Janine In Spain

New Year Started

2010-01-03T17:09:00.005+01:00

So Christmas went well, went down to a friends (Vanesa & her family) house near Guadalajara, but still within the Comunidad de Madrid for Christmas Eve (which is when the main meal is held), and there was so much food! Shrimps, prawns, clams, suckling pig, lamb, chorizo, serrano ham, iberian ham.... and that's just the meat.... Had spent the day "de vinos" drinking wines in Madrid, soaking up the Christmas atmosphere, and of course that continued into the night!
Then the next day went up to Bilbao where I met up with heaps of people, some of whom I hadn't seen in years! The USACers Seth, David and Beth were there (who I studied with in 2005) and even went go-karting with los ñikoñako (Markel's friends) which left me with a bit of whiplash.... (2 guys behind me + speed + barrier = crash!) But I had a great time. Unfortunately not a white Christmas like last year, but I think that last years Christmas will be impossible to beat!!!

Over to Oviedo for New Years Eve, and then met up with friends to celebrate the 12 bell rings (at midnight obviously) with 12 grapes, eating one on each ring! Next year I'll get pip-free ones because you gotta eat them fast! Got home at 8am, and spent the first day of twenty-ten sleeping :-)

Back to teaching in a week, so will make the most of the rest of my holidays, though this time relaxing probably..... or planning my next holiday....! Finally have a (sevens) rugby game to look forward to in February! Asturias doesn't have a league so we're always holding out for invitations/opportunities to get some teams together. The Spanish national (womens) team is playing England in Gijón so we'll be playing a few teams from the north of Spain the day before (so there's more of a crowd at the 'main' game!) Going to training will now be much more motivational I'm sure!!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and that the New Year treats you well!

Developments

2009-11-02T19:28:00.004+01:00

Well, my procrastination has developed very well, I can now go 11 months without posting!

Summary of year:

Christmas 2008 - Lapland with Renelle & Hamish was everything and more...... I met the husky in the picture below, stayed in the open fire heated cabin directly behind him, and had SO MUCH FUN! Some of the things we did in the Korvala Inn: ice hole swimming (only 10 seconds though...) followed by a Finnish sauna (95ºC), pancakes and champagne christmas morning breakfast, ice hole fishing (Hamish, but didn´t catch anything), forest cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, taboganning, meeting reindeer, getting driven in a sledge by a pack of huskies, driving my own pack of 5 huskies set against an orange sky (dusk at 2pm), and a moment where time stopped - seeing the aurora borealis, the Northern Lights on our last night.

New Years 2008 - After Finland I went through Talinn (-amazing christmas market, Estonia), Warsaw (-haunting streets where The Pianist was filmed, Poland) and ended up in Kraków with Katarzyna from my language course, and partied hard in the main square at a Leona Lewis concert! After a few days here in beautiful Kraków I visited Berlin which I absolutely loved also, especially the 3 storied building in the middle of a weird suburb covered floor to ceiling in graffiti which didn´t appear on any tourist maps!

January 2009 - Moved to Oviedo in Asturias, the north of Spain, to move into a great modern apartment, and got another (and better) teaching job here too. This is the view from the apartment.

Easter - With a few friends from Madrd, I went rock climbing in Espiel near Córdoba (Southern Spain) and had an amazing time! 6th form OE really helped out hahaha.

July - Back to Bilbao for 'summer camp'! Nice to live near the beach again!

August - Dad came to visit me!!!!! We went from Bilbao to San Sebastián, Oviedo, Gijón, Cudillero, Tapia, Santiago de Compostela, La Coruña ... flight to Barcelona - Dad was real impressed by the Sagrada Familia! Then a flight to Seville - so hot 44ºC walking around, Cádiz which I hadn´t been to before and was so beautiful, had problems with car rental (er, I´d booked it for July accidently...) so bussed it to Tarifa where we stayed in a luxury type tent in a farm type place many kilometers from civilisation.... was it a surprise that Fawlty Fincas lived up to its name? From the southern tip of Spain we made our way to Gibraltar, another highlight of the trip, especially seeing as this time I made it up the rock! Saw the Barbary Macaques monkeys native to Gibraltar, saw St Michaels caves, and the 1780's Great Siege Tunnels. And stocked up on Crunchie bars!!! Even had a pie which was delicious. Then northward to Ronda, Córdoba, the amazing Alhambra at Granada of course, then stayed in a 1000 year old castle in Toledo and finally up to Madrid and then Dad was off!!! It was such an awesome trip and great to see family!!
Photoset Part 1 - The Basque Country and Asturias
Photoset Pert 2 - Galicia and Barcelona

Then took a 4 day trip to Oporto in Portugal with some friends from Oviedo, saw a few other friends, went port wine tasting of course, went to the beach but too cold to swim, and loved the 100 men exhibition in the middle of the city. The city itself was a little decrepit and run down..... not like Spanish cities at all. But nice all the same, just a different atmosphere.

To finish a jam packed August, I met up with Renelle and Hamish in Valencia and went to the Tomatina!!! Oh wow again! And it was all the more fun because I had specific people to target this time with tomatoes hehehehehe. Stayed in a beautiful apartment overlooking the City of Arts and Sciences, then off to Seville (hot again!), Córdoba, and Granada (staying in the same hostel with a roof top pool aahhhhhh), then Toledo (hostel picture on the left) and as a new city for me to visit, Salamanca (where we didn´t see salamanders though). Spotted the frog on the University façade, wandered around and was amazed at all the historical stuff around, and then off to Oviedo! A few slower days, nice to relax, and on the beach in Gijón. We were going to walk up to the lakes in the Picos de Europa (a mountain range in the north), but the weather packed in a bit but we still were enthralled by the Covadonga church, the grotto where King Pelayo is said to have seen the Virgin Mary and from this place and started the revolution which finally threw out the Moors several hundred years later, oh, and cider of course (photo on right for correct pouring style)! But all good things must come to and end, and those two headed off to Bilbao and San Sebastián, and in the remaining 3 weeks of September I did...

September - Nothing.

October - Back at work in the same academy, doing a business course as well, lets see if that´ll help me get a different job next year. Started going to rugby training, though I´m not sure if there´ll be enough girls for a (7's) team even. But going to training is fun enough!

November - Just started, and we bought a Wii! Um so maybe more distractions/reasons/excuses for me not to blog??? Hope not.

And the last photo here is one taken today, a tradgedy, no more peanut butter.

Christmas Plans

2008-12-03T14:34:00.006+01:00

Some photos of the (exact) cabins I´ll be staying in as I spend my Christmas in Lapland, Finland. Yes, that´s right, I´m spending Christmas Eve snuggling up in one of these beauties, in freaking freezing Finland. Nice and warm huh? Looking forward to it!!!! And then there´s the meeting bestest friends, drinking patxaran, ice hole swimming, dog sledding, snow mobiling....... Then I´m off backpacking for 10 days around the Baltic(Estonia & Latvia)/Poland/Berlin. So stoked. Can´t wait. Yahoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Cold toes and fingers

2008-11-02T22:40:00.004+01:00

Maybe I have a similar syndromme to that of my sister, not blog laziness, but being really busy??

Since 2.5 months ago things have been okish, however now that for the past month and a half i´ve had a stable job (teaching english however...) and stable place of residence i can be quite thankful for that! especially given that the crisis here has hit jobs and the unemployment level (12%) quite hard. So teaching in the same two places as last year, a private academy in Sopelana (15mins away in metro) 3 days a week, a private academy in Leioa on saturday mornings, and a handfull of private classes spread out around the district.

August would have to have been one of the best months (if not best) month of my life, it was so much fun being back in a classroom, learning spanish, flatting again (after a year at home), discovering a fantastic mojito bar, living in Santiago de Compostela where the remains of the apostle James are said to be burried, going on organised trips around the province of Galicia which was so beautiful - i´d say its what fiordland is to new zealand. wild beauty. and the city itself was spectacular. made some great friends from all over the world - slovakia, italy, poland, england, portugal, japan, greece, germany, holland........... great people and great experience!! lets just hope i get my diploma in the mail from the international spanish exam i did while on this course!!! (its equivilant to the advanced level in the English Cambridge exams.......)

as for the moment i´m just biding time until christmas comes along and then in january we´ll see if i am able to obtain a "business" job or if i´ll keep on teaching english until at least june. teaching english pays better than a beginner accountant for example in some companies. (not that im´going to be an accountant hahahaha).

celebrations: i got my degree in the mail last week! i am officially Janine O·$%& BMS. the rest of my name GradDip IntMnt will come in decembers graduation council seeing as waikato mucked up my graduation a little bit. but never mind. now the problem is that its not officially recognized in spain, so i have to convert it to a spanish one which could even require taking extra classes here at university. Susi got her first job as a bus driver which she´s all happy about so i´m glad for that, the only sucky thing is that we´re still long-distance (she lives 300km away) but as i said, in january we are reevaluating where to live, either Bilbao, Oviedo, or Madrid. depends on many things!!

its raining a lot here now, you can definately tell its nearing winter! snow all around spain but not here onthe coast. can´t wait for my winter clothes to arrive from nz! (i hope it's sent dad!)

i now have internet in my room, however its a stolen signal from the building across the road hehehehe, hence no photos uploaded so far as (murphy´s law) when i go to upload them i have no signal. anyway. i hope to keep in contact more, especially as i now have a routine to go by of work work work eat sleep!!! thankgod for coffee.

muxus, kisses, and splodges.
me

I´m Getting On To It....

2008-08-18T19:53:00.002+02:00

or as in the photo, getting off it..........

Yes yes, the blog will be up and running very shortly in un ratito.

Just let me do my Instituto de Cervantes DELE exam which is on Friday first!! It cost enough to sit so I gotta try!!!

Yes I have photos up on my flickr and facebook, I´m relatively up to date with fbook messages and emails, and the only thing that has lacked has been here!

It will survive! It will go on! It will be soon!

I´m here but very busy!

2008-06-29T17:55:00.003+02:00

I´m here!!! Living in Bilbao, about to start work tomorrow at the academy, catching up with friends, missing the internet terribly (hence no action recently), and going out!
Appologies for no photos or contact, as I said, it´s been hectic! But I had my last ever exam on Friday here and it went ok, so yay! I´m all done university wise!!!!!!!
Spain is playing the eurosoccer 2008 final against Germany tonight which should be a good game to watch!! Viva España!
This is just a quick note, will write more soon!!!

Hong Kong!

2008-06-22T15:28:00.002+02:00

I know I´m getting ahead of myself, not having commented on all the wonderful people back in NZ, but I´m nearing low battery on my laptop in the Hong Kong airport. Just thought I´d put this up as I wait for my Aeroflot flight at 1am!!!
It's really hot. And I have cankles. (where your calves and ankles merge as one!!)
Yes I got a little burnt.....

Manneken Pis!!!

2008-06-18T12:39:00.002+02:00

Look what I have waiting for me in Europe!!!! Nelle is showing me what she bought for me today on skype. Coolness!!!

Was doing all my packing today..... bag has hit the 20kg limit and I´m still going...... will have about $300 worth of baggage to send over by post. Its been quite a long day so I´m off to bed now.

I finish my 499 tomorrow so there´ll be a celebration!!! Yay!!

Bye Bye Dana

2008-06-16T13:51:00.003+02:00

Well thats me setting up a self timer for my final scooter ride (my scooter was called Dana). The shots I took were too cheesy to put up, so here´s my muffed attempt.

My walls are bare, no more postcards which makes my room kinda depressing. But 5 more days and I leave for Europe!!! That is if I survive 19 hours in Hong Kong, Aeroflot flights, the Moscow airport, and studying for my final exam. Looking forward to another adventure!!

Crap... I´m getting up in 4 hours to finish off my 499 report of an investigation........ see you! And yes, now I have to bike instead of (motor)bike in.... and in the rain at that...... oh well. At least I´ll have Coldplays new album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends to keep me company!!

6 days to go.....

2008-06-15T02:08:00.002+02:00

6 days!! OMGGGGGGGGGGG still so much to do....... and then I can jump up and down like I did in Cuenca in 2005.....

Hopefully my scooter will sell ok tonight.... hopefully I can get a bit more packing done..... hopefully I can stop procrastinating and finish my 499 already...................................

Ciao!

The Last of Many

2008-06-01T12:06:00.002+02:00

Well its been the start of many ´lasts´.
Friday was my last day at NZ Post where I was a mail officer. Yes, I got up early every morning for 9 months to put letters into peoples p.o. boxes. Isn´t that interesting. Yes. Name a chartwell business and I can tell you its p.o. box. Seriously, I can.

Anyway. I´ve been cleaning out my boxes in the attic at dads house, and man did I store a lot of crap. Some Jar Jar Binks stuff is up on trademe if anyone is interested...... hahaha.

20 days left......... its June already. Wow. I need to get my arse moving to get stuff done.......

Neighbourhood Bombings.....

2008-05-18T09:31:00.005+02:00

Just checking out my new neighbourhood online, and it turns out its been bombed twice in the past 6 months by the Basque terrorist organisation ETA. The last blast was a month ago against a political party's (PSE) headquarters - 5 kilos of explosives + a timer, and 7 Basque police hurt......

What am I going back to?!?!?!?!?!?

Photogenic

2008-05-17T01:50:00.005+02:00

Well, here I am counting down the days until I land in Spain.... 37 days......

Here in the photo (and the new blog header) are my favourite photos that I took the last time I was in Spain. They are (left to right, top first) Cuenca, Tarifa, Cadaques, Tarifa, Estepona, Valencia (during Las Fallas), Cadaques, and Barcelona.

I'm quite stoked because the two Cadaques photos (and another two of mine, the London Eye and a pipi shell in Raglan) were selected from 4,000 photos in a FlickrYahoo! competition, and made the top 100, so were put in the Auckland Art Gallery. Quite chuffed about that!

I have a place to stay in July now, flatting with an Aussie near the heart of Bilbao (as opposed to living near the sea in Getxo like last time). I'm starting to prepare my English classes too! Actually, if you go to that link, and have a look around, you'll even find a photo of me teaching there in 06/07!!

I've decided on where I'm going to do my 1 month intensive Spanish course, the University of Santiago de Compostela will be the place. I've never been there so am definately looking forward to that!!! Santiago de Compostela is famous for being the destination of the Camino de Santiago, or in English, the Pilgrims Trail, which starts in France, and ends up in the corner of Spain (about 800km).

After August however, who knows where I'll end up!!!!

Quote from the photo: When you travel, curiosity is never-ending; everything is new and you want to get to know it.

Lemons

2008-05-10T23:46:00.005+02:00

Right. A long time since last post...... I´m still in NZ, but I´m coming back.... June 21, note that down everyone! Am I excited? Yes. Am I nervous? Definately.

Teaching a summer camp type course in Leioa (between Getxo and Bilbao) in July, and after that I´ll still be doing my university Spanish course, but as of yet I don´t know where that will be, it could be any city in Spain at this stage!!! Then after August I´ll either pack up and move to the big smoke to find a job (not teaching English, hopefully something with my business degree), or stay put in the city I did the course in and find a job there. By big smoke I mean Barcelona or Madrid. Possibly even back to Bilbao seeing as its such an awesome place! (and where most of my friends are...)

Have been finishing off my Bachelor of Management Studies degree at Waikato University here in my hometown of Hamilton. Currently finishing off my final project at AgResearch, a crown research institute. I´m looking into thier carbon footprint and cost effective ways of reducing thier impact on the environment. I´ve been working many jobs, which include (but are not limited to) sorting mail for NZ post, security guard at Farmers department store, research interviewer for ConsumerLink, helping my dad audit schools at his accountancy firm, being an EF (*sigh* its like AFS) representative (organising meetings and interviewing high school students to study for a year overseas), babysitting occasionally, and being a summer intern at AgResearch writing literature reviews and an annotated bibliography.

Definately a busy year, though I did manage to relax a little travelling down to Christchurch and Wellington during April this year (photo above in Banks Peninsula), and in February I had an unforgettable trip to attend an EF conference in Brisbane, Australia. The family camping trip to the tip of New Zealand / Northland was also an awesome experience, possibly the last family camping trip! And even with a broken toe, the few days spent mucking around Ruapehu/Tongariro National Park were great with Renelle, Hamish and Ben. New Years at the beach was also a highlight.

So thats me in a nutshell at the moment. A bit overwhelmed, a bit lost, a bit busy, and still quite a bit heart broken.

As always you can find my photos here, or look me up on Facebook, I´m always around.
Besos for everyone! Kisses para todos!

Travelling, Part 2

2007-07-16T11:35:00.001+02:00

bikeseat, originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

After a huge kerfuffle in the Madrid airport, not being able to board the plane because of suposed "missing" documents, me saying i had my plane ticket from Hong Kong to Auckland which is all i needed, but all the time the guy was meaning my return plane ticket from Auckland, which of course does not exist. Carrying a Dutch passport i can understand the confusion, but showing him my NZ residents visa made him sweat!!!!! All that time for nothing.......... at least he upgraded me to business class.

Though i had only 2 minutes to say goodbye to Susi, us both in tears. Complete ratshit if you ask me. Here comes 2008.......

Anyway, got home, finally!!! Dad picked me up, and all was sweet, went to my job interview within 2 hours in Auckland, and got the EF job!! Yay!!! So i´ll be visiting Hamiltron schools in the near future promoting a high school year overseas!! I have a few other jobs in the pipeline also, hopefully!! (http://www.ef.co.nz/master/hsy/index_asia.asp)

The photo is taken from an old bike in Amsterdam, i have just put up a lot of new photos, mostly scanned ones from an old olympus film camera that i have from my grandmother. i´ve really enjoyed using it!!

Into the second week at uni, and things are looking good so far!!
Do i really need to use this anymore?
Please comment........

Last Few Days On The Other Side Of The World

2007-07-05T05:30:00.001+02:00

Caught in the Sun, originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

Mid june: I finished up teaching my 70 or so rascals, and my last 2 weeks were converted into holidays with a fantastic end-of-contract bonus. I wanted to spend my last weeks lazing on the beach, but typical Basque weather set in and it rained nearly everyday. Bummer.

Slowly I packed up my beautiful room, taking many memories off the wall, and carefully stuffing them into my bulging hiking pack. Luckily i had taken back a bunch of thinkgs at Easter, but even so, i had to leave a lot of clothes/things behind, and send a few packages also.

