A NOTE ABOUT MY BLOG

Yes, I know that I just put up a week and a half's worth of new posts. Yes, you've all got your work cut out for you to keep up with my life. But now my blog is finally updated. You see, my Amsterdam blogs took forever, and in the meantime I was updating my blog without actually publishing my posts. Hence, they all got published at the same time. If you have not read about Amsterdam yet, they are on the previous page (you can view them through clicking on my April archives, I believe). I suggest starting by reading those and then continuing to the most recent if you're not caught up (hint hint PARENTS). So hope I didn't overwhelm anybody. Get crackin', because I'll from now on be updating regularly like I used to. PEACE.

The world works in mysterious ways

My mental alarm woke me up at 8:45 in my random bed in the random hostel room. It was raining. I could hear the girls next door getting ready to leave. Jessica, Melissa, and Katie all decided to take the 10:25 bus home while Stacey and I decided to stick around until the 4:00 bus so that we could hang around and explore Tarifa. I walked into the other room and realized that I was still a bit drunk and had a slowly developing headache. I immediately took some Advil and passed out in Melissa's bed, right below Stacey's. The girls left at around 9:45 and Stacey and I slept until about noon. We were a bit groggy from drinking and inclimate weather, but we had beaten our hangovers. We got ready, tidied the room, packed, and then hung out in the bar area waiting for the 1:00 shuttle to come and take us to town. We took some pics of the hostel and hung out on the couch. It was drizzly and gross out. What a shame. It was fun hanging out in the hostel a little bit; the blonde Italian guy spent a good 15 minutes trying to get a good photo of this huge snail he brought in from outside. That made me happy. Also the hostel's cat was lazing about and being super cute. We ran into the Brits; Will and Jill remembered us, but Steve and Al gave us baffled looks when we said hi to them. Yeah, they hadn't a clue who we were. We also ran into Paul, and he was awesomely friendly, and we actually shared the shuttle back to town. The driver was the Italian dude in the orange sweatshirt again and he played some awesome music once again. I like Italian alternative music! Once Stacey and I got off the shuttle it was raining, although not terribly. We walked up and down the main street, stopped in a couple stores while we could before siesta. Tarifa is a really awesome surfer town, it's awesome. I was so sad that we couldn't get to see it in its happening, surfer form. I hear that the beach at Tarifa is gorgeous, also. Oh well. We were hungry, so we soon found a Tex Mex restaurant which sounded quite good at the time. We both ordered quesadillas; Stacey got chicken and I got tuna with cheese, onion, and tomato. So good. And they had guacamole on top. Good deal. Then siesta came about, and we had time to kill, so we just went to a pasteleria and got coffee and pastreys and sat around chatting for awhile. How Spanish of us; the Spanish always sit in cafes forever drinking espresso and eating little pastries. I had a coconute rolled pastrey thing which wasn't bad. While there the greatest thing happened: I heard a Spanish version of "Piano Man" (yeah, in Spanish) covered by a woman! It was amaaaazing. I had to sit in silence for it. What an experience. "Piano Man" in Spanish...must find it. After about an hour we walked in the rain towards the bus station. We stopped at a little convenience store on the way so Stacey could buy some snacks for the bus. Then we got to the station, bought our tickets, and waited. The bus was 15 minutes late, and we were already 20 minutes early, so standing for that long and waiting was not fun...especially since there's not really a station, it's more like an outdoor stop. We ran into Will and Jill boarding their bus to Algecires, we wished them all the best and bid them farewell. Our bus came at 4:15 and we found seats on the crowded, stuffy, smelly (it smelled baaaad) bus. Everyone was just eager to get to Sevilla since Feria was starting Monday night. The bus ride was 4 hours, and it was pretty terrible. It was really dismal and rainy outside, and the guy sitting behind me had the worst B.O. of anyone I've ever encountered. Add that to the stuffiness of the bus, the smell of mildew (everyone had wet feet), and you've got an unhappy Lisa. I went in and out of sleeping but really did not succeed at it in the long run. Finally we got into Sevilla around 8, and just as we got off the bus it started to rain and thunder out. We were hungry for dinner, and since we had told Maruja that we wouldn't be home for dinner we decided to walk to Cien Montaditos for some cheap mini sandwiches. As we walked the sky turned an orangish-greyish color and the rain came down a bit harder. The sound of thunder began to occur immediately after flashes of lightening. This didn't look good. But thank god we decided not to walk all the way back to los Remedios because we'd be in big trouble. Finally, just as it started to rain pretty hard and thunder and lightening like crazy, we got to a very crowded Cien Montaditos. Everyone must have been dodging the rain and getting food and drink. We got some sandwiches and olives and went to town. I love Cien Montaditos, I'd say it's my favorite restaurant in Sevilla because it's cheap, easy, and never fails to please. While eating we could hear and sort of see how hard the rain was coming down. We spent about 45 minutes eating thinking that it would clear up, but it just kept getting worse. I had never seen a thunderstorm in Spain! It was kind of cool. Soon we got up because there's a pasteleria across the street that has the best palmera de huevo (Stacey's favorite Spanish pastrey) in town. We thought that we could quickly cross the street and bare the rain, but once we got to the window we saw how hard it was raining and storming. Then, suddenly, it began to hail! I can't believe it was hailing! This was so strange. Very unlike Spain. It was pretty neat, however, so I took some pictures. Soon this girl, who we had seen earlier talking to a group of two guys, taps Stacey on the shoulder and says, "Do I know you from somewhere? I'm sorry, but you look so familiar..." Stacey shrugged, not really sure. "Wait," the girl said, "Where are you from?" "Michigan," Stacey answered. "Where in Michigan...?" "Whitehall." "Okay, we went to high school together...Whitehall high school, right?" Whoa. That was weird. Stacey is from a pretty small town and an equally as small high school. This girl, Emily, goes to U. of Northern Colorado and is studying in Sevilla for the year. She graduated from Stacey's high school a year ahead of her. What a small world! I talked to the both of them for a bit until I heard, "Lisa...?" It was one of the guys that we had seen her talking to earlier. I turned around and it was Mike Feldman! We went to HPHS together, graduated the same year, and he also goes to Michigan. How strange! So, Emily and Mike were talking to each other (randomly, they just met at Cien Montaditos because both were dodging the rain) and they both just happened to run into Stacey and me, roommates, and both go to our respective high schools. How weird IS that???? I tell ya, the world works in mysterious ways. What a small world, indeed! Mike is here for a few days visiting a friend of his from Michigan who's studying with another program. He has also been studying in London for the semester. So weird, I can't believe it. We were all very much in disbelief about the whole situation. After talking for a good half an hour Mike and Eric decided to brave the rain (the hail had stopped) and go around the corner to Flaherty's for a pint. Stacey, Emily, and I remained and talked for awhile (Emily's really, really cool), and then Stacey and I decided that the rain had died down enough to cross the street. Let me tell you, crossing the street was a challenge--it was flooded! Nevertheless, we got there, and the place was packed with people trying to also dodge the rain. Stacey ordered her palmera and a water while I just ordered a water and we sat at the bar for awhile just chatting and describing our awe over the whole previous encounter. We felt Spanish again because hanging out at the bars at random cafeterias for a tapa at around 9pm is very customary...we were among the many Spanish businessmen in their suits and their goblets of beer. We were there for about an hour until the rain pretty much stopped. It was wet out, we were tired, so we decided to just take the bus back home (luckily there's a stop literally right in front of our apartment). It took us awhile to find where our bus stops because they have re-routed the buses and some traffic in the center of town. The new system, now that we know it, is much easier and more logical. The bus didn't come for a good ten minutes. We then rode back for 10 minutes, and walked back upstairs. We unpacked and went online and then decided to watch Braveheart because I think that Maruja had bought it and it was sitting out on the table. I've been wanting to see that movie forever, and we were in such a movie mood on a rainy day like that. However, we couldn't figure out how the DVD player worked. Actually, I think that it's broken because the sound plays, but no picture. I know that it's not a cord thing because the a/v cords all go through one big one on Maruja's system. So we were frustrated. Plus, we couldn't try to play it on our laptops because Spanish DVD's are formatted differently. So we knocked on Maruja's door and asked her. She said that she doesn't know how to work the player, that only Maria del Mar and Marta know. Damn. She expressed her sympathy, as well as her excitement to see us and asked a bit about Tarifa and Gibraltar. We chatted a bit, Maruja went to sleep, and we watched some Hugh Grant/Sandra Bullock movie on TV while working online. My internet signal was weak in the living room so I went back to the bedroom. Stacey fell asleep in the living room, but came back an hour later and passed out; I followed suit. I was exhausted. What a weekend. What a random weekend. In fact, what a day! The storm, the random encounter, getting stranded in Cien Montaditos and then having the random encounter. I will never stop saying how the world truly works in mysterious ways.

England!

