10 posts tagged “people”
I really need something to do, like a project or something. I've wanted to learn guitar for a while now but that would require buying a guitar, and I have no money. Maybe like, start a website thing? I don't know what I'd make the site about, I could just have it be a random "me site" where I put random shit up. I dunno.
Today was the first day of class, and all I have to say is:
Spanish classes here are, indeed, in Spanish (whoda thunk it?). I was totally unprepared for this and haven't listened to so much Spanish since May, so I had a major headache afterwards. I guess it is a level 3 class, so I'm just an idiot for expecting it to be a breeze.
Me + trying to sound smart in art class = me making an ass of myself in art class. No, that's not a painting that's currently in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, that was painted by your teacher. Your 20-something blonde teacher.
Ummm yeah. Still need to meet people, though I was sort of reacquainted with a few oldies who I was friends with freshman year.
With starting class this week, I realized how much I actually missed it: all the studying, the hectic "ohmygod class starts like now and the building is 10 minutes away!" and suddenly realizing that it's midnight, I have to get up in 8 hours (I don't do well on anything less than 9) and have a couple textbook chapters to read. The mental stimulation is nice, but here's hoping I don't become a total vegetable after I graduate. Just so long as I get a good job...but I won't get started on that, as I'm at exactly the same point on the "what do I want to do with my life?" question as I was one, two, three months ago.
I've made a couple friends in my classes. In my sociology class we have small discussion groups, and mine has one other girl and three guys. I naturally tend to get along better with other girls, and she's no exception, of the people in the group I think I have the most potential for friendship with her than anyone. There's also a guy in both my bio and soc classes who struck up random conversations with me several times today, and he's nice and everything so we'll see where that goes. I'm finding myself to be rather predatory, I'm actually looking at any potential friendships as a means to meeting someone else who I might actually fancy a relationship with. I need friends, for sure, but more than that I need a friend friend. So far no one I've met so far has tickled that particular fancy for me, except a girl who I sat behind in my public speaking class for the 30 minutes we were waiting for the professor (he didn't come so after the half hour we all just left.) Of course, that's the class that meets once every two weeks for three hours, so I'll have to wait quite a while to see if I can attempt to make anything of it. Unfortunately, my gaydar (which is rather poorly tuned, I'll admit) screams "heterosexual." To take a quote from queer-movie-that-no-one-has-seen, Imagine Me and You: "she's not just heterosexual, she's like...Barbie heterosexual!" Though in the movie the Barbie heterosexual girl actually did end up with the Heroine Lesbo, but then again it was a British chick flick about lesbians so it's hardly a source from which to draw realistic predictions.
Anyway, I seriously digress. Point is: me + school = not half bad.
On a completely different note, the family is going to see Beavers at the "iWERKS" (like a ghetto IMAX I suppose) at the Denver Wildlife Experience tomorrow. When I was really little (like 2 or 3) we went and saw it at the Natural History Museum's IMAX, and the entire ride home I was making beaver sounds like "eeeeeeh, eeeeeehhhh." Anyway it's been a bit of a running joke in the family ever since then, one of those things my parents will never, ever let me forget (and which I, sadly, don't remember) so I'm kind of interested to see it tomorrow, and see if it jogs any sort of distant memory.
But...Beavers!
I had to wake up early (9:00! I don't think I've woken up that early since I was home for Christmas, for serious) and went to my 10:00 language exam. It wasn't that horrible, I mean I have been studying Spanish for 7 months so I think I did pretty well. It was 2 hours long though so afterwards everyone was like "abuhhhh," and the Estudios Hispanicos department had a little fiesta for the international students in the gardens of UB (a big courtyard with ponds and trees and rocks in the middle of a 550-year-old University...yeah it's as cool as it sounds). It was cool, they had free food and drinks (I opted out of the shitty beer and had several Cokes instead, with the result that I was on a serious caffeine and sugar high) so we were all just hanging out there for a while. Afterwards I went to get coffee with Oscar, Kinsy, Ben, Katarina and Sylvia at Bar Estudiantil across from the university in Plaça Universitat. We sort of studied a bit, but mostly just sat and had some coffee and talked for a while, it was nice. Now I'm up at the ISA office attempting to study (and not being very successful, evidently) for my historia del arte español exam I have in an hour and a half at 6. I think I'll pop down to Bocatini and get a delicious chicken sandwich with tomato, lettuce, cheese and mayo for lunch...mmmm so good.
