you're not going to get your patatas bravas.....!!!!!!!!!

This past wednesday, Barcelona won their third and most important championship of the year, the champions league!!! They played against the awful, dirty, and SMELLY Manchestur United in Rome (fair territory). There was a group of 10 of us who went to watch it together, and LUCKILY, about an hour before the game, we found a great little bar that had room for us right in front of a hi-def TV!! It was so fun watching it there, although there were was one little problem. We all ordered our "watching the game" beers, which are mandatory. (not by the restaurant, but because you're watching the game. And some of us were hungry (me included, obviously) so we ordered some patatas bravas, tortilla espanola, etc etc. These tapas are very easy and very accesible anywhere in barcelona so we didn't think there'd be a problem, but an hour after ordering them we still hadn't gotten anything. Now, service in Spain is SLOW, but an hour later is definitely a fair time period to say something. So I go up to the server, and I ask him (in perfect spanish because i had practiced silently in my head 10,000 times before i went up there) where are food is and he said, "oh, you're not going to get your patatas bravas, our cook decided he wants to watch the game and he's not making any orders". And he was 100% serious. OH ESPANA!!!!

The game was great though!!! We won 2-0, and there were a lot of hotties (above) to watch. That guy specifically is Xavi (pronounced Cha-vee) and he's the love of my life. He's also one of my "go to"jokes here in Barcelona. Sense of humor gets lost in translation very easily, but I always tell people that I'm dating Xavi from the FC Barcelona team and they laugh instantaneously. I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad that they laugh so fast. :)

Miss everyone!! Yesterday was my 3 week countdown...now its 2 weeks 6 days!!
xoxo
jess

in an updating mood lately...

just kidding, i´m just putting off studying for finals.

I will tell you guys about Ireland....
it was very green!
I got to see my very best friend, Elle, and her lovely boyfriend...Ethan!!!! We were in Dublin for a few days and Galway for a few days...both were VERY FUN. Here are my favorite parts about Dublin:

1)The bar we went to on teh very last night where they allow anyone to come and play Irish folk music...there were probably about 12 musicians playing together without any sheet music...and they were great!!!!!
2)One day when we were walking to get some food we saw a group of 12-14 year olds playing a game but one of the boys was sitting to the side and all of a sudden I hear ¨HEY BABE!¨and he was looking right at me. So I laugh and I say ¨HI!¨ Then he proceeds to say (in his little Irish accent, mind you) ´I love you!´and this time I laugh even harder, and say Ï love you too! and then he turns to the others and goes ¨LADS!! SHE LOVES ME!!!¨ it was hilarious...! he´s gonig to grow up to be a heartbreaker

The best part about Galway was when we took a day tour to the cliffs of Moher and see the countryside...which is...VERY GREEN!!! so fun!!!!

OH!!! I almost forgot...when we were in a bar in Galway a girl was talking to my friend Elle and she was trying to guess wehre I´m from and she said SPAIN!!! HOLLAAAA!!!!! now if only the SPANIARDS thought I was from here... :)

Lost in Translation

I've been meaning to tell you guys a few stories about serious misunderstandings, mostly my fault (scratch that--all my fault).

When I was in middle school, high school, college spanish classes, we ALWAYS talked about "false friends" which are words in your second language that look extremely similar to words in your first language but DO NOT MEAN THE SAME THING. for example, "carpeta" looks like the english words carpet, but actually means folder in spanish.

1) well a few weeks ago I went to a carnival party for the kids at the after school program where I volunteer. I showed up early to help set up and stuff and when I got there one of the girls that works there, Maria, opened the door for me. I said "Hey, how are you, How are you doing" etc (in spanish) and she gives me this look and was like "i'm horrible! Estoy MUY constipada" I'm VERY constipada. I gave her a surprised look, thinking to myself, wow, that seems like a lot to share. But then she went on to say that her throat hurts, her nose was runnings, etc. The light in my brain finally switched on...Constipada does NOT mean constipated, it means congested............................................ ah ha! never stop learning haha

The next few stories are not "false friends" stories, but misunderstandings...

