Tour of Tarragona

We started off our day with some breakfast. The breakfast here is quite different. One thing I really liked is called coca and is a type of bread with sugar on top of it. I also ate some toast, or pan tostado. They don’t make their toast in a toaster, but on a grill-type thing. Our host mother kept urging us to eat more food and to drink coffee, tea, or milk and told us we don’t eat enough! HAHA!

They do have cereal here, but I’m a little nervous to try it. Plus, they have milk (and skim milk) but they don’t refrigerate their milk right away. They store it in a cabinet and then put it in the refrigerator before they use it. How strange … They also eat bocadillas, which are a type of sandwich that’s made with “Spanish bread” (looks like a smaller French bread) and they put tomatoes, cheese, and ham on it. I think it’s a bit strange to eat a sandwich for breakfast.

Today’s event was touring the city. I felt like such a stupid American tourist, taking pictures of the littlest things. We saw a few sites around the city. One of the coolest was the Balcón, which we learned was named when a king of Spain came to visit and called it “the Balcony of the Mediterranean”. The sea is amazing. It’s so blue! We didn’t really go through the Old City today, which was fine because we got a tour of it yesterday, but there was a giant market there today! I didn’t want to buy anything yet, but there was a guy who was selling kittens! They were so cute. The guy was trying to get us to take one, but we had to explain that we’re not from here. I hope he thought we were natives!

We took a train ride around the city. It looked like those little trains that they have some malls for little kids, except bigger, obviously. It took us around the city and we had a earphones so we could listen to more about the attractions we passed. The train was so fun! We went through parts of the Old City … I couldn’t believe the train fit through those tiny roads!

About 11 AM, we went to a gelato place where we got two scoops of ice cream on a cone (sort of for free because we didn’t have to pay!). I got a scoop of chocolate and one of a vanilla ice cream with Oreos in it. For lunch, we ate at an Italian place. I had some lasagna and it was pretty good. From what I’ve seen, Italian food is pretty popular here.

After our day with the excursion was over, the five other girls (that live near me) and I went back to our houses and got changed to go to the beach. It was warm in the sun, but a little breezy, and the water was too cold to go into. We just lied down on the beach for a few hours. It was so nice. We saw a few topless ladies! That was quite strange. One girl was sitting there without a top and was just talking to her friend … Weird!

When we came back to our house (which luckily Pau was here because we couldn’t figure out how to open the door), we just kind of relaxed for a little bit. Pau went to find Anna (the little sister) and then when they came back, we watch How I Met Your Mother. The show was in English, but it had Spanish subtitles. They understand English, but Pau said he needs subtitles to keep up because it’s still a little hard.

Pau watches a few American shows. He likes HIMYM, Modern Family, and Game of Thrones. Right now, they are watching Modern Family on TV but this is all in Spanish with Spanish subtitles, too. It’s really funny to watch because the voices don’t match the people at all. Sometimes they have grown men doing the voices for little kids.

We had dinner today at 9:30. It really wasn’t that bad having dinner so late. We had grilled chicken, omelets (they eat omelets for dinner!), some bread, and some sort of vegetable thing which I didn’t like too much. They actually think it’s weird to drink water all the time, which of course, I don’t mind. They drink a lot of lemonade (more of a sparkling lemonade), Coke, beer, and wine.

So far, we’re having a great time. It’s weird that the US is six hours behind us, so as I’m writing this right now, it’s not even 6 PM in Virginia. One of the girls remarked that “all the children here are perfect”. They kind of are … I’m yet to see an ugly kid and they are all skinny. The kids here play outside all the time, unlike in the US. It’s nice to see. 🙂 Also, I have seen a lot of Mini Coopers, which makes me very happy!

Tomorrow we begin the stuff at our school. There aren’t any classes tomorrow, but it’s a presentation of the program. We had to look nice for it, so I’ll have to choose a pretty dress! Later tomorrow, we get to go to the beach and do some sports there. I don’t know if we’ll do it tomorrow, but I think we’ll get to go windsurfing and paddle boarding! Awesome! ¡Hasta luego!