Pareeee!

Thoughts are beginning to stir in my little ginger brain that perhaps I should start thinking about when I go to Paris (probably around late January/early February)... I've been told by a mate from uni that it's proved haaard to find somewhere to live in France, so to start looking early..I had a really easy time of it here and was very lucky in that, but sounds like that's not the case in l'Hexagone...so am thinking most of my time in beautiful Blighty in January is gonna be consecrated to trawling through housing options in the capital. Am bored and pretty much task-less at work so idly typed "Paris 4 Sorbonne" into Google images....look at it!!! http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.crc.losrios.edu/images/studyabroad/paris4.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://www.crc.losrios.edu/Academic_Depts/Communication_Visual_and_Performing_Arts/Study_Abroad/Spring_2008.htm&usg=__GDV18WyihxL3xpeuCJCutku9Dew=&h=480&w=638&sz=56&hl=en&start=21&um=1&tbnid=HvB_EX-okBSPXM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dparis%2B4%2Bsorbonne%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGIC_en-GBES279ES286%26sa%3DN

I'm SOOO excited!!! Provided I get the accommodation thing covered, it sounds amaaazing...
absolutely perfect... it just seems like exactly the place I need to inspire me. Am feeling a distinct desire to be studious at the moment, and this looks like it'll really bring that out in me... I can't believe how eager I am to study at the moment, it's bizarre..! So over January I'll basically have to relearn French, which - this is really odd - am really relishing the idea of doing...plan on going to Manchester in Jan, and the kids will of course have their scary exams on, so I plan to be holed up in the Language Centre/Library/whatever bar/pub/coffee house I choose, nose buried in a French novel....I really haven't done as much reading here as I should've, just because I find it quite an isolating pastime a lot of the time, but in Manchester, where I feel at home, I can't wait to get stuck into it. I hope it all goes smoothly - chances are it won't, but I can hope lol - once all the admin is sorted, the work may be tough, but I'm confident I'll go at it guns blazing, having been so starved (can you really say that about work?!) for the past few months. How am I so excited about studying?! I guess you're meant to be passionate about it...

Other news: still no net in my flat. Gah. Driving me mad. Have been hanging out with Steph basically all the time lately; she's heading home to England on Saturday, which will be weird, as obviously she's been here the whole time I have, so will be strange without her. I do have other friends here though, so I should be ok. Plus am gradually feeling more comfortable with my own company, which I'll pretty much have to be lol, so I'm sure I'll get used to it. Have plenty of books I've been meaning to read, so plan to find a load of as yet unexplored places to go and read them. As well as doing a final round of all my favourite places before I leave - have booked my bargainous flight home on the evening of the 19th Dec! - yeah, there were the usual charges for anything and everything, but first off it was 'free'..! Quite exciting - Ryanair may be tin cans but you get what you (don't) pay for...including a miserable dearth in bag weight allowance...15kg!! It's gonna be interesting getting all my things home...

Ruth's coming to visit this weekend!! She arrives on Friday afternoon; I actually can't wait. Haven't seen her since mid-July or something; feels like an age. She's never been here before so we're gonna see the usual sights, plus try and get on the Tibidabo cable car which I haven't done either, possibly. :D Will be awesome! Then the next weekend I'm going to Manchester for mine and Quinny's mini gig fest :D which I can't wait for...not that I can ever wait to get back to glorious Manc. Not to mention to spend time with kiddo... :)

When Steph leaves I will be sans my usual spot for using internet, so may not be online as much...still have the library but obviously can't talk on Skype in there...and there's Starbucks, but that's a bit of a trek..well, tis right outside work, so may bring my laptop to the office and go after. Is probably only open to about 8 or so though I would imagine, will investigate. So yeah. Will still use net at work but can only really email/blog/facebook here, keep the messages coming kids :) miss you all tons naturally. Can't wait to see everyone at Christmas, is gonna be amazing :D!!

Love you all endlessly xxxxxxxxxx

Visitors!!

Thankfully from my perspective, this month has been speckled with eagerly anticipated visits from various friends and family :D! Has to be said, was particularly looking forward to Quinny coming to stay. And rightly so; we had an awesome time seeing all the sights which I had reserved to see with guests so I had an excuse to get all excitable about Gaudí (:D!) I'll try and recall the many antics we got up to...

Friday night consisted in me legging it round the Estació del Nord bus station trying to find the elusive platform 7...(it was a bit of a Harry Potter fiasco) from there being a distinct lack of signs I suddenly got led on a farcical run around the station, being told they were 'upstairs' and thinking surely this wasn't possible, then being pointed down the length of the upstairs corridor and out of the doors I came in by...I then turned a corner and saw the platforms below me :|!? So quickly found the nearest stairwell and dived down it, just in time to arrive at the empty bay...before noticing on the screen that his bus was now due to pull in to bay 6...and there was a bus standing there...I'm sure most Spaniards were suddenly bemused by the sight of a short ginger mass hurtling towards a man in a Manchester University hoodie...

