Rocking a ballad

You probably know, but just in case you hadn't heard, Foo Fighters are playing in Edinburgh next June 23rd. And YES, I GOT TICKETS. So yes, I'm attending the f****** concert of my life :D
I am not a very big fan of music, to be honest. Yes, I listen to music... and yes, I like listening to music. I have some favourites, but I'm not one of those who needs to have music playing constantly. Besides, I don't have a good ear for it anyway. This is a bit of a shame to say since I'm working in HMV, but hey! I love films and tv series! So that's something. I guess. (I hope).
I suppose that because I'm not that huge fan of music, I am very open to genres, but my favourite is hard-rock/metal. Although Spotify keeps surprising me...
So in this type of music, as you might know, there are not of soft, sweet, gentle ballads, but there are a few. And probably, because there are so few and they differ so much from the rest of the style of the band that plays it, they are loveable.
And the blog today is about those rock/metal ballads that I love listening to. There are many of them, but I will limit my list to my top 5 and then I will leave the comments open to participation:



5.b.-"Photograph"- Nickleback: Awwww... I feel so sorry for Nickleback... I believe they are not that bad, they keep me entertained with their music, although it's true that all their albums sound alike or follow the same pattern. But still, they are ok, even they are so much hated. This song might not be considered a ballad, though, just slightly slower than other songs. But I think of it as one.
Also I like the lyrics of this song. They make me think of my Erasmus in Iceland...

5.a.- "Hero of War"-Rise Against: I didn't really know where to place this one, it's one of my favourites, and very out of the known ones. Maybe if it didn't make me feel so sad when I listen to it, I would like it better and it would get a better position in my list. Still, such a good ballad.

4.- "Wake me up when September ends"- Green Day: Well, yeah, it's overplayed, overquoted and overposted on Facebook during the month of September, year after year, but that's my favourite month (can anyone guess why?) and I like the melody in this song. So there's one.

3.- "Bed of roses"- Bon Jovi: HELLO? I love Jon. He was so cute and adorable in Ally McBeal...  And I love Bon Jovi. And this song is such a good song. A legendary song.
(Now I'm considering re-watching Ally McBeal and probably go further than half 3rd season when Robert Downey Jr. goes away and breaks my heart...)

2.-"One"- Metallica: HAH! Did you think that I would go for "Nothing else matters?". That's also such a hit. But I like this one better, maybe because it's less known, so it feels more special. I don't know. And you might not think of this song as a ballad, but listen to the first 4 minutes! The combination of the slow rythm and the hard chorus... It's just excellent.

1.- "Kristy, are you doing okay?"- The Offspring: Just... THE OFFSPRING. They are superb, and live... just speechless. And this song gives me goosebumps. I hadn't listened to it for a while now, but I rescued my old YouTube playlist and when I heard it again I almost cried. This song very often brought tears to my eyes. And, YES, this is a ballad. If you know The Offspring, you might even think that they went too far in their cheesyness with this one, but I can't help but loving it.

Oh, golly, this was a tough one. So hard to choose. And I find it very strange that Foo Fighters is not in my top 5. Well, I can't just choose one of their songs, I guess.

Hopefully this post will have more participation than the last one in which I tried to get you guys to leave your ideas in the comments, the one called Worth of Words (in which you can still participate if you check it out!). So if you have any more rock/metal ballads you'd like me to know about, please, comment below! I will really enjoy reading your suggestions :)

Oh... referees...

