Time is marching on without me

Without a big weekend trip to punctuate my weeks, the last two have just fused together without my noticing.  The lack of sleep certainly did not help.  I got back from the airport after my Rome trip at about 1 AM, did my presentation and slept by 3 AM, was in class and presenting by about 9:30 AM, and then had another 5 compositions/essays and a final exam to take care of.  Nevertheless, Monday was Independence Day and what is usually an extremely uneventful day for me became a day for me to sing "Americaaaaa, Fuck Yeah!"from Team America in my head for most of the day.  I felt proud to be an American for the first time in a long time and as momentary as it was, it was kind of nice.  To quote a friend on facebook (yeah, I'm going there), "hating America is so passé."  Is it wrong that I agree?  Am I getting old and jaded?  Can I no longer apply for membership to the great American counterculture?  Oh well, I never really wanted it anyway.

Roma, and not just the tomato!

And she's back from her week-long hiatus!  You'll have to forgive me but I've just had no time to update you all on my life and travels.  It was my last week of classes out here in Barcelona which meant handing in 4 compositions, 1 essay, 2 oral presentations, and 1 exam.  To be fair, I didn't study for anything so that didn't eat into my time but I wasn't getting any sleep and I still had to work for my internship.  But I'm complaining!  I'm finally done and I'm most grateful for my classes and my professor, Josep María, but more on that later.

Destinación: Roma, Italia.

First was the dilemma as to whether or not to go the weekend of July 1st when all the stores would go on sale.  I couldn't care less but the other Diana really did but we ultimately decided that the sales would still be there when we got back and the only other weekend we had left was the weekend of July 8th when we had only two days because of finals on that Friday.

Second was the plane tickets.  Tickets were supposed to be just 107 euro but prices jumped up 10 euro in just one day and then my debit card wasn't working on the site.  By the time I bought them with the help of the magical help of a certain Emily, the price had jumped up to 143 euro.  It gets worse.

Third was that there were no more decent hostels left.  It would be more worth it to just get a hotel.  So that's what we did.

Fourth, and this is the real zinger, I got to the airport only to discover that the ticket was under Diana V and not Diana Choi.  Excuse me but how many people do you know with one letter for a last name?  Not wanting to risk them not letting me on the plane, I had to change the name on my flight, price tag 353 euro.  The thing is that when I tried checking in online with my confirmation number, my name came up at Diana Choi and then it stopped working so I went to the counter when I got the airport at 4:30 am last Friday.  But then my debit card wasn't working so D.Lee had to lend me the money on her credit card.  

Less than a month left...

I know that most of you read my blog during your work week but I decided I'd post one more time before I go to Rome for the weekend.  Yup, no big deal.  Just gonna spend my weekend in Roma, Italia.

The Adventures of Harold and Harold and Their Tribe of 17

Last week went by in sort of a blur.  I'm not even sure what I did Monday to Thursday afternoon and I feel like that's a glimpse of what my life is to become with a 9-5 job.  Realistically, I will probably have a 9-5 job in my first years of full-time employment but let's hope it doesn't last.

Sorry Stepfather, that wasn't Spanish...

I've been M.I.A. all weekend because my parents were in town which meant that my Mom got me a roll-away cot 10 times more comfortable than my own bed at the Hotel Arts, one of the defining features of the Barcelona shoreline.  So no surprise that I willingly let her kidnap me and feed me some of the most delicious food I've had while in Barcelona.

First stop then was Arola, one of the hotel's many high-end restaurants.  I insisted we go out and find a nice tapas bar but my mother, having just gotten off a plane, needed to eat and needed to eat NOW.

Another week in food...

And yet what week do I not measure in food?  The answer is none.  If I had to write a Rent spoof (although I would never desecrate the memory of Jonathan Larson's life and life work like that), it would have to be Seasons of Food and not of Love..in cheesecakes and waffles, in prime ribs and bites of toffee...


Anyway, this week was a short one.  It was a día de fiesta or holiday on Monday so I had a chance to recuperate from the weekend shenanigans in Sevilla.  More beach and then, to bring the day to a close, one of the most delicious sandwiches I've ever had from Bo de B.  I didn't have my Iphone with me so I have no pictures so I'll just have to return and take some photos.  It's that good.

Sevilla--¡Olé!

I woke up from 2.5 hours of sleep at 3 AM Friday morning to get ready and catch our 5 AM Ryanair flight from Barcelona to Sevilla.  There was 11 of us kids on this trip, seven of us girls from my apartment buildings and four other boys, all of us on the internship program with IES.

For those of you who don't know Ryanair, it's known as "the low-cost airline".  There are a number of ways they obviously cut costs:

1.  They don't assign you seats.  The seating is first come first serve so all passengers line up at the gate up to an hour before boarding so they don't have to choose from slim pickings.

2.  They don't serve beverages or snacks and don't even have tray tables on which to place such comestibles.

3.  They definitely don't have any entertainment systems

I just hope that they pay their employees fair wages because it would be just a little too ghetto if they didn't.  I wasn't convinced that they were even fully license pilots considering that our landing on our return flight felt like the plane was crashing.  They obviously didn't go to the same flying school as Korean pilots who land their planes so smoothly it's like the plane-tarmac equivalent to slathering margarine on toast.

It comes as no surprise that after just 2.5 hours of sleep, I along with the others on the plane passed out for the 1.5 hour flight from the northeastern coast to the arid south of Spain.  When we got to Sevilla, we took one bus to a train station and then wandered around lost for a bit before catching a second bus to the city center.  Upon first look, there was nothing impressive.  It seemed like a smaller, dusty Middle American city.  Little did I know...