Tomorrow a bunch of us, pretty much the same crowd mentioned above plus Mike, are planning on going down to the beach. Yay! I have to go to the beach at least one more time before I leave (someone told me that I should surf during the summer, and I couldn't tell if they were serious or just poking fun at me for living practically as far away from an ocean as you can get. Either way I was not amused.)
And my left calf has been KILLING me for several days. A couple weeks ago it started hurting randomly, and it would come and go and it wasn't so bad, but now it hurts all the time and sometimes I can barely walk. It completely goes away when I take some ibuprofin though, and it's not bruised or anything. I think I might have had a charlie horse or something when I was sleeping and I didn't wake up to try and stretch it out, and that just hurt it more so now it's all fucked up. I can deal with it here, but I'm really not looking forward to traversing the Philadelphia airport completely bogged down with bags with a gimpy leg. Ah well, I guess I'll deal. Maybe I can ride around on one of those little carts with the old people.
Back to studying about bóvedas de medio cañón and alfizes and cuantos naves tienen los catedrales góticos y románicos. Yeah it's about as fun as it sounds.
After some intense thought and a nice side portion of stress, I've decided to....stay with the Spanish major. Like you care! But anyway, that'd be the easiest thing for me to do ("easy" as in "ease of classes" as well as "ease of figuring it all out.") Everything else needs some crazy prerequisites, whereas in Spanish, I'm well on track to graduate in 4 years, assuming I do some classes over the summer. I do need a minor though, so now I just have to figure out a nifty minor to do that, like my major, won't be hard to swing. Philosophy, perchance? Sociology?
Next week Mary and her mom are coming to visit (Mary's my neighbor who I've known my whole life who studied with ISA in Barcelona a couple years ago, and stayed with the same host family). So that's exciting! I get to see two faces from home as well as (I'm guessing) go out to eat for some tasty vittles. Then after that I'm off to the UK for a bit, and then back here for a month and then I go home....Jesus it sounds like such a short time when I say it like that. I'm really going to miss Barcelona, I will say. As much as I'm looking forward to going home, just to be home, there's something about this place that I love (and no, it's not the urine smell in the streets, nor is it the beggars, nor the dirty old men who holler "guapa!" or "rubia!") *tears up*
And yes, I did quote Natalie Portman in Where The Heart Is for the subject line. Novalee Nation ftw.
So according to Weather.com it's still snowing a tad in Denver, but the news a couple hours ago had live footage and it didn't look TOO horrible, and they said it had let up a bit and should stop snowing tonight. Tomorrow it's supposed to be "sunny," and the airport is scheduled to open at noon. My flight is scheduled to get in at something crazy close to that, like 12:17, so we'll see. I don't care if it's delayed, but if it's cancelled I really might kill something.
I went to bed at like 9 last night and woke up around 9 this morning to my delicious roomservice breakfast. I've done absolutely nothing today except watch a lot of news to keep track of the Denver situation, and a lot of the History Channel. Anyway it went by pretty quickly, I just had dinner (delicious hamburgers and unlimited Diet Coke don't make eating alone a fun experience) and got online to bitch some more and to check Weather.com again because I'm obsessed.
It's very strange to be back in the US. Things are new and clean and shiny, there's English everywhere, I am fully capable of expressing myself exactly how I want to to people, and people are nice and service is spectacular. I've probably dealt with a bunch of assholes here since I arrived, but I haven't noticed because I got so used to it in Spain. Whenever anyone smiles at me, I smile back because I'm so amused by the fact that not only is someone paying me any attention, but they're happy to be doing so. And things are in DOLLARS. I still say "euros" though, and will probably get back in the swing of saying "dollars" right before I leave again.