Oh, there we go again.
Yes, I'm writing about waterpolo again. I'm sorry, but it's my thing, so deal with it. There's gonna be a lot of it in this site, so if you don't like it, you can read Vogue or Glamour, I'm fine with it.
I always forgot to write about that crazy, stupid, hugely biased game we played against the University of Edinburgh. Believe me, I'm not one of those who criticise every referee, or talk back to them. I just follow the rules. They are the bosses, they decide, nothing else to do with it.
But this time was different.
This was the situation: we were very even along the game: 3-3, 3-4, 4-4, 4-5... some of the players in our time are experienced, they've played before in others teams, for years. What a coincidence, two of them were scoring most of the goals, and they got exclusions. For those of you who don't know, you can ONLY get excluded 3 times. At the third exclusion is permanent for the rest of the game, so you can't play anymore.
Becky, the captain, had scored 3 goals and been excluded once. Connie hadn't scored, but she is one of the experienced, and got excluded once. So suddenly, when Becky gets a second exclusion, they said it's the third one (??????????????????) and that Connie was also out (???????????????????????) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry???? What the hell did just happen at that table?
So yeah, pretty much they took well care of getting rid of our best players in the game up to that moment. Clever, huh?
But wait, THERE'S MORE. Do you know how many penalties did the other team get in favour? I think there were 4. 4 FREE PENALTIES, OUT OF THE BLUE. You know how many we got? None. Zero. Ninguno. And believe me, there were penalties.
One of the referees was okay, but the other one clearly wasn't. IF you are a bit into waterpolo, how many times have do the referees meet to "deliberate" during a game? If they do, that is. Well, these two had to meet 3 times. IN ONE GAME. Ridiculous... And, well, many more things that I probably have forgotten already. It really was a match to forget...
Final Score: 13-5. This game was just A JOKE.
Well, don't even get Becky started on this topic because she goes crazy mad. And for a good reason.

We were waiting for our revenge...

...and we kind of had it yesterday. But thanks to the boys!
They played to Edinburgh yesterday, and I was supposed to ref, even though I've never done it before... not even at practise! So I didn't really want to. And also, I thought I would be as biased as the ones we had in Edinburgh... So we sorted it out and got their coach and an ex-player of ours to ref. And very gladly, because it would've been a hard game for me to ref.
Surprisingly, the guy from Edinburgh was very fair! So maybe trying to make it up for what happened to the girls?
I don't know, but the boys won! First victory of the season, and they played really well. So proud!

But yeah, I feel like that was a bit of revenge from us. Although we are not satisfied enough, and we will beat the girls' asses up when we play against them next!

But tomorrow... some water-wrestling in Glasgow! Let's see how it goes ;)

Alumni + Callum's birthday

Once again, it's time to talk about waterpolo. YAY! But not only, since this was more of a social event rather than a competition.
Well, two social events, actually. I don't know if you have ever had it happened to you, but sometimes you have nothing to do, no plans in some weekends, but then others are just tons of things to do and fun things to attend. Argh, tipical. (Yeah, I guess this applies for everyone).

The term Alumni refers to former students of an institution, and in this case also ex-members of the waterpolo team. So it was planned to play a game between current members and Alumni. Needless to say that, as Paddie said, we had won by default... but those adult, old, boring people (...they were probably younger than me, but no need to tell anyone) needed some boost of confidence, so we let them score a lot. And of course we (ME, as usual) missed a lot of shots to the goal. But it was all intentionally, I promise. I always do it on purpose. (I'm frustrated enough regarding that matter, so let's move on).
So yeah, Alumni "won" the game, but only because they had some of the current students in their team. Don't get too cocky about it!

Birthday boy and pretty ladies. I really need some sun-tanning...

After that, we were all willing to take the fun beyond just a waterpolo game, so we went all out to party. Not me, of course, because as I said, too many events in a day. I got ready and left for my classmate Callum's birthday! I actually really wanted to go, we were meeting in a bar called "The Kilted Kangaroo". HOW COOL IS THAT. C'mon, it's meant to be MY party place. KILTED KANGAROO. SCOTLAND AND AUSTRALIA IN ONE. And yeah, it was awesome.
You know what makes a bar awesome?
Having hair straighteners in the ladies toilet. Yes, it might sound dull, BUT IN HOW MANY BARS HAVE YOU SEEN THOSE? Not just any straighteners, but GHD straighteners. That just says a lot. Ok, you have to pay £1 for 2 minutes, but still, they give you the option. I'm sorry I do not have any pictures, but when I went to the toilet and saw them, Lara was too busy laughing at me for getting paper stuck on my shoe and she distracted me. Blame it on her! But I will take pictures next time.
By the way, in case Helen reads this... SHAME ON YOU for failing our date.

Ain't them cute!

