Expectations & Experiences

Hola!

I had really a lot of expectations before my stay here stay in Barcelona! I have been here ones before, five years ago. I was then i apperentic to become a cheef/cook,so me and four others stayed here for ten days-that was great!! We eat at a lot of nice restaruants,wissited many of the turist sights,but also wine yards and villages utside of Barcelona. I wanted to come back!!

Spain and Barcelona is not really know (in Norway anyway) for having the best hotel and tourisme schools, so it wasnt that who tempted me about taking one semester here.
I guess it was my last stay here, and also that the studens who were here last year said that it was great!
I really wanted to learn spanish, so that was my biggest expectation, I also wanted to meet a lot of great people. From Spain but also from the other Erasmus countries- I was excited to hear how the hotel schools are in their countries.

I expected the city to be huge, and that it would be a bit scary to walk alone, and i also expected to be robbed(!) I expected to become really brown..after living in a country with such nice weather. I had also heard that the spanish people were really "mañana-mañana",so I expected that i would get really tired of that,of the waiting.

From the school I expected to learn a lot, I didnt really know much about the subjects before I came down here. I knew the Erasmus course here were not so much fucused on hotel (which i´m studing back home) but more on tourism. I expect to have a great time in Barcelona!

I have now been in Bac.for almoust two months- and I really like it!! A lot! The first five weeks we went to a spanish cours at "Enforex". It was good, but a guess I had hoped to learn even more.. I still have three months to practice..;) But "la gente" in Catalona is very helpful if you try to speek a littel spanish, and I dont think they are as mañana as I though they would be, I actually like that they are not running around like people do in Norway- always in a hurry to get some were. I especially like the "siesta"..

The city is easy to get to know-and its not sceary at all- I havent been robbed so far! And its so beautiful!! Except from de Gaudis,the Cathedral and all the other famous sights, there is so much more! Every time we walk in the city we find a new littel street we havent been in before, with small cafees, shops and nice arcitecture. We havent really been to so many of the famous "tourist sighs" yet, because I knew we were going to se some of them with scool, but I have met a lot of nice people, from Catalona, but also from all ower. I have found out that Barcelona is a very internasional city, even now when the main tourist season is ower.

About school its still a bit early to say, but it seems nice so far. The class seems really nice, and I´m looking forward to get to know everybody better. Which I´m sure we will at school, at parties and at all the festivals going on in Bac.

And I like the weather! Its so nice to just walk around in shorts and t-shirt all day, and also when we are going out at night. An the night life is great- ist so different from Norway! Back home the nighclubs closes at 2.30 but here you can stay out all night if you like.
But one ting I cant get use to is the pee smell everywere in the small streets in the city! Back home you get a fine if you pee in the streets-i dont think they do in spain..

There are still so much more I have to excpirience here in Barcelona, that I think this three months will go realy fast! Today my mother and father is coming to wissit- and I look forward to show them the city that I like so much!!


posted by Inger Mari Voie