Moving On

The end of summer is nearing and I've never been so happy to see it. It's been a long road back, so to speak, from Spain. But I have to say, I'm finally in a place of peace and appreciation and I didn't think it would happen, but part of me wishes I was staying here a few days longer too. Crazy right.

I don't know, the past month I've just reconnected with "home". I'm definitely still longing for my real life in Vancouver and I seriously cannot wait to be on that plane but I've at least come to terms with my situation the past few weeks, up until then I was mostly just depressed or restless and whatnot about being here. 

I have rediscovered my love for passing away days doing mundane/ordinary things with friends, real friends. This summer I've spent many hours/nights at Tim Hortons, playing nintendo in my friend's basement, chilling at the beach, visiting friends at my old yacht club, chilling around downtown, and just going to cheap tuesday movies at the mall. Nothing too exciting but it was some of the best moments of my summer. There were times when I honestly didn't think I would recover from Spain but I slowly got there. Those nights of chilling with friends started to seem more like precious moments instead of an activity to pass the time. I realized that all those hours were spent in good company and that this summer is probably the last time I'd have this kind of lazy, calm time for relaxing. 

My friends from high school really are great, even if we were brought together by proximity or circumstance, we are now close because we want to be. I've definitely lost touch with a lot of people from my life before university, so the ones that I'm still in touch with are the ones who really do mean a lot to me. They're the best. We don't ever have much drama, we don't need to take a lot of photos to show we're friends or write messages all over each other's facebook walls or wherever, we don't even have to keep in touch that much when I'm away. At the end of the day we're just there for each other and we still get a long as well as we did in high school. We can go 10 months without seeing each other and when we see each other again it's as if no time has passed at all. I know I'm lucky to have found that. 

These summer hours have slipped by pretty slowly but the end is approaching and I feel like I'm finally moving into the next stage of my life. I have recovered and reflected on Granada and on my university years, a lot has happened, a lot has changed, and I couldn't be happier.

Only a couple more days until I leave for Vancouver, still got lots of packing and goodbyes to do before then! See ya soon west coast <3  

Poems About Home

Words slip through my lips

A laugh escapes my throat

But I'm not there

I look in people's eyes

Shake their hands

But I'm not there

I walk the streets

Breathe in the air

But I'm not there

I go to work

I go to sleep

I eat

I see 

I smell

But I'm not there

My mind is thousands of miles away

Chasing after my heart

---

So many times I tried to tell you

So many times I choked the words back down

---

It's a longing

a yearning 

I haven't known

I've been full with this ache 

Because

My heart finally found a home

I've fallen in love with many cities

many in countries beyond my own

But in the end

There's only one place 

I call home

The place my heart chose 

Where the mountains meet the ocean 

And the wind whispers welcome home

---

Like a moment 

Frozen in time

A life, a memory

A museum of me

Of a chapter

Of who I used to be

I'm surrounded by pieces

Of who I was 

Of who I'm not

Reminded of the hopes

And dreams

I once had, I lost

The odd familiarity

Of a world 

Where nothing has changed

Except me

Bologna and Verona

(Mid January)

First stop was coffee of course, went to a little café a few streets away from the hostel, and sat there for a while just enjoying my cappuccino and people watching. After that I just wandered around the city for a little while, stopping to check out some of the outdoor markets in the little piazzas and whatnot. Eventually I started getting hungry and decided to go find a pasta place that the hostel owner guy had recommended. It was pretty easy to find since it was only like 3 streets away from the hostel. The place was called Trattoria Za-Za, if anyone is ever in Florence I seriously recommend going there. 

First of all, the decór is really kool, when you first walk in it appears to be a fairly traditional looking Trattoria. Slightly dimly lit, lots of dark wood and antique looking light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, candles and well folded napkins on the tables, some old looking pictures on the walls etc. But as you look at it more closely you realize it's more funky, there pictures in the frames are actually party event looking pictures, everything from the little ceiling lampshades to the random roman column in the middle of the room to the walls were painted in a mosaic of colours, some all blended and other parts looking like an artist had just started wiping the surfaces with paint brushes that were covered in random coloured paints. The tables had pastel coloured table clothes and all the chairs were different colours. It was a funky place, the older man working at the door seemed like a proper Italian man but a lot of the other staff members were younger, chill-looking people. I'm sure on a weekend night it would be an awesome place to go for dinner and drinks. When I was there since it was barely lunch time, it was pretty empty, but the peaceful atmosphere was rather nice too. 

I ordered Spaghetti Carbonara, it was one of the best meals I had during my trip, no lie. If anyone is ever in Florence, I definitely recommend going there. After that I still had a few hours to kill until my train so I went wandering through the city. Of course I ended up back in my fav area by the bridges and got some delicious gelato. I chilled around there for a while, checked out some of the markets and eventually decided to grab a coffee since I really had nothing else to do. I was kind of stupid and stopped in at a small café near the bridges since it had a Wi-Fi sign in the window. Of course forgetting I was in such a touristy zone the cappuccino I ordered ended up costing me like 3 euros. Ouch. 

After that I just started wandering back towards the train station. Got to the train station to find that my train was delayed 10mins, great, of course. So I just sat on a stone bench near my platform and waited. All of a sudden a 20-something ginger girl came and sat down beside me, we kinda smiled at each other then both looked away and checked our phones. I kinda assumed she was an English speaker since she was ginger but didn’t say anything to her. She was in the process of making her own little salad kind of thing and then phone started ringing, she picked it up and I was surprised to hear fluent Italian come out of her mouth. Okay, I know I shouldn’t judge people based on their appearance but I was a little surprised when she turned out to be Italian.

My train was still delayed so I wasn’t going anywhere and she didn’t appear to be going anywhere after she hung up her phone so I struck up a conversation, in Italian of course, asking where she was going. As it turns out she studies at uni of Florence but lives in some small town about half an hour away and was on her way home now. We talked for a while longer, mostly in Italian, sometimes I had to switch over to Spanish or English when my Italian vocab was lacking but it worked. Eventually she had to catch her train and my train was finally pulling into the station so we parted ways. She was really nice though and gave me some tips of Bologna, which was kool. I can now say that I have met a ginger Italian, who knew.

Finally I was on my way to Bologna, I’d never been to Bologna before so I wasn’t too sure what to expect but I had been hearing lots of good things about it.  However, when I arrived it was snowing, no not snowing, Blizzarding. There was so much snow and it was freezing. I wandered from the train station over to the bus station to try and find this #68 bus that would take me to the hostel I was staying at. I was following the instructions on the hostel website about how to get to the bus but they ended up being kinda useless. I wandered into a café to warm up for a bit and then asked the bartender where the street was that the bus apparently stopped on. I found the road but could not find the bus stop for this #68 bus, I was starting to think it didn’t exist. I wandered into a little souvenir shop that was run by a nice old couple, I pulled out my laptop and showed them the instructions on the website, they didn’t know a bus 68 even existed but they directed me to where the directions said the stop was. I eventually found the road but still wasn’t sure so I stopped in a little café on the intersection corner and asked them about #68, none of them knew anything about it either…wtf? I left the café and turned the corner onto the street where the bus supposedly stopped and to my great relief on the other side of the road about 50ft away was bus #68, I ran for it. Got onto the bus and asked the bus driver about my hostel to make sure it was the right one, thank freaking god it was. I was cold and miserable and tired and just wanted to get to my freaking hostel.

A couple minutes later the bus leaves and I’m the only one on it, a couple stops later another girl gets on, I was kinda happy that I wasn’t alone… but then she got off a couple stops later and I started questioning the whole situation when the bus seemed to leave the main city and start driving into the outskirts..where in the world was I going?! So, apparently this ‘hostel’ I checked into is more of a summer vacation spot…it’s a big campsite kind of thing in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of bungalows and camp grounds..freaking weird. Guess that’s what I get for booking so last minute…ohwell. So I go into the reception area and get my keys and everything sorted out, I’m staying in a bungalow not too far from the reception which turned out to be a very good thing since the only way to get wifi was to get a password code thing from the reception desk and u had to pay for the wifi by hour so I ended up going back there a few times, such a pain in the ass. I was the only one in the bungalow, which was set up for 4 ppl so it was kind of nice having all that space, there was even a TV. Go figure. 

