Eileen Vicente

My name is Carol. Really, a place to live is a place to live with all its problems, and there are always problems no matter where you live. I have lived in Oporto, Portugal for the past 9 years, and I want to change my address to Barcelona. Frankly, I have run out of schools I can feel comfortable studying anything at, and I won't even dare try another gym. I have a degree in English and a Master's in Special Education, and yet, I haven't been able to last at any of the schools here longer than 3 months, because of the total lack of tolerance for foreign students, especially non-traditional older ones such as myself that this country is fraught with. Wow! The gyms have been even worse than the schools! Despite my age and my marital status, I have been harrassed sexually by gym personnel. In addition, at one gym a mantenance man walked into the ladies room at 11:30 in the morning while I was totally naked, and it was just fine with the owner. In another gym, a whole troup of repair men came into a ladies room and broke the locks off of our lockers, and dumped our belongings, Money and all, on dressing room benches. Oh, how about the literal crap that used to appear in the steam room at Virgin Active Health club in the city, and how about the time I saved a woman's life because she swallowed water in their very pool like jacuzzi. Of course, when I made a stink about all of this, I was the bad guy, so I was the one thrown out of the gym despite the fact that I saved the woman from dying because she was choking and I was the only one there to save her life. She was the only one in the bunch who thanked me. I am hoping the people in Bercelona will be a little more user friendly, and inteligente than the very narrow minded, irresponsible, crude rude Portugues I have experience over the years I have had the unfortunate curse of living with such garbage I can't believe it. I'm hoping things can't be worse than they have been here. By the way, I was born in the USA in New York, but since 9/11 it has become a police state like hell there which is why my husband and I left. My husband is Portuguese.