Barcelona Weekend

This past weekend I was in Barcelona, which is an hour and a half by car or an hour via train, visiting a friend and for Javi's sister's birthday. I love Barcelona...I don't know if it compares to Madrid, but both are great cities just very different. Friday, I drove there after my English classes, met up with my friend Marisol, and basically went straight to dinner because I arrived around 9:30 pm. Marisol is girl I met in Madrid who was my bikram yoga teacher, and she has been teaching in Barcelona for the past 3 months--it also happened to be her birthday weekend too. We went to eat sushi since she had a friend that worked at the restaurant and had a great time. The sushi was great and we went out for a little bit afterwards. Saturday morning, we got up, went to bikram because she was teaching and I did the class, which was awesome. I love bikram yoga so if you ever have the chance to do it-I highly recommend it. For those of you who don't know, it is an hour and a half class in a hot room (105 degrees F) with a 40% humidity. You definitely get your muscles stretched out!! So after class we had some lunch, relaxed, and she had to teach again at 6 pm. I went walking around Barcelona, which I may add that it is impossible to not shop there because there are so many nice stores! I have also found that I have been tempted to buy a lot of things for Ellie. There is this designer, Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, and I absolutely love her clothes..especially for kids. Well, I went to her store and I could have bought Ellie an entire new wardrobe! I have also noticed, now that I have a niece, how many baby stores there are, which leads to the conflict of 'to buy or not to buy.' So back to Barcelona, that night after my little shopping stint (where I only bought a scarf and some socks) I went to Javi's sister's house downtown to wait for dinner that night. His family and I went to dinner for her birthday and had a drink afterwards. Sunday was a lazy day and we hung out for the majority of the day, I went for a run, then we went to dinner in Barcelona with my friend Marisol again. That night while we were walking to dinner we went through this area called the 'Barrio Borne' (Born Neighborhood), which is a popular area with lots of restaurants, bars, and some shopping that has been renovated because it used to be a very dangerous area. There is still some dangers to be aware of I guess, and the most popular crime in Spain is probably robbery. While Javi and I were walking through the streets, he kept telling me how he felt uncomfortable by some of the men walking around and didn't feel safe walking through there at that time of night (10 pm). I was like..'whatever, there is nothing to be worried about because there are still a lot of people around' and literally 2 minutes later a boy with a hood came out of nowhere, grabbed this foreign, blonde girl's purse and took off sprinting. The girl stood there as if she didn't know what happened and then she took off after the skinny, African American guy. Of course, Javi then proceeded to tell me, 'I told you so.' So that was our excitement for the night! We kept walking to the restaurant to meet Marisol, and two of her friends came along--one who has his own Tango dance school in Barcelona. Javi and him got along really well so we got invited to come to his school for some tango classes! I said if we ever get married, that will be our dance--the tango! :) His website is http://www.barnatango.com/.

Otherwise, not much new is going on here. This week Javi plays at home and hopefully they win. I have been teaching this week and I really like my students. I have four 13-15yr old kids for my first class--Anna, Aleix, Elena, and Julia, then two boys that are 11 yrs old, Roger and Andoni, an orthopedic surgeon, Vincente, (all 2 times a week) and 2 girls who I basically tutor, Monica and Maria--they are supposed to bring their homework to class, but last time 'they forgot their homework.' Go figure. Roger and Andoni are my favorites so far--have a lot of energy, kind of hyper--but a good hyper and are always anxious to learn. Roger always says how he is so 'guapo' (handsome) so they crack me up. Within the next few weeks, I should have some more classes so that will be nice. I have been thinking about volunteering my time at a local animal shelter--to be a dog walker--I am waiting on the information for that so we'll see.

I am off to bake some cookies... Javi told his teammates that I am a good baker and have been asking him where the treats so I am on 'treat duty' for the game tomorrow! Here are a few pics from the weekend!

Marisol and I carried my bag around Barca that whole night because I arrived and we went straight to eat!! It was pretty funny...

The birthday girl, Ainara, and her fiancé Fernando