So tomorrow, actually 4 hours from now, I'm going back to the US. I know, I haven't written about Madrid, don't worry, it is in the works. So I thought I'd make a list of all the things I loved/hated/remember about Europe, in no particular order.
1. The food (of course). I tried everything, I hated almost nothing and was inspired by it all.
2. Analise Spacucello and Holly Lynch. I don't even know where to begin. Our times together...amazing.
3. Living with Sylvia. I'm really glad there is someone around to back up my crazy stories. And she was a great room mate.
4. Sharing food with Craig. I got to try twice as much and he didn't even give me one disease!
5. Dancing with Jessica, Michelle, and Kate. Ya'll are a good time.
6. Staying with Isabelle. I haven't known anyone in my life longer and I love that we still act the same around each other even though we haven't been around each other in over a year. Please come to Houston to spoon with me. Oh, and her family is pretty amazing as well.
7. La Senora (in Barcelona). While she was a sweet lady, I have been inspired to clean everything with bleach and potty train my dogs to go outside.
8. John C. Wilcox, Jordi, Silvia, and Marianna. This trip would not have been the same without them. I saw the city in a way I never would have been able to, and they rock, duh.
9. The art. I feel so much more cultured. Isabelle and I were at the Prado and I recognized a Velásquez across the room. I was pretty proud. Now, ask me about stuff we saw at the MNAC and I can only think of the lady laying on the couch in the bright pink pants...
10. The beaches. Usually I get really antsy and hot, but the beaches here have been truly amazing, I could lay on them for hours. They have perhaps ruined Galveston for me. Okay, Galveston ruined itself.
11. Living without the luxuries I'm used to. While I missed certain things (AIR CONDITIONING, dryers, cake mix, and free water at restaurants), I'm in freaking Europe, who cares?
12. I have a new appreciation for traveling light.
13. Nothing fixes a sangria hangover like some Hot Doks.
14. Paying in Euros. While the money is prettier, the exchange rate is not.
15. My newly acquired Spanish language. Sometimes it helped me a lot (I have all sorts of new, wonderful ways to drop the f-bomb), and sometimes it was my arch-nemesis (I recall missing a train because I couldn't understand what was going on. Cool).
16. Scotch...and wine...and gin...and mojitos...and vodka gimlets...and beer...and sangria...and being of legal age and not having to sneak around.
17. Animal Balls and Boy Scouts.
18. Talking to strangers everywhere, especially the train. On the train, they are stuck with you for hours and are forced to be polite and listen. And look at your pictures.
19. Not getting anything stolen from me. Well, my sunglasses are no where to be found but that is the only casualty.
20. Hygiene. I have a completely different approach that the US might not be ready for.
21. 5A. When you are 7 hours away from home, after a few drinks, 5A is a wonderful time to call your parents. Ask them, they'll tell you how much they loved hearing from me then.
22. Yulie. Seriously? How does anyone put up with a dog whose restroom is behind the couch and begs for food by barking and jumping?
23. The Eiffel Tower. I really was blown away.
24. My new euro style. Which is the same as before: sweatpants and a t-shirt and flip flops. But this time with a scarf.
25. The smells. Barcelona smells like potty. Nice smells like ocean. Paris smells like love. And Madrid smells like something I can't quite put my finger on.
26. Creepy religious stuff. Seriously, it is everywhere and I love every bit of it.
27. Waking up with new bug bites. Mosquitoes? Bed bugs? Who knows?
28. Having more than 50 pictures that have to be filed in the inappropriate folder that will be kept under lock, key, and password.
29. Carbs. It is amazing to be in a place that embraces and eats carbs like it's their job.
30. Fending for myself. Sometimes, I've had to fend for myself. Which is good and bad, mostly good.
I don't know if I've ever laughed harder in a period of two months or been more awestruck in my life. The people I have met on this trip have changed my life. This has been an amazing experience.
On a sadder note, as I was packing, I found out that my friend Harmony passed away yesterday. She was an amazing girl and one of the sweetest people I know and forgetting her will be impossible but loving her was easy.
I will now try and sleep for like, an hour (literally) before I have to wake up at 4:15A to take 4 planes between now (2:19A Madrid time, 7:19P Central Time) and 2:50P central time on Friday. Hopefully I will not encounter the motion sickness I enjoyed on the way here.
Au revoir and Hasta Luego!
6.25.2008
6.12.2008
Nice Was Nice, But Paris is Better
So now I'm in Paris. The city of love. Which is true. I've seen more people makeout here than I would ever see in the US. But last time I left off I was still in Nice, so I'll start there.
Sunday night we did not go out. We crumbed up the bed with baguette, did not bathe, and talked to some people in the lobby. And drank a lot of free juice that they had in the lobby of the hotel. Since we were still recovering from Barcelona, we went to bed early, and slept a night terror free night.
We woke up in the morning we woke up late and headed straight for the beach. On our way down the stairs we met a group of guys from Houston (Rice Village area) which was cool. We never spoke to them again, though. Upon arrival, we noticed a homeless man on the beach who had the worst skid marks on his whitie tighties (which served as his swimming trunks because he was washing and drying the rest of his clothes in the shower heads provided. Naturally, I captured him on camera and he has been dubbed 'Streaks'. We saw him later when we were out, once again passed out.
We laid on the beach for about 6 hours, getting surprisingly not burnt; rather brown like a pack of Mexicans. We finally showered (we hadn't done so since crossing the border, and maybe a couple days before that) and decided to head to old Nice to find dinner and something to do. First of all, Nice is purely tourist. And by tourists I mean old, rich, gay men. Its nice for a couple relaxing days at the beach, and the views are stunning. However, it is not in fact known for its nightlife. As we discovered. We went to a bar that we had gotten a flier for (amazing how publicity works) that advertised happy hour. Happy hour doesn't really exist in Europe to our knowledge, so we ran to Ma Nolans as fast as we could. They had some sort of beer on special and cocktails. I had a gin and tonic and a cosmopolitan. But it was not the cosmo I'm used to. It was more like a fruity, delicious girl drink. I loved it. While we waited for a table outside, we got to watch the France-Romania game in a French bar. Pretty awesome. European soccer fans put American football fans to shame. Then we got a table and had good, old-fashioned (although somewhat flame kissed) burgers and fries. After eating bread and cheese for pretty much 2 days, they were delish.
Afterwards, we went in and watched the Netherlands crush Italy, which was funny since Italy won the World Cup 2 years ago. And Analise is Italian and probably the only supporter of Italy in that place. There were some awesome dutch fans, all decked out in orange with funny hats. We decided (and by we I mean Analise because she was embarrassed to be supporting Italy) to try and find a different bar. Nice did not produce. We only found more restaurants. When we finally found a bar, the game was in the last few minutes, drinks were expensive, and we were exhausted from spending so much time in the sun. So we went home and passed out since we were supposed to catch the 9:45 train to Paris.
