So Much to Do, So Little Time to Write About It!! :p

It’s been a longggg while since my last post I know, and a lot has happened (good and bad) since then haha.  I think I’m going to start off with the bad.  So on the 12^th, I took a trip to Zaragoza to celebrate a festival called El Pilar with a bunch (like 300+) of international students.  It was about  a 3 ½ hour bus ride and on the way there, I talked to some girls who were on my bus.  Their names were Josephine, Nina, and Delphin from Germany, Poland, and France.  They seemed like nice people so I hung out with them all day.  Vicky couldn’t go on the trip because she didn’t have any money at the time =(.  So we get to Zaragoza and we see a lot of people, old and young, dressed up in really beautiful traditional Spanish clothing.  The purpose of the festival was to offer flowers to the Virgin Mary. LOTS of flowers.  There was a huge pyramid in the center of the square with a statue of Mary on the top and the pyramid was made entirely of flowers.  After exploring the town a little bit, my new friends and I decide to check out this huge park that seemed really cool according to what the brochure said.  Little did we know, it was going to take us over an hour to get there, and we were going to walk!  I love walking, but Jesus!  It seemed like an eternity.  It was disappointing too because there wasn’t even anything that special.  It was reallyyy big, but it just didn’t have anything that was worth taking pictures of.  I was glad that we decided to take the bus back to the city square because I wouldn’t have been happy if they wanted to walk all the back. 

It was nighttime and everyone met up to go to the club, so I was excited about that even though I was dead tired.  I met a few more people there—some girls from the states, an Italian guy, and some Portuguese guys.  It was getting super hot and muggy in the club so me and one of the guys went outside for some air.  We were talking for a while and were completely fine, but I noticed a group of kids who were maybe 17 years old who looked like trouble.  They walked away and I was like, ok whatever, but  about 10 minutes later, they walked back and came up to me and my friend and asked if we had a lighter.  And right when I answered, one of the kids quickly snatched my camera that was sitting on my lap and my friend’s bag (she was still in the club and she asked me to watch it for her).  I was in so much shock and for a few seconds, I just looked at them running away and then it hit me that I had just been robbed!! Ohh I was fuming mad and just full of rage.  Me and my friend started running after those little hood rats, but they had already gotten really far.  A guy saw us running after them and he pointed in which direction those kids went, and we turned into a small street and found my friends bag and everything she had inside it, scattered all around the street (her extra clothes and makeup bag).  I thought they took her wallet because I couldn’t find it when I was picking everything up, so I was freaking out because not only did I got my camera stolen, but my friend’s money and identification was also taken.  I’ve never been so angry in my whole life because I thought I’d be smarter than that.  I knew that I was supposed to be aware of my surroundings and keep alert since it was around 2:30 in the morning.  What made me even angrier was that I was robbed by freakin 16-17 year olds!! Ugh!!!  Everyone was supposed to meet at the bus stop at 3 a.m. to get back to Barcelona, but my friend suggested that we talk to the police and tell them what happened.  Then my friend (the one who’s purse I was watching) called me, and I told her everything that happened and that her wallet was missing.  She then told me that she had her wallet and phone on her, and all she had in her bag were extra clothes.  Thank God because I would’ve felt so guilty if they had taken everything from her. 

We got to the police station and reported the incident.  I’m so glad my friend was there with me because the cop that was writing the report didn’t know a word of English and I didn’t know a word of Spanish, so he had to translate everything for me.  By then, our bus had already left us so we would have to catch another bus later.  We left the police station around 3:30, and took a taxi to the bus station where we found out the next bus leaving for Barcelona wouldn’t be until 7 a.m., meaning we’d have to sleep at the bus station on those uncomfortable chairs.  I felt really bad because my friend had an appointment to register for his classes at 11 a.m. at school, and it was likely that he was going to miss it.  It was just like one bad thing happening after another.  Oh and also, my phone ran out of my minutes so I couldn’t even call Vicky to let her know what the heck I’ve been through for the past couple hours. 

I finally got home around 11:30, took a shower, ate, and told Vicky the ordeal I went through.  Even though my camera was stolen along with all the pictures I had taken from the previous day, I guess I was kind of glad that nothing else was taken from me and that I wasn’t hurt.  I was just angry with myself that I let that happen!!  That same day, I went and got myself a new camera haha.  It wasn’t the same as the other one but I guess it’ll do for now.  I was really angry about it for a few days or maybe a week but I’m finally over it now and I’m moving on!!

That weekend, Vicky and I wanted to look for the Olympic Stadium from the ’92 Olympics, and funny thing is that we only lived like a 10 minute walk from it, and this whole time, we didn’t even know!!   It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, like only half the size of Qualcomm Stadium so I don’t even know how they were able to fit so many people back in ’92 during the Olympics.  The next day, we went out for lunch with Josefine (I found out that she lived only a few buildings down my street!)  We went to this Italian restaurant near the flat, and here’s something I’ve learned about eating out in Barcelona, and maybe even everywhere else around Europe.  If you sit outside, they charge 1 euro per person, which is ridiculous because you’re pretty much paying extra for flies to come and attack your food, loud cars zooming by and just an overall unpleasant experience.  I guess it depends on where you go because sometimes, it’s actually really nice to sit outside and enjoy the sites and people watching, but other times, it’s just not very fun, so I think I’d rather sit inside from now on. 

