crazy past weekend and even crazier one ahead :)

Dear all
Week 6 is already half over and the first interruption of my stay is only 24 hours away!!!
but let me stick to chronological order... the last post is from last Saturday morning, right? Well... during the day I didn't do much, but was invited to Roberto's house for dinner. Laura (his former flatmate) met me at the station and we went to his new flat, which he shares with a girl from Zürich (!!!), an American girl and a Brazilian guy. Unfortunately, the girls weren't there, so I still haven't met my fellow swissie, but I'm sure there will be an opportunity soon. Roberto had prepared all different specialties from his home, Parma, so we started with finger food: Parmesan cheese, the special ham they have, olives.. and then went on to a huge bowl of pasta with bolognese sauce- it was delicious and above all, the whole evening was so much fun. Laura had brought along another Dutch girl who studies with her here, and this friend came with another friend (Dutch, too) who didn't speak a word of either English or Spanish. So it was funny because I tried to understand some of what she said (Dutch is not too different from Swiss German actually) and Laura and her friend were busy translating. With the guys, we spoke a mixture of English and Spanish, so it was a very multilingual conversation! We were sitting outside on the terrasse, as it was still very warm, and of course the six of us were making quite some noise laughing, speaking - but it was a Saturday night, and we're in Spain... so we were quite surprised (as not to say shocked) when suddenly, around 11.30 pm a neighbour shouted out the window that we should shut up and stop making so much noise... Come on?? it was before midnight, don't tell me any person in their right mind goes to bed so early in Spain??? So Laura was just too funny, she looked up at that woman, waved her hand and cried "Hola! Qué tal?" (Hi, how are you?)!!! we couldn't stop laughing.... and of course we stayed outside, and a bit later on, Marcus (the brazilian guy) started mixing cocktails and distributing them in little shot glasses... which of course did not make us more quiet... ;) And we just had a great time, until, around 1.30 (which still is not THAT late...) there suddenly was a *splash* and we heard something hitting the floor right behind our table: that woman had seriously thrown an egg at us (luckily missed!)!!!! Can you believe that? Well, I guess it's just another sample of an extreme Spanish temper... ;) In any case we did not want to risk being hit by eggs or whatever vegetable she might have found next, so we went inside and then decided to go to the city center and see what there was in the clubs/pubs... And weeeelll, to make a long story short, I came home at 5.30 in the morning, realized that it was the night of the change of time to winter time and was veeery glad that I could sleep one hour more! ;)

On Sunday I first needed to sleep a lot... and then did some work for university, and then was invited to dinner again: Evelyn cooked Fajitas at her house, and it was soooo delicious! It was just a lazy evening, all girls, eating, talking, listening to music -and I went home really early because I realized that otherwise it would be impossible to be in class on Monday at 9!

And now I'm preparing my suitcase, because.......: tomorrow, I'm going back to Zurich!!!! Well, just for the weekend, but still!!! Home sweet home, I'm coming! It feels strange though, to pack a suitcase just for 3 days knowing that the destination is home.... :S For those who don't yet know: the main reason for going home this weekend is that tomorrow night, there's a concert in Zurich which has been organized by our radio station, and one of the bands playing is my boyfriend's band, so I just need to see that! And, once I'm home, I'm going to a halloween party at a friend's house on Saturday night, will be visiting half my family (and my boyfriend's) during the day Saturday, will enjoy a lazy day only with my boyfriend on Sunday, then meet another friend on Monday morning at the airport for coffee before I leave again around lunchtime! So you see, if this weekend is not more crazy than the past one, I don't know... am looking forward to it - and to telling you all about it! :)

Take care and talk to you all soon! xxx :)

