ces soirees la.

Time : 10:08 pm


Location : my room

Weather: HOT HOT HOT (partially to blame for my lack of entries)

GIANT HANGING SHRIMP
we were so happy when the waiter
showed us how to eat them!!
30th March

I had a fairly eventful week and half. Let me do a quick recap of the highlights for you:

I went out for a delicious sushi supper last Wednesday to celebrate one of my friend’s PACs. I am not 100% sure of how the PACs work, or what it stands for, but what I have come to understand, is it is kind of like getting married. As in you are in an official relationship with someone and get the same kind of legal benefits (like insurance). The odd thing is, is that it is only valid in France. Say you are PACs-ed with someone in France, when you go home, say to the States, it will not be valid there. You also do not have to go through a divorce if the relationship ends.

a weird fog/smoke came down all around
Luynes one saturdat morning...
2 april

Jara & I before we destroyed a Banana
Split at the beach
2 avril

Thursday I skipped out on going to class because I had an appointment in Marseille so that I could finally get all my immigration papers in order. Yes, five months later, it still is not all taken care of. After spending nearly two hours in the office, waiting and having my health check up, they tell me that my proof of lodgement is not valid enough. Meaning I have to come back as soon as I can with the correct documentation. I was so unimpressed. It felt like a total waste of time. The French administration is slow as is it, I don’t need them going all specific on me when they don’t even give me the details to begin with.

Getting our tans on!!
2 april

All week the weather had been getting better and better, so a trip to the beach was in order on Saturday. Getting there took a while. We drove and hour and a half, only to find that our original destination was miserable, so we turned around and went half way back to a wonderful beach where the sun was HOT. We had lunch nearly on the beach then lazed out in the sun for the rest of the afternoon. It was so hot that we even made it into the water, granted we were nearly the only ones. Two great things about the day: 1. We went to the beach in APRIL!! And 2. I swam in the Mediterranean!! In the evening some of us got together and had supper at Jara’s house. I’ve been getting a good start to my tan.

No idea where we were...

BUT IT WAS GORGEOUS!!
Totally swam in those waters =)
2 avril

Ok, so on a not so pleasant note, but something that well, I am finding to be a very defining trait of France: dog poop. Like I said, it is not pleasant, but I have to share because it bothers me everyday. Nobody picks it up!! It just lays out all day. Why? I thought that they were just finicky, but there is another reason. They clean the streets every single night. So why would people bother to do a dirty job when someone else is going to do it for them later? I’m very glad I shared this. Phew.

Supper at Jara's!
Evelin, Jara, Johanna & Myself
2 avril

some yellow flowers that are
everywhere here!!

This is the last week of classes for our course, so Oona, Anna and I went out for lunch. I had proposed that we find some place where we can eat frog legs or escargot, but after all my asking around and online searching, I came up empty handed. We settled for some Chinese restaurant downtown. As we are flipping through the menu, I come across none other than Cuisses de Grenouille (frog thighs). You’ll never guess what I ordered. Hehe! Everyone says it tastes like chicken and honestly, it does. The weird part is their shape. See, chicken wings do not really look like legs, they’re just chunks of meat. Frog legs actually look like mini human legs. It is almost unnerving. Tastes like chicken but looks like a human. Too bad they’re really delicious. Anna ordered something with shark in it, but I think they cooked the shark too long because it was really soft, almost mushy.

someone told me that Marseille looks
liek Barcelona..
What do you think?
4 avril

Marseille
4 avril

Ok, yes Marseille does kind of look like
Barcelona.. only with Cable Cars.. or Trollys
4 avril

Today being the second last class, we planned on having a picnic. Last minute change of plans had us not picnicking in the park, but lounging in the sun on Lisa’s rooftop terrace. There were chocolate chip cookies, strawberries and raspberries with ice cream, a Zebra cake, all kinds of tarts and my Nanaimo bars. Wanted to bring a Saskatchewanian dessert, but I lacked Saskatoon Berries, and I didn’t feel like Bannock would be a huge hit (I think the only time that I really like it is when I am camping and really, really hungry), so I went with something I knew would end up well. I did have to make a substitute for the graham wafer crumbs, but it did work out.

