Publicado por
Janine
Well. What a week that was. Really really beautiful region of Spain, on the north coast. So amazingly wonderful. And amazing people also!!! Gema, my flatmate, is from Asturias, and she hooked us (me and lindsay) up with her cousin susana and her friends!!!! wow. talk about drinking!!! Asturias is the home of apple cider, and jeez, they know how to drink!!!!
monday we were out dancing until 4am.... tuesday we went to the beach near oviedo called gijón which was really beautiful. on wednesday we went to león, which is in castilla y leon, the provence just south of oviedo (between asturias and madrid) which housed a huuuuge cathedral. that was more a shopping trip really, as rebajas (sales season) has hit spain!!! thursday we went to idylic little village with moi pablo and vanesa, drank cider (of course), then went to pravia (where pablo lives) and had a great meal, then went to a fantastic bar called calabeño, where it had suuuuch a celtic feel to it with people playing instruments (violin, guitar, bagpipes, tambourines, flues) whenever they felt like it. it was fabulous, i enjoyed myself a looooot there!!!! we then went on to a large variety of clubs and bars, ending up walking home at 9am in the morning. my goodness what a night! sooo much fun tho!!! (unfortunately i got my bag stolen at a club, thankfully it didn´t have my camera or wallet in it tho, just my phone, glasses etc)(so don´t call me, am in the process of getting a new phone).
thursday we had to sleep, obviously. we were meant to leave to go to salamanca, but had to pay for another night at our hostal so we could sleep during the day!!! 9pm came around and we were out again with moi vanesa and pablo to go to a cider house for dinner, and man, what a dinner it was!!! huge meal, tho not many were hungry as the others at the table (10 of us) had gone out the night before also heheh. i told myself not to drink, but after one drink i felt MUCH better and kept going hehehehe. i didn´t have my camera on me that night, but i do believe we went out to bars again...... more dancing etc etc (and i´m talking proper dancing, latin boys know how to swing it!) got home at 7ish.....
then we were invited with the boys to go to vallodalid which is in castilla y león, and we hung out drinking and being stupid with david, ruben, ivan, and moi. drinking being the key word. wow, this was 3 nights in a row folks.
i.
was.
exhasted.
but spoke perfect spanish the whole entire time, and understood every single word spoken to me. well, at least thats what i believed at the time hehehehe. the next day we ate a delicious lunch at at hobbitlike hole in a hill, ruben, moi and montoto ate half a pig (literally), and i had good lamb ribs. that night it was just me, ruben, lindsay and moi, and we ate pizza and watched 3 movies. nice and relaxing :)
monday a long but happy bus ride home, tuesday was the start of classes at university, wednesday another round of new classes, and then i got a fever. (i wonder what brought it on really.....) a horrible fever with high temperature and horrible body aches. not to mention that my ankles are worse now than ever.
so i´ve been bedridden for the past few days, only recovered today. thankfully. yes, i recovered enough to go into bilbao and be told that i cannot change my ticket.
oh what a problem (or is it a blessing in disguise??). i had bought my return ticket in march 05, and the latest flight they could book at the time was january 22nd. so i got that on the assumption that i could change it closer to the time. hmm, turns out that the day before the flight is toooo close. to make matters worse, i have noooo puta idea where my ticket is. so thats that gone. i now have no ticket home!!!!
i don´t know how to break this either, but i´ve been playing around with my university papers (now that i´ve decided to stick with the BMS and only changing a major), and it works out much much better if i start my 499 investigation paper in a semester 07, then finish off my 3 remaining papers in b semester 07....... .... . ......... .... .. ... .
which leaves me with no plane ticket, or university, or job, or commitments in new zealand until jan/feb 07...........
and yet i can easliy get a job here, in my beloved spain....... earn money for a new ticket.... a much later ticket..... maybe even go home thru the states and say hello to some old friends......
what do people think? if there are no comments in the next 3 minutes, i´m gonna do it......
My christmas was spent here.... in paradise. Click on the photo to see more.......
A new day has begun, and today I sent out all my Christmas greetings, so if you didn´t recieve them, email me, or maybe this will be enough for you.
Well its been a great long weekend, going out quite a bit, but also relaxing a whole lot all the same. This time last year I went to Santo Domingo de la Calzada with Markel Beth and Cameronbut we missed the medieval market, though this time with Mari Yani and Sonia (a friend, Susi´s flatmate, Susi´s sister), it was more planned, and it was fantastic.... a delight for each sense...
a face off with the new haka and the old haka. It was the first time i´ve seen the new haka and i don´t like it! I like the old one a million times over the new one, plus i was the only one singing along in 
the crowd. The photo on the left is of Tibu, one of my friends, more friends with Markel than me. His group did awesome!
riends from usac last semester Mike and Phil were running but i didn´t see them because it was really really hard to see anything. if you want to see the action you need to be on the fence (i was 3 people back) or on the balconies over the streets. the run was over very quick, 3 minutes in total, and the saturday run was a very clean one, no gorings or injuries. so the run ´finishes´ and people start climbing over the fences to make their way into the bullring to see the bulls finished off. i followed of course, but all of a sudden a bull comes swanking by me. wow what panic i felt!!!!!!!!! saw it coming out of the corner of my eye, it got close, 2 meters or so, and i turned and jumped on the fence. what a rush, i think i will run the next time i´m there, there is something about it thats exciting!!!!!!!!
pants and top, red scarf and tied belt), go two nights (one for partying/watching the bulls, the other for relaxing/running), and get a get into the bullring at the end. Ah, and go shopping more (of course).
next friday i´m going to málaga for The Rasmus concert, and i´m staying in the area of southern spain for 10 days visiting Granada, Tarifa (the most southern point of Spain), Gibraltar (English territory in spain controling the Gibraltar Strait of the mediterranean) (just going there to eat a mince and cheese pie, i´m killing for a pie (they´re not sold in spain), and fish ´n´ chips. they had better be good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i might take a day trip to Morocco (Africa), tho i´m not sure. All in all, i´m looking forward to some sun and beaches!!!!!!
Well folks, this is where i work, the Irish pub in Sopelana called Brendan´s Isle. Its a cool pub, cozy, nice clientele, good location, and we´re in the middle of sopelana´s fiestas, that is, the mad mad drinking week for sopelana where its fun fun fun with stalls, concerts etc etc. And me, starting new in a pub. I have never worked in hospitality before, i will make that clear. I have never worked in a foreign country before either. Nor even heard of half the drinks they have here even tho they are in english. So everything is new new new and i´m learning pretty well i reckon. This is the bar where vanesa one of my friends works, which is how i came by the job, just helping out for this week for starters.
documentary on what foreigners thought of the basque country region, and me and 2 class mates were interviewed for 40 minutes, which got cut down to a 30 minute programme with some other interviews. although while they were filming i didnt say that much, there was a lot of me speaking on the tv!!!!! i have the programme on dvd, so will show it to all when i get home. it was a really cool experience! and i even had people recognising me in the bar that i frequent!! the photo here is from the tv channels website, showing Jaime, me, and Ernesto being interviewed at our university outside.
Well, things just keep getting better, and better, and better. I feel like I'm lying on my back looking up at the sky, and time is standing still. I want time to stand still, for I am happy. Elated, captivated, ecstatic, exultant, overjoyed etc etc etc.
)) and chatting the night away.
