angry hairdressers

i'm used to hairdressers being impolite to me, making disrespectful comments on how much more care my hair seemingly needs and gazing sniffily at its uncombedness. now i realized that female shoemaker cashiers can be just the same. dude, i'm coming here because my shoes are broken and in a bad state! i'm giving them to you that you repair them and not look at me as if i'm a bad person for not taking better care of my shoes.
next time, i will certainly say: "if you don't wanna repair them, you just need to tell me and i can certainly take them somewhere else!" argh! i'm soo angry! (i had such a nice shoemaker in goettingen, just across the street from my home. one of those guys with dirty hands and apron; the room smelling of shoe shine and leather. and no disdainful horror in the sight of my shoes.)
unfortunately it is disproportionally harder to run away from a hairdresser's chair when it's getting too bad ("look at how nice your hair looks when it is brushed!"). well, i didn't come here for brushing!

last comments in retrospective

i'm back in germany now, actually already since a few days. my last day in barcelona was nice although dominated by misfortune. i had planned to finally reach the top of the tibidabo ("i will give you", look up the name's origin here), which i actually also had already tried before. there are two ways up the hill; for the first one you can first use the "tramvia blau", or, if this doesn't run, a substitutional bus and after that you take the "funicular de tibidabo"; for the second way, you take the metro and after that the "funicular de vallvidrera". the first time i tried to get up there, the funicular de tibidabo didn't run any more. now, on my last day, i was earlier, even the tramvia blau still ran. i waited in line for an hour, then got fed up and decided to take the bus instead. -- only to find out that the bus really only runs, when the tramvia blau doesn't. this took me half an hour to find out. so i decided to take the other route and went quite a bit to take the metro etc. but then, the metro didn't stop at the stop i needed to get off. at this point i realized that i wasn't meant to reach the tibidabo that day and i gave it up. i strolled through the city for a few hours instead. that was all fine, except for my feet which got a little sick...

i stayed the night at the airport where nothing exceptionally happened. and now i'm back.

school is gonna start tomorrow -- and i don't wanna go...

alicante -- escaping once, escaping twice

so today i took the bus to alicante. i had slept long into the day and even then not hurried, so that i had only 2,5 hours to spend in alicante -- between the two 2,5-4 hour bus rides. but that was still fine. alicante is even less interesting and less pretty than valencia -- and smaller, too, of course. so two hours were totally enough for that place. i don't mind bus rides either -- in the contrary: i enjoy them. the first ride was actually rather interesting as the bus stopped in several villages/ small towns, so that i could get an impression of them as well. most exciting was the city of benidorm, which seems to be entirely made up of high rises. -- an almost surreal view.
tomorrow i will go back to barcelona, my last day. and i will love it all the more as i do know now that its beauty and atmosphere are unrivaled.

valencia

yesterday in late afternoon i arrived in valencia. the bus trip took about 4 hours and it was rainy. the views weren't too great. after i had checked in at the hostel (i had booked before, amazingly) i took a stroll through the city. -- and was really disappointed. valencia has a small town atmosphere and is nice, but not super pretty. someone told me, it's the third largest town... it certainly doesn't make the third largest impression. so in the evening (after about 2 or 3 hours of walking around) i decided that i had seen most of valencia and started to wonder what i'd do the next day.
in the evening i had a desire for social contact, so i made an effort to be happy-funny-extravert-christina which resulted in me having dinner with my two australian room mates (males) and later on going out for a drink with my three french room mates (females). all of it was quite nice and i was happy that talking to people had such immediate results.
still, it's not easy to find people you wanna hang out with all the time -- not to mention travel mates... sometimes, if the desire for socializing is too strong, i just do that, and it can be nice for a little bit. but then it feels like a waste of time and too much of an effort to be nice, show interest and keep the conversation going. at that point you realize that you were just socializing, not making friends.

