Oh, Insomnia!

So its 4:30 am, I’m fucking exhausted and can’t sleep. I took another restoril last night to sleep and that makes 4 in a row and I refuse to take one again tonight. If I don’t sleep I don’t sleep but I can’t be addicted to that shit. Its gonna mess me up even more. I don’t NEED to sleep, there’s nothing vital going on right now that I need to be awake for. So, if I don’t sleep tonight, oh well. And despite beign super tired, sleep doesn’t seem to want to come, so here I am, blogging.

It was another long day that started at noon. The restoril is powerful! I then tried to get ready as quickly as possible and met Tony in Gracia at noon for lunch. It was the most perfectly vacation-y picturesque afternoon. Blue sky, sun shining, little square with a church steeple thingie in the middle, 6 or 7 little cafes around the square, and there we are sitting in the shade of an umbrella enjoy our “Menu del Dia”. I had the Jamon con Melon, and it was amazingly delicious. I can’t say the same for the dry chicken kabob that was my main course, or for the BANANA that came for dessert, but I thoroughly enjoyed my appetizer and the café con leche con hielo that I had before the meal.

Tony and I then walked from our little square to Plaza Universitat to meet the Brazillians for the Brazil vs Portugal match. They all kept saying it was a boring game, but I found it pretty interesting and Tony was quite good about explaining to me what was going on. Oh, and I managed to buy a card reader for my weird memory chip so once I start taking pictures I’ll be able to upload them. So far, all I’ve been doing is sitting in pubs and bars so its not really picture worthy. We were watching the game in an Irish Pub where I could barely breathe from all the smoke – something everyone is telling me to get used to. The game was a 0-0 draw, and afterwards we went for a long walk to get to the place where we would be watching the Spain – Chile game…it’s a lot of football for one day for a girl who’s not so into sports!!! On the way, we stopped at a Fairy-tale themed bar. I thought it was pretty cool, but we didn’t stay there for long. Its unique not only for the fact that there’s trees and weird Alice in Wonderland like things inside the bar, but also because you’re not allowed to smoke in it. Hallelujah! We then picked up a bunch more brazillians on our walk and ended up at some bar owned by a Chilean guy that the Brazillians were friends with and watched the game there. But this was really way too much football and cigarette smoke for me so I kept taking walks around the block because quite frankly I was deathly bored. I think hanging out with a British guy all night is making me talk differently.

As the night progressed we sat at 3 more bars and watched some Argentinians do Capuera-like tricks in the street. After a dinner of nachos and ice cream, Mayra and Giuliano went home and Andy, Tony and I decided to rent bikes and go for a ride along the boardwalk. INCREDIBLE! This bike rental thing is amazing, being able to take and return bikes anywhere in the city. It was almost 1am at this point, the night was warm with a  slight breeze, and we’re riding our bikes down the boardwalk with the Mediterranean sea on the right. I feel like I’m living a fairy tale! By the time we got to the end of our ride, though, I was done and wanted to go home but Andy and Tony wanted to go for one more drink. How many beers can you drink in a day though, seriously? I humored them for another hour or so, and then Andy accompanied me home in a cab. See, Latin American men. They have manners. The Catholic church may have its problem,  and I’m all for secular government, but why does that mean that the men growing up in these “secular” countries have to have no manners or principles of chivalry? I appreciate being accompanied home in a cab ! Makes me feel like the princess I am! 

St. Juan

Despite coming home at 4 am, I was still unable to sleep and I took a restoril and ended up sleeping until 2pm. This is night #3 with restoril now…At least I’m sleeping VERY well with it. But can’t seem to sleep without it. Anyway, I woke up and took my sweet ass time cleaning, having breakfast, and generally enjoying the fact that I am on vacation, although that vacation feeling has quite settled in to me yet. I spent the earlier part of the afternoon at the internet café taking care of stuff for Oranim and various other errands. I think I took care of it all finally.