2) I was walking with my friend Andrea and there was a dog I wanted to pet, so I attempted to ask "does your dog bite" before I pet it. Unfortunately, instead of asking the owner "muerde este perro?" which means "does the dog bite?" I said "muere este perro?" which means "is your dog DYING?" The owner gave me a really mean look, said NO, and walked away....I did not end up petting the dog, and Andrea did not stop laughing...for an hour or so.

3) A few weeks ago we took a trip to Ibiza, a party island outside of spain, for a co-birthday party. We got to the dock because we were taking a night boat (about 10 hours) to the island. When I went up to the ticket window, the lady asked me "llevas un coche?" which means "are you bringing a car?" (You know, how you can bring a car on a big boat if you are planning to drive wherever you're going") Somehow, I heard "llegas en coche" (which means are you arriving by car) and interpreted it as "are you going to Ibiza (AN ISLAND) in a car". I answered "no! voy en barco" (I'm going on a boat). She laughed, realizing that I had misunderstood her completely........and repeated the question. She laughed, I laughed, my friends laughed, and the whole staff (there had to be like 5 of them) in the office started laughing....I'm really awesome.

xoxoxo
jess

PS barca won another championship game the other day!!!! Now on may 27 they play against Manchester United for the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE!!!!!

la copa de rey!!!

Okay, I know that I obviously haven't updated in forever and I'm overwhelmed with it, so I figured I would just update what's recent and do older trips when I have time...so here we go!!


This is a picture of the Barcelona football/soccer team after the won the Copa del Rei (Copa del Rey in spanish)....It was very exciting and the streets were FILLED with people celebrating and watching the game...I stayed at home and watched it with 4 Real Madrid fans (Real Madrid is Barcelona's biggest Rival...) so I also had a lot of fun :). It was exciting...a team that I cheer for has never won any kind of championship!!!!!!!!!!!! haha

more to come later...

ciao bellos!

bueno chicos!!!
porfa perdonenme que no haya escrito nada por más de un mes....

if you can read that you rule

you guys i´m still having so much fun here in BCN. sometimes i have anxiety issues when i think about going back!!! i got back a week ago from semester break. YES it´s true...we had christmas break which lasted for like 4 weeks and i traveled to greece, brussels, madrid, and wandered around bcn with my fam, then had two weeks of a lot of school and exams, then 2 more weeks of VACA!!!! when we were leaving italy (my last destination of that break), my friends and i were discussing how hard it will be to get back to "reality". hah....hah...hah

me and my friend andrea went to Istanbul, Turkey then to Italy where we met up with our friend Mo. Istanbul has been my favorite place so far because the food was DELICIOUS!!!!!! and the guys were so hott!!! but actually the guys are so hott in every country i go to but turkey it seemed like there was an exceptional amount. plus they love american girls so it just seemed too easy. hahaa....but we drank a lot of tea, smoked a lot of hookah, and played backgammon!!!! plus my favorite cousin reenie was looking out for me and emailed her friend Chad who lives in istanbul...he took us all around and showed us a lot of good places. for the superbowl we went to the american consulate and i pretended like i cared at all about who won (but of course i was rooting for the cardinals....) and i was sad for 4.3 milliseconds (if that´s how you spell that word) until i was on to flirting with another marine. the marines were so cute and very hospitable...i missed my dad´s chili but hanging out with marines can distract you from the delicoius, spicy, amazing chili i´m accustomed to (barely)

in italy we flew into milan, took a day train to venice, walked around venice for 4 hours then took a night bus to rome, and walked around rome for 2 days before we travelled back home. my favorite things in italy were the colosseum and pizza...it´s really amazing how you learn aobut all these places when you are 8 years old in school then years later you are literally walking on history!!! i love it!!! there was a building in rome that was built to celebrate the unity of italy and there were these 2 guards guarding what is called the tomb of the "unknown soldier". as interesting as that sounds, we were more interested in the cute guard on the right hand side. even from afar a girl knows when someone is looking at her so me and andrea started messing with him....we were smiling and giggling and waving and we could see that he was grinning....so we took it a step further and did the "CALL ME" hand motion...(hand=phone, put it to the ear, and mouth the words CALL ME) so the best part was that he smiled even bigger and shook his head YES (thank goodness!) in front of all the people that were taking pictures and whatever...