So there I was, in this cold, snowy, middle of nowhere bungalow in Bologna. Everything was quiet and dark, it was so strange. There was a few other small groups staying in other bungalows but it still kinda felt like a deserted area. Needless to say I barely left my bungalow except for when I had to go to reception to get more internet time. It was kinda weird but nice to have one night completely isolated from the world, after awhile I got tired of paying for the internet so I was just alone with nothing but my books and my thoughts.

Eventually I got hungry and wandered over to the little restaurant that was attached to the reception area, I was planning on sitting in there and getting some dinner but when I got to the restaurant there was 3 teenage looking Italian boys buying beer and a couple minutes after I ordered some pasta, a large group of older drunken Italian men walked in so I decided to get my food to go. I spent the remainder of my night reading, watching movies, movies and doing a bit of writing till I eventually passed out. In the morning I woke up to sunshine on my face, thank god. I was not really feeling another day of blizzard-weather. I packed up my stuff and headed to reception to check out and catch a bus back into the city, when I opened my door I was relieved to find that the snow had pretty much all melted and that it was actually kind of warm outside. I caught the first bus back into the city and dropped my stuff off at the baggage storage place in the train station for the day.

I spent the day exploring the historical downtown area of Bologna, it was a really kool city actually. There was the historical area but outside of that was a normal city scene, it actually reminded me a bit of Toronto. It definitely seemed like a decent university town, if possible I would love to do another semester abroad before I graduate at the university of Bologna. I just aimless wandered the city for hours, found a bunch of kool areas and checked out some of the historical sites/churches/museums –the cheap ones of course– and eventually stopped at a café for some late lunch. I was told by the crazy Florence hostel manager guy that I had to eat tortellini when I came to Bologna so I found a cute little restaurant and ordered some tortellini. It seemed like a fancier place, although they had a more casual pizzeria area next to the dining room area, it was an odd little place. The waitresses didn’t seem overly friendly but whatever, they also seem kind of weirded out when I told them I was there alone. Whatever. I sat at a little table by myself, at the table next to mine there was an Italian guy, a bit older looking also on his own. One of the waitresses came by to get my drink order and then took the lonely guy’s order, she talked to him for a bit then turned around and asked me if I wanted to join him at his table and at first I was just like..uhh what? I think she wanted to open my table since it was pretty busy in the restaurant and the guy kinda wanted company but after some confusing discussions the guy got kind of embarrassed and just told the waitress to forget it so I just stayed where I was. He wasn’t that sketchy looking or anything but I didn’t really want to join him all the same.

The tortellini was delicious! Another plus to this restaurant was that it had free open wifi which I just happened to discover as I was waiting for my pasta. I didn’t even need a password or anything, it was awesome, free wifi ftw! I finally paid my bill and got out of there, what a weird meal. After that I just continued my wander around the city and eventually started heading back in the direction of the train station, I was catching a late afternoon train to Verona. On my way back I passed these big outdoor markets which I had initially avoided since I wanted to site see and avoid crowds but now I had to time so figured, why not? I went wandering through, there was shit ton of random stuff there, I wasn’t really planning on buying anything but then I came across some nice, warm shirts that were only 4 euros which I just couldn’t resist and then happened to find a nice little coat which was only 8 euros, so definitely couldn’t pass that up, especially since I was going to Germany the in a couple days and would freeze my ass off there if all I had was my leather jacket.

After my little shopping excursion I headed over to the train station to catch my train up to Verona. Luckily this train wasn’t delayed or anything, I found my seat and a couple hours later I was in Verona! I had no idea where or how to get to my hostel, I knew the name and kinda the address but that was about it.I got out of the station and had no idea where I was going so I decided to just grab a cab, I couldn’t remember the exact address of the hostel so I just gave the guy the street name, turns out it was one of the longest streets in the city so he asked for the name of the hostel and used his GPS, thank god for that, the hotel was number like 87 which was a longggg way down the street. Had fun dealing with the slightly disorganized guy at the desk, got my key which was one of those long, old fashioned ones which was kind of cool. Finally I got into my room and walked in to find only an older Italian man in the 4-bed room, awkwarddd. We sat silently on our beds for a while just using our laptops until he started talking to me in Italian, we had a decent conversation but eventually I had exhausted my Italian and we spoke in broken English/broken Italian. I was a little weirded out, he seemed like a nice enough guy but he was definitely old enough to be my dad. Eventually I decided I needed to go find some sort of dinner so I made my excuses to leave, before I left he told me that him and his friend were going out for drinks/clubbing later that night if I wanted to join them and then asked for my number. I gave it to him but figured I wouldn’t hear from him anyways.

I started my wander through the city, I have to say I tend to like cities better at night than during the day, there’s just something so enchanting about them. I wandered down through the city, past a bunch of beautiful old apartment buildings and stores, down into the centre of the city into the main square that was full of life. There was a bunch of little vendor booths set up around the square with a large fountain in the centre, the buildings around the outside were just lined with restaurants, cafes, and little boutique shops, instant love. It was cold so I wandered back towards the area where some of the smaller shops and food places were and stopped in a little pizzeria restaurant. Got some delicious pizza to go and then began to wander some more, in different directions. I soon came upon the famous House of Juliet and wandered into the courtyard, it was kinda late so it was empty minus a small group of girls around my age, as cliché as the whole concept of it was, there was something kinda cheesy and beautiful about it. The walls were all covered in graffiti love notes, there was a large iron door with thousands of locks hanging on it, some engraved with names and messages, and of course the lit up balcony. I wandered through the courtyard for a bit then continued on the wander through the city. I came across a few more little courtyards and cute side streets but the night was getting pretty cold so I headed back towards the hostel.

Courtyard and Balcony of Juliet's House

When I got back to the hostel I ran into the older guy from my room just outside the building, he was heading out to meet his friend for drinks and asked if I wanted to join but I said I was tired and cold and was going to head back inside. When I got to the room, the other 2 beds were now occupied, the one next to mine was a Belgian guy in his late 20's who was moving to Verona for a job for 10 months and still hadn't find an apartment. He was a nice enough guy and spoke decent English, the other guy was a Brazilian guy who was studying in Bologna but mostly had come to Italy to get into professional motorcycle racing. He had been doing a ton of races both in Brazil and Italy for the past 6 or 7 years trying to make it into the big leagues. He spoke good italian, decent English, and fluent Portuguese, sometimes it mostly just sounded like he was speaking Portuguese to me even though I don't think he was aha.

The Brazilian got a phone call and started talking Portuguese at full speed, that was the first time I had really heard it and it honestly kind of sounded like slurred Russian, it was interesting. Anyways, so he hadn't had dinner or anything since he had just gotten in and asked me if I wanted to join him, I said sure and we headed back out into the city. We stopped at another little pizzeria place and he got a few slices of pizza with some interesting toppings. After that we just continued to wander the city, it was around 11pm so the city was getting pretty quite, which was kind of odd since it was a Saturday night but then again it is quite a small town and you probably have to know where to go to find the good places on weekends. It was pretty quiet so when we bumped into a small group of people who looked like university students we asked them if there was anywhere good to go for a drink near by (all in Italian) and they told us to head towards the university. We followed signs towards the University of Verona area and eventually found a street where there were a few bars and a few large crowds of 20-somethings.

We went into one of the bars, it was pretty crowded so we just grabbed a couple glasses of wine at the bar then went back outside and grabbed a table, it was a cute little side street and even tho it was cold we were kinda protected from the wind and such so it wasn't too bad, plus they had one of those outdoor fire-heater things that was sorta-helpful. We sat close at the table and just talked for quite awhile, at one point we were interrupted my a drunken group of italians walking/falling out of the door and starting a hilarious argument in the street, a couple of them had definitely had a little too much to drink and were arguing about what kind of wine is better, I didn't totally understand all of it since it was in drunken Italian but it was rather entertaining all the same, eventually their other friends just grabbed them and began pulling them down the street towards wherever their next destination was.

