12 posts tagged “spain 09”

I am getting tired. Overall this trip has been quite relaxing, despite some fiascos here and there, but after hauling everything around on my back for...*counts* 40 days, I am getting wiped out and ready to just unload my backpack and never look at it again.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with myself after I get back. I'm not sure if the pre-holiday season is a good time to go looking for a job. Don't a lot of people lose their jobs around that time of year? Hmm.

I've also been toying with the idea of studying abroad again. Uh oh! I don't think I would do, like, an American program again, though maybe. I don't know. It would be interesting to just, like, enroll at a foreign university and go there.

(and no, that's not me saying "I miss school and want to go back," it's me saying "I want to go abroad again and live in a foreign city and 'studying' is a good excuse.")

In other news, I am finding myself weirdly excited for winter.

Well I've had a rather interesting couple days. Sunday night (I think it was Sunday? Maybe it was Monday? Damn I have no concept of time over here) I was on the expensive wifi at the hostel in Caceres (town between Madrid and Portugal) when my computer decided to go batshit insane. The screen started flickering and long story short: it doesn't work. So that kind of, like, sucks and stuff. As upsetting as it is to not have a computer (apart from the whole "hey I want to post some random crap to Twitter" stuff, it's also very useful for, like, you know. Planning what I'm doing next. Booking a place to sleep for the next night. Finding bus/train schedules, etc) I am actually more upset by the fact that now I have no way to charge my precious iPod, Norbert. Fortunately Norbert was fully charged when all this went down, so I was going to save him for when I was feeling deprived and angsty and wanted some music to angst to.

So Tuesday afternoon I caught a bus from Caceres to Santander, on the north coast of Spain. 9ish hours later, at 10:30pm, we arrive in Santander in the pouring rain. Oh, did I mention that I didn't have a hostel reservation? Or anything? I had written down the address of one hostel, which apparently no longer exists because I walked through that plaza several times and never saw it. Anyway, I found 3 other hostels, one of which was full and the other two didn't even answer the buzzer things on the door. So it's almost midnight, I've been walking around a foreign city in the pouring rain, I'm soaked, tired, emotional...so I got a cab and went to a 3-star hotel on the beach. The room is depressingly tiny, I actually walked in and started laugh-crying cuz I was so fed up with everything but at the same time the whole situation was weirdly comical. So anyway...The room is 50€ a night so it's a fair bit more than a hostel but not bad. I classified the situation as a level 7 emergency and deemed the hotel necessary (so, thank you Mom and Dad.)

Oh, yeah: As if to LAUGH IN MY FACE, I unpacked my iPod when I got into my hotel room only to see that it had been on THE ENTIRE FUCKING TIME since I had packed it like 14 hours earlier. It was still going and still has some juice, so part of me is well impressed by its battery life, but WHAT THE EFF MATE. So I shut it off and then later took it out again and it was ON AGAIN. Wtffff. The TV also like, sort of half turns on sometimes. Like I slid my backpack across the floor and it made the sound that a TV makes when you turn it on, but didn't actually turn on. I was kind of weirded out by that. Electricity ghosts are haunting my room.

So, yeah. I am getting tired of Spain, lol. It's lovely here but I am ready to move on to my next destination. Which is GERMANY, which is TOMORROW. OMG. I am flying into Frankfurt but will be staying the night in Mainz, then getting on an early morning boat for a cruise up the Rhine all day, ending up in Cologne. I'm in Cologne for a day and then I'm going to Amsterdam for a day and then to Dusseldorf, where I'll be flying out of to Krakow. I'll be there 4 days, then fly to Stockholm for 2 days, London for 2 days and then back to Spain for a few days before I leave for home.

I'm also excited for Germany because, being like, half German (and the other half is other northern and eastern European blood) I "look German" so will hopefully blend in a bit more, lol. I won't feel self-conscious about being the only blonde-haired and blue-eyed girl in the room.

Anyway. Just an update letting yall know I'm not dead or anything.

BTW if any of you nerd-types are reading (ahem Deltan) you should totally look at my post over at the Apple forums about my fucking weird ass computer issues: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2162873&stqc=true

I weighed myself this morning (there's a scale in the bathroom of this hostel for some reason) and was pleased to see that I have lost 10 pounds since the last time I weighed myself before leaving on this trip a little over 2 weeks ago. I'm hoping by the end of the trip I will be down to about 130 or so. When I get back I just have to be sure to work out and not pig out on burritos and beer all the time so that I can keep the weight off.

Anyway...mini trip update is that we've hit a bit of a snag. It's going to be difficult getting back into Spain, to Santiago de Compostela, a city that I'm not entirely sure why I want to go there in the first place, but am going to anyway. At least I'm going to try to, but a lack of any solid information on buses online and the lack of a central bus station here in Porto means that tomorrow morning I'm basically going to be going to individual little bus stations and see what I can see, then booking tomorrow night's accommodation pretty much right before I leave. Sigh. Cutting it close...

