La Dolce Vita in Roma

Saturday morning I decided was a good time to go see the Vatican so I headed over to the bus station to try and figure out how to get there. There's 2 buses that run the Vatican route so I found the closest one and bought a ticket from one of the machines at the stop, then realizing that the metro and bus tickets are the same tickets... hmm interesting. I got onto the bus but had no idea what to do with it, I later learned you're suppose to pop it into this machine thingy, however I didn't and so I had a pass kicking around for the next time I wanted to take the metro, sweet. When I got on the bus I heard a bunch of english speakers which almost kinda surprised me, there was a group of 3 American guys who were all studying in Rome for the year and then 2 american girls from Massachusetts who were just traveling through. I talked to them for a bit but then they all got off at a stop near the university and I stayed on.

I got off just before the Vittorio Emmanuelle bridge, it was right next to the bridge of Angels which leads to the Castello de los Angeles, the big circular building in Angels & Demons, took some pictures and then crossed the bridge heading for the Vatican. Got to the Vatican, took some pics, wandered around the square for awhile but since I wasn't doing the tour there wasn't too much to see/do. I saw a sign pointing towards the villa with the the famous frescos of Raphael and followed it. I walked down some side streets and eventually ended up at the main street that ran along the river and followed that for awhile, I was kinda interested in seeing the villa but mostly I was looking for the Trastevere neighbourhood which was in the same direction. Eventually I found the villa, I wandered around the grounds, there was quite little gardens and the buildings were pretty but I didn't want to pay to go in so I continued my wander towards Trastevere. It was early afternoon by that point and I was pretty hungry so I stopped in this little pizzeria to get some lunch. It was cute and not too expensive and the pizza was So good. The guy who owned the place a nice bald italian man, looked like he was in his early 40s or so, was friendly but kinda quiet. When I went in there was only 1 other couple in there and eventually they left so it was only me and the owner. He disappeared into the back room for awhile so I had some peace and quiet for a bit. As I was getting ready to go he reappeared from the back room holding a map of Rome. I was pretty confused at first, he was speaking italian and at first I thought he was asking me if I had a map or something, when he realized I didn't really understand he spoke a bit slower and I realized that he was asking me if i Wanted the map, ohhhhh. Well chyea! He said someone had left it there the day before and asked me if I wanted it since he had no use for it. It was super sweet of him and it was a really good map! One of those super big road-map type ones, double-sided and super detailed. I thanked him a couple times and continued my walking journey. Eventually I found the main centre of Trastevere, I wandered through the cute little streets for awhile, eventually running into all the main little piazzas and fountains and things. I stopped at a cute little cafe to get a cappuccino, sat in front of a fountain for awhile, etc etc. I wandered there for a couple hours more and then wandered back towards the centre of the neighbourhood to find some pasta. Went to this fancy little restaurant, so italian omg. It was old and wooden on the inside, all the decór was green and red, little candles on the tables, little twinkling lights hanging from the ceiling, random little paintings and metal work objects hanging on the walls, etc. Got some really good spaghetti bolognese and a glass of red wine. So delicious I can't even tell you. It was a little expensive but I didn't really mind to be honest. 

After that I figured I should start heading back towards the hostel so I wandered back to the main street that ran along the river and began following in back towards the Vatican. After a couple blocks I realized that all the bridges had staircases leading down to the river where there was pathways, so kool!  I crossed the river since I was going to end up on that side anyways and headed down the stairs. The stairs smelled kinda like urine and the bottom 7 or 8 were kinda covered in dirt/mud, hmm. I got the bottom and started walking down the path, it was kinda uneven cobblestones and was covered in leaves/branches.. maybe going down there wasn't the best idea.. things got even sketchier when I approached in the next bridge and found 2 hobos and a random assortment of boxes/beds/tents underneath the bridge, they were standing by one of the tents talking in italian, I quietly walked as fast as I could as far away as I could behind them and scurried past them further down the river bank, after that I looked across the river and realized that on the other side there was a paved bike path and a smoothed out cobblestone walking path which looked a little nicer and safer so I walked to the next bridge, went up the stairs, crossed over to the other side of the bridge and then went back down to the river bank. Before crossing over tho, I stopped along the sketchy river bank side where there was a bunch of graffiti and decided to leave my own, I had a sharpie in my bag so I pulled that out and wrote my initials w/ Canada and the date. Now there's a piece of me on the Tiber river too. 

Anyways, I continued my stroll along the Tiber river, it was so peaceful. I'm going to get a little more personal now, because that walk along the Tiber river and everything leading up to that point has had such an impact on my life. When I started my journey I honestly wasn't too sure how well I was going to handle the whole 'being alone' thing. I've never been very good at being alone, 90% of the time I am or want to be around people, of course there's that 10% of the time where I get fed up with life and just want to be alone but that's a whole different thing. I just didn't really know if I knew how to be alone. Being in Rome alone was definitely a new experience for me, the first couple days were kind of strange, I wasn't really sure if I liked being alone, I don't think I've ever been so quiet in my entire life. But by that 3rd day, I was growing an appreciation for quietness, I was listening to the sounds of the city and people around me, I was beginning to find inner quiet and loosing the need to talk or have human contact. I was realizing that I now had the luxury to reach out to other people if I wanted to but I could also just as easily keep to myself and be content. The whole eating along thing used to make me feel kind of weird and insecure but I have since moved past that as well. I continued to walk along the Tiber, just admiring the seagulls flying around, the runners and bikers who passed by me, the flow of the river. I've never been in such complete and peaceful silence, down there by the river all the city noise was gone and there was nothing but the quiet sounds of nature around me. Definitely one of the best experiences I've had since being here in Europe. 

Eventually I came to the bridge I needed to cross to get back into the city so I said goodbye to the river and headed up the stairs into the city world. I wandered down one of the big main roads of Rome heading back towards the city centre, after about a half an hour of walking I came across a small caffé so I stopped to rest my feet and grabbed a cappuccino. It was a cute little place, only about 5 tables, the décor was all light blue and white colour schemed. I sat in a little corner table drinking my cappuccino and flipping through an italian newspaper that someone had left there. Was definitely one of those 'omg my life is so italian' moments aha. I sat in there for awhile and people watched, there was 2 italian woman at the table to my right gossiping, 2 french men at the table diagonal from me writing postcards and things, a teenage girl right behind me just chilling around and texting and then a blond couple in the far corner by the door sharing some desserts. It was a quiet little place, the guy running it was a nice older italian man, balding with round glasses and big round belly, so adorable. Eventually, I made myself get up and continued on my walk, somehow I ended up at the Pantheon. Last time I was in Rome I only saw it from the outside since we found it at night, it's fairly pretty on the inside, very..religious, the only real reason I really wanted to go in was to see the oculus and to sit down for a bit to be honest. Every 10 minutes or so there was an announcement asking everyone to be silent since it was a holy place...yeah. 

I sat in there for a while to rest my feet and then began to venture back into the city. I stumbled upon the column of Trajan, which just happened to be on the side of one of the main roads, super convenient! I wandered up the main road and eventually hit Piazza Venezia and wandered up into another main plaza where I discovered there was a movie theatre. So I just walked in and bought a ticket for Cloud Atlas, why not eh? I was supposed to be meeting up with another couchsurfer guy that evening but we hadn't really set a time and whatever. I messaged him saying I was watching a movie that evening so we made a rough time to meet up and he told me to just message him when they movie was over. Unfortunately while watching the movie my phone battery started to die, on top of that, my internet/phone service since being abroad has been pretty sketchy (not to mention kind of expensive) and didn’t seem to really be working either.

I really liked the movie Cloud Atlas, it was very different, fairly intricate and interesting. There were some parts I didn’t really understand, mostly due to the fact that I was watching it in Italian but I will definitely watch it in English one of these days and probably enjoy it even more. After the movie I tried messaging the couchsurfer guy but my phone was almost dead and my service was just failing. I felt so bad, I went around looking for somewhere to plug in my phone but finding an outlet in Italy is nearly impossible I swear. I went into restaurants and coffee shops, the metro, this little mall area thing, couldn’t find one to save my life! Eventually I just gave up and went to find some dinner because I was starving. Came across this restaurant one of the side roads near the Colosseum and stopped in there for some pasta, it was pretty good lasagna. The only problem with Rome is that it’s kind of expensive and they’re always trying to charge you for extra shit. I ordered water but of course they gave me a bottle and charged me like 2 euros for it and then asked if I also wanted bread which I said no to because I knew they would have charged me for that too. Such Bullshit. Anyways, got out of there as soon as I could, the guys working there were a little sketch too, and then wandered down the street till I came across a gelato shop. YUM. After that I happily wandered back towards the metro line outside of the Colosseum and got myself back to the hostel. I wasn’t really planning on doing much with my night but when I got back to the hostel and walked into the common room there was a ton of people hanging around drinking. The two Kiwi boys I had met earlier were chilling in there with a couple bottles of wine along with a blond guy and bunch of other randoms. I went in and joined them, didn’t have anything to drink though but they offered me some of their wine since they had a few bottles kicking around. The blond guy as it turns out is from Perry Sound, Ontario, like what are the odds, one of the few Canadians I’ve met traveling and he’s another Ontarian. A few minutes later we were joined by a blond Aussie, it was quite the party. There was a bunch of other people in the room as well, many of whom we soon got to know.

A few minutes after sitting around with the boys we noticed these 3 Russian guys sitting on one of the couches near us, one of them was very, Very drunk.

That soon became the entertainment of our night. We were all hanging around drinking and this crazy drunk Russian guy started wandering around the room talking to us. He had long hair tied up in a ponytail, was wearing a suit, and had the funniest drunk grin on his face. He had a pretty think accent but could speak English good enough, although he kept trying to convince us he was American because he’s been living there for 2.5 years and he has a gf there. Yeah..definitely not very American. He kept saying things like ‘you’re a funny guy’ to one of the kiwi bros who was talking to him, sometimes the kiwi was pulling the Russians chain but sometimes he was being serious and the Russian still thought he was making fun of him, ohman, he also called us things like ‘my dear friends’ and ‘mademoiselle’. He was hilariously drunk, he then told us that Russians weren’t funny but he had one VERY funny joke..I don’t really remember what the joke was, but no one really thought it was funny or even understood it..awkward ahaha. He then told us one of the Russian guys was playing a gig with his guitar just 2 minutes from the hostel, apparently his friend ‘is ze best rock music guitar you ever hear’ at first we thought it was an actual gig somewhere, and then we realized his friend was going to be playing on the street 2 minutes away from the hostel ahaha. Eventually the whole room was buzzing with crazy conversations and at some point on of the Russians was going around with a video camera, we later watched the video, so funny, felt kind of bad for some of the people who were in the common room just trying to use the internet in peace.

Eventually the 2 other Russian guys got pretty annoyed with the really drunk one and left to go for a smoke. We were trying to convince him to go join his friends but he wasn’t having it, he also kept asking us for some of our alcohol but we wouldn’t give any to him since he was already too drunk. The funniest/worst part of this situation was that he had to get up at like 6am for a flight back to the USA ahaha. Eventually he calmed down and just sat in his chair in silence, eyes mostly closed and that hilarious drunk grin on his face, then all of a sudden he said he would ‘be right back’ and disappeared. A moment later we realized he had taken off with the Aussies sweater because he had been sitting on top of it and after he left it was no longer on the chair. One of the kiwi bros went after to him to retrieve the jacket, eventually he found him half passed out on the stairwell, when he tried to take the sweater back the Russian began arguing and was determined that the sweater was his, luckily one of his Russian friends was there too and helped to convince him to give the sweater back. After that the 2 Russian guys dragged him to bed –he also happened to be sleeping in my hostel room aha– what a guy. 

We were all getting pretty loud so the front desk guy asked us to either quiet down or leave, by then we were about ready to head out anyways so finished our drinks and headed out in a pretty big group. There were the 2 Kiwi boys, the Canadian guy, Aussie guy and girl, 3 guys who were Chilean/Argentinean, and I. We headed out not too sure where we were going, some of us wanted to hit a bar, some wanted to find more a club type thing, the crazy front desk dude Mario told us to go to this place called the Statue, it was kinda far, some of the South American guys wanted to go but the rest of us weren’t really on board so we just ended up wandering down one of the main roads and came across an British bar where a dude was playing some live music which was awesome! He was playing Wish You Were Here when we walked in, unfortunately that was his last time, fail timing on our part. It was pretty crowded in there so we chilled around the bar for a bit but eventually a big group from the back left so we went and grabbed their tables. We sat back there drinking and talking until the workers kicked us out because they were closing, we were kinda surprised since it was only like 2:30 on a Saturday night but whatever.

So we all left the bar, some people wanted to go to another bar/club, the rest of us just wanted to head back to the hostel so the group split up into 2 groups. The Aussie girl Nat wanted some food and there was a McD’s right up the street from the bar so we stopped in there for her but when we got there they said they had already stopped serving food. Who knew that McD’s actually closed? Only in Europe I guess. The woman said that the McD’s by the train station was still open tho. So we wandered over that way, unfortunately Nat was the only one who claimed to know where that McD’s was and her direction led us to the opposite side of the train station from where the McD’s was –fail– at that point we just gave up on that but then discovered a pizza place just across from the side of the train station we were on so we went into there. That place definitely had some of the best pizza I’ve had in Europe so far. After some very satisfying pizza we all headed back to the hostel and crashed.

Sunday I decided to have a bit more of a chill day, I had done quite a lot of walking the day before so my feet were still a bit sore. I wandered my way down to the Spanish steps which were just as big as I remembered them, I actually got there by following a path which brought me to the street above them which kind of surprised, so instead of having to climb up them, I walked down them instead to the main street. On my way down I could all this annoying dog barking –yapping– and as I got closer to the bottom I discovered a big group of people chilling there in a big group with their dogs, mostly all wiener dogs and all of them wearing some version of ugly dog sweaters. I don’t know what the hell that was all about but it was pretty weird and funny to see. From the steps I continued down the main road until I got to Piazza Popolo. I sat around there for a while, admiring the sites and fending off the guys walking around trying to sell roses. I didn’t really have any more plans for the rest of the day so I just slowly made my way back to hostel.

I hadn’t had anything besides some cereal and cappuccino in the morning so I was pretty hungry by the time I got back to the hostel and went looking for food. I was wandering down one of the streets near the hostel when an iranian guy outside a pizzeria started talking to me, he asked me where I was going and I said I was looking for some food so he bustled me into the pizzeria, but before letting me order he made me sit down at one of the tables with him and started asking me questions like where was I from, what I was doing in Rome, if I was traveling alone etc. And then asked me what I was doing at that night because he got off work at like 6pm, I told him I was going back to my hostel and had to skype my parents and do whatever, he then asked me what I was doing at 10pm and I told him I had plans with some of the people in the hostel, he kept telling me I should come back and meet up with him later that night, eventually I just said I’ll see and asked him why he was being so persistent, it’s not like I even knew the guy. He just said he found me attractive and wanted to see more of me etc. I told him I was leaving the following day, which I was wasn’t, but eventually just said I’d see what was going on later. Finally, he left me alone and let me go order some food, he told the guy to give me a discount too which was kinda awesome, so I ordered the food and then while I was waiting for it he got me to come outside the pizzeria with him to talk, I was pretty hesitant at first but it’s not like he was going to leave me alone. we stood outside the pizzeria, he told me got off work at 10pm, he gave me a business card with his phone number on it and told me to come meet him there at 10pm or call or text him if plans changed. I was like sure… then disappeared back inside to get my food and pretty much ran back to the hostel. Of course I didn’t go back or text or call the guy, he was probably almost twice my age. The pizza from that shop was really good though.