Eventually our toes and fingers started to feel numb so we began to walk around again, we stumbled upon one of the big cathedrals, Romeo's house (very unexciting and closed off), and an old little church, it started getting really cold though so headed back in the direction of the hostel, stopping here and there to admire the beauty of the city.

Verona at night from the old bridge

We got back to the room, the Belgian guy was watching tv, some cop show by the looks of it and we all went to bed shortly after that except for the older Italian guy who came in an hour or two later, slightly stumbling. The next morning the Brazilian and both had to be checked out by 10am, we dropped off our keys and caught a bus into the centre. We grabbed some coffee and pastries for a quick breakfast and then he had to head off to catch a train, my train wasn't until around midnight so I had all day in the city. I headed back towards the old centre of town where the little market area was, it was pretty busy already, tourists everywhere. It was still pretty cold so spent the afternoon wandering in and out of shops, I had my backpack with my since I had checked out of the hostel which was a little annoying so I stopped into cafés and things more or often to escape the cold and back pain. I was suppose to meet up with Nat again because she was over in Venice which wasn't too far away, unfortunately she got really delayed because of transportation so we never did actually meet up, c'est la vie. 

We were supposed to meet by Juliet's house, while I waited around her Nat, I went back into the courtyard, it was now full of tourists, taking pictures and doing the tour of the house, you could actually go up and stand on the balcony and all that jazz. There was also a signing wall that looked pretty new near the entrance of the courtyard where you could leave messages and whatnot instead of graffitiing the inner walls of the courtyard. I may have been lame enough to sign the wall aha. After 2 or 3 hours of waiting around Nat still hadn't shown up so I gave up and began to wander they city again. 

I explored more of the city for awhile, came across lots of kool buildings and areas of town, it wasn't that big of a town so eventually I always ended up near the centre. I started heading back towards the edge of the city where the train station was, there was another big plaza not too far from there and I spent the remainder of my day around here. It was a big piazza area where there was a small colosseum which was turned into a play theatre, a bunch of shops, both popular chains and boutiques and a large number of restaurants and cafés with souvenir shops in between. By 8pm I was pretty bored and didn't know what to do with myself since my train wasn't till 12:45am so I found a movie theatre in the mall area of the big piazza and bought a ticket to see Django Unchained in Italian, that was an interest experience lol there was lot of people in the theatre that night, there was 4 different movies playing and seemingly everyone else had the same idea as I did, maybe it was because of the cold. 

After standing around forever with my stupid backpack on my back to get into the theatre, they finally opened the doors and we all seated ourselves in this small theatre, we all had assigned seating which was odd but whatever. So there I was, by myself in a random theatre in Verona watching an American movie dubbed in Italian, most of the people there were Italian minus a few german families by the sounds of it. My Italian wasn't great but I could get enough to watch the movie and enjoy it, and there's some things that are funny in all languages. Christoph Waltz did his own dubbing in the Italian version which I thought was pretty awesome. 

After the movie I just wandered my way towards the train station, I stopped in a little café to get a cappuccino and to try and kill some time. I still had a few hours till my train. They eventually started closing up so I ended up wandering into the McDee's down the street and stayed there till they started kicking people out around 11:30, after that I just hung around in the train station, time stretched on so slowly. My phone was dying, not that I could find any wifi anyways, and around 12:15 everything in the station started closing, which sucked. After that the group of us were who were catching the late night trains headed up towards the platforms, it was freezing outside again, luckily they had closed areas up on the platforms kind of like the glass sitting areas at the GO stations here. It still wasn't overly warm but it was warmer than outside, I ended up sitting in one with an older albanian guy, young guy from Pakistan, and an Italian woman. I conversed with the albanian as well as I could in Italian, he had been living Italy for 15 years or something like that, he was a nice enough guy. The guy from Pakistan was only 18 and was heading for Austria, I spoke to him in English was kind of nice since no one else I'd come across that day spoke English, the woman didn't say much. Finally around 12:50 the train pulled up, the conductors were trying to speak to us in German which none of us understood and eventually talked to me in broken English which I converted into broken Italian to tell the others. I ended up in this tiny sleeping car with the Italian woman, we were both getting off at the same stop so we were kinda sticking together. We got into the tiny sleeping cabin and there was two African women on the two bottom bunks so we both had to sleep on the tiny bunks, uncomfortably close to the ceiling of the car. It definitely wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep but at least it was warm and I could lie down, although even I felt cramped up there, don't know how the Italian woman did it. 

The conductor came by to check our tickets, the African women were kind of angry from the disturbance but whatever, pretty soon after that I just passed out. 

Fantasy? Reality? TV?

It's 5am and I can't sleep, why? Perhaps it's from drinking Starbucks at 9pm or from watching too much late night tv or it's the continuation of my crazy Spain sleeping patterns or perhaps it's just my natural nocturnal life style that seems to have been instilled in me since birth. Whatever the reason, I am awake, and I am...sleep-deprived-reflective. 

I've only been home now for 39 days (not that I'm counting...) but Spain already seems like a life time ago. I'm working on other pieces of writing, detailing some of my adventures abroad and sometimes it's hard to recall the stories, the events, sometimes even the people correctly. The life of a study abroad student is so extreme and fleeting, it's like life on overdrive. One minute you're rushing around trying to get a study visa, the next minute you're drinking in a bar full of spanish people you only met 3 hours earlier and can barely converse with, and the next you're knee deep in grammar homework and best friends with someone you may never see again. And things that normally take a month, a year, a decade to happen in real life seem to develop at a much faster pace, it's almost like life-in-fast-forward.  

The thing about studying abroad is, it's a fantasy which appears to be so close to real life that sometimes you forget that it isn't your real world. That's one reason why the adjustment into the real world is so hard for many of us, especially when your exchange is in a country very contrasting from your own. It's kind of like being on a reality show like the Bachelor/Bachelorette or Big Brother, I know that sounds stupid, but hear me out...

Like in a reality show, you're thrown into this unfamiliar world, surrounded by a bunch of people in the same situation and you are essentially isolated from the outside world. In Big Brother you make fast friends and form alliances with people because it is a necessity on many levels, even if they're people that you probably wouldn't be friends or close friends with in a different situation. And because of that, there is usually some drama, you can't be that surprised though, it's an extreme life style and there's going to be some chaos. Also like the life of Big Brother contestants, people are constantly leaving and you never know when one of your friends or enemies will suddenly disappear or if you will ever see them again. That's one of the things I love and hate the most about the study abroad life style. 

During my exchange I met so many interesting people, both in Spain and on my travels, and they are really what made my exchange an such an incredible experience. I met some really amazing people, some of which I will most likely never see again, luckily with today's technology some of them I am able to keep in contact with via Facebook/Skype/etc. I also met a lot of rather odd and crazy people, some super friendly people, and some worn-down, old grumps, but my exchange wouldn't have been the same without all of them. I look back and I'm just so thankful for having the opportunity and for everything that happened, even the bad times because all experiences teach you something.

Like being on vacation or on BB, we all did things we might not normally do in our real lives or acted in ways that don't necessarily reflect our "North American personas." And that mostly has to do with the environment in which we were living. For example, we went out and drank almost everyday because it was part of the life style/culture and it was cheap, we stayed out till 6am or 7am on a pretty regular basis, including weekdays, and that became normal. Some people were more outgoing or more introverted or more whatever because of how comfortable they felt in the new life style, along with knowing that they will probably never see most of those people after the year is over. And you can't blame them, us, because it is like almost getting a fresh start or a break from reality, you get to be whoever you want to be and nobody is the wiser. Friends can be lost as quickly as they were made. 

Okay, maybe I'm making life abroad sound a little superficial, and in some ways it is, but at the same time, I actually made some real, solid friendships. Because of the extreme situations you find yourself in, you also tend to make real, deep connections a lot faster than you would in normal life because you know your time is limited, you don't have to see them after the exchange if you don't want to, and that this person is more or less in the exact same boat is you. This in someways, kind of like alcohol, lowers your inhibitions and makes you open to much more (I love how open people ie. exchange students, travellers, even Europeans in general, were.) In Spain at least, we partied a lot harder, loved a lot harder, and lived a lot more open and free than we do here, well I can't speak for everyone but I did anyways. 

