Viva Cataluña

party outdoors...

a weekend before last, i was walking through plaza diamant in my neighborhood called grácia...in the plaza there was a huge pile of wood with dirt and sand around it on the bottom and it appeared to be something like a bonfire. this obviously got me very excited but i also had no idea what was going on and no one seemed to be able to answer our questions. later that night, i had plans to meet a group of my friends at our favorite local shwarma restaurant and as i was walking there my friend nick and i heard fireworks and the second we turned the corner, we could see that my neighborhood was ALIVE with people and music and food and fireworks and REAL fire.. real bon fires everywhere. we thought it was just this plaza, we kept walking and realized that every plaza every space that could potentially hold a group of people was filled with drinking catalans, old and young. we didnt really need to ask around to find out what was happening because the graffiti and signs helped us figure it out. the catalans were celebrating the independence of mallorca but the main reason for the gathering was to rally and support the movement of CATALONIAN independence! im going to explain this one with videos but.....plaza sant joan was the coolest because they had a big stage set up and the crowd was circling around doing their own sardana (traditional catalan dance)...we tried to learn it but mostly it looked like the hoky poky slash follow the leader. outdoor fiestas rule, and so does españa.

Andorra

Andorra...

(Vallnord Ski Resort, Andorra)

A few weeks ago, a group of my friends and i went to the french/spanish pyrenees for a weekend of snowboarding.

(side note: officially the Principality of Andorra (Catalan: Principat d'Andorra) is a small landlocked country in western Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain (Catalonia) and France (Northern Catalonia and old Occitania). Once isolated, it is currently a prosperous country mainly because of tourism and its status as a tax haven. The people of Andorra are currently listed as having the highest human life expectancies on Earth at an average of 83.52 years) thanks wiki

right, so, for those who are aware of my athletic history and childhood, this will be obvious to you, for those who don´t, well i´ll explain very briefly....i haven´t been snowboarding or skiing for, hmmm probably 7 or 8 years. 8 years ago, i wouldve died to be a snowboarder like the rest of my peers, but i had to follow strict rules, because 8 years ago i probably weighed barely 100 lbs, a few inches shorter then i am now. i had no meat, no cushion on my body to make anyone comfortable with the thought of me flying down a mountain of ice and snow and trees, and not getting seriously injured... plus, i had already dedicated my life to basketball, so my father, also my coach for one of the teams i played for, double banned me going up to northstar on the weekends with my homies. ANYWAYS, back to the point of my athletic history, my last year of playing on an organized sports team was my senior year of highschool, 3 years ago. (whaaaaaa!!!???¿¿¿) sine then, the only exercise ive gotten is riding my bike to the beach a few times in the summer, and hiking around the yuba for the couple weeks i was home in the months of july. so, needless to say, it took about 30 min on the slopes to feel the pain in my thighs, calves, ankles, feet, shoulders, butt, arms, hands, wrists and back. but, since the trip was already paid for, i had to and wanted to stick it out the 2 days. i did. it wasn´t an easy transition back to finals and other stressful items on the agenda, but, totally worth it. the view was beautiful, (as you can see in the first pic) and it was neat to watch my boarder friends who could actually get off the ski lift without taking everyone else out like dominoes.(see, thats me, i´m alive!)

Kephart Family Adventure

christmas/new years 2k8

honestly, i dont know where to start.. as you could imagine, my christmas vacation was 2 weeks of mayhem and not stop laughing and of course ended in tears having to say goodbye for 6 more months...BUT, tears were definitely vale de pena....

lets see, KFA started in plaza catalunya around 10am on christmas eve (day) when my familia arrived from the airport. it took them a few seconds to recognize me for one because i hadn´t seen them in almost 5 months and secondly because i chopped all my hair off and am now a brunette (dave is thrilled)... so after hugs and kisses and smiles and excitement i walked them to the apartment that we rented for 2 weeks while in barcelona.. a few days before they got here i called the landlord and asked if i could come by and see the place and when i was there i secretly dropped off a decorated christmas tree and a few presents for the fam, i really wanted it to feel comfortable and as much like xmas as i could... so when they saw the place they were all as excited as they could be due to the fact that they were extremely jet lagged and fighting sleep. as much as i wanted to run around bcn and show them my new city, i eventually had to admit that if this trip was going to be as crazy as i wanted it, they needed to take a 4 hour nap. when everyone woke up we made a lovely xmas even dinner of steak, rice, salad, bread and wine and upon kellys request we attended midnight mass at the incredibly old and beautiful cathedral in the gothic area and everyone slept very well that night.

(bros at the bcn beach)

