chilled out :)

Weyyy! Wow, time is going really fast, I can't believe I posted that last entry last Thursday and now it's Monday! Crazy!

Today was soo boring at work, but huzzah, another Monday over with! I'm officially moved into my flat now :D and I love it! Was sunbathing on the terrace yesterday :) 25 degrees and sunny, perfect!! Over the weekend we had a pretty chilled Friday night because we were so knackered..watched a film with Alex and Montse (Steph's flatmates) and just vegged out in front of the tv. Had a fantastic lie in which I was much in need of! Saturday night we went out and had a very random night, getting offered discounted entry and drinks in bars and taking whichever offers we could find, drinking sangria and ridiculously generous helpings of spirits while talking in English/Spanish/French to anyone who said hi...another night of stumbling in at 6.30am...fun times! So that wrote off Sunday for another week hehe. Got up at about 2.45 (after my first night in a bed for 2 weeks!) and promptly moved myself up to the terrace to catch some rays :D then went for tapas with Steph to satiate our hangover-hunger pangs (this thing called a bomba is our favourite at the moment - it's basically a big round meat croquette with brava sauce on it - amazing!!) and chilled out some more/did some exercise to try and use some of the energy I'd saved up in my awesome sleep..then went to Steph's and made her special chicken/soy sauce/paella rice/veg combination (awesome) and watched Black Books :) 

As I say, today was pretty damn boring, however when work was over we finally escaped into the glorious sunshine and went on a TopShop hunt! We found it :D! though the clothes here are ridiculously expensive compared with England, so I think I'll be saving that particular spree for when I'm back on English soil hehe. I went round the shops nevertheless for a few 'essentials'...hehe...got some candles for the roof and my room :) and some shower gel (extortionate here..!), a lunchbox hehe, and probably my prize purchase, my new slippers! they are soo cute and I was muchly in need of them; my feet have been getting very cold on the laminate flooring! I then got back and ran up to the terrace, hoping to catch the sun before it went down, but alas, it had already hidden behind another block of flats :( so I sat and read for about half an hour before deciding that I was actually too cold to be sat outside in a vest top and shorts 4 floors up...went to the shop and stocked up on our spectacularly cheap vino - €1.99, did I mention?! and awesome! - as well as some things to experiment for tea...chicken pasta salad which didn't turn out half bad! Also, I stuck the telly on as I was eating, and they had Dr Who on - yes, with Billie Piper - in Catalan!! I was greatly amused :p since then i've just been vegging out in my room really; I lit some incense that I bought from a nice man at the bottom of the Rambla last week and now my room smells all warm and welcoming and cosy :) been reading my Spanish book from the library, which is actually by Will Self, and is a bit bizarre from what I can make out..! Oh well hehe. So tomorrow is another day, but hopefully I'll catch the sun tomorrow! Gym membership starts on Wednesday :) looking forward to it, it's very swanky! 

Love you all loads, get those flights booked yeah?! Come and catch the warm weather!! 

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Here comes that Friday feeling...!

Ello there!

Has been a really good day! Very sleepy start as went to bed late last night, but spent whole day at work proof-reading magazine (looks like it's going to print tomorrow!!), which was good, nice to kill some time doing something not very taxing! Also took my iPod in which was a very good move, definitely passes the time more comfortably than not-so-impressive Spanish radio! And had pizza for lunch from the Italian fast food place (I know..!) round the corner :) Then Steph and I decided we needed (yes, needed) to go shopping - Steph is in dire need of some new shoes because she currently only has flip flops and keeps stubbing her toe! - so we let ourselves go a little bit hehe :) all the autumn things in the shops are soooo tempting! I went to H&M and picked up, err, several things for doing exercise in...decided it was for a good cause so it was ok!...as well as a jacket (which I did need, honest :) ), a hat in my favourite colour (there's so much of it around this season!! I'm absolutely loving it!! Though it does mean saving is going out the window a bit..) and various other bits and bobs, hehe. There's also this gorgeous winter woolly cardigan in Bershka that I've got in my sights, so maybe I shall get that tomorrow.... :p tee hee. The shopping is too good here! We walked down the Passeig de Gracia last night -  I never knew what they have down there!! We got off the metro and I saw Prada, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci...!!?! May have to have a gander but there's no way I can let myself loose with the debit card in there..! Also walked past Casa Battlo (one of my favourite Gaudi buildings :D) so I got a photo of that hehe. Went to see fireworks in Placa Espanya last night, they went on for about an hour!! Was one of the best firework displays I've ever seen, if for nothing else but length! And the Montjuic fountains at night....it was awesome :) but anyway, back to today...

