A Perk of La Vida Coruñesa

Just figured I'd share one little perk of living in my favorite Spanish city: a cruise destination.  I used to see quite a few of them in the beginning of the year, and now I've seen two in the last week and a half; hopefully there will be more soon!  

On my way too/from the gym this afternoon, I passed by a Royal Carribean Cruise Line ship... as well as confused Brits, looking like typical tourists with maps and confused faces everywhere.  I actually ended up helping one couple who looked really perplexed; hey, we've all been down that road, I know that I certainly have this year!!

Cruise Ship and Los Cantones (one of Coruña's shoping centers).

Turning the Big 2-1 in Coruña!

Happy weekend from Coruña!! This week was certainly an interesting one since I took final exams, celebrated my birthday, went out with some friends from the university and was recorded live on Coruña’s radio... details to follow.  I can happily report that I did really well on both finals, and received great final grades for those two classes; this monday I’ll be taking another final and then two-Thursdays from now I’ll take my last exam.  

Now on to my birthday!  Celebrating my birthday, let alone my twenty-first was really great but a little difficult being away from home.  However with facebook/email and my awesome host family, I felt right at home.  The host fam bought me little deserts and even gave me a coin box, to start saving for my return, and a picture-frame so that way I could put a picture of all of us together.  Later on in the night, my friends and I went to two new bars in the city to celebrate and as always, we had a really good time.

On thursday night, I met up with some friends that I’ve made at the university.  It was really great getting to know them outside of the classroom and I truly hope we can go out another time.  Unfortunately early Friday morning Coruña suffered a pretty tragic event.  At around 5 am, a foreign exchange and one policeman were reported dead, and two other policemen were reported missing.  The city, and arguably the country, has certainly been effected by it seeing that it made national news and a conversation of the day in all Spanish homes and on the street.

At 11:30 on Friday morning, my housing director Pablo called me to see if I was interested in getting interviewed on the radio.  I agreed to go, and it actually turned out to be a really cool and rewarding experience.  The interview was hosted by my friend Katherine’s host mom, so it was a blast getting to know her through it.  In the interview, we talked about Friday morning’s tragic event and she asked me some questions about my experience thus far. 

I know this is really off topic, but I just wanted to share with you this video that I stumbled upon facebook.  It’s truly powerful (it gave me the chills) and its certainly worth the 4 minutes.  The video is about a teenager named Ben Breedlove who passed away on Christmas evening; he had a very rare heart disease, however that did not stop him from doing what he loved: living life to the fullest and being a mentor for others.  I know that it’s about a month old in terms of mainstream news, but if you haven’t seen it, I really encourage you to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalRandomness512?feature=watch

Elevator, Elevator

Happy Tuesday everyone... also a happy 21st birthday to my good friend Jim Cav!  I figured that I would share this piece of news with my followers: the elevator in my apartment building is out of commission for three weeks, starting today.  In other words, my host and I have to go down/climb up seven flights of stairs every time we leave/come back to the apartment building.  Although it’s quite aggravating, I guess I’ll be getting some nice leg workouts in; perhaps this could be the commencement of the wedding diet... it’s right around the corner Jack and Mike, just over 4 months from today!

With that being said, this reminds me of an interesting difference between Spain and the United States.  In Spain, everyone seems to live in what we as Americans call, the “downtown” of the major cities, whereas the majority of Americans live in the “suburbs”.  If you ever visit a Spanish city, you’ll find that there are apartments on top of every kind of space: business offices, banks, markets, retail stores, salons etc...  Although the majority lives in the “downtown” area of the cities, there are small towns, or the “suburbs” which have a pretty decent population size as well.  As far as my experience is concerned, it’s been really cool to live in Coruña since it’s decidedly cosmopolitan and one of Spain’s major cities thanks to its well known port.  Who would have thought that this western-Cranstoner evolved into quite the urbanite!

Finals Weeks: Coruña Edition

Another difference between the American and Spanish university system is the final evaluation period.  Unlike the traditional two-semester American university system, in which all students take their finals before Christmas break, Spanish students are evaluated from the middle of January to early February (depending on your major).  This Monday commences the finals weeks, something that I’m really not looking too forward to knowing that a big chunk of my grade is still undecided.  However, one of my professors just let me know that he is altering my exam, so I’m very thankful for that!  A big bummer is that I have my Political Sociology final on my birthday at 8:00 am, although I keep telling myself its better to have the exam on my birthday rather than the day after!

Aside from working on final projects and studying, I’ve been settling back into my routine and continue to enjoy my time here in Coruña.  I’m currently figuring out some travel plans for the next semester, so if you have any suggestions on where to go, definitely let me know!

New Year, New Blog

Alrighty, so I've failed miserably as a blogger.  Not even one post in December.  However, it’s a new year, so hopefully I’ll get my act together and start posting more often... I knew that you all were missing your biweekly dosage of más o menos!!

Thanks to a good family friend, Pati Paolella (pobrecita lost sleep over the renovation of más o menos), I’ve decided to take a new direction with the blog.  Instead of writing an overwhelming amount in a two-week period, I’ll be posting shorter entries every couple days.  

So to start, I guess I’ll rewind and give you a very brief description of my December.  In the beginning of the month, I went to Paris with 11 of my Holy Cross friends studying abroad in Spain.  The city is awesome, everything that I thought it would be and a little more, although I have to say that after my first semester travels, Madrid has been my favorite city.  Upon returning from Paris, I was left with ten days in Coruña.  After handing in a 25 page paper for my political science class (in Spanish!), I enjoyed pre-Christmas in the festive Coruña.  Two days before Christmas, I flew home for a two week vacation; it felt  truly incredible to be home with my family, and catch up with some friends, and although it was very difficult to return, now that I’m back in Coruña, I’m very happy to have the opportunity to enjoy five more months here!

Notre Dame in Paris.

Eating a french baguette... total tourist move.

From the Eiffel Tower!

The main Christmas tree in Coruña, mounted by cousin Paloma's company.

Coruña's Ayuntamiento (city hall) decorated for Christmas.