Steps up to the Marseille station
4 avril

crooked shot of the dirty steps
Marseille
4 avril

I definitely got a lot of sun today on that terrace. Warmed me right up to my bones, and made me really tired for the later part of the day. I’m enjoying my nicely tanned wrists.

a main street of Marseille
4 avril

Snowball trees

Enjoy the photos, that was my last week and a half in a nut shell.

10:50 pm

Snowball
4avril

a poisonous flower that smells areally good

Cuisses de Grenouille.
Check out those thighs.
And the calf muscle!!
and of course them flippy floppys!!!
SO DELICIOUS
5 avril

ok i honestly tried to get the photos up tonight, but my computer is doing that thing when it starts getting really hot, blowing air out of the side and working reallllly slowly. so how about i just put them up tomorrow morning while i bath in this rediculously hot sun here? mk cool. Oh, PS. it was atleast 25C today. I was so hot I almost melted on the bus ride home. !!

about to devour the frog legs!!
dunno whats up with my face
or my arm for that matter...
oh well

FSI 3
Me, Oona, Anna, Lisa & Christine (teacher)
Missing: Franceska
Other folks who were in the class:
Ann-Marie & Shista
7 avril

El Banco - Dia Tres

El Banco - Dia Tres - Barcelona

Sabado febrero 26th

Gaudi's first work for the city
and his last.

This morning we missed breakfast, again, but we grabbed a little something to go because we barely made it in time for the tour pick up at the hostel.

Weather vane on Palau Guell

The tour of the day was the Gaudi Tour. I was really excited for this one. After seeing the Sagrada Familia yesterday, I could not wait to see what else he had in store for us.

Top half of Palau Guell



Half of the bottom half of
Palau Guell




The first stop on our tour was Palau Guell, which we had already unknowingly walked by every time we left the hostel, yes, it is on our street. Eusebi Guell was a dear friend of Antoni Gaudi and over the years had him build many things for him. They both had this idea that this mansion of a home, being all lavish, would attract a richer crowd to live in the neighbourhood. Considering that this is the area where all the ‘naughty going ons’ are now, that did not really happen. And just our luck, the inside was closed for work, so if we wanted to come back and see the inside after the tour, we could not.

not counting the one under construction,
this shoes 3/4 of the pieces of the
Apple of Discord

Final quarter of the Apple:
Casa Batllo



Can you see the sword and the dragon?



if you have a good eye
you can find the nose

On the front, just above the main doors, there is some metal work. It is kind of hard to tell what it is, but once you really look, within the wrought iron there is an “E” and a “G” for Eusebi Guell as well as the Catalan coat of arms. On the flat roof top, there are twenty sculptured chimneys surrounding a skylight. Gaudi is known for his eccentric chimneys as well as how he plays with light.

Storm Troopers?

Casa Mila

The next stop was the very odd block on the Passieg de Gracia. This block is called the Apple of Discord or in Spanish; Manzana de la Discordia. It actually has nothing to do with apples. It just so happens that in Spanish, the word ‘manzana’ means both ‘city block’ as well as ‘apple’. On this block, a discord of architecture occurs due to the presence of the works of four of Barcelona’s most important modernista architects from the early 20th century.

Definitely my favorite photo I took of Casa Mila

So much stone

Gaudi even did some of the iron
work himself

random photo

One of these buildings is the Casa Batllo by none other than Gaudi. Looking at the bottom half of the building it is easy to understand how it got the nickname “House of Bones”. The upper part of the façade seems to represent festivities: the balconies look like Venice masks and the circular ceramic tiles could be confetti. Not to mention the array of color from the broken tiles (that, just like the rest of the house, never seem to make a straight line). The roof tiles resemble scales and from the shape of the roof, it very well could be the back of a dragon. The rounded feature on the left side with a bulbous cross (excellent wording if I do say so myself) is said to possibly represent the sword of Saint George plunging into the back of the dragon. The enlarged stairwell plays the light from the skylight brilliantly as the color of the tiles descends from a dark cobalt to sky blue, pearl grey and finally white. It is possible to go inside the house and tour around, but we were already on a tour and the entrance price is abnormally high, but also goes to the up keep of the house.

