Top Five

These are my top five favorite smells

1. The Earth after it rains
2. The bakery shops in Spain
3. This fantastic cinnamon tea I bought
4. Coco butter lotion (or coconut in general)
5. Citrus

I WONNN THE PHOTO CONTEST!!!!!!

I finally got it folks, the long awaited photo contest email! It said:

Caitlin,

Congrats on winning this week's photo selection!

Please submit the winning image to the photocontest folder on the pdrive, and would you also e-mail me with a tagline for the image, a description of where/when it was taken, and your class year?

Also, e-mail Candice Hersh, as to when you can claim your $25 prize!

Best,
Chris Bender
Social Media Manager
Juniata College

Hannah was with me when I opened the email. I fell to the floor and rolled around a bit laughing and making funny noises. Let's just say I was excited.... Then I wanted to see what photo it was! So I clicked on the link and waited biting my nails to see what picture it was! And drummmmm rolll ladies and gents, here is the picture:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigsy/3959585292/sizes/m/in/pool-486770@N21/

Something Sunny, my baby.

Last summer I had an internship with the Mexican Government. I was working in my cubicle when my boss popped her head in to tell me I was going to accompany her to Tlaxcala. I didn’t know where that was but I was eager to get out of the office. She told me to run home and grab a sweater and to meet her back here in 30 minutes. We left at 12:30, keep in mind my internship ends at 3:30 everyday.
I’m assuming that Tlaxcala is somewhat close…three and a half hours later we are still driving. We arrive in the CITY of Tlaxcala and she asks me if I would like to be dropped off at the city center or the shopping mall. I stammer, “I thought I was coming with you?” She looks at me and says, “No. I have a business meeting. I’ll meet you in front of the Catedral in 4 hours.” So without a phone, without money, without a camera, I exit the car. Do you have any idea how impossible it is to find a bathroom without money in Mexico? It took 40 painful minutes to finally find a bathroom. I didn’t have any money to buy food and I hadn’t eaten lunch…I was going hungry that day.
I’d also like it noted that last summer my Spanish didn’t compare to what it is now. I often had trouble understanding conversations without a context and had trouble communicating, especially when nervous. I felt like crying. I walked through unknown city streets feeling a little scared and totally alone.
I ended up wandering down a back alley that in hindsight probably was fairly dangerous. It led me to what I can only describe as a sketchy hippie barrio. Before I fled for a safer part of town I noticed a small boutique tucked away on the corner. I entered the boutique and found to my surprise and enjoyment a picture frame boutique. It was full of bright colors, funky designs, and pop art figures painted onto thick wooden frames. I loved it! I thought they would be really cool in my dorm and thought to myself I should try and reproduce some when I get back to San Diego. (If I get back)
After a couple more hungry hours I made my way back to the cathedral where I was suppose to meet my boss. She was almost two hours late to pick me up. I was furious, upset, and frustrated. I got back that night at midnight.
When I got back to San Diego later that summer I headed to Home Depot and bought some lumber. I made four bright frames with a sunflower design. My mom took a look at them and said, “Caitlin! These look fantastic. You should sell them.” That was the only encouragement I needed.

FAST FORWARD A YEAR AND A HALF.

I will be applying for $5,000 dollars of seed capital money from the Juniata Committee December 8th. After a year and a half of business plan edits, countless hours spent in the studio, pulling my hair out over color combinations, and I have no idea how many business meetings this summer I will be launching my business. My baby. I am so excited. Let's hope the committee funds me! Wish me luck!

November 15th???!?!!?!!?!?!?!

I haven't written a blog in a while because there hasn't been much to write! I have been so busy working on my picture frame company that all the fun cultural stuff has taken a back seat. I've never felt so positive and excited about the possibilities. I almost feel like it's destined for me to make this work. I've met some girls here who will be instrumental in the completion of my business plan and financial documents. They are entrepreneurs too and have offered to help me pull it all together and are almost as excited as I am. I will be submitting my plan to the Committee December 8th. The Committee then meets again in March and I will know for sure whether I'll get the money or not by then.

Other fun stuff:
Vito, my Italian friend invited me over to his flat for an authentic Italian meal. It turns out he's a good cook! So I went to the dinner party with Hannah on Friday. He has a great flat in Gracia (the hip fun part of Barcelona) and lives with another Italian roommate. The dinner table was crowded with four Italian guys, two Spanish girls, and Hannah and I. Everyone was really great and I had a great time. We ate a seafood pasta, chicken dish, and for dessert bananas drizzled in chocolate. After that we headed over to a friend of Vito's flat for a birthday party.

We show up at the second flat and it's full of people drinking mojitos and hanging out. I talked to people from Belgium, Paris, Italy, and Spain. I felt so grown up and cultured! Hannah and I were joking that everyone has their own 'secret' language except us. The Italians could speak to each other in Italian without others understanding, and the French, and Belgiums and so on but everyone spoke english!

Saturday night the two Spanish girls we had met the night before invited us to their flat to celebrate Anna Carmen's birthday. They had made an awesome ice cream cake, an apple strudel, chocolate strawberries, vanilla ice cream, brownie cake, and this other apple cake. It was fantastic! There was also a good mix of people at their flat and Hannah and I ended up talking to two Belgiums for a large portion of the night. One looked like Heath Ledger!