Some of the people I made close connections with are ones that I met for only a few days, many of whom I Actually still keep in contact with, and it's crazy/amazing. Ironically many of the people I was with all year I have already lost contact with or never bothered to keep in touch with once I left European soil. Perhaps because I got to know them enough to know I didn't like them or there was a falling out or whatever other reason. People constantly come and go in your life, and I'm just thankful that they entered into it at all, even if for only a week, a day, an hour. It's just something you have to accept, even though sometimes that seems hard because they are such an amazing person and your paths only cross for what seems like a much-too-short amount of time. But that's life, I believe or at least hope, that everyone comes into your life for a reason, normally to teach you something, good or bad, and help you grow in some way. 

Okay, back tracking a little from the philosophical, karmic, meaning-of-life rambles, I'm going to continue on a little bit more with my ridiculous reality tv metaphors, ready? So the Bachelor, how does that apply to study abroad experiences? Well, as I've already said, life abroad seems extreme and the Bachelor is pretty much extreme dating, wouldn't you agree? You're thrown into this situation where you are trying to get to know people as fast as possible and knowing that any moment, they could fall in love with you or be cut out of your life forever. You're both (supposedly) looking for the same things, opening up your hearts and hoping to find a connection with a stranger who (sometimes) quickly becomes a friend and perhaps a lover. Also, on the Bachelor half way through they all go abroad to some fantasy destinations and go on the most romantically-ridiculous dates you could ever dream of in some of the most beautiful places on earth... They're amazing but not anything like real-life dates, and inevitable they get swept up into it and seem to forget that their relationship will not always be like that. They fall in love so fast and many get their hearts broken, and usually in the end, the bachelor and his fiancé don't end up staying together because the fantasy wears off and reality kicks in and that's a whole different story. So far there's only maybe 4 couples from all the Bachelor/Bachelorette seasons that are still together. Sad times. Aha jk.

Okay, maybe trying to find love abroad isn't as ridiculous as the Bachelor but how many times do you meet someone in such a foreign situation and it actually works out? I know of people who met someone while living abroad, studying abroad, or traveling, and ended up dating, some even getting married, and I hope that maybe one day that'll happen to me, but really, what are the odds? I didn't fall in love in Spain, I fell in love WITH Spain, but I never fell for a guy there (perhaps because I wouldn't allow myself to, knowing the inevitable heart break) but that was me. Many of my friends however, did find boyfriends/girlfriends and have amazing relationships...don't get me wrong, I'm all for finding love and I did meet some pretty incredible guys during my travels that maybe could have become something if the timing had been better or the situation different, but it wasn't and that's life. 

Now though, they all have the problem of what to do now that exchange is over, this is the real test... Of course they all want to stay together but many of them are now on different continents from their significant others and reality is setting in. I really hope some of them can make it work but in reality, how can you? You have to REALLY and I mean REALLYYY love someone to be willing to talk to them everyday and be faithful and committed to them knowing you may not see them again for months or even years. I know they say that if you really love someone you can make it work, but reality isn't always so kind. 

Maybe right now they still talk every morning or every night but time differences are tricky and life gets in the way, maybe they'll start fighting or just talking less and less, and what if one of them begins to have interests in people in their vicinity. I don't know, I know letting go of love is hard, Very hard, but sometimes it's the only thing you can do unless one of you decides to pick up and move your whole life for someone you've only known for less than a year. 

It is amazing though isn't it, there's so many people in the world, and it doesn't matter that they're from Spain or Finland or Turkey or Kenya or Korea, they still understand you, have the same sort of humor or problems, and can relate to you in so many ways. It's also great because you know that they are there for the same reason you are, they want to be on exchange to learn a new language, experience a new culture, and see the world, which I suppose is another reason why you tend to find many people who are so like-minded and in sync with you.

Life in Spain is just so different to here, it changed the way I think, the way I live, the things I value, the way I eat, and my appreciation for different styles of life. My days there just seemed so full and there was always something going on, perhaps that's why the slowness of my current suburban life seems more exaggerated than usual. It's definitely taken some time to get used to but I guess I'm finally starting to feel a little more settled again here. 

I can't believe how fast my time abroad flew by. I went to so many crazy places, experienced so many interesting things, and met so many amazing people. It was a life-changing experience in many ways. There were so many surreal moments I remember just stopping and thinking, is this really my life? Maybe that sounds cheesy, but I was fortunate enough to have so many amazing opportunities, live such an awesome life style, even if for only 9.5 months, and I really learned how to appreciate it. 

And you all now know about my secret, summertime reality tv addiction. 

Time for bed!

Nearing the end (part 2): Ridiculousness

Well, if you read the first part to this blog you've heard about all the crazy shit happening in Granada around beginning to mid may.. well things didn't really get any more.."normal" the second half of it either. But things were just ridiculous in a whole different way.

So, I don't really know how or why this happened, but after the big group trip to Portugal in April, there was this weird divide. Some of the people in our group got a lot closer on that trip and all of a sudden there became this 4 or 5 person core group and the rest of us became more like secondary extras. It didn't really bother me at first, but eventually it got to the point where some of us were just being excluded all together. Sound like high school? It might as well have been. I had a few other friend groups that I hung out with in Spain outside of my roommates and the Canadians, I think that also became a factor, they became a lot closer and started spending a lot more time together and I started spending more time with my other friends because most of them were Europeans and I won't be able to see them again for a long time unlike the Americans and Canadians.

Whatever, there were a number of driving factors but it actually got to the point where my roommates would decide to go out for food or drinks or whatever while we were all in the apartment together and not bother to invite me..yup. whatever. So anyways the craziness really began when I brought up the fact that my mom was coming to visit, I had told them months before that my mom was planning on coming at the end of may, a couple of their parents and friends and whatnot had all come to visit so I didn't think it would be a problem. I brought it up a whole week or so before she arrived to make sure they remembered, and for some reason one of them, B just flipped on me about it. I'm not really sure why, B did seem to be a bit on edge around then for whatever reason but B flipped out, maybe it was the fact that we had a few other guests recently in the flate, a couple of them being mine, or the fact that it was getting close to exams. I don't know but B was really crazy about it and was spazzing and insisting I force my mom to stay in a hostel.. yeah. Okay, I know the timing wasn't great because my mom was coming during exam week but I'm not really sure how that was any of their concern. For 1, none of my roommates were really planning on studying, and if they wanted to it's not like my mom was going to be in their way, not that they'd probably be studying in living room anyways. One of them was actually done the week before exams started because they were doing the intensive and by tuesday we were all pretty much done exams anyways so I'm still not really sure why they were flipping.

The other 2 roommates didn't really seem to have much of an opinion on my mom coming, they had both asked me about it and seemed okay with it, it was just when I mentioned it to my other roommate that all the drama began. I don't know if the other two cared or were on my side but didn't want to speak out against B or were on B's side but didn't want to say anything to me but they just remained silent while me and B fought it out. I barely even fought, B was being pretty unreasonable and attacking me for all kinds of stupid reasons I almost couldn't be bothered. B said she didn't want my mom there because she didn't want her to be in the way or them to be in her way (which was never actually a problem) and she also said she wanted us to all have a good last week together. Okay, I do agree with that, it was a little hard for me having to spend time w/ my mom and see all my friends before I left but that kind of pissed me off when B said that because I'm pretty sure B didn't mean ME when she said US, she meant her and the group they had created. She made it sound like my mom was going to disrupt the whole order of things. My mom just wanted to come there and spend time with me and help me pack my stuff, in reality when she did come, the only time we actually spent in the apartment was when we were IN MY ROOM packing up and IN MY ROOM sleeping, she slept in my room, not even in the living room.