We got up extra early, packed, and took a cab (for 15 euros...thieves) to the train station. We got in line for tickets and realized that there is currently a train strike going on in France. When we finally got to the ticket desk, the man said that we wouldn't be able to get out of Nice until 5:30 that evening. I mean, at least we could get out the same day, but still. And we had already checked out of our hotel and had all our luggage with us. Awesome. So we paid 8.50 euro (around $13 american) to store it in a locker until we were to get on the train. Only the big pieces fit though, so I was stuck with my backpack and for some reason wore a long sleeve shirt. I boiled all day long. We walked around, shopped some, at cheap pizza, nothing too exciting. While we were eating, however, we were approached by gypsies for the first time. There were beggars in Barcelona, but nothing like this. These parents wanted us to give our pizza to their son. We said no at first, because it was going to be our only meal of the day. We did have a lot so Holly and Analise gave what they had leftover to the child. I didn't have any leftovers so I did not (judge me all you want). Then, the mother and father got in a fight in Italian and he stormed off. And the mother ate our pizza. And then she asked us for something to drink for the boy. What? I think no. Then, the father came back with sacks filled with groceries, which the child ate. Feeling like we'd been tricked, we left to look around Nice some more.
After an epic walk around Nice (okay, Nice is not epic, not even a little bit), we went back to the train station because I was boiling and we were out of things to do. And we sat. In the train station. For 3 hours on the floor. At least the floor was cold, I would not, however, make the mistake of calling it clean. We finally got on our train at 5:30 and were scheduled to be in Paris at 11:15 which for some reason I thought was only 4 hours in transit until we were on the train for 4 hours and realized that math should not be my major. On the train, we sat next to some really cool Australian guys who were traveling for a month...or maybe 2 weeks. I think a month. We had a good time drinking wine that we brought and Zoco (licorice flavored liquor...not bad with apple juice and water) that they brought and sharing stories about traveling in unknown places.
We finally got to Paris and got a cab to our hotel. It is especially bad that we don't speak French because I think we might have jipped some man out of like 2 euros since his job is to call cabs or something. I'm not really sure what happened because he was yelling at us in French. I told him we don't speak French and he just threw up his hands and huffed off. The cab driver was somewhat of an asshole. When he dropped us off at our hotel he was like 'You are staying here??'. Yes, we are, so what. The place is 25 euros a night per person, we can't afford much more. Since it was almost midnight, it was pretty dark and quiet out, making our hotel look extra sketch. The guy at the front desk didn't help all that much either, since I'm pretty sure he was high as a kite. We were situated on the 5th floor, which is actually the 6th floor since the ground floor doesn't count. Fortunately (I think) we met some guy who has been traveling alone who arrogantly whipped out his map to show us everywhere to go. He also helped me get my stuff up the stairs. Which is the only reason I shamelessly flirted with him. After we thought we got rid of him, we checked out our room which looked like a mental hospital with a bathroom lock on the door. I did not care. I was so tired and boiling again from dragging my stuff up the 6 flights on stairs that I stripped of my clothes and got into bed. The place was clean and we had our own bathroom, but modernity clearly happened in the 18th century.
While Holly and Analise were getting ready for bed, we heard a knock on the door. When we asked who it was, a voice said 'Uhhh, the guy from the stairs'. Of course I was pretty much naked in bed and I informed Holly and Analise that I would not be putting clothes on so hopefully he wouldn't be coming in. He asked us if we had a shower because he was supposed to and after several awkward pauses, was on his way. We passed out and woke up early since we were going to try and see as much of Paris in a day.
We woke up early the next morning to get a head start on conquering Paris. After a breakfast of croissant, baguette, and cafe au lait (pretty much just straight carbs and dairy), we went to the train station to get our reservations for the next leg of our trip, having learned from trying to get out of Nice. Thankfully, we made reservations with much trouble and took the metro to the center of the city. Somehow, on the metro, we were like 20,000 leagues underground because we had to climb lots of stairs for fresh air.
Once we found our way outside, we pretty much just started walking, trying to find the Louvre. After turning around a few times, we found it and it was amazing. It covers like several city blocks and at one time was a palace, which is incredible considering how big it is. It looks so French, too, with all the stone architecture and ornate decor on the outside. Then we walked through the garden in the middle, with the giant glass triangles that serve as the entrance and the amazing fountains. Had the fountains been in Barcelona, there would be no water in them due to the drought that is still a problem there. However, in Paris, water is abundant and the fountains are full and gorgeous.
We just walked around, drinking the Louvre in for awhile, and walked on to the Arc de Triomphe which rounds it out. We kept on walking towards the second Arc de Triomphe, which is at the end of the Champs Elysees. Between the Arc and the second Arc, we ran into the giant phallic symbol that France stole from Egypt. That's how the guy from the stairs described it, and I really don't know the actual name, but it was cool to see. It was huge and covered in hieroglyphics. The Champs Elysees is a really famous street in Paris that has a lot of designer stores, restaurants, etc. It was nice to walk on and see but we didn't really go in anywhere except the Quick Hamburger for lunch. The Quick Hamburger is like a nicer French Burger King. We were trying to eat cheaply, so it worked for that. And the fries were really good. But not really noteworthy and definitely not distinctly French.
After eating, we kept walking around the Champs Elysees, stopping to look at the second Arc de Triomphe and making our way down the other side of the Champ Elysees. We decided to try and find Notre Dame, since you have to see that if you go to Paris. However, Holly (who has been to Paris) saw some spires and so we headed that way. We got to the origin of the spires and started wondering where the tourists were, thinking we were at Notre Dame. Guess what, it was not Notre Dame. Cool architecture, but still not Notre Dame. So we decided to just follow the river until we found it. We got to walk through some cool neighborhoods, look into shops, and passed a bar that advertised specials during the soccer game that was happening later.
It wasn't too much further to Notre Dame and we made it in time to watch part of mass. I'm not religious but how many people can say they've been to mass at Notre Dame Cathedral? I can! There was a huge number of tourists, gypsies, and a couple nuns; all of which I ignored. We didn't stay too long, mostly because it was in French and after walking all day we all needed a drink. So we walked back to the pub we had seen the specials for to watch the Eurocup game and have cheap drinks.
The pub was a small dive bar, but I have a cheap mojito and beer was on special so we sat there and watched the game. Its really awesome to be in Europe while the Eurocup is going on because people here are crazy about soccer. Like nuts. The game with Portugal against Czech Republic. Portugal pounded Czech Republic. After the game we decided to find some dinner. We had seen a bunch of Moroccan restaurants and Analise wanted to try it so we found one that was close by and had a pretty cheap menu du jour, which is the same as the menu of the day that I enjoyed in Barcelona.
Moroccan food was amazing. I had a salad with goat cheese on crostini and walnuts and lamb skewers served with vegetables. Holly and Analise had tagine which is like stew with chicken and potato and lemon, also delicious. For dessert I had creme brulee, which was homemade and wonderful. I guess that's the only French thing I ate while in France. After we stuffed ourselves silly, we headed to the metro stop and the Eiffel Tower. By now, the sun had gone down so it was dark outside.
We got to the Eiffel Tower and walked towards the glowing building, since it was all light up it was really easy to spot. I took about 2 million pictures, most of them look the same, and we sat down on a footpath and waited for it to light up. From far away, we could see the top when we were walking around earlier in the day and I wasn't that impressed. But close up, I was blown away. It is bigger than I imagined, and with the night lights and people milling around speaking French, it was such an experience. I could stare it at for hours. Okay, I don't really have that kind of attention span, but I did give it a solid 30 minutes which is pretty good for a stationary object.
