For the past week, I've been watching a bunch of Disney movies (Prince of Egypt, Mulan 1 and 2, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pocahontas) and non-Disney movies (Dennis the Menace, Angels in the Outfield, Thumbelina). I just missed being a kid, missed not having to worry about all the bullshit that goes on in my life, and of course missed singing along to all the awesome songs. I totally forgot how amazinggg the soundtrack to the Prince of Egypt was, especially the opening song with the mom singing to baby Moses and then the song that Moses' sister and wife sings after Ramses let's everyone go free. Vicky and I were belting it out because we reallyyy needed a miracle since we're STILL waiting on our school to give us the thumbs up to take the 4 classes we found and to be enrolled in that department. Vicky's mom was telling us that God hears our prayers, but He's just busy with everyone else's right now and can't get to ours yet haha. We talked to the international relations office this morning and they said they should get an answer from the department on Monday, so that's when we'll find out if we can stay here, or go home. That means God has 3 days to work his magic!!
The 4 classes we found seem pretty interesting and what's even better is that we only have to take them to get credit instead of grades, meaning we don't have to take it too seriously, just enough to pass, woo hoo!! One of the classes is History and Culture of Britain. I looove the professor because he's the one who helped us find some of our classes. Really great and funny guy. Oh and he's gay, so I love him even more haha. Another class also has something to do with the British, but I'm not really sure because so far, that's my least favorite class, but one of my classmates told me the professor passes everyone as long as you participate, so yayy!! The other 2 classes are "teaching" classes. The professors pretty much teach the students how to teach English to other students. Vicky and I have been going to these 2 classes for a week so far, and we really like it, but we think it's so weird that we're sitting in a classroom, with a professor teaching you how to teach. I don't know, it's just odd.
I was talking to some classmates and they were saying that all the students call the professor's by their first names. I didn't know the teacher-student relationship here was so informal. I'm so used to calling my professors "professor," so that's something I'm going to have to get used to while I'm here. Another thing about the student to teacher relationship here is that the student's are really disrespectful to their professors. I don't know if it's true in every class, but last week when I was crashing a Political Thoughts class, one of the girl's just verbally attacked the professor because she didn't know that the class was being taught in English. I had no idea what she was saying (because she was talking to him in Spanish or Catalan), but it got pretty bad because other students joined in, and he ended up ending the class when it was only just 10 minutes in. How crazy is that?? Throughout my 4 years at State, I've never seen a student disrespect any professor. I felt so bad for the guy and I wonder what that class is going to be like throughout the semester. Too bad I couldn't take it, so I wouldn't know. I just hope he'll be okay.
As much as I hate my school, I really love that they have instant coffee vending machines all over campus and inside buildings. What sucks is that all the coffee here is in teeeeny tiiiiiiny cups, like the size of two shot glasses. There's no such thing as tall, grande, or venti here, unless you go to Starbucks, which by the way is so ridiculously overpriced here, it's not even worth it. So every morning when I get on campus (usually around 8:15), I go to one of the machines, insert my 50 cents, and within a minute, I get my cappuccino so I can make it through my 8:30 class. The last time I had a class that early was sophomore year, and it was HELL. Another thing I kind of like about my school is the cafeteria. The cafeteria food here is actually quite good, and everyone eats out of plates and use forks and knives (not plastic!) because they're just fancy like that. It's also pretty cheap compared to what you would pay for it you were at a restaurant.
I feel like such a loser not going out and exploring more of Barcelona and it's nightlife since I've been here. I've been sooo stressed out over finding classes and trying to get transferred to another department and all the crap that just keeps coming. But I did have a chance to make a few friends who are locals of Barcelona, so maybe when everything is settled, I'll get to have a life again and go out and party til 6 a.m. like everyone else haha!
Today, Vicky and I decided we should celebrate a little because we're so close to getting everything fixed and probably won't have to go back home, so we wanted to find a nice restaurant to have a celebratory lunch. We wanted to try a restaurant on our street because we have so many, so we went around and looked at their fixed menu of the day because it's a little cheaper to get that than order from their regular menu. We found a restaurant on the side of our building, and best of all, it was only 5.90 euro for a 3 course meal. SCORE! We got to choose from two starters (salad or pasta), two entrees (beef and rice stuffed in a bell pepper, or oven roasted chicken and rice with mushrooms) and 3 desserts (flan, ice cream, or cake). I got the salad with chicken and rice and I'm going to say that it's the best Spanish meal I've had since being here. Not only was it uber cheap, it was also REALLY good. Vicky also liked her stuffed bell pepper, so we're definitely going to come back here, or even make it a weekly thing.
Oh! Almost forgot to mention another thing. So after classes yesterday, we went to Las Ramblas (that's like our go-to place because there's always so much going on there and it's also a great place to people watch) and got some McDonald's haha! We were craving something American and the only thing we could come up with was good ol' Mickey D's. We wanted to see if everything tastes the same and if there was anything different about their menus. So they have onion rings here, and pizza, and a barbeque chicken sandwich (kind of like a McRib I guess?? But with chicken??) and waffle sundaes, and that's all I can remember right now. You know how the McChicken's at home are on the dollar menu?? They sell them for 3.55 euro here!!! That's like $5 for a tiny sandwich with a piece of chicken in it!!! There's also KFC and Burger King here, so we'll try that another time when we're craving for some American fast-food =)
After getting our food, we went out and sat on the benches and people-watched for about a half hour. We saw a group of African guys carrying huge bags behind their backs standing around Las Ramblas. And then they opened their bags and out came all the knock-off designer purses and sunglasses. It was fun watching them because the whole time, they were holding 4 strings that were attached to each corner of the sheet with the purses on top of it, so when they got a signal from someone who was looking out for the police, all they had to do was lift up those 4 strings and throw the bag of purses behind them and run off. Me and Vicky wanted to stay and see how fast they were going to pack up everything and leave, so we sat and watched for a good 20-30 minutes before they got the signal from someone, and literally within 3 seconds, they were able to pack up everything and make it look like nothing ever happened. It was sooo cool because a minute after the whole group left, 2 officers came walking down the street.
This weekend, there's some huge festival that's being celebrated by everyone in the city, so we've seen a whole lot more people out on the streets and lots of tourists. We're not exactly sure what the festival is about, but we're going to check it out, we just don't know where to go yet because there's a bunch of stages set up all around the city, so we're guessing we can just go to any of them. Hopefully it'll be super dee duper fun!!
Friday, September 23, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
So Why Don't We Go...Somewhere Only We Know...
I know I haven't blogged anything in a while, only because I've had a rough week. It was so bad that me and Vicky were ready to just pack up everything and go back home to San Diego to cry to our families. We were at rock bottom, crying our eyes out. We got an e-mail from the Faculty that we applied for telling us there was going to be an orientation for international students. We were excited because we thought we'd be able to register for the classes we wanted. We had already decided on what classes to take when we first applied to go to UAB so we figured we'll get to do that during orientation.
Friday came along and we took the 1 hour metro ride to campus and that's when we got the bad news. Our faculty wasn't going to offer anymore classes taught in English because of budget cuts. They said they sent SDSU a letter letting them know, but I think they're lying because I e-mailed my study abroad advisor that afternoon and he replied a few days later saying he didn't receive any letter. So now we were on our own. We would have to go around campus on Monday when school started and look for classes to crash and hopefully register for. BUT their class registration has got to be the shittiest system ever! You can't do it online, like at State, but rather, you have to walk around to every department and look at the list of classes that's printed out and posted on a bulletin board, write that class down somewhere, and attend it and try to get in. By the way, UAB is 20x the size of State, they've got 90,000+ students, it's situated in the middle of the mountains and forests somewhere, and they've got their own bus routes within the campus because that's how big it is. And they expected me and Vicky to go to every campus and look for classes -___-.
