my brain is full

so I need to let some of it out on here. Let's do this through pictures, so I can remember everything that's happened.
Numero Uno - This is the ceiling of a....let's call it a "foyer" at Parc Guell. I've been there twice, once on a group tour for about 20 minutes and once on my own trip with some girlies for about 2 hours. It's a nice place, although honestly it didn't live up to my expectations. Everyone said it's awesome, and the artistry of it certainly is, but as parks go, I've been more entertained before. The last time I was there, we bought some sandwiches and the guy was SO impressed that I spoke spanish, and wanted to give me a personal tour of barcelona when he got off at 8. I politely declined :) (for those of you who watch the hills, this was no cute 23 year old guy in a band, aight? he works at a sandwich stand and he's probably at least 40)
We also went to Sagrada Familia that day, and I got my first starbucks since I left home. 15 days sans caramel macchiatto - no one understands. La Sagrada Familia was really cool, we paid to go inside, and got to take pictures of the stained glass and structures and stuff, which was really cool. I'll probably post pictures from that on my facebook as soon as I get done with this blog.

On our tour we also went to this place, which is an old palace, now a modern art museum. I really want to go back soon - it was so beautiful, and I didn't get to go in! I'm going to be so severely disappointed when I have to come home to crosses with neon lighting behind them on the side of the highway. *cough*or just bad architecture in general. I mean really.....

side note - here are the public links to my albums, I think gramma might be the only one who doesn't have facebook, but hey. Gramma deserves to see pictures. :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047131&l=a1258&id=68603662
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047134&l=989e1&id=68603662
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047140&l=dd4f9&id=68603662
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047319&l=12632&id=68603662

So anyway, that day was really fun. We got to walk around the city during the day, which I hadn't done a ton yet. And I can say I did the big touristy things. I'm going to try to fit in a visit to the Picasso Museum after work one day this week.

This was the view to the side of the roof-top terrace that we had our "nice" dinner on, on our girls night out last weekend. We were going on a long day trip so instead of going out to the bars we decided to have a quiet dinner and actually get some sleep. So, we got a dinner reservation for 1130 :). The food was aaaaa-mazing. We had a french white wine that (get THIS) I actually liked. I tried mussles and calamari and....something else squishy, I think clams, for the first time.
It was an all together very enjoyable night, and we enjoyed the next day so much more having had a decent amount of sleep, and no hangover :)

This last Saturday was full of beautiful countryside and culture. We went wine tasting at one of the biggest wine companies in the world (they have wineries in Chile, Spain, Africa, Napa...). It was soooort of interesting, but fun to be out on the land, taking in some fresh air :)

Then we went to Montserrat, which is a cathedral that monks still use as a retreat. I thought we were going to DIE driving up this huge mountain on a tiny little road, our bus swaying back and forth as it takes a sharp corner. Eek. But once we got there it was so awesome. It was gorgeous in ways I don't even know how to describe. Just the view, and the inside of the cathedral, very peaceful. I found myself in an offering room on accident and saw that people had left their wedding dresses their. I wonder what it means to donate your wedding dress to the church. We supposed that it meant that you wouldn't need it anymore because you're married forever, so you donate it as a symbol of your commitment. The pessimist in my said it was because you got divorced :D



Other stuff I don't have pictures for yet....we went to the town down the road to try and hit up a local bar on Sunday night. We found a golf bar and got to watch the shoot out in the Spain vs Italy soccer game over a beer surrounded by locals. That was really cool. Just watching them dance around when they won :) Then we went to this place called Sant Sam which was more like a club (but still nothing close to the stuff in the city) and it was fun to see how the locals interact with eachother in an non-touristy setting. Lindsey had a guy who looked like Randy Jackson buy her a few drinks, and tell her that he hadn't seen his wife who was back in Colombia in 12 years, and offer us a ride home (with a drink in his hand...). Needless to say we didn't accept.
Overall that was a fun, more chill night.

I've got out to the clubs a few times too. One time the guy who was going back on the metro with me almost got his wallet stolen, and chased after the guy and threatened him and got it back. Kind of badass. (mom....don't worry, i was horrible person and left him to defend himself and high tailed it back to the club so fast...lol)
We're developing a few favorite spots within the city, which is nice. Cheaper drinks because the bartender knows you (or your friends, in my case, because I'm not that much of an alch-ee) and knowing when to go where makes the experience better. It still amazes me out redic people can get when they're drunk. On el dia de san juan there was a group of australians walking ahead of us, and they would randomly turn around and get in a football stance and shuffle side to side so we couldn't get by. They weren't being violent, just playful, but still what the heck are you supposed to do at that point?!? I've been giving alot of titty twisters to strangers :D. I knew hanging around boys too much would teach me something useful. I keep saying I'm going to come home, and not be scared of anything, because I've had some scary crap happen to me or next to me, and I've gotten through it. I just can't imagine having a huffer try to sit on your lap o n the max :D.

San Juan was fun, although we stuck to places we knew because there were soooo many people and most of them were smashed. A lady i work with today said that one of the girls from Texas who was staying at the hotel got all of her stuff stolen that night. I got made fun of because I wore my money belt, but hey....momma didn't raise no foo. :) My favorite quote about San Juan was Jordi (one of the U of Dreams staff, and a Barcelona native...) "On this day, people get really really drunk, and then they play with fireworks. So be very careful, especially if you are blonde and you have glowing skin, because they will throw them at you" hahahaha. it wasn't that bad. But it did sound like we were in a war zone.

Work is.....going. It's getting pretty frustrating. We finally met the boss lady and she was just like "oh...hi!" and that was it. We were pretty much ignored all day today, and I get the feeling my boss thinks there's like a rule against letting us go early, because after lunch we literally just sit there for 3 hours. I maybe did one useful thing today. It just gets frustrating when they want you to answer the phone (and ask you to if you don't) and then you can't understand what they're saying, because they're speaking Catalan or French or some language you don't know, and you go to try to hand it off to someone who understands Catalan, and they're all doing something else, so the phone just sits there, and once you finally get their attention, the person on the other end has hung up. Then they tell you to "try harder" to understand the person on the phone before you ask them to wait. Well I'm sorry but I gave up on that when the lady LAUGHED at me last week after I asked her to repeat what she had said.

It's not that bad, just frustrations with the job. There's basically nothing to do, and my boss is kind of being...well....a prick. There I said it. but everything else is fantastic, so it's all worth it.

alright well I'd best be off -

buenas noches, y buena suerte

S