ok so i just read that and i guess you had to be there but believe me it was hilarious....

now my favorite cousin mike is visiting!!! the first day he got ehre we went to razzmatazz with a bunch of my friends and we all danced till like 5 am!!!!!! he got tired after a while though because by like 445 am i saw him, eyes closed, swaying back and forth (not to any rythm btw) so that was my clue that spikey needed to go to bed...which he did and he slept until like 7 pm the next day!! haha.

classes are still really fun. life is great

i never go a day without thinking about how happy i am and how lucky i am...i know that this experience is once in a lifetime and i´m SOOOOOOOOOOOO lucky to have had the chance to do it. anyone who is reading this has helped me get to this point some way or another and i just want to say thank you again!! i love all of you and miss you tons. hope everything is going well for everyone and would love to hear from you guys!! jcollin5@illinois.edu

hellooooo

hey everyone!!!!

i haven't updated in so long...that's how i've been starting all of my posts lately...what can i say?? It just means that i'm busy or having fun...both are good things!!!

I just finished my winter break and it was great.  I started out in Athens, Greece and stayed with my friend Stephanie's aunt and uncle.  Her uncle is a native of Greece and their family is so great!!  Christmas wasn't as sad as I was thinking it would be since I was with a family like them....

Anyways, Athens wasn't as pretty as I was thinking it would be, but I had the idea of the greek islands in my head.  It was still really interesting!!  We saw the Acropolis which was amazing!!!  It's so old and the history there is incredible.  The old Olympic stadium was impressive too because it was made of complete marble and over all of these years it looks great....Plus I got a great Christmas present....a brand new baby cousin!!!!  Congrats Maureen and Kevv!!!  I can't wait to meet alex :)

After Athens Stephanie and I went to Brussels, Belgium and met up with Sam and Moe.  Brussels is a really pretty city as well...we went to a bunch of museums.  My favorite was the Musical Instrument museum they had because I had never gone to one of those before!!! They had all of these really sweet instruments from all over the place and from a zillion years ago to the present....

We spent New years in Brussels...it was toooooooo much fun.  

From Brussels I went alone to Madrid where I met up with my familiy!!!!  It was so great to see them!!!!!!!!!!!  Despite the overly crowded streets, the see-through bathroom door and the "a bit too small" hotel room, we had a blast in Madrid.  I think they had more fun in Barcelona.  Out of the two, I definitely like Barcelona more, but I'm slightly slightly biased.  We found a couple of our favorite places to eat and I took them sight seeing.  We drank a lot of wine, played a lot of cards, over all a great time!!!  I miss them now so much though!!!!

Well I hope everyone has had a great start to the New Year.  I really miss everyone but I'm enjoying Barcelona every day....

PS I'm so sorry there are no pictures but my computer crashed on me!!!!  I lost all of my pictures and music....:( so sad

xoxoxox

Jess

startin trouble in BCN

I don't know if it's the spanish air or the fact that I watched Rocky Balboa in Spanish the other day, but it seems like everyone wants a piece of me. Last night my friend's bag got stolen so she went to talk to the bartender about it but while she was gone I just pulled her things closer to me (so nothing else would get stolen) but coincidentally a guy was walking past and he thought I was pulling the chair closer to me because I was afraid HE would steal something...which I wasn't!!! But he started yelling at me!! Now I'm not a fighter but I wasn't going to let him think that....so we kind of got into it!!! It was SO fun!!! And the best part is, i'm pretty sure I WON the argument!!!

THEN this morning I went to the supermarket to get some bread and I was waiting in line with this older woman behind me. I was going to be next until another cash register opened up so I started to walk over there but then little miss sass tried to cut me!!! So I walked a little faster and got back in front of her..............HA! I won that one too!!! I know she was trying to start something with me........

On the way home from the supermarket I started singing Eye of the Tiger (in my head, not out loud...well...i'm actually not sure) It might be a good idea to stay away from those movies for a while...

PS here our pics of me and my friends at the Barcelona game on Saturday!! They won!!! 4-0 vs Valencia. The game was fun but it doesn't compare to baseball games....but I'm slightly biased.