Viva La Espana !

Hola mi amigos !

Uno semana en Espana y estoy tratando de aprender este idoma.

Ok so I got a little help from Google translate in that. Basically its been a week since I've arrived in Spain and the moment I got here I realised how important it is to know Spanish if you have to live in this place. No one and I mean NO ONE speaks a word of English in Burjassot, Valencia (where I am) and that just makes everything a wee but more tough for communication. Dos mesas left !! I have to learn spanish !

Since my work at the university has not really started, I have a horde of time left on my hands to do absolutely nothing and let me tell you, its TOUGH. Not doing shit day in and day out while sitting behind a desk for 10 hours a day is the toughest job in the world... the only light at the end of the tunnel is that A.) I'm in Spain :P ...and B.) I'm probably getting paid for it (not that I like it though.. i think for the first time in my life, I am actually dying for some work.. which will probably be the other way around once I do start working but whatever..).

That reminds me... the best thing about Spain are the people here and the roads. Why roads you ask ? Well, its sorta a little bit similar to Kharagpur in the fact that the pedestrians have power. In Kharagpur, people walking and on cycles are the Kings and cars always have to play second fiddle.. while everyone walks down the middle of the road. Its not exactly the same here but its awesome when you want to cross the street and all cars just come to a complete halt for you, unlike in India where you will probably get run over if you don't keep your eyes open and reflexes sharp :P !! Here you can walk across a zebra crossing without looking either left or right, safe in the knowledge that if there are cars there, they WILL STOP. Also trams by the way. Everyone stops. Its quite enthralling and call me juvenile or childish or just plain sadistic, I love crossing streets for no reason apart from this !!

About the people, never have I met more friendly and helpful people. In India, if you ask a random person on the street for directions and the person doesn't know, he'll just shrug and move on but not in Spain, atleast that has never happened with me. I get lost sometimes, well actually almost every other time I'm outside I get lost but then I don't know the place or speak the damn language so what do you expect ? Anyway, all the times I've asked someone on the street to help me out, basically by repeating the address a hundred times, I have ended up with a street full of people eager to not just point out the direction, but actually lead me there !! One guy in Madrid actually took me to the Metro, came with me to the train station AND bought me a ticket to Valencia, all because my bus to Valencia had got cancelled and I'd asked him how to get to Valencia !! Now that was amazing since I'd just arrived in Spain and the guy spoke NO ENGLISH AT ALL... I couldn't even thank him properly. So Antonio and Fran, wherever you guys are.. MUCHAS GRACIAS ! Then the people at the Residencia where I stayed the last week... well what can I say ? They totally made me feel at home, albeit in a different language and I met a lot of amazing people. Not least Christina, the person incharge at the Residencia who charged me only 15 euros a night when I was leaving when the actual price for a room is 25 euros per night, and thats just for the heck of it !! And all the Pakistani and Indian shop owners, Kebab and fruits and vegetable, for the numerous mind boggling discounts they gave me just because I was from India again making me feel that all these wars between our two nations is to what end ? Even earlier whenever I've met people from Pakistan, educated or not, they have always been of the same opinion, "India - Pakistan ek hi hai" , which makes me wonder if all people feel that way, then who are the one's fighting ? Of course I admit that the older generation (of Hindus from my perspective) has an inexplicable distrust of Muslims, but then aren't we the generation that is actually incharge here ?

Anyway moving on from these matters, I visited a place called the Oceanographic here, which is the largest aquarium in Europe. Now, aquarium is actually a misnomer but man was it insanely amazing !! Whales to great whites to more mundane beings like manta rays and jellyfish to creepy ass shit like giant spider crabs (they are fricking 12 ft !! TWELVE ...!), all within an inch of your face just behind that glass... it was awesome !

Having no work though ensures that I spend an insane amount of time on facebook (and I am quite sure its not healthy) , which made me realize today that I have 453 "friends" on facebook !! FOUR HUNDRED FIFTY THREE ! Do I even know that many people ???! And not only that, when you have time on your hands like I do now, you want to talk to people (no not hand gestures and broken Spanish, actually TALK)... and then you realize that out of all those 453 there are just a handful that you really want to talk to anyway. And they are usually not online at that moment... x-( . So if by any chance they are and they are busy or something, it just makes you madder.

Anyway, tengo hambre... and its off to lunch for me. Hasta luego !