Christmas wasn´t anything over the top nor did it really feel like xmas, but the fact that we were all together was everything i was looking forward to. since before i left for spain, id been looking forward to a candle lit christmas dinner listening to A Charlie Brown Christmas CD and being with the familia...so that was my gift (and the next 6 months in bcn, claro)...i got the boys euro scarves and music, dave and kelly got some spanish music and i got some books (typical kephart gift) and a jellyfish hat...youll have to ask cameron about that, i have too much to blog about, but trust me, ASK HIM. the next few days we toured the city went to my favorite places and luckily we had INCREDIBLE weather, it literally stopped raining the day they arrived and thankfully only rained once, the day before they left. i felt like i was on top of the world the first few days, i honestly didnt stop smiling nor laughing...its funny, i kind of forgot about my culture shock when i first got here, but seeing my parents and brothers in a foreign place reminded me how much this city has become my home...my parents dont really speak spanish, actually they dont at all, BUT to their credit, by the end of the trip, they braved the streets and markets by themselves, and it was silly to see them in a different element. the last day my parents when grocery shopping without us, and they were looking for salad dressing in the supermercado but spaniards usually just use olive oil and vinegar, so my dad confident and all asked a worker, "salsa para ensalada?" and he found it! it was pretty cool to see how happy that made him..its extremely refreshing to have seen my family finally because they always remind me that it doesn´t take much to make us happy or smile. all it took for big dave was to ask someone a question in spanish and to hear EURO sirens on the ambulances and police cars.. (he has a thing with noises) it was also really fun to take my brothers out at night to my favorite bars and of course, La Rambla... if they could, caleb and cameron wouldve just sat on la rambla (the main, very touristy but very colorful and fun street in bcn) allllllll night long, buying 1euro beers and these potatoe wedge pockets from the pakistanis.(brothers and i on montjuïc, flying over the barcelona port)

(parentals on top of la padrera, designed by gaudí)

on the 27th, we flew to florence, italy..we stayed in an incredibly old and very tuscan hotel that kelly booked right in the middle of the city..we arrived at night, all the streets were lit up and it was beautiful!! it was especially exciting for me because i was able to experience a new place in europe with my family, instead of just showing them what i already know. so we all got to be tourists together which was fun, except at times we all got sick of eachother....one day, we were walking to find a place to eat making our way to the museum accademia (where the david currently resides) and we lost dave(kephart). he didn´t see us go into a church and he probably did some wandering anyways like he usually does, so then everyone is a little grumpy and hungry and the boys want to keep moving on without him but kelly doesn´t want to and we couldn´t remember what he was wearing and it just turned into an ordeal. it all worked out in the end because florence just isn´t that big of a city and sure enough we see a white guy in a baseball hat, shorts and a large backpack on walking our way...(by the way, NO ONE in europe wears shorts right now, and baseball hats are very rare, i wouldn´t change dave´s style, but ya´ll have to know, NOTHING could get dave to stop wearing bball hats and shorts in the middle of winter, even if its snowing in grass valley and under 40degrees) SO florence was beautiful and the arno river is fantastic, but florence is freeeeezing!! defenitely makes me think twice about going to the netherlands or germany or london during winter, and of course, made it so much easier to come back to barcelona where i am spoiled with everything nice, including 15 degree warmer weather. we drank good wine, ate good pasta/pizza/(GELATO, dave was in heaven!), saw lots of museums, lots of historia and made lots of good observations. florence is inhabited by tourists and hotels, there are NO overweight people in europe (en general), you cant turn one street corner in florence without another Dolce and Gabbana in your vision, and really, europeans dislike americans. we were in milan for less than 1 day waiting to catch our plane and i swear to you, we were getting stalked by the italian mafia.. everyone in my family was uneasy for about 4 hours straight, but we couldn´t really talk about how uncomfortable we felt slash how nervous we were for our lives and our belongings until we FINALLY made it back to barcelona safely. that was a very refreshing feeling for everyone, and so that concludes our trip in italia....after our return to bcn, we toured around the city some more and celebrated new years all together (there´s more about that in a bit) and before i knew it, it was january 4th and the familia (minus cam) was on a plane back to cali while my twin left one day later for morocco, africa for 2 weeks (side note: he went without plans ni a place to stay but i made him promise to email me and check in as often as he can, so everyone, so far, so good, he´s safe and on his way to rabat).. there´s pictures at the bottom and a made a list of my top 10 favorite events of the Kephart Family Adventure in Europe.. some of them are stupid family jokes, but they really just made the familia´s visit that much more special.(our favorite italian meal...florence, italy)

(family shot infront of the David replica)

(the duomo, most beautiful builiding i´ve ever seen...florence, italy)

KARLI´S top 10 FAVORITEs of KFA in EUROPE
1. cdk: one night a few friends of mine and the bro´s were walking home from a bar and caleb was a few steps ahead of everyone.. then we yelled to tell him something and he turned around but was still walking and he tripped over a parked vespa and on the way he grabbed the moto and it fell with him. the best part is that it was in front of us, and another bar and then after he got up, we were still steps behind him so he was solo for a few seconds and he couldn´t find the kickstand, so at his expense, while he was probably pretty embarassed, we just laughed so hard till we cried.
2. crk: there is a beautiful park in barcelona called parc güell... there are a few houses and just some incredible architecture and mosaic done by antoni gaudí, who has lots of work all over the city.. well one of the most famous pieces by gaudí is a mosaic lizard at the base of parc güell. on our way out we stopped to take pictures but naturally there are a million other tourists doing the same and everyone has to wait their own turn to touch the lizard and snap a foto. well i said cam, you should jump on it and like not wait your turn, and he asks, you think i should? and i said, no you probably shouldn´t and he said, really? i said, REALLY. well i was just going to take a normal pic of him when it was his turn but out of nowhere, he jumps up on top of the lizard and about .5 seconds later someone is blowing a loud whistle and the park literally is silent and this short old spanish man, runs up to cameron and starts screaming at him in spanish and cameron looks at me very confused and at this point, everyone is staring and i dont want to be seen with him either because this old man was obviously offended. in the end, we just had to walk away, embarassed and all... dave and kelly were on the outskirsts of the whole ordeal and DAVE was just trying to get pictures of cameron and i while this man yelled at us and everyone else stared...ha ha ha, now we can laugh about it, but he will always be "that guy" that crotch hugged the gaudí lizard.