Guess where I am?!?!?! Philadelphia! Until Friday morning! Because Denver has a shit ton of snow and all the flights there are cancelled!! Isn't that awesome? I got in from my Madrid flight and was all "omg yay I'm back in America!!" and called my parents to express my joy, only to have my heart totally crapped on when they told me that DIA was closed, along with half everything else in the city. So I cried for a bit and then went and got on another flight on Friday at like 10am. I'm staying at the Marriott at the Philly airport (so I don't have to go outside and risk getting shot) which is pretty swank...I have a king sized bed, anyway! Mwaahaha...But I want to be home, and this totally sucks royal balls. :(
I accidentally bought a lot of time on this thing so yeah. Last night was pretty depressing, we all went out to a bar for one last night together, and everyone was saying their goodbyes. Most people left and then Rachael, Amanda and I walked back together because we live in the same direction. We hung out at a gas station (por que?) and then said goodbye to Rachael, since Amanda and I will see each other again. So sad! I love those people. I was moderatley drunk, so I got home around 5:30 and had a 6:30 cab, so I definitely did not sleep at all. I didn't even change clothes, so I was pretty stanky today. Anyway the flights went fine, a girl from ISA who was also on my flights in September named Lindsay was also on my two flights (Barcelona > Madrid and Madrid > Phily) so that was neat.
Anyway, yeah, I didn't sleep on the plane rides and so now I'm at like 36 hours of no sleep so I'm going to go to bed soon. Night.
So I had without a doubt one of the best weekends I've ever had. Friday we just went to a bar and it was the usual crowd and was really dope. Saturday night I went to dinner with a bunch of people (like 18 total I think?) to this Catalan restaurant that was really cheap and really delicious, so that was win win. Then we went to a bar really close by and I didn't spend a lot of money and was happy (actually the whole weekend I didn't spend a lot which makes me smile). Sunday was awesome, I walked up to Parc Güell (a nice 40 minute jaunt that I'd never walked before so it was nice to see more of the city) and met a bunch of people for a "picnic." It was really fun, there were like 8 or so of us and we were just hanging out and talking for a long time, then we went and got coffee and it was just...fun. Then after that we went over to Mel and Kinsy's apartment and smoked hookah and watched Elf and drank hot chocolate, it was delicious.
Today I went to Montserrat with Ben, Hana, Nelson and Lauren. It's about an hour's train ride out of Barcelona in a mountainy area, it's a monastery and it's really beautiful and has an amazing view. We went to the monastery and then hiked up both sides of the little valley area, it was a lot of walking but it was totally worth it, it was so amazing.
It's going to be so sad when all these people leave D: We're going out tonight and then tomorrow night for some last minute lovin', but after that, no mas! At least with these people, and there are quite a few of these people who I really like and think I could have a totally awesome friendship with if I was given more than just three and a half months to know them.
So tomorrow I get to pack and clean my room and everything, then go to my final and then go to ANOTHER final because I missed one last week and have to go make up for it tomorrow...so yeah...Then I go hoooome. :D There's a good chance I won't get online tomorrow, so I'll talk to yall later from Denver! Hasta luego chicos.
I feel like I have a lot to write about but I'm not really sure what.
Edit: After looking at how ginormous this post is, evidently I WAS sure what to write about...
Thanksgiving was pretty fun, though there was no stuffing or pumpkin pie (which is probably just as well because I'm überpicky with my stuffing and pumpkin pie and generally only like my mom's). We went out to a bar after that so I didn't get to sleep until late, then I had to wake up at like 4:30 or something to leave for Sevilla at 5:45. Sevilla was really awesome, I liked it a lot. It's in the southwestern part of Spain, about an hour or so flight (or something like that, I was so tired on both the flight there and the flight back that I was already asleep when the captain came on to talk about the weather and the duration of the flight). It was raining a ton on Saturday when we went to the big cathedral, and we were supposed to go somewhere else but it got cancelled. So after the cathedral I went to the bull ring with Rachael and Mikayla (not a bull fight, we just went on a little tour of the ring and there's a little museum type thing there) and that was pretty cool. Then we had lunch and went to...Starbucks! Naoooooooooo! That was the first time had Starbucks since I've been here :( Oh well. Then we went to a flamenco show that I didn't think I was going to be able to go on because I hadn't RSVPed when I should have, but I went anyway with no problemo. It was pretty cool I guess, I dunno, maybe I'm just not a huge flamenco person.