Rock collumns in
Park Guell

yah! we're in the park!!

one of the many stone women

After Casa Batllo, and just up the street, was the Casa Mila. I really have no idea how to explain this one so if you don’t understand, just look at the photos. The whole façade, which covers two estates, is made of iron and stone, and is just incredible. I can not think of any one way to describe it. Some how Gaudi made stone look like it was flowing. He was also very innovative when it came to using recycled materials. All of the iron on the façade is recycled. Legend has it, that when George Lucas was seeking inspiration for Star Wars, he was in Barcelona. Is it just me, or do the chimneys look like Storm Troopers?

winding benches, fairy tale buildings, all overlooking barcelona

This is me.

The next and final stop on the tour was the Sagrada Familia, but seeing as we had already been, Sara and I opted out and went straight to Park Guell.

Tourist Trap.

one of the many places you chould
chill if you wanted to

Park Guell was another project for Eusebi Guell that Gaudi worked on. It was originally planned like a British ‘garden city’, and not a park. Over the 15 hectares of rocky sloping terrain, there are gardens, building viaducts, porters’ lodges, closure walls, squares and streets, and a covered market. In all of Gaudi’s work, there is an obvious effort to integrate nature. This is especially present in the park. The buildings in the park have a fairy tale feel to them thanks to their mushroom chimneys, symbolically connecting them to the magical world of gnomes, fairies and druids. All around the main square there is a bench, curving in and out, and fully decorated with mosaics. In this square you can look out over Barcelona.

i liked this spot

Still a happy tourist
still in the park

Here Sara and I took a bit of a breather for lunch and strolled around, taking all of this magnificence in. We had planned on going to the Picasso Museum, but we found out that tomorrow it is going to be free, so hopefully we can fit it in. Plus, neither of us was feeling overly energized and it was nearly raining, definitely spitting on us, so we went back to the hostel for some low key chill time.

back of the benches

Eventually our energy returned, as did our hunger. We took our sweet time trying to decide what to eat. Finally, I went up to the desk and grabbed all the food coupons/flyers I could and we slowly decided what to get. It came down to a pasta place. Odd, I know, but we had had our tapas and paella, and needed something, well, comforting, or as comforting as pasta can be.

I believe this is the Covered Market area

roof of the market

It was a pretty cool place. We did a ‘build your own’ kind of deal they had and each got delicious results. Even if the guy did forget Sara’s broccoli at first, I would still recommend it, if you ever go to Barcelona and are feeling like pasta.

looking out to the entrance of the park from the covered market area
do you get the fairy tale feel from the hansel and gretel houses?

We were eating really slowly and the guy came over to us very concerned that were did not like it or that something was wrong. Nothing was wrong at all, but his genuine worry for our taste buds was amusing.

La Rambla in the evening

Once again, we had eaten really early. The Spanish are even later eaters than the French, or at least I find. People seem to go out to eat around 9 PM, and then only go to the clubs/bars really not until 1 AM or 2 AM. But I am not really all that sure. Apparently there are even places that do not open until 3 AM and stay open until 6 or 7 in the morning. The girl at the desk at our hostel told us that this is ‘very Spanish’.

To be fair, most businesses do open later in the morning and close for a couple hours in the afternoon for their siesta but then remain open until 8 or 9PM. It is all just relative.

Also, the main meal here is also lunch. You can usually get a good lunch from the Menu del dia for eight Euros, and will come with a number of courses.

Mmmm (with a mouth full of) Pasta!!

sardines.

