Mi situacion en Barcelona!

Well oops – I wasn’t planning on quite this much lag! Quite a bit of catching up to do now… but it’ll probs be in instalments – or fragments - because with such a gap much has been deleted from my deplete grey matter.

SO I arrived at my apartment after my night in the hostal – actually even getting the key to the apartment was a bit of a saga. Mi habla Espanol en poco, no, MUY en poco! But added to my lack of language is the basic lack of understanding of “placa” the address I had to pick up the key was 7/5 Placa Urquionina. I translated placa to mean Place – a posh street, right. Nup I stood IN the Placa and didn’t know it! Placa means square or mall… and it is numbered all the way around – ie all four sides. The placa was a 5 minutos walk from the hostal but the expedition took 2 horas! I enjoyed it actually until the last 10 minutes when I briefly panaiced that perhaps I’d paid MUCHOS dollars for a course/apartmento that didn’t exist…. But then I found the door – spoke to a lady who knew no English and eventually got the key from her – MEGA FUCKING PHEW.

It all took much patience to communicate … on the behalf of others, bless them!

Anyways mi was still mucho fatigado and had to be out of the hostal by 1pm. One small problem, I called cab and headed to the apartment with all my worldly goods but most of the streets were blocked for a marathon and the traffic was a nightmare. Typico!

Cab drivers mostly seem to be uni students… cute too!

Anyways, I arrived eventually at the apartmento…

DESCRIPTION OF 122 CALLE TAMARIT:

6 people (inc me) lived (currently 5) in an apartment on the 7^th floor in a space the size of not even the front half of my house ie menos the kitchen/bathroom area.

To get up you need to catch a clunkety old 60's lift that is er... rather intimate (and awkwardly slow) when 4 people are in it!

When I arrived there were 2 gals from Holland (Melanie and Naomi – who share a room and together they MAY just add up to be my age… maybe!), 2 gals from Germany (Johanna – still here… sleeps A LOT –22ish) and another one who I can’t remember … she moved out that night and a chick from Iceland (moved out the next day)… 3 days ago Ana (from Germany) also moved in) SO in a blur (only exaggerated by my jet-laggy hallucinatory state) this last week makes my previous living situations seem stable (bwaha ha ha) I now live with Melanie, Naomi, Johanna and Ana – one room/closet is empty.

I’ll come back to said housemates but will start with the edificio first:

I HAVE THE BEST ROOM (fucking phew!) It has light, air and space. Though for the first time in viente seis (26) years I am in a singlebed! WHen I arrived I discovered it had only a bottom sheet and no pillow cases (doh) so I am REALLY glad I picked up a coupla mega-size sarongs in Singapore. My pillowcase is a top that it’s too warm to wear here anyway!

The bedroom furniture looks like someone robbed a 1980-90’s seedy accountants office and stuck it in here - fake pine laminate office furniture! But at least I have shelves AND a desk (either/or in other rooms).

Looking across from my window are the backs of other typico apartmentos but when I look straight down I see the construction site that acts as my gentle (yeah right!) wake up call at around 7am.

The lounge-room is gross – small, tacky, unkempt and dark - but it amuses me that in student households internationally (or so it would seem) the fluorescent lights and lamps have all been draped with cheap scarves!

The kitchen is really a hall with a stove, fridge, cupboard and overflowing rubbish bins - it didn't even have a kettle when I moved in (that soon changed as did the sudden increase in the number of herbal tea varieties!... which I have, of course alphabetised... naaa jokes!) the kitchen leads onto the laundry – a tiny balcony with a wash machine and a clothes hanger that juts out over the balcony into the shared central.

But I really love it …because of the LOCATION.

Across the street there is a small park and sitting area - children splash and play in drinking fountains (remember that?!), old people chat on benches with placid dogs beside them and behind the little park is a paved area with eateries ... I came out the other night and an old dude was playing the piano accordian while a group of laughing children danced swinging in a circle… nyaw!
next to the eateries is my school… next to me is a supermarket, bank… within 3 blocks in EVERY direction are Metro stations (2min in any direction!!!!!))))… there’s an asian grocer within a block and a fresh fruit and veg mercado within 2 blocks…

This is an huevo stall ... look in the back they have ostrich and EMU huevos!!! this the beautiful edificio of the mercado (not my pic! I'll talk about the mercado more in another blog)

Anyways I guess the place is a little seedy but it makes for easy living and a “realness” I like!

ABOUT MY HOUSEMATES FROM…

Well Europe at the mo… they’re all young, they’re mainly here as part of their uni holidays. We’re all at the same language school but not in the same class (I’ll tell you all about school real soon!)– they all speak English fluently. Other than Ana the others will be coming to live in Espana to do an internship as part of their studies. They all "party" but not like we did back in the day! (ie I am yet to see anyone passed out in a pool of....)

