New People, New Places

In the past two days, I think we've officially become locals.

Yesterday. Got breakfast in our area at some restaurant in this little courtyard. Reminded me of some Shakespearean town. And what did I order? toast. I can't tell you how much bread I've eaten in the past few days.

Checked out of our hotel apartment and met with our landlord at our new apartment in Port Olimpic. Our landlord, Aurora, is a super nice woman. It felt so good to finally settle in somewhere, and not be thinking about having to move any time soon. After unpacking, testing things out, claiming rooms (not hard since there's only 2 bedrooms) we went to La Rambla to check out the famous Mercat de Boqueria. Wow. Any kind of produce you could every want, you can find here. Got ourselves some fresh fruit juice (mm papaya). Bought some dried kiwis, mangos and strawberries, since I'm in love with dried fruits. There are stands that sell like every kind of dried fruit you can imagine. AND, of course, can't be in Spain without eating some spanish almonds. so amazing.

After the market, we decided to go shopping, since we hadn't had a chance to yet. I felt bad for eric, making him come into all these stores with me, and wait while i tried things on, and wait while i bought something at every...store...we...entered. bad bad bad! Everything was so cheap though! Plus, eric got this hook-up with this promoter here in bcn who said he'd take us out to the clubs that night. So of course I had to find something to wear. Dude, finding shoes that fit a narrow size 5 foot in Bcn is impossible! Ugh... I loved shoe shopping until yesterday.

Came home. Went to the supermarket to buy groceries. Made dinner for eric this time. Got ready to go clubbing. We were meeting Kyke the promoter at the beach, close to our place.

Headed down. So many clubs along the beach! Met up with Kyke and this girl from U of San Diego, Beren, sweet girl. First he took us to this club, Carpe Diem, where he is throwing an International Student welcome party next week. The club was like, Buddha-themed. Pretty dope.

Oh ya, we met up at like 12:30am. But ppl don't go to clubs until like 2am.

so went to the next club, Opium. 3000 people every weekend. It was HUGE! a lot of the clubs here have a restaurant area as well. what a good idea! cuz we all know how hungry we get when we're clubbing. here, there's people of all different ages in the club. we noticed a lot of older ppl, like couples in their 40's. weird to see. most clubs out here play like all house music, which'll take some getting used to. Anyways, when eric talked to Kyke on the phone earlier, he asked him "how much money should i take?" and he said "money? you don't need any"! he took care of everything! took care of cover, bought us drinks, which were all doubles =)

Anyways, eric, beren and i partied but couldn't party as hard as the barcelonians YET. left at like 4:30am. people were still going strong, probably until about 6am when most clubs close. walked home.

So, on the walk home, I had my first Barcelonian night-time freak-out moment. So, eric decides to throw this random rock across the street. suddenly, these rocks start flying at us. not just one. like 5. it was like we were being attacked by pebbles. i'm walking fast as hell. can't take cover anywhere. luckily we don't get hit. we take a quick detour down a cross street to lose our attackers. i yell at eric, ERIC! don't DO that shit! so we pretty much speed walk home. we were fine after that tho. phew.

wake up today at noon. because our landlord had to go over some last things with us. brought the contract. we had some questions for her too. like... how do we keep cockroaches out of our shower? DUDE, yesterday, i opened up the shower curtains to find little cockroaches scurrying around. i freaked. dude, i don't wanna be showering with them! haven't seen them since then tho, so should be okay.

fell back asleep after aurora left. til 5pm. FIVE! omg i felt so bad, cuz i wanted to hit the beach. but luckily, it was cloudy. went to the supermarket, only to find out its closed on sundays. dang, when even the SUPERMARKET is closed on sundays, you know everything shuts down on sundays! but the mall where the market is was busy! ppl just chillin, sitting in the bars watching the football game. sundays are so chill here. ppl just walking around enjoying the day. we went down to the beach and walked all along the walkway along the water. there were all these restaurants on the beach, playing loud house music. we saw this one dude, hella tanned, in this little black speedo. he was super cut too. and he was DANCING to the music on the beach, like a friggen chippendales dancer, straight up! he was like a dad too, he had a little daughter. anyways, as soon as me and eric saw that, we sat down and just watched him. it was soo hilarious. then we got up to walk, but on our way back, we saw the guy again, still dancing, so we sat down again to watch him a bit longer. we certainly found him amusing =P

came back. went into town for dinner. had the best paella in plaza reial, which we learned is the place to meet and drink. tons of ppl just sitting around the fountain, drinking. we had our first pitcher of sangria =) walked down to the water after along La Rambla, saw some topless woman sitting along the Rambla, putting make up on. Random. Ppl were just acting like she was fully clothed too. Cabbed home. Tomorrow, reality sets in. Eric starts school. Now, onto REAL life. No more vacation =( well at least, for him =P

Done Deal

Phrase of the day: "Can you stick it in? wowwww... That's what she said!"