Eventually, 10:50 rolled around and it light up all crazy. Unfortunately, while we were sitting there we kept getting approached by street vendors wanting us to buy wine or souvenirs. I informed them that they were ruining my Eiffel Tower experience and to go away. Who knows when the next time I'll be in Paris looking at the Eiffel Tower at night, so I decided being blunt would be more worthwhile. While we were sitting there, this rat came out of nowhere and ran between Holly and Analise, causing mild hysterics for a couple minutes. Everyone survived and I am pleased to report that no diseases were caused by the invasion. After the Eiffel Tower, we finally headed to our hotel and bed after a long day of trekking Paris.
In the morning, we were supposed to get up relatively early to trek some more, but we all over slept and didn't make it out until around 11. We also all needed to shower (second time since being in France) and managed to clog up the shower drain. Awesome. We decided to try a museum but missed breakfast so we got some crepes (with ham and cheese...amazing) from a street vendor and headed to the Pompidou which holds one of the largest modern art museums in the world (this could be completely false but the building is huge so it make sense). We got poured on and went the wrong direction so it took us awhile to get there, but we made it and it was amazing.
There are all kinds of famous, modern artists like Jackson Pollack (although the few pieces they have of him do not seem very Pollack-y), Picasso, Dali, and a whole bunch more that are super famous that I had never heard of. I feel more cultured for having seen so much art, though. Some of it was a little strange and included noises, but overall it was awesome. After the museum we did a little shopping. Analise finally bought some Euro pants from a store that burns incense (she drags us into these places all the time and almost never buys anything). We ate some cheap Lebanese street food (falafel) and walked some more then headed back to our hotel to collect our things and go our separate ways, me to Madrid to meet up with Isabelle and them on the rest of their Euro journey.
I liked Paris a lot, but my heart is still in Barcelona. It is a totally different experience when you know the language and feel comfortable. Granted, we were only in Paris for 2 days, and I fell absolutely in love with it, but I like not feeling like a tourist and knowing stuff about the city, like how to get around. And I don't speak French.
I took a cab across town (for almost 16 euros...grrr) and waited in the train station for an hour before boarding my sleeper car to Madrid. I figured I would probably only be willing to take an overnight train once in my life, right? It was pretty awesome. There are rules about men and women sleeping together, so all the men go in one cabin and all the women go in a different one. Not all together, like 4 per cabin. The grandma in my cabin was traveling with her (hot) grandson who I spoke to, in my broken Spanish, for awhile. He was nice and helped me with my luggage at the insistence of his abuela. Eventually, they came around and let the beds down and I knocked out. I slept, the train moved. By the time I woke up again, we were in Madrid. Awesome.
I found Isabelle and her abuela and her tio and we had some coffee in the station and then boarded several trains and one bus to get back to Las Rozas, where her aunt lives. It is actually a suburb of Madrid, but it really isn't that far. Well, we haven't ventured into Madrid yet so I could be totally wrong about that. I do know that the train station is on the opposite side of the city, so downtown is somewhere in the middle. After getting to her aunts house, we dragged my stuff up the stairs, hung out in our room and chatted, ate lunch, took a 3 hour nap (she's still super jet lagged and I am happy to nap anytime). After our nap we made some plans for tomorrow, which aren't really plans but more intentions, and now we're on our computers since it is afternoon in the States and we can reach our American friends. I'm about to try and call my momma, since I haven't talked to her in like 10 days, hopefully she answers! For the next 2 weeks I'll be here, and then back to the States! I haven't been home since March, so the anticipation is killing me, I miss my sweet sweet Bartimus. But I can't wait to see Madrid and improve my Spanish some more. Isabelle's grandma doesn't speak English, except for 'Oh My God' and a couple holiday greetings (none of which are useful right now) and her uncle understands English but doesn't speak fluently. And her aunt wants me to learn more Spanish. So I should be great by the time I leave in two weeks, hopefully. It is almost midnight here and I understand there will be some sort of breakfast around 9 (juevos con jamon?), so I should go to sleep and call my momma.
¡Felíz viernes trece!
Sunday night we did not go out. We crumbed up the bed with baguette, did not bathe, and talked to some people in the lobby. And drank a lot of free juice that they had in the lobby of the hotel. Since we were still recovering from Barcelona, we went to bed early, and slept a night terror free night.
We woke up in the morning we woke up late and headed straight for the beach. On our way down the stairs we met a group of guys from Houston (Rice Village area) which was cool. We never spoke to them again, though. Upon arrival, we noticed a homeless man on the beach who had the worst skid marks on his whitie tighties (which served as his swimming trunks because he was washing and drying the rest of his clothes in the shower heads provided. Naturally, I captured him on camera and he has been dubbed 'Streaks'. We saw him later when we were out, once again passed out.
We laid on the beach for about 6 hours, getting surprisingly not burnt; rather brown like a pack of Mexicans. We finally showered (we hadn't done so since crossing the border, and maybe a couple days before that) and decided to head to old Nice to find dinner and something to do. First of all, Nice is purely tourist. And by tourists I mean old, rich, gay men. Its nice for a couple relaxing days at the beach, and the views are stunning. However, it is not in fact known for its nightlife. As we discovered. We went to a bar that we had gotten a flier for (amazing how publicity works) that advertised happy hour. Happy hour doesn't really exist in Europe to our knowledge, so we ran to Ma Nolans as fast as we could. They had some sort of beer on special and cocktails. I had a gin and tonic and a cosmopolitan. But it was not the cosmo I'm used to. It was more like a fruity, delicious girl drink. I loved it. While we waited for a table outside, we got to watch the France-Romania game in a French bar. Pretty awesome. European soccer fans put American football fans to shame. Then we got a table and had good, old-fashioned (although somewhat flame kissed) burgers and fries. After eating bread and cheese for pretty much 2 days, they were delish.
Afterwards, we went in and watched the Netherlands crush Italy, which was funny since Italy won the World Cup 2 years ago. And Analise is Italian and probably the only supporter of Italy in that place. There were some awesome dutch fans, all decked out in orange with funny hats. We decided (and by we I mean Analise because she was embarrassed to be supporting Italy) to try and find a different bar. Nice did not produce. We only found more restaurants. When we finally found a bar, the game was in the last few minutes, drinks were expensive, and we were exhausted from spending so much time in the sun. So we went home and passed out since we were supposed to catch the 9:45 train to Paris.
We got up extra early, packed, and took a cab (for 15 euros...thieves) to the train station. We got in line for tickets and realized that there is currently a train strike going on in France. When we finally got to the ticket desk, the man said that we wouldn't be able to get out of Nice until 5:30 that evening. I mean, at least we could get out the same day, but still. And we had already checked out of our hotel and had all our luggage with us. Awesome. So we paid 8.50 euro (around $13 american) to store it in a locker until we were to get on the train. Only the big pieces fit though, so I was stuck with my backpack and for some reason wore a long sleeve shirt. I boiled all day long. We walked around, shopped some, at cheap pizza, nothing too exciting. While we were eating, however, we were approached by gypsies for the first time. There were beggars in Barcelona, but nothing like this. These parents wanted us to give our pizza to their son. We said no at first, because it was going to be our only meal of the day. We did have a lot so Holly and Analise gave what they had leftover to the child. I didn't have any leftovers so I did not (judge me all you want). Then, the mother and father got in a fight in Italian and he stormed off. And the mother ate our pizza. And then she asked us for something to drink for the boy. What? I think no. Then, the father came back with sacks filled with groceries, which the child ate. Feeling like we'd been tricked, we left to look around Nice some more.
