Hola!

Last night we had our program's orientation. It was nice to finally meet almost everyone (not all of the Spanish kids were there.) We met at six and went on a long walking tour of the city. During the tour we ran into one of the most unique protests I have ever seen. Recently the European governments have decided to ban fire, smoke and explosive things from street celebrations in mid Europe. So tonight, they had a big street protest where they paraded all the dragons and monsters used in celebrations in different countries down the street. This was accompanied by a ton of smoke, fire and fireworks. Think Chinese new years on crack. At 9 the Spanish director Mr. Juan Camillo Perez treated us all to a very nice welcome dinner. I may have had a little too much wine, but the evening was wonderful! Afterwards, some of the girls and I went on a hunt for a glass of wine at a restaurant, but ended up settling on ice cream and pringles from the grocery store. A lot of the other students went to a club on a rooftop for dancing. Last night it was clear that everyone wants to move out of the dorm and into a apartment. There is a Spanish Craigslist, so hopefully we can find something with at least a kitchen. I bought the extra plan for breakfast, but otherwise lunch and dinner are on our own, which is going to end up being extremely costly. Here at the dorms, there is one fridge for everyone to share, so it's not only packed but also smelly. There is a wonderful farmers market here off Las Ramblas that sells really fresh fish, meat, veggies and fruit so everyone is anxious to be able to buy stuff and have a place to store and cook it.

Today Margareth, Emmeline, Darlene, Tammy and I went to the Tutanchamun exhibit. The exhibit used free headsets and constructed sets, so we got to see what the tomb looked like when the architects unsealed it ( even though they think it was raided by grave robbers and they resealed it.) They also had everything that he was buried with including his sandals (which oddly looked like a modern pair) and his throne. Tonight I went to German food with the girls, I need to get used to this whole dinner at 9 or 10 thing.

The first day of school is tomorrow. They told us what number bus to get on, but not what stop to get off. We'll see how that goes!