Finding A Treasure in Barcelona, Spain
BARCELONA, VALENCIA, SPAIN - HERE I COME
Since past couple of days, i am very excited with a plan we dicussed last week , after everyone arrived in Florence. Since we have four days off starting this thursday, everybody seems rearranging their plans for this break. And sakinah, yasnul and myself have spotted on map the next destination for this year's 1st vacation. Barcelona, Spain.
We will depart from Florence to Pisa around 4.37pm by train and A flight will take us to Barcelona around 8.20pm from Pisa Airport. It's gonna be crazy this time with these crazy guys.
As usual, a bit introduction about Barcelona. Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain, capital of Catalonia and the province with the same name. Wow!..i am impressed, till this extend i introduced about this beautiful place. Whatever.! It is basically located in the Comarca of Barcelones, along the Mediterranean coast between the mounths of the rivers. And the rest, i will find out soon once i stepping my foot on the land of Barcelona.
We have planned some outdoor activities when we are there. Watching farmengo dance is one of the good ideas when in Barcelona and off course, our organizer is full with the checklist and activities. For me, this trip is much better than previous' and i would say, this time gonna be hectic.
We will spend 2 days in Barcelona, enjoying moments and spending cashs for sure and another 2 days, we will go to Venezia and then straight back to Florence on Sunday, 28th.
When Close Friends Go Away
Among the books piled on the lamp table beside my bed is one titled My Best Friend Go Away :Twenty Men's True-Life Tales of Friendships That Blew Up Burned Out or Faded Away, a book compiled by Joyn Zelokly, it is actually a collection of essays about a loss of friendship over a gradual period, sudden breakups etc.
The anecdotes in the book have made me think about my own friends who got away. There was Eim (Rahim), who remained a good friend for 5 years until our relationship suddenly and confusedly came to a halt. We had met when we were at USM Matriculation program back in year 1998. It happened that he was my classmate and also living in same hostel, Desa Gemilang. We became fast friends, feeling united in our feelings about passions, interests and all subjects we discussed.
Our circle of friends expanded to more other friends within less than a month who at last be our close friends. We liked one another and we often dined out together, formed a study group, outted together for almost every weekend and it became our social mandatory living together in one hostel. Eim, Bee, Aizul and Kumit were my close friends for almost 5 years. When i flash back all nostalgias with them always make me smiling where every moment comes with thousand enjoyments, each piece of them spots different direction of thought.
After we left university, everybody brought their own direction and for eim, i kept disappointing him for everytime he called me and even worse, i was unable to attend one of his invitation and he took it badly. I didn't always return his calls promptly, i began to pay attention to other, newer friends who worked in my new company and had same interests and passions. During Hari Raya, it was last few years ago i was throwing, he phoned to say he wouldn't be attending and was going to Kelantan instead. I was a little hurt and puzzled, but some impulse prevented me from phoning him back like i usually did when things had gone awry between us as friends.
Nor did he phone me. It was a bizarre and sudden ending to the friendship, but clearly we had both decided not to pursue it any further. We haven't seen one another for more than 4 years and i still think about him occasionally and i do miss him at times, miss our friendship. But 4 years is a long time and we live in different cities now as he still in Kuantan and i am now in Florence, so trying to renew the relationship would require a titanic effort. I'm not sure i am willing to undertake. Still, a sadness remains. Then there is my friend Bee, I called him yesterday asking how's doing and all of suddens i did mention about Eim. And from our converstion, eim is now still in Kuantan doing his teaching at one college. Eim is now a lecturer at one private college in Kuantan. Bee told me that he had spent so much time on his study -completing his master it would take another one year to complete. And his huge effort someday will attempt to reform his life to much better. Since i move here, i worried our friendship would dissolve over the great physical distance between us and it has, not because of lack of trying on my part, but because maybe he was right about his inability to sustain friendships.
I miss the intimacy of our connection, but at this distance, with his living on the East Coast of Malaysia, it seems too hard to renew the effort, which means maybe there wasn't the tenable relationship I had assumed. There are countless reasons that friendships fail or end, but each broken bond feels deeply personal." A broken bond that is sometimes painful to think about.
