Nóvembermánudur - gledi og sorgir / The month of November - joys and sorrows

When I think about the month of November it has a lot of memories; good and bad. November last year was probably one of the hardest months in my life. I call it the Soap Opera of Ásta Sól...hehehe... but in reality I´m surprised that I didn´t have a nervous breakdown. I am still working out some of the things that happened then. I still want to talk to some of the people who were involved in making my life miserable, or more accurately: being egocentric, insensitive and judgemental during the most difficult time of my life. The truth is that since they didn´t care then, they won´t care now. When things went really wrong they decided to blame the only person who´s fault it was not; me! (And sadly, that has sort of been the story of my life (personal i.e.) and I intend to change it). They decided to listen and believe the only person I know who can hardly ever tell the truth, a person who almost ruined my life by lying to me and others. I even started covering for him to save his ass, but when I couldn´t do it anymore, I was the idiot. The role I played in this ´amazing´opera was the role of the co-dependent, and I don´t like it anymore. I never did actually. I have to start forgiving all those involved (takk pabbi fyrir hjálpina, ég elska thig) and since I am a believer I should start praying for them as well. Those who know me well know the whole story.....

Good and bad dates of November:

November 29, 1991: My dear amma Gyða, besta manneskja í heimi, passed away on this day 13 years ago. I still remember everything that happened. I loved her so much and wish she could have stayed with us longer. Elsku amma ég gleymi þér aldrei!
November 1, 2003: Amma Ástríður passed away. Unfortunately, I couldn´t be there for her funeral, but I did say goodbye to her two days before she died and I knew it would be the last time I´d see her. I just didn´t know if would happen so fast. I remember excatly where I was. I was in New York at Jake´s office (The Saline Project, see the link on the side). I had to cry in silence.
My mom told me that on the day she died there were ravens outside the nursery home she was at, and the funny thing is that when my grandma was younger she had raised a raven. At this point my mom knew that she had passed away. A few days later (when I was in Victoria, Canada and on the day of her funeral if I remember correctly) there there was a raven sitting on a tree next to where I was staying. To me it was like amma was saying goodbye. Every time I see a raven I will think of her.

November 27: My amma Ástrídur was born. She would have turned 91 on this day (and this day my Gréta voff voff turned 8 and a 1/2 :)

November 2, 2003: Something really bad happened that I can´t really talk about here. Those who know me well, know.

November 30, 2003: I met Addi for the first time. Not only did I fall in love, not only did I meet the man of my life; meeting him saved my life! Ég elska þig ástin mín og get ekki beðið eftir að eyða það sem eftir er af lífinu med þér.

Dreams - Comunicación Escrita

So... you think I´m crazy!? In written communication today we had to write down a dream and another person in the class has to interpret it using a special book (draumarádningabók. ég auglýsi hér med eftir enska ordinu yfir thennan hlut!) So tomorrow we´ll see if I´m crazy or not tomorrow.

Tapas and vino tinto on the house

Is Spain ever great and are Spanish people ever nice. I could really get used to living here. The manager of the Internet café/bar/restaurant just brought me 3 tapas and vino tinto, on the house! I didn´t even order any! In Iceland this would never happen... hmmm.... do I have to go back?¡¿¡ In class today Santiago was talking about Franco, beginnig of democracy and more. At the end of the class he asked us what we thought of Spain. I told him that in some ways I thought it was modern, but on the other hand a little bit backwards. He seemed to agree (maybe he doesn´t want to start a fight..hehe..) I added that I´d like to move Spain a little bit closer to Iceland. Why not!? Nada en el mundo es imposible (nothing is impossible in the word) is what Christina (oral language teacher) says, and I think she´s right.

