My name is Luciana but not Aymar

I have to admit it, I’m not a teenager anymore, my body just proved me that.

I signed up to play field hockey here in Mataro with a bunch of teenagers. Last night it was my first day, I just loved it but now I hate it, I’m in pain, my body soars badly, can’t move a single part of it, I’m like a handicap . I would have preffered to be smashed by elephants.

We have a match on Saturday against an important club from Barcelona, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to go. It’s not that the team needs me though

Besides all the pain, I like the idea of playing Hockey again, plus I need to socialize. I’m a social gal!!!! But my body is not in a fit as it used to be.

Santa is Swedish this year

I was supposed to take this trip right after I finished my year in the States, and spend the holidays in Sweden with my Swedes, but I was so homesick to keep traveling that I went back home and decided to come to Europe this year.

The job I got has to advantages:

1) I speak English all day long, because the owners are British and German, and the teachers are from Australia, England, Poland, France, Germany and Finland.

2) Since it’s a school we are off for the holidays, from the 22nd of Dec to the 6th of Jan. Isn’t it great????!!! This is the only thing that makes me feel better when I wake up every morning at 6.45 am .

Last week I booked the tickets to go to Sweden for the holidays, I can’t explain how happy I am, most of my friends are from there and live kind of close from each other, so it’s gonna be fun.

I spent so much time with my Swedish gang in US, going to Swedish clubs, Swedish Church, eating meatbolls, drinking Vodka (until I got seriously sick or drunk if you like that better) and listening to ABBA. OH MAMA MIA I must have been Swedish in a past life, my whole year was more Swedish than American. You know… you can convert to Jewish, vegetarian, etc, well I was converted to Swedish haha. So the next step is getting to know the Country.

I’m lucky because every single Swedish speaks English, otherwise I would be fucked up, cause my Swedish…. is as good as a couple of numbers, introducing myself, and of course what you always learn first…. Cursing. Javla fitta!!!!!

Guys as you can see I’m fucking excited about it. You have no idea how much I miss you … It’s gonna be so much fun. I’m already counting down. I’m glad we are not spending new years in Times Square. “Aldrig mer”.

Can’t wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Sverige, här kommer jag!”

the salty taste of life

When you make a cake make sure you read the ingredients packages first!!!!

Ok, I’m a terrible cook, I admit it, but the recipe seemed to be quite easy: just a cup of flour, a cup of “sugar”, 3 egs and heavy cream. 40 minutes in the oven and voila!!!  Easy, right???

After I made the though I happened to try it, and…… Oh man!!!! so fucking salty. I realized that instead of using sugar I used salt, A CUP OF SALT!!!!!! Ok ok I didn’t read the package, but it just looked like the Argentine sugar package. Crap!!!

It reminds me when I was in US and I meant to make chicken with cream sauce, except that the heavy cream was sour cream, ewww. Or when I made “empanadas” in the oven and the though was for frying. Remember Andersson?? I guess I never read the packages, and I seriously suck cooking.

Anyway… I cooked the salty cake just for fun, take a look here, hahaha.  Now I’m cooking the cake again, but with “sugar” this time   

Parla Catala?

This is what I’ve been doing lately:

I got 2 jobs. One is to work as a receptionist and later as a teacher in an English institute here in Mataro. They will teach me the method they use to teach English (Callan). It’s not a conventional method, you can see for yourself a video memo class.
The job is only from 8 am to 1.30 pm, Monday to Friday, and the payment is actually quite good.

The other job is to work for Iberia, the Spanish airline, at the airport, in the check in area. I have to take a 2 week course, which starts the 12th of November. I might start working in December or January.

On Monday and Tuesday I went to La Escala, Gerona, here in Spain, to visit Paula. Paula is a close friend of mine, from Spain, that I met in Montclair, USA, who I hadn’t seen for year and a half. Paula was an Au Pair as well. She is now a flight attendant and living in Scotland. She had a few days off so she came to visit her family.