What made it harder was that not a lot of departments are offering classes taught in English anymore, and the reason why we applied to go to UAB in the first place was because they said they had English classes available for us in the department that we applied for (which was Education). So now, not only were we without classes that we really wanted to take and had some interest in, we would now have to take crappy classes. It sucks even more because we have to take 4 classes in order for us to get our financial aid and scholarship money so that we can live here.
It's been 4 days of us scrambling around campus looking for classes, and getting NO help from anyone. I'd have to say that it was the most frustrating experience EVER. I kept thinking, God! If I were back home and had some questions about academics or which classes/electives I should take, all I had to do was go to the Academic Advising office or talk to my EOP counselor at State and get all the answers I needed. I don't think there's even an Academic Advising office here! We must have talked to 20 people and only 2 provided us with some help. We went to a History and Culture of the British class and liked it a lot, and the professor was reallyy nice to us and understanding of the situation we were in, so he introduced us to another lady who I think helps international students around the world, except for students in the U.S. It was ok though because she actually helped us a lot by giving us a a bunch of syllabi (syllabuses? syllabus'?...sorry, Ms. Page haha!) that was all in ENGLISH!! Finally, after 4 days, we were able to get some answers! So next Monday and Tuesday, we're going to crash a couple other classes and prayyyy and hooooope to the Lord above that we get into just 3 more classes, but IF we don't, it's likely that we're going to go home and take this semester off. Here's hoping that it won't have to come to that...
On to more happier news...last weekend, Vicky and I went to the Picasso Museum because it's free to everyone on Sunday's after 3 p.m (yayyy to free admission!!) We got there, and waited about an hour to finally get in, but it was worth it because although we didn't really understand his art and the phases he went through during his life, a lot of his stuff was really beautiful (Vicky and I really liked the one he did of his mother and another one he did of his wife--I'm not sure which one because apparently, he had many lovers/wives). It was a bummer because we couldn't take any photos in the museum, but those two were the ones that stuck out for us.
We also walked through the Barri Gotic, which is the old gothic quarters in Barcelona. We found this huge cathedral that looked really pretty from the outside, but it cost 6 euro to get in. Since it was being remodeled, I thought it'd be better to go when they were done with the remodeling. Hopefully it'll be done before we leave. Vicky and I have been really good with checking out all the free attractions in this city. We've gone to pretty much all the parks, all of which are soooo beautiful in their own way (even better than Balboa Park I would say). We went to Port Vell, which is kind of like Seaport Village, only a lot bigger and with a 2 story mall, maybe the size of the Mission Valley mall. And today, we went to Parc Guell. I'll say it one of the most amazing, beautiful, magical parks I've ever seen. It was designed by a famous Spanish architect named Antoni Gaudi. A lot of the famous sites in Barcelona such as the Sagrada Familia and Casa Mila were designed by him (we still haven't seen them yet because the admission is expensive). I took tons of pics there so you'll see what I mean when you take a look at it. Or even better, come visit me and I'll take you there myself!
On the way back from the park, we stopped by some shops to look for some FC Barcelona jerseys. I know nothing about soccer, but I know my dad is in love with it and one of his favorite players is Messi. We asked the owner how much he was selling it for and he told us 60 euro. My eyes bug out and I walk away. He calls me back and says he'll give it to me for 45...then 40...then 35...and I still say no. Then he says he'll give it to me for 25 euro, but that's the last offer because that's how much it costs him, so he's making no profit. I consider it for a bit, but Vicky and I decide to walk out. We go to another store and the same thing happens. This time though, we tell the guy that we want it for 20 and he says, IMPOSSIBLE! Like the other guy, he wants to sell it to us for 25, but both of us know we can probably get it for a little cheaper than 25, so we walk out. He then calls Vicky some bad word in Spanish. I didn't hear it, but she tells me that she thinks he just said "puta madre". =O We stumble upon another shop and the guy also says 25, but after a few minutes of telling him to give it to us for 23, he accepts our offer! Yayyy!! I got the best souvenir gift I could ever get for my dad. Took a lot of work, but I know he's gonna love it!
So being in love with food and all, I'm a little surprised at myself for not eating out as much as I've wanted to since I've been here. We've eaten out at restaurants only about 3 times, but we've spent a lot on sandwiches from local sandwich and bakery shops. Not only are they cheap, they're also uber delicious! I had my first paella in Barcelona last weekend at a restaurant down the street from our flat. I'm not a big seafood person and paella mostly consists of prawns, mussels, clams, calamari, sometimes lobster, so I just got the meat paella, which came with chicken and RABBIT. Yes, I had rabbit meat for the first time, and it wasn't bad! It was a lot like chicken, only a little chewier. I also got a glass of sangria for just 2 euro, so when I'm thirsty, I'll just head down over there and get my sangria fix =). We've mostly been cooking our food at home. Well, Vicky's been cooking and I've been washing dishes because our kitchen's a little too small for 2 people, and because Vicky doesn't like the way I do things and I find her way of doing things odd, too. But at the end of the day, we still get some food on the table and we manage to eat happily. She's almost done cooking, we're having some kind of chicken and potatoes tonight because the 3 lb. bag of potatoes we bought is about to go bad soon. My next blog will probably be about Spanish fashion. You won't believe the things I see people wear here..it's just so weird!! I'll try to get some pictures of people on the street and I'll post them on Facebook so you can see what I mean haha. Until then, please keep praying that we find 3 more classes next week so we won't have to go home!
Friday came along and we took the 1 hour metro ride to campus and that's when we got the bad news. Our faculty wasn't going to offer anymore classes taught in English because of budget cuts. They said they sent SDSU a letter letting them know, but I think they're lying because I e-mailed my study abroad advisor that afternoon and he replied a few days later saying he didn't receive any letter. So now we were on our own. We would have to go around campus on Monday when school started and look for classes to crash and hopefully register for. BUT their class registration has got to be the shittiest system ever! You can't do it online, like at State, but rather, you have to walk around to every department and look at the list of classes that's printed out and posted on a bulletin board, write that class down somewhere, and attend it and try to get in. By the way, UAB is 20x the size of State, they've got 90,000+ students, it's situated in the middle of the mountains and forests somewhere, and they've got their own bus routes within the campus because that's how big it is. And they expected me and Vicky to go to every campus and look for classes -___-.
What made it harder was that not a lot of departments are offering classes taught in English anymore, and the reason why we applied to go to UAB in the first place was because they said they had English classes available for us in the department that we applied for (which was Education). So now, not only were we without classes that we really wanted to take and had some interest in, we would now have to take crappy classes. It sucks even more because we have to take 4 classes in order for us to get our financial aid and scholarship money so that we can live here.
It's been 4 days of us scrambling around campus looking for classes, and getting NO help from anyone. I'd have to say that it was the most frustrating experience EVER. I kept thinking, God! If I were back home and had some questions about academics or which classes/electives I should take, all I had to do was go to the Academic Advising office or talk to my EOP counselor at State and get all the answers I needed. I don't think there's even an Academic Advising office here! We must have talked to 20 people and only 2 provided us with some help. We went to a History and Culture of the British class and liked it a lot, and the professor was reallyy nice to us and understanding of the situation we were in, so he introduced us to another lady who I think helps international students around the world, except for students in the U.S. It was ok though because she actually helped us a lot by giving us a a bunch of syllabi (syllabuses? syllabus'?...sorry, Ms. Page haha!) that was all in ENGLISH!! Finally, after 4 days, we were able to get some answers! So next Monday and Tuesday, we're going to crash a couple other classes and prayyyy and hooooope to the Lord above that we get into just 3 more classes, but IF we don't, it's likely that we're going to go home and take this semester off. Here's hoping that it won't have to come to that...
On to more happier news...last weekend, Vicky and I went to the Picasso Museum because it's free to everyone on Sunday's after 3 p.m (yayyy to free admission!!) We got there, and waited about an hour to finally get in, but it was worth it because although we didn't really understand his art and the phases he went through during his life, a lot of his stuff was really beautiful (Vicky and I really liked the one he did of his mother and another one he did of his wife--I'm not sure which one because apparently, he had many lovers/wives). It was a bummer because we couldn't take any photos in the museum, but those two were the ones that stuck out for us.
