Moving in and becoming Movistars

This morning we made the great trek from the hotel to our dorm. Ok, so trek might be an exaggeration — it was about five blocks. But my baggage is now adorned with bright yellow "HEAVY" stickers, so it took two trips and a lot of heaving.

We checked into our rooms, which look exactly like the website tour promised. (I'll post my own pictures once we're totally settled) Our rooms came well-equipped with everything from lamps and bulletin boards to pots and a bottle opener. In our very spacious double, Paige and I have our own bathroom and kitchen.

The Residencia is in l'Eixample (pronounced le-SHAMP-ull), a chic residential neighborhood of the city. Surrounding the building is the smaller neighborhood of Fort Pienc, which seems to be the pseudo Chinatown of the city. We visited a number of stores all conveniently named "Orient Bazaar" and bought essentials for the apartment. We also stopped by the supermercat, conveniently located next door to our building.

After a few hours of unpacking, six of us set off the find cell phones. Yesterday we had tried to do the same at a Vodafone store, but had a few issues to contend with. I had tried to acquire a SIM card for my phone, but was told that all of the SIM cards in the entire city were sold out, and they didn't know when any more would come in. The cell phones that Paige, Matt and Jeremy (Matt's roommate) had purchased, could not be activated. We headed to the nearest Vodafone store to sort out the predicament, but found it closed. We had already made it to Plaça Catalunya, one of the central squares of the city, so we decided to walk around and investigated the main branch of El Corte Ingles, Spain's catch-all department store. Luckily for us, the seventh floor turned out to be an electronics department complete with representatives from all the local phone companies.

Much to our surprise, we were informed that the entire Vodafone system had been hacked into, and was not working anywhere in the entire country — a fact the first Vodafone salesperson had neglected to mention. Nearly two hours later, we emerged with six functioning Movistar cell phones and new nine-digit Spanish numbers.

The entire operation exhausted us, and we were quite hungry. (We haven't adjusted to the truly unique meal schedule of the country) Around the corner from the Residencia, we found a small cafe with outdoor seating and had our first tapas experience of the semester. Sitting around the table, leisurely eating our food and enjoying the early evening breeze, we all decided this is a lifestyle we can definitely adjust to.