I know it's been a long time since I've blogged, well since I've posted, I have 2 or 3 other blogs in the works at the moment from all my other adventures but it's just one of those blogging-about-one's-strange-life kind of days. The last week or month really has just been a series of crazy, strange things, but what else is new. Leaving is always the most bittersweet part of my life, but as a person who just can't sit still it's a fairly frequent heartache. One of the many things traveling and living abroad has taught me is that there are so many people out there who can change your life or make an impact, even if only for an instant. I have met so many amazing, weird, crazy, scary, and interesting people this year and there is a good chance I will never seem many of them again, but who knows... life is kinda funny like that sometimes, you never who you'll see in the strangest of places and at the weirdest of times. There's so much on my mind right now and I just don't know how to get it all out at once. I'll try and rewind a little and explain the recent strangeness of my life.
This semester seems to be a lot more hazardous than last semester for some reason, maybe it's because there's been so much rain or maybe because there's more Americans and foreigners than last semester or maybe it's just that bad luck has just found Granada this semester, perhaps because my roommates like to try and summon the spirits every once in awhile.. who knows. So, in the past month about 6 or 7 phones have gone missing.. they were either stolen, lost on transit, drunkenly left somewhere in a bar or club, or accidentally dropped into the river due to concussion haziness (that actually is what happened to Hiccup's), most of our laptop chargers have also ceased working, perhaps because of the voltage difference or perhaps because of all the traveling abuse, we are now down to 1 charger for 3 macbooks although Juanito is suppose to be getting a new one soon which he ordered over spanish ebay? We'll see how that goes. Juanito is also the only one in our house with a nice, fancy, functioning phone, 2 of us have text-and-call brick phones and Hiccup still is phoneless, it's starting to seem like it might be time to go back to North America for all of us.
Also, for the first time in my life I filed a witness report in a police station and above all that it was in spanish. Don't freak out too much before I explain.. So there has been a recent, well not really recent, but recently exposed incident with a neighbourhood creep approaching and sexually harassing many of the exchange students here. It's not quite as bad as it sounds although some of the girls here were kinda shaken up by it. I actually met the guy back in september when I was still naive and adjusting to the life style here, it was actually the first or second weekend I had actually been in Granada and he approached me on the street on a saturday night while I was drunkenly walking home and asked me what time it was, I told him and then he proceeded to ask me where I was from and where I was going. We talked for a bit, introduced ourselves, he told me his name was Juan Carlos or something and then asked me if I wanted a ride home on his vespa, well I was still a decent walk from home and not knowing any better I just said sure, why not? (When in Spain right?..) Well he dropped me home and then said he had to go meet some friends but would come back another time, I was like yea, sure, whatever, he didn't even get my phone number or anything. And then when he was leaving he did the double cheek kiss, as is custom here, but then tried to like hug me and pull me into him and kiss me but I was like dude, I don't even know you, wth? He pretended to be kind of offended since we were now "friends" but eventually left to meet his friends. He did actually return the following night, which definitely surprised me but he did say he would come back? It was kinda late, I was pretty freaking tired, my roomie wasn't home so being home alone with him was a little weird, he tried kissing me again and I let it go a little further, what can I say, I had just gotten to Spain and there was a decently attractive spaniard in my house. Eventually he left, again without my number or anything and said it was nice to see me and hoped it would happen again. Again I was like, yea sure, whatever. But over the next month he would randomly show up at my house, usually around midnight or later and knock on my window or on my door and ask to come in, sometime's he would try and talk his way in even when I told him to go away and if I didn't know it was him since I couldn't see through the front door, he would step inside as soon as I opened the door. In retrospect it kind of was creepy and could be considered sexual harassment but eventually I got so pissed off that I yelled at him to go away and eventually forced him to leave and he 'apologized' for bothering me and I never saw him again after that, except for a couple times on the street in the neighbourhood where he tried to talk to me or hug me and I just brushed him off.
