We had a great time :D And I'm totally gonna miss him.
I have a couple mini photo albums of the places we went and things we did as I don't have enough time to organize them all and get them all online.
Also, I realized I never got around to posting my Toledo pictures... I will do that soon.
I'll put an entry on the 15th of December, which was when we went and write up a little blurb about the trip :)
I'll tack the mini-album links onto this post later.
Yeah. So in the next week I'll have up the rest of the Granada photos and all of my photos from Toledo, Barcelona, carnaval week here in Ciudad Real and the Madrid Zoo.
I went to the zoo yesterday :D It was totally awesome *heart*
We were able to get really close to the less dangerous animals, like all the birds they have :D There's not really a fence in their little habitat area... and if they want they can just walk right up to the edge of the bath. I got some really cool flamingo and ibis pictures this way. Also... I think I took the cutest picture of a koala that's ever been taken.
It's so cute... I'm going to upload it right now to add to this post.
*dies of cuteness* XD Napping Koala... *heart* I want to hug it...
Ok, so, the zoo!!
We took the 10:30 train from Ciudad Real to Madrid. We took the metro to the stop nearest the zoo and walked down these nice paths through a nearby park to the zoo.
First we saw all kinds of nifty birds. Their enclosures weren't really even enclosures... more just like open bird-spaces, lol. The neat stork-looking things were flying all off the park and all kinds of other birds were just kinda hanging out near the path :D
I got some really cool ibis and flamingo photos that way. The ibis was a scream. It was hillarious and I love it :D
Otherwise it was a pretty normal zoo. The tigers were amazing :D Of course :)
And this one female gorrila kept trying to see who was watching from inside :) I have a really cool picture of her cupping her hands on the glass to look in.
There was also this one chimp who would knock on the glass and hold his hands up waiting for people to throw food in through the roof of the enclosure, lol. These idiots were feeding them chips :S That can't be good for them... Well, at least as ungood for them as it is for us, lol.
Not much else I can say. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves :)
Also, I'm going to do a couple back-dated posts about Barcelona and carnaval, which means they'll appear in the blog before this post... like in the past when the stuff actually happened, lol. So keep an eye out for those. I'll post about what they are and when they're posted too. That's all for now :)
- Mood:
sleepy
So I'm sitting in our hotel room in Barcelona... which isn't actually a hotel... it's like apartments you can rent out for X days or X weeks. It's really nice. Two beds, TV, lots of drawers, a little kitchen (fridge = handy).So I studied/(tried to study) all the way here but the scenery was so gorgeous I spend a lot of time looking at it instead. We got here between 9-10. We totally took the metro from the train station to the area our room is. Turns out the metro station is like 2 seconds from our place = win. We settled in and went nearby for dinner. I ate an entire 8 piece pizza, lol. I was hungry... It was a little overpriced cause it was on the touristy strip, but it was good. Then we came back to the room and got ready for going out.
We got to the club 'Razzmatazz' at 12:30 or so, but they weren't even opening unil 1:00, so we went around the corner to this little bar and shared a calimoxo (wine/coke... yeah, sounds gross, but is actually really quite good...). At 1:00 we went back and went in. It was more or less empty... It's a huge, giant warehouse-like space with loads of awesome lights, a discoball; standard club stuff. The mixed drinks were friggin 7.50€ ... yeesh.Dragonette was supposed to be on at 2:00, but didn't get on until 3:00ish... typical Spanish organization...
The show was awesome. The played all kinds of stuff and also one song I didn't recognize and a cover of Woman by Wolfmother. Wicked. I took a lot of video with George's camera. There's no sound :'( I didn't know... I 'd have taken a lot less video and watched a lot more in person if I'd known. Sigh. I was watching from right right at teh front XD SO AWESOME!! They were great live. At the beginning she was like "I'm from Canada! Do you guys like Canada?"
I wish so bad I'd been at the front when she'd said that cause I would have been like, I AM SO ALSO FROM CANADA!!! lol.
Aw well. It was still amazing :)All the music they played at the club was super great. Some Arcade Fire too... I was totally over-dressed... eh.There were like a million British people at the club. There was one girl George was talking to, and she told her she was there for her 21st birthday. Like wtf. SO lucky. Just popping over to Spain for your birthday.