We also walked through the Barri Gotic, which is the old gothic quarters in Barcelona. We found this huge cathedral that looked really pretty from the outside, but it cost 6 euro to get in. Since it was being remodeled, I thought it'd be better to go when they were done with the remodeling. Hopefully it'll be done before we leave. Vicky and I have been really good with checking out all the free attractions in this city. We've gone to pretty much all the parks, all of which are soooo beautiful in their own way (even better than Balboa Park I would say). We went to Port Vell, which is kind of like Seaport Village, only a lot bigger and with a 2 story mall, maybe the size of the Mission Valley mall. And today, we went to Parc Guell. I'll say it one of the most amazing, beautiful, magical parks I've ever seen. It was designed by a famous Spanish architect named Antoni Gaudi. A lot of the famous sites in Barcelona such as the Sagrada Familia and Casa Mila were designed by him (we still haven't seen them yet because the admission is expensive). I took tons of pics there so you'll see what I mean when you take a look at it. Or even better, come visit me and I'll take you there myself!
On the way back from the park, we stopped by some shops to look for some FC Barcelona jerseys. I know nothing about soccer, but I know my dad is in love with it and one of his favorite players is Messi. We asked the owner how much he was selling it for and he told us 60 euro. My eyes bug out and I walk away. He calls me back and says he'll give it to me for 45...then 40...then 35...and I still say no. Then he says he'll give it to me for 25 euro, but that's the last offer because that's how much it costs him, so he's making no profit. I consider it for a bit, but Vicky and I decide to walk out. We go to another store and the same thing happens. This time though, we tell the guy that we want it for 20 and he says, IMPOSSIBLE! Like the other guy, he wants to sell it to us for 25, but both of us know we can probably get it for a little cheaper than 25, so we walk out. He then calls Vicky some bad word in Spanish. I didn't hear it, but she tells me that she thinks he just said "puta madre". =O We stumble upon another shop and the guy also says 25, but after a few minutes of telling him to give it to us for 23, he accepts our offer! Yayyy!! I got the best souvenir gift I could ever get for my dad. Took a lot of work, but I know he's gonna love it!
So being in love with food and all, I'm a little surprised at myself for not eating out as much as I've wanted to since I've been here. We've eaten out at restaurants only about 3 times, but we've spent a lot on sandwiches from local sandwich and bakery shops. Not only are they cheap, they're also uber delicious! I had my first paella in Barcelona last weekend at a restaurant down the street from our flat. I'm not a big seafood person and paella mostly consists of prawns, mussels, clams, calamari, sometimes lobster, so I just got the meat paella, which came with chicken and RABBIT. Yes, I had rabbit meat for the first time, and it wasn't bad! It was a lot like chicken, only a little chewier. I also got a glass of sangria for just 2 euro, so when I'm thirsty, I'll just head down over there and get my sangria fix =). We've mostly been cooking our food at home. Well, Vicky's been cooking and I've been washing dishes because our kitchen's a little too small for 2 people, and because Vicky doesn't like the way I do things and I find her way of doing things odd, too. But at the end of the day, we still get some food on the table and we manage to eat happily. She's almost done cooking, we're having some kind of chicken and potatoes tonight because the 3 lb. bag of potatoes we bought is about to go bad soon. My next blog will probably be about Spanish fashion. You won't believe the things I see people wear here..it's just so weird!! I'll try to get some pictures of people on the street and I'll post them on Facebook so you can see what I mean haha. Until then, please keep praying that we find 3 more classes next week so we won't have to go home!
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want...just this time!
It's been a rough 2 days, going on 3 tomorrow, and maybe for the rest of next week. We got an e-mail from the department we were going to have classes with for the whole semester saying they were hosting an orientation on Friday. We were excited because we thought they could probably help us register for our classes. Little did we know, they were going to drop a huge bomb on us. It took us about an hour to get to campus from where we lived. Took the bus to the FGC, which is like a train that takes us up northern Barcelona to our school. Once we got there, we had no idea where to go even though there was a campus directory. This school is so freaking huge, they've got their own bus routes! It's also in the middle of a forest or the mountains or something because all around us were trees, bushes and shrubs, and rocky, sandy paths with buildings around it. When our orientation started, one of the guys pulled Vicky and I outside and told us they weren't offering any English classes in their department this semester and that we should try going to other departments on campus or look online if there are any classes offered in English. I felt my eyes bug out of my face and steam beginning to come out of my ears. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was just thinking to myself, I've applied to study at this school months ago, got here a week ago, and today is the day they decide to tell me this?? So Vicky and I go to the library and e-mail our advisor from State asking him what we should do (but of course with our continuous streak of bad juju, the campus was closed because of the power outage, so we won't get an answer from him until Monday), and then we tried to look for classes on our own. However, their school website is not user-friendly whatsoever, so we can't even find the school catalog or any relevant information that could come close to helping us find classes. At this point, we're so stressed out because we have absolutely no one to contact to ask for help. We're pretty much on our own, like we always have been from the get go.
We figured we should go to the International Welcome Point for foreign students because we had to turn in some documents anyway. When we get there, there's around 20+ other students in line, so we just get a number from the machine thinking it shouldn't take this long. WRONG! We waited for 3 hours, maybe even a little more to finally get called in. We thought we might as well ask them if they could help us with finding some classes but they straight up just tell us we have to do that on our own. They can't even give us some e-mails of the director of each department?? Seriously?! So we're like ok, fine, whatever. We then give them a form they told us to bring into them, but the thing is that when we printed it out, it was in Catalan, so we had no idea what it was asking of us, and we read that if we brought it to them, they would help us fill it out. We ask the lady helping us to help us translate what it means in English so we can get it filled out for them and she seemed like she didn't want to help us because I guess there were still some other people outside waiting to be called. I just thought to myself, "Hey lady! We've been waiting 3 fucking hours in some nasty ass weather. We're hungry, we're sweaty and we stink, so the least you could do is help us translate for us, or even better, have different versions of the form in different languages to make it easier for us students and you!" GODDD!!! I miss the U.S. so damn much by the way =(.
So after we get our forms filled out, she tells us we have to go to some other office in Barcelona to turn it in, and then some other office to get us registered, and we have 3 weeks to do it. Grrrrreat!! Things just keep piling up on us!! Not only do we have to somehow find classes to take on Monday, we have to go look for these damn offices somewhere in the city to turn in a bunch of other documents. I always here great things about studying abroad, but after this whole ordeal, here's my recommendation to anyone thinking about studying abroad: go to an English speaking country, like Australia or Canada or something (currency rates are so much better over there, too). Or if you want to go to another foreign country, make sure you can speak the language, like FLUENTLY. Even though I'm with Vicky and she speaks some Spanish, we still have a hard time getting around because everyone here speaks Catalan and a little bit of Spanish, so it makes everything so much harder. And even if they say they offer English classes, don't fucking believe them because you're going to get screwed over like me and Vicky did. Or maybe you won't, just test your luck, I'm sure it's better than ours. It's like our streak of bad luck will never end!! GAHHH!!! Once we get something fixed, an even bigger problems sneaks up behind us.
