Around our Neighborhood

I am WAY behind on blogging. Notice the date, I don't know how to change it from when I uploaded the pictures. I live in Barcelona what do you expect?! We have been busy travelling, exploring, eating at new restuarants, and playing. Oh yeah, and Scott has been going to school. I'm not sure how he does it, this is a very distracting city! Here are a few pictures from awhile back. These are just a few of the fun things by our apartment.

This is the street we live on.

And our front door. It is a very "artsy" area.

Parc Ciutadella.
Giant mammoth in the park, I just couldn't resist the photo-op.
Barcelona's version of the Arc de Triumphe.
So there you go Mom, she has been asking for a few pictures. I will try and get a few more up here this week.

Weekend Exploring

So apparently Barcelona has amazing architecture everywhere you go. We have been able to do a lot of exploring this last week and have been pretty blown away by some of the places we have found. Sorry I have been such a lame blogger. It is pretty hard when you don't have the internet at your house. So here is a little update of some of the places we have been.

This is the Poble Espanyol. It is basically a reproduction of various Spanish villages from allover the country. The highlight of our visit was the glass blowing area. The two men working there were amazing. We watched as one of them made a horse out of a tiny ball of glass... amazing.  There was also a contemporary art exhibit that was really cool. It was a unique place, not quite what we were expecting, but neat to see nonetheless.

We explored the beach area that is by our house. There is a huge mall that was very tempting. You will all be surprised to hear that I have been to H&M, Mango, and Zara and purchased nothing. It has taken great strength, and a husband who refuses to give me any money...but I have made it through so far. It´s awesome to be living so close to the Mediteranean.

The highlight thus far has been Park Guëll. It is a Park that Antoni Gaudi constructed and it is amazing. Scott could not get over all the columns and archways. We spent all afternoon there and took a TON of pictures.

This is outside our church building. It is quite the hike to get here. Don´t worry that it is hard enough to pay attention to all three hours of churh regularly...try doing it when you do not understand a single thing they are saying. The first Sunday I was so confused because in Sunday school the teacher had "El Salvador" written on the board. My dad used to live there and I did not really see the relavence of the country to our lesson. Well those of you Spanish speakers can go ahead and stop laughing...apparently that is how you say "The Savior"...good to know.

We are really enjoying being here. Spain is an amazing country. Scott is making lots of Spanish friends in his classes. I am always so proud when he comes home and tells me he made some friends. He continues to struggle to understand one of his professors who mumbles and speaks really fast but that is why I keep urging him to make new friends. Hello, study groups! We miss all our family and friends but are so grateful for this adventure we are having. Pictures of our apartment and surrounding area to come. 

Packing, Munich, and the awesome Hostel!

Just to give you an idea of how miserable the moving out process was. We have so much stuff! Our storage unit is 10x20 and we filled that thing to the max. Embarassing!

Munich pictures. I am not even going to try and tell you what is in these pictures. We knew nothing about the city, and were way too tired and cold to try and figure it out. We just took pictures of things that looked cool. So enjoy the cool Munich pictures.

You can't go to Germany and not eat a braut!

Now you can see for yourselves why we were getting so anxious to get out of the hostel. Four adults, one toddler, tons of luggage, and plenty of Euro trash make for a bad combination for an entire week!

Scott totally loving life in the hostel.

A few sites in Barcelona. The first real day we had in Spain we walked around the University Scott is studying at and then down to the beach. 

This building is called La Pedrera. It was built by the famous architect Antoni Gaudi. Chances are any cool building in Barcelona was designed by him.

These were the sweet doors of La Pedrera.

The Mumford's. Our travel buddies.

Looking down from the front door of our apartment. That's right five flights of stairs everyday, I better have an amazing behind at the end of this semester!

So that is the latest for now. Our apartment is still not quite settled in. Scott and I both have the flu and have not been able to do much the last few days. I will continue to keep you all posted on our adventures!

Back to School..