I left my flat on Friday morning, rather hungover from the farewell party the night before - my last time seeing my friends!!! Took a plane with Susi and Gema to Madrid, where Susi and i stayed the night with her cousin Vanessa and María José. We all went out that night....

Coincidence would have it that it was the European Gay Pride Festival that weekend, and the place, namely Chueca (Madrids gay suburb) was packed!!! We all had so much fun drinking on the terraces and watching a concert and absorbing the nightlife in general. A shame that we missed out on the huge parade the next day!

On Saturday Susi and i went to Segovia, 2 hours from Madrid in train, for our final opportunity for time together relaxing. We had a beautiful hotel - a mini palace with cool views and a patio restaurant in the middle. Another unplanned coincidence was that that weekend was a Segovia Folk Festival, so we had devine music wafting up into our room, and various concerts spread out around the city. Segovia itself is precious, with a big and tall Roman aquaduct, a huge cathedral, and enormous fortressed castle with (empty) moat included!! We were there 2 nights, and it was an enchanting and unforgettable few days alone. If only it could have lasted forever.

Went back to Madrid on monday, and all too quickly, Tuesday the 3rd of July 2007 arrived. The day I´d been dreading for nearly 2 years suddenly loomed upon me and swallowed me whole.

Though I almost wasn´t allowed on the plane......more of that in part 2.

I am sitting in the Hong Kong airport at the moment, and my laptop is about to dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

See you all tomorrow.....................................................
Janine

On My Way Home

2007-07-03T01:20:00.000+02:00

Well, this is my last night in Spain. I´m staying with some spanish friends, and tomorrow afternoon my plane leaves for Amsterdam, then to Hong Kong the next day, and the friday morning I´m HOMEEEEEEEEEEEE.

I don´t have time to be pensive about all this at the moment, i want to get it over and done with, and come home.

But at the same time no, i want to stay here and enjoy everything all over again.

Sigh.
Time to check for dangerous items/liquid bottles over 100ml etc etc crap in my luggage.

I do appologise for not keeping the world more informed of my comings and goings. What i will tell you, and later on show you in photos, is that i am very much in love and it tears me apart to leave here.

I don´t want to think about tomorrow. But i do want to think about friday (i have a job interview that day even!).

Ya veremos. tq guapa. mucho.

The fantastic "Janine In Spain"

(soy super chula)

World Map

2007-06-09T17:36:00.001+02:00

Just a few places I´ve been........

Counting down the days, half wanting to, half not wanting to. 27 days until my feet are on solid ground, sweet NZ. 24 days until I leave Spain, I don´t want that day to come......

Photo Time

2007-05-24T14:21:00.001+02:00

Photo Time, originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

Went to Barcelona the other weekend because susi had won tickets for the Gran Prix Formula One racing. We went supporting Fernando Alonso from Spain, of course. I didn´t go on race day because she went with her sister, but i went to the saturday timed races, which was loud and interesting!!! I took sunday to walk around ALL of barcelona and snap up a few photos, using my mums/grandma´s camera, as shown in the photo. My three companions for the day were my cameras and my ipod! Such a nice hot day!!! Unfortunately Fernando came in 3rd.

Apart from that... not much has been happening here.... preparing for exams in the academy. Of my 70 students, i´d say that 50-60 will pass their exams. I´ll give you the details when they do them in 2 weeks. I finish work soon!!!! after today and tomorrow, i have 3 weeks to go!!!! and the last week is watching videos and playing games, so i´m pretty happy about that!!! we recently went to an english teachers conference here in bilbao, so i am armed to my teeth with games to play... phrasal verbs, irregular verbs, 1st,2nd,3rd conditionals.... does this make any sense to you??? hehehe.

looking forward to starting B semester in july, 2 papers, one of which is internet based, and i´ll have to get around to sorting out my 499 investigation paper also.

well. we said goodbye to ceci, our flatmate, yesterday, she´s off to bolivia. gema had her 27th birthday last week (we made a great cake!). markel and brandon are back in spain now and will be meeting them for the first time in ages tonight. i have started getting a little, slight tan. the weather here is a little crap, tho should get better soon. willoughby my brother is living it up in wyoming, arkansas, anywhere where there is a storm in the USA!!! he´s there storm chasing, and judging by his photos, is having a great time!!!

I´m here only another 40 days. will go now to make the most of it :-)
love you all
your favourite Kiwi

English Essay

2007-05-21T15:01:00.000+02:00

Begin your story with the following sentence, writing 120 - 180 words.

Mark could never imagine that this telephone call would change his life forever.....
When Mark Lewis Harlinton Stone pick his small and beautifull phone, heard a lot of strange voices and noises, one of them the highest and strongest one said:
- Hello, my name is Katty, I´m 23 years old, my boyfrien is Eden, I´ve two brothes, I live in Furniture Street in the number three but I´ll change my house and I´m going to kill you!!
Two days later:
Mark Lewis Harlinton Stone was smiling, however he had lived his two last days closed and horrified in the toilet.
When he went out of the toilet the phone rang again and Mark run towards his neighbour home who was cleaning the flor and it was wet. Just in that moment Mark slided and fell dow to the flor. Inmediately arrives an ambulance which took him to the hospital in wich dead.
Cristian, 14.

Where do i begin to correct?????

Tokyo

2007-04-24T00:22:00.001+02:00

Prayers In Detail, originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

Well, after a calm, relaxing week in Hamilton, with a visit to Rotorua to see Nan, though not going too far due to the injections that i needed for my back (now its much better). The hot air balloons were ... non existant, though i did try to see them! Even the dawn raid didn´t happen which i got up for especially for. But anyway, bad weather at the end of the week prevented them from flying.

I left the 14th for Tokyo, for a one night stop over, which was way too quick. With so much to see, it was a shame to have to miss the main stuff. In the end i was only there from 5pm (arrived at the hostel at 7pm), until the next morning when i left the Ueno train station at 8am. I slept, though not much.

Arrived, armed with my little page of Japanese phrases (to remind me, which i was surprised at how much i remembered) i set out to discover Tokyo. My hostel was really cool, it had traditional japanese tatami mats (take your shoes off etc), and a japanese feel to it. Even a futon mattress! Tho in bunkbed style. Left there but only had time before the metro closed to grab a bite to eat, a sanwich, and look around one district a little bit. I chose the big lights of Ginza, Tokyo´s most expensive street full of electronics. Not that many people about, it was a saturday night, tho early in the night and i suppose there weren´t any clubs or anything around. Went back to the hostel and grabbed some noodle pasta stuff (japanese food) and ate it happily before falling asleep rapidly.

Woke up super early, not wanting to waste time sleeping (plenty of time in the plane later on), and went to Ueno park, next to the train station i needed. It was a really beautiful park, apart from the homeless people wandering around, really rich with nature and religion. I liked it a lot. Ate my breakfast happy with japans infamous cherry blossoms in view. Really surreal to think after having studied japanese for almost 10 years, that there i was!!!! I wasn´t able to absorb it all, it was sooooo different to what i´m used to, and differente to what i expected also. Actually, i´m not quite sure what i expected.

Had a good flight, watched 5 movies in 10.5 hours (from Auckland to Tokyo i watched 4), and only had 45 mins in Amsterdam airport (Schiphol).... ah, which was delayed for another hour (thereby making me miss my bus from Madrid to Bilbao that night...). Arrived home at 7am, monday the 16th, straight to bed (for 3 hours...... then i had to get up to go to work and prepare my classes for that afternoon!!!

Now things are back to normal. I´m settled back in. I like my life here, i also adore my life in hamilton. We´ll see how i adjust to the permanent move in july.... until then, i´m gonna enjoy myself here!!!!

adiossssssssss
lots of kisses in the direction of NZ --- for everyone there. I had a fantastic time and i thankyou very much for welcoming me again ... what a surprise!!!

Janine

Afterthought

2007-04-09T14:34:00.000+02:00

Just a quote I found...

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

.~.

Beaches

2007-04-09T14:07:00.001+02:00

Elegante.........
Originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

Lots of beaches recently, i've been to Raglan with family and Waihi with friends. It couldn't be better really!!

We've had some brilliant weather, i bought a new dress and here i am showing it off. i didn't get cold during the whole day, though i didn't get int o the water.

Here we are in a little bay next to Waihi, got there after a 30 minute walk with Hamish, Renelle and Ellie. My back held up so I'm thankful for that!

Raglan the other day with Mum Willoughby and Erica was also a great treat, followed by fish 'n' chips which brought back memories!!!

I'm going through at least 1 V (an energy drink) a day. its good stuff, i'm gonna load it up in my suitcase!!!!

There has been lots of lazing around. Read Whitehorn by Bryce Courtenay, good book, though a very disappointing ending. I expected better, i wanted The Power Of One type stuff, but never eventuated.

Off to bed now, going shopping tomorrow :-)
buenas noches mi amor, eres mi cielo

Surprise......

2007-04-05T13:14:00.001+02:00

Another Black and White
Originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

Yup, I'm in Hamilton, Waikato, New Zealand.
Just on holiday, just for Easter!
My ticket got into a use or loose it situation, and so here I am in tshirt weather enjoying being with friends, family, and familiar haunts. Really weird to be here....... hard to explain.
Its not reverse culture shock, because even though its my hometown, i feel like a tourist discovering things again.... like the Hilly tavern being ripped down, The Base, a whole load of new buses, mums completely new house, renovations on dads house, renelles new house, not as many people here, no boyfriend, no bike, mums new boyfriend, uni modifications........... so many things. I guess adjusting in July when i start B semester will be trickier.

I had a lovely afternoon in London on my way here (also went via South Korea) with my cousin Eduard from Holland and Irene from NZ, and London put on fantastic weather. Perfect for cruising in a convertible past Buckingham Palace, and walking around Big Ben, the Thames, The London Eye (tho unfortunately no time to go on it), and getting a really rushed but interesting tour of inner London. I enjoyed it inmensly, I can't wait to go there again in June for 5 days for a proper look.

So I'm chilling at home now, have already bumped into quite a few people, and looking to take it easy.

I miss Spain.
Y te echo de menos mucho tambien mi cielo, ya nos vemos, te quiero muchisimo. mil besos y mas.
Janine

Petra, The Rose Red City

2007-03-23T14:55:00.001+01:00

Underwalkway (The Rose-Red City)
Originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

Yes, I spent last Sunday in Petra, Jordan.
*clears throat*
Not quite, but I like the photo, I took it in Oviedo, Asturias, where I went for the day with Gema, Juan (her bf), and Susi. (Ok, I admit I played with it in photoshop...)

Apart from that excursion, I haven´t been doing much. Just finished today photocopying 96 exams...... they will be fun to mark on Monday/Tuesday!!! Sigh.... and then the reports........ nooooooooooooooo!!!!! At least the 2nd term is coming to an end. And thankgoodness there is only 1 more term to go!! Yupiiii!!!

Spring is starting, tho we´ve just had a dumping of snow on the hills around the area, nothing here in Getxo though!!! q putada! Can´t wait for the warmer weather that Easter should bring.

I´ve been throwing myself into a lot of photography lately, and digital retouching also. I love it. It helps also that its Susi´s field of speciality. Although I´ve done everything on my own its nice to have an eye over my shoulder. If only I was able to save up for a digital SLR, but living here is so expensive!!!!

Life as usual around here.....
Whats up over there???????????

xxooxx

This Is Bilbao

2007-03-05T23:20:00.001+01:00

This Is Bilbao
Originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

Well, not much of a month really, just drifting by. Looking forward to my holidays in a months time! Don´t know what I´m going to do yet, but it doesn´t matter - Holidays!! Yay!!!

Had the anniversary in mid February which was nice, the photo here is from where we stayed in a cute hotel above Bilbao.

Don´t know what more to say.......... life goes by.
I wouldn´t say my life at the moment is boring, but its not the most thrilling thing in the world.... reports, exams to come.....

Getting up at 7am to go to therapy with my legs isn´t pleasant, but at least they´re getting a bit better. Not as much pain, but still poor on the range i can move.

And, well, nothing more. Its Las Fallas these days in Valencia, and i wish i was there again with all the Fallas and the fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiire!!!!!

Ciao
S, t q y sé q m q tb. Vale la pena.

2 + 2 = 22!

2007-01-28T19:34:00.001+01:00

2 + 2 = 22!
Originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeee!
According to some spaniards, this is the birthday of the two swans, seeing as the number 2 looks like a swan. Anyway.....

I don´t feel that old..... and i can´t believe that i came here to Spain when I was 20........ I have grown in so many ways thats its impossible to share them with you here, which is what i had intended to share now. but i sit here infront of the computer and the page is still empty, its something very surreal, to realise that i´ve grown so much yet not be able to say how.

Has been the coldest days of the year recently, hitting the minuses. No snow in Getxo which i´m disappointed about, but i can see it on the foothills around me.

well, time to cut the cake now...!!
love from your favourite girl overseas
Janine

High Cuisine

2007-01-15T00:39:00.001+01:00

Tempura Cuisine
Originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

The other week I had a 38,5º fever which was horrible, and then the flu after effects, and thankfully now i´m just left with a bad cough. That was how i spent my last week of the holidays - sick!

The 6th of January was the day that the 3 Kings (3 Wise men) give their gifts to the Spanish children, its like Sinterklaas in Holland on the 6th of December, and this is when we interchanged presents here in our flat and it was really special. I got some gorgeous heart shaped silver earings with a triskel on it (the celtic symbol of asturias) from susi.

Just had the 1st week back at work, and it was pretty good, though by Friday i was pretty tired. Saturday came around and it was a big piss-up with my saturday morning teachers during the night! We went to a very very expensive restaurant and had the chef cooking right infront of us! very nice japanese/chinese food, and for the first time in a while i went out with english speakers!!!

Our new flatmate arrived today, she is from Bolivia (so speaks spanish) and has been studying in Arkansas. She seems really cool so we´ll have a good time the 4 of us in our apartment.

Sigh, Monday tomorrow!
Kisses to all

Welcome To 2007

2007-01-02T19:49:00.000+01:00

Passing by in the New Year, the Old Port of Algorta, with roaring waves and a beautiful sunset.

A few days before New Years I went to a concert in Madrid of a group called Fito & Fitipaldis. Great music, though the 4 hour drive down, then 5 hours back up at 3am in the morning was a killer! And we went knowing that the concert was sold out (15,000+ people) without tickets. We bought some off people for thier face value (tho had people offering us double), and went inside. The 4 of us that went (Mari & Mari José & José (yeah, the real names)) all had different seating arrangements on the tickets, but José who worked there managed to get us onto the floor (you needed floor tickets (which we didn´t have) to get there). Very cool concert (but you can´t beat Coldplay.....).

Spent New Years in the bars but before that, at 00:00, the fireworks went off. And wow, that was loud. I´m not talking about spectacular fireworks like you´d see in London or Sydney or Hamilton even, but i´m talking about homemade fireworks designed for one purpose only - NOISE. <<-- (my phone camera video!) It was like a war zone!! And it went on for 25 minutes, then sporadically through the night until 8am which was when I went to bed. A good night!

So now i´m enjoying the last week of my holidays, I start again with my students on monday. Not looking forward to it really.............
Until then, I hope you have all recovered from your hangovers :-)

Xmas In Xedré

2006-12-27T23:17:00.000+01:00

My christmas was spent here.... in paradise. Click on the photo to see more.......
The photos speak for me, it was great to meet everyones family, and to see a small village (45 houses) with such a tight knit community.

I enjoyed.....
>> drinking cider champagne
<< telling jokes until 3am with 3 generations of people
>> taking long walks
<< breathing pure air
>> eating lots of chocolate and sweeties and biscuits
<< eating FRESH pig, cow, and trout
>> making people happy

Felices fiestas
Me

El mejor de los viajes es el próximo

2006-12-23T17:48:00.001+01:00

A new day has begun, and today I sent out all my Christmas greetings, so if you didn´t recieve them, email me, or maybe this will be enough for you.

My 2 weeks holidays have begun, classes are over. Writing 96 reports in Spanish was a drag, but its all over - of the 76 exams I dished out, 55 passed, so it wasn´t too bad. On the last day yesterday we all sang christmas carols which was sore on the ears, but really fun.

I have a new laptop, partly thanks to the generosity of someone in particular (thankyou). I love my laptop. Its really pretty. Next on my list is a camera like my brothers, a Cannon 400D that takes photos like this, this and this. Nice work.

I am going to spend christmas in a small village in Asturias called Xedré (Gedrez in Spanish), where I have been told its snowing!!! My first white christmas!!! I´m really really excited. We´re leaving tonight and the christmas eve dinner is going to be a blast.

Merry Christmas!
Feliz Navidad!
Zorionak!

Be safe
Janine ::::: Nina ::::: Kiwi Guapa

Medievil Market Magic

2006-12-10T16:25:00.000+01:00

Well its been a great long weekend, going out quite a bit, but also relaxing a whole lot all the same. This time last year I went to Santo Domingo de la Calzada with Markel Beth and Cameronbut we missed the medieval market, though this time with Mari Yani and Sonia (a friend, Susi´s flatmate, Susi´s sister), it was more planned, and it was fantastic.... a delight for each sense...
*
Sight: the medievil village in medievil attire, completely decked out
Sounds: the clomping of hooves from the horses performing
Taste: cinnamon liquor
Touch: the squish of the jostling crowd and the silkyness of animal pelts
Smell: the aroma of herbs and spices
*
I hope you are enjoying my new and improved blogsite
Lots of love
ME

Local Travelling

2006-12-08T16:55:00.000+01:00

Well as you can see from my new photos, I haven´t exactly been travelling much, only locally around Getxo and Bilbao. The photo you see here is a joint photo that I did with my mobile, the port/beach area where I live, 15 minutes from my house. If you click on the photo you´ll get a new set of photos.

My kids have thier exams on Monday and Tuesday, all 85 of them. And then I have to mark them and do thier reports. Not to mention my extra classes on Saturdays (which are much less stressfull because as you can see, we play a lot of games). Then Christmas here at home with Susi and Yani, and 2 weeks paid holidays! Yihoo.

The weather is deteriorating, heaps and heaps of wind. I thought my bike was going to be blown off the balcony!! This weekend its a long weekend, so I´m enjoying lazing around, saving up energy for the nights..........

Had the blood tests and xrays (hips knees and ankles), and according to the traumatologist, everything is fine. In short, he doesn´t know. So i´m being bundled off to rehabilitation, but its going to be crap again. At least I have noticed vast improvement since i stopped going to the physio, weird that. I start the rehab in January, but i have low hopes for it. Oh well.