While being in US we used to talk all the time about our families, our home towns, our friends, our houses, our cultures, etc. We sort of ended up knowing a lot about our lives back home. But still, there was something missing. It’s like you meet the person but out of context. I think my other au pair friends understand what I’m saying.

Ericka: Paula keeps mixing Spanish with Catalan. And her English … well… say… improved a bit . In her family everybody speaks Catalan all the time to each other, I could only pick up some words, but let’s say… I understand Catalan as much as Paula does English .

Paula: I missed you a lot, hope we can see each other again. Scotland would be nice!!!

The following video is about my visit to Paula’s. Sorry if you are a non-Spanish speaker. Don’t try to learn Spanish from this video though. It’s not a good idea to learn Spanish from an Argentine and a Catalan

Some pictures from USA

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Long time no see!!!

As I said in the latest post when you leave home you convince yourself that you’ll be back.

When I was in 3rd year of high-school a bunch of students from Barcelona came to Rosario for a couple of weeks and I hosted one of them (Patricia). A year later me and other classmates from school came to Barcelona for a month or so, and I was hosted by Patricia and her parents in their home.

We went to school daily and had classes in Catalan, which was kinda confusing and boring at the same time , but attendance was mandatory. We also got to travel around which was interesting, except that we were 17 years old and not really into museums. Imagine how much we cared when we went to the museum of Prado. We didn’t give a …. and ended up in Planet Hollywood that was located right in-front of El Prado. A few years later I realized how big deal El Prado was, and I regretted so much about it. Last year I had the opportunity of going to Madrid for 1 day and the first thing I did was going back to El Prado, and let me tell you it was just amazing. I think it’s a matter of age, no doubt about it.

I arrived to Barcelona last Monday, It took me like 4 days to adjust to the timezone. On Wednesday I went to Patricia’s and I felt very welcome. It’s been 8 years but I felt like home. It was so great to see them again after 8 years! We’ve stayed in touch all these years.
I’m staying at my uncle’s home (my dad’s brother). I live in a city called Mataro which is about 30 minutes from Barcelona. Mataro is pretty nice. The apartment is quite big and it has a huge balcony all around, and I can see the ocean from here, which makes it more special.

Hugs from las europas

Vani

Stumbled on goodbye…

I feel like I just arrived and I’m already leaving tomorrow, which makes me think that no matter how much time I spent here it would just never be enough. It’s been hard to spend quality time with my friends and family since some are in nyc and some in Montclair, all with busy schedules I had to adjust myself to and combine with each others’ schedules. For that reason I’ve been going back and forth. I even bought a cellphone so that they could find me at anytime. Since I wanted to catch up with everyone I’ve been very busy the whole 2 weeks and I think that’s why time passed so fast.

My host mom’s parents from Texas are visiting this weekend, and so is Uncle David (my host dad’s brother from Trenton, NJ). Yesterday we went for a get-together dinner to this new Argentine restaurant “Gaucho Grill” in town. Although It was very good, I hadn’t tried some of the food they served before. And my host dad insisted that I wasn’t a real Argentine and that I probably grew up in the Bronx

On Thursday I went to a big mall in New Jersey with the new au pair because she wanted me to show her how to get there. Walking around I found the Apple Store in the mall and I couldn’t help buying the Macbook . Now I’m trying to figure out how it works, haha. I’m running out of budget but I have a Macbook

All I can say about these 12 days I spent here is that I had an amazing time, and never felt so happy in the past year, DAMN HAPPY!!! It was just great to see Oscar, my host parents, my friends, Montclair, NYC, every single thing was special to me.

It would have been even more special if all my au pair friends were here too.

As I said in another post, no matter how many times you get to say good bye to people you love, you just never get used to it. There are no words to express what you feel inside when you leave home, you just heal it by convincing yourself that you’ll be back.

A friend once wrote on this blog… “I think I read somewhere that home is not a place, home is a feeling. To you, home is being with your friends, I guess. If you have many friends and they live all around the world, then, my friend, the world is your home”.

Since my trip is all about visiting friends I guess that by the end of it I will be simply shattered, but convinced that I will be back.