We woke up after a long night on Wednesday night got ready for our school orientation and our Spanish placement test. We were all exhausted but we got up and the seven of us went to the cafe (so cute and right on the corner where our partment is!) and had our daily 'cafecon leche' and took the metro to our school, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. We walked up the school and I think all of our mouths dropped at how beautiful our school is. Our school is not too old (it was started in the 60s), very modern compared to Universitat de Barcelona, but it is in the most beautiful buildings which are over a hundred years old. It is directly next the famous, Hospital de Sant Pau. I can't even explain to you how gorgeous our campus is. It will definitely be nice to go to school here, and its a nice 10 minute walk from our apartment. After our orientation we were starving so our program advisor, Julia and the 8 of us who are going to UAB went out to lunch, or tapas. We found a tapas place and Julia explained to us the menu and chose some tapas for us. It was definitely some traditional food but it was really really good and we all got into a food coma. We were supposed to take our spanish placement test after orientation but they asked us to come back later after the second orientation, which was good because we got to go back and take a nice and well needed ciesta. Our placement test wasn't too bad, just an open ended essay type written test and a verbal test with one of the professors. Not too hard, not too easy. I'm pretty sure I will be able to get into the intermediate or upper intermediate spanish, which I'm excited for.
After our siesta we woke up and just hung out for a little bit and started getting ready to go out. We have three different levels of international students in our apartment building so all of us decided to go out together and get dinner and go to the bars and clubs. We found this amazing sushi place that our advisors recommended to us along las ramblas, one of the most famous main streets in Barcelona and had some dinner. It was all you can eat and was actually really good. We all needed some food that we knew we would like and were somewhat familiar with. I love how dinner here or just meals in general are not rushed. They will literally let you sit there all night if you don't ask for the bill. It makes things a lot more enjoyable. We all get a long so well and have so much fun together. We are so lucky that we all clicked so well. I can definitely see them being friends for life. After dinner we walked down La Rambla and went to one of the bars before we went to the clubs. Mind you it is about midnight or 1am, very early still according to the Barcelona people. We somehow find the bars and clubs that are having specials and have free cover and a few free drinks, definitely a money saver. We were there for about and an hour of so hanging out with eachother and being brave enough to talk to the locals. We have definitely been able to practice our spanish while we are out. Whether it is with the cab drivers or with the people out, it has been a definite adventure. We probably decided to walk across the street to the famous club, Sutton, around 130. Late for us but not for them. We walked in to what to them is in early and were given a tour by one of the bouncers of the club. It was super cool and pretty big. Probably not until 2 or 230 did people finally start pouring into the club. We all hung around one of the bar areas and began to mingle with the crowd and locals. I spotted one guy that both Jess and I (especially me) thought was very cute, haha. Since we have no fear lately we decided to go up and introduce ourselves. I ended up talking to him for awhile and found out that he is from Vienna, Austria and has lived here for the past year. We exchanged numbers and he said that he would take us around the city and show us the best places to go out around here. He was very very nice and all the girls said that I have found my Austrian lover (mom I know you are happy about this!) We stayed at the club until about 4 or so and when we left the friends we met said that it was still very early and that they usually are there until the club closes at 5am. We definitely weren't ready for that, especially since we had our bike tour of the city this morning. It was such a fun night and a definite experience!!!! I absolutely love it here!!!!!