Time : 9:30pm


Location : my desk again. I really like it here, I don’t know why I don’t sit here more often

Weather : Verging on rain all day



Three things happened today that made my day eventful:

1. I tried to go to the gym, but it was like walking into a sardine can. I usually go around 9am when all the retired people go, mainly just to chat, but today I went later because I was trying out a new class. I got there a couple minutes after the class started (which is normally not a problem) and the place was over flowing with people!! The parking lot a full of cars, the class’ room was so full I had no room to join and then my option of working out instead was shot out the window because there were too many people! There were more people there than in the evenings! It was insanity in a sardine can at the gym today.

2. Evelin and I tried to go shopping at this place, that I think is a town, but I’m not sure, because all it is are big box stores (Which is oddly un-French), those American restaurants I like, and traffic circles. 90% of the stores were closed today. We forgot it was Monday and that since everyone worked for like, five hours on Saturday, and not at all on Sunday, that they have to have Monday off too. I guess all the people who would normally be at work were at the gym? I have no idea how these people get anything done.

3. I received a care package in the mail today. It was decorated so well right from the crayon (?) to the gratuitous amounts of Valentine’s stickers. It was beautiful and brought me a very large amount of giggles. Thank you.

4. And the Honorary 4th: I discovered some frozen chicken wings in the freezer today.

While driving here, it really is hard to tell when you leave one town and are in the next. Along every road there are houses or businesses. People are everywhere. You can not escape civilisation. I still find this odd after all these months. And it got me thinking: Where do people go camping? The answer: they don’t. This is where you gasp. I did whn I found out. The one option people have for camping are pitifully small camp grounds mainly found in the northern regions. Yes, there are national parks here (I still don’t know where though, but apparently they do exist), but you can’t just pack up for a weekend and go off hiking or paddling into the boonies. “Wilderness camping” is illegal. Can you imagine not being able to go camping? REAL CAMPING? I don’t know how these people get away.

Another thing, on the topic of buying (when the shops are open), sales are special here. They have very strict laws on when you can have sales. There are two times a year for sales: Winter (6 weeks at during January and February) and Summer (sometime during the summer months). These are the only times when shops can have sales. However, they can have promotions and liquidation prices whenever, which kind of defeats the purpose of the restrictions on sales, don’t you think? Anyway, this is how it is, even if does not make a lot of sense.

France seems very weird today, doesn’t it?

9:47pm

CEST = GMT +2.

Time: 10:00pm on the dot.


Location : sitting at my desk (ooh big change!!)

Weather : rainy as ever.



My plan of stock piling my ideas and saving them for small quantities of entries but with a higher level of quality is proving to be a success.

Ebba (Sweden), me, Evelin (Estonia), Shelly
(Korea), Jara (Iceland), Megan (USA)
just finishing lunch

Before I get to my interesting ‘did you know’ points, I will give you a very quick recap of my excellent week and weekend, maybe while throwing in the ‘did you know’s as I go. I still have to decide my execution on that one.

Hangin out on the beach

Thursday I had a very comforting supper out with Evelin, Megan (she also goes to IS) and her friends/family. We went to a tex mex place called El Rancho Grill and had the most delicious fajitas ever!! Megan and I both liked how the restaurant was the size of a normal north American restaurant where you actually had some elbow room instead of being crammed like sardines. Small restaurants like that are very French one of the girls, ViVi told us, and for some reason they love them. It had been so long since I’ve had any serious sized suppers with more than enough flavour. Their guacamole was amazing.

The Beach
we dont know where.

