauty of the lush, green mountains.

Speaking of the lush, green mountains, we also climbed them. Some people were daring enough to climb up, but mostly we just climbed down, hiking to visit yet another old stone church. Barcelona is a beautiful city, but nothing can compare to the beauty of a mid-afternoon nature hike in the mountains. It reminded me of a combination of all the good parts of Yosemite and all the good parts (i.e. the greener parts) of the Alleghenies, where I hiked during PWild, put together.

However, I was too hungover and pissed-off to really learn that much about Romanic art. Not to mention, I care very little about Romanic art, which further makes learning about it very difficult. However, I did learn that even if the wine bottle says “8%” on it, costs a euro fifty, and tastes like delicious grape juice, it does not mean that one should attempt to drink the entire thing.

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Tossa del Mar is a beach town about an hour and a half bus ride from Barcelona. It was absolutely beautiful. The added benefit of lying on the beach all day for three days straight (besides the tan) was that I got to do a lot of thinking. Why am I here? What do I want to do with Barcelona? With my life, in general?

I realized that studying abroad in Barcelona really does feel like a vacation. It was a running joke throughout the Tossa del Mar trip. We realized that we were taking a beach vacation in a touristy small town away from a beachy, touristy city. Everyone felt like we were taking a vacation from our vacation. (After we got back, everyone was so exhausted that we needed a vacation from our vacation from vacation.)

The best find was our hotel. The room was a hundred and twenty euro for two nights for a room with six beds in it — cramped, but not unbearable. For ten euro a person, we got a full-fledged budget resort filled with kids running around and its own mini-golf course (and oversized chess board). If you ever find yourself in Tossa del Mar, the Hotel San Eloy is something to look for, even if it is a bit far from the beach.

Despite the fact that it was touristy, Tossa del Mar was incredibly beautiful. The beach that we napped on all day is right next to a huge fortress — a real medieval city — that’s now full of delicious restaurants to eat at. Five of us had the epic, three-hour-long tapas dinner where we drank three pitchers of sangria de cava and didn’t ask for the bill until 1 a.m. It was such beautiful weather outside, and the food was so delicious (and reasonably priced!) that it was hard to leave.

However, studying abroad for a year, rather than just four months like everyone else, means that it feels much less like a vacation to me. This is going to be my life, and even though I desperately, terribly want to be back at Northwestern this quarter, I can’t. Studying abroad, doing linguistics research — as fun as it all sounds, I can’t back out now. This year is an investment in my future, not a vacation. I’m just going to have to buckle down, albeit in a very beautiful place.

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First, I’d like to comment in response to the person who posted, “Could these students choose more vanilla locations?” in the comments on the original study abroad introduction page.

I almost have to agree. I can’t speak for the rest of the bloggers, but Barcelona is an incredibly touristy city. There’s no way that I can ever fit in, because everything about me screams “tourist” — from my excellent command of English to my pale skin, which is still pale despite my Mexican heritage and the constant sun here. My roommate wanted to fit in and to integrate into the culture, and I’m glad that’s not my goal. Barcelona’s culture is a tourist culture, and I’ve learned to accept that if I’m going to fit into this beach town, it’s going to be as a foreigner.

It does help that I speak the language fluently. It means that I feel more at home, even if they’re not addressing me in English. If you wish to really challenge yourself, you must go to a country where you don’t know the language that well, and you must live with a host family. I, however, am glad that I’m living in a dorm. I’m having enough difficulty adjusting to my new life, new friends and lack of boyfriend or support system, without the added culture shock.

Speaking of difficulty, there’s been a lot of trouble with getting the right to be here for the entire year. My friend here assures me that some countries, like the U.S., are much worse with paperwork, but that doesn’t mean I’m not completely pissed off and stressed out about how I’m going to get my tarjeta de estancia para estudios that I need to stay here for the full year. I have a list of ten steps at three different offices that I need to take in order to get this stupid card.

It’s actually not that difficult. What is difficult is that the CASB program has us scheduled for required classes, for which we’re allegedly getting credit, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day except weekends and holidays. Because here, until September 24, it’s apparently still “summer,” all of the offices have shortened hours. One of the offices is open only from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Of course, what must be sacrificed are classes, but since fewer than ten of the students on the program are full-year, we’re destined to be behind in classes and confused about homework compared to everyone else. It wouldn’t be so frustrating if we were taking classes in the local universities, but these are supposed orientation classes scheduled by the program. Shouldn’t they know how much trouble they’re causing us?

