wow

I spent last night, from about 17:00, feeling really sick and just icky. I threw up once, and it was all downhill from there. I couldn't eat dinner, for which I felt really bad because Margarita only cooks dinner for us, she doesn't eat herself. But she knew I didn't feel well and told me that I shouldn't eat the dinner then, because it wouldn't make me feel any better. I tried eating some bread and it was just.. eh. I threw up again and decided I'd go to bed and just try to sleep it off. I woke up multiple times to go throw up. At 3 i woke up and I thought I felt better so I chugged some water which was a horrible idea. It came right back up. I made it to the hallway in front of the bathroom... Spent some time mopping the floor, which is always fun at 3 in the morning. I was in the bathroom cleaning when Brittany walked up and I told her I was sorry, I'd just puked everywhere, thinking she had to go to the bathroom. Turns out she had to puke too. Basically it was a horrible night for both of us.
I woke up this morning feeling much better, but not quite 100%.

In other news, I've officially had each of my classes once, and I dig it so far. My spanish class is cool. It's small and the teacher seems really cool so far, so I'm excited. I have an Urban Approach to Spain class, which I think will probably be my hardest class. Already today she threw some terms at us that I didn't understand but that just means I'll have to work a bit harder. Brittany is in that class too and she seems to have a bit better grasp on the stuff; it has a lot to do with economics and stuff, which I know nothing about, but that's kinda Brittany's major so she'll be able to help me out with the things I don't understand.

My Civilización y Cultura class seems promising. It's weird because it's not a Spanish class; it's a class in Spanish, which I have never done before. I understood everything the teacher was saying, so I think it'll be fine, and the topic of the class seems very interesting so far. We're basically going to be looking at different aspects of, first of all, Spanish civilization from 2000 years ago until now, and second of all, all aspects of Spanish culture, which I'm looking forward to.

The teacher for that class had created a "Barcelona Survival Guide" as an introduction to the class, containing all kinds of information that's good to know for people visiting the city. A lot of it I had already found out, but some of it was really funny and the way she explained it was funny too. She looks like an owl, by the way, so that just added to it. I want to summarize her survival guide with some of the stuff I've found during the almost 2 weeks I've been here.

1. People are never in a hurry. Ever. You don't go out to a restaurant "real quick" here, because waiters aren't in a hurry and they don't really care about you. They work on an hourly wage, not tips, so they could care less about customer service and catering to your every need.

2. There is a lack of water in the city, so water is never free. When eating out, you have to really convince the waiter to bring you tap water, but usually they won't. You could buy a bottle of water when you're out, but for the same price you could get a generous glass of wine so uhh... yea, not a hard decision to make.

3. Las Ramblas are for walking and checking things out, not for eating. It's expensive. It's convenient to just sit down at one of the places but you'll be paying an arm and a leg for it. Also, and these are my teacher's words, the food on Las Ramblas is usually not very good and if you walk a little bit off them, you can easily find something much better and much cheaper.

4. Paella Jueves! Only eat paella at a restaurant on thursdays! It's a really old tradition that still holds; people make paella on thursdays, and that's it. The paella that's served at a restaurant on any other day is most likely leftovers.

5. Sangria doesn't need to be advertised.

6. Personal space doesn't exist in Spain. Everyone is always in your "bubble". I kinda like that, not gonna lie.

7. You have to specify the type of coffee you want when you order coffee. There's lots of different kinds and any given place might have a specialty. Café solo is a shot of espresso. Cortado is a small cup of coffee with milk. Café con leche is coffee with milk (though in my experience, it's pretty much always a latte, not just coffee with milk). Americano is very very strong coffee. Carajillo is coffee with, usually, brandy in it, though it could be some other kind of booze.

Most of it, I know, has to do with food, but what can I say, I love it (: