Well thats me setting up a self timer for my final scooter ride (my scooter was called Dana). The shots I took were too cheesy to put up, so here´s my muffed attempt.
6 days!! OMGGGGGGGGGGG still so much to do....... and then I can jump up and down like I did in Cuenca in 2005.....
Well its been the start of many ´lasts´.
After a huge kerfuffle in the Madrid airport, not being able to board the plane because of suposed "missing" documents, me saying i had my plane ticket from Hong Kong to Auckland which is all i needed, but all the time the guy was meaning my return plane ticket from Auckland, which of course does not exist. Carrying a Dutch passport i can understand the confusion, but showing him my NZ residents visa made him sweat!!!!! All that time for nothing.......... at least he upgraded me to business class.
Though i had only 2 minutes to say goodbye to Susi, us both in tears. Complete ratshit if you ask me. Here comes 2008.......
Anyway, got home, finally!!! Dad picked me up, and all was sweet, went to my job interview within 2 hours in Auckland, and got the EF job!! Yay!!! So i´ll be visiting Hamiltron schools in the near future promoting a high school year overseas!! I have a few other jobs in the pipeline also, hopefully!! (http://www.ef.co.nz/master/hsy/index_asia.asp)
The photo is taken from an old bike in Amsterdam, i have just put up a lot of new photos, mostly scanned ones from an old olympus film camera that i have from my grandmother. i´ve really enjoyed using it!!
Into the second week at uni, and things are looking good so far!!
Do i really need to use this anymore?
Please comment........
Mid june: I finished up teaching my 70 or so rascals, and my last 2 weeks were converted into holidays with a fantastic end-of-contract bonus. I wanted to spend my last weeks lazing on the beach, but typical Basque weather set in and it rained nearly everyday. Bummer.
Slowly I packed up my beautiful room, taking many memories off the wall, and carefully stuffing them into my bulging hiking pack. Luckily i had taken back a bunch of thinkgs at Easter, but even so, i had to leave a lot of clothes/things behind, and send a few packages also.
I left my flat on Friday morning, rather hungover from the farewell party the night before - my last time seeing my friends!!! Took a plane with Susi and Gema to Madrid, where Susi and i stayed the night with her cousin Vanessa and María José. We all went out that night....
Coincidence would have it that it was the European Gay Pride Festival that weekend, and the place, namely Chueca (Madrids gay suburb) was packed!!! We all had so much fun drinking on the terraces and watching a concert and absorbing the nightlife in general. A shame that we missed out on the huge parade the next day!
On Saturday Susi and i went to Segovia, 2 hours from Madrid in train, for our final opportunity for time together relaxing. We had a beautiful hotel - a mini palace with cool views and a patio restaurant in the middle. Another unplanned coincidence was that that weekend was a Segovia Folk Festival, so we had devine music wafting up into our room, and various concerts spread out around the city. Segovia itself is precious, with a big and tall Roman aquaduct, a huge cathedral, and enormous fortressed castle with (empty) moat included!! We were there 2 nights, and it was an enchanting and unforgettable few days alone. If only it could have lasted forever.
Went back to Madrid on monday, and all too quickly, Tuesday the 3rd of July 2007 arrived. The day I´d been dreading for nearly 2 years suddenly loomed upon me and swallowed me whole.
Though I almost wasn´t allowed on the plane......more of that in part 2.
I am sitting in the Hong Kong airport at the moment, and my laptop is about to dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
See you all tomorrow.....................................................
Janine
| Well, this is my last night in Spain. I´m staying with some spanish friends, and tomorrow afternoon my plane leaves for Amsterdam, then to Hong Kong the next day, and the friday morning I´m HOMEEEEEEEEEEEE. I don´t have time to be pensive about all this at the moment, i want to get it over and done with, and come home. But at the same time no, i want to stay here and enjoy everything all over again. Sigh. Time to check for dangerous items/liquid bottles over 100ml etc etc crap in my luggage. I do appologise for not keeping the world more informed of my comings and goings. What i will tell you, and later on show you in photos, is that i am very much in love and it tears me apart to leave here. I don´t want to think about tomorrow. But i do want to think about friday (i have a job interview that day even!). Ya veremos. tq guapa. mucho. The fantastic "Janine In Spain" (soy super chula) |
Just a few places I´ve been........