Today was a EPIC SUCCESS, filled with both goal-achieving & aimless wandering.

Woke up earlier than normal. Thought we had to move rooms within our current apartment, so we packed up all our stuff. Turns out, we didn't even have to move. We're staying in the same place one more night.

Since we thought we had to move rooms, we tried to eat up all our left-over food. Pork chops and bread with cheese & ham for breakfast. Headed downstairs to the inside-bcn office to find out we can stay in the same room for our last night.

First stop. Vodafone. FINALLY got me a cellphone! They only had one pre-paid phone left, this nokia which is pretty nice by my standards (which aren't high for cellphones =P). It's a Highschool Musical themed cellphone so like all the backgrounds & stuff are of highschool musical stuff and there's a "parents guide" in the box for the phone too. haha.

Second stop. BBVA to exchange traveller's cheques so that we could pay our deposit for whatever apartment we went with. Surprisingly, no english at the bank. Somehow, got our traveller's cheques & eric's american cash exchanged. Tried to set up a bank account, but they needed a permanent address, which we don't have yet. Moved on from there.

Third stop. To meet with Lynn, a woman who was showing us another apartment in the Collblanc area. We were supposed to meet her at the McDonald's there, so since e got there early, we had our first Spanish McDonald's meal. Pretty much the same as McDonald's back home. Met with Lynn, who showed us this apartment. Extremely spacious, with high ceilings, and large rooms (hard to find in Barcelona) but the area was sort of sketch. Well, not exactly sketch, but more old-town-ish with older people.

After seeing the place, stopped in at a cafe for coffee and to discuss our two apartment options. Oh my, i love european coffee. SO good. So, there was this old man behind us, he was so dope. First, he comes in with a friggen full-size COOLER and puts it down on a chair at his table. He sits down and right away the waiters brought him his drinks. Seems like a regular. Dude, they brought the guy this tall glass of Absynthe and a cup of coffee. How dope is that. Next thing you know, the guy lights up a cigarette. Wow. And I told eric "i want to be THAT guy when i'm old" haha. Not really much discussing to do. We both already knew which place we wanted. Called up Mark and told him we wanted the Port Olimpic apartment. Made arrangements to go to his office in a few hours and sign the contract.

Got to his office. Signed the contract. Put a deposit down. Done Deal. It felt so good.

We felt pretty good after leaving his office. Felt so good we thought we could find this market that we had no clue where it was and no real map. Just walked, in whatever direction we felt it might be in. Walked, and walked, and walked. Nothing. Walked all the way back to the area our apartment is in. Passed by some dope-ass buildings. Found ourselves in El Ravel, in the Gothic area. Tried to find another market in the area, which we found, but it was closed. Wandered some more. Feet were hurting so bad, we had walked for like 2 hours straight.

Got home. Not before buying a bottle of red, a baguette and some vinegar. Now, we're chilling outside on our balcony, ate our baguette, drank our wine, and soaked our feet in hot-ass water. So hot my feet turned red. But it felt sooooo nice. We probably look pretty stupid to the locals walking by, but we don't care. We're happy we finally found a place! Eric is now passed out. Tomorrow we move into our new place =)

Just Take the Map Out

Today went much better than yesterday. Last night, after our epic fail, we decided that we needed to get our act together. We made a list of things we needed to get done, and wrote down all the addresses that we needed. Called Altiro first thing in the morning, only to find out that the one apartment we had been banking on was taken already.

Plan B. Liden Properties had a place we had been looking at. Set up a meeting to meet with the Mark, the owner of the company. Our mission to find his office on Rambla de Catalunya was MUCH more successful than yesterday. We decided, no matter what we're gonna look like tourists, so we may as well pull out the damn map. Found his apartment/office. Knocked on the door. This man greeted us in his towel. Awkwardddd. He said he had just gotten out of the shower and told us to come in. Me & Eric weren't quite sure what to do, so we sort of lingered at his doorway. His place was soooo nice. Mark disappeared into a room and came out soon after dressed in this Rico Suave-like outfit. Creme jeans, a cream button up with the buttons undone so you can see his chest, with cream dress shoes. Wow. And this greasy, long-ish, blonde hair slicked back. Basically, sat in his office for a bit, met this guy who we call "Lorenzo" who works for him, and saw some available apartments. Decided to go visit this apartment on Pamplona in Port Olimpic.