Monday came around and we both didn’t feel like going to class, so we didn’t.  Haha!  Back home, I would never miss class just because I didn’t feel like going.  I’d go even when I was deathly sick!!  But it’s completely different here and I just don’t really care about it, especially when I’m only taking these 4 classes for credit and not for a grade, so all I have to do is barely get by, yayyy!!  We went out for dinner because Vicky’s getting tired of cooking all time, and I don’t really cook, unless I feel inspired to lol.  Vicky says I can only cook “special dishes” and not “daily dishes” and I think she’s right.  I’ll probably go to an Asian market sometime this week and make my uber delicious garlic noodles.  We get a lot of flyers from restaurants with their menus and the deals they have, so we thought we’d give this pizza/doner kebab place a try since we lived really close to it.  There are restaurants everywhere here so it’s not always easy to decide where to eat because we’re both so indecisive.  But this place had a 2 doner, a large pizza, and a 2 liter Coke deal for 14 euro and we thought that was a deal right there.  Once we were close to the place, we realized we probably weren’t in the safest of places because it was in small dirty street with a bunch of Indians and Middle Easterners. I’m not racist I swear! I’m just saying it was different, and we were probably in India town or something lol.  Anyway, the food there was fantastical and I was even more happy because it was sooo cheap!!  The doner kebab was the size of a burrito from back home and they had this amazing sauce that I really loved, and the pizza was also really big, maybe ¾ the size of a Costco pizza, PLUS a 2 liter of Coke! 

I’m going to skip to Thursday now when the weekend starts again for me and Vicky haha.  Me and a group of my friends were suppose to go out to this bar that this girl suggested I go to (she studied here last semester and we’ve been exchanging emails).  Anyway, she recommended that I check out Espit Chupitos, which is this bar that has over 500 kinds of shots and 200 kinds of cocktails, and I just thought, hell yeah, seems really cool!! I was a little bummed though because a lot of buddies cancelled at the last minute so it ended up being only me and Jessee (Vicky didn’t go because she doesn’t like going out—BOOO!!!)  But  we had a lot of fun, a little too much fun lol. 

The next day, one of our other classmates, Meri, and her boyfriend Raul, took us to this American restaurant that they’ve been dying to show us, and we’ve been dying to try.  I’ve been craving a burger for the longest time so I was so excited to see how they make their burgers here.  Me and Vicky go to McDonald’s maybe once a week to get our “American food” fix, but it’s just not really the same.  Their burgers aren’t even burgers.  AND the only reason why we go there so much is so we can steal their napkins because we don’t want to buy our own haha!  Oh but the McDonald’s ice cream cones that they have are uber delicious because they stick a kit-kat bar in it!  Ok back to the point.  So this restaurant we were at had bbq and burgers and you know, typical American stuff.  I ordered a burger, but not just the regular burger, the king-sized one and I don’t regret getting it because it was perfect.  It was the size of  a Hodad’s burger, actually bigger because the patty was gigantor, there were slices of thick ham or bacon on it, and a fried egg, plus fries and a side of cole slaw.  I was so close to finishing it, and now that I think about it, I wish that I had because it was so good and I probably won’t have it again for a while because it was expensive!!  I’ll probably just stick to good ol’ Mickey D’s =)

We spent the rest of the day with Meri and Raul.  They took us to a bunch of places we’ve never been and it was a lot fun.  Me and Vicky feel so lucky to have met them because they’re such a nice couple and they’re so fun to be around.  I don’t think they realize how ridiculously hilarious they are, and they don’t even try to be and I really like that about them.  They came over to our flat because we wanted to make them dinner.  I mean, Vicky wanted to make them dinner, since I never do the cooking lol.  They’ve never had tortillas before, and luckily, Vicky’s mom had shipped Vicky another care package a few days before so we had tortillas from home so they could try.  Vicky made chicken fajitas and they said they enjoyed it a lot.  At least we think they did.  And then to end our Friday night on good note, we got an email from State letting us know that they’ve deposited our financial aid and scholarship money to our bank accounts, so we should have our money by Tuesday!! Wooo hooo after almost 2 months of living like poor people!!

On Saturday, Vicky was just in bed the entire day because she was deathly sick.  And since I knew that money was coming, I wanted to celebrate!!! I did some major damage shopping at Placa Catalunya, spending a good 2-3 hours grabbing anything I could find.  I came home and showed Vicky what I got, and she liked my purchases so that made me happy that my little spree was a success.  Yayy for new clothes!!

Meri invited us over to her house on Sunday to meet her family and have lunch with them.  We were both so excited because Meri kept telling us that her mom cooks amazing food, so we were looking forward to have a home cooked meal.  We got to her house and were warmly welcomed by her mom and dad with kisses!  The Spanish are so friendly here lol!  Then we met their chinchilla, Blackie, and 2 parakeets, Naru and Shiro.  It was my first time seeing a chinchilla and I have to say that they’re the softest little animals I’ve ever touched and now I kind of want one when I get back…

Lunch was amazinggg.  I can’t remember what the first dishes were called, but they were like little appetizers consisting of cured ham and cheese, calamari, olives, and little tiny mussels in some kind of sauce.  After finishing that, we had paella with prawns, calamari, clams, and mussels!!!! Ohhh it was delicious and normally, I don’t eat any seafood back home besides shrimp/prawns and calamari, but now that I’ve had it, I just might start eating them because they’re damn good =)  We both had a wonderful time at Meri’s house, meeting her pets and her family who were so welcoming and overall really nice people.  I’m so glad to have met them!

I’m going to stop here, I still have to talk about going to see Coldplay in Madrid and going to my first soccer, or “futbol” match, but I’ll start on that another day.  Damn, if only I could write papers this fast haha.  Adios amigos!