I've been in town "permanently" for 3 days now. Starr and I came in from Greece on Wednesday morning, thoroughly exhausted and kicking ourselves for not spending more time on the islands, and for being so cheap with our flights home. Starr pretty much looked like she was going to kill someone for the duration of our flights, and I don't think she'll be coming to Europe again any time soon.
Since arriving, I've made some major accomplishments! I finally have a cell phone - a Blackberry, not an iPhone, I decided for the sake of convenience to be " like everyone else" and just get the bbery. I have plenty of time to play with future generations of iPhones. I've never felt the need to be one of those "early adapters".
All of my roommates finally arrived by Wednesday night, and we all went over to Kathy and Stephanie's apartment. It made us realize how NICE ours is, and how invaluable AC is :) True, in a month or so it wont be hot and it wont matter, but right now the heat is suffocating and I've spent every day between 3 and 6pm hiding in my room with the AC blasting.
Starr was leaving Friday, so our night out with the other IESE kids for the first official BOW (Bar of the Week) was a short-lived night. We never actually made it to the BOW, as our 11-person group took a while to assemble and make our way to the Mexican restaurant where we ended up having dinner at 11pm. Gotta love Barcelona time! (Although Starr did not, and, once again, looked like she was going to suffocate someone any moment, and some male members of our group were differentiating themselves in being the unlucky victims of the potential suffocation)
The next day Andri and I went to check out the local gym, and ended up joining DIR Tarragona for 50 euros a month. The gym is actaully really nice, but 1.6 kilometers away which, in theory, can be considered part of the workout - I just hope I don't become too lazy to actually go there.
In the afternoon we went to IKEA, and now have made progress on making this place of ours a home. The IKEA trip was pretty humorous, with me and Ladina insisting that we "need" this and that for the apartment, and Andri standing in front of the cart, arms-crossed, stern-father like, shaking his head. In the end, like Andri said, it was a good compromise - he wouldn't have bought ANYTHING of what we bough if it were just him, and she and I would have bought 3 times as much. Our foyer now has a cute table, chair, and shoe rack and we have all kinds of kitchen gadgets. We weren't able to find a tea pot, toaster, or microwave, so that'll have to wait for another store. They also don't have any kind of plastic drawer storage. Our bathroom is currently one huge cluttered counter, because there's nowhere to put any of our stuff. The guys at the bicycle store though recommended we go to Carrefour, so hopefully we can get something there!
That brings me to my final accomplishment - I bought a bicycle! Its very strange to me that I have a bike, but now I do!! Every single other person I know is buying or renting a scooter/moded, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm terrified of driving it and of navigating on the streets with the crazy taxi drivers. I still don't know how I'm going to get to school, because riding my bike uphill for 3 miles might be outside my strength, patience, and motivation capacity, but at least for getting around to friends' houses, the grocery store, and the gym, I'm covered.
Outstanding issues remain the plastic bins, the appliances, and, of course, getting through the accounting course, the resume building exercise, and the Spanish test, all before Sept 1st!
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