At 6:30 I went to meet Mayra and Tony, two of my future classmates. Mayra and her husband, Giuliano, moved to Barcelona from Brazil two years ago. Tony is from London, but his family is from South Africa originally. Giuliano’s friend Andy was with us as well. We ended up spending the entire evening at Placa del Sol engaged in what is probably the typical hostel conversation – what we do, why we’re there, where we’ve traveled, our views on certain political subjects, and how different things are in different countries that we are from and that we have traveled to. They’re a really friendly bunch and I really enjoyed spending the evening with them. When it was time to go home at midnight I couldn’t believe how fast the time had flown! Tony and I walked to the metro together and I got off one stop later to transfer only to discover that the metro was NOW closed, and I was stranded 3 km away from where I’m staying. Apparently, it was still a holiday, though not as much of a surcharge as the previous night, it still cost me 9 euros to get home. I think these cabs charge more in the summer time because Kathy and I never paid more than 6 euro to get anywhere when we were here in June! 

St. Juan's Eve

Today was my first full day in Barcelona and what a day it was! I took a sleeping pill at a decent hour and therefore woke up at a decent hour. I was out the door by 10am and on my way to the locksmith to copy the key to send back to Alex. 2 destinations, 14 euros, but only 10 minutes later, I headed over to the Mailboxes etc to send it to her. 60 euros and another 10 minutes later,  the operation was a success. While sending her the keys was wildly and ridiculously expensive, I guess its nothing considering that I don’t have to get a hotel because she’s letting me stay here. I was stressing massively about it so I’m glad to have it out of the way.

The next errand was the signing of the contract. I didn’t actually remember the floor and apartment number so I sat outside and observed my new neighborhood. It doesn’t look as pretty as it should as the front of my building is covered in scaffolds that were supposed to be done by the beginning of summer, but I don’t know when they consider that to be around here! Aidan, our agent, then arrived and we went upstairs to mean Jose Maria (these Spaniards with their mother’s names as middle names…). He was, as Aidan kept describing, and “elderly gentleman” and we were forced to meet for 45 minutes because he could accept the concept that the contract he had printed up last week and the contract Aidan was holding in his hand were in fact the SAME contract, but Aidan’s happened to have the names of all four of the roommates on it. He then proceeded to go through EVERY utility bill and explain to me how he was going to prorate it through the end of June because all of the accounts would be going in my name. He went through EACH one, explaining that he was dividing by 30 the usage and multiplying it by the 9 days in July we would be responsible for it. I get it, do you have to explain it 5 times? Good times…

From there I was off to the “interview” with the Capgemini director. It wasn’t really an interview, since I’m not looking to actually take any positions. The guy told me what Capgemini was doing in the energy space in Spain, which was mainly maintenance of their IT systems for Intenca (?) I’m not sure the name, and trying to get something from Iberdrola, but unsuccessfully. So, currently, nothing for me to get involved with exactly. He was interested in my experience at SDG&E and I tried to inflate it to the best of my ability, but I can’t seem to get over the “I’m a kid in a world of techie adults” mentality.  He asked me lots of questions and seemed very interested. He also told me that they’d had to lay off 80% of their employees, and were now only able to rehire them in Latin America as they were expanding Capgemini Spain to Argentina, Chile and Peru. Could be interesting for a summer!

I went home for a nap before heading out to meet Natalia, a now 2^nd year student at IESE, and her friends by Placa Universitat. It was totally different from what I expected – about 12-15 kids sitting around the living room while the boys cooked fajitas and everyone was watching both soccer games on a TV and a computer screen. It was cool, but all the kids were obviously super tight and I felt very much like an outsider. I was still grateful, though to be included, and I did get to have some good and interesting conversations with some of the guys and girls throughout the night on a one on one basis. After dinner and the games, at midnight or so, we left the apartment and headed towards the beach for the St Juan celebrations. There were hundreds of people out everywhere and little kids were setting off really loud (and dangerous) firecrackers every 2 minutes. It was so bad that when you go to the beach you couldn’t even SEE from all the smoke. The beach was PACKED with people, which I tried, unsuccessfully, to capture in the picture. There were Pakistani dudes walking around with 6 packs of beer selling them for a euro each – apparently, you can’t buy liquor in a super market after 11pm! In Barcelona! This shocks me. The night was generally a memorable experience, observing the drunk and happy people celebrating, drinking, dancing, partying. I wasn’t one of them, but it was a great “First official night” in Barcelona.