After an epic walk around Nice (okay, Nice is not epic, not even a little bit), we went back to the train station because I was boiling and we were out of things to do. And we sat. In the train station. For 3 hours on the floor. At least the floor was cold, I would not, however, make the mistake of calling it clean. We finally got on our train at 5:30 and were scheduled to be in Paris at 11:15 which for some reason I thought was only 4 hours in transit until we were on the train for 4 hours and realized that math should not be my major. On the train, we sat next to some really cool Australian guys who were traveling for a month...or maybe 2 weeks. I think a month. We had a good time drinking wine that we brought and Zoco (licorice flavored liquor...not bad with apple juice and water) that they brought and sharing stories about traveling in unknown places.
We finally got to Paris and got a cab to our hotel. It is especially bad that we don't speak French because I think we might have jipped some man out of like 2 euros since his job is to call cabs or something. I'm not really sure what happened because he was yelling at us in French. I told him we don't speak French and he just threw up his hands and huffed off. The cab driver was somewhat of an asshole. When he dropped us off at our hotel he was like 'You are staying here??'. Yes, we are, so what. The place is 25 euros a night per person, we can't afford much more. Since it was almost midnight, it was pretty dark and quiet out, making our hotel look extra sketch. The guy at the front desk didn't help all that much either, since I'm pretty sure he was high as a kite. We were situated on the 5th floor, which is actually the 6th floor since the ground floor doesn't count. Fortunately (I think) we met some guy who has been traveling alone who arrogantly whipped out his map to show us everywhere to go. He also helped me get my stuff up the stairs. Which is the only reason I shamelessly flirted with him. After we thought we got rid of him, we checked out our room which looked like a mental hospital with a bathroom lock on the door. I did not care. I was so tired and boiling again from dragging my stuff up the 6 flights on stairs that I stripped of my clothes and got into bed. The place was clean and we had our own bathroom, but modernity clearly happened in the 18th century.
While Holly and Analise were getting ready for bed, we heard a knock on the door. When we asked who it was, a voice said 'Uhhh, the guy from the stairs'. Of course I was pretty much naked in bed and I informed Holly and Analise that I would not be putting clothes on so hopefully he wouldn't be coming in. He asked us if we had a shower because he was supposed to and after several awkward pauses, was on his way. We passed out and woke up early since we were going to try and see as much of Paris in a day.
We woke up early the next morning to get a head start on conquering Paris. After a breakfast of croissant, baguette, and cafe au lait (pretty much just straight carbs and dairy), we went to the train station to get our reservations for the next leg of our trip, having learned from trying to get out of Nice. Thankfully, we made reservations with much trouble and took the metro to the center of the city. Somehow, on the metro, we were like 20,000 leagues underground because we had to climb lots of stairs for fresh air.
Once we found our way outside, we pretty much just started walking, trying to find the Louvre. After turning around a few times, we found it and it was amazing. It covers like several city blocks and at one time was a palace, which is incredible considering how big it is. It looks so French, too, with all the stone architecture and ornate decor on the outside. Then we walked through the garden in the middle, with the giant glass triangles that serve as the entrance and the amazing fountains. Had the fountains been in Barcelona, there would be no water in them due to the drought that is still a problem there. However, in Paris, water is abundant and the fountains are full and gorgeous.
We just walked around, drinking the Louvre in for awhile, and walked on to the Arc de Triomphe which rounds it out. We kept on walking towards the second Arc de Triomphe, which is at the end of the Champs Elysees. Between the Arc and the second Arc, we ran into the giant phallic symbol that France stole from Egypt. That's how the guy from the stairs described it, and I really don't know the actual name, but it was cool to see. It was huge and covered in hieroglyphics. The Champs Elysees is a really famous street in Paris that has a lot of designer stores, restaurants, etc. It was nice to walk on and see but we didn't really go in anywhere except the Quick Hamburger for lunch. The Quick Hamburger is like a nicer French Burger King. We were trying to eat cheaply, so it worked for that. And the fries were really good. But not really noteworthy and definitely not distinctly French.
After eating, we kept walking around the Champs Elysees, stopping to look at the second Arc de Triomphe and making our way down the other side of the Champ Elysees. We decided to try and find Notre Dame, since you have to see that if you go to Paris. However, Holly (who has been to Paris) saw some spires and so we headed that way. We got to the origin of the spires and started wondering where the tourists were, thinking we were at Notre Dame. Guess what, it was not Notre Dame. Cool architecture, but still not Notre Dame. So we decided to just follow the river until we found it. We got to walk through some cool neighborhoods, look into shops, and passed a bar that advertised specials during the soccer game that was happening later.
It wasn't too much further to Notre Dame and we made it in time to watch part of mass. I'm not religious but how many people can say they've been to mass at Notre Dame Cathedral? I can! There was a huge number of tourists, gypsies, and a couple nuns; all of which I ignored. We didn't stay too long, mostly because it was in French and after walking all day we all needed a drink. So we walked back to the pub we had seen the specials for to watch the Eurocup game and have cheap drinks.
The pub was a small dive bar, but I have a cheap mojito and beer was on special so we sat there and watched the game. Its really awesome to be in Europe while the Eurocup is going on because people here are crazy about soccer. Like nuts. The game with Portugal against Czech Republic. Portugal pounded Czech Republic. After the game we decided to find some dinner. We had seen a bunch of Moroccan restaurants and Analise wanted to try it so we found one that was close by and had a pretty cheap menu du jour, which is the same as the menu of the day that I enjoyed in Barcelona.
Moroccan food was amazing. I had a salad with goat cheese on crostini and walnuts and lamb skewers served with vegetables. Holly and Analise had tagine which is like stew with chicken and potato and lemon, also delicious. For dessert I had creme brulee, which was homemade and wonderful. I guess that's the only French thing I ate while in France. After we stuffed ourselves silly, we headed to the metro stop and the Eiffel Tower. By now, the sun had gone down so it was dark outside.
We got to the Eiffel Tower and walked towards the glowing building, since it was all light up it was really easy to spot. I took about 2 million pictures, most of them look the same, and we sat down on a footpath and waited for it to light up. From far away, we could see the top when we were walking around earlier in the day and I wasn't that impressed. But close up, I was blown away. It is bigger than I imagined, and with the night lights and people milling around speaking French, it was such an experience. I could stare it at for hours. Okay, I don't really have that kind of attention span, but I did give it a solid 30 minutes which is pretty good for a stationary object.
Eventually, 10:50 rolled around and it light up all crazy. Unfortunately, while we were sitting there we kept getting approached by street vendors wanting us to buy wine or souvenirs. I informed them that they were ruining my Eiffel Tower experience and to go away. Who knows when the next time I'll be in Paris looking at the Eiffel Tower at night, so I decided being blunt would be more worthwhile. While we were sitting there, this rat came out of nowhere and ran between Holly and Analise, causing mild hysterics for a couple minutes. Everyone survived and I am pleased to report that no diseases were caused by the invasion. After the Eiffel Tower, we finally headed to our hotel and bed after a long day of trekking Paris.