Saturday was an exciting day--I traveled like crazy without really traveling. Woke up at 6:30am tired as hell and groggy, got dressed and ready and finished packing for our trip to Gibraltar and Tarifa. The plan was to take a bus from Sevilla to Gibraltar for the day, then in the evening bus it to Tarifa to spend the night at our hostel and then go to the beach in Tarifa the next morning, then ride back to Sevilla Sunday night. The night before Stacey and I had discussed whether or not to bring our passports because Gibraltar, although on the southernmost tip of Spain, is U.K. territory. We decided not to since we figured it wouldn't be necessary (I didn't need my passport when I took a bus to Portugal) and because we were afraid of losing them after Lizzy's passport incident. However, as we were getting ready to leave Saturday morning my intuition told me to bring the passport anyways, so I told Stacey to bring hers. We got all of our stuff together and walked as the sun came up towards the bus station Santa Justa. We planned to meet up with everyone at 8am to buy tickets for the 9am bus, but nobody was there yet. So we sat around waiting. We went into the cafeteria and I bought a fresh-squeezed orange juice which was served in a wine glass. Ooooh fancy shmancy. We then sat near the ticketing area. Bums hang around the bus stations, it's kind of sketchy, and one of them came up to Stacey and asked her for a euro. She said no and then he got in her face and made kissing noises at her, literally inches away from her face. Freaked out she tried to ignore it until he sat down next to her and continued doing it, we stood up faster than fast. It was so freaky, I hate the bums in Sevilla, they are so effing crazy. We stood behind a pillar in the bus boarding area. As we walked away he started to laugh maniacally. Ugh. We stood there for awhile hoping he'd go away and our friends would get there soon. Finally at 8:20 Jessica showed, soon followed by Katie and Melissa. We got in line and bought our tickets to the town La Linea, which is adjacent to Gibraltar. Tickets were 19 euros one way which was kind of annoying. While buying our tickets the bum came up to us again. He first asked Jessica as she was buying her ticket and she ignored him. She paid with a 20 and got a euro in change and he started yelling at her and pointing at the euro. The man working the ticket booth told him to go away, and he did. They need some security over there, seriously. We all got our tickets and that bum just stood around. I walked towards the buses and the girls stood in a clump in the ticketing area talking about something. I saw the bum walk towards them, and I called them into the boarding area because they couldn't see him coming. UGH. I hate that. We sat in an area with a bunch of people and waited for the bus to come. We soon boarded and were off on our 4 1/2 hour ride to Gibraltar. Jessica asked Melissa and Katie on the bus if they had gotten her text message reminding them to bring their passports. She had sent it in the morning because her senora told her to bring her passport. The message said also to text me and Stacey for her to tell us, too. Melissa never got her message and didn't bring their passports. Stacey and I, consequently, never got a message from Melissa, but luckily my intuition kicked in and told me to bring them. We hoped that Melissa and Katie could get in; I mean, I've gotten into Canada without a passport, so maybe there was hope. The ride was pretty easy; it was nice out, we slept most of the time. After about 3 hours we were all up and chatting and joking around and giggling and being silly girls and just having a great time. We got stuck in really bad traffic near Algecires which was annoying. So Jessica cracked open a 40 of Cruzcampo. After 5 hours on the bus we finally made it to La Linea. We got off the bus, bought tickets to Tarifa (only 3.45 euros!) for 8pm, and then walked the short 5 minutes towards the Spain-England border (a.k.a. the entrance to Gibraltar). It's so weird that I could just walk right into another country...it's so weird that I could just waltz right into the United Kingdom. We got to the first guard and he asked for passports. Katie asked if her copy would suffice and Melissa had no ID except for school ID. He said no, but Katie kept insisting and asking if there was someone else with which she could speak. He said that she could try getting through the second guard, but he'd be even more strict. She went and came back all teary-eyed. No luck. He was really curt and strict about it and Katie was upset. Melissa was upset, too, they had been looking forward to seeing Gibraltar, and they couldn't get in. Poor things. So they just decided to head to Tarifa and hang out there. Too bad. We all felt terrible. We said goodbye, and the remaining 3 of us crossed to border and entered England. So weird. We wanted to head up to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar to see the infamous monkeys and check out the sights. After a bit of confusion, we learned that the cheapest thing to do would be take the city bus to the cable cars (a.k.a. gondolas) and ride them to the top and take it from there. It was the cheapest option, which really doesn't say much because the currency there is Pounds, and those are expensive. So everything was overpriced. Silly England. We boarded the #3 city bus which was free and rode it to the cable cars. It was a gorgeous day and we got a really great visual tour of the city. It's beautiful--right on the ocean with abundant flowers and plants. It reminded me a lot of Catalina Island. The weirdest part was seeing everything written in English. I mean, I had not been in an English speaking country since I left the States! Crazy. It felt weird, actually, like I was in an alternate universe. To me, English has been the language of the minority, kind of an "underground" language that I only share with "my people". Hehe, I know that sounds strange. But, ya know, if there was something I wanted to talk about about Spain or Paris or Portugal or something I'd say it in English so people wouldn't understand me. Now everyone understood everything I said, so if I had something bad to say I'd have to whisper or just keep it to myself. Oh man, English, I tell ya. We were on the bus for awhile and ended up at the end of the line. I realized that we may have missed our stop. So I asked the bus driver where the stop for the cable cars was located; he said that he had already passed it awhile back, but we'd be stopping by there on the way back and he'd let us know. Awesome. People are much more polite in Gibraltar. I don't know if it's because English is spoken more cordially then Spanish (Spanish is a very up-front language, not polite really) so it was a breath of fresh air to get a little politeness back in our lives. After 15 minutes of riding we ended up at the stop near the cable cars. We walked to them and boarded right away. We shared the car with an a super nice Irish women who we chatted with the whole ride. She told us that studying Spanish opens up a whole world of travel. I'd never thought about that--it's so true. So many countries in the world speak Spanish. Yay! The ride lasted about 7 minutes and it was so gorgeous and fun...reminded me of the Summer Aspen gondola rides from my childhood. We got to the top of the Rock and upon exiting the cable car we saw numerous monkeys just hanging out around the cable car stop off. We freaked out! We were so excited! Monos! We took so many pictures and just stood there observing them. We soon walked up the observation deck to see even more monkeys--mommys, babies, daddies, playing monkeys, fighting monkeys, eating monkeys, swinging monkeys, etc. They told us not to have food out because they snatch food right out of your hands. Then I was warned because I was carrying a big plastic bag and they attract towards them because they associate them with food. Luckily no monkeys snatched my bag. They were everywhere, it was crazy! After observing the monkeys for awhile we started admiring the view. On one side of the rock was the Mediterranean, and on the other the Atlantic (the rock of Gibraltor is what divides the Ocean and the Sea). It was beautiful, and we lucked out to have such a gorgeous day (it was supposed to rain). In the distance we could see Africa. So I went to another country, saw 2 major bodies of water, and a whole other continent. All in a matter of hours! I love my life. Soon we headed down and decided to walk towards the St. Michael Cave. On the way we passed more and more monkeys, some playing with children and a tour guide. We opted not to get a private tour guide, although it is more fun (you get to hold the monkeys and see all the sites), but it was a bit pricey. We got to the caves to find that it was 12 euros each! That's after the change from Pounds. Can you believe that? We decided that it wasn't worth it. So then we decided to find the Jew's Gate (there's a huge Jewish population in Gibraltar) which is a major Jewish cemetary or something. We had a hard time finding it and ended up walking up and down random side paths that are torn up and obvious not supposed to be walked on anymore (we found a lot of overgrown old paths that were used before the paved road was laid down). We blame that on faulty directions. It's weird; everytime we asked for directions they were super complicated. In Spain, althoiugh in Spanish, directions are always seemingly easier. I guess I just understand Spanish better than English...? Wow. So it took us awhile to figure out where we were. It was hot out and we were tired, but it felt amazing to walk a mountain right along the Mediterranean Sea. It was also nice to be hiking among nature again. The flowers and plants were gorgeous and smelled like heaven. So many hibiscus and birds of paradise...some of my favorite flowers. It was a great walk, although we never found the Jew's Gate, the walk was well worth it and the highlight of the trip. We saw some awesome nature and some awesome views and some awesome monkeys. Soon we found the paved path and then the famous columns of Hercules. This was the site of one of the actual columns, built by Hercules himself to mark what he believed was the entrance to Hades. That was pretty cool. There was just a bronze monument there, but we got an amazing view of the Mediterranean and Africa, so we sat in the paved area in front of the monument and rested for a good hour. It was so peaceful and the sea breeze felt heavenly. After awhile we decided to walk all the way back down the rock. Walking just felt so great--I highly recommend hiking along oceans and seas. We got down to the bottom in an hour and heard what sounded reminiscent of Bonnaroo...ya know, the live, classic rock electric guitar sound in the distance. It was about 6, we had time to kill, so we followed the sounds of Zeppellin and the Rolling Stones to a bar/restaurant with a tarp and stage with a live band playing. Awesome! We were hungry, anyways, so we decided to go there to get food and hear the music. We grabbed a seat and ordered a water and a tuna sandwich each. We listened to the band which was awesome, playing really great classic rock and such. I was a fan and we were all pretty into it. This was definitely a neighborhood bar and all of the band's friends and family were there...most were the happy hippie type. Halfway through the performance the guitarrist stepped down and the singer's son stepped in and played...he was so good! It took us awhile to realize that it was an 11-year-old playing! Awesome. Our sandwiches were surprisingly really good...it was just plain tuna on bread. But the tuna was so good! Gotta love the quality fish in places right on the ocean. Soon we paid and left. We were in great spirits after all of that. We walked through the main area of town towards the entrance back into Spain. Haha, we were going to just waltz right back into Spain. We first stopped at a convenience store for snacks for the bus. There was so much food that I hadn't seen in ages: they had potato salad and diet coke (not coca cola light). Potato salad! Unfortunately it was canned and you need a can opener for it so I couldn't buy it. They had a bunch of Cadbury's chocolate which was exciting. I bought some Cadbury's granola bar...who knew those existed. We then walked through town where most places were closed. It was also Havdalah so we saw so many Orthodox Jewish families walking around, going to temple (the sun was getting ready to set). The center of Gibraltar is so cute, and so, well, not Spanish. How strange! We went to a souvenir shop. I wanted to buy this little stuffed monkey with a Gibraltar t-shirt, but it was 11 euros! Why is England so damn expensive? So I just bought an authentic Cadbury's easter egg...with caramel...mmmmm. We then walked a good half hour to the Spain-U.K. border. On the way we had to cross a huge runway because there's an airport there. How funny. I can not say that I've ever crossed a runway in my life. There's a first time for everything, I guess. I also saw some authentic red phone booths. I can't believe I went to England. Haha. Soon we flashed our passports and entered Spain once again. Once in Spain everything was a bit more sparse and everything was written in Spanish. I had literally entered another country. I felt like Gibraltar was this whole other gated off land, yet it was right there, in Spain...but not. How weird? Well, I went to England. And then just walked right back into Spain. This world is so funny. We then walked to the bus station and waited for our 8pm bus to arrive. We soon boarded; the bus was pretty empty and we were assigned front row seats, woo woo. My legs were so exhausted from hiking a mountain with a backpack and huge bag, so I pushed the seat back and took a nap for a half hour of the 45 minute ride. I woke up and felt really peaceful--it was a perfect day, and a gorgeous night. I loved Gibraltar. Now I was in the mood for a campfire on the beach or something. Our hostel was having a barbecue that night and I was excited for that because since the weather has gotten nice I've been wanting to have a barbecue. That's my favorite thing to do in warm weather, but barbecues don't really happen in Spain. So I was excited. Woot. We got to Tarifa and were greeted by Melissa and Katie waiting for us...it was so exciting! I felt Spanish...whenever I take the bus places the Spaniards on my bus always have people waiting for them at the bus stop. This was the first time this had happened. Yay fan club! They seemed to be in good spirits. We told them a bit about Gibraltar; they were planning to take a day trip themselves next month or something. They had hung out in town and did some grocery shopping and drank some beers and checked into the hostel. They told us to get ready for our hostel, that it's quite the experience. Oh man. There's a free shuttle service with our hostel, which Katie and Melissa had called over, so we were soon greeted by a big Italian dude in a bright orange sweatshirt with a big beige van. We introduced ourselves and got in. He played some fun Italian chill hippie music and talked as we rode down a desolate road to the hostel. Turns out this place was pretty secluded, not in the center of town. That way it was right on the beach. We soon got to the OTB hostel which was a big rickity beach house looking thing. Turns out it was also a kite surfing school. We walked into the yard that was strewn with random shit such as surf boards, and had an exercise area. We walked into the hostel and were greeted by a long-haired, blonde, surfer-type Italian who showed us around. There was a huge bar with a huge, leopard-skinned couch, a big projection screen playing kite surfing video, then we walked into the large kitchen that was free to use, then a common room that had books, games, a fireplace, and another bar, then the backyard which had an empty pool, and numerous elevated, bamboo cabanas with king-sized beds that we could sleep in if we wanted to. I kind of wanted to. Then we went to our room--a 4-person, plain room of bunk beds. Jessica had a separate reservation than us so she was to sleep in a 6-person. We started to settle in when suddenly a group of British students stormed into our room: 3 guys and one girl. They all introduced themselves--Will, Jill, Steve, and Al--and then started talking about how pissed (drunk) they were. Steve brought in this huge case of beer and promptly handed us each a beer without even asking. It was amazing. They had spent the whole day at the beach getting "pissed" and were continuing the festivities. They all study at "uni" (university) in England, but Steve and Al are actually from Kenya. We found out that Steve is the #24 squash player in the world. Crazy. Al was just really, well, "pissed". He was so funny, slurring his words, falling. Jill was also really pissed and kept spilling vodka and coke on herself. They also knocked over a couple beers, shattering them all over the floor. Whatever, it was silly. Jill also let us have some of her big-ass Nestle bar. Sweet. After awhile of getting to know each other and drinking we headed to the bar for chupitos. We all had 2 shots of some coconut rum concoction. Not bad. Then the barbecue started as it began to rain outside. So we had to eat inside, no big deal. We waited in line and were soon served our food. They were cooking chicken, hot dogs, baked potatoes, and hamburgers. I decided that I would choose chicken and a potato, but they served me everything. They served everyone everything! Whatever, I was drunk and at my first barbecue in ages so I did not mind at all. We sat at a picnic bench inside eating our barbecue food and being quite happy about it. Will started then bashing the American electoral system out of nowhere and talking about how all of Dan Brown's books are brilliant and true. It was weird, I just kind of ignored it as the booze talking. But, ya know, I can bash the system all I want, but hearing it from someone from another country is kind of hard. It just perpetuates the international feeling of anti-americanism and he made it sound like the U.K. is far superior in its political systems than the U.S. I was not a fan of that conversation. After the bbq all of us girls went back to the room to pre-game and get ready to go out. We couldn't drink our own liquor in the bar area, so the 5 of us just sat around drinking our own stuff. After awhile our new British friends came stumbling back in and we all drank together some more. Then we headed out to the bar area to head into town. It was about 1am and the shuttle stops running, so we'd have to call a cab. We were in the middle of nowhere and no cabs would come get us. Then we met this other British kid, Paul, who we talked to for awhile. He was super sweet. He offered to give us a ride into town, but he had been drinking a bit and we didn't want to go out and then risk him drinking more, so we used good judgment and passed and he went into town by himself. We kept trying to get out of the hostel, but we were stuck! We had no way of leaving. So we just ended up getting drunk with the British kids at the hostel. It was no big deal, though, in fact, it was a hella lot of fun! They were such a fun, cool group and our hostel was so fun and cool and laid-back. This was definitely my favorite hostel that I had stayed in. We soon went back to the room and everyone got into bed. I was pretty tired and drunk and told Jessica that I'd take one for the team and sleep in the 6-person because I knew that I was just going to pass out, I had already had the worst of the worst big room hostel experiences in Amsterdam so this seemed like no bi gdeal, Jessica did not seem to keen on sleeping in there, and she was taking the earlier bus back to Sevilla with Katie and Melissa. So I said that I'd just pass out in the other room and then take over someone else's bed in the 4-person after they leave at 9:30am. We hung out in the room while Jessica and Stacey passed out and chatted with the Brits for awhile. At around 3:30 I was exhausted and instigated the whole "let's go to bed" thing. So I said goodnight and went to the other room, and the others went to their own rooms. I literally fell into bed and passed out. Fun times in Tarifa! It was quite the English day...I had forgotten that I was in Spain. Well, I wasn't in Spain all day, but I was that evening and night. I was just in some other worldly place, who knows. Ohhhhh England.