(dave y kel at parc güell)

3. kk: bless my mom´s heart, all she wanted to do was come to europe and see a beautiful tuscan sunset and appreciate all the beauty that surrounded us while we were together in barc and italy... well, when she really likes something or wants other people to like it or see it too, she does a lot of pointing and touching, and repeats it over and over again. she touches things too, actually she touches everything just to admire it. she also has a tendency to call natures beauty "gifts"... its really sweet, but naturally, the boys (dave included) and i give her an extremely hard time about it. so then we start calling EVERYTHING gifts and we really just cant let things go..for example, in reference to poor college students eating mac n cheese and cheap meals all the time she once was quoted to say "TORTILLAS, you can put anything in a tortilla. ANYTHING, really, vegetables, etc etc etc.. YOU CAN PUT ANYTHING in a tortilla"...and she repeated it a few times, and so, my smart-ass family started asking if you could put a sunset (also a gift) in a tortilla, or the beautiful mosaic in a tortilla...i have to give her props, she takes a lot of crap from us, but it will just never get old asking her if we can wrap tuscany in a tortilla, or the wicker basket trash can or anything that she points out to us 10 times. (i love you mom)

(the arno in florence, italy...im sure my mom would like to put that in a tortilla)

4. dk: like i mentioned earlier, my dad speaking spanish was definitely a highlight, props to him for trying, but sometimes it was more comical then anything to hear him struggle or just say any words that he knows and put them together. "salsa para ensalada" made me very proud and was definitely great progress through 2 weeks in spain. Another moment that i don´t really want to forget is watching my dad drink our "crunk juice" mixture in the middle of plaza catalunya at new years. watching my mom´s face as he downed a rum and soda mixture was pretty priceless, they both probably cannot remember the last time they drank cheap 10 euro(dollar) alcohol mixed with soda, and on public streets for that matter. and as much as i make fun of my dad when he´s behind the camera taking creepy pictures of people, im pretty glad he was always snapping them fotos because we got some good ones that i´ll have for a very long time.
5. new years: best new years ever. they closed all the streets off leading to plaza catalunya, and everyone was spraying champagne and drinking and eating and singing and the energy was absolutely incredible. we migrated to this group of spaniards who were counting down from 10 every 30 seconds with about 15 minutes to go until it was actually midnight and then theyd break into dancing and singing the beginning of that white stripes song (duh, duh-duh-duh-duh-duh, duhhh im goin to wichita) sorry thats the best i could do.. anyways, we dont actually know when the real new years was because there was one clock in the plaza, but it didnt make a noise, and it was off with everybody else´s time, but it was fun either way. the tradition in bcn (prob other places in spain as well) is to eat 12 grapes the last 12 seconds before midnight, 1 grape for good luck for each month in the next year. since we were confused, we just decided to throw them instead so my family and i just chucked them at everybody. the ground was ridiculously wet with drinks and grapes and god knows what and my brothers and i congo´d around and danced and celebrated with the locals... side note: i was trying to meet up with my boyfriend adam but there were too many people, so a little bit after 12, people started clearing out and as i was taking a picture of my parents, i get grabbed around my waist and before i know it im flying in the air and fall on top of someone.. adam had spotted me and ran up to hug me, but he slipped on the ground and brought me with him. then he got up off the dirty sticky ground and introduced himself to my parents....at his expense, we died of laughter, because that was the best introduction in history and my parents were just glad it wasn´t some stranger tackling me to the ground.

(family pic, new years!)

(video clip from new years)

6. museum academmia: museum in florence, italy that is home to the famous Michelangelo statue: the David.. a marble sculpture of the perfect man that is i believe 14 feet tall. florence is a very small city, so one night my brothers and i were walking around, and we found the replica david outside what we thought was the academmia, so the next day we stood in line at the faux-academmia and after buying tickets realized (thanks to rick steves) that the david was on the other side of town, oops. well that museum was really neat still, palazzo vecchio, but we really just needed to get to academmia to see david. we finally got there and kelly was very antsy and we were all really amazed at the beauty of it. there were lots of other neat sculptures, incredible paintings and other musical instrument displays. we spent quite some time in the academmia but, we knew it was finally time to leave when we got to the last room in the museum filled with different depictions of jesus´ crucifiction and all the boys in my family and i had a laugh attack. AS a believer, we were of course not laughing at the crucifiction, but as one brother had to point out, in one painting, HIS hips were very curvy and swinging to one side, and that observation was followed by "look, jesus´ hips dont lie"... i think we were just weary and tired from walking all day and then every painting after that had something to laugh about and we didn´t want to upset any other admirers, so we had to jet out reallllllly quick.
7. wine night: parents went to bed early, traveling wore them out... our first night in florence the bro´s and i decided to have a wine night. we´re in the tuscany right, cheap good wine, why not! turns out wine is most expensive in the wine country and we couldn´t find a bottle under 20 euro. well, we splurged, and found an bar/restaurant with a plastic covered outdoor dining area with live music.. we probably, well we DID spend too much money on tuscan wine, but the boys were on vacation and it just made sense.. it was all worth it in the end, because the musical entertainment played probably the best lineup ever of BAD american songs. so during the awesome musical lineup a drunk old italian guy wearing a suit 4 times too small for his huge belly picked me out of the crowd to share a few dances with him...we dipped, he stole my scarf and once again, naturally, i end up dancing with an old man, its obviously my sweet dance moves, europa cant get enough.