So from there we braved the Metro back to my square, where we arrived at my flat and plonked various belongings in my room before getting Steph round for numerous beers, shandies (I may have raided the awesomely cheap beer shelf in Condis earlier that day..!) and a bottle of wine which the Sheriff (as she is now known) tore through pretty impressively... pretty much spent the evening loitering in the kitchen catching up on Manchester news and Steph and I avidly leafing through the pages of a copy of the Manchester Evening News Quinny had brought with him.... the best things in life are free :D

Saturday was set to be the major let's-be-tourists day, so we went to the Sagrada Familia first as Quinny had seen it from the front but never been inside it. This is worth doing. I hadn't been in it since I last came out here in sixth form about 2 1/2 years ago, and you can already see considerable progress (thankfully... I wish they'd hurry up :p). We went and mused over the drawings (Quinny was placated by the extensive mathsy speak they'd included in the explanation of the designs - I stood there and grinned happily at the 'pretty shapes'...) before wandering around gawping, face to the sky, at the incredible interior. It's just massive. We ambled around for a bit trying to find our way to the stairwell, but decided in the end that apparently now you have no option but to get the lift up, and can only walk down the stairs on the way back. We still got some amazing views from various vantage points along the way, though; there are plenty of photos to back this up but my Facebook is being temperamental and not letting my camera photos upload - I'll try this again soon! 

So after being suitably blown away by Gaudí's epic cathedral, we wandered about in search of food, but after finding some nice squares and things but being pretty unsuccessful, we wandered down Passeig de Gracia (i.e. the expensive area) and looked around before finding a really nice tapas bar for some munch. Quality stuff and I even got to gabble away to the waitress in Spanish for a bit. Ace :)

We were going to hit more Gaudí houses but by this point it was nearing 5.00, so we set off back to mine to get some beers in and prepare for the evening, namely going to see FC BARCA play Valladolid at the Nou Camp! We rustled up some quesadillas and headed over to meet Steph in the square and trudged our way to the stadium. The atmosphere was awesome; the place is so huge, I'd seen it from the outside earlier that week when we'd trekked up there twice to get the tickets, but from the inside it's unreal...we found our seats (pretty damn awesome ones, we'd made sure of that!) and with a while to go until kick off (we'd been pretty eager..) we went to pick up a hotdog to complete our live footy experience :p mmm dried onions...I'm developing a bit of a thing for mustard, too.. The match was AWESOME...we expected a bit of a battering delivered by Barca, but 6-0 with 2 disallowed goals was pretty spectacular! I had to rethink the whole keeping my bag on my knee strategy to be able to jump up in celebration for every time they scored! A fantastic game and I'm now officially a convert to live football, though that particular match may take some living up to...

We made our way back to our flats (we're a mere 20 minute walk down the road from Camp Nou :p) to hastily get ready for our night out that was about to ensue...yes, we were embarking upon our night of partying at around 1am... We gave a nod to the old Spanish trick of 'el botellón' - getting a large bottle of fizzy drink and topping it up with spirits, to take for the journey to the club, as a result of the ridiculously expensive drinks prices - which kept us company on our way and in the queue. We went to Magic - I remember drink, dancing, singing and general good music-and-alcohol fuelled fun times! We finally turned in at about 6am after an epically long day.

On Sundays not much is open in Barca, so we allowed ourselves a more relaxed day on the sightseeing front (and a lie in until about 1.30 - a very respectable time for me to surface post-Saturday night, incidentally!). We ventured out to explore the central areas - I wanted to show Quinny the Gothic Quarter - and we stumbled upon a stage set up in the main square of the area, with a band playing music in celebration of cultural integration - we stood around soaking up the atmosphere before grabbing a few free sweets to tide us over... 

My memory clouds around this point, though I do know that the evening was reserved for going to visit my favourite - Parc Guell. One of the many (and lesser) beauties of this place is that not only is it open on Sundays, but it is free :) So off we trekked to the mystical land where elevators are mounted in hills and where people must have calves of steel to live there... I planned for us to get there by evening, firstly in the hope that there would be fewer people there, but also because there is a spectacular vantage point from which to see the city, and potentially the sunset, which I'd never done before... We made it just in time to see the sky lit up with a myriad of beautiful colours; the hilltop I was shown a few weeks ago is the most incredible place for a panoramic view of Barcelona. In a park where the whole city seems to take a deep calming breath and suspend all noise for as long as you choose to stay, the view from the small hill with the cross on top seems to have the same effect on the tourists who visit. As soon as everyone is up there, there is an inexplicable hush as they look across the landscape. It is by far my favourite point in the city. The bench itself (one of my great loves :) ) comes a close second, but nothing compares to that view and that atmosphere, that feeling. 