...oh yeah! We wandered round the markets at the bottom of La Rambla for a bit (the things there are sooo nice...another place I could spend unearthly amounts of money!) before Steph had to head off to her course, so we went to the Metro and parted ways. I went back to her flat and was faced with her flatmate Alex, who I've heard many tales about but haven't met yet...so we did our introductions and had a chat about Barcelona, Facebook, music etc hehe, and had a cheeky beer. I then had a reeeally good catch up with Ru on Skype - think we nattered for about 2 hours! - which was really cool :) she seems to be doing really well which is awesome! Were trying to find out how we could visit each other but planes from Barcelona to Sweden seem few and far between :s Also had an email from uni saying our grants are due to come in within a week!! So hooray, I won't be so skint!!! :D That definitely cheered me up :) also spoke to short stuff which obviously also put a smile on my face :) We're going to see Pendulum in December!! Yaaaay :D then Steph got home and we made tea which was yummy, and had a nice natter which was all goooood :) now I think it's pyjama time and I reckon we're gonna stick Black Books on, the day just gets better! Not to mention we had our sunshine back today! I was gonna go and bask on my terrace but have stayed at Steph's again so think I may be moving in tomorrow, lol. Reet'o kids, I shall be off to mong out for a wHile :) hope you're all doing good, take care my luvvers, buckets of ginger love to you all :) xxxxxxxxxxxx

IT'S THE WEEKEND!!

Hey kids! Wow, I didn't realise how long ago it was since I last wrote! This week has really flown by in hindsight!

So...what news?! Umm...I'll try and remember in chronological order, though you know what my memory's like..! 

Wednesday I'm pretty sure was the day when me and Pepo (Steph's flatmate whose room I 'borrowed' :p) went to buy me a webcam! We took the bus (new thing for me!) and explored El Corte Ingles (awesome department store of which there are loads here!) for a bit, but the cameras there were all pretty expensive, so we then went to L'Illa (awesome shiny shopping centre down the road) to an electrical shop called Fnac...found one there which was pretty reasonable and which we thought would work with my Mac, then browsed the pretty technology for a bit...there was a HUGE iPod speaker in the shape of a cube with each side about 80cm, for €2000!! It was amazingly cool though. We then bought my webcam and walked back to Steph's flat, where we met her in the park and went to buy some water from the supermarket. Long story short: I now have a webcam!! It kept freeze-framing at first but I downloaded a driver yesterday and it now works fine :D so get on Skype, everyone!!

We went out last night (Friday night) which was soooo good - it felt amazing that it was the weekend!! We decided we'd go out for dinner as we couldn't be arsed to cook, so we monged out a bit at the flat (felt sooo good to know we had two free days ahead of us!) and then got ready to go out at about 8.30. Steph took us to Plaza Real - somewhere I recognised as we went there when I came here with 6th form - and because of the Mercè festival (Patron saint of Barcelona, celebrated all this weekend) there was a stage set up in the middle of the square, with live bands!! You can imagine how happy I was at this point :D we queued for about half an hour for this restaurant, Les Quinze Nits, but Steph assured me it was good, and we really felt like a sit-down meal instead of a few tapas, so we hung on. The queue only proved it was good, after all....We got a table outside where we could hear the music, and had tomato soup (really satisfied the serious tomato craving I've got going on!) then I had this meat pie and mashed potato (not pie as you would imagine it..! it was like a ball of meat...lol...but sooooo good! and the mash was amazing :D)..the portions were just right, though served on a massive place so they looked quite small! Despite the restaurant looking really shiny and posh, it was so reasonable! We had a litre jug of Sangria for €6.90 (and it did the job :p!)! It was such a perfect, chilled out atmosphere for a Friday night after a busy week at work. Definitely a place I'll be taking people who come to visit! So, a little 'squiffy' as Steph put it (:p), we wandered outside the square to see what we could see. Our plan was to go to the beach for the fireworks, though at this point it was about 11.15 so we thought we'd probably missed them. We eventually made it to the beach (in the spitting rain - :o not impressed!) after a long walk through Port Vell (and past another live music stage where loads of people had congregated to chat, drink and dance), to discover nothing was happening there :( so we walked to the Metro and went back to Plaza Catalunya, where there was another stage with a band on! So we stayed there and watched their set, along with several hundred jovial Spaniards. By this point it was about 1.30 (pretty shameful to be honest) but we were shattered after getting up at 8 that morning, so we decided we'd call it a (successful) night and turn in, to save our energy for tonight! I've got a couple of photos which will probably be on Facebook at some point :) 

