"Isn't My House Classic?"

Finally settled! Writing from the top floor of that middle building in my charming, 1920's apartment in el Barri Gòtic [Gothic Quarter] of center city Barcelona. The neighborhood, the oldest part of the city, has as much charm as Greenwich Village. Also being one of the busier parts, I have everything I need from the easy-to-navigate metro stop [no need to worry about local/express lines!] across the way and about four H&Ms in every direction.

I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that I’m not simply visiting, which hit me hard this morning when I woke up starving with no groceries! So it was off to the market. It sounds strange, but food shopping in a foreign country is much more intimidating than it sounds. Finding Catalonian counterparts to my regular food run in the States will take some experimenting. Eggs still have feathers on them and shrimp comes whole [including eyes!], so for today, I stuck with pasta :) This doesn't mean I haven't branched out: yesterday for lunch I ate a fish I never knew existed as part of the "menú del dia."

Classes don’t start until Wednesday, so I have a few days of exploration I can do on my own—I just have to wait for it to stop raining! Even though it’s been a little bit of a rocky start [i.e. attempted pickpockets, the Catalan language to parse through, horrible sense of direction exacerbated by tourists asking for directions] that’s to be expected! On the up side, a good set of 4 roommates hailing from Wichita to Budapest is making the transition a little bit smoother.

Pictures to come, I promise. Right when the weather clears up and I get over my camera shyness.