We next walked down through the park to the bench itself, which was comparatively quiet, and got a few photos :) before meandering downwards through the gardens and to the pillared underside of the courtyard. There was a violinist playing underneath this time, demonstrating the spellbinding acoustics of the hall. We walked down the main steps and I took the quintessential picture of Quinny with the lizard :D Has to be done! Then a few more photos and wandered back to the Metro.

Think when we got back we explored the area around the centre and hit a few bars; namely Rock N Roll, which had the first pool table I've seen in Barca!.. and had a very strong Pina Colada before requesting some songs and chatting to some English blokes over on a stag do; we moved on to Travel bar to get a free shot with a drink, where I met a barman who used to live in Bristol!, and then we moved next door to Cheers at Quinny's suggestion...and who do I see sat at the bar in front of me?! Georgia Mills from CHS, that's only ruddy who!! I honestly couldn't believe my eyes and had to get Quinny to take a picture of us together to prove to myself that it had actually happened! She was over for a random weekend for a uni friend's birthday or something...man, the craziness; of all the bars in Barcelona..!! (and all the usual clichés :p) I think we then went to get a falafel wrap (mm, so good!!) and met some travelling Americans in the kebab bar, before turning in? Or maybe the food came before the bars...I forget...either way, a great night, with plenty of socialising, hooray!

Can't actually remember the order of events over the next few days right now, will update more when I'm near my calendar...

Love you all and hope things are well in Blighty.. have just been back there for a brief jaunt myself..! More on that when I'm not so tired, and, er, playing Scrabble online...oh, the thrilling life I lead! xxxxxxxxx

Abusing precious, beloved internet...!

Ok so am at work and shouldn't be on here but sod it! I have internet here!! And hoo-flippin'-ray...seriously, I feel like a sad loser being this dependent on the interweb but trust me, in another country where it is pretty much your only form of contact with family and friends, going without it can drive you pretty spare...which it is me....so needless to say we still don't have it at home, spoke to Maria about it yesterday and told her you seem to need a password to access the network we were using now, and she said they must have realised we were being naughty....so presumably we'll have a discussion about what to do about it soon (eg. today/tomorrow). Who knows how long it'll take to set up though. Not fun times, I can tell you!

As well as this, am in pretty dire financial straits, so can't even relieve boredom by doing fun things...didn't think I was affected by credit crunch but beginning to look like one of my own at the moment! Oh well, I do have a nice interest-free overdraft which it looks like I'm going to become friendly with...not what I wanted to do but I'll literally have 90 pounds to my name when you subtract the 2 months rent I have left to pay, with my current situation...so I figure while I'm out here I might as well make the most of it, regardless of a bit of financial damage...once in a lifetime opportunity and all...!

Everyone has left the office bar me and Steph now, so we've pretty much taken to dossing about hehe. Our coursemate Christina (girl who was doing my job before I arrived) has come to visit us today; was a nice surprise to see her waiting outside our office this morning!! She only did an 8 week shift over the summer and is now back in Manchester, but has a reading week so has come to visit :) so hopefully that'll involve some much-craved social activity for the next few days :) Also am hopefully going to meet Louise (girl from Bath at Barcelona Uni who I've been in contact with) this week! Should be really cool :) She's in even worse financial trouble than me, by the sounds of it, so should be interesting seeing what we can come up with to do that's fun and economical..!

This weekend was pretty uneventful, aside from:

1) Getting flashed by some pervert on the way back from Camp Nou (football stadium) - lovely..
2) Getting tickets to see FC Barca/Valladolid this coming Sunday!!
3) A very fun Saturday night in an Irish bar and then dancing the night (and morning) away at Jamboree, and meeting a Danish guy and a Portuguese guy who live in our square :) Quote of the night (though there were many): "I wish I had a British accent, then I could call myself...Chuck.."; Danish guy to thank for that one! hahaha.

Hooray for Monday almost being over! Without internet it's safe to say that Steph and I are steaming through our limited DVD collection...at least we have someone to pester in the form of Christina for the next few days...before Quinny's arrival on Friday!! :D

Hope all is good in UK, keep me posted with emails people, and you can comment on this blog, by the way! Be nice to know if someone is reading it! :p

Love you all tons, reeeally can't wait for a good ol' English Christmas with everyone!! xxxxxxxxxx