8. http://youtube.com/watch?v=vum3qgoh0x4 .... watch that video. my parents were introduced to soulja boy. if youve never heard of it or seen it or experienced it, you have to now. because then you have to walk around barcelona with the kepharts while my family "superman´s that ho" everywhere we go. funny enough just the video and how popular it is.. even funnier hearing my parents say it and dancing through the streets. ok, another funny thing. i explained to my parents and brothers that the word "guay" or "guai" in spain means COOL (pronounced gwhy) and then..... when people asked where we were from, we started telling them we were from SUPERGUAY, a small country between Uruguay and Paraguay. another fan favorite was telling people we were from the future. it doesn´t take much to entertain us, especially because the language barrier makes everyone 10 times more confused, but thats why its so fun!(brothers tearin it up in a disco)

9. train ride to milan...well, like i mentioned earlier, this was...... HORRRRRRIBLY uncomfortable, but there was nothing we could do but laugh. so europeans already dont like americans.. well we were probably the last ones to board the train and we had a good amount of luggage with us. well, first, we werent even sure if we were on the right train, but when we finally figured that out, we couldnt read our tickets, because they were in italian.. and as we were stuck, trying to make our way down the aisle, there was another american family equally confused with even more luggage then us and also blocking the aisle.. so the train is quiet, the kephart family is HUGE and just towering over everyone, and im not kidding you, 5 min of complete silence except for us trying to figure out where everyone was sitting and finding a place for our luggage.... we also ended up scattered with window seats and made people get up so we could sit down. the feeling of 40 sets of eyes on us in a tiny train car and 40 people wanting to sock the loud, confused americans in the face was VERY uncomfortable, luckily, we weren´t alone and we just had to sit down and laugh about it because if we i didn´t laugh, i was about ready to cry...then cameron and caleb saved the day and pulled out 2 bottles of tuscan wine for the road, making things just a little more bearable for everyone.
10. fc barç... our last hoorah of the trip was buying tickets (and going) to an FC BARCELONA FÚTBOL GAME!!!! although i am a baseball fan (its in my blood, i can´t not be), you have to admit that the european pastime might give american pastime a run for its money on the cool scale. A LOT of americans like baseball, A LOT of americans do not like baseball. EUROPEANS LIKE SOCCER. ALL OF THEM. it is like a continentally uniting idea, belief, game... the energy in the stadium is absolutely incredibly, everyone is bestfriends and everyone acts like fools...even in the gigantic arena that holds easily over 100 thousand people, the spirit is maintained. they even had a studium wide WAVE that continued for about 3 minutes. you dont want to be on the losing side nor do you want to antagonize the losing side, cuz otherwise, your screwed, luckily they do not sell alcohol inside the area, probably for everyone´s benefit. its intense and it can probably be pretty scary if you hang out with the wrong fútbol fans, but a game is something everyone should experience. i never was into fútbol that much, but i can definitely say i am a supporter. my family was so excited and we all bought fc barç gear before the game, we got some good pictures and we cheered our hearts out. (barç pretty much lost, opponent tied with 1 min left, but thats unimportant)

(camp nou, stadium of fc barcelona)

(parentals at camp nou)

(children at camp nou)

that pretty much wraps up the KFA in europe.. i tried to make it as short as i could, although i could really write about the stories and adventures forever. spain is a great place and i hope my family has nothing but good things to say about my city and my new life over here...
feliz año
happy 2008
feliç any

my niño

meet gerard....

i have a niño...not biologically, but he´s my little catalan baby, and he´s amazing. he´s a firey read-headed 5 year old with glasses and too much energy. when i say i have a niño, i mean i teach english to him slash babysit him, in english. he can´t read or write in spanish or catalan so its actually impossible to teach him english with words. i read to him, but mostly we just end up drawing pictures or playing hide-and-seek or if its a really boring day, he´ll just sit there picking his nose counting from 0-100 continuously until he gets bored with that. i play with him on wednesdays and fridays for 2 hours each day and its nice because i have a little extra spending money and it has become sort of a hobby. sometimes i go to the cheap china stores and buy him fun games. we play go fish sometimes or yesterday we built an airplane and a helicopter. it was pretty fun. i´ve been doing this for about 2 monthsish now and this is what he can say in english:

numbers 0-100
colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, brown, white
animals: monkey, fish, dog, gat (cat) and elephant
words: house, sun, moon, boy
phrases: do you haves? my name is gerard. four in a row.

he´s 5, so he isn´t really interested in learning english, he just subconsciously picks it up, which just makes me realize how brilliant little kids are. yesterday was the last day i´ll see him for a month because its break now. his mom is very preggers and when i go back in january, gerard will be a big brother and there will be another little fiery red-headed catalan kid in barcelona.

why i like my job: well, my niño is just awesome and its actually good practice for me. he responds to me in spanish and catalan and i surprisingly understand him 95% of the time. i also get to speak with his parents about things, so its nice to have the opportunity for conversation. on wednesday though, i experienced the good side of language barriers...

