Finally feeling at home?

I promise myself that I will blog every week - but I don't. Maybe I will have to set aside blog evening once a week to ensure I do. (But don't quote me on this!). Also thank you to everyone for their great responses to my last blog post! It is great to know it is being read (even if its only by a few) so all comments and feedback are welcome.

The week I came back I spent in the lab, and did very little practical work because the lab was still officially shut but I did finally admit defeat and remind myself I have to write a dissertation whilst I am here. Limited work has been achieved but there is a word document none the less. That is an achievement right?

I went on another walking tour last Saturday, and it was slightly different to the others I have been on. It was aimed at a younger audience, backpackers, students ect.. so it was slightly less orientated around history as the previous tours but more information about visiting the city itself but good non the less! (I wish I had done them the other way around but if you are only here for a short time I would highly recommend the runner beans tours most)

From the Parliament square in Barcelona - Not sure why I love this photo but I do! 

Then as the lab was going to be virtually empty for the next week I decided to use the time to do a 'super intensive' Spanish course last week! It was great fun. I would like to spend longer there and improve more (but I am living in Spain so I should be learning all the time yes?) but maybe I will have the chance to do something similar next summer to help me keep up the skill. I also meet some really lovely people, went out for dinner, went to the beach and had great fun all week. I want to keep in touch with some of the people I meet there for sure!


I then yesterday went to the 1st meeting for Erasmus Student on the Beach and meet more lovely people - who I am  actually meeting this afternoon to attend another Erasmus meeting! Finally I feel as though I am meeting so many people, and I have made more contacts in the last week or so than the whole month I was here to begin with. Maybe I have finally turned a corner (or Spain is finally leaving the vacation period!) Both are probably true. It's totally relevant to me here that friends aren't going to find you unless you put yourself out there.





Anyway unfortunately its back to 'normal' next week! Not that any 2 weeks are the same here - and I am determined to keep that up but it does mean I can start gym classes again (YAYYYY I have been seriously missing a stress relieving aerobics session) and can finally go to the bank ect.

So a final word of this post is that I am finally feeling much more at home here. I am finding friends, catching the night bus alone - not dangerous because I have never seen so many people on a bus here is Spain before, scrapbooking my time here, ensuring I watch my favorite TV shows on i-player and getting back to a slight routine. Maybe this summer wasn't quite as I would have planned but the next 3 months are going to be great, I am sure of it!

Also if you can't tell I ate lots of great food this week!

It's been a while

Hola.

I wrote a lovely blog a couple of weeks ago after my birthday - it was based around a cake (typical me!) and maybe one of these days I will post it here. It was a very nice cake and did deserve its own blog post. But then I received some news that kind of changed my summer plans a little, my wonderful Nan passed away the same day I turned 21. I don't want to dwell on that here at all but I just wanted to explain my absence from the blogging thing for the past few weeks - and unless you wanted to hear daily updates of my horrendous rash I received once I got home (apparently I am allergic to my own house) or the fact the allergy tablets were making me muy muy sleepy - I didn't get up to that much of interest the couple of weeks I was home. I haven't forgotten that I did get to see some of my brilliant friends whilst I was home though and this was lovely!!

BUT I did get to spend a lovely week with my mum, dad, little brother and ROSIE in a caravan park in Brittany, France. A great week. I sunbathed, ate lots, spent some quality time with my family, walked the doggy lots, swam in the very cold sea and refused (much to my brothers disappointment) to throw myself backwards down the water slide! If I am totally honest I didn't really want to leave and I did cry a fair amount at the train station. Following this was what felt like the longest journey of my life. But I made it back to my flat in Barca and even managed to drag myself to work today which was nowhere near as bad as I had expected!

This was one of the only photos I took on holiday. Opppsss. (But it was a pretty gardens and a much better sight than my dad at the pool in his speedos - unfortunately they were compulsory)

I am really going to try and make a massive effort to feel more settled for the rest of my time here. This is not forever so ENJOY IT! And it doesn't matter if I want to sit in at the weekend and watch UK TV sometimes. I am working full time which I haven't done for a year or so (also really gutted I'm not being able to take part in the accommodation hotline this year and get my annual dose of chatting/being shouted at by freshers!) and I wouldn't be sightseeing and out and about every weekend if I was still in the soton or on a work placement somewhere else in the UK! Also it's okay to feel homesick sometimes, but I wouldn't really advise a trip home to cure it...

