Being Fabulous

Sometimes I remind myself how awesome I am.



Time for another cafe con leche ;)

Letter to Sidewalk Users

To the people in Spain who don't know how to share a sidewalk,

I may be Canadian, but I will still run you down if you're in my way.

Sincerely,

People who walk faster than a snail's pace.

uumm... ?

All day yesterday, people kept saying to me "I keep thinking today is Thursday" and I'll let you know Thursday or Friday if you have the job" and "We'll talk on Thursday"...

Yesterday was Thursday. End story.

The Peanut Butter Deficency... again.

So as it turns out, my little supermercado in my neighbourhood (or the one closest to my house anyway) does not even have the crappy peanut butter that only mildly passes as peanut butter.

Its a good thing I'm headed into my old neighbourhood... I know they have some PB there!!

Besides that, things are good. And yes, I know that no pictures have been posted yet. Lo siento. Soon!

Adios, y hasta luego mi amigos!

You'll Hardly Notice the Difference...

As a follow up to "Finding a Replacement", it turns out that while tomato juice is seriously no replacement for our beloved Canadian Clamato, Bloody Mary's are actually not bad.

I'm slowly starting to get used to them.

Just add a lot of lemon, salt and some pepper, along with all the other ingredients of a Caesar, and double to vodka. You hardly notice that it's not Clamato ;)

Getting Back on the Horse

Its been a few days since I've had a chance to write anything, I know, lo siento.

I swear I have a good excuse for not being present in my online life...

I am job hunting. Seriously.

But I have prospects. AND I got one of my old students back... she is wonderful. I cannot wait until our class!

But on to the other things I've been doing.

I'm trying to learn Spanish. Eek. It is only difficult in this city because the best way to learn a language is to fully immerse yourself in it. If you know anything about the people of Spain, it is that most of them speak very quickly, and have a lisp. Its not really a lisp, but they pronounce things as though they do. For example, 'Barcelona' is Barthelona. And 'Vale' (which means 'okay') is pronounced like we would say ballet, with the emphasis on the first syllable.

All of this means that listening to people speak, it is somewhat difficult to pick up on the words you know when they are jumbled in with the words you don't know.

It's only a little frustrating.

And so I'll listen to some more Enrique and Marc Anthony and hopefully it will come. jajaja

Cafe con Leche

I can't even tell you how much I love this coffee.

Barcelona, for some reason, makes the absolute BEST coffee I have ever had. It's espresso and milk (hot milk) and probably some addictive additive because I can't seem to get enough of it. And for those of you who know me, jeez, too much coffee makes Canadia crazy! But it's so tasty, I don't want to stop. And the desserts... Croissants, chocolate croissants, cakes, pastries, wow.. Everything! It's a good thing I joined a gym. Need to combat the sugar intake.

So I sit here at a little cafe near my flat and drink coffee. Seriously, could life be better than this?

Back to my cafe. Enjoy the day lovely friends!

Finding a Replacement...

If anyone knows how to make a Bloody Mary taste like a Caesar, let me know.

Experiments to commence in T-1 day.

Pollo con Salsa: The Language Barrier

Barbados and I just got home from the gym (40 min spin class for me, in Spanish... I don't know if I did it all right, but I was pretty sweaty at the end so I think something worked!)

He sent me down to buy a chicken and gravy (or sauce, because they don't have gravy here) and potatoes. Muy bien. "Pollo, con salsa, y patates".

I got downstairs to the little shop, and they gave me a whole chicken in a bag, with what looked like oil or chicken grease, also in the bag and told me to microwave para dos minutos. Umm.. okay. I don't have a microwave, but I'll figure it out. She said a whole bunch of other things that I have no idea what she said, but it all sounded good, and I responded as much as I could. (They talk so fast here that its hard to understand.. Colombians talk much slower. Can I talk to a Colombian?)

Patates para dos (for two people).

Tambien, la tienda esta abierta los domingos, y dias festivos. (Also, the store is open on Sundays and holidays)... Bueno.

Tengo muy hambre. I just want my chicken and sauce.

And Then I Cleaned My Apartment...

So today was probably the second most productive since being here, and I can't even say I did that much.

But I did buy a purse. Its pretty awesome. It's a deep jade colour and has tassels and a bit of fringe. Who knew I'd buy a purse with fringe?!

