The Costa del Sol

I'm no longer making promises to keep up with my blog posts because quite obviously that doesn't seem to work out. So whenever I post, I post. That way I can avoid feeling guilty about these long absences from my blog that I've been taking periodically.

Anywhooooooo, as I'm sure you've seen on my Facebook by now, Mike and I are spending our holiday time in the Costa del Sol (a coastal region in the South of Spain). I have to say I have enjoyed it very much here, probably even more so than Barcelona, and I think Mike feels the same as well. I think we like it here better because you can get around easily for one. Marbella (the area we're in) and all of the Costa del Sol is a pretty huge tourist spot, so most everyone speaks English (or broken English at best). Surprisingly, as much as Barcelona is a huge tourist destination it can be challenging to get around if you don't know Spanish. After about 6 months in Barcelona, admittedly I'm not too well versed in Spanish just yet so making my way around town there proves to be difficult at times, so its been a joy not having to worry too much about whether or not people speak English or if they can understand anything you're saying or not. Aside from the English speaking, its absolutely gorgeous here. The beaches are beautiful, each little town has its own beauty and charm, everything is beautiful here. We've been down to Puerto Banus (one of the ports in Marbella) and Old Town Marbella several times and the only thing we've ever done there is just walk around. It's such a nice area that the only thing you want to do is walk around and immerse yourself in all the beauty. I mean how could you not want to walk around this place all day?

 

Besides going to Puerto Banus and Old Town Marbella I think we're going to make our way to either Tarifa or Rhonda, both places have been recommended to me to visit, and we'll just have to decide which one we want to visit. Personally I'm much more inclined to visit Tarifa because the drive is less.....stressful, so to speak. The road to Rhonda is pretty much uphill, through some mountains, and twisting and turning. I just learned how to drive a stick-shift and I'm not entirely too comfortable driving yet, I'm really not trying to go flying off of a cliff. So I think we'll stick with Tarifa. Who knows, we might just end up staying here and exploring more. Other than that, everyday we walk to the lake that's close to the townhouse we're staying at and feed the ducks, turtles, and fish. It may sound lame but I could care less. I've also spent a reasonable amount of time working on my tan! I'm no longer the color of a snowflake, and for that I am grateful. Hopefully it stays sunny here these next couple of days so I can lay out some more before we go back to Barcelona. I'll try and post a blog and more photos when we get back to Barcelona! :)

xx - Amanda!