The rest of the afternoon was kind of rainy so I just chilled at the hostel uploading pictures, catching up with friends, sending emails, etc etc. Later in the afternoon all the boys showed up and we all chilled around in the common room. It was one of those lazy kind of days, eventually we walked over to the supermarket close by the hostel and got some alcohol and snacks. A few of the other hostel people we knew showed up in the common room and some new ones as well so it was a good time. At the hostel they have special deals with the bar downstairs, one of them being ‘free pasta’ from 8pm-9pm every day which means you have to buy a 3 euro beer or class of wine and then get to a free plate of pasta. Whatever, we were tired and lazy so we went down for some pasta, it was decent, they had 2 different kinds and it was self-serve that night since there wasn’t that many people. Usually they ration it and serve it to you or something. After we just went back and were drinking in the hostel with peoples, eventually the dude working at the front desk got mad at us for being too loud and whatever and eventually asked us to be leave or be quiet, it was only like 11pm or something.

We were trying to decide what to do when Mike the Aussie piped in that he was in his room all by himself, and it was a room with 6 beds which he was planning on pushing all together that night when he slept so went up there and had 5 of the 6 the beds pushed together and were chilling up there drinking. All of a sudden there was a knock on the door, we just kinda sat there, a second later there was a key in the door and the dude from the front desk walked in followed by a tall brunette girl. Ah shit. He saw the beds and kinda flipped his shit. He was from Bangladesh –there were a lot of Bangladesh workers in the hostel/Rome in general– and didn’t speak great English so he was trying to convey that he was working on his own and that if more people wanted that room there would be a big problem and kept saying we weren’t sleeping in that room so we should leave because it causes him a problem and whatnot. The poor girl was kinda just like wtf is going on? Eventually we assured him we would leave and Mike assured him he would fix and whatever to get him to leave. The girl was Spanish from Sevilla, which was pretty kool, I talked to her for a bit in Spanish while the boys drank some more beer but she said she was tired and wanted to go to sleep so we had to relocate again.

We took and drinks and went wandering around the neighbourhood eventually ending up at the same pizza place we had been the night before, seriously best drunk food place ever. We chilled there for a while, one of the Kiwi bros kept spilling his box wine (yes he was drinking box wine in Italy, and it was Awful shit) so we figured it was time to leave. We headed back to the hostel and were ¾ of the back to the rooms when we just heard this ‘smash’ sound of a glass bottle breaking, uh oh. We turn around and Mike had dropped his half full bottle of wine on the stairwell platform thing between the 2^nd and 3^rd floor. There was wine everywhere, it was running down the stairs and dripping off the platform onto the platform below, ohmygoodgod. So. Much Wine. The stairwell stunk of wine for a while after that too. At the time though all of us were just killing ourselves laughing and Mike was looking around dumbfounded trying to figure out what to do. We grabbed like 3 rolls of toilet paper and the garbage can from the 3^rd floor bathroom and helped Mike clean it up aha what a mess though. 

What a weekend, ohman! 

Ciao, Roma!

I arrived in Roma around 8pm, the directions to the hostel told me if I landed in the 3rd terminal of the airport I should just taxi it over since it wasn't that close to the bus or train stations that were by the other terminals. Yeah, bad idea, I should had just walked over to the bus station, pretty sure it wasn't that far from my terminal, but ohwell, the taxi ended up costing 50 euro. OUCH. But hopefully that'll be one of the biggest expenses on my trip, well that and my 5 day hostel here in Rome which costed around 60 euro. 

 Anywho, got to the hotel, attempted to speak italian but was honestly too tired and just defaulted to english, luckily the dude at the front desk spoke good english. Front desk dude's name is Mario, he's an awesome dude with an Afro and a hilariously italian accent. He kinda looks like the dude from LMFAO when he wears sunglasses. He was super nice and energetic, definitely an entertaining character. He asked me what my plan was for the night, I just said food. I was starving since I hadn't eaten anything since lunch time and it was now around 9pm or so. He directed my downstairs to a restaurant/bar that is literally right next to the hostel, of course the hostel and the restaurant work together so they give all hostel residents a 2 euro discount on food which was nice. The food was pretty good, got my first italian pasta, carbonara, yummm. After I had dinner I was trying to decide whether I wanted to go out or just go to bed, well the night was young so I figured I'd take a walk around the area at least. On my way out of the restaurant I asked one of the guys who worked there which way I should go for my walk, he asked me what I was looking for, I just said I didn't know. He suggested going to a bar if I felt like getting a drink or just having a chiller night and that there was 2 near by that were pretty decent. So I said sure and asked him how to get there, he tried to explain but in the end just said that if I wanted to wait 5 minutes he'd show me where they were. Well why not? So I waited around with him, in the meantime while we were waiting for his friend to show up, we had some shots, it was some kind of italian liquor..honestly not too sure what it was but it was pretty strong and kinda cinnamon-y tasting. 

At first I wasn't sure if I should go with him since he said he would drive me over to the bars, getting in a car with a strange european guy? Well, he seemed like a kool guy so I went for it. Turns out he's an Albanian boxer, or was, he came over to Italy trying to get into the professional sport here, never made it, but has been in Rome every since. We got to the area with the 2 bars, both were pretty empty, it was only 10ish after all, so he drove me back to the hostel and went back to work, I but on an extra layer since it was kinda cool out and went out for a little walk. I ended up back at one of the bars, by then there was a few more people there so I decided to go in and a get some wine. Got a good class of pino grigio and sat at one of the high tables near the bar. There was a few other full tables of people around and a bunch more people standing outside, I wasn't feeling overly social so I just sat and sipped my wine for awhile and watched the bizarre italian music videos playing on the tv in the corner. 

All of a sudden there was a guy and girl at the bar having a pretty loud conversation, both seemed to be pretty tipsy and they were conversing in a mixture of italian and spanish which is what actually caught my attention. They were moving around a lot and kinda ended up over by my table, I somehow got integrated into the conversation and then was pulled into doing a round of shots with them, and then another round, and then the guy disappeared to I started talking to the girl -Milly- for awhile. She's from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, hence all the spanish speaking. She was obviously fluent but told me that it wasn't actually her first language, she speaks some kind of island dialect natively, and then Spanish, and a bit of tagalo -she's half Philippino- and was now fluent in Italian as well, and was beginning to learn english. A girl after my own heart, language nerds ftw. She was a hyper kind of girl, very jumpy and loud aha I liked her, definitely very entertaining and quite intelligent as well. We conversed for awhile in spanish, occasionally switching into english and italian. She had a similar story to the Albanian, she came over to Rome after she finished school 4 years ago and just never left. She'd been working at the bar for about 2.5 years now but is now thinking about moving to England to learn english. The guy returned and a russian couple showed up who she apparently knew, lots of jumping and hugging and loudness ensued. We then had a round of shots of something called Felicidad, it was bright blue and was lit on fire, it tasted decent too. By this point was starting to feel a little tipsy, and a round of tequila shots followed, by then I was drunk enough to say, 'por qué no?!' Ohman. Then a group of italian girls showed up, one had a dog, so random, and they all seemed to be friends with Milly, again lots of enthusiastic italian greetings and conversations. 

I stayed there for awhile, talked to lots of random people, and around 3am decided it was time to wander back to the hostel. Luckily it was a pretty straight forward route home, thank god, I'm not sure how well I would have been able to somewhat drunkenly navigate my way around if it was more complicated. 