I also heard about some jobs. And looked for apartment listings. I think I'm going to have to walk around the neighbourhood for that though, and call numbers I see on buildings I like. Some places are sketch, or too far from my new gym. Yes, I joined a gym... already. And yes I went. And yes, it is high class.. so high class that I'm pretty sure I can blog from the bikes. But we'll see. I'm not sure how much writing I will do while sweaty.. mmm sweaty blogs.

Anyway, so I had gone out to drink a beer, watch the BarcaFC game and wait for Barbados (for those of you who don't know, I refer to people in this blog as the place from which they came, generally, so as to not give away their identity) to be done work and joined me. And then he decided he was going to stay near the school to watch because he was done late and pretty well hates missing futbol matches. Okay. So maybe I'm weird, but I don't like to drink alone in strange bars with old men who stare at me... maybe I'm not weird, but either way, I came home.

Our other roommate was not home yet so I decided to do the one thing that would make me feel more at home, and make my roommates like me... I cleaned the apartment. I swept all of the common area floors, and then mopped. *sigh* feels a little more like home. Me gusta.

Buenos noches mi amigos.

Telephono móvil

So I've now got myself set up with a phone (pre-paid, so my internet is 7.76€/month) and I have 45€ credit. Phone calls will cost me an obscene amount of money and so will texting, as per usual. But the good news is, almost everyone I know has BBM, Whatsapp or will use Facebook to talk to me... Excellent!

Why are phones so much cheaper in Europe than in Canada?!

If anyone wants my new number, PM me in Facebook!

I've been here for just less than 24 hours and I know if I don't post soon certain people (*cough* my mother *cough*) are going to start making comments..

First off, my flight was fine. I'm pretty certain that the woman next to me from Zaragosa was pregnant, but when I asked her, she didn't seem to understand (and I didn't want to press the issue, in case she wasn't). She and her husband slept most of the flight, which was perfect because I tried to sleep for most of the flight. I'm one of the few lucky people that, given the right seat on the plane, can curl up and have a snooze without being completely uncomfortable. The free wine during flight didn't hurt either, but they really could stand to give you more than 3 ounces of it!

Somehow, magically, my ears managed to pop much earlier than they ever had before making the landing much more relaxing. The fact that I was still yawning so much probably had something to do with that!

Once off the plane, we all went through customs. Of course the boarder guy that I had didn't speak a word of English and when he saw my visa stamped beautifully into my passport, he gave me a look like he had never seen a visa before in his life. Umm.. what? He asked if I was here to study, so rather than confuse him more, I said "Si, estudia!".

From there it was a quick jaunt to the bathroom to change and brush my teeth.

Baggage claim took forever. I'm pretty sure they carried one bag at a time over from the plane. It was ridiculous. Once they finally started putting a few bags out at a time, the crown thinned and thinned again. The sucky part of getting to the airport early and getting a good seat is that on the other end, your bag was put on the plane first, and will come off last. Once I finally had my two bags in had, I headed through the doors and out into Barcelona.

Barbados met me at the airport and I have to say it wasn't the classic 'The Notebook' style reunion with me running into his arms and him lifting me in the air. I was far too tired to run, and he was far too sick to lift.

He took my bags and we found a taxi.

We went for a walk after getting to his place. Had a beer at his favourite little watering hole and then headed back home for some food. Time and the hour of the day was a mystery to me all day yesterday.

And now it's Monday. And I'm in Barcelona instead of heading to work at Moose. I have to say, I miss the Moose. I don't miss the sometimes weirdo customers that tell me that our pulled pork is too salty, or that they ate bread and thought it was chicken... but I miss the people.

Well, on to start the day. Lets hope my Spanish comes back quickly... haha

Salute!

36 hours

The official countdown is on.. we are down to the final hours before takeoff and I cannot wait.

The week has been a wild blur of saying goodbye to people in all parts of this beautiful province, tears of sadness and joy and a lot of laughs.

I still have a crazy amount of stuff to do before I go again, but I feel confident that I will get everything sorted.

For now, I am still stressed and writing this with dye in my hair, laundry in the washer and a list a mile long... that's why this is so short. Haha (or jaja en espanol)

Hasta luego!