CLOUDY DAYS AND LETTERS : March 2013

Trekking in Siurana (Tarragona), mail of the week

Okay so...! I'm officially on Spring Break! Yay! Bad news is, I have a huge cold and fever today, lol x_x But well, at least I can stay at home and take care of myself. Speaking of good news though, yesterday I went trekking to Siurana, a 200 inhabitant village in the province of Tarragona.

It's the main town of the municipality "Cornudella de Montsant" and consists of a small village at the top of an escarpment in the Prades Mountains overlooking the Siurana Reservoir and is often visited by tourists to the area for its historical piquancy and its excellent views of the Embalse and surrounding valley. Cliffs around the village are popular among climbers due to the abundance of sport climbs up to the grade of 9b.

It's a great place to visit and go for a walk, there isn't much to see since it's a super small village... But the landscapes are definitely worth it :)

I loved this teddy bear shaped rock, haha! Can you see it? :)

I have a thing for cats I have to say...

"My homeland, Catalonia My language, Catalan My dance, "Sardana" My wish, Freedom".

Vertigo?

Also we had lunch in a great restaurant in the center of Siurana, where we had typical Catalan food... Hmmmmh, I'd love to go back someday :)

As an appetizer (yes, appetizer!), bacon with grilled red peper, eggplant and fries.

Chickpeas with "sobrassada" and bacon

Pig's Trotters

Butifarra (Catalan sausage) with grilled red peper, eggplant and fries.

Lamb

Fun fact... Catalans eat snails! Yes, you might be like "yikes!", but you guys don't know what you're missing!

Last but not least, this is what I found on my mailbox this week :)

I finally got Judy's letter after one month! As always, we swapped postcards and we talked about our lives. She sent me a small Chinese paperwork as well :)

Nicole from Hong Kong sent the the most original postcard I've ever received... A wooden postcard ^_^ I loved it <3

Cute postcards from the Netherlands (Laura), Germany (Anna) and Hawaii, US (Cindi).

I wish you all a happy Spring Break! <3 I have to study for 2 exams though, but my parents are taking the first week of April and we'll be going somewhere in Spain for 4 days :) So... I'll be having almost 2 weeks of vacation! I have classes on that week though, but luckily I'll just skip Thursday's class. Once I finish my exams on Wednesday, my dad is gonna pick me up from uni and we'll be leaving to... Where? I'll let you know next week! <3

Love *coughs* x_x

Middle March snail mail update, some ups and downs too...

TA-DA! This is the late letter I received from Kelly :) Kelly was one of the first penpals I started writing letters with, back in 2011 I think! She's Canadian with Cantonese origins, and she's a lovely person to talk to :) We lost contact last year since our letters were getting lost all the time, and after one year without saying a word, she sent me a letter <3 Isn't she cute? <3 Thanks so much Kelly, hope we can be penpals for a long long time!

I got Grace's letter last week. She's going to Australia in April, yay ^_^ So we'll re-take the snail mail contact once she's back to Taiwan. In the meantime, she's gonna send me postcards from Aus :D

My deary Anna is in Spain rn ;_; <3 She's in Madrid specifically, I wish I could meet her for a few hours or something! But no *sigh* ;_; Last week I sent her letter back, so it'll be ready once she goes back home after her Spring Break. She's travelling around Europe with a friend at the moment, they visited London till yesterday and today they're in Madrid ^_^ Hope they're both having a great time in the capital!

Flickr from Australia never disappoints me. I can't describe how excited I am when I get her letters ;_; They always look so quaint and vintage...! <3 I really envy her scrapbooking/arts n' crafts skills :) Hope I can send her something legit this time! Thanks for the letter, doll <3

Jennifer sent me her second letter, yay! I liked the paper and the decorations. She's a really well-known blogger and both blogs are awesome :) She's going to Amsterdam soon and she promised me a postcard! Haha, can't wait to get it! Her letter back is ready to send next week.

This is my first letter from Kelsie from Washington (US)! She promised me to write more next time haha, hope so :D Her letter is sent already!

Last but not least, I got those two postcards from China (left) and Japan (right)~ I love how vintage this add postcard looks, and the macarons and the meido are just adorable ^^ Thanks Han and Anne! <3

Speaking of other things, nothing much happened in my life recently. Actually I've been kind of down those past few weeks, I don't really know why. Also I've been sick, then I got better and then I got sick again. I don't know what's wrong with me =_= Glad we don't have exams yet! (I have Japanese exams of course, but that's every week). Plus, I didn't get to pass the CPE mock, and my teacher doesn't reccomend me to pass it. I'm afraid to tell my parents tbh, they've been pretty pushy about it and I always feel like I'm disappointing them. They want me to get as much language certificates as I can, but I don't see why they're in a hurry. That's what my teacher asked, in fact "Why you need it now? You're trying to pass the highest Eng exam in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages... And you need it now, with 20 years? Why don't you just take your time?".

The thing is, my parents will never understand. They've always been pushy when it comes to grades, it's good to see they haven't been very pushy about my uni marks (which they're still good), but they think I could alwys do it better in English. I mean, of course I could, but I CAN'T! There's no way that I can pass that exam, actually NO ONE in my class did. NO ONE. I know that's not an excuse, but I think they don't know how eager and impatient they're being with me. They can't pretend me to get the last certificate in a year when most of English native speakers wouldn't be able to pass it either. I still don't know what to do, but honestly (I think that's kind of cruel but) I can't wait until I move to Korea, so they can see how bad they're gonna miss me.

I feel bad I haven't been with my buds lately. I feel like I'm abandoning them a little bit, but I can't help it. Everytime I'm down I always prefer to close in on myself, I've never felt comfortable talking about my own stuff. I'm being stupid, because I know they want to help me somehow and stuff, but I just... No. I just hope this week passes quickly and Spring Break comes soon, so I can relax and start smiling again.

Anyway, that is all for this week. I felt like I had to update this but as you can see I'm not going through my best moment (sorry about this last two paragraphs, I didn't mean to write a whining post or anything, but I really had to vent). I wish you all a happy March. We all have to be positive though, spring will be here soon! :')

Love,

CLOUDY DAYS AND LETTERS

Trekking in Siurana (Tarragona), mail of the week

Middle March snail mail update, some ups and downs too...

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