Sick

Kinda sucks, ever since Andrew et. Co left, Ben and I both have been sick since Sunday.... I haven't gotten rid of this sore throat and cold, and ben's just getting over pink eye and still has one of the nastiest cough's i've ever heard. Because of that, we've been just sorta hanging around the apartment, going to classes, etc. We wandered around our neighborhood the other night and found a sick brewery, so we're going to check that out today I think.

We ended up at one of our favorite bars last night, and ended up heading back after about an hour because I couldn't stop coughing from all the smoke, and no one else seemed to be out last night. Wierd.

Haircuts this weekend are a necessity, seeing as I haven't cut my hair for over 2 months and it's a damn mess of a mop on my head. We've got to check out the apartment our parents rented for the week they're here too. Might be a long day.

Hasta Luego.

A few days away...

Rome was amazing, from a history and architectural stand point. Seeing these landmarks that I’ve read about in my history books since 4th grade really puts everything you see in Rome, into perspective. The Coliseum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, St. Peters Square and the Vatican.. it’s all very beautiful and quite peaceful at the same time.

I met Michele In the Rome Airport and we spent Thursday-Sunday morning together. It was awesome being able to sight – see and just relax with someone from home. Seeing her was a very welcome change of pace and I loved it. She’s still afloat some were in Italy and heads back to the states on Friday, so here’s to her returning safely, etc.

Now, Rome is very, very touristy. Barca is bad, but damn, this place is worse. No matter where you go, there are tour guides for each landmark. There are people selling stolen / hand-crafted shit all over the place, and people constantly trying to get your money in every shape and form. The restaurants are all expensive, unless of course you’re looking for like, a sand-which shop or kebap somewhere. But the food is quite delicious, and out of the 3 restaurants we ate at, I couldn’t find a thing wrong about any of the food.

I flew back to Barca on Sunday morning, and hurried back to get washed up and such to meet up with Andrew and his friends. Ben’s brother (my cousin obviously) flew in on Saturday with two of his friends from home and are here for the entirety of the week, leaving Sunday. Needless to say, we’re out every night having a blast. We (5 of us ) rented mopeds Monday and flew around the city. Ben and I then had until 8 on Tuesday to return ours, while Andrew/Ian had until Wed @ 3 to return theirs. We saw a ton of the city, including making it to a castle Ben and I had yet to find, and getting up into one of the mountains to take some amazing pics of the landscape of Barca.

As a side note, mopeds are fucking fantastic bikes to whip around a city in. I never had as much fun driving, as I did with the Mopeds in Barca. Lol.

Not sure what’s on tap for the weekend, but Ben and I have to book our flights to Germany ASAP and find a place for our families to stay in for their trip here.

Hasta Luego.

Off I go....

Headed out to Rome in an hour and a half or so... Meeting up with Michele out there for the weekend. It'll be nice to see her, and more so, it'll be nice to visit some random city with her where we both don't know the closest bar. Ahaha.

Nothing of importance to really note. Fam is coming out in March, so that's something i've been looking forward to since the day I heard it was booked.

Ttys.

Ugh...
I'm exhausted.

It's been a long week, and nothing really fun happened until this past weekend. We did the usual binge drinking that's common here in Barcelona on Thur/Fri/Sat, but last night (sunday) was easily top 5 of my trip so far. We hit up an Irish Pub for KAREOKE (sp apparently?). All together as the night went on, we had about 10-12 people from our ISA program drinking and singing the night away. A friend of mine and I did a damn good rendition of 'Paradise by the Dashboard Light' by Meatloaf, and then I had to break out Montel Jordan's 'This is How We Do It' with Ben to top the night off. It seems to be a sunday staple @ the pub, so i'm pretty pumped about that.

I leave for ROMA! in 3 days and can't wait. It'll be a nice weekend trip, just what I need.

Until next time, hasta luego!

It's about time...

Oi, it’s been a while.. I apologize for the lack of blogging, if anyone out there actually is offended for some odd reason…

It’s been a busy, fast paced, and exhilarating experience, these past 3 weeks or so. I’m going to forget a ton here, but I’ll try to recap my adventures so far… bare with me.