Week 5 recap and blog reflections

Dear all
Week 5 is already over, my first month is over, which means that about one tenth of my stay is already part of the past - am curious to find out what the future 9 months will bring (haha, am beginning to understand how long a pregnancy must feel... ;))!
Well, this week has been quite good so far, I feel better again, although my body is still giving me clear signs that I should not exaggerate going out or not sleeping much... I went to all my classes this week, am really getting into it, language wise it's never been a problem really and the content of the classes is very interesting but ok to follow (the level at my home university must be extremely high, judging from other Erasmus students' reaction to the things treated in class here - to me, it seems normal, or sometimes even easy, and they all complain that they don't understand a thing and that it's way too fast and complicated...). I've also started to read a bit more seriously, I need to catch up a bit, was a bit too lazy in the first few weeks!
On Thursday, we went to a concert of the spanish band Macaco, which was organized by our university within the frame of the "Setmana de bienvinguda" (= welcome week, in catalan :)), so we only paid 4 Euros and could enjoy a live open air concert in the bullfight arena of Valencia! The building is already quite impressive, the sound was great, the mood even better, the weather just perfect, it was great fun! And the support act was interesting, too: have you ever heard ska-punk meets buena vista social club, all sung in valenciano, the local dialect of catalan??? it really was an experience :)
Yesterday night, I met a friend for a drink, came home quite early - but went to bed after 2, because my boyfriend was online on skype... I guess that's a record :)
There's not much more to tell for the moment, my life here is quite boring actually :)

But there's another thing I'd like to pick up: I feel that this blog is not understood the way it should be... My intention was and still is to inform you all about what I'm up to, but to avoid sending mass e-mails in regular intervals. The reason I'm doing this is that I don't want to bother anyone with my updates, if they're not interested - which means that, if you want to know what's happening in my life, you can check the blog, if not, you leave it. All of this does not mean that I don't want to communicate with each of you individually, but there might be other stories to tell in personal messages and I just don't want to tell the same events a hundred times... I hope that there are no misunderstandings and of course I'm looking forward to any comments or other signs of life from you all!

Being ill S****S...

Dear all,
Another post with good and bad news… Good news is that I simply have the best flatmates on earth – and the bad news is the reason why I found that out: I’ve cought some kind of virus which is making it impossible for me to eat or go out of a minimum radius between my bed and the bathroom (trying to express this politely...) … I had a more or less sleepless night from Wednesday to Thursday, woke up with fever yesterday morning and haven’t left the flat in the meantime! But my two flatmates have been the best nurses I could ever wish for (apart from my mum and my boyfriend of course, who can’t do much more than talk to me via skype and try to at least improve my mood ;)) : they went to the shops to buy me bananas, coca cola and salty stuff for my stomach and have checked on me regularly to see if I needed something, it’s so cute! And yesterday night, I could hardly believe how nice (apparently many) Spanish people are: I was already half asleep when Luci (my flatmate) knocked on my door with the phone in her hand and told me that her mother (!!!) wanted to talk to me! And indeed, although I’ve never seen or met this woman, she started asking me how I felt, what the problem was, and gave me advice how to get well soon, always assuring me that her daughter will take care of me and if I had to go to the doctor, she’d come with me… can you believe this? I keep being amazed at this country and its inhabitants… ;)

Week 4, an eventful weekend and general impressions

Dear all,

Week 4 has already begun and Valencia is treating me well… I still get along very well with my flatmates, the people at university seem nice, too, and I’ve already found a circle of friends with whom I feel very comfortable- although I know that they will, can and should never replace the amazing friends I have at home- and whom I miss a lot!!!

The weather here is still wonderful, we had up to 35 degrees last week and it is still sunny and very warm now – although one can feel that autumn is come slowly but surely – the air is getting fresher, but the sun is still extremely strong… I can’t imagine feeling cold and winterlike – which is how the people in Switzerland are feeling right now! :)

Last weekend was a „puente“, a bank holiday, here in Spain, so we didn’t have any classes on Friday and Monday. I hadn’t known that in advance, so it was a coincidence that precisely this weekend, my boyfriend and my mom and her boyfriend came to Valencia to visit me. Richi arrived Thursday night and it was so great to finally see him again, the three weeks apart had felt like an eternity… I showed him everything I could of my life here in Valencia, the university, my flat of course, the beach, the old city centre; he met Bradley for dinner and a night out – and from Saturday on, my mum and Jürg were here, too – so we visited all the nicest and most „touristic“ spots together: the port of Valencia, the cathedral, the nicest Plazas with the best restaurants for tapas – it was great fun! Richi left Sunday night and it felt as if the 3 days had only been 15 minutes…
My mom and Jurg left this morning, so now I need to go back to my books and focus on studying a bit more – I haven’t done anything for school and if I don’t want this to end in a desaster, I need to start working a bit more seriously… ;)

By the way, you can still comment on all of this and ask questions – I don’t want to bore you all to death with what I’m writing and I don’t know which aspects of my stay abroad interest you most… so let me know!!! ;)