Cabbed to the apartment, while Lorenzo rode his bike, and met him at Pamplona 41. The apartment is SUPER nice. It's so cute! it's beside an elementary school and across from a highschool and kitty corner to a penitentiary/rehab center. HAHA. But it feels pretty safe. 10 minute walk to the beautiful beach. It's very new and modern, was built up for the 1992 Olympics. But we don't wanna be too hasty. Gonna check out one more place tomorrow, which is closer to our school, ESADE. This place is pretty far, but since we're only at school 3 days a week, we figure we'd spend more time at the beach than at school.

But we'll see. Tomorrow's another house-hunting day. Either way, we'll move in SOMEWHERE by Saturday. I can't wait. When I've FINALLY figured out how to get to our temp. apartment. haha.

Epic Fail

wow. what a day. SO much walking my legs are throbbing. Day 1 started off with a round-about walk to the Metro station. It seems like that was the theme for the day. Barcelona streets are hard to get used to, especially for someone with a terrible sense of direction.

Our first mission of the day was to visit our new school, ESADE, and meet with our international advisor, Jura. Bought a 10-trip pass at the Metro, got on, and soon enough got off at Maria Cristina. Then, a looooong uphill walk in the heat to the school. We first found the Undergraduate office and asked where the office for Jura was. Her office was located in the MBA building, which was about a block or two away. So we walked there. The entrance to the reception desk is AMAZING. It feels surreal when you're walking through it. We met with Jura, who helped us with all of our pressing questions. Apartments, bank accounts, cellphones, neighborhoods, where to eat. You name it, she helped us. After meeting with her, we were so hungry, and SUPER thirsty since we forgot to bring water with us (never forget your bottled water when walking in Barcelona heat!) There's not a lot around the school, it's basically a residential neighborhood, so we had to walk for quite some time before we got to a bustling area. Found a random restaurant, which was not too bad. 24 euros for lunch. I had gazpacho, which i was so happy to eat =), and we ordered grilled vegetables and eric had croquettes which we weren't quite sure what we would get but they were good. I'm making eric eat vegetables, since I have to eat them with every meal!

After lunch, we walked back down to the Metro station, Palau Real. Our second mission (epic fail) was so visit the Altiro office, to see if we could take a look at some of their aparments. Since their office closed for siesta from about 2-4pm, we decided to bum around. Went to check out the Sagrada Familia, so amazing from the outside, didn't go inside YET. We're waiting for Joe before we do that stuff. Then wandered around. Sat down at a Gelateria on Avinguda de Gaudi and at lemon gelato outside on their patio. The entire day was so relaxed, as it was hot, PLUS we didn't have watches on us. While wandering around, we found a Vodafone store. Went in and tried to ask in broken Spanish about their pre-paid plans. It was difficult to understand, since I don't exactly know how they work in Canada either.

Finally we decided to find the office. Except, we forgot the address. Eric knew the general area of the office and that the street name started with an "M". So we set out, hoping we would stumble across it. We kept saying that if we actually found it, we would be absolutely AMAZING. We wandered, checked the map, found a street nearby called Carrer de Monistrol, and went with that. It turned out to be this really narrow street. We walked around, nothing. Thought about asking someone in this little bakery, but then decided they probably wouldn't know. So, we headed back home. Epic Fail. But not so epic fail. Why? Because, we got accustomed to the city, the streets, the people, the culture, the language. We are beginning to feel not-so-touristy, except for the fact that we still like to point out everytime we see an Asian person walk by.

Arrived back at our apartment. Visited Daniela at the inside-bcn office and asked her many questions. An iron and ironing board, directions to the closest market, and also, about this apartment that they have for rent. Its pretty expensive, 2000 euros, but it fits 4 people. We've got a couple other options in mind too.

Anyways, went from the office to the corner store to buy groceries, since we decided to try cooking dinner at the apartment tonight. It was so pimp. Bought a bottle of champagne (so cheap!) which we thought was white wine, spaghetti sauce, and oscar meyer sausages with cheese. Fried those babies up, cooked the spaghetti that the apartment provided in our "goodie basket" and toasted to an EPIC FAIL/SUCCESS of a day! Ended the night by sipping our champagne out on our small patio where we had moved on of our couches, and watched our fellow Barcelonians stroll by, at 11 o'clock at night. I think I can get used to this.