hello from Portugal

another super quick hello
no time to write but felt like i should post a happier entry than the last one
we're in Portugal - its awesome!!!!!
3hrs sitting in a stationary train yesterday not so awesome lol

i heard our weather made it to nz news....its pretty psycho hahaha
off to do some sightseeing - gotta maximise our time train out ofd here is at 4

xoxoxoxoxoxox

hello

havent blogged all week, so i felt i should say hello and let you know i´m still alive and well.
don´t really have much to say at the moment though, in an odd kind of mood and keen to get home

just went for a bit of a walk along near the river and back up past the cathedral and uni.

time is passing so fast!!!

looking forward to Portugal this weekend and hopefully I´ll be able to write a more interesting post later.

love
xoxoxox

Weekend in Galicia

Larissa and I just got back into Salamanca after an awesome weekend spent in Galicia, which is in the north wesern corner of Spain.


It´s about 10.15m and got to get home, so I can´t write much at the moment, but I can´t wait to upload some pictures and explain more.

Short story [i hope]: Galicia is beautiful, GREEN!!!, and overall reminded us very much of New Zealand lol, though still very different. Since Friday afternoon we have been to so many places and spent a long time on buses! Left here at 2.30pm for Santiago, historically [well and currently] an important destination for pilgrims. Got there late at night, walked, ate, slept. Bus went through hills/mountains where we saw more snow it was preettyy - then it got dark. Saturday morning wandered around Santiago, had my first ``chocolate con churros´´ - yum! - looked at the cathedral and surrounding plazas, then got on a bus to head up along the ``costa del muerte´´ Scenic route along the coast through hills and trees etc in a nearly empty 2-level bus, in which we scored the front seats upstairs so pretty sweet views!!!
This trip ended at ¨finisterre¨ - aka the end of the world - or so everyone thought before Columbus discovered America. Small, slightly unfriendly little town which really did feel like the end of the world, haha. From there we got another bus to A Coruña, which is a pretty awesome city on an isthmus yay with beach right in the urban centre pretty much. Spent this morning exploring a bit of it, mostly around the coast, and climbed up an old tower and enjoyed the wild ocean and spray and salt and wind and everything. It was awesome. Then it was train back to Santiago, across town to the bus station, and 6 or so hours back to Salamanca and I guess the story ends there for now.

Off home to write a script for a 15min oral presentation about NZ - funn.

love to all
xoxoxox

Life in Salamanca...

Plaza Mayor in Salamanca with rising moon in corner - looked bigger and prettier in real life.

``Roman Bridge´´ - looking back towards the city

Julia, Me, Larissa on the Roman Bridge with the city and Cathedral(s) in the background.

Just posted a huge as blog, but because i started writing it last week and saved it as an unpublished draft, blogger decided to post it a few entried below, so scroll down to find it hahaha

bye for now

xoxoxoox

photos: Madrid-Salamaca

photos part 2

thats it for now

xoxox

PHOTOS!!!! [part 1]

...so my camera has had no space left for days and i´ve finally made it to a photo shop and got them all on disk :) which means that a) i can now take more yay! and b) i can post some here for you all to see!!!

I´m gonna post them in small groups in separate posts so they dont hopefully take too long to upload hahahaha

here goes...




[at beijing airport]














....so this is slower and less easy to edit than i thought
sorry i cant caption/rotate them
well not at the moment anyway
theyre all in madrid, except for the first one

lalala

dammit well i was gonna write a bloggy about my routine and such here in Salamanca but I´m running out of time so those details are gonna have to wait [again]. how fast the time passes on the internet! lol

I think I already said I woke up this morning to find a snow-covered city =) well it was more like a dusting haha but its a start. Larissa said she thinks it´ll snow again and I agree. Didnt do much this morning very different, oh i did a bit of homework lol how exciting - and i´ve got more to do after dinner.