Crazy Dreams - Pamela Anderson and Þórólfur Árnason

Last year a lot of my dreams were ´clairvoyant.´ It was scary almost...
This year they are just weird. A few weeks ago I dreamt that Pamela Anderson was in Iceland and she was my new best friend. She´s pretty nice I`m telling you. We were walking around the down town area, just chillin´ and then we decided to look for Tommy Lee ´cause he was playing soccer down by Austurbaejarskóli school. I recall Pamela wearing pretty funky boots and I was thinking whether she could help me become a Hollywood star.
The one with Þórólfur Árnason (the Mayor of Reykjavík who just resigned) was just as crazy. In the dream he was married to Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir (who was the Mayor of Reykjavík not long ago), but the marriage wasn´t going so well so he kept calling me for good advice. Whether he was in love with me or not I´m not sure, but at least our relationship was pretty intimate.
In the third dream I had recently I was an assassin for an unknown government, and I was given the assignment of killing an innocent person. I didn´t actually get to the part where I killed the guy though.
So... what do you guys think. Do those dreams mean anything or am I just going crazy? (Please help!)

Madrid - Madrid

Madrid was great, but no place is great without great people! Kári and the girls treated me like royalty. The bus-ride was about 4 hours from León because of traffic. Conchi turned up last minute and we sat together talking most of the time. She is so awesome! I learned the hard way the difference between cojín and cojón. I told her that I always brought my cojón (literally: shit) with me on bus trips, but apparently it´s cojín (pillow).
Conchi helped me figure out how the Metro worked and Kári picked me up at Avenida de America. His house is not too far from there. We walked around a little bit later that same day. Went to Plaza Mayor and had some wine. When we returned to the house he made the most
delicious chicken breast with garlic, onions and avocado. It was so good that I had him write down the recipe and made it myself two days ago (yours was better though Kári!) The next night Hulda made the best Lasagna I´ve ever had. My God! Was I ever stuffed after this weekend. We watched the EuroJunior where the nine year old María Isabel won with Antes Muerta Que Sencilla. She was quite good, although I find it rather sad that a little girl is dressed up like slut. I bought her CD though just for fun.
We went to the Rastro (market) on Sunday and I got some pretty good deals. I also saw some of Miró and Picasso´s work. Kári and I were thinking about taking one piece of art with us and split the profit. It didn´t work... That same night Kári´s girlfriend, Claudia from Peru, joined us at the Sidrería for some real cider. After two bottles we decided to go home. Boy... I´m telling you... there´s something in that cider that makes you crazy. We were acting like 5 year olds on the Metro; laughing, making funny faces, chasing each other, etc. It was really funny and the photos I took are just precious - especially the ones of Kári.
I wanted to write more but María Jesús is going crazy. She´s been kind of nasty today and now she needs the computer.....
¡Adios!

TEN DOGS - TEN BARS

Just a quick ´story´about the ten dogs and ten bars from when Addi was here.
He borrowed the video camera from my dad and we took it around; to school, the center, the market, cathedral and of course around the house. One day I really wanted to get 10 dogs on camera, one after the other. It didn´t take long since there are almost more dogs here than people.... In León there are funny dogs, angry dogs, ugly dogs, dogs walking alone, dogs walking with the leash in their mouth, dogs that look like rats, dogs that look like beauty queens, old dogs, stupid dogs, puppies.... I haven´t seen a hot dog though... haha... I´m so funny! Anyway... I think the 10-dog-video turned out quite well. I actually wanted to keep one of the dogs, but that´s not possible :( After the video-making we decided to go to 10 bars. That´s what they usually do here; have a corto and a tapa and go to the next bar. We went to barrio el humedo where they have lots of bars, but actually only made it to 8 bars (I guess we were a little drunk). At one of the bars we ran into Toni Soprano (or at least it looked like him). My friend Kolbrún will be putting his picture here soon. Then I gave some guy my full address and phone number, telling him he´d be welcome any time. The last bar we went to had a bowl full of candy. I´m not eating candy these days, but when I woke up my bag was full of those little things. I must have emptied the bowl! We had a lot of fun although we didn´t feel all that great the next day. Well...if we hadn´t been hungover we wouldn´t have woken up at four, gone out at 6 and ran into el Presidente de España, José Luis Rodrígues Zapatero (he´s from León) and Bundeskanzlerr Gerhart Schröder. I had my camera but unfortunately I needed new batteries so it didn´t work so they are part of our little My life in León documentary. How sweet!