The other issue was B insisting my mom sleep in a hostel, okay is that not kind of ridiculous? Well she was "okay, I guess" with my mom staying at our place on Monday night since she got in at 11pm, and then my mom actually ended up sleeping at the apartment Tuesday and Wednesday night too without them even noticing, so no idea what all the facking fuss was about. Thursday and Friday night she did stay in a hostel because I thought it would be best for everyone, Thursday was our last day of exams and we all wanted to celebrate and party together, same with Friday. So there was major battles over that, eventually I just told B that I would book my mom into a hostel but I didn't and as you can tell it worked out perfectly fine because they didn't even know my mom was there Tuesday and Wednesday night. We didn't even have the Canadians over at our place any of those nights either so it's not my like me and my mom would have been "in the way" anyways, not that we were actually in the apartment much to begin with.

So anyways, while these arguments where going on, I was stressing the eff out, I had a bunch of assignments and papers due that week since it was the last week of classes, I was on my period which was making me even more crazy emotional. I actually broke down and cried one night because I was so upset and frustrated. B was just being, well what I think, was unreasonable. Luckily some of my friends like Esteph offered to let my mom stay at her place if it came to that, luckily it didn't, but still. Thank god for good friends.

A couple days before my mom arrived there was also the issue of paying utilities since we hadn't done that yet because our land lady was really slow with that kind of stuff. While B and I had been in a debate about where my mom was staying, one of my arguments was that my mom coming was already an expensive trip and making her pay for an extra 5 nights in a hostel was kind of a ridiculous cost that we couldn't really afford, and then all of a sudden B starts attacking me about being able to pay for utilities, we were all short on money by that point in the year but she made it sound like I was some kind of unreliable loser who wouldn't be able to pay. I Was FURIOUS. 1. I have never missed a payment for anything, one month I had to borrow like 5 euros for one of the other roomies because it came out to a weird number but I paid her back that 5 a day or two later, she made it sound like they were almost sure I wouldn't have the money and they didn't want to cover for me. I asked B why, B just said they were "concerned" about me actually being able to pay for it. I told her that I would be able to and that my mom was also bringing more money so I could pay back people I owed from other things and to make sure we had enough for the utilities for May as well, and then she attacked me saying that all this "fictional money" my mom is supposedly is bringing is just "up in a cloud" right now... I didn't even know what to fucking say to that.

Anyways, monday rolled around, my mom still wasn't in Granada yet but we had to pay utilities and I had enough to pay for the April utilities and we decided to estimate the May utilities and pay for that right then too which I also had enough for. SO EFF YOU B. anyways, sorry. Moving on..

There's a hilarious, gross little anecdote from that visit actually... So our poor landlady Ana, she had 2 sons, both in their 20's, one lived in our building, etc. She used to have 2 or 3 jobs but had lost them because of the economic crisis and now being a landlady was her only job which pretty much meant we were her only source of income, which at times was annoying because she would sometimes turn up whenever she felt like it and demand we pay her for rent or utilities or whatever. Anyways, so she wasn't in great shape with her life and whatnot, so she shows up at 1:30pm on Monday for the utilities money, she comes in, we're all around, altho Hiccup was in the shower aha. Anyways, so she came in and sat down on one of the metal chairs with a white canvas seat/back on it, and talked to us for awhile.

However, when she got up we all noticed a couple of dark red stains on the white canvas chair... we all knew what it was and tried not to act horrified, especially Juan, the only guy in the apartment aha. Ana apologized a couple times then proceeded to try and scrub the stain out of the chair, she didn't even seem that awkward or embarrassed, perhaps because in the spanish language they actually don't have a word for AWKWARD because they never feel it.. I don't know, like I said, it was hilariously gross. B and I were trying not to laugh, Juan was pretty horrified but nervously laughing and Hiccup was still in the showering missing out on everything. After the stain had been more or less scrubbed out, Ana got the money from us and left. We then all burst into laughter at the absurdity and grossness of it. Needless to say.. no one ever sat in that chair again.

So there was that. So much ridiculous drama for no reason. Needless to say that made the divide even bigger between me and the roomies. Once my mom showed up I spent most of my time with her and very minimal amounts in the apartment, my mom met all my other friends though, we all went out for dinners and lunches and drinks.

So it was exam week right? Well as I said before, Monday and Tuesday all of us except Hiccup had exams, but after Tuesday, Juan and I only had 1 more left on Thursday and I wasn't sure about B. Well tuesday night, as usual, my roomies were going to the shots bar because it was double points on tuesday and then to this stupid fancy club because it was free entry on tuesdays. My mom and I went out for dinner with some of my friends and were back in the apartment by about 1:30am to pack up a bit and whatnot, Juan came home around 2/2:30am for whatever reason.

So, at about 6:30am, my roomies and our other friend M all come drunkenly stumbling into our apartment yelling at each other. Keep in mind this is a small apartment, with paper thin walls, so people yelling in the living room sounds about the same as someone yelling in your room.. anyways, it's 6:30am, B is black out drunk, has apparently been puking and seems to have lost the KEYS to the apartment, luckily Hiccup was with her to let her into the building/apartment but her room was also locked, so she had to sleep in the living room.. this is pretty much how the conversation went...

B: "I wanna go to sleeeeeepp"
H: "You can't you lost your keys you idiot!"
B: "Whyyyyyyyy...Let me innn..." -banging on bedroom door
H: "Lie down, I'm making you a bed on the floor, lie down!"
B: "No, I don't want to! I want to sleep in my bedd"
M: "You don't have your keys!"
B: "Whyyyyyy" -disappears into the bathroom to throw up...
H: "LIE DOWN! LIE DOWN!"
B: "NO! NO! fuck you! I DONT WANT TO!"
M: "Calm down, and go to bed."
B: "NO!"
repeat.

Eventually around 7am B had passed out and then, to top it all off, M said to Hiccup: "make sure you wake B up at 9:30, she has an exam at 10am."

I was like, ARE YOU KIDDING ME ?! The ONE person who has an exam the next day is the one who is black-out passed out on the living room floor... what a dumbass. So, at 9:40am, because H probably was never going to get up, M shows up and rings our buzzer like 3 times, and wakes up everyone, I was out of bed about to answer the door when H ran out of her room to buzz up M, i proceeded to go back to bed and M came into our apartment and had yet another loud fight with still-drunk-B about her exam. It went like this...

M: "Get up, your exam is in 20 minutes"
B: "No."
M: "It's your last exam, get up! you Have to go"
B: "No, I don't care! No!
M: "GET UP!"
H: "Get your ass out of bed !!!!"
B: "NO! I don't want to!"
repeat.

Eventually B gets dragged out of bed and goes to her exam, she returns, announces she's pretty sure she's still drunk, she almost puked on her exam and that her prof is probably not going to be able to read her drunk writing, then goes into Hiccup's room with M and they all pass out until about 1:30pm, when they emerge they all look like zombies. Not a pretty sight aha.

I don't really remember what happened the rest of wednesday, showed my mom around Granada, saw people, you know, that kind of thing. Wednesday night I went over to Esteph's, as it turned out I didn't actually have an exam on Thursday, we just had to hand in a final paper for the class instead, so I went to work on my paper at Esteph's with our other friend Ali, when I got there though, there was a ton of random friends all there. It was a fun night of hanging with a bunch of people, and paper writing of course.. with some wine.. it helps.. Anyways. Thursday rolled around, it was more of the same, doing fun things with my mom, getting stuff packed up and moved, getting ready to leave for Barcelona on saturday, those sorts of things.

That night everyone was officially done exams so we all met up, some people were leaving Friday morning for good, like the Canadians so we all said good bye at different points in the night, eventually we all ended up at Esteph's and hung there for awhile; drank, talked, and partied, as you do, till we eventually decided to go hit up a discoteca around 2:30am, we ended up at Campus, one of the discotecas we frequented, and it was weirdly empty, it usually wasn't that busy till 3/3:30am but even by the time 4am rolled around it was only half full, well, we were drunk and had a good time anyways. Eventually got home around 7:30am or so, some of my roomies were still up which was weird, because the Canadians had left only a couple hours before and they were really upset about it seemingly, and I also wasn't the quietest coming home, not that I cared at that point.

