No soy tan vaga ¡en Halifax!
martes 27 de septiembre de 2011
El otro lado del atlántico
lunes 26 de septiembre de 2011
Somewhere over the...
As we are reaching the top lawyers of the Earth, the clouds are melting with the ground and it seems they are just sawing me a way. It would be so easy to just jump from one to the other! Though they are just taking another path, not the one I am starting today so I have to apologize to them: just wait for me… maybe I can follow you in the future.; but not today. Now it is my moment for the second step of a path that started 365 days ago.
August, 31 2010. How can I forget that date? I remember that day I was out most of the time. I do not remember exactly my day though I remember that I was having a coffee, or just talking, with a great friend and then I met a “new neighbor acquisition” (another really good friend) to go for a run. However I really remember when I came back it was around 10pm and I did what now it has become another “vital task”: check my mail.
“I am glad to inform you that you have been accepted”. Wait a second. What??? I had to rub my eyes and read it again. Was that meaning that at the end my plan A was going to work? That after all, after that sunny, horrible (but also amazing thanks to a really important person) day a month ago in Ovio where I realized I have to find a new plan C – plan B was not working neither- I was going to get my plan A at the end? And that last horrible month trying to find a new way was going just to be over?
So, I did what I do when I am scared, when I do not know what to do. I run into the kitchen to find my father and explain him all the plans and future alternatives. After that, I made some calls. And I decided. After that, I also stop doing plans and I decide no more having always one or two alternative plans. No more planning.
365 days after that. The first stage of that the decision is just over. The second, and last round, is starting.
Several miles upper, here I am. Everything is now white. As it is cloudy clouds are not brighten but their mantle is still amazing. It seems like when you have a coffee with a lot of cream. You know that what it is under is amazing and perfect, and indeed, it is what you want, the coffee but still you feel you want that cream to long forever… . Bye Leipzig, I hope to see you soon. Bye Germany and Europe, I wil miss you too. But it is time to cross the ocean and say, Hello Halifax!
domingo 20 de marzo de 2011
Recuerdos: Mosel, Trier and life
Mosel, cradle of theRiesling wine. The Moselle, the river that divides Trier. Augusta Treverorum, Karl Marx’s birth city, was my city during one semester. It was the winter semester 2006/07. I said goodbye to the city several days after carnival.

Hallo Trier, hola Mosel, hello Carnival. The city greets me again (and to all their tourists too). The sun, wise, is shinning to reflect all the colors of the clean water of the Mosel. Surrounding me, everything is sparkling. The green of the grass contrasts with the brown of the naked trees. Life is starting to grow in them again, just to advice everyone that a new spring will come.
Four years later everything is the same, all has changed. Me too. I cannot avoid remembering all those little moments here, all the things I did. Some of these memories were locked in my mind. Now, they come back. All are good, of course. It is said that the human beings keeps the good reminds and forget the bad ones, but how can anyone remember bad situations walking down the Mosel alone in a sunny Saturday?
Mosel’s water looks the same as four years ago but as I know it is not the same. The river, also, perceives that the one that is now looking at it has change too. As well as we do not notice most of our memories, men are, continuously, changing. Meanwhile the water of the river flows to the sea, our life goes to one, clear and inevitable, end. During that way we learn, we suffer, we laugh. We live.

As I am looking at the Mosel or at the Constantine Basilica, I realize how much I have lived. It has not been as I was dreaming four years ago at all. I am surely not in the part of my way where I was imaging I was going to be but, at the end, I learnt dreams and projects come and go. We cannot control most of the factors than influent our daily life. Only, we can see backwards, watch the path we have walked and ask ourselves two simple questions: am I happy? Am I the kind of person I want to be? At the end, almost nothing else matters.