Today we got up around 2:00 because we were out so late last night with the delayed concert and all. We went to see the Sagrada Familia Cathedral, which is this huge amazing church they starting building in the early 1900s. This guy, Gaudi, continued work on it from then. He died, and they found all his plans and are completing it. Looks like it should be done in 2025. Too cool. You've just gotta see the pictures. For early 1900s this guy was WAY ahead of his time. Then we intended to go see another house by this guy, but it closed early. Then we went to see the 'Font Magica' which is this huge fountain they made for the Worlds Fair here, but it's having technical difficulties and so it's not running all weekend :(There's a light and music show with colours and everything. Boo. Aw well. The surrounding area was really amazing and full of like 100 friggin' fountains :D
Also when I was going up an escalator and taking pictures of some of the fountains at the bottom I thought George would tell me when we got to the top, but she turned around after I starting trying to take the picture and she didn't... and I tripped and landed on my back which is now killing me :'(
We went for Japanese food for dinner which was kinda weird... Had some nice sake though. George had never tried it before. Now, it is snoozie time.
Written Monday:
Yesterday we woke up around 9:00 and leisurely got ready. We were out by about 10ish or so to enjoy an incredibly overpriced breakfast. The good thing about our location was that we were so close to everything. The bad thing was that because we were, everything was pricey...I had a tiny sandwich fro 5€ and churros with chocolate for like 6€ more... Ouch. The effing juice was like... giant but its price of 7€ was NOT justifyable in any way, shape or form...After that wallet rapefest we went to see the Mirador de Colón, which is this really big monument with Christopher Columbus on top you can go up, but because it was closed for reno, se we couldn't go up it. Boo. At the top of the thing he's standing and pointing. He's supposed to be pointing at India, but my guidebook said he's not, lols. He's pointing in the wrong direction. Poor Chris. Just can't get it right, haha.
Then we got a map and started on our way to the cably car thing, which was both really high up and really cool. On the way we walked along these docks with all kinds of nifty boats. I bought some illegal street sunglasses because I had accidentally dropped mine and stepped on them earlier :'( They're ok. I got some nifty jewellery too and something for Mom :) Oh, and just before the docks we also saw this little parade of vintage VW cars going somewhere. Super cool :D The old beatles and rabbits and a couple westies all driving together. We ended up finding them again later. They were all decorated :) Pretty neat.
So we got to the cable car spot. When I actually got in the car-thing and it started like... bouncing... I said "Oh, my God." which I always say, and these German tourists next to me started chuckling "Haha, Oh mein Gott!" Then as we were reaching the halfway tower (because the distance the cable car spans is too large for just two towers) we were coming up to it really slowly into thsi narrow receiving area and everyone in the car was completely silent because it was totally intense and a little scary because we were so high up and manoevering into such a small area... we bumped into the side of the little receiving area and it was REALLY loud so I said "Jesus Christ!" because it both surprised and scared the crap out of me, and everyone in the cable car laughed at me... everyone, lol. But then the tension was broken, so I guess I was kinda useful, lol :/ My humiliation was useful...
Then once we were on the other side we took pictures. Then we went up a smaller cable car to the very top of the mountain (called Montjuic). This cable car seemed both newer and safer O_O. We ate overpriced lunch at the top.Also, at the top there was this really cool castle/fortress with a military museum inside that would ahve made Dad or Nick drool. I took a bunch of pictures of it :) There was even some Japanese stuff in it. There were like amilion of the conquistador helmets XD Then we went up to the top of the castle and we could hear the people singing at the football match from there! I managed to take a video of it. The Olympic stadium wasn't too far and because we were so high up te wind carried the sound. Then we left the museum.
By thsi point prety much everything was closed because everything closes early Sundays (if it's open in the first place...). So, we just walked around and wanted to find this gorgeous building we kept seeing we knew was called MNAC from banners hanging around. We'd only seen it from far, like in the cable cars. When we got there, it turned out we'd been there before! It was the building at the top of the spot with all the fountains, so we knew exactly how to get back to the hotel :) MNAC is the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña.
We got back to the hostal and took a nap and then went out to this India place nearby for dinner. It was really good and really cheap :) Then we went home and snoozed.