In the morning, we were supposed to get up relatively early to trek some more, but we all over slept and didn't make it out until around 11. We also all needed to shower (second time since being in France) and managed to clog up the shower drain. Awesome. We decided to try a museum but missed breakfast so we got some crepes (with ham and cheese...amazing) from a street vendor and headed to the Pompidou which holds one of the largest modern art museums in the world (this could be completely false but the building is huge so it make sense). We got poured on and went the wrong direction so it took us awhile to get there, but we made it and it was amazing.
There are all kinds of famous, modern artists like Jackson Pollack (although the few pieces they have of him do not seem very Pollack-y), Picasso, Dali, and a whole bunch more that are super famous that I had never heard of. I feel more cultured for having seen so much art, though. Some of it was a little strange and included noises, but overall it was awesome. After the museum we did a little shopping. Analise finally bought some Euro pants from a store that burns incense (she drags us into these places all the time and almost never buys anything). We ate some cheap Lebanese street food (falafel) and walked some more then headed back to our hotel to collect our things and go our separate ways, me to Madrid to meet up with Isabelle and them on the rest of their Euro journey.
I liked Paris a lot, but my heart is still in Barcelona. It is a totally different experience when you know the language and feel comfortable. Granted, we were only in Paris for 2 days, and I fell absolutely in love with it, but I like not feeling like a tourist and knowing stuff about the city, like how to get around. And I don't speak French.
I took a cab across town (for almost 16 euros...grrr) and waited in the train station for an hour before boarding my sleeper car to Madrid. I figured I would probably only be willing to take an overnight train once in my life, right? It was pretty awesome. There are rules about men and women sleeping together, so all the men go in one cabin and all the women go in a different one. Not all together, like 4 per cabin. The grandma in my cabin was traveling with her (hot) grandson who I spoke to, in my broken Spanish, for awhile. He was nice and helped me with my luggage at the insistence of his abuela. Eventually, they came around and let the beds down and I knocked out. I slept, the train moved. By the time I woke up again, we were in Madrid. Awesome.
I found Isabelle and her abuela and her tio and we had some coffee in the station and then boarded several trains and one bus to get back to Las Rozas, where her aunt lives. It is actually a suburb of Madrid, but it really isn't that far. Well, we haven't ventured into Madrid yet so I could be totally wrong about that. I do know that the train station is on the opposite side of the city, so downtown is somewhere in the middle. After getting to her aunts house, we dragged my stuff up the stairs, hung out in our room and chatted, ate lunch, took a 3 hour nap (she's still super jet lagged and I am happy to nap anytime). After our nap we made some plans for tomorrow, which aren't really plans but more intentions, and now we're on our computers since it is afternoon in the States and we can reach our American friends. I'm about to try and call my momma, since I haven't talked to her in like 10 days, hopefully she answers! For the next 2 weeks I'll be here, and then back to the States! I haven't been home since March, so the anticipation is killing me, I miss my sweet sweet Bartimus. But I can't wait to see Madrid and improve my Spanish some more. Isabelle's grandma doesn't speak English, except for 'Oh My God' and a couple holiday greetings (none of which are useful right now) and her uncle understands English but doesn't speak fluently. And her aunt wants me to learn more Spanish. So I should be great by the time I leave in two weeks, hopefully. It is almost midnight here and I understand there will be some sort of breakfast around 9 (juevos con jamon?), so I should go to sleep and call my momma.
¡Felíz viernes trece!
6.08.2008
Bonjour!
So I'm in France now. Which is quite different from Spain, but amazing still. It has been a transition to go from a country where I speak and understand the language (for the most part) to a country where I do not speak the language. But I love Nice.
Last time I left off I was headed off to our farewell dinner, which was of course amazing. Its nice to go to a restaurant and not have to pay. While this limits our choices, not paying is wonderful. The first course was a collection of tapas: some sort of eggplant and roasted red pepper conglomeration, raw salmon with olive oil, cheese pizza (this was especially good after eating Spanish food for so long), pan con tomate, croquettes, and tortilla espanola. All of these were excellent and we got pretty full eating them, but we still had an entree and dessert. For our second course, they had said we would be getting filet mignon, which turned out to be pork tenderloin (I don't know what we were thinking, we were in Spain expecting beef...ridiculous) wrapped in bacon with a mustard sauce and white rice. Some people complained because they thought they were getting beef and didn't; but I have the eat everything they put in front of me policy and I found it delicious. Craig had fish and it was really good, but somewhat bony. For dessert we had a choice between crema catalunya (creme brulee) or tiramisu. I had tiramisu and it was the best I've ever had. Craig has crema catalunya and it was pretty amazing also.
After dinner and one billion pictures, a handful of us, including John C. Wilcox, Marianna, Jordi, and Silvia headed to a bar that Jordi and Silvia recommended, La Fira. It was early so it wasn't super busy when we first got there, but it was really awesome. The owner had bought all of the decor from a theme park at the top of the mountain when it closed and made a bar out of it. So there's all this circus, theme park stuff everywhere. Pretty sweet. And, I drank Johnnie Walker Red with John C. Wilcox. I wanted to pay for it for the sake of saying I bought JCW a scotch, but he wouldn't let me. Definitely highlight of the trip. It was mostly a hang out bar, and we stayed awhile but left relatively early to prepare for traveling the next day. Craig and Sylvia were going back to the states and had early flights out and Analise, Holly and I had train reservations at 8:45 in the morning. And I still hadn't packed.
Once I got home, I didn't want to pack even more, especially since I was sporting a minor scotch buzz. So I passed out instead, silly me. However, I managed to set my alarm for 6A and frantically pack to leave senora's apartment at the time I was supposed to. I took a taxi to the station, since I have infinity luggage, and thought I made it in time to take my train from Estacion de Sants to Estacion de Francia, on the other side of the city. I made it downstairs to the platform and there was a train sitting there that said aeropuerto (airport) and I was too busy not understanding Spanish to know that this was the train I was supposed to get on and it left without me. So I hauled my luggage back upstairs to find another taxi. This time, I went out the wrong door where taxis are not allowed to pick people up and had to go to the other side of the station. I had only slept like 3 hours and was not impressed with myself or the situation. I found a cab, and the driver was really nice, and I made it with time to spare before our train for France left. But it was a little stressful there for like an hour.
The train left and we were chatting and realized the 3 people next to us spoke English, which seemed rare so we started talking to them. Two were a lesbian couple from Florida who were backpacking through Europe and on their way to Nice as well. They are 25, recently graduated, and overall awesome girls. The other was a women with a 6 month old baby (precious) who has lived all over the world working for Unicef and the UN. Awesome. It was really cool to meet people on the train and have intelligent conversations, and tell them our hilarious stories. They especially liked the one about the time the dog rubbed her popa (poop) all over my bed. This made the first leg of our trip go by really quickly, even though we spent 4 hours on the train.
