It´s been a bit since I´ve posted for a number of reasons. I´ve been running around all crazy like trying to get several things taken care of like registration, bank accounts, visa, and I also went to both Madrid and Peñafiel these last six days. So I´ve been moving. Some parts have been great, others more challenging.
So Madrid was fun and expensive. I started a post about it previously, like right after the trip, but I wound up trying to tell too much and got tired before I could finish. Anyway, Aleks and I took a train from here (Valladolid) to Madrid last weekend, Saturday. We stayed in a hostel and took advantage of the opportunity to just sort of walk around and shop and see the city. I saw some bizarre and beautiful things. I watched a homeless man get physically kicked out of McDonald´s. I ate a chocolate truffle in the market, figured out the Metro system (so much easier than the one in DC by the way), drank 5 drinks in the diner, only paid for two (foreign chicks get lucky on this count), and bought a jacket for the winter. I´d say more about Madrid generally, but I am not a fan of unfounded generalizations and don´t find myself to be an expert after only 36 hours in the city. Plaza Mayor at night is quite beautiful, and I enjoyed the street performers, especially the stringed quartet and the Hindu band.
On Wednesday, it was a national holiday, which meant no school and an ESN trip to Peñafiel. Peñafiel is an old city that still has a castle on top of the hill. We toured that, which was basically only cool for taking pictures and just thinking hmmm... this is really old. The tour guide to tourists ratio was too small to hear anything she was saying. I did ask, though, and found out the castle was built in the 15 century. So that was cool to know. The touring of the bodegas was a little flat. It seemed to be the general consensus that everyone thought we´d be touring wine fields, not the dark, dank basements of wineries, and con copas en las manos. Anyway, it was a good experience. Aleks and I ran into an English guy and a couple Spanish dudes at a coffee shop who were making a wine documentary. They followed us to the bodegas and filmed themselves jumping into wine barrels. Finally, at the end, they gave us some wine. Somehow this did not satisfy Aleks´s and my need for wine, so we took other undisclosed measures.
That night after we got back, we went to her place, and I met her roommates a little more personally. They mostly seem cool. I must have had more to drink than I thought, because the next thing I know, I´m whipping up a sauce for her Italian roommate like I know what I´m doing. I say a bunch of stupid things in butchered Italian, he feeds us all, they go out, Aleks and I go to a bar and then...
we realize keys have been forgotten. Anotherrrrrr taxi is called (I am so over riding in and paying for taxis right now), we make it to her place, and I sit outside with her for about an hour hoping that her roommates come back or that someone at least is entering the apartments to let her in the warm part to sit. It becomes apparent that this isn´t going to happen, so she calls me a cab, I leave her my fleece, and go home to sleep. ¡Qué horror!
Y más horrores hoy... met Aleks in front of this school this am. We took a cab to the immigration office. So that cost us. Then we were both turned away rudely for different reasons... and idk. It´s just so frustrating, because there is really no reason to be rude or treat us like we´re stupid. Of course we don´t know everything, because people don´t tell us. Please don´t extrapolate this and think it is like this all over Spain, because I really have no idea. I just know I have run into a lot of frustration and wasted time and money trying to get official things taken care of so far. I went to the bank this am to pay for my registration, but they wouldn´t take my money because I didn´t have a particular receipt. I really miss being able to just pay online or even... send a check. But to walk to a bank, hand someone 60€, and have them say, ¨Thanks, but no thanks,¨ is just beyond frustrating, because that means I have to search through everything looking for a receipt I didn´t know I needed, possibly go back to the University Office of International Relations to get a new one, which will involve multiple trips and rejections, and then walk back to the bank again. And I have to do this before I can take ANOTHER cab to GO BACK to immigration to TRY AGAIN for my visa extension, because she won´t file it until I´ve paid for registration. Wtf? I think we were both on the verge of tears today.
Annnnnnnnnnddd my f------ computer crashed. My worst nightmare about coming to Spain was that something would happen to my computer. John is really excellent with computers. On the other hand, I am a raging disaster. I lose and break phones like someone´s paying me to do it. I don´t necessarily ruin computers, but when issues do come up, I am helpless to resolve them. So when my computer started spontaneously crashing and then refused to charge, I lost my mind and had a full on meltdown of tears and bawling. I was a) angry with myself for probably ruining the charge port by sitting the damn computer up on its end to listen to music, b) pissed off at the universe for letting this happen *now*^, and c) generally panicked about the inability to communicate with anyone and the need to purchase a new one... for a high price. Nonetheless, I am proud of myself, probably too much so considering the simplicity of the task I´ve completed, for purchasing a computer and then downloading and installing the programs I wanted to make it functional for my needs. That´s something I´ve never done and something I definitely wouldn´t have done for myself if I was at home.
Right now I find myself wanting to go to the gym and lift. However, I am a bit germaphobic (yeah, I have a lot of weird hang-ups) and am worried that due to the cuts on my hand that I might wind up contracting MRSA if I go. So maybe I´ll just run again today instead. My body will not waste away for skipping one workout, and MRSA just freaks me out.
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