I could write a textbook

I had to wake up at 8am for tutoria Friday morning and I was not pleased about it. I had not gotten enough sleep and it was dreary outside so that was bringing me down. I also had a big day ahead of me. Nonetheless Stacey and I got ready, ran into Maruja in the kitchen who said that she'd pack us a lunch of leftovers and a hard boiled egg since she was out of bread, then walked lazily to tutoria. She also had read the note about the bird in the kitchen and asked if it was true. I said yes and we both started laughing. Maruja and I have definitely reached a really good, comfortable level. We talk, we joke, and last week she called me "hija" which is kind of like calling someone "sweetie", even though it literally means "daughter". I was honored. I love Maruja. So she asked if the bird was still there. I went to check, and lo and behold, there it was. The bathroom smelled and there was bird crap all over the tub. However, the bird was still just as docile and hadn't really moved. I was really nervous that it was hurt. Maruja told me to close the door and that she'd call up the doorman to get it out. I hoped that he wouldn't hurt it! If I could I would have saved it or done something to see if it was okay, but I didn't even know where to begin in Spain. Oh well. There was still a pajaro en la ducha. I then walked to tutoria. Despite my exhaustion, both tutoring sessions went really well. Besides, Jorge is a delicious man and I had missed staring at him for a good 2 hours. Hehe. In our Lope tutoria he invited Stacey and me to his tent at Feria. During Feria groups of people can rent out tents to hang out/party in all day...kind of like an extended tailgate. However, in order to go to them you must be invited, so people guard the entrances. Jorge's dad's fishing club would have a tent and Jorge said that he was to be "on guard" from 2-9 so we could come around 8:30 so he could let us in and then we could hang out. Yay! What an honor. We're there, man, we're there. After tutoria I did a quick email check and then headed out for a long walk to the clinica. I had decided to head over to the clinica in Triana (about a half hour walk) to get my finger checked out. I was a bit nervous because working with the language barrier at a hospital would be an experience. I felt like I was about to experience a chapter of a high school Spanish textbook, e.g. "At the doctor" or something. Ha. So I walked deep into Triana, passed this cool kiosk that was selling live snails. No joke. I wanted to take a picture because it was pretty unbelievable. Too bad I was camera-less. I got to the hospital and wasn't sure if I should go to Urgencias (emergency) or what. I don't know how the Spanish healthcare thing works. So I went to the info desk and asked and the woman there guided me to Urgencias. I talked to the receptionist there which was pretty confusing because she was a bit busy and spoke really quickly. There was confusion with payment (I guess healthcare there isn't free?) until I showed her my Sanitas card, then she made some photo copy and she pointed at a blank which asked about my condition, so I started answering it. Then she said, "No. Firma." she just wanted me to sign somewhere next to it. Everything that you have to sign in Spain, except credit card receipts, is never indicated like in the States. They literally have to point at random places on papers and say, "Firma." So it's confusing. So she had to rip up that copy, make a new one, and then point out where to sign. Then she told me to walk around the corner and ask who was next waiting for a consultation and that I would be after them. I saw a few people standing in that area so I stood behind the nearest woman and asked if she was next and she looked all flustered and said that she wasn't sure and was also confused. Then some old couple walked in front of us which baffled me, so I asked the woman if this was the line. There was a cleaning lady near us and she told me no, and to wait farther back and to my right. So I walked that way to find a waiting room. Ohhhhhh! Hehe. There was just one middle-aged man sitting in there. The waiting room was pretty standard, all white, marble floors, random books, lots of religious images on the walls. I waited about 20 minutes until an older Italian couple walked out of one of the consultation rooms. A pretty, 30-something woman asked who was next. I looked to the middle-aged man, but he told me to go before him. How kind! I sat down, and immediately the doctor asked me if I spoke Spanish. When I told her yes she looked quite relieved (I think that she had struggled with the Italian couple). She then realized that there was a mix-up in names on the papers so she told me to wait a few moments while she cleared it up. The consultation room reminded me of the ones at UHS at school. The only difference was that it had speakers with light music playing. The music was the weirdest part: some famous 80's song was playing for awhile, then suddenly a Mozart song came on. But this wasn't just any Mozart song: it was a Mozart song from the Baby Einstein movie collection. No joke, I'd know that music anywhere. You know, that version that makes it sound like Mozart is coming from a baby's mobile or something. It was the exact music from Baby Einstein, I'm serious. I was in awe by this. Why? Did she know what it was? Again, why? So funny. Then Elton John's "Circle of Life" came on which I also found quite random. Oh, Spain. She soon got everything cleared up and asked what was up. I told her about what had happened to my finger, when it happened, showed her, etc., ya know, the usual. I also asked about the lack of sensation and the red dots. She told me that everything about that was normal and that the dots were due to ruptured blood vessels and that sensation would soon come back. Can you believe I was understanding this? This is how I know that my Spanish is improving. I mean, yes, she did speak very clearly, but not any slower than anybody else. It was a very smooth interaction, and talking about medical stuff would usually be pretty faulty in my second language. This was crazy! I'm really getting this whole Spanish thing. I could write a textbook and be an expert at the doctor chapter. I was proud of myself/excited about my applied skills. She then told me that she would like to do an x-ray to make sure that I hadn't fractured the finger. She told me to ask where radiologia was. So I went to information, they directed me, I couldn't figure it out, so I went to the receptionist's desk in Urgencias and asked a random nurse standing there...turns out it was right next to the desk. There was a woman sticking her head out saying that she had been waiting for me. Hehe, oops. She was super nice and super friendly. In fact, everybody who I met with at the hospital was super nice and super friendly. And patient. I was a fan, and things were running quickly and smoothly. Before going into radiologia I ran into Lizzy and Julia checking in at the reception. Julia thinks that she may have gotten a parasyte in Morocco since her stomach had been ailing her for the past week and a half since returning. Poor thing. I went into radiologia, took a seat, she told me not to put my feet under the table, she manipulated my hand and fingers, took an x-ray, then changed my hand position and took another x-ray, then I was done. I was to wait on one of the seats right outside the door as she developed them. As I waited a father and son (of about 11) sat next to me. The boy was holding his arm and his dad was touching it, having his son move it. He looked like he was in some pain as if he had broken it or something. Poor thing. In about 5 minutes or so my x-rays were ready and put in an envelope for me to head back to the waiting room. The doctor I had consulted told me that when I was done getting x-rays she would take me before anybody waiting because it wouldn't take long to glance at the x-rays and give a diagnosis. So nice. I appreciate the hospital's efficiency, I must say. I entered the waiting room once again to find Lizzy and Julia waiting. So it was us 3 UMich folk in the Spanish hospital waiting room. We talked a bit. Poor Lizzy was supposed to go to Italy for all of Feria, but her passport was stolen by her housekeeper on her housekeeper's last day working for Lizzy's host family. Her flight was supposed to leave that morning, but now she couldn't go. So she missed out on Italy, completely threw away over $300, was going nowhere for Feria, and now had no passport. She was taking it like a champ, though, I was pretty impressed. After about 5 minutes the doctor asked who was next; I told Julia that she told me to go in next quickly because I'd be super quick. So I went in, saw my pinkie bone (weird...I always find x-rays kind of strange), and turns out that everything was normal. Oh, and that Baby Einstein song was back on! She then told me that if I was in a lot of pain they could drain the accumulated blood from under my nail by poking a hole in the nail. That sounded pretty painful and weird. She also said that I could drain it myself at home if I wished. She then said that if it wasn't hurting/bothering me I could just wait for it to clear up, and if it became a nuisance just return and they'd drain it for me. I told her that I wasn't really in any pain, it was just looking weird, so she told me to just take some Ibuprofen for the pain. But I'm not in any pain so no big deal. She then let me keep an x-rays as "un recuerdo" (a memory). What a great souvenir of my trip to the Spanish hospital! I'm serious, I'm happy about it. I was proud of myself for kicking ass at Spanish that day. Language immersion rocks. I was out of there within an hour which was pretty impressive...it takes longer in the States! I'd be back with time to spare before Lope class. Nice. On the way back to the center I stopped at a fruteria (fruit stand/store) and bought myself some goodies. Got back to the center, shared my experience with the few people in the center (most people had left to go travel for Feria), then headed out to class. Lope was painfully long and boring, of course. During the hour break we headed back to the center for awhile where I ate my lunch: leftover grilled mushrooms and onions (yummy) with hard boiled egg and garlic-olive oil tostadas on the side. Delicious, but my breath was horrendous. Then we had Teatro which was okay, I was really tired from the walking, the lack of sleep, the weather, so I had a hard time focusing. After class Camacho had considered screening a movie, but he moved it to after Feria, so by 5pm I was free...Spring Break week #2 was here! However I was so tired. It started raining after class. Woohoo. It soon let up a bit so Stacey and I took a wet walk all the way back to los Remedios. Ironically, once we got home, the sun came out. Whatever, I was tired and happy to be back. Maruja was home and we asked her about the bird. She said that the doorman came up and let it free out the window. I immediately asked her if the bird was hurt and she said no, that it was just scared and that's why it never left. Okay. Then Maruja asked us if we had seen Maria del Mar's traje de gitana (flamenco dress) for feria. Maria del Mar and Marta had been working on sewing flamenco dresses to wear to feria. We said no, so Maruja got all excited and took us into Maria del Mar's room to show us the dress. It's gorgeous: it's lime green with white polka dots and little ruffles at the bottom and on the 3/4 length sleeves. I'm so jealous! Maruja said that with it Maria del Mar was going to wear matching shoes, and a bright red shawl and rose and white earrings that were all gorgeous. I'm so excited. Maruja said that we should get pictures of her and Marta in their dresses. Don't worry, I'll get Maruja in there, too, so you can all see what my host family looks like. Yeah, get excited. So it was fun to bond with Maruja over the whole Feria thing. In fact, all of Sevilla is all hyped up about Feria, much more than Semana Santa. I'm psyched to see what this Feria thing is all about! As much as I just wanted to then fall asleep I forced myself to the gym since I didn't get to go on Thursday nor that morning. So I walked over and worked out for a good hour and a half. The gym is completely different in the evenings--it's all young people around my age. This 18-year-old or so couple came in, the guy was definitely a regular and the girl just came to stare at her bf working out. Ugh, Spanish couples are so gross...PDA is out of control here. She kept trying to do cardio machines in the meantime but couldn't figure anything out and her bf kept trying to help her and it was all in all a pathetic display. Then Roman finally got her on a bike and she just pedaled along watching tv and her boyfriend, while the boyfriend periodically walked over to her, grabbed her ass and gave her wet, gross kisses between sets. Ugh. I wanted to projectile vomit all over them. I want to projectile vomit all over all Spanish couples. They are terrible about PDA, I mean TERRIBLE. I don't even want to get into it. Halfway through my workout a cute hippie-type guy walked in and started working with the weights. Roman talked to him for awhile and I overheard most of the convo: this guy was an art history major considering a teaching profession. Holy crap, this was too perfect. And he was cute. I wanted to strike up a convo with him but I chickened out at every opportunity. I'm okay with the whole flirting in Spanish, but I'm terrible with initiating. It's the whole language thing. I still second guess myself, I kept thinking, what if I misheard him? What if I sound stupid? Ugh. I feel like a middle schooler with boys here. For the rest of the time we both kept exchanging glances so there was a definite little silent flirtation going on. Why am I such a loser sometimes? Okay, I need to go back and talk to this guy. I am being ridiculous. I planned to return at the same time the next week and get over my fear. Oh me. I was exhausted as I walked home. I had worked up a pretty good sweat, however, and it felt good. I came home, showered, got in my pajamas, and worked on editing and publishing my Amsterdam blogs. Those things were a bitch, let me tell you. Then I had dinner with Maruja which was delicious: I had my first homemade, authentic Spanish gazpacho experience. DELICIOUS. I love gazpacho! It so beats out Latin gazpacho. It's thicker and garlickier. Yu-mmy! We also had a lot of salad and a lot of croquetas. For dessert I had a whole kiwi which was yummy except for the aftertaste. We then cleaned up and I returned to the internet to finally finish up the Amsterdam blog and then pack for our weekend trip to Tarifa and Gibraltar the next day. Packing was stressful and took longer than expected...Stacey and I were freaking out, it was kind of silly. We were only going for a night, and we had planned to go to Tarifa to hang out on the beach, but there was a chance of showers and temperature dropping so we were unsure about what to pack and what to pack for. We also wanted it all to fit in our backpacks because the first day we were spending in Gibraltor and our hostel was in Tarifa (45 mins away) so we'd have to carry our stuff around with us for an entire day in Gibraltar. Yeah, you can understand why we stressed now. So we didn't end up getting to bed until about 2am which sucked because we had an early, long day ahead of us. Oh well. Spring Break #2, here we come!

