Back to Warm Weather

The rebuilt Warsaw city center

It's great to be back in some nice weather. I returned back to Spain this past Sunday and I am enjoying that I do not need to wear two pairs of pants. After I left Krakow, I went to Warsaw and spent two nights there. Warsaw is completely different than Krakow for obvious reasons. Almost the entire city was destroyed after WWII and although they have rebuilt this city and I know people are living there, it kind of has a dead vibe. There were times where I would be walking and not see people, restaurants, or stores for 20 minutes. It was freezing, but even on the coldest day in a city people will be out and about. They rebuilt the town square and one of the main streets with the intentions to replicate what was once there before the war and it looks nice but I almost felt like I was on the set of a movie because it just did not seem real. It's hard to explain, but I guess that after more than 60 years Warsaw is still working on becoming the city it probably was in the past. I spent a lot of my day there looking for buildings that were from before the war, and although they exist, there are not many. Overall Warsaw is an OK city, but I kind of feel bad for it.

After being in freezing cold weather and remembering Chicago winters I was frightened to imagine what my next year will be like in the cold Midwest. I really don't know if I will be able to handle it after my body has nicely adjusted to mild winters. My body is basically rejecting the cold so we'll see what happens next year, maybe I can convince someone (?) to move somewhere warm with me, haha.

I had an interesting incident on my way back to Spain. I arrived to Madrid on Sunday and went to the bus station to buy my ticket to Granada and the woman working told me that all of the buses are full and the next one would be Monday at 7 am., so bought it. I was not ready for an unprepared bus station sleep so I went to go talk to the bus driver for the 11 pm bus. I was hoping that someone would not show up and I could get on. He told me he had to make another stop in Madrid and he could not guarantee that a seat would be open. There was another woman waiting who wanted to do the same, but she had a 1 am bus ticket. So we sat together and chatted and then she left to go catch her bus and I was left alone to contemplate the next 6 hours. Well she new how badly I wanted to leave and talked to the bus driver who came to get me from the station to tell me there was in fact space on his bus. So thanks to this nice Spanish woman I was able to take the 1am bus. Now why the woman working told me otherwise I am not sure, but I know to basically not listen when people tell me buses are full, or I could always buy my ticket in advance.

I started at the University of Granada this past week. I am taking two literature classes and some how I have the same teacher for both classes which I think is going to be good, well I hope . I am kind of lost as to what is going on but I know that we are using the same books for both classes so I guess that is a positive. My teacher goes on some intense rants and it is really easy to flake out and not pay attention. When I try to re-enter into thought it's hard because he speaks fast. Overall I don't think it is going to be to bad, but of course I say that now, we'll see what happens in a few weeks.