Foggy and cold España

Just like most people think Iceland is the coldest place on earth, most people think that Spain is always sunny and warm. Wrong! I just took a walk to the store to buy more minutes for my cell and it´s really foggy and it´s only 1ºC outside (probably similar inside actually ´cause I´m freezing my ass off in here). I felt a little bit like I was in an old movie, probably a western. You couldn´t even see the Cathedral, the only structure you can always see. I hear the Spanish people swearing because of the weather, but for me it´s nothing. No wind or anything. It´s just beautiful. I hear it´s going to snow while I´m here too and I don´t mind at all. Then I can maybe start throwing snowballs at the people´s window downstairs. Apparently, us three girls here are real party animals. Every Friday there´s a party here at our apartment and we´re having wild sex and screaming real loud all the time. That´s what the people downstairs are telling our land lady who lives upstairs. Well.... I´m obviously not the one having sex and every weekend I´ve been in bed at 1 AM at the latest. I´ve never seen more than two visitors here at a time. Either they are imagining things or they don´t like us (and I have neither seen nor talked to them).
I´m looking forward to going to Madrid tomorrow. It will be a nice change, although Kári told me on the phone an hour ago that there was a bombing at the Méndez Álvares bus station, the one I´m going to tomorrow. Then he corrected himself saying it was just some kind of a power failure. Half of Madrid didn´t have electricity for a few hours.
More from Madrid after the weekend.....

He was a girl...

Everything is much better than yesterday. I´m both lucky and unlucky ´cause if I go down I´ll go up pretty fast, but it also mean that I can go down pretty fast. Anyways.... what I wanted to talk about is Monday. I saw an ad at the University.... somebody asking for Spanish-English exchange and wrote to this person . Then I got a reply from a guy who seemed quite nice. We decided to meet next to the clock at Plaza Domingo- square. I had only waited for about 7 minutes (surprise! I was on time!) when this girl was standing in front of me asking: Are you mmmm...? I said: yes, I´m Ásta. The name Conchi Antón sounds so much like a guy´s name. My roommates laughed their heads off when I told them about this. "You thought Conchi was a guy´s name?" The couldn´t get over it.
Anyway... Conchi is a really nice GIRL! We decided to speak English that night, but tonight we will be speaking Spanish. I am really nervous ´cause I´m a perfectionist, but like my cousin Ingunn said: "It´s obligatory to make a fool out of yourself." Thanks for the advice Ingunn. It reminds me of when I bought my purple shoes...heheh... One of the shoes had a tiny little black spot on the side and instead of asking for a discount I asked if I could pay more.... heheh... just a minor beginner´s mistake I guess. Although I feel that my Spanish is kinda shitty I think that I´m doing pretty good. All the people in my class have studied AT LEAST 3 years (University level). I studied for 2 and a 1/2 years, 9 YEARS AGO! Oh well, I still have to study the grammar. I´m not like Rain man....
So.... Conchi and I are taking the bus to Madrid together on Friday. She has a class there every Friday, but I´m visiting my friend Kári. We went to MH (menntaskóli - junior collage) together so we´ve known each other since we were like 16. He´s a lot of fun. I´ll tell you about Madrid later. I´ll be back on Monday (thus missing class, but who cares).
Next I have to tell you about the 10 dogs - 10 bars.
Besos y abrazos,´
ÁSK

A pretty bad day....