But it turned into a beautiful afternoon. Myself, Larissa and Julia, after discovering that non laundromats are open on a saturday afternoon, decided instead to go exploring. So we visited the city´s cathedral [the first of many that I´m gonna be seeing for sure] - bags of dirty clothes and all!!! Highlight was climbing up to the top and navigating narrow winding staircases and platforms etc among the [i forget what theyre proper called lol but the roof bits of the cathedral] fantastic views out over the city. From there we walked down to the Puente Romano [roman bridge] across the river then slowly made our way back to the Plaza Mayor [pretty much the central point of the city and default meeting place]. Stopped at a little cafe there for a drink, then parted ways

tomorrow morning we´re meeting at the train station to go somewhere - we dont know yet lol just gonna decide when we get there. sounds like fun.
Hopefully with a couple of new friends - one italian and one canadian. Well we´re gonna text them soon hope they can and will come.

Must be off now. Dinner is soon and i like to get home at least a little bit in advance - feels a bit rude otherwise haha

xoxoxox

Life in Salamanca...

ok time for a bloggie about my what i get up to and my routine etc here in Salamanca. The picture I´ve posted is the view from my bedroom window the morning i woke up and discovered snow!!! i was so excited. It hasnt really snowed here since then.

well, how to start? lol. Everything works so very differenty here to in NZ - its a completely different lifestyle

My classes start at 9am so I get up a bit before 8. Breakfast is 2 pieces of toast `cooked in the frypan, there is no toaster in the house - i don´t know if that is normal or not] with jam, a cup of tea [no kettle - she heats the water in the microwave!!!] and sometimes fruit.
Its about 15, maybe 20 minutes to walk to uni from the house. one day I´m gonna get out my camera and take some photos of my route to uni - just because.

Classes are from 9-2, or 2.15 really. first up 2 hours of grammar, followed by one hour of conversation/writing [its a fun class haha] these are in the same room with the same people but 2 different teachers. I nornally sit between my friend Ofelia, who´s Korean, and Paula who´s from Brazil. Lots of Brazilian girls at the uni, oh and a couple of guys. Also a lot of Koreans! In the class theres also a Norwegian girl who i talk to a bit. Then theres a couple of American´s who always have things to say to get the class laughing, and about 4 or 5 more Koreans, oh and an older guy from Italy who is a) difficult to understand because of his accent and b)really annoying! lol. But yeah the class is awesome, and now I ramble. The teachers are fantastic, really good at what they do and funny also.

After conversation class, Paula and I have to walk abt 10 minutes down the road, back through the Plaza Mayor to the other building where I have the last two classes. Spanish culture is totally awesome!!! It´s interesting stuff, though some of it I already know...but the teacher is the coolest ever. She´s really energetic and animated and really really funny. The last class, (Spanish/latinamerican film) however, is kind of an anticlimax lol. Not quite so interesting, and by then I´m always super tired and starving hungry, which makes concentration difficult. And lately when we come into the room it reeks like a mixture of vomit, BO, and who knows what else so all the windows have to be opened, thus makuing the room freexing, but hey.
Enough about classes.

After that it´s home for lunch, which, as I´ve said, is huuuge. Almost always starts of with some sort of soup, with salad [best red capsicums ever!!!] and bread. After that Pascuala [thats my host mum] goes out to the kitchen and comes back with meat - normally some form of cerdo (pig), but sometimes chicken (like today) or something else. She never gives me fish, because on my second or third day she served fried squid rings - and i didnt like it. LOL

Ater lunch i stay around home for an hour or 2, normally do a bit of homework or whatever, and yeah. All the shops and offices etc shut down at 2, and don´t reopen until sometime between 4 and 5.30, then they stay open til 8 or 9. No one is ever at home at 6. except, it seems, all our host parents lol. It´s really weird, but we´re getting used to it.

