Barcelona

I still cannot really believe I will be living in Barcelona in five months! I am so excited but really nervous at the same time. Living in Spain, in Catalunya actually, will be a challenge. But that is one of the reasons I picked Barcelona. Dealing with two languages (Spanish & Catalan) will be hard, but I love a good challenge, a little competition with myself.
And I will get to live at the ocean. I love the ocean. I am not even the type of person who can lie in the sun for hours doing nothing, but I love sitting on or walking along the beach and seeing the infinity that is the ocean. It isn’t infinite, but it feels like it. It is a great feeling to know that somewhere behind the horizon there is land again but you cannot see it, only the ocean, the waves, the blue of the sky reflecting in the water.
The other day I picked up the DVD of L’Auberge Espagnole, a French movie about Erasmus students in Barcelona. I had not seen it before but I figured now is the time to see it! Next week on Wednesday there is an info meeting for all Erasmus students, and I hope I will find out more then.
I do not even know when exactly I need to be in Barcelona. I know classes start in September, but I do not know when exactly. I will also have to get there early to find an apartment (something I am absolutely dreading).
I have talked to my parents and they also think it will be easier if I just keep my apartment here, instead of moving everything back to Munich and having to find a new place to live after I come back in February. I am really glad about that because finding an apartment in Heidelberg is such a pain, and I really like my apartment and my neighbors, and I would like to come back here next year.

London

I will be going to London August 12-17. I mentioned the excursions offered by the English department before and I talked to my parents, and they really liked the idea, so on Monday I went and signed up for the Shakespeare excursion. The trip is really cheap too. I found out the English department will be sponsoring each student who participates with €300 (paid from the tuition that was introduced this semester), so at least I know my tuition will go towards something I actually profit from. I am really excited about this trip, as the last time I was in London was in 2001, and not only have I grown up since then - I also do not have the best memories from the last trip so I cannot wait to make new better memories of the city.

My new bike

On Sunday I was at my neighbors as they were having a BBQ and mentioned how sometimes I miss having a bike, when they said they actually had a bike in their garage that a former tenant left there years ago, that still looked pretty good and I could have it if I wanted to. I looked at the bike and it was still in really good shape and very solid, so I accepted the offer. The bike did need some work done, and still does, but it is really great, as it basically cost me nothing, and while it does look nice, it does not look nice enough for anyone to steal it. (Knock on wood.) On Tuesday (Labor Day), I cleaned the bike, and on Wednesday I went to the bike store in town with Jenny (my neighbor), and bought two new inner tubes as well as a tire, two new handles and a lock for the bike.We exchanged the tubes and front tire, and put the new handles on the bike, and now I have a functioning bike. We still need to replace the dynamo sometime as the wire leading to the front light was cut, and the dynamo is an old one that we will have a hard time finding new wiring for. So we will probably use the dynamo from another (abandoned) bike in our garage and put that on my bike. I spent €40 total on the tubes, tire, handles and lock so that was a really good deal. I already rode the bike to the library tonight and it is really comfortable and easy to ride. It only took me 10 minutes to the library when usually I walk 30. I will also be able to go to Aldi more often now to buy groceries as it will be much easier to go there now that I can ride my bike. By the way, the bike is from the DDR (Former German Democratic Republic), from Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz), how cool is that?! Here is a picture of my bike:

My neighbors

Not traveling-related, but I wanted to write about this anyway. I have really great neighbors. The community in our house is really good. Tuesday, May 1st, we had a BBQ together and we had such a great time. It was Corina, Manuel, Michael, Mira, Norbert, Jenny and me (and two friends of Corina and Manuel whose names I forgot, plus C+M’s kids and N+J’s 3 month old daughter who is so very adorable by the way). We ended up sitting outside until 11pm. When it got dark we made a fire in the BBQ as it got kind of cold, and we just chatted about all kinds of things. I never really had that - such a great community with the neighbors, that we would get together regularly, neighbors you can rely on, ask for favors sometimes (and of course do favors for), and I love it. It is really great that we get together regularly and that we do not just happen to live in the same house. On the right, you can see a picture I took that night by the way. I just thought it looked cool how you could see the sun rays because of the smoke from the BBQ.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 23:28 and is filed under Life, Photo, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.