I have to pay 1900€/$3600nz in backrent and bills. Great. Yipee. My paychecks gone!! After December i´ll be able to save properly tho. Looking forward to that. I may even get a laptop. We´ll see!!

Ok. Lots of hugs and kissesssssssssssss
Janine/Nina/Kiwi/Miss Ruys/Pitufina/Guapa
xxooxx

Quickie

2006-11-20T01:59:00.000+01:00

Haircut :-)
Originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

ok, i don´t look the most awake in this photo, but there it is, haircut done. not much has happened lately, i have to prepare exams for 6 classes this week, so that´ll be "fun".

Haven´t had any travels, so unfortunately its a bit boring on that front. The weather is real northern spain weather, tho thankfully it hasn´t rained as much as it should have in november. the autumn so far has been splendid, tho really variable.

oh dear, i´m talking about the weather. time for that to stop.

having xrays & more blood tests in the beginning of december with my legs, that is, ankles, knees and hips; the whole package. i don´t konw what to expect, i just want my life to return back to normal. in 5 days marks the anniversary of screwing up my legs, that is to say, 1 year without running or doing exercise which i love to do, 1 year without physical freedom. its a pain. (in 2 senses).

anyway, enough moaning, and off to bed now!!!

c you

Nighttime Appearances

2006-11-11T19:18:00.000+01:00

Nighttime Appearances
Originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

Well, life here has fallen into a good routine.
I work 30 hours a week - classes from 4 ish until 10 at night, then on saturdays 3 hours not doing much with a bunch of kids - mostly its colouring in and playing sports, in english of course.

My classes are going really well, i only have 1 class that is absolute hell. 3 hours a week of them lot is harder and more exhausting than the other 27 hours. The buggers have exams soon (which i get to set hahahahahaha) so i´ll make them work hard to be quiet.

the weekends i have, well, only 1 entire day free, and aaah it is good to relax. its a shame that the weather has gotten colder now, the central heating on, and i take a coat and scarf out, its not entirely necessary, but it gets cold waiting for the subway at 10 at night!!

recently went for a drive 2 hours away to Haro in the province below the Basque Country, called La Rioja, just to accompany a friend who wanted concert tickets for a concert there, and to have a coffee. Good evening, nice to drive around (well, be driven). Beatiful old village in the heart of the wine making province.

Things here go pretty much the same... increasing problems with my legs.... its in my hips now and today when i had to walk 30 mins i had to almost crawl into bed to rest for 30 mins after. having xrays in 2 weeks & more blood tests, and seeing a traumatologist.

thats pretty much all for me at the moment, i´ll tell you if soething exciting happens........

janiiiiiiiiiiiine

June, I Double Promise

2006-10-10T14:45:00.000+02:00

Beautiful Photo
Originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

Well. Sorry for the delay. It has been a long delay..... Sorry.

Ok, I have a job, well, 2 actually, 1 teaching 27 hours/week of English to 90 students (distributed in 9 classes, ages from 6 to 40ish), basically 5 hours a day from 4/5ish until 10. This is in Sopelana, 4 metro stops away. Its a really nice modern building, and cool teachers (3 from spain, one from scotland). i have a good time there! And a second small job on saturday mornings where i basically play and entertain 7/8 year olds... painting, playing sports etc, "creating a fun environment" to learn English. Both jobs pay well, and both jobs have a contract until June..... therefore I come home in June. I´m extatic about staying, tho i realise there were many awaiting my return around xmas. I´m really sorry, but while i´m here i´d love to take advantage of this opportunity.

I come home in June, and finish my degree july-februrary at waikato. After that, who knows.... maybe i return here.

In other news.......... the tendontitis has spread to my knees, my legs are a mess. This is severely dissappointing, and tomorrow i´m phoning a new doctor. I´m sick of not being able to do stuff.... i haven´t run, danced, hiked, etc in 11 months. And most of you all know me as an outdoor person, so this totally sucks, i get very very frustrated.

In more news....... i smell lunch cooking and i have to go and prepare my classes today.

i hope all goes well, and that all is going well.

Happy Birthday Erica!!!!!
&
Farewell Markel!!!!! (he´s off to the USA, buena suerte amigo)

It´s Back

2006-09-08T23:29:00.000+02:00

Oh yeah, you know what time it is
Oh yeah, you know what is occupying all my bandwidth
Oh yeah, you know what just kicked off its 3rd season
Oh yeah, you know I´m obsessed
Oh yeah, you know I´m more obsessed with this programme more than I was with Button Moon
Oh yeah........ it´s back

Oh yeah, I´m in heaven.........................

English Village

2006-09-04T18:50:00.000+02:00

Rock Jumping
Originally uploaded by Janina Kiwi.

Well, my week long adventure is over. And it was very cool.
You´ll have to excuse the jumpy aroundness of this email, its due to the fact i just ate an entire mango. and lots of chocolate. my stomach is doing some interesting somersaults.

I did a Pueblo Inglés, which in english is English Village. I went to a 4 star hotel near a beautiful town called La Alberca near Salamanca. The climate was amazing, as here i am seen jumping (no i´m no kneeling) into our pristine pool during siesta (nap) time. I stayed in an awesome place, buffet breakfast, lunch & dinner 3 courses, exquisite food (& free wine) it was too. I shared my little house with Irene from Burgos who works in DVD sales for Warner Bros in Spain. I had my own room with bathroom and we shared a lounge. The photos i have up show more about the place.... but it was the people that really made the experience.

So my "job" was to speak English to the Spaniards who had paid nz$4000 to come here for 1 week. It wasn´t really a job at all.... i just made more effort to converse than i normally would speak. And it was fantastic, there were only a few "cobweb moments" as we came to call moments of silence (you find yourself staring up at the cobwebs in the ceiling). (but there were no cobwebs). The 22 spaniards came from many works of life, tho all professionals (lots of lawyers and sales reps), and were all really easy to talk to. And the other Anglos (english speakers) on the programme were really funky people also, a mix of aussies, poms, americans, canadian, irish, and even a south african from israel.

The week flew by and then i was in madrid meeting up with Vanesa who used to live in Bilbao, and i spent the night and day with her and her sister Mari José. I had a really fun time, unfortunately i was so tiredddddddddddd. So i caught the night bus from madrid to bilbao (5 hours) and crawled into my bed at 7am surprising a shocked spaniard hehehehehehehehehehe.

Such is life.
Life is beautiful.
I´m living a wonderful life.
(Um, unfortunately i´m still jobless, so i´m living a wonderful poor life at the moment hehehehe) (thanks mim)

JaNina

Missing Home

2006-08-19T14:07:00.001+02:00

These past few weeks i´ve been missing home. Which is a little weird because i haven´t missed it that much during the past year. Ah, which reminds me, in Granada I celebrated 1 year away from NZ, which probably sparked this want for NZ. Which reminds me that yes i have finally bought my ticket home. Unfortunately due to sky rocketing prices it had to be after xmas, but luckily before new years eve. So we will meet again!!!! Fear not!!!!

So i´m sitting here in my lounge watching NZ getting its arse kicked by the Spanish basketball team in the world cup in Japan, quite possibly increasing my homelyness. I´m not calling it homesickness because its not that, but its something there.

Recently there were the festivals in a part of Algorta where i live, and there was a mini parade with about 20 groups - 2 of which were performing the maori haka!!! one group was more specialised with the "flax" skirts etc, and they did a face off with the new haka and the old haka. It was the first time i´ve seen the new haka and i don´t like it! I like the old one a million times over the new one, plus i was the only one singing along in the crowd. The photo on the left is of Tibu, one of my friends, more friends with Markel than me. His group did awesome!

Listening to Evermores new album Real Life and i´m loving it. So talented those 3 boys are.

My flatmate Gema, the journalist who is doing an internship in El Correo, the 4th biggest newspaper in Spain, is going to write a report on New Zealand!!! Yihooooooooooo! If you guys have any fantastic photos that you have taken yourself please send them to me and lets see if they´re good enought to make it into the saturday edition..... I have a few family photos, but seeing as Willoughby my (idiot) brother formatted our family computer without saving any of my stuff (documents, uni stuff, videos, photos...) i now am left with nothing. :-(

Well, I have a mini job in Salamanca, 8 hours away, teaching english for 1 week to business executives. Well, teaching kind of, i am there to talk english to them in an English Village. Looks to be very interesting, with lodgings and meals and bus all paid for. So here´s to getting a bit of experience!!!!!!

Wintery weather here, storms and low temperatures and miserable Hamilton weather. Just like you´re having now i imagine? Well at least we get soaring temeratures next week... hehehe.

Fantastic Granada

2006-08-02T17:17:00.000+02:00

Bench Shot
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well, I was blown away by Granada.
Stunned.
Incredibled. Wait thats not a word.
Thats because words fail to describe Granada.

Hence i took LOTS of photos. You can see them here.

Lets just say i did lots of walking around La Alhambra, a mix of christian and moorish (from north africa) palaces and fortresses and castles and gardens that were built between the 12th and 15th century. Its fantastic. I loved it.

The photos explain it all.
I love the bee one. perfect timing!!

well, i´m back home in Getxo now, and i really really have to find a job. i blew the budget on my trip........... i´m in debt for the first time in my life (excluding my debt to the government... oh jeez don´t remind me about that....)...... thank goodness i don´t have to pay rent every month, instead it gets lumped into one giant sum in december. oh crap, december.

sigh.
my holiday now just a memory!!! i want more holidays!!!!!!
hehehe, the cat just twitched next to me.

ok guys, enjoy the photos. i know there are lots. be patient. i enjoyed taking them, i hope you enjoy watching them.

Camels Snakes Spiders & Dolphins

2006-07-30T22:59:00.000+02:00

All were creatures discovered through my trip to Tangier, Morocco. Wow. So overwhelming. I can't wait to put my photos up. At my current hostel in Granada i can't, so thats a bit dumb. When i get home in 2 nights i'll put them up.

anyway.

CAMELS. got a bit seasick on the 30 min ferry, then straight into the tour bus (there was no way i was doing morocco on my own) where we were taken to ride camels!!!! they are awkwardly graceful and didn't spit at me which was nice.

SNAKES. taken around very very windy and narrow streets, with vendors trying to sell us everything under the sun, and i mean everything (apart from hashish (a moroccan specialt) lamented one tourist), and were very very pushy about it. saying a firm no and walking away wasn't enough. you couldn't escape! i didn't buy anything from them tho. hehehehe i won. We were led to a snake charmer and i got the snake around my neck. its very slimey and cold. not a nice feeling. then on to lunch which was shish kebab and kuskus with mint tea afterwards to help indigestion. very nice restaurant with a band playing traditional arabian music. then more winding walking and we were taken to many bazaars with carpets and spices galore.

SPIDERS. ok so i'm exagerating this one, i had a spider on my hotel pillow. hehehehe. i spent the afternoon by the hotel pool, and this was one really really nice pool. i did venture out to the beach, (the hotel was beachfront ***) but the hissing and stares as i simply walked along made me really uncomfortable. i was the only blonde on the beach, and i'm not exagerating. 95% of the people were men and that made me feel even weirder. i didn't last 30 mins before i went back to the safety of the hotel. a nice buffet dinner and then a $60nz call from the hotel phone to spain, then bed.

DOLPHINS. i ate dolphin for breakfast. nah just kidding. i ate crepes. walked around for half an hour in town, quite bravely i might add, and then back on the ferry to Spain. on the way there were a few pods of dolphins!!! they swam happily along but alas i did not get a photo.

and that was my trip! then there was more, obviously, but i have a line behind me for the internet so that'll have to do so far!!!

adiossssssssssssssss
muchos besos
nehi dut futsis

The Rasmus

2006-07-26T19:18:00.000+02:00

I Love Youuuuuuu
Originally uploaded by janine13.

well, the trip has begun. actually i´m halfway thru it now, and have some photos up too.

for the meantime i´ll tell you about the beginning.

so, flew to málaga in the south of spain, stayed the night in a hostal but could only sleep 2 hours (heat!!!), then took the bus tu fuengirola, a nice midway stop on the beach before heading off to my real desination of Estepona.

no estepona isn´t a resort destination nor is it well developed, which makes it FANTASTIC. a nice tranquil beach town that is about to get rocked by one of my favourite bands, the finnish group The Rasmus, in the local bull ring.

the spanish warm up band was good, but the real fun came when the 4 rocked out on stage and played for a long time, thier hits, thier two albums, and some earlier ones. i knew every word. i was very proud. and lauri the lead singer was so hoooooooooooooot. is so hot. mmmmmmm, lauri.

ahem.anyway. seeing as i didn´t have accomodation afterwards i hit an all nighter, bought the book deception point by dan brown (author of the da vinci code etc) and read it all that night sitting in the terrace of an all night bar and talking for an hour on the phone with susi.

made it to sunrise and wow what a beautiful sunrise it was. so relaxing. then onto my next destination, gibraltar, the small english colony/territory on the tip of spain that "controls" the gibraltar strait between europe and africa. so everything was in english, even the weather as it became cloudy the next morning and i was a bit pissed off because i wanted to go up the rock, because gibraltar basically is just a rock.

observations in gibraltar: # the prices are scandalous. not only are they in brittish pounds, but its a holiday destination, and they have to be imported. # it was wonderful to drink normal fanta orange # even better to eat aero mint chocolate # all dairies are owned by indians # i could see morocco/africa # i had a big big english breakfast # everytying was very brittish and evreythying including bars etc closed at 11 when i went out for dinner. so no dinner for me, just an apple and skittles.

it was weird talking in english. but SO good to sleep. from friday 11am until sunday 11am when i checked in to my english hotel, i´d only slept 2.5 hours. thats 48 hours with only 2.5 hours sleep. man wsa i tired. but functioning!!!!

next on to tarifa, the most southern part of Spain, and here its windsurf and kitesurf capital. very nice place, lots of beaches and a nice little historic area also.

missing a lot of people, mostly my beautiful spaniard who´s at home from work with an injured shoulder, while i´m out here lazing on beaches. sigh.
and i miss friends and family. dad and wibly and nan i hope you all enjoy western samoa.
and the rest of you, well, email me or something.
hehehehe

ciao for now, i´ll write again when i get back from morocco.... oh yeah, i´m going there tomorrow for a night. should be very very interesting!!!!!!!

adiós!

Hot?

2006-07-18T21:05:00.000+02:00

When i say hot, in my post before, i mean HOT.
26degrees minimum during the night and during the day the thermometers read 38º but the official papers record 32º .
And to think in a few days i go further south..........

Heat Wave

2006-07-18T17:09:00.000+02:00

Lonely Log
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Days of heat. Lots of heat. A wave some would say.
This means lots of going to the beach, and getting nicely tanned and relax. Relax being the key word.
R
E
L
A
X
This means not doing too much, which means i don´t have too much to write.

Going to get a job (probably) teaching english when i get back from my south of spain, Anadalucían trip, on the 1st of august. but school starts for the little ones in september, so i may not even get something until then. I´m not too fussed at the moment, just trying to recover still from the tendonitis, tests etc from the doctor are ok, but i´m still on medication, and well, we´ll see.

Anyway, back to watching TV. In this heat its best to stay inside.
Chao

Running With The Bulls

2006-07-09T16:29:00.000+02:00

The Run
Originally uploaded by janine13.

I am alive.

So is the other New Zealander who ran with the bulls but got gored in the left thigh, i´m surprised the nz media weren´t able to release his details, anyway he got gored in the left thigh, still in hospital, and is called David McBell Toby.

Anyway, my story.

I didn´t plan on running, mainly because i still can´t run due to my tendonitis. after a long night of partying the night before, 1 hour of sleep in the crack of 2 beds pushed together (but i can´t really complain because at least i had a place to sleep, the other however many thousands of people here sleep in the park or don´t sleep), and went into the center city to get the party going again. from the hostel to the run area was like travelling through a cloud of foam, the grounds of all the parks and streets were COVERED in rubbish, mainly plastic bags and cups that people carried thier alcohol in.

got to my place at 645am, and stood waiting by the fence for just over an hour, with the running starting at 8am. my two friends from usac last semester Mike and Phil were running but i didn´t see them because it was really really hard to see anything. if you want to see the action you need to be on the fence (i was 3 people back) or on the balconies over the streets. the run was over very quick, 3 minutes in total, and the saturday run was a very clean one, no gorings or injuries. so the run ´finishes´ and people start climbing over the fences to make their way into the bullring to see the bulls finished off. i followed of course, but all of a sudden a bull comes swanking by me. wow what panic i felt!!!!!!!!! saw it coming out of the corner of my eye, it got close, 2 meters or so, and i turned and jumped on the fence. what a rush, i think i will run the next time i´m there, there is something about it thats exciting!!!!!!!!

Initially i was going to stay another night but i was way too tired and sore in my tendons so i hopped on the bus home (after standing in line at the bus station at least 1/2an hour).

The experience was really cool, but it didn´t meet my expectations, i was a little disappointed, mainly because i couldn´t see the run (the photos you see are not what i saw, they were taken by me on my tiptoes with my arm stretched between 2 peoples heads), and because i wasn´t in the party mood the night before.

next time i´ll have my own bed, be completely in red and white (white pants and top, red scarf and tied belt), go two nights (one for partying/watching the bulls, the other for relaxing/running), and get a get into the bullring at the end. Ah, and go shopping more (of course).

and that was my exciting weekend.

