Settling In

Well I'm here! Cornellà de Llobregat is where I will live for most of my time here. Cornella is in the Province of Barcelona and it only takes a 30 minute metro ride to get to the city of Barcelona. If I could compare Barcelona to a place in America, it would be Miami, Florida because of the Spanish architecture and the tropical weather.My host brother Victor is the only person I met so far that speaks enough English to sufficiently communicate. Everywhere here they speak Catalan and Castillian Spanish. If you speak English anywhere here, you get a weird look when people hear you. Spain in a sense is different from and the same as America. Right away you can notice how friendly everyone is here but the Spaniards are more reserved here when you first meet them. When you get to know them though, they open up and they turn out to be very fun(and sometimes loud). The people here are very open and so are the doors...literately. Besides the front door, there are no locks on doors in the house and people don't knock either before coming in(except the bathroom). I guess privacy is only an American thing? I also noticed that people here are mostly Caucasian but they look very different from people in America. They have a more exotic look but overall I would say that the Spaniards are a very pretty people. If I could compare them to people in America I would lean more towards Puerto Ricans and Italians. Yesterday, Victor took me around his town(which reminds me of Brooklyn) and they have a beautiful park. I could not go to any stores though because it was Sunday. The pictures below are from around town. Later at night we celebrated the holiday, San Juan with Victor's family and friends. San Juan marks the beginning of summer in Catalonia. People celebrate with a lot of fireworks and food! My first day sure was fun.