living in spain: seeing the doctor

do you have patience? if not, you better don't get sick or have any health issues in spain. well, i'm lucky that i'm an european citizen, but the receptionist told me that i needed a "tarjeta sanitaria" which i didn't have. i wasn't able to get a job. also i'm leaving in one week. anyway, after 10 minutes discussing with the receptionist about last names. it's clearly important which last name i had been given from my father and my mother. in fact is a funny thing, i know that i have only been given my last names of my father. i don't have any names from my mother at all. and clearly the receptionist didn't understand so instead she asked me for an explanation. almost after 45 minutes at the receptionist she managed  to give me a paper with the time i could go to see a doctor. so i went to the doctor later that day. i honestly expect that a doctor should be welcoming or at least show some confidence. but in spain apparently nothing seems to be like that. and the doctor was no exception. it wasn't even the worse. she ordered two types of medication, which i think was foolish. especially when one was pills and the other a lotion. not really difficult for me to choose. and when i ran downtown to the pharmacy the lady told me that the pills were at the awesome price of 50 euros. clearly i didn't have any money for that so i bought the lotion at the price of 7 euros. again. not difficult to choose. and the diagnosis? well it was what i feared. herpes zoster. (not that type of herpes). i have had this once when i was younger. and i swear i could scratch forever. until i almost started crying because it hurts. and now almost two weeks later. i have got cystitis or more known as a urinary bladder inflammation. i'm like... this is not happening right now. normally i'm not sick more than once or twice during a year. but lately my health is declining. but honestly i would really avoid to go to a doctor while traveling or living abroad.

have you ever had any haelth issues while traveling? 

day 3: love.

don't get me wrong. but long before even think of move to barcelona, i had met someone. picture it. don juan. i don't consider it as a relationship we had. and i'm happy for that. because of he wasn't anything but... well, don juan. so unfortunately i did comment to him one day that i was going to move to barcelona. why the hell did i do that for? anyway, after having been her for almost 5 months the jerk decides to contact me on skype. just to make it clear that he's seeing someone. could i care less? no. i was pretty much "done" with him. and now i'm totally done with him. also with my ex. we had a relationship for like 10 months. and i broke up with him because i realized that it was the best. and typical he claims that it was him. but what can i say? it's annoying, but he apparently has some issues. and his mother whom expected that i would invite her to come to my birthday. and after being chatting with my ex on facebook, i realize that in that time i didn't honestly think much. he is the most annoying person, most rude person i've ever been with. better later than never, right?

what about my first boyfriend. i was stupid enough to go back. i found out later on that he was a scientologist. you know just like tom cruise. and after 2 weeks he announced that he only wanted to be friends. boy, are you kidding me? no way.

but right now i'm where i want to be (almost). i mean i have a boyfriend whom i love. which actually reminds me that i have an important announcement to make.

living in spain. #1

isn't that easy nowadays. so if you're planning to live in spain whether barcelona or a small village in andalusia just have a lot of savings. it can be really cheap to live in spain less you're a spaniard. getting to know better the euro, you realise that what you thought were cheap isn't really that cheap. of course you need some sort of a income. but thinking of how much you have to work for only 800 euros at month. like 40 hours. and the probably they are going to exploit you. the minimum salary in spain is only 621 euros. it's always important to look at what the company really is and don't ever take a job if the contract says: autónomo. you're probably going to have a huge debt to the spanish government. one of our friends told us that when he was looking for a job his uncle told him that he could work for him, but as autónomo. after that he owed the spanish government 4000 euros. if you're an english native speaker or german native speaker you'll probably find something. for example as a teacher. you can also try to solicit a teacher's programme, you can read more on young adventuress' blog.

haters gonna hate: catalan.

a language i thought i was able to learn. but 7 months and a huge discussion later about independence, i gave up. honestly why learning a new language (and yes it's very similar to spanish and french, but it is a language), when you don't have to? the fact is that i'm tired of being discriminated by not speaking catalan. i can read it and partly understand it when crackovia is on every monday night.

i've been doing interviews where they hadn't read my CV. so when they asked me if i knew catalan, i had to say no. also a couple of years ago i went on a family vacation to barcelona. and asking something in spanish, like if they could help me or a direction, they always seem to pretend that they don't understand what i'm saying. but the matter in fact, i'm in spain! there isn't any country called catalonia, anymore. yes, they were a country before spain took over. so i decided to give up. besides, by that time i knew my time would be over soon enough to not do anything about it.



GIFSoup

out of barcelona

in the summer, or rather a week after i moved to spain, my boyfriend and i went with some of his friends to salou. salou is a small party-town in  the region tarragona in catalonia. so, for a couple of days, just enjoying the summer out of town. with a couple who has some seriuos communication problems and their 2 year old son (imagine) and another friend, who has some serious alcohol issues.

but somehow i think it was horrible because i has just moved to spain. and i was not really ready to start up any social life just yet. to be honest i don't remember much from the trip, but to resume it, it would look something like this:

buy a new (too small) bikini. find out that i'd forgot my money back in barcelona. the only one who didn't drink anything alcoholic. choking in water.

flouret in barcelona

so, i arrived to barcelona, spain in the end of july. more specific the 27th of july 2012. so many expectations for the summer. and i must say that it has actually been the best summer i've ever had. i did not have many worries, going to the beach everyday. spend every penny i had with the stupid intention to get a job. as many may already know, there is something called crisis in spain. for me it was pretty much a pain in the ass to go to interviews. and totally terrified by speaking spanish. ha.

to be honest i cried about for this for about a week. if someone else has been living/are livinig abroad they will probably agree that it can be pretty intimidating to start speak a foreign language. i was about to regret that i ever went to spain. so after a lot, no TOO much tv, i finally found my way to open my mouth and, well, just speak.

an adventure was awaiting me, with tapas, sol, siesta and playa... or so i thought.