MELANIE (social work) – lovely, sweet, sings in a church choir, tends to do more housework than anyone else ( 8] ) is sincerely niiiice (actually the ALL seem to be) – phew again

NAOMI (social work) – Melanie's amiga – sings … really well… tends to sing muy daggy 1960-70s easy listening stuff in English – it’s like listening to Gold FM with a Dutch accent!

JOHANNA (psychology?) – sweet but her hours are muy different to mine - she sleeps a lot in the morning, has classes in arvo/evening and then goes out... has the loveliest smile and seems to be a little more cautious then the others.

ANA (graphic design) – the new arrival - has a mystique – she's quieter but I immediately sensed an interesting darker side… like many of my most interesting amigo/as!

She and I have been out on few outings…which I’ll tell you about REAL SOON!

Anyways so I’ve set up the situacion and now that I’ve bored you (well I’ve bored myself at least) all my next posts will be more about stuff I see and do and the musings that go with them

Until then

Adios amigas/os

Flights, sights and other elements of the journey

Pic at some airport - which? - I can't remember!

Ok I have actually lost track of time and largely like that… but for now let me go back in time and recount the bits of my journey I remember - unfortunately in the sleep deprived haze that was flying for me, I didn’t keep iPhone notes for this phase.

Any hoo – caught train to Changi then headed for the underground basement to catch bus to “budget airport” – second class citizens but still efficient and a BIG thumbs up to have a massage stall right near the transit gates – best way to spend the last of my Singapore dollars.

Flight to Bangkok was packed. Sigh. And I got the seat next to a young couple who played games on their iPhone all the way – with volume up (I am an easily irritated/anxious flyer)… She was irritating as she squealed girlishly every time she shot something (ie constantly) She did however have the most amazing manicure finger nails. Unlike the run-of-the-mill painted flowers hers were 3D – like the icing flowers of a wedding cake had been glued to her nails. Bizzarre.

I Bangkok came to regret wearing closed shoes as feet had swollen and blisters were forming as I schlepped from on end of the airport to the other with luggage. At last dumped my stuff headed and had a meal (budget airlines do not provide such luxury) filled my water bottle and waited til 11pm for flight to Zurich to board.

Another packed to the rafters flight. Got to seat to find man (from now on to be referred to as Pig-of-a-Man ) playing his phone – volume on – and his stuff sprawled on my seat. He moved stuff (phew) turned off phone (phew) and promptly fell asleep well before flight took off. I’d say phew but he fucken snored like a band-saw felling a fucken forest! And continued that way most of the flight – he also sat spread leg (invading my zone) and randomly rocked (?) his legs (did I mention I am an irritable traveller?). SO I got earplugs (at one point I forgot I had them in and then panicked cos I thought I was going deaf!) but still barely slept – probs a total of two of the ensuing 11hours!

Arrived a little shattered and disorientated in Zurich. When I got hand luggage down discovered my water had leaked – yeecks. Had to catch a train for connecting flight – all very efficient. But weird. On the train – unless I was hallucinating – they started playing some dirge-kinda funereal music that would stop after a moment with the sound of a cow mooing. Seriously. At first I thought it was someone’s mobile. But it kept happening and several of us on the train looked at each other in disbelief. Maybe the Swiss just have an unexpected sense of humour.

Anyway caught a nice half-empty flight to Barcelona. Arrived at 9am.

Whole trip really smooth. Called the Hostal I had booked – caught a taxi there and then dumped my bags for 2 hours til my room was ready. A really cute place and people were nice too.

But sleep deprived and jetlagged my first stagger around Barcelona was odd. I ended up buying a bottle of water and Morcilla (blood sausage) roll and staggered into a Chinese/Spanish internet café. No-one spoke a work of English… the place was real divey and they were smoking. The computers were set to Chinese so I had little hope of pressing the right things when asked and on top of that Spanish keyboards have different placement of punctuation so the Facebook posts I put up were effected by these unexpected things.. The smoke got to me quite quickly – was glad I’d picked up a ventolin in Singapore (not that I’ve used it yet but…) – so I headed back out.

Wandered around and decided I’d like Barcelona cos the first person I ran into had this awesome gentle giant dog (these are the clues to a good place) and we (the man and I) made a very stilted attempts at communicating. Frankly I am still a little surprised – but happy I think! - by the lack of English spoken here (cab driver, shop assist, computer peops) people had told me otherwise before I left.

