http://curry.elgg.org/catstud16/weblog/ http://curry.elgg.org/catstud16/weblog/4083.html Sun, 20 Nov 2005 15:53:41 GMT
heard there is a second part of the movie l'auberge espagnol, it is about the after erasmus period... i can imagine they made a movie about that. after such a wonderfull time it is weird to get used to your normal, quiet live.. but i'm also very happy to see al my friends again!

hope you all will enjoy your last weeks in barca, i'm thinking about you with jeaslousy, wish i still was there!!]]> http://curry.elgg.org/catstud16/weblog/3805.html Fri, 11 Nov 2005 11:07:52 GMT
let´s start by the presentation about witches, it´s one you remember easily because of the funny theme. i found it a good presentation, mainly because of the subject. they found quit a lot of information about witches. i didn´t know that it was such a particular part of the catalan culture, i thought it just was something people believed in, in the middle ages. luckely they ended the presentation by saying that people don´t believe in it anymore nowadays, otherwise i would have seriously doubted the intelligence of catalan people´;)

than the one about the choclate store. sounded very good! who doesn´t love choclate? i liked the story about this place, it´s nice to know some history, the place is immediately even more attractive than in already was because of the choclate!

last but not least, the presentation about homeless people, which was in fact not a presentation about homeless people at all, but more or less an experience with the catalan bureaucratic system. i think their story is typical for the way things are done here, nobody knows what someone else is doing, even though they should know. the presentation was very funny, because in the end you couldn´t believe that people can send you in the wrong direction that often!
]]> http://curry.elgg.org/catstud16/weblog/3706.html Mon, 07 Nov 2005 20:14:46 GMT
first i spoke to a girl from our school, Beatriz González Sánchez. she told us she felt really like a catalan and prefered catalunya to be separate from the rest of spain since catalunya pais more money than they get from the government.

than i spoke to some other guy from school, Alberto Montes, he also feels catalan. he prefers to be spain more like america, so with catalunya as a different state, but still part of spain.

finally i spoke to abel barera, he felt catalan too, and he in fact wanted catalunya to be separate but realised it would either take a very long time, or never happen. but he also metioned we're al european (including the dutch he said).

so before i started this assignment i guessed that people would feel catalan, but more like the old people. now i realise that also the youth feels really catalan and they al prefer to go separate, although they realise the difficulties it would bring.

]]> http://curry.elgg.org/catstud16/weblog/3607.html Thu, 03 Nov 2005 16:26:01 GMT
our house getting stranger every day, there is just one new housemate arrived and he/she turns out to be transsexual. really amusing! now we've got a good excuse to go to gayxample some time i suppose..

for everybody who is still looking for quiet spots in the neighborhood of barcelona, you should definetely go to montserrat. not only the cloister is very good, but if you go up to the highest spot you have a brilliant view over the mountains and cities nearby, and so quiet!! really good. you should definetely bring some food and enjoy the spot! (ow and don't forget to bring some warm clothes, it's very high, so also a bit cold especially when you're wearing shorts, like a friend of mine did..).
for the people that don't want to leave barcelona i got another very good suggestion. there's a parc (i'm not sure about the name and don't have the book where i found it in nearby) that's really quiet. normally you have to pay, but on sundays and wednesdays it is for free. but they give you a card before you enter, so i suppose they don't want to much people inside. the parc itself was really quiet, really fresh air, it was more like a wood and in the middle there is this cultivated part with a labirinth, statues and some water. really nice. you can get there by taking the green line (linea 3) up in the canyelles direction. you should get out 2 stations before the end. Than you walk a bit to the right, turn left and you will pass some sort of footbalstadion. behind it there are some stairs you have to walk and you will be there!

we also went to tibidabo, al the metro, trams, funiculars and whatever they got on the way up are really amusing. but tibidabo itself wasn't that spectacular. i found the views on montjuic better and the parc we didn't visit for we found it a bit expensive..
afterwards we went to the aquarium, which was very good! especially the one were you can walk underneath all the sharks and everything, really spectaculair!!

than we went to this footbalgame, barcelona against real sociedad. we thought it would be an exciting game because it was number 3 against number 6 of the competition. well, the game was nice to see, but exciting is different. 5-0 for barcelona. fist goal made by van bommel, a dutch guy, so we liked that!

next message i will have interviewed some catalan people.. probably i will find some time for that this weekend!]]> http://curry.elgg.org/catstud16/weblog/3030.html Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:30:51 GMT
of course i thought barcelona would be a nice city, otherwise i would have never come here. where that idea of barcelona was based on, i have no idea. never been here before, but lots of people who i know have been here and most of them have fallen in love with the city.
so when i knew for sure i could come here, they told me some things about barcelona and i had a tourist book which i read.

most things i thougth were true:
barcelona is a very beautiful city with lots of nice buildings. not only gaudi's buildings, bus also randomly on the street you can see some nice architecture.
you can eat here very good, and if you look out for it a bit, also not too expensive. you can shop here very good. people are most of the time really friendly and even though they don't speak english they try to help you.
but about the english, i think it's a topic already brought up some time, but why is the level of english so poor here. it's a tourist city with thousands of visitors every day! how can you not speak english a little bit? definitely something i didn't expect!

