A good example:
Spanish way to obtain FC Barcelona soccer tickets - Buy tickets online. Receive friendly confirmation e-mail giving 20 pick-up locations specially designed for the sake of conveniencia. 20 supermarkets and businesses are scattered around the city, and confirmation gives specific instructions to NOT go to stadium to pick up tickets. Go to local supermercado - closest of 20 sites - 15 minutes away. Find that it is Catalan Independence Day and entire mall is closed. Mental note: on festival days, expectation is to sit at home and celebrate with beer, paella, and flag-waving. Hop into cab to go to any other of 19 spots to pick up tickets. Friendly taxi driver tells you they are all closed as well. Decry locura of country and wonder how 100,000 other fans will get their tickets. Ask taxidriver to instead drive to Camp Nou stadium on other side of city. Arrive to find that confirmation e-mail was wrong and tickets CAN be picked up at stadium. Relief, albeit at the cost of significant toll of stress and sweat.
U.S. way to obtain… Well, I was going to say you just print the tickets from the website, but it's irrelevant because we don't have F.C. Barca in our country. I guess beggars can't be choosers.
ANYWAY, we finally got our tickets and enjoyed amazing seats 20 yards from the pitch for only 50 €. The stadium and atmosphere were incredible, and the energy of the fans was unlike anything I'd ever seen. Camp Nou is the second biggest soccer stadium in the world (only Brazil's legendary Maracaná is bigger) and it's wild to be a part of the soccer craziness.. Basically everything was amazing except for the game itself. Barca - unbelievably - lost to Hercules, a 33-1 underdog coming into the game! Barca dominated possession and created some good chances, but overall the team wasn't clicking like it normally does, and Hercules played their game plan to perfection.. Their packed-in defense and opportunistic forays forward propelled them to the 2-0 result. Even so, I loved the experience and can't wait to be back and see Barca at their best. Check out pic:
Course selection is a bit of a nightmare right now.. I'm trying to navigate Catalan schedules from 3 universities to fit in a few Princeton requirements while here. The locura I mentioned before definitely applies to the universities as well! The expectation is that you go and talk to the professors to work out any problems you have, but basic information (like professor names, e-mails, classroom assignments, course times & dates) are nowhere near as easily available as in the U.S. You practically have to drag the information out of the system, and that's with all the help and guidance we're getting from our CASB program directors! Keeping my fingers crossed that some courses will fall into place this coming week..
Finally, I got to see Parque Güell today.. The park is a mind-boggling architectural and artistic display by Barcelona's famous Antoni Gaudí. Among other features, Guell is famous for its dragon and lizard sculptures, the long serpentine bench that wraps around the park, and its hidden motifs that allude to Catalan nationalism. The park also has INCREDIBLE vistas of Barcelona that make you realize how enormous the city really is. Sitting in the shade near one of Gaudí's striking architectural achievements, listening to mellow music played by the nearby performer, digesting a meal.. was a major highlight of the day. Also saw Gaudí's La Pedrera this past week.. The rooftop in particular is ridiculously nice! The chimneys on top of the building inspired George Lucas in his creation of Darth Vader's mask and the Death Star's guards in Star Wars.. Wild!
That's it for now - stay tuned and stay classy.
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