As for actual classes, I still have no idea what I’m taking or where. Apparently they start in one week, but I’m still totally clueless. No matter. It’s almost midnight, and my new Barcelona friend Pau (Catalan for “Paul”) invited me and my friend to a party. Talking with locals is the best way to practice the language, so I can’t wait!

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To start off, a bit of advice: If you’re traveling on the Metro in Barcelona, always carry your metro card with you.

I was sharing a card with someone else and got off at a different stop than they did, and it turns out that sometimes you need to put the card in the slot in order to exit the train station, too. To deter you from traveling without a card, if you don’t have one, they’ll charge you 20 euro to escape. Thankfully, my roommate convinced one of the station employees that we were dumb Americans who got separated from the group, and we got out without paying 60 euro total for the three of us just to exit. Let’s just see that it’s a little easier to get away with jumping over the entrance to the El platform than it is here.

But now for the juicy stuff. I’m still trying to figure out the nightlife here. There are two kinds of nightlife: bars for chill drinking, and clubs/discotecas for dancing. Both are fun, especially the ones that have a shtick to get you in the door; for example, in the icebarcelona, you have to wear a parka and gloves because it’s freezing cold and everything is made out of ice. We didn’t go into it because it costs 15 euro, and there are plenty of places to go for free.

However, in general I’ve found that I dislike the area right next to the beach. It’s set up with four big clubs and a long strip of smaller dance and hookah bars, in the middle of which is a McDonald’s. You can’t get into the clubs if you aren’t dressed nice enough and aren’t hot enough, which is definitely not the pretentious category that I fit into. After not getting into the clubs, you’re forced to head to the strip of free bars, where they play terrible music too loudly and where everyone else in the bar are either confused tourists, under 18 or just kind of weird and creepy. It’s fine if you’re only interested in dancing with people in your group, but absolutely terrible for meeting locals or anyone new.

Although last night we ended up at this beach area, we first decided to go to another bar with a shtick called Xupitos. The catch is that the bar serves only shots. Luckily, the menu is pretty varied. (I could only fit half of it in the picture). There is, however, a way to get a beer. You must take a “Monica Lewinsky” shot.

Don’t worry, it’s no big deal. All it involves is having a large black dildo repeatedly and aggressively shoved in your mouth until the alcohol squirts from the tip of it and all over your face. Of course, you’re blindfolded, so you don’t really know exactly what’s happening right away. Only the men most secure with their sexuality can get away with this.

Most other shots have two things in common: they are delicious, and they are set on fire. My favorite shot was the mint-flavored one that was set on fire in such a way that the alcohol vapor was captured and saved for you to inhale after taking the shot. Talk about a head rush!

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I’ve been wrong about a lot of things here in Barcelona.

First, I was wrong for how long it would take for me to feel at home. I thought it would take six weeks, but apparently all it takes is a memory-foam mattress pad and my favorite pillow. The biggest obstacle to that feeling so far is the milk. I really like drinking milk straight up, and it tastes too strong here (even though I got the nonfat kind). It’s good for cereal, at least, but that’s a pretty small consolation.

The partying is exactly as amazing and terrible as I expected, but my primary reason for being afraid that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the party scene is that I didn’t want to miss out on making friends with people if they went out and I didn’t.

Luckily, I’m in the Consortium for Advanced Studies in Barcelona (CASB) program, and all the other kids on the program or in my dorm are from primarily Northwestern and Brown, but also Cornell, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, University of Chicago and University of Pennsylvania. Not exactly party schools. I think I’ll be able to keep up with them, if not the Spanish. The key to staying out super late, 4 or 5 a.m. usually, also, is apparently starting really late. Duh.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the nightlife isn’t awesome. A little bit about me: I love the Keg on a Monday. It’s kind of an obsession. I love dancing, I love meeting people through dancing, I love getting drunk and being happy and having a good time. Barcelona is the Keg on steroids. It’s perfect. But I’ll save details for after I’ve sampled more of it.

I was wrong that I wouldn’t make friends right away. Like I said, the people are all from schools similar to Northwestern so it’s really easy to get along with most of them.

I was right, however, that the first couple of days here were going to be tough in terms of missing my boyfriend. I was pretty happy that I could call him at 4 a.m. that first night because of the time difference so he could calm me down, but I know I can’t keep doing that. The physical separation is there, but I’m still working on establishing that emotional separation. Since we decided to go with an open relationship, due to the length of time apart, I know I can’t survive unless I start thinking about him less.

It does help that I’m not remotely attracted to any of the people here, on the program or not. I do have a soft spot for goofy, open-minded Jews though, so if any of those come along I might change my mind. Unfortunately, they’re pretty rare in España.

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