First Impressions of Barcelona and RMSI

I had a lot of initial reactions upon arriving to Barcelona. Obviously, the city is beautiful, the food is amazing, and weather is great (high 50's - mid 60's). However, for being such a big city (5.5 million people), it is very easy an convenient to travel.

Food: (In progress)

I have eaten a lot of great food (seriously, I have enjoyed it all) since arriving in Barcelona, however I have forgotten to take pictures of 90% of the food I've eaten. Here are some pictures of the food I remembered to take a picture of:

Pizza de Jamón Ibérico y mozzarella -

Restaurant: Bar Mandri This pizza was amazing. It was a pizza with Spanish ham and very fresh cheese. There were a lot more herbs and spices on the pizza than I expected, but it was a very good meal.

huevo frito y jamón con papas fritas -

Restaurant: Mauri - When I ordered this, I did not expect so many fries (papas fritas)! However this meal was very good, and the fries tasted very good dipped in a Spanish Romesco sauce.

Spanish Hot Dog -

My Host family made this for me! It's pretty much just a hot dog, but wrapped in bread almost like a burrito. It's wrapped on the inside with cheese and covered in onions, ketchup, and mustard on the outside.

Lamb Ribs, Padron Peppers, and french fries -

Restaraunt: BO DE BOQUERIA - The peppers were very delicious, packed with a lot of flavor. The only time I've ever had lamb was in a gyro. I really loved the grilled lamb ribs, but they did not have a lot of meat on them. At least compared to the ones I'm used to!

La "Bomba" -

Restaurant -EL PACIFICO: Fried pork and beef stuffed in a potato, covered with mayonnaise and a romesco sauce. It was very, very good. I just did not expect it to be so small!

Transportation: Mainly I walk in route to school or a restaurant in Barcelona, but some of the places I want to visit are too far. So I have to travel by bus or subway, usually with a mixture of walking. Despite not being very fluent in Spanish, traveling is quite easy!

Walking:

This photo was taken at night so there was not a lot of foot traffic or car traffic. However, as you can see there sidewalks are very narrow, anf when hundreds and thousands of people are walking up and down these side walks before and after school/work, it can cause for a longer walk. However, not all sidewalks are like this, on bigger streets the sidewalks are spacious.

Bus/Subway:

Besides walking, my second most frequent mode of transportation is taking the bus. The bus routes are super easy to figure out and get you from point A to point B very quickly. Buses are constantly coming and going, meaning you hardly have to wait more than five minutes for a bus, which is very convieneint.

I have only taken the subway once, to get to La Padrera. The subway was not as busy as I expected it to be (Like Chicago or NYC). It was very easy to find our subway and find where we wanted to go.

Car/Taxi:

I am very fortunate for my host mom, Ana, to drive me to school most mornings so I can sleep a little while longer. Otherwise, I would have to get up earlier to prepare for a 25-30 minute walk, compare to a 5 minute car ride. Taxi's are also an option, but so far we have only used that as a mode for transportation to and from the airport. And the taxis are relatively inexpensive! Fun fact: Uber and other ride share company's are illegal in Barcelona following a taxi strike in January of 2019.

The school: Colegio Real Monasterio de Santa Isabel (RMSI) - I immediately loved being in RMSI! However it did take some getting used to. The girls and boys classes are split and the students don't change classrooms all day, the teachers do. Lunch breaks are an hour and fifteen minutes long. Finally, the school doesn't start till 9 A.M and ends at 4:45 P.M.

RMSI

This is an aerial view of the school. As you can see the school is very large. There are over 1,000 students in the school ranging from Kindergarten to high school. There are 4 classes per grade level, two for boys and two for girls. The Soccer field is considered the students playground!

I was blown away by the school. Everyone is friendly and students love to learn, it's such a great atmosphere. However, I did find the school to be difficult to navigate since the boys and girls classes are in different hallways and sometimes even floors. I've had to just walk around until I end up where I was wanting to go, but now I have figured out the routes and it has been much easier to go where I need.

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