I went home around 3 because I knew I needed to at least try and sleep and because the group of 20 or so had dwindled down to 5 and the only remaining girl had two nights left in town before she left for the internship and she CLEARLY wanted to finally hook up with one of the guys that was there. The sexual tension between them felt like it was a year in the making. The taxi charged an extra 7 euro, reminiscent of the cabs charging $50+ on NYE in NYC when I was there with the girls in 2008. It cost me 15 euros to get home! But there was really no other way. All in all, the day and night were a HUGE success! 

En Route

Is it a sign of getting old that I’m grateful for a lengthy layover? Or does it mean that I’m still young at heart? Or neither, and I’m just happy to charge my electronics? Ha.

It is completely unrealistic to think that I will write every day, and, like AK said, if I am writing every day, I am NOT having enough fun. But, I do have this 3 hour layover, and the day of departure is pretty significant, so why not make the most of it.

Leaving, of course, was a dramatic, hectic, frantic, stressful affair. Despite putting all of my tasks into my calendar and being “ahead of schedule” by the time I hopped in the shower, unforeseen circumstances, as always, arose. Mom came home and started packing things we forgot to pack, packing and repacking my carry ons. She’s super woman, really. The amount of stuff she can fit into one little suitcase is astounding. I should have taken before and after pictures of the complete train wreck my room was prior to her using her powers, and the three neatly packed, ready to go bags that ended up in my trunk. Its remarkable. Sitting here now, though, I’m pretty sure the jewelry I stuffed into plastic bags at the last minute and my straightener are still sitting on my bed. Oh well. They’re not exactly crucial to my survival over the next 2 months.

Grandma came over and, while sitting in my room and being in my mom’s way, asked if I needed to bring a charger – she didn’t specify for what. This set of complete panic in my head that I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA where my camera battery charger was. Within 3 minutes, all of us: me, mom, grandma, stepdad, brother, and sholem, were milling between my room and Mark’s room, looking in every plug, opening every drawer, and then searching the internet. I don’t know what I would do without my family. Not even 45 minutes later, I was on the road with a brand new Sony Cybershot, twice the quality and half the price of my Canon. Happy early birthday to me! Those 45 minutes were crazy frantic, but at least everyone got to feel useful! ( I have just realized that I must have forgotten the USB cable in the car, because I cannot find it. So, until someone mails it to me, I will have no way of uploading pictures to my computer. Brilliant Kate. Brilliant! It had to be something)

Saying goodbye, however, was another story. Nothing sets me off into tears like seeing my mom cry. Seeing anyone cry, really, upsets me, but my mom is a whole other story. I think Mark was pretty upset too, but he doesn’t know how to show it. The whole thing was just uncomfortable and sad and emotional and really, the moment of reality hitting that I am leaving everyone I love very far behind. As Sholem pointed out, of course, most things will not change, especially when I come home in six months. The biggest change will be in me. I know that’s true, but this will be the first time I am alone for such a long time, without a consistent base of people. Once I settle in Barcelona, I will start developing my new life, but the next 2 months, I’m pretty much on my own. And that is very, very, VERY new. I’m glad its happening, but it’s still terrifying.

Now, some comment worthy details of my flight:

1.       Air Berlin, while not providing individual entertainment screens, DOES provide little overnight flight kits! I thought airlines stopped doing that years ago. The kit included a toothbrush, toothpaste, socks, and eyepatch, and ear plugs! I didn’t use any of it but still, I appreciate these small things. They, unlike my US airways flights last month, make you feel like at least they’re making an EFFORT to make flying for 11 hours not suck.