-------

In other news, i quit the job at the bar, it was destroying my tendons and my social life, and my sleeeeeeeeep. nicely added to my pocket, very nicely indeed, but i prefer my health than money. it was a stressfull 5 days, working 52 hours, with everything new from making the drinks, to remembering what they´re called, to using formal spanish (i´ve never used it before, only to talk to old people on the street asking directions).

next friday i´m going to málaga for The Rasmus concert, and i´m staying in the area of southern spain for 10 days visiting Granada, Tarifa (the most southern point of Spain), Gibraltar (English territory in spain controling the Gibraltar Strait of the mediterranean) (just going there to eat a mince and cheese pie, i´m killing for a pie (they´re not sold in spain), and fish ´n´ chips. they had better be good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i might take a day trip to Morocco (Africa), tho i´m not sure. All in all, i´m looking forward to some sun and beaches!!!!!!

signing off ----- janina

Brendan´s Isle

2006-06-30T21:00:00.000+02:00

Well folks, this is where i work, the Irish pub in Sopelana called Brendan´s Isle. Its a cool pub, cozy, nice clientele, good location, and we´re in the middle of sopelana´s fiestas, that is, the mad mad drinking week for sopelana where its fun fun fun with stalls, concerts etc etc. And me, starting new in a pub. I have never worked in hospitality before, i will make that clear. I have never worked in a foreign country before either. Nor even heard of half the drinks they have here even tho they are in english. So everything is new new new and i´m learning pretty well i reckon. This is the bar where vanesa one of my friends works, which is how i came by the job, just helping out for this week for starters.

and what a lot of work the first 3 days so far. 11 consecutive hours on my first day, 10 yesterday, and 10.5 today. My feet are murdering me, but i´m thankfull for it because it masks the pain of my tendonitis. Well actually my fisio is a bit astounded that so much work (with no sitting down and only 30mins for lunch) hasn´t killed my legs yet. so i´m good! but tired, jeeeez, starting at 815 everyday.

ok. going to take a nap now, man i´m tired, and another 10 hours tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!! ah, and tonight i go out to enjoy the fiestas hehehehehhehehehehehehehehehehehe.

good night!!!
janine

Knocked Out

2006-06-28T00:25:00.000+02:00

Sand Dune Cliff
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well, I must admit, I am a bit sad. And tipsy. Spain just lost against France in the world cup, and well, such a disaster.

What more can i say? well, i have a job, i start tomorrow, working in the same bar as Vanesa, an irish pub in a village next to the beach, Sopelana. A quick metro ride there and i´m sorted. My interview consisted of 3 questions

#Do you want to work? :::: yes
#Have you used a touch screen till system? :::::: I worked quite a while as at a checkout
#Do you have experience as a barperson? ::::: A little bit. (LYING THRU MY TEETH - serving bottled drinks at the local squash club is much much different to what this job is going to be......)

so there you have it. it should go ok i reckon!!!!!! $14.50nz an hour. brilliant.

went to the same beach again during the day that i´d been to during san juan fire night, tho this time dissapointingly cloudy. had a good time, sadly holland didn´t win that night against portugal, i was decked out in my holland tshirt and orange jersey and evertying!!! oh well, there always is 2010. and now spain out of it too!!! who will i support?????? i dunno. will see tomorrow.

adios people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
things are going well ;-)

Hot Stuff

2006-06-25T15:48:00.000+02:00

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiire
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Spain made it to stage 2 in the world cup. Spain is elated. Spain has to now play against France. Spain is not so elated.

Spain has lots of fire, especially on the night of San Juan (Saint John), the shortest day of the year, where bonfires are the only item on the menu. It doesn´t matter where you are, on the beach, in the city, in the country, there is FIRE. While driving out to the beach going thru the country there were scores of bonfires and the forests looked like they were on fire but it was all just smoke from other bonfires. Had a very chilled night relaxing on the beach, unfortunately it wasn´t weather for a late night dip.

I don´t have a job anymore. It was over before it started, there weren´t enough kids in the summer programme, so now i´m back out hunting for a job. Well, for the moment i´m just relaxing.

The Rasmus, a fantastic Finnish band, I love The Rasmus. They have one concert in Spain this year, and I´m going to it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its in southern spain near Málaga, and i´m going by plane for the weekend for SUN SUN and SUN at the many BEACHES they have there. Looking forward to it!!!!!

What i am also really looking forward to is the Running of the Bulls festival (made famous by Hemmingway) in Pamplona. This is the 3rd festival (of my 3 top must see festivals) in Spain. (the other two were the tomato festival and las fallas in valencia). Should be very exciting but do not fear, i will not be running infront of the bulls, or behind them, for still i cannot run with my tendonitis.

So thats my life lately, not doing much at all. Watching soccer, sleeping, and still shifting my stuff from my old room into my new room.

I hope things are all going well. Happy birthday to reinier (17), paul (16), wessel (21), and happy anniversary erica and james.

Love you all lotssssssssssssss!!!!

Soccer/Football/Soccer/Football

2006-06-09T17:13:00.000+02:00

Electric Windmills
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Thats all thats on the television. Its everywhere, the Fifa World Cup 2006 in Germany has arrived, and it is fever time.

People have been asking me why NZ doesn´t have a team. I reminded them of the friendly we just played against Brasil 4-0 we lost. They agree. They understand that we´re a rugby nation anyway. And then they ask, but then again so is England and Australia and look, they´re in the world cup. I shrug and say, look, Holland is in, thats who i´m backing, and they go quiet and nodd. Actually, i´m backing spain and holland, tho everyone here will eventually back brasil coz they´re gonna win (most likely).

Thats the good thing about spain, they´re good in sports that seem big in europe. E.g Roland Garos French Open at the moment (on tv all the time too) - Nadal and Ferrero. Formula 1 racing, Fernando Alonso in Renault, and of course the Spanish Selection in the world cup. I´m pretty content with the sport coverage here!!!!!

Germany is going crazy at the moment, in fact i´m watching the opening ceremony while i´m typing this. very very cool!!!

----

I have a job for july and august - looking after kids in a swimming pool and organising games etc for them. 3 hours a day, i get a tan, i get to swim and play around, and i´m getting between 15-25NZ dollars an hour. Now THATS what i call a summer job.

----

went on a boat ride yesterday from bilbao up the river to getxo, very cool, but very industrial and HOT. we´re getting into the 30´s now.

----

had the most awesome tuesday this week, had the "Go out to the country and eat a sanwich" day which they have in asturias, so me and susi went to the windmill/lighthouse in our bikes and had a beautiful time. its amazingly beautiful, see for yourself http://www.flickr.com/photos/janineinspain/sets/72157594160587157/

----

until next time

What To Do?

2006-06-03T21:48:00.000+02:00

Balloon Power
Originally uploaded by janine13.

well, very slight boredom has set in, so the only thing for it was to party, like mr balloon man did.

went to the launch of a new rum (invite only...) and had a blast. lots of balloons everywhere!!!!

cast off now, basically can use it like normal again. i didn´t get a tan mark thankfully!!! ah, funny story, i was going to go out during the day and i left the house in shorts and jandals, and susi said to me, are you actually going out like THAT? and i said well why not? people where shorts and jandals here after all. she said it was n´t that, it was the fact that my legs were going to blind everyone with thier whiteness. well of course compared to other spaniards my skin is much lighter, but c´mon, i´m not a mum-like-white hehehehehehe.

went with a friend to armintza which is a small basque fishing village and that was precious!

ummmmm..... handing out my curriculum vitae this week, lets see what i find!!!! i am kinda getting low on money :-( but am not planning any extravagant travel this summer anymore, only the running of the bulls in pamplona. especially if i get a good job then it will cut down on travel time. and time with spaniard. but i´m really looking forward to working, get some money going in for once!!!!

time is money, gotta go
janine

Not Broken

2006-05-26T16:17:00.000+02:00

Well, volleyball is still one of my favourite sports. the other night we were playing on the beach, unfortunately with a slightly deflated soccer ball, hence it does more damage. and, well, i kinda had to go to the hospital the next day with a swollen wrist, and now its in a half cast immobilised for a while. not broken, but the whole night i thought it was; i was in a lot of pain.
i´m a bit of a disaster, huh.
oh well, things can only get better :-) at least with this cast i can use my opposable thumb, not like when i broke my thumb a few years ago!!! but alas, tis not waterproof.

GETTING READY FOR SUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMER! Bought a melon today, its nice to eat summer fruit on our balcony in the sun. And the other day i put on sunscreen, and wow, that smell was wonderful. Recently i downloaded Blindspott (i lost it in my old mp3 player) and listening to it made me think of driving around with nelle in her car. ahhh, good times.

ah! i forgot to mention, that i was on spanish tv 3 weeks ago!!!! there was a half an hour documentary on what foreigners thought of the basque country region, and me and 2 class mates were interviewed for 40 minutes, which got cut down to a 30 minute programme with some other interviews. although while they were filming i didnt say that much, there was a lot of me speaking on the tv!!!!! i have the programme on dvd, so will show it to all when i get home. it was a really cool experience! and i even had people recognising me in the bar that i frequent!! the photo here is from the tv channels website, showing Jaime, me, and Ernesto being interviewed at our university outside.

well, writing hurts. and its slow. so i´ll leave you all my lovelies with a stunning realisation
"brushing your teeth with the opposite hand is difficult"

Fire Clouds

2006-05-23T21:47:00.000+02:00

Fire Clouds
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well, I´ll pass on the Prague/Cambridge then, only to say that they were in the top 3 places i enjoyed the most of my trip. It was amazing....

Lately what have I been doing?
well, exams have finished, and i have nothing to do now but laze around and listen to music.
the fisiotherapy is getting much better, and i´ve been biking around also to help keeping weight off my legs.

beth has returned for a month, my friend from last semester, and its been cool hanging out with her.

nights like the past two nights, one:the sunset, and two:the relaxation have been incredible. waking up at 4 for the past few days has been bliss, and the resting is definately doing me good. i feel fantastic.

well people, i close this blog entry very content.
hope the weather isn´t getting you down in nz!!! think positive, at least the weather here is getting better for me!!!! (40º the otherday in bilbao, sweltering heat, followed by a thunderstorm naturally!!!)

chilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Wonky Cat

2006-05-20T00:23:00.000+02:00

Wonky Cat
Originally uploaded by janine13.

I don´t know why i love this photo so much. but i think its fantastic.
this is an update for my update, that i will update these soon.
confused? same here.
Wonky brain maybe.

anyway, a few things (i´m prcrastinating to clean my room)
tendonitis: have been to the fisio again the past 2 weeks and slowly getting better. i have a deep fear that it could be chronic, seeing as its been going on for so long, but my physio has hope. damn those sessions hurt tho, stretching, electric currents etc etc, even the massages hurt like nothing before. she even made me cry. no running or jumping around or dancing for the next 1 month at least still. sucks.

spaniard: well, things are awesome still. i´m really happy still! mum and erica met the spaniard and things went really well, they like my spaniard so i´m thrilled with that. ok, police profile time.
age:26
occupation: waiting tables, however with degree (equivalent) in photography and digital stuff like that
appearance: spanish/latino style
height: shorter than me (well most spanish are so its not that much of a feat)
smile: amazing
eyes: to get lost in
likes: me, cats, chocolate, nesquik, crack nuckles, take photos
doesn´t like: dogs, feet, farts, swimming, the heat

and yeah. no names at this stage. (just to keep you guessing hehehe)

vague plans: travel a bit, teach english maybe, dunno really. (sorry, i meant to say real vague)

well. thats me for the moment.
exams all done, no work to do anymore!!!
just days to be filled with going to the beach maybe!!! :-)
and looking for a job (don´t worry dad)

better update later, tho i have a feeling the updates of the past could be lost forever and ever and ever. the photos will suffice???? if not leave a comment telling me to get a move on.

besos/kisses

Things For My Next Blog Entry:

2006-05-14T22:56:00.000+02:00

Love It
Originally uploaded by janine13.

1) will explain prague a bit more because it was absulutely amazing there
2) talk about cambridge, well, the few hours that i was there anyway
3) what me my mum and sister got up to while they visited me for 2 weeks
4) what i got up to with Irene who just visited me last weekend
5) will sum up my educational experience (last week this week, exams!)
6) will talk more about Spaniard, seeing as that story has been asked to be told (yes we are still together, 3 months now!)
7) will tell my plans for summer
8) will tell my hazy plans for until december
9) tendonitis update (not that good)
10) possibly the next post won´t be soon. i will try. things just a bit hectic here.

At least i made progress and i have a whoooooole lot of photos up. like, an extraordinary amount.

i hear nz has some crappy weather at the moment, HAHAHAHA i was in singlet top, shorts, and jandals all day today there was a heat q te cagas.

bueno, besos
ok, kisses!
janine/nina

Quick Summary

2006-04-22T20:54:00.000+02:00

Oh My Dear God
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Wow. What a trip. Some photos up, still uploading, so don´t go away :-)

Am meeting Erica and Mum at the bus station in an hour, hence the rush to write a little at least.

Well, what can I say! The whole trip was amazing, and Jaron was aweseome to travel with from Hungary to Czech Republic.

Budapest is incredible. We travelled a bit with Josh and Adam from Canada also and they´re great guys. This city, capital of Hungary is just wonderful. So old!!! Even went to some Turkish baths, but that was a bit of a catastrophe, because we accidently paid for a cold swimming pool.

Bratislava, capital of Slovakia was our next stop, and due to easter, EVERYTHING was basically closed. Our cheapest city and we couldn´t shop properly!!! Not fair!!! We met up again with the Canadians which was just as well coz the city itself isn´t that exciting or as granduer as the othercities we´ve seen. At least beer was cheap, at a bar, 0.5l costs just over NZ $1. Jaron and I even got a nz $70 fine for not paying properly on the tram. That iced the cake for a dismal Bratislava.

Vienna was really really historic and very well laid out. Was nice to hear a familiar language (ok, so german isn´t that familiar to me, but i got around ok. It wasn´t like Hungarian thank goodness!), and the trees and parks and buildings and statues here had us in awe the whole time. Only one night here, but just as well because it was quite expensive.

Then on to Prague which is my favourite European city (outside of Spain) so far. Wow, words cannot describe Prague, you´re just going to have to wait until i put some photos up. Really really cool. Definately want to go back here.

Then from there we went back home, but not before stopping in on Irene in Cambridge, yes, that is in England, and wow it was great to see her!!!!

Will have to add more later, time is short.

Holland Is Cold

2006-04-11T22:34:00.000+02:00

yes. cold.
and erica was surprised!!!! she was in shock. the look on her face and her surprise was fabulous. well worth only 2 hours sleep.
met up with a few of mums friends, walked around a bit, went to the beach with wouter (mums first boyfriend) and stayed the night at his house. next morning on sunday we went to haarlem to see my relatives (uncle, aunty, 3 cousins and thier children), of whom the 2 boys, allard and eduard were having thier birthday party (we had good timing). stayed the night there with nicoline in a wonderful little house with her crazy dogs, and yesterday we rented bikes and biked around where mum grew up. pancakes for dinner!!!!

today we went to a dungeon place thing in amsterdam which tells us about hollands gruesome history thru scaring us with people that creep up on you etc. that kind of thing.

then goodbye at the trainstation, and i go on a 2 hour flight to BUDAPEST!! my new home until friday. am meeting up with jaron tomorrow, my friend from america who i study with, and we are travelling the rest of our trip together.

the kezboard here is annozing. the y and the z are swapped around. i have done well to correct most of mz mistakes, but now i dont mind. but it does drive me crayz, as im sure it does to zou guzs right now....

hehehe. until next time!!
enjoz the slideshow.

Special Place

2006-04-08T00:25:00.000+02:00

ok, so a little white lie. I am in Amsterdam at the moment!! I am lying in wait to surprise Erica, she doesn't know i'm going to be here in Holland.... hehehehehe.
Left Bilbao yesterday and had a mini worrysome eppisode because my flight wasn't on the board... instead of flying to Amsterdam direct like i thought, turns out i got a free holiday in Palma de Mallorca also!!! Wihoo! Sun and palm trees! I did even leave the airport, and all i saw were palms and sun. And the carparking lot hehehe.
Arrived into Amsterdam at midnight and took tram & walked to my hostel, called The Flying Pig. Yes, interesting name. And an interesting room, i got the marijuana leaf themed room. Had a pint at the hostel bar then sleeeeeep. Getting off the plane in the airport gave me a really creepy sensation, it made me feel, for the first time in 9 months like i was in New Zealand. And it was something nonnewzealand which made it weird. I was surrounded by dutch!!!!!! There were Uncle Teds, Wilgerts, Birgittas, and Marians everywhere.

Rented a bike today and had an AWESOME time like i did in Valencia, renting a bike. Except this time it was a traditional style Dutch bike!!! and it was so relaxing and stimulating to be doing stuff!!!! Especially excersize, being with tendonitis and all its difficult to get moving much.

Toured around A LOT even getting lost amongst the canals, going out of the bounds of my map, going round in circles in Vondelpark (Amsterdams huge park), eating icecream (despite the cold weather), biking past thousands of porn/sex shops, biking past millions of 'coffee shops', huh, yeah, they don't sell coffee as thier main attraction. And stopped off at the Red Light District.

Now. I locked my bike, walked around a little, and a guy asked me the time. This was a guy in his 40's, about to go grey, a genuine smile, really nice dutch guy. "its 1.30" "oh, thanks, well, that means i have lots of time until my work starts, do you me to walk around with you?" ~ janine looks hesitant~ "c'mon, i know the area, i'll just waste some time with you" "er, ok then" .... general conversation, shows me some streets, we talk about dutch culture and openess.. "yeah, the other day i went to a live show and it was quite interesting... (pause)... have you seen a live show before?" "er, no" *alarm bells* "oh ok" .... awkward silence, then i notice he's wearing a watch *alarm bells* .... more general talk about the red light districe, he informs me that you have to be carefull when selecting the girls sometimes because they can be guys, and he knows, it happened to him. HIM, he didn't even cover it up by saying a friend or seomtning. *alarm bells* ...then he can see i'm itching to leave "hey, .. do you want to go to a special place?" *alaaaaarrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmm ABORT ABORT ABORT* i didn't even have words, i just shook my head then said thanks for the walk around and left. Very glad to leave. He was a nice guy, just, well, out for sex.

Went home for a snooze, then another bike ride, had a McKroket at mcdonalds, then went to the movies! Saw Brokeback Mountain, in english even as it had dutch subtitles. Biked home, and here i am now, 1am. Actually, i should go to bed, goign to the airport in 5 hours to see mummmmmmmmmmmmmm and riiiiiiika.

okies, slaap lekker.

Out Of Time

2006-04-06T15:41:00.000+02:00

¡Writing this at the airport, going on a 2 week trip featuring Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna and Prague.

hope you´re all doign well, i´m gonna have an absolute blast travelling around with Jaron from USAC.

And then mum and erica come to spain to see me!!!

wihoo

Fun Times Here

ciao

Non Stop Times

2006-03-28T16:39:00.000+02:00

A very quick overview since when I went to Las Fallas in Valencia 2 weekends ago (16th-20th) #NB That post & accompanying photos are delayed due to laziness# (But you can see my photographer-friend-Daniel-who-I-met-in-Valencia-but-is-from-Barcelona´s photos here )

Well I´m just sitting here inside on a cloudless day with temperature in the mid twenties but with a chilly wind, eating last nights bonanza supreme delicious salad, downloading music, listening to music, stretching, and procrastinating by writing long lists on my blog when I should be writing my 5 page in spanish essay which was due yesterday on Romantisism in 19th century spanish literarure. Sigh.

