And I would walk 500 miles

After a very restful night and many strange melatonin-induced dreams later, I was up and out of bed this lovely Tuesday morning by 10. Made me some PB toast as the bitchy housekeeper (yeah, she's not very nice) cleaned and chain smoked. Blech. Stacey decided to drop the art history class, too, which would have met today. Therefore, no class today! We had some major erranding to do, so we made the long 30 minute treck to el Corte Ingles. I bought a new hair iron (there went 45 euro) and Stacey recharged the minutes on her phone. Then I went to the camera section to hopefully make an exchange because this morning my camera was still saying that my batteries were not sufficiently charged. I tried putting in some duracels, and the same thing happened, and these were fresh batteries! Uuuuugh, I was aaaangry this morning. It's like, the world hates me today and doesn't want me to use technology in Spain. So I struggled with my broken Spanish to try to explain what was up with the camera (damn high school/college Spanish for not teaching me digital camera vocab...) until he finally understood. He tested the camera out with the rechargeable batteries...and it worked. I felt like an idiot. After all that. I don't understand why it worked there, but not here. I tell ya, technology hates me. Well, that was embarrassing to say the least, escpecially as he slowly explained to me how rechargeable batteries work and why not to use alkaline batteries, blah, blah, blah. Oy vey. Then we headed out to spend some time at the center. When we left, it was gooorgeous outside! Halle frickin luyah! Probably in the upper 50's with no windchill...perfect. Stacey felt like she was coming down with something, so on the way we stopped at Starbucks for some kickass orange juice (at all Starbucks, and all other cafés they have these fancy orange juice squeezers, so orange juice is always fresh and delicious, especially since the citrus here is to die for). Yeah, that was some goooood OJ. Got to the center where I spent some time looking up hostels for Portugal, which all seem pretty nice and reasonable. We're all planning a trip to Cadiz this weekend, which is the beach town about 2ish hours away which supposedly has Mardi Gras like weekends in February called Carnivale. We are going to take a bus down Friday afternoon, stay out all night, and take a bus back at 7am Saturday. OK, how crazy is that? I don't know if I'm up for it, it's very "un-Lisa-like" if ya ask me. However, I'm in Spain, and it's my last weekend before classes begin, so why the hell not. Therefore, we need costumes! So Jessica and I made plans to meet up that afternoon and go costume shopping. Lunch was pretty OK, some really good cabbage soup, then chicken filets which were kind of dry but the sauce was pretty great, then the best part: Maruja made fresh squeezed orange juice (what a coincidence)! It was delicious, and we all got a glass for dessert. After lunch I got ready and met up with Jessica at the center. I grabbed my favorite 55 cent manzana from McDonalds and then chilled with her in the center for a bit. She was booking her flight to Paris, we seriously talked about it, she gave me the info, and I told her that I'd book it that night. We then headed out to the center of town to by some major costumes. We fist stopped at this cute little warehouse across from the Hotel Becquer, the stuff was nice, but we wanted to see some more options. Luisa had told Jessica about some place hidden deep in the center of town, and since it was such a nice day, we decided to do some good ole exploring. An hour walk, 3 random shoe store stops, and 5 strangers asked for directions later, we found it. It's next to one of Sevilla's most famous confiteria (confectionary...wait, is that even a word in English?...well a confection shop/bakery), La Campana, which we vowed to visit after buying costumes. We both bought some pretty awesome wigs, mine is a long neon green one, and Jessica's is this hot purple 80's hair band mullet thing...they're both pretty freakin fantastic. We then both bought some fake eyelashes and glitter, and planned on getting boas the next day (the lady helping us was kind of curt). Everything cost less than 20 euro which was not bad. After our purchses, we stopped at la Campana and bought mini pastries (that way we won't feel as guilty). Mine was like a little swirly, dense poundcake with lemon icing, and Jessica's was a chocolate mocha round thing with whipped cream on it. SOOOO good! So worth it. It felt good to sit down for, well, 5 minutes. My feet were killing me, but we kept truckin', it was a longish journey back. We stopped at a few more shoe stores...so many good sales...I found a pair of copper Mary Janes that literally look like they're out of the 1920's, and I wanted them soooo badly. They were marked down to 7euro, and I only had 5 on me! So disappointing, but probably all for the best. Finally we parted ways around 7. The walk back to los Remedios seemed like forever cuz my body was soooo done with walking. I made a quick stop at VIPS for some water and a box of granola bars (my munchies need to be satisfied with healthy foods), and was home by 7:30. I came back and Stacey was still at her computer as I had left her at 3:30...she had a lot of trip planning to do and such. I read a chapter for lit. as she computed and made calls. Speaking of lit., I'm facing a bit of a dilemma that I'd like to rant about. So, my lit. class is satisfying one of my 400-level literature requirements for my Spanish major, and it meets 11-12:30 Mon. & Wed. I also have two potential lit. classes in the University that will satisfy the other 400 lit. requirement (you only need 2 for the major). I also have 3 potential art history classes lined up in the center, and overview which will take care of a 300-level elective, an iconography class which will be a 400 elective, and history of film, also 400 elective. For my major I need 2 more 300 electives and 4 400 electives. OK, so, history of film runs 12-2 Mon. and Tue., therefore causing a half hour overlap conflict on Mondays. Now, I really want to take film and I really want to take the lit. course in the center. However, if I drop the film class and choose lit., then I'll have to replace that film class with one of my lined up lit. classes in the university, meaning that I'll have too many lit. classes and not enough electives for the major. So, I'm not helping my major, only slightly hurting it. But, if I drop the lit. class in the center, which I'm already pretty involved in and enjoying, then I will be taking no classes in the center, which seems quite absurd since, well, it's my program center, and everyone is at least taking one class there. I mean, that's my home base. But it would be the best and most logical move for my major. So I just don't know, it's that damned half hour conflict. I'm going to have to talk to Eva and get some advice, perhaps I can make it all work out. Let's hope for the best. Anyhoo, after reading a bit I took a shower, and was afterwards suddenly stricken with immense exhaustion. I could've fallen asleep right there on the couch (I watched "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," of course, at 8:30) over the heater. Maria del Mar came home and we watched TV together and chatted a bit until everyone came in for dinner around 9:30. Dinner really kind of sucked tonight. We had salad with homemade blue cheese dressing (basically mayonnaise, oil, vinegar, and crumbled blue cheese) and carrots and raisins. For a main course we had these little grilled ham n cheese sandwiches which were nothing special. Maruja slacked tonight! After dinner I ate many a handful of cereal to make up for it all. Then I booked my flights to/from Paris! Unfortunately, the return flight that Jessica, Melissa, and Courtney booked was closed, so I'm taking an earlier flight (boo, 5 less hours in Paris, I'm sad). But serves me right for waiting. We're leaving in the morning March 10 and coming back March 12. A short stay, but fun times nonetheless. I'm way excited, I'm going to Paris!!! It feels good to book a flight, finally (170 euros later). Meh, I hate spending large quantities of money at once, but it's so worth it. Ahhh! I'm going to Paris!!! That's the latest news. It's midnight here and I've done nothing more than be an internet fiend all night. It's a bad habit of my generation, this ole internet. But it's worth it so you all can hear my glorious Spanish stories. But now, I am off to bed, my legs and feet are still quite tired and I've got class tomorrow...last one of the week, haha. Oh, my Spanish life is graaaaand.
P.S. don't forget about comments...and some additional pictures are up on my webshots! If you forgot the address, lemme know. PAZ.