It was a pretty fun weekend. I'm shocked by how nice people are here. It seems like everyone here is always inviting me to places or wanting to do fun things with me. I think it's amazing that after knowing girls for one night they would invite us to their birthday or that after doing some language exchanges with Vito he would invite me over for a great dinner. I met another girl who lives in a city South of Barcelona and she invited me to come one day and she would show me around the city. I don't know, I just think that's pretty cool.

Dark Chocolate & Port Wine

I got back an hour ago from a wonderful evening filled with delicious rich dark chocolate Toblerone fondue, fascinating conversations, and amazingly interesting strangers.

Our host was a 31 year-old German. He works as a computer researcher for Yahoo. He is trying to figure out and write codes for contextualizing query searches. Which means the data search engines based on previous information about you and outside environmental factors can help give more accurate results. Example: If someone searches the word ‘sex’ from a company computer during business hours it is more likely work and information related than if the word ‘sex’ is searched from a personal dial up computer at midnight. He also explained that Google knows things before anyone else in the world based on what people are searching. Google knows about health epidemics before governments and hospitals because they can track the symptoms people search. In addition to being a computer genius he has also completed a double iron man. That is a 5 mile swim, 200 mile bike ride, and a 52 mile run. It took him 36 hours to complete.

On the other side of the table was a Spanish couple. The man, who didn’t speak English was from Pais Vasco, a very interesting 'state' in Spain. Pais Vasco, like Catalunya (where Barcelona is located) also has a legal language other than Spanish which is not rooted in any latin words and extremely difficult to learn. I can more or less understand basic concepts in Catalan because the roots are latin and it sounds like a mix of French and Spanish. To demonstrate how different Eskudi is he turned to me and said, “What part of the United States are you from?” I didn’t understand one word, not even United States. What I found really interesting was when the discussion turned to the politics of the region. A lot of people in Pais Vasco, like Catalunya want independence from Spain. In the schools there they teach, ‘The History of Spain and Pais Vasco’. I followed the conversation, which was fast, complicated, and in Spanish, with complete ease. I felt like I was listening to it in English. I was thrilled not only because I understood so well but also because I was listening to the opinions of the Spaniards about something that I have been studying in my classes and find extremely fascinating.

And to think, I haven't even begun to talk about the chocolate! Ingamar, our host, bought five of the HUGE toblerone bars and seven bottles of high quality port wine, some of which were at least a decade older than me. We dipped bananas, oranges, apples, kiwi, muffins, and pears and also just ate chocolate. It was fantastically delicious!



When I got home Ben calculated how much chocolate I ate in pounds…. Just under half a pound. I guess I’m going running tomorrow...

pictures coming tomorrow! I'm too sleepy to put them up now :)

The Precious & Quaint Town of Girona

The best word to describe my day was lovely. I had a wonderful day.

This morning I woke up early to meet my art history class. We all boarded a bus and headed to Girona and the Salvador Dali Museum. The Salvador Museum was pretty cool, he was such a strange person....excentric doesn't even begin to describe it. I loved seeing some of the famous works that I have studied in school in person.


Even more fun for me though was exploring Girona afterwards. Girona is a beautiful, old and historic town 30 minutes from the Museum. It has old narrow cobble stone roads, adorable cafes, cute little artisan shops, gorgeous old buildings, and a river winds under bridges and through the town.

Today was a crisp chilly day and the sky was a gorgeous blue. I wandered through the city with some girls I don't usually hang out with and we stopped at a little cafe for drinks. We sat outside under the umbrellas, the cobble stones were covered with leaves. We had a perfect view of the street.

After the coffees we explored some of the little shops and I bought a white ceramic mug with a blue cow drawn the outside and the word 'Girona' scribbled on the back. The inside is a deep blue glaze. I also bought a post card with a picture of Dali's costal house. I was excited to see the picture because I had cut the very same one out of a magazine last year and had it hanging above my bed at Juniata. Our last stop was an adorable little tea shop tucked away on a side street. They had two walls full of lose leaf tea and I bought 200 grams worth in two different flavors. The teas smell fantastic. Maybe one of the top five smells I've ever smelled. I am enjoying one currently as I write this in my bed with a square of dark chocolate.

Today was an important day for me for other reasons other than a wonderful outing. Hannah has been sick for a couple days now and couldn't go on the trip. It forced me to hang out with other people, which is good because Hannah is only here for a semester so soon I will have to make a transition. I enjoyed hanging out with them.

I'm exhausted now and am about to settle down with my spanish book and finish that cup of tea.

My new FAVORITE place

So I love to cook. But, I especially love to cook with fresh, ripe, and healthy ingredients. I feel like we've been over that a couple times. So where's the new happening place in Barcelona makes me want to immediately run to my kitchen and try to make a million fresh new dishes? Barcelona's most fabulous food market. This week I went to Barcelona's world renowned market and I salivated over EVERYTHING. Row after row of exotic fruits, ripe figs, the freshest green vegetables you'll ever eat, stands of dried fruit, counters full of chocolates, olives, rounds of cheese....But I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.