Hi my dear all,
I wanted to wish you a very Happy Christmas and all the best for the New Year, and to tell you a little bit about my life the last few months :) It's just an email to read quietly, not very long but not too short, just to let you know something about my experiences in Argentina and Valencia.
As you probably know already, I moved to Spain in September but I went to Argentina for 6 weeks in October to visit friends and take a rest from myself :) And although it may seem unbelievable, I did take a rest and stayed most of the time in Buenos Aires where my friends live. I only travelled to a couple of places arranged by my friend Mariana.
Mariana and I met 20 years ago in Madrid when she came to spend a year here, as her father (pilot in the Argentinean Navy) had been assigned to Madrid. When I was picked up at the airport by Mariana in Buenos Aires, she told me something that shocked me: "do you know that when we met in Madrid, my parents had our age now??"...."what???????" I never had that impression :) In my eyes I’m still a child :D
Argentina was really great. I simply love the country and its peeps, and Mariana invested a lot of time showing me all the places she’s been talking about in her letters for 20 years. Not only that, but also doing the things she knew I like doing, like watching the stars, going to the Planetarium, going to listen to music or watch Tango and many other things. I’m such a lucky girl :)
I had a lot of time to hang around, and to read!!! Yes, how I missed that...It seemed to me like I was back at my parents’ house in the mountains outside Madrid when I was a child and I spent most of my summer holidays reading and reading some more...I recommend you the 3 books I read: Ami, Child of the Stars (actually for children, but I found it's a great book for adults, by Enrique Barrios), The bridge across forever (Richard Bach, I re-read it, and I liked it a lot just like the first time) and The snow society by Pablo Vierci, which tells you about the amazing story of the survivors of a plane crash in The Andes in 1972. Unfortunately this book is only in Spanish, but you can read "Alive" in English, or watch the film of the same name, or another one, "Stranded", or visit the website http://www.viven.com.uy/571/Eng/ or just read briefly about the story here because it’s something which shows how the spirit of survival can lead you to go beyond unimaginable things.
Another thing I did in Buenos Aires was to watch live concerts (how strange, I know ;)). I had the best guide ever, Julieta (Marian's sis), who is a singer and an expert of the Buenos Aires night life. I just loved the local bars, the atmosphere, the bands and the people I met :) Buenos Aires is really a very interesting city with loads of cafés, beautiful bookshops, wonderful trees, nice people and lots of movement!!! A little chaotic, yes, but that’s part of its charm.
One of my fav places near Buenos Aires was the Paraná Delta, an amazing place very close to Buenos Aires. It was such good fun going on collective motorboats (boat buses), walking along the river in the small islands and crossing funny log bridges!! :)
And after that, back to Valencia, Madrid and Berlin, where I only wanted to see Marillion with Deep Purple and meet friends originally, although I also ended up sorting out things from my move. My lovely second home :)
Afterwards back to Valencia, where I moved to my new shared flat with Edu and Lucas. The flat is in the centre, close to the river, and I’m just a 15-20min cycle away from everything...Valencia is such a great city!!!! And most of all, those marvellous friends I have there, most of whom I met through Marillion (so many things for which to thank Marillion!!!)
So now that I’ve settled down here, I’ve begun looking for a job and have got a couple of things in mind. One of them, and the one I’d like the most, is to work for Berklee College Of Music (www.berklee.edu), which is opening a new campus in Valencia. Yippee!!
So that’s all folks....now you know where I am. Take care you all xxxxx