I still haven't really met many (any) people doing the same thing as me, but I am hoping in the influx of new Erasmus and just general students will be coming soon and should give me the chance to be a bit more sociable and give me a better chance of making some more friends!

Note to self: Spain shuts down in August. Full Stop!

For the time being I apologise for this slightly self indulgent rambly post but I want to keep up the blogging so I will try and do something exciting within the next couple of weeks which will be worth your while reading. I don't know what that will be at the moment....

How has it been over a month?!?!

I will never get used to everything being shut on a Sunday - what are you meant to do for one whole day of your precious weekend! Well I guess I will have to use it to finally write another blog post! (I didn't realise how long it had been since the last one)

First a weather update as I can't seem to escape the news of it being a bit of a heatwave in the UK. It is getting very very hot here now, I think I was treated with a mild welcome when I arrived but it's bearable! Things here are made for when it is hot so the lab is air conditioned and my flat has shutters to block the sun out but it's still not easy to escape the heat especially at night. But a cheeky glass of wine before bed generally helps with sleep! 

Last weekend didn't consist of much touristy stuff but I met a few of my housemates friends near the beach, had a drink and was reintroduced to a chicken sandwich. Yes I caved and I do pretty much eat meat when I am offered it here which is quiet often. But I think we all knew (at least I did) that I wouldn't last so long as being a veggie and wannabe foodie in Spain. I can't live of eggs you know!

Yesterday I went for the second walking tour offered by the same company as the last one I went on and it was also very interesting. It was all about Gaudí, who if you don't know is the architect you can't avoid here in Barca, his buildings and designs are all over the city with every other postcard having his works on and a number of museums dedicated to him. I was a bit skeptical because I'm not that big on my art ect but having a knowledgeable person explain it all to you, especially pointing out what you are looking at, is 100x more interesting. I also was able to chat to some people travelling in the area this time, which was nice as the last tour was mainly older couples. 

My favorite Gaudí building I saw on the tour - Casa Batlló

Now referring back to the title of this post I can not believe I have been here over a month now. Crazy. Don't know if this has been the longest or fastest month of my life. It feels like a lifetime ago I got of that plane entering a foreign country where I knew basically nobody with a poor grasp of the native language and a return flight booked for December. That first week was tough. I think I was a little/very naive about quite how challenging this would be. I have to admit now I probably rang home more in my first couple of weeks than a whole year at Uni. But at the same time the weeks are flying by, especially in the world of research a month isn't very long, and my Saturdays are quickly used up with such a cool city on my doorstep to explore. 

6 months still sounds like a daunting amount of time to me - but I am breaking it down in my head into smaller manageable segments. And once summer is over I will have to throw myself head first into working, as both me and my PhD supervisor will leave in December so there will be a lot to get done. 

Quick snap of most of the people in my lab. (Sandals and shorts are fine here but I can't quite bring myself to leave jeans and leggings) 

I am home in a week and half now (still doesn't actually seem like I'll actually be on a flight to the UK anytime soon). I am looking forward to some belated birthday celebrations (hint hint if you thought you could get away with not buying me an extravagant 21st gift) and then a weeks holiday by the beach with my family for lots of food and relaxation. I will try and write another post before then, potentially about the joke of me trying to bake a cake to take to work on Friday. Firstly it's too hot to really put the oven on so hello late night baking and I don't have any scales or correct equipment (apart from a mixing bowl and a whisk) so it's going to contain ALOT of guess work and improvisation! But that's a skill you learn to acquire in a lab with double the amount of students than usual! 

Plus I have also got the bug to do some travelling next summer recently! It would be amazing to visit more of Spain and Europe (I really fancy Italy and central Europe). 

Just a bit of an update.

I  sat down and wrote a lot of this post at the weekend, and now I have sat down with some pastries and a cuppa peppermint tea and deleted half of it. For that reason it is a little disjointed but really its just a bit of an update about what I have been up to. 

On Saturday I went on a walking tour of Barcelona around some of the old city and learnt lots of fascinating information about the history of the area! It was a runner beans tour (http://www.runnerbeantours.com/) and I would recommend them to anyone coming for a visit and wants to fill a morning. I then did as girls do and did some shopping in the afternoon! I promise I really do need some more summer clothes and it is the sales so it would have been rude not to; I did need to get out of the sun for a little bit as well.