Valencia update, week 3

another post… finally back in the mood for writing!
It’s incredible – after the first week seemed like two months, now time is beginning to fly and my days don’t have enough hours to do all I would like to – for instance, writing on my blog…

Well, let me at first tell you that I’m beginning to feel at home here, by now I know my way round quite well, I get along VERY well with my flatmates – and finally, more or less everything seems to be working! :) But one after the other:

I did tell you that my mobile phone wasn’t working, right? The Spanish one, that is – and I always walked around with two mobile phones in my pocket, quite silly, isn’t it? I went to the Vodafone shop 5 (!!) teams and without success, they couldn’t help me. I was just about to buy me another SIM card from a different company, when my boyfriend told me that he had an idea and that maybe there’s a way to solve the problem. He called Swisscom (the swiss mobile phone company) and he wrote to Vodafone and I have no clue what they did precisely – but yesterday I suddenly received a message from a Swiss person on my Spanish mobile phone, so it is working now!!!

Another story that is hilarious in retrospective, but upset me quite a bit while it happened is the following: I have a Swiss friend who was in Valencia last year (until this August). Seeing that she couldn’t take all her stuff home when she left, I bought her printer and she said she’d leave the printer and some towels and other stuff she didn’t need anymore in her old flat with her former flatmates. These flatmates are two guys, I think they’re Spanish or South American. My friend Sara had given me the number of one of them and about a week ago I first tried to call him. I tried about every day, and sent him text messages but he never picked up the phoned or answered me in any form. Finally, this Monday, he picked up his phone, and when I told him who I was and why I was calling, this idiot started to scream at me over the phone for no reason whatsoever!!! He told me that it was about time I came to pick up the printer that this stupid thing is annoying him in his house and that I should’ve come earlier. I asked if he’d be here this weekend, seeing that my boyfriend is coming and could help me carry it home – he continued shouting, that this weekend no one would be home as both of them go somewhere for the long weekend and that he doesn’t give a *** how I get the printer home as long as it’s out of his house…
I am translating here in a very polite manner, you should have heard that! I was really shocked!!!! Anyway, before he hung up, he told me that I could call short before I want to pass by his house to get the printer. So the next day, my friend Evelyn and I tried calling him the entire morning because we could have gone there in the afternoon between classes. He didn’t pick up again. After 3 hours and I don’t know how many phone calls, I called Sara and asked her for the other guy’s number. After a while, I reached that one and he told me that at 8 that night, they would be home. I doublechecked twice if he was serious and he said yes. So at 8, Evelyn and I ran out of class to be there on time – just to find the door locked and no one at home. We tried again to call either of the men but they didn’t bother to pick up their phones. We waited for 30min (!!) but no one came so we went home – because Evelyn’s flatmate had invited us for dinner at 9 and it was already 8.45.. so I ran home to quickly change and go back to Evelyn’s house – when my phone rang and it was one of the guys (the other one this time) telling me off that we’d had a date and where I had been – of course I was extremely upset and said that I had been waiting for half an hour and that he was the one who hadn’t been there. I asked if I could come the next day, again at 8 at night and he said no, he’d leave for the long weekend already and if I were interested in the printer, I should come right now. Of course I couldn’t and I told him so and he just went like „well, you know, we do have our timetables and if you want your printer, you should adapt to us, if not, well , bad luck“ – I couldn’t believe it!!!! After about 5min of not very polite conversation we agreed that he would leave the printer with the receptionist of his house and I would pick it up the next day at 1.30 in the afternoon. So I went there – asked the receptionist, and there was no printer! I thought that they had just made fun of me and explained the situation to the receptionist – who told me that one of the guys was actually at home, he’d seen him enter the house… So we rang the doorbell from the ground floor (they live in the 12th floor) and he grunted „yes?“ – I said that I was there to pick up the printer and that it wasn’t with the receptionist. His answer was „te la bajo con el ascensor“ – of course I understood that he would come down with the printer in the lift – but 2 min later, the lift doors opened –and inside were two cardboard boxes with my name on them, one with the printer and the other with the towels!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe that???? I never even met these guys, but at least I now have my printer and everything… But isn’t that the most absurd story ever?? ;)

Oh, now I’ve written too much about this, I need to stop for now, have classes in the afternoon – and tonight, my boyfriend is coming to visit me for the weekend!!!! I’m so excited!!!