Friday I was a little hungover but had lots to do, so was running around doing errands and meeting up with people most of the time and packing of course. I had to be totally moved out of the apartment by Saturday night when I left for Barcelona, so Friday afternoon I finished packing up and moved all my stuff down to Kats place for storage for the next couple weeks while my mom and I were traveling. I honestly don't really remember, the end of that week was a blur,  I saw a lot of people, said to goodbye to some people, ate a lot, drank a lot. I don't know.

Saturday morning my 3 roomies were off to the beach and that was going to be the last time I saw them, maybe forever, because by the time I got back from my travels they would be back in states already. Saying goodbye, was weird. B was the first one too say goodbye, it was one of those, everyone lined up to say goodbye one-ata-time things, B hugged me pretty tight and said it was fun getting to know me this year, the other two just kinda lightly hugged me and said we'd keep in touch or they'd see me around. Not exactly a heartfelt goodbye like the ones I'm sure they had on Thursday with the Canadians, whatever. I have only kind of kept in touch with 1 of them since.

C'est la vie. Saturday evening we left for Malaga to catch our flight to Barcelona that evening. And thus, the mother-daughter trip began. I'm going to put that into a different blog because that's a whole different experience to itself.

It was a shame it ended that way though, it had been a pretty great year up to that point, well up until the last month I guess. Everything just kind of fell apart, my one friend has a theory that they were upset that we were all leaving and tried distancing themselves as a defence mechanism. Well, who knows what happened, but we all drifted apart. I still keep in touch with all the people I really want to keep in touch with.

It's Not Goodbye, Only See You Later...

Well, this blog is coming to you from a post-abroad-depressed, emotional, jet lagged 21 year old who can't be bothered to get out of bed. It's rainy and gross outside, the house is quiet, the neighbourhood is quiet. It's a monday morning in snoozeville, Ontario and I'm lying in bed listening to Spanish/Latino music, still imagining that I'm somewhere else. It's been about 40 hours since I landed on Toronto soil and all the weirdness of readjustment and reverse culture shock began, which I will be talking/complaining about shortly but first I'm going to rewind a little to the my last few days in Europe.

Wednesday night my mom and I arrived back into Granada after 16 hours of traveling (the full story about that trip will be written/ranted about in another blog), I've never been so relieved and sad to look upon my city, knowing it would be the last time this year I would pull into that bus station. We got off the bus and caught a taxi, since I had to be completely moved out of my own apartment before I left for Italy, we headed over to Mads' place where were staying and she was heading over to her bf's. We met up at the apartment around 11:45pm to get the keys and whatnot and then headed upstairs. Originally we were going to out for a tapa or something but my mom was exhausted so I just went on facebook and checked my email till about 3am to reconnect to the world since I hadn't had much internet during my travels.

Thursday was a blur of a day, we overslept instead of running errands and had to immediately head over to my cousin Kat's place to do some repacking, we left all my suitcases there during our travels since she had lots of space, and they took up a lot of space aha. After an hour or two of repacking we headed out to do last minute errands, buying a Uni of Granada sweater, buying tea, revisiting some of the Moroccan places where I made friends with the owners, buying postcards/shot glasses, and those kind of things. It was a beautiful day in Granada so we had lunch at one of the outdoor cafes and ended up talking to a couple of Aussie girls at the table next to us who were just traveling through. Did some more running around, got some gelato, and revisited some of my favourite places in the city one last time then eventually headed over to Casa Lo restaurant for a goodbye dinner with some friends. My mom and I got there a little earlier to eat a proper dinner since we mostly just had tapas and drinks once my friends started showing up, we all had a good laugh and eventually headed out, my mom went back to the apartment and the rest of us headed out for drinks, on the way I ran into 2 small groups of friends which was great, our group of people grew as we went along aha.

We ended up at this mojito bar called Mo Hi Too aha and we got this deal for 1 euro off everyones drinks since we were in a big group which was awesome, a few more friends showed up there which was great, but then reality started setting in. People slowly started leaving because some had exams or whatnot the next day and the goodbyes began, it was pretty awful. Drunken goodbyes, uuf. It was my last full day in Granada and I was still in denial that the end was coming. Eventually we moved on to an Irish bar, although we stopped into a Paella bar before that to find our fav crazy italian friend who is always in there, I'm going to miss her so much. By then the group had dwindled down to just a few of my really close friends, we spent the remainder of the night there since we had all become too tired and drunk to go hit up a club or whatnot. Eventually we all parted ways but agreed to meet up for lunch and cheesecake the next day.

I got back to the apartment pretty drunk, my mom was still kind of wake when I got in so I had to pretend like I wasn't too drunk, she knew I had been drinking but not necessarily how much, I drank a ton of water to try and sober up a bit but when I lied down in bed my head was spinningggg. The next morning I wasn't feeling too great but had to get up early to get some last minute things done before meeting up with ppl for lunch, gotta love hangovers when you need to be productive lol always a terrible idea but we always seem to do it anyways. 1pm rolled around and we all started showing up at my fav place for some drinks and cheesecake, it was really quiet which was nice, it was just my 3 close friends, my mom, the owner, our fav waiter, and I in the place, plus a couple on the other side of the room. Saying goodbye to those 3 was one of the hardest things I've gone through, 2 were from England and the other from Finland, we all became really close over the last 8 months and saying goodbye was just...ugh, so terrible, I have no idea when I'm going to see them again, that's really the hardest part. At least with all the North American friends I made, the chance of seeing them again is pretty high, but with all the europeans, it's a lot more iffy, I know I'll be back in Europe eventually, but who knows, that may be still another 3 or 4 years down the road from now. Anyways, saying goodbye to my Finnish friend was definitely the hardest, she's become one of my closest friends and I already miss her like mad. All the eyes started welling as we all said goodbye, again and again, before my mom eventually dragged me out of there.

I hate goodbyes, I know they're a part of life and they're not necessarily goodbyes but just see-you-laters, but it's still really hard. You would think it would get easier or that I would start to get used to it at least because I move around so much but no. Instead I just miss more people and have more goodbye heartaches. Just have to keep telling myself that I will be back in Europe and that I will see all those amazing people again, this hope is really the only thing that gets me through.

The only reason I had to leave the lunch with those girls so urgently was because my mom and I had booked a session at the Baños Arabes (Arab baths), if you are ever in Spain or somewhere where something like this is available, I highly recommend it. I've been going to them once a month since Feb. It's pretty much like being in heaven for two hours and being a student is even better because you get a good discount. For those of you who have no idea what they are, it's basically a recreated version of the large communal baths they used to have in Arabic/Muslim cultures/countries, the one in Granada is a large underground area, dark, full of candle light and fake star carved ceiling lights. There's the sound of running water and sometimes quiet Arabic music playing in the background, such a calm and quiet atmosphere. Basically there's 3 pools of water, a cold one -which is freezing, the medium one which is a nice, warm pool temperature and then the hot one which is just hot enough to feel amazing but not too hot so you can still lie in it for more then 5 minutes at a time. There's also this large flat heated 'stone' which I usually end up falling asleep on for a bit, and then there's an area with massage table alcoves and a tea drinking room, the Moroccan tea they have there is Delicious.

My last few hours in Granada were slowly slipping away as I laid in those beautifully relaxing pools of warm water, the massage was amazing too, we left there feeling like rejuvenated. But then it was time to face the music... we grabbed some shwarma for dinner, the best delicious, greasy food of Granada, and then headed over to Kats to get my bags and head for the bus station.

We were taking a late night bus up to Madrid because our flight was at 9am the next day, it was a long 5 hour ride, I watched out the window as Granada faded into the distance and the hilly landscape rose around me, then turned my attention to the spanish-dubbed American movies they were playing on the bus, kind of paying attention but kind of lost in miserable thoughts too. I eventually fell asleep and awoke at 2am when we arrived at the airport, they dropped us off and we headed over to the terminal, all I have to say is thank god for Iberia. We were technically flying British Airways but our flight from Madrid to London was operated my Iberia and their desks are open 24h so we were able to check in and get rid of all the suitcases instead of dragging them around the airport. We spent the remainder of the night sleeping/chilling in the McD's in the airport, thank god for McD's too lol comfortable seats/benches to sleep on and free wifi. 9am rolled around and we groggily boarded our first flight, the rest is kind of a blur, one flight, another airport, another flight... finally at 3pm (9pm Spanish time) we landed at Pearson. I've never been so relieved and depressed to be back in Pearson. It was a pretty surreal moment pulling into the gate and walking back through that old familiar place.