Now we're on the train and I'm pooped because we had to wake up at 6:00ish for the train at 8:00 cause we had to walk quite a bit for the station. I can say confidently that I feel I've mastered Barcelona's metro system (with George's help, lol). But I feel like if I went back I could find my way on my own. Yippee :) In the way of souvenirs I got some postcards, and that's about it. I also found a postcard on the ground... which was awesome :D Like right near our apartment, not near any stores. Just kinda waiting for me :)
Some random thoughts about Barcelona:
People say that Barcelona is the least Spanish city of Spain. My impression is both that it is quite Spanish and it isn't, haha. It isn't because of the way it feels. It's so much less pretentious than other cities ie. Madrid... where people are dressed up constantly. When we went out to the concert, we were actually overdressed for once- wtf? lol. All the folk my age wear jeans and t-shirts and sneaks for once. So chill. There were English-speaking people everywhere, no to mention, German, Japanese etc. to infinity and of course Catalán which is the regional dialect. Not mutually intelligible with Spanish; the vocab is quite different but often understandable to me as it often seems more like French than Spanish. No idea about the grammar. I only heard snatches of it spoken here and there.
So... now it be naptime :)
Ok, I'm back.
I'm going to try to stay on top of this more this semester and at least post once a week.
Yes, I have more Granada pictures to put up (it doesn't even seems possible, does it? :P) and I have pictures from Toledo and I haven't even written an account of the trip yet. AUGH!
Which is why I suck and why I'm going to get back on this stuff because I want a proper journal at the end of this full of memories, ETC :)
Ok, so I'm back in Spain. *waves little flag* nyeh.
I miss everyone from back home already, but I'm happy to see my buddies here again too.
Vy goes back to Italy in two weeks :( Boooo~
At least it seems I've managed to convince her to consider the Dragonette concert again.
This is the issue: she has a make up test to write, but her teacher is a dork and hasn't responded to her in any way after she TOLD her to contact her... so lame. So I finally got Vy to agree that if she can't get ahold of the stupid lady by Monday, we're going to book tickets and go to Barcelona. If Vy can't go... I guess I'll go alone... no matter how pathetic that seems... I REALLY want to see Dragonette. SO much. I'm kinda concerned about getting lost or something :S because we all know how incredibly amazing my sense of direction is... eh... heh... yeah. But I really want to see the concert. Plus I have my awesome GPS, so how lost can I get really? Barcelona's a major city, so it'll have satellite connection there for sure.
Also right now I'm studying my buns off for my Latin American Literature exam on the 23rd and my History of Art exam on the 30th. I'm a little nervous about both of them and I'm moving through my review material a little more slowly than I thought I would... seeing as I am the world's worst (...best?) procrastinator. I found out that www.procrastination.com is a real site... I've been there. lol. Guess how I found it?
So yeah. What else. Not much. Hopefully I'll have the Granada pictures up soon. If I remember correctly I think I had them nearly all online... I might even be done... hmm... I will have to check. But look for those soon and then eventually stuff from the Toledo trip with Vy :)
That's all for now!
~ Sam
PS... randomness! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ9sYcEEa
- Mood:
cheerful - Music:El unico fruto del amor es la banaaaaana!
I've got them divided into sub albums, which I'm going to post separately.
First comes the pictures taken inside the Alhambra that aren't of any building in particular.
Password is 'Samantha'.
Same password, as always :)
Don't think there's anything to note... except that it was awesome :D
Enjoy!
Pictures of Granada! Part 1 of 3 I think... Enjoy! Same password as before.
Lurve,
Sam
I wanted to wait until I had the pictures up, but I'm having trouble getting them up because our internet sort of goes on and off, and it usally goes off again before the picture is uploaded. Sigh. This means it takes forever to upload pictures and so I've been procrastinating, lol.
Random good news! My Spanish course if over and I got 9.5/10 wooho! 95% I guess :D All the grades are on a 10 point scale here. Yippee yahoo.
I also had a traumatic haircut yesterday, lol. It was so bad I had to go somewhere else and get it cut again... the lady just basically didn't listen to me... My roommate Alicia told me that some hairdressers in Spain just do that...
Oh. It's all good. I ended finding a really good salon and got a really great haircut at the end of it.
Also I don't know if you folks all know, but I'm doing National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo or NaNo) this month :)
My author profile is here:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/251543
Ok, Granada Trip!!