We're going to mass tomorrow and pray that we'll be okay, so please send us your good thoughts and hope that everything will work out for us on Monday, judgement day. We went to the Gothic quarters of Barca today just to get our minds off of this for a while, and it did, but now that we're back home, it's all we think about it. We were so bummed over this whole situation yesterday that we made slop for dinner. It was actually past-a-roni, parmesan flavored, but we overcooked it and it turned into a big pot of slop, and it was just the saddest thing ever. Homeless people in shelters get fed better than what we had yesterday, How sad. So right now, we're gonna head downstairs to the restaurant next door and eat our sorrows away. Too bad I have no one to drink with. Damn you, Vicky!! But please, please, please, send us good thoughts and prayers. Thank you! =/
We figured we should go to the International Welcome Point for foreign students because we had to turn in some documents anyway. When we get there, there's around 20+ other students in line, so we just get a number from the machine thinking it shouldn't take this long. WRONG! We waited for 3 hours, maybe even a little more to finally get called in. We thought we might as well ask them if they could help us with finding some classes but they straight up just tell us we have to do that on our own. They can't even give us some e-mails of the director of each department?? Seriously?! So we're like ok, fine, whatever. We then give them a form they told us to bring into them, but the thing is that when we printed it out, it was in Catalan, so we had no idea what it was asking of us, and we read that if we brought it to them, they would help us fill it out. We ask the lady helping us to help us translate what it means in English so we can get it filled out for them and she seemed like she didn't want to help us because I guess there were still some other people outside waiting to be called. I just thought to myself, "Hey lady! We've been waiting 3 fucking hours in some nasty ass weather. We're hungry, we're sweaty and we stink, so the least you could do is help us translate for us, or even better, have different versions of the form in different languages to make it easier for us students and you!" GODDD!!! I miss the U.S. so damn much by the way =(.
So after we get our forms filled out, she tells us we have to go to some other office in Barcelona to turn it in, and then some other office to get us registered, and we have 3 weeks to do it. Grrrrreat!! Things just keep piling up on us!! Not only do we have to somehow find classes to take on Monday, we have to go look for these damn offices somewhere in the city to turn in a bunch of other documents. I always here great things about studying abroad, but after this whole ordeal, here's my recommendation to anyone thinking about studying abroad: go to an English speaking country, like Australia or Canada or something (currency rates are so much better over there, too). Or if you want to go to another foreign country, make sure you can speak the language, like FLUENTLY. Even though I'm with Vicky and she speaks some Spanish, we still have a hard time getting around because everyone here speaks Catalan and a little bit of Spanish, so it makes everything so much harder. And even if they say they offer English classes, don't fucking believe them because you're going to get screwed over like me and Vicky did. Or maybe you won't, just test your luck, I'm sure it's better than ours. It's like our streak of bad luck will never end!! GAHHH!!! Once we get something fixed, an even bigger problems sneaks up behind us.
We're going to mass tomorrow and pray that we'll be okay, so please send us your good thoughts and hope that everything will work out for us on Monday, judgement day. We went to the Gothic quarters of Barca today just to get our minds off of this for a while, and it did, but now that we're back home, it's all we think about it. We were so bummed over this whole situation yesterday that we made slop for dinner. It was actually past-a-roni, parmesan flavored, but we overcooked it and it turned into a big pot of slop, and it was just the saddest thing ever. Homeless people in shelters get fed better than what we had yesterday, How sad. So right now, we're gonna head downstairs to the restaurant next door and eat our sorrows away. Too bad I have no one to drink with. Damn you, Vicky!! But please, please, please, send us good thoughts and prayers. Thank you! =/
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
If I Were a Rich Girl...
...I would hire a fricken maid!!! The landlord is coming tomorrow at an unknown time because he's mysterious like that, so Vicky and I have been cleaning for about 2 hours. Swept and mopped the entire flat, scrubbed sinks, the kitchen counter tops, the toilet, and the nasty tub. We discovered that the last people that lived here must have never cleaned after themselves and probably didn't even get their deposit money back because we found out why the tub was running so slow during our showers. Vicky pulled out soooo much hair that didn't even belong to us because it was blonde and short. Then I went and shined a flashlight into the hole and saw this wad of...I don't even know WTF was down there, but that's what's been keeping the water from flowing normally. Our landlord better do something about that because there's seriously so many things wrong with our flat =''(.
Moving onto happier things...We went to Parc de la Ciutadella where there's this huge fountain I saw in my travel book, so I thought we should check it out. And because it was freeeee!! We've been checking out all the free stuff because we're still broke from paying our 2 months of rent and the deposit, and now we're just waiting for our scholarship money and whatever's left of our financial aid to come in (hopefully by the end of the month!) Took the bus there, which only took about 20 minutes. We got off right across the street from Barcelona's Arc de Triomf, made entirely of brick and maybe even the same size as Paris' Arc de Triomphe, or bigger. We walked across it and into the park and after about a half hour of roaming around the park looking for the fountain, we realized that we walked too far and deep into the park, so we had to turn back because the fountain was actually near the entrance. FAIL.
While taking in the fountain's beauty, we both realized that the Spaniards here never seem like they have anything important to do, like umm, go to work and make some paper! They're always just lounging around, sitting on a bench, reading a book, talking to friends, having a cigarette or a glass of wine at some cafe, and not giving a damn about anything. They're never in a rush to do anything and they live a reallyyyy slow paced life. It makes me want to be just like them haha! I'm a little scared that I might be like that when I come back to San Diego and I know that won't be good. I'll go back to my procrastinating ways and end up not graduating hahaha!
After the fountains, we went to this Greek restaurant across the street because we saw that they had lunch specials for 6 euro!! Got a yummylicious grilled chicken pita with like 10 french fries (I swear, I think they count their fries because Vicky got the same amount), and a pepsi for each of us. I could have gotten a glass of wine or a beer instead of my pepsi for the same price, but I didn't want to drink by myself since Vicky can't drink and I wouldn't want her poor liver to disintegrate. So to all my friends back in the states, come visit me, and we shall drink together lol. Oh! You know how Asians are when they eat out at restaurants? They come, they order, they eat, they leave? Well, I haven't been doing that since I've been here. I think I'm slowly becoming European. We slowly ate our food and after we finished, we just sat there and talked for a while, and then we payed for our food and left.
We wandered through the streets and wound up in some street that was lined with little boutique stores and tons of restaurants. I don't know what the area or street was called, but it was really cool finding it! It got a little tiring walking around not knowing where we were so we decided to head home, except we couldn't find the bus line we were suppose to hop on, so we just winged it and hopped on a bus and it took us down to the port where the beaches and boats and rich people's yachts were, and it was BEAUTIFUL! We think we know which bus line it was, so we might go back there sometime this weekend or next week, but we're not sure yet because school starts on Monday! Yayyyy!!! and Eeeek!!!
Today, we took the metro to Labrynth Park that Victor's friend suggested because she was in Barca last semester. Supposedly, it's not a big tourist attraction yet, and it's nowhere near the center of the city. Of course we always get lost getting somewhere, it's expected now, but once we find it, we forget about our frustrations with each other. Yeah, Vicky and I had a tiny fight on the way there because she was being a turd and it got annoying so I just left her and went into the maze on my own haha. It was super funnn!! Took me about 10 minutes to find my way out. I overheard these girls talking to each other in English and I asked where they were from and if they were studying abroad. They said they were from St. Louis and they were there for a Eurotrip and going to Mallorca tomorrow. I was so jealous, but I thought, shoot I'm going to be here for 5 months, so I'll get to travel through Europe, too! Maybe. If I can afford it.
While we were cleaning, we told each other that we'd reward ourselves with some super juicy watermelon we got at the market the other day when we finished cleaning. I was so looking forward to it because we had some of it for dessert yesterday and it was deliciousss. Vicky goes and cuts up the watermelon on our cutting board that we used to cut up garlic yesterday when making our spaghetti dinner, so we just had some garlic flavored watermelon right now. Mmmmm. Not.
Time to go shower and go to bed hopefully before midnight and prepare for the coming of our landlord tomorrow. Our first impression of him so far is that he's a jerkwad who's not going to fix anything. So please pray for us. We don't want to live in this shithole if nothing's going to be fixed. All we ask for is a working drying machine, a working bathtub, and for him to do something with the bedbugggs!!
Monday, September 5, 2011
You're Just too Good to be True, Can't Take My Eyes Off of You...