Not all days are perfect. I had my second worst day today. I started off by carrying a box full of my stuff to the post office to send back to Iceland (6,5 kg) . I can only bring 15 kg back with me with the fantistic airline, Ryanair! I already wrote them a complaint letter because I know that their scales are not accurate. For example, I have one at home and I weighed my boyfriend´s suitcase before he left. It was 16,9 kg, but Ryanair said it was 19 kg, and thus charging him 28 Euros. My package was 6,5 on my scale and the post office one. My advice, DON´T FLY RYANAIR! I am actually so upset with that airline that I intend to make sure that the whole world knows that they´re not only a cheap airline in the sense of not being expensive. They are cheap!.... a really cheap airline that fools people. ARGH!!
Unfortunately, Sending the package turned out to be more expensive than I thought and I needed 80 cents. I told the guy I couldn´t take the package to school so he gave me the 80 cents, otherwise I would have been in deep shit. Then I sat in class and I think the teacher was trying to make our heads explode with new rules of grammar. It was wonderful.... so I decided to go home before ´descanso.´ On my way I stopped at a store where I saw a really cool poncho the day before. Normally I don´t like ponchos, but this one is really neat and it´s only 25 Euro. Well.... I could have guessed. The one in the window is the last one and they can´t sell it to me, and guess what!? It´s the third time something like this happens to me. The store windows are there to attract people, make people enter the store and buy the stuff in the window, not to piss people off! Christ, what´s wrong with people. Oh yeah.... let´s put stuff in the windows that is sold out, what a great idea.
Then I went home and slept for about 2 hours. Just before I feel asleep I wanted to cry and I don´t even know why. At 3 I had Pilates. I didn´t feel like going at all, but I felt so much better afterwards, although my head felt a little strange. So.... I decided to skip the vino tinto and the tapas today.
I´d better go home and study.... I really need to memorize the irregular verbs better. Maybe the verbs will make me feel better.
Cheers!
Ásta Sólita

Salamanca

I went on a trip to Salamanca on Saturday. The school organizes trips for the students and they´re included in the school fee. We left at nine o´clock in the morning. It was a 2 and a 1/2 hour drive and at first the sun was shining, but not for long. It was so cold, probably colder than in Iceland. We walked between important buildings and Javier (one of the teachers) told us the history of everything. On one of the walls of one of the buildings you are supposed to find a frog, and if you do your studies will go well or something like that. Hardly anyone could find it without having somebody point it out to them, and I only found it after walking around the city and returning to the wall. It´s on top of the head of a stupid skull....
I don´t particularly like walking around looking at buildings, but time went by fast. Frida, Hay (from Vietnam) and I were walking together most of the time. We had coffee and visited the tourist shops together. The shop owners are overestimating the tourists I think because I couldn´t really afford anything there. I only bought two small ceramic plates or whatever you call it.... making 27, my house number in Iceland and here! Then I bought, or did (I´m not allowed to tell which) something really nice for my boyfriend. He´ll find out on December 24.
This time we ate at the University´s cafeteria. I was not impressed, but a 3 course meal for 3 euros you can´t really complain.
Conclusion: It was a nice trip, but I´m glad I didn´t pick Salamanca to study. They speak too much English and everything seems to cost more than in León.
I think that the three teachers who were on the trip were quite amused by me. First they started talking about how cute I looked with the purple flower in my hair. The even noticed that my sweater and shoes were matching (oh yes, I am the colour purple girl, everybody who knows me knows this). Everytime I used the bathroom I would look in the mirror and change the position of the flower. They found that quite interesting. We stopped at a bar on the way back and José Luis (head of the school) asked me if anybody was still in there and I told him that Christina (my oral communication teacher) was still in there, drunk and crazy. When I left the bus I was holding my cute little pillow and they were quite impressed by it. It´s not something you can describe with words, but I think they like me and it feels good.

News

Just found this from Morgunbladid. Sorry English speakers, but it´s in Icelandic. Will prohibit smoking in Spain.....etc.