Cloudless day::::: The weather is picking up, and there have been tshirt days already!!!

Bonanza supreme delicious salad::::: I went shopping yesterday on an empty stomach, came home, and made a fabbbbbb salad with carrots, cucumber, shredded beetroot, strawberries, pear, apple, shredded lettuce, avocado, philadelphia cheese, and aloe vera yogurt as the dressing.

Downloading music::::: To fill my new shiny slim beautiful black baby (30gig iPod (music, photos, video etc etc)).

Listening to music::::: My passion

Stretching::::: The tendonitis of the 3 tendons in each lower leg (the cause of my ankle problems) is getting better, but very very slowly. At least I get a massage from the physiotherapist everyday though in my calves.

Essay::::: Essay? What essay? Oh crap, that one. Time to do the essay I guess.
Will post RE: Las Fallas soon.
It is well worth reading and seeing, but nothing compared to being there. At all.
Las Fallas were incredible. Better than my iPod and salad combined even.......

Beautiful Day

2006-03-14T14:20:00.000+01:00

Beautiful Day
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Just a fabulous day.

The past two weeks have flown by, its been absolutely lovely here (apart from some horrendus days of rain), and the past weekend has been great.

I didn´t go out as such, had Asturian friends over, lots of pizza, Cuban rum, late nights, balmy weather, and most importantly, awesome friends.

To clear up some confusion:
1)I am still doing my Bachelor of Management Studies, however I have changed my International Management major to SPANISH. (I still continue with my Economics major also)
2)There is a 99.99% chance that I will not return to New Zealand in July...... I´m staying until December now I´ve (basically) decided......
3)I will be finding some kind of job, most likely teaching English after summer here (Augustish-December)
4)It´ll either be here in País Vasco, or Asturias (also in the north of Spain)
5)I´m going to travel more again during summer after uni finishes in mid-May until sometime in August. My only problem will be missing home (er, this home here in Getxo), and my money $ituation. (its not dwindling yet, but will be by May...)

Well. Although this isn´t completely up to date and I haven´t said half of what I want to say, I have to go to class now.

Enjoy my photos, I especially love my martini and olive one. Lots of people in the new batch of photos.... as I said, i haven´t really beeeen anywhere lately apart from hanging out with friends. (And one in particular hehehehe).

Besos. Me voy a quedar aquí para siempre!!!! jajaja una broma, volveré, no os preocupéis.

Carnaval!

2006-02-27T22:23:00.000+01:00

Theatre
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Bueno, hey, wow, i actually started that in spanish without thinking. hehehe things are going great here.

well, the night of carnaval not so hot, but everything here is <|de puta madre|>. Met up with my awesomely good friend from primary school Emma who is teaching English in France in San Sebastián during carnaval (carnival for you guys!), saw a long parade which was cool but not like it went of in Cadiz or the Canary Islands (where there the carnivals are like those in Rio de Janeiro), then went to the Death Cab for a Cutie concert and had an absolute blast there. The rest of the night then went down hill because it was freeeezing (i didn´t even get to show off my pirate costume much because of the cold), raining, the bars were too packed, i was tired (we didn´t have lodging), and our group of people (after Emma and her friend Mandy left) (6 guys 1 girl) didn´t really know what to do or where to go. we ended up in a train station to keep out of the rain and cold but it didn´t quite work, so some of us found a walk in ATM and spent a bit of time there (they slept, me no). got a bus back to Bilbao at 830am, and spent sunday sleeeeeeeeeeping.

other than that i´ve just been spending time with Spaniard. Spaniard just got a full time job waiting tables at a restaurant so we might be seeing eachother less, its a good thing for my homework i guess....

anyway. not too much has been happining, as i´ve said. my ankles=not good. will go to a physio.

well. today i went to artea three times. artea is our local mall on the top of a hill. first to accompany gema´s cousin susi to her first day at work as a waitress in ´hollywood´, second to have lunch with brandon, and third to accompany vanesa to her job interview. didn´t buy one single thing!!! (apart from mcdonalds)

ok. i´m just bored at the moment, and rambling a little bit. sorry about this.

ummmmmmmm what more can i say??? i´m looking forward to seeing mum and erica in april, we´re gonna have a blast in spaaaiiiiinnnnnnn!!!!!

csi in spanish (which i´m watching at the moment) is just as corny.

gema is returning back from cuba today, her class went there on a journalism trip.

how many more single sentences can i write?

hmmm, it looks like just one.

or two. ok i´ll stop this is getting silly.

adiós!!! miss you guys! tho to be honest, a little less than before now that i´ve found someone...........

:-P

Hola

2006-02-24T23:34:00.000+01:00

Hey, just saying hi to everyone.
Haven´t done much lately, its all been saved up for tomorrow night in San Sebastian where carnaval will be going offfff!!! and a Death Cab for a Cutie concert which will be awesome (an american band i love that i found out about here) tomorrow night also. And i´m meeting up with Emma Cooke from my childhood (ok, and later on also) in San Sebastian tomorrow who is visiting from France for a day or two.
The only thing that isn´t going well in my life at the moment are my ankles. I haven´t gone out for a long time in preperation for this night, i hope they survive, i do´nt think they will tho somehow. This sucks!!!! And its gone from just being my ankles in pain to my feet/archilies/shins/calves all hurting. Sigh. The doctors here aren´t the same as in NZ. I need to find myself a physio, the pills i got given aren´t doing thier job.

Cool, that was a balanced entry, exactly the same amount of complaint as there was exhultation.
Hehehehe. I´m actually more happy than it appears tho.
Chau!!!! Besos a todos.

Not A Bad Day

2006-02-18T19:49:00.000+01:00

Well, things just keep getting better, and better, and better. I feel like I'm lying on my back looking up at the sky, and time is standing still. I want time to stand still, for I am happy. Elated, captivated, ecstatic, exultant, overjoyed etc etc etc.

I have a Spaniard :-) We've been together for a week now, though we liked eachother before also. And so yeah, hence I'm happy. VERY.

Valentines day was spent not with Spaniard (who had to go home due to a death in the family), but with a bunch of USAC students sipping pink cocktails (red martini's and some very exotic cocktails indeed (one of which involved sugar rimmed glasses and floating strawberries)) and chatting the night away.

On Wednesday for my Basque cooking class we went to a ciderhouse (a very Spanish thing to do) and ate a loooooooooooot of good food, and drank some very nice cider. It comes from a barrel as magnificently demonstrated by meeeeeeeeeee . The flavour needs to be broken, which is why its done from such a distance. Yes there is a grate in the floor in case you miss the glass, but me - miss? No way, I'm a pro at this now.

What else to tell? Ummmmmmmmmmm, did you hear that I'm happy?

Butterflies In My Stomach

2006-02-13T18:12:00.000+01:00

Falling Over
Originally uploaded by janine13.

well, the real madrid game was awesome to watch, i was 5 rows from the field, as this picture shows, and WOW that was so cool. real madrid scored in the first 5 mins of the game and in the dying moments of the game so it didn´t start nor finish too well, and athletic didn´t score any goals so that wasn´t uplifting, and david beckham wasn´t playing either which was a downer, but overall it was an amazing experience.

interesting observations:
*halftime tradition is to eat home made sanwiches wrapped in tin foil
*if the ref gets close to you in the second half throw your rubbish (tin foil balls) at him
*everyone who goes to the game (well, the majority) hold a huge street party outside the stadium beforehand.
*anthony who was sitting next to me managed to jump up and touch the game ball when it was kicked out
*i also went with monique and vann

went out afterwards of course, and the whole city was out basically!!!! the clubs were packed!!!!

got home at 1 in the afternoon.
aaaaah what a night/morning.
amazing.

Just Letting You Know

2006-02-10T17:51:00.000+01:00

Jump!
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Photos are up now!!! yay!!!!!

The past week has been ok, not too much happened.

Ate delicious duck at our basque cuisine class, slept in a lot (not missing uni tho), hung around at home, went out last saturday for paulinas 21st, have read quite a bit, so yeah, not really all that much.

What i AM looking forward to is the soccer match i´m going to tomorrow........ the Bilbao Athletic Club team versus.... wait for it..... REAL MADRID. this game is going to be FANTASTIC, and i think we have good seats. well, i hope we do, a ticket cost $94 nz dollars........... at least i get to see a good game, bilbao is going to loose of course, they are at the bottem of the table this season unfortunately, and well, c´mon, its real madrid with david beckham!!!!!

ok. hope things are going well for everyone?????????

ciao peoplesssss!!!!!

50c

2006-02-04T19:53:00.000+01:00

50 New Zealand cents. Thats what i was missing while i was walking home from buying my 3rd phone in Spain. Very odd. There just isn't money that size here.

The week has flown by, I learnt how to play Beer Pong/Beirut on thursday night which was really fun, and yesterday i went to Pamplona where they hold running of the bulls in july. Pamplona was a beautiful city, nice little streets!!!!

Photos up of the past week or so soon, due to technical dificulties with Gemma's computer and Monique's computer i haven't able to upload.

In due time.
Hasta luego mis amores :-)

Superborrachísima (Innocent Version)

2006-01-29T23:57:00.000+01:00

No bad photos, no drunken stories, just a nice photo of Bilbao by night, and me saying that I had a faaaaaaaaaaaaantastic time last night.

first of all during the day i bought a mobile phone! brand spanking new!!! it was really cool and a newer model from my last phone. note that i used the past tense. aaah yes, i lost my mobile in bilbao that night. i didn't have it for more than 12 hours!!!

anyway, there were 35 of us in my house (thankgoodness the neighbours tolerated the noise) until 1230 and then we went to town where i stayed for a while, then went home to sleep. i have now woken, and will go back to sleep shortly.

people made me cake!!!! and bought me drinks!!

Yes I had fun, yes I am now 21 :-) and yes Jaron (who's birthday it is tomorrow) had a good time too, as we celebrated our birthdays together)

(p.s if you want the unedited version, leave me a comment and i'll email it to you...... seriously, its much more interesting)

White Birthday

2006-01-27T20:25:00.000+01:00

21 Tomorrow!
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Just a quick note saying WOW IT SNOWED TODAY right in Algorta. this is fenomenal, as it only snows once a year (if that). crazy!!!!!!
my birthday tomorrow!!!!! yay for being 21!!!! technically i am already because its the 28th in nz right now.... hehehhe.
other than that i haven't been doing much.
ok. ciao, see you on sunday if i awake from my hangover.....

Puxa Asturias

2006-01-22T00:44:00.000+01:00

Oviedo From Above
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well. What a week that was. Really really beautiful region of Spain, on the north coast. So amazingly wonderful. And amazing people also!!! Gema, my flatmate, is from Asturias, and she hooked us (me and lindsay) up with her cousin susana and her friends!!!! wow. talk about drinking!!! Asturias is the home of apple cider, and jeez, they know how to drink!!!!

monday we were out dancing until 4am.... tuesday we went to the beach near oviedo called gijón which was really beautiful. on wednesday we went to león, which is in castilla y leon, the provence just south of oviedo (between asturias and madrid) which housed a huuuuge cathedral. that was more a shopping trip really, as rebajas (sales season) has hit spain!!! thursday we went to idylic little village with moi pablo and vanesa, drank cider (of course), then went to pravia (where pablo lives) and had a great meal, then went to a fantastic bar called calabeño, where it had suuuuch a celtic feel to it with people playing instruments (violin, guitar, bagpipes, tambourines, flues) whenever they felt like it. it was fabulous, i enjoyed myself a looooot there!!!! we then went on to a large variety of clubs and bars, ending up walking home at 9am in the morning. my goodness what a night! sooo much fun tho!!! (unfortunately i got my bag stolen at a club, thankfully it didn´t have my camera or wallet in it tho, just my phone, glasses etc)(so don´t call me, am in the process of getting a new phone).

thursday we had to sleep, obviously. we were meant to leave to go to salamanca, but had to pay for another night at our hostal so we could sleep during the day!!! 9pm came around and we were out again with moi vanesa and pablo to go to a cider house for dinner, and man, what a dinner it was!!! huge meal, tho not many were hungry as the others at the table (10 of us) had gone out the night before also heheh. i told myself not to drink, but after one drink i felt MUCH better and kept going hehehehe. i didn´t have my camera on me that night, but i do believe we went out to bars again...... more dancing etc etc (and i´m talking proper dancing, latin boys know how to swing it!) got home at 7ish.....

then we were invited with the boys to go to vallodalid which is in castilla y león, and we hung out drinking and being stupid with david, ruben, ivan, and moi. drinking being the key word. wow, this was 3 nights in a row folks.

i.
was.
exhasted.

but spoke perfect spanish the whole entire time, and understood every single word spoken to me. well, at least thats what i believed at the time hehehehe. the next day we ate a delicious lunch at at hobbitlike hole in a hill, ruben, moi and montoto ate half a pig (literally), and i had good lamb ribs. that night it was just me, ruben, lindsay and moi, and we ate pizza and watched 3 movies. nice and relaxing :)

monday a long but happy bus ride home, tuesday was the start of classes at university, wednesday another round of new classes, and then i got a fever. (i wonder what brought it on really.....) a horrible fever with high temperature and horrible body aches. not to mention that my ankles are worse now than ever.

so i´ve been bedridden for the past few days, only recovered today. thankfully. yes, i recovered enough to go into bilbao and be told that i cannot change my ticket.

oh what a problem (or is it a blessing in disguise??). i had bought my return ticket in march 05, and the latest flight they could book at the time was january 22nd. so i got that on the assumption that i could change it closer to the time. hmm, turns out that the day before the flight is toooo close. to make matters worse, i have noooo puta idea where my ticket is. so thats that gone. i now have no ticket home!!!!

i don´t know how to break this either, but i´ve been playing around with my university papers (now that i´ve decided to stick with the BMS and only changing a major), and it works out much much better if i start my 499 investigation paper in a semester 07, then finish off my 3 remaining papers in b semester 07....... .... . ......... .... .. ... .

which leaves me with no plane ticket, or university, or job, or commitments in new zealand until jan/feb 07...........

and yet i can easliy get a job here, in my beloved spain....... earn money for a new ticket.... a much later ticket..... maybe even go home thru the states and say hello to some old friends......

what do people think? if there are no comments in the next 3 minutes, i´m gonna do it......

Appologies

2006-01-19T20:41:00.000+01:00

I am very sick at the moment, high temperatured fever.
Too much partying may have been the cause last week in Asturias.

Uni has started, haven´t unpacked, new classes, could be dropping a class or two....

And very sick. Thankfully i have wonderful flatmates looking after me.

Oh yeah, and another problem, my plane to go back to NZ leaves on sunday from Milan in Italy.

Oh what a headache.

Ciao 4 now

RoadTrippin

2006-01-07T23:05:00.000+01:00

Sunrise
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well. What a week!

the photos pretty much explain it... i really want to be lazy and not explain my trip... although i have no exuse not to tell u about it. maybe i´m tired from moving in to my new apartment?? maybe i´m lazy??? hehehe.

ok. weds 28th: we drove to madrid (we´d rented a fiat punto), and our hostal was near the plaza mayor where they had over 100 stalls with wigs and party tricks and gags because it was the spanish version of april fools day, the day of the innocents. so i got a few things naturally... hehehe. played a lot of rummy (card game), and bar hopping of course!

thurs29th we dropped ivan off at the airport, then it was just me, alisha, and alisha´s fiancée ryan on the road trip! we went to toledo which was still really really cool! we stayed in the youth hostel castle again which the other two loved :)

fri30th we started a VERY long drive, and on the way we stopped off at my beloved cuenca!!!!! it had been foggy on the way there, and i was worried that the gorge would be all obscured, but thankfully not so!!! yay for all of us!!!! we walked around and had lunch and then started a bendy drive to barcelona. eventually we found our university apartment which i´d snagged over the internet for 2 days, had chinese for dinner, then bed! yay for sleep!

sat31st: NEW YEARS! while alisha took ryan on a guided tour of the sagrada familia church biggggg church thing (which us girls had seen before) i went for a walk around which was nice. we met up at park güell, and then began the drinking......... we had a 45 min walk ahead of us to get back to plaza catalunya/las ramblas, so we bought a can of beer each at every supermarket/store we came across on the walk. i must say, we were sloshed due to not haveing had dinner yet! then drank red wine, ate dark chocolate, and played rummy on the steps of the cathedral. very cool :) then we met up with some ozzies that alisha and ryan had met at the sagrada familia, and we partied it up!!!!!!!! i had my champagne and 12 grapes ready for the countdown (the spanish tradition is to eat a grape on each chime of the bell at midnight), which didn´t eventuate, possible because there were so many people cheering and yelling that we didn´t hear it! i chanted the countdown for our group anyway, and we all had a very merry time :) my last memory of the night was dancing in a forest listening to maroon 5 very loudly :D (don´t worry, it wasn´t a random forest, we had to go thru it to get back to our place)

sun1st: oh what a hangover. at least i didn´t throw up (cough cough ryan). hehe. we drove to girona, and figueres (in hope to see the salvador dali museum but it was closed) so decided to head to the mediterranean coast instead, and thankgod we did because Cadaqués became my 2nd favourite place in the world (after cuenca of course). sooooooo nice, we stayed in a 3 star hotel also (cheap cheap off season!), and it was just magical. we ate pizza and pasta and thouroughly enjoyed ourselves, such a beautiful place!!!

mon2nd: i caught the sunrise (see pic), and then in a few hours we were in the thick of the snowwwww in the pyrenees!! alisha did really well not to crash, it was snowing hard with steep hills and lots of curves. we had lunch and a snow fight in a small village nestled in the mountains, and then crossed the border to andorra (my 6th country in this trip so far (excluding thailand and australia)), which was pretty similar to what we´d seen in the spanish side of the pyrenees. lots more windy driving later we arrived in pamplona (yes, where they hold the famous running of the bulls in july) and stayed the night there. (no sightseeing).

tues3rd: we went to france (a city we´d previously visited called bayonne) thru the pyrenees where i snow angeled :D, walked around a lot, then went to san sebastián and stayed at a really cool funky hostel. had a mini night out, and then glad to sleeeeep!

weds4th: arrived home, officially moved into my new place (but not flatmates yet because they´re at home/travelling).

thursday? hehehe i slept alllll day. only got up to get bread, and move to the couch where i queued up 6 albums and listened to them all, just chilling out. very cool.

yesterday was more of the same, and today, well, the huuuuge sales started. so, naturally, i went shopping heheheheh.

new years resolution:
shake up my life ---> i´m in the process of changing my degree..... no more Bachelor of Management Studies..... i´m going to do a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Spanish and Economics. I´ve decided I love what i´m doing here, and with a BA i have more flexibility to do what i really have wanted to do for a long time, either teach english overseas (a spanish speaking country or japan), or teach spanish in new zealand.

so thats my plan. well, which really is a no plan hehehe.

and i´m also going to buy a bike and bike around here a lot more.

ok, wow, i´ve been on here a long time.
home time!
adiós!

