Sitges

The weird feeling after exams, the anticlimax as you realise that life without revision isn't all you'd idealised it to be during the endless weeks of revising, pretending to revise or avoiding revision. Having spent the last two weeks looking at flights to go home, (not to escape exams, but to be in the snow), I've now come to my senses and realised that at least for now I'm quite happy in Spain/Catalonia/Barcelona.

David, Loida, Indi, Lidia and Me

As soon as exams were over, I got the train with four friends to Sitges, a beach town 40km south of Barcelona where we'd spontaneously booked an apartment for the night the previous evening. It was so relaxing walking along the almost deserted cobbled streets, with houses instead of tall apartment buildings, palm trees, the sea, the sand and the sea breeze. We found our way to the beach and sat down in a chiringuito (a beach bar.. and apparently this one was the first one in Spain!) on the sea front and relaxed in the sun before walking along the beach to collect the keys. The confused man at reception told us we didn't have a reservation, but a phone call later our reservation had magically appeared on the system and a colleague was driving us to an apartment.

Las chicas

Recently I've been told a few times that I'm quite English. One of the reasons to back up this claim was that my skin was orange, but I think another stereotype that could single me out as English is my concept of warm and cold. In Sitges, I went swimming in the sea in January (in my pyjamas - I forgot my swim stuff) while my friends, one of whom is from Australia and the other three from Spain were sitting on the beach in wrapped up in coats and scarves playing guitars and ukuleles. If swimming in January is fun, I cannot wait for summer!!