So I had a couple of drinks there, chatted with some people, took pictures (of course) and headed out to Fubar! We were supposed to dress up as a character of Wizard of Oz, which I obviously didn't do, but my girls were very efficient on make up their customes. Look at them!
So there they were, all having too much fun, and so I joined! And I must say that I also had a lot of fun. Then I "lost" my jacket, so I was a bit sad... after a while, having fun anyway, I felt tired (didn't want to exhaust myself since I had an assingment to work on... see? tons of things this weekend!) and decided to go home, following my "I'll-go-home-if-I-don't-like-the-next-song" rule. I checked first if they staff in the bar had found my jacket and...YES, THEY HAD! So I came back to tell the girls, they knew I was dismayed. But definetely, I was leaving after that. But, OH, on my way out they were playing a song I really like... so I couldn't go! (Specially attending to my rule) So I just came back and danced a little longer. And then, they wouldn't play songs that I didn't like! So nope, I was not going home just yet. Until the girls decided to leave, so I followed.
*Forgot to say that I found a lovely hair-bow on a counter in the ladies toilet, that I have acquire for myself as a new hair accessory! :D *
Though tired as I was, I felt so happy for having so much fun on a Saturday night but still being able to get up the following day for some school work. I guess that at this age, satisfaction lays in this stupid little things :p

But joy and happines couldn't end there. The last race of MotoGP was taking place in Cheste (Valencia). I have attended that race several times (and some others in Spain...) and my idol, my god, my favourite VALENTINO ROSSI had the chances to reach the 2nd place on the general final clasification. And you might say "2nd? Why is it that good?" Oh, well, I know why, and his fans know too, and that's enough! And so he ended up being 2nd in the race and in the final classification! And the worst rider, the most egocentric, self-centered and prentious (Jorge Lorenzo) had to quit due to his bad planning. (It started raining... and he screwed up by changing the motorbike, since it didn't rain that much). So I was  happy, because Rossi was in direct battle with him for the 2nd possition in the final classification :D


And so that was my weekend.
You probably find it random that I write today about this irrelevant stuff, but  I do it because of Megan! :D She told me that she reads my blog, and asked me to write about Alumni, so I just cojoined everything and updated.
So Megan, there you go! This is for you! (You probably don't remember... but here it is :p)

Worth of Words

Today we've had a visitor speaker at uni (as every Thursday) and in the discussion was the topic of Marketing. I really am not a numbers person, I'm more into letters. Doesn't their combination give you a million more options than the combination of numbers? So there you go, that's one of my reason for being keen of letters/words rather than numbers.

Granted, numbers and maths can be fun too, but they are just not my thing. I promise, though, to give them another chance and try to live with them peacefully.

So all this topic led me to remember to this trend of voting for the most beautiful word of a language.
I know this is done in Spain once a year (the word 'Querétaro' was the winner in 2011)  and it was done in Iceland last year ('ljósmóðir' was the winner, it means 'midwife'). I personally have many favourites in the many languages I speak.
And now, I have decided to do something different this time, due to THE LACK OF INTERACTION IN MY BLOG. So I INVITE YOU, READERS to participate! Just write your favourite words, in any language you know, in the comments section!!! 

This could be very fun, and we all can learn words from other languages we don't know, we would like to learn or even languages that we knew but not fully! 

Clarification: This is about words that you like, not expressions you use regularly.

C'mon, let your imagination flow and participate! :D

My choices are:                                                                                       

-Spanish:

• "tarta": it means 'cake'. It might sound simple and boring, but it really gets to my mind a picture of a spongy, soft, creamy cake. 

• "hipoalergénico" : it means 'hypoallergenic' and for some reason, I like how it sounds)

-English:

• "Splendid": I like its musicality, especially when pronounced by Robert Downey Jr.

I'm...just...done.

• "acquire/acquisition" : me and my best friend Silvia fell in love with this word while taking the course "Applied linguistics to English language" and it really recalls very nice memories of those times).

• "dandelion": thanks to the fun and great Netflix's show "Orange is the New Black", this word has been taken to a whole new level. It's so much fun to try to pronounce with the same entonation as Crazy Eyes) 

-Icelandic:

• "strax" : it means kind of "right now" or "already". I just like words that contain letter 'x' and no way I was going to for 'lax' which means 'salmon'. Just... no.