Friday morning I got up around 10:30am and headed for the Colosseum. I was wandering through the streets, map in hand, and of course it started to rain, it was just a light rain luckily. I wound through the streets, and realized that there was a couple of American girls walking behind me, seemingly going in the same direction. At one point I stopped to check the street names and the two girls passed me, then it back the weird situation where I felt like I was following them. Eventually we all stopped at the same corner waiting for the light, I looked to the left and realized the Colosseum was right there and without meaning to said out loud "oh, there's the Colosseum." The two girls looked at me and then saw it too, they seemed pretty ecstatic to have found the Colosseum and another english speaker. We started talking and wandered down to the Colosseum together, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do the whole Roman Forum/Colosseum tour again but decided it might be kinda kool, last time I was there was with DHS and the tour guide, I honestly rather site see on my own, so all 3 of us went touring around together. There was some sunshine for a bit while we wandered through the forum, then some sporadic bouts of rain but over all it was a decent day, I really enjoyed seeing the forum again, we wandered up to some gardens and the house of agusto and things I hadn't seen the last time I was there which was really kool too. After that we headed for the Colosseum. We got the Colosseum and since we had entrance tickets for the forum and Colosseum, we didn't have to wait in the line. 

Unfortunately, one of the American girls couldn't find her ticket.. Me and the other girl had started heading into the Colosseum when we realized she wasn't with us so we turned around and found her back at the entrance desperately searching for her ticket. Finally she just gave up and was gunna go guy another one but I told her not to bother and just gave her mine. I've already done the whole Colosseum tour so it didn't mean that much to me, plus waiting in the ticket line up would have been such a pain and the Colosseum was only open for another hour or so. We agreed to just meet back at the entrance in 30-45mins, I was starving anyways so I went to go find some lunch. I found a little restaurant on one of the small streets not too far from the Colosseum, it was a cute little place, a little more on the expensive side but it's Rome and sometimes you gotta pay for good quality food. I got some 4 formaggi gnocchi and a cappuccino, so goood. 

About 40 minutes later I went back to Colosseum and walked over to the entrance, by then it was closed since the Colosseum was closing in about half an hour and I realized there was multiple exits, ah shit. I waited around there for about 20-25 minutes, it then started to rain again so I just gave up on waiting and headed back to the hostel. And that was the end of my journey with the 2 American girls. 

I went back to the hostel and took a short nap, I was kinda feeling under the weather, mostly from lack of sleep and the rain I think. Although I did seem to pick up a bit of a cold when I was in Barcelona. When I got into the hostel rooms there was 2 ginger brothers hanging out in there. One was kinda unpacking (K) and the other was half passed out on the bed T), I started talking to K for a bit, turns out they were traveling through Europe together because K was starting school the following week in Copenhagen for a year of exchange and his bro had just finished high school they were traveling around together in Europe before K started school. Talked to K for awhile and then I passed out from about 6pm-9pm. Had to get up at 9pm because I was meeting a local italian from couchsurfing at the Colosseum at 10pm. As usual I was running a little late but luckily my whatsapp/internet was still kinda working on my phone so I could msg V and tell him I was gunna be a bit late. We met up just outside of the Colosseo metro stop. V was a kool italian guy, in his late 20's, originally from a small town in the south but had moved to Rome to pursue a career in journalism. He actually does work in for a fairly popular paper in Rome which was pretty impressive. We took me on a little night walking tour of Rome, starting at the Colosseum, then down the Imperial street where there's ruins of an old market and other random buildings,  across to the Vittorio Emmanuelle II building, up to the top of the steps to see a nice view of the city, over to this little side street that over looked the forum which was beautiful, then down some little side streets, we passed a few churches and eventually ended up at the Trevi Fountain. I love Rome at night. There's something so beautiful and enchanting about, especially at this time of year when it's not overly busy with tourists and whatnot. 

We sat by the fountain for awhile and then he had to leave to go meet friends. So I sat by the fountain awhile longer by myself, through some coins into the fountain and then began just aimlessly wandering around the area. Eventually I was pretty lost but about midnight I figured I should probably start finding my way back so I wound my way back to the fountain and started heading for home. When we originally went to the fountain we took a bunch of back streets to I didn't exactly know how to get back to the main streets so I kind of just followed my instincts and headed roughly in the direction we had come from. Eventually I hit a main street but I still didn't really know where I was, everything looks for different at night. I wandered down the main street till I found a little pizza place, went in and grabbed a drink and then asked the pizza guy where the Colosseum was. He told me to go through this big lit up tunnel that was right by the shop and then go left. I was kinda uncertain since the tunnel seemed like it was the opposite direction from where I thought I was going but I tried it out anyway. I walked through the tunnel and got to the other side, took a left and still had no idea where I was, so I turned around, went back through the tunnel and eventually found a main street that I could find on the shitty map the hostel had given me. I made my way back to the Colosseum and was going to just metro it back to train station which was literally 3 minutes from my hostel but all I had was a 20 euro bill and the stopped machine kept rejecting it. Eventually I just gave up, there was group of italians coming through, I asked a couple if they had change for a 20 because the machine wouldn't take mine but that was fruitless, I then considered just hoping the subway thing but decided that I probably shouldn't since getting arrested or fined in Italy probably wouldn't be the smartest idea. So, I just gave up on the metro idea and started walking home. Luckily I knew where I was going since I had walked all the way to the Colosseum earlier that day, it was a pretty straight forward route. Along the way I stopped to get some pizza, it was Delicious. They really do make the best pizza here in Italy. North Americans just can't compare. I'm seriously going to miss it when I leave. 

Eventually I got back to the hotel, was exhausted, the bar/restaurant beside the hostel is apparently also a small club on weekends. The Albanian guy was standing outside and asked me if I wanted to come in, I said I was gunna go drop my stuff off and might come back down after. I never made it back down. I was so tired by the time I got up to my room, I got ready for bed, went down to the common room to check email/facebook for a bit and then went to bed. Was so tired after all the walking. 

Frosh Week in Barca

So first stop of my journey was Barcelona. I took an over night train from Granada which was hot, stuffy, and long, but I slept through a fair bit of it so it wasn't too bad. Although it was definitely before Valencia because I had 2 chairs to myself to stretch out on but around 3am we arrived in Valencia and a girl came and sat beside me, damn. Ohwell, I made it. Unfortunately my phone kind of fails and around 8:30am the battery completely died, I got into the station around 9:30 and then had to go running around looking for a place to charge my phone since I was CapeGirl was meeting me at the station. Eventually ran into McD's, was dying of heat since I was wearing like 3 layers of clothing and plugged in my phone, once I had enough battery I called CapeGirl, she had tried texting and calling me before that so felt rather bad but as it turns out she was waiting right near the McD's so we found each other easily after that.

We headed for her apartment so I could drop off my stuff and whatnot. She had just come back from Romania where she spent her christmas holidays and she had an absurd amount of Romanian food so we had an awesome little feast for breakfast/lunch. After I showered and was feeling more alive we went out for a walk. We wandered around the city and ended up down at the beach, we walked along the boardwalk for awhile and eventually sat down for awhile in the sand. It was a gorgeous day, probably around 22 degrees, I was in a t-shirt and jeans and was still feeling pretty hot, it was amazing. CapeGirl had class at 3pm so we wandered back into the main part of the city and eventually split ways. She headed for class and headed toward the Medieval/Gothic part of town. I wandered through the small streets for awhile, it's a beautiful little area, very authentic european, with a bunch of churches, museums, shops ,and cute little food places of course.

Eventually I wandered back towards the main area of town and found a little cafe with an outdoor patio, so I sat out there with a coffee and just chilling for awhile. Then I continued on my journey back in the direction of CapeGirl's apartment where there's a big park, I wandered through there for awhile, walked up the stairs of this big fountain/monument thing, may have written my name with a sharpie on the back of the main fountain statue and then kept wandering until I found a tree in one of the grassy areas to sit against for awhile and soak in some sun. Once CapeGirl's class was over we met up again and went for some food, by then I was starving since our Romanian brunch. We went to this awesome little hole-in-the-wall place that was a Champagneria -you can literally add -eria to the end of anything here in Europe. It was an awesome little place, very long and skinny, they had a big selection of sandwich type foods and a few other kind of things, but the best part was the champagne, you could get a glass of champagne for a euro or something or get a bottle for 4 euros, so we decided to get a bottle of rosé champagne, so good.