As I continued I found a supermerkado and head in deciding to refresh my VERY sketchy Spanish by finding stuff for dinner. I bought Anchovy stuffed olives, a tomato, endive, a lemon, smoked fish, almond milk, herbal teabags and chickpeas. Weird huh? Remember sleep deprived.

Anyway staggered back to hostal where I passed out in airconditioned comfort.

This is a view from my internal bedroom window and a pic of the hall area.
It had an amazing old-fashioned wrought-iron lift - I reckon lifts are gonna be a feature here as escalators were in SIngapore - to get upstairs and really quaint decor in hall area - room basic but had own bathroom and that was what I paid for.

Woke up and watched some SPanish spelling game show - yes really!. Made salad (everything but almond milk) by cutting up bits with pocket knife- handy already Lani and Jaz - pouring ingredients into a zip-lock bag shaking and eating with a spoon knicked from the plane. Ingenious! No kettle though so no tea... just drank almond milk from carton. hehehe

The day to day existence since then will be in next blog… if you can stand the wait – I’ve decided my blogs can lag too!

Last Singapore rave... written from Barcelona

Hola!

I am in Barcelona... but want to post last bits about Singapore before they get overwhelmed by Barcelona. Si?

The following in this font are rambling notes from my iPhone with the occasional pics and interspersed with current (absolute) ravings in this font!

They may sound critical but have no doubt that if I had time for the reflection that I did in Singapore when I'm in Melbourne then a blog from there would be at least as apparently reflectively critical...

What would happen in Singapore if no electricity- imagining relative silence!

ACtually to a depth that I had never imagined SIngapore utterly relies on electricity - at every moment so many people are shopping underground or living in towering buildings, darting around in the complex maze of metro trains... airconditioners whirr, building projects pierce and automated voices/instructions echo in every space.

Everywhere you look there is construction underway... rumour has it every 10 or so years housing developments (HDBs) are just pulled down and rebuilt. Certainly things are "renewed" with great frequency... as one Singaporean I met reflected - the government decides what is allowed to be kept for history! Interesting

Back to the HDBs - these places where a large proportion of Singaporeans live, there is cultural profiling that decides the allocation of flats eg - not actual! 15% to Indian descent, 35% to Malay descent, 35% to Chinese descent, 10% to middle-eastern descent, 5% to other. This engineering of multiculturalism appears to work - I find it fascinating - unity blah blah blah mottos...

Efficiency vs environment vs natural evolution and decay....

I LOVED being part of the crowd (not that I eva really could be - fat, pierced and tattooed Anglo (?) chicks are a rarity.) But hawker stands and PT were awesome and easy to negotiate...Having my haircut was unique (they wash your hair while you are sitting in the chair!)

When we go to popular tourist attractions do we all have the same experience? Do you ever get to see more than what we are directed to?

As predicted by many I enjoyed Little India and the Arab quarters most - forgot to take pics ... telling really! They are touristy but are more earthy and grungy than the rest of Singapore... primarily because they are allowed to be - they draw tourists that way! hmmm...

But are they any more or less real than Sentosa - a frightening beach/theme park with manicured palm trees. Someone should tell the government Sentosa would feel a whole heap less cosmetic and cynical if dozens of tankers weren't floating in the immediate sight line of pristine beach play areas.

Turns out I frown or smirk when I take my own photo!

PS a whole dragon fruit was the same price as 1/4 of an apple or orange!

Anyways I did have a trepidacious swim - and fell asleep ERROR 1. Waah major sunburn (as those who peruse facebook would know!) I ensured my absolute tourist status by drinking a coconut while there. ERROR 2 Didn't know I was really burnt til I went and got an Indian hot oil head massage - turns out even my scalp was burnt! Lucky for me, my olive skin reclaimed the 'burn' within 36 hours so I just looked a little tanned and sun-kissed

I think I am too 'critical' seeing the long working construction workers and cranes rather than the shiney smiley billboards and manicured bougainvillea. The ignored maids and intellectually disabled cleaners concern me more than the precision coordinated and pressed ensembles worn by sales assistants impress me - though they do!

Singapore's sound track is a thin tinny boy-band, no bass sounds - no grunge anywhere!

There is a written or oral instruction for everything but people only half listen. At train stations they are constantly told to stand back while people alight. Ignored.

I saw/smelt 2 of these rules ignored (um-mah)

Singapore reminds me of an ant colony with high rise ant hills and labyrinthine worlds of underground tunnels people moving in an orderly fashion along predictable paths but you know if anything unexpected happened everyone would run around randomly in chaotic panic

Do our ads seem as silly - no doubt - to outsiders... has anyone thought that collagen is cartiledge and bone bits floating in their juice?

ANyway it's time for bed

... so I can wake up and tell you all about my "journey" I mean that literally and not in that over-used TV-talk-show kinda way

and then I can start on Barcelona!

