Birthdays!

Laurent's birthday was August 24th, and Stephanie's was August 26th, so we had a few days of birthday celebrations. Since Laurent's birthday was on Sunday and Stephanie's on Tuesday, they decided to start out the birthday week with a joint party on Saturday night.

Saturday during the day, we mostly worked on the executive summary. In fact, we Pol, Laurent, and I were an hour and a half late for dinner because of it. Anyway, the three of us eventually went to Tasca y Vins with Jaisha, Doha, James, and Jame's girlfriend and friend.
The specialty of this restaurant is long pieces of bread (like half a baguette) covered with a really wide variety of toppings - three cheese, botifarra (sausage), mushrooms, etc. Andrea and Pol ordered a bunch and we all shared everything. It was probably the most food I had eaten in one meal while in Spain - everything was really good.

Feeling completely stuffed from dinner, we walked over to Roxy Blue, the club where we the birthday dancing was planned. Thanks to Jaisha, we were all able to get in for free to this trendy club. Since it was our last Saturday in Barcelona, lots of people put away their work for one night and came out to celebrate. It was a great night of dancing with all our friends.The next birthday event was Laurent's birthday dinner on Sunday. Sunday was also when I decided I was ready for a break from work. I went with Pol to his house to pick up his laundry and cook lunch (and by cook lunch, I mean stand by and watch while he cooks lunch - I wasn't a very good assistant), and then we watched the closing of the olympic games. I had all my beach stuff with me, and every once in a while one of us would suggest the idea of going, but somehow the idea of just lounging around on the couch was more appealing after a month and a half of constant activity. We ended up watching Star Wars - A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back - until dinner time. Though we didn't make it to the beach, this activity did improve my Spanish - I now know important phrases like "Estrella de la Muerte" (Death Star) and "Luke, soy tu padre" (Luke, I am your father). (Thanks for the Spanish lesson, Pol!)

So, after a day of doing nothing, we headed to Con Cortada to celebrate Laurent's birthday. We met up with Laurent, Jaisha, Anna, Brice, Sonny, Michael, and Francois. Con Cortada is a pretty fancy restaurant, and the food is amazing. Add to that the fact that the French guys were in charge of ordering all the drinks and appetizers, and you get a pretty amazing meal. They ordered a pate' platter, with different kinds of pate', and I reallized that I really like it - who'd have guessed! My palette has definitely expanded this summer... I had veal for my main dish, and some of Laurent's birthday cake for dessert. It was a great end to my last Sunday in Barcelona.The last birthday event happened on Tuesday, when we went out for Stephanie's birthday. We had a team project dinner at Bombay Spicy - it was awesome to have Indian food for the first time all summer - I arrived late with Brice, Pol, and Laurent, and they let me order for all of us, so I was able to have a bit of all the things I like.

The real birthday event was afterwards, though, when we went to Chupitos. This is a bar that sells hundreds of different types of shots (mostly fun mixes, nothing too strong). Some fun ones included "The Boyscout" where they light the bar on fire, you roast a marshmellow, and then you eat the marshmellow and take a shot of a very sweet drink. There was also the Harry Potter, the Teletubbie, and one that incorporated pop rocks.In addition to a bunch of the people from our team project dinner, Victor, Alberto, and Andreu all came to celebrate, too. They serenaded Stephanie with "Feliz Cumpleanos" (Happy Birthday) when she arrived.

Ke Visiting

During my second to last week in Barcelona, my friend, Ke, came to visit. He has been spending the summer traveling around, and ended up passing through Barcelona while I was there. I think he had a really fun visit.

The first night he was there, we went to dinner at Tapas Taller with Pol, Anna, and Anna's friend, Albert. It's a great restaurant near Placa Catalonya. After dinner, we went for "gofres" (waffles) which are a dessert in Spain. (The idea that we eat them for breakfast seems completely crazy to them. Though I tried to explain that when we have the for breakfast we don't cover them with chocolate sauce and icecream.) In any case, the waffles were amazing.
Later that night we went to visit Victor, Alberto, Andreu, and Sergi at Dominique's going away party. (Dominique was the guy that moved into Jeff's room when Jeff left - we met him at Jeff's going away party.) We played a little pool and chatted at the bar. Then we headed back to Penyafort to catch the end of Hugo's birthday. Then Ke stayed up until 4am with Pol and I as we worked on the final report. Busy day for just arriving!

The next night we had a Mediterranean Beach Party, organized by Ofer and co-hosted by all the students living in Mediterranean countries. As is tradition, everyone wore all-white (thanks to Stephanie for letting me borrow her white skirt!) and brought food and drink. We laid out huge blankets for all the food and drink, set up tiki-torches, and had a huge party on the beach.