I have no job, I am far from most the people I love but I am happy. I stop looking for happiness and suddenly, I found it just by living. I found it these days, walking through Trier again, having a drink with an old friend and, making new ones. But more important, I am proud of myself, I like the kind of person I am becoming although, the river and the city have reminded me that I was going to continue changing and there are still a lot of path to walk. I made some promises to myself to go on in this way. I do not know when I am going to come back but I am really sure, i won't be the same and neither the city nor the river. Everything will seem the same but it won't. I hope I can say again to the river: Hallo! Wie geht’s?, but what I really hope to is to look again at the last years and realize I could be still proud of myself.
viernes 31 de diciembre de 2010
My 2011 ABC
I'm going to take another's friend idea. It seems I have no imagination. It might be or maybe I just don't want to think about a post... and her idea was really great (and she took it from another friend too). But instead of writing my 2010 dictionary, I'm going to write the 2011 one.
A: for my name (Ana) and my city's name (Alcalá). That is also the only vowel as in my name and surname as in my city "short" name. I'm not going to be in my city most of the year but I belong to it. I'm part of it as I reckon my name makes myself too. Besides, some of my best friends' name have these vowel (and two of them have only "A" too).
B: for Berlin. That city I always loved and I've visited last year. It was only a day but next year I hope I'll stay there longer.
C: for Coffee. I expect to drink lots of cups of coffee: as breakfast, at the Uni, at a Café, alone, with friends…
D: for Dictionaries. English/Spanish; German/Spanish (I hope); and maybe Polish/Spanish
E: for English and Essays. The language in which I’m going to use most of the year and the Essays I’ll have to write in that language.
F: for Future. Because 2011 is my future and I hope it will bring good things.
G: for Global Studies. There's no need for more explanations
H: for Home and Happiness. Because I'm going to miss my home but I realized I have two homes now and in both I feel really happy.
I: for India. I think it's my only desire right now. I really would love to go there... I have no expectations I get it but I still have hope.
J: for Job. Maybe I'm not going to have a job in 2011 but at least I hope the economic situation will be better than last year.
K: for Kaleidoscope. Because there are almost no words with K and I like that thing.
L: for Leipzig. My current city. My new home and the place I’m going to spend half of the 2011 year.
M: for Mobile phone and Mail. Two useful tools I need to keep in touch with friends and family.
N: for New. For all the new (bad and good) things that are coming, new places, new experiences, new friends, new knowledge. And News
O: for Opera. I really want to go to the Opera in 2011
P: for Posts. I hope to continue working in the cinema blog and writing in this blog so I’ll have to write many posts.
Q: for the Questions I still need to get an answer / answers (and I hope to get in 2011)
R: for “Risa”. Because I hope to continue laughing and smiling and also, be able to make people smile and laugh.
S: for Santander. Because I have a best friends’ wedding there this summer
T: for Tee and Time. What else can I ask for?
U: for Unexpected. Everything can happen.
V: for Visits. Because I hope I'll receive some visits in 2011
W: for Wroclaw and Wien. The first one is the place where I'm going to be in the course 2011/12 and the second one, where most of my master friends from this year will be.
X: for XXX.
Y: for “yo” ( me) and for you. For Amaya.
Z: for “zapatos” (shoes). I love shoes and I expect to buy some this year.
jueves 16 de diciembre de 2010
Santa Claus letter / Carta a los Reyes Magos
One of the people I most admire and love has a great habit: write every year her "Santa Claus Letter" (or three kings letter) in her blog. When the year is almost finished, she reviews it. I´ve never done that so this will be my first (and I hope not only) time. I cannot review what I was asking for last year but I still remember some of my dreams and hopes.
Last year I was trying to fix my life… personal and professional. As it is most difficult to sort out the professional one, I focus on the personal… with the risks it carries.
What was I doing last year in December? I was in Siemens Spain with an internship and also I was thinking about applying for a Master Course… I knew how the laboral situation was in Spain but as all my dreams (so the ones of some friends) had gone away I started to doubt about my decisions, myself… At the end I did the worst thing I could ever have done: instead of trying to fix myself, I focused on someone else. That was a huge mistake. First, fix yourself, and then you can go to try to find someone… who deserves you.
Where am I now? My Facebook says that I am in Leipzig. But it cannot say anything about how I’m feeling now. I am not going to talk about that here, only I can say I come to study because I didn´t want to be in Spain with more internships and I wanted to improve my career. I’m studying (or reading).
So, without more delay… this is my Santa Claus letter for next year
Worst “2010” feelings
1. - Lose my self-confident. Think that I do not deserve anything better, that all my decisions were wrong, and that I was bad at my job… Feel that I was a disaster and my completely life was a failure (and that maybe my parents were right when they asked me to do a scientific degree).
