You say you graduated without attending classes! Maybe you are more brilliant than you think. :w We say "attend" class, when you go to class and hear the lecture.
Where I went to college some of the most clever students would pass their courses just by reading the book and almost never attending lectures.
I have no right to advise you and I speak as a mere amateur so don't take too seriously, but here is my advice. You are in Spain. You are near Marseille. You need to talk to people directly in person. You need to decide on your plan soon, and not wait. Rovelli has a large group of very nice young people, who know the situation in the various centers.
(many of them have gone to several conferences, and have moved around and experienced different universities, young LQG people move around quite a bit)
Here is what they look like:
http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr/~quantumgravity/
there is a photograph there. they also like to have picnics, somewhere there are some photographs of the "Quantum Gravity Team"
("
Equipe de Gravité Quantique") having picnic lunch, perhaps it is one of the graduate students birthday.
Here is Rovelli's home page in case there is additional information you want there.
http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr/~rovelli/
You think you are a mediocre student and you are interested in LQG. You want a PhD plan. You should decide quickly, either get out of LQG and pick some other direction or get a practical LQG PhD plan. You need to talk to some nice experienced people face to face who can give you hints about which way to go.
It might be tactful, before you go to Marseille to talk directly with people, if you would buy Rovelli's new textbook (
Introduction to Covariant Lqg). You see it on his home page. If you can write a cheerful frank email, it might be good to write to either Rovelli or the number two guy there, Alejandro Perez (he might be a
Spanish speaker as well as English). You could say to Alejandro: "I think I may be a mediocre student but I am interested in quantum gravity and want to make a PhD in Lqg. I want to visit Marseille and talk to some of the group to get ideas about where to apply." He might not write back, or he might write back and say to go away. Or he might write back and say "OK come and talk with us. We are nice people".
Or he might say God knows what! He might say, do not waste any time. Apply to Jorge Pullin at LSU, and to whats-his-name at UNAM-Morelia at once!
Maybe you should right now find out what the airline travel cost is to Baton Rouge Louisiana (LSU) and to Morelia Mexico to see if it economically feasible.
these are good places, and they are Spanish speaking. It might be perfect. Especially if you qualify for some grad student support money. I don't know your finances.
The trouble is, I cannot say anything intelligent because I don't know you or the detailed reality of these places.
It
might be, that you could go to Marseille, talk directly to Alejandro, or to some other people of the "Equipe de QG" (quantum gravity team) and they might say "yes that is a very good idea, apply immediately to UNAM-Morelia, and if you do not get a favorable response consider LSU". I really don't know, the future is a mystery. But that is one possible outcome :)
If you ever interview with Jorge Pullin at LSU be sure you know of his introductory textbook, "A First Course in LQG". It is aimed at advance undergrad and Masters students (before the PhD program). It is very basic, more basic than the other introductory textbook, which is Rovelli's new one "Introduction to Covariant LQG".
Pullin is a Spanish speaker but he sounds 100% American, so you would not know his first language was Spanish. He would interview you in English, I think. One should be prepared for either case.
there is a great guy at Morelia who has been at Penn State a lot and who has co-authored with Abhay Ashtekar and with Parampreet Singh. If you ever interview at Morelia you should have read some of his articles so you know the kind of things he is interested in. His last name is Corichi. I don't know where he's from. Mexico I think. His first name is also Alejandro.