Gelato & an Antique Market

Now that I've finished telling you about our shenanigans in Belgium I can finally tell you what we've been up to in the months since we've been back. In early January we were still located at the hotel (such a dreadful place, might I add) and the weekend after we got back from Belgium we decided to do some exploring. During our stay in the hotel we noticed that every Sunday there were tons of people walking to the left of the hotel, Mike thought they were all church goers, but I said they might all be going to a farmer's market of sorts. So we decided to see what all the hubbub was about and it turned out that I was right - as always *smirk*, well okay I wasn't 100% right. Behind the restaurant called Cafe Belgrado that was adjacent to the hotel there happened to have been an antique market that took place every Sunday, not a farmer's market. So there wasn't food being sampled or sold, whamp whamp whaaammpp, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. My touristy side kicked in and I took heaps of pictures, I'll post them below. There was a large variety of things to buy, but Mike and I busied ourselves with some old records that were being sold. I consider myself a bit of an old soul when it comes to my taste in music, so I was perusing through trying to look for some Elvis, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc., and I couldn't find either of them, which I thought was strange. I found a name that I recognized and it just so happened to have been Paul Anka, and it's like how in the world do you have a Paul Anka record but not a record from someone like Elvis? Him being as famous as he was. I don't know, I could be totally wrong, perhaps Paul Anka was this big star, but quite literally the only person I know that listened to him is my mother. She's like the only person, that I know anyway. Well, apparently Paul Anka had quite the heyday when he was younger, so I stand somewhat corrected. REGARDLESS, I still found it odd that there was no Elvis or Beatles records laying around. Its funny, I was so hung up on the records and I don't even have a record player. Anyways, after we returned from the antique market things pretty much fell in to their usual ways. A few days passed by and Mike told me that we were going to be moving from the hotel to the place that we live in now (called RESA), needless to say I was more than delighted. Our living situation is muuuuuuch better now. RESA is situated on ESADE University's campus, so it's basically a dorm. But with a twist! People like us, that don't go to the university, can also stay here. So its like half dorm/half hotel. Our room size now is about the same as the hotel's room size, but it feels more homey if that makes any sense. We have a compact kitchen and fridge, closet space, storage space, the on-campus restaurant has MUUUCCHHH better food. Like holy moly. So much better. In general I guess it may not sound like much of an upgrade, but trust me...it is. So let's speed it up a bit: My birthday passed, which wasn't all that great of a celebration for various reasons, but my birthday came and went nonetheless, Mike and I got a gym membership at the Corner 4 gym on campus, I started working out every day, Valentines' Day passed, still working out every day, February ended along with my first set of classes at Post University, March began as did my second set of classes, and would ya look at that? Here we are at present day's time! Just this past Saturday Mike, myself, and one of Mike's new teammates, Philip, went down to La Maquinista (this very nice, very large outdoor mall), and we also made a stop at Plaça Catalunya so Philip could take some pictures for his "mum" (he's from Australia), and also to get some gelato. I got the Raffaello flavor, Mike got Pitufo, and Philip got Kinder flavored gelato. Raffaello is like a coconutty-white chocolate Ferrero Rocher, Pitufo is like bubblegum, and Kinder is a chocolate brand. Mike ended up not liking his Pitufo, so I reluctantly traded with him. That Raffaello was like the bomb.com. He's lucky I love him so much, if it had been anyone else I wouldn't have been so forgiving. We hopped on the train back to Sant Cugat, arrived at the station, and walked back to RESA to have some dinner. After dinner we bade Philip adieu, headed to our room, watched Coming to America and one of Eddie Murphy's stand-up comedy shows (I think it was called Delirious? or was it Raw? It was one of those two) and sooner or later we both fell asleep. On Sunday my day consisted of doing homework, going to the gym, and doing more homework. Monday was more eventful though, I woke up around 8 am, which is the earliest I've woken up in a long time, and I got ready for the day. I had some stuff to handle at our bank here in Sant Cugat, had to buy some groceries, and then I met up with Mike after his first practice and we walked around the down-town area for a bit until he had to go back for his second practice. I walked back to RESA, did some homework, met Mike for lunch, took a wee bit of a nap, and then went to the gym. I had the owner of the gym take my BMI, and I'm not exactly pleased with the results. Mike's over here with 7% body fat, and I'm just like:

Ugh. Progress, not perfection...I suppose? Anyways, now its Tuesday morning and I've got myself boat loads of homework to do today. Joy. Here are all the pictures from that antique market and pictures of the gelato at Plaça Catalunya:

xx - Amanda!