We had to get other reservations and change over in Montpelier but the train straight to Nice was full so we had to make an extra change in Marseilles. Whatever. We hung out at the train station with the cool lesbians. I had to pee so badly so I went down to the bathroom. I went to go in and the woman said something in French that I didn't understand except for the .50 euro part. So I paid to pee, for the first time since I've been in Europe. I flushed twice to get my money's worth. To the restroom's credit, it was super nice, but I'm not sure I enjoyed paying to relieve myself. After paying to pee, I went and hung out with the cool lesbians some more, they are fascinating. I inhaled a sandwich that I somehow procured through a French-English language barrier and a delicious brownie. However, I was exhausted and passed out on the cold, marble floor of the train station, apparently with my eyes open, they woke me up laughing about it. Eventually, they got on their train to Nice and we got on ours to Marseilles. The trains are nice. The seats recline and are spacious, nothing like an airplane. And nothing like the Amtrak. Much much nicer and frequented by much more normal people. No one asked me where the snack car is.
The view from the train, since it ran along the coast, was breathtaking. The French Riviera is absolutely incredible. Totally worth the time you spend to take the train instead of flying. We got to Marseilles after another 2 hours and transferred to our final train to Nice. We all passed out on the train, periodically waking up to check out the Riviera some more. Its seriously like straight out of a guide book. We finally got to Nice and were all tired, hungry, and ready to be done traveling with the luggage I had. Since I haven't been home yet, I had 2 heavy suitcases and a backpack. I was constantly needing help hauling it up and down the train stairs, into the luggage compartment. I'm surprise Analise and Holly didn't ditch me. I guess I'll keep them around.
Once we got to Nice we had no idea where to go to get to our Hostel. So we kind of started walking in the general direction of who knows where. As we were crossing the tram tracks where there were about 4,000 serious, French people waiting for the tram, I went to go drag my luggage up the surprisingly high curb and just completely ate it. Like face to the ground, driving my knee into the concrete, all the French people staring at me fall. And, on top of the fact that I screamed as I did it, I landed on the sidewalk but left my luggage in the pathway of the tram as it was coming, and I was still laying on the ground recovering. Luckily, Holly and Analise pulled my luggage out of the way of the tram and I lived. Barely.
We decided hailing a taxi would be a better decision, even though it cost money. We finally found a cab, which was a Mercedes, and got to our Hostel: Hotel Meyerbeer. Holly had read some sketch reviews but that was after it had been booked so we went anyways. It is so adorable! While there are 3 of us sharing one double bed and about 6 square feet of floor, its really nice and clean for the price. And we have our own bathroom. AND they come and clean and make the bed and change out the towels everyday. AND its only 146 euros for all 3 nights, for all 3 of us. AND BEST OF ALL we have the internet. No breakfast, but whatever.
After we arranged our stuff, we headed out to the kebab place that the desk worker recommended to us. It was a giant tortilla filled with a ton of chicken, lettuce, tomato, onions, and a yogurt sauce. It was perfect after a long day of traveling. We also got fries and a soda for 6.50 euros. Not bad. We took it to the beach and sat and ate. It was incredible, the Mediterranean Sea is so peaceful and amazing. We were sitting there, in Nice, eating amazing, cheap food, watching the jellyfish swim around the ocean. After eating and sitting there taking it in for about an hour and a half, we walked back to our room and passed out, with me sleeping on the floor and Analise and Holly in the bed.
At some point in the middle of the night, I had some sort of dream (some might call it a night terror), that there were people in robes like monks in our room going to kills us or take our stuff or something. So I started screaming in my sleep. I was saying things like "Guys there is someone in here" and, to the imaginary intruders, "Can I help you?" over and over, loudly. They turned on the lights and I realized there was no one in there and passed back out. They woke up when I was doing it, but didn't really say anything until we woke up this morning. As I write this, they are rolling around laughing about it. I forgot to warn them I have this problem. It might happen again, who knows.
After we woke up and got ready, we headed to the supermarket to get our provisions for our trip. We bought peaches, tomatoes, bananas (ick), lots of cheese, baguette, cookies, chocolate, chips, water, juice, croissants with chocolate in the middle, and ham for less than 40 euros. And, except for the fact that we've eaten 2 giant baguettes, it should last us while we're here in Nice and some left for the train. After we came back, the maids were in our room so we tried to plan some more of our trip, and put the groceries in our mini fridge. I made sandwiches and we headed out to the beach. We laid on the beach, alternating between being in the water and tanning. And, since we were in Nice, I may have spent a portion of my time there topless. When in Rome, right? We got super dark sitting out there for 5.5 hours. We came back and have just been munching on cheese and bread and drinking cava and watching French TV. Tonight we're planning on going out, but we haven't made any motion towards showering or anything. But I'm going to shower because I smell super Euro especially since I haven't bathed since crossing borders. Tuesday we're going to Paris, so I might not be able to write again until Thursday, but I'll have lots to write about when I do!
Last time I left off I was headed off to our farewell dinner, which was of course amazing. Its nice to go to a restaurant and not have to pay. While this limits our choices, not paying is wonderful. The first course was a collection of tapas: some sort of eggplant and roasted red pepper conglomeration, raw salmon with olive oil, cheese pizza (this was especially good after eating Spanish food for so long), pan con tomate, croquettes, and tortilla espanola. All of these were excellent and we got pretty full eating them, but we still had an entree and dessert. For our second course, they had said we would be getting filet mignon, which turned out to be pork tenderloin (I don't know what we were thinking, we were in Spain expecting beef...ridiculous) wrapped in bacon with a mustard sauce and white rice. Some people complained because they thought they were getting beef and didn't; but I have the eat everything they put in front of me policy and I found it delicious. Craig had fish and it was really good, but somewhat bony. For dessert we had a choice between crema catalunya (creme brulee) or tiramisu. I had tiramisu and it was the best I've ever had. Craig has crema catalunya and it was pretty amazing also.
After dinner and one billion pictures, a handful of us, including John C. Wilcox, Marianna, Jordi, and Silvia headed to a bar that Jordi and Silvia recommended, La Fira. It was early so it wasn't super busy when we first got there, but it was really awesome. The owner had bought all of the decor from a theme park at the top of the mountain when it closed and made a bar out of it. So there's all this circus, theme park stuff everywhere. Pretty sweet. And, I drank Johnnie Walker Red with John C. Wilcox. I wanted to pay for it for the sake of saying I bought JCW a scotch, but he wouldn't let me. Definitely highlight of the trip. It was mostly a hang out bar, and we stayed awhile but left relatively early to prepare for traveling the next day. Craig and Sylvia were going back to the states and had early flights out and Analise, Holly and I had train reservations at 8:45 in the morning. And I still hadn't packed.
Once I got home, I didn't want to pack even more, especially since I was sporting a minor scotch buzz. So I passed out instead, silly me. However, I managed to set my alarm for 6A and frantically pack to leave senora's apartment at the time I was supposed to. I took a taxi to the station, since I have infinity luggage, and thought I made it in time to take my train from Estacion de Sants to Estacion de Francia, on the other side of the city. I made it downstairs to the platform and there was a train sitting there that said aeropuerto (airport) and I was too busy not understanding Spanish to know that this was the train I was supposed to get on and it left without me. So I hauled my luggage back upstairs to find another taxi. This time, I went out the wrong door where taxis are not allowed to pick people up and had to go to the other side of the station. I had only slept like 3 hours and was not impressed with myself or the situation. I found a cab, and the driver was really nice, and I made it with time to spare before our train for France left. But it was a little stressful there for like an hour.
