I like the movies

Woke up after a good 10 or so hours of sleep to the loudness that is the telephone here. Oh man, the phone is soooo loud here, and it's always ringing, especially in the morning. Excuse my french, but it's really fucking annoying. Also, the cleaning lady was here, and she was loudly moving furniture around to vacuum. Oh well, I should get up anyways. I didn't have class until 12:30, and I was up around 10:30. Made some toast, and headed out. On the way we stopped at Starbucks so I could start to drown my body with green tea. We arrived at the center a bit early, did some computer stuff, when at around 12:15 Eva came into the room and announced that class was cancelled since the profesor was out of town. Haha, Sevilla is silly and disorganized. The class that I was supposed to have was the History of Spanish Art...and it was to be my only class that day. Therefore, I didn't have class! Woohoo! I've officially started class, and yet, classes are really a joke and haven't completely started. Stacey and I had nothing really to do, but we decided to ultimately head back to los Remedios and see if we could hit up some bookstores before they closed at 2 for siesta. We went to the school supply store nearest to our apartment, which is right across the street from U. Sevilla's Polytechnic school, so the store also has books and such. I bought the book that I needed for lit. class, a notebook, and a binder. It's funny, they stand behind desks and you have to ask them for what you want, instead of browse yourself. The ladies there were really helpful and spoke slowly and clearly for us, it was very, very nice. We left just as they were closing for siesta. Then it was lunch time, yay! We ate around the heater because it was still very cold. Oh, I didn't mention how cold it gets at night. To sleep, I wear long underwear, flannel pants, a t-shirt over my long underwear shirt, two pairs of thick socks, and a hoodie with the hood tied over my head! And Stacey sleeps in gloves! THAT's how cold it gets. Anyways, we ate around the heater, a delicous blend of stewed chick peas with bean, potatoes, and tomatoes, and another delicious salad with sliced strawberries (soooo sweet!) and mangos (she knows me too well!), and for dessert another monster orange. Now, we eat at 2:30 Spain time, which is about 7:30 Chicago time and 8:30 Michigan time. The time change really came in handy because suddenly the Oscar nominations came on the news program we were watching live at around 2:45! We knew that they were live because on the news they always dub everything international into Spanish, but this wasn't dubbed, a reporter made commentary during it as she tried to translate live the most crucial parts. It was so exciting! I'm so excited about a lot of the nominations, even though I haven't seen a lot of the movies. But I'm determined now! So Stacey and I decided that we simply had to go to the movies that night. Sam had told us earlier that there is a theater nearby that plays movies in English with Spanish subtitles instead of Spanish dubbing. Oh man, we're bad, but if we want to see some Oscar-worthy films, we want to really see the performances! After lunch, after fearing separating ourselves from the heater for awhile, I decided that I had to start my reading for lit. (omg, homework??). I went to the room, away from the TV, called Jon (I had to talk to him about the nominations!) which actually woke him up, hehe. Then I started reading. Stacey soon came in, we decided that it was way too cold to stick around there, so we decided to go to Starbucks to read. OK, so I'm not big on the whole Starbucks thing, but other cafes here are social places, not homework/chill places like in the states. Also, almost ALL of them permit smoking, and people loooove to smoke when they drink coffee, it's pretty disappointing. So we spent awhile at Starbucks sipping tea, eating fruit, and reading. We both read about 25 pages which took Stacey twice as long since it's her first time ever reading anything besides a text book in Spanish (she hasn't yet taken 275 at UofM), and she's also a dictionary fiend, looking up words constantly. It's awesome because I'm the opposite, and will read closely and slowly, but won't really look words up unless really necessary. I just look to get the gist of what's going on rather than every detail. It's nice that she reads so closely, though, cuz she fills me in on little things that I miss. We're a good duo! Starbucks is adjacent to a store called VIPS which is basically a newsstand meets bookstore meets restaurant meets convenience store meets liquor store. Basically, it's one of a kind. But I love it! While Stacey read, I spent a lot of