So, this semester around the end of april there was a bunch of girls who were being approached and kind of harassed by some guy in the neighbourhood, well guess who. The only reason this whole thing exploded was because my friend Steph posted about her experience on fb and in one of the study abroad program walls and then had several other girls comment on it saying that the same thing had happened to them, it also happened to one of my roommates and several other girls that we knew. At first there was no proof that it was the same guy but one night my roommates and I, plus some other friends were all in a bar in the neighbourhood and he was there and we all freaked out and then realized who this guy was. Shortly after everyone sprung into action, all the directors of study abroad programs were notified, my campus put out a warning post, and a bunch of us were asked to go down to the Police Station to file witness reports. We still have no idea how long this guy has been creeping on exchange girls and we have no idea how many girls he harassed last semester who left in december without saying anything, I mean, I thought I was the only one until one girl from last semester and at least half a dozen more from this semester came forward about it too.
So that wednesday after the news had been spread, I went with 2 other girls and one of the ISA directors to the police station, it wasn't just any police station it was wayyy over on the other side of town which apparently deals with these kind of affairs specifically, hence why only 4 of us went at a time -you can only fit 4 in a taxi- we got there and I immediately felt like I was either in a hospital or an insane asylum, it was all white, modernized, with marbled floors, grey and white high ceilings, and there was a chill in the air even though it was like 25 degrees outside. The only people around were 3 or 4 police near the entrance desk and the rest was silence except for the faint sounds of beyonce playing over the sound system aha. We waited around in a little side room until one of the policemen came to get us, we walked past the security desk through a black door, down a hallway of black walls and white floors till we came to a door that lead to the hallway where all the offices were, shortly after sitting down on a bench outside of there, 2 policemen and 2 men; one in handcuffs, walked out making a fair bit of ruckus, slightly startling. After that I was really starting to feel like I was in an insane asylum or something.. A few minutes later an investigator guy walked out and asked which one of us spoke the most spanish, which was me, so I went in to talk with him while one of the girls went in with the ISA director for translation help and eventually the third girl came into the same room I was in to talk with a woman at the desk diagonal from the investigator I was with. We were there for what seemed like forever, in reality we were there for like 2.5 hours but that's a pretty long time to be in a cold, white walled police station trying to dictate a witness report in spanish.
So, that happened. Don't know what's come of it since then but the police told us that anyone who saw him after that should just call the police straight away as they now have grounds for arresting him. There's been lots of craziness this semester, I don't even know where to start. For those of you who don't know, since my last blog was for St Patricks day and the one before that was from..january or february? (I really will finish those blogs sometime soon) I moved in with 3 crazy americans (Hiccup, Lorena, and Juanito) at the beginning of march because the roommates at my last apartment were driving me NUTS (but that's a whole 'nother story that will be explained in another blog.) Also because I moved last minute, I didn't get my deposit back on the last house but ohwell, I couldn't live in that old apartment any longer and I got a last minute chance to move out before I paid March rent so I jumped on it. Living with them has been an awesome experience for the most part, we were all friends last semester and make up about a 3rd of the small group of those who remained from last semester. We've had so many crazy, drunk, ridiculous nights it would take a novel to write about them all. I love my roomies, but sometimes they can be difficult and insensitive..
But that's pretty normal, no matter how good of friends you are, there are always some roomie problems. We had some normal ones like cleaning schedules and things like that but what really pissed me off was that in April, Juanito went back to New York for his sister's wedding and came back with a large suitcase full of everything-peanut you could imagine. I know Americans miss peanut butter while they're here because it is harder to find and if you can find it, it is expensive but since he lives in a house with someone who is deathly allergic, I thought it was little insensitive to bring back peanut butter, peanut granola bars, thai peanut sauce, a large box which has bags of cashews, almonds, and peanuts, and reeses pieces cups.. I don't think I missed anything.. so, as you might be able to imagine I was a little stressed and paranoid having that many peanut things in the house, which have remained in the house til present day. Maybe it's just me, but that seems A LITTLE insensitive, and whenever I would try to talk to them about it, at first trying to be kind of joking about them killing me, they acted pretty nonchalant and told me not to worry because they'd be careful and it would all be fine..yeah sure, I've watched them be "careful" on multiple occasions, especially when friends are here, I watched our friend Morgan drop peanuts all over our couch and blankets, fun times.. but I'm not dead so, rant over.