I normally go out to meet friends at 4 or 4.30, either to do important things like booking bus tickets or whatever, or just to hang out etc. Oh and internet cafe!! Normally grab a hot chocolate at some point, since dinner isnt until 9. Theres so many things that are just never gonna be the same when i get back. Hot chocolate is one of them. They dont actually call it ``hot chocolate´´, its just chocolate. Larissa and I were wondering this arvo what they actually put in it because its soooo goood. Its thick, creamy, rich, and surprisingly hard to describe lol. Its almost like a chocolate sauce, but not really, because that sounds disgusting. But since I don´t like coffee, and the tea here is not so great, I´m pretty much limited to chocolate and orange juice. Both of which are amazing so i cant complain. In bars and cafes zumo de naranja is always squeezed when you order it - yum! good stuff.

Normally get home between 8 and 9. dinner is at 9, its a bit smaller than lunch but normally just as good! and when i´m at home theres almost always more study etc to be done.

Theres heaps of details missed out but i´ve written enough for now and I´ve gotta get home. Becuase I have a 15min presentation to start writing, and also have to get ready for our little weekend excursion. We´re going straight after class tomorrow way up north to Santiago de Compostela and maybe A Coruña, in Galicia, so should be fun :)

I´m out of here!

love everyone
xoxoxox

two things...

1. It snowed overnight!!! like lots!!! well not lots lots but enough that all the streets and plazas etc [well not so much the streets because theyve been walked and driven over] have a light covering of snow! that was the best thing ever to wake up to.
because before now its snowed but not enough to last just a little shower every now and then

so happy happy

2. I have a spanish cellphone number. And, I am a dork. Because just now I realised I don't know it and the card thing with my number is at home, stupid, i came here to post it. Well that will have to wait damn but in the meantime if anyone is particularly interested then char and mum have it. But since it is an overseas number, it costs more [dunno how much but probably heaps] to send a message so be careful lol.
I try to put my NZ sim card in in the evenings [your mornings] to recieve any texts and i hope to top up my nz account today so i can send texts from it again.

anyway must go love to all

xoxoxo

INTERNET!!!! al last!!!

lol

just a quickie update because have to get home for dinner soon.
pity because i have soooo much to say!

well I have more to tell about madrid but thats gonna have to wait because tonight i want to talk about Salamanca.

First lesson: In Madrid it´s near impossible to get lost, even if you want to. In Salamanca however, you definately can. And I do.
When we arrived on the train we all did our best to work out a route to our respective houses - of course there were no maps to be found at the station!
Although my house is only about a 5min walk from there, i got hopeless lost and walked for over an hour, bags and all. Well at least now i know how to ask strangers on the street for help LOL
Larissa also walked for an hour, as did Sol. Great start.

Have lost myself several times since, especially around the uni campus, but have had maps to rescue myself with =)
but every street looks the same until you´ve walked on them several times and even then they look similar!

Well the uni is like another world, so so so so old and so impressive and beautiful etc etc

My host mum cooks nice as food - very spanish, very fresh yadda yadda yadda
so far the only thing i havent been able to eat was the other night´s squid rings - hmmm...

courses are fun, and my teachers are awesome, especially for spanish culture

salamanca is very beautiful

oh, and its freeeezing, but i´m loving it. the temperature is mostly hanging around 0 degrees, plus or minus 1 or so.
it snows little bit every now and then, heaviest this morning as i was walking to uni.

the weather is all over the news because all over spain theres been heavy heavy snow.
Barcelona is covered with snow
Madrid was the lastest we were watching that at lunchtime
Almeria in the south also
its even been snowing in Mallorca!!
Me and Sol are hoping it´s gonna snow more here but dunno aye

my `mum´told me over lunch today that i know more spanish than i think i do, and that i learn fast`[at least thats what i think she said]

so much more to tell but gotta run for now. Its so good to read all your comments and emails etc

home for dinner now - its at 9pm!!!! crazy

xoxoxoxo

So I´m in Madrid...

...wow!!

The chair at this computer is way too low and rather annoying - oh well.

