Aly's Spain Adventure

Read about what I'm doing while in Spain so you can keep up with me!

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Location: Des Moines, Iowa, United States

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Day 13
Wednesday
So of course I was tired this morning so I decided to have another cup of coffee. I’m sure I’ll be addicted soon and not even think about the horrible taste. So I decided that it would be fun to go to Oktoberfest in Germany for my birthday. As I’ve discovered some people do not know what Oktoberfest is so I will explain. In Munich, Germany it is basically the biggest party and beerfest in the world. There are like 16 different beer tents and the party goes on for 2 weeks. It actually mostly occurs in September (this year Sept. 16-Oct. 3) even though it’s called Oktoberfest. Basically take like Mardi Gras or something and multiply it by 3 or 4 and that might equal Oktoberfest. So I found two girls who wanted to go with me, Dawn and Katy who each ironically had their luggage lost for a while. They are both studying at Nebrija with me as well. So after class I went to the computer lab at school and started looking for flights and hostels which I knew would be hard since it’s such late notice. One thing that’s nice about Europe is that flights in between the countries are usually 100euro or less. Unfortunately though since it’s Oktoberfest the cheapest I could find was 150 which sounds cheap until you add in taxes and then it equals 280euro. Ouch! Also I couldn’t find a hostel in Munich but I saw one in Augsburg which is pretty close but we would have to take the train to Munich and apparently the trains in Germany are very expensive. After a while of looking I decided to give up for the day. My friend Claudia said she would try and help me if she could (she used to live like 500m from Oktoberfest). Also while I was in the computer lab I met two people named Alex (a girl from Canada) and Bernardo (a guy from Mexico City) who were looking for a piso. I felt very good to be able to help them telling them which websites to look at and which agencies to try. I let them know that if they needed anything else they could give me a call. At least I went through all that torture of trying to find a piso for something-so I could help someone else. So then I hopped on the bus and at my connection was actually able to figure out which bus to get on next. So I grabbed a bocadillo for lunch with a yogurt and actually texted both Emily and Joanna to see if I could use one of their internets. Joanna answered me first so I decided to go there. Since the metro is closed near her I took the bus and at my connection decided to take a slightly different bus to see if I goes closer to school (she lives right by school). Of course I didn’t get off at the right place and SURPRISE! I got lost. I eventually found her place but of course my phone had died and I didn’t know which number she was. After ringing all of them and not having her answer I was pretty discouraged but I decided to try and get my phone to turn on long enough to get her number and then call her from a pay phone. I got the number! But I couldn’t figure out how to use the pay phones. I saw someone use one a few days later and apparently you put the coins in one at a time and push this button thing to put the coin into the actual machine. Yeah didn’t figure that out, wonder why? ☺ So after kind of wandering a bit I decided to go to a locutorio (do we all remember that this is an internet café?) and give her a call because they have phones you can use there too. I got a hold of her and she told me which place to ring. She said she heard it ring before but didn’t answer because she was alone. Oh well. So I finally got to her place, almost in tears being exhausted and frustrated for about an hour. I ended up not really using the internet that much though. We chatted for quite a while and then her roommate Oonai (not sure how to spell it but it’s pronounced oo nai). Her roommate is from Pais Vasco which is a autonomous community (I think that’s right) in the north of Spain. There are 17 autonomous communities in all that make up Spain. Anyway, Pais Vasco is very interesting because they have a very very different dialect that is basically another language and it is actually one of the oldest languages. Oonai helped me to try and call the internet people at Ono. Unfortunately their computer system was down so they said they’d call us back. They didn’t really call us back that night, so I hung out a little longer and then headed home. I took the night bus and got home safely. It was around 1am by the time I got home. Another late night like always!

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Aly! You are having quite the adventures! Hope things will work out with your internet, I'm sure they will: you're a problem solver! Love you!

6:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, and that was Nora by the way! hehe :)

6:51 PM  

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