2. - Look how my friends were trying to fight too. Look how they were falling down. Know that I couldn´t help them. Try to help them and fail in my attempt.
3.- Suffer anxiety (and cry and cry) because everything was wrong, because my parents couldn´t understand my situation, how I was feeling.
4. - The moment I received the negative answer (or the “no but maybe”) of the master I was trying to study. That sensation (for the first time in my life) that I had no more “B plans” left, that I was fighting a year for nothing.
5. - Assume that life is not fair. Assume that people are not good. Assume that people can disappoint you.
6. - Try to achieve someone
love to feel better (or to try to fix a part of my life). Listen “I don´t love you” but go on, continue trying to get that simple three words, just to feel that one part of my life was correct ( I still think I didn´t love him too). Just trying to have someone to love and don´t even pretend to get the feeling back. Put all my efforts and my hopes in someone and know, not only he didn´t deserved them, but also that that was not the right thing (and that was a road without end). Not be strong enough to stop that relationship. That trip to Toledo and thodr nights I spend crying in his bed.
7. - Know that, despite all the work, my internship was unworthy, that I was going to stay at home again without any kind of job opportunity.
8. - When a friend called me (at work) to tell me where she had being the night before (and with whom). That moment, the feeling of stop believing in love
9.- My friends and family health problems.
Best 2010 moments
1. - Come back home after a great day and found an email. I got accepted in the master (at the end!).
2. – Realize I start to believe in me again; I start to “glue myself together”, to heal myself. Feel that everything has made me not only stronger but also a better person.
3.- Look how some of those friends are starting to find their ways: new jobs, new experiences and boyfriends, future weddings..
4. - Phone -crying and without being able to speak- to that friend (or those friends)… and get her support.
5.- The “Camino de Pelayo”. Those wonderful days out of Madrid, walking, singing and enjoying life with a great company and recovering part of my strength back to look for more “B plans”
6. - Make new friends: those “job fellows”, the ones from French classes, that boy from that English conversation at the Uni… and my new international friends from the Master. That moment, that day, when you just wake up and starts to feel that some peole are starting to be important to you; that moment when you realize they have stop being “people that you know” to start to become to be “friends”.
7.- The first snow in Leipzig. Go to the Uni and look through the window how the snow was falling. That color mixture between the green of the ground and the trees and the white of the snow. Feel the snow in my face.
8.- Find that I can be far away but my friends are still here whenever I need them so it seems as they are really close to me… and that I can always have coffee or a beer with them when I´m at home.
9.- Laugh in Berlin (and also some moments in Leipzig, Viena, Weimar, Poland…). Those moments where it seems that time has stopped and everything is just perfect.
10.- Realize I can fall in love, start to believe in it again but do not really worry about that. Realize that for first time I do not need a man next to me saying “I love you”.
Desires (and hopes) for 2011
1. - Stay alive. My family, my friends and me. At the end, it is the most important, just breathe.
2. - Go on being optimist and enjoying the life. Always trying to be a good and nice person
3.- Finish to heal myself
4.- Learn what Globalization is, thought it has now answer, but during that way, continue to know and meet really interesting and nice people (and I hope that, in the future, maybe not all of them but some will be real “friends”).
5.- If I decide to be in a relationship, do not lose myself. Do not be with someone that is not going to fight for me or that deserves me.
6.- Make my friends life easier, help them to achieve their dreams and stay there when they have to get over their fears and nightmares.
That´s all. It was really hard because this year was really painful, because telling our fears, our feelings and our hopes is being vulnerable but it was worth. Probably the order is not correct (and sometimes also the use of the language) so sorry for that. Also I want to remark that despite of all the awful things, it was a good year. I learned from bad situations and at the end, I think I’m more mature, better person and stronger.
Pd. Si alguien desde mi querido pais tiene problemas para entenderlo, que me lo diga.
viernes 26 de noviembre de 2010
Continuando... Thanksgiving con "spanish omelette" y nieve

jueves 28 de octubre de 2010
Aquajogging y "Krampf"