Getting into that cab and driving "home" was so surreal it almost felt like a dream. I watched all the familiar buildings pop up on the horizon, pass by all the familiar high way exits, eventually exiting back into ptown, down past my old high school, and back to my little suburban house. I can't even describe how weird it was being back. There really is no other word to describe it than just..weird. It was a weird mixture of being somewhere so familiar but feeling so out of place. Guess that's when you know that you've changed, because it definitely wasn't this little suburban purgatory that changed.

Well to be fair, there has been quite a fair bit of change around here, tons of construction, new buildings, things moving around, people moving around. Life still goes on when you leave, although that seems like a weird concept for some reason. The first week I was mostly just depressed and trying to readjust to life here, I spent most of my time in bed, watching tv with my parents, or catching up with high school friends rather than productive things like unpacking, job searching, etc. even though I had a to-do list about a mile long.

Reverse culture shock and readjustment were the weirdest experience. It was all the small things that tripped me up, like having to use house alarm systems again, hearing people around me all speak in English, putting dishes in a dish washer, speaking English to people in restaurants and stores, even the fact that the button to flush to the toilet was not on top of the tank but a lever on the side. I know that sounds bizarre but it's true, you just become so accustomed to the way of live after living somewhere for so long that even somewhere you know so well like Toronto begins to feel kind of foreign, or you feel foreign being there. There were many times where I said or almost said something in Spanish before realizing that no one else would understand me. I spent the majority of the first week being miserable and listening to spanish music and talking with friends who were still there. It felt lonely, even when I hung out with most of my friends here it just fet weird and out of place. Not with all my friends, because there's some people you can always connect with no matter the circumstance. But a lot of the time I'd be with a group of people and they'd be talking about things that were totally lost on me. Like my friend Karl talking about the purge, I was like WTF is that? or people talking about the Jays games or hockey...yeah, I haven't seen or cared about any of those things in a year if ever.. so not gunna start now. Ir definitely felt surreal for a long time and I kept hoping it was maybe a dream and that I was still in Spain, just having a bad dream that I was back home.

Obviously it was not a bad dream and I am here now. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of good things about coming home too, like sushi, Tim Hortons, nice showers, CLOTHES DRYERS, dim sum, and my bed, I missed my bed. But even this place isn't home for me anymore, my life is in Vancouver now. This is kind of like purgatory between my fantasy life in Spain and my real life in Vancouver. I started this blog a couple days after I got home but it's taken me this long to get back to writing it. Just haven't felt like writing for awhile I guess. I've been home for a month now, I'm still jobless, slowly starting getting used to being home but still feeling kind of weird at times. It still a lot of feelings of being out of place and misunderstood, I guess everyone goes through that though, I wish there was more people around here who understood, but oh well. Until then I'll just be here...

February Nonsense

Here's some more stories about the ridiculousness of my year, in December-February my living situation became..something else, to say the least.

So, basically, in December I moved in with Taco, the Ecuadorian girl from Toronto, and this spanish woman named Cote, she was probably in her..early 30's? And she was working full time at a restaurant not too far from our place so her schedule was pretty different from ours. She also had this really needy, noisy dog, it was the size of a border collie but was also mixed with some other kind of dog(s), it was cute but annoying at the best of times, not to mention hard on my allergies since the house was rarely ever properly cleaned.

Where to start with this one, well December started okay, the kitchen was quite small but a lot of the time we weren't there at the same time because of schedules, or sometimes me and Taco just made meals together since it was more convenient, definitely one useful thing about living with a friend, sharing groceries/cooking together/etc. Cote was only home half the time because of her job but that meant while she was gone her dog was around and she normally just let it roam around the place, which isn't terrible since the poor thing does need to have some space to roam around besides a bedroom but it's a really needy dog, which meant that whenever we were in the house outside of our rooms it was following us around and a lot of the time, since we usually were in our rooms, it would start whining and barking for attention. This was a pretty regular habit since Cote was gone most days for a fairly long period of time. Don't get me wrong, I like dogs, but whiny, need dogs (and people) drive me nuts. I would sit and pet it for a few mins when I came in the house and then go to my room and minutes later it would be wandering the halls whining for more attention. It also barked every time someone came in the door (especially new people) or a group of people walked by on the street or there were other dogs/squirrels in the area. So much barking. There were many saturday and sunday mornings where I was awoken by loud, continuous barking because Cote would be gone and the dog would be barking at whatever until one of us shushed it. One morning the dog was barking for almost an hour straight, I'm not even kidding. Not to mention it shed Everywhere, it came into my room every once in awhile, usually when it was super excited, running full tilt through the apartment and would slam into my door, ending up on my large floor rug (the latch on my door obviously wasn't too sturdy), so there was constantly white and black dog hair everywhere, on everything. Plus it created a lot more dirt and dust within the apartment which was already kinda dusty and all tile floors, not too great for my allergies, especially when it was really cold and we couldn't open up the windows.

So the dog was just one, of many, problems with this new apartment. Of course there was a lot of pluses too but looking back I'm not too sure they out weighed the faults. First problem, as I've probably already mentioned in another blog, Spanish architecture sucks, I don't know who designs this shit but it's terrible. The kitchen was a Small rectangular room, really only big enough for 1 or 2 people to be in at a time, the worst part of it was the sink tho, it was 1 bin sink instead of a 2 part one, so it wasn't very big for 3 peoples dishes, the worst part of it though was the location, it was in the back corner, who puts a sink in the corner ?! That made it an awkward place to wash the dishes because you're stuck leaning over a corner in between the counters and the stove, which hurt your back and was just awkward to even reach. And usually the sink was piled high with dishes since my spanish roommate felt like washing her dishes only once or twice a week was a perfectly acceptable way to live. Secondly, there was the stove, it was one of those sketchy gas top stoves that you have to light yourself by turning on the gas and then sticking your hand close to the burner with a lighter or match and hoping you don't blow up the kitchen. Fun times.. we also didn't have an oven of any sort which kind of sucked since that meant I had to use the likely-to-blow-me-up stove or the microwave when making food, so I began making a lot more salads which didn't require much kitchen appliances aha.

It was also just a slightly grungy kitchen, and well, apartment. There was no real grime or mold or anything but it was always on the dusty/dirty side, and it was an older apartment structure in general, the windows were kinda old and creaky, and the paint was peeling in a lot of places, that kind of thing. I wish the had vacuums in Spain, it would have made cleaning that apartment a lot easier, sweeping only does so much. And I'm pretty sure I was the only one who ever mopped the place because quite often there would be a spill of something on the kitchen floor which would remain there until I mopped, although eventually I became as bad as the other two and just started ignoring messes, especially ones that I didn't make. The bathroom was pretty ghetto too, to flush the toilet you had to pull on a metal chain attached to the water tank on the wall above the toilet, the time laundry machine was in there right beside the toilet and beside that was the tiny shower which was slightly larger than a standing shower up not quite a bath tub or anything. The other problem was the water heater, that thing sucked up so much energy which is why our utilities were usually kind of expensive and at best you usually only got about 15 minutes of hot water while showering, assuming other people hadn't been using it for washing the dishes or the laundry machine. The shower was mainly a hand-held one too because the shower head holder wasn't very effective either, I know that's not the worst thing in the world, but eventually it got rather annoying.

Another with Spanish buildings, there is NO insulating, which I suppose is good when it's really hot in the summer time because then it stays fairly cool inside but in the winter it is Freezing, especially in Granada since we were in a mountainous-deserty climate, in the winter (december till march really) at night time it got damn cold. Which also made it really hard to dry clothes because they don't have clothes dryers in Granada (maybe not even Spain) so you have to dry your clothes outside which is rather hard to do when it rains so much (because it did rain quite a lot this year, more than usual according to the Spaniards but I'm not too sure I actually believe them) or dry them in freezing cold air, gotta love cold, crunchy socks right? You can also hang them around your room to dry but that's a lot of damp clothes sitting in an enclosed space, yay mustiness.. The other problem with having no insulation is that means there is also no sound barriers, it really makes no difference whether you're in the room next door or the same room, the sound level is pretty much the same. So whenever Cote was blasting music (sometimes with her door also open at the early hours of the morning) or watching movies or talking with her friends or her "amigo" especially late at night, you could pretty much hear everything without wanting or trying to.