Today we've basically been vegging out after an awesome lie-in, it's pretty cloudy out so we can't really decide what to do...we were considering heading to one of the Gaudi sights to feel like we'd explored a bit, but it's just so nice to have time to chill out and do whatever, I've been struck with a bit of laziness...! 

New Spanish vocab: (Pepo left us a note saying have a good weekend, with drawings and a glossary and all lol!) 

"chungo/a" = weird/dodgy

"mola" = to be cool/awesome

see, I am learning!! hehe :D 

haha there was just an advert on TV for toothbrushes with Kiss - I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night on in the background! Spanish TV is an endless source of amusement!

Hope everything's good wherever you are in the world my luvvers, keep in touch!

Loooooove youuu xxxxxxxxx

Sodding unpaid labour...

Hey hey kids!

Just got my Mac out (am still at Steph's so have just been stealing her PC for internet until now - her net gave way last night so thought I'd try mine and, lo and behold, it works! Huzzah!) so thought I'd update seeing as I'm sat in the flat while Steph does a 3 hour Spanish class - really don't envy her after spending the day at work! The days here seem pretty stupidly long - we get up at 8.30 to go to work - something I am managing astoundingly well for me at the moment! - and then work from 10 til 4 (which wouldn't be bad at all if it weren't so arse-chewingly boring...sorry that just came into my head!), and usually nip round the shops for various things afterwards, before catching the metro back to ours and chilling out for a bit before giving in to hunger and rustling something up. The Spanish guys here probably think we're so weak for how early we start cooking; we resisted til about 9.30 on Saturday and Sunday but last night we were cooking by about 8; work really builds up an appetite! Then we mostly veg out and watch Spanish tv or chat with Pepo (Steph's flatmate, pretty much the only one who's in in the evenings at the moment) and go to bed about 1am. Phew! 

Work is fine, I know I complain but it is good really, everyone's really nice, though there are about 7 of us plus 2 bosses in the whole company..! The lift is really amusing, I feel like I'm in Harry Potter whenever we get in it...it's a bit like a Victorian carriage from a horse and cart, but in a lift shaft..with a wrought metal case around it acting as the outer door...it's comedy! Work isn't too bad but I think I've just been set some pretty basic stuff to do to start me off; I've just been working on smaller event articles (they're on the website! www.valenciaconnect.com , they're pretty much the ones without photos lol, there are 6 of them) which is annoying cause the word count is so small so you don't really get to write interesting stuff, it's more about fitting the words to it; but my boss said tomorrow she'll probably set me a bigger article to do which is great :) time seems to pass sooo slowly though, even though it's only about 5 1/2 hours a day I end up doing! However, the way I'm looking at it is it at least gives me something to do, which will hopefully improve my Spanish (there are several English people there but the guy next to me only speaks Spanish and the girl on my right consequently speaks to him in Spanish all the time, not to mention the Spanish radio and Spanish websites I have to trawl through) and which keeps me out of the centre frittering away my money on clothes (which would be soooo easy, I'm dying to go shopping!!) 