gerard usually leaves half way through our session to "hacer ka-ka" or to go poop. so, like routine, he left and i heard him on the other side of the house talking to his dad....his dad was repeating something in english, something i figured he wanted gerard to come and tell me, because the parents dont speak much english, they can say a few things and phrases, but for the most part, they don´t know much but sometimes they´ll try their english out on me through gerard...so gerard came running back to me and already forgot what he was supposed to tell me. so his mom came in and kept whispering the phrase in his ear and finally after a few minutes he said: "you are tramper" and they both just looked at me like i was supposed to understand that. so tried asking me if "tramper" in english is like the word "tramposa" in spanish which means cheater or trickster..... and i said, well, you wouldnt really call someone a "tramper" and the dad comes in and says... ohhhhhhhh "you are a tramp". i started laughing and i explained to them that the word "tramp" in english has sort of evolved from meaning cool to more of a derogatory term directed at woman, like the spanish word "prostituta" (is how i compared it)..... then in the end, it all made sense, this was our conversation:

dad: "como el grupo de música, SuperTramp"
me: "OH, (the band SuperTRAMP) te gusta?"
dad: "SÍ, ME GUSTA MUCHO, no significa guai?
me: "ahora no, es como prostituta"
dad: "dios mio, discupalme!"
me: "no pasa nada, todo está bien"

he was actually just trying to compliment me because he really likes the band Super Tramp and thought it was pretty chulo. thank you language barrier for the good laugh.

side note: my family will be here in 2 days. you wanna know A.D.D? story of my life

gracias :: thanks-g in bcn

thanksgiving 07...

so i spent thanksgiving in barcelona. my bulgarian roommate asked me if it was the holiday where we dress up in costume and eat a lot of candy. after explaining to her the difference between halloween and thanksgiving she was still confused because she said: wasn't colombus spanish? thats true, he was..touche

i didnt realize how special thanksgiving was to me until i spent it in another country away from my family. so a bunch of my american friends and i decided to take the day off school and do our own celebrating. the days festivities began at a futbol field playing a version of kickball called: sloshball. if you dont know what it is, lets just say that drinking in public is not really inforced in europe. anyways, after a few hours of running around we all cleaned ourselves up and went to hotel espana where our program organized a thanksgiving dinner for us. it was a very beautiful dining room and everyone looked really nice...then the director of our program gave a toast about giving gracias for amistad, amor, familia....etc. then he switched to english and the last thing he said was "call your families and tell them you miss them." that would be the moment where i lost it, emotionally. and not to my surprise, i had two missed calls on my cell phone from my family.

there was nowhere else i wanted to be but in grandma bette's lakehouse eating real turkey and real potatoes and macaroni salad, while the guys watched a football game and cameron, caleb, megan and i joked about our crazy family and grandma was preoccupied with the bird and pleasing everyone, and dave of course taking sneak attack creeper fotos of everyone. so, i just wanted to say, i had a few tears for my family and friends and everyone at home who i miss more then you'll ever know. and i wanted to say thanks to everyone who has supported me and my move to spain, financially and morally and grandma too for dealing with the fact that im on the other side of the world, and all the letters and packages and candy and tapatio and american sentiments.

i love you guys. and thanksgiving dinner just wasn't the same. especially because the gravy had no flavor and the apple pie was frozen. but, good news, i will be home for my favorite holiday ever: FOURTH OF JULY!!!!! so we can get super american and have a really great reunion.

rome, italy :: ciao bella

Roma, Italia.

there's really no way i can describe how incredible this city is, nor do fotos come even close to capturing its beauty. before i arrived, my picture of rome was a really old city and the colloseum.

i've seen pictures, and i've been studying roman art, literature and history for as long as i've been able to read, but until you see it first hand, you will never know how powerful the city is.

my flight came in at night and had to walk from the metro to my friend's flat. it was cold, and im not a fan of flying especially when i have to sit next to smelly person and get stared at for an hour straight by loud obnoxious italian soccer fans, so i was just a bit annoyed and antsy to see my amiga. the directions she gave me to get to her place were not good (sorry milene) and for those who know me, my sense of direction is off, and my instincts usually fail me when i need to make a decision... so i walked the wrong way, naturally. at this point i felt like my brother cameron because i was without a cell phone and i did not write my friend's number down before i left. not even a payphone could help me. i wasn't scared yet, just more irritated. so anyways, the reason i decided to go the way i did was because i saw big arches in a wall in the distance. turns out it wasn't such a bad decision on my part because i walked myself 10 min out of the way and ended up in St. Peter's square right out side Vatican City. QUE BUENO! it was so neat. so i asked a police man for directions. i used my spanish. they dont speak spanish in italy. so i just did the point method and i absolutely did not understand his italian. at the end of the night, i finally found her apartment and all was well. that was thursday night.

on friday, my friend had an excursion with her program and she had to go see some churches outside of rome with her class... so with a 2 maps, my camera and rick steve's tour rome book(if you dont know who rick steve's is, he is amazing and you need to watch the travel channel more often) , i set off to see piazza navona, the pantheon, trevi fountain and spanish steps.

piazza (plaza) navona...it was difficult to get to because the workers of public transportion were on strike and the police were blocking off roads left and right but i finally just walked with the parade and they took me straight to the plaza. plaza navona used to host roman "games" but was mainly used as a horse track and theatrical performances. now, it just plaza lined with great restaurants, full of various artists/musicians and a great place for people watching. the protestors were being lead by a big pick up truck blasting bob marley. italians are strange.

