Barcelona study abroad Summer 2011: Day 11/Midterms and El Cangrego Loco

Boy, today was rough. We woke up at 11:30am after going to bed at 6am because of the DJ Tiesto concert last night. I almost didn't have enough time to eat breakfast before we left, but I threw it into beast mode and got ready real quick. I only had enough time for some juice and packaged muffins, and I was definitely not going through my exams today on an empty stomach. The first one was in my "Sport & Culture" class, and was tougher than I expected. It was 8 free-response questions with a few pictures and tough to BS because there was not a lot of room to put anything other than the truth. And most of the questions seemed to overlap, so I felt like I answered 8 different questions the same way haha. Good thing about this exam though was that we were able to leave after we finished, so I decided to grab a real lunch with the time I had before my next class. I finally ate real Paella (with chicken, and not microwavable) so I was glad that I tried this spanish dish while in Spain. It was very good and at an affordable price. We finished eating early, so I decided to head into a candy store before my next exam to give me a sugar rush to help me stay awake. It was tough to decide what sort of candy I wanted because everything was in Spanish, so I just chose some of the things that looked like familiar American treats. The next exam went somewhat smoothly, but consisted of only 4 essay questions. The topics were pretty simple, but I got more tired at the test went on so the answers got shorter and shorter. The teacher let us take a break after we finished, so I went around the block to take a few pictures and attempted to get a gelato at a new place, but the line was too long so I came back empty-handed. One of these days my friends, one of these days...When we got back, we watched a documentary about Wal-Mart for the rest of class, those that were able to stay awake at least, and believe me, it was not many people. After class, we headed back to our apartment for a little bit before we went to El Cangrego Loco (a fancy restaurant by the marina) to eat our free dinner for winning the photo scavenger hunt last week. It was located next to lots of other similar restaurants on the marina, and right past a strip of shops and a few clubs and outside hookah bars. The place was very nice, but we realized after we ate that we ate in the wrong room! They have lower deck seating, inside seating, and upper deck seating with glass walls where you can see almost the entire beach and the ocean, but we were naive and ate downstairs by the marina. Oh well, it was still a pretty sight! And a free meal, so there's no complaints from me, especially after we saw some of the prices on the menu! The meal consisted of a cold dish, a hot dish, an entree, and a meal. Our original waiter didn't speak very good English nor Mexican spanish, only Catalan, so we ordered water but we were unaware that we would receive carbonated water. None of us liked it and we kept joking how it tasted like alka-seltzer. Our original waiter was a little bit snobby towards us so we didn't want to do anything to upset him even more, so we just sat there and tried to behave. I am still trying to get used to eating at restaurant in Spain because it is very different than in America. In America, the waiter/waitress pays you good attention and tries to earn a good tip by doing his/her job well and being quick with the food, etc. But here in Spain, the waiters/waitresses earn high hourly wages, rather than tips, so they take their sweet time and don't pay attention to the customers as much. And I think it is customary that Spaniards take much longer to eat their meals than Americans. Back to the story though. Because Barcelona is a city on the beach, it was only right for me to order seafood. For the first dish, I ordered cold salmon with avocado. For the second dish, I ordered seafood croquettes along with the rest of my roommates (which are phenomenal!). And for the entree, I ordered grilled salmon with vegetables. They gave me a big piece of salmon, cooked to perfection, but I was still hungry so I helped my roommates eat what they couldn't finish because Spain is a little weird about not doing to-go (or take away) food. For dessert, we ordered the "Cream of Catalan" or Creme Brulee, but it tasted different than back in the States, but tasted good nonetheless. After dinner, 2 of my roommates decided to go back to my apartment, but I wasn't done soaking up the sights yet, so my other roommate and I decided to walk a while to see another of Barcelona's beautiful sights, Torre Agbar. It was much further than I thought, and we had to walk through some less than friendly parts of town, but it was definitely worth it once we got there. We didn't finish dinner until 9:30pm and the building is only lit up from 9-11pm every night, so every minute counted. The hours of lighting change in the winter and the summer, so I had to look it up to make sure we were going at the right time. It is actually just a huge office building in a unique shape, but at night it is lit up with different colored lights and easily stands out from the other buildings and has quickly become known as one of the prettier sights at night in the city. I am exhausted from not enough sleep last night and then we have our Jungle trek (zip-lines, etc.) tomorrow as well as going to Altafulla beach, which is a small coastal town somewhere not too far away from Barcelona. And to top that off, I am going to Pamplona this weekend!