My roommates

I have the best roomates in the world. Angelica acts like me mom sometime, tells me to put on a scarf or mitts. I always know where they are and when they will get back. They are so patient with my Spanish and in my own way I am able to explain most things I want to . Last night I was talking for 3 hours and she helped me with my homework. She is a laywer but is studying English in her free time, which is great because we can help each other. Her English is probably worse than my Spanish, but she will get to practice when Addi comes for a visit on Friday. I can´t wait!!!
More about my everyday life later.......

Cure for Retinitis Pigmentosa

My dad just sent me information about RP, the eye disease my mom has. If I only had one wish in the whole world I would wish that my mother could see again. This is the article about the resarch the have been conducting: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3950827.stm
The rest is in Icelandic (written by my dad, don´t feel like translating this one): í greininni er talað er um möguleika á lækningu á RP, ef þetta virkar eins vel og menn vona, sem er alls ekki komið í ljós. Það eru alltaf fréttir af möguleikum á lækningum, sem eru svo mörg mörg ár inni í framtíðinni, ef allt gengur, sem það gerir oft ekki, svo kannski er óvarlegt að vekja með einhverjum falsvonir, en ég hef samt alltaf verið trúaður á að RP væri þess eðlis, að einn góðan veðurdag fyndistlækning, því skaðinn virðist ekki vera vegna óafturkræfrar skemmdar, svo langt sem ég sem leikmaður skil það. Þessi stofnfrumuaðferð "meikar meiri sens," en ég hef áður heyrt um, þ.e. ef stofnfrumurnar geta orðið að heilbrigðum sjónfrumum, og komist hjá því að láta gallaða erfðaefnið stýra sér.

Please please please God make my mom see again!!¡¡

Pilates

It´s funny how things work differently in every country. Initially I needed to give the Language Center a picture for my Centro de Idiomas identity card. With that card I can get free Internet access. Now... I was interested in starting some kind of a sport and I decided Pilates was something I wanted to try. My friend Klara had talked about it a lot.
So.... to be able to get an ID card for Pilates I need another ID card, but that takes two weeks so I got a photocopy of my application and walked up to the University. I explained everything to a really nice man by the name of Jesus. He gave me a form and the next day I had to bring it back with two pictures. For the two months I intend to do pilates I had to pay 30 euros, which is nothing. I think it´s about 300 for a 6-week course in Iceland (Oh God how I miss it....hehe), but no.... I had the m0ney, but could only pay by going to Caja España and make a deposit. The next morning, before class, I went to the bank. It took them half an hour to process the deposit and it wasn´t enough to have me there in person, they needed my passport (and for some weird reason I did) and needed to enter my passport number to be able to make the deposit. How weird. I admired their patience though. They are probably used to things being complicated, and luckily they don´t go as much by the book as in North America. Thank God!
After school I returned to the sport´s office at the Uni and got my ID card for pilates. At 3 o´clock the same day I had my first pilates class and guess what!!!??¿¿ The instructor looked at the card and said: "What is this?"

Las Médulas, my best day so far....

The trip to Ponferrada and Las Médulas started at 9:30 Saturday morning. It wasn´t hard to wake up ´cause I´m not going out to party all the time like the other students.
Almost all the students participated, or about 40. We started off going to Ponferrada, a town which is about an hour from León. My roommate, Angelica, is also born there :) We looked at a castle which was great because Iceland doesn´t have any old structures like that, but first we had coffee. In Spain they really like taking it slow and ´me likes very much´ :) After that we drove for about an hour and had lunch at a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere from 2-4. I loved it! I had ´menu del día´ which is a three course meal with all the wine you can drink for only 9 euros. The food in Spain is usually pretty fatty, but quite good. I was sitting with a Chinese couple, an American girl and one of the Spanish teachers. The rest of the group was sitting elsewhere. I didn´t mind ´cause the wine was damn good and I started talking more than I ever had in Spanish writing down every word the teacher said in my little ´Palabras del día´book. At this moment I really started understanding why siesta is so important. I hadn´t felt this great in years!
After lunch we drove up to Las Médulas. We had to walk through a beautiful little village first. i felt like I was a part of either ancient times or a story where main characters were old people sitting out in the sun all day. The weather was wonderful, like a good summer in Iceland, but pretty cold for the folks in the village I would imagine.
The we walked through some kind of a wood to get to the top. The colours of autumn (sorry my North American friends, but fall is just not as pretty....) where absolutely beautiful. It was almost too good to be true. It felt so good to just go with the flow instead of having to be in charge of the group. Javíer told us all about the Médulas. I understood most of it... something about the Romans and 3rd Century...hehe.... Oh well....
We walked through a tunnel with a flashlight and I saw a bat. We looked at more caves, big and small. The hike was about 3 hours and the whole time I was thinking how wonderful I felt. I hadn´t been this happy for a long time. I was speaking more Spanish then ever before (with a little help from vino tinto, but that´s all good) and didn´t have to worry about anybody but myself. I was a participant, appreciating Spanish nature to the fullest!