That crazy bird

My alarm went off at 11 on Thursday morning and I was not a happy camper. I had not slept a lot, and although I wasn´t hungover I had that post-drinking groggy feeling. Good times. So I skipped out on the gym. I got ready, ate something, and headed out. It was a gorgeous sunny and I had time to kill before class. Since I´m going to the beach every weekend for the next 3 weeks I needed to buy myself some new sandals, a cover-up, and sun block and I found this opportune time to do so. I decided to head down calle Asunción, the main shopping street in los Remedios. As I turned the corner I passed Calzedonia which has a window display with this excellent pair of cropped tights in the window that I´ve been eyeing for weeks. Knowing me, I would not give myself another day to shop (I really dislike shopping) so I just said screw it and walked in. Well, actually I walked halfway down Asunción before deciding that this was my only opportunity. I know how my mind works. So I walked back. I asked someone there for the tights in the window. She found them in the store and then asked what size I am. Well, I don´t know what size I am in Spanish sizes. So she asked me my weight. Well, I don´t know my weight in kilos. So then she asked me my height. Well, I don´t know my height in centimeters. She seemed a bit impatient with the whole ordeal. I was a bit frustrated, yet I found it all kind of comical. She asked one of her co-workers what size I looked like, she said a 1-2 (whatever that means). So I got them...8€ and all. I asked if I could try them on and she said that you can´t try on tights. I guess that that makes sense; we´ll just have to hope for the best. I continued my walk and passed Pull and Bear which is kind of like a J. Crew meets Anthropologie type store. I had stopped in recently just to look around and had been eyeing this awesome pair of sandals. They´re thongs, but the thong part is a long printed piece of fabric that you tie up your ankle. They´re adorable. They were a good 20€, though, and I hate spending a lot of money on clothing. Granted, 20€ is not much, but I´d prefer a good 10€ deal. So I kind of hoped that they wouldn´t have them in my size so that I´d have an excuse not to buy them. Well, they had 3 pairs left, one of which was exactly my size. Great. So I caved and bought them. I then walked down Asunción more and stopped at Women´s Secret which is like a Gap Body, basically. They had really cute stuff but most of it was pretty pricey. Blech. But I found the perfect cover-up: it´s a brown, loose, terry-clothe short dress with spaghetti straps. I´m happy about it. Even if it cost another 20€. I felt really dirty after spending all of that money. I hate spending money on clothing, it makes me feel gross for some reason. I suck at being a girl sometimes. After that I stopped by SuperSol to buy myself some fruit which was a bit of an ordeal because I didn´t know the Spanish word for plum. I just wanted some plums. And an apple. It´s okay, I figured it out. Then I walked to the center where I met up with Stacey. She was all enthusiastic about me walking in with the big Women´s Secret shopping bag and asked what I bought. I, on the other hand, was not very enthusiastic. I always get kind of down after I go shopping, like as if I just threw away money. Like I said, suck at being a girl. I hung out in the center for a bit, checked some emails, and then headed to Lope. Lope was boring, as usual, and painful. One hour has never gone by so slowly. Okay, that's a lie; BIO160 first semester freshman year was the most painful hour. Anyhoo, after class I went back to the center, big-ass bag and all, ate my lunch and then went on WebMD because the finger that I jammed a week before hadn't gotten any better. I mean, the swelling had gone down and I wasn't in pain, but there were these red dots (I hate to be graphic) that turned up under the skin of my pinkie right after the incident and they hadn't gone away, just gotten darker. Also, blood was accumulating under my nail--it definitely didn't look like a bruise. WebMD said that if over half of my nail had turned purplish (yes) and if I didn't have full sensation (still a bit numb) I should consult a physician promptly. Ugh. So I asked Luisa about where I should go and she got all nervous like a mom saying I needed to go to Urgencias (emergencies), but it really isn't too bad, I just need someone to look at it. Eva then told me of a clinic in Triana to go to, and that I needed to bring my health insurance Sanitas card and passport. So I decided to go the next day after tutoria. Then I went to Teatro which wasn't bad, Camacho is still lecturing about teatro absurdo (theatre of the absurd) to introduce the next play we're reading, "Los Siameses". I like theatre of the absurd, it gets a lot of inspiration from modernist philosophers and writers such as Virginia Woolf (mmmm, yes) and Faulkner (eeeexcellent). After class I headed back to the center with my big bag (plus big messenger bag, mind you) sweating my ass off. I went online, talked to my Mom online, etc. Then I headed to Iconografia...fifteen minutes late. Embarrassed I walked into class to find the room completely empty! I had remembered him mentioning something about canceling class during la semana santiferia (the week between Semana Santa and Feria) but I never caught a decision. So no Iconografia! I was a happy camper. I had time to kill because we had all received free tickets to see the Sevilla Symphony Orchestra at 8:30. So I just went back to the center, even though I considered going home and dropping off my big-ass bag, I decided that it just wasn't worth it. So I bummed around the center until Stacey got out of her center grammar class. She had errands to run so I decided to accompany her; I mean, it was gorgeous out, so why not. We first walked through Santa Cruz (my favorite area in Sevilla!) to the infamous Arab baths. Sevilla's Arab influence is still pretty substantial, so some traditions remain, such as the Arab baths. It's kind of like going to a spa--except Arab...? I don't really know how to describe it...I'll do a better job after I experience it. But yeah, you get to go to the baths and you get a massage for only 26 euro so it's a pretty good deal. Stacey was making an appointment for her boyfriend, Ryan, and her. He's coming up the Tuesday of Feria for about a week and they're going to the baths the Monday before he leaves. How romantico. The receptionist who helped us was so funny and awesome. He was pretty, well, fabulous is the best word to describe him. He spoke to us in English, which was cute (I kind of think it's cute when people practice their English on us). Stacey has a huge red shoulder purse which she was wearing, he pointed to it and said in a thick Spanish accent, "Your purse." And Stacey was like, "Yes. What about it?" And he goes, "Your purse, NO." Stacey was kind of confused. Then he goes, "It's for the Weenter." Stacey assured him that she was aware and that she needed to go shopping. Oh man, he was great and we loved him. I hope to see him again, he is currently my favorite Sevillano. Y'all know me. After that we walked aaaallll the way to the bull ring, my bags and all...I swear, I was a bag lady all day. Stacey went to buy bullfight tickets for the Thursday of Feria for Ryan and all of us girls. I'm not excited about it, honestly. I knew that they killed the bullls, but I thought that it happened behind closed doors. Knowing that made me pretty hesitant about the whole bullfight thing, but I was still willing because that's a very big thing in Sevilla. But the previous night at dinner we watched some show that was showing old clips of bullfights. I almost lost my dinner, I'm not kidding. I also came very close to tears but I held them back because it was just Maruja, Maria del Mar, and me. They torture these bulls. They torture and taunt anbd tease them while slowly killing them. Then at the end a mule comes out and pulls the dead bulls away. This happens about 6 times throughout the spectacle. I was watching this show and this poor, bleeding bull dying as the torero (matador) taunted it and teased it and people just watched, and laughed, and applauded. This is entertainment? I'm getting really sad recalling it. We'll see how this whole bullfight thing goes. However, it's part of the culture and I just need to suck it up. Nevertheless I am anticipating tears and a possible sudden switch to vegetarianism once again. Oh man, wish me luck next week. So we went to the bull ring and Stacey bought tickets. After that we had time to kill (the theater that held the performance was a couple blocks away) so we stopped in a souvenir shop that had flamenco dresses in the window so I could see if they were any cheaper. They were about 200 euros less. I thought that perhaps I could buy just a skirt, but they're about 100 euros each. So I decided to just by a fake rose for my hair (you're supposed to wear a rose with the dress...I'll just settle for the rose). Then Stacey showed me this kids' t-shirt of a really adorable flamenco dancer. I was in love. So I had an impulse buy. I ended up throwing down 20 more euro at the souvenir shop. I felt nauseos afterwards, I'm not kidding. I hate spending money on material things. Then we walked to the theater which was really nice and modern. We took our seats which were on the side of the theater and I read the program. Turns out the director is American, but everyone in the orchestra is from all over the world. Craziness. I wonder how she teaches them the music? The concert was so nice and relaxing. The accoustics were fantastic. I especially loved the first piece: very light and airy and made me want to paint a picture. Yeah, I'm weird, I know. I really did, though! The next piece was an epic Beethoven piece and was quite long. During that piece I drifted off and thought about a lot of stuff, but the music still held my attention and served as background music to my thinking process. It was also a piece for piano with orchestra, so the piano solos were unreal. The pianist was also from Uzbekistan which I found kind of random and therefore silly. The first act was quite long and intermission did not occur until 10pm. Jessica, Stacey, and I had made plans to go to the Creperia in Alfalfa that night after the concert because we were having major withdrawals after our respective Paris trips. These plans had been made far in advance, we were serious about the crepes. Since it was already 10 we wouldn't have gotten to dinner until midnight and that just seemed absurd. So we left. I know, we're terrible. Actually a lot of people from our program left halfway through. I actually would have loved to have stayed for the second act, especially since they were doing a Bartok piece, but we had plans, man. And besides, the tickets were free. I made a decision, however, during the concert to go take advantage of free student tickets to the CSO at Ravinia this summer. Anyways, we walked to the creperia where there was a minor wait. We passed the time by looking at the huge, amazing menu. We were starved! We were finally seated in the cute, quaint restaurant with numerous black n white photos of Paris on the walls. I love Paris! We ordered; I got a Chef crepe which consisted of ham, cheese, and mushrooms. It was quite good, but didn't come anywhere close to an authentic Parisian salted crepe. We then splurged on dessert and I got a coconut chocolate crepe which was also pretty darn good, but again came nowhere close to Paris' sweet crepes. Sigh. But it was good to have crepes again. Mmm mmm good dinner. Our waiter was really awesome--he spoke English to us although we spoke Spanish to him the entire time. He was definitely practicing. I've found that the younger Spaniards talk English to us because, most likely, they're learning. Soon Melissa came and sat with us because she, Jessica, Courtney, and Scott had plans to go out. And how perfect that we were already in Alfalfa. By the time we left the restaurant it was 12:30 and Alfalfa was happening. Stacey and I were going to stay in for the night; so walking home through Alfalfa completely sober was quite an experience. It's a pretty dingy place, but somehow I love it so much. It really isn't that great from the sober point of view. But then again, neither are house parties at college, so go figure. I love being young, hehe. Stacey and I got home around 1 and collapsed into bed. We had literally not been home in over 12 hours...and I had been carrying my big bag all day! I unpacked my things while Stacey went to wash up. I suddenly heard her running back towards our room which baffled me. She ran in, gave me this petrified look and said, "There's a bird in the bathroom!" What??? Yeah, there was a bird in our bathroom. We keep the window open in our bathroom all day and night for ventillation, and lo and behold a bird flew in. I asked Stacey if it was flying and she said no, it was just chilling in the bathtub. What?? I was afraid to look, I mean, there was a bird in the bathroom! Stacey went to the bathroom to first rinse off her feet. She opened the shower curtain to turn on the water and, bam, there was a bird right there. Just sitting. She told me to come look at it...and I also needed to grab my toiletries cuz I was not washing up with a bird in the bathroom. I was hesitant because I was afraid it would fly all over the place, but I went. We slowly opened the door and peeked over. There it was. A big brown bird (I had never seen this type before) just sitting in our bathtub. It was completely docile and did not move nor flinch. It also didn't fly. It was actually quite cute and worried that it may be injured. There was a bird in our bathtub! We quickly and quietly grabbed our things and I wrote Maruja a note saying that hay un pajaro en nuestra ducha (there's a bird in our shower). So I only got to remove my contacts and wash my face before bed. Was too nervous to grab my toothbrush. There was a bird in the bathroom! What???!! We were so shooken up and giggly it took us awhile before finally getting to sleep...at 2:30. Aw man, and we had to wake up at 7:30 the next morning for tutoria. That crazy bird.