I didn't take too many photos on my trip but here a couple I wanted to share!

The Placa Reial which I have to admit might be one of my favorite squares I've visited in Barca so far but I am sure there are many more just as beautiful I am yet to discover. 

A typical old city street in Barcelona, and this was one of the main streets. In the very narrow parts it looks as though you could jump between the balconies at the top with no problems at all.  

I also went on a bit of a walk on Sunday morning to the edge of the town where I am living and it was quite pleasant to just have a bit of a wander and see some new scenery. It was too hot to go very far but I am sure I will be climbing mountains come Autumn. Maybe...

 I was just sat on a bench reading a book when I took this with the local swimming pool blasting some old school tunes which gave a slightly different feeling to what you might expect from the photo. 

On Tuesday I went to my first Spanish exercise class at the gym - quite an adventure. Firstly, I was struggling to remember how to even enter the gym (last digit of you DOB and then your thumb scan?!- they use finger prints everywhere here!) but a nice man helped me and it was all fine. Then the class was hard, I am definitely still feeling it today but it has been a while since I have been to a body conditioning class so it was to be expected. But I really enjoyed it. The class was in Spanish (again I don't think it was Catalan) but it didn't seems to matter as long as you can see the front and count to 8. There is also A LOT of nudity in the changing rooms here compared to what I have previously experienced. I'm not that bothered and its really not worth trying to hide under a towel while quickly getting changed but wandering around the whole room starkers to the showers (no towel or anything) maybe going a little to far for me personally. But I will soon be back to try out some more classes. It's 3 weeks to get a Bikini body for holiday and I have eaten A LOT of bread... Plus I need to work on my tan before I am home at the end of the month to make everyone (especially my mum) jealous. 

Finally. I LOVE ESPANA, it's such a laid back place. Lab health and safety - who cares (actually I do, I never thought I would miss a COSSH form but they were a large part of my 3rd yr project and I claim one of my skills is writing them!); Bus runs late - oh well; Drink beer and watch football - of course. Chill out for at least an hour in the middle of the day and make sure you take a proper lunch - always.

I don't have anything planned for this weekend apart from some catch up on much needed sleep and a wander out to buy some food so I have no idea what I will post about but I am sure I will come up with something! 

Success - I survived a full week.

So I have survived my first full week in the lab here. Last week had a free day on Tuesday so I only really did 3 proper days and I totally forgot how tiring a day is when you are having to balance standing around a lot, understanding what on earth you are doing and not blowing yourself or anyone else up so you can end the day in one piece is. (Okay so maybe that’s a bit over the top but would you expect any less) But I am still here and I haven’t broken any expensive equipment yet so I think I’ll count it a success. 

I did however throw my lunch all over the floor in the kitchen of the institute today. But in the grand scheme of things I'll get over the minor embarrassment. 

I haven’t really managed to do anything else of excitement at all this week, The hours here are long and I think this is mainly due to the fact a large amounts of the day are taken up drinking coffee and waiting for public transport but I’m not complaining. I can totally get used to the more relaxed pace.

And on the same note of relaxed paces the whole of Spain basically takes the whole of August off work so the institute I am working at closes for 3 weeks, and I am using this time to have a little holiday of my own. Yep that’s right, it looks like I will be back in the UK for a week and then I'm going on holiday with my family to France for a week. I did want to use my extra week off to do a bit of travelling but the costs are just a bit much in Aug and I do kind of have to do some work for a week (I am still a student) so as it stands I am likely to be back in LB for the first week of August, so watch this space.

I also wanted to share a couple of pictures from my lovely day in Barca last weekend, and I am going on a walking tour of the old town of Barca tomorrow so I am sure I will have another set of photos to share fairly soon. 

The Sagrada Familia is crazy impressive in real life. It is hard to imagine that they will ever really finish it. 

Barcelona's Gay pride parade passing by. We were not expecting this when we walked out of the metro station at all! 

 The Font màgica de Montjuïc in Catalan is amazing. It was quite odd watching and listening to the classical music accompaniment whilst hearing the tecno music from the party behind! Something I deffs want to see again. 

I think next time I will write a nice post about my observations on Spain whilst I am going about my daily life. On the whole its not that different here but there are a couple of things which make me chuckle/want to cry every time I see them!