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!!!

First saturday of Campus Trophy

So this past weekend the worldwide (no, just kidding, only in Pamplona) known tournament called Campus Trophy started. As some of you might know, I'm part of the staff that organizes the event. It takes place every Saturday in one of the two universities in my city. Any student or person related to both universities can participate. The different teams compete during the whole morning in various activities in which they get points depending on how well they do. Conclusion, by the end of the morning there's a chart with the classification. Some of them are then eliminated and others get to play the semi-finals and then the final. Anyway, it's a pretty funny championship and I have a really good time working there. The only problem this past Saturday was that the guy who is supposed to read the questions in one of the quizzes couldn't go, so I had to do it. Me asking questions to a bunch of people who know me from university, it was pretty embarrassing. But well, I didn't care much, just did it.

The end of finals party in Toulouse

Yeah!!! They're are finally over. It's been more than a month of hard working and few going out but it's come to an end now. The moment we have been waiting for so long has finally arrived. There's even some time left to get bored, something unimaginable few days ago when we were still fighting for a good place in the library, silent enough to get all those tons of information into our almost dried brains. But last wednesday was the day. So after the last exam we decided it was time to celebrate. Most of my buddies from class and me we went for dinner to a typical Northern Spain "Sidreria". Here you get to eat pretty well and the most important thing, you get all the cider you want to drink. So even before we started getting some food in our empty stomachs we were already a little bit tipsy. Well, you have to understand, we weren't used to drinking booze anymore after nearly a month of abstinence. Anyway, the night went on really well and most of us had a hell of a time even though there weren't many places open until late since it was a wednesday.
On thursday Taylor arrived from his trip to Italy. So I went to the bus station to pick him up and bring him home where his suitcase was waiting for him. He didn't have a place to crash down that night so he stayed at my place. But of course, after having dinner over here we went out so he could say goodbye to the city that was his home for about a month.
And without time to even realize exams were over or to feel tired, on friday we headed north to France. More specifically we went to Toulouse, where our friend Etxarri and some other classmates are studying. It's like a five hours ride so I guess it can be considered an small spanish road-trip. Again five of us in a car with plenty of time to spend in the road. Oh! it felt like being back in the States. However, they didn't really get it when I shouted "Shotgun"!!!! well, I'll explain it to them someday. So first thing we did when we arrived in Toulouse, after getting lost for a while, was to rent some bikes. It was gonna be our main mean of transport for the weekend, both during the day and at night.




I have to mention what a great host Etxarri and the others were during our stay. They showed us the city and took us out at night, besides letting us sleep at their place, a not too luxurious dorm but which was just enough. We got there late on friday so after having some dinner in Etxarri's place we started drinking and catching up with what they had been up to lately. They offered us their most precious discovery, Bastion beer. It's a ridiculously cheap brand sold in Aldi supermarkets. It's quite strong and the cans are half a liter, so you can say it kicks. Despite being such a strong beer, it's drunk easily. Consequence, that night we were all wasted. There's even videos, all of them hilarious, to prove it. I'm not gonna get into the details of that night. Just mention that we ended up in a bar which was actually a boat in the river of the city.
Next day we couldn't sleep to much because we were supposed to visit the Airbus factory. I don't know if you have heard anything about the company. Well, it's a european plane maker which competes with Boeing. The elements which compose the plane are made in Britain, Germany, France and Spain and then assembled in Toulouse. So what we visited was the assembly line. It was a nice visit, and of course we had to make ourselves being noticed during the tour (you know, spanish people always making noise).




Later that day we visited Toulouse and ended up in a tea-bar I guess you would call it. You know, one of those places were you go, sit on mattresses all over the floor, drink tea and smoke some shisha. Really cool place Pascual knew and to which he usually goes. And that night we went out as well, just not to loose the habit. It was a peculiar night too. With me being bitten up (just kidding Cenicero) in an elevator (well, maybe not kidding that much because my head and ear still hurt), Davidin getting lost and then god knows how managing to come back to the dorm, Mariñas crashing with his bike when racing with Etxarri and so on.




What I wanna say here is that it was a cool and fun end of finals and that I'm really glad we finally visited those in Toulouse. And who knows? maybe it's not the last time and we pay them another visit someday. I mean, we have till september to do it. Oh! and changing the topic. I already got my flight tickets to Switzerland, so my attendance to the reunion in Anita and Adrian's country is more than certain. Btw, Eva also got her tickets, same flights as me so we will be traveling together. Sounds good to me! hehe, I love that expression and the one about the plan, you know, Sounds like a plan! just love to use them. Anyway, I can't wait to see you again guys!

What's wrong with people?

Yesterday night I went out of Rober's place after having dinner there and pretty tired because it's been a rough week with a lot of studying involved and few hours of sleep. So I'm really looking forward to getting to my house and hit the sack (as Anneke would say). I go to where my bike is parked and unlock it. But surprise!! I can't ride it because I have a flat tyre. So I take a look at it and realize it doesn't have a hole or anything but that someone had left the air out of it. Conclusion, I have to walk all the way back to my place carrying the bike with me but unable to ride it.And now I ask myself, why would someone want to deflate it? I mean, what's the point in doing so? well, I guess I won't find an answer for that because only the person who did it knows.

Bye bye Taylor

Hey, first thing, I'm sorry I haven't written anything in such a long time. I believe there's not that many readers of my blog out there, but this apology goes to those ones I know they usually check on it. The thing is that I'm still in my long exam period, but it's almost over now, just one exam left. Yuhu!! Can't wait for Wednesday to arrive and be able to go out at night without feeling guilty and saying to myself, 'you should study, you know'. Anyway, the reason I haven't updated much my blog is not because I don't have time. I mean, it takes like fifteen minutes to write something here. The thing is that during finals, nothing special really goes on. I didn't have much to tell, except for the finals themselves. And I didn't wanna bore you with all that kind of shit. Taylor's visit was the most exotic (yeah rober, you were right, I liked this word today and I'm definitely using it the whole time) thing these past weeks.
It was a pleasure spending this last month with you Taylor. I really mean it. After Christmas break, your face was the last one I expected to see around my university. So when I ran into you in El Sario I was shocked. We had a great time, or at least I did. Despite my lack of time due to all these never ending exams, we managed to meet every few days and get some beers. Not only in the most 'typical Spanish' bars in town but also in the irish ones. My parents really liked you and they told me you seemed a nice guy. I hope you enjoyed the 'typical Spanish' dinner you had at my place. I mean, it wasn't like luxurious stuff, but was pretty good. Or as you would say, it was 'la puta crema'.
Well, and now Taylor is gone discovering Italy before heading to Vigo. And I'm almost done with exams. So after next week I'll write more, because there would be things to write about. All the partying following the end of finals and the trip we are gonna do to Toulouse to visit our friend Etxarri. That should be enough for at least a couple of posts. hehe. And then I will have to lay on my great imagination again in order to keep you entertained.