After that we met up with 2 of her friends, both who happen to be UBC people funny enough. I was a little red-faced by then but whatever. It was their version of Frosh week there and that night there was an event called Speed Friending aha yea yea, basically like speed dating but for making new friends instead. This seemed really fun at first, we all got a free drink and sat down at a table, there was 5 or 6 really long tables set up in the room, so you can imagine how many people were there. It was pretty fun at first, but eventually it got to be very tiring and repetitive, especially because I had to explain to every person that I wasn't actually going to school in Barcelona but was actually just visiting CapeGirl. I was sitting beside CapeGirl and Wittman who are both UBC-ers and Canadian, so each new person I talked to would be like 'wow, 3rd Canadian in a row! There's so many of you' yes, yes I know. To be honest it was pretty odd hanging with so many Canadians/UBC-ers, I haven't been with many of either in quite awhile. I also ran into another UBC-er (Jamóncito) there who I had Spanish Lit. with in 2nd year, was definitely a bit of a surprise to see him there. The event got pretty chaotic and eventually everyone just stopped moving and just found their own groups to chill with, it was good mingling time. We met a group of Argentineans who were pretty kool, we hung around with them for awhile and then kept mingling, met some Germans, Danish, Finnish, and Irish people who were all awesome too. Eventually we all started heading home, a lot of people lived in the same-ish direction as CapeGirl so we had a decent sized group to walk home with, was pretty entertaining.

The next day CapeGirl had class at 9am so I got to sleep in a bit. She came back around 11:30 and we had some breaky, more awesome Romanian food. She was changing her classes around and ended up having another class at 12:30 so that meant I was going to be on my own till about 3 which t'was fine. I took the metro over to Plaza Espanya -Catalan is so weird, especially when it comes to spelling- and roamed around there for awhile. The biggest attraction at Plaza Espanya is the big art gallery on top of a small hill on the far side of the plaza, I wandered over that way and climbed up all the stairs to the top, although weirdly enough there was escalators that you could take most of the way up..I decided to use my own legs. It kinda wrecked the antique-ness. Anyways, the view from up there was awesome, and there was a guitar player playing a mixture of classical and popular music on his amplified classical guitar, I sat up there for awhile and listened, could have gone into the museum but decided not to, too much money and not enough time before I had to meet up with CapeGirl. After that I went back to the plaza and went wandering around in the mall like thing, it used to be an old plaza de toro or something of the sort so was a kool dome shape but of course totally new and modern on the inside. It was 6 floors, the top 3 were a movie theatre, restaurants and then an roof top walkway with some restaurants a 360 outdoor view of the city. I wandered around most of the levels and around 3:15pm I was starting to wonder where CapeGirl was, she said she'd give me a call at 3pm when she finished class. I kept wandering around for awhile and then sent her a text, only then did I realize that my texts weren't sending, neither were my whatsapp messages...wtf! Seemingly my phone wasn't working, so I took out the battery and reset it, of course once I turned my phone back on I got a message saying I had 3 missed calls and immediately called CapeGirl, I felt so bad since yet again I had a phone fail. At least this time she had just gone home and was working on stuff while waiting to here from me. I got a hold of her and apologized for my piece of shit phone and we agreed to meet in the mall where I was at. While I was waiting for her I stumbled upon this Short Film Festival screening they were playing for free on the movie theatre level  so I just sat and watched that for awhile, they were all pretty random little films.

Eventually we found each other and then we headed for Park Guell. I love Park Guell, it's such an interesting place, Gaudi was one crazy architect. We wandered through the park and climbed up the hillside, we sat up there for awhile and talked while simultaneously people watching, of course. It was around sunset and the sky was absolutely beautiful, the view of the city was pretty nice too. A group of loud americans rolled up so we decided it was time to start heading back. That night there was another big first week event which was an international dinner in one of the big.. auditorium or library or study hall rooms in the university..I'm not really sure what it was, but it was a big empty room and they had a bunch of long tables set up in there with different country flags along the sides. Everyone was suppose to bring some sort of food from their country, CapeGirl brought a bunch of her grandma's Romanian food which was a big hit. She actually won an 'award' for it. The Canadian food was kind of a fail, burgers, potato chips, and some sparkling wine..yeah. Then again what could you bring for Canadian food really? Besides maybe poutine and maple syrup -good luck finding that in Spain.

It was an awesome event, tried lots of interesting/yummy foods, met lots of kool people, too bad I probably won't see most of them again. One of the groups had made some 'sangria'..I'm not really sure what it actually was but they said we didn't want to know what was in it when we asked. It looks like it started out as sangria and then they added whatever alcohol they had in their house into it as well. Aha ohman. After that we all headed for this bar not too far from the school, it was a massive bar, American themed too which was kinda weird. It was kool tho, we got some beers and chilled around with a bunch of random people, met another Canadian guy from Calgary, so many Canadians! It was super crowded in there so it was kinda hard to find people, we kinda just stuck in our own little corner for awhile. Eventually I kind of got bored of standing around there so me and Jamóncito went to go find other people we knew. We ran into a bunch of south americans who we had talked to before and jammed with them for awhile, eventually our other friends came and found us too and we had a good spanish music singing sess. T'was quite fun. Around 2am we all headed to a club called Razzmatazz which was literally right around the corner from the bar. It was a pretty kool club, although the music was a lot of top 40 north american pop crap but whatever, we had a good time, around 4:30am we decided to go home since we were planning on getting up early to go to Sagrada Familia. Saying goodbye to all the awesome people I had just met was kinda sucky, but who knows, perhaps I'll see them again sometime. A few of them had plans to head down my way later in the year so you never know, plus I'll probably stop in Barca on the way back to Granada anyways.

So our plan to get up early to go see Sagrada kinda failed. We ended up sleeping in till about 12, which meant that CapeGirl wasn't going to make it to her 12:30 class and we weren't going to have time to do the tour. Well so much for that. Ohwell, we had a chill morning, had some breakfast (more like lunch at that point) and then headed down to Sagrada Familia. We did our own little walking tower around the outside, checking out all the facades and reading about them on CapeGirl's mobile wikipedia. But alas, it was time for me to head to the airport, we metro'd over to the plaza where all the airport buses were and said goodbye.

It was a great trip, definitely had fun crashing the first week events and meeting new people! Kind of wish it was longer but alas, one only has so much time. Time for Italia!

Reflecting On The Year

So now I've given you an account of my crazy holidays, but there was a lot more going on in the background. As cheesy as it is to say, christmas and new years gave me lots of time to reflect on my life and everything else. I don't really know where to begin, I try to avoid putting more personal things in these blogs since it is on the internet, but I feel like most of the people reading this are all friends and if you're interested enough to still be reading this then I probably wouldn't mind telling you anyway. 

2012 was definitely a crazy and important year in my life. I definitely went through a lot; learned a lot, changed a lot -I think- and now I'm really happy where my life is, I'm also in awe of it. I never thought I'd be out here in Spain to be quite honest, I dreamed about it since high school but you never believe such fantasies which actually come true. For this I have to thank my mother to no end. She has been the biggest influence and help in my life, I will definitely say that if it weren't for her, I would never be here. Even when I got accepted into the Go Global Exchange Program I was still uncertain and honestly just scared. 