The other major problem with this apartment was that who ever designed it decided that the house only needed two circuits for the entire apartment so we blew the fuse, a lot, especially in the winter time when we would put on our heaters, the kicker was though, the fuse box wasn't even in our apartment, oh no, it was in the apartment at the end of the block, which means we had now way to reset it besides relying on the people who did have control of the fuse box to do so, although we discovered a couple weeks later Cote did have a key to get into that building, thanks for telling us.. anyways, but late at night if we blew the fuse past like 2am and Cote and the neighbours were asleep we wouldn't have any power till like 9 or 10am the next morning when someone would reset it for us. It was pretty ridiculous, not to mention the sketchy wifi connection, but that's only because we were stealing the wifi from the apartment below us aha.

Okay, enough ranting about the bad parts, on the upside, it was a pretty big apartment, we lived on the entire first floor of the building, it was long and skinny rectangular shape so in our actual building it was only our apartment and the apartment below us, it was on a hill so technically we were the first floor but about half the basement floor was also above ground so the people who lived there had a different entrance. Another thing, my room was Massive, my room in the first apartment was nice and decently sized but this one was ginormous (is that how you spell that?), anyways this one had a double bed in it and still looked huge, there was a large wooden desk, probably 7ft or 8ft long, and 2 armoires, although I lived partially out of my suitcases for most of December. Another awesome thing about the apartment was the roof top terrace, we shared it with our neighbours downstairs but I never actually saw them up there, the view was pretty great, not as good as the last apartment but can't complain. There was also a hammock up there which was amazing, I've decided that I need to have more hammocks in my life aka should have one in every place I live in from now on. I'm also pretty sure there was a small weed plant up there too aha. So the terrace was a great place for private tanning and having house parties when it was warm enough. The house itself was also a good size for parties, so we had quite a few, the living room was a good size and my room was right off of it which was also a good space for chilling.

The other upside for me was that it was 3 or 4 minutes closer to campus and was also on the street level which was kind of a relief for me and everyone since my old apartment was about 3.5 flights of very tiring stairs above the actual street. Anyways, so minus the few annoyances and a couple of ridiculous events, usually pertaining to noise disturbance, in December the apartment was a decent place to live, especially since I wasn't actually spending that much time there (like always) since I'm always out and about. January was fine since Cote was the only one who was really home, I was gone from December 28th-January 2nd to Glasgow, Scotland to spend new years with some fam and Taco had gone back to Toronto after exams ended on Dec. 22rd until the beginning of Feb. and I left again on Jan. 7th to start my 3.5 week travels. So the 3 of us weren't actually living together again until the beginning of Feb.

I was the first one back on Jan 31st, no idea where Cote was, but her and Taco both showed up the first week of Feb. But when Cote showed up she also had her mother with her. It looks like they had been in some kind of accident together (maybe a car crash) because they were both a little bandaged and bruised but seemingly fine beyond that except for Cote's wrist which was in a sling. Her mom was really nice although she spoke really quick, quiet Spanish so having a conversation with her wasn't always too easy. At first we just assumed that her mom was visiting for a few days or a week or whatever to help out Cote since she had hurt her wrist, she was from a city not too far away from Granada and whatnot. But long story short, she ended up living with us for the entirety of February, I actually moved out into a new apartment before she left.

Cote's mom living with us brought a whole new dynamic to the apartment. There was definitely some pluses to it, she was 100 times cleaner than her daughter and constantly cleaned up the kitchen instead of leaving pans and dishes sitting around for days, she even cleaned our dishes sometimes if we didn't get around to them right away, she also cleaned our fridge which must have been a disgusting task, the bottom of that thing was scary. And also since she was there, Cote's "amigo" who was a bit of an asshole came around a lot less. But there was also a lot of..issues too. Firstly just from a pure expense perspective, there was now 4 of us using all the utilities which made our bill for Feb. expensivee, not too mention our land lady had made us pay our portion of the January utilities even though neither me nor Taco were actually there. Cote somehow managed to use up 48 euros of electricity utilities all by herself and we had to pay for it...but anyways. Beyond just the logistical problems, Cote and her mom were constantly in the kitchen/living room, and as I mentioned before, the kitchen wasn't really big enough for 2 or more people so we started using the kitchen a lot less and began going out to eat a lot more because trying to share with them was just inconvenient and awkward. We didn't have much contact with Cote as it was and so trying to use the kitchen while her and her mom were in there cooking (which seemed like 5+ hours every day) became too much of an annoyance. Also having another person in the house made the dog even crazier. Also, if you are not aware, Spaniards are really loud, so when Cote and her mom would talk quite loudly (especially when arguing), over top of each other, at around 9am or 10am on weekends, they might as well have been talking inside my bedroom for all the difference our great house insulation made.

So, to say the least I started spending even less time at the apartment, unfortunately I still needed to be there to sleep and whatnot, so I couldn't totally avoid them, the worst was definitely the amount of times I was awoken or disturbed at some random hour of the morning while trying to sleep from one thing or another, the worst was when I had to be up for important school shit, and of course, those were the nights she would have friends over or her and her mom would stay up till like 5am talking or doing whatever. There was one night back in December where she was making noise till 5am and I had a final the next day, so after banging once on the wall, to no avail, I had to get up and actually ask her to keep it down because I had an exam at 10am, that night her "amigo" was over and was being a complete asshole which started my major dislike of him. We got our own revenge in some small ways though, having parties sometimes till pretty late in the night, sometimes when she had work in the morning or coming home drunk late at night and making some racket, if they get to wake me up during the week and weekends at the early hours of the morning then they can't really complain when I make noise late at night.

One of the funniest nights though, which I do kinda feel bad about, was a random night in feb, a friend was sleeping over and my poor bed had been becoming less stable since December because one night me and 3 friends had been watching a movie on the bed and it had collapsed under the weight because all of us were sitting on one side, it was never really the same after that ahaha. Also another example of bad Spanish design, the bed frames are designed so stupidly, hence the frame failure, anyways. So by Feb the bed frame had become pretty wonky and unstable so while we were on it,  it collapsed twice (only on the left side though), and you can imagine how loud metal is when it crashes onto tile floor, so needless to say we definitely woke up Cote and her mom and that was probably around 4:30am or so but ohwell, shit happens ahaa. It was pretty broken after that, even just lying on

So, by the end of the month, living in a house with a crazy dog, a clingy Torontonian (omg she was so clingy) and a loud Spanish woman and her mom, I decided I had about enough and luckily at that time 3 of my American friends, who had also been in Granada first semester with me, had an empty room because their 4th roommate decided they wanted to live with a house family, so needless to say I moved in with them. So yea, that was definitely an interesting living experience.  

Definitely had some good times there though, and all experiences, good or bad, are worth something right. I think next year I'll find myself a 1 (2 at most) person apartment aha.

Another kinda funny thing about that apartment was the landlords, the wife Carmen is the one who actually ran all the land ownership business, they lived in a building just down the street from ours and there place was NICE. Clearly they were pretty loaded, which I suppose you kind of have to be to be able to own apartment complexes and things. Anyways, they were a sweet old couple, probably in their 60's or so, Carmen was definitely a lot sharper than her husband though, she was quite a chatterbox, it was actually pretty hard escaping the house once you entered unless you had some good excuse like having class or something that you really needed to leave for. Her husband was a really sweet old guy but his hearing wasn't the best and he was always confused about things so her and him would little arguments ever couple minutes at the details of whatever aha it was cute and comical at the same time. He also had one of the strongest Granada accents I encountered so understanding him was kind of difficult sometimes.

So yeah, there's another crazy anecdote about my year.