The train left and we were chatting and realized the 3 people next to us spoke English, which seemed rare so we started talking to them. Two were a lesbian couple from Florida who were backpacking through Europe and on their way to Nice as well. They are 25, recently graduated, and overall awesome girls. The other was a women with a 6 month old baby (precious) who has lived all over the world working for Unicef and the UN. Awesome. It was really cool to meet people on the train and have intelligent conversations, and tell them our hilarious stories. They especially liked the one about the time the dog rubbed her popa (poop) all over my bed. This made the first leg of our trip go by really quickly, even though we spent 4 hours on the train.
We had to get other reservations and change over in Montpelier but the train straight to Nice was full so we had to make an extra change in Marseilles. Whatever. We hung out at the train station with the cool lesbians. I had to pee so badly so I went down to the bathroom. I went to go in and the woman said something in French that I didn't understand except for the .50 euro part. So I paid to pee, for the first time since I've been in Europe. I flushed twice to get my money's worth. To the restroom's credit, it was super nice, but I'm not sure I enjoyed paying to relieve myself. After paying to pee, I went and hung out with the cool lesbians some more, they are fascinating. I inhaled a sandwich that I somehow procured through a French-English language barrier and a delicious brownie. However, I was exhausted and passed out on the cold, marble floor of the train station, apparently with my eyes open, they woke me up laughing about it. Eventually, they got on their train to Nice and we got on ours to Marseilles. The trains are nice. The seats recline and are spacious, nothing like an airplane. And nothing like the Amtrak. Much much nicer and frequented by much more normal people. No one asked me where the snack car is.
The view from the train, since it ran along the coast, was breathtaking. The French Riviera is absolutely incredible. Totally worth the time you spend to take the train instead of flying. We got to Marseilles after another 2 hours and transferred to our final train to Nice. We all passed out on the train, periodically waking up to check out the Riviera some more. Its seriously like straight out of a guide book. We finally got to Nice and were all tired, hungry, and ready to be done traveling with the luggage I had. Since I haven't been home yet, I had 2 heavy suitcases and a backpack. I was constantly needing help hauling it up and down the train stairs, into the luggage compartment. I'm surprise Analise and Holly didn't ditch me. I guess I'll keep them around.
Once we got to Nice we had no idea where to go to get to our Hostel. So we kind of started walking in the general direction of who knows where. As we were crossing the tram tracks where there were about 4,000 serious, French people waiting for the tram, I went to go drag my luggage up the surprisingly high curb and just completely ate it. Like face to the ground, driving my knee into the concrete, all the French people staring at me fall. And, on top of the fact that I screamed as I did it, I landed on the sidewalk but left my luggage in the pathway of the tram as it was coming, and I was still laying on the ground recovering. Luckily, Holly and Analise pulled my luggage out of the way of the tram and I lived. Barely.
We decided hailing a taxi would be a better decision, even though it cost money. We finally found a cab, which was a Mercedes, and got to our Hostel: Hotel Meyerbeer. Holly had read some sketch reviews but that was after it had been booked so we went anyways. It is so adorable! While there are 3 of us sharing one double bed and about 6 square feet of floor, its really nice and clean for the price. And we have our own bathroom. AND they come and clean and make the bed and change out the towels everyday. AND its only 146 euros for all 3 nights, for all 3 of us. AND BEST OF ALL we have the internet. No breakfast, but whatever.
After we arranged our stuff, we headed out to the kebab place that the desk worker recommended to us. It was a giant tortilla filled with a ton of chicken, lettuce, tomato, onions, and a yogurt sauce. It was perfect after a long day of traveling. We also got fries and a soda for 6.50 euros. Not bad. We took it to the beach and sat and ate. It was incredible, the Mediterranean Sea is so peaceful and amazing. We were sitting there, in Nice, eating amazing, cheap food, watching the jellyfish swim around the ocean. After eating and sitting there taking it in for about an hour and a half, we walked back to our room and passed out, with me sleeping on the floor and Analise and Holly in the bed.
At some point in the middle of the night, I had some sort of dream (some might call it a night terror), that there were people in robes like monks in our room going to kills us or take our stuff or something. So I started screaming in my sleep. I was saying things like "Guys there is someone in here" and, to the imaginary intruders, "Can I help you?" over and over, loudly. They turned on the lights and I realized there was no one in there and passed back out. They woke up when I was doing it, but didn't really say anything until we woke up this morning. As I write this, they are rolling around laughing about it. I forgot to warn them I have this problem. It might happen again, who knows.
After we woke up and got ready, we headed to the supermarket to get our provisions for our trip. We bought peaches, tomatoes, bananas (ick), lots of cheese, baguette, cookies, chocolate, chips, water, juice, croissants with chocolate in the middle, and ham for less than 40 euros. And, except for the fact that we've eaten 2 giant baguettes, it should last us while we're here in Nice and some left for the train. After we came back, the maids were in our room so we tried to plan some more of our trip, and put the groceries in our mini fridge. I made sandwiches and we headed out to the beach. We laid on the beach, alternating between being in the water and tanning. And, since we were in Nice, I may have spent a portion of my time there topless. When in Rome, right? We got super dark sitting out there for 5.5 hours. We came back and have just been munching on cheese and bread and drinking cava and watching French TV. Tonight we're planning on going out, but we haven't made any motion towards showering or anything. But I'm going to shower because I smell super Euro especially since I haven't bathed since crossing borders. Tuesday we're going to Paris, so I might not be able to write again until Thursday, but I'll have lots to write about when I do!
6.06.2008
All the Rage in Spain
This is the video I was talking about. It is everywhere here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74mBEXL9UgM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74mBEXL9UgM
6.04.2008
El Fin del Programa
Tonight is our farewell dinner. I can't believe its over, 28 days have gone by so fast! Then I'll be off to France (Nice and Paris) for a couple days then to Madrid until the 26th. I love Barcelona. I'm glad class is over but I'm not sure I'm ready to leave Barcelona, or the group. Okay that's somewhat of a lie. I can't stand some people in the group (who may or may not be reading this and wondering if I hate them) and can't wait to be done with them. But there are some people who I wish I could spend more time with. But I am so excited for France!
Last time I left off I was leaving to meet up with Holly and Analise for lunch and some shopping. The weather had been somewhat horrible before that and was not looking like it was going to shape up. We met up and headed to find somewhere to eat and ended up at El Roncó. When we walked in, it seemed like a cool place; the food however, left a lot to be desired. First we shared salad, which was actually delicious and perhaps the best part of the meal. It was relatively simple: cured ham, greens, croutons, mandarin oranges, goat cheese, and a simple dressing. Then we got our main courses. Holly had this pocket thing with ham, cheese and mushrooms that was generally bland. Analise had pasta with red caviar and salmon. It was fishy and over salted. Sylvia had spaghetti bolognese which was normal and boring. I had skewers of beef and chicken which were burnt and didn't have much flavor to begin with. The house rose wine was really good, but in general this place was a bust.
After a mostly crappy lunch on an already miserable day, we decided to walk around in the rain. This did not help the lingering grumpiness that was hovering on the surface of my mood. We walked for a bit and ran into a cool American chica who is traveling around Europe for the summer. She goes to Rice (smartie) but seemed really interesting. We got her number and promised to meet up with her later. We kept walking, even though I had crossed the border into grumpyville and tried (unsuccessfully) to find somewhere to get a cafe con leche. We perused a sex shop which specialized in anal plugs (freaky) and eventually got on the bus to go home. I wanted to nap and spend some time to myself, which I accomplished and came out in a much better mood.