Day 1:
So Day One of the trip was Day Two of NaNo... so I had to write on the train, lol. I went on this trip with my friend George Woolfry who's from a town near London but goes to school in [MAD MASSIVE EDIT: Cardiff. Jesus. Leeds is where our friend Mark went and is not even CLOSE, lol]. She's studying Spanish and linguistics mostly it seems. She's super nice :)
So we caught the train in Ciudad Real for Granada around 8:30 AM. We got to Granada around 12:30. It was a pretyt long train trip but I got some sleep and some writing in, so that's all good. When we got to Granada I whipped out my GPS and directed us to our hotel, Hotel Sacramonte. Sacramonte is a nearby area where gypsies built their houses right into the hills and cliff-faces. It's pretty neat.
It took us forever to find a hotel online that wasn't totally full because it was a long weekend all the hotels are super small... like most average around 16 rooms... hostels too. There are some larger ones, but none near the city centre. We were about 30 minutes on foot from the Alhambra, which is a huge awesome complex of gardens, two palaces and a defensive fortress. It was Spanish first, then Moorish, then Spanish again. So some parts of it really Spanish, and other parts are really Moorish. The Moorish Palace of the Nazaries was one of my favourite things from my last trip to Spain, so I REALLY wanted to see it. You need tickets for the Palace of the Nazaries, the gardens and the Alcazaba, which is the fortress. There's another palace, a church and ... random areas, lol, that you don't need tickets for.
So we rolled into the hotel and checked in. It was a nice little place :) I shoulda took pictures of it, but didn't. We went out for lunch at this nice little cafe we found nearby with really great service and awesome food :)
We decided to take a walk up to the Alhambra to see if any tickets were randomly available. (There were no tickets for the Alhambra left online either... but in my guidebook it said that they release several hundred at random periods throughout the day, and 4:00 is a really popular time for them to do it). We got there around 4:00, no tickets available. But the lady told us if we showed up the next morning between 6:30-7 AM we could probably get tickets. So we explored the parts of the Alhambra you don't need tickets for and then went back down the hill to see the awesome cathedral. I forgot to mention. The Alhambra is on top of a HUGE hill. I don't think I have any pictures that really illustrate it well, but yeah. I'll see what I have. It's just ridiculous. And we climbed the hill like twice the first day and at least 3 or 4 times the second day. My knees were KILLING me from the end of th weekend. Not even so much from climbing the hill, but from going down it. It was so steep my knees were just jarred by every step down the darn thing. Ugh. Evil hill.
After the cathedral we went back to our hotel for a nap and then we went out for dinner. All the Moorish influence in the city made us want some ethnic food. We found a really amazing Indian restaurant that was completely empty when we got there (because we went for dinner at 8:00 when everything was just opened. Most Spanish people don't go out to eat until 9:30-10 at night... those crazies... lol)
Then we went home and SLEPT. We was pooped.
Day 2:
Began FAR too early at 5:30 in the morning :'(
We went downstairs, checked out of the hotel (because checkout was at 12:00, and we didn't know if we'd be able to make it back in time) and stored our bags. We walked in the dark, in the cold, UP THE HILL OF DOOM to the Alhambra.
It was cold.
For Spain. lol.
Like probably around 1 or 2 degrees. I was wearing a sweater and a fall coat but I didn't have mitts or a hat or anything. We were a little chilly at first walking, but as soon as we got going we were fine. The hill fixed the coldness problem. Friggin' hill. By the time we got to the top I had removed my coat and sweater, lol. We got there about 6:15 and there were already probably 200 or so people there...
Then we stood in line until 8:00 AM. Boring. Boring. Boring. But mostly COLD!! It was fine walking, but standing still in 1-2 degree weather for almost 2 hours... I don't care who you are, it gets cold. Because you can't move, you can only stand there... and freeze...
Finally around 8:15 the line started moving!! WE GOT TICKETS!! VICTORY!! lol. Except we didn't actually get to the front of the line for another hour... But the sun started coming out finally and warmed us up somewhat :)
Turns out our time to get into the Palacio de los Narazies was at 12:30 (the Palace isn't super huge, so you have to show up at the specific halfhour period listed on your ticket). So we went back down the hill to find us some breakfast! We found a nice little place and had ham and cheese sandwiches, fresh-squeezed orange juice and chocolate con churros!! Chocolate con churros is my FAVOURITE thing ever. lol. I have to learn how to make it so I can have it in Canada. I don't think I can live without them now. Churros are these deepfried bread things that aren't really super remarkable by themselves, but you dip them in this cup of hot chocolate that's closer to melted chocolate than any watered down hot chocolate we have in Canada... it's amazing :D The whole breakfast only cost 5€ woohoo!