The whole process of this exchange has definitely been a learning experience, I had to work hard to get accepted into it, then when I was, I was scared shitless. Then came the pain in the ass paperwork process and everything else required to prepare myself for this experience. It was definitely a lot of work starting from the moment I got accepted up until I got settled into Granada. To be honest, Spain still challenges me, but in the best of ways, it has definitely tested my patience, my flexibility, my durability, my strength, my limits. I've only been here for about 4 months and already this place has taught me so much. To be honest I don't know how and if I have changed, it's a very hard thing to see from the inside, but I'd like to think I have, in some way or another. I will probably never have another experience like this in my life. Being a student in a foreign country such as Spain is an experience like none other, it really is the best of all worlds. And I am just so, so grateful that I got this opportunity. Part of me was always scared that I'd get trapped into a life, stuck in one place, always the same routine.. And like me, I'm sure a lot of people have dreamed about 'escaping' or changing their life, but for some people, it just doesn't happen, so I am so lucky that it happened for me. I don't want to get too sappy or whatever, but when I look back on how my life has changed and where I am now, I am nothing but appreciative and thankful that this is my life. 

But this exchange hasn't been the only big change or challenge in my life this year. 2nd semester of 2nd year was a lot of work, it really tested my ability to work, to achieve, and to balance my life. I met and maintained so many amazing friendships this year, I can't even imagine what my life would be like without some of them. If nothing else, this year has taught me how important friendships are, people can really change your life. But above all, and yes now I'll get into more of the sappy crap, for the first time, I 'fell in love', even typing it makes my cringe at the cliché-ness but it's true.. well I'm no expert on love, so I can't really call it such a thing but it's the best, closest thing I've found thus far to 'love'. I never really believed that a relationship or that another person could actually make you that happy, but hey, what did I know. I never thought I could or would want to be so attached to another person, it kinda scared me to be honest. But it was amazing. So yeah, that's about all I'm going to say about that. 

On the other side, I also felt real heartbreak for the first time. It was just as powerful and scary as being in a relationship. As most of you know, it wasn't really a heartbreak by choice but more by circumstance. Still horrible none the less. To be honest, I still don't really know how to completely get over something like that, but -again very cliché- time really was the only answer, just time. Had to let it go bit by bit, move on with my life, as one must, you know.. Of course things still remind me of him and he still crosses my mind from time to time, but it's gotten a lot easier. Although, the holidays did stir  up a lot of emotions, but for the better I think. Being in Malaga and Glasgow gave me a lot of time to think, I had a lot of time alone with my thoughts and my emotions, many of which I have been more or less neglecting for awhile. At first when I got to Spain I just through myself into everything to distract myself and it definitely helped, this place is beautiful and I didn't want to waste a minute of this amazing experience. But then when the holiday season hit, the city became all Christmasy and all the couples could be seen wandering the streets together, etc. It made me miss home, miss him, miss everything from before.. but that wasn't my life anymore and I needed to actually accept that. So, finally, when I had all that time alone to think and deal with myself, I just let myself drown in my thoughts, in everything I had been neglecting and burying inside. I know that sounds a little ridiculous or whatever, but I finally just had to clear out my mind, let go of everything I had been holding on to, and finally just find a place of peace and acceptance. I'm sure this must all sound like a bunch of jibberish but there it is. 

Since coming to Spain, I've made some great friendships but also met a lot of really great people who were in my life for only a short period of time, travel can be great and kinda hard that way. Sometimes great people come into your life but are only passing through. I will actually admit that I was sad to see some of the Americans go at the end of the semester. I did become pretty close with a few of them and saying goodbye was pretty hard. A couple of them are coming back for 2nd semester though which I have to say I am so happy about. There will be more awful goodbyes in February when my ERASMUS friends finish their first semester, I'm not really sure how many of them will be around for the second one, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I've met a lot of interesting people this year, they've all taught me a lot. I now know that they like to eat Reindeer in Finland, how to say some swear words in slavic languages, how to be independent and have self worth, that not all southerners are unworldly, and how to appreciate experiences and life as it comes. Since being here I have adopted the outlook of 'cuando en españa, por qué no?' aka 'when in Spain, why not?' 

I met a guy right at the end of the semester, another person who was just passing through, he taught me a lot about a lot of things, and I'm sad to say he's now half way back to his own country. But that's just how life is, sometimes things and situations aren't ideal or logical or clear cut, you just have to take the experiences as they come and that's it. 

I don't want all of you lovely people back in North America to think I've forgotten about you though, I really do miss you all, I wish you could all be out here experiencing this with me, in a perfect world, you'd all be here so I could have both worlds together, but that's not how life works. Sadly. But you can't dwell on such things. So until I return, I shall miss you all, keep in touch as much as I can, but also enjoy everything that's right here in front of me. In the words of Ferris Bueller "Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you might miss it."

Hogmanay! And Then Some

Spending Christmas in Granada was fun but very untraditional, I was kinda missing the family atmosphere, but luckily I was headed to Glasgow to spend time with some family to ring in the new year! I could only imagine what I was getting myself into.  

Friday evening I packed up and caught a bus to Malaga, my flight was at 6:30am Saturday morning so I just booked a hostel for the night in Malaga and then had to catch a taxi around 4:30 the next morning to get the airport, ugh so early. My night in Malaga was pretty calm, arrived there around 9pm, checked into my hostel which was right in the middle of the centre area, definitely a great location if you're planning on staying in Malaga, plus it was super cheap as well. Was staying in an 8 person room, when I got into the room there was an older guy in there, he was wearing a Patriots jersey so one would assume he was an American. He started talking to me, and asked where I was from since my english seemed 'too perfect', he seemed to have a bit of an accent which kind of surprised me. Turns out he was from the States but he had spent the last chunk of his life living in Macedonia. So there you go, we chatted for a bit then I went out to find some dinner. 

The hostel was freaking freezing, I didn't both going down to ask for an extra blanket since I was only going to be sleeping for 3 or 4 hours anyways, I only actually slept for maybe an hour or two but ohwell, my alarm went off at 20 after 4 and I dragged myself outta bed and headed for the airport. I was taking Ryan Air, definitely a bit of a sketchy airline but it was cheap so whatever, got my boarding pass stuff dealt with and then just took a nap while waiting for my gate to be posted. We ended up having to go through border control which kind of surprised me since Scotland is part of the EU, normally when you travel within the EU you don't have to go through anything like that. Kinda freaked me out since I'm still waiting for my residency card to be processed and my visa expired dec. 31. And of course I am not an EU citizen I had to stop at border control, answer questions about my visit, and fill out a little form thing, everyone from the EU just flashed their passports and walked through, lucky jerks. 

There was a family one my flight with 4 children all under the age of 6, kill me now right? There was also a couple other families with young children too, so I was dreading the flight. Fortunately though, Ryan Air does not have assigned seating, nor was the plane very full so I boarded through the back door of the plan and made sure I sat nowhere near the children. I ended up sitting in a row with this Scottish woman, she was probably around her mid to late 30's, she had been working in Spain the last 10 years on a farm and finally decided it was time to pack up and go back to Glasgow, to start a new chapter of her life. She was definitely really interesting to talk to which was nice, you don't often get good companions on flights, well I don't at least. Eventually we both passed out for awhile, it was a very early flight after all, although stupid Ryan Air felt no need to turn the lights off.. Anyways, we surprisingly got into Glasgow 25minutes early, it was around 9am but the sky still looked about as dark as when we had left Malaga, welcome to Scotland eh? 

The woman was so generous and bought me some Starbucks coffee when we got into the airport, I was waiting for my family to come pick me up and she had no where better to be since she couldn't get into her hotel for another hour or so. Eventually my aunt and cousin Kat showed up, Kat was not in great shape though aha hangover central. The airport I landed in was a little bit outside of Glasgow so I got to see lots of beautiful countryside on the drive to my aunt's house. Lots of beautiful rolling hills and old rustic houses, lots of sheep too aha. It was a pretty grey and cloudy day, the sky only got marginally lighter by the time we arrived at the house. They live in a cute little apartment on the South side of Glasgow, it was very comfy and warm, thank god. Since I was tired from the early flight and my cousin was feeling the hangover pretty bad, we spent the majority of the day just lounging in the living room and watching re-runs of Friends, Big Bang Theory, and Two and a Half Men. Was definitely the nicest start to the trip. 