All in the family

I slept through the whole night! I didn´t wake up until my alarm went off at 11. Ten and a half hours of sleep feel good. I got up and headed to the gym, not before making myself a piece of toast...it was white bread! Why had Maruja bought white bread? I was so confused. Usually I eat one piece of toast before the gym and one after. Call me picky, but I refuse to eat that much white bread. I was not pleased. I got a really good workout at the gym for an hour and a half. Headed home, showered, got ready, made myself some sandwiches on white bread (I planned on just eating the lunch meat then feeding my bread to the birds), and headed out to class. On the way I stopped at Albi Sur (grocery store next to my apt.) and bought an apple, banana, and orange because I knew that eating a little bit of lunch meat would not hold me over. Then I stopped at Vips and bought myself a pavo (turkey) wrap because I needed something in my system, and the turkey wraps are very simple and low-cal. Walked to class whilst munching on the wrap and got to Lope de Vega class. Class was boring and useless, as usual. That class is the biggest waste of my time. She never talks about our required readings, she only talks about Lope himself. I just don´t understand that class and don´t really know what I should know for the exam. I just need to go to more tutorías for it. Anyhoo, I couldn´t really focus in the class. All I know is that she scolded us for not having class the Friday before Semana Santa and said that we´d have class everyday this week. And then she scolded us cuz someone groaned in the class and had this whole thing to say about boredom. I dunno, weird. After class I headed to the center with everyone where I ate the ham and cheese of my ham and cheese sandwich, and then half of my sobrasada sandwich (sobrasada is a sort of pate so I had to eat one piece of bread with it). I wanted something sweet and some water so I went to OpenCor and bought a bottle of water, a fitness Muesly bar, and a beach mat. Yes, a beach mat. I´m going to the beach every weekend for the next 3 weeks and I don´t have a beach towel, and I spotted the mat at OpenCor for only 1.50€ so I was all over that. I am very excited about my beach mat, thank you very much. Then I headed back to the center where I drank and ate. Then we all had Teatro hispanoamericano which was also boring because Camacho started lecturing about Teatro absurdo in order to introduce the next play we were to read. Meh. Camacho got a haircut and shaved off his beard and mustache. That was exciting...no, not really. Then I went back to the center and used the internet until Historia del Arte. I arrived a bit tardy, but not badly. I sat next to my Puerto Rican friend, Themus. Class was boring and I couldn´t really focus. I´m sorry, man, but churches just don´t interest me. Luckily class is only an hour long on Wednesdays. After class Themus and I talked for awhile (yay for more Spanish speaking) and then I headed to the internet café to work on this very blog. I hate not having internet. The irony is that I returned home for dinner to find the internet working quite well. Oh well. Dinner was pretty good, yet simple: those really good cooked legumes with a plain revuelto (omelette). But the dessert was the best part: rice pudding! I am in looooove with Maruja´s rice pudding (arroz con leche), and it was even better than the first time she made it. Stacey loves it, too, and wasn´t eating at home so Maruja left some for her and Stacey was happier than happy when she returned. Rice pudding in spain is different--it´s more like the rice pudding one sees in the Middle East (or, rather, at Middle Eastern restaurants). It´s thinner, basically. Maruja told me her recipe: white rice, whole milk, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon rind. So simple, I must make it! After dinner I got ready to go out because Courtney´s family is in town for a week, and her brother is a senior in high school and we wanted to take him out on the scene. The plan was to meet in Plaza de Cuba to botellón at 11:30 and then hit up the bars on calle Betis. So around 11:15 I headed out, made a Vips stop to buy a chaser and use the ATM, and then met up with them all, met Scott, and the botellón began. Coincidentally, Lizzy, Julia, Rachael, and Elena from our program were there, too botelloning. This night´s crew for us consisted of Katie, Melissa, Courtney, Scott, and me. We had a great botellón; Courtney´s bro is cool, and wow, can that boy hold his liquor...and wow can he drink. He´s 18! I can´t believe it. We soon headed to Betis, not without making an impromptu Madigan´s stop so Scott could have his first car bomb. Courtney and I were already feeling our liquor so we just split a half pint, Melissa had none, and Katie and Scott had whole ones. Delish. Then we headed to Big Ben where as we walked in I was grabbed...it was Miguel! Miguel is Marcos´friend who Stacey "went out with" when Marcos and I had our little thang. Miguel is super cool and super nice. He asked what had happened to Stacey and me since he´d tried to contact us. I told him that we had both lost our phones in the past month, so I gave him my new número. I´ve decided that even though I´m not interested in them as anything more than friends, I´d like to hang out with them and their housemates (I met them at Big Ben and they´re really cool). A lot of people on our program have made Spanish friends and our program suggests we do that because it´s the best way to practice. Everyday Stacey and I lament over our lack of Spanish friends. Hanging out with Miguel and folk is perfect opportunity to have a Spanish crew. Miguel is a really good person and super-laid back. We talked for awhile, he spoke in English (he´s practicing) and I spoke in Spanish. It was silly. He also bought me a beer which was very nice. And then he invited me to a piso party that he and his friends were throwing during Feria. One of the biggest things to do during Feria is go to private parties, but ya gotta know people to go to them. So this was great, and what a great way to meet people! He said to bring all of my friends, and that it would be on Thursday and he would send me a text. Unfortunately I´m not sure if I´ll be able to go because Stacey´s boyfriend will be in town and we all want to hang out, but that would be super awkward for Stacey to bring her boyfriend to a guy´s party who was interested in dating Stacey months ago. Yeah. So we´ll see. We soon left Big Ben and headed to Long Island which was teeming with Americans. Whatevs. We all decided to get a shot off of the infamous USA menu. Scott got a Michigan shot, not only because he´s from Michigan, but also because it´s Jim Bean and he´d never tried it before and wanted to try it. Katie and I got Virginia shots which were just SoCo. Then we retreated to the back of the bar where we hung out and chatted it up. Then Scott emerged with a handful of beers for all of us. Somehow he had stolen them from some storage place he found. What?? This kid was crazy...he would do a little too well in college. And I mean that with a touch of sarcasm. So we drank some warm, free, Cruzcampo long necks. Scott was drunk to the point of swaying, although not sick nor belligerant. It was about 2 or 2:30 which is late in American time, so we decided to head out. I walked home and got in bed. It was such a standard night, but for some reason it was so much fun! And I rarely have an exceptionally great time on Betis. But this was unique. I think that it may have been because everyone was in good spirits. Or maybe it was just because Scott was pretty entertaining. Who knows. Great times, great times.

