Well, it´s coming up to 2 months that I´ve been in Spain and I would say the honeymoon is well and truly over, the novelty has worn thin and the bubble has well and truly burst! I had to summon up much effort to fill my journal entry for this month, cos as you might has guessed the initial novelty of being over here has reduced to the mundane routine of everyday life. But since I´m coming to the end of my time in Valencia, I´ve decided to sum up the strength to recount my experiences in the last month or so.....
Easter was so crazy! 3 days in Roma and then 3 days in Barcelona were pretty amazing, but pretty expensive too! I don´t think I´ve every travelled like that before. To get to Rome, I had to travel 3 hours by train to Barcelona, catch a cab in Barca to the bus stop cos I had only half an hour to catch the last bus that would take me to Girona airport that day which was one hour away! Let´s just say that I was very lucky. There was ten of us in Rome staying in 2 different youth hostels - a certain lady arrived without realising she was staying in a "mixed dormitory"! Boy did we have fun though. Seeing the coloseum and the other sights, being led around by lying, money hungry tour guides called "Stefan". Unfortunately we were unable to see the late Pope before he died (RIP). We went to the colloseum on Good Friday so u can imagine how long the queue was. I even managed to catch up with an old high school friend from Nigeria who lives in Rome now. Boy can that girl cook! Saturday, my bro and I flew back to Barcelona while everyone else returned to London. Barcelona has got to be my favourite city right now. Beautifully arranged exotic trees, the beach, Park Guell, La Sagrada Familia, all the Gaudi architecture...it´s a must see. The clubs weren´t bad either! Jamboree in particular (in Placa Reial) played the best r´n´b´& hip hop music light years ahead of London too. They have some crazy live Jazz and Hip Hop bands too. I think I´ll have to buy a retirement home in Barcelona....Needless to say, more money was spent that week than the whole two months I´ve been in Spain!
Anyway, enough about my easter holidays! I know, this is meant to be about my time in Valencia, not my holidays. Well, in the month since Easter, not very much has happened over here. In the past month, I´ve studied really hard, I´ve moved up in class another level to intermediate Spanish, played some football with friends, enjoyed Chelsea reaching the CL semi-finals and all but winning the Premiership in my abscence.....you know routine everyday stuff that you guys are all doing too. What´s more, I´ve had to exercise mad crazy maturity and patience with my hostess, who if u recall I told you was very nice and sweet, but unfortunately is a roller-coaster of emotions. No, more like and earthquake of emotions. She´s been very grumpy about everything lately, she can be impatient, rude, sarcastic and so on. Always trying to blame me for anything that happens in her house and quite frankly isn´t grateful enough that she has such a tranquil and mild-mannered guest as myself! I´m only tolerating her cos her food is great (LOL). Okay, enough of the rant about that.
I think I´ve been to church twice here in the past month, though the last couple of times I decided to have church in my room after the experience I had at the Redeemed (RCCG) church here. I had been back to the other church I visited (Four Squares) which was perfectly fine, but I decided I must try Redeemed since that´s my church in London (Jesus House) and I love that one so much. Let´s just say, the trip reminded me of all the reasons why so many young peeps don't like to go to church in Nigeria. Even though the sermon was only 30 minutes long, they kept me there for like 5 hours! It was 6pm b4 I left that place! It started with like an hour and a half of praise and worship, but when I thought it would be over after the sermon at 3.30pm they proceeded to announcements, church building fund offerings, baby dedications for the next like 2 hours.
Indeed the baby dedication (only 1 oh!) took like one hour, you know how Naijas know how to extend church. The worst was yet to come - when they asked first-timers to stand up, like 30 people came to shake my hand within seconds. However, when I went for the new members reception, no one came to talk to us. Only one pastor came to preach to us for like 10 minutes (I really hate it when peeps start preaching to you without even asking you anything about urself to see whether it's in context or not). So there I was, hungry, tired and having many other things to do. The guy offered us a can of coke each and biscuits as if it was a banquet - meanwhile the guy who dedicated his baby had provided jollof rice for the whole church. The guy preaching to us had time to stop and ask someone passing where his own rice was, and put it one the table in front of us, b4 continuing his mini-sermon. Dude did not even have the courtesy to offer us some rice also. As I was leaving, (which I probably should have done 2 hours b4), I said no thanks to the biscuits, and that I needed to get a proper meal. Even then, he didn't have the courtesy to offer! I ended up having to walk half the way home and had "lunch" at 7pm, after in my opinion, kinda wasting my whole day...
So anyway, since then, I´ve been having church solo! Using some messages on CD which I hadn´t listened to yet. Fola, you need to hook me up with some more Jesus HOuse messages and also that John Stoddard CD! Never mind, I´ll sort myself out when next I get back to London. Other than that, there isn´t very much more to say! I´ll be moving unto Seville in a couple of weeks, leaving Valencia, the fond memories I´ve had here and some really cool people behind. It´s a shame I have to be moving on just when I feel I´m making serious progress in the Spanish thing. Yeah, I´m really enjoying watching lots of movies and cartoons in Spanish. I saw "Tienes un email" (you´ve got mail) in Spanish and enjoyed it very much and even got most of the jokes even though I had never seen it in English (and probably never would have). Yeah, getting jokes in Spanish is hilarious even if it´s dry cos half your delirium is that you actually understood the joke! I even bought the box set of "Alias" the other day and started watching it in Spanish (anyone who watches that show will know that they almost talk too fast in English!).
Ohh, look at the time! I must be off, cos Chelsea is about to give Liverpool another ass-whopping in the Champion´s League and I gotta see that! What´s more, I´m about to be very late for dinner and me thinks Pilar won´t be too pleased! Take care, God bless and if anybody wants to call my lonely soul while I´m out here in Spain, my number is 0034-677-044-759. If you call, I know you´ve made it to the end of the amazingly long journal!
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