Life is...blahh but crafty

It has been waaaaaaay too long since I've posted anything on here. But alas, life is not all that interesting. I have basically lost all motivation to do anything (like school work) so I'm kinda behind in that regard. My lack of apartment hunting means that instead of living in an apartment from December onwards, I settled for moving to another res, the one across from mine. I will have a smaller room, but it will be all mine and fantastically glorious. There is a small kitchen where I would cook for myself and overall hopefully save about 100 euros a month. I only plan on being there for two months though.

Instead of working I have become even more obsessed with Pinterest, the most fantastical site in the world. Did you know you can save your boards as PDF files?!?!?!?! Imagine my joy. I also watched the first two seasons and a half of Fringe, caught up with a bunch of other shows and listened the Lianne La Havas album, "Is Your Love Big Enough?" about 30 times on repeat yesterday.

I made a bow from ribbons

Before that though, Vi and I went to a mini concert organized by a very nice Russian/Portuguese girl we met at that Brazilian party a few weeks ago. She sang some jazz songs and played classical songs on the piano. A few other people played songs as well. It is amazing how people can memorized such complex pieces of music and how quickly and swiftly their hands moved. I was mesmerized - it was great.

Last Friday I saw Skyfall with Em and her friends, IN SPANISH. I'm not quite sure I understand the whole appeal of James Bond. That was the first full JB movie I've ever seen and I was actually pretty funny altough I don't think it was supposed to be. Many parts seemed illogical to me and Javier Bardem makes a horrible blonde.

I have also been getting crafty, because making random stuff keeps me sane. I've made some rings from wire, a wire Christmas tree ornament and an unconventional advent calendar for a friend (although I am still on the hunt for small edible deliciousness...). I think I am going to do another 12 days of DIY, like I did last year on the old blog, except I shall do ALL 12 days. There are a bajillion ideas running through my head...

That's about it.

Happy Belated American Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Rick Mercer Tuesday, etc.

Hello Alone - Charlie Winston

Halloween 101: How to completely ruin a dress, talk with a British accent and have a great time

Happy (belated) Halloween!

in the supermarket!

(warning - this post is filled with crappy phone pics because it is a lot easier to sneak a photo of pumpkins with a phone then hauling out the camera and get weird suspicious looks from fellow grocery shoppers...plus my camera died)

Step 1: Decide what you want to be for Halloween. Any costume involving a dress would be great (seeing as you need a dress to ruin for this project). I went with a lovely beige number as part of a fairy costume.

I know, I know...how can she ruin this?? you must be thinking...

Step 2: Get your friend to buy you spray paint because you're too lazy to look for dye and she's really nice.

Step 3: Ignore people's "why are you going to spray paint that? It's so pretty!". Retaliate with a "do you ever see me in beige?" (which is a fair question, albeit a lame argument).

Step 4: Find an empty patch of dirt and spray. Ombre effects look awesome and create the temporary illusion that this dress will later be wearable. Marvel while it dries, before reality sinks in.

after spray painting

Step 5: Come to your senses. Spray painting a dress is stupid and makes it stiff and you could probably get high off the fumes from your closet. If you feel a certain attachment to the dress however,  you can always try and soak it in detergent (because we all know that detergent is fantastic at removing spray paint - not really.) Time for plan B.

Step 6: Wear a lace dress from your closet, make a crown of flowers and some wings from wire and a cheap scarf. And voila! You're a fairy! - complete with an unwearable spray painted dress and a smelly closet (definitely the best type of fairies).

But we all know that you're not a true fairy without a British accent.

moi

Step 7: Meet your friend's friends who all have really cool accents and are dressed like dead things and suppress the desire to change your speech and say things like "bloody hell" and "blimey".

muhahahahahah

Step 8: Play random drinking drinks and later you will learn to embrace that desire to try a British accent. You will fail horribly but continue.

Step 9: Spend the night going from bar to bar, club to club, meeting random people, some zombies, bees, clowns, devils, hula girls and dead pumpkins. After all, the theme of the night is trick or chupito, am I right?? ;) (chupitos are shots btw)

So Death and a Clown walk into a bar...

Step 10: Go home and tweet something like this: Going to bed with Styrofoam in my hair, makeup on, one eye open, an upset stomach and only one earring. #happyhalloween!

(optional but highly recommended - Step 11: watch Frankenweenie the next day in Spanish. Laugh, smile and forever be afraid of resurrected dogs.)

The Worst Weekend Ever (that wasn't even completely bad but still horrible)

This weekend started off lovely. My roommate wanted to go somewhere for the weekend and we settled on going to Avila, a small town about an hour and a half away from here. I will finish righting the blog post for that when I'm in a better mood and have finished combing through all the photos. When we got back home from buying the tickets at the bus station and doing some shopping (which wasnt supposed to happen, so I didn't bring a bag or anything with me), I realized the 30 euros I had in my pocket was gone. yeaaaaa. I tend to be VERY pessimistic when something goes wrong so I was completely pissed off but I knew I had lost it a while back and the money was no where near res. My roommate insisted on searching some of the street we had walked but we didn't find it. Luckily for me I have a roommate who is able to stay in a good mood (but not in an annoying frustratingly cheery mood that would drive me nuts), so I didn't go to bed super angry, just a bit upset.