Moving on, I guess I'll share another random story about paths crossing... So Courtney, my best friend from UBC, was here visiting me for two weeks which was awesome! (yes there will be another blog all about that too.) Anyways, it was our last night together and we were in Málaga because she had a ridiculously early morning flight from there the next morning, so we got into Málaga around 10pm and went to check-in at our hostel. When we got there Courtney wanted to pay for the hostel with a creditcard but they said they didn't accept creditcard for charges less than 25 euros, so she went to find an ATM machine and I just chilled by the check-in desk at the hostel with all our stuff. While I was waiting, another traveller showed up to check-in, he was having problems speaking spanish to the reception desk people (and by having problems I mean he didn't really know much spanish at all but the people at the front desk spoke english anyways) so I was kinda helping him out till the guy at reception told us he spoke a bit of english (could have spoken up a little sooner but whatever), so anyways, we got talking and he's an australian but had been working as a journalist in London for the last year but had just up and quit his job and decided to come traveling around Europe for a couple months. So, I invited him out with Courtney and I for dinner/drinks once we were all checked-in and whatnot. We all went out for drinks, Courtney and I got food, he was really tired and ended up leaving after a drink but we decided to keep drinking. Around 1:30am we headed back to the hostel but neither of us wanted to end the night so we got as far as the entrance to the hostel before we turned around and headed for another bar, shortly after we were another sangria deep and decided that it was maybe time to head back to the hostel, it was around 2:30pm, the bar was closing and Courtney had to be up at like 5am. I had no idea how much I was feeling that alcohol until I got into bed and then realized the room was spinning aha. Anyways, around 5am I got up to help Courtney get her stuff to the taxi then passed back out till about 9 30am. Was suppose to meet Aussie for breakfast around then plus had to be checked out by 10:30 anyways, before heading down to breakfast I had a nice/weird talk with a 40-something year old Columbian woman who was in my room, she was telling me about learning to belly dance and other random things.
So met up with Aussie for breakfast and then we headed to the beach were we spent the remainder of the morning, it was nice and sunny for awhile but then started clouding over around 12, which actually wasn't so bad because it stopped it from being ridiculously hot. The Aussie went into the water a couple times even though it was Freezing, I decided to just stay and lie in the sun, it wasn't quite warm enough for a nice swim. We lazed around on the beach for awhile, there may have been some kissing, and then around quarter to 1 we headed back into town to find some lunch, we found a kool little cafe a little further from the centre of town and got some delicious fish and tinto de veranos, after that we just wandered the city for awhile, I can now say I have basically seen all of Málaga, and eventually headed back to the hostel so he could change and I could use their internet even though I wasn't technically a guest anymore, such a rebel I know. Anyways, after that we wandered back into the city and decided to go see a movie since there was movie theatre in the big mall-plaza thing across from the bus station, I didn't really have a certain time that I needed to be back in Granada so I was just kinda going with the flow. We saw this really strange American movie that was dubbed in Spanish, there was some parts I had to kind of explain to the Aussie because his Spanish wasn't great but it was a really interesting movie and experience over all. We went for dinner after that and then I dragged myself back onto a bus back to Granada.
The rest of that weekend was pretty chill, kind of just rested and recovered from all the traveling, spent a lot of time alone which was a nice (and needed) break. Also found out some really interesting gossip which I will share further down in this blog. Monday afternoon the Aussie showed up in Granada, he had told me over the weekend that he was thinking about coming to Granada but I didn't know he was coming for sure until monday morning when he told me he had bought a bus ticket. He showed up mid-afternoon, I met him at the bus station then came back to my place so he could drop his stuff and whatever, I had class at 5pm-6:30pm so he just wandered around the neighbourhood during that time and then met me at the school when I was done. We came back to the apartment and he met all my roomies, yada yada yada, and then we went to an intercambio (language exchange) at one of my fav restaurants near by with a bunch of friends. It was fun, we were all drinking and talking multiple languages and eating and whatnot, there was definitely a fair amount of flirting going on as well aha. We were thinking about hitting up another bar but all ended up being a bit too tipsy/tired to move so we just came back to the apartment. Now here is where the story gets kind of strange, we walked into my apartment to find my 3 roommates having a séance in the middle of the living room, yup, that's right, an actual séance; a ring of salt on the floor, candles all over the apartment, a bowl of olives and 3 small candles in the middle of the circle and all that shit. I honestly wasn't that surprised since my roomies are weird as can be and every day with them is something different, unfortunately the Aussie was kind of weirded out, even though I had warned him before hand that they were really crazy, but to be fair, it was a new level of weird, even for them. We hung around silently in the living room for awhile as they fell into a meditative state, Juanito suggested asking the spiriti a question but no one said anything, apparently earlier they asked the spirit to respond if it was there and a couple seconds after Juanito's Google Voice call thing started ringing which scared the shit out of them aha guess it's a technological ghost, oh Toby (that's the name of the ghost btw). Shortly after that I decided to head to bed and then heard them chanting a few minutes later which was pretty interesting. Aussie definitely seemed kinda freaked out about it, but who could blame him. I'm just used to my roomies doing all kinds of weird things, like I said, never a dull moment with those 3.
