bueno bueno bueno

This past week and a half has been pretty busy for me and has made me realize more reasons why I love Spain! Me encanta Espana! I'll start with last Wednesday, when I went to a wine tasting session hosted by a local wine shop and IES after classes. It was very cool, actually, and I learned things like how to differentiate between good and bad wines and old and young. Things such as the "Brightness" and "shininess (sp.)" of the wine, and how clear it is, and also the different color hints when the glass is tilted all determine quality. You can tell the age by the consistency of the wine and its darkness (with a red wine). To determine the consistency you have to swirl the wine in the glass and watch the liquid drip down the side back into the remainder of the glass (I would have never thought of this myself!) I was able to try a cava (champagne, but made especially in Catalonia), a very delicious white wine, and two red wines, one older than the other. The teacher had us smell each wine before tasting, then swirl and smell for a stronger scent, and finally to taste and then notice whether the smell was similar to the taste. The white wine smelled like peaches and tasted really really good! Even the red wines were surprisingly good, and the older wine actually tasted kind of like wood, a sort of juniper. All in all, it was a really good experience and I was able to try quality spanish wines!
After the wine tasting, I went with Megan to a rugby game that our mutual friend Eloi invited us to. They were playing the French Navy (apparently they play all sorts of teams from different countries to get practice since there are few teams in Barcelona). We had a great time, and the field was down by the beaches, although it was night so we didn't get to enjoy any view. The game was hard to keep up with without someone who could explain what was happening as it went on, but we occupied ourselves by talking to some guys who were from the navy and knew some spanish and some english but mostly French. They were fun, but we were secretly glad when the game was over and Eloi called us down to say hi. He immediately introduced us to Carlos, a guy who was a player but coaching as well, and said we should stay with him while everyone showered, and then afterward the two teams would get together to eat and "celebrate" the game, ha ha. So, we went into the sports complex, to this large room that was their "club" and had all their awards, photos, and gifts from teams they had played. It was pretty cool and they laid out food and drinks, and well, Megan and I were one of the few people there NOT boys and NOT on a team, ha ha. There were a few girls with the French team, but we felt pretty special! As you can imagine, in a room full of 50 rugby players and us being one of 4 girls total, we were very content :D. We had a great time and ended up hitting it off with a few players (Mom knows the result of this, ha ha).
My next adventure didn't start until Friday. On Friday and Saturday my days were filled with fun..Oceanography field trips! yay! (not really). They would have been ok, but with the travel time and just general waste of time, I was glad to be done on Saturday night. However, on Friday I went with the classes to Palamos in the Costa Brava region, an hour and a half or so from Barcelona to see a fishing museum, a harbor, some nets, and a fish auction and market. The auction was the coolest part because I had no idea the fishermen sold ALL of their catch through an auction to keep the prices fair and let everyone know total catches. Basically to keep the fishermen honest. We left town at 1:30pm and returned a little after 7pm. Saturday was a MUCH longer day. I left Barcelona at 8:30 (well it was really 8:50 because IES never does anything on time!) and did not return until 8:30 at night. We traveled to the Ebro Delta to see a museum and various parts of the delta, including lagoons, rice fields, bays, and the beach front, and then a secluded beach with a Posidonia Oceanica seagrass meadow nearby. It had potential to be really interesting but I felt as though we spent most of the day in the bus traveling from place to place :(. However, I did see wild flamingos...LOTS of them and they were fairly close and really, really cool! That was the most fun part of my day. After I got back and ran to dinner ( I was starving. But then again, I am always starving by the time I get to have dinner!), I got ready to go out for the night, because a lot of us on the hall had tickets to a club that night to see an artist, "girltalk", perform, if that is what you can call it. He mixes music, all he had to do was technically push play on his computers, and he's not really a DJ either..I don't know what he is, really, but his music was pretty cool. The club, Razmatazz, was crazy and Megan and I didn't let each other out of our sights all night for fear of getting lost in the mass crowds of people. Our friends, well, they disappeared fairly quickly, though we ran into them randomly throughout the night. The club itself was really neat, with 3 floors, and different rooms of different sizes that played types of music like pop, house, alternative, rock, etc., plus the main dance floor where Girltalk was performing. Oh, and Megan had rented a scooter that day so we scooted there and back, saving the hassle of the metro! We got lost on the way to the club and had fun finding our way using bus-route maps at the bus stops, and finally found the club in the end.

Sunday was low-key, with only homework, gotta have a rest day!

Monday, well, I went out on my first date in Spain, with Isaac, who I had met at the rugby game last Wednesday. I had a great time, and although we struggle with communication a little bit, he knows a good amount of English, that with my Spanish, we get along just fine! Es Perfecto. I'll leave it at that :) Oh, and he's still around, in case you are wondering :):)

Tuesday I went to another rugby match, a double-header with UPC vs Harvard. Tara and Megan came with and we had a good time since it was an afternoon game and sunny and nice. The UPC boys ended up losing but fought hard. They were just too tired the second game, when Harvard had put out fresh players and they had none because a lot of guys were in classes. I said hi to Isaac afterward and chatted for a bit before I, too, had to go to class.

Oh, and I have heard that a spoonful of sugar in the milk here makes it taste better, so I am going to try it and see what happens!