Then a bunch of us (me, Rachael, Mikayla, Jen and Melissa) walked around with Javi, Dani and Geno (the three ISA directors who were on the trip) and they took us to a bunch of tapas bars and we had some good eats and beer. Then we went to some big bar place and there were a lot of other ISA people there, so we met up with some of them and then went to a discoteca and stayed out until they kicked us out at like 6 or something. Somehow we found our way back to the hotel and had breakfast when it opened at 7, which was amusing cuz all the happy old people and families are in there and then there's me, Rachael and Mikayla laughing about eggs and chocolate donuts. Ah, good times. Then yesterday was pretty much a waste, we had to be out of the hotel by 1 and our flight wasn't until 5 so we just wasted time in the airport, then we didn't get off the bus from the Barcelona airport until like 8ish. Bleh.
After we got back I went to the Hard Rock Cafe with Ainslie and Amanda, which was awesome and horrible at the same time. The food was amazing, I had salmon on penne pasta and a margarita, but Amanda and Ainslie were annoying the hell out of me and I was tired and sick so that wasn't fun. They made friends with some creepy Spanish men and were going to go to a discoteca with them, so I just left and got some coffee with Ben and vented a bit and then just talked about nerdy things. I was so exhausted but when I went home I couldn't sleep because my throat was so dry and uncomfortable, so now I'm still tired and nasty feeling. I hate being sick. Though maybe now this will be a good reason for me to be a hermit for a few days and just sleep away the time until I can go HOME. :D
I'm going to be kind of sad though when I go home, just because most of the people in this program are leaving after this semester, and while I'm not a huge fan of a lot of them, it's still going to be sad. It's not like in grade school where most of the people will be back the next year, and while some people leave here and there, by and large it's the same crew of people for a long time. But I'll never see most of these people again, and that's just kind of sad. There's a handful of people that I will definitely miss :'(
In other news (oh yes, there's MORE!) I think I might possibly maybe be getting a Wii for Christmas, which makes me smile. I told my mom I also want a flatscreen TV and a laptop, and I think she's going to kindly tell me to go fuck myself. Oh well.
Oh and don't pay attention to the subject, it's a joke from this weekend that I find way too funny not to mention, so it's for my personal humor.
Those of you who are on Facebook know how you can post "notes" which are essentially bare-bones blog entries. One of the people who I would easily consider to be one of my "best friends" here in Barcelona just posted a "note" essentially saying that everyone in ISA annoys him and that there's "no one who he would normally choose to hang out with." Ouch? I haven't hung out with him very much for the past couple weeks, he was in London and other stuff has been going on. But, what the hell. I'm offended by that. He said some other stuff about how no one wants to go out exploring to find new little restaurants and bars and such. Excuse me? Who was the person who wandered all around town with you and who you discovered a bunch of little places with? I think it's because we all went to a discoteca on Friday and then woke him up making pasta. So one night we all go hardcore American and are assholes, and everything else is just forgotten? Whatever, that's some weak sauce right there. I am not amused.
We don't have class tomorrow or Friday because of Columbus Day or whatever they call it here. So Amanda and I are going to go to the zoo, amusement park, and some other stuff. We're also planning on exploring the area above the University more, we're pretty familiar with everything between the University down through Las Ramblas and Barri Gótic, so now we need to go in the opposite direction. Then next week: Rome! And then Paris! I'm so excited :D
And I'm glad I came to the ISA office because we have a "mandatory meeting" in a half hour that I totally forgot about. But now my time on the intarweb is cut short D:
And damn you Vox for cutting my Mean Girls quote short in the subject and forcing me to edit it D:
Yay Pyrenees! We left Barcelona on Saturday morning and had a lovely 4.5 hour drive. Actually it wasn´t too bad, Ainslie pretty much talked about sex the whole time which was mildly amusing. Then they were singing Disney songs, and Amanda and I randomly started singing Bette Midler's "From a Distance," which is still stuck in my head a bit. Then we arrived at a litte town with two old churches (I can't for the life of me remember what it was called! I fail miserably :( I'll have to look at the itinerary later). The view was amazing, it totally reminded me of the mountains in Colorado in the spring. The clouds were really low and just hanging around the summits of the mountains, and the sun would come out of the clouds and shine on them a bit and then go back behind a cloud. It was really amazing. One of the churches we went to had a tower that we all climbed up. That was entertaining, lol, having 40 students climbing dangerously steep ladders to get to the top of this 500+ year old tower. It was worth it though. There was a little park there so I got my kiddy on and played on the swings, it was highly entertaining. It was funny though because everyone was freezing their titties off in jackets and I'm just walking around in a tank top and thought it was comfortable. Yay for Gunnison skin >.>
Then we hopped in the autobús again and made our way to a little....I want to call it a ski town, because I think that's what it was, but I'm not sure. Anyway, a town, and checked into our hotel. Amanda and I went into town to get some food, and ended up at a pizzeria thing. It was pretty good, though my pizza was made on what appeared to be a flour tortilla, so that was...odd. Anyway then we got some churros con chocolate, which was everything I thought it'd be and more. Of course it made me sick later, but it was good at the time.