The next day we went to Avila and that was great. We had a lot of fun and took some good pictures.

AVILA!

This morning we got up early to go to the flea market,  called "El Rastro" in Salamanca (I'm pretty sure El Rastro is a general name for a flea market). I will probably write another post about that at some point too. Everything was going fine until my roommate, near the end of our time there, was just casually like, be aware of your stuff. That's when I realized that my purse was considerably lighter. I opened it and realized my wallet wasn't in there. It had been stolen.  I panicked. I tend to panic. (If you have never seen my wallet, it is this giant blue thing with a large Canada sticker on the back. Not easy to misplace). I basically started crying and freaking out. There was no money in there really, less than 10 euros, but everything else was: my credit card, debit cards, sin card, health card, driver's license, my new library card (!!), my residence card, all my old university cards which I loved, my UofT card, and a bunch of random other junk like my yoyo's card! Now I won't get points when I buy frozen yogurt :(

El Rastro in summer (source)

We left the market and I was crying while trying to call my dad back in Canada. But he didn't answer so I called my mom and started semi-crying all over again while I explained everything to her. Then I got a hold of my dad and once more there was some crying. While all this was happening my roommate was looking for the police trying to get help and find out what to do (she's the best). After ages we saw a police car (the second one) go by and she had to run after the car to try and get it to stop, despite the fact that they saw her signaling  to them. And then they weren't even helpful, just impatient, not like there were going anywhere -__-. They said that I would probably just be lucky and someone would turn it in. HAHAHAHAH surreeeeeeee. How helpful policemen.

I know I shouldn't walk around with all that stuff. It's just I never thought to take most of it out because I normally walk with it all in Canada. You would actually not believe how many times I have been asked for my SIN card or need to show proof of ID or have my student card. But then again I'm not in Canada. Thankfully my passport and my USal student card, which I only got on Friday, weren't in there and neither was the card I use for my meals on residence. And I also have photocopies of my documents and cards back home in Toronto. My dad also cancelled my bank cards within an hour of them being stolen so they haven't been used.

It just sucks. Plus I don't remember my log-in name for my classes so I can't access that and I discovered that for some reason I don't have a full month meal plan, which I learned as I went for lunch and I had no more lunches left for the month. Luckily the lady is really nice and let me eat, but I am suppose to have 30 breakfasts, lunches and dinners a month...sigh....

Tomorrow morning bright and early, we're going to the police station to check lost and found and file a report. But I just want to sleep. Hopefully this week turns out better. Halloween is Wednesday (I've been working on a (not so creative) costume :P)  and it's a long weekend, so hopefully it's better. It has to be. For now I'll drown my sorrows in M&M's, Snickers, Muse and the Big Bang Theory and be thankful that I have my passport and an awesome roommate :)
 

The Week

It hasn't been terribly exciting around here. On Tuesday my roommate moved out to a single room down the hall. I was all excited  (although cautiously) that I might get the room to myself - my roommate and I got along well, btw. People have still been moving in despite that fact that school already started two weeks ago. But all hopes were dashed on Friday when the residence emailed me and about five or six other girls saying that we can't stay in double rooms by ourselves and we would have to move in with one another. Fun times. There was a meeting today but I wasn't able to go due to class. But then I ran into a girl outside my door and from what I understood, by the end of the night I could have a new roommate/be moving rooms. Hopefully they're nice!

I still haven't registered for classes yet....gotta get on that....But I finally worked out my schedule. I've started this third week of school actually knowing what classes I'm taking and where they are, so that is lovely. They're okay. The hardest one is probably going to be the teaching Spanish as a second language course. I don't really know what's going on most of the time. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take any french classes this semester. I feel like if anything is gonna screw me up for 4th year it's gonna be french, which is my minor. I guess we will have to see what happens.

The course I am most excited about is Portuguese. I love the prof. He is from Lisbon and is so passionate about the culture and making the course interesting and not just about drilling grammar into our heads. He already speaks in Portuguese most of the class. Admittedly it can be a bit hard to understand him because he speaks Spanish with a strong accent but he's so nice and I'll get used to it.

Some girls and a guy just came up to my door and introduced themselves, after they heard there was an international girl in my room. They were so nice. Apparently there is a British girl across the hall but I haven't met/seen her yet.

What else....

