From Newbie to Uber Geek

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Changes and Frustration

Here again another message from Barcelona! This is the sixth week I’m here and time has been flying and everything keeps changing! Like for example, when I moved in my apartment there was one French girl, one Dutch guy and one German. Since the French girl was not feeling happy at here work she left after 2 weeks, then Carlos who’s half Mexican, half American moved in, to move to a place closer to his work after 15 days, (well officially he moved out, but he’s practically still living at our place) at the same time the German guy moved out and two Italian girls moved in. Next week one girl is leaving and a Spanish guy will come in her place, and the other girl will leave the 19th of August, and then Carlos will move back in (he’s missing us too much!) what makes me living with 3 guy’s again! :D This is a lot of fun, except when Robbert and Carlos decide to imitate the dude’s from “dude where is my car”! And they really can go on for the whole evening “dude, sweet dude” “Awesome dude” “where’s your car dude?” Carlos uses the word Awesome for pretty much everything, and even though I think it’s an annoying word I caught myself on using it… Thanks Carlos!

People come and go here in Barcelona, like last weekend, we were out doing some touristy stuff with Robbert, Carlos and my Italian roommate (I’m so sorry but I forgot her name) and we met Tim, a great guy from America, who spent the rest of the day with us. Carlos, Tim and I went to a great local (cheap!!) tapas bar for diner, and later for drinks at Oveja Negra (black sheep!) and had margarita’s at Margarita Blue! We had so much fun that night, and the other day Tim left Barcelona to continue his Eurotrip and walked out of our lives again…

I’m meeting so many different people here from all ages and nationalities, and everybody has his/her own stories, goals, past, idea’s and interests, it’s amazing listening to all those stories and interest. The great thing here is that the people are so open, and into meeting other people too, like the first day in my new class I sat next to a Scottish girl who seemed really nice, so I just asked her like: “hej, I’m thinking about going to the beach this afternoon, do you feel like coming” and she was without hesitation telling me she was, and we had a great day on the beach.

It is really great for me being so busy, even though when you are not having any specific plans for the day or evening there is always something coming up! Before I went here I was actually next to being really excited, really scared as well, you know, I didn’t know anybody here, didn’t know the language and I was so used to having my friends and family around! But I’m very lucky with my roommates, they’re great, and of course Dragana, a girl from Belgrade, we became really good friends, she’s the only one who’s still here from the people I met in school the first week, and from November on she will be living here in Barcelona! Every Saturday we’re going to the station and get on the first train going somewhere outside Barcelona, even though the beach is nice here in the city, the beaches in the small towns are amazing! So with all these people around and things to do it is a lot easier being “alone” than I expected, I don’t really have time to miss my friends and family, (also because my mom is still calling me everyday of course :D ). But I can feel myself changing and getting more independent everyday, not only financially but also emotionally, and discovering what I want! Also the weather has a great influence, in Holland it’s always dark, cold and rainy, and here it’s always light, sunny, nice warm… It makes you more positive and relaxed!

Of course things are not only great, there are many frustrations too! To start with our landlord, he is a real ass****! Last week they decided that the apartment was not clean enough (without even seeing it) and sent in some one to clean (as in a weird guy who was wandering around the apartment for 2 hours doing nothing) and we each had to pay 20 euro for that!!! That’s 80 euro for one guy wandering around for 2 hours! I’m mean, well, fair enough if they’re gonna send in a cleaner who we have to pay when the place really is dirty, but I’ve been cleaning the bathroom like one week before that, and the place was really not filthy at all! And now the water boiler thing is broken! First it was only leaking, but it was still working, and yesterday they finally sent someone to repair, but what did that guy do; he totally took the boiler apart, and then said; “ow I can’t repair this” and left…. So here we are, with a very old not working boiler, so without warm water, with a landlord who’s a pain in the ass and not willing to fix it…

It’s a great adventure! :D


ow btw, of course I would love to stay up to date with your lives as well! If you click on the 0 comments, you can leave a message!

1 Comments:

  • At 02 September, 2006 13:18, Blogger Janneke said…

    Heej Willem!!! Ja was echt een super gezellige week met jullie. Tis echt heel vervelend zonder paprika chips, dus jullie moeten maar weer snel langs komen, dan zetten wij alvast de Jack weer koud, Carlos en ik geloven er niets van dat t in NL net zo lekker is! :D

    we hadden laatst jullie pannekoeken gebakken, vet lekker, maar ze smaakten wel een beetje naar Rien's shampoo ;)

    m'n baan is echt heel vet ja! k mag binnekort zelfs naar Praag om mee te helpen met een conferentie!

    Hoe gaat t verder met jou?

    Tot snel!

    Dikke kus

     

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