enough barcelona

i just booked a hostel in valencia for tomorrow. i didn't manage to go to the bus station today to buy a ticket aforehand, so i hope it will be fine to just go there tomorrow and hop on spontaneously. (it should be a 4-5 hours ride.)
why i am leaving? i like bus rides. i saw most of barcelona (i feel) and i don't wanna go to museums this time. i was disappointed by the park güell today. i can still do a cablecar ride on thursday. i wanna see what is behind the city.
-- am i actually justifying my leaving?! i guess, i just didn't find a place where i wanna hang out more. maybe i'm just being moody. but the nice thing is: i can afford the moodyness right now. let's see what will happen.
-- i miss genova.

some, just some pictures

sightseeing

i made a huge sightseeing tour today. in barcelona there are two different sightseeing bus companies and one of them is comparatively cheap: 21 euros for one and 27 euros for two days. i bought the two days ticket, which turned out to be unnecessary, as i already made all three available tours. i might try to sell my ticket tomorrow, but i feel that i might not be successful, as the ticket vendors are always around the bus stops.
the sightseeing was sweet, but as a village person the feeling grows that i wanna find a way to escape the city into the green. tomorrow, though, i might first see the parc güell and the montjuic. there are also various (and famous) cablecars (funicular), which i'm interested in. i fear, though, that this is another activity which isn't so much fun to do alone.
on the other hand i overcame my announced reluctance today and went to a restaurant to find some typical food. it was ok, but not great. (the experience as a whole and the food.) it was expensive, though, and i think that i can now quietly resort to more fast-foody things again as i now don't need to assume that i just didn't dare.
what else? i think, contrary to my habits and known pleasures i might go shopping tomorrow. i need some flip flops for the showers (eeek!) -- well, that doesn't count. but i also took a shine to the idea to buy a dress. well, we'll see. also, i need a map (for the getting out of here thing).
that's it. i'll try to upload some pictures now.

read this!

the shadow of the wind

this day...

... did not keep its promise. when i left the hostel, i was really happy and excited. but that wore off pretty quickly. why? i blame it on the sleepless night i spent at the airport. but i'm not sure. i wonder, whether i might have had a wrong opinion about travelling alone all along. i always believed that i find this format most enjoyable, because you are really concentrated on your environment and not busy with someone else.
i also believed that i enjoyed my previous lone-travel experiences. but when i think back on them in the mood i'm in now, it seems to me that it wasn't that enjoyable at all.
today i felt really foreign and a bit lost. but there are more aspects to that which make this state of mind really hard to interpret: (1) i'm really tired. (2) barcelona is so similar to genova that it made me really sad and nostalgic. the "barri gotic" is very similar to genoa's "vicoli", for example. (i took them to be unique.) -- but barcelona ressembles other cities, too: the "passeig de gracia" could be just as well in paris (actually it's similar to the "champs élysées") or even in göteborg, as i remember it -- or zürich! (i wonder when these buildings were built -- in the beginning of the 20th century? earlier?) (3) i don't speak the language, which is all the more frustrating as i do understand a little bit, but cannot respond.
also there are a bunch of things which actually are not enjoyable alone: going out and going to a restaurant. so i won't do that.
i also have the urge to escape into the green. i think this is actually possible.
but i really like my hostel as it is in the real city-city: barcelona's champs élysées. ;-) unfortunately i have to leave after two nights, which is annoying.
maybe these kinds of city-trips are not enjoyable to me any more? i have the impression that i saw quite a few of them now. but the thing is: you need to live in them, find native friends, speak the language -- that's something completely different. or maybe i'm in the road trip age now? i do remember the road trips we did in the usa as being highly enjoyable. freee..
no, it will be fine. it's all just the tiredness. and i will see the park güell tomorrow. you need to read "in the shadow of the wind" by carlos ruiz zafon. i wish i had the book with me. it plays in barcelona. it would be so sweet to retrace it...

in the world!!! YEAH!!!

amazing, amazing, amazing! i'm in barcelona. i made it. yeah!
i found a hostel for two days. i will have to look for another one after that. it was easy so far, though. i saw the first gaudi building. it's just next door from here.
guys, it's my first time in spain. i find it hard to not be able to talk to the people in their language at all. that's so much sweeter...
anyways. i have to go out explore. man, i'm happy that i made it. thanks to the craziness-generator...
kisses all over, chr.