another part i didn't know, but of what i'm hapily suprised: the metro. what a lovely thing is that. every few minutes a metro comes by and brings you anywhere you want. too bad they drive only till 24.00 during the week and 02.00 in the weekends, but still it's very good. especially since we live right next too metro station vallcarca and can jump in the metro in 2 steps from our front door.

and than our school, definetely better than expected! let's start with the building, how beautiful is that. altough i start to get used to it, it stays a very good sight. in holland i'm sure not used to a church in my school, or a pool or fitness!

about the classes. every teacher we have speaks english very well. the subjects i find very interesting and very diverse. there are only 2 things that i don't really like. the first thing is spanish. i didn't speak a word of spanish when i came here and i expected to be taught at least a little bit. well, the first week we were, but then our classes stopped and now i don't learn any more spanish. of course there is the each one teach one programme, but it takes some time before that is going to start and by then i'm already almost in holland...

which brings me to my next problem. we (i and the other people from maastricht) can't finish the programm here. which i find really annoying. there are different presentations we can't do because by that time we are back in holland. but of course i know that's the fault of our home school and not the fault of anybody here.

well i guess i've wrote already 200 words. time for a short conclusion:

barcelona is a great city, which forfills all my expectations. school is also very good and leaves us enough time to explore barcelona.]]> http://curry.elgg.org/catstud16/weblog/2946.html Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:00:21 GMT let's start by saying that Graham is right. my house looks like l'auberge espagnol. before i came here, i never heard of that movie, but as soon as i arrived i heard lots of people telling my that i had to see it. ronald, a housemate, had the movie, lent it out and were still waiting for the dvd to return. so when christian moved in and mentioned he had the movie i was finally able to see it. and yes, it's true, it does look like our house. though our house is even bigger. even some characters from the movie are represented in the house. in the movie there is this english girl who cleans up all the time, we've got 3 french instead. and there is an english guy that has comments about everybody, well we've got an english boy (the one that brought the movie) who does that too!
unfortunately even the cheating part is represented. altough no boy/girlfriend has come to visit yet, so now running back into our house yet!

so, it's quit a lot of fun here in the house. never a boring moment and indeed very international! i like it! and about the noise.. it doesn't effect me. i'm used to live next to a big street and in fact i do like some noise every now and then.

so what did i actually do lately? i visited some musea last sunday because they were for free. unfortunately we chose the only one that wasn't free, bus still it was good. we also saw the world press photo's, really impressing and indeed for free :)
i've been to montjuic, enjoyed the view there and been to the museum over there too. with school of course to the sagrada familia and la pedreda.
we also went to 'the merchant of venice'. near fontana there is this cinema that showed the movie in english with spanish subtitles. altough it was hard to understand everything in the beginning (it was really shakespearian english) after a while you get used to it and the movie was very good so sure worth the effort!

we also went to the pipa club that Graham mentioned onces. i had been there before, but it's a place worth returning. in fact i've been there now 3 times, because karin and moniek also found in worth returning! the only thing that i don't get are the prices. i've been told that the bar doesn't exist to make profit, for the pipe smoking old man pay some contribution, but still a martini is 5 euros!

also a really nice place i've visited already several times is the champagneria. you can order hamburgers here, really nice once and very cheap. but that's not the main reason for going there. that the cava! for every 2 hamburgers you order, you can order a bottle of cava, really cheap and really good. you can also buy bottles there to take home. last time we went there with 4 people, all ate our (real good) hamburger and ordered 2 (of course) bottles of cave, we spent the total amount of.... 11 euros altogheter! that's what i call cheap. of course, you won't be the only person enjoying these nice prices, so you really have to fight for your place! but on the other hand, if you just accept that, it's also really funny how crowded one place can be.
so far i've only been there on fridays, dunno if it's opened on other days, or if it's more quiet during the week...

well done losts of things more. enjoyed the nightlive, but i'm sure you all already know that. and i find my message already very long, so i leave it at this..

bye for now,

laura

]]> http://curry.elgg.org/catstud16/weblog/2654.html Thu, 29 Sep 2005 18:49:56 GMT
i think it's about time for me to post a message too. this site is supposed to keep you informed about my time in barcelona, which is a great idea i think!

it's hard to start though, for i've already been here for a few weeks and done and seen so much already. barcelona is a great city, i like the people, i like the weather, i like the culture, i like the architecture, i like the beach, i like the shops,i like the restaurants, i like the nightlive and metro's are a great inventure!

until now i've enjoyed myself very good! i am very lucky to have a very nice house, do lots of things with my housemates. there a quite a lot, 21 i think. although the dutch overrule in numbers, we are quite international. colombian, french, italian, croatian, chilene, russian, portugese and american. most of the time we communicate in english so my spanish isn't really improving. but i'm trying!

last weekend we had the festes de la merce, very good festival. we saw lots of typical catalan things, but also lots of good bands. it was hard to combine those things, because the night was as good as the day. this resulted in the fact that monday i was completely exhaused, but i think i managed to see the main things. of course the corre-foc and the castellers, but also a parade, pictures of the festival and some stands.

from now on i will post a message at least once a week, hope you'll be interested!

bye for now, laura]]>