Erlent mbl.is 12.11.2004 19:04
Spánverjar ætla að banna reykingar
Spánverjar ætla að banna reykingar á almennum vinnustöðum og á almannafæri innanhúss, að því er spænska heilbrigðisráðuneytið greindi frá í dag. Bannið á að taka gildi 1. janúar árið 2006. Leyft verður á reykja á afmörkuðum svæðum í veitingahúsum. Spánverjar er ein mesta reykingaþjóð Evrópu og talið að 34% Spánverja, sem eru eldri en 15 ára, reyki.

Smoking in España

People smoke like crazy here. They smoke in the schools, the banks, some stores and of course out on the street, all restaurant and bars. I thought to myself it would be impossible for me to quit smoking here, but I was kind of hoping (and I did pray about it actually) that I would end up living with people who don´t smoke, although it seemed that every person living in the apartments I looked at seemed to smoke. When I moved in here I din´t even think about it. I just liked the place and I desperately needed to move.
Angelica doesn´t smoke but she told me I could smoke in the apartment. María Jesus doesn´t smoke and the day after she moved in I thought to myself that maybe I should just quit - especially since my prayers had been answered. It would be stupid not to use the opportunity. After all I had really bad broncitis that I needed to clean out of my system. It´s harder for the body to clean out when filthy smoke is being inhaled all the time.
I am a genious when it comes to quiting smoking. Like my dad said once: "just ask Ásta how to quit, she´s done it many times." Whatever happens later I don´t know and I´m not making any promises, but I have been a very successful non-smoker since 3PM, Tuesday, October 2oth. And whether you are a smoker or a non-smoker I´m telling you: it´s fu..... hillarious how easy it is to stop smoking. It´s all in the mind. I just had to realize that I didn´t need the cigarette. Allowing myself to miss the cigarette is not an option. Punktur og basta.... bless bless sígaretta, thú ert ekki vinkona mín.

My Internet café

It didn´t take me long to find an Internet café when I first arrived. At first it didn´t seem special at all. It´s in a basement and it´s a restaurant as well where they serve typical Spanish courses. The toilets aren´t too clean and people smoke and eat while they´re online. I went there with Frida the second week I was here and we had lunch (and here lunch starts at 2 PM). We didn´t really know what we were ordering. Paella we knew, but the rest was kind of obscure... I was pretty sure that the waitress had an accent, probably French. Frida didn´t think so.
Addi and I sat at that same Internet café every day. We had dinner there the first day he arrived and the staff was looking at us funny. They had seen me there almost every day and all of a sudden I had this really hot guy accompanying me. The waitress (same as before) was obviously curious and started asking me questions. Where are you from, etc. She turned out to be from Russia and was studying at the Centro de Idiomas also, had the same teachers and everything.
Having vino tinto (red wine) and tapas while answering your email is absolutely the best. The tapas you don´t have to ask for, it´s included when you order the wine. They even bring it to your computer. Usually the older guys behind the bar tell the less experienced to bring it. On Sunday when Addi was printing out his Renfe ticket (for the train) one of the older guys brought us vino tinto and tapas on the house! We had already had two... Then he gave both of us a mobile phone belt-case with the place´s name and address on it. I told him I wasn´t leaving, but it didn´t matter.
Now I´m sitting there alone again....

Being lonely....

Addi was here for about 10 days, but left yesterday. I felt so lonely (and still do), it´s terrible , although I know that I need this time for myself. Good things sure don´t come easy...
We had a fantastic time together, and of course he didn´t want to leave. Maybe we´ll just move to Spain, how about that? Now it´s just back to MSN....
It was really strange to see him at first at the train station. He was so incredibly cute! We took it easy most of the time. Ate and slept; ate and slept! While I was in school he would go to the Internet café close to Plaza de Santa Domingo. I went there after school and we drank vino tinto and had some tapas. I love Spain for their tapas!!
More detailed stories tomorrow!
Hasta luego.... Ásta spanjóli