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Published: March 13th 2008
After Andorra
must be all that chocolate...We travelled back from Andorra taking the longer, scenic and cheaper route. Because we meant to, of course, not because we took the wrong turning at one of the roundabouts... We passed through this serious ghost town, which was pretty freaky until we realised that it was Sunday and the Catalans are uber religioso. Alex had a few chocolate bars to keep alert while he was driving - where he got the idea that chocolate would be good I don't know, because he crashed hardcore when we had about 30 minutes left of our journey and ended up pulling over and having a little nap! We made it back safe and sound tho, and returned the car to the hire store, got a taxi to the Erasmus hostel, checked in, got an ethernet cable, and rested well. Oh the fun. We had dinner with Alex's sister Tasha at a restaurant that turned out not to be as nice as she remembered.
Monday 10 March 2008 As soon as I woke, I started looking for flats - it was all proving harder than I expected, and my faith in finding a place was waning :-( We viewed
The flat
Bedroom/lounge area a nice flat on Corsega, which was too expensive for us, but Alex tried to charm Karin the agent with his natural ability to bullshit, and she said she'd call us after she'd spoken to the landlord about the rent.
Carried on looking for more flats, but there doesn't seem to be much about.
Found out it's actually a hell of a lot cheaper to eat food from the supermarket rather than a restaurant, so we ate a baguette with chorizo and dairylea. I later discovered an amazing cuatro estacion ensalada for just 65 cents, so dinner was that little bit better.
Tuesday 11 March 2008 Hadn't heard back from Karin so Alex called her to chase about yesterday's flat and also to ask about another one we'd seen online. Unfortunately the other flat landlord wanted 4 months' rent up front so that was a big no no, and she hadn't heard from the woman about yesterday's flat. We did however see a little studio flat in Gracia, which turned out to be a tiny shithole so that would explain the affordability...
Karin called later in the afternoon and confirmed that the landlord would accept a lower offer. Alex
The flat
Kitchen area tried again to negotiate, but she wasn't having any of it. We had another look at the flat, where we found a load of stuff that Karin needed to confirm with the landlord before we agreed anything.
Wednesday 12 March 2008 Took a really nice long walk to Park Guell, where Alex was harrassed by an elderly Spanish man with a walking stick who kept telling him about something that we had to see, but as Alex's Espanol is not perfect and the old man was missing teeth, Alex just smiled and said "si" until he stopped talking. We tried to get away a few times before he actually stopped talking completely. We saw the Fountain which was pretty disappointing - there wasn't any water! Just some man sitting there. But on the way back, Karin called with everything we needed so we said we'd call her back later to confirm.
Went to view a flat in Les Corts in the afternoon, which was right by the Camp Nou. We waited outside the block which looked really nice, but the agent didn't show up for ages. When Alex called, they said he had been called away at the last
minute, which didn't make Alex very happy, especially after we'd spent EUR1.30 to get there and had to spend another EUR1.30 getting back. EACH!
So that kind of made our decision for us - I took it as a sign, and we arranged to go to Karin's office to sign the papers. We went through the contract, which was in Spanish and Alex made her change a line that said the landlord has the right to enter the flat without any notice. Go Alex! So we signed and got one set of keys. Yay!!! :-) The other set we get on Tuesday apparently, when the landlord's friend gets back to Barcelona (she's actually living in the Canary Islands).
We picked up the stuff that we'd left at Tasha's and moved it into the flat. We decided to stay the last night at the hostel, seeing as we'd have to pay for it anyway. We told the woman it was our last night and she said our bill would be EUR250 - we said we'd pay in the morning.
Thursday 13 March 2008 Got up early to check out of the hostel. I'm sure my bag has gained an
Our first dinner in the flat!
Tortellini and broccoli. yum! extra stone somehow... When Alex went to pay, we were only charged EUR125, so we ran out of the hostel as quickly as my little legs could go before he realised that he hadn't charged us for the last 2 nights! he didn't end up chasing after us and we got a taxi to our new flat. Exciting shit. The flat's actually on the top floor (6th) with a terrace that goes all around the flat - it's huge! Unfortunately I don't think my arms could handle carrying my bag up all those stairs so I made Alex swap bags with me, as he has a backpack! Haha. Made the 115 steps to the top and settled in nicely.