2.       Two very interesting families sitting next to me.

a.       The first family was Italian, with a dad that looked like a middle aged, overweight Fabio. I’m not sure what the composition of the family was: there was one young guy, probably a little younger than me, and then 4 children, 3 boys and one girl. I got the feeling that one of the boys and the older guy were not actually both parent’s children, but it was hard to say. The two youngest were very loud, and very annoying, but their dad didn’t seem to think so. He just grinned at them and patted their heads and catered to their every need. I don’t get it. 

b.      The other family was even more interesting. The mom couldn’t have been much older than me, maybe 30, with tanned skin and my coloring. The dad was very Swiss/German looking. They had 7 children with them, 2 of which were clearly adopted, since they were ADORABLE little black boys with curly hair. Still, it didn’t explain the other 5. The oldest was a girl probably 12 or 13, and there were 3 more bleach blond boys and another little girl. I simply don’t understand. There is no way that woman, who was consequently 6 or 7 months pregnant, had all those children. And why, with all those children, would you also adopt two African babies? Nothing about their get up implied that they were fabulously rich and emulating Brad and Angelina. And if they weren’t all their children, why in the WORLD, and for what amount of money, are they traveling with seven children that aren’t theirs?

3.       Dusseldorf’s airport is not going to make my list of top favorites. First of all, I hate airports where I’m bussed in from the airplane. I can’t tell you why, exactly, but it brings up unpleasant feelings. Maybe it reminds me of our immigration, I don’t know, but I hate every moment on that shuttle. Second of all, I’ve never experienced an airport with so many required stairs with no options of escalators. Hello, people are traveling with heavy, roll-y suitcases. Why would you ONLY put stairs? A lot of these mandatory staircases didn’t seem to have an elevator anywhere in sight, either. Are they assuming handicapped people don’t travel and are they trying to send a message to parents with strollers to leave their children at home? I lost my shoes TWICE while walking up these stairs with my polka dotted tub. If my brother had been there to witness it, he would have been on the floor laughing. I drag the suitcase up the staircase, only to lose one shoe when I finally get to the top. I have to rotate to put it back on, and step down a stair. Once I put that shoe on and step back up, somehow, somehow, don’t ask me how, I manage to lose the other shoe, only this one flips over, and I have to repeat the whole operation. I doubt it would be funny to anyone but him. Finally, there’s no free wifi. Come on airports of the world! Get with the program! 

                 I took pictures of my cute little polka dotted tub, and the nifty little case that Air Berlin provided me, but, as I have just realized that I am USB-Cable less for my camera, these pictures will not make it to this blog for at least a month!  Not that they’re particularly interesting, but neither is any part of this particular blog entry…so…I guess I shouldn’t really care. The memory card is 2 gigs and there’s no way I’ll take 586 pictures worthy of keeping before my mom mails me the cord…won’t she be thrilled!

I did sleep on the plane for about 3 hours, which, when I woke up, felt sufficient, but now that I’ve been sitting here for an hour, my body has remember that its 6am, and not 3pm, and I’m getting tired and pretty unhappy. My gate still isn’t posted, so its not really time to move yet. Aaaand I’m over to listening to all the German around me. Time to finish my episode of Sopranos. Good thing I downloaded two seasons!! 

Update!

Been home from admitted weekend for a week now, still can't say I'm sleeping soundly, but oh well. I guess I should get used to it.

We booked the apartment! I sent the reservation through yesterday (and found out that my bank now charges $45 per wire transfer!!!) and Alexa and Ladina (our 3rd, Swiss roomate) and I are all very excited. Now if we could only find a 4th roomate! We've been advertising and reaching out and trying, but nothing definite yet.

Finding an apartment kinda ruins mine and Alexa's plans of going there June 22-28 to look for an apartment, so she has changed her ticket to use it to fly over in August. Since I have to be in Israel on the 28th anyway, it doesn't quite make as much sense for me. Changing my ticket to a later date would end up costing double the price I originally paid. Luckily, Alex has been so kind as to let me stay in her flat in Barcelona while I am there for those 5 days so I don't have to waste money on a hotel/hostel. Although, I'm really not sure what I'm gonna do with myself for 6 days with no one to play with. I guess I'll have to learn how to entertain myself without spending money!

