Ich sono um procrastinatin Galego à Алматы...

 

Hola amig@s ¡!!

 

Well, Im glad to be back on my blog, since id been procrastinatin 4 2 long…i know… ;) …

So, lets make it easy… ill try to let u know a lil bit about my stay here in the heart of Eurasia…

 

WHAT/WHERE/WHY/WHEN?

 

Im, since mid-March, an intern at the Spanish Economic Office in Almaty (1’6 mill. inhab.), that is the only official Spanish representation in the far biggest city of Kazakhstan. The embassy itself moved to Astana (0’7 mill. inhab.) some years ago, followin the governmental transfer of the capital status from Almaty to Astana, that took place some 10 years ago.

One of the decisive factors that made me take the decision to apply for this scholarship, six months after my return from my volunteer experience at a S. Petersburg orphanage, was the fact of missing speaking my loved Russian language !!!! ;D

 

HOUSING:

 

During my first week I stayed in a very interestin hotel while lookin for a decent apartment. In the weekend I found out why the hotel was that cheap compared to its equals in town… lets put it this way: on Saturday I wasn’t able to get to sleep till late in the morning due to “conjugal” noisies spreading from different rooms around me…;D and even on Sunday I was called from the reception to be offered some “amigas de compañía”… Mamma mia !!!  hehe…

But finally I was kinda lucky, given the amazingly high housing prices, to manage to find a good apartment, close to my job…

 

PEOPLE:

 

Although u mite find it unbelievable the fact is that already durin my first week here I went 2 play some soccer with a bunch of local people !! It was rather a training for a mini-football team… for me it spelled my try-out, they really liked my technique… ;D and now im playin with them in the local league !!! weve just started this last weekend and u can check it out in this link !! ;D http://llf.ct.kz/team.php?tn=26&team=136

My name is easy to find, while the other info is all in Russian, but ull be able to check the table every week !! My team’s name is “ЦТ” (“TsT” – would b in english)…

 

On the other hand, I have also quickly got in touch with many ex-pats (foreigners workin here), mainly from France, but also from Italy, Turkey, and several english-native speakers… so that in the weekends Im really enjoyin using usually some 5 languages… ;D

 

TRIP to KYRGYZSTAN:

 

During my second weekend I was invited by some of my new international friends to join them for a short trip to this neighbour country. As u can see in the pics, there was a huge animal market (as every Sunday) in the town we stayed in, where we could talk with religious fanatics who wanted to export the Islam rule all around the world… it was as interestin as literally chillin…

 

“VISITIN” DA POLICE STATION…

 

One of my best experiences so far in this country has been the “visit” to the Detention Center for Inmigrants… as a detainee myself !!! no freakin kiddin !!! I spent there 2 hours on a Sunday nite when a police officer stopped me in the street and couldnt show him my passport coz id left it at home (its not reccomended to take it with u to a traditional Russian sauna…). So, they tried to scare me (and u can bet they did !!) telling me that Id spend the nite in prison and wed talk and solve it in the morning when Id call to my embassy (id even left the phone at home… no way then to call my colleagues !!)… Later on, they asked me “do u have, then, any proposal?” … simply amazin I thought deep inside… great euphemism to mean whether I had some money to convince them to release me… but theyd already frisked me and knew that I had nothing on me… just my Spanish ID card and my office business card… But they insisted on inviting me to spend the night in a collective cell and solve the issue in the morning…Then I could hear some prisoners saying “Он маленкий…” (“He’s small…”)… and that really scared the shit out of meeeeeeee !!!!! It rapidly came to my mind those typical movies and “legends” about prisons, newcomers and their tasty asses…

 

But hey, in the end, all this has become just a chillin experience to tell my granchildren !!!! ;D

 

Well, as u can c im really profiting from my time here in the heart of Eurasia !!!

 

If u want to know more give me a buzz (+7.777.756.09.69) !!! or just check my blog, with pics, regularly !!!

 

До свидания !!!

 

Well, as most of u know i already got here to St. Petersburg almost 5 months ago...

this is being an amazin experience not only at the sort of orphanage were im workin as a volunteer with , but also outside... ;)

I came here throu the EVS (European Voluntary Service) for a 8 months-length stay, i already feel confident speakin Russian (hoooly... dream !!!), im meetin many people constantly, travellin around a li'l bit and of course enjoyin my "job" despite the initial complexities...

However, i will let u know about the countless anecdotes havin a beer somewhere around the globe... ;)

Pfffffffff... its hard to say goodbye... lets rather say "pas adieu, mais a la prochaine,". But in fact its gonna take years 4 me to come back to this side of the Atlantic... Ill have to earn some money by myself ... hehe... Years of comfortable college life are gone with this amazin year in Kansas... Yepp I didnt expect at all such a big university, a fabulous campus and a huge international community (almost 2.000 international students)...

Well, first of all, a couple of fechas curiosas... u know... here they have the "April fools" on April 1st, its like the "Inocentadas" in Spain on December 28th... now i wonder if other countries celebrate this weird fete... Another date really intrestin from my Mediterranean perspective was on April 3rd: "National nap day" !!! i aint kiddin... i woke up that day and watched a report on CNN'bout it... but 4 me was nothin special since every day is a national nap day 4 me... hehe

So, all along these last months we, the international students, have striven hard to hang out as much as possible... every single day we had the feeling that this was an ineluctable countdown towards the return to our real  lifes after this paradisiacal experience... Many friendships that will last... forever !!! rite?? so many memories that will even outlive us...

By the way, si tutto va bene, in a couple of months ill b boundin for Eastern Europe... soon further news on that...

As i said: a la prochaine...