Ramblings from notes on my iphone while in Singapore

So many manicured feet, non-sensical English slogans on t-shirts, tattoos? Where do the hidden workers go, it's great to feel tall, forgetting to take photos is a good sign!

Is the need to blog a desire to proclaim or converse?

Does it destroy the capacity to observe and absorb or, as importantly, richly describe? Am I thinking in snappy, pithy fb soundbites?

Racism is when you pay more attention to security in ethnic zones.

The efficiency is undeniable - but why do I always feel like I'm cattle being herded?

I am too self-conscious to tap my feet to songs on my iPhone - no-one else does... what would happen if I broke out in song and sung along to Dolly Parton?!!

The escalators changed direction at the local shopping centre - why?

I saw rubbish! Durian sucks

Kindness from strangers shouldn't be more important than kindness from friends... but it is!

one night in Bangkok... er I mean Singapore or where-ever I am

This weekend I went it alone - well except for Oscar and Pokey.
I had a great time adventuring - tackled the city orientating myself through the EASIEST ever transport system... but to overcrowded streets to hunt down a memory card reader for my camera - turns out I could have got one across the road but thats beside the point!
I then headed out to the arab quarters after taking a wrong turn that found me outside a chinese temple alive with prayer, incense and lotus flower offerings... I'd show you the pics but I can't get camera to work (over exposed pics... sigh).
ANyway the Arab quarters are not as slick as other parts of Singapore but more "earthy"... the carpet sellers were quite slick and I may pop back in January! Of course I'm not buying up at the mo and I had already chowed down on tea eggs and such so I was just pokin around (bought a nice sarong for poolside) PEOPLE WATCHING my favourite sport!
I'll get back to poolside later.
I came back to walk the fellas and put my feet up ... well briefly... then I head back out to watch fireworks at the marina - cos I took the scenic route I arrive JUST in time to catch them as I walked down - pics taken on iPhone - not bad considering! These are "practice" fireworks in readiness for the national day here in August... they don't like fucking things up... and they don't!... This is a new and stupendous complex - quite impressive... as is the light show etc...












Then I toddled home via a hawkers stall for sambal chicken...

Today began idyllically. It's been quite nippy here 29degrees but mostly cloudy. Today sunshine. SO after the a brekky of new fruits (see pic) called Red Jambu (a gentle perfume - crunch of a nashi and then a subtle sourness) and lychees



I took the dogs for a stroll... then headed to the pool.








DIVINE. me and one family (frolicing in kiddy pool) in a pool the size of Brunny but far more picturesque. A spa then I headed back upstairs to get ready for...

a haircut - they wash your hair here while you're in the chair!!! The best head massage EVER - my favourite part of haircut experiences - hair not radically different - a trim really.



Then lunch in this "food court" really common here but DON'T think of the ones back home, here the food is good quality, much variety and yum - I ended it with a fresh coconut juice in its shell. NB one still called "pig innards and herbal soup" or something of the like




Then I came home and kicked back (cos it'd been such a hard day) ... trying to "fix" camera... listening to a book and then reading up on Turkey

John and Leone came back and we went out for dinner (venison in pepper sauce) and a chat about local culture and their lives here - an intriguing insight... I'm still getting my head around this place.

anyways all pics are from my iPhone...
My blogs wont be as regular or as detailed but while I have the queen o such things at my disposal (Leone) I am gonna try and learn it all
Lisa :)

oops suitcase pic!

A minimalist 6mths to come!

Touchdown in SIngapore

Hello world!
That's what this year will be all about... for now though ... Hello SIngapore!
I arrived last night after a relatively painless journey (no-one next to me... only time I'm anti-social is on a plane!) no sleep and a few sing-songs with Anna the 2yr old in the seat in front but quite painless!
Today Leone has been the hostess with the mostest.
SHe took me on buses and trains and we had lunch and she pointed out bits for me to go visit.
I have taken Oscar and Pokey for strolls around the pool (another place I plan to revisit) and eaten yummy stuff ... right now I'm noshin on lychees while grappling with technology
One technology glitch left upload cord for camera in Aust so will be out sourcing one of those tomorrow.
SO only photos from iPhone so far - the dogs and me luggage (pretty minimal for 6 months I reckons!
Leone and John have just headed off for a weekend in Indonesia (sounds FANTASTIC!) so I will be discovering things on my own for the next coupla days.
Tomorrow I'm off to the Arab district (missing Coburg already :) - not really) before trottin into town for dinner and fireworks. Cool!
Anyway - you won't keep reading the next posts if I keep blathering in my first one.
Keep in touch
Lisa