My, My, My...It's Been a While

I feel like every single time I post a blog there's a very looooooooonngggg period of time until I post another one. I make no excuses. Blogging kind of took a backseat in regards to my priorities once my classes at Post University started back in January. However, now that my first set of classes is over with and I know how the classes are and how they work I will try my very hardest to stay on track with my blog posts. I do like the degree program I'm in at Post though, for a degree program that's completely online the professors are really thorough and they engage the students. I was pleasantly surprised by that. On another note, I realize that my last blog post was about our time spent in Belgium. Since it's been close to 2 months from the time that I posted that blog I don't think anyone is all too interested in that anymore. However, I'll sum it up for ya. Basically after NYE, when we went ice skating and I tried several different flavors of a shot called 'Jenevers'. I tried the apple/kiwi flavor, the chocolate flavor, and the cactus flavor. Surprisingly the cactus flavor was really sweet, it was my favorite of the 3. I'm not entirely sure what kind of alcohol the Jenever shots are, perhaps they're kind of like schnapps? Either way, my dad said they were really strong. I assure you, they were not. Maybe if you have like 15 of them, then you'd start to feel a little something, but 3 was nothing. Okay so anyways, we watched the NYE fireworks and for the rest of our time spent in Belgium we basically just walked around Turnhout and tried to explore the area, went to eat at my uncle's restaurant every now and then, and before we knew it our time to fly back to Spain had arrived. Taking the train to the Brussels airport was quite the experience to be had. We had to walk maybe like 20 minutes to get to the train station, then when we got there and went inside there weren't any clear signs saying which train to take, so I asked the man that worked there, we bought the tickets, and waited outside for the train. Mind you it was maybe like 30 degrees Fahrenheit. We could have waited inside, but we didn't want there to be any chance of us missing the train, so we sat and waited. The train arrived, we boarded, and we were off to Mechelen where we had to change trains. When we got to Mechelen the train attendant advised us not to change trains just yet, so we didn't. I forget his name now, but he was a very nice man. We told him where we were from and he said he would love to take his son to Vegas someday. So anyways we get to the station that the man advised us to change trains at and told us we had to get to Platform 3 and we had 8 minutes until that train left. This is where you really had to be with us to understand why I'm laughing so hard right now just thinking about it, but Mike and I looked like blithering idiots to say the least. We were on Platform 12, we wasted maybe 5 minutes walking up and down Platform 12 trying to figure out where in the hell Platform 3 was, finally we asked someone. The man told us we had to go down some stairs, walk down the pathway, go up the stairs for platform and that was where our train would be. We had about 1 minute and a half to haul our luggage down 3 flights of stairs, down a pathway, and up 3 flights of stairs. I didn't have much to carry besides a carry-on suitcase and a backpack, so needless to say I took flight going down those stairs, I mean I came just barreling down those stairs. Mike, being the gentleman, he was carrying all the heavy stuff and it was really just hilarious seeing him try to rush down stairs with a giant suitcase, duffel bag, and a backpack. I was telling him to hurry up, but I couldn't help but laugh. Once Mike made it down, we both took off down the pathway towards the Platform 3 stairs, ahhhh I can only imagine what we looked like sprinting down that hallway. We got to the stairs and I swear I have never went up 3 flights of stairs so fast in my entire life. I got to the top and I was half-yelling half-laughing, telling Mike to hurry up.When I turned to look at the train, I saw it leaving. Mike got to the top and I said, "I think we just missed it." Mike said, "No." That's all he said. A couple seconds later we realized the train that left was a different train, and the train we needed was arriving shortly. So after that realization, Mike and I could not help but laugh hysterically. From there it all became quite easy, the train arrived, we boarded, we arrived at the Brussels airport station, checked in to our flight, boarded our plane, and arrived back in Spain around 11 pm. I can't wait to go to Belgium in the Summer during the carnival season they have in August. A lot of games to play, a lot of drinks, and A LOT of deliciously fattening food. Sounds like a good time to me.

 xx - Amanda!

Some Time in Belgium

I know what you're thinking, "Jeez it's been a while since she's posted anything." Indeed it has. After much time away and an extended period of major writer's block, I'm happy to inform anyone who follows my blog that my writer's block has dissolved and I actually have stuff to talk about now! Exciting, isn't it? (There was just a tiny hint of sarcasm in that.)

