Srijana in Barcelona

Life can be fulfilled despite many unfulfilled wishes -by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Monday, April 24, 2006

Sant Jordi in Barcelona

Yesterday was Catalan version of Valentine's day in Spain. Here people don't really celebrate Valentine's day on 14th Feb but celebrate Sant Jordi a lot on 23rd April. According to the legend, this day was the day when Sant Jordi (Saint George) , i.e., the Patron Saint of Catalonia died. The legend says that Sant Jordi rescued a princess from a dragon who was going to kill her and red roses grew from the blood of the dragon. Since then every 23rd of april it has been a tradition for a man to give a rose to the woman he loves... it can be to his mom, sister or a very close friend. And because it is also the day when Shakespeare died, the tradition adapted to book giving by women to men.

Pradeep gave me a rose to make this day special. Of course, as usual, he didn't give me a surprise because we were together when he bought me a rose. But except the surprising part I was happy to get a special rose from him.

Yesterday my good friend Mimi and Gabriel got engaged. She was, no doubt, very happy and we, all the Research Assistants, congratulated her for the special occasion. Congrats to Mimi and Gabriel.

My enemy sinus is not leaving me. Oppsss...I wonder if this enemy will leave me in any moment of my life. It has been 2 weeks I haven't had a lot of energy like I used to have. I hope I will get better soon.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

my days

After a long Easter vacation it was not fun to go back to the work again. I had some remaining work to finish, so I had to work hard as soon as I returned back. Yesterday I completed the remaining work and showed it to my professor. Now I am more relaxed as I don't have lingering work from the days before the vacation..

The professor with whom I am working also teaches Pradeep. Since he was teaching regression and correlation which I needed for my project, he asked me to attend his class. So I did it yesterday. It was the first time I attended an MBA class and it was a fun and learning experience. It was exciting to be in an MBA class and see active participation of the students. I was waiting for Pradeep to speak in the class. Only after some time he asked a question to the professor.

Sitting at work, I am thinking something. I don't know what!! I feel like meeting my family, relatives and friends who are in Nepal and the US. I am missing them a lot. I want to talk, I want to laugh, I want to play and I want to be with them.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

"Trip to South of Spain"

Please click the following link to know about my trip to South of Spain,

http://gandaki.blogspot.com/2006/04/easter-holidays-and-road-tour-of-south.html


Being lazyyyy!!! Or no no.............being smart...!!!!!:):)

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Trip to London

I was very excited to go to London on 1st April. I was visiting my cousin there. I was excited both because I was meeting my cousin after a long time and this was going to be my first time in London.

When I reached the Gatwick airport at 1:30 am (because of flight delay), I didn't see my cousin there who was supposed to receive me. So for few minutes I was nervous and was wondering what to do. I needed coins to call him but I had none. I was running here and there to find a shop to get change but they were all closed. When I finally found change from another traveler in the airport and called him, he said he was just outside the airport. For 10 mins I was very nervous.

I was with my cousin and sister-in-law for three days. I enjoyed being with them. The first day we went to see the Buckingham palace. We were in hurry to reach there as we wanted to see the change of guards in the palace. We were about 15-20 minutes late. We saw 4 new guards coming to a guard who was already standing there. One among the 4 guards took the place of the old one. He took an oath and the other 3 and the old guard went back. We were not sure if we saw the one which we wanted to see because I had heard that all guards would be in red dress but the guards we saw were in black dress. But still we were solacing ourselves that something is better than nothing.

My sister-in-law, cousin and myself in the garden of Buckingham palace

Then we took a walk around the palace. I was excited to take photos as well. From there we went to see the Parliament House, Big Ben and London Eye. After seeing London eye, we walked sometime along the Queens walk and then took a ferry to go to the Tower Bridge. On the way I saw the tall building of Citigroup. I was happy to see it as my husband would be working there in the next 2 months. From Tower Bridge we then went back home.

Tower Bridge in the background

In the second day we went to "Madame Tussauds", a wax musuem. We had to be in a queue for an hour to buy tickets. As soon as we entered the hall, we saw a man welcoming us. I later realized that it was actually a statue. How stupid could I be! But seriously, some of the statues were very difficult to distinguish if they were live or just statues. Actually I was thinking that the statues would be inside glass boxes and people would see them from outside. But to my surprise all the statues were openly placed. People were touching and hanging on the statues. It was fun to see Jennifer Lopez blush when you whispered in her ear. Wonderful!!!!!!!!!

With Indian actress Aishwarya and Indian super actor Amitabh in "Madame Tussauds"

At home, I had some Nepali dishes which I had missed very much after I came to Barcelona. I had a great time.