More of me at Ananda, summer 2003. 

Me at Ananda, summer 2003 

Angela and I at Manhattan Martini Bar last summer. Photo thanks to Stijn. 

Change of plans. Pietro, sick in bed with a fever of 39, won't be driving down to Barcelona. Having already purchased a return flight from Barcelona to Madrid on Sunday, I was stuck with the option of either taking the train, forfeiting the flight, or looking for a flight down there. Since traveling by train or airplane is virtually the same price (around 60€) yet the time difference is a good 7 hours, I have opted to fly down early tomorrow morning. What was supposed to be a very cheap way to get out of town has suddenly become a great deal more expensive.

But I am so excited about seeing Barcelona again -- when I took my TEFL course there last February, I was so fresh-upon-arrival in Spain that I didn't fully understand the historical, cultural and artistic differences between Cataluyna and the rest of Spain. I was also so busy with work for the school and partying and dating Pietro that I didn't even see half of the various tourist sites of the city -- much less the beach. And it rained, I remember, for 4 weeks without ceasing. And I was mugged, and violently. So I've dusted off the trustworthy Time Out guide and am planning to fully absorb the city again. I remember Barcelona as a really incredibly vital, creative city, in some ways almost too wild and alternative, in that I appreciated Madrid immediately for its conservatism and traditionalism.

In any respect, the past few weeks have been good: last Monday went for a beer at Carbones with Christina and Megan, Tuesday had a farewell dinner with Sarah P at Gino's followed by drinks at Aeria and Stromboli with Guillermo and another Christina, Wednesday went out with a large group of girls to the reopening of one of my favourite clubs in Madrid, Ananda (where, upon departure, witnessed my now-ex-boyfriend engrossed in scintillating conversation with the girl whose behaviour to me created the panic sufficient enough for me to break the liason, which was awful, but also so like a moment from a terrible R&B music video that I went emotionally numb and had a laugh about it the next day over how relieved I was to be extricated from a situation so utterly ghetto, so utterly classless), Friday went to a party at a bunch of French boys' apartment, Saturday hosted the party for the Boda Real.

So now, as my classes are dwindling and dying off (one ended last week, two more end in two weeks, and the remaining two finish at the end of June), I am faced with the prospect of swiftly confronting the future and making some immediate decisions about what exactly I will do next. But that, dear reader, is for an upcoming post.

March 2003. With the Italian Circus. (This is a test of putting up photos.) 

I have finally activated the comments function. You must click on the # at the end of each post.

Well. Since my parents visited Spain a few weeks ago, looked around, and saw that neither I nor my friends were falling down drunks, I have decided to resume this blog.

Having recently extricated myself from an emotionally turbulent, mostly fun, yet ultimately frustrating relationship, and with summer lingering on the horizons, we should be having the most fun soon again.

I'm off to Barcelona this weekend to visit a friend I took my TEFL course with, a beautiful, funny petite Russian Jew from Brooklyn. I'll be driving down with Pietro, the Italian I dated in Barcelona over a year ago, with whom all the passion has ended but suddenly I find myself in a poignant friendship with. We'll stop in Zaragoza for a while on Thursday so he can meet with clients, which will give me some sightseeing time in that oft-forgotten little Spanish town.

And Angela leaves tomorrow. We met tonight at Moore's in Tribunal, all her favorite people. We left in tears, and I sang "Finally" to Angela, as her song of depature, as it makes her think of me, across the platform at the Tribunal metro station, after which the metro came, and she turned around and pressed her entire left, exposed breast into the glass of the car to the roars of approval from the rest of us waiting on the other side. She is an absolute jewel, and I love her dearly, and am going to miss her tremendously:

"Time marches on never ending,
time keeps its own time,
Here we stand at beginning,
and then goes passing us by,
And I, I, I can dream for us all,
I hope I'm in a better state,
When here and now crumbles and falls
and you, you, you who make worlds collide
I knew you'd come knocking one day,
unannounced like a thief in the night.

Where do we go from here,
time ain't nothing but time,
I now have no fear of my fears
And no more tears to cry,
tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow means nothing at all
If we don't hear the line,
when today places its call, and morning, morning, morning
Won't ever be the same,
now I won't make the same mistakes, time and time again (5x)

Chorus
So tell me how do you do
Finally I meet you
You don't know what I've been through,
waiting and wondering about you
I had a dream my trip would end at you,
and now I know paradise