Mirame!! (Protestors against Bullfighting)

A Real Weekend

Well, it was the first weekend that I actually had some time off. Hit two pubs in the neighbourhood and two latino clus with my fellow classmates on Friday night/Saturday morning. The biggest lesson we learned--the suckiest time to be in Barcelona--4:30am in the morning while it was pouring and no cab to be seen and you had no idea where you were :))

Took a long walk from my place to Plaza Catalunya on Sunday afternoon-It was really nice seeing the mix of crowds--the tourists, the elders, the kids, the families, the couples, the punks, even the protestors (against bullfighting). There was a sidewalk book sales running about 10 blocks so I picked up a huge Spanish/English dictionary for 11 Euro (figured that I would need it eventually :))

Realized that what I really miss about Vancouver (or North American in general)-community libraries. Miss visiting libraries and gettting lost in all kinds of books. We have one here in my neighbourhood but of course everything is in Catalan/Spanish. Sharou is book hungry-might have to start ordering books from Amazon.com...

La Diada 9/11

(La Diada at Barrio Gotico) September 11th is the anniversary of the day in 1714 when the Franco-Spanish army captured Barcelona, ending the region's autonomous status. The annual commemoration of one of the most bloody and controversial episodes of Catalonia's history is a genuinely patriotic expression of emotion by the Catalonian people, and visitors to the region.

Chicken Breast?

I bought a frozen, pre-seasoned chicken breast package last weekend. Suppose to make some pasta with it last week but haven’t got around because my insane schedule. So I decided to give it a try this weekend. But, guess what I found out when I opened the package-it wasn’t chicken breast, it was PORK FEET. Oh my god, I couldn’t believe I was so retarded that did not even see the little piggy face label on the package. And it was somewhat grose-very fattening with no meat and there was still some hair on the skin. Well, I decided to give it a try to cook it. So I turned the stove on and cooked it for 45 minutes on a frying pan. However, it Still didn’t look very appealing (didn’t have the nerve to taste it). I suppose it was destined to go to the garbage chute now.

This is, seriously, the highlight of my day!

I need INTERNET!

This is what happened when you are going back to school after being out of school for a few years—couldn’t stare at the textbook for more than 45 minutes.

I found it hard to concentrate as I have such a short attention span now. So this is what I did the whole day—read for 30 minutes, since I don’t have the internet at home to take a break on (cuz my dear neighbour decided to put the security on their wireless connection, grumbles), I ended wandering to the kitchen every half an hour and realized that there was nothing in the fridge. What makes it worse is that since it’s a holiday (La Diata) in Catalunya so nothing is open today (except for Starbucks), I couldn’t buy any grocery…so the frustrated sharou ended up pacing between her room and the kitchen the whole day while trying to get some reading done. Not very successful but getting there.

Another funny thing about the internet connection here in Spain is that they (the service providers) totally utilized the concept of “price discrimination”. The internet service usually comes in three different packages: 1) 24 hours, everyday 2) evening on the weekdays + all day weekends or 3) all day weekends. Totally unheard of in North America, where we only have ONE package for the Internet service that is ULMITED TIME and ULTIMED data transfer. Here they also limit the amount of data going (uploading/downloading) via the Internet (i.e 2MB or 4MB), of course, the more the data transferring, the more expensive the service is. Here are some examples of promotions:

39.90 Euro
free phone calls nation-wide
ADSL: 24 hr access, 7 days a week
free modem

29.99 Euro
11 hours/a month of phone calls (land line) for free
ADSL: Weekday evenings only (Monday to Friday 9pm to 8am)
All day on weekends

21.90 Euro
11 hours/a month of phone calls (land line) for free
ADSL: Evening only (Monday-Sunday 9pm -8am)

21.90 Euro
11 hours/a month of phone calls (land line) for free
ADSL: weekends only (Friday 9pm to Monday 8am)

Bon dia!

Early Birds-Jordi, Jordi, Angelo, and I were the first hungry guests to the cafeteria while all of our fellow classmates were having sweet dreams :)










Castle in the sky? (Cardona)

Cardona!

(morning in Cardona)

We spent two days in this little mining town 2 hours out of Barcelona for the leadership session and building a F1 car. It was a lot fun! My team rocked!! We not only finished dismentaling the car first but also finished the race 2nd position with our very simple-designed RICKSHAW :) And most importantly, none of us is ENGINEER!! And as for "personal" achievement, I won the 2nd medal in my entire life :)) with three bottles of champagne :))

note: (ha ha ha ha group number 5, group number 5) x 3 (team cheer is adpated from the infamous "stay alive" song, how dorky :))

mi habitacion!