Went to Barcelona the other weekend because susi had won tickets for the Gran Prix Formula One racing. We went supporting Fernando Alonso from Spain, of course. I didn´t go on race day because she went with her sister, but i went to the saturday timed races, which was loud and interesting!!! I took sunday to walk around ALL of barcelona and snap up a few photos, using my mums/grandma´s camera, as shown in the photo. My three companions for the day were my cameras and my ipod! Such a nice hot day!!! Unfortunately Fernando came in 3rd.
Apart from that... not much has been happening here.... preparing for exams in the academy. Of my 70 students, i´d say that 50-60 will pass their exams. I´ll give you the details when they do them in 2 weeks. I finish work soon!!!! after today and tomorrow, i have 3 weeks to go!!!! and the last week is watching videos and playing games, so i´m pretty happy about that!!! we recently went to an english teachers conference here in bilbao, so i am armed to my teeth with games to play... phrasal verbs, irregular verbs, 1st,2nd,3rd conditionals.... does this make any sense to you??? hehehe.
looking forward to starting B semester in july, 2 papers, one of which is internet based, and i´ll have to get around to sorting out my 499 investigation paper also.
well. we said goodbye to ceci, our flatmate, yesterday, she´s off to bolivia. gema had her 27th birthday last week (we made a great cake!). markel and brandon are back in spain now and will be meeting them for the first time in ages tonight. i have started getting a little, slight tan. the weather here is a little crap, tho should get better soon. willoughby my brother is living it up in wyoming, arkansas, anywhere where there is a storm in the USA!!! he´s there storm chasing, and judging by his photos, is having a great time!!!
I´m here only another 40 days. will go now to make the most of it :-)
love you all
your favourite Kiwi
Well, after a calm, relaxing week in Hamilton, with a visit to Rotorua to see Nan, though not going too far due to the injections that i needed for my back (now its much better). The hot air balloons were ... non existant, though i did try to see them! Even the dawn raid didn´t happen which i got up for especially for. But anyway, bad weather at the end of the week prevented them from flying.
I left the 14th for Tokyo, for a one night stop over, which was way too quick. With so much to see, it was a shame to have to miss the main stuff. In the end i was only there from 5pm (arrived at the hostel at 7pm), until the next morning when i left the Ueno train station at 8am. I slept, though not much.
Arrived, armed with my little page of Japanese phrases (to remind me, which i was surprised at how much i remembered) i set out to discover Tokyo. My hostel was really cool, it had traditional japanese tatami mats (take your shoes off etc), and a japanese feel to it. Even a futon mattress! Tho in bunkbed style. Left there but only had time before the metro closed to grab a bite to eat, a sanwich, and look around one district a little bit. I chose the big lights of Ginza, Tokyo´s most expensive street full of electronics. Not that many people about, it was a saturday night, tho early in the night and i suppose there weren´t any clubs or anything around. Went back to the hostel and grabbed some noodle pasta stuff (japanese food) and ate it happily before falling asleep rapidly.
Woke up super early, not wanting to waste time sleeping (plenty of time in the plane later on), and went to Ueno park, next to the train station i needed. It was a really beautiful park, apart from the homeless people wandering around, really rich with nature and religion. I liked it a lot. Ate my breakfast happy with japans infamous cherry blossoms in view. Really surreal to think after having studied japanese for almost 10 years, that there i was!!!! I wasn´t able to absorb it all, it was sooooo different to what i´m used to, and differente to what i expected also. Actually, i´m not quite sure what i expected.
Had a good flight, watched 5 movies in 10.5 hours (from Auckland to Tokyo i watched 4), and only had 45 mins in Amsterdam airport (Schiphol).... ah, which was delayed for another hour (thereby making me miss my bus from Madrid to Bilbao that night...). Arrived home at 7am, monday the 16th, straight to bed (for 3 hours...... then i had to get up to go to work and prepare my classes for that afternoon!!!
Now things are back to normal. I´m settled back in. I like my life here, i also adore my life in hamilton. We´ll see how i adjust to the permanent move in july.... until then, i´m gonna enjoy myself here!!!!
adiossssssssss
lots of kisses in the direction of NZ --- for everyone there. I had a fantastic time and i thankyou very much for welcoming me again ... what a surprise!!!
Janine
