A leap into not-so-cold water

Exciting ten days have passed since my last post. I don't really know where to start. Best at the beginning, as some know-it-alls would say. So... last week was really jam-packed. This week even more, so I'll talk about it in the next post, otherwise this one will be too long.

At least I successfully fought off my cold and was therefore prepared and strengthened for all my plans. I had really set myself a lot of goals. Monday started slowly, work was surprisingly relaxed and I practiced piano. At home, I realized that I had to move out of the Baba apartment in Premia within the next few days. That made me sad. I wanted to take advantage of the good location a little bit more, so on Tuesday, I went to Barcelona to buy birthday presents for my good friend Lotti. I bought overpriced Club Mate, which even had a Spanish label. At that time, I had never drunk it, but Lotti loves that stuff. Because it's a German product, you can usually only buy it in small kiosks here, where you naturally get ripped off, especially as a foreigner. I bought a few other things and as a reward, I went to my favorite café "the vegan corner", which I found this time without Google Maps. There I drank very delicious hot chocolate and ate a mega sweet croissant. When I got home, I fell into bed and was too lazy to wash my hair.

That turned out to be a mistake on Wednesday, I looked really shabby. At work, I spotted a red sports bike, which put me in shock. It belongs to the school photographer. I was desperate because I wasn't in shape for the photos. That day, I had to help the third graders in the schoolyard of the school to build a flat surface of earth, because a shed was supposed to be built on top of it. Accordingly, I didn't even wear jeans, just my old sports leggings that I've had since middle school. It happens to the best of us. But I was lucky because I found out that he comes on two days and also takes photos of us on Thursday.

I could breathe a sigh of relief and even kill two birds with one stone. On Thursday, I met my host family, where I will be living for the next two months. Of course, I wanted to look reasonably nice for them. Typically me, I made myself emotionally stressed because I was simply nervous about the meeting and woke up at night with chills. Totally unnecessary, because my host mom and her son are very nice and after a short struggle to find the house with Google Maps, I got a tour of the house and could breathe again. Work was (like every Thursday) incredibly stressful and it was raining, but the children were very sweet and quite clingy. A girl said "te quiero" (I love you) to me and my favorite first grader was in a funny mood and distributed besos (kisses). He kissed all sorts of things, including my hand, because according to him, I am a real lady. But the day was very exhausting, I even had to stay longer because a supervisor needed my help. Children are angels and devils at the same time. When I was outside, watching the fourth grade boys, mind you in the rain, they simply jumped into a hole full of water even though I had specifically told them not to. They were of course soaking wet and I was genuinely very angry and annoyed for my standards. So angry that I really shouted at them and because I don't get loud often, it had an effect and they trotted behind me, inside, where my colleague confronted them again. To calm down a bit, I took a nap at lunchtime because I actually needed even more energy, because I was still meeting a friend. We went to the Picasso Museum together and I'm pretty proud of myself. His name is Pablo and I only made the flat joke with him and his namesake Pablo Picasso once. I didn't feel like I saw much of the museum because we walked through relatively quickly and talked the whole time. Maybe I have to go there again, we'll see. Since both of us weren't very hungry yet, we took a walk at the Arc de Triomf. The advantage of rain is that there are significantly fewer tourists in Barcelona. I love going for walks and running in general, but on that day, after the museum, it was almost a bit too much of a good thing because my legs hurt from standing and running around at work. But we still went relatively early to the trusted Indian place at Placa Catalunya (Surya-Mumbai Soulfood and drinks), which was a pretty good idea. Because I hadn't eaten much yet, I tried a new dish, a bowl. It was quite tasty and filling (I took some of it home), but curry definitely tastes better there. Somehow, the music in the restaurant was really good that day, every time I'm there, a different playlist is playing, and this time there were really many songs that are in my current playlist. After we had a very good conversation as always and Pablo made a bad "Be Real" for me, we went home to bed. I actually took 21,000 steps that day. My body really demanded rest from me and I got enough of it.

Because I had Friday off, I was able to sleep in. But then I was immediately productive again and prepared a lot for Lotti's birthday on Saturday. After all, a brownie doesn't bake itself. To satisfy my inner child, I bought the coolest candles ever at the Chinese store (the best shop in Premia de Mar) "Feliz Cumpleaños" in metallic letters. Fully prepared, I picked up Lotti at the train station at 7:00 p.m. I had been looking forward to her all week. The friendship with Lotti is probably the best thing that could have happened to me during my voluntary social year. It feels like we've known each other for years, even though we've only been meeting regularly since last November. Before the weekend, I couldn't anticipate how beautiful it would be again. Okay, yes, that sounds pretty cheesy again, but it's really cool and special with Lotti. We talked about everything and nothing again and agreed that if the other person were a type, we would marry them and have five children. To get us in the mood for a really nice evening, we made wraps with tofu and tasted the €2.10 quality wine. Full of enthusiasm, we took the last train to Barcelona. First, we went to the skater bar "Nevermind", where we were let in by the bouncer calling us hermosas (beautiful) and we were also let in at the bar by guys who called us guapas (pretty). On top of that, we had really good seats on the skate ramp, where we could watch the scene in the bar perfectly. Lotti kindly bought me a Mojito. While she was in the bathroom, I got free club tickets, where we also went briefly to check it out. In the end, we went to "Jamboree" after all, but before that we completed an important mission. I finally took photos in the photo booth at Nevermind. It's been on my mental bucket list since I spotted the photo booth, which amusingly has the inscription "Blitzkiste" (attentive readers know that this is also the title of one of my posts ;)). The photos turned out to be very funny, especially because we were not prepared at all the first time. We thought that at least there would be a countdown or something beforehand, but no, the pictures started immediately.

In the club "Jamboree", the great evening continued, the music was awesome, and we had so much fun dancing. It was definitely the best club night. We were both very excited, the music was a solid 11/10, we danced with several people who celebrated us, and we just had fun. We went home at 6:00 a.m. and I fell asleep on the train again, miracles do happen. One highlight followed the next, because Lotti came up with a "stupid and awesome idea". Why not just go swimming in the sea at 7:00 a.m.? Done. Suddenly, we were both only in our underwear in Spanish waters, and not just once but twice. Hand in hand, like in a movie, we ran in. However, it was a leap into not-so-cold water because we both expected a significantly colder temperature. On the way back home, soaking wet and happy, we were greeted very kindly by a group of cyclists and older ladies with "bon dia". Both of us showered and slept for a full 3.5 hours to still have something of Saturday aka Lotti's birthday. We had wraps and cake for breakfast, vibed to Spanish bangers, and Lotti was very happy about my gifts and braided my hair, which always looks really nice. I then tried club mate. After hearing that it tastes like an ashtray, I expected the worst, but it tasted pretty good. In the evening, Lotti left again and I was just happy and grateful. On Sunday, I packed my suitcases for the move on Tuesday and rested a bit from the great days, because 3.5 hours of sleep aren't enough for anyone. The week was very jam-packed and beautiful, just like this week, but you can read about that in the next post!