Fine Dining

2005-12-28T12:33:00.000+01:00

MErry XMAS!
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Hey all, unfortunately another quick post, well, i´ll try to detail it.

Well, had everyone leave, that was sad. I ended my relationship with Cam, which was sadder. He then left back to London where he is currently, and I am still in Getxo.

I have moved now, all my stuff is in Algorta (another suburb of Getxo), and i will properly move in on the 5th, when I get back to Getxo. I didn´t have to pay my landlady extra money to have someone clean the place because i was so angry with her that i cleaned my ass off to spite her (i really really didn´t want to give her more money than i already have with rent and utilities).

But before all that was christmas. xmas eve is the night celebrated here in spain, and i went to eva´s house in san sebastián where we dined on prawns, rabas (strips of squid), salmon, delicious chicken, and a nuttily spiced meatloaf thingee. and of course wine and champagne! a very nice dinner, i was stuffed full!!! evas parents are fabulous, very nice people.

then for xmas dinner i returned to my apartment and had a huge potluck with 9 of my usac friends who hung around after the semester finished, and that was great, lots of extra food! and yes.... lots of beer, wine, rum etc etc.

and then on boxing day i went to alisha´s apartment where her flatmate cooked prawns, baby eels (angulas), amazing chicken/bacon... all the food lately has been exquisite! then we had champagne, lemon sorbet, lemon sorbet and champagne mixed together, champagne and orange juice mixed together... the list continues. another fab night for fine food!

and then last night... well, i was too scared to cook and mess up the tidy kitchen!

bye for a while, am going on a road trip!

Zorionak

2005-12-26T20:55:00.000+01:00

Merry Christmas
this´ll be the briefest of posts possible because i´m late for a dinner.
merry christmas as i´ve said
am moving out of my apartment tomorrow, and leaving for madrid/cuenca/barcelona/south of france/andorra on wednesday with ivan, alisha and her fiancé ryan. lots of cleaing to do at the apartment (the landlady made me cry today because she was yelling at me for not having cleaned yet - she is way too pedantic (and is a puta casera)).
cam and i have broken up, he has gone back to london.
as i said, very quick post, will write much more when i get a spare moment. (and photos)
xmas hugs!

Farewell Friends

2005-12-19T19:22:00.000+01:00

Goodbye!
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well well well. A very hectic few weeks. Very hectic, a lot going on.

Lots of lazing around at home, going to parties, studying for exams, sitting the exams (which went pretty well), and the saddest part -saying goodbye to many FABULOUS people who i will miss A LOT.

the semester wouldn´t have been the same without my fabulous friends. it has been awesome and i´m gonna miss everyone!!!! only about 10% of the students are staying on for the next semester so i´ll still see some, and will make a whole lot of new friends in the next lot of USACers, but i like my old friends tooooooo!!!!!

plans for the next few weeks: xmas dinner with a bunch of people staying at my place, move out of my place to a new place 4 metro stops on, a road trip to madrid/barcelona for new years, chill at home for a bit, do some more travelling, then uni starts back up again!!!

i should get a post up before xmas, but if i don´t, ZORIONAK ETA URTE BERRI ON! which is basque for feliz navidad y prospero año nuevo! which is spanish for merry christmas and a happy new year!!!!

Mini Road Trip

2005-12-06T13:58:00.000+01:00

The Way
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well, since coldplay, not too much happened until the following friday, when cam flew in from london (albeit late because he MISSED HIS FLIGHT)!!! it was wondddderfull to see him, also because he bought 2 big containers of ferrero rocher chocolates duty free hehehehehhehe.

we went out that night to pipers in algorta and met a whole bunch of people, but then went home because we were both tired, and me getting over the flu (which i got really bad on thursday). unfortunately we missed the last metro, so walked for 40 mins :(

saturday we were picked up by markel and beth (and markels dog larson) and we went for a road trip to La Rioja, the wine growing zone of Spain. Its about 1.5 hours away by car, and it was a wonderful day (as you can see) to be travelling!! we walked around the town/village of Santo Domingo de la Calzada which was really pretty, and drank wine, ate DELICIOUS food (markel is an a class cook), and watched movies. it was a very relaxed and chilled weekend. we stayed in markels grandmothers house which was huge! cam and i even got a queen bed. (which is a big deal because i´ve only got a single bed here at home which isn´t the most comfortable squeezing a big muscley man in next to me, hence we now have a blow up mattress next to my bed)

sunday we slept in, then had another walk around the township, then ate yummy lunch, had a siesta (daytime snooze), and drove back (in the rain). got home where gsep made us a delicious pasta dinner with lindsay and christina, and then we all watched shawn of the dead until the wee hours of the morning.

since then we´ve been lazy, seeing as there is no university this week because of holidays here in spain. yay!!!

well. time to go. i hope everyone is doing well??? leave me messages on here!!!!!!

by the way, it feels weird about to have a christmas without the Warehouse sales, and customer lines, and late night shopping, and busting my butt off working rediculous hours, and, well, after 5 years of that xmas has kind of come to mean that to me!!!! but the atmosphere here is amazing, EVERY shop has an elaborate xmas display, its getting colder, and its definately gonna be different!!!!!

COLDPLAY

2005-11-27T15:17:00.000+01:00

The One
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Wow. OMG!!! I saw Coldplay!!!!! And it was AWESOMEEEEEEEEE. Words can´t fully explain how COOOOOL it was. Wow. I´m still BUZZZZZING like a fridge from it.

IT
WAS
FAN-F*N-TASTIC

Background information: I love Coldplay. I discovered they were playing in San Sebastián (1 hour bus ride away) 5 months ago. I bought 4 tickets to Coldplay 5 months ago. I have been waiting for this night for 5 months. Well, longer if you consider how long i´ve loved Coldplay for. In short, I LOVE COLDPLAY. I bought 4 tickets so that other friends that I would make from USAC could come with me, and when people found out i had Coldplay tickets, I all of a sudden had a lot more friends!!!!! I had bought them for 40€ ($NZ70) each, and scalpers on the internet were selling tickets for over €100. So I was VERY lucky to get tickets.

Before leaving for Spain in July, I had two days marked in my diary as sacred days. 31st of August, and 25th of November. Coldplay has won out over La Tomatina Festival. Coldplay are AWESOME.

ok, so the concert. well, what more can i say? the best concert of my life. one of the best nights of my life. met 3 cool Spanish guys at our hostel in San Sebastián who were going to the concert, so me, alisha, madelyn and lindsay were gifted with thier presence at the concert, and had a fantastic time. We drank kalimotxo before the concert, and during, but enough to get a buzz going, we wanted to remember the concert of course!!! (well, and i have a lot of concert video so that is cooler!).

the venue was in a velódromo (i´ve forgotten how to spell it in english so i´ll leave it as that - its where you cycle round and round inside on a professional track), and it was nearly packed. the vibe from the crowd was sooooooooo good. everyone was having a fantastic time, and nothing went wrong.

when the band came on stage it was like a jet was taking off, we all went nuts!!!! and the entire band are really good live, chris martin, lead singer, even spoke to the crowd in very broken spanish, and when he spoke basque, i´m sure it was equally as broken. but wow, it was soooo cool. he and all of them are really really talented.

the lighting was spectactular, and the screen behind them was awesome, and i just will never be able to recreate the night. wow, it was cool. they were on stage for 1.5 hours, and chris martin even ran into the crowd to sing part of a song. it was so energetic and full of power. at one stage he grabbed a phone from someone in the crowd and sang into the phone. that would have been soooo cool for the person on the other end!

i had promised to call people from the concert, and trust me, i damn well tried, but a) my phone is in a vodafone store being repaired, and b) none of my 3 friends could get coverage. so that was dissappointing, sorry guys.

after the concert we went out of course!!!!! many bars, many drinks, many crazy people we met. had breakfast and coffee at 6am, and finally crawled into bed at 730am. IT WAS FREEZING in our hostel, the heating had broken. i curled up in a ball for the morning, while alisha and madelyn left early. a very late checkout at 1230 for me and lindsay(we were lucky we didn´t get charged for the next day), and us, very very hungover walked around san sebastián eating whatever we wanted, then caught the bus back. shower and sleep was on the menu, and i slept for 15 hours.

Current mental state: delerious - a mixture of tiredness (still) and elation.
Current physical state: 2 semi sprained ankles, sore calves, back is holding up ok, cold feet.
Current general state: VERY HAPPY, the concert was worth the pain.

Thanksgiving

2005-11-25T14:50:00.000+01:00

Dinner!
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well guys, i had my first thanksgiving. now, of course they don´t celebrate thanksgiving in spain, but those crazy americans do!!!! we didn´t eat turkey (way to expensive and scarce), but chicken did the job. we all had a fabulous time, and of course a lot of wine went down a treat also. we were all thankfull for being in spain and meeting such wonderful people, and how right we are!!!!!!! this was on thursday, and it was an awesome night. check out our turkey centrepeice even!!!

The Guggenheim

2005-11-23T16:24:00.000+01:00

I finally went and had a walk around the outside of the Guggenheim museum which is THE attraction in Bilbao. Also its really famous, and big and pretty. It houses art which i haven´t seen yet. Waiting for Cam to come so i don´t have to see it twice.

http://www.by-cam.com/byCam/119/VIDEOS/119CKVO46.MPG And here is me, outside the Guggy.

Enjoy! (You´d better, because it cost me 1€ to record it....)

Delicious Donostia

2005-11-21T17:39:00.000+01:00

Charlies Angels
Originally uploaded by janine13.

This was my first USAC journey!
We all travelled by bus to Bayonne and Biarritz in France, about half an hour from the Spain-France border, and enjoyed a walking tour in Bayonne (home of chocolate in Europe - i bought cinnamon flavoured chocolate which was quite nice (yeah i ate it all, sorry, none for home!)), and enjoyed a beer in the pub in Biarritz. Speaking French didn´t really happen, we spoke in spanglish. The beer we bought tho was quite expensive - 5€ ($9.50NZ) for a 750ml bottle.

Then all of us (there are about 40-50) travelled back to Donostia - which is San Sebastián in Basque language & also where my flatmate Eva is from - where we stayed in a very luxurious hotel for the night. well, for the few hours of sleep that we got!!!!

went out for dinner with christina and lindsay, and as you can see in the photo, i had something very very interesting indeed. horrible texture, but was edible. we ate right next to the cathedral, then out to partyyyyyyyyyy!!!!! met two guys from san sebastián who were really cool (josu and enrique), then went to another bar where we hung out with a large bunch of frenchies (we spoke spanish with them, not english, and certianly not french) until the end of the night at about 3 or 4. the walk home was definately enjoyable, lots of fun in the playground!!!!

next morning, what a hangover indeed. ouchie. but it was a relaxing day - went to the aquarium which was quite cool, I LOVED the jellyfish. fascinating. then, being me, i went shopping!!! yay!!!! lunch was a very interesting event, never have i eaten clams, and i found them very enjoyable ineed :)

the bus home after this was quite quiet, and then had chinese with andréa, ashley and lindsay, and then wow - straight to bed - for 14 hours!!!!

yesterday, sunday, i didn´t do too much, went for a walk, chilled out, very relaxed. my back is getting much better, which i am very very happy about!!!!!!

well. thats my update! ciao for now!!!
my trip was AWESOME. very cool. i enjoyed it A LOTTTTTTTTT.

Protest!

2005-11-17T21:14:00.000+01:00

The Wake of the Protest
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well, I finally got a taste of real Basque culture today, a demonstration!!! well, i won´t say a real taste of culture, a bus wasn´t lit on fire, and according to our programme coordinator we haven´t seen the basque country (our region in spain) until we´ve seen a bus on fire. (during the ETA movements setting a bus on fire was a trend. a public bus.)

anyway. so, first of all. our bus wasn´t able to get into the university grounds, we got dropped off at the roundabout and a walk up the driveway was what we needed to do. well, there was a big line of people yelling and screaming with white masks on holding banners. they were quite intimidating. also there were sirens and whistles and it was eerie. nothing could get in or out.

so i got to class, had my test, and then we hear sirens and whistles and all kinds of carry on from down below (the photo is taken from my class), and while i didn´t get a photo of the demonstrators, i got the aftermath. and i went down and witnessed what they were doing.

we now have a paintspilled floor, rubbish everywhere, stink bombs were let off aparantly, and the dumbest thing is that there is now graffiti all over the walls, lifts, floor, you name it - its graffitied with slogans. the stench was horrible. i saw someone graffitying even - broad daylight. crazy. so the place is a bit of a mess.

no police presence.
the security guards just talked on thier walkie talkies.
noone seemed to complain.

because its normal.

insane. anyway, they were protesting because (i´ve heard two reasons):
a) the government needs to regulate the degrees with the rest of europe, and this means the standard needs to be brought up, which means the students have to do more work.
b) they are going to take out the social studies part of university, so that means literature, philosophy etc will not be taught anymore at this university.

so there it is. an interesting morning. my other two tests today went well, and now i´m about to go back to bed and rest my poor back :(

tomorrow i visit france! well, jussst inside the border. this is a USAC programme trip, all paid for! we stay in a hotel in San Sebastián and everything!

Hasta luego, i´ll have lotsa photos after the weekend :)

80´s Party

2005-11-16T14:37:00.000+01:00

Hard To See With Glasses
Originally uploaded by janine13.

An 80´s party occured on Friday. And what a party it was!!!!

Lots of people were dressed up and it was a lot of fun indeeeeeed. it was beth´s 21st (a big big thing in the states of course with the drinking age being 21) hence the 80´s theme.

in just that night alone i took 228 photos. how insane is that. i think the camera was glued to my hand. sooo many photos. its funny seing people getting drunker and drunker in the photos as the night progresses.

good times!

hungover saturday, back not too bad considering the beating it got :)
had dinner at a really really good italian restaurant with jackie beth mike markel gema and markels friend who i always forget his name. mmmm lasagne was goooood.

sunday was a relaxing day, didn´t really do too much apart from lie down all day. back seemed good.

monday was a good day, nothing to complain about really. good sweet and sour dinner at a chinese restaurant with linday and ashley. mmmm then icecream.

tuesday... well... back spasms, lightning flashes of pain.... not a good day. stayed in bed for 90% of the day. got up only to get food, go toilet, and then giuseppe took me to the doctor who told me exactly what i already knew - ibuprofene, rest, heat on my back. its a muscular thing which is dumb. but i had telepizza! (the rival to pizza hut - and willoughby, telepizzas pizzas are better).

and then there is today. uni then internet cafe, so far :)

enjoy the photos. remember that there are 217 others sitting on my camera that i had to sort through!

General Life

2005-11-11T14:59:00.000+01:00

Things that have happened:
# Leonor was born, she is the crown princess of Spain, and is 2nd in line to the throne. The press has been going crazy with happiness.
# Did you know: The press isn´t allowed to talk badly of the royal family.
# I am addicted to sausages, they are like sizzlers but better with yummy gooey cheese.
# Its getting colder here, 10º in the morning when I get on the 8am bus to uni.
# I didn´t go to uni on tuesday or wednesday, and was sent home on thursday because of my back. Its out. And here´s the funny thing, nothing caused it to go out. I was doing things normally as usual. I may have sat on a couch awkwardly for a few hours, but thats normal. So yeah. Sore back. Better today tho thankfully :)
# I get slightly nervous getting into the elevator in our building when there are 3 people in it. I´m not a claustraphobic person, its just that Eva, Ashley AND Giuseppe have all been stuck in the elevator for an hour - in 3 seperate incidents - for having too much weight in the lift. So i know its my turn next......
# I heard David Beckham speak in spanish on the news the otherday - and he sounds like a little boy! Its not his tough cool image at all hehehehe.
# I am now in level 4 in spanish (there are 4 levels)
# I am not sure if i want to live with a family next semester, i´m having way to much fun making my own decisions and choices and not having to worry about being here or there at a certain time. And i´m having fun cooking for myself (see note number 3) and coming home at odd hours in the morning. And having friends over! In a family i would have to ask permission etc etc, and i most certianly would not be allowed my boyfriend over. So i´m almost set on living with students again, tho i´d move to Algorta, 4 metro stops away.
# Me gusta mucho hablar en castellano. (I like to speak in Spanish).
# In Burger King, the drinks coming in sizes medium, large, and gigantic.
# The television comercials here are much more entertaining than in NZ. Much more humour is used.
# I have caught myself out occasionaly saying things with a harsh r - the american way. for example instead of saying caa for car, i´d say carrrr. hmmm, hard to explain.
# Everyone´s english is deteriorating here. We struggle to form correct sentences, and as you can probably see, my spelling has also gone to crap. Its not because we don´t speak english here, because (unfortunately) amongst american friends we mostly do, but its just that we don´t care to correct ourselves. Some other theories include: every spanish word we learn kicks out an english word, every spanish gramatical structure we learn kills brain cells, and every spanish swear word we learn makes us look cooler. heheheh.
# I am going out to an 80´s party tonight. (Beth is turning 21)I am taking care of my back. I am a carefull person.
# 10€ goes to the person who figures out a) which country, b) which city, c) which building, d) which wall, the graffiti comes from.