Happy news is I did laundry today. I hadn't done it in...a while. Nice to have clean underwear once again. I was talking to a German girl in my room and when I told her I was travelling for seven weeks she looked at my backpack and said "and that's all you have?" It's surprisingly easy to live off of very few things (in fact there are some things that I packed that I wish I had left behind.)

I totally fucked up my plan to go to Morocco. I was under the impression that tours leave from Malaga but they actually leave from a town near here that I'm not entirely sure if I can get to in time for the tour. I don't know. I could just say "fuck it" and not do Morocco, which would save me quite a bit of headache and stress BUT THEN I WOULDN'T GO TO MOROCCO AND I KIND OF, LIKE, WANTED TO YA KNOW.

ok, trying not to be pissed at myself. It would work -fine- if the tours were on Sunday and Monday but they're not. I get Sunday - lord's day blah blah blah - but wtf Monday. So this has, like, fucked up my schedule and I'm not happy. But then, like, oh woe is me I can't fucking go to one place on my giant 7 weeks of lazy Spanishness. SOME PEOPLE HAVE REAL PROBLEMS, KATIE.

*sulks*

Soooo unless I figure out a way to pull it off in the next, like, hour, I'm just going to scew it and say that I'll do it next time I'm over here. The one day tours aren't supposed to be all that great anyway (I'm consoling myself with this) so NEXT TIME when I come here and actually have, like, money and shit, I'll do a multi-day Morocco tour.

And actually, like, fucking plan it out MORE THAN A COUPLE DAYS BEFORE I WANT TO DO IT. grar.

Soooo to avoid this happening a THIRD FUCKING TIME (it already happened with the Alhambra in Granada, which you need advance tickets to, so I'm going -back- there on Friday to see that.) Anyway, to avoid this happening again I am now going to sit down and figure out what I want to do where. So I don't get into, like, fucking some city and am like "wow that would be a really awesome thing to do" and realize that tickets are sold out.

Not amused with myself. Ranty entry: over.

ETA: Ok, I'm over it. In my continued research I actually learned that it's, like, really not that great a tour anyway. And my lord almighty Saint Ricardus Stevus also says it's shit. So, -less- upset.

Tomorrow I'm hopping on a bus to Malaga, on the southern coast of Spain. I'm excited. Granada has been really nice but I stayed here a bit too long I think and don't really have much to do. I'm staying in Malaga for the same amount of time (4 nights) but I have quite a bit planned so it'll be good.

I find that I don't really miss home. I'm a week into this thing and that's, like, a typical length of vacation, and so often on vacations a week or two into it you get kind of ready to go home. It's probably because this is a pretty stress-free thing, and especially since I'm travelling alone there's no weird drama and arguing and shit that eventually happens when travelling with people. I have no problem being alone, I find it rather enjoyable and don't really get lonely or anything.

Anyway! I'm off to get some food and then sleep so I can get up early tomorrow and get the bus to Malaga, where I'm going to spend all day on the (topless) beach.

So, Granada.

The first thing I have to say is that people are just....like....nice. Now, don't get me wrong - I love Barcelona to death and it is quite possibly my favorite city on the face of the earth - but shit, can people there be rude. I'm not sure if it's a sort of "big city" thing....But people there can be serious assholes. There are a lot of nice people, yes, but overall...it's a very standoffish populace (look at them English apples, yo.)

Anyway, I've been in Granada like, 12 hours, so it's way too premature to make any sort of judgement call. But, seriously, so far people have been so nice. It started off well with the guy at my hostel not making me pay for the night I booked but wasn't here for (because I'm, like, a fucking idiot.) Then I walked around a bit, and despite getting accosted by a crazy gypsy woman and being "cursed," I had a pretty good day. I went to a cafe and the lady who worked there was like, extremely nice. She kept on asking if I wanted more wine, gave me delicious tapas and was just...nice. idk. That has never really happened to me in Barcelona.

So, anyway, Gypsy Woman. I was walking around the Cathedral which isn't very far from my hostel, and as I'm heading back towards the Cathedral itself to come back to the hostel this short fat woman runs up to me holding pine branches. So I'm like...ok wtf. She shoves one of the branches in my left hand and proceeds to tell me, completely unsolicited, that I will, you know, "have a long life and find love and la dee fricken da." So I'm like, ok, whatever, and make to leave. Then she asks me for money (as expected.) I tell her I don't have money, and she prattles on about how she can "make change." (All of this is in Spanish, by the way.) So I tell her that I don't have any cash, "sorry," and she grabs my wrist and makes to take me away somewhere, saying, "Oh, that's ok, I can take you to a bank." What the fuck? That's when I was just, like, "NO" really firmly, detatched myself from this insect of a woman and walked away.