As for the visa, I called the FBI yesterday and they told me that my Identification Report should leave their office no later than Friday. So, in a world that's not out to screw me, the report should arrive on Friday and, if I bust my ass, I could get it notarized , blah blah blah and to the Spanish consulate a few hours before boarding my plane to Europe, which leaves at 5:45 pm from LAX. Really keeping my fingers crossed...

My life right now is consumed with wrapping itself up. I applied for a 0% interest for 12 months visa card from Capital One (they don't charge foreign transaction fees), which I'm hoping will arrive before I leave so I can put out Greece trip on it as well as my Egypt/Jordan adventure. Not having to pay that off for a year would be nice! I'm trying to cash out my AmEx points into gift cards for Banana and Zappos, since I wont have much of a shopping budget over the next two years.

Despite my professing for months that I will NOT be throwing myself a going away party, I am throwing myself a going away party. I want to see all my friends before I leave, and even with throwing this party, it looks like most people wont be showing due to prior plans. I'm trying really hard not to take it personally, but it does get me upset from time to time. I've tried to make it more 'fun' by adding a theme (Globetrotting! I think some people don't get it...) . In any case, the vodka will be flowing and the Russians will be there in full effect!

The other issue right now is that the only flight for me to take into Israel on the 28th gets me in at 1am.  So I'm spending this week reaching out to vague and distant acquaintances living in Tel Aviv to see if I can crash on their couches and potentially coax them into picking me up from the airport. Apparently, the trains don't run at night, and you're supposed to haggle with the cab drivers, but I can't haggle with anyone! Especially not in a country where I don't speak the language. I've been listening to Pimsleur Hebrew and can so far ask someone if they understand English. Not too much progress...We had a webcast for the Ashdod program on Sunday and, as I suspected, I will be the one of the oldest on the program of 20 girls and 8 guys. It's not as bad as I feared though - most of them are 1-2 years out of college, and not kids on their high school/college gap years.

Keeping my fingers crossed that everything works out and that I don't go broke in the process...

Admitted Weekend: Day 3/4

The school sponsored activities have come to an end, and so Kathy and I used our two remaining days in Barcelona to enjoy the city and try to get some stuff done!

We slept in luxuriously late on Sunday morning, and then had a nice, long, luxurious lunch at a Catalan restaurant somewhere in the heart of Eixample. We wandered around some more, came back to the hotel for another nap, didn't get much of anything done, except dropping off my suitcase at Desiree's apartment to store, and then headed out for drinks and dinner with two of our new classmates, James & Jonno. We met them for drinks first at the rooftop bar of James' hotel:

We then walked to dinner around 10:30 at a DELICIOUS restaurant, the name of which escapes me at the moment. It was something like Bistro Catalunya...I'll have to ask Kathy. We had all kinds of delicious tapas, with my favorite being the deep fried bacon wrapped dates with goat cheese and the super garlicky patatas bravas. YUM. I'm gonna get fat here.

We ended up wandering the streets until almost two in the morning and having a great time. We called it an early night, as we had a busy agenda for Monday.

We got up early on Monday morning to try and make it to the banks before they close which, in this country, seems to be anywhere between 11 and 2. Jonno and I had breakfast at a sidewalk cafe in the business district while Kathy walked over to Citibank. After her lack of success there, we went over to 'La Caixa', one of the most commonly seen banks on the streets of Barcelona, to try our luck there.

The bank trip was probably one of the highlights of the trip for me, as I was pretty amazed with my ability to converse with the bank lady in Spanish and succesfully got myself and Jonno set up with Spanish bank accounts! 45 minutes of pure Spanish conversation. True, there was about 20% that was completley lost on me, but we understood each other more or less and the woman spoke absolutely no English. I was pretty proud of myself. Kathy didn't set up an account as they told her that being a EU citizen it made a lot more sense for her to wait until she had her NIE.

