Hello

Hey everybody!
I'm new at this so please be patient with me. I'll start out by saying a little bit about myself:
My name is Kelly, and I'm 20 years old. I go to The University of Pittsburgh and was fortunate enough to be accepted into the Pitt in London Program this semester. I arrived in London on the tenth of January so it's been about 3 and a half weeks. The only reason why I'm starting this blog is so that so of my friends and the majority of my family can keep tabs on me. (My mom has been nagging me about it for I'd say about 3 and a half weeks now, so here it is, get off my back please:) )
So far London is great! It's chilly but nothing next to the weather I'm used to back home in Pittsburgh. There is a lot of rain though, but whatever you get used to it pretty quick. Plus its always drizzling so you don't really have to worry about getting caught in a downpour. The people are all really nice here, the whole Stiff-Upper-Lip thing isn't really an issue. I have seen plenty of bad teeth tho, which I have steered clear of thanks to my Esposo Matt Fuller. He thinks he's funny. I will get pictures up in the next couple days.
Speaking of Esposo, I just got back from Barcelona yesterday. Amazing. Beautiful. Not the guys though which was a bit of a bummer, but the city was really nice and so was Park Guiel (Probably spelled that wrong). I went with a couple of girls who live in my building for the weekend and I definitely could have stayed another 2 or 3 days. Bonus: they use the euro :) My hostel was great! When we got there I thought it was going to be 34 euro a night, but it was actually 34 euro for TWO nights, that was a nice surprise. The location was great, beds were comfy (yes I'm serious) and the staff was AMAZING! They had all kinds of recommendations for where to go, and how to get there. By the way, you could get anywhere in a taxi for under 8 euros, it would cost me 20 pounds (40 dollars) to get from my school to my flat, which is maybe a 15-20 minute cab ride with traffic.
When we got there we walked around for a while looking for someplace to eat but the only place we could find to get a meal for under 10 euro (get ready to laugh) was Chinese food. Yes, my first day in Spain I went to a Spanish-Chinese restaurant. Ever try talking to a Catalonyan speaking Chinese chick? Trust me, it's difficult. Food was decent though besides the half hour we spent trying to read Chinese Spanish. Seriously though, it was an experience. I also had Sangria for the first time there. Found out I really like it.
After that was all done with, we went back to the hostel and relaxed for a bit and played cards in the big common room, and got a recommendation from the one guy as to where to go. He said to check out Spit Churro, and all we ended up doing was walking around and asking every other person "Donde Esta Vallencia?"(the street it was on) some guy thought it'd be hysterical to have us walk the complete oppostite direction of the place when we were only a block away. When we finally found the place, we couldn't even sit down, so all we did was push and shove our way through the crowd to the back and pee. Then we turned around and pushed and shoved out way out of the place. When we got back the guy who worked there was like what are you doing here? you should be out partying! Didn't you find the place? Funny.
Saturday was better. We went to The Gaudi Museum and walked around through it on an audio tour that took about an hour and a half. Dude's insane, seriously. Google him, he basically built the entire city. After that the girls needed their Starbucks (eye roll, I got a coke) and I tried to convert some money but it being a weekend everything was closed, so I was really pissed for about 15 minutes because I had to withdraw money again and get charged, but Cadence made me feel better so I dealt with it and said I'm only here once I'm gonna have some fun.
From there we went to La Sacrada Familia, and I had to throw my Coke away to go into the gift shop. Well right after I did that we watched a gypsy take it out of the trash and put it in her little cart to save for later. Gross, really REALLY gross. It was cool seeing a gypsy first hand though. La Sacrada Familia, is this HUGE church that Gaudi (obviously) started building in the early 1900's and it's still about 60 years away from being finished. It's insane. I'm not going to bother trying to describe it because I can't, wait for pictures. It was really impressive.
After that we went to Las Ramblas which is a neat little market that sells EVERYTHING including live chickens and roosters. There were a bunch of tapas bars and restuarants around too. At the market I bought a Clementine for like 25 cents or something, and it was sooo good! I only got to eat half of it though because there was the legit homeless guy standing outside on a crutch begging for money, so I had to give him like 2 euros and the rest of my Clementine. He seriously broke my heart. He kept saying Gracias Senorita Gracias and he kept crossing himself and blessing me and calling me a saint. Mandy saw that and was like lets go buy him a sandwich but Cadence vetoed that because we were in a foreign country and we didn't want him following us around all day or anything. It made me really sad for a minute.
We got some authentic Spanish food for lunch/dinner though. I got chicken and salad and french fries, with more sangria of course. Service sucked, but we think it's because our waiter brought out this 128 euro meal for a table that didn't order it and got fired because he never came back. I felt bad again because all that food got thrown away and the poor homeless guy was right across the street. He'd probably have a heart attack and die if someone tried to give that to him. My chicken was soooo good though. Honestly, it was on the same level as the chicken I had in Greece was.
After we ate we went to another church that Gaudi built called the Gothic Cathedral. Everybody was getting ready for Carnival so there were a bunch of street performers outside that I have a video of if I can figure out how to post it. I also say Edward Scissorhands outside and some freak walking his girlfriend around on a leash. I didn't take a picture though, because I didn't want to get murdered. I wonder if they're the same psychos from London? The Cathedral was the most beautiful church I've every been in, it was quite a spiritual experience. I'm not religious by any means, but walking in there, I seriously considered going into one of the confessionals. It was really moving, it was weird it was like I could feel the holiness and godliness of it all. I never got that feeling at good old St. B's. OK enough of that...
When we got out of the cathedral we were all super beat so we went back to the hostel and relaxed for an hour or so before we went to this really shady taverna up the street and were way over charged for our drinks. So we left after one, and went back and hung out at the hostel and played cards and had girl talk. It was a nice end to the day.
We had to be out by 11 on Sunday so we lugged our stuff around this park Gaudi built. It was really cool, he built this huge park right in the middle of the city with the intention of people living there but no one ever did except him. It had a whole irrigation system in it and everything! Plus theres all these artsy lizards throughout it that the irrigation system drains through. Again really neat, wait for pictures. From there we went and got some coffee and made our way back home. Ryanair sucks too by the way, don't ever fly on it. It was a short trip but we did a lot and had a great time.
Well, I think that's enough for the first blog, I'll do my best to keep up with this and pictures will be up in a few days. Until then
Peace