Oslo and Barcelona Day 1

Here is the link again to the Norway photos, with a few new pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=270842&id=704420382&l=58651d1a00

And here is the new link to the Barcelona photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=277092&id=704420382&l=5c53f09456

Oslo was very nice. Nora’s couch adopted me, as she said, and it was great staying at Nora’s apartment and going with her to all the nice parks. My favorite was one my mommy would have liked, with botanical gardens. Also, NORA MADE ME DESSERT FOR DINNER.. But its ok because it was just waffles, I would have made that myself at home and called it dinner, its not that much of a dessert. Norwegian waffles are flat and floppy, like pancakes, but taste so much better. And the texture is different.

I explored all the stores in Oslo, which are mostly the same as in the US and there are a lot of chains, like Zara and H&M, and some of the familiar fast food chains which I of course did not eat at. I did eat a whole lot of Norwegian chocolate though.  I told Nora that I would not eat any more chocolate, so of course she went out and bought me more delicious melkesjokolade, which was thinner than the regular kind and  even more melt in your mouthy.  On my last day in Oslo, I hung out with Nora and her boyfriend, who win the couple of the year award. They are so much fun and so silly!  So I had a very nice last night,  we walked around  in a path through the woods and in a part of town with really big  and fancy houses, and nobody around. It finally got dark out, which it hadn’t the entire time I’d been in Norway. White nights are cool but it gets hard to sleep. But I did for a while that night, then woke up at 5 with Nora, and rode the subway with me to the train station so I could catch a train to the airport and a flight to Barcelona. So ends my adventure in Norway.

Una vuelta a Barcelona? No hay mas aseintos, senorita!

Getting to Barcelona was another adventure. When I tried to check in, despite having a conformation number for my flight and printed proof of the email I received from the airport, it seemed that my flight was never approved and there was no more room on the flight to Barcelona that I had planned to take. Fortunately there are very, very few things that stress me out and missing international flights is not one of them.  The lady recommended that I either get on a 1500 dollar flight to Barcelona at a later time, or take a flight leaving in half an hour (did I have time to check in and get my baggage on the plane?) to Alacante, a city in Spain that I “might be able to catch a train to Barcelona” from. I opted for that one as it was a LOT less expensive, and trains are abundant in Europe, I was sure I’d find one. (My mom later told me that I could have called her and tried to work something out so they would give me the Barcelona flight for the price originally paid, but the flight to Alacante was boarding when I got there so I didn’t want to waste a minute making a decision that might not turn out well.) Well, on the plane I finally found a map of Europe, and unfortunately, Alacante was WAY south of Barcelona. But I arrived, bought a first class ticket on a train to Barcelona (I became very good at asking, “Donde esta la estacion de tren?” and a few other Spanish phrases that I whipped out of my inventory.)  and arrived at 10:30 at night at the hotel instead of 11:40 am. Oh well. I was told that I didn’t miss anything, and I was not the latest one to arrive. I had no roommate for the first two nights because she cancelled, but someone will move in with me today.

Barcelona is AMAZING!  At first  I was worried I wouldn’t find anyone I could be good friends with in this group,  I went to breakfast in the morning with everyone, and almost every girl was painted in makeup so thick that I wondered what their faces actually looked like; they were all wearing dresses with (I assume) expensive purses and lots of jewelry and were talking in that oh-my-god-did-you-hear-what-jason-said-last-night kind of way. I thought I might be able to be friends with the guys though, they are usually more normal. But after class I found two girls I really like, 1 of them, Sarah, is really fun and loves photography, and like me, read every single Nancy Drew book in elementary school and now reads sci fi. Today we are going to the beach to celebrate the 4^th of July after class.

Yesterday after class we got lunch and took a walking cultural tour. It was quite nice but a little slow, and it took us through this AMAZING part of the city with walls close to one another and the streets lines with cool shops and cafes and bakeries (yay bakeries) and when the tour was over me and Sarah and another girl Nicole went exploring here. We will surely go back. We saw some Gaudi architecture, also very cool, and many amazing street performers and flamingo and salsa dancers and a singing choir group, which I took a video of and will try to post the link to here later. For dinner we had tapas, mine was a “Bomba” (bomb,) a ball of potato and beef. We got a little bit of gelato later, mine was mango. We walked back to the hotel late, getting back at 11 because we walked way to far on the main street with all the market stands and performers, but it was really fun anyway. Finally, before bed, I tried to check my email and facebook, and of course, as seems to be the case so often in Europe, the internet was down. L Oh well. I finally found it, at the school, so here I am finally updating my blog and wishing everybody a happy fourth of July!!!!!