Went out for tapas last Monday after class. That was nice. I had some delicious Shepard's pie like thing. Had I known it was so cheap I would have had five. Wednesday night was the regular intercambio (exchange) group that I go to with Vi, my friend. We went to a different bar than the week before. It was an open bar for 4 euros for the time we were there. Open bars are a common thing it seems during the week. You can usually get things like sangria, beers, some wines and other concoctions. There was an Eramus (the European student exchange network) party (again with open bar) on Thursday. We didn't stay out too long, by Spanish standards, only until about 3, when we left downtown. And the weekend was thoroughly boring as I was sick for most of it. Although I did get caught up on almost all my shows (I completely forgot about Hawaii Five-O - that's next on the list).

It's only Monday but this week is looking like a good one. I'm off to dinner!

oh and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! Enjoy the turkey :)

♥♥♥

This Town Called Salamanca

It is now day 5 in Salamanca and it has been an interesting/not terribly exciting few days.  My mom and I have basically traveled all over the city -  walking, taking the bus and going by taxi. Salamanca is small enough that you can walk almost anywhere in 30-40 mins. But it doesn’t feel like a small town.  There is the historic centre, where the old part of the university is and where the main tourist attractions are. And then there is the rest of the city, which has sort of grown out from the centre.  The centre is probably almost a thousand years old and can be a bit hard to navigate because the streets aren’t labelled the greatest and can be very narrow. 

But it really is beautiful.

The Cathedral by my mom's hotel.

The last few days has basically been about setting me up and getting everything ready. On Thursday I moved into my room on res. And today, at this very moment as I write my post, my roommate is moving in, the day before classes start. For the last few days I thought I wouldn’t have one so naturally this came as a shock. But she seems nice and she’s Spanish. Ohhh how I wish the room was cleaner…

not the greatest pic of the outside of res

 

I also looked up classes and got some of the academic stuff sorted. The University works very differently from UofT. In Toronto, courses would have already been picked in July, all done online. The process for international students is different from the process for regular Spanish students, so I don’t officially enroll until October  1^st. This first week I attend classes as if I were in them, to see if I like them or not. By Friday I have to fill out a sheet with the courses I want, get it signed by the department coordinator and then submit it to my faculty – La Facultad de filologia (philology – the study of written texts – I def had to google that). Then I’m good to go and permanently locked into my classes. 

My faculty. Ain't it splendid!

Faculty of philology

Yeaaa that’s it for now. Not very exciting I know. Tomorrow’s filled with even more non-excitement/nervous anxiety as classes start and I’m going to attempt (once more!) to get a phone plan. The last time I forgot my passport, which they need to open an account. Hopefully I can find a very bilingual person to drag with me so I don’t get duped or something : P

A Long Day

As my friend Cayda said, "Welcome to Europe, where nothing makes sense." How true. I've only been here a few hours really and already it's so different. But different is refreshing :)

Salamanca is right above the 'M' in Madrid

This won't be a long post since sour lemon flavoured, Spanish pop is the only thing keep me awake right. The trip here to Salamanca was a long one. We (me and my marvelous mama who decided last minute to see me off all the way to Spain), flew to Frankfurt first and then had a connecting flight to Madrid. It was a ate afternoon flight leaving Toronto so by time we got to Madrid it was already early afternoon again. After spending almost an hour running around Madrid's unnecessarily annoying airport we eventually found our way to Salamanca, two and a half hours away. We ended up having to take a cab from the airport to the train station in the centre of the city to get to Salamanca. There is a bus that runs express from the airport, but for some reason having it run anytime between 7 am and 7 pm is unreasonable -_____-

When we got to Salamanca we had two options; option A: go to the hotel, put all our bags down, settle in a bit and then head to the university to get my lodging sorted out; or option B: go straight to the university. We opted for A. After the cheapest cab ride of my life, we came to a very lovely little hotel, apparently within walking distance of the uni but we never got that far with our day - intense hunger had led us outside to seek out edible deliciousness. But that was then interrupted once we saw the giant cathedral two minutes into our walk. Spanish architecture is something I really want to experience and it seems Salamanca if rife with it. After that we did what all bad tourists do - buy a pizza and eat it at the hotel. We were so tired we just didn't care.

And now I must go to sleep because I'm sure tomorrow will be filled with confusion as I attempt to move in, learn the campus and pick courses (yea that's right, I haven't done that yet :S). Oh and of course my residence has to be the farthest one from the centre of campus and is located in the science part of campus - WHERE NONE OF MY COURSES WILL BE!! uggghhhhhhhhh

Anywho, I leave you with random photos so far :D (click them to enlarge)

Sunrise in Frankfurt

What the Spanish country side looks like between Madrid and Salamanca. It's awfully dry and brown.

The beautiful cathedral of which I speak

Please take a moment to appreciate the awesomeness that is the sign

I think we need more vaulted ceiling in Canada. Just saying...

The Church part of the Cathedral. It's so freaking ornate

a prayer

time to confess

If someone could explain to me why they are eating pizza with chopsticks, that would be much appreciated

please excuse some formatting issues...still working on those! :)