An interesting comment was made about me once we got in to our conversation. ViVi said that I had a very strong accent (we were speaking in English). This was something I had never heard before. I find my English to be rather accent-less. I’m not British, or Australian, or Irish, or some kind of American. I just have a neutral (or so I thought) English. You see, ViVi’s work has her speaking English with people who have a Chinese accent to their English and Megan, being from Tennessee, has a southern accent. Now it is understandable how I might sound like the one with an accent. Funny isn’t it?

beach.beach.beach.

taken on the steps

Friday’s bus ride home was eventful. First of all I was late leaving the school so I had to book it all the way to the bus terminal so I did not miss my bus, only to arrive early and have the bus leave late. Oh the irony. Friday was an absolutely gorgeous day and everyone was out and about Aix, resulting in horrible traffic. Obviously the bus will be moving slower, this is to be expected. The guy sitting in front of me was not tolerating this well. I could tell from all his huffing and puffing of impatience. The bus got caught behind another bus and had to wait for it to leave so we could continue. We had been stopped maybe a couple of minutes, and this guy starts bothering the bus driver about how long until we get going, how long are we going to wait here, blah, blah, blah. The bus driver took it rather lightly and tried to chuckle the guy off. This guy has now moved from impatient to mad. He starts harassing the bus driver. The bus driver decides he does not have to take such abuse, and really, he doesn’t, and asks this angry guy to get off the bus. Angry Guy will not get off the bus and continues harassing. Now the bus driver, who is fed up and also angry, turns off the bus and says he will not continue until Angry Guy gets off. Stand still. People are getting off the bus to walk, asking this angry guy to just get off, to apologize, take one for the team, anything to get the bus going. Rest of the story in a nutshell: the driver calls the head honcho guy to come and kick Angry Guy off the bus, we waited for ten more minutes for him to arrive and five minutes later Angry Guy still gets to ride the bus, being rude the whole way until he gets off and the driver, well, I hope he still has his job.

But that is not all.

Chapter 2 of the Bus Chronicles.

A.G. is blabbing away obnoxiously loud on his cell phone to his friend. Turns out he is just going to get off at a stop and his friend is coming to pick him up. I saw his friend following the bus with his car until A.G. gets off, all the while STILL harassing the driver. This guy has no limits. So A.G. gets off and him and his friend start yelling through the window to the driver, challenging him to a fight once the bus gets to the end of the line in Luynes, and the driver definitely was not backing down. I could not believe this was happening. When on earth does this happen? For real. Coincidently, everyone left on the bus got off right before the last stop (myself included). I felt bad for the driver because now any witnesses or back up he may have had were gone. And that car was very much following him, aggressively. How this story ends, nobody knows.

Crazy eh?

Saturday was another gorgeous day and thank goodness too because Saturday was Beach Day! I went to the beach with Evelin, Ebba, Jara, Megan and Shelly and had a wonderful time. Once we finally got there, and nobody really knows where exactly we were, we had a delicious lunch au soleil on one of the many terraces. Then we played some “childish games” on the beach and of course got some sun. Sadly due to the wind we were not full out getting our tans on, but still; going to the beach in March. Living the Life.

On the way back we made another detour, this time to IKEA. I do not have much to report other than did you know that it is actually pronounced “ick-yah”? It helps having Swedish friends. Also on that note, “Lilja” means Lily in both Icelandic and Swedish. So from now on, when people call me Anna-Lily, instead of thinking “Oh, you said my name wrong…”, I’ll think “Oh, you must be Swedish... Or Icelandic…”. And I can also use it as an excellent icebreaker, not that I don’t already have that down to a Q.

There really is not much to report for Sunday, and this is long enough. Believe it or not, but I did not get all of my ‘did you know’s in. Don’t worry, I have them written down so I don’t forget, but I will save them for a time when they will come in handy for content aka a rainy day (like today).

10:34pm

PS. I took maybe five photos at the beach, so I will just have to wait until we share photos. And, my computer is running abnormally slow so it is a little discouraging to post photos, but I will do it!!

PPS. !!!! DID YOU KNOW: that European Daylight Saving Time starts a week later than U.S.A and Canada’s? Did you know that FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I am actively participating in DAY LIGHT SAVING TIME BEGINS TODAY Day? I still have to figure out why we do it though. It does not seem to make much sense, but I’m sure science can explain it for me.