Since I had a crappy day yesterday, I had to make it up today by following through with all the plans I had. Woke up feeling good and went down to the metro station to buy my student metro/bus pass--3 months unlimited for 172 euro. Meh. I'm going to have to take public transportation everyday to get my money's worth haha. I won't mind though because their buses are ridiculously clean and it has air conditioning. The metro is the same as any other metros. Clean in some places, dirty in others, sometimes smelly with all the people cramped up against each other, sometimes it's nice because there's not a lot of people on. After getting the passes, Vicky and I hopped on the funicular, which is this train thing that takes us partially up the mountains of Montjuic (the area where we live in). We get off and buy our tickets to get on the teleferic, which is this sky swing thing that takes you all the way up the mountain and gives you amazing views of the entire city. We decide to get off at the very top, called Castell de Montjuic where there's this huge castle you can go on top of and take all the pictures of the city that you want. This is where I went crazy with my camera because the views were breathtaking. While up there, we met an old Spanish couple and they asked us where we were from and what we were doing in Barca, so Vicky answered them because I'm still trying to learn Spanish =/ They told us they were going to New York, Miami, Las Vegas and Jamaica sometime this month with their daughter. God I hope I can do that much travelling when I retire. I think I'm going to start saving for that right after I get back from this whole experience. Then we went up to the top of the castle to take some more photos, and were there for almost 2 hours because the weather was perfect today and everything was just so beautiful. The pictures I posted on Facebook don't do it any justice. You have to be here to experience it for yourself.
Then we went a little down the mountain to Placa de la Sardana where there's this big oasis with palm trees surrounding it and it reminded me and Vicky of San Diego =( and =) haha. We saw this huuuge red insect that looked like a dragonfly or mosquito, we don't even know. And while we were up at the castle, we also saw this huuge fly and huuge ants. Every insect here is like twice or three times the size of what we normally see back home. Even the pigeons here are huuge. Guess it's because they're well fed?
Vicky and I were lucky to get our own teleferic on the way down the mountain because on the way up, there were 3 other people with us. So since we were having such a wonderful day, we decided to sing Franki Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," dedicated to Barca, all the way down back to the funicular. I'm still debating whether I should post up that video because I did record it, but it's just too embarrassing. So once we got on the funicular, I noticed a group of little hoodlums, probably in their teens. They all were rocking dreads, baggy clothing, piercings and tattoos and looked just a weeee bit intimidating haha.
I forgot to mention something yesterday in my blog post. So here in Barcelona, I guess everyone is really into sustainability, saving the Earth, going green, whatever you want to call it. The people here are hard core into this stuff. Vicky and I have to separate all our trash in 5 different trashcans in our flat because they have 5 different bins where you can throw away your stuff in. Yellow bins are for plastics, cans, cartons, tetrapaks; Green bins are for glass containers and bottles; Brown bins are for organics like meat, seafood, nuts, leftover food; Grey bins are household waste; Blue bins is for paper or cardboard. Crazyyy right?? So after we dump all our trash out of our plastic bags, we have to throw the plastic bags into the yellow bin because we can't just throw the entire bag in a certain bin.
Vicky and I have been at home all evening watching t.v. and relaxing from our fun-filled day. We only have about 10 channels, so we've been watching a bunch of random stuff, and we noticed that the Spanish here don't care about showing nudity on t.v. I've never seen so many bare naked asses on t.v. in my life, but I can get used to it I guess haha.
Don't exactly know what we're going to do/see tomorrow, but since we finally got our metro/bus passes, we can pretty much go wherever the heck we want! But we're probably not going to do much because we've been keeping a record of how much we've spent each day since we got here, and today has been the highest with 396.72 euro, which is about $563 -____- We're going to go broke, so, I'm gonna go to bed now and not have to think about it!
Then we went a little down the mountain to Placa de la Sardana where there's this big oasis with palm trees surrounding it and it reminded me and Vicky of San Diego =( and =) haha. We saw this huuuge red insect that looked like a dragonfly or mosquito, we don't even know. And while we were up at the castle, we also saw this huuge fly and huuge ants. Every insect here is like twice or three times the size of what we normally see back home. Even the pigeons here are huuge. Guess it's because they're well fed?
Vicky and I were lucky to get our own teleferic on the way down the mountain because on the way up, there were 3 other people with us. So since we were having such a wonderful day, we decided to sing Franki Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," dedicated to Barca, all the way down back to the funicular. I'm still debating whether I should post up that video because I did record it, but it's just too embarrassing. So once we got on the funicular, I noticed a group of little hoodlums, probably in their teens. They all were rocking dreads, baggy clothing, piercings and tattoos and looked just a weeee bit intimidating haha.
I forgot to mention something yesterday in my blog post. So here in Barcelona, I guess everyone is really into sustainability, saving the Earth, going green, whatever you want to call it. The people here are hard core into this stuff. Vicky and I have to separate all our trash in 5 different trashcans in our flat because they have 5 different bins where you can throw away your stuff in. Yellow bins are for plastics, cans, cartons, tetrapaks; Green bins are for glass containers and bottles; Brown bins are for organics like meat, seafood, nuts, leftover food; Grey bins are household waste; Blue bins is for paper or cardboard. Crazyyy right?? So after we dump all our trash out of our plastic bags, we have to throw the plastic bags into the yellow bin because we can't just throw the entire bag in a certain bin.
Vicky and I have been at home all evening watching t.v. and relaxing from our fun-filled day. We only have about 10 channels, so we've been watching a bunch of random stuff, and we noticed that the Spanish here don't care about showing nudity on t.v. I've never seen so many bare naked asses on t.v. in my life, but I can get used to it I guess haha.
Don't exactly know what we're going to do/see tomorrow, but since we finally got our metro/bus passes, we can pretty much go wherever the heck we want! But we're probably not going to do much because we've been keeping a record of how much we've spent each day since we got here, and today has been the highest with 396.72 euro, which is about $563 -____- We're going to go broke, so, I'm gonna go to bed now and not have to think about it!
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Sunday-Not-So-Fun-Day
Vicky and I had our day planned out today, but like almost always, it never goes the way we want it to. It started off so well, though. We found a church just about a 30 second walk from our flat and went there for the 11 a.m. service to thank God and ask him to watch over us. Then we got home and started cooking for lunch. The other day, we went to the grocery store and bought some chicken. I wanted to buy the already skinned and cut chicken fillets but Vicky wanted to get a whole chicken since it was a little cheaper. Little did she know that skinning and cutting up a whole chicken gets messy (ha ha Vicky!) So next time, we're going to get the chicken I like and won't have to spend over an hour making rosemary chicken and potatoes with rice =)
We wanted to check out a museum that we live really close to (the one behind the magic fountains) because it's free every first Sunday of the month. Then I checked the hours and found out they close at 2:30. Big bummer =( So I wanted to go to the Labrynth Park which takes about a half hour by metro. We haven't gotten our student passes that gives us unlimited rides for 3 months at a time, so we wanted to get that instead of spending 1.45 euro each time we go somewhere. We were told to go to this other metro stop to get the passes so that's what we did, and once we got off, we had no idea where to go and it was so damn hot down there. We finally find the kiosk only to find it was closed because it's Sunday. We head back to our neighborhood and decide to go to the grocery store to get some more water, butter, ziploc bags, and a broomstick because the broom we have in our flat has the broom head, but not the stick. WTF right? That's only just a small problem with our flat by the way -___- Anyway, it takes us foreverrrrr to find our grocery store, and we've already been there twice, yet we still got lost! And once we found it, it was closed. Of course. Our day just gets better and better.
We get home and we hear our neighbor singing loudly in his flat with no shame. Vicky told me she heard him belt out Til the World Ends when she was in the bathroom so that was pretty funny. He reminded me of David and his singing LOL!!! Then our landlord finally calls us and we explain to him about our problem with bedbugs in 2 of the bedrooms (and maybe even my bedroom) and he tells us he'll come over on Thursday. Vicky said he sounded like he didn't really care and wasn't going to do anything about it when she was speaking with him on the phone, and that got the both of us a little angry, so we went into the rooms and looked for those nasty little bed bugs to take pictures of them and record them moving around the mattress. SO gross! I've never ever seen a bed bug in my entire life and here I was in Barcelona, in my flat that I was so excited about living in, looking at little tiny bed bugs who are probably thirsty for mine and Vicky's blood. Ughhh!!! Our dickhead of a landlord better replace our mattresses, fix our drying machine, and replace 2 of the dining room chairs because I've fallen into them twice already. Blahhhhh. Hope your Sunday is better than my hell of a Sunday.
