¿Aquest cami o aquest altra?

I am finally in Spain. After almost two years of writing letters, sending emails,phone cards and cell phone bills I am here with Joan. It in incredible. It is hard to believe that I´m here. His family is very hospitable to me, his brother Sergi doesn´t know to much english but today when I took him with me to go Christmas shopping, we did pretty well with conversation despite how little we both know about the other language.

Arriving here was stressful, I was so nervous to meet his father at the airport. We flew Ryanair which is a joke of a flight. Trumpets and applause came over the speakers when we landed...is that something to celebrate with this airline? His father was very welcoming, I was more nervous to meet his mom and grandparents. His mother hugged me right away and said how beautiful I was. Then we went over to his grandparents house, they don´t speak english so we kind of stared at each other and all I could manage was ¨Hola". I´ve learned more words since I´ve been here, none that I can spell and only a few I could actually remember.

Barcelona is amazing, the first time we went it was cloudy and dreary and even shopping was depressing. We went to starbucks and I thought, "finally, something familiar" well they didn´t have my peppermint mocha, which really is a small thing but I felt so homesick and the Christmas music playing overhead only added to that. Joan was very understanding (of course) and said we could move back to the states, anywhere I wanted and he would be ok with that. That is great, you know, but I want to be here. I knew it would be hard and different and there would be obstacles but with his perfect english and friends that speak english, like Xevi, I feel better about it all the time.

We left Lloret and drove to Barcelona to meet Xevi and his friend Manu, we got lost trying to find the cinema. Of course when we arrived, the movie we thought was showing there wasn´t and we ended up having to see, The Golden Compass. It was horrible, and the theatre was so small because we went to see it in English and we even had assigned seats. It was so funny because literally six people watched the movie with us.

After, Manu went to meet some other friends and we went to a pub called The Black Sheep. It was made for locals for sure. It was down an alley, around a corner, down another alley and there you were. Everyone was starring at me, I just had a black casual dress and tall black boots on, hot for sure, but gosh. Creepy guys looking at me left and right. At first Joan thought I was being silly but he soon noticed when the guys at the table besides us, continually looked at me.
Being with Joan and Xevi was nice, I learned a lot about Xevi and he was always so polite and spoke English, something I really appreciated. After we went to this place called Sidecar...very packed but a club was underneath that began to fill after we arrived. Xevi ordered me rum called Cacique, straight up on the rocks. ( no captain here) and after that a screwdriver. Oh man, did I get sloshed. Writing this, I realize it´s because I hadn´t eaten anything all day, even Joan and Xevi couldn´t figure out why I was so intoxicated. We decided to stay in Barcelona for the night and ended up crashing in Xevi´s fathers flat. He was out of town and it was in the city center so close by. I remember nothing of the night.

I woke up the next morning not realizing where I was. It was a rather entertaining morning but you will just have to ask me about that if you want to know what happened.

We walked around the streets of Barcelona, I was hoping to get new clothes for the day because at noon on a Sunday, I was walking around in a black dress and tall black boots, day old hair and make up, looking like, what I thought to be, a hooker. Joan insisted I was wrong but I could feel the stares. Even some lady in the street said, (thanks to translation from Joan) "She must be freezing!" and I was.

There is just one of the adventures I´ve had so far, I know many more will come. I will have pictures soon, after Christmas of course.

Happy Holidays
Bon Nadal
Bones Festes