Had a shower and got ready to go out, as I had made an appointment with a Spanish school - apparently I have to take a test to see what level my Spanish is at, even though I'm a complete beginner! After I came out of the shower, Alex started laughing his head off while pointing at my face. Nice. I knew what he was going to say tho - I look like a fuckin idiot with these goggle marks! No
biggie - not like I've got anyone to impress. I say it gives me character anyway...
Got to the school where they gave me a 2 page multiple choice test with a composition bit at the end that I have to write in Spanish about myself and why I want to learn Spanish. I filled in my details at the top and spent 2 minutes reading each question before returning it to the woman completely blank! Then I had to have an informal conversation with one of the teachers - Jordi (pronounced like someone from Newcastle) - where I was asked general questions in Spanish. I kept answering in English, and he concluded that I'm a beginner - I COULD'VE TOLD THEM THAT AT THE BEGINNING!!!! Anyhoo, I decided to book into an intensive course before the TEFL course begins. They told me that there's a group class that's slightly ahead of my level (surprise!), so I should come in for a catch up lesson tomorrow on my own so that I can join the group on Monday. I agreed. Scary. I hope I catch up ok.
Spent the afternoon buying food for the flat and a notebook for my
Horse meat stall
I couldn't believe they'd put up those cute pictures of horsies when they're selling the meat! Spanish course. It's green :-)
5:57pm - emailed Neilson my complaint letter about the dire experience we had in Andorra. I wonder how long it'll take them to get back to me.
Friday 14 March 2008 I had to get up early for my Spanish lesson, which is only 15 mins away from the flat. The first morning at the flat and no lie in - probably wouldn't have been able to have much of one anyway, as the flat is so bright the light woke me up early :-S
The lesson was ok - a lot of dictionary usage! Not sure if I'm at the right level to join the class on Monday, but guess there's nothing better than being thrown in at the deep end.
Went for a long walk with Alex to the beach via a park where I stepped in dogshit. Nice. Tried to scrape it out with various sticks then went down to the beach to wash it off in the sea. Then had some tapas with Tasha and her mates at a trendy touristy place. Dunkin Donuts for dessert.
Back at the flat, Alex fell asleep yet again.
Cooked our second dinner
at the flat, which incidentally turned out pretty well considering we had no sauces or herbs for the chicken and I hadn't made patatas bravas before. Ended up in central where Alex and I refused to pay 10 euros to get into a hip hop club and almost got a churros on the way home.
Saturday 15 March 2008 Bad start to the day - there was no hot water for a shower and spent ages trying to get the boiler to work. While doing so, I accidentally broke my hairclip. Grrr. Thought "great, today's gona be a really crappy day", BUT managed to get hot water, had a lovely shower, and some Golden Grahams for brekkie. We'd decided yesterday that we need to check out the market down the road for some food/cheapo clothes, so we went about 16:30. When we got there it was shut, so we went to the China shop and bought a peeler for the potatoes needed for the patatas bravas that I'm trying to perfect, and some post its. Why not, they always come in handy. I was asked by a Spaniard if I worked in the shop, which I managed to answer in Spanish all by myself - "no!". Alex asked the shop guy when the market was open and he said 17:00, so we walked back to check it out and sure enough, it was open. We walked inside and although there weren't too many stalls open, we found an array of food items that we couldn't resist and went home pretty pleased. The market has loads of fresh food stalls for fruit, fish, meat, and miscellaneous. Managed to find the Japanese stall and bought some soy sauce so I was happy :-) Alex was ecstatic as we'd bought a slab of tuna for dinner. We headed down to the Irish pub on our road to watch the footie, but they were showing the rugby so we decided to go to Bristol Blue which would no doubt be showing football. Unfortunately we went the wrong way so we had to turn back once we realised and when we passed the Irish pub, they were showing the footie. So we went in, spent 7 Euros on a Magners and an OJ, and I started to read the paper while Alex watched the game. After about 4 minutes though, they switched the telly to the rugby and Alex was muy pissed off! I was happy with my paper so we sat there til I was finished. Hehe.
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