We did some random shopping, and I found some stuff for Erin for Xmas :3
Then we booted 'er back up the hill to go see the Palace of the Nazaries. I LOVE it. SO much. You will see the pictures and understand. Then we checked out the Palace of Carlos someone-or-other which is really cool because it's square from the outside but round inside :) I didn't take a picture of the floor... because I'm a dork. I just somehow didn't... I'll see if I can find a picture on the net to throw in with mine so you guys can have a clearer idea of what it looks like.
After all the Alhambra stuff we were super tired and super hungry. It took us ages to get through it all. We were so sick of it we just skipped the gardens, lol. We were like, yeah, food is WAY more important than gardens. We headed back down the hill to get us some lunch. We ate at this really great Spanish place and had paella. It was super excellent, and the first proper Spanish paella I've had. I have to learn to make it too :)
Then we did some more shopping and just sorta strolled around town for a bit. Then we went to the train station and caught our train home :)
The End!!
I'm uploaded the trip pictures as I make this post :D
It might be a bit before I get them all up as I definitely have over a hundred and it takes several minutes a picture.
Oh! Another random thing. The friggin gypsies were EVERYWHERE. They do this thing, which I knew about from last time I was in Spain, where they give you a flower or rosemary or something and then make you pay for after you think it's free. It's not, lol. They will try ANY method to get you to take it, such as jamming it in your hand or pocket or telling you bullshit like it's a tradition of the city. LIES! ALL LIES!! lol.
So we developed several gypsy avoiding methods, most of them involved having hands full of other things, not making eye contact or just passing them at a brisk walk or even a run. haha.
That's all for now.
Love and awesome,
Sam from Spain
But more pictures.
I've uploaded the pictures to the journal, but on the days they were actually taken, so the 15th, 19th and 29th of September.
Check out the entries to see the pictures :) The password is 'Samantha'.
I've also got a couple pictures that don't belong in either or those albums.
They were taken the morning Vy and I wanted to go to Madrid, but found out our training wasn't running...
This picture is of... McDonalds. No, you cannot escape McDonalds.
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j170/t
This one is of the train station.
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j170/t
S'all for now. More pictures to come.
Here are the first pictures :)
The apartment. I realize I don't have any pictures of my room yet. I can't take pictures of it at night, because the light I have throws weird shadows over everything. So the pictures I have are no good. I can't take new pictures right now, because I want my room to be all nice and spotless in the pictures :) and I either have time to post these pictures OR clean the room before I go to class. So, room pictures later.
I'm cutting this for hugeness for so many pictures. Clicky the link to get to them.
- Music:Flathead ~ The Fratellis
Today I went to Madrid with Viviana :) We had loads of fun, but are really tired... We walked all over the city and checked out all kinds of cool shops. All I came home with was some pins (of course, lol) some postcards and suspenders!! Yay!! Finally... I've been looking for them everywhere. And they only cost like 7$ Cnd. w00t. I'll get the pictures up as soon as I have time. Actually, tonight I'm going to work on getting my pictures online. I've already got about half of them, so that's good :) I'll post a link here are soon as I have it done.
We ate some awesome Spanish food today.
Lunch: Spanish tortilla, which is like... an omelet... that also has mashed potato in it :D and a ham sandwich.
Dinner: AMAZING pasta, veggie and tuna salad... mmmmm :) There was tomato and corn :D SO tasty, and chicken crockets, which are like... these little fried things... also with potato, lol, and chicken-y flavour. I think the chicken and potato are all blended together or something....
So yeah :)
Also... I went into a million shoe stores... and my size isn't here :(
Boo. I thought Madrid would have more, but totally no. Oh well. I'll buy shoes at Xmas.
That's all for now!
I'm going to post some old posts I have written on paper from when I didn't have internet, so look out for those too.
- Mood:
worn out. - Music:Grace Kelly ~ Mika
There is one picture in particular I have to point out and comment on... Go to this site... you will see a tree that is growing on a lamppost... that looks like a muppet, lol. There are more than one of them. These things are hillarious.
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j
Anyway, here's the album. Same password ('Samantha').
And the pictures are mostly in reverse order with a few out of order here and there...
