goodbye my liver

When I woke up on Friday morning, I was thinking about enjoying a relaxing weekend at home, on the couch, binge-watching something... well, maybe next weekend.

Should have had more caffeine at work.

After work I met with a Basque friend of mine, who I got to know in our Catalan course. We wanted to find Euskal Etxea, a Basque house, because neither of us had been there. We took the metro to Arc de Triomf (Jaume I would have been a lot better...), but we never actually made it to Euskal Etxea. We found many interesting bars instead, with many interesting people, including a Finnish-Spanish couple who had met in a Czech course. I think it was at around 3am when we finally found Euskal Etxea, but it was already closed... at this point everything gets a bit blurry; we took taxis to different night clubs because we really felt like dancing, and oh boy did we dance.

Stupic gin&tonics made the search more difficult :D

When I woke up on Saturday, I was still drunk, and that continued the whole day. I blame the midday beers and the beers after that. I met some Esperantists in the evening; an Italian friend who I got to know in my first Esperanto meeting in Torricella 9 years ago, and a Vietnamese friend who I first met in the World Congress of Esperanto in Hanoi 2.5 years ago. I also met a new friend, a local Esperantist, and we sat with his friends and had a loud, chaotic, Mecixan pica-pica in Esperanto, Spanish, and Catalan. One of the guys came to me and asked if I was the multilingual girl who was interviewed for El Periódico last June. He was the first one who recognized me!

Nachos with bacon. I could feel my arteries closing up.

Today was a bit more... well, calm. I met with these Esperanto people and few of the local friends, and I had my first calçotada! Basically, you have lots of grilled green onions which you then peel with bare hands and dip in romesco sauce. After that there was grilled meat, potatoes, and white beans, and for dessert we had some crema catalana and ice cream. And cava and red wine and ratafia, local liqueur. I was feeling very happy when I left :D then I met another local Esperantist for some beers, we chatted in Catalan and I'm quite proud of being able to form sentences by myself, even if it takes a while!

Calcotada is serious business, hence our fashion. Picture taken by Flama.

After the battle. Picture taken by Dani with Flama's phone.

Tomorrow is my 1-year anniversary with Barcelona... I can't believe how quickly time flies!

Voldemort says hola

It's been an interesting week. On Wednesday, around the time everyone left the office, a colleague of mine sent a message about the street next to our office, Passeig de Gràcia, being blocked. A few minutes later another colleague called my cell phone and told me to let everyone know that we should use the other exit, since the police has blocked Passeig de Grácia. I was creepy to look down from the 5th floor to the empty street. (For people who don't know the city, I work in the heart of BCN, and this street is one of the most important ones I'd say.) Apparently someone had left a suspicious bag in front of the Turkish embassy, and all the shops below us had been evacuated. Thank goodness it turned out to be a false alarm.

But it doesn't make me feel any safer to see police everywhere with machine guns. :( I see at least 6 of them every time I go have lunch. 

I finally had my operation on Friday, the day before yesterday. I was really nervous, mostly because of the IV needle. As a blood donor I'm used to needles, but I just can't handle the idea of having one on the back of my hand. :S I had to be at the hospital at 10 in the morning, accompanied, so a friend of mine came with me. Then we had to wait for almost 2 hours before I was taken downstairs in a wheelchair, and I hadn't gotten anything to calm me down... the nurses who prepared my bed were ridiculously handsome men! I had never been told by 3 gorgeous guys to remove my gown and lie down... :D Then they put the IV needle (fricking hurt) and asked where I'm from, and then I fell asleep. Apparently the surgery took 2 hours. 

I got to leave the hospital after 7pm, and they made my friend stay there the whole time! Now I've just been lying down and trying to sleep as much as possible. I can't eat or drink anything hot, and it's really difficult to eat anything because I can't breathe through my nose at the moment. Also, my nose starts to bleed whenever I move. Tomorrow I'll go back to the hospital, they'll remove a block they put up my nose after the surgery. Hopefully I'll be able to at least eat then...I'm so bored. I would like to read, but I can't hold the book up for long. It's taken me ages to write this entry, too... but I needed to sit up for a bit. Can't wait to be able to do normal things again!

Ya man

The bitch is back! Well, I had some serious problems with my internet provider, and I was without internet for 2 months. That still doesn't explain why I didn't update this blog after August... Oh well, I'm here now.

So many things have happened since my last entry. I spent a wonderful week in Sardinia, and things were going well at work. Later I realized that a long-distance relationship was too difficult for me, and it was a hard decision to make. I fought with my internet provider, watched everything on my hard disk twice, threw a Pikkujoulut (Finnish pre-Christmas party), and drank way too much. My mom and one of my brothers came here in mid-December, for a week, and then we flew to Finland for Christmas.

Here are some pictures, I might get into details some other day.

Bosa, Sardinia

Alghero, Sardinia

Ara estic aprenent català - I started Catalan classes.

Halloween, nuff said.

Some drinks for Pikkujoulut.

Finland! Snow!

Having lunch with my baby brother <3

I'm finally having the operation next Friday... I guess I'll have enough time to post, while I'm sitting at home with a tampon up my nose :D