On Thursday, Ke and I went with Pol, Stephanie, and Kris to Barcelonetta - an area by the sea, and had amazing mussels, paella, and fideu for lunch. We walked from there back to La Rambla, where we got icecream.
From there, we headed back to Penyafort, just long enough to change into swim suits, and then walked up to the pool. Pol couldn't come, so Ke was able to borrow his suit and entrance card and come along.

After our trip to the pool, Ke, Brice, and I met up with Victor, Alberto, Andreu, and Andreu's sister to see Batman. Before the movie, Ke, Brice and I had dinner at the mall. Anna joined us for dinner as well.

Ke also got a sense of the work going on at ISU. On the last night he was in town, as we came back from watching Batman at about 1am, we found out Laurent was still in the computer lab, and went there. Ke has a lot of experience working with InDesign, the imaging software they were using, and we stayed there until about 4am helping out. (Really, this was Ke's idea - I don't usually force my guests to help with my work on their last night in town. But it was really nice of him and very helpful!)

Final Report Writing

The schedule for ISU August 18-23 planned for team meetings all day everyday. Essentially, we had one week to write and finalize our 110 page final report.

Each day we'd have a meeting or two, figure out our assignments, review the schedule, and then work in small teams. I was on the business and commercial team and also the editing team. A lot of the work I volunteered to do was early in the week - writing and editing for Chapter 2 (out of 5). Most of the work could be done during the day, but occasionally we'd work outside normal hours. Pol had volunteered to lead chapter 3 integration, so we spent one night staying up trying to finish all our work - I decided to take a break from chapter 2 editing at 4am, but Pol continued on with chapter 3 until 6am.

My friend, Laurent, volunteered to lead the executive summary group. His workload stayed very high through the later part of the week, so I ended up joining that team as well, and editing and working with them. Because of all the aesthetic and lay-out issues, executive summary was much more of a challenge. Unlike edits to text-only, any changes to the executive summary were difficult and lengthy to make. However, Laurent and others who knew the image-editing program spent many hours working day and night to get a really great final version.

Our final report is going to be available online and when I figure out where, I'll definitely post about it!

L'Auberge Espagnole

Yesterday I saw the movie L'Auberge Espanol (The Spanish Apartment). It's a French movie about a student that travels to Barcelona for a study abroad program and lives in an apartment with roommates from all different parts of the world. It was fun to watch, since now that I've been here six weeks, all the locations in the movie are familiar. Its a pretty funny movie and well-made - really interesting cinematography. I'd definitely recommend it!

France... take two

After the great success of the first day trip to France, we couldn't help but consider another one. Laurent first mentioned the idea of going back - this time to the mountains instead of the sea, a couple days after the first trip. We all started thinking about it, but didn't make a final decision. Some people started getting worried about the amount of work they had to do, but Laurent and I were still considering it. Things stayed like that until the morning we were thinking of going, when I woke up and asked Laurent, "So, should we go to France today?" We decided the answer was "Yes."

Since we had put off the decision to the last second, we didn't have a car, and we were having trouble finding on online. Instead we just went to Sans Estacio and started going to rental places. Hertz was completely out of cars. National was also out of cars. At this point, since there are only four car offices, I was really getting nervous we wouldn't be able to get a car. However, our next stop was at Avis, and they saved the day. Not only did they have a car, they had a bright yellow Mini Cooper Clubman. So we headed off to France in style.Our first stop was in Ceret - a really cute town in the French Pyrennes. Brice and his girlfriend, Dyani, were already in France, so we called them to meet up for lunch. While we were waiting we sat at Cafe de France, and I tried my first class of Kir. Kir is white wine with blueberry liqueur, and is apparently a very common drink in France. It was really good.Brice and his girlfriend arrived and also had a drink, and then we headed to a restaurant for lunch. Laurent and I shared a chef's salad and a goat cheese salad. I also learned a French phrase: "Vous avez un coca light s'il vous plait?" So now I can order diet coke in France.After lunch we left town and drove farther into the mountains. We chose a trail and went hiking for a while to get some exercise and enjoy the views.Next we headed to a town called Thuir. It was another cute mountain town. We went to the Bhyrr factory, where they brew various liqueurs. It's also home to the largest oak barrel in the world - used to brew a consistent product.We wandered around town, and at one point took a break for a short driving lesson. I really want to learn how to drive a manual car, so I practiced starting and stopping along the streets of Thuir. Laurent was pretty patient with the multiple tries it took to get the car moving after we stopped each time, and I think by the end I was doing much better.

Our last activity in Thuir, and in France, for the day, was to get dinner. Once again, the French guys did a great job of finding a restaurant, and dinner was amazing. I had mussels with almonds, fish with pistachio, eggplant, zucchini and rice, and then finished the meal with an espresso.Though we'd gone to France for the day, we still had work to do, so we spent most of our drive home working on writing our sections of the report. By the time we were back in Barcelona, we were finished with our work and had a great (second) day trip to France!