Yesterday was my first day of school. I had intended to make this post last night when I had random stolen wireless in my room... but not. It kept dying, and I was trying to talk to my Mom, and before a her, a bunch of oteh rpeople were talking to me, etc. I talked with Nick until like 1:30 in the morning... I am so tired :'(
SO. FIrst day of classes. My Anthro. course is going o be awesome. The teacher seems like a really super guy. I found out you can't get a degree in anthropology in Spain. How much does that suck? My teacher (if I understood correctly) has his masters in Anthro; he got it in the US though. The idea of the US melting pot of cultures leading to a new American culture seems to be a great point of interest to him, and he compared the whole American melting pot culture to Spanish culture, which is apparently quite similar in the whole 'we're going to assimilate you' kind of way...
Yesterday, waiting fo rmy 1st class to start (it was 9:25, my class was at 9:30), and I figured, being the eager little beaver I am, I would go sit in the empty class. By the window in the door, the light in the room really looked off. I repeat... LOOKED off. So I opened the door, and there's a class full of people. RIght away I wonder if I didn't screw up the times, and my class isn't like right now started half an hour before. So the teacher tells me to come in and sit down, so I do. Back comes the first day handout.
Latin II. Oh. This is not my class... OK, no big deal. Only 5 minutes left, I'll just pretend to take notes for 5 minutes and leave... and never come back. I check the time on my phone after a while... 9:33.
Oh. What if I'm in the wrong room?!
So I waited for teacher to turn around to write something on the board, and I made like a banana and I got the heck outta there...
So apparently I being every sentence I write with 'So', sigh.
I need to make better use of my joining words, right Aunt Di? lol.
As I leave the classroom, I feel the urge to share my experience with the first people I see, because that's how I am, so I tell, in Spanish, two girls just outside of the door. I go to move ouf of the way of the door and wait a bit further down the hall, and I hear one girl say to the other in English 'What did she say?' So I swung around, 'Erasmus!' (which is what we exchange students are called, it's the program). Their names are Ellie and Daxa, and they're British :) They're really nice.
That's it for now.
Pictures are in reverse order I think... or just out of order again... sigh.
So the guy is finally here to fix the damn hot water... FINALLY!
Also... it turns out that we thought the over was broken... but it wasn’t... my roommate just didn’t know how to use it, and thought it was broken... and told us it was broken.
The guy here is like a cross between a plumber and an electrician. He fixed our hot water heater and he’s fixing a broken plug-in in my room. Apparently... he’s magical. But unfortunately... he smells.
He’s in my room fixing the plug right now, and I can smell him in the next room... BO. Ew.
So Vy and I are hanging out more or less all the time. She starts class this week.
I’m finally registered, which is good. All kinds of crazy crap is still going on with my visa, but I just don’t even want to think about it.
Summary: I don’t a visa. I can’t get one here. My parents have to go to Toronto to bring in my paperwork and I have to get them a power of attorney to do that. I won’t have my visa before it’s illegal for me to be here. I’ll be getting it (hopefully) when I got home for Christmas after having been in Spain illegally for 2 weeks. I am PRAYING that no one turns me in... apparently Spain has a hugely, massively high amount of illegal immigrants, so some student without a visa for two weeks apparently isn’t going to cause a lot of fuss... yeah.
Tonight we should finally get internet. Yes. All good things.
Tomorrow I have to mail some stuff to my parents and make an appointment with a lawyer...
Vy and I might go to Toledo this week if I have my money by then.
Le sigh. Hopefully, I do.
Ok, on this outing we walked all over town and saw some of its landmarks. We also visited the graveyard, which is apparently the home to approximately ONE MILLION CATS... Vy was really freaked out to be in a graveyard, lol. I was like... but it's so cool-looking in there... and she was like, cool?! It's SAD!
The cats were way weird though.
The pictures in this album are really out of order. I'm not sure how to reorganize them in my album.
Password is 'Samantha'
I just finished having lunch with Viviana and her mom :) So good!! Vegetable broth soup with these crazy noodles that were like suction cups... they kept sticking to the inside of my mouth... (FELT SO WEIRD!! :S especially when they stuck to my throat when I was swallowing them... ahhhhh!) and also this chicken... I think it was chicken... lol.