So, off we went to try and get the NIE. While we were unsuccessful overall, we did locate the Police station where we go to get the NIE, and we completed the first meeting of submitting her form and getting it stamped. The step where we failed was in going to a bank to pay the 10 euro tax. The bank we walked in to would only let us pay via the bancomat, and the 50 euro I had placed into my account had not yet gone through, so there was no way to physically pay the tax. But, we now know what we need to do, so when we come back to do it in August, everything should go much more smoothly.

After our NIE adventures, it was time for me to meet with the Born Living agent to look at the 4 bedroom apartment I had found online. I was actually quite impressed at the brightness and the size, and I took a video, which kinda sucks, but that I intend to show Alexa and potentially use to find future roommates:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QlM-WVN4jo

Then, once again, a nap, a snack (did I mention our schedule? 2-3 hours of sleep every 12 hours, interspersed with meals every 3-4 hours. yeah, healthy) We then walked over to Kathy's future apartment, which I have to say is also quite nice, and very close to our place. We sat and had coffee with the leasing agent and felt VERY European. We walked around Eixample to try and get to know the neighborhood, and had some more tapas and beers before settling down for dinner at a surprisingly good Thai restaurant.

All in all, a great, productive, and fun weekend. Yes, flying across the world for 4 days and constant jetlag sucks, but overall, it was worth it. Can't wait for the next 2 years of my life!

Admitted Weekend: Day 2

With sleeping every 12 hours for 2-3 hours, days feel 3 times as long as they actually are. Today has been such an action packed day, its hard to believe all of today happened TODAY!

We started off the day with breakfast at school that consisted of tons of tiny meat and cheese sandwiches. Once again, welcome to Spain. Pretty tasty but man, I'm not a fan of eating every meal standing up! More awkward mingling with a good third of the attendees mildly hung over or, in my case, still asleep. They then ushered us in to the auditorium for more lectures about how amazing and challenging the next two years of our lives would be. I thought most of it was generally a waste of time, until the Student panel. The current students put together a video of their favorite memories (to the tune of David Guetta's memories, which will now permanently in my head be associated with my first IESE experience), and then answered any and all questions anyone could possibly think to ask. We then had lunch (standing up, once again) and headed out for our bus tour of Barcelona.

This city is so beautiful!!! I don't remmeber what's what since I was basically comatose at this point, from lack of sleep and hot sun, but here are some not very good pictures of the amazing city:

We then, once again, went to eat, and then the girls went to get their hair done while I went back to the hotel to pass out. The view from our hotel:

That night Alex, the girl who I'd e-mailed to death with visa questions, and her friend Marisa and Floriane invited us out to dinner with them, and then to a party themed "Seven Daily Sins". We went out to a sushi restaurant that was surprisingly good, alleviating my fears that I'd be pitifully deprived of my sushi obsession during my two years in Barcelona. Our lovely escorts for the evening:

The party was great, met even more people. Turns out my recounting what I'm planning on doing with my summer makes for easy conversation, even though I do sometimes feel like I'm bragging, even though I really don't mean to be. I'm no good at making conversation with strangers and talking about traveling comes naturally to the group we're gonna be with for the next two years. We ended up getting kicked out of the party by cops at 3am for being too noisy (hey, at least it wasn't a midnight!), and so we took the party to the street outside instead:

Finally, they told us we HAD TO MOVE, so the girls took us to a club the name of which I don't remember. Not that it really mattered because they tried to make us pay to come in, so we left and ended up at the only place we could get food at 4am - some random 24hr a day convenience store. We bought bread, salami, and cheese...When in Rome (or, Barcelona in this case). Its odd, really, that in a city that parties until 6 in the morning there aren't more late night places to eat open. All for the best though - I'll be getting fat enough as is.
Stephanie then went home at 4:30 as she had a 6:30am flight to catch - what a trooper! Kathy and I headed back to our hotel, exhausted. Still not sure how we made it there...

As I was trying to fall asleep around 5am, some dude in the street below busted out in a lengthy rendition of "Sugar, Sugar, Honey Honey"...thank you, Barcelona, for the lullaby!

View from our hotel at night: