Toooomorrrow!

Is a great day? Want to know why? A number of reasons really. 1. I'm moving to my new house! Want to see? Okay here are some pictures for you! 2. It's December 1st and that means I can start decorating and getting ready for Christmas!!! Exciting! Also exciting? My new room has a balcony onto the street with a big fluffy tree right at my level and so I'm going to use that as my Xmas tree and decorate it with some beautiful decorations that I make/buy from IKEA! What's the new address you ask?

C/ Floridablanca 80, P-2a

Barcelona, Spain, 08015

I'll tell you all about my new roomates tomorrow when I get there. My friend Maricela will help me move (thank god) it's a lot of work for one person back and forth in the cabs etc. And yeah - pretty much this is the most sudden move I've ever done - decided to move on Saturday and Thursday I'm going! Wowee. Things happen so differently here, none of this "planning ahead" business! It's exciting. I'm excited. 3rd time is the charm people!

XOX

PS- The word for kitten is gatita. Yo creo que mi abuelo necesitas una gatita!

The Great Up-Date!

Well this week is off to a way better start, let me just tell you! First of all, I have a new flat to go to. No more searching, the guy really likes me, he speaks fluent english AND spanish (hes from the Dominican). There is also an extra room for rent in the flat so Nima can go if he wants. The flat itself will be the best one I have lived in yet, I will get an exterior room which faces onto a nice sunny/leafy street and it's about a 9 minute walk from school and located at the bottem of my favorite park! I'm going to try and wiggle my way out of this flat by mid december and go there, but I'll let you know. In the mean time ... yes find my address below in the last post!!!!

Love you all, thanks for so much support and encouragement. Really, it makes the bad days seem not so bad and the good days come around much faster.

<3

Monday

Dear Family/Friends. I am moving. Soon. I know I just did, but it's happening again. If you have any mail (Christmas Cards ;)) Please send to my old address where I trust they will give it to me!

C/ Doctor Dou 19, 1-2

Barcelona, Spain, 08001

Lots of love! I'll fill you in after!

Quiz Night at the Irish Bar

So there is this bar... it's an Irish Bar - called Michael Collins I believe and it's a few blocks from my house right in front of Sagrada Familia. Every Tuesday night they have a quiz of 4 rounds, 10 questions done in English and Spanish of various kinds of trivia about all over the world (mostly Europe and S. America) and so I've gone the last 2 weeks in a row now. Last week I did really well! Well.... there was this guy who joined our team and he actually helped a lot hahah but we won a bottle of Cava for being 7th! This week? Not so well. I think the most we scored was 5/10 in one round.... terrible!!!! But it's a fun thing to do and for 2.5E your chances of winning some type of alcohol are actually pretty good. One day I want to eat dinner there, the sandwiches and "chips" look amazing! Also everyone who works there is ACTUALLY Irish, so you get to hear some great accents and really amusing sayings such as "a poke of the yellow" - a pint of beer ahahha!

Today I have my Spanish class. I did some studying of the things we covered last week and I hope that today I won't be the stupid one. I'll try to be more confident. Other than that I was pretty bad and didn't do a lot of studying today but tomorrow will be a much better day!

So I'm writing partly to ask a favor, because I'm trying to improve my diet because I notice that I'm not feeling so great lately and I think what I'm eating is a lot of the problem. So once again I am going to stop eating most wheat (not gluten - just wheat), cut my sugar by about 1/2 and pretty much no dairy except for chocolate once a week! It's not too hard, but the only thing is that this country is SO reliant on bread for everything! They are truly a culture of croissants for breakfast and bocadillos (baguette sandwiches) for lunch. So if anyone has some ideas for good easy wheat free lunches/dinners/even breakfasts! Please leave me a comment or send me an email (Aunt L, you will be especially good at this one! Baking recipes are also greatly appreciated, I know you do that too!).

Alright, 2 posts in 2 days, that's it. Don't everyone go crazy with the Black Friday shopping! ESPECIALLY you papa, jeez ;)

<3

Efay Emay Elay

It hasn't been a good week people. Not really at all. I'm not going to spend too much longer dwelling on it because I know a few of you have already received the crying phonecalls, whining skype calls and so on, so forth. So - here it is in summation! My roomate thinks I use excessive utilities because I take 10-15m showers, blowdry for 5 minutes, straigthen for 10 and charge my laptop once a day. Solution? Spend more money and join the gym. I now go to the gym daily (which is actually a very good thing!) and it motivates me to get out of bed because I need to punch in between 7-9am (they do it based on hours here so that you get different prices) and I shower as long as I want until I am clean. Good. Got a ticket on the metro after I actually paid (I know everyone says that - but I ALWAYS pay), but I threw away the 10 pass because it was all used up. Yep. Spanish class - I'm officially the "stupid one" in the class. Can't say I love it but it's motivation to study harder. Grammar is never easy and it's hard not to get discouraged but I'm determined to ace the test next week. It also rains - every day. If you're having a worse week - email me, tell me about it, if I can laugh about your misfortune I'll let you laugh about mine. Enough gloom and doom, it's not really so terrible.

So moving right along! I have been spending a lot of time (in my new found routine) at the Archive and the library near to my house. Biblioteca Sofia Barat is just 3 blocks from my house and it's not too busy - the hours are rediculous, like most public institutions in Spain but they are located in one of the original interior courtyards of the L'Eixample area - have I talked about that? Lets start there. L'Eixample is the large area of the city designed on a perfect grid like a bunch of donuts ( I live here). As the city expanded they started to fill all those courtyards in the middle with more housing to accomodate the population - the city is now in a process of buying back these centers for public use. So yes. This is what my new library looks like.