Spelling mistakes....

Just a quick note to tell you guys that I am aware of several spelling mistakes in my posts and there may be some grammatical errors too. Please feel free to comment. I just don´t feel like correcting my mistakes and I don´t have any kind of spell-check or a dictionary..... after all my native language is not English.
Talk to you soon.... and hope to hear from some of you....hmmmm.... are any of my friends reading this????

Debates in Spanish

Wow.... I´m learning something new everyday, both about myself and Spanish culture in general. The girls I live with are absolutely amazing, especially Angelica. Both of them are going out of town today and won´t be back until Sunday. Angelica showed me how to watch movies/dvd´s on her computer while she´s away. She also said I could use the computer whenever I wanted to. I thought I was a nice person, but I wouldn´t even do that for somebody who´s renting a room from me. Maybe I´ll reconsider my niceness.... maybe I´m not that nice....

Today´s culture class was interesting. Our homework was to read about the differences of Spanish young people, i.e. the difference between girls and boys with regards to smoking, drinking, sex, how much they get paid for jobs, etc. The last point was were I started talking when Santiago (the teacher) said that there was only a difference in wages because the girls choose different types of jobs and that this were not the case with same kind of jobs; i.e. they always get the same salary for the same kind of job. Since I know this is not always the case in Iceland even I started talking. At first I couldn´t find words in Spanish that would explain my thoughts. Then a few others commented and since I´m a very slow thinker... hehe... I could say what I wanted to say. I was pretty lucky that the Director of the school, José Luis Llamas, walked in and Santiago asked him what he thought of the subject. He said there was a difference in the private sector which helped me a lot with my argument. I asked Santiago why a construction worker is valued more than a person working at a nursery or kindergarten. He didn´t comment on that. Anyways.... I´m not going to write all my opinions here... but what happened after was that I was standing outside with Frida explaining my thoughts in English and Santiago came and asked me what the difference between a feminist and a
chauvinist was. I told him my opinion in brief: feminist is a person who wants equality for all and a chauvinist is a person who thinks the rights of men are greather than that of women. Therefore, feminism is good and chauvinist is bad. Then he stopped a Spanish girl asking her whether bother were good, bad or bad and good. She said: "both are bad" and he said: "that´s the way it is." We ended the conversation, but after the weekend I will have to defend my opinons in class and all in Spanish of course. That will probably be the most difficult task I´ve ever had to complete regarding the Spanish language. Please wish me luck!! (and send me links to Spanish websites that could help me...hehe....)

Continued from yesterday....

I was kicked out of the computer room yesterday here at Uni. You are only allowed to use the computers for one hour at a time. Kind of strange, but anyways...

I like León, it´s not too big and not too small. I feel like I know the steets pretty well by now (Well I should ´cause I´ve walked for around 50 hours since I got here). The people are incredibly nice and helpful. I´ve had several people give their phone numbers to me even though I don´t know them really well.

I was pretty fortunate to meet Frida Johannsson, a nineteen year old girl from Sweeden. I knew that I didn´t want to hang out too much with the Irish people ´cause then I´d only speak English. Frida and I started looking for an apartment (or one bedroom each) the day after we first met. First we had to make calls (all in Spanish of course) to ask if the apartment or room was still available and if so whether we could come see it. We walked and ran all over the city seeing all kinds of weird places and people. The first apartment was adorable, but all the rest was no good. Frida found a pretty nice place after about looking at ten places. I was getting really frustrated, but then on Thursday last week I found what I wanted, apartment number 13 it was! And who said 13 was not a lucky number?
I had a really good feeling after I talked to the girl who lives there. Besides, it was number 27, just like my house in Iceland. The owner, la dueña, was there to show me the place. She lives on the 5th floor; the apartment is on the 4th. I told her within 5 minutes that I wanted to move in and she just gave me the key and told me to move in when I wanted to.
The next day, I happily packed my bags and moved out of Residece Emilio Hurtado. After arguing with the guy at the reception about why I had to come pay on Monday I finally got my taxi and left. I truly don´t understand the work ethics in Spain. Way to relaxed if you asked me.... I was also pretty happy that I didn´t have to see that French girl again, Cyril or whatever her name was. We got along ok, until she started bossing me around, telling me where we were going, telling me to eat this and that and God knows what. She even wrote me a note one morning asking me to take a postcard to the post office and buy a stamp for her. Excuse me, I´m not your servant! She moved out of the apartment at Emilio Hurtado the day before I did without even telling me and stealing my milk.