My First European Football Match

On Saturday night, Barcelona had its opening game - they introduce all the players and then play a friendly match with another team. One of the Barcelona people organized a big group to go - I think there were about 30 of us.

We went to the game around 9pm, since it started at 10pm. The stadium is huge - it holds about 100,000 people. You're aloud to bring in food and (non-alcoholic) drinks, though they also have concessions there.Before the game started, they announced each of the players names, followed by fireworks and pyrotechnics for each. The game itself was really exciting - especially at the end. In the second part of the second half, the other team scored a goal. The score stayed 0-1 for the whole match, so everybody was feeling a bit disappointed. But then the injury time started (the couple of minutes after normal play time that is added to make up for time lost to injuries during the game). Barcelona scored twice in injury time! So that was it - they won! Feeling pretty happy about the home team's win, we headed back to our residence (which is only about a 10 minute walk away from the stadium), and got ready to go out for Emma's birthday. We went dancing at Otto Zutz - a disco in the Fontana area.

Daytrip to France

Barcelona is only a few hours from the border with France, so on Wednesday, one of my friends organized a day trip to visit. Five of us went – Laurent was the organizer – he’s French and lives in Toulouse, Francois is from Paris, Stephanie is my friend from DC with whom I had just been to Portugal, and Jaisha is also from DC.The trip was incredible. The whole day was full of picturesque little French towns on the Mediterranean and beautiful vistas, so that more than once I felt like I must be standing inside a painting. The area of southern France just across the boarder is where mountains go right up to the sea, so that sometimes you're driving along scenic mountain roads or you can choose the scenic road along the coast.
I wanted to maximize the time in France, so I started the day early – waking up at 6:30am (a feat for me, not being a morning person) to get ready and go with Laurent to pick up the car right when the rental place opened. While we were waiting for Hertz rental to open, Laurent and I started the day in French style, with espresso and croissants for breakfast.

By 8:30am, we were back at student housing to pick up the rest of the group. The drive to France was very nice – it’s always fun to watch the street signs with city names like Perpignan and Montpellier. We stopped for another espresso on the way, and arrived at our destination in the late morning.

Our first stop was in Collioure, (which I'm trying hard to pronounce correctly in my head as I type this - Laurent and Francois taught me how about a million times) which is a small sea-side town. We drove along the mountains next to town and then got out to do some hiking. Unfortunately, I had worn only sandles, but I decided that wasn't enough to stop me from hiking up the mountain to see the view. It was a bit of a challenge, but I made it (and now I call those shoes my hiking sandles).After our hike, we were ready for lunch. We drove to Banyuls, another sea-side town nearby, but we were a bit late for lunch - it was around 2:15pm, and we had a hard time finding a place still serving food. We ended up at an outdoor cafe near the beach, which was very cute, but in the ordering frenzy, I somehow ended up with pizza - not the most French of options. Luckily Francois let me try his mussels, and Laurent shared his goat cheese salad. Also, the pizza may have been a good thing, because I discovered my new favorite condiment - spicy olive oil. It's olive oil with chili peppers in it, so its very spicy. I love it! I'm hoping I can find it in the US or get Laurent to send me some. :) We also had Banyuls wine, which is kind of like port, and Laurent and Francois shared their desserts with all of us, so we finished the meal with creme Catalan (kind of like creme brulee, but as Francois explained "without the brulee") and espresso.

After the long drive, hiking, and a great lunch, we were ready for napping on the beach. We crossed the street and laid down our towels. The beach was rocky, which was kind of nice because all of your things don't get sandy. I swam a bit while we were there - the water was nice. I also went on a short hike up a hill to see the views of the beach and more of the coastline. It's all rocky and dramatic looking, and very pretty to just sit and watch.As the sun started to get low in the sky, we decided to head back to Collioure, where Laurent had made a dinner reservation for us. We spent some time walking around town - Stephanie and Jaisha bough Banyuls wine to bring home, and all three of us bought sundresses.

Collioure has a small bay with an old castle on one side, and restaurants and shops around the other. Our restaurant was right on the water, and we got a table at the edge of the terrace overlooking the bay. Despite the whole day being great, I think dinner may have been the highlight.

I briefly explained the view, but then there were also the sounds - the waves hitting the rocks below us, the French conversations at the tables around us, and the faint wind-instrument music from a concert happening across the bay. And of course the tastes and smells - all of the food was incredible. We started with bread and wine, and as my starter I had goat cheese in a tomato based sauce. Then I had tuna - perfectly cooked and served with two different sauces. For dessert we had rice pudding with apricot, and finally ended with espresso.Despite the fact that it was almost midnight when we finished dinner, I really didn't feel ready to leave France. We decided to do one last walk along the bay and out on a walkway. All being space people, we looked for constellations and ended up seeing a shooting star. Great way to end the evening.

(Also, heading home from an awesome day trip doesn't seem as bad when you start realizing that by "home" you mean Barcelona. This is a great summer.)