Hmmm, where to begin?! Ah yes, Belgium.
Let me just start with the day of our flight to Belgium. Our flight was to leave on December 28, 2014 at 7:10 am, so Mike's coach offered to drop us at the airport and said he would be at the hotel to pick us up at 4:45 am. Anyone who knows me knows that I am NOT a morning person...at all, so you can only imagine my despair when I heard that. The night before I couldn't even get to sleep until 2 am, so I only had like 2 hours of sleep before I had to wake up and get ready. Alas, I put on a happy face, got ready, made sure everything was packed, and Mike and I headed downstairs to Mike's coach's car (what a mouthful Mike's coach's car is). We arrived at the airport around 5:45 am, checked in, and started to walk towards a gate. I wasn't a happy camper because I made the mistake of wearing heeled booties that were not broken in yet, so by the time we finally got to our gate I had a giant blister on my left heel. Let me tell you, finding the gate was a whole other story as well. The woman at the check-in desk didn't tell us our gate, so naturally we just looked at our tickets to see which gate it was. Totally normal thing to do, I assume most people do that. However our tickets weren't all that legible. All the words and numbers were mushed together, it all looked like gibberish, and the only thing that stood out clearly was A-22. So without thinking I assumed that was the gate...it wasn't. We walked all over the A wing only to find out that our gate was really C-55 and A-22 was my seat assignment. So on top of feeling like a complete and utter dumbass, my left bootie was digging into my heel more and more with every step I took. I mean, it was a great time. It really, truly was (Giant amounts of sarcasm in that one). By the time we sat down by our gate I had already received 2 different notifications from Google that our plane was delayed first by 30 minutes, then 45 minutes. Then our gate number changed. So as we're walking up to our new gate number we see a line of people waiting to board, and we look at the screen and it says that its our flight boarding. We were really confused. My phone said our flight was delayed, but the screens said our flight was on time and people were waiting in line to board. We just followed the crowd and got in line, after about 10 minutes in line a woman announced that it would be another 20 minutes until we could board, so Mike and I went to sit down. So 20 minutes goes by and now we're back in line to board, we board the plane, find our seats, put our stuff in the overhead bins, sit down, and wait for everyone else to be seated. After everyone is seated the pilot announces that we won't be taking off for another 30 minutes. At this point I didn't even care anymore, I just wanted to take my boots off. I was feverishly trying to take them off without elbowing the lady next to me. The second my booties came off I was overwhelmingly happy and grief stricken at the same time because I knew trying to put those suckers back on was not going to be a good time. The plane finally took off and for the first time in forever I actually was able to sleep on a plane. I found a nice comfy place on Mike's shoulder to rest my head. He told me that I drooled on him, I don't believe him for a second. I don't drool. He drools. I do not. Before I knew it the plane was descending and I had to put those godforsaken boots back on, which as I predicted was not fun at all. The plane landed, we got off, went to baggage claim and the first thing I did was sit down, open my suitcase, and replace my booties with my good ol' nice comfy vans...vans that I know won't betray my feet and give me blisters. We found my Uncle Tom waiting for us by the arrivals exit, I felt really bad because he was waiting for us at the airport for a long time, but I was really happy to see him. We sat down, had some drinks, talked for a bit, then headed to his car, and started driving from Brussels to Turnhout. When we got to Turnhout my uncle took us to eat at his restaurant D'Vine and as always, the food was exquisite. I had the Videe which is sort of like a pot pie, and Mike had the D'Vine Burger. Needless to say any other food besides the hotel food we've been eating since we've been in Spain would have sufficed, but Mike and I were so pleased with what we got at D'Vine. I mean like we literally were entirely too happy, when Mike took a bite of his burger his face lit up like a little kid's would on Christmas morning. It was hilarious. After we were done eating, we talked for a bit more, and then my uncle drove us to my dad's apartment. We didn't really do anything after we got to the apartment. We unpacked some of our things and after that I'm pretty sure both of us took a nap, because lord knows we both needed one! When we woke up we were both stricken with hunger, so we walked down the street to the corner frituur and got some food. When we got back to the apartment we set up our Apple TV, put on that Nonstop movie with Liam Neeson, and after we decided to call it a night.

I'll continue on with our week in Belgium in another post, because at this rate if I keep writing this post is going to be extremely looooooong. So until next post.

xx - Amanda!