• andskotin" : I just like how it sounds. This one is kind of a swear word that means... what? Kind of "fuck"? I don't really know. There aren't actually swear words in Icelandic, and if there are, they are too light, too weak. If there's a good thing to happen out of the Spanish invasion Iceland is suffering now, that is the creation of swear words. Believe you me.

So people, what are your favourite words and why? Play along!




P.S: I'm so happy for writting this, because I messed up with the format somehow and I had to fix it by working with HTML! So proud of myself :D 

Waterpolo in Aberdeen

If any of you know me well, you should know what one of my hobbies is.
Yeah, that's right, sleeping is one of them, but that's not what I was meaning.
Any more?
Sure, browsing dog puppy pictures on google is also fun, but that's what not I was talking about.

Okay, I guess that you don't know yet...
WATERPOLO!
I've played this sport since I was 15, and I've been always a star. But I never shone. And yes, I am very humble.
Now talking seriously, one of my biggest interests in life is waterpolo. No matter where I go, in which country I'm living, I always join for a team.
It is true that I left it on a side for a year, and believe me, it was a nightmare of a year. I'm not sure if it's related, or if it was the circumstances, but I was so unmotivated, always so moody, and very apathetic.
Now, in Stirling, I've joined the waterpolo team in univesity. I'm one of the experienced players, and for sure not the best one, but we have tons of newbies that are really promising. I wish that I had been that good when I started. It's so much fun to be part of a team again, and feel that "family" sensation. But what I enjoy the most is that people play to have FUN. To enjoy the moment, to learn and get better, to be social. And that's my phylosophy too, so perfect match!

Our debut as a team this season was on the 11th of October in Aberdeen. That's a 'very' big city (anything is big compared to Stirling...) that is in the coast. I didn't get to visit it, but we drove (*cough*,*cough*) around quite a bit and I really liked it. Call me weird if you'd like, but what really caught me was the cementery. IT WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE SEA. How cool is that. If you are a sea lover, you can, (or could, since it seemed pretty crowded) be buried there and just watch the sea and sunrise everyday, for the rest of eternity. Call me crazy, but that idea delighted me.

Now on the Granite Cup tournament. THAT was just for fun. Rules were pretty loose, the pool had a shallow end (I don't care what people say: it's unfair, uncomfortable and against the rules, so SAY NO TO SHALLOW END IN WATERPOLO), games where short... but it was fun, social and I got to know my team members. There weren't even prizes! So it was nice. No pressure, just practise and learning. The games started pretty well, we didn't win or anything, but the score difference wasn't very big. It started growing as we played more matches, but it's normal. We were tired, out of shape... It will get better. Just some hard work is needed!

                           

Scariest part of the day was on the way back. It was dark, and we were running out of gas, with no petrol station around. And because that wasn't enough, the traffic was diverted, so it was even harder to get a service station! We panicked a bit, wondering if we would run out of petrol completely and that would be our end... but, in case you didn't notice, we survived. Well, at least me, but I won't tell what happened at the end. (Creepy).

And that's all by now. More to come soon.

Good night!

Glasgow and the Universtiy Campus a.k.a Hogwarts

Hello everyone! I finally had some time to update the blog.
Today I'm gonna talk about my visit to Glasgow. At first it was supposed to be about some paperwork, but then it ended up in a tourist visit as well. And a reunion!
So we took a train from Stirling to Glasgow. Not a very long trip, but the train was CROWDED by business people and other tourists. We could only find one free sit, and because I'm a very polite lady and frind, I let Lara take it and I just stood for half an hour until we got to Queen's street.
It hadn't rained yet in Stirling/Bridge of Allan. Or at least not as everyone expects rain to be in UK, heavy and kind of stormy, but alas! It was just like that in Glasgow. A welcome present, I guess.
When done with the paperwork we had to do in the second most terrifying suburb are I have ever seen (I guess that's what we can call "the Brooklyn of Glasgow") we ran back to the city centre, so we could do some city sightseeing.
You'll see, they say that Glasgow is not that beautiful. Or even that is ugly. But it's not. You just need a better day and  better weather. Let's face it, it's not as beautiful as Edinburgh (but few cities are) but it's not vomitive either.