Sunday morning we woke up at like 8 or some ungodly hour and went for breakfast, that was ok. Ainslie, Amanda and I ate with Makayla (I have no idea how to spell that name...How I spelled it doesn't look right, but I can't think of anyway else to do it?) who's really nice. I've always liked her but never really talked to her because she's quiet. Granted I didn't talk to her much then either, lol, but still a bit more. Anyway then we went out to get on the bus and ended up waiting an hour for them to "fix the brakes" that our dumbass busdriver fucked up the day before. It was actually kinda fun, we just stood around chit chatting with Makayla and Rachal (omggg people are killing me with their name spelling) who's also really nice. We finally got on the bus and went to Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park, which evidently is the only national park in Catalonia (the "state" type area that Barcelona is the capital of). We took some Jeeps and minivans (?) up a windy little road and then had a fun guided minihike. It was nice, though I kind of wished they had just let us loose to wander and do our own thing for a half hour or 45 minutes or so, instead of having some guy with a weird, hard to understand accent (all in Spanish mind you) tell you about why the rock is grey and how the woodpeckers eat. I care, but not really. I just wanted to look and get away from all the snotty kids in my group who are loud. That's the best part about the mountains, they're so quiet and peaceful.
Anyway then we popped back into the bus and drove back to Barcelona and got in around 9ish. The ride home was horrible, I had mad ADD so I'd play my PSP for a couple minutes, then get out the iPod, then get bored with that after two songs and start to read Harry Potter (I got about a third of the way through the first chapter of book 5). Anyway so that was long and boring. I talked to my mom and she said that my sister was going to come over to their house that night and that they'd call me between midnight and 1am my time so Sarah could talk to me, cuz I haven't talked to her since I left D: So I needed to waste time after we got back into Barcelona around 9, so Amanda and I went to get some drinks. Went to one of our usual spots and I saw the first live cockroach I've ever seen, which was more than a little unnerving. Thank God we didn't eat there! D: Then we went to another one of our regular places, this funny German bar where all the guys know us there, haha. I had what was probably the third hot dog I've ever had in my life, no joke. It was actually pretty good, they put the bun on this heated spike that toasts the inside, and then they toast the outside. We got to talking about how we need to sort of expand our circle of friends, because right now it's pretty much Amanda, Ben and me, with a side of Ainslie. There are a lot of hoebags who we wouldn't really want to hang out with, but there are a good 5 or 6 girls who we're going to try and hang out with some and get to know better, and then pretty much all 4 of the other guys are cool. So we'll see how that goes. Most people we know and talk to and are nice and whatever, but no one who we really hang out with outside of the ISA office or class or ISA excursions or anything. Plus it'd be fun to travel with a small group.
Anyway then my sister didn't end up coming over to my parents' house so I didn't get to talk to her but I talked to my mom some more, and then went to sleep. I woke up randomly at 9 this morning...I wasn't even really planning on going to class this morning, but I guess that was God's way of telling me to get off my lazy ass and get to class. So I had breakfast and came to the ISA office and am about to go to my grammar class. Thank God it's only an hour and a half today, and not the ungodly 3 hour class D: Then at 3 I have my Catalan class, which should be interesting.
The homesickness STILL has not fully hit me. I guess I should be grateful, I'm just confused. I get a bit like, "aww I really want to see my dog, aww I really want to drive my car, aww I really want to get on my computer, I really want to watch my movies" every now and then but it's not like I'm sad over it. I dunno! It'll probably hit after my parents come in like 3 weeks and then leave again D: Holy shit 3 weeks? That's so close! :D