time looking at coffee table books, many of which were in English. I spent the most time practically studying this book about the Academy Awards throughout the years...I'm just on an Oscar kick! I literally stood there for maybe an hour with this book, so long that my neck and arms started hurting! I was hungry, so I went to look at their food section. They have so much American food (sandwiches and wraps=happy Lisa). I decided to get a crab wrap, which sounded intriguing, and it was delicious! Who knew? And it was small, so it was just enough to hold me over till dinner. Stacey still hadn't finished, so I explored VIPS some more, looked at some international cookbooks, was especially intrigued by the American one (hehe), and a book on 1001 cocktails which I plan on buying for my apartment next year. I looked at some magazines, noticed that the Spanish GQ featured a very naked Naomi Campbell on the cover. OK, so in the states GQ is pretty borderline pornographic, sans nudity. In Europe, it IS pornographic (but upscale, of course)! I should mention that I saw a commercial the other day featuring a naked woman. Isn't that crazy? I read the Spanish equivalent of US Weekly which is called HOLA!, and glanced at what people wore to the Golden Globes, and learned that Matt Damon will star in a movie biography of Lance Armstrong, co-starring Sarah Jessica Parker as Sheryl Crow...how AWKWARD is that?? We finally left Starbucks/VIPS around 8ish...we had been there for about 4 hours! Oh my word. We got home for dinner, which was delicious, yet I still cannot figure out what it was. It looked like grilled olives sauteed with bacon. Well, I was right about the bacon, but we weren't eating olives, they were some sort of bean. They were large, round, and green. Neither I nor Stacey can figure out what the hell it was, but all we know is that it was delicious, and that's all that matters. For dessert, another large orange, the cold was definitely dissipating...I was winning! Then we looked up movies. The only movies that we were interested in seeing that night were the ones nominated for best picture, and none of them were playing at a good time at the English theater that night. We decided to stop avoiding the language, suck it up, and see a movie in Spanish. So we decided to see at 12:30 showing of Crash (so excited to finally be seeing it...nervous that I wouldn't get it, though in Spanish) in la Nervion, which is another major neighborhood here in which a lot of students in our program live. Before going, Stacey and I had another political discussion with Marta and Maria del Mar. This time it was about the death penalty, gun control, and murder in the U.S. They were wondering about those issues, and how it is that there really isn't much gun control and yet it's a huge issue when Janet Jackson's boob shows at the superbowl. And how it is that we can execute prisoners and still freak out at Janet's boob. I mean, the conversation was a bit more intellectual, but believe me, these are questions that I ask myself a lot in the states. Our country is so strange, absurd, and oftentimes hypocritical. We definitely don't make much sense as a nation sometimes. Oh well. Stacey and I left around 11:30, grabbed a taxi at the Plaza de Cuba, and got to the theater around midnight. My sweet tooth kicked in with Stacey's and we went to town on the bulk gummy candies. Ugh, I'm bad. Then we saw the movie. It was SOOOO GOOD! And we understood it! I started to forget about the language difference, I mean, I really understood it! I cried a bunch of times during it, evidence that it was all making sense. I definitely felt like a Spaniard! Hurray! We were so proud of ourselves, as well as extremely moved by the film. The only shame was that Matt Dillon is nominated for best supporting actor, but I couldn't really judge his performance since it was someone dubbing his voice. That's probably the only downfall. Nevertheless, my first Spanish movie experience was a complete success, and I was so happy about it. What a great movie/night. So, now I've officially seen 2 of the movies nominated. Munich is here, I need to see that, but not late at night since it's long. Good Night, and Good Luck is coming soon, I'm not sure about Capote, but Walk the Line is coming Friday and it's seriously about time that I saw that (although it's not up for best picture). OK, I've ranted way too long about movies and not really said much about Spain. However, my day was a pretty normal day, very much like a day of mine would be like in the States, except in Spanish. We got home around 2:45am and didn't even feel tired (I tell ya, Spanish hours are so strange). I was in bed by a little after 3. Grrrreat day!