In Glasgow, they are super funny and their statues wear this kind of construction cones as a fancy accesory. Still haven't investigated the reason for this.

 They also have this kind of beautiful-grey buildings.

Actually the city centre is pretty much all the same. We guessed (based in zillions of evidences) that what Glasgow has is a wonderful night life. It's in our plans to visit and test very soon :D

We decided to have some lunch, but we didn't want to eat something typical we could get somewhere else, that is, not chain restaurants. And we landed somehow in a very Scottish/Glasgowian pub that we really liked! The atmosphere really made you feel in the very deep Scotland. And also the wonderful and nightmare-y Glasgowian accent of the waitresses.






So when we believed we were done with the sightseeing, we took the subway (yes, they have one! With only one route...?) and went to the University Campus, which is also known as Hogwarts, since the school where Harry Potter lived his adventures was inspired/filmed in this place. And that was remarkable beautiful;

   

 Definetely, we made a very good decision by leaving the city centre behind and visit the University because it was wonderful.
So, for any visitors to Glasgow, my recommendation is that you take a walk around the city centre (don't go TOO FAR OUT, you might bump into some creepy gang) and then take a bus to visit Hogwarts. Even if you are not a fan of Harry Potter, because I am not (haven't read the books, have watched some of the movies...) and I still enjoyed the visit. There is also a museum, the entrance is for free and it's quite interesting. Especially if you are a science person, but once again, I'm not and still I enjoyed.











After that, I reunited with one of my old friends from my Erasmus year, and if you read my previous blog you will remember him!
And of course, after a couple of beers, some beating playing pool because I'm terrible and some updating, we took a picture to record the moment:

It wasn't very bad to see you again, Fran! Just cut that tiny braid off, please...

And after that we raced to the train station and came back home in a lot emptier train. Although the toilet had a very fancy open-close- door system that not everyone could figure out, so a woman was suprised while peeing by a young man. That was awkard and we couldn't stop laughing... Sorry, but I had to mention it, it was really funny! (I don't think I would have found it funny if it had happened to me, though...)

I promise I will keep you updated in the next few days!
Bye Bye

P.S: Today is someone's birthday, one of the most important people in my life that I miss like crazy more often than not. I'm really sad that I'm far from her this day once again, but still I'm there in the distance. Happy birthday, mum! You are the best!! <3 <3 <3

Of Mad and Men

 (This text goes to Silvia, because of her love and devotion to Don :p )

Today was the day. Today was THAT day, the day I was expecting for a few days now (and I'm sure there are more to come).
As you may know, because I mentioned before, we have to work on a publishing project of our own (so ideas are welcome!) and also a board that will function as an inspiration and motivation for the project. And when this was mentioned and shown... what did I think of? Yep, MAD MEN. I remembered that room, with Ginsberg, Peggy, Stanley sat at the table and thinking on designs... and maybe consuming suspicious substances.

But that's not all. We also have a marketing module, in which OF COURSE, I had to think of Mad Men, Don Draper, Roger Sterling, Peggy Olson and all of them. I can't listen to Marketing and Publicity lectures without thinking of them. It's so obvious, you can really relate what we are learning and how it works in the firm!

http://blog.wordnik.com/wp-content/uploads/mad-men-1024x768.jpg

But wait, there's more. We had a Design class today, which I actually enjoyed a lot. Might it be that I'll end up in books design after all? Time will tell, but today we talked about them. MAD MEN, the series. OH, YEAH. The day had come. It started with the teacher asking who watches the tv series. You know how many rised their hand? ... one person. And yeah, that person was me. I felt kind of a freak, but then the teacher mentioned something on the design timeline about publicity ethics that only I could understand :) That is that there were no ethics in advertising, basically...
BUT when I thought that there wouldn't be more, THERE IT WAS. A picture of an article on Don Draper/Jon Hamm. What a wonderful caption of this man, and what a fascinating layout of the article. I couldn't be happier: I was enjoying the lecture and one of my favourite shows was mentioned in class! I wish I could set the picture here so you could see what a piece of art it was, and the references that it suggests... if I find it, I will show it to you!

