Tarragona and the little engine that couldn't

Yesterday we finally went to somewhere other than Barcelona. But let me start from the beginning. Well in the morning we woke up and left at about ten thirty in the morning. We started terribly. First my mom took us in the complete wrong direction. Then when we were finally on the freeway that led to Tarragona my dad succeeded in getting lost again and took us on not one wrong freeway but two wrong freeways! Oh and I forgot to tell you that the only words I said on the way were "@!#%+~?!". A trip that should have taken one hour took two and a half hours!

Right before arriving in Tarragona, we stopped a place called Pont del Diable, or "the Devil's Bridge" in Catalan, built by the Romans. It used to carry water to Tarragona, but was destroyed probably by the Barbarians. It was really cool: first we had to go through a very small opening in the fence, then we had to walk straight forward through a bunch of trees to another gate, then there were about a million paths going in different directions. Right in front of you you could see a tremendous aquaduct that looks like a bridge.

When we finally got to Tarragona it was lunch time. We were about to eat lunch when my brother saw a train tour. And if my brother sees a train he gives us no choice but to go so we went on it. It was so boring. It was the worst in the world. It was totally uninteresting. The comments were so dumb that my parents were actually laughing at it! It was so bad that I can't even find the words to say it. The only good part is that my mom vowed that she would never take me on one those tours again.

When we finally got out of the @!#! train we ate lunch. The place where we ate was called Pigot. The first platos where really bad but the second platos and the desserts were delicious! Then we went to a museum and after that we walked around for a bit. We saw the Roman governor's palace, the old amphitheater, and the circus, all of which are about two thousand years old! Most of the streets were very small and made of massive stone. After that we had some Italian gelato. And then we left.

Shopping in Barcelona

Welcome to Cameron's guided tour of some of the best places to shop in Barcelona ( in my opinion I should put in, and you're not actually going to go there as I hope you know).

First: El Corte Ingles, description: humongous building with things from the newest cell phones to the highest fashions and from the most delicious foods to the most disgusting personal hygiene products. In other words pretty much everything.

Second: Fnac, description: gigantic building with every electronic I can think of. Even Wiis!

Third: The Bocqueria, description: a market that is completely outdoors except for a big metal roof that's about the size of a soccer field. Has around 100 stands inside that all have different kinds of foods, spices, and drinks. There are also other markets that are almost exactly the same like Sant Antoni or La Concepcio.

Fourth: Carrefour, description: Target (just French, much bigger, with produce and better food).

Fifth: Passeig (pronounced Passeo) De Gracia, description: A beautiful boulevard with all kinds of high end shops and boutiques (make sure you've got lots of cash because it isn't cheap).

Sixth: "Electronic Strip" (or Ronda de Sant Antoni), description: A very large strip where about every other store is an electronic store.

Also I should tell you that my brother got sick last week. Then I got sick and then my dad then Lindsay my babysitter and then my mom. That's why I did last week' s blog so late.

Barceloneta and Chelsea

A few days ago we went to Barceloneta. Barceloneta is a neighborhood of Barcelona that is right next to the harbor. We got to Barceloneta in the subway. We were supposed to take an immediate right to get to the aquarium but instead we took a slow right turn and we missed the right way: we ended up totally on the wrong side of the harbor. All around there were very cool buildings and restaurants. My first impression of Barceloneta was thinking that it was exactly like San Francisco, which I still do think now! We walked by a lot of restaurants, then by a large strip where people were selling all kinds of arts and crafts. There were necklaces, purses, and others. When we finally noticed that we had gone the wrong way, we had to walk all the way back down towards the old harbor. At the very end of the whole road was the big Aduana building, in other words an old customs building. In the harbor that we walked by, there were some pretty big ships, and also some sailboats that were always coming in and out. Once I also saw a gigantic cargo ship that seemed to come in and then go back out.

In Barceloneta we went to a very big aquarium called"L'Aquarium Barcelona". In the aquarium there were a lot of interesting fish and sharks. For instance there were some odd looking seahorse kind of fish that looked like a plant, except that it moved a lot so we could tell that it was a fish. There were also humungo sharks that swam over your head in the glass tunnel!

PS - you are probably wondering what the heck Chelsea has to do with this. Well, first, for those of you who don't know, it is an English soccer team. This is just a tip, but if any of the British teachers in my school ask you anything about soccer that involves the Chelsea team in any way whatsoever, always in some way or another answer "Chelsea is the best", or they will consider the answer wrong...

One hour late makes no difference

At school right now I am learning German, Spanish (four times a week) and Catalan. Catalan is the language that people generally speak in this area, that is, Barcelona and all of Catalunya. Catalunya is a region of Spain. Catalan is related to Spanish and French and Italian. I learn mostly Spanish, though, because all the kids speak it when we are out at recess. Other classes I have are English every day, PE twice a week, Science four times a week, Math every day, Art, Social Education twice a week, Computers, Religion and Music. We also have Assembly once a week. I have soccer (here they call it football in English and Futbol in Spanish) twice a week at school after school.

As I said earlier, I was really spooked out when I came to this school. But I made many friends quickly, they are really, really nice and they helped me out at the beginning. This week I went to a double birthday party, for two people. One is called Gian and the other is called Alejandro. And, for some reason, all of a sudden, at the end of the birthday party, a lot of my friends asked me for playdates. That was a really cool birthday. When we arrived everybody was jumping on really big trampolines, where I did front flips and back flips on. Then, after about half an hour, we went inside, and we had a snack of various kinds of chips, pop corn, coke and fanta, and very small sandwiches (bocadillas). Then we gave out the presents, and then we played some karaoke where we sang songs with microphones and boomboxes. Then we played videogames on PS2. I was with my friend Hugo and we played Formula 5 racing and NBA 2004 basketball. At the very end we went back to the trampolines right before being picked up. It was a great birthday!!

I did not tell you that we got lost on to the way to the birthday party and wasted about an hour, so if something had happened before the trampoline I cannot tell you. We were so late, in fact, that after a while we had to stop at a gas station to get something to eat because I had not had any lunch and I was getting a bit hungry. We made it almost all the way to the building, but then we could not find exactly the right building although we did pass it at least thrice:-) I mean three times... We went up the same streets about a hundred times, and we asked a thousand people for directions, and they kept sending us left and right - they all told us different directions. The only person who told us the right direction in the end was a gas station attendant.

The other good news is that I have also become friends with a boy who lives in the same building as us, and who goes to the same school too, just he is in the other class 4 (there are two class 4s in my school).