We wanted to check out a museum that we live really close to (the one behind the magic fountains) because it's free every first Sunday of the month. Then I checked the hours and found out they close at 2:30. Big bummer =( So I wanted to go to the Labrynth Park which takes about a half hour by metro. We haven't gotten our student passes that gives us unlimited rides for 3 months at a time, so we wanted to get that instead of spending 1.45 euro each time we go somewhere. We were told to go to this other metro stop to get the passes so that's what we did, and once we got off, we had no idea where to go and it was so damn hot down there. We finally find the kiosk only to find it was closed because it's Sunday. We head back to our neighborhood and decide to go to the grocery store to get some more water, butter, ziploc bags, and a broomstick because the broom we have in our flat has the broom head, but not the stick. WTF right? That's only just a small problem with our flat by the way -___- Anyway, it takes us foreverrrrr to find our grocery store, and we've already been there twice, yet we still got lost! And once we found it, it was closed. Of course. Our day just gets better and better.
We get home and we hear our neighbor singing loudly in his flat with no shame. Vicky told me she heard him belt out Til the World Ends when she was in the bathroom so that was pretty funny. He reminded me of David and his singing LOL!!! Then our landlord finally calls us and we explain to him about our problem with bedbugs in 2 of the bedrooms (and maybe even my bedroom) and he tells us he'll come over on Thursday. Vicky said he sounded like he didn't really care and wasn't going to do anything about it when she was speaking with him on the phone, and that got the both of us a little angry, so we went into the rooms and looked for those nasty little bed bugs to take pictures of them and record them moving around the mattress. SO gross! I've never ever seen a bed bug in my entire life and here I was in Barcelona, in my flat that I was so excited about living in, looking at little tiny bed bugs who are probably thirsty for mine and Vicky's blood. Ughhh!!! Our dickhead of a landlord better replace our mattresses, fix our drying machine, and replace 2 of the dining room chairs because I've fallen into them twice already. Blahhhhh. Hope your Sunday is better than my hell of a Sunday.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
It's a Beautiful World I See --minus the bed bugs
I've come to the conclusion that I don't get along with doors very well and I think this feeling is mutual. It's been the 3rd day and I still can't open my own door to get into my house. I can't even lock it, can't even turn my key so some burglar can come in anytime and completely wipe out all my possessions. Thank God I have Vicky because the doors like her better than me and she opens it and locks it like it's nothing. So my goal by the end of the month is to learn how to work the stupid door!
Yesterday night, we made our first "home-cooked" dinner. I brought spaghetti sauce I bought from back home and we just had to buy the pasta and some ground-beef. I thought cooking would be easy but apparently Vicky and I have different preferences. I like my garlic cut into tiny pieces and she likes it whole, I like my onions cut into little half-moons and she just cuts a chunk of it out, I like to put a lot of salt in my food and she just likes a little pinch of it, I like more sauce than meat and she likes more meat than sauce. We're just going to have to put up with each with our cooking haha!
After dinner, we decided to walk down our street because we live REALLY close to Font Magica (Magic Fountains) and this museum that looks like a huge castle. I Google imaged it and it really looked magical so I was so excited we lived literally 3 minutes from it. It's like a water and lights show, kind of like a cross between the Bellagio fountains in Vegas and Disney's World of Color. We got there an hour early just to explore and already it was packed with people waiting for it to start so we found a good spot and waited. It was kind of funny because they played really random American songs by Destiny's Child, Seal, and Sonique and some other ones I can't remember. It was cool but I was expecting some classical music. Once it ended, it started again after 10 minutes and classical music was on and I think it's a lot better that way. It was a pretty romantical place, there were old couples and young couples, tourists, locals, just thousands of people and it was just a lot of fun being around so many people.
After the fountatins, we walked down this other street and we came to a square that had this huge building across the street all lit up so we went across the street to see what it was and it turns out it's a mall!!! I didn't get to buy anything because I still need to pay off my rent, but I did get gelato!!! A scoop of strawberry tart and a scoop of cookie gelato in a waffle cone for 2.80 euros which is only like $4. Back in San Diego, a scoop is like $5, so that's a deal!! I really love the location of my flat. It's close to the fountains, the museum, the mall, the grocery store, restaurants, the bank, everything. There are some minor problems, okay, make it a big problem with our flat. At first, it was just some small problems like dirty floors that looks like it hasn't ever seen a mop, 2 broken drawers in the kitchen, nasty ass food still left in the kitchen, but the biggest problem we found as of yesterday night were bed bugs in Vicky's room and in the 2nd room but not my room, thank you Jesus. I still feel really bad though because she's been sleeping on the couch. It's a leather couch and it's comfy but still, she needs a bedroom =( We've been trying to call our landlord but the fucker won't pick up, he just sends us straight to voice-mail. Once we get a hold of him, we're gonna ask him niiicely if he can replace the mattresses or if he can give us a discount on our rent, because right now, we're each paying about $610/month and it's not really worth because of the damn bed bugs! We're still staying positive because our neighborhood is really nice and the people are really nice and we both love it here. I think we'll love it much more once the landlord fixes up our place.
This morning, we decided to head to Las Ramblas. It's this longggg street filled with shops, restaurants, and street performers. It's also a tourist trap because there were hotels everywhere. We took the bus for the first time and I was a little worried because I haven't been on a bus in years and was afraid it'd be like buses back in San Diego: dirty, smelly, full of people. But boy was I wrong! It's SO clean, it's got nice comfy chairs, and there's AC!! It was about a 20-25 minutes bus ride from our flat, which isn't bad because there's so much to see along the way. On Las Ramblas, we went to La Boqueria, which is one of the biggest markets here. It's got mostly fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, and cheeses. Then we took a walk down the Ramblas, which was really nice and clean, did some shopping (got an uber cute navy blue polka dot silky shirt at Zara for 10 euros!), went into this building that had little cafes on the first floor, an electronics store on the 2nd floor and a book store on the 3rd floor. After about a half hour in there, we went outside to people watch an that was when I realized I didn't have my sunglasses on me. I was getting ready to burst into tears because 1) they were my Ray-ban club masters and 2) I didn't want to spend on another pair of glasses. Vicky suggested we go back and check, so we did and I asked the girl at the counter and she handed me the glasses! God is watching over me and Vicky after all!
We were getting a little hungry so we went into a random restaurant on the street and finally had our first little Spanish meal. I ordered my first glass of sangria, but too bad I had to drink it all by myself because Vicky can't drink or else she'll die. Seriously. She has to undo her liver disease somehow, you hear me Vicky?? It was 5.50 euro for the glass of sangria which is close to $8. Ridiculous! I could get a pitcher during happy hour back in San Diego for $10, but it's ok because I had some authentic Spanish sangria, yeahhh!!!
We got back to our flat and went in search for bowls for our cereal because we've been eating out of plastic cups for the past 3 days. We've been trying to look for bowls in the supermarkets but none of them sell any bowls!! Do the Spanish not eat out of bowls or something? We went to Bazaar Lu, this little shop owned by a Chinese guy that speaks Spanish very fluently that it just boggles my mind, and he had bowls!! So we now have bowls to eat cereal and everything else out of woo hoo!!
Going to do a little cleaning now, maybe finally mop the floors, do some laundry, cook some food and eat it out of our little bowls, upload some pics and get ready for bed. We found a church just a minute walk from the flat that has an 11:00 service, so that's what we're going to do tomorrow and maybe do some more exploring in Sants-Montjuic where we live. Have a good day/night!