You might think that this not remarkable, or wondering why I talk about this in my blog. Well, it's about design, and it's about creating. I think there's no more creative series on tv at this current time than Mad Men. And also the fact that the dynamics on SCDP and a publishing house are kind of similar, and there are many other elements into cosideration. And I felt proud of myself for watching such an interesting and somehow productive tv show!

...I can only hope not to end up as Ginsberg...

University of Stirling

After a few (many) days off the blog, I finally have some time and energy to update. Now I'm gonna talk a bit about the university.

The University of Stirling is settled in a wonderful campus, surrounded by trees, grass, and all sorts of plants. There's also a lake crossed by a bridge (in which a few people had already suffered some injuries) and rabbits and squirrels. And swans. 

I live off campus, but right next to the wall that marks out the area of the campus. We have to walk through the door in the "fence" to go class. It literally takes me 4 minutes to get to class from the main door of my building. Maybe 4 and a few seconds, never had time to count it exactly, but you get the idea :p We have all lectures, or at least 95% of them, in the building called Pathfoot. 

So when you cross the bridge you get to the Atrium and Andrew Miller Building (cafeterias, shops, banks and such, plus library, bookshop, pub, Student's union, etc). It takes 10 minutes tops to walk from Pathfoot to here. Then they also have a cinema downstairs. It's like the shopping mall of a city but in campus. 

Then you can find the Cottrell Building which is very confusing for every student and teacher in this university. If you look closely, you can see it has the shape of DNA, and that fact, instead of making it easier, it just gets things more complicated.

We also have a swimming pool, also known as "the home of the Scottish swimming" or something like that. I haven't tried it yet, but hopefully this weekend :D

Here you can see a picture:

(http://www.open-world.ru/upload/information_system_17/3/9/6/item_396/information_items_property_6062.jpg)

Now, regarding the courses, here is a brief summary of all of them:
PUBP16: Publishing Dynamics: this module is about the process of publishing itself, things to keep in mind when you publish, like copyrights and such.
PUBP17: Marketing, Management and Communications: what you need to know to sell like crazy and make money. This is the module that teaches you that publishing houses are ran by marketers, not editors. Score...
PUBP18: Editorial Practices and Content Creation: who is who and what each one does in a publishing house, how to spot good works and what to do afterwards
PUBP19: Publishing Project, Production and Design: DESIGN, Helvetica, how to creat the book, Helvetica, computers, photoshop, printing, Helvetica, production... and create a book of our own!! From scratch to the very end! Every page, every picture, even the covers! ISN'T THAT AWESOME! So readers, ideas are welcome :D
In my opinion, everything is well organised, and the contents of the modules are quite interesting and extremely useful. What bothers me is the timetable and the group assingments. We only have class Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, which might sound nice, but we are in uni from 10am to 5pm. We only have one hour for lunch, each lecture is 3 HOUR LONG... So sometimes it's too much. Other than that, we're fine.
Well, also except the group assingments. At the end of the semester, we won't have any exams, so we are working our marks out of assingments. Granted, I'm not always very willing to work in groups, but this is going too far. Every assingment so far had to be done in groups, and it's really hard to organise ourselves when some live out of the city, others are just part-time and the rest are working in our days off. I understand that we have to do some group work, get to know other people, learn how to work in a team... but there's a limit. And, personally, the teachers should take into account the different situations of the students in general and see that it's not that easy to fit the timetable so you meet with 3 different groups of people for 3 different assingments...

But everything, as a whole, is very fulfilling :)

And this is pretty much it so far.
Hopefully it won't take me so long until I write here again.
See youuuuuuuuuuuu

