805 Words to Describe the Week of a Lifetime

All I can say about this past week is wow! It has been a whirlwind of an adventure and excitement. As far as school goes, it was pretty light. We had a four day weekend so school was only Monday through Wednesday. The best day was definitely Wednesday, where we visited a local poultry farm. We learned about raising ducks and the force feeding that is performed in order to increase the size of the liver for foie gras. The way they treated the ducks gave me mixed emotions. They were kept in small, individual cages, in which they could barely move. They were also constantly excreting because they were in a permanent state of digestion. It honestly looked horrible. I remind myself, though, that they are animals and they don't know any different. It also French culture and I have to respect that. I am still processing what I saw that day, and trying to form an accurate opinion about it. 
After our short week of school, we headed to Barcelona, Spain! If only it had been quite that simple to hop on our train and arrive there. Our direct train departing from Toulouse had been cancelled. After rearranging our new route, with a train change in Narbonne, we thought the storm had settled. Boy, was I wrong. We arrived in Narbonne and went inside to find out what train we were supposed to be getting on, because they were not clearly labeled and our ticket didn't have a train number. Well by the time we made it back outside to hop on the train, it had left without us. So, we tried to be resourceful. We looked at the departures schedule, and saw another train leaving in a few minutes for Barcelona. We hopped on that train and arrived at the end of the line. Needless to say, we were not in Barcelona. At this point, we were all a little frustrated and exhausted. I made my way to the Chief of Station and she rearranged our tickets for us. We arrived about two hours later than we should have in Barcelona, but we made it! It was quite the adventure. I felt really accomplished that we had figured it all out, even if it took longer than expected. 
On Friday, we spent the whole day exploring the city. It was raining, but we certainly made the best of it. We found that a lot more people in Spain spoke English than in France. It was slightly refreshing to be able to communicate with everyone we came in contact with, and to have a chance to practice my rusty Spanish! Saturday morning we headed to the Picasso Museum bright and early. The art was incredible, of course, but I was also intrigued by the architecture of the building. It was traditional Spanish style on the outside, but the inside had been remodeled extremely modern, with the exception of a few brick walls here and there, adding extreme contrasts to the room. After the museum, we headed to the beach. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the beach seemed to be the place to be! We soaked up the sun for a few hours, until it started sprinkling. We took a little walk around the beach and marina. We even passed the nudist beach, which was certainly a culture shock for me! I had never seen people walking around so openly. 
Saturday night we ate one of the best meals of my life. I had tuna tartar with avocado and a salmon caviar garnish, and chilean sea bass with fried apples and raspberry jam. Fue muy sabrosa! On our walk home from dinner, we saw dozens of SWAT style vans driving down La Rambla (one of the main streets in Barcelona). As we continued on, we discovered a huge riot. It was very intimidating and scary to see so many people chanting, and not understanding what they were saying. I found out later that they were upset about a housing situation in Barcelona. Apparently, young people without jobs will take over condemned buildings and produce their own electricity and water and live there. The Spanish government has apparently been letting this go on for a while, but has recently decided to stop it because it is illegal. So, in result, thousands of young Spanish gathered in La Rambla to let the Spanish government know how they felt about that. 
I had an amazing week, with the opportunity to learn not only about French culture and food, but also Spanish culture! I have been having an amazing time here in Europe, and have learned more about culture, life, and myself in the past two weeks than in all my previous 20 years combined! Can't wait to see what is in store the next few weeks!