Ok, after re-reading over my last entries, I realized I essentially haven’t written shit here since I arrived in Barcelona. Excellent… makes the task at hand so much easier… sigh.

We arrived in Barcelona after a 9 hr bus ride , met our new house-mother, and were taken to our “home” (apartment) to be for 4 months… nice place, but very tiny. Ben and I lucked out and each are living in our own separate rooms. Score. We’re stealing internet from someone in the apartment, with the only downside being my connection to the router times out every 20 minutes or so and I have to go through the mind-numbing process of reconnecting to the router 4 times in a row in order to surf the web. Beggars can’t be choosers though, I guess.

Our house mother is incredibly nice, a great cook, and very understanding that this city has a ton to offer at night. She’s ok with us coming back late, as long as we don’t wake her when we return, are loud, or throwing up from the 10 tequila shots, etc. Pretty standard stuff. Through the first 3 weeks, we’ve seen most of the city’s districts, with a few still to be explored. I’ve seen a ton of amazing architecture, with the Barcelona Cathedral and Sagradia Familia topping the list so far.

Classes are going ok, for the most part. One awesome class, one mediocre class, one boring class, and then 3 ½ hrs of Spanish Class on T/Thur’s, which have helped me get back on track with the language. The people here are very nice as a whole, with the sole exception being the little brats that thrive on running around the basketball courts and interrupting our games. They’ll get theirs tho, sooner or later! Ha.

The life in Barcelona is … amazing. Spaniards are a very laid-back group of people. Time isn’t a huge concern for them, and it shows in the attitude toward life. They love to party and have a great time, in any setting. And boy, can they party.

The night life is amazing. Bars are generally open till two during the weekdays, later on the weekends. Clubs don’t turn on the lights to go home until at least 4, usually 5 or 6am. American music is huge here, which is hilarious at times, because you’ll be at a Spanish bar or club where no one is speaking English, but they all know the words to the Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears song playing through the speakers.

A few more things before I wrap this entry up.

I was able to witness the inauguration of President Obama in a rather nice Irish pub, along with 100 or so other students that were studying abroad from different countries… and what a feeling it was to see such an amazing day in our country’s history. The magnitude of the applause inside that bar after all was said and done was amazing. It will be a moment I will never forget.

Also, saw a FC Barcelona game a week ago or so. Amazing. Simply amazing. The skill of these players outclasses anything I have ever seen in my 21 years of playing and watching soccer. Our seats we’re great, the game itself was great, and the experience was one of a kind. We will definitely be going back for another game or two before we leave.

I know I’ve missed a ton of stuff that I could probably write about, but I’m tired and still need to do some homework. But what I am going to do, is put up a little prize for anyone that keeps on top of me for the duration of my trip.

I’m offering 25$ USD to anyone who catches this blog un-updated within a week of the last posting. So for example, today is Feb. 2^nd. If by Feb. 10^th , 12am (Spain time… 6 hrs ahead of the US EST..) there isn’t another entry, the first person to IM/Email me will get the 25$ USD. This will be an on-going thing until I return back to the states.

DeadCellKid – AIM

gregdejesus@yahoo.com – email

Oh, P.S – found the casino here… it’s a mini-AC type of Casino.. full pit games, etc. JOY!

P.P.S – I now have skype… add me! Gregdejesus is my username.

I keep on saying it...

But just haven't found the time or the effort required to put up a good blog.  The SuperBowl is tonight, so idk if i'll be posting before it... I'll give my self a deadline and say tomorrow night it will be done.

Goodluck Steelers

HI MOM. haha

I can barely keep my eyes open.. it's been a long day.. i've got free time tomorrow before/after class, so I'll most likely put up a solid entry tomorrow. Meanwhile, congrats to PC's Steelers for making it to the SuperBowl...sigh. haha

It's been a while, huh?