As I walked away she said something basically to the effect of "you will have bad luck for the rest of your life." Ok, great, fuck you, whatever.

But other than that, Granada is a pretty neat place. I'm not sure when I'll go to the Alhambra, but I'm here for a few days so I'm not worried. I might just wander tomorrow.

Anyway. This gripping post was in place of another wherein I would be emotional and would spout some shit about "finding" something.

ALSO WHAT FUCKING IRRITATES ME. "Sevilla" (or "Seville") is pronounced "seh-VEE-yah." Not "seh-VILL." Thanks.

Last night, Katie's Excellent Adventure actually began. I left the comforts of Barcelona, a city that I am quite familiar with, having lived there for almost 8 months a couple years ago. I took an overnight train and am now in Granada, in Andalucia in the south of Spain. I have never been here before so I am excited to be in a completely new city.

I am reading the Alchemist in Spanish. I knew nothing of the book before reading it, other than the main protagonist is Spanish. I'm only about halfway through it but I think it was a perfect book choice for this trip. Unsure how to explain it but if you've read the book then you probably know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I am feeling more positive about this trip right now than I have since arriving in Spain. :)

I have a day or so left in Barcelona, I leave for Granada Friday night on an overnight train (with a bed! which will be interesting.) I have never been to Granada before so I am excited to be going to a new city. Barcelona is lovely but it's kind of weird being here for just a few days. Visiting doesn't really compare to living here. Sigh.

I am slowly getting back into the Spanish way of things, though still feel awkward in certain situations (example, I HATE asking for the check. I would always wait for other people to do it when I was here before, but now because I'm alone I have to do it or I'll never leave the restaurant. And I HATE DOING IT because I feel like I'm being demanding, even though that's how they do it here.) I am remembering how awesome it is to not have to leave a tip, though!

My appetite has been very strange since I arrived. I am like, never hungry and have had pretty much one meal a day. I'm not really concerned and actually hope this keeps up, mainly because I don't have enough money to eat three square meals a day. And it would be really nice to come out of this trip being nice and skinny! And tan! :D

It's very amusing being a native English speaker here, though. Lots of stuff is translated into rather poor English (for example, the restaurant I went to for lunch today had "Macaroni of the Grandmother" on the menu) and it's highly entertaining. I saw someone with a shirt that said "Better to burn self than roast slowly." Wtf? Then there was a shirt with like, "Unicorn Supremist" or something crazy about unicorns on it.

Got into Barcelona safely and soundly, it feels like I never left and is REALLY WEIRD. Like, so much is coming back to me, I was walking around earlier and barely had to think about what I was doing or where I was going. Everything is just....the same it was 2 and a half years ago.

What is actually kind of terrifying me right now are the hostels. Not in like an "omg I'm going to get raped" sort of terrified, but like, "new freshman with no friends in the dorm on the first day of college" terrified. Most people are sane and, therefore, travel with people. I am insane and chose to travel alone and feel awkward. People are definitely nice but I still feel awkward! :( I am sure after a week or so of "hostelling" I will be used to it and will have a sort of system down for like, taking showers and getting ready for bed in a quick and painless manner, but right now I'm all bumbling around and forgetting shit in my bag and having to go back and get it and all that....(might also have to do with the fact that I, like, haven't slept in like a day and a half). But at the moment I just feel out of place. And weird. And, like, fish out of water.

Here's hoping it gets better! Which it will....in due time.

Sorry for the uninteresting post.

I am looking in to adding Amsterdam and Morocco onto my schedule in Europe. Morocco would just be a day trip from Spain, Amsterdam I would do instead of Munich (which would mean no Oktoberfest). I'm saddened about not going to Oktoberfest but that would add a CONSIDERABLE amount of money onto my already steep bill for this whole adventure. Plus I've read stuff where you need to reserve a bed in a hostel almost a year in advance, and since that leg of my trip is about 3 months away, I think I am, in a word, screwed. So, plan b: Amsterdam! Which is awesome. I can smoke legally and go see whores in widows on my way to the Anne Frank house.

This week I noticed that I have a considerable amount of white hair growing on the sides of my head. It's rather long so it must have been growing for at least a year. It's also not just, like, a strand here and there, it literally looks like I had white paint on my hand and ran it through my hair. There is a lot of it. Fortunately I'm blonde and my hair is already light, and some of it is like...silvery blonde already, so you can't really tell unless I point it out. And I guess I haven't noticed it in all this time so surely it can't be TOO noticeable? But, still, wtf, I'm 22! :(

Working out is going well, I was talking to a woman I work with last night about working out and mentioned that I'd been running two miles a day for about two weeks, and she said something to the effect of "if you can already see a change in your body after two weeks, that's good!" I had said nothing about noticing any change, so I assume that means that she has noticed, which is good. I'm taking today off, I think, mainly because I'm hungover as shit but also because my legs need a bit of a break.