Finally in Barcelona!

Well it took some time to get here, but it was definately worth the wait. I took the train from Nice along the French Riviera to Cannes, then Marseille (a very cool city, wish I had more time there), to Montpellier, and then finally to Barcelona. I arrived in Barcelona at 11pm so I was a little apprehensive to carry around my life on my back and it turns out I had a good reason to be worried. As I was getting onto the Metro, a theif intentionally tripped me and felt up my leg to try and steal money that may have been stored there. Luckily, there was none and my scream scared him away. This is no need to worry though. Barcelona is a very safe town, but like many other European cities, petty crimes like pick pocketing has become quite common. Trust me, I´d rather be in Barcelona at 4am lost on Las Ramblas then on the streets of Detroit. Nevertheless, I was here and after this incident everything was great. ¡Me encanta Barcelona!
The next morning I met my program at a hotel for our two-day orientation. As expected, I was nervous as these things are usually sink or swim. Things went perfectly, probably because of my aforementioned anxiety. Turns out we were randomly paired up for roommates and we had two free nights at a four star hotel in the heart of Barcelona, plus free meals at nice restaurants. My roommate, Joey, is also a CU student and my first friend here in Barca. Our entire program consists of about 30 people, from which about 14 are from CU and I knew none of them beforehand (or that CU was such a feeder to this program). We also have students from: CSU, UT, Northwestern, Harvard, Case Western, Davidson, Texas Tech and a few others. It also turns out that another one of my good friends here, John, was in one of my classes last semester in Boulder, ¡Que ridiculo! This is one of the aspects that I really like about the program, that is, how students from different backgrounds and social clicks who would otherwise never become friends indeed become friends. Also, due to our short stint here in Barcelona, we all have become very sociable to each other very quickly.
Another neat aspect of our program are our ¨Guardian Angels.¨ Once we got over the cult-like names, we all became very appreciative of this aspect. Guardian Angels are local students from Barcelona around our age who take out to meals (payed for by our program) and do different activities around town to help us better understand the culture of Barca. Also, they help us with our Castellano, as they are all at least trilingual (Castellano/Spanish, Catalan, English). Also, my GA, Ares and one other one, Juan Miguel, have taken us out at night become our good friends.
We were all excited to try our first Tapas and Pinxos for dinner the first night. It was great! Our first plate consisted of classic Catalan chorizos or sausages and different types of cheese. Also, the Catalan bread that accompanies dinner is like French bread with tomato sauce rubbed on it, very delicious. The next dish was paella consisting of pasta and various seafood, also very tasty. Also, no Catalan meal would be complete without some Cava, or Spanish Champagne. It´s very sweet and I can´t really say that I love it.
Anyways, that´s all for now, hope you´ll read on as I report back.