Steph and I went and bought some trainers yesterday so we can start running - this office lifestyle really isn't great for the health! I've decided that I'll probably end up with RSI in my hands from typing so much, and I'll probably come back blind as a bat from staring at a screen all day... so in an effort to combat that, we'd better do some exercise so at least all the gorgeous Spanish food we can't get enough of doesn't stick to us :p Speaking of which, when Steph gets in tonight we're going for tapas :D yay!...I think the thing I spend most on at the moment is food....and also apparently the tap water's disgusting so we've been buying bottles...only 37 cents for 1.5L but still, I'd rather not pay for water (you know what I'm like with water!) so I may risk trying that out at some point, who knows. And there's the deposit I have to pay on my flat....Still haven't moved in yet because Steph's out tonight and I don't think I could manage my suitcase on my own up 3 flights of stairs!, and also because Maria wasn't sure if she'd be in, and the other girl doesn't move in til next week, so I'd rather hang out at Steph's where people will be. Quite excited though, I really want to get out on the rooftop terrace while the sun's still around! They keep saying on the weather that it's going to get colder, but at the moment it's a really comfortable warm temperature so a little bit colder would be no real loss to be honest. Hoping I get to build up a tan! :) 

So yeah, everything's good here, hope work gets a bit more exciting but then, it is work after all..! And I do occasionally sneak a look on Facebook at work if anyone's usually online between the hours of 9 and 3 :p! Keep in touch kids, miss you all loads (goes without saying!) come and visit me! Am in the process of finding out when Christmas hol is so I can book flights :) 

loads of ginger love xxxxxxxx

Day 1!

Evening all!

Here I am in sunny Barcelona :) Plane journey was short and sweet, dozed off for a minute and before I knew it, we were landing..! Steph met me at the airport and we caught the train (along with my massive suitcase, which was, er, a mere 6kg over the weight limit....nice lady let me off without an excess charge...phew!) back to hers, in Sants (where the main train station is). Really nice area, wide open streets, loads of shops and bars and squares, as well as good metro links. I'm looking for a flat round here, and went to view one at 4, with a really nice girl, Maria, who's studying medicine here. Another girl will be moving in there next week as well. It was a really nice flat but the bedroom itself is a little small, so I'm keeping my options open for the time being, and have replied to a load more ads so hopefully I'll view some more over the next few days. Am staying here with Steph in the meantime - her flat is really nice, big lounge area, 3 other flatmates but they're all away at the moment and one hasn't been seen by her yet - so I'm having his room for a bit, hehe. Her internet's secure so I'm borrowing her laptop at the moment and will probably be able to update more fully when I have my own place. Going to check out a local bar in a bit to unwind. Steph showed me some copies of the magazine we'll be working on; I'm really excited now! It has everything, from articles about local events and festivals to reviews of new music albums (I'm definitely putting my name down for that feature!!). My number out here is 07518 871332; it works fine but it costs me 25p a text and it costs me to both make and receive calls, so please save ringing for when I can chat to you on Skype! I haven't got a webcam yet but plan to look for one soon.

In the meantime, hope everything's ok in England :) love you all loads, keep me posted via here/email/text with what you're up to!

Abrazos xxxxxxxxx

Ello there!

Alrite there my lovers?!

As I warned several of you, I've set up one of these newfangled blog things so I can regale you all with the stories of my adventures into Europe! First stop, Barcelona! So over the course of the next however many months, I'll keep all my news updated on here, rather than assail your inboxes with reams of stories that will probably be more annoying than anything else...though obviously I will still be glued to Facebook and my email is always grateful for a message! ;)

Ok, I guess this entry is sort of cheating, as I'm still technically in England...but the packing process is under way, which is all part of the 'fun'... Tomorrow's the big day! I fly at 10.25 tomorrow morning and will arrive in Barcelona at 13.35 local time, and I've booked some flat viewings for the afternoon to find somewhere to live :) 

Anyways I won't waffle any more for now, love you all loads and all I can say is you'd better be planning out when you're coming to visit! :p 

Wish me luck!

Take care kids xxxxxxxx