boy oh boy was yesterday a whirlwind of a day... for most of it it seriously felt like us against the spanish system.
(which explains the title of the blog, which translates to 4 Girls vs Spanish System, if you haven't figured it out yet)
so let me tell you about it...
the day before yesterday, Paulina Livia and I met our non-english speaking front desk lady, whom from now on will be referred to as the Dragon Lady. Slightly anal, she wanted to make sure that only 2 of us were staying at the Bonanova Hotel... which wasn't the case really but we thought that we could beat the system when we booked online months ago. So ok, we sorted the rooming situation the day before with our much preferred front desk helper called Chico. According to Chico, everything was sorted and smooth.
so YESTERDAY MORNING, while the three of us innocently climbed down the flights of stairs to the breakfast room, we were greeted with the glaring eyes of Dragon Lady, who proceeded to welcome us by firing questions of why the three of us were coming down the stairs when only two of us were only supposed to be there. I cannot beging to tell you how stressful it was trying to communicate with that lady... i mean, who puts a non-english speaking lady in the front desk during the day shift?!?!?! really... come on. Well, after a long spell of us trying to figure out what each other were saying, we cleared things with the Dragon Lady (apparently when she wrote the numbers 207 on the paper, she meant ROOM 207 instad of "additional 207euros" for the addition of me). By the time we moved everything from one room to another, we were already late to meet up Fiona!
With Fiona, the 4 of us tried to tackle the Spanish phone providers. Since the 4 of us have never really done pay-as-you-go in Vancouver, we were already at a disadvantage. Luckily, vodaphone had an english service rep... Unluckily however, vodaphone was the ONLY phone providor we visited that day that had an english service rep, save for Studentsphone.com. Studentsphone.com is a company that handles short term phone plans for students or short term residences in barcelona. According to past Esade students, Studentphone.com was a saving grace, even going as far as setting them up with living arrangements too sometimes. Sounds good right? well, we'll come back to Studentphone.com later.
Having had enough to try and figure out the phone situation in BCN, the four of us scurried across town to meet up with Lulu - agent lady. Once there, we realized were weren't the only ones looking at the apartment. In fact, Lulu triple booked us!! The other parties being skinny blonde Scandinavian models and the others being two guys. The guys bowed out early in the game since the apartment was a touch feminine for them, but the other girls were interested in it!! Gah, after a quick compare and contrast analysis between this apartment with the two others we saw yesterday, we decided to make an offer. Well, they made an offer too... woot woot.
Three canadian students looking to rent for 4 months
vs
Three scandinavian models renting for up to a year....
gee i wonder who the russian owners chose? :P
vs
Three scandinavian models renting for up to a year....
gee i wonder who the russian owners chose? :P
So in any case, we're the runners up for that spot after the scandinavians.
Remember how i mentioned Studentphone.com? well, after meeting with Lulu, we ventured and found studentsphone.com, except we found out that they weren't open until monday... needless to say, we'll get our numbers on tomorrow.
(ps, thanks for keeping all your fingers crossed for us!)
well, after our dejected trip to studentsphone, we ventured across the street... and suddenly, things decided to sunny up. Well, literally it was already grossly hot and we were all sweaty (as you will see from the pictures) but we found the famous barcelona music hall! It was gorgeous!!
haha! finally the Spanish System seemed alright with us (probably because it figured we suffered through enough in the day). We went to la Boqueria, the market right off Las Ramblas... which is similar to Granville Island at home. What an experience!!!!! There was everything available there, breads, cheese, meats, juices, candy, fruits, veggies... so the 4 of us circled el marcat and picked up a small picnic to bring to the beach -- really, I'm not kidding, the market made the whole day better!
and to the beach (el playa) we go! It was just what we needed, it was sunny and not stifling hot, but just hot enough... there was a small breeze and the beer vendors were plentiful. And while we didn't get to the swiming part, we dipped our feetsies in the mediterranian sea!!!
wait, let me say that again:
WE DIPPED OUR FEETSIES IN THE MEDITERRANIAN SEA!!!!
la vida es buena. :)
The night ended off wonderfully as we ventured our way to the Magical Fountains at Montjuic. Surrounded by museums and even more fountains, the Magical Fountain over powered everything as the waterworks synced up with music. Showtimes were once every 30 minutes, and they even played a set of Spanish Disney songs!!! We were super duper careful of our purses and made it from one side of the fountain to the other and admired the city and the musuems at night. The crowd there was ridiculous, very comparable to Vancouver fireworks... and imagine this is the crowd there EVERYNIGHT!!
what made the fountain even more special was the fact that Spain is currently going through a major drought, so the only fountain working was the Magical Fountain.
So today is sunday... and nothing is opened, which lends me more time to blog and keep you up to date, but the camera with all the pictures and stuff is being charged, so I'll post pictures once I get them!
Until then,
K... on behalf of everyone here.
Remember how i mentioned Studentphone.com? well, after meeting with Lulu, we ventured and found studentsphone.com, except we found out that they weren't open until monday... needless to say, we'll get our numbers on tomorrow.
(ps, thanks for keeping all your fingers crossed for us!)
well, after our dejected trip to studentsphone, we ventured across the street... and suddenly, things decided to sunny up. Well, literally it was already grossly hot and we were all sweaty (as you will see from the pictures) but we found the famous barcelona music hall! It was gorgeous!!
haha! finally the Spanish System seemed alright with us (probably because it figured we suffered through enough in the day). We went to la Boqueria, the market right off Las Ramblas... which is similar to Granville Island at home. What an experience!!!!! There was everything available there, breads, cheese, meats, juices, candy, fruits, veggies... so the 4 of us circled el marcat and picked up a small picnic to bring to the beach -- really, I'm not kidding, the market made the whole day better!
and to the beach (el playa) we go! It was just what we needed, it was sunny and not stifling hot, but just hot enough... there was a small breeze and the beer vendors were plentiful. And while we didn't get to the swiming part, we dipped our feetsies in the mediterranian sea!!!
wait, let me say that again:
WE DIPPED OUR FEETSIES IN THE MEDITERRANIAN SEA!!!!
la vida es buena. :)
The night ended off wonderfully as we ventured our way to the Magical Fountains at Montjuic. Surrounded by museums and even more fountains, the Magical Fountain over powered everything as the waterworks synced up with music. Showtimes were once every 30 minutes, and they even played a set of Spanish Disney songs!!! We were super duper careful of our purses and made it from one side of the fountain to the other and admired the city and the musuems at night. The crowd there was ridiculous, very comparable to Vancouver fireworks... and imagine this is the crowd there EVERYNIGHT!!
what made the fountain even more special was the fact that Spain is currently going through a major drought, so the only fountain working was the Magical Fountain.
So today is sunday... and nothing is opened, which lends me more time to blog and keep you up to date, but the camera with all the pictures and stuff is being charged, so I'll post pictures once I get them!
Until then,
K... on behalf of everyone here.