True Life: I Hate The Gym

So I've been going to the gym. That's exciting right? No. Not really. Not at all honestly. It gets quite boring when its literally the only thing you do every day besides blogging. In my post's title I stated that I'd give you the truth, and so I shall. I hate going to the gym, like hate it with everything I have. I hate walking the 3/4 mile it takes to get there and I hate walking the 3/4 mile it takes to get back. Some (like my parents) would say that I'm just being lazy, well I'm not. Walking to the gym and back actually gives me anxiety. Why, you ask? Well see I have to cross 6 intersections there and the same 6 while walking back. I know you're probably saying, "What? You didn't learn how to walk along a crosswalk when you were little? You're pretty pathetic." Well I actually did learn how to do that thankyouverymuch, but that's not the issue here. The issue here is that all of those intersections except one does not have an actual crosswalk to use, and it doesn't have a "walk/do not walk" sign to accompany it (#firstworldproblems). And since all of the intersections I have to cross are literally always busy I kind of have to just take my chances and hope the people driving are paying attention and I won't end up getting hit. There's been three instances where the drivers approaching either weren't paying attention or they just felt like they didn't have to yield for a silly little pedestrian, and continued to drive at a normal speed right towards me. Each of those times the drivers finally decided to stop maybe less than a foot away from me, so they wouldn't end up hitting me. So that was mighty nice of them. It's appreciated, it really is. So that's reason one why I don't like going to the gym. Reason two? Being in the gym in general gives me anxiety, okay not necessarily anxiety, but I feel uncomfortable. When I get passed the entry gates (of hell)(just kidding)(not really), head to the locker room, put my stuff away, and head to the cardio/weight room...I shit you not everyone looks at me. When I enter the room and walk past the stretching area everyone wants to take a moment to pause what they're doing and for that brief moment they stare at me. When I get off the elliptical and walk towards the weights every person doing weights wants to watch me. So me being the naturally self-conscious person that I am, I feel like either I've done something wrong or something is wrong with my appearance. You might think I'm just being overdramatic and that's not really what happens. No. I know when I'm being overdramatic and I will admit when I've over exaggerated things, in which this case I have not. Anyways, I don't know what the problem could be. Maybe they look because I'm tall? But I've been to the gym countless amounts of times, so surely everyone there has seen me at least once so it's not something they have to keep looking at me for. Its really annoying though. Reason three? Well I just hate the gym point blank period. In this case I am being lazy. I haaaaaate doing cardio, if I could skip it I really would. However it's a vital part of weight loss and I use it to warm up my ligaments, so I really can't skip it. It's so boring to me though! It's like, "Oh let me just spend 20-40 minutes of my life on this machine that simulates running or riding a bike while I listen to my music and stare into blank space." How is that appealing to anyone?! Then again, I guess going to the gym isn't supposed to be fun, otherwise everybody and they mama would be at the gym all the time. The only time I've ever actually liked going to the gym was when I had a personal trainer. You would think that having somebody tell you what to do and pushing you to get it done for an hour straight everyday wouldn't be fun. I actually quite enjoyed it. When I don't have a trainer or a gym buddy I can easily say to myself, "I'm really sore today, I'm not going.", or "I'm feeling really tired today, not going.", or "I've got a major headache, not feeling like going to the gym today", or my personal favorite just a simple, "Fuck that." Pardon my language. I tend to use these excuses all too often. Honestly I don't know what my problem is, I'll do really good for like two to three weeks and then I'll start to slack off. For example, when we arrived in Spain I started going to the gym everyday except for the weekends, I did that for 3 and a half weeks and started to see some results, after that I completely fell off. Which is really weird because more motivation is supposed to stem from seeing results, but it did the complete opposite for me. It started raining, no...it was pouring for 5 days straight so I used that as an excuse not to go. So now we're at present day, I haven't gone to the gym in close to a week and I feel really shitty about it. I won't go tomorrow and Friday because Mike and I will be in Girona for his test game. Which means I won't be able to go to the gym until Saturday. So Saturday is when I'll start again and since I don't have a trainer and no one to be my gym buddy, I'm using my blog in lieu of that. I'll use you guys to hold me accountable. Surprisingly after almost a week of not going to the gym my body hasn't seemed to change much. I still look like how I did when those results started to take place. So that's always nice. I went on reddit.com earlier and looked at what helped other people when they hit a slump and some of them said even when they felt like quitting or their weight plateaued their determination never strayed when they had set a deadline for themselves. Whenever they felt like quitting they just thought of that deadline and it kept them going. I think that would help me, now I just have to think of a serious deadline. My birthday is in a month and 10 days, so I don't know if I'll be able to get very far in that time. I'd like to lose between 5-10 pounds by then. So that's a short term goal. But an actual deadline I don't have. Hmmmmm I'm thinking, I'm thinking... AH! Well in Barcelona it start's to get warm in May and warm weather calls for stowing away the jackets, jeans, and long sleeves, and breaking out the shorts, tank tops, and bathing suits. So there we go, I'll set my deadline of losing 30 pounds by May 1st. May 1st it is. It kind of feels like I just signed my soul to the devil. Just kidding! Seriously though, if anyone who reads my blogs has any tips for staying motivated or would like to share your stories with weight loss with me I'd love to hear from you! :)





xx - Amanda!