I’m way more relaxed than this morning. I called the Canadian embassy and they told me I can’t get my visa here... Dad seems to think I can call or go to some immigration and foreign affairs office... but I don’t know if there is one... or if they do visas. So, I’m going to go back to the university and search on the internet to see if there is such a place and if they do visas. I was looking at the list of all the courses available... there’re a lot of cool ones :)
So far, I’m thinking of:
- Intro to Italian
- Intro to Latin
- History is religions in the old world
- History of art
- Spain in the ... Siglo de Oro... erm, yeah. No idea how to say that in English. Gold Era? ... something like that...
- Prehistory of the Iberian peninsula
- History of Spanish literature
Some of them are half year courses... I haven’t checked yet whether or not they’d fit in my schedule or not... I ran out of time. Viviana told me to be home for 2 for lunch, and I ended up being 15 minutes late because I lost track of time looking at classes on the internet, so I rushed home and lunch wasn’t until after 3. lol. Yeah. It seems like people just don’t even care. Like this morning, Eli told me we’d go to the bank at 10, so I got up at 9, showered, etc. and she didn’t even get up until almost 11... and then didn’t have enough time to go to the bank with me... lol. Sigh. Assuming the bank is open tomorrow, I’m going to go and sign my contract. If it’s not, I’m going to go to the ORI and talk to Barbara... if she’s there. If she’s not... I’m going to go find the post office and mail a card to Memere... if it’s open. Man, I didn’t think there was a place disorganized enough for me to be like WTF GUYS?! and I’m pretty bad...
I think Viviana wants me to go shopping with her again. I need another box for under my bed and some sort of thingy to hold pens, pencils, etc. on my desk.
I just might take a nap now... There’s supposed to be some party tonight... sigh. I’m all for parties usually, but I’m still exhausted. I’m especially tired from freaking out this morning, but I don’t think I’m even used to this time zone yet... my stomach certainly isn’t. I’m still getting hungry at my usual Canadian meal times. Stupid weird late meals. Ah well.
It looks like my feet are gargantuan here too... :( I’m just totally outta luck concerning shoes. Booo~
OK, today.
Today I accomplished loads. I went to the ORI, which is the international students centre, and spoke to a lady who gave me my forms for registration.
I found out that school doesn’t start until the 24th. TWO WEEK HOLIDAY!! WOO!!
I met some people from the states who are going to be helping to teach an English class. Speaking English felt extremely good. Like getting out of (girls) that outfit you wear because it’s awesome but NOT comfortable at ALL and putting on pyjamas.
I hung around with Viviana more or less all day, and I am discovering slowly that she speaks about as much Spanish as I do... maybe less. She speaks a little English... very little... and between Spanish, Italian, English and many, many hand gestures we’re usually able to understand each other
Viviana is extremely cute. She’s very short and slight and bubbly. She got super excited over these puppies we saw today and I just wanted to pat her on the head. Too adorable. She also loved Antonio :) (For those of you who don’t know... my sister got me the most awesome poster of Antonio Banderas for my birthday... it was stolen out of a library by Tyler, LOL. He’s looking sultrily at the camera while holding a copy of ‘Don Quixote’ and telling people he helps the libraries of America, double lol.)
[Aside]
Steph, this is directed specifically at you. You would love Viviana. Not just because she’s a super sweetheart and generally all around nice person, because she has Angelina Jolie’s lips.
The first time I saw her, I was like HOLY CRAP Angelina Jolie. But she doesn’t really look that much like her beyond her amazing lips. She has dark eyes and if she wasn’t so bubbly and also petite I could call her sexy, but I can’t, because she’s just too damn cute.
I’m actually taller than everyone I’ve met so far except for the Americans at the ORI.
It’s kinda weird. When I was talking with mom on the internet at the ORI I told her that now I know what Erin feels like and mom said ‘How do you think Erin would feel there?’ and I was like... wow, that’s an excellent point.
I also found out Erin got into jazz on bari!! Yay!!
I went shopping with Viviana and her Mom and bought some tupperware and a box to keep stuff in under my bed because I don’t have nearly enough storage. I’m going to get one more to keep all my important papers and Canadian money in. I’m alone tonight until a bit after 10 when Alicia gets home from work.
I was home alone last night actually, which was kinda nice. I was able to relax and unpack and just chill and do my thing. When Alicia and Viviana saw my room was all organized this morning they were like... holy crap, you did that all yesterday, your room is so organized. For the record, this is ME we’re talking about. I found it still a little untidy... but they were like whoaaa so clean...