Angelica Fernando is the girl I live with and another one just moved in yesterday, Maria Jesus. Angelica is probably the nicest most considerate person I´ve met in my life. She even sent me a text message before I moved in telling me how much she´d like to live with a foreigner. Before I moved in she sent me a welcoming message and when I woke up after sleeping there the first night she had left me a note saying something like: I hope you had a nice sleep, etc. Neither Angelica nor Maria speak English of course.

Most days I´m pretty tired. The grammar classes are usually pretty hard so siesta is really something I really need every day. It´s strange to have all the stores are closed between 13:30 and 17. My other classes are: oral and written communication and culture. My CULTURA teacher is really hillarious. His name is Santiago and he keeps speaking Danish to me.

This weekend I am going on a 10 hour hiking and cultural trip to Las Medulas. It will be interesting to see what the tourist attractions here look like......
Hasta luego....

Ásta Sól

León, The City and house-hunting

The city of León is pretty amazing. There are lots of tiny little cute streets everywhere, fountains, flowers, dogs and doves. It´s quite small; about 150.000 people, but much more polluted than Reykjavík. At first it was hard to get used to breathing in all the polluted air and it´s amazing how many people smoke. I wonder how long the average Spanish person lives!¿

First days in León

I don´t know where to start so much has happened since Sunday and I´m exhausted. In short: I left Reykjavík at 13:30 and my flight to London, Heathrow departed 16:10. When I got to London I wanted to take a taxi to the Oasis hotel, but found out that it would cost me 170 punds!!! I went back to the information desk and they told me it would probably be a good idea to take mini cab, so I called a number they had and about 10 minutes later a tiny little guy around 50 came walking with a sign that said AFTA. That was me! The driver was from Afganistan. He told me about his wonderful country and I asked him what he thought of the Taliban. It was fun, although the almost 1 1/2 hour drive was exhausting. I found out that the hotel wasn´t even in London, but in Harrows... oh well..... we made it to the hotel ok and then the old fellow tried to rip me off.... bastard! Anyways.... I didn´t sleep well at all. The room was nice, but somebody grabbed my doorhandle in the middle of the night. It didn´t make me feel very safe. The next morning I got lost in the corridor before heading to Stansted Airport. I got there well over two hours before so I felt quite relaxed. Then I waited and waited in the chack-in queue and I was getting quite pissed off so I started talking to a mother and daugther who were in front of me and then found out RyanAir only allows 15 kg per person. I started arguing with the check-in lady, but of course it didn´t work. I had to pay 81 punds or leave my suitcase behind! Now I know how they make their money. I mean 15 kg is almost the weight of the suitcase itself and they know that. I WOULDN´T RECOMMEND RYANAIR to anyone! Plus I couldn´t take my carry-on and a handbag on the plane, they only allow one bag. Oh well.... I walked through security and on my way to the gate I saw the mother and daughter again. The waived at me and asked me to come talk to them. The mother was crying and they kissed goodbye. I started talking to the daugher, Nicola from Belfast, and not only was she on the same flight, but she was taking the same train from Valladolid to León and taking the same course at Universidad de León. So..... we travelled together all the way to León. It was nice to have company of such a nice girl. Her friends, Jayne and Aine (pronounced Onja) were at the train station in León. It was 25º C and sunny. It couldn´t get any better. They even took me to residence or the halls as the call it, Resedecía Emilio Hurtado. Walking into the small apartment was depressing and I am already looking for something else and something closer to the Language Center - Centro de Idiomas. Yesterday I got lost and walked for 3 hours before I found the Language Center, which was closed because of a fiesta in town. Then I called up the Irish girls and we walked another two hours. My calves are sore today no wonder. I went over to their house and they cooked for me and Jayne´s parents who are here visiting. It took me a couple of hours to get used to the Irish accent (it´s like the intonation is at the end of each sentence, weird) and I think I could have an Irish accent by the end of my time here if I wanted to (could be cute but no thanks). Last night we went out to two bars and some more Irish folks came along. Two of the girls´ wallets were stolen.... and they were crying. I made sure I didn´t leave my bag anywhere and I know I have to be careful. Well.... today I slept in and got my program for the next two days. I have a test tomorrow (¡oh my God!) and classes start on Monday.

So far I´ve been trying my best to speak Spanish and considering that I haven´t spoken a word for nine years I´m doing pretty good. I even had a converation with my Spanish roommate Laura for about 5 minutes!

Well..... I better get going before it gets dark.... more later. ¡Hasta luego!