BARCELONA!!!!

Hola chicos y chicas! We arrived in Barcelona and we have been pretty busy so far. We went on a tour of the city on Monday and saw Sagrada Familia and we went to the top of a hill/mountain so we were able to see the entire city and coastline. The view was freaking amazing!! Becca and I were put into the same Spanish class luckily, and our professor is hilarious! He makes a lot of jokes about Americans, and we don't have an attendance policy which is pretty sweet. He says that everyone passes and we don't have tests, just a final exam which we have to have a 6 minute conversation in Spanish. The nightlife is pretty crazy over here. The first night we went to a club called Opium which is huge and had raging techno music! It doesn't open till 2 am though which sucks because during the week we have to wake up at like 7:45 for class. The other night we went to an ice bar which everything was made of ice. When you go in they give you a huge jacket and gloves, but Becca made the mistake of wearing a dress and sandals so she was still pretty cold! 

Yesterday we went to the Barcelona soccer stadium which was huuuuuuge! It is the second biggest stadium in the world. We got to see all of the trophies and were able to go into the away team's locker room.

 Last night we went out as a group to a bar that lets you make your own drinks for 4 euros. When we first got to Barcelona everything really expensive, but now we are finding cheaper restaurants and everything at the grocery store is really cheap. A carton of sangria at the grocery store is only 84 cents. The beach is really pretty but the one we have been going to is very crowded. There are people walking around selling things that come up to you every minute trying to sell you mojitos, massages, beer, etc. It gets pretty annoying but our director has recommended some other beaches that aren't as crowded and touristy. A few people in our group have already gotten pickpocketed so good thing I have a money belt!  Comment if you have questions! 

last day in London

We are a little behind on our blogging, but we will update you about London and the start of Barcelona. On our only full day in London we got to go on an awesome bus tour around the city. It started around 8:30, which kind of sucked but it was worth it. Our tour guide seemed liked a typical Englishman who was pretty hilarious. Unfortunately most people were hung over so they didn't laugh at his jokes. He

pointed out lots of cool stuff while on the bus i.e. the most expensive real estate in the world (one bedroom apartment selling for 135 million dollars), many different districts like Trafalgar Square, and every dog that he saw for some reason haha. We also got to see London Bridge, Parliament, the hospital where Florence Nightingale worked, the hotel where the movie 28 Days Later was filmed, Big Ben, and a lot of other places. We had two stops where we got out and explored. The first was St. Pauls Cathedral where Princess Diana and Prince Charles were married. 

The next stop was at Buckingham Palace. This was a great day for this tour because it was the Queen's "official" birthday so there was a large parade for her. Her real birthday was a few weeks ago, but the Queen has the privilege to have 2 birthdays. Lucky biatch! There were thousands and thousands of people and we all got to see the royal family from afar. It was hard to snap pictures from behind the crowds, but we managed to get an alright pic. We also saw lots of epic dudes with swords on horses!

 On our way back we witnessed a protest against rape. All the women were dressed up very slutty... it was called the "Slut Walk." The signs were pretty hilarious.

 Later that night we got to eat our typical English meal of fish and chips. Overall London was pretty cool, but kinda cold and rainy. We pulled an all-nighter to catch our 7 am flight. Our director got us there pretty late so all 30 of us had to run to make it to the terminal. It was very stressful. Off to Barcelona we go!

The first day!

Hello to all 5 of our followers! Let me start from the beginning. Our flight out of Dulles was delayed for about an hour and a half on the ground which sucked, but we finally did fly out! The flight wasn't too bad... I had salmon alfredo penne pasta and Becca had beef with vegetables. Both of them were just kind of what you would expect out of a microwave meal. We landed around 10 if I remember right and there was a taxi driver waiting for us right after we picked up our checked bags.  No trouble with customs fortunately. Our hotel is very nice, and it is right near Chelsea's futbol stadium which is awesome! Our rooms weren't supposed to be ready until 2 p.m. and everyone was arriving at different time, so Becca and I went to the stadium for a little while.  We got some good pictures there and I bought a jersey for only 16 pounds (which would normally cost like $50 if I bought it from a US store) and a flag with a Chelsea player on it for only one pound!  I bought it for Bley and Corey because Chelsea is their favorite team, so we will hang it up in our apartment at VT.

Me and Becca got into our rooms at around 12 pm and got to meet our roommates for the first time! Becca's roommate's name is Shannon and mine is Hayden. We both get along really well with our roommates and have already hung out with them a lot. Shortly after we each got our rooms, we both took like 3 hour power naps that were much needed. After that, Hayden and I went to some random pub down the road and each got a pint of Guinness. I felt pretty damn cool haha. I had never tried Guinness before, and I could taste like chocolately or caramel flavors in it. It was pretty good!

At 6 pm, everyone met in the hotel restaurant for a drink and an introduction, so we could hear the plan while in London and we could meet everyone.  Everyone seems to get along really well, especially after a few alcoholic beverages relieved some awkwardness and shyness. We all pregamed in one of the guy's rooms and he was handing out Grey Goose and Patron which was a nice change from Aristocrat! Later that night, we split up into smaller groups and went out to different pubs and clubs. It was a really fun night, but waking up this morning at 7:30 was a little rough.

Overall, I really like London so far. I love all the buildings and architecture. I kind of feel like I'm in Harry Potter or something haha. The language barrier was a lot bigger than I expected.  I thought that English people were going to speak almost exactly like us Americans do with the occasional "bloke" and "crikey" and "rubbish" added in, but a lot of waiters and people don't understand what I say a lot. And I don't understand them a lot at first too. But it's not a problem at all. The next post will be about the bus and walking tour that we took around London today! It was absolutely amazing! So long!

3 more days

Less than 72 hours until Becca and I get on our plane to London! Unfortunately it is a red eye flight so we get into Heathrow really early in the AM. What is cool is that we are staying in what looks like a really nice hotel that is right next to Chelsea Football Club's famous stadium, Stamford Bridge. I am super pumped about that! Packing has begun starting yesterday..... and by packing, I mean Sheran and Becca doing 99.9% of the work. Every plane flight and hotel for our personal week afterward is booked and all is left now is to finish packing. Thanks so much to Ms. Farrell for buying us a phone that we can use overseas in case of emergencies. Becca and SPF are getting the phone all set up and ready tomorrow, so I will post again with more details about that. Keep in contact by e-mail (shiner65@ vt.edu) and by Facebook. We are going to try hard to keep up with this blog, but as everyone knows I am a very lazy person. Hopefully I'll be able to post pretty consistently. Hope you enjoy the blog!

- Chuckie Lee!