• 
  

More updates: First day of school

Yes, it finally arrived! Today was the first day of school, an introductory session actually, but first day anyway. It was kind of overwhelming: we got free books, tons of papers and even a group assingment, but it was at the same time reassuring. On my first day, I was having doubts, I guess that just like anyone else, and wondering if I would actually fit in, if I would like the program and if I would enjoy my time here. Today I learnt more about everything we are expected to do, and even though I will have to face some things that I won't enjoy (such as statistics) I think most of the contents will be fun. Specially the internships (hopefully) and the final dissertation. It was very comforting to know that one of the teachers in the degree is working in the comics and videogames industry, so she will be able to tutor my final project. There's plenty of time left to get to it, I will have to work on it during the summer, but it really helped to know that I would be able to work on what I'm most interested in :)
What really helps a lot is being social. I don't know if I told you, but in my dorms there is another Spanish girl, Lara, who is also studying the same Masters as me, so we are in the same class. It's helpful because we don't carry this "Spanish-only" attitude, (if you know me any well you'd know that's not my thing) and we get along well with many people from everywhere, but it's good to have some support.
Then there are a lot of other people from different places: Scotland, USA, England, Germany, Brazil... so we are a very multicultural gang. We've been out to a pub two evenings in a row, and as scary as it might be regarding the economic situation, it's just the beginning. I don't think this will carry on for very long, but now we are just starting, getting to know each other and ourselves around. When everything starts getting busy, then I guess we will hang out rather indoors than outdoors. Which will also be fun for sure.
Most of the fears and doubt are gone. It felt very good to talk to other people about this, and see that you are not the only one in this situation. Lyndsay, a Scottish girl living in my dorms, and I were talking about this today and yesterday evening. We are very proud of ourselves for overcoming these tough first days, starting to see some light and move forward. We'll keep on that :)

So that's all for now. I'm trying to be efficient (it's so hard to find an exact translation for the Icelandic word "dugleg"...) by keeping you updated everyday, so please be also efficient by reading my words! :)

Thank you for your attention.

Kv. Paula.

Have faith

That's my new motto. "Have faith". I acquired it last July, when my friends were (FINALLY) visiting me in Iceland, and travelling around. Not viceversa. Nope.
My friends Lucía and Sara went to Iceland with their friend and boyfriend, and Sara's boyfriend talked about having faith. Not in God or anything, just having faith. "When I'm looking for a parking spot, I have faith on finding it right in the place I want to find it. And it happens. It's all about having faith". So I decided to follow this philosophy.
I was tired and hopeless yesterday, but today I had to get in a train to Edinburgh (my father had some trouble and had to go to the hospital... everything is fine now, no need to talk about this any longer :) ) and that's when I realised I was okay here. I visited this wonderful city that I loved from the very first minute I stepped there. So after all the hard time yesterday, I remembered "HAVE FAITH".
Back to Stirling, I attended a dinner at my dorms building with a lot of people who live here. (It felt weird not to say "Takk fyrir mig" after dinner or the whole evening, so I guess I became a bit of Icelander after all). That really helped A LOT. Then we went out for a beer. Or even two.
So I started to talk around with the people, just mingling in and getting to know them. I found out that I wasn't the only one down and blue on their first day! Others even BURSTED IN TEARS last evening! So I wasn't the only one suffering the fears...  I knew that I needed some time to meet people and find my place, but everyone has always some doubts... and that happened to me.
But like I said, I had FAITH.
And so everything changed :) And now I know many neighbours of mine that hopefully will my staying better and fun.

Tomorrow I will be attending to the first session of the semester. WISH ME LUCK!

You're hot and you're cold, you're yes and you're no...

Oh well, then, here we are...

