BARCELONA

Estoy aquiiiii! Sitting on the train from Valencia to Barcelona last Monday felt a little unreal, and when I caught my first glimpse of the skyline before the train pulled into the station I actually felt butterflies and didn´t stop smiling until I got out of the cab at Hotel Gravina. (The hotel was nice and I was still excited, I think my cheeks were just a little tired from the workout.) Anyway, I´ve been here for almost a week now and I ADORE this city. I live in a quaint, clean little apartment on the top floor of an apartment building in L`Eixample, a posh neighborhood full of nice stores and cute little markets that is close to everything-- the school, two of my favorite Gaudi buildings, the Barri Gotic, Las Ramblas. I live with 4 other girls and so far we´ve been trying our best to get out and wander around every day, hoping to get to know the neighborhood and figure out our way around the city (so far, we´re a little hit or miss, but we´re getting there...).

The only downfall of our lovely little abode is that we don´t have internet en casa, so at this moment I´m sitting in an Internet cafe (not one with wifi-- housemate Emily and I ventured about a mile, laptops in tow to this place that turned out to have old desktop computers and smells like grandparents) typing my first Barcelonese post. I think that for me though, not having internet for the first couple days here was a good thing, as I probably would´ve at some point gotten on facebook or started checking e-mail, something which may have made me a little homesick. Luckily, I didn´t have that luxury, so I was forced to live in the moment of the beginning of this great adventure, meeting all the funny and lovely people on my program and just starting to take in this beautiful and strange city.

I´m aware that I haven´t actually revealed anything that I´ve DONE in Barcelona yet, but as I´m nearing the next 20 minute increment (when I´ll need to pay another Euro), I think that´ll have to wait... But I´m having a lot of fun, I promise I´ll go into more detail and post some photos when I get a chance!

Un mil dulce dulce besos,
Tara

Valencia-go-go

Yesterday I:
1. Ate eel (I'm pretty sure)
2. Touched the Mediterranean
3. Had a grand old time taking in the beautiful, diverse architecture and scenery of Valencia

A few hours after Leah left Madrid, I remembered how fun it is to wander around by myself, drinking coffee when I wanted to and stopping to take pictures of cats/babies/things written on the sidewalk whenever I fancied. On my second to last day there, I met up with Leah's amazing host family for lunch and met their new student Noelle, who happens to be from Kansas City and has a mutual friend at Tufts. Tis a small world indeed. Thursday morning I woke up and planned on taking a cab to the bus station to head to Valencia, but I was feeling brave and had a little more time than expected so I carted all my luggage through the metro station and got to the station with an hour and a half to spare. Emboldened by my subway success, I started chatting up anyone and everyone I could-- a candy store owner, the guy sitting next to me, the woman cleaning the bathrooms. Feeling good, Madrid.

The bus ride was positively delightful. I spent four and a half hours watching forested foothills give way to orange trees and sea while listening to Chris Brown and Alicia Keys and fake-reading the Spanish magazine I had bought in the bus station. Actually, that reminds me-- the whole time I was wandering around Madrid, I kept going back and forth on the iPod issue. I feel like listening to music is almost cheating in a way-- if I had my headphones in and wasn't really paying attention to signs, I may as well have been in Chicago instead of Madrid. Well, not really. But still, it felt just a little dishonest or something to be walking by a street musician playing Spanish guitar, Kanye or Jessie Baylin egging me on through my iPod. Hmm...

Anyway, now I'm in Valencia, staying with Leah's mom, Bev's roommate from her time abroad in Valencia and her family. They are some of the nicest people I've ever met and their tour guide skills rival my aunt Teddy's. The first night that I got in, they took me for a walk around the city center to see some sights. I was amazed-- Valencia is older than Madrid and Barcelona, and many original buildings are still standing in the city center, all from different eras and with different architectural styles. Yesterday we walked around the university for a bit and then went to a beach just south of the city. It has been really windy here, and Kathy and Pepe keep saying that it is abnormally cold right now for Valencia, but compared to Boston, Omaha, London, and Madrid, Valencia is downright balmy.

Alright, I'm off to see more of Valencia's sights for now, then to Barcelona on Monday. For now,

Tara

Leah in her secret garden in Madrid

Street musician and unimpressed child in Madrid

Lago de l'Albufera in Valencia

You know what the midwest is?