The following day we went for a tour with of the Celtic Football Stadium, I don't watch much of the European Football League but it was a fun touristy thing to do and I know how into it my family is so I figured why not? I went with It actually was a pretty interesting tour, learned a lot Irish and Scottish history and the origins of the football teams. I went with Kat and her parents and a few other male cousins so it was pretty entertaining. 

That night the entire family went out for dinner, there was about 12 of us or so, it was kinda chaotic. We ended up at this interesting Italian/Scottish restaurant right near my other aunt C's house in the West end of Glasgow, our reservation wasn't until 7 and we were done the tour at the Celtic stadium by 5 so we all ended up at aunt C's house for awhile before dinner, and of course they cracked open the fizzy aka champagne, or some version thereof. Had a couple glasses of that -not really by choice- and then headed for the restaurant, the food was pretty good, it was an odd mixture of hamburgers and pasta dishes on the table along with appetizers like calamari and bruschetta, and of course 2..or 3.. bottles of wine..at our end of the table. The Scots really do like to drink. 

Next day was New Years Eve or as they call it in Scotland, Hogmanay! My uncle belongs to a country club type thing, well really it's a bowling and tennis club, and they were holding a big Hogmanay event in their banquet hall and my uncle bought tickets for the 4 of us so that's where I spent my Hogmanay. It was a pretty entertaining night to say the least, there was maybe 15-20 or so people around my age and the rest were all probably 40+, so you can only imagine how entertaining it was being in a room full of mostly older, drunken scots. There was dancing and karaoke singing, and then at midnight they broke into Old Lang Syne and some other traditional new years/scottish songs, along with some traditional scottish dances, so entertaining! It was also an open bar which did/didn't really help the whole situation. The party started to wind down around 3 so we left around then, we had another party the following day anyways at aunt C's. 

Being mildly hungover the next morning, we had a pretty slow morning, but eventually had to get ourselves in gear because we were going over to my uncle's mom's place (I guess that makes her something like my great aunt? They're kinda distantly related family so ya) for late lunch/early dinner, whatever you want to call it. It was a little odd for me, kinda like visiting your grandparents that you rarely every see or don't really have anything to talk about with. It was nice though, honestly just having that kind of family time was so comforting and relaxing since I didn't really get anything like that at christmas time. After having lunch/dinner and some tea and shortbread, we headed over to aunt C's house for the big new years day party. It was definitely a little overwhelming for me, a large party of Scottish people that were all relatives or family friends, most of whom I was meeting for the first time. It was a fun party though, it was a potluck so there was a ton of delicious food there and my family is definitely a little crazy, in the best of ways, around midnight they busted out the guitars and began something like an open mike night, seems to be a big tradition for new years day parties at aunt C's. My aunt was also trying to give my drink a 'wee top up' about every 20 minutes, I'm not actually sure how much wine/champagne/beer/whatever else I drank that night. If nothing else, I have improved my Scottish accent quite a lot :D aha. It's grrreat. We stayed there maybe a little too late since I had an early flight the next morning, but it was worth it..mostly. 

The hangover definitely wasn't fun, but I made my 9:30am flight back to Malaga in one piece. Lots of sleeping on transportation and aspirin aha. To be honest I was pretty sad about leaving, I would have loved to stay there a bit longer but I had booked my tickets like a month or so in advance and that's just how it worked out. 

Coming back to Granada on the 2nd of Jan there definitely wasn't many people around, I got back around mid afternoon and then just spent the rest of the day at home unpacking and organizing stuff for my up coming trip. The following day though my friend Ty wanted to meet up for tapas because his brother was part of the new CEA group of Americans who will be here for the 2nd semester so I ended up going out with a biggish group of Americans, mostly blonde but from different parts of the states, not all people from cali, thank god. Me and Ty showed them around to a few different areas and bars in Granada, we went all over the city and I winded up quite a bit drunker than intended. Ahwell. Eventually we ended up at Hannigan's which was nice since it was pretty close to my place, they actually turned out to be a pretty decent crowd, well some of them anyways. It was karaoke night at Hanni's, that was definitely pretty entertaining, there was this group of germans who were loving it, one dude was WAY too hyper tho, I'm sure he was on Something, he was dancing and jumping around like no other. He was a little too happy if you know what I mean. I decided which Americans I liked the best based on their music taste and ability to appreciate karaoke aha. Was a fun night. 

The following day my friend Tanya was hosting some couchsurfers so we went grocery shopping and then met up with them. They were a couple girls from New York who have been traveling Europe for about 6 months, they were really kool and definitely had some interesting stories. We showed them around a bit of Granada and then of course showed them the Granada life style by tapa hopping, which then turned into free drinks and club hopping, we eventually ended up at Camborio up in the Albyzin, was a pretty interesting night, fun though, I didn't get home till about 7am, but what else is new.  

So needless to say, my break has definitely been a pretty interesting one so far. But the craziness is just beginning, Jan. 7th I'm leaving for Barcelona and that will be the beginning of my 3 week trip through Europe, so excited ! 

Dec. 28-Jan. 5

Christmas Time

As a little post exam break Mads, TamTam, and I headed for the beach on Thursday morning. Well kinda, Mads and TamTam both had flights on Friday to their holiday destinations, I was just along to enjoy the sights. We left early Thursday morning so we got the whole day to explore and settled into the hostel, our hostel was a really kool place not too far from the main area of the city as well as not too far from the beach, it was a pretty jazzy, reggae kinda place. It was so kool! We spent the day wandering the city and eventually ended up at the beach, so nice. We lazed about there for awhile and then wandered back towards the centre of town. We checked out the christmas markets and saw some of the tourist sights then wandered around checking out the kool little stores and restaurants.

We ended up having dinner on this balcony on the 2nd floor of a cute little restaurant somewhere in the middle of the city centre. The food was decent but it was more just the novelty of it that made our decision, I mean, how often do you get to have dinner on a cute little balcony? Anyways, next day Mads had a really early flight so it was just me and TamTam exploring the city, we did some touristy things and then she had to go catch her flight. So I decided to just laze about at the beach again for a couple hours, it was a gorgeous day and I had nothing else to do.

That night there was big group gathering organized by the university for all the students who were hanging around in Granada for the holidays, my Irish and Polish friends were going so I figured I should check it out. There was a group of about 20-25 of us, I knew 3 people there and recognized a couple others, there was also a group of american girls, one who I had met before, they were kinda kool. The tour guy explained a bunch of the spanish traditions as we wandered over to the christmas markets and then the group went out for tapas, it was a fun night.

The following day I met up with some of the Americans to go shopping and then a bunch of us met up for tapas again that night, we all ended up going back to my place and drinking more..perhaps a little too much. To be honest I didn't even realize how drunk I was until people started leaving and I had to clean up the house, ohman. The next day was just a sleeping kind of day, I've gotten so unproductive since exams ended aha love it. That night went out for tapas again with a couple of the Americans, we mostly stuck to this one street of bars, definitely found some interesting ones..there was one that was literally just covered in images of Jesus.. it was odd.

Monday Carlz and Mich showed up, was so happy to see them! It's been quite awhile since I've seen anyone from home, they were visiting me for the holidays which was awesome. They arrived in the afternoon, it was Christmas eve and I had decided to have a dinner at my place with a few of the others who were still around. Everyone brought food/drinks and it was definitely a fun night, lots of hilarious stories and weird conversations, although I think some people had a little too much to drink. Ahwell. Was definitely a good way to spend Christmas eve.