Tengo sueño

=I´m tired

I was not pleased about my 5.5 hours of sleep upon arising Tuesday morning. I mean, that´s not too little sleep, that´s basically what I got everyday first semester (grrrr first semester junior year...would like to forget it), but I´m just so accustomed to 7-10 hours a night. I´m so spoiled here, I love it. I groggily got dressed and headed to the gym. Worked out for an hour, then came home and showered and got ready. María del Mar asked to use my comp to check her email. Lucky for her the internet was up. However that is the one thing that I didn´t miss about María del Mar: always wanting to use my computer. I mean, no big deal, but it makes me nervous...and I hate setting it up for her everyday. Blah. While getting ready I suddenly got really nauseos and lightheaded. I sat down on my bed for about 5 minutes and chugged some water and it went away completely. So weird. I thought that maybe I needed some more substance in my system, I didn´t know. So I headed to class and on the way ate a gala apple that I bought the previous day, and then stopped at SuperSol and bought these little wheat, fiber-enriched rolls for 50 cents and a banana. I got to Historia del Cine very unenthused because Tuesdays suck in Cine class because she lectures for-ev-er. And it´s so boring because the lectures are just basic intros. I wish that the class was more theoretical but I guess I´m just a spoiled Michigan RC student. So class was boring, the prof. talked about the movie we watched and then started talking about Orson Welles. I´m excited because we´re going to watch Citizen Kane in our next class and that´s one of my favorite movies! However, it will be pretty strange dubbed in Spanish. The only interesting thing I learned in lecture was that Rita Hayworth´s dad was Spanish and was a flamenco dancer until immigrating to the U.S. and marrying an Irish woman. Rita Hayworth´s real name is Margarita Cansino. Who knew? During class I ate one of my rolls, although I really wasn´t feeling nauseas anymore. I just thought to play it safe. Then on the walk home from class I ate my banana cuz I just felt like it. Oh yeah! During class this really cute American guy sat across from me. Mmm, he was a delicious dish. I kept trying to covertly grab his attention but no luck. Oh well, there´s always the next class. What´s with all the cute boys lately? Where in the world did they come from? I walked home on a pretty, sunny day, ran into Eva (my program director) on la calle Asunción deep in los Remedios which was kind of strange. I guess she lives there. I also stopped in a flamenco dress shop because Feria, the week-long carnival/fair thing that just happens to take place in los Remedios (we get a week off from school for it...yes another week off) is next week. And for Feria all of the women dress up in flamenco dresses; I´m not sure why, I guess it´s just tradition. I reeeeeally wanted to buy one not just for Feria, but to have as a kick-ass souvenir. So I looked at a couple dresses in the store. Um, yeah. They run anywhere from 400-600€ each. Can you believe that? Well screw that idea. I got back home in time for lunch at 2:30 which was not bad: some sort of cabbage soup which was quite good, but some chicken breasts which were not good. They were dry and obviously had not marinated long enough in its sauce--garlic, olive oil, and spinach. Good in concept but not in reality. For dessert we had a macedonia de fruta (fruit salad) which contained strawberrie, kiwi, banana, and pear. Not bad, but the fruit wasn´t the best it´s ever been. Despite the semi-disappointing meal (it´s hard for Maruja to make a completely disappointing meal) I was pretty stuffed. After eating I tried to go online to work on the blog but, of course, the internet was down. Ugh. I did a couple things on my computer as a slight headache formed. What was going on with my body that day? So I ate the other fiber roll and I felt a bit better. I don´t know what was up. I mean, eventually the headache went away. My body is just off in general here. Maybe it´s my diet. Who knows. I feel like maybe my ailments on Tuesday were due to the lack of sleep from the night before...my body was just not used to it. Soon I walked to the center and used the internet there for a bit (once it freed up) until Historia del Arte 6-7:30. Class was pretty interesting until we stopped discussing the Alhambra and moved to our next unit: arte románico (roman art? I´m not sure). Therefore, we started studying churches. Churches are boring. I like mosques...can´t we learn more about mosques? Oh well. It was kind of hard to pay attention because to me every church just looks the same and every saint is the same. That´s something for which I´ll definitely need some major tutoría action. After class I stopped by that souvenir shop, home of the hottest boy in Sevilla, but he was not working. So I left. I had a ton of stuff to take care of online so I caved and walked to the internet café next to the University. I miss my free internet. On the way I ran into Sam sitting with a bunch of American girls that I didn´t recognize. Sam introduced me to one, Kate, who´s from Glencoe and goes to Wisconsin. She studied in London and they had just gotten out for the summer (holy crap!) and she and her friends were doing some traveling. She was a cool girl and her best friend at school just happens to be my cousin, Lindsey´s, best friend from home. Small world, I tell ya. So I went to the internet café for a good hour. Luckily it´s pretty cheap, only a little over 1€ for an hour. Then around 8:45 I walked home for dinner which was silly. I got home to find Maruja and María del Mar talking in the kitchen. Maruja was making sandwiches, which I figured were for my lunch the next day. She asked me if I wanted one or two bocadillos and I said 2, of course, since she always packs us 2 (the sandwiches are teeny). She then asked if I wanted chorizo or ham n cheese and I said chorizo. Dinner was served around 9:30, and out comes a plate with 4 sandwiches! Only 3 of us were eating. Turns out Maruja was talking about for dinner--she had made grilled sandwiches. Oh man. I felt badly. I told Maruja about the mix-up, but told her that I´d eat them anyways (oy). So I cut all of the sandwiches up into pieces to eat with a fork and knife hoping that that´d make it easier. Luckiy the sandwiches were DELICIOUS. What she did was take a chorizo sausage and scraped out the middle (instead of slicing it). It was delicous and a bit picante (spicy), but delicious. Did I mention that they were delicious? Then the next course came out...oh no, I was already stuffed! The next course, however, was very unique and delicious. It was different than the food Maruja usually serves. It was spinach baked with bacalao, cream, and bread crumbs. It was so good! My whole meal consisted of my favorite Spanish foods: chorizo, spinach, and cod. YUMMY. But I was so stuffed afterwards I barely had room for dessert, a delicious strawberry batido. Mmmm. It was a fantastic meal, I give it two thumbs up. After dinner I waddled into my room to try out the internet but it just wasn´t functioning. Blech. It´s getting closer and closer to exam time (about a month or so), and I have a lot of traveling coming up in May (basically every weekend) so I really need to hit the books. I went out into the living room, although tired as hell and tempted to just pass out, with my art history book and notebook to do some studying. It takes me a long time to study a chapter of my art history book, so I´ve already started studying for my art history exams so as to avoid excessive cramming in May/June. I sat with María del Mar as she worked on some crossword puzzles or something and we watched Se sucedió en Manhatten (Maid in Manhatten, that Jennifer López/Liam Neeson movie from 2002). I wrote a few postcards and then studied 4 pages (which is a lot, they´re short chapters) and learned about some Islamic art and architecture. Woo woo. I soon came to a stopping point before getting as far as I had wanted because I was just so exhausted. So I just chilled out and watched the end of the movie. That´s a cute movie. Good times. I also like spending time with María del Mar cuz my Spanish gets a kick-ass workout. The movie ended a little bit after midnight, immediately after which I retreated to my room and passed out. Stacey was already asleep, I found out the next day that she also had a headache and got inexplicably lightheaded. She felt completely well the next day, however, what´s with that? I´m getting kind of sad because Stacey has been skipping meals at home and just eating out everyday so that she could get errands and homework done and stuff. It makes me sad because a) I don´t see her very often and b) I feel like she´s cheating herself. I mean, yeah, there are things to get done, but you can´t forget the main purpose of being here: to immerse yourself in Spanish culture. Mealtimes are the primary immersion times where only Spanish is spoken and heard, and real Spanish food is eaten. I wish that she´d come back home and not cheat herself of the full experience. I mean, she comes home after dinner and then goes online or reads or goes to bed. She doesn´t really talk to anyone but me, then. It makes me sad. Come on, Stacey, we´re in Spain! We don´t have time to stress the small stuff! Okay, that´s my Tuesday rant. But yeah, I was oh so very tired Tuesday night and passed out at 12:30. Mmmmm sleep.

Spanish!