Sooo it´s been a long couple of days!!!
It was both strange and sad leaving all my friends and family at the airport on Friday night. That feels like so long ago though - so much has happened since then!!! I probably won´t even remember everything as I write this but oh well here goes:

My first thought as I walked onto the plane at Auckland airport was ¨Now I see why they call it cattle class!!!¨ lol. Watched a couple movies - decided that Michael Cera is cool, slept a very little bit but mostly was too awake - damn.
Flight was long long long boring boring boring but I always knew that was going to be the way.

I hadn´t been given boarding passes for my connecting flights at Beijing, which proved somewhat difficult and led to some trauma and feeling rather stupid!ç
Short story is I couldn´t go directly through the transfers queue without a boarding pass and I got sent in various different directions by different people with no idea what exactly I was supposed to be doing and how I was going to get my boarding passes for the next 2 flights. Finally a staff member found me by the train station place [they have a train shuttle between terminals/parts of the terminal - that place is huge!!] lost and crying and feeling hopeless and stupid. She spoke not much English but took me all over the airport, through the check-in queues and everything to get my passes and took me to the right gate. Was very grateful and after that China gave me no more trouble.

Got on the Lufthansa plane and after noticing, as I had already heard, that the seats looked even more cramped and less comfortable than on Air New Zealand, I was pleased to discover that I had an aisle seat in the front row, so plenty of leg room =) and as it turned out the two seats next to me were unoccupied, so I had space to spread out my stuff etc - saweeet. Not so impressed that there was no entertainment-on-demand so the iPod got plenty of use.
Transfer at Frankfurt was straightforward and only a short flight to Madrid. I probably got about 3-4 hours sleep in the entire 36ish hours of traveilling - tired!

When I landed in Madrid however, I waited at the baggage claim forever but my bag never showed up. Cue more tears, more stress, etc etc etc, but the guy at the lost luggage desk was helpful and spoke good english and was pretty damn cute!!!
The bag still hasn´t turned up - NOT IMPRESSED!
The airline said they will reimburse me for up to 50€ to buy stuff I need today that I should have had in my bag. I get another 50€ for tomorrow, since they still don´t know where it is - well they didn´t this afternoon. So i´ve got some pjs to sleep in and new pair of underwear and socks. tomorrow first thing gonna get another change of clothes and hopefully I´ll see my bag sometime soon.

The hostel, though a bit out in the suburbs is easy to get to and takes about half an hour or maybe less, walking included, from the middle of the city - it´s an easy trip really. It´s big and clean and the staff are friendly and helpful enough. Was a bit slow getting out this morning and was not feeling so great because of the bag mess, but once I met up with Sol everything felt better. Nice to have someone to talk to and hang out with =)Sol is pretty much awesome! We discovered after a couple of hours that we love almost exactly the same bands =) so yay hehe and theres plenty more we seem to have in common. We spent the afternoon/evening wandering around central Madrid - sometimes with purpose and sometimes not haha. I love the city, and it´s so different to Auckland or anywhere I´ve ever been. It´s crazy when I stop to think and realise - wow, I´m actually in Spain!!!
I love all the old buildings and streets and the Plaza Mayor is just incredible! We´ve done some shopping - since i needed stuff and Sol needed a new pair of shoes. We went down and walked along the Paseo del Prado - which is like the high culture end of Madrid. Enormous lines to get into the Museo del Prado - possibly because Sundays are free entry and its holiday season, plus it´s a hot tourist destination. We´re planning to go back tomorrow morning with Larissa. Also on the agenda for tomorrow is a visit to the Palacio Real [Royal palace]

There is no shortage of hot guys around here!!! It´s awesome!!!
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

anyway, I must be off for now, as its getting close to midnight and a) the computer room is going to close b) i´m going to run out of credit and c) i want maybe shower and definately bed!
hoping for an early start tomorrow but will see what time i wake up.

Cellphone is off for now, will turn it on maybe at some point tomorrow but not sure how much life its battery will have - it´s getting low!

thats it for now
love to all

xoxoxo