Christmas day we took it easy, hung around the house and skyped all our parents/family. Eventually we went out in search of some kind of dinner and ended up just tapa hopping and walking around the city. Explored the christmas markets a bit and just had a pretty chill night. Not your traditional christmas but whatever :).

Boxing day I showed Carlz and Mich around Granada, we did some shopping and say the sites. Later that night we met up with my Ty for tapas and then we ended up on a climbing adventure up on the mountain side making our way towards the Alhambra. After lots of climbing, walking through forests, stumbling around gravely paths we eventually made it into the Alhambra and then wandered around there for a bit, later heading into the Albyzin to the Mirador San Nicolas. Was definitely a fun night of adventure.

Unfortunately the next day was the day Carlz and Mich were leaving and I also contracted some kind of stomach flu/food poisoning thing of some sort. Definitely wasn't a fun day, so Carlz and Mich packed up and we said goodbye and they headed off to Madrid for their flight home. I ended up just spending the rest of the day in bed.

Was definitely a different Christmas than usual but it was still a great one. In Spain they have a big dinner on Christmas Eve but then their actual Christmas isn't until Jan. 5th/6th so it's still pretty festive around here. Boxing day sales also start after the 6th, woo! Hope everyone out there had a great Christmas/holiday family time! :)  

Dec. 19-27

Wrapping up the term

Wow I'm so behind on blogging, I was working on a post from a couple weeks ago but unfortunately lost it because my internet in this new apartment sucks and didn't save it. Ohwell. So highlights from december..

Well had my last week of classes which was hectic and such a relief! The last couple days of grammar class my prof was getting pretty crazy, think she was starting to get fed up with some ppls seeming inability to understand grammar and grasp the spanish accent. She literally was making fun of some of the americans and the way they said 'comprendo' and words like 'like' and 'umm' while speaking spanish. So funny. During the last week of classes my pub quiz group Pero Like Wepa (the name is too complex to explain) finally came in first place for the first time too! Whatwhat! So on the monday night kind of got a little drunk by accident, winning 1st place entitles you to a pint of beer and a free bottle of wine each.

Wasn't too many either highlights from that week... finished up classes, the last day was pretty chill, altho grammar seemed to drag on that day. Thursday I had my Italian exam, not so fun but at least it was over and done with, I had all my other exams the following week. Went to an intercambio that night, nothing too exciting. There was also a big goodbye dinner at Casa Lopez that night since a lot of the brits were heading back to the Uk/Ireland for the holidays. Some asked Blondie for his autograph and said he was their favourite Backstreet Boy, definitely a hilarious moment for all of is. Friday night had a small party at my place, was a house warming kinda thing for me and Taco and since we had just moved in a week or so before. It was a ton of fun, it was christmas themed, lots of people dropped by, there was some hilarious dancing and singing that ensued. Kat attempted to teach John a traditional Scottish dance.

It was the last weekend for a lot of Americans were in Granada so spent a bunch of time hanging with my few American friends. God my memory has gotten so bad, I had everything I had done written down but unfortunately it all got lost when I got logged out of my blog without anything being saved. Ohwell. Saturday night ended up at Paddy's having drinks with some Americans, twas fun, it was apparently 2 cocktails for 5 euros so what started out as a calm night turned into a bit more a drinking fest than I had been planning on. A few too many drinks later I decided to be somewhat sensible (well kinda) and go home instead of going up to Camborio with the rest of them. And a few drunken texts later my german friend was over watching movies with me, was a pretty random night.

Monday was my grammar exam, I can't believe the semester went by so fast, on one hand it feels like I've been in Spain forever, but at the same time I was still astonished that it was already exam time. I don't think the exam was that hard, although I crammed for a bit on Sunday and to be honest, I didn't really find that grammar class that hard, altho my brain was pretty tired after 2 hours of grammar. After that just went to meet up with Mads for coffee and decided to take the rest of the night off from studying since my other 2 exams weren't until wednesday and one of them was a conversational exam. By random chance I ran into J on the street on his way to study, was kinda weird. I dunno, we haven't seen much of each other in the past couple weeks. So that was that.

Monday night as always we went to Hannigans for the pub quiz, we came in 2nd which meant we all got half pints but since it was the last quiz of the month, they tallied up the points and literally by 1 point we won 1st place for the month ! Wooo! PERO LIKE WEPA ! We got a bottle of champagne to share and we all got Guinness t-shirts, and again I got a little more tipsy on a monday night than I had intended.. but we celebrated and danced and had a good time till the wee hours in the morning and then we all figured it was time for bed since most of us had exams or major studying to do the following day. Some of my quiz team members have returned to the USA but I will keep the team alive! Aha.

Tues was just a day full of studying of course. And a somewhat awkward run in with my German friend at a restaurant. That's all I'm going to say about that. Ohmylife. Lots of cramming ensued. I had my first exam wednesday morning, it was for my Traditional Music History class, was definitely way more prepared than need be. The exam was literally two pages...an EXAM..I don't think my tests have been that short since like elementary school. I kinda feel like my education here is a joke.. and it actually saddens me. Then came my conversational exam, was a little more nervous for that since we didn't really know what to expect or how to prepare for it.

The first part was 40mins of just writing, we got to choose from 2 topics and literally just write about anything and we were suppose to use as many techniques and whatnot that we've learned this semester. Then we all got into groups of 4, except for one group which was just 2 boys..clearly my teacher wasn't very organized with the whole numbers thing, ohwell. Anyways, my group ended up going LAST, for no real reason, we wanted to go second but then the 2 boys snuck in before us so we wanted to go after them but for some reason our prof said she wanted the other group because it had the 2 Japanese girls in it and her only reasoning for that was because she preferred it. The talking part of the exam was only suppose to last for 10mins per group, maybe a little more..well the group with the japanese girls were in there for like 25mins, if she wanted to spend more time with that group why didn't she put them last! Some of us had things to do and places to go, like geez.

Anyways, we finally went in for ours, it was me and 3 girls,we 'd all become pretty close in that class, was kinda sad that it would be the last time that we'd all be together. 2 of 3 have since returned to the states for good, sad times. We literally just sat there and talked about everything and anything for like 10 minutes and then at the end she just gave us a bit of feedback. Mine was pretty interesting..

She started out by saying that my Spanish is 'extraordinary...extraordinarily odd..' because they try and teach the students to speak Spanish at a pretty mediocre and steady level whereas I can speak Spanish really well one minute and then it turns really brutal the next..she literally drew a diagram on the board, a really high peak and then a really low peak and then another high peak, and another low peak... okay then? I don't know if anyone who only speaks one language will understand but when learning a new language, some days are good, some days are bad aha some days I can speak with pretty good fluency and some days I can barely but a coherent sentence together..yea, it's a very normal thing. My capability literally just depends on the day. Many people will say the same. The day of the exam I was a little nervous and kinda tired from lack of sleeping and already having 1 exam, plus was kinda just pissed off for having to wait around for like 45mins for the exam. Probably should just have gone for a drink awhile waiting, that definitely can help with the speaking fluency. Anyways, just need to work on my vocab and on my speed/pronunciation, kinda already knew that, she also told me that sometimes I speak too fast and stumble over my words, well I do that already in english so that's nothing new, plus I do when I'm speaking spanish and am somewhat unsure of what I am saying aha. So yeah, that was the end of my exams.

That night just went bar hopping to say goodbye to a bunch of my American friends and whatnot, was a pretty sad night and mildly alcohol filled. Met up with lots of people, said goodbye to lots of people, but that's how life goes. I also met some new people who I've since spent a lot of time with since there wasn't too many of us still hanging around here around christmas time. So there's a quick summary of mid december and my fun times with exams. Sorry this post is like 2 weeks late, but you know, life get's busy and stuff.