Woke up on Monday to my alarm at 9 on Monday morning. Back to reality. My first day back in the ole routine. I also woke up with a goal: to speak almost all Spanish all day. I hadn´t spoken barely any Spanish the previous week, and it also came to my attention that I am not yet fluent. So I need to really get this language immersion cracking. I got up, talked to Maruja in the kitchen a bit (check! starting my day with Spanish=good). I got ready and headed to the gym. Ahhh the gym, how I missed it. And how I needed it. Amsterdam did a number on my body, I tell ya. I worked out for over an hour, had a good talk with Roman, the awesome owner. So another Spanish interaction to start the day...sweet! I soon headed home, showered, got ready, and headed out for Historia del Cine. Class was great because on Mondays we watch movies. We watched an American movie whose name I can´t recall. It´s a film noir flick with some dude and Rita Hayworth. It was pretty good, yet a bit hard to follow since it was dubbed in Spanish and film noir is pretty jumbly as it is. I like Rita Hayworth very much, though, (I really think that I lived in the 40´s in a past life) and enjoyed watching her on screen. I´ve also had the song she sings in the movie, "Put the Blame on Mame" in my head for the past few days. After class I walked home on a gorgeous day (upper 70´s) for lunch. When I arrived, I found María del Mar sitting on the couch! She had gone home to Cádiz for the week, so it was so good to see her. I talked to her for a pretty long time catching up and whatnot. Yay Spanish conversations! I was succeeding on my Spanish mission, and subsequently my Spanish was improving and I could tell. I just need to make Spanish my principal language. Lunch was great, but almost impossible to eat. You see, Maruja made paella with shellfish and veggies. It was delicious, but María del Mar requested a smaller portion so Maruja served me a truckload of paella. On the side we got this amaaaaaaazing salad, probably my favorite that we´ve eaten thus far: it was fresh cut tomatoes (which are so in season right now) and cucumbers in a simple homemade vinaigrette. It reminded me of my mom´s tomato salad (minus the mozzarella and onions). So lunch was very hard to eat because not only did I have a huge portion, but Maruja and María del Mar are food vacuums and they eat faster than anyone I know. I was literally eating heaping forkfuls. It was insane. I ended up finishing my food quite awhile after them despite my best efforts. For dessert we were served a choice between bananas and pears. I really wanted a pear, but since I was so behind and I didn´t want to hold them up, I had to choose the banana. Nevertheless it was quite the tasty banana. After lunch I quickly got my things together and walked to the center for tutoría 4-5. It was good to see my tutor again (I still don´t know his name, haha)! He gave me some handouts to supplement Iconografía and we talked about the different crucificados (crucifixes) throughout the ages: gótica, románica, renacentista, and barroco. I don´t know how to say some of those in English. That´s the thing about my education here: I´m really learning a lot in my classes, especially art history. Unfortunately, the vocab is all in Spanish so I can´t really transfer my new knowledge into English. Although I know it...it´s just in another language. How weird is that? Anyways, tutoría was awesome as usual and the time just flew. My tutor is so smart, I always learn a lot from him. I love art history...I´m such a dork. I also learned some cool little historical facts about the building of my University (former primary tobacco factory of Europe), but I´ll spare you those details. It was just interesting to me, I guess. And I got to speak more Spanish in tutoría! After tutoría I hung around the center, looked at some travel books for Barcelona and Morocco (for my family), went online a bit (the internet at my apt. is still being testy), and then went to Historia del Arte 6-7:30. It was pretty interesting. Our prof. lectured on Islamic art and architecture in Andalucía (that´s my province). So I learned all about the famous buildings that I pass everyday such as the Torre del oro and the Alcazar. We also started learning all about the Alhambra (formerly the Al-Hamra) in Granada. It made me so excited to go back there with my family in June! I had a class pertaining to some ruins I´ve seen near the Torre del oro. I was a bit nervous to ask my professor about it because I get self-conscious about my Spanish with authority figures. But I remembered my goal and approached him to ask. He answered my question very thoroughly, although his accent really throws me off and I didn´t catch everything, honestly. However, I was proud of myself for being super-Spanish, and it also probably looked good to the prof. and showed that I was interested and paying attention. SInce I can´t understand everything that he says I don´t take as many notes as everyone so I worry that he thinks that I´m not paying attention...this proved that I am! I was quite pleased with myself. After class I decided to buy some postcards so I walked down calle Constitución to this one souvenir shop where I picked up some really nice black and white photographed postcards. I then headed into the store to purchase them (the postcards were displayed outside) but was stopped by all of the cool vintage Sevilla posters I could buy. I want to buy a bunch before leaving to decorate my room next year. Suddenly I heard this voice saying, "¿Toro?". I looked over and saw this drop-dead gorgeous 20-something-year-old guy looking at me. I was confused by why he asked me about a bull, so I thought that maybe he said "Todo" (everything/all). But even that confused me so I said, "¿Todo?" then he said, "No, toro," and I still didn´t understand and said "¿Todo?" and he said "Toro. Eh, no importa." (Bull. Eh, it doesn´t matter.). I was embarrassed for sounding like a stupid foreigner. I think that he was trying to sell me a glass bull or something. Then he picked up a mirror and asked, "¿Espejo?" and I said "No, gracias." Then he offered me two for the price of one. I told him no thanks, that I don´t need any mirrors. Then he walked over next to me and pretended to look at some jewelry in a display case. It then dawned on me that this beautiful specimen had been flirting with me and I was just so jumbled up in the language barrier that I couldn´t flirt back. Ugh. And he is probably the most handsome Sevillano I´ve met (besides Jorge, of course). So I acted like an idiot girl and wandered around the store aimlessly hoping that he´d come talk to me again. But alas. So I finally went up to the counter and bought my postcards. I struck up a conversation with the girl at the register hoping the guy would overhear and not think I was a complete American idiot, and also to keep up with my Spanish goal. We talked about 90´s music (it was playing on the radio). Yay for that. I then walked home beating myself up for not chatting it up with hot store boy. So I vowed to come back around 7:45pm the next day and buy something...but only if he was there. I am determined to catch myself a cute Spaniard. I got home, talked to María del Mar a bit, finally finished my Amsterdam blog on Word (still had editing to do, thought), then ate dinner. Dinner was interesting; we had really good cauliflower cooked in olive oil (the best she´s ever made it) and then bacalao with plain old tomato sauce. Maybe Maruja´s running out of creative dishes, who knows. It was strange, yet not bad and pretty satisfying. For dessert I had a pear which turned out to be pretty bland. I was so stuffed after that meal, though. Then I went to the room and did some things online (then internet was working), such as drafting my daily blogs to publish after I finished Amsterdam blogs. Blogging has been crazy lately, I tell ya. I waited for a text from Melissa because we had made plans to meet up in Plaza de Cuba at 10:40 to walk to Carbonería and meet up with Jessica, Courtney, and Courtney´s cousin. I usually wouldn´t go out on a Monday night, but Courtney´s cousin who´s a senior in high school was here on a school trip for a day, and she wanted us all to hang out with her. So I obliged. I didn´t get a message, but around 10:20 Stacey told me that she had talked to Melissa who said that she planned on meeting me. So I guess Melissa just didn´t want to waste minutes on her phone (understandable), so I started walking over, called Melissa just to double check (affirmative), we met up and walked to Carbonería. It was both of our first times getting to Carbonería by foot, but we found it in around 20 minutes with little problems. We were quite proud of ourselves. When we got to Carbonería it was packed...I guess that it´s the only happening place on Monday nights. We found Jessica, Courtney, and Courtney´s cousin, met her cousin, and then Courtney and her cousin left. Her cousin had a curfew of 11pm to be back at her hotel, but she got it extended to 11:30 that night so she could spend time with her cousin. Well, Melissa and I got there at 11:15 so Courtney had to walk her cousin back right away. It´s too bad because she didn´t even get to see the flamenco show. So we stuck around, got a jar of sangria and split it between all of us. The show started and it was my favorite flamenco show that I´ve seen at Carbonería. It was a late-50´s-year-old man who sang, a 40-something guitar player, and a 40 or 50-something dancer who was actually English. They were all more adament about keeping the place quiet and no smoking during the performance, more adament than other performers I have seen. The dancer wasn´t that great (probably since she ain´t Spanish), but the guitar player was good, and the singer was AMAZING! He had a pretty good voice, nothing phenomenal, but he was so theatrical. He got so into it, he stood up, interacted with the audience, it was awesome. I loved him. And it´s the first time I actually understood the lyrics! He was so great--I wish he had a CD cuz I would buy it. The sangria, however, was kinda gross. I only drank one glass and barely had a buzz. I didn´t want to get drunk, though, so that was part of the reason. After the performance we stuck around and hung out. Sam from our program just happened to be there with his Greek friends with whom he went to Morocco earlier in the month. We met Penny, the girl he´s crushing on who´s 27 but only considers him a friend. It´s kind of silly. But she´s really nice and cool. Sam smokes now, too. A few people on our program have picked up smoking because they´re into being European or something. I don´t really get it. They all say it´s a Europe thing but I think that that´s a stupid excuse. It´s like they started smoking because everyone else was doing it. No excuse. I also learned that Sarah from our program got robbed at knife point in a park while studying. She´s okay, and the cops got the culprits, but still that is so scary. It´s weird because the crime rate here is exceptionally low compared to the states, but it´s all just robbery. And it happens, especially to foreigners because we just look like walking money machines. Ugh. That makes me even more nervous and paranoid than I already had been. Anyways, it was really hot and uncomfortable at Carbonería and I was tired and kind of wanted to leave right after the performance. But everyone wanted to stick around so we were there until 2am. Blah. We then all walked home...thankfully it was a gorgeous night. On the walk home the silliest thing happens (of course, only in Spain). At Carbonería I had collected a small pile of free postcards. While walking them I dropped them on the ground in front of a café that had people sitting in the outdoor seating. I bent down to pick them up when suddenly this random Spanish dude rushes over from one of the table and rushes to pick them up. But he was weird about it, I mean, really eager to pick up the postcards for me. So eager that although I had grabbed most of the postcards he pulled them out of my hand while I was bent down. I stood back up and he handed them to me. He had this eager look on his face like, "Where´s my reward?" kind of thing. It was so weird and silly. Um...thanks? I gave a hesitant "gracias" and we walked away laughing our asses off wondering what just occurred. It was just so random...and absurd. And you know me and the random/absurd...always a fan. So all in all it was funny, silly, weird, and fantastic in its weirdness. Oh, Spain, always full of surprises. I didn´t get home until 2:30 and wasn´t in bed until 3am. Oh well, it was worth it for the good flamenco show.

Feliz Pascua

=Happy Easter

Woke up quite late on Sunday--around 1:30pm. Lord knows how that happened. I made myself a piece of toast and retreated to the living room to work on my Amsterdam blogs (yes, as you can tell, it took forever). The doorbell rang, Maruja wasn't home, so I had to answer it, bra-less, in my pj's, glasses, smeared makeup, and morning breath. I figured it'd be a package or something, but I opened the door to see Juan, Maruja's son, and his 5 infamous daughters fresh out of Easter mass. He said that they'd wait for Maruja to come home. I quickly went to my room, put on some clothes, cleaned up a bit and vowed not to breathe on anyone. I sat with all of the girls on the couch and watched a kids' talk show with an adult host which is basically the Spanish "Kids Say the Darndest Things". Soon Maruja came home from mass and was in high spirits. Maruja had been in a great mood all throughout Semana Santa, but she was in an exceptionally good mood on Sunday. I guess Jesus' resurrection just has that effect on people. But really, Maruja is so so so religious I think that a whole week devoted to praying just puts her in a great mood. Speaking of praying, I had completely forgotten that it was Passover that week. I swear, being in Spain has turned me into a quasi-Catholic. I was aware of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and I'm all geared up for Corpus Christi, woohoo! Oh wow; Jesus, I tell ya. Turns out it was Fatima's (the oldest daughter) 8th birthday and Maruja had made her a tarta (cake)...the same tarta Stacey, Maria del Mar, and I had on our birthdays. I wished Fatima a very happy birthday. Soon they left and I finished up some of my blog. Stacey left--she had so much to do that she decided to just camp out by the river all day and not eat any meals at home. So Maruja and I ate just the two of us. Lunch was pretty basic but quite good and extremely filling. She made penne pasta sauteed with canned tuna fish and then simple tomato sauce on top. It sounds weird, but it was really good and really filling. I plan on putting tuna in my spaghetti in the States now! On the side we had a green salad AND a whole bunch of shellfish croquetas. I like croquetas, but not enough to eat more than 3. Well we both had 6. That was not too fun. And I had to eat them fast. Blah. For dessert we had a whole kiwi each. After lunch I walked to meet up with Stacey at the river. It was hot and the sun was really strong so I bought a huge water bottle and sat with Stacey on one of the benches. The sun was so strong and I was already pretty tan I didn't want to get burnt and I didn't have sunblock so it was a challenge reading and studying whilst trying to shield myself. I ended up with a mild sunburn on my right arm in the end from writing notes. Oh well. The whole time at the river I studied the second chapter of my art history book; it was all about Ancient Greek art which was pretty interesting. It took me from 3pm till 8pm to read and take notes on the entire chapter. I was also distracted many a time--Melissa showed up to meet with us and study for a couple hours. Stacey left a bit before Melissa to go to an internet cafe (damn our internet for being out that weekend). Melissa left around 7 and I was all alone in the nice Sevilla sun soaking it all in. It was Easter so there were tons of people out and about all dressed up in their Sunday's best. Good times in the Sevilla. Soon a group of Spanish students sat next to me, many of which were quite attractive. They didn't have an Andalusian accent so I'm wondering where they're from. Maybe central Spain? Who knows. The guys were pretty cute which makes sense if they're not from Sevilla. Sevilla boys are sleazy and have mullets. Yuck. At 8 I walked back home, worked on my Amsterdam blog for awhile until dinner. Stacey wasn't eating at home so it was just Maruja and me. Lucky for Stacey she missed this dinner because we had her least favorite: salchichas (hot dogs w/o bun)...3 each (as per usual)! Pureed potatoes, green salad (which was not very good, I think she forgot to put vinegar on it), and a banana just for me for dessert (Maruja wasn't eating dessert). Although simple and not great, I found the meal pretty satisfying and didn't have any complaints about. Besides, Maruja had a fully-packed Catholic day. I asked her about la misa de pascua (Easter Mass) and she said that it was great, that the church was gorgeously decorated with many, many flowers. Also, Stacey told Maruja that she wasn't eating at home but she ended up coming home around dinner time and just hanging out in the room. Maruja asked me what Stacey was doing and I had to kind of cover for her

