Barcelona study abroad Summer 2011: Day 5/First friday in Barcelona

so today was different than a normal Friday for a couple of reasons. First of all, we had class today (we usually only have class Monday-Thursday, but we had it today because the program started on a Tuesday rather than a Monday this week). The other reason was because today is Spain's "Black Friday", only their sales last for 4+ weeks, rather than a single day. Good thing I waited to get sheets until today (in reality, good thing I pulled through and actually went to a bedding store) because everything was discounted. I sure hope I chose the right size! I also went to El Corte Inglés (the only department store in Barcelona, remember?) to try and find things that I forgot at a good deal. A pair of (American-brand, such as Levi's or Wrangler) jeans (which I can actually read the sizes) is normally 75+ Euros here, but today was on sale for 50 Euros...which is a decent discount, but still about $75+ U.S. dollars. What the heck?! If only I would have brought my jeans home from school with me and my sheets in my suitcase! Class went pretty well today, we watched YouTube clips in my sports class and talked a little more about the FC Barcelona soccer team. We are going to Camp Nou (the FC Barcelona stadium) on Monday, so I am very excited for that. In my business class, we watched the movie "Gung Ho" with Michael Keaton and it was pretty funny. I ate another sandwich for lunch again because this place was right next to the baguette place, only it had lots more toppings than the sandwich I ate yesterday. AND the menu was in 4 or 5 different languages and the guy taking orders spoke some English, so that eliminated a lot of the hassle in ordering, but I was still able to order in Spanish although it probably wasn't very clear. After class, I was able to join some friends and walk down to Las Ramblas again (where La Boquería is) and we made it all the way to the end of the street. There were many more vendors and artists down there today and I even got a cool video of this group of 4 or 5 guys doing really cool acrobatic stunts. The whole street is beautiful, and at the end is a huge statue with Christoper Colombus on top pointing to the Mediterranean and lions on the bottom. While walking by one of the ports, we saw something extremely sad. Barcelona has a really high immigrant population and someone told me that almost 20% of their goods are sold illegally underground or on the black market. Well, all around the city there are people who sell fake merchandise in tote bags for cheap prices, and I found out today that it is illegal to buy stuff from them. There was a group of at least 20 of them walking across a bridge with their fake goods and one was straggling behind. And then probably 12 or more cops pulled up out out of nowhere and the immigrants immediately bolted, only the straggler was too far behind and was immediately thrown to the ground and handcuffed. His friends tried to come back and help but the other cops chased them off so all they could do was run and wish the best for the one caught. If you want to know more of what I am talking about, then check out the movie "Biutiful", which shows very good examples of what I am talking about. It was a very eye-opening experience to witness this and just further showed me how blessed I am to be from/live in America and for the countless blessings God has bestowed upon me. As we continued our walk around the port, we saw a tremendous amount of sailboats and yachts and more of the city's beauty. Only a few blocks away from where we just were, we saw the same people who just ran away from the police and a few of them hopped onto the same metro as us. I am slowly but surely learning how to get around on the metro, and from what I heard it is actually very user-friendly so that is good to know. I feel like I am becoming a little bit more independent every day and feel like I could probably navigate by myself a little bit, although hopefully I won't have to be alone unless it's a dire circumstance. Now if only I could learn how to speak Spanish a little bit quicker then things would be even better.