{{ piazza navona }}

next stop for me was the pantheon: a temple dedicated to all the gods. there are more then one pantheons in the world, but the roman pantheon is pretty unique architecturally. from the front you can really only see the columns that support the huge structure, but from the side or if you go in, you can see how cool it is. there is a huge dome on top, which used to be the world's largest concrete dome, now its just the world's largest un-reinforced concrete dome, (haha). a perfect 43.3 meter sphere can fit in the dome, thats really big, and really perfect...so after admiring the greatness of the pantheon, rick steve's told me about a cheap pizza place around the corner, so i went and had a silly lunch with an awkward german lady who ate a lot of pizza. side note: when i was choosing my pizza, i just pointed and the guy automatically asked where i was from. i thought about telling him barcelona, but rarely do that so i said california. (europeans think its funny that we say california instead of america or the united states, it just sounds better and then they think LA instead of george bush or guns)....and he freaked out, and said some words in english but couldnt understand him through his italian accent and i just stood there staring then he went in the back and handed me a bunch of pictures of him in front of the golden gate bridge.. it was cool that he shared them with me but i mean, i wasn't that thrilled..then i thought about it and realized if i was in cali and i met someone from spain/bcn, id probably get way too excited and tell them my life story of me over here... so lunch was good and then i headed off to see the trevi fountain.

{{ the pantheon }}

ok, one of my favorite part of the trips was my next stop: fontana di trevi: TREVI FOUNTAIN. this is one of those things you have to see in person. pictures are pretty, but seeing it is awesome. its more of an experience. maybe its just because i like water so much, but this is the largest fountain in rome, and its looks and sounds so beautiful. its uncomfortably crowded with tourists, beggers and people trying to sell you really annoying toys but you have to spend a little bit of time marveling at its greatness. originally it was built at the end of an aqueduct to supply water to the romans. it is SO COOl! so after making my way through the people i found a seat down on the lower level and became the designated picture taker for couples and groups of people and i did that for a good 45 min just people watching and thinking of what my wish would be...everyone has to toss in a coin.. rick steve's told me that its supposed to ensure you a trip back to rome, but i wanted mine to be special. so while i was contimplating, i got talking to a guy on my right who was traveling around europe by himself for 3 months...so 45 min turned into about 2 hours of speaking spanish with this man from mexico city and i realized the sun was going down so i had to get going to meet my friend. i made my wish (only 1...the next night i dragged my other friend emily back to see the fountain at night, even more incredible, i really just could not get enough of it. side note: a few weeks ago, someone poured red paint into the fountain so now theres police everywhere.

{{ fontana di trevi }}

{{ my friend emily making a wish }}

i didn't make ever make it to the spanish steps... but i think they are just steps. and i live in spain. so...

the next day, one of my best friends, emily (who is studying abroad for the semester in london) met me, and my other friend milene in rome. we saved the big stuff for saturday because we all wanted to be together to see them. so in the morning we headed over to the vatican because we had planned on getting a spot in line early enough so we could climb to the dome of st. peter's and see the amazing view of the city. BUT st. peter's square was so crowded with people we couldn't even find the line. we were trying to figure out what was going on and we looked up at these huge monitors and realized the POPE was driving around in his mobile blessing people and doing what the pope does. so we climbed up on some cement statue and we saw the pope! it was really incredible actually, and im not catholic, but being surrounded by thousands of believers and watching the pope bless people through god (and i was wearing my st. christopher) was a very religously moving moment. i said a prayer and thought of my grandma and i wish that my family could have been there too. it was just extremely powerful. so after the pope left, there was no way we were going to get into the dome so we decided to go to the colloseum and come back to st peter's in the evening.

{{ pope }}

ok. so the colloseum is rad. and a lot of people go to see it but just to take a picture of the outside and say they've been. totally worth the 11 euro to go inside. i mean, really, its corroding away, but you can still see the angle of the grandstand and whats neat is that the ground where the gladiators fought is gone so you can see the chambers that used to be underneath the arena where they kept the on deck gladiators. sometimes, they would let prisoners challenge the gladiators and if the prisoner won they would be released from jail. if not, they died, so that sucks. we got some good pictures and from the colloseum you can see the forum which is where we went next.

{{ the colloseum }}

so from the colloseum we walked about 400 feet to the forum...which is the original business part of acient rome. there's a lot of ruins (which are just rocks and old cement) nevertheless its pretty weird to walk by the very place caesar was killed. everything was 10x more beautiful too because it was late evening and the leaves on the trees are incredibly colorful.

{ the forum :: where ceasar was killed }}

last stop of the day (actually second to last because we saw trevi fountain again) was back to st. peter's basilica to climb the dome.....we were super excited because my friend milene, who is studying in rome, had not done the climb yet. well we didn't make it in time. but we still went inside and saw st. peter's tomb, a little eery, and a michaelangelo statue and other really amazing artwork/decorations. i tried to go sit in a pew, but the security guard wouldnt let me because he said it was for mass only....i tried to tell him i wanted to go to mass, but he said its in italian why you want to go? so just gave up. side note: theres a sculpture of st. peter (i'll show you ) and it looks like he's giving the peace sign. but i think he always has his fingers up because he holds keys...?? im not sure if thats right, but either way, st. peter is so down.