In addition to the Sofia Barat library I have been coming to my "school" (the CCCB) and working in the archive as well. It's a tiny little space but it's nice, well lit for reading, comfy chairs (something the library isn't great for) and it even has a few books in english which will help with my thesis once I finish the ones I just ordered off of Amazon. I'm becoming much more productive since work is not on my mind all the time and am starting to get really excited about what I'm learning and just hoping that I can do some good work with the people at home in Feb when I return!

Okay, love you all, stay warm!

<3

Clocks Everywhere!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it or not, but there are about a thousand clocks in this house. There is atleast one in every single room and the rooms that I don't go in - it's okay I can hear them ticking THROUGH the doors hahah! I took a number of photos to make you a lovely montage but then decided that was kind of boring and I would just tell you and instead show you these pictures of what it looks like from my balcony. The only unfortunate part is that we have been getting so much rain lately I haven't really been able to sit out there and enjoy it. Today has started out a bit sunny though so I have high hopes!

Well, a number of new things on the table this week! Last week I submitted resignation at my job so I will only be doing that for another week or so to get things tidied up. Not sure how I feel about it at the moment, but it's going to allow me to focus my energy and stress on my thesis which is really necessary at this point because I realize that it is mid November! (AH!!!) and every week goes by faster than the last. So yes. It's a good thing overall.

Now that classes have started up again I'm feeling better because I'm learning stuff again! For a while I think I was just losing brain cells! Also I was eating out a lot because of having company and such and now it's back to normal eating as well. Annnnnd what else have I started? Well, my friend Maricela and I go once a week for chocolate con churros which is like the thickest hot chocolate in the world that you dip churros into! And we call this a thesis meeting ;) Also, since I have moved out of the other house it's a lot more fun to hang out with my old roomate Nima because we don't see eachother all the time so I've been keeping up with him as well. Yesterday we found a new burger place where you can have a burger, fries and a drink for 6E! (Which is actually like 9$, but it's still cheap) and it's actually really really good! WAY better than McDonalds (which I haven't eaten since I came) and less money as well.

Sooooooo anyhow, that's about all for today. I'll try to have a somewhat more exciting life for you by the next time I write!

<3 B

L'Eixample

Well, after some time to become a bit more accustomed to my new neighbourhood I'm really starting to love it. I'm finding my bakeries I love, the shops open on Sundays, the cheap grocery stores and new restaurants that I want to try! While it's still a huge difference from where I was before it's not so wierd to me now. I did go downtown a few times this week though and they are starting to set up all the Christmas lights on the streets! It's going to be fantastic! I really can't wait for them to turn them on. I've started thinking a bit about what I'll do here for Christmas. I'll spend most the Day on Skype I'm sure and then maybe before everyone in Canada wakes up I will do some things with my friends who will not be going home as well, I think Nima and for sure Maricela. My roomates will be here as well. It's going to be different, that's for sure, but February is going to come really fast. However I would NOT object to getting a lot of Christmas Cards in the mail :D Just cards people - mailing stuff is really expensive so don't be doing that!

This week I started classes again - it's been super hard. I'm trying to get caught up and I'm about 2 units behind the rest so it's a lot of self learning and I'm just hoping that by next week I'll have done enough work that I won't be the "stupid one" in the class. We'll see what happens, maybe I will need to change classes if I can't keep up.

Well..... other than this I'm sorry but I don't really have a whole lot of exciting news. The weather here this week has been beautiful and I have wasted most of it unfortunately by staying inside. I'm not sure what to do with myself at the moment when I'm not studying/grocery shopping/cleaning or working. I need to get back into bike riding or find a park nearby I think :) It's just so tempting to shop all the time when you go out, the whole city is like a giant shopping mall and especially this close to Christmas, that's what I have on the brain! That and Chocolate con churros ..... mmmMmmm!

Okay, enough rambling, just wanted to let you know I was alive and thinking of you guys.

<3 From Spain!

Tenais Frio?

Are you cold? Sure sounds cold over there! Here I feel cold as well, but apparently it is still above 10degrees. It's dark, rainy and humid though so it sure feels colder. Also, one of the great advantages of snow is that you can just brush it off! Rain doesn't work the same...

Well, there have been requests for photos of my roomates. I'm not ready to ask for photos just yet but I managed to steal this one off of FB for you. The other one is older, bit taller, annnnd I'm not sure what else. In time! And now I have to upload this before he sees his photo here - this is seriously creeping.

PS- I only have internet in one specific spot in my living room at the moment so I'm sorry not I'm not very skypeable!!! During the week is best!!!

New House & Squash!

Well! Moving Day happened! Here are a few photos. So far I haven't spent a lot of time here, it only took 2 cab rides to get most of it here (still have to go get my mattress) but because it was Halloween I was busy carving squash - yes squash! With my friend from class, Maricela. Then I went out, found a costume, went out for dinner/drinks and so today is my first real day here, getting used to the new neighbourhood. It's a holiday today and also it's a totally different neighbourhood so it feels quite strange right now. Really really quiet. It's such a change from Las Ramblas but I think in the end this will be much more conducive to working! Annnnnd I have 2 new roomates (Jose & Sulma) they are brothers from Venezuela. They have a third brother living near the city and a sister in Venezuela still. So far so good! Super nice, but it's a lot of spanish and luckily they are patient with me :) So here's a few photos of everything, house, halloween and Cameron's visit.
This is the view from the olympic diving boards, people watch them jump off the boards and straight into the city skyline! Great design!
Did I mention I got to go to my first soccer game!? Barca vs. Mallorca - we won 5-0 with the last goal scored in the last minute! It was great! 100,000 people cheering the city on!
Not sure what it's for, but someone likes Canada!
Cameron, all the photos I have are of him taking photos. Nothing new.
View of the industrial part of the ports one evening after a little hike across Montjuic (all the way to the top!)