Everything in Spain is just weird

Woke up well-rested on Saturday morning around 10:30am. I was feeling lazy and had a ton of blogging to do (Amsterdam is now the bain of my existence) so I headed into the living room, switched on the TV, and went to work. I had no other choice than to work on my Amsterdam blog, actually, because all weekend our internet was out. Or, rather, the wireless network we steal from was down. Hehe. So that sucked. My Amsterdam blog was taking awhile and I decided to first write it out on Microsoft Word and then paste it into Blogspot. Good times. Stacey had a ton of postcards to write so she headed to the river to work on that. At 2:30 Stacey returned and we ate a delicious lunch: some heated up frozen lasagna-like thing (which was actually good...and interesting), then the typical Spanish fried fish: one large filet for each of us and then a pile of small, whole fish that you eat like french fries. On the side we got a good sized portion of grilled red peppers...so good! We also had a simple green salad and a whole kiwi for dessert. The kiwis were absolutely delicious, but the aftertaste always kills me. Blech. The meal was very good and very Spanish: fried fish and vegetables of all sorts is very typical of Spain. And Maruja does a damn good job with it, I must say. After lunch Stacey and I walked to the river. It was a gorgeous, warm day with a bunch of cool cumulous clouds. I took some great pics. On the way we stopped at Plus (budget grocery store) to buy snacks for the river. I bought some coconut, hazlenut, raisin granola for 95 cents which really intrigued me. At the river I gave it a try and, holy crap, it's the best granola I've ever eaten. That stuff was dangerously good and addicting. It was a small box, but I ate a good half of it throughout our time at the river. The whole time I read "Castigo sin venganza", one of the plays for Lope class. I got through more than half of it so that was an accomplishment. Oh, and I also got some good sun...always an accomplishment. We finally walked back home around 8ish and on the way home we stopped at the bakery Nova Roma to get torrijas. Torrijas are one of the main pastries served exclusively during Semana Santa. You can get them anywhere, even frozen in grocery stores. While I was in Amsterdam Maruja served some for dessert and Stacey told me that they were great and that I had to try one. I wasn't hungry, but since it was basically the last day of Semana Santa this would be my only chance. So we stopped there and I got a small one (they come in 2 sizes, the smalls are pretty freaking small). Then we headed home and hung around the apartment until dinner at 9:30. Well, first I ate my mini torrija...and it was soooo good! A torrija is basically the Spanish answer to French toast: it's bread marinated in honey (maybe sugar, too? not sure). It's literally drenched in honey--it's been sitting in pans of honey for weeks. The bread is sopping wet and just tastes like honey goodness. I like Semana Santa. Then we had dinner which was great...it was veggies galore! We had a lot of grilled eggplant (yummmm), a lot of cooked, sliced carrots marinated in garlic, cumin, and rosemary, and served cold (sooooooo GOOD!), one of those lightly fried chicken filets (always good), a simple green salad, and bananas for dessert (which are really good right now). Yup, everything was pretty good, I'd say. It has been kind of challenging to eat lately because it's just us two and Maruja and Maruja's a vacuum when she eats. I don't know how she eats so fast, but she does. And since it's only the 3 of us we get more food so it's even harder to keep up. Ah well. After dinner Stacey and I headed back to the room and got ready to go out. We were meeting up with Melissa and Katie in the Plaza de Cuba at 10:45 and then heading out to check out the Semana Santa bar, Garlochi, that we tried and failed to find on Thursday night. On the way Stacey and I stopped at OpenCor to buy chasers cuz we've been doing the poor man's drinking by buying cheap vodka and bringing it out with us in water bottles. We then met up with Katie and Melissa and headed out. We were to meet up with Courtney and Jessica in front of the Starbucks by the University, but they called to say that they were sick to their stomachs. Turns out that they were dry heaving all night because of the churros from Thursday. That's funny because when Stacey and I got churros on her birthday Stacey also got really sick to her stomach. Our stomachs just can't handle food that is so deeply fried, I guess. I definitely got a stomach ache from them on Stacey's bday, but it was short-lived and didn't involve any sort of vomiting. Oh Spain. In front of Starbucks we ran into Lizzy and Elena and Lizzy's French roommate. They had just come back from a procession because it was the last day of processions so all of the Jesus floats come out (the other days they're just Virgins). Lizzy's very religious so it was a big deal for her to find the Jesus. We talked for awhile and shared all of our Semana Santa trips with each other. Lizzy and Elena went to Morocco and loved it. I'm excited to go with the family! Soon we parted ways and the four of us walked towards the Alfalfa area which is where Garlochi is located. On the way we ran into this gaggle of high school-age Americans. We kind of giggled about how funny they were--being all high school-like and walking in the biggest groups ever to go out. Then these 18-year-old or so Spanish guys were walking behind us and started hissing and whistling at us. We've gotten to the point where we just do it right back to pester them, so we started hissing back and laughing at them. Then one of them starts huffing and grunting then walks straight towards my direction with a look of complete anger and aggression, barely passes me and violently kicks a garage right next to me and yells. It was so scary...and weird. We immediately sped walked as fast as possible and joined the big high school crowd. Haha. Serves us right. I don't think our making fun of him set him off, I think that he was just drunk and angry about something, I don't know. But it was so weird. Spain is just so weird sometimes. Then, we saw the funniest looking dog...it was little and fuzzy and looked like a stuffed animal. Its fur covered its eyes. It went up to a tree, dug a hole, lifted its leg, and took a crap. I've never seen a dog think to dig a hole for itself to poop in. Also, the dog lifted its leg as if it was peeing, but instead poo came out. How weird is that? I swear, Spain is just backwards. What a silly country I live in. Since we were pretty sober that night we successfully found Boteros, the street on which Garlochi was located. We walked down the small side street that was actually crowded with older people in bars and cafeterias (people stay out late during Semana Santa) and eventually found Garlochi. It's located in an old church, and when you walk in you're immediately greeted by a pretty altar with a Mary statue surrounded by flowers of all colors. The walls are draped with royal blue and maroon tapestries with baroque print on them. Gold chandeliers hang all around and candles burn everywhere. There are even more statues and altars of Mary and Jesus inside, and it smells of church incense as it is burning throughout. Flowers of all colors adorn all walls. It's quite remarkable. However, when we entered it was scalding hot and very stuffy. The bar was packed (it's a small space) and there was nowhere to stand nor sit. It was also filled with older people (50 and up, I'd say). Some old man even hissed at me...what??? We got to the back of the bar and thought of just getting a beer and leaving, but it was so hot, stuffy, and overall uncomfortable in there that we just decided to bail. We took a bunch of pictures, however. It's a shame because it was really awesome in there. Oh well, at least we can say we went. It's kind of sad that during Semana Santa I never really experienced it fully. I mean, I saw fragments of processions, but I never really saw the whole thing...ya know, the main parts. I did get to see a bunch of Nazarenos, people out all night, see the Semana Santa bar, and eat Semana Santa sweets. But I never really saw it ALL. I don't know, I guess I wasn't really feeling it, ya know? The whole procession thing just seems overly staged and this big worshipping of idols troubles my Hebrew School Jewish education. I guess that I saw what I needed to see. We then went to Alfalfa which was so empty! It was so weird to see it like that. We went to Robotica, the bar in Alfalfa that serves the big 3 euro beers and 1 euro shots. It was so weird--there was barely anybody there so we were able to get seats and fast service. We decided to all get a shot and we settled on an Orgasmo (Orgasm...obviously). It was tequila, creme de coco, and grenadine. It sounded really good on the menu, looked really pretty in the shot glasses (like strawberries and cream), but tasted like crap. Blech. That was a bad orgasmo. Then everyone got big beers. Well, Stacey and I split one while Katie and Melissa got their own. We then went outside to see Alfalfa begin to fill up...however it was quite obvious that it was just foreigners there. We ran into Evan from our program who is the soberest drunk guy I've ever known. He kept commenting about how drunk he was but I swear you'd never know it. We didn't believe him. He also went to Amsterdam over Semana Santa, and then Prague. He looooved Amsterdam and actually didn't like Prague too much. So Katie and I chatted it up with Evan and raved about our newfound love for Amsterdam. We then ended up talking to some other Americans from other programs who were all really cool. Then we saw some half-naked dude walking around in a souvenir flamenco hat and flamenco dress-apron. He was surrounded by a bunch of buff guys wearing brown shirts that said "London" on the back. Spain is oh so silly...always full of surprises. Well, we soon ended up talking to some of these buff London guys, all of which were quite attractive. They were a rowing team from the U.K. here for a few days (unfortunately leaving the next day). One of their friends who didn't wear a shirt was from Ireland and he was the cutest one of all of them so I had a target. I weasled my way in to talk to him and he was cool...in fact, all of them were cool. Then this weird Italian girl abruptly broke up our conversation, wrangled all of the boys up and took them somewhere. It was like she had them whipped or something, it was kind of obnoxious. So much for the British/Irish boys. Turns out that they were all between 28 and 30-years-old as Melissa found out; one of them said that he was too old for her. Oh man. Whatevs. We hung out more at Alfalfa having a great time as usual. Then we saw this one American guy who Melissa has a distant crush on although they've never spoken. We just always see him at Alfalfa. Katie was drunk and therefore had the guts to just walk right up to him and introduce herself. I played it cool by striking up a conversation with one of his friends. After about 3 minutes Katie walked back and we decided to go home. What happened was he introduced himself to Katie as Michaelangelo. Katie told him that she didn't believe that that was his name and he yelled at her about it! So weird. Must be an angry drunk. But it was hilarious. I tell ya, every Alfalfa trip always guarantees something weird and unexpected. That's what I love about Spain: ya just never know. We walked all the way home and Stacey and I were in bed and asleep by 4:30am. What a silly night...but yet awesome. Just like every night here in Sevilla: silly, and therefore great.