Around the World With Dartmouth Women's Soccer - Sixth Installment

It's a double-dose to wrap things up with our world travelers as sophomores Kelsey Quick (Bernardsville, N.J.) and Myra Sack (Wynnewood, Pa.) check in from Barcelona, Spain.

Hi from Spain! Kelsey and I are taking three classes through the ALBA program in Barcelona. The classes are all unbelievably interesting and relevant. We are taking a combination of art and architecture, geography and modern society of Spain, Almodovar film, and government classes. It's amazing being in the middle of Barcelona and studying exactly what we see every single day. Through some of our classes we have done field studies to Sagrada Familia, Gaudia?s Park, Catalan Parliament, Picasso Museum and the Olympic Stadium.

Our apartment is right smack in the center of Catalunya. Catalunya is the most developed region in Spain. (Barcelona is the capital city of Catalunya) Our apartment is gorgeous and is in the most perfect location. We live right off La Rambla which is the best known landmark and most famous street in Barcelona.
It's pretty amazing getting the opportunity to spend a term living in a major city. (Quite a contrast to Hanover, NH!) Kelsey and I cook dinner every night for ourselves and have actually become quite good chefs and bargain shoppers! We make up all of our recipes and some turn out better than others but we'll have to share our homemade teriyaki salmon recipe and orange, pineapple chicken when we get back!

The weather has been great so we are able to play soccer and run with locals. Everyone is so friendly and eager to incorporate us into their city and all of the traditions. People are always surprised and impressed by female athletes so often when we're running we get applause and whistles from people in the street (we weren't so sure about that at first, but it's part of the culture!) We were also able to attend a Barcelona game at Camp Nou. The stadium is unbelievable and the "football" was even more impressive than the stadium, which seats 120,000 people!

Barcelona is definitely the place to be for football lovers and we just can't get enough of it! Every restaurant has games on and no one talks about any other sport. Every morning we grab a local paper and check the standings to see how Barcelona is doing. Just the other night, we watched the Barcelona vs. Celtic game which was being played here in Barcelona at Camp Nou. Although we didn?t get tickets to the game it was still a really neat experience to watch the game with locals and feel some of the Barcelona pride.

Kelsey and I also had the chance to travel around Europe a bit during our week off from school. We stayed in Paris for two nights, Rome for a few nights, and ended our trip in Capri. In Paris, we saw the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, Sen river, Arc de Triomphe and so much more. We also got a private tour of Mont Martre which is where all the famous artists (Picasso, Vangogh, Dali, and so many more) lived, ate and hung out! To wrap up our visit to Paris we made it to the top of the Eiffel tower!! We climbed the first 800 steps and then took an elevator the rest of the way up. The view was breathtaking! We also did our share of touring in Rome where we went to the ancient ruins, toured the Coliseum, and spent the afternoon in Vatican City.

Kelsey Quick '10

Now we are just enjoying our last few weeks in Barcelona. We are obviously excited to return to spring soccer but are definitely enjoying the Spanish culture and lifestyle. We are constantly just telling ourselves how lucky we are to have this off-term experience--definitely a huge perk to the D-Plan!