So I arrived today to Scotland, and that was okay, nothing special. We took the bus to Edinburgh, because in case you didn't know, my dad and his brother (my uncle AND godfather) are here with me. I'm very glad, for I'm not sure I could've made it this far alone. So yes, we went there to check-in their hotel and then go to Stirling, where I'm staying and studying, to help me move in.
And that's the moment in which we turned into some kind of Odisseus to get here. Train? "But that only runs to the station, not to uni. There's a direct bus there". Ok, we go to the bus stop "There are no straight buses to the campus." "Where are you going?" "To the bus station in Stirling. You can take a bus to uni there". "Sounds fine. Ok".
BAD MISTAKE. HUGE. HUMONGOUS MISTAKE. The f****** bus took 2h and 20min to get here, when it takes only 40 minuts by car. RIDICULOUS. So we got here later than I expected, and we asked the driver again and said "yeah, if you want to take shorter, you should maybe take the train, it takes about an hour". WELL, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, but it's a bit too late now.
Anyway, we went to uni. Apparently, we really worked hard to become Odysseus, because it took me around 50 minutes to collect my room keys.
Tip: People, if you don't know the way somewhere or you are not sure, JUST SAY IT. Don't confuse me and send me the opposite direction just because! (So you can guess why it took me so long to do a thing that should've taken 15-20 minutes).
Then I got to my room and it's pretty big, so I'm happy. It's gonna be very hard for me to keep it tidy, although the size doesn't have anything to do with it :p
Now I'm all alone in my room...writin to you... but now FIRST IMPRESSIONS!
Scottish people are nice. No, they aren't. Ooooh, this person was so helpful! I love Scots. No, I don`t! Could you be more rude? And so on and so forth. Really, that's basically my head all day today:
"Awww, I love it so much here"
"MWAAAAAAAAAA, I miss my dogs and my house, and my hometown! And mommy, and sister, and friends! And my consort! And everything! I even miss ICELAND!!"
"Good Lord, this is so beautiful... and Scottish are so nice (as well as crazy and noisy in the buses...)"
"NOOOOOOOOO, I can't do this! I feel so homesick!!! I want to go back!!!!!!!!!!". (Specially when I had to deal with a bus driver that was so similar to Dwight, the funny and favourite weirdo from  "The Office", and just as stupid, I think)
"I'm so happy I took this decisition... it's a LIFE CHANGING DECISION"
"Iceland wasn't that bad"
THAT WAS IT. Agreed, Iceland was not bad... but it's Iceland. Wonderful memories, wonderful people and wonderful landscapes.. but honestly, if I had to stay longer, I could've gone mad. So when I started thinking that staying there would've been ok... I worried.
So I got in the bus to get back to campus, and then I talked to a random girl who is studying here too! She was so nice... and another girl joined the conversation.. And we got off the bus... and I got to my HUGE room. And I had trouble trying to log in the internet, so I knocked next door and a nice Brazilian girl helped me. (She went crazy when she saw how big my bedroom is)
And that's how I'm trying to do my way around here :) Just smile, and people will smile back.

And besides everything, I learnt things in Iceland. So if I feel that everything goes wrong... ÞETTA REDDAST ;)

P.S: I have no idea how the voting thing for the independency is going, but people are really taking it seriously wearing t-shirts, pins, stickers rooting for a "yes" or a "no". I tried to count during the long trip to Stirling and 'yes' hardly won. We'll see tomorrow :)

Welcome to my little place

Hello there everybody!
Hi hi. Hi. Hi...
Yeah, I actually have no idea what to write. It's kind of hard and awkward to write my first post, but I guess I will give it a try by telling about my plans on this blog:
As many (probably all) of you know, I'm soon moving to Scotland to study my Master's degree on Publishing Studies in the University of Stirling. I am a BA in English, from the University Complutense (which actually is not that awesome, but the people that took part on that chapter of my life is) and I spend one year in Iceland as an Erasmus student (where I met a lot more of great and unforgettable people). That fact really changed my life, for I met the person for whom I moved back to Iceland after finishing my degree. I lived and worked there for two years, and then I found out what my next step would be, and here I am.
So I've created this blog to keep you all updated. Since I know people from all around the world (more or less) I decided to write in English. If you have any trouble, just click the translator option on the right (although if you are understanding this, you don't really need to do so) and choose a language. Easy peasy.

About the title and url of my blog, I will mention the reasons on why I chose them:
A Tale of Three Cities: I think it's pretty obvious. In some way, I wanted to honour my degree and everything I learnt in those wonderful five years by using Charles Dickens' piece A Tale of Two Cities, also so it's somehow related to my current studies. Why "three" cities, though? Because that's the number of cities that helped me grow as a person: Madrid, Reykjavík and now, Stirling. And I thought it was smart, clever and cool. So I used it. And if you think it's lame, you might be right, but if you know what kind of jokes I like, you shouldn't be surprised :D
And the reason for the url is simple: my name (paula) and the first initials of my first family name: DL:di-el if named in English but written in Spanish, which oddly enough sounds as the last two syllabes of my last family name (Gu-DIEL). TÁ-DÁ!! Magic!
You might thing that's also name, but I`m not a poet or a talented writer as some of you are. At least, not yet!

So there you go, my first post in my second blog. I hope you like it, I hope you'll follow and I hope you'll enjoy.