I really like the colors of this empty apartment that Leah’s host family is letting me stay in. The walls are completely white, the whiteness only broken by the brick fireplace and a few spots of wood molding here and there, but everything is decorated with bright colors: neon green chairs, a shockingly orange tablecloth, an intricate red blue and gold Spanish tapestry hung on the wall. I’m sitting down to type out my thoughts on the last week before I head to the Museo de Reina Sofia for a second try—I went in yesterday, but they told me I couldn’t bring in my bottle of wine (it was a gift for Leah’s host family, I promise!) and I didn’t have enough time to go home and come back. Instead, I headed dejectedly into Starbucks, the most American and least threatening thing within eyesight. The whole morning I had been down with the soledad (IF you know what I mean) without MamaLeah around to speak Spanish and laugh at my inability to do so. While in the Starbucks though, as I wrote in my tiny moleskin notebook and giggled to myself at how silly and wannabe-poetic I looked, sipping coffee and eating cheesecake for lunch (kind of like on the first day at Tufts, when everyone gets frozen yogurt and cereal for dinner because there are no parents at college, wooo), I remembered my number one rule for being abroad: The world is big, and it’s ok for me to be small. (I wrote it down at the front of the notebook along with my other rule, Don’t drink too much.)

This next week in Madrid and Valencia seem intimidating because I’ve never been in a city completely alone before without an agenda or language skills, but what’s the point in dwelling on the fact that I’m alone? Plenty of times I’ve wished I was alone anyway, getting lost in my thoughts and listening to music—now I’ll have the chance to do whatever I want for a week! I sat up a little straighter in my plush chair, and apparently my newfound vibes of confidence were felt immediately by the rest of the Sunday afternoon Starbucks crowd, because just as I went to write down this revelation, a 25 year old Italian artist named David sauntered over and promptly started talking to me as if we were old friends. Not quite in the market to befriend talkative Italians yet, I let him write his contact information in my notebook (in case I’m ever in Turin) and told him I was late to meet my aunt at the library… hopefully next time I need a good excuse, more believable words than ‘tia’ and ‘biblioteca’ will pop into my head. Anyway, the rest of the day was a nomadic success— I wandered through the royal botanical garden, stumbled upon Atocha, a train station with a cool indoor setup of tropical plants, and did a tiny bit of shopping. My one downfall was at dinnertime, when I was again struck with first day at Dewick syndrome (well, actually anytime at Dewick). I just can’t bring myself to eat alone in a restaurant, something about it is just scary and sad and downright pathetic, so I walked home and vowed that tomorrow (which is today now) my big leap of the day would be to go out and have a delightful Spanish dinner by myself somewhere. Wish me luck, kids.

in the Real Jardin Botanico

inside the train station (Atocha) in Madrid

Leaving London

I can't believe it's my last night in London! I spent so many months looking forward to this trip that it seemed like it might never actually happen. I actually spent the car ride to the airport thinking that my plane would probably crash. Kind of morbid, but it just seemed like such a distant, fun thing that I didn't think it would actually happen. At any rate, the trip was great-- we sang at a bunch of different schools including at Westminster Abbey and Cambridge, where we partied (where party=drank too much and sobbed hysterically, in my adorable case) with the locals and went punting on a canal surrounded by impossibly green grass and thousand-year-old buildings. We went busking one day in London and made a whopping 18 pounds, drawing fair (enough) crowds wherever we started singing. Spending eight days with the same ten people who don't have nearly enough chances to bathe can kind of wear on you sometimes, but everybody on the trip did a great job of keeping things light and fun, and we managed to escape unscathed.

So here it is, my final 12 hours in London. As I type this, I'm sitting in the Broderick's living room, watching season 3 of The Office with the rest of the group. A few minutes ago, I made the pitch pipe pass off to Leah, who I am positive is going to do a fantastic job of leading the group this semester. I feel a little weird that everyone else on tour is getting ready to head back to Boston, where they're starting school and sQ practice in the next couple of days without me, but I think it worked out really well that I was able to go on tour-- hopefully it'll ease me into my Spanish adventure... which begins tomorrow. More then.

Ben and Leah sharing a tender moment in the garden at Hampton Court Palace (?)
Punting at Cambridgemore at Cambridge
Kacey, Morgan, and Leah on Primrose Hill