I Don´t Know What To Call This One

2005-11-06T15:45:00.000+01:00

ok. sorry for crap image. taken from my phone last night.

another cool weekend, chilled on thursday doing homework with lindsay, movies on friday until 5am, and then partying it up last night!

i went to a sidraría in guernika (a cider house) with nate, kyle, beth, madeline, monique, jackie and mike, had delicious food (chorizo (sausageish), tortilla de bacalao (omlettish cod), steak, and looootttssss of cider. yummy cider that we poured ourself from the huge barrel. it had a tap. very cool! bussed back and then went out partying with the same people and gemas friends (gema is the spanish flatmate of jackie and beth). they all went home so i partied with beth and markel and his friends (alex is the one kind of in the photo). got home at 730! fun!!!!!!

hungover now. and you know what is good for hangovers? spanish tortilla made by stuart (evas boyfriend) (its a potato omelette - the tortilla, not stuart), wine, italian coffee, and lemon liquor. mmmmmmm.

and now i am sitting in the internet cafe. about to study. looking forward to our usac trip to the fringe of france in 2 weekends, then the coldplay concert the weekend after, then cam is coming to live with me for a while the weekend after! lots to look forward to!!!!!!!!!!!!! i´m having a blast, and its gonna keep continuing!!!!! hooraaaaahhhh!!!

ha. a prime example of spanish culture. in the internet cafe i´m in, they just opened up a bottle of champagne and gave out drinks to everyone in here!!!! i´m not too sure what the occasion is. so ontop of my hangover, mmmmmm champagne.

Germany in Autumn Rocks

2005-11-01T14:30:00.000+01:00

Qué Bonito!
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well. I am still very very happy. for 3 reasons.

the most recent first: giuseppe had his parents over from italy last night, and a few of his friends who speak italian, so there were 6 of us a the dinner table. delicious dinner - pasta, prawns and muscles cooked by giuseppes mum. although that made me happy, it was the fact that i could understand a large proportion of the converstation, IN ITALIAN, just based on what i know in Spanish. how happy would that make someone feel - to understand a language you´ve never studied!!!!

ok. now, germany, the 2nd reason. cheap flights from santander (1.5 hours from bilbao) means travelling is a must - $55nz dollars to fly to germany (31€) - that is insane.

so we flew into frankfurt, stayed there for 3 nights in a hotel, very nice comfy beds and our own rooms - very different to hostels i´ve been staying in in the past!!! the 1st day we walked around a lot, the river as fannnnnntastic, and the old quater, and just wow, the scenery of all the different leaf colours was breathtaking. i felt like i was truley in europe, especially with bikes lining the pavements, typical european houses everywhere, pomme chips (chips in a cone smothered in tomato sauce and mayonaise), and i even managed to understand basic things because of dutch. crazy - that made me happy like the italian situation also. very happy.

the next day we met with leni, who is a friend of jarons who was an exchange student in the usa but lives in mannheim, so she visited us in frankfurt and we walked around a lot more, even playing frisbee in the huge park in frankfurt which i really really liked, it was fab!!!! remember how i like gardens and walking around in them? i was in heaven here, the trees were just amazing. we didn´t ´go out´ as such, but had a beer and chilled at the hotel (getting a noise complaint along the way from the front desk!).

sunday was a magical day. we went to mannheim for a wee while (1.5 hours away by train), but the highlight of the day was heidelburg, a town with a castle on its hill, and wow, with the setting sun it was really really really ... i´m running out of adjectives to describe how beautiful everything was. everything was just a dream, seriously breathtaking. you need to see the photos to grab a slight understanding of it .. it doesn´t convey the real beauty tho. wow it was cool. had yummmmmy sauerkraut, nürnberg sausages and püree potato and a beer of course, and i was even more in heaven. alllllll the food i had in germany was soooo good. i have definatley put on weight, i ate everything in sight bcause it was soooo good. plus it reminded me of home i guess (marzipan, speculaas etc).

we came home yesterday after a lot of travel - 1.75 hours on bus to airport, 1 hour waiting, 2 hours flying, .5 hours waiting, .25 hours on bus to bus station in santander, 1 hour waiting, 1.5 hours on bus to bilbao, .40 hours on metro back home to Las Arenas. (9 hours all up)

so that was my trip extremely quickly summed up.

unfortunately i have a 10 page essay and presentation due tomorrow on the european monetary system... so i had better start it ......

happy halloween everybody!!! p.s. now the time difference between spain and nz is 12 hours, we put our clocks back the other day - much to all of our surprise - we turned up to find that the train we thought we had missed wasn´t going to leave for some time :)

besos!!!

Elation

2005-10-22T19:58:00.000+02:00

AAAhhhhhhhh
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well people, i am happy.
really really happy.
giddily happy.
mmmmmm happiness.

The weekends just keep getting better and better and better for me, things are amazing here. ---> the people are amazing, the places i visit are amazing, the atmosphere everywhere is amazing, its just all amazing. increíble.

and my spanish is getting so much better. i can give you an example even, i felt sooooo happy when a word floated into my head. eva and i were talking about something, and it had a hole in it, and she paused saying something, and i leapt in there with the most random word i´d heard. i had no idea where it came from, it literally floated into my head, agujero. i don´t even remember learning that word.

that was a week or so ago. last night and the night before when i went out with americans (a different group that i normally hang out with) (thursday), and beths spanish friends last night (friday), were more random words popping into my head and i felt really happy. i still do, yay i´m learning!!!!

last night was veeery cool because insteadd of being with a huge crowd of americans speaking english, it was me and beth and about 8 spaniards who we all spoke spanish amongst eachother. aaah that was fun. plus we went across the river to portugalete where there are lots of night clubs and bars where i´d never been before, and we all had a blast. i crawled into bed at 845am :)

everything lately has just been going soooo smoothly. and whats better is that this coming weekend is going to be the shiz-nizzle also! huge halloween party on the 27th (you know how america is big on halloween...) and then going to frankfurt in germany for the weekend!!!!

This place is AMAZING.
Confession: I don´t want to leave. Ever.

Madness

2005-10-16T14:05:00.000+02:00

Porron Madness
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Ok. the photos are kinda out of order. or they are in order depending on how you look at it. hmm that didn´t make sense. but then again neither did the weekend.

so. thursday night went to 2 bars with jaron, alisha, katherine, sarah, beth, brandon. mmmmmm that was fun. met up with dave and ed. jaron and alisha and katherine went home. so did dave. the rest went back to ed/sarah´s house and drank more, kalimotxo to be exact. (a mix of wine and coke - do not fear, i will bring the tradition back to nz). we had the funnyeist time. dancing, laughing, being immature uni students. stayed on beths couch, and got home at 11am.

as you can see from the photos of alllll the coke cups, i kept myself occupied. i was still drunk. very very entertaining. i even made a big piramid on the table and kicked it down. nice action video of that! where did all the cups come from? momo bar. iñigo has all the hook ups. ;)

then at 3 we went to basauri. now, basauri is having huge fiestas this week. and goddamn they know how to party. we walked around the town for a bit (1/2 hour of metro then 15mins by train to get there), then went from bar to bar getting beer and pintxos (tapas, which are small bits of food. i dunno, hard to explain.). there was a huge concert, met more spanish people, followed stray cats to find adequate toilets, dance parties, drinking from porrones (see my photo description on flickr), all my friends dissapearing with guys, dancing, drinking for free because lindsays guy was the bartender, eating breakfast with lindsay, her guy (David) and the owner of that bar at 7am (??), going back to davids place, sleeping on a chair for 1 hour, then making it back home to bed at 1230.

it was madness. the best night i´ve had so far. utterly incredible. woke up at 8pm, and i was told that i´m going out again. so we went back to basauri! but i hadn´t drunken as much as the night before and i wasn´t as pumped up, but still enjoyed what time i had there. went home by myself at 530, and now have the day to recoop. i have absolutely no voice. and my body hurts lol.

but i had an amazing weekend.
i can´t remember what uni is, or homework. heh.

The Fantasic Four

2005-10-13T14:30:00.000+02:00

The Fantasic Four
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well, these are my flat mates. I know you´ve seen Giuseppe and Ashley before, but not Eva, who joined us 2 weeks ago, and is from San Sebastián (1 hour away).

Ok. so. not too much has happened in the nearly 2 weeks... you can see my photo page which shows that i went to the beach on friday, didn´t do much saturday, then went to plentzia via metro (40 mins) which is a small town at the mouth of a river. i went by myself this time, and it was just like i was travelling solo before uni started - it was heaven. i was the only one making decisions, no maps, no this no that, just what i wanted to do. fantastic.

a very nice and tranquill place, i went to the beach there, and fell asleep for a few hours, i was that relaxed. (i´d stayed up until 330 on sat night, watched sweet home alabama and saved! which the last one is a VERY cool movie, you have to see it.) a swim woke me up - the water was quite cold, and then i sat jealously watching a kayaker surf in the waves. i gotta rent me one someday.

this past wednesday, the 12th is a holiday in spain, "Fiesta Nacional de España", basically national day. it was when columbus discovered america or something, and columbus is from spain (his name is actually Cristóbal Colón). so this means drinking time on tuesday night. and man, what a night i had. the most varied in my life.

started at about 10 with a house party where giuseppe (the pasta master) cooked us and 9 others a beautiful meal of pasta, so we drank and ate which was really nice. then we caught the metro to algorta, a neighbourhood 2 neighbourhoods over where a lot of other usac students live, where there was a botellón.

only in spain do they coin a name for "going to a park or public place and drink alcohol bought cheaply at a supermarket". so that was all fun, about 30 people there in a park overlooking the bay. then we caught the metro back (normally the metro closes at 11pm on week nights, but because of fiestas (parties) it closes at 2) and went to Momo bar. lots of people there, lots of spaniards that is. then 5 of us decided to walk to puerto deportivo, which is 15-20 mins away, so that was fun and we danced in a disco for a while. lindsay and i decided to just start walking around, but we didn´t really need to, guys would constantly walk up to us with the line " where are you from?" so we´d explain our life stories a few hundred times. met lots of people that way. ok, when i say people i mean guys. lol. all of this in spanish however :) (Even tho the initial question was in english, we refused to talk in it). we walked back again, and we heard the metro running! we were sure that it stopped at 2, so imagine our surprise when i realised that the metro had just started back up again.... at 6am!

i was meant to go hiking on the wednesday but that meant getting up at 730... something i was not in the right frame of mind to do!!!!! so i blobbed out yesterday, did some much needed homework also :)

not sure of what i´m doing this weekend, or the weekend after, tho i do know that the weekend after that i´m going to frankfurt in germany! wihoo!

Yay for Technology!

2005-10-11T14:48:00.000+02:00

This is Getxo <<<< click on me!

hmmmm. ok. you see the copywrite google sign in the bottom corner on the right? the actual c in the circle. ok, draw a straight line from there to the minus sign on the zoom toggle thing. got that line? ok now on that line should be a white dot/diamond closest to the c sign. it looks like it has two roads coming off it going to the ne and se???? that is the plaza that i can see from my balcony. so where that white dot is, i´m on the west of the point of the diamond. this photo was taking during the time of a festival because the whiteness is actually the top of a tent. a huge tent. like in my photo :) now, use that zoom in, and you can see my roof!

the university is the large complex above the "digital globe" phrase in the copywrite at the bottom right. (it is a 40-50 minute walk, or a 25 minute bus ride)

the beach where i took one of my favourite photos (see the blog of that title) is the middle beach in the photo, the one with the giant pier shooting off the south end of the beach (pointing nw). (walking along the harbour from my house, it takes about 15 mins to get there)

if you move the map up some more you can see the beach where i surf :) after the right angle point (the biiiig one, hard to miss), its the 3rd beach along. (on the metro it takes 25 mins, the from the metro stop to the beach its a 20 min walk)

Well. thats where i live, and my neighbourhood :) exciting aye!!!!!

and instead of writing about the past week, i´ll just let you enjoy the wonders of google maps :)

Yay for Helen!

2005-10-02T19:19:00.000+02:00

Well, surfing was aweeeeeeeeeeesome. A LOT of fun, thats for sure. Beth and I got to the beach, climbed into cold wetsuits (which i guess was a good thing because it was a really hot day - good for the water!), and went into the water with about 20 others. Only her, me and a Dutch guy hadn´t surfed before and so we had our own tutor. We had long boards, and at first we just got told to try. So i´d lie on my board, paddle, and then once i´d caught the wave you´re meant to then stand up. amazingly, surprising, gobsmackingly, i was able to stand up pretty quickly. There were some people in that group that had been trying for days and still couldn´t, so i feel pretty good!!

one of the (not so good) times i stood up, i then missed my footing, slipped, and fell on my back on my board with my head facing the shore. i then continued to ride the wave on my back while still on the board!!! that was really really funny. jaron and katherine were with the other 17 people, and they were doing really well also, and beth managed near the end to nearly get the hang of it.

i´m definately going to buy a water proof camera to take to tomorrows lesson... although the weather has turned a little miserable...

didn´t go to rugby practice, jackie who i´d be doing it with was sick so i guess i´m going tomorrow :) (jackie plays rugby in the states). had drinking games at home instead - very cool because for the most part they were in spanish with Eva´s friends (my roommate). this was a cool night, we drank then headed to momo where we met up with many morepeople. very good times. even met an aussie that i could hassle!! yay!!!

on saturday a lot of people went to Gernika, but because i didn´t know about this USAC trip i coudln´t go. i would have gone but you had to sign your name up and noone told me about it :( read some more of harry potter 6 in spanish, went to linday´s place who was sick and missing out on the trip and watched a movie, then walked for 2 hours just listening to music and chilling out.

for the past 24 hours apart from sleeping i´ve been eating and reading harry potter. good stuff. just finished it which is the only reason i´m on the interent :) time to do homework now though. this week looks to be uneventful, apart from rugby and surfing. i hope the weather improves!!

My Diary of Barcelona

2005-09-30T11:46:00.000+02:00

Thursday
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Yes, I know its been a while, sorry, therefore i´ll take the lazy route and just show you my diary.

and then there are the photos etc.

last night was fun, walked for ages and met up with our usac group people (some of them) and drank kalimotxo (wine and cocacola), beer, wine, anyting we could get our hands on. good times. very cold tho.

monday - thursday has been a very busy and stressfull week. test after test and not being able to sleep much. 2 cups of coffee a day has helped :) i´m a coffee drinker now by the way :)

learning how to surf today, and then off to my first rugby practice...

sorry about the email neglecting, at least you know i´m alive tho right?
will get on top of it all soon.

One of My Favourite Photos So Far

2005-09-21T16:15:00.000+02:00

One of My Favourite Photos So Far
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Sunday 18th: went to a medieval festival in a neighbouring neighbourhood which had EVERYTHING medieval, it was really cool. even archery lessons, hawks, hangings, and swordfights. ok, the hanging happened in a play so it wasn´t real. but the swords were... and their choreography good. hmm. my spelling has gone to the crapper. so has my vocabulary, i think all the spanish i´m learning is pushing out the english....!

on monday i met my intercambio, who is my exchange partner. we converse 1 hour in spanish then 1 hour in english. now, every student gets a partner, who is more or less thier age so they can go to parties etc with thier new spanish friend. my intercambio is Eduardo, a 39 year old economics teacher at the university! but he´s really cool, and his speciality is development economics, which is the area i want to go into - so what we talk about is all beneficial! not that we talk about economics all the time, nooooo! lots of different topics, but his english is nearly perfect anyway so thats good.

actually the past few days has been quite tame, getting into the rhythm (you don´t know how many times i spelt that to get it right... i´m still not sure if its spelt like that) of studying and things. had a test today which i did very well in for managerial finance, and now i have to go home and write an essay for spanish on food. mmmmm i´m hungry.

oh yeah, i may not get to post until monday or tuesday because this weekend i´m going to Barcelona!!!! wihooooo! i´m going with katherine, alisha, beth, ivan and jaron. this is going to be a kick ass weekend!!!

El Momo Loco

2005-09-18T14:06:00.000+02:00

El Momo Loco
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Me encanta Momo!
This was the friday night i had just written about. very cool.

anyway, so that saturday i went to a juanes concert, who is very very popular in spain and latin america, you can see the photos on my photo page etc. that was really fun, he´s pop, and its fun pop, not candy pop type music. anyway. la camisa negra is the name of his hit song at the moment.

sunday i didn´t do too much, in fact it was so long ago and i don´t have my diary with me that, well, what did i do? coffee with ivan and alisha. um yeah.

monday classes etc..... tuesday classes etc..... wednesday had a mini study group thing with katherine and alisha which we got hyped up on caffine and sugar. that was cool.

thursday i went rollerblading, had a good meal by giuseppe (As you can see in photos (yeah i say that a lot)) and then a good relaxing night.

friday i ahhh, ummm oh yeah, hangover and stuff. relaxed.

saturday more of the same, lounged around at home, awaiting election results etc, called a lot of people. (and no, i didn´t vote, too much hassle - i would have either had to travel to madrid, or post in a form. both are expensive!) oh yeah and then photos and stuff of drinking games with ivan, ivan and alisha. very cool night. didn´t go out, but drank at ivans house and my place. time flew out the window, and it was 4 when we realised what the time was!

not much of a hang over this morning which was nice.

AND I´D JUST LIKE TO ADD A VERY HAPPY 24th BIRTHDAY TO CAMERON, AND ALSO A HAPPY 2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY FOR US BOTH.

Te quiero mi amor.

Sorry For The Wait

2005-09-13T13:50:00.000+02:00

Out to the Headlands
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Problems, problems and then more problems. Problems with time management, problems with the blog site (it deleted my last long post which I wrote 2 days ago), and problems with my student loan not being paid.

But now I think I have a little time to fill you in.

Wow, I really haven´t said much about where I am what i´m doing etc etc.

Um. Ok.

Thursday 1st September: Arrived in Getxo, moved into my apartment, crashed, slept, welcomed in Ashley who is from San Diego.

Friday 2nd: We had our university orientation which was us sitting in a room listening to the rules etc, and then we had a written test, and a vocal test. I did pretty good, I got into track 3 (out of 4 tracks). Welcomed Giuseppe from Italy (who loves kiwis because he lived on a farm near Tokoroa for 5 months a few years ago).

Wasn´t feeling very well, but hung out during the afternoon with Andréa and Lindsay, two friends of Ashley (but not friends from america, they met in madrid). Then later on at night I hung out with Beth and Sara, we went for a walk to the port.

Saturday 3rd: Full blown sickness, I wasn´t able to go on the tour of Bilbao and Getxo - but it turns out I didn´t miss much because it was quite lame. Sleep, sleep and more sleep, achey joints, hot and cold etc - and there was a huge party at our apartment. Seriously, it was loud. I felt so lousy. At one stage i think i was hallucinating, i´m not sure, but i remember something about giraffes. Weird.

Sunday 4: Relaxed during the day, didn´t want to ruin my recovery, tho the worst had passed.

Monday 5: Went shopping with Beth and Nate - you see the highway picture in my photo page? yeah, read the blurb about that one also. maddness. running across highways. we hung out in the evening as well, went to a reallllly nice bar thing near the old port of Getxo.

