First Post

Well everyone,

I arrived in Barcelona on the 1st of September 2008. And now, a week later, I am setting up my blog. I will try to get everyone caught up on what I have done the last week, then I will do my best to update at least once or twice a week, or more if I have enough things to talk about.

I left Wichita early Sunday morning, and flew to DC via Dallas. In DC I met up with most of the BCA (Brethren Colleges Abroad) students and we flew to Paris, then to Barcelona together. We arrived Monday afternoon in Barcelona, and moved into a hotel in an area just outside of Barcelona called Castelldefels. Our hotel was about two blocks from a gorgeous beach, and there were plenty of shops, bars, cafes, etc. in the area. It was all geared towards tourists more than to locals, but since it was outside of Barca it was easier to adjust and get over the jet lag there than to jump straight into the hustle bustle of downtown Barcelona.

The BCA group has 35 students, from a number of different colleges across the country. There are 7 guys and 28 girls, so it is a little lop-sided.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday our schedule was a bit like this: we would get up at 8, have breakfast then sit in two classes in the morning (taught by Univ. de Barcelona--UB--professors) one on language and grammar, and the other a conversation class. We were divided into groups based on our level of Spanish, and I was placed in the most advanced groups of both classes. These classes took place in the lobby and garden of the hotel. After the two classes, we had orientation sessions which usually lasted until 2, when we at lunch in the garden of the hotel. After lunch, we were free to spend the whole afternoon and evening exploring the area. I became well acquainted with the walking street close to the hotel which had a number of internet cafes where we went to get wireless, and a really good Greek restaurant that I visited a couple times. I spent most afternoons on the beach, then came back and slept until dinner (at 9pm) and then we spent the rest of the evening exploring the night life of the area.


On Friday, we packed up and took a bus to a hotel downtown where we waited in the conference room to be picked up by our host families one by one. It felt a little bit like being a dog at the pound, as we wondered and joked as families came in who would be going home with them.

I got picked up by a woman named Maite (short for Maria Teresa) Munoz. She lives with her 30-year-old daughter, Ingrid, in an apartment in downtown Barcelona. The apartment is not very big, but it is a penthouse apartment about 5 blocks from one of the nicest beaches in Barcelona, and has a very large patio that overlooks the city and a bit of the ocean. I think it will work out perfectly.


Maite and Ingrid feed me well. Most meals begin with a big salad (lettuce with everything like corn, olives, crab, shrimp, boiled egg, celery, goat cheese, beets, carrots etc.), followed by a main dish like tortilla de patatas (very similar to an American quiche) or a fried zucchini and mushroom dish. This is followed by a course of fresh fruit, and finally an ice cream bar.

Meal times are very different here. Typically breakfast is bigger than what I am used to simply because it has to last until we eat lunch, typically around 3pm. Dinner at the house is usually not until 10pm.


On Saturday, we went in the morning to El Corte Ingles (which is the main chain of shopping malls here) and I got a cell phone. Phone calls are very expensive here (nowhere near as cheap as it is at home, even if you have a plan with lots of minutes and get charged for making too many textmessages--sorry Mom and Dad). I believe I can call the States between 8pm and 8am for around 15 euro-cents a minute, and local calls are smiliarly priced. But it adds up. It is free, however, for me to recieve calls, so if anyone has a really cheap international calling plan and feels like giving me a call, my number is 69-019-2811. I believe the country code for Spain is 34, but I'm not positive. Also remember, that I am 7 hours ahead of Kansas time, and 8 hours ahead of Colorado time.

After getting my cell phone, we went to Maite's sister-in-law's house for a birthday dinner. We ate a 5 course meal, and sat around the table and talked from 3pm until 8pm. There were about 9 of us, and I had a great time talking with them. I was not sure how much I was going to enjoy this, but I was a little sad to leave when we finally did.

Saturday night, I walked around Las Ramblas with a friend from BCA named Adam. Las Ramblas is a street right next to old town that is full of clubs and bars and cafes of every size shape and color. Off the large street, there are dozens of small, winding streets that are likewise full of interesting people and places. We wandered around until almost 3am and felt like nothing else was ready to go to bed yet when we were.

Sunday I slept in in the morning, then took a walk by myself in the afternoon to La Sagrada Familia. This is an enormous cathedral, still under construction, that was designed by a number of very notable artists, namely Gaudi. It is unique in a number of ways: one, because it is one of (i think the only) churches that has a statue of Jesus on the cross fully nude, and also because of the mix of abstract and modernist art that is present. The very tips of the spires are detailed such that someone once asked Gaudi why he would put such detail in a place that nobody would see, and he replied "well, the angels will see it." The church is not likely to be finished until well into the 2020's, and is further complicated by plans to have Spain's new high-speed monorail train pass directly underneath it. A number of locals are worried about what will happen to this arquitectural marvel once a tunnel is built and a train passes at 300 km per hour underneath it. I guess we will see.

On Monday, we got our first glimpse of the actual UB campus. We had classes (the same Spanish classes I mentioned earlier) in classrooms in the Facultad de Historia (School of History). Then we took the metro to where a number of us will be taking classes, such as the Facultad de Economicas (School of Economics).

There are over 90,000 students at the UB. Universities in Europe are structured much differently than American ones. A typical Spanish student would take all of his or her "gen ed" classes in high school, and from day 1 at the UB would take nothing but classes geared towards his or her major. The concept of "liberal arts" or "elective" classes is completely foreign here. This means that a student accepted into the Facultad de Economicas would have no reason to ever set foot on the Factultad de Historia, for example. This is what is so cool about the BCA program. We can take classes from any school/department at the UB, and opportunity not even granted to the national students here. Also, we are the only study abroad program allowed to do this, as well as the only program allowed to hold classes on the actual UB campus. BCA functions as a department of the Facultad de Historia, rather than as a separate entity.

Speaking of classes, here is what I am currently planning to take, although this could change:

In the University:
World Economics
Introduction to Catalan


BCA courses:
European Union
Morfosintaxis (advanced grammar class)

I am also hoping to audit one or both of:
Political Psychology
History of Spanish Art

The BCA classes are ones that are the same as what would be taught to national students, taught by UB professors, on the UB campus. The only difference is that we take them with other BCA students, and the schedules are more convenient for our program.

Well, I think this brings us up-to-date on what I have been doing this last week. As I mentioned, I will keep this blog updated as often as I can and as often as I have interesting things to tell you. I will include a mailing address later, but remember that my email is jordanbar@bethelks.edu. And you should also be able to post responses directly on this blog page as well. I have not yet experimented with posting pictures on here, but I will do that soon too hopefully.

Until next time, peace,
Jordan