The next morning I had class at 10am and the Aussie was suppose to meet me after it at 11:30am in the school courtyard but never showed up. I waited around for awhile but no sign of him, eventually went back to my apartment and found all of his stuff was gone, it seemed pretty weird and random, I had no idea what was going on. My one roomie was kind of sketched out about it, which is fair, but nothing was missing so it wasn't like he had robbed us and then quickly left or anything. But I still had no idea why he had suddenly picked up and left without saying a word or anything. I actually didn't hear from him until the next day, as it turned out, he had been sorting out his backpack and realized that his passports (Aussie and British?) and some money had been stolen somewhere on his travels before coming to Granada, freaked out (rightly so) and headed for Malaga since that was where the closest British Consulate was. Poor guy, losing your passport while traveling is just about the worst thing that can happen to you. He got an emergency passport and is now back in UK though.
Another really strange development that week was when I found out some really interesting gossip about one of the people in our friend group (this is gossip I briefly mentioned earlier). So as it turns out, Taco is a kleptomaniac..yup. Two of our friends (K and F) that she hung with all the time (mostly because the rest of us kind of stopped hanging out with this semester, she's That friend in our group..anyways..) had realized that Taco had been stealing money from K (about 200 euros in total) and then had caught her red-handed digging through K's roommate's friend's bag, we came to a crossroads trying to decide what to do about the situation. A couple months earlier I had also caught her wearing one of my t-shirts which is super weird since she's a bit bigger than I am so it looked to tight on her and what not. So anyways, we knew she was stealing but we weren't really sure why, but she never seemed to have financial issues during the year so we figured that probably wasn't the reason and figured that she had to be a klepto. I mean, it's one thing to steal money from people because you're really broke and too ashamed or whatever to ask people for it but it's a whole different thing to just be stealing..well because you want to/can.
So the question was, what should we do about it? Well, at this point I had barely seen or talked to her in a month or so, so the option of just ignoring her all together seemed fine to me but F and K (well mostly just F) wanted to do an intervention on her because she is a friend..well 'friend' of ours, I do use that term quite lightly, and Steph and K wanted to use a more aggressive, accusatory approach.. in the end we just left the decision up to F, and a couple days later F and K did end up talking to her, in a calm, non-accusatory way, and she admitted to Everything. Apparently she's had this problem since she was 12 and no one has ever said anything but instead starting ignoring and de-friending her, I'm not too sure on all the finer details since I heard the story second-hand but by the sounds of it, she was kinda happy that they had said something to her and then she proceeded to send out an apology message on facebook to everyone she had apparently taken things from (some people at that point didn't even know they had anything missing), I'm not too sure if she did actually pay back some or all the money, I eventually got my shit back from her which turned out to be 3 or 4 articles of clothing, only 1 of which I actually knew was missing, so that was interesting. In her message to everyone she had apologized, asking for forgiveness and said she hoped she could still be our friend but that if we didn't want to, she understood and blah blah blah. I just replied to her saying that there was only like 3 weeks left for most of us in Granada and so there wasn't any point holding a grudge or whatever, I just wanted to get my stuff back. Because by that point I had a lot of other, more important things to worry about than being mad at some crazy girl.
So, there's a small recap on some of the strangeness that's happened in my last few weeks in Granada, there's still many more stories to come, but most of them are a little less random and strange.
20/05/13
No comments:
Post a Comment