Well! Time is flying past so quickly, but a lot has happened since my last entry. That weekend was the last weekend of freedom before classes on Monday. Friday night was similar to the Friday of the week before, basically a night of putting my Spanish to the test (due to everyone being native Spanish speakers), having some drinks and going to a fiesta. Good fun, and my Spanish is still slowly improving. The people here say that my Spanish is much better than most Spaniards' English, so that's encouraging! It does get frustrating though when there's obscure conversations that completely lose you, or when you want to say something but can't remember the word.
On Saturday night I ended up going out with a bunch of people from my Residencia to a club called Mary's Place. It was a nice club and the music was good, although one drink cost 10€! Needless to say, I only had the one... plus, I had drank some wine at 0.40€ per litre just before going out so it wasn't too expensive a night! It was good to get to know more of my neighbours, and there's another night out planned for this Tuesday, I believe.
Here's some of us: 
On Sunday I went to the beach with an amigo, had some crêpes and just wandered around, 'cuz it was a fine day. As usual. I'm not joking though, they call it Sunny Spain for a reason! For example, the other day I was sitting outside drinking my coffee and writing notes from a lecture, but the table was so hot that I couldn't put my arms on it. Obviously I'm not complaining!
Monday, classes, whoopee. Well, all week actually. When I got my timetable, it was fairly rubbish! Every day I had an 8am start and some days I wasn't finished until 9pm. Luckily now I've managed to switch into different groups so it's a bit more acceptable, although the days are still pretty long, sometimes 7 hours solid with no breaks. My favourite subject so far is LP = Lllenguatges de Programació (guess what that means). The lecturer is Italian, so I can understand her Spanish really well, and the course is really interesting too. We're going to be learning a programming language with no variables... *gasp*
All of my classes seem fairly decent really, 3 are taught in Spanish and 2 in Catalan, and I've found that if I really concentrate on every single word, I can follow them not too badly! I've also started my intensive Catalan course, which is going well. The teacher isn't exactly a 'legend' like my Spanish teachers in the past have been, but she knows her stuff. I can now say the very basic things; my name is, where I live, the days of the week...
On Tuesday night there was a fiesta at a nightclub called BeCool with the Erasmus Student Network, free Sangria!! It was a good night and I kept bumping into more people I knew, although the place was absolutely choca-block-packed with exchange students and it was hard to move or speak! Dancing was the only option 
Oh, another thing which I should mention. Everyone warns you about the pickpockets in Barcelona. I don't know how, but at some point the cards went missing from my wallet. My debit card, my driving licence, and my student card. I'm convinced I wasn't pickpocketed though – there was money in my wallet which was not taken, and it's highly unlikely that a thief would take a wallet out of someone's pocket, take their student card and driving licence and leave the money before slipping it back into their pocket.
That was enough of an ordeal, I had to phone up the bank and order a replacement and everything... but it was sorted out, or so I thought. Like a week later I checked my online banking to notice a transaction of more 700€ made in Paris. I probably had smoke coming out of my ears, if I knew how to swear in Spanish, that would've been the perfect time to practise! The transaction shouldn't really have cleared, but it must have been authorised before the card was properly cancelled. Luckily Nationwide has now claimed the money back and it's in my account again. So, let that be a lesson to y'all – look after your bits of plastic!!
On Friday night I went for tea, and then onwards to a club. I can't go through the whole year blogging about nightclubs! From Friday until Wednesday is Barcelona's biggest festival, La Mercè. It's a bit mad, there are over 600 events during the festival, free concerts galore, street parties and all sorts of craziness! On Saturday night I went with a few people from the Residencia to see the Correfoc – or fire run. It was nuts, they have hundreds of people running through the streets with basically catherine wheels on sticks, and large dragonish monsters which shoot fire. It's not particularly safe, lots of people had scarves tied over their heads and were wearing goggles and things to protect themselves.
It was really good fun though, and I ended up randomly talking to some American exchange students who we later bumped into on the way to the Festival Pirotècnic Internacional de Barcelona, the big firework show that they have each night. We all went to the supermarket, bought a carton of Sangria, and sat on the beach to watch the show. As you do!
After that, another nightclub in L'Eixample which was doing a free entry before 1am and open bar-type-thing. Fun fun fun!
Tonight I think I'll be going out to see some of the calmer sights of La Mercè, because I have classes tomorrow. Thanks to La Mercè, we get the day off on Wednesday to party. As you may have noticed, people in Barcelona... like to party.
Finally, I have heard, from two reliable sources, what they do here at Christmas time. Like a week before Christmas Eve, you buy a log, and you paint a big smiley face on it. Then every day you have to feed the log to make it nice and full and happy. On Christmas Eve, they put a blanket over the log, and the children all get big sticks. Then they stand in a circle around the log, sing a special song, and beat the nice happy log with their sticks. In the words of our orientation guide girl, “then the log shits out lots of little presents!” Aaw, what a lovely tradition.