Yesterday night, we made our first "home-cooked" dinner. I brought spaghetti sauce I bought from back home and we just had to buy the pasta and some ground-beef. I thought cooking would be easy but apparently Vicky and I have different preferences. I like my garlic cut into tiny pieces and she likes it whole, I like my onions cut into little half-moons and she just cuts a chunk of it out, I like to put a lot of salt in my food and she just likes a little pinch of it, I like more sauce than meat and she likes more meat than sauce. We're just going to have to put up with each with our cooking haha!
After dinner, we decided to walk down our street because we live REALLY close to Font Magica (Magic Fountains) and this museum that looks like a huge castle. I Google imaged it and it really looked magical so I was so excited we lived literally 3 minutes from it. It's like a water and lights show, kind of like a cross between the Bellagio fountains in Vegas and Disney's World of Color. We got there an hour early just to explore and already it was packed with people waiting for it to start so we found a good spot and waited. It was kind of funny because they played really random American songs by Destiny's Child, Seal, and Sonique and some other ones I can't remember. It was cool but I was expecting some classical music. Once it ended, it started again after 10 minutes and classical music was on and I think it's a lot better that way. It was a pretty romantical place, there were old couples and young couples, tourists, locals, just thousands of people and it was just a lot of fun being around so many people.
After the fountatins, we walked down this other street and we came to a square that had this huge building across the street all lit up so we went across the street to see what it was and it turns out it's a mall!!! I didn't get to buy anything because I still need to pay off my rent, but I did get gelato!!! A scoop of strawberry tart and a scoop of cookie gelato in a waffle cone for 2.80 euros which is only like $4. Back in San Diego, a scoop is like $5, so that's a deal!! I really love the location of my flat. It's close to the fountains, the museum, the mall, the grocery store, restaurants, the bank, everything. There are some minor problems, okay, make it a big problem with our flat. At first, it was just some small problems like dirty floors that looks like it hasn't ever seen a mop, 2 broken drawers in the kitchen, nasty ass food still left in the kitchen, but the biggest problem we found as of yesterday night were bed bugs in Vicky's room and in the 2nd room but not my room, thank you Jesus. I still feel really bad though because she's been sleeping on the couch. It's a leather couch and it's comfy but still, she needs a bedroom =( We've been trying to call our landlord but the fucker won't pick up, he just sends us straight to voice-mail. Once we get a hold of him, we're gonna ask him niiicely if he can replace the mattresses or if he can give us a discount on our rent, because right now, we're each paying about $610/month and it's not really worth because of the damn bed bugs! We're still staying positive because our neighborhood is really nice and the people are really nice and we both love it here. I think we'll love it much more once the landlord fixes up our place.
This morning, we decided to head to Las Ramblas. It's this longggg street filled with shops, restaurants, and street performers. It's also a tourist trap because there were hotels everywhere. We took the bus for the first time and I was a little worried because I haven't been on a bus in years and was afraid it'd be like buses back in San Diego: dirty, smelly, full of people. But boy was I wrong! It's SO clean, it's got nice comfy chairs, and there's AC!! It was about a 20-25 minutes bus ride from our flat, which isn't bad because there's so much to see along the way. On Las Ramblas, we went to La Boqueria, which is one of the biggest markets here. It's got mostly fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, and cheeses. Then we took a walk down the Ramblas, which was really nice and clean, did some shopping (got an uber cute navy blue polka dot silky shirt at Zara for 10 euros!), went into this building that had little cafes on the first floor, an electronics store on the 2nd floor and a book store on the 3rd floor. After about a half hour in there, we went outside to people watch an that was when I realized I didn't have my sunglasses on me. I was getting ready to burst into tears because 1) they were my Ray-ban club masters and 2) I didn't want to spend on another pair of glasses. Vicky suggested we go back and check, so we did and I asked the girl at the counter and she handed me the glasses! God is watching over me and Vicky after all!
We were getting a little hungry so we went into a random restaurant on the street and finally had our first little Spanish meal. I ordered my first glass of sangria, but too bad I had to drink it all by myself because Vicky can't drink or else she'll die. Seriously. She has to undo her liver disease somehow, you hear me Vicky?? It was 5.50 euro for the glass of sangria which is close to $8. Ridiculous! I could get a pitcher during happy hour back in San Diego for $10, but it's ok because I had some authentic Spanish sangria, yeahhh!!!
We got back to our flat and went in search for bowls for our cereal because we've been eating out of plastic cups for the past 3 days. We've been trying to look for bowls in the supermarkets but none of them sell any bowls!! Do the Spanish not eat out of bowls or something? We went to Bazaar Lu, this little shop owned by a Chinese guy that speaks Spanish very fluently that it just boggles my mind, and he had bowls!! So we now have bowls to eat cereal and everything else out of woo hoo!!
Going to do a little cleaning now, maybe finally mop the floors, do some laundry, cook some food and eat it out of our little bowls, upload some pics and get ready for bed. We found a church just a minute walk from the flat that has an 11:00 service, so that's what we're going to do tomorrow and maybe do some more exploring in Sants-Montjuic where we live. Have a good day/night!
Friday, September 2, 2011
The Good Life (sort of)
So Vicky and I are finally here after months and months of turning in a bunch of applications, talking to advisors and all the not so fun stuff. I think I'm going to start from the beginning of this whole journey, starting at the airport because we had some epic fail moments that I think is worth mentioning. We're waiting to go through security check and of course one of us had to get stopped (that would be Vicky). The TSA guy, who was surprisingly nice and really funny, went through her carry-on and had told us before that we're probably going to laugh at what he's going to find, and he was right. He found a huge bottle of mayo at the bottom and I think it was probably the first time he ever had to confiscate a bottle of mayo. MAYO!!! God it was so embarrassing but oh so funny. Hey, we're going to be here for 5 months, so we each had a luggage filled with food from cereal, to pasta sauce, to seasonings, to instant noodles, to crackers, and a lot more that I can't think of. Our kitchen right now is stocked with food. We just can't cook anything yet because we don't have bowls or plates or utensils to eat out of -__- At least we're saving a lot of money by not eating out as much!
Ok, so we stop in Atlanta and we get on the plane to Barcelona. I forgot how much I hated their airport. It's just too big and our carry on bag and backpack probably weighed around 50+ pounds and we're just walking, walking, walking to get on the air-train thing to take us to another part of the airport where we have to walk, walk, walk again to get to our terminal. By this time, we're tired as hell. We get to our seats and the overhead bins are bigger, but it's also higher so we have a really hard time putting it up there. We made a little scene because we could not stop laughing and what sucks is that no one around us got up to help us push it up. What the hell?! I would've helped someone out if they were having trouble with their luggage, sheesh! During the flight, Vicky noticed that a lot of the girls were watching Water for Elephants, so I decided to give it a try. R. Patz doesn't look that good in the movie, but the movie itself was pretty damn good! So watch it if you haven't already!
It was one of the best feelings ever once we landed. Sitting for 8+ hours on a plane without my fluffy pillow and not going to the bathroom sucked! But heyyy, we were here!! We get our luggage, thank God nothing was missing, and we immediately search for an ATM machine. But of course, with the terrible luck me and Vicky always get when we're together, it doesn't work and it was a bad sign for us because we had to pay our deposit and 2 months of rent (about 1600 euros each) at the leasing office. We brought some cash with us, but it wasn't enough to cover it, so we figured we'd just withdraw some more money at an ATM machine. HORRIBLE DECISION. We were only able to withdraw 200 euros, so we had to go to the leasing office and tell them our dilemma. Together, we only had less than 1,000 euros in cash and we were suppose to pay them around 3,200 euro. But thank the powers that be, our landowner gave us a week to pay him the rest.
