blog.

Study abroad is quite the learning experience. Especially when you are thrown straight into the city on your own right off the plane.

1. Flip-flops are a bad choice for footwear (the rain in Spain does NOT fall mainly on the plain).
2. Flats from the United States cut your ankles and they become painful and bloody. Spanish flats are kind and perfect for jumping from Metro to Metro.
3. You probably should not wear tennis shoes to the beach—they get sand in them and then it is a crunchy walk home.
4. Two for one deals on Spanish flats are amazing.
5. I promise I’ve learned about more than shoes… last, but not least, you have to walk. A LOT.
6. This is not a Mary-Kate and Ashley movie.
7. iPods are not recommended, but required on train rides that take over an hour.
8. Catalan is NOT almost like Spanish.
9. There is a chance that you will get bitten on Las Ramblas.
10. If people are allowed to be nude, they will be nude. Naked bike riding is not out of the question.
11. Toilets do not have a lot of water in them.
12. The Europeans dress better than most people from the United States could even fathom.
13. 1-liter boxes of wine that cost less than a Euro are the perfect way to end the day.
14. Go FC Barcelona—that’s all you need to know. Even if Spain is in the World Cup, people in Barcelona only care about players from Barcelona.
15. If you keep trying to speak Spanish, you will eventually make sense.
16. Wear sunscreen even when walking around, you will get burned.
17. It’s okay to take free drinks from strange Brazilian men on the beach as long as they are drinking from the same cup.
18. If it happens to be World Cup time and you happen to be in Spain, you should go watch a game with the locals. It’s an amazing experience. Fútbol is a religion here.
19. Try anything and everything you can—you might not like it or you may love it, at least you tried it.
20. Do not ride backwards on the train. It will make you carsick (at least, it makes me carsick).
21. The Metro system is your best friend if you want to get anywhere in the city.
22. PDA is very accepted here and you should not be offended if you see very handsy and romantic people. Remember, the United States was founded by Puritans that wanted to escape the European insanity.
23. The Metro system is also very, very crowded at most times and you have to be very, very careful not to get pick pocketed. Someone could bump into you and rob you blind. You never know.
24. Street signs are written in Catalan in Barcelona, not Spanish (in Barcelona).
25. If you just keep walking and you at least have a Metro map, you will probably find your way.

The Metro is our best friend. We would be lost without it.

Look for a real blog post from me soon. We have been so busy, I don’t even time to tell you about how busy we are. That’s… busy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 3:33 am and is filed under Spain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.