{{ st. peter's basilica }}

{{ st. peter }}

{{ st. peter's square :: its bigger then you think }}

that pretty much concludes my trip. i had an amazing time.. things i'll miss about rome: pizza and real italian food, the tiber, walking down the street passed the vatican everyday, the bakery thats open 24hrs next to my friends house: 30 cent croissants filled with nutella, AND lastly: gelato: straciatella and chocolate, youre going to die. when my family gets here and we go to florence, im going to make them eat so much gelato because theres nothing like it anywhere at home. my poor mom is sort of lactose too, but its going to happen. things i wont miss: cobblestone roads, my feet are permanently bruised, being blonde hair/blue eyed girl and getting "CIAO BELLA" whispered at you every 5 seconds, and lastly: the police hitting on you too, so creepy.

when i got back to barcelona, and still i just keep telling myself, I WAS IN ROME!!! i cant believe how lucky i am to be able to see all these incredible places. its absolutely unreal. like the john mayer song "3 x 5" , rome is really something you need to see with your own eyes.

welcome to barcelona

ok. so i didn't just arrive in barcelona. i've been here for almost three months now, long enough for me to call it home. it amazed me how quickly i became comfortable in bcn (people can't seem to figure out that bcn=barcelona, NOT BACON), especially because the big city is definitely a totally new environment for me. one of my first trips out of barcelona was to visit mi amiga catherine who is studying abroad in paris, france. paris, by the way, is an amazing city. lucky for me, cat is a history major and i got a fabulous tour, pretty much covered the whole city by foot. paris is a history book. everywhere you look, there is a story, a monument, a museum, artifacts. the parisians are...not my type (i have a good relationship with the spaniards) but either way, they dress in beautiful clothes and peacoats and boots and they have fabulous lives, with their fabulous wardrobes and precious little dogs....(dogs, everywhere). im not stereotyping nor hating on parisians, but...the snooty-ness kind of got to me and by the end of the trip... the combination of the cold, rainy winter weather and WOW paris is expensive, i was pretty eager to return to my home...which is the point of this story in the first place: i love barcelona.

i love barcelona for a lot of reasons....reason #1: the beach. one of the most important attractions that this city has to offer.. being close to a body of water (its not the pacific but the mediterranean satisfies me enough) was extremely important to me because leaving my happy spoiled life in orange county was not easy. i love the pacific..i love newport and corona del mar, down the coast to san diego and up the coast all the way to hella nor cal baby, san fran. so compared to the amazing beaches at home, the mediterranean is treating me good. directly in barcelona, the beach is ehhhhh so-so. sand is more like dirt and for the first two months (aug and sep) it was hard to find a spot to lay my towel. tourists everywhere. i did get the chance to see some other beaches just north and south of bcn. up north a few friends and i camped in a beach town called Tossa de Mar, muy muy bonita with crystal clear water. down the coast we took a day trip to a very small town called Sitges. this town is actually very well known, supposedly the "gayest" city in all of europe...to say the least, the streets were very colorful, as were the people and i do plan to head back down in february when spain celebrates 'festival.' another thing about beaches (not just in spain) and the beach go-ers is that they get naked. ya, it was weird at first. thats because i grew up in america, where we are afraid of nudity. its not uncommon to see a 65 yr old woman with her grandkids playing in the water, saggy breasts and all. gotta love it.

{{ barceloneta beach }}



i love barcelona, reason #2: nightlife. this probably should have been reason #1, so for the record, reason #2 is equally important (if not more) as reason #1. i'm of age here. i'd like to think i don't abuse that, but the past two and half months have pretty much been a loooong celebration of my 21st birthday...which isn't actually until may. i think i planned my study abroad experience in the most crucial year of an adolescents life. that year between 20 and 21 yrs old is like....well, i assume its pretty painful, just waiting for that first legal alcoholic drink. i'll have to ask my friends at home...so, the nightlife is...amazing. i did the whole disco-tech club scene for the first 2 months. but my body can no longer take the dancing until 6 in the morning routine. it really wears on you. although, every once in a while it is fun to go out and listen to bad techno music and if it's any night but saturday, its usually more worth it to stick it out until the sun comes up because then the metro re-opens and you don't have to take a cab (or stumble your way) back home. so if youre not into the disco scene, take your pick from a bazillion bars with different themes, atmospheres, music, drink selection, locations... pretty much anything you can think of, you can find. for example, near my house there is a bar called dow jones: inside the bar there are flat monitors above the bar with lists of all the drinks as if they were stocks on wallstreet... they are divided up into beers, wines, and different types of liquors. everytime you hear the 'ding' of the stock market, the prices on the drinks change, so the price you pay for a beer the first time can be more expensive or less the next time. another cool thing about barcelona is plaza catalunya. the big plaza at the top of well known street: la rambla. here, there are ALWAYS people out and about socializing, playing futbol, or just chillin... one of my favorite things to do is just walk down la rambla at night (with a friend of course) and just soak up the energy of the city. if you walk through the gothic area there are little plazas to the right and left and everywhere and you can always stumble upon a new bar or street performers or something to entertain you for the evening. cool thing about las ramblas: always pakistani's selling beer by the can for 1 euro, so if it's past 11 and you need something to drink, go to rambla...also, burger king sells beer (in two sizes!) and its cheaper then the food. que extrano.

