El Primero Día: Barcelona

Entering Barcelona was in many ways both like entering a new world and like staying back home. Even before exiting the airport, I could already see the beautiful architecture of the city and, naturally, feel the humidity. The buildings all have a different design, completely different from the uniformity of much of New York. The true feeling of living abroad did not set in yet, however, until meeting my host family. Up until then, everyone in my CIEE group had been American and it felt more like a school trip than travelling abroad. They were all very welcoming, and I even met my roommate, but I was still nervous meeting my host family. They consist of two women with whom I was not sure if I could connect with, especially since they did not reply to my email a week before.

It turns out that my roommate was not able to contact them either. Technological issue?Upon meeting them, I was relieved by how nice and upbeat everyone was. Today the language barrier was smaller due to us being allowed to speak English on the first day, but one of the women could only speak Spanish and we could communicate through my broken Spanish and pointing--a lot of pointing.

So far I have not experienced true culture shock--I was just very tired and both my roommate and I could not fight the urge to sleep and we took a long nap. Jet lag is a real problem here. Most of all, I was excited to explore the city of Barcelona. Although today was mostly settling in, I could see from the long bus ride to our hotel and from the balcony in my apartment right now how gorgeous Barcelona is. I was never aware before that it would be possible to have a view of the city, mountains, and the beach all at once. Nearly none of the buildings here look familiar to me, so I am all the more enthusiastic to explore.

¡Buenos noches! -Adelina