We get to our flat and I noticed the 2 person capacity elevator, which reminded me of a few years ago when I was in I think Florence on a tour with 30 other people (shout-out to the EF party if you're reading!) and it took FOREVER to bring up everyone's luggage. And here I was again, looking at the same elevator and dreading that I have to bring up 8 pieces of luggage, 2 at a time because it's literally just fit for 2 people, in the heat, with probably 100% humidity. I was dying while Vicky was standing at the bottom floor waiting for me while I brought up the luggage, fumbling with the keys, sweating like a pig trying to get the door open but it wouldn't even budge and then realizing that I was on the the wrong floor. FAIL. Finally got on the right floor and got into our flat. First impression: meh. Pros: AC (just in 1 room though), brand new t.v., comfortable leather couch, washer and dryer, good size for 2 people. Cons: dirty ass floors so I can't be Asian and walk through the house barefoot, no bidet (I wasn't planning on using it anyway, but it would've been cool to have one), toilet that flushes weird, fridge filled with stuff that the last people who lived here had, all of which had gone moldy, and our internet was't working!
First thing we did was clean a bit, unpack, rest up a little and then go look for all the ATM machines and try to withdraw money. I found out that my laundry detergent kinda exploded so it was leaking through my luggage and Vicky's Ajax also exploded. We know we can get that stuff here but we figured since we had it at home, why not bring it and save some money? But besides that, everything else in our luggage was fine. We walk around the neighborhood looking for ATMs and there's literally an ATM machine like on every block, or maybe every other block, but none of them would let us withdraw any money!! We just had maybe 20 euros each to buy some groceries and our sim cards. Even though we live like only 5 minutes from the grocery store, it's gonna be a bitch carrying everything back. We bought 8 liters of water because it was only 1 euro as well as a chicken, some ground beef, milk, bread and other small things. I was stuck with carrying the water and another bag of stuff alllll the way back, and again it's humid here so I was sweating balls and I could feel blisters forming.
Oh!! So I didn't think there would be a lot of Asians living in Barca but boy was I wrong. There's a good amount of Asians here and the crazyyy thing is that they all speak Spanish fluently and not a word of English. My mind was blown, I just found it so odd haha.
Once Vicky and I got home from exploring a little part of our neighborhood, we decide to try the internet again. Here comes another fail moment. When we first got there, one of the first things we tried was connecting to the internet so we could let our family know that we were ok, but it wasn't working. So we decided to try it again at night, and I look at the box thing and notice there's a sticker there with some kind of code that says "contrasena" next to it. I ask Vicky what it meant and she says omg that's the password!!! I enter the code in on my laptop for maybe 20 minutes and still could not get it to work. And then I realized I didn't connect the ethernet wire thing into my laptop -___- But we finally had internet and it's super fast and we were just so happy. It was a great ending to our 1st day in Barcelona.
We're going to try to go into a bank today and ask them if we can withdraw some money because I only have like 7 cents in my wallet and Vicky has 10 euros. We didn't know the banks here close at 2:30 so that's why we couldn't go yesterday. Hope we'll be able to withdraw our money to pay for our rent or else we're going to be homeless =( We're also going to try to get metro passes so we can explore the city some more since we have about a little over a week before the semester starts and of course try some Spanish food!!! Happy Friday, everyone!
Ok, so we stop in Atlanta and we get on the plane to Barcelona. I forgot how much I hated their airport. It's just too big and our carry on bag and backpack probably weighed around 50+ pounds and we're just walking, walking, walking to get on the air-train thing to take us to another part of the airport where we have to walk, walk, walk again to get to our terminal. By this time, we're tired as hell. We get to our seats and the overhead bins are bigger, but it's also higher so we have a really hard time putting it up there. We made a little scene because we could not stop laughing and what sucks is that no one around us got up to help us push it up. What the hell?! I would've helped someone out if they were having trouble with their luggage, sheesh! During the flight, Vicky noticed that a lot of the girls were watching Water for Elephants, so I decided to give it a try. R. Patz doesn't look that good in the movie, but the movie itself was pretty damn good! So watch it if you haven't already!
It was one of the best feelings ever once we landed. Sitting for 8+ hours on a plane without my fluffy pillow and not going to the bathroom sucked! But heyyy, we were here!! We get our luggage, thank God nothing was missing, and we immediately search for an ATM machine. But of course, with the terrible luck me and Vicky always get when we're together, it doesn't work and it was a bad sign for us because we had to pay our deposit and 2 months of rent (about 1600 euros each) at the leasing office. We brought some cash with us, but it wasn't enough to cover it, so we figured we'd just withdraw some more money at an ATM machine. HORRIBLE DECISION. We were only able to withdraw 200 euros, so we had to go to the leasing office and tell them our dilemma. Together, we only had less than 1,000 euros in cash and we were suppose to pay them around 3,200 euro. But thank the powers that be, our landowner gave us a week to pay him the rest.
We get to our flat and I noticed the 2 person capacity elevator, which reminded me of a few years ago when I was in I think Florence on a tour with 30 other people (shout-out to the EF party if you're reading!) and it took FOREVER to bring up everyone's luggage. And here I was again, looking at the same elevator and dreading that I have to bring up 8 pieces of luggage, 2 at a time because it's literally just fit for 2 people, in the heat, with probably 100% humidity. I was dying while Vicky was standing at the bottom floor waiting for me while I brought up the luggage, fumbling with the keys, sweating like a pig trying to get the door open but it wouldn't even budge and then realizing that I was on the the wrong floor. FAIL. Finally got on the right floor and got into our flat. First impression: meh. Pros: AC (just in 1 room though), brand new t.v., comfortable leather couch, washer and dryer, good size for 2 people. Cons: dirty ass floors so I can't be Asian and walk through the house barefoot, no bidet (I wasn't planning on using it anyway, but it would've been cool to have one), toilet that flushes weird, fridge filled with stuff that the last people who lived here had, all of which had gone moldy, and our internet was't working!
First thing we did was clean a bit, unpack, rest up a little and then go look for all the ATM machines and try to withdraw money. I found out that my laundry detergent kinda exploded so it was leaking through my luggage and Vicky's Ajax also exploded. We know we can get that stuff here but we figured since we had it at home, why not bring it and save some money? But besides that, everything else in our luggage was fine. We walk around the neighborhood looking for ATMs and there's literally an ATM machine like on every block, or maybe every other block, but none of them would let us withdraw any money!! We just had maybe 20 euros each to buy some groceries and our sim cards. Even though we live like only 5 minutes from the grocery store, it's gonna be a bitch carrying everything back. We bought 8 liters of water because it was only 1 euro as well as a chicken, some ground beef, milk, bread and other small things. I was stuck with carrying the water and another bag of stuff alllll the way back, and again it's humid here so I was sweating balls and I could feel blisters forming.
Oh!! So I didn't think there would be a lot of Asians living in Barca but boy was I wrong. There's a good amount of Asians here and the crazyyy thing is that they all speak Spanish fluently and not a word of English. My mind was blown, I just found it so odd haha.
Once Vicky and I got home from exploring a little part of our neighborhood, we decide to try the internet again. Here comes another fail moment. When we first got there, one of the first things we tried was connecting to the internet so we could let our family know that we were ok, but it wasn't working. So we decided to try it again at night, and I look at the box thing and notice there's a sticker there with some kind of code that says "contrasena" next to it. I ask Vicky what it meant and she says omg that's the password!!! I enter the code in on my laptop for maybe 20 minutes and still could not get it to work. And then I realized I didn't connect the ethernet wire thing into my laptop -___- But we finally had internet and it's super fast and we were just so happy. It was a great ending to our 1st day in Barcelona.
We're going to try to go into a bank today and ask them if we can withdraw some money because I only have like 7 cents in my wallet and Vicky has 10 euros. We didn't know the banks here close at 2:30 so that's why we couldn't go yesterday. Hope we'll be able to withdraw our money to pay for our rent or else we're going to be homeless =( We're also going to try to get metro passes so we can explore the city some more since we have about a little over a week before the semester starts and of course try some Spanish food!!! Happy Friday, everyone!
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