Curls on a Monday

I sit here this morning ultimately debating on whether or not I should commit to these changes to my blog. I act like its life or death, it's not, I'm just overdramatic. But I feel like if I change my blog now it has to be the last time I change it (or at least the last change for a good while), because I've made soooooo many changes over the course of the few months that I've had it. In the beginning I had planned to blog every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Soon that changed to just Monday and Friday, then there was at least a month's time where I didn't blog at all because I didn't have anything I felt was worth reading. When we landed in Belgium I began to blog again every Sunday because I actually had good material, but alas, now that we've been in Spain for about 5 weeks I'm running out of things to blog about. So in order to keep myself blogging and to give me something to do besides just going to the gym I feel these changes are necessary. Most of my readers (if not all of them) are my family and my boyfriend's family, which they're like my family too. So like I was saying it's basically all family. They navigate to my blog to read about what Mike and I have been up to each week and weekend, which is greatly appreciated because frankly I didn't think anyone would really read it at all. And starting today when these changes are implemented I hope to still have my family readers because you guys (are) the real MVP, and I'm still going to do my daily Sunday blogs to let you know what we've been up to. Mike and I have made a promise to try and do more exciting things every weekend, even when it rains because apparently there's no escaping the rain here. I mean for God-sake we live in Barcelona, we live in Spain...we live in Europe period, That's not something American people our age get to do too often (unless you're obscenely rich). So on that note, onto what my post for today is really going to be about!

As promised I'm delivering a brand new type of blog post today. New type of blog post to the world? No. New to me? Yes, because I've never done one before. Normally these types of posts would be done through a vlog on Youtube or something, however I don't have enough gall to sit in front of my laptop's video camera for a good 15 minutes discussing the hairstyle I chose to do and showing you how I styled it. I can't even handle speaking in front of a crowd of people I've known for 3+ years (e.g. our going away party) without my heart feeling like it's going to burst out of my chest, so there's no way I'm going to record myself and post it on the internet knowing there's a potential possibility of millions of people seeing it. Yeah, no thanks I'm cool.

So anyways I spend what's probably an unhealthy amount of time studying every nook and cranny of all things Pinterest. My boards on Pinterest are pretty much what any 20-something girl's boards would be (Desserts, Memes, Wedding day, Hairstyles, Cute outfits, etc), however my favorite things to look at on Pinterest would be different hairstyles, makeup ideas, and cute outfits. That's probably a typical girl thing too. Some of the hairstyles I see on Pinterst seem rather intricate and others seem pretty easy, so what I've planned to do on Mondays is post a step by step picture tutorial for said hairstyle in order to show everyone that even a girl like me (someone not exactly skilled in the art of styling hair) can indeed re-create the hairstyles that are seen on Pinterest. I do realize that there are some hairstyles that already have step by step tutorials, but the thing is the girls that do those could already have experience (maybe they do, maybe they don't. I don't know their life) with styling hair and whatnot. I offer you a chance to see someone who is a beginner try and do different hairstyles. And when I say beginner, believe me I mean it. I wore my hair in a ponytail or pigtails all throughout elementary school and halfway through middle school until I discovered what a straightener was. Then I only ever straightened my hair until my junior year in high school because that's all I knew how to do. I didn't learn how to curl my hair until junior year was almost over. That was close to 4 years ago and I haven't learned to do much else since then. So bear with me for the first few types of these posts, they may not be all too glamorous but I will work on it.

Okay so here we go, I decided to go with something pretty easy for my first post.
Loose/Messy-ish curls with a flat iron!
It didn't take me long at all, maybe 10 minutes.
I messed up with one of the pictures, so I had to use a photo twice. And the font color goes back and forth between pink and black, but like I said...bear with me folks!

xx - Amanda!

