Money sucks.

Woke up on another absolutely beautiful Spanish morning/afternoon on Thursday. Ate some peanut butter toast (Stacey's dad bought me extra crunchy Jif, yay!), and was off. On the way to class I stopped at the ATM near my apartment and the withdrawal could not be processed. This had happened before, so I tried another one on the bridge street. Not functioning either. Then I tried one more and it said that it could not process my request due to technical difficulties. OK, I assumed that maybe the ATM systems were down (I hoped...). I stopped by the center, did some online stuff, checked for my package with which I've been struggling with UPS...word to the wise: never use UPS internationally! Yeah, customs issues. Then I went to Teatro Lope which went smoothly, we actually started to talk about Lope de Vega's life and whatnot, so at least we're learning something of substance. I'm still not sure as to whether or not we're supposed to be reading the material...she left this huuuuge carpeta (folder) of copied documents for each student in the copisteria and she has told us to get it. Whether we are to read, lord knows. Hopefully we'll find out? Anyways, class ended at 3 and I received a voicemail from Pepe saying that UPS had stopped by with my package but there were some things that I needed to work out about it. So I walked to the center, on the way stopping at the ATM in the University. I tried to withdraw 100 euros and it said that I had insufficient funds. Ugh, how did this happen. So then I tried to withdraw 60 euro and it let me. This was bad news. I arrived at the center and Pepe told me that I had received a bill for $60 that I needed to pay UPS in order to receive my package...customs or something. He then asked me what I should do because if I don't pay, the package would be sent back home. Oy. I told him that I'd have to talk to my parents since I had no money except for the 60 euro in my pocket. I then checked my email and saw that my mom had sent me an email saying that I had overdrawn my bank account with a $33 fee. I sent an email to my dad about the UPS issue which was really stressing me out since I had negative funds at the moment. I had to go to Teatro hispanoamericano, so I was off soon with lots of stress looming over me. Class was fine, we discussed the history of gauchos and their presence in Latin American theatre and culture. Woo. After class I headed back to the center where I received another email from my mom saying that I had overdrawn 3 times with bank fees over $100! That meant that my birthday money, which was in my package, would all go towards that. According to my calculations I should have been in OK shape. I called my mom and realized that all this time I had been under the impression that I was receiving a weekly allowance which turned out to be a miscommunication. I had been doing very well with money, spending about 100 euro a week, but when it comes to traveling I spend twice as much. For example, my flight to Paris that I had booked weeks ago was 200 euro on its own. Then there was the 55 euro for my Portugal hostel, not to mention the cost of food and public transportation. So this money situation is looking pretty dismal being that I have no money and I'm booked to go to Paris next weekend. AND my birthday money was supposed to be used to book a trip to Amsterdam that I've been planning with Katie and Melissa for months. We have to book the flight next week at the latest since prices are rising, and because we want to go during the first half of Semana Santa, one of the only long breaks we have here and the time when everyone travels. I only want to go on 3 big trips here: Paris (booked), then Amsterdam in April, and Ireland in May. That's it. But now I don't know how that's looking which is really depressing since I'm here in Europe for a semester where travel is simple and cheap. Now money has taken over my life and I can't go/do what I planned on doing. I'm here to take advantage of Europe while I can and now I feel like I can't because of money. MONEY SUCKS. So I was in a pretty bad mood all day because I felt like my semester had gone done the drain. I went to Iconografia which fortunately was fascinating. The prof. talked about how everything in our world, all symbols really mean nothing, it's just "empresa" (enterprise). That everything either has meaning or no meaning depending on what it may be and where you are. For example, the number 2 means a quantity of two to us, but to a baby it is just scribble, or to those without roman numbers or letters it's just a pretty design. Pretty interesting, eh? Didn't do much to cheer me up, though, after class, still fixating on money/travel/UPS. Grrrrr. Got home, went online until dinner at 9:30. We had cheeseburgers. Woohoo. After dinner we got dressed and ready and walked to Plaza de Cuba to grab a taxi to Carboneria to see some more free flamenco and drink some Agua de Sevilla with Katie, Katie's bf, Courtney, Melissa, Melissa's mom, and Melissa's sister. The flamenco was the same as before, same dancers and musicians and whatnot. A different singer. I also held off on the Agua de Sevilla cuz that stuff is a hangover in a jar. Turns out that Melissa and Courtney had 3.5 glasses each, oy! As we were gettting up to leave a little girl went on stage and started dancing flamenco (it was already 1am!). It was awesome! It's so weird to watch such a little body execute such grandiose movements. Loved it: highlight of the evening! After Carboneria we all walked to Alfalfa (of course). Since I was broke I filled a water bottle with the leftover vodka from Portugal. Oh, but I splurged on an 80cent Coca-Cola Light as a chaser. No drink buying for Lisa. Lindsay Strauss, a friend from UofM who's in the Madrid program, was in Sevilla for the night. She called me right as I was approaching Alfalfa, and she also happened to be on her way there, too! I waited up for her while everyone went inside the Cabo Loco bar for chupitos. While waiting I swigged some vodka (I felt like a bum) and chatted with some random German guys. Finally Lindsay showed up and it was so good to see her! She was there with a friend from her program who is really cool, she's a junior at Haverford College. The three of us chatted for awhile as I progressively got more drunk. Then Stacey and crew showed up (minus Melissa and fam and Courtney) and we all chatted for awhile. Yay interprogram bonding! After awhile Lindsay and her friend headed out since they had a long day ahead of them the next day (they were heading to Cadiz for Carnaval). It was amazing to see her, yay! I was particularly happy since we never got to meet up when I was in Madrid. The rest of the night is kind of blurry, even though I was very coherent. I was what I like to call "vodka drunk" meaning I was completely coherent, but in retrospect it's all kind of hazy. Somehow Stacey, Courtney, and I started talking to these lame Spanish guys. Despite my innebriation I knew that they were pretty lame, but since I was drunk my Spanish borderlined fluency (at least that's how it seemed). So I really enjoyed talking to them since my Spanish got a good workout. Then they asked for my number. I was about to give a fake number but I had my phone out and he copied my number from it. Dammit. Then he asked for an email address...so I gave a fake email address. Close enough. Then we left. It was cold out and my throat was pretty sore from so much talking (my throat was already bothering me during the day) so we taxi'd home. When we arrived I passed out like it was my job. I didn't realize how tired I was. It was definitely a mentally exhausting day.