Missing Assignments

Hi Carlijn!

Thanks for letting me know about your experiences and expectations. They were very interesting to read. It's obvious you have been doing a lot of reflection since you arrived here.

Remember there are two more assignments to do here. One of them is to interview people about how they feel about Catlaonia / Spain. Do they think Catalonia should be independent? How do they feel about the place they live.

The other assignment is to summarise what you have experienced and learned since living here. How has it been? What things have really impressed you? And what things would you not recommend students next year to do?

I look forward to reading what you ahve to say, and to your presentation on Wednesday.

My experiences

Hi everybody,

i will tell you a bit about my expectations before i came here and what i have experienced since i have been here.
Before I came here I thought the people in Spain would be very friendly en helpfull. I also expectated that Barcelona would be very busy and crowded. I expectated that a lot of people would speak english!
Two weeks ago I arrived at the airport of Gerona. When I got my suitcase I went to buy a ticket for the train that was suppose to leave directly from the airport. When I bought a ticket the lady could almost speak no english!! She told me in bad english that I first needed to take the train to Gerona train station and then buy a ticket for the train.
When I finaly got in Barcelona the guy at the ticket sale for the metro didn´t speak english! I was very supprised because of all the tourist that come to Barcelona a year I really thought that the people in the tourist industry would speak english??!!!!
I also noticed that Barcelona is very busy and crowded, but in a nice way!! there are more people doing everything really slow and aren´t in such a big hury as many people in the Netherlands! I like that very much!!!
When I made a quick visit at this school and had a chat with Marta, she told me a bit of information, but she also told me that I would here the rest of the information a week later, so everything is very slow and easy (as they call in spanish: tranquilo!!).
Another thing is that I noticed and experienced is that the people in Barcelona are nice to the spanish people but most of the time they aren´t really nice to the turists. I hope to experience more people to meet that are nice to turists!!
Last week my sister was visiting me and on monday we did the Bus Turisic.
It is a very turistic thing to do, but if you have people over and you want a easy way to visit things than this is one of the things to do!
You can buy a ticket at the Catalunya Information Centre at Plaza Catalunya. For one day you pay €16,- , but you can also buy tickets for 2 days. With these tickets, you will get a discount book, with discount tickets for the different places the bus will stop. You can do 3 routes through whole Barcelona. One all the routes you have turistic places where you can leave the bus and visit it (like museums, el teleferic etc). If you have visited the place you left the bus, you can take the next bus to go on with you tour. In this way you can see the whole city with famous places in one or two days.
Another thing that is nice to do is making a trip with El Teleferic. With this you can make a "tour" partley over the city and the sea, or even higher up on Mountain Montejuic.
Hope you will have some use of my information. Please let me know if you have had other experiences with the people in Barcelona. I´m curious!!

Carlijn

Welcome to Catalonia

Hello and welcome to the course!