Things are just way more laid back here. Everyone just does things at their own pace and too bad for everyone else. This sometimes makes people angry... This guy at the airport started freaking out at one of the airport officials... it was super stressful... but I took advantage of everyone stopping and staring to sneak onto a cap, haha. The cabbie looked up and me, and I was like... I’m outta here... and I snuck past all the people observing the fight who’d been waiting for a cab and hopped in. Then, some lady saw me do it, and got mad at another airport official. It was crazy.
I slept really poorly last night. I had crazy nightmares about traveling and actually woke up in a cold sweat, sick to my stomach :( ... I never know whether to add punctuation after smiley faces. Does a smiley face constitute punctuation? Lol. But then I sat around for a bit and relaxed and when I got back to sleep I slept really well.
Viviana’s mother made us lunch and dinner today. This lady is a good cook too. I’m not sure when she’s going back to Italy... maybe she’s just going to live with us all year... and cook for us... haha.
Wishful thinking right there. For dinner she made these boiled potatoes, skinned and covered with olive oil and some salt and oregano... and tomatoes the same way... so good... All served cold... I want to try making potatoes like that. When Viviana asked me if I liked potatoes I almost laughed.
In my head I was like YESSSS, POTATOES!!
Last night... I tried to turn the TV on when I was by myself, and it wouldn’t work. I was really confused. The TV looked on, like, the power button on the TV was obviously pressed in and there was a light on, but no image. The power button on the remote did nothing. I tried a bunch of other buttons, nothing. Turns out the channel up button turns it on... weird. Other things different from Canada: My pillow is really wide... like as wide as the single bed, and shorter than our pillows and the pillowcase has no bottom. It’s open on both ends. When I finally got the pillow case on it... it fell out the other side, and I was like O_O WHOA!! What just happened here!? And then I saw. No, not a hole, meant to be that way. Yup. Viviana says the pillows in Italy are pretty much like Canadian pillows. She thought the pillowcase was hillarious. Like, hillarious enough to run and show her mom. Lol. I was trying to be all culturally suave or whatnot and nonchalantly mention that the pillowcase had no bottom, thinking that this must be normal in Europe. Apparently not everywhere in Europe, haha.
I’m thinking of buying a little blackboard to put on my wall, to remind me of stuff. They have them at this little bazaar near my apartment. It’s kinda like a buck store, in that it has everything, only stuff is more than a buck... and there’s more stuff... I found a cork board there for 2 bucks cheaper than the one I bought... >:( boo. I hate that.
When I went shopping with Viviana and her mom, we went to this mall that’s three bus stops away from our apartment :) It costs 0.75€ to ride the bus. There’s a really big grocery store there (much closer than the other one we went to), and a bunch of shops. There was a shoe store :) I saw this pair I really like... They’re black patent with a midsize heel and a strap a little lower than the ankle. They look pretty oldschool. They’re only like 23€. I was like... O_O I have to look up the exchange rate to remind myself that I’m not looking at dollars.
Today’s September 11th. They talked about it on the news... even though I couldn’t understand most of it, lol. I was like awww, Stacey’s in New York... I hope she’s having fun :) Alicia turned the TV on during lunch, and Eli turned it on when I had lunch with her on Monday. I wonder if it’s a Spanish thing... Viviana was all surprised to find out when we eat dinner in Canada. When we finished dinner around at 9:15, she asked me what time it was in Canada, and I said it’s six hours earlier, so it’d be 3:15, and she said oh, your family must be eating lunch now, and I said... um, nope, and explained to her when we eat. When I said my family has dinner around 5:30-6:00, she gave me this face that was like Whaaat? No way. It was pretty funny.
We don’t have hot water right now :( It’s broken. The guy’s supposed to come fix it tomorrow or the day after :’( I just want a hot bath... so bad... I took a FREEZING shower this morning. Like, c-c-c-cold. It woke me up, that’s for sure. Haha.
I’m going to figure out how my new alarm clock works now. It’s one of those ones with the bells... but it turns out it doesn’t actually use the bells... it just beeps :( I didn’t look closely enough at it. I thought it was painted metal, but it’s plastic. I should known when I picked it up... I’m a dork.
S’all for now folks :)
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samventures- Sam's Adventures in Spain!
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