Mi Piso

I am totally falling in love with this neighbourhood-Gracia:) So vibrant, cute, and old. Just moved in here yesterday, felt much more settled in now-suprisingly, I actually enjoyed staying in, not to mention that we got "free" internet connection from our neighbour's wireless/unblocked WiFi. Very sweet indeed. I even have a balcony. Since I live on the "principal" floor (2nd floor), don't really have a view but it's nice to have open air space. Took some real-estate-advertisement-like photos of the apartment. The nicest thing of my flat is that it comes with EVERYTHING-including plates, utensils, cutlery, mugs, and wine glasses, even baking supplies. Well, of coures everything in this flat is from IKEA-from the curtains to the scissors-of course, the cheapest place to buy homeware. Do you know that IKEA catalogue is the 2nd most distributed publication in the world (1st is the BIBLE)??

Fantasy Energy Drink & Alvaro en Bose!

grand tour of BCN

I finally moved into to my apartment today. It was such a relief. I love the neighbourhood I am living in-Gracia, it's an old/cute neighbourhood, famous for its small streets and squares. It has a great mix of people-the locals, the students, the tourists, everybody!

It was such a surprise to find out that my friend Alavro (one of the Spanish exchange students I met back in my UBC years) lives just five minutes away from me. So we met up at the Fontana (a popular meet-up place for people in this neighbourhood) and started my grand tour of Barcelona. Haven't got a chance to explore the city at all cuz I have been bombarded with house hunting and school orientation.

We just walked and walked and walked-from Gracia to Pl. Catalunya to la ramblas to diagonal to aribau...also went to his favorite hang out place in Barcelona "Bose de les Faoes"- a super cool pub decorated as a fairy land..instead of having a beer, we had the infamous "fantasy energy drink"-was totally wired..before i noticed, it was already 4am..

BCN is beautiful city, very walkable city, can literally walk from one end to the other..a great city to hang-out cuz no matter what time of the day, there is always people (old and young, families and couples) enjoying life :)

My First Beach Party!

TGIF! Really, thank god it's Friday!!

After the whole week of information overload, Friday is finally here!! I was so exhausted from the orientation and the heat/humidity in Barcelona that I actually passed out after the cocktail with the Dean. Yep, I had my first siesta :)

The dress code of the beach party is WHITE-excellent since I am going through this "white phase" for my wardrobe, everything in my suitcase (at least for the summer clothes) is white :)) (went through my blue phase a few years ago, not sure which phase I will be going through in Barcelona :) The invitation said that the party would start at 9pm, but of course, as the unwritten rule of thumb of all parties--don't ever arrive on time and the preferable arriving time is time + 2 hrs :) So there we have it, people (my fellow classmates) started arriving at 11ish.

I couldn't believe that I actually downed 4 beers and still felt fine, very unusual for a cheap drunk like me, perhaps I am gradually building my tolerance here. Not sure if it is a good sign or not. I brought my camera along but totally forget to take pictures at the party since me & everyone else was so busy mingling with one another.

Some of my classmates just bought the season tickets for FC Barcelona. For 120EURO, you get a seat and the next 20 home games in Barcelona. Not really a sports fan, even for Canucks, only watched the games when they are in playoffs (I am one of those aficionados who like the hype of the games because the whole city is into it, not the actual sports :) Perhaps it's time for me to have some FCB spirit as my friend Nozomi is having Hanjin Tiger spirit in Osaka :))

The party was all good fun, I was super hungry around 2am so went to the golden arch for its infamous apple pies, 2 for 1 EURO (suppose they have "universal menu" on this one :)

So tired that I actually fell asleep in the cab being a navigator. Well, moving into my new apartment tomorrow, very excited and cannot wait to be settled :))

I need a hair cut!

It's been somewhat frustrating in the past two days. Where to start:

First, my boytoy (MAC/powerbook) is not competible with the school's intranet system. What a surprise, of course all the business schools support PC. Took me a while to get my internet access set up in school. As for sending a print job and FTP download/upload, there is just NO WAY (no ningun modo) with MAC. So, this is frustration number 1.

Then it's the apartment hunting. Walked around town for hours and looked a few apartments. There aren't street signs at the intersections so I usually realized that I was going in the wrong direction after walking a few blocks. Of course the weather doesn't help. It's only 25-26 degree but the humidity is quite high so I am constantly sweating (the sticky kind of sweating). Frustration number 2.

Frsturation number 3, apparently I have no access to the money deposited by traveller cheques via ATM for two weeks, It can only be withdrawn in person from the bank. Grumbles.

Then I burned the top part my shirt while ironing it this morning. Not the world’s best house maid for sure. And I had to wear this damn suit the whole day for picture-taking session. I suppose I can wear sandles with the suit but it just not my thing so I have to suffer and complain :)) Yup, this is my frustration number 4 and 4.5.

"Wait until you get a hair cut." My roommate Jodi said after listening to my bitching and complaining (cuz he had the most horrible haircut in his life from a local barber).

Maybe a haircut will do me some good. Well, it will only get better I suppose. Just want to get through this week and get settled. Enough with my whining, time to get some almuezo.