Switzerland there I go

So here I am. In front of my computer waiting for the clock to say it's one o'clock in the morning. Today I'm leaving for Madrid because in the morning I'm meeting Eva in order to catch a flight to Switzerland. There I'll be meeting some of the best members of the wonderful UVM internationals gang. Because there's few feelings in life greater than that of seeing the people you care about again. As I was walking around the city center of Pamplona this morning I realized there's two different kinds of friends. None of them better than the other but both amazing.
There's these friends who live in the same place you do and with whom you share most of the time. You go out with them, talk with them all the time both in person and on the phone, etc. They are usually considered best friends and in fact they are. They know all about you and you know all about them.
On the other hand there's those people who live far away. They are your friends because you shared great moments during a period of time in some place where you met by chance. Once each of you are back to where you belong, contact becomes difficult. I believe long distance relationships don't work but friendship does. The basis of a relationship aren't the same of those of a friendship. In the first one you need to share almost everything with the other person and you have to be with him/her all the time or at least know he/she is still there. Time and distance makes this really difficult. However, in the second one you don't depend that much on the other person. You can be long periods of time without hearing from him/her and it's fine. Each of you have different lives and you know and accept that. But you also know that person is still there and cares about you. It's not necessary to be checking on her/him all the time. Sometimes it's enough with a message from time to time. And that's in fact what makes it so special. Don't tell me you don't get excited when you receive an email or facebook message from someone you haven't heard from in a while. Well, I do.
To sum up, I believe everyday friends are a really important part of our lives and that we need them. But I also think the other kind of friends is worth having. They can make your day on one of those days you're down.

Licenciatura

So this Saturday was a day of celebration for me and my classmates. It was our day. We were celebrating our graduation. I don't say we were graduating because we haven't achieved that yet. Some might not even graduate in the next two years. But it didn't matter at all. The point of the whole thing was to have a great time all of us together. The day also had its serious part in the morning with the graduation "ritual", and then it got crazy. But lets start from the beginning.
Eleven o'clock in the morning. I'm meeting Gartxen and some others at the health studies building of my university. Yeah, I know I'm not a health student, but that's just the place the ceremony was going to take place. It didn't start until noon, but we were supposed to prepare and arrange everything so that nothing went wrong. And well, in the end nothing did. I don't want to bore you with the details of the ceremony, just mention that the room was packed with relatives excited about us getting some non-official diplomas. Mario and Bea, two of my classmates performed a pretty funny speech which of course included teasing some of the professor, but always respecting them.



After having lunch, each one of us with his/her family, we all met in a bar in the old part of the city that we had booked. You should have seen us, all suited up with ties and everything in the bar. But the best part was that two bands from our class played at the bar. One of them is already relatively consolidated, meaning it wasn't their first gig. Whereas, for the other band it was their debut. They had warned us in advance: "we don't know if it's gonna sound well, but we can assure you it's gonna be an spectacle". And hell it was! We had a great time with them.



So without even noticing it was dinner time. It was in fact Spanish dinner time, because we appeared at the restaurant at 22.30. This time there was no food fight, probably due to the fact that we were all wearing nice clothes. I have to admit the food wasn't delicious at all, but at least I got full and put some food in my stomach to survive all the drinking done and still to go. The disco was part of the same restaurant so we didn't have to go far. We invited three professor to have dinner with us. One of them, Antonio, who had been in the morning as well left right after dinner. But the other two stayed a little longer with us. Gurutze and David, the professors are great. David even shared with us some joints. Can you believe it? That guy you respect from class who is supposed to be all serious and so turns out to be a pothead. Well, not that much, but almost.



Anyway, the night went on and the fun did as well. It was one of those nights you get lost the whole time, then find some of the people you were with but all of a sudden get lost again. You know what I mean, don't you? Well, yesterday it wasn't difficult to find my classmates since we were all wearing suits. So when the night was over, around 6 in the morning, we took a bus home. We had to wait for a while because the previous bus was completely full. In fact there was a fight to get in and some people got punched. Don't worry, I wasn't involved. You know me, I'm not the fighting kind of guy. Instead of going directly home, some of us went have breakfast before. Of course, it consisted of Spanish omelet, hehe.

And then it snowed

Yeah, that's right, it's snowing in Pamplona today. Who would have guessed it couple of days ago when we were suffering a pre-spring weather. Temperature was mild and sun shined every single day. But today, suddenly, the sky fell over our heads and started raining first and snowing after. Finally it feels like we are in winter. You know, it's been such a change from last year. I was used to really low temperatures and waking up everyday to a white city in Vermont. And since today, temperatures here in Pamplona were pretty high given the time of year and it didn't rain or snow in months. But what gets me more excited is the fact that if it's snowing here means it's snowing in the mountains too, so I can finally ski. I went a couple of times before and during Xmas, but that's all. And again, last year I got used to go skiing really often so I miss it now.
Well, leaving the weather news aside, I just wanted to mention something on my blog. The other day I downloaded the series of documentaries made by the BBC called Planet Earth and I just wanted to share with you all how good I think they are. I heard of them while I was in the States but never got to watch them. They are really amazing. The photography is astonishing and the whole structure of the series is appropriate. Check it out!
Oh! and I almost forget to tell, I passed all my courses. Well, that's not totally true since there's still one grade we haven't heard anything from the professor. But all in all the semester has been a great success and I'm now closer to the end of my studies. I just read on Facebook a message from Adrian telling me that he has also passed all his exams, so from here I want to congratulate him, Good Job Swiss Guy!!!