{{ some friends and i from the dorms and some naked guys we found on the street }}


i love barcelona, reason #3: the fashion. i don't consider myself fashion savvy, i mean, i can dress myself in a matching outfit (or not cuz thats hip?) and i can definitely acknowledge what's cute and what's not, but here, there are such unique styles for girls and guys. let's start with the mullets. this is actually more entertaining than 'fashionable' to me. they are everywhere. i mean, i guess there are some cute ones, buuut i dont think i'll ever be completely down for the mullet. a few of my american friends have gotten their hair cuts here, and even after being totally clear about just getting an inch cut from the bottom only, they still end up with short short layers on the top of their head. whats up with that!! europeans cannot fathom a haircut with mullet-esque layers. que chistoso! the fashion in general is great here. i mean, i love the euro trash look but i can also appreciate the look of a beautiful leather jacket and boots to match. i like barcelona fashion because it is very diverse, and it is definitely more casual than other european cities... people dress in their own styles and don't get stared at for it either. a common look i've noticed is the uni-color outift. if you put orange pants on in the mornig, dont forget to wear your orange shirt, purse and shoes (different shades and all) too! i never knew they made so many orange colored things. dios mio!

{{ euro-mullet }}



i love barcelona, reason #4: festivals and puentes. puente: (1)bridge (2)to take a long weekend. definition number two...since i've been here we've had 3 and 4 days weekends too often i think, i really can't keep track. on top of bank holidays and festivals and saints days and all the other reasons barcelona tells us to not go to school or work, i already have a 3 day weekend every week. no school on friday. and its not that these holidays are just a day off. there's usually some kind of event or group of people or the whole city celebrating the holiday, so we're never lacking something to do. my favorite festival of all time: la merce. lasted 5 days i think (i can't remember exactly, it was a long weekend) and the ENTIRE city was involved in the festivities. live music everywhere. EVERYWHERE. stages and street corners and performers everywhere! one night, my group of american friends and i were wandering the lively streets of bcn on merce weekend and we overheard some spaniards saying they were going to the forum. so we followed. we didn't need to stalk these people for long before we realized that the line for the metro was so long and the metro was SO packed that we knew we were going in the right direction. people were screaming and singing in the packed metro cars and we just followed the crowd to this HUGE outdoor ampitheatre on the outskirts is of the main city. im going to say 100,000 people easily fit at the main stage of this place. we made our way to front row/standing area and rocked out to some pretty popular spanish bands everything from indie to hip-hop and other techno-ish stuff. that was just one of the events celebrating la merce weekend. there were also lots of parades throughout the weekend. one with giants. another with fire, where these dragon like figures walk down the street shooting fireworks and firesparklers at the crowd. also during the day, they have human tower competitions, and i learned that groups of people compete other groups from different neighborhoods (barrios). at the top of the tower or whatever configuration, a small child just climbs its way up. its crazy, and a big part of catalan culture. everything is so colorful and so alive, it's totally surreal that such a huge population can all come together for 5 straight days of celebration together. the best part about that weekend: it was all free. the shows, the music, the parades. the weekend ended on sunday night with the most amazing firework show i've ever seen. easily 45 min. long of straight explosions, with a musical soundtrack playing in the background. que buenisimo, indeed.

{{ corre-foc: in catalan means fire run. these are the dragons that shoot fire out at the crowd }}

{{ human towers }}




{{ a group of my amigos rockin' out at one of the concerts }}

{{ fireworks on the last night of the festival }}



i love barcelona, reason #5: travel. not so much barcelona specific, but because i am on the north mediterranean coast, i am so close to...everything! i hate to sound so spoiled, but really, i can just hop on a jet with a backpack and go anywhere in europe. travel is very convenient for two main reasons: europe is compact. there are so many diverse countries in such a small continent. also, travel within europe is fairly inexpensive. although, i'm still trying to adjust to the euro vs. the dollar, roundtrip plane tickets are comparable to a flight from northern to southern california...but even better i can go from barcelona to germany, or britain, or greece. cool life right? right now i have 4 friends studying abroad so i'm trying to get around this semester to paris, london, amsterdam and rome while i have a free place to stay. hostels are always fun too, and totally convenient for traveling students like myself. i've only been out of spain once, like i mentioned earlier, i visited my friend cat in paris, france. a couple weekends ago, two friends and i took a night bus to madrid (the capital of spain) and had a really lovely time there. we did the touristy things and we also just enjoyed the beautiful weather. the last day in madrid, we saw a bull fight at the plaza de toros. bull fights are very hard to watch at first...i did get desensitized as i watched one bull after another get stabbed about 20 times each. i don't think i'll ever go to see another fight, but i am glad i was able to take part in a very traditional part of spanish culture and history. my favorite part of visiting other cities is walking around all day and really taking in the people and places. its amazing that just 7 hours inland from barcelona, madrid is such a different kind of city with a totally different atmosphere. i enjoyed it thoroughly, as i did paris, but like i said from the beginning, its always refreshing and relieving to come home to barcelona.

{{ yes, i had to. my friend cat and i at eiffel tower }}

{{ le sacre-coeur : sacred heart :: paris, france }}

{{ notre dame :: paris, france }}


{{ tradicional bull-fight :: madrid, spain }}

i love barcelona. there are many more reasons. but since i got started on this blog so late into my trip, i don't think i can write anymore at the moment. i will keep an update on all my adventures in spain and around europe. until then... just know that barcelona is so guai.