The More the Merrier

Since the last entry our little group has grown significantly, if only for a week or so. We had the pleasure of hosting several friends, some from Stanford and some not, and the apartment was always abuzz with activity. And like any polite houseguests, they trashed the place into oblivion.

No, if anything our Stanford ladies, Britt and Haley, only motivated us more to get out and see the sights, since they were not going to have several months to see Barcelona's attractions. And what better place to start their sightseeing then at a packed DJ Tiesto concert? Not to mention the very reasonable hours of his set- from 2 am to sunrise. It was a great time though, and the girls were troopers considering they were battling their heavy jetlag all night.

We saw the normal tourist attractions as well though, don't worry. Highlights included La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's enormous, unfortunately unfinished cathedral (check back in 10 years), as well as Park Guell, a Gaudi-designed park that offered awesome views of the whole city. As you can see, the Catalonians make quite a big deal of this Gaudi fellow. Me, I think he's a hack. But anyway, thanks to Britt's insistence, we also saw the great free light show offered at the fountains of Plaza Espanya most nights, which was really cool. No Disney music like Britt was hoping for, but the classical orchestra soundtrack did just fine.

And let us not forget without a doubt the highlight of the week, our first (of many, hopefully) FC Barcelona game last night. We saw Barca dominate against an inferior Portuguese team in a Champions League match, and of course, we were all decked out in the home squad colors of blue and dark red. We sang along with the crowd for the Barca anthem, but our crooning would noticeably turn to inaudible mumbling for the lyrics that we didn't know, which happened to be most of them. We also established an agreement that if any player scores a goal and someone from our group has on his jersey, we all pay for his beer. Will donned the jersey of the Spanish phenom midfielder Xavi, and wouldn't you know it, he had a beautiful sliding goal in the final minutes of the game. We made good on our pact, despite Will's incessant boasting. I'm not discouraged yet though, it's a long season. We hope to return to the stadium Camp Nou as soon as we can.

Other than that, not too much else to report. School is moving along, and all of us are benefiting from our daily Spanish classes. We were even recently moved to make a "Spanish hour" every day in which we babble incoherently to each other with our newly learned grammar and vocabulary, no doubt butchering the language beyond belief. Gabe cringes the entire time.

This weekend we go to Ibiza, sure to provide us with some excellent stories. Until then, Ciao.