Scott started school this week and is feeling a little overwhelmed to say the least. The first day of class was pretty rough. He said he understood about 1/3 of what was going on. It takes a lot more consentration when the lecture is in a foreign language. He said whenever the teacher would move around the room or someone would make a lot of noise it would throw him off a little. Luckily the second day was easier, and I am sure it will just continue to get more comfortable for him. Also I just have to add that everywhere we go he gets complimented on his Spanish speaking skills. He could definitely pass as a native. Although one lady who complimented him yesterday was sure he was French. I got a kick out of that because he is always teasing me about the ¨dirty Frenchies¨, who knew people actually thought he was one!



My Spanish on the other hand is still pretty lame. I have picked up on a few words but I have a really hard time not pronouncing them with a French accent. I am really wishing I had taken a few Spanish classes in highschool that´s for sure! The people have been really helpful though. I ventured out on my own the other day and I had to ask for some directions...side note here...Everywhere we go Scott and Brad think they can figure out exactly where we need to be even though there are a ton of tiny streets and none of us have navigated them before. So here I am the only one of the group that does not speak Spanish saying, ¨Hey I have an idea, you speak Spanish...all these people around us are from Spain...why don´t you ask them where this street is...¨, ten minutes later..still looking for the street on our own.. Okay so back to my story. I have no problem asking for directions. Even if that means I have to ask several times before I actually get there. The point is I always get where I need to go! The people I talked to were so sweet, none of them spoke English but it is amazing what a few little hand signals can do for you!



And the biggest news is that we finally found an apartment! It only took us a week of staying in a super fun bunk-bed filled bedroom with another couple and a one year old suffering from serious jet lag...but we made it! We opted for sharing an apartment with our friends because it will save us about $1500. We decided to sacrifice some personal convienences for some extra travel money. I think it will be worth it. Now that we have taken care of the living situation we should be able to get out and enjoy this fun city. I have pictures from our travels thus far, including the hostel, and I will take some of our new apartment. So just you wait. We will not have internet in our apartment but I will get some pictures on our computer this weekend so you can see what we have been up to. I´m off to go move into my new apartment, oh it´s on the fifth floor...that should be fun with all six of our over packed bags! Gotta love old European apartments! ¡Adios!

¡Hola!

Okay so we made it to Barcelona! It was a VERY long day of traveling. We flew from Phoenix to Philadelphia...stayed for a few hours and then flew to Munich where we had a 10 hour layover, that´s right no type-o there, a 10 hour layover. We decided to make the most of the time there and head into the city. We went to a few cathedrals, did a little window shopping (emphasis on the window...it is embarassing how much stuff we brought with us, we´re in no position to be adding on to our baggage), and got a brautwurst. It was a fun city, we would have spent more time exploring but we had a few things working against us. The first was the lack of sleep we had had during our long day of flights, and the second was the drastic change in temperature. We came from seventy degree weather to less than thirty degrees, yikes!! We had brought our coats and dressed warm but still felt unprepared for the freezing cold. We went back to the airport and slept for a little bit before our last leg to Barcelona. After getting all six of our bags, ridiculous I know, on the two trains and up and down all the train station stairs...we made it to our hostel at about one in the morning.

We spent the day today touring our new city, looking for an apartment, and testing some of the local food. We had some successes... we went to the beach, saw awesome architecture, and ate yummy food(nothing too exciting yet though, we are talking bread, ham, and cheese mostly and it´s hard to mess those up!). And we also had some not such successes... we still do not have a place to live. This is really nothing new to most of you who know me. I´m pretty sure I never had a place to live while at BYU until after I got there. We did go to see an apartment that we had found online that we liked today. After looking around the apartment and getting excited that it could be the one we found out the owner was looking for a minimum lease of six months and was not willing to negotiate...awesome! I´m sure we will find a great little apartment and I´m just glad that our hostel has a private bathroom, hot water, and computers... who knows we may be staying here all semester!

Sorry no pictures yet but I have taken some so I will post those as soon as a get a chance. We hope you are all doing well and I will continue to keep you posted while we are on this crazy Spanish adventure. ¡Adios!