Sundays are for Blogging

Monday through Friday has been only mildly interesting for me. And that's probably how it's going to be most of the time too, unless I make some friends. Which is a harder task than it seems to be, might I add. Mildly interesting is perfectly fine with me though. I can spend the week focusing on working out, eating healthy, and taking care of whatever needs to be taken care of before my school semester starts. Monday was like any other Monday, poopy. I woke up feeling groggy because I went to sleep too late the night before, I had said to myself that I would wake up early enough Monday morning to go downstairs and catch breakfast before all the good stuff was gone. Yeah, that didn't happen. I went back to sleep after Mike woke me up to tell me he was leaving for training and re-awoke an hour later. Mike came back for break around 10 am, we watched the news (and tried to understand it) for a bit, then we talked about our weekend plans, and I told him that I had spent some time searching for universities that I could earn my degree from completely online since I wouldn't be able to be there physically. I actually found an "Editor's Choice" article with their ranking of the top 25 best online degree programs. Number 1 was Walden University, I was interested but they had some weird age requirement. I had to be at least 24, which I found strange. Number 2 was Post University. I may have jumped the gun a little, I pretty much applied to Post right away after reading the article's description of the university. I was pleased with what I read though, they're ranked 19th in the nation for best online bachelor's program, their courses are offered in 8 week modules which means I can earn my degree in close to a year give or take 3 months, the student to teacher ratio is 23:1 so it's a smaller class size which is nice, and their online bachelor's program has won at least 3 awards this past year. After I applied I read into them a little bit more, I found they have a physical campus as well located in Waterbury, Connecticut, they've been around since 1890, and even if you're a completely online degree student you can come to the school and walk across the stage when you graduate. So I thought those were all pretty neat. Anyways, after all the school talk with Mike I hopped in the shower and got ready to go to the gym. When I was walking to the gym a man slowed to ask for directions, while I was crossing the street (that doesn't have an actual crosswalk). First of all...I don't understand you, secondly I'm not THAT familiar with the area yet, thirdly you really had to stop me while I was crossing? Couldn't wait until I was on the sidewalk? Like bruh, there were cars speeding past me in the other direction. I said to him, "Lo siento, no hablo mucho espanol, I'm not from here." He smiled, nodded, and drove away. I felt bad though, I wish I could have helped. Although even if I could understand him fully I probably wouldn't have been able to help him much anyways, like I said I'm not that familiar with the area yet. I got to the gym and after last week's "bracelet/gate not working" frenzy I was relieved to find the gates cooperated with me. I think I found the trick to it, nobody else seems to do it, but I take off the bracelet and just tap it around the sensor screen a few times and it seems to work. It's weird that doing the whole bracelet/gate thing actually stresses me out a little, I'm always afraid it's not going to work and I'll have to go and try to ask someone to help me (notice I said try). I think I might be an introvert. I just looked up the definition of introvert and it says, "a shy, reticent, and typically self-centered person". The first two yes, self-centered? No. I care about others and the things they do and want in life. I'm so off track here, okay so when I got passed the gates of the gym (or hell, same thing)...(just kidding), I just went through my usual routine, put stuff in my locker, hit the elliptical, workout chest/back/arms/abs, and then walked back home. The events that follow are also things that have become typical, I came in and met Mike for lunch, we talked for a bit, went upstairs, he took a nap, I was using my laptop and had found the BBC news channel on TV (which is in English and they don't try to do Spanish voice overs, probably because it's live), and before I knew it the clock read 7 pm. The normal dinner time here is like 10 pm, I like to eat around 7:30 pm. I find 10 pm to be too late, at least during the weekdays anyways. We went down to eat dinner, Mike wanted ice cream so we walked across the street to the gas station and bought ice cream, went upstairs, I showered, washed some clothes, watched a movie, and fell asleep. Tuesday and Wednesday were roughly the same except Wednesday Mike was going to be home later than usual because he had a spin and yoga class to attend after his second