I found this shirt at Zara today and couldn't resist buying it for my sister because it's just hysterical. She was born in the year of the Sheep so I like getting stuff for her with sheep motifs. Plus I think she's depressed because she's getting fatter by the day, though technically it's her parasitic foetus and not her that's growing.
Had a productive day yesterday, not so much today. Opened a bank account and met up with Javier, the guy from Logrono who came to my uni last year. So good to have a local guide. This morning, he met us in front of the library at 10 am, apparently extremely early for him, smoking a cigarette. As soon as that one finished, another one magically appeared in his hand. Everyone smokes like crazy here. They're very cheap, admittedly, like 2 or 3 Euros per pack of 20. I wonder what their rate of lung cancer is.
He took us to the uni gym which I joined immediately and used. Ahhhh, the catharsis. While I was on the cross trainer, this guy came up to use the bike next to me, and started talking to me, which irritated me a bit because I had to slow down and turn my head to talk to him. When I go to the gym I intend to make the most of my time there, none of this social chitchat business. Plus I couldn't understand him very well so I had to stop and think. Anyway, he asked me if I was Japanese which I said no to (everyone thinks I'm Japanese- on the plane from Frankfurt, the captain said 'Ohiyo gozaimasu!' to me), and said a whole lot of other stuff which I didn't understand. He asked me for my number too, and that took a while to sink in, so I had to repeat to him 'You want my number?' He nodded, looking at me as if I were a bit retarded, but I gave it to him because I didn't know how to say no without sounding rude. It did cross my mind that he might be a freaky stalker who would eventually kill me, but during our conversation he'd said something about a girlfriend so I assumed he wasn't trying to chat me up. Actually I thought he said 'novio' but then he followed that with 'profesora', so I think I just heard wrong and he's not really gay. He pranked me so I could save his number, but I didn't realise at the time so when my phone rang just once, I looked at it, thinking what idiot would ring and hang up and hit cancel. I was wondering why he gave me a strange look.
Luckily he left, so I got to work out for the next 45 minutes in peace. Met Emily at a cafe bar opposite uni. Javier had helped her ring around to see what she could do about her visa and the consensus was, very little. The only way she could do it was to go all the way back to Australia and reapply. I told her not to worry, that no one asks for papers here anyway, but then I'm not the one with doom hanging off my head. She said it makes travelling very hard and if they do find out, she might get deported. We went to the big mall close to uni to see if they had some nice boots but they didn't. Actually they did, at a shop called Bershka, but they were on the mannequin and not allowed to sell them.
Some things here are so completely different to Australia. For one thing, there's absolutely no customer service in the shops. You find what you want yourself and if you can't find it, it doesn't exist. I think. Although you can ask the shop assistants questions which they seem happy to answer. So much better than getting hounded and being given evil looks if you don't buy. Another thing is that enviro-bags aren't the vogue here, in fact they don't exist at all. Plastic for everything.
It's illegal to piss on the street. Javier's friend got fined 150 Euros for pissing in the middle of the main street in the middle of the night after a heavy drinking bout just as a police car was coming. At least some things stay the same.
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Today I went to a staff board dinner which I thought would be very scary because it was scary last year- some of the board memebers are like 40 yr old men with deep voices and tall and rather established around the middle. And because they're tall, mostly what you see when you talk with them is their stomach. Anyway, it wasn't so bad, except when I stepped on the host's dog whcih gave a loud yelp. Very emabarassing, though the host told me his dog often does that, and then people have to bend down and say sorry and give it lots of hugs and kisses, which it likes.
oh, anyway, the dog has nothing to do with the sheep. Just that I thought that this year is the year of the dog, and I'm a dog, and I'd like a shirt with 'you can be a doggy dog too!'. And then I remembered the dog who likes to get stepped on so that people pat it.
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