Tuesday 6: First day of uni! (or school as the americans call it - noone knew what i was saying apart from Alisha, who studied in waikato uni in 2003 for a semester!)

Classes are as follows:
Mondays to Thursdays spanish from 845 until 1125. (yes, that means getting up at 730 to catch an 820 bus. its not fun adjusting!)

I have global economics on tuesdays and thursdays from 1125-1255 which is a good class - it would help if i could read the book we´re meant to be following - mines still being shipped from amazon. mondays and wednesdays are my busyiest days with managerial finance 1125-1255, and then european union from 1255-225. All three classes are quite interesting, and all have a large workload(e.g reading), but it looks easy to me as i´ve done similar classes. one thing freaked me out here, a D is actually a pass, what we´d call a C - so I really don´t want to come back with D marks because noone in nz will know that its a pass! they´ll think i failed!!!

Wednesday 6th: classes... and then went shopping!!! i bought rollerblades - and they are SUPER cool. can´t remember what i did for the night time.

Thursday: 7th: classes, then went rollerblading! and man it was fun. i went so far and with such ease!!! most of the picutres in the last post are from my rollerblading, it was beautiful weather!!! then seeing as we don´t have classes on fridays, it was time to hit the town!! we went to an irish pub in bilbao where a LOT of students were, and it was kinda hot and crowded so we floated a bit (and took poo photos, a VERY funny time we all had) (we=jeron (who looks like christian bale who played batman), Alisha and I, and then later joined by Sara and Ivan) (can´t remember where Jeron is from, alisha Idaho, sara Northern California, and ivan Idaho).

That was a great night. Got to bed at 330.

Friday: Ummmm... can´t remember... oh wait, yes i do, hungover, took it slow, talked on the webcam with a few people (friday evening for all you kiwis is a good time to catch me, its looking to be my time on the net). had a coffee (yes, i´ve started drinking coffee here, its really good) with Iñigo, a very hot spanish guy who lives in our building (and by the way this is social coffee, nothing else) at a very cool bar called Momo and then for the nighttime i hung out with Iñigo, Giuseppe, Ashley, Lindsay, Andréa, and some of Giuseppes crazy italian friends. it was cool, got home at 3ish again. This bar is just around the corner (well, 3 corners) from our place, and its truley funky.

Saturday: Well, I went to a .... crap. I have to go, the library here is closing (normal university hasn´t started yet, it starts in october, so ther eare reduced hours.)

I´ll post soon, and will tackle my large inbox of mail when I can also!!!

Home in Getxo!!

2005-09-02T20:13:00.000+02:00

My Room
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Well. After a disasturous night on the night train, I have arrived to my final destination, Getxo (pronounced Getcho).

This is home now for me until christmas!! (after christmas i´ll be homestayed with a family)

I had my first day at uni, and moved in yesterday, and i am currently sick with the flu.

Therefore this post will unfortunately have to wait, however i´ve made some good friends already, i have a wicked apartment with a great view (See photos), am flatting with an american Ashley, an italian Giuseppe, and someone else who hasn´t moved in yet.

Its been great, but i need some rest now (la tomatina was a very large blog to type out!)

Adiós for now.

If you want to know my address and cellphone number, just drop me an email :)

La Tomatina

2005-09-01T20:00:00.000+02:00

Dinner Anyone?
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Ok, so i´ll cut to the chase.

Arrived at 10 to buñol and already a very large amount of people trying to get to the main square, large amount is incalculable, i´d say already a few thousand??

Pushing and shoving got easier as I got more and more saturated in sweat (mine and others), beer (cups thrown around), water (sprayed around from roof tops), and sangria (so I became red early).

Then started the ´camiseta´ chants. A group gather around someone (willing or unwilling, usually males vs male) and rip their shirt off. About 70% of people got their shirts ripped off, not me thankfully!

After about 45 mins – 1 hour of this it was getting tiring, it was like a never ending mosh pit with no apparent rules. The streets were running thick with water and beer, and my shoes were sodden.

Through all this time there´d be frequent ´ole ole ole ole´ chants, and a large round of applause and cheer when someone climbed or got quite high on the traditional greased pole to get the ham at the top, which starts the tomato throwing.

All around us on the balconies and roof tops surrounding us were tv cameras, and photographers happily snapping away, with the crowd often playing to them and vying for attention. Also on the roof tops were locals who had buckets of water, hoses, and tomatoes lined up waiting to be thrown.

At 11 there was a huge bang and the roof top dwellers immediately swung into action, with the crowd expecting to be pelted, but before they crowd got hit, the rooftops had a war! They also aimed at the tv cameras. The bang signalled the arrival of the 7 dump trucks FULL to the brim with tomatoes which made its way slowly through the streets unleashing its red fury!!

If there was a squeeze in the streets beforehand, then squeezing the lorries through created madness! They took up half the street! We were treated to a barrage of tomatoes from them, and then as the tomatoes became more populous, we threw tomatoes back at them.

Occasionally a truck would stop and dump a whole heap and this is what EVERYONE was looking forward to.

FQ$•%%& AWESOME FUN.

After 15 mins my goggles had become useless as they were fogged up, so I went without. It was hard to bend down and pick up the tomatoes due to the throng of people, so I just went with the flow of people!

I got hit heeeeeaaappppsss including many in the back of my head and quite a few in the face too. I had well lost anyone from the hostel, but everyone at la tomatina was now ´every man for himself´ anyway, but having said that, everyone around you became your friend!

Lots of English/uk people, ozzies and kiwis were there, with many annoying pushy guys around, but they slid right past most of the time.

One popular and painful pastime was getting the ripped tshirts from the ground, soaking them in more liquid tomato, and knotting them, then letting them loose. There were tons in the air at any given time, I copped a few but lobbed them on to share the joy!

Wiping your eyes constantly was a must.

At one point in the street, the tomatoes came up halfway to my shins, and it was all chunky pureed fun!!! Many (Well, basically all in jandals) lost their jandals, so there were lots of scooping tools floating around.

Anyone who was on top of someones shoulders, wearing something silly, or some sort of inflatable hat was more fair game than everyone else, and there was lots of aiming at people on balconies.

Near the main square there were large water cannons which made the throwing a little tough because it was mostly tomato juice!

And when I did wee people I knew, you know that a tomato was going their way for sure! Of course that worked both ways tho….

I didn´t eat any, but could tasted the tomatoes like there was no other taste. Actually in the beginning with the roof top wars, I smelt the tomatoes before I was hit by one!

Jumping up and down to splash everyone was a favourite, by my favourite move was scooping with my hands and throwing it straight up.

At one stage I couldn´t hear anything in one ear, I scooped out a large amount of tomato and then I was fine!

Being on constant alert was exhausting, but that doesn´t mean it wasn´t fun!

CONSTANT F”•$•&%%$• FUN

At 12 another bang went off, and everyone paused and cheered. Note that I said paused, coz it basically continued after, tho not as intense. I stopped to take stock of how I was doing – feet in tomato swimming pool like shoes, sodden clothes, pulled and disfigured top, hair completely covered in paste, goggles filled with chunks hung around my neck, and something in my left eye. Inside I felt fantastic!

People slowly made their way back in the direction that they came from, and I say slowly because there were A LOT of people. Estimates are 30-40 thousand.

The smell was really really thick, it was of old tomatoes. Inescapable! More chants of ´camiseta´ as people were determined that we should be shirtless! A lot of stomping and splashing, tshirt throwing, and of course, puree slinging still happening – but it was all good!

I went past one side street which was angling downwards, and there was a river of red flowing down. Naturally I stopped to take a photo, and I got splattered completely over the left side of my face, which I promptly took a photo of! Actually I wonder if you can see the guy lining me up in his sights on my photo!

It took around half an hour to go about 80-100 meters – not many wanted to give up the fight!

Broke free from the crowd finally, and dawdled over to the bus which was about 10 mins away. The walk took about 40 mins coz I stopped at every opportunity to get hosed off, but it wasn´t enough. My legs started to sting a little from the tomato stuck to it. Luckily it was a particularly cloudy day and the sun didn´t burn the tomatoes to us, it only baked them on 

Everyone who was white was now various shades of pink, and everyone carried a sickly sweaty beery tomato smell to them!! The river/stream turned red as bathers washed themselves, and beer sales raised significantly with the out pouring of the masses.

No bus, so took off my sodden and cold wet top, shoes and goggles, and left them with some hostellers looking for the bus. Noone was going to steal them, in fact, many people were simply throwing their clothes away!

Went back into the main area (which smelt worse than before) and bought a tshirt (of course), and the major clean up had already begun, which hoses, brooms, and shovels.

Back to the bus (which had arrived), changed into fresh clothes after scooping tomatoes out of my bra, then took digital camera into town. Rivers of utterly disgusting mush flowing everywhere, and tshirts, shoes and beer cups everywhere! It has made me rethink about eating tomatoes!!

Met up with more hostel people (one of whom breast stroked in the liquid tomato area) and even saw a guy in a tomato costume – classic!

Ate some food, but couldn´t stand the smell anymore, so went back to the bus where everyone was raving about the festival.

IT WAS JUST F$”%$•&•$ BRILLIANT

Some poor kiwis were sitting by a nice rental car… unfortunately they´d lost their keys in the madness!

Lots of girls walking around in bikinis, and guys just in shorts – it was like a day at the beach, except tomato seeds replaced sand and tomato juice replaces the salty feeling after a swim!

I will NEVER forget this day.

EVER.

So here I am on the train to Madrid, and i´m sure I still smell, even tho I had a quick shower at the hostel. My hair is still matted, I have tomatoes caded under my nails, my eyes are a little blurry, and my left eye keeps expelling some sort of gunk, and I just took off my headphones which have remnants of tomato on the ear buds! Ah, its going to be a long night to Bilbao!

Hungover

2005-08-30T16:35:00.000+02:00

Hello my lovelies.

Ok, theme park. Well, that was definately FUN. A bummer that I didn´t have anyone to walk around with and gush over how cool the rides were, or compare wetness with, but I nevertheless had a good time. I revisted the Iguazu Falls (in Argentina & Brasil) with a miniboat in a river thing with a huuuge drop, i was in an aztec cyclone machine thing that spins around, got shot up in the air on a ride that shoots up into the air on a tower thingee, and thrown about on a couple of roller coasters. But none of those created the list of ailments that i wrote about earlier (tho they should have). There was an amazing stage type show about a mutiny on a pirate ship and lots of flips, swordfights, humour, people getting thrown in the water, pyrotechnics etc etc which was really cool. Then they decided to use the ´cannons´ on the ship and this set of valves or something under the lake where the ship was, and i was sitting right near the front! i got soaked to the bone, and it was really funny (an audience of 300 watching), until after the show and then i stank!! I pulled my neck while trying to avoid getting dunked with water from a waterfall on a safari type ride, there are 8 seats in a circle, and one person gets the brunt of the waterfall - which was me! and no, i didn´t quite avoid it, so got wet and a sore neck together!! The bruises and sore pecs.. well... on a mega trampoline jumping up and down and trying to do flips etc with the aid of a harness and bungy cords. And after one of the many rollercoaster rides i was naturally feeling a little dizzy, and grabbed onto a plant to steady myselft, yup - a cactus! All in all a great day.

The day after, i climbed another tower in sevilla, walked around some more.

Saturday I took a high speed train to córdoba, which so far, has been my second favourite city. córdoba is heavily influenced by the arabs who controlled the city for a while back in the middle ages, and it definately shows in the beautiful architecture and tiny cobbled streets. infact, some road signs are in arabic as well as spanish!!! the mosque in córdoba is priceless, it was really really nice, and you´ll see why once i post photos up!! (cant at the moment due to dumb hostel computers).

the next day i was meant to take a train back to valencia, but it was full so i HAD to take a bus. but it was much much better than last time, due to better seats and it was day time so i wasn´t sleepy!!! passed hours and hours of olive bush scenery which was quite pretty.

yesterday was surprisingly an awesome day. joined in a conversation about cadavers, and ended up going with this bunch of 6 ozzies to the beach where we found some more ozzies and a kiwi (!!) and we all played touch rugby on the beach. it was really really cool! (our side won hehe but only coz a speedy italian joined our team!). beautiful day (even tho it rained in the morning). then we cooked a huuuuge feast, a HUUGE one, and drank a sangria and red wine mix until the roof terrace closed at our hostel. i didn´t make it into town tho - too drunk for my own good! crashed in bed and when i woke up this morning... uuuugh.

so i´m resting a while, saving up my energy for tomorrow - the ultimate highlight of my trip - the tomato festival!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! all accomodation within a 100km radius is booked out, there will be hundreds of people sleeping on the streets/partying all night, and the atmosphere is just going to be cracker!

go the tomatoes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Theme Park Mayhem

2005-08-26T14:51:00.000+02:00

Fountains
Originally uploaded by janine13.

I´m running out of time for this post, but I will say that the day left me with bruised inner thighs/groin, a pulled neck muscle, sore feet, gauges in my hand from a cactus, sore pecs, and stinking like murky lake water. But it didn´t matter because I had a VERY cool time.

Plus, at this european theme park, i didn´t have to look for glasses!

http://www.sevillainformacion.org/cultura/islamagica/amazonia.html Were two of the rides, very very fun.

More to come later of course.

Far Far Away

2005-08-24T17:51:00.000+02:00

Ahhh, The Mediterranean
Originally uploaded by janine13.

Ah. What a hectic past few days.
Apart from Monday, Monday I panicked a lot because I didn´t have any accomodation for that night. I could have easily booked another night at the same hostel, but I´d already been there one week! I wanted somewhere new, somewhere fresh. So, on a whim, I went online and booked a youth hostel in Sevilla. Now, I knew Sevilla was somewhere south of Valencia, but I had no idea that it was a friggen 10 hour bus trip (near the border of Portugal). 10 hours..... I did an overnight bus, and it was the WORST night of my life. 2 hours sleep max, the most uncomfortable seats ever to try to sleep on, and, well, it just sucked. NOT doing that on the return trip. Slept from 8am until 6pm on Tuesday, shocking because the whole idea of the night bus is that you save the day ahead of you instead of travelling. Dumb dumb dumb.

So now here I am in Sevilla! I have pictures up of me here already, and I can tell you, its just as hot as Rome. Very hot.

So I have walked around quite a bit today, and Sevilla is really pretty, huuuuge cathedrals, fortresses, towers, a lovely river, and lots of palm trees!!!!!! My hostel is nice, not the most social place though unfortunately.

Well, things to do, things to see and all that... I´m going to a theme park tomorrow, time for some REAL fun!!!!

Chilled

2005-08-21T18:22:00.000+02:00

Seems like a long time since I did a post, and yet I have essentially done nothing. Walked around town (shopping area), went to Gandía (a costal town 1 hour by train south of Valencia) to try to find accomodation on friday (no luck), read Angels and Demons yesterday (yes, the entire day/evening sunbathing on the roof terrace) then drank more sangria in the plaza with Sven, and today i went to the beach again with Sven (Belgium guy). I was meant to leave here on friday, but because everywhere I want to go is booked (they are unbookable youth hostels), i´m stuck in the Hôme hostel. As you can see though its not a bad hostel, plus Sven is also too lazy to find another place to stay so we´re stuck here together haha!

The beach today was aweeeeesome. Infact i´m still really salty, so probably should shower. Nice body surfable waves. Quite funny tho, Sven was like "wow those waves are big", and i was like "wow those waves are small". Go NZ waves!!!

Argh, I´m sick of hearing Shakira on the radio alllll the time.

So I´m a lot browner, a lot more relaxed, and a lot more dehydrated actually. Water time. Good to hear Hamilton had a sunny day - one sunny day!

Adiós!

New Best Friend

2005-08-18T13:50:00.000+02:00

Yowza!
Originally uploaded by janine13.

So I left off when I was alone, smelly, and tired.
Now I´m just tired.

Tuesday I had no idea what to do at all. I walked out of the hostel preparing to wander into the main street, when i noticed some people ahead of me with a beach umbrella. Jee, i wonder where they were going! So i followed them at a distance (because i had no idea how to get to the beach) and winded through many streets, then got on a tram.

Beach time! My first thoughts were that the beach was just one big ashtray, but turns out that that is only at the beginning of the boardwalks to the ocean. Overcast day, but still nice to walk (and walk, and walk, and walk, like i did for over an hour walking up the coast to a series of high rise buildings that looked 20mins away). T´was fun tho, walking in the sand with the water lapping at my feet. (No swimming tho, didn´t take togs).
An interesting sight you can see at the beach: A 50 year old fat man with his family... in a g string. And no Renelle, i did NOT take a photo, therefore do NOT ask for one (yeah, thanks for the email aye).

Caught a bus back at the end of the day and just chilled out in the dvd room (Pulp Fiction playing). Started chatting to Vicky, from Oz, and Sven from Belgium joined us. We ended up going out for a bite to eat, and then Anna and Natalie from Poland joined us and we sat in a large plaza until 3am drinking with my new best friend Don Simon.

Who is Don Simon? Only the cheapest and most delicious Sangria. What is sangria? A unique Spanish drink which basically consists of red wine, port, and fruit juices. Don Simon, the cheap stuff, is at the moment on special, 1.5l for 1€. Thats $1.90 NZ for 1.5l of 7% alcohol. Brilliant stuff. Cheaper than Coke even. Amazing stuff.

On Wednesday (yesterday), Anna, Natalie, Sven and his friend Dean from Canada (who lives in Valencia) and I went to a different beach to the one i wandered on the other day, and although overcast again, we had a blast. Burrying Natalie, swimming in the ocean (wave beach, tho the waves appeared pitiful compared to NZ waves), eating icecreams, playing ´spot the prostitue´ on the bus (seriously, its near a working girls area) and just chilling out.

We went back to the hostel, cooked us a lovely dinner, then headed over to Deans apartment where we soaked up some more sangria until 4am, then went looking for a night club. Well, 4am on a Wednesday, the only one open was a gay bar. And wow, yes it definately was a gay (99% men) bar. So instead of the guys looking after the girls in a bar, we looked after Sven and Dean! Seriously, it was a blast, lots of techno/house, and we danced the night away...

It had to end sometime tho - my eyes were burning from the smoke, and my legs turning to jelly! Crawled into bed (after a shower (washed my hair twice and it still didn´t smell smokefree)) at 6;30, the dawn just breaking.

And here I am now. Sore head. Don´t know what to do today (haven´t taken in many sights yet, just the beaches).
I guess I´d better go and decide!
Adiós!