Wow… What a long last two months it has been… I’m currently in Toledo, Spain and will be traveling to Barcelona (9 hour bus ride.. sigh.) tomorrow. Since I haven’t updated this blog since the end of October, I figure a mini-update of sorts is due.

I turned 21 Nov 3^rd, and promptly made my way to AC that next weekend. I had the greatest time of my life while I was there ( a huge thanks to everyone that ended up coming down and even those that surprised me down there!), but quickly learned the shitty feeling of losing money and came down a hefty sum. But like I said, I loved every second of what AC had to offer, and I’d do it all again in a second, as I plan on doing this summer. By the way, craps is the sickest game alive… the swings are huge and the action/energy surrounding a table is amazing.

So, with November passing by and once the Turkey Day weekend’s festivities concluded, December game bustling along and consisted of finishing up school, scrambling around to get everything ready paper-work wise for Spain, and the holidays etc. *Insert : I love the holiday season, because I get to sit back, relax, and enjoy time with family I don’t get to see much. If it’s one thing I’ve learned to really appreciate, it’s spending invaluable time with family and friends.*

Then came good ole January 7^th… the day I left for Spain. The worst part? Saying goodbye to all my friends/family… I won’t lie; it was hard to not get choked up watching my moms eyes fill up with tears, etc… Ima miss my fam/friends more than I care to think about right now, but I can’t deny that studying in Barcelona will be the time of my life.

So, my flights consisted of 7hrs to London (Easily the most turbulent flight of my life… we were shaking around the sky for a solid hour over the Atlantic... not fun), and then 2 hrs from London to Madrid…

We get to Madrid alive… meet a few people from the same program that were on our flight, and we all head to the baggage claim… Our group consisted of 7 people, and out of those seven, the airline had lost 2 students’ luggage. Out of the entire ISA group of 80, a total of 7-8 people had their luggage lost by the airline… Amazing that airlines in Europe are terrible with luggage. Anyway, we had arrived about 40 minutes before the bus for our program was to pick us up and drop us off at the hotel. Baggage didn’t even start rolling out till about 10 mins before our deadline, and after finding out that we were missing bags for people, we didn’t end up leaving the airport for about 2 hours… We ended up (7 of us) renting a shuttle that cost us like 7 euro each, which wasn’t too bad.

Speaking of Euro’s, the dollar sucks. Plain out, sucks. I exchanged 100$ USD and received 70.34 Euro’s. Sigh @ America fcking me over in Spain for 4 months. OH YA! That reminds me… My bank (or soon to be ex-bank) decided to keep it a secret from me that I can’t withdraw money from ATM’s using my ATM card in Europe. I had told them about 2 weeks before departure that I was going to need to make sure my card worked over here etc. They assured me everything would be normal/fine. I get here, and nope. Nada! Mom calls bank, and screams at them for a solid half hour and nothing changes. SOOOOOO, I’m stuck borrowing money for now until my parents withdraw all my money from my account and wire it here… sigh.

We were in Madrid from the 8^th-10^th, and are currently in Toledo until tomorrow. Besides the obvious language barriers making it a bit tough to get around, Spain itself is absolutely breath-taking. The architecture and colors are amazing. The cathedrals were so intricately built, you just have to stand there and wonder how it was possible to build these buildings hundreds of years ago.

While in Madrid, we had the opportunity to visit the Prado museum. Simply amazing. Seeing the worlds of Greco, Vazquez, Dali etc… again, simply breath taking that these pieces of art were hand made such a long time ago and still look pristine to this day. I had my camera out for Madrid, but forgot to grab it this morning for our tour of Toledo, but expect pictures to be up on facebook in the least, and hopefully on here when I figure out how to embed them.

I’ve been in the hotel lobby writing for a solid hour, so I think I’m going to call it a wrap. Keep in touch through facebook/email (gregdejesus@yahoo.com) etc and stay tuned to the blog! The plan is to be blogging every other day if I can find a stable internet connection... otherwise, as often as possible.

If anyone reading has any suggestions of things to do/places to see etc., don’t hesitate to get in touch with me!

Until next time, adios. Miss and love you fam/friends!

Greg