training, so I decided to go to the mall after the gym. We needed more laundry detergent and a few other items anyways. The walk back from the mall is partially uphill so it was sooooo much fun walking uphill with 10-15 extra pounds of grocery things in my gym backpack, a good workout though (extra calories burned, wooooh)! Also on Wednesday I finally decided to go through and blog about my fitness goals. I also joined reddit. My older brother told me about the site a while ago and the fitness/weight loss subreddits have proven to be very inspiring. I follow the "loseit" subreddit and it's just an internet community filled with people telling their stories, why they decided to start working out, how much they've lost, and giving each other suggestions/motivation/support. It may sound lame, but it's really great honestly. It's nice to be able to express all these things without judgment, especially when it comes to weight related things. Off track again, anyways after all that stuff Wednesday night ended the same way. Thursday was the same except I actually went down for breakfast, turns out that breakfast has more variety now. Before they only had sliced deli meats, cheeses, bread, fruit, juice, milk, and coffee. Now they have all that plus hard boiled eggs, sliced tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, and various yogurts. Being that I wish to lose weight I stuck with cucumbers, the egg-white part of a hard boiled egg, a yogurt, 2 kiwis, and coffee. Mike actually walked in with a new player from Russia right when I sat down to eat breakfast. They sat down with me and Mike told me that his teammate was going to join us on Saturday to go to Barcelona city. The rest of Thursday and Friday were the same as the last few days. I had breakfast again on Friday and Saturday (trying to make that a habit), after breakfast on Saturday I went upstairs to get ready for our outing, Mike and I met his teammate downstairs and we all walked to the train station, which is ridiculously close and I didn't even know it, it only took 1 train to get to Plaza Catalunya so it's extremely convenient actually. Plaza Catalunya is basically the beginning of La Rambla, so from there we walked along the middle of the street and found the Decathlon (huge sporting goods store), we walked into a couple of other stores, and then decided to walk towards the beach. It's a pretty long walk so when the family that's reading this comes to visit make sure to bring your walking shoes! We stopped to have lunch at a place called Tapas Club, the food was really good. I had the shrimp and avocado salad with a Sangria Rosado, Mike had a burger with an Estrella Damm beer, his teammate had a pizza along with 2 Estrella Damm beers and 9 shots of tequila. Yes you read that right, 9 shots. This guy had 9 shots in one sitting, like WTF. I would have been on my ass after 5! We all had a good time though, we were joking around and laughing. I could tell Mike's teammate (his name is like Wolvo or something, I don't know how to spell it) was feeling pretty...happy...after the first 6 shots, he drank the last 3 down, we paid and left. Wolvo was on the hunt for this one specific bar on the beach called Maka Maka, it was down a ways more from where we were but we found it. We went inside, Wolvo went to the bathroom, Mike and I sat down and Mike turned to me and said, "I'm ordering something with bread or a lot of grease to sober this guy up!" That just might have worked too if Wolvo hadn't ordered another beer and 3 MORE SHOTS. But still Mike and I ordered a bucket of garlic and parmesan fries (they came in a literal bucket too), I ordered the Big Maka burger to share with Mike. Besides Belgian fries, those were the best fries I've ever had and the burger was good as well. After paying we left and walked onto the beach, I kid you not Wolvo stripped down to his boxers and ran into the ocean. Mike and I just stood on the sand cracking up, it was starting to get dark so when he came out of the water and put his clothes back on we started to make our way back to Plaza Catalunya. Wolvo was so drunk he was stumbling every so often and asked basically anyone he could where he could get some weed. It was all fun up until that point, Mike and I just didn't want him to get in trouble so we all got in one of those bike taxis to get back to Plaza Catalunya faster. This guy was literally yelling to random people as we passed them saying, "I NEED WEEEEEDDDD!" Then he'd go off and start rambling on in Russian. It was quite an adventure to say the least. We finally made it to Plaza Catalunya, walked down to the metro, got on the train, got off at our stop, walked to the hotel, and called it a night. Mike and I were pooped out, we fell asleep so quick. Next weekend we're going back to Barcelona city, but just us next time though! Here are some pictures from yesterday:



 

 

 

XX - Amanda!