Following dinner and a shower, Hollly and Analise came over to drink wine and prepare for going out. We then headed out to Chupitos to warm up some more with their specialty: shots. We sat down next to this group of crazy, loud, fun Mexicans and somehow ended up friends. They were so much fun. They were all studying at a culinary school here (jealous) and spoke English pretty well. They kept singing some song that would demand us to drink, and of course we acquiesced. After feeling a buzz coming on, we wanted to go to an authentic Barcelona discoteca, so we got on the train to RazzMaTazz, which is in an abandoned warehouse somewhere far away from where I live. A ton of people from our group said it was a great time and so we decided to try it.
The train ride from Chupitos to RazzMaTazz was so much fun. The Mexicans we met up with were dancing and singing and acting crazy. Good times.
Once we got there, the line was horrendous, like wrapped around the building. It wasn't open yet (it didn't open until 3A and we got there like 15 minutes before it opened) but it was still long and treacherous. But we did it anyway. We lost the Mexicans because they had to pee and didn't want to stand in line, which we were really sad about seeing as how our morale for the night just went down considerably. We were standing in line in front of these three Spanish guys (one of whom I suspected was a skinhead) who were smoking and drinking beer for awhile. And then, one of them reached into his pants, as in the band of his underwear, and pulled out a tiny blue pouch. He opened it up, and it was undoubtedly cocaine. They all licked their fingers, dipped them in the coke, and rubbed the coke on their gums. Holly, Analise and I were just staring agape. Seriously? Cocaine? And then another guy popped some ecstasy. Sufficiently freaked out (and the club had filled so they weren't letting people in for awhile), we went home.
I had decided long before we even left to go out that Sunday would be a do nothing at all day. And it was. I woke up late, stayed in my pajamas all day, played cards with Sylvia, napped for 3 hours, ate, studied, and went to bed early. While I missed out on a couple sightseeing opportunities, I needed a day of rest.
Monday morning we had class. Since we had no excursion afterwards, we decided that in order to become unrecognizably tan (our goal) we needed some beach time. The weather was perfect for the beach. Sunny, warm, perfect. We stayed for 4.5 hours and I got some serious tan, finally. We all went home to shower and get ready to go out that night. Since it was our last week in BCN, we wanted to finish in style. So we went to Oveja Negra, drank a pitcher of sangria, and went home.
Tuesday of this week is by far one of my favorite of the trip. It was also Zach's birthday (my little brother). I called him in the morning while I was brushing my teeth, but he didn't pick up because it was like 2A US time. After class, we had several hours before our excursion, so we decided to beach it up again. However, we got there, got all set up, ready to get super tan, and a storm started to roll through. So we left and went to eat Hot Doks, which was very satisfying, as usual. Last Wednesday, when we went to Sitges, Jordi and Silvia told us they decided they wanted to take the group of us (me, Sylvia, Analise, Holly, Kate, Michelle, Craig, and Austin) to this cool restaurant/fish market because they thought we would appreciate it the most. So Tuesday we went to the Picasso museum as our excursion. The museum was cool. I didn't know Picasso really started out as more of a classic artist, the crazy paintings that he is so well known for came later on in his life. The museum had a lot of famous stuff and was pretty enjoyable, although the whole time I was distracted by visions of the fish market that we were going to afterwards.
After the museum, we waited around for a bit because the place didn't open until 8P. The group ended up being a lot of fun people: me, Craig, Analise, Holly, Dan, Ryan, Brenden, Claire, Deanna, Joe, Christina, Jordi, Silvia, and (best of all) John C. Wilcox. The way it worked was they had this table filled with different kinds of seafood: fish, clams, oysters, mussels, lobster, etc. You chose what you wanted, how much, and how to cook it. Silvia and Jordi helped us order to ensure that we got a good mix and good stuff. We got a boatload of steamed clams, mussels in red sauce, cold boiled shrimp, shrimp grilled in butter sauce, grilled octopus, grilled epia (similar to calimari), and the tiny fried things with eyes that were phenomenal. All of it was the freshest seafood I have ever had (which says a lot) since most of it was still moving when we picked it out. Since the Mediterranean is so salty, most of it was saltier than I'm used to, but equally delicious. We also had bread and Blanc Pescador which is a bubbly white wine. Between Craig, myself, Analise, and Holly, we put away 3 bottles. Dinner was amazing. Then, Jordi and Silvia decided they liked us enough to take us to get mojitos. We walked (the entire group sporting a solid wine buzz) to the bar. It was a cool place, great atmosphere for sitting and having drinks and talking. Craig and I decided to order different things and share them. I got a cava cocktail and he got a mojito. The cava cocktail was a fruity, girly drink. His mojito was really good. I put away the cava cocktail and went to get something more my taste which is when I remember my love for the vodka gimlet. Which was delicious. We were all sitting in a circle and Craig and I spent most of the night talking politics with JCW. I love politics and I love JCW, so it was pretty ideal. I took a lot of cool pictures, although some people think they're creepy because I really don't like posed pictures. We stayed, talking and drinking, until like 1:30 in the morning when I headed home to pass out, slightly drunk.
The next morning we went to class again as usual. We had an excursion planned for 3:15 so I went home and changed and worked on my project some in between. At 3:15 we met up to head to a bomb shelter built during the Spanish civil war. Our tour wasn't until 5P so we went to the supermercat (supermarket in Catalan) to get snacks and ended up talking to Marianna for like an hour. Marianna is great (she reads this too). She's so much fun. I signed up to take basic Catalan this coming semester and hopefully she'll be my teacher.
The bomb shelter was awesome, but somewhat creepy. War things creep me out. It was pretty big for what it was, and we had to wear hard hats inside because although it is sturdy, it is also pretty old. There wasn't any crazy stuff inside, but it was interesting to see where people went and how they dealt with imminent bombing danger. After the bomb shelter, we headed to a cafe to put together our final project. We got to sit outside and I ordered sangria but didn't like it too much (it was oddly cloudy) but we got it done. I came home early to make our powerpoint and sleep.
Thursday was our last day of class, sadly. The two Spanish 208 classes got together to watch each other's presentations. Ours was on hairstyles, which are pretty different compared to the US. Throughout our class, there's been a joke going about a Spanish singer, Chikilicuatre, and his awful song that was part of the Eurovision competition this year. Jordi hates it. So I tried to put it at the end of my powerpoint as a joke for Jordi, but the internet wasn't working and ruined my surprise. If you want to see what I'm talking about, follow the link at the bottom.
Once our last class we finished, Craig, Sylvia and I met up and headed to Las Ramblas to try and do some shopping. We stopped for some churros con chocolate and accidentally got 3 orders of churros when we only meant to get one. We still inhaled it all. Craig took care of most of my chocolate because I didn't want dairy coma. Sylvia got tired so she went home and Craig and I walked around until it started pouring. Then we met up with Holly and Analise to try and find some paella (Craig hadn't had it yet, what a loss). We wanted to get out of the rain as quickly as possible, so we ducked into a tapas place that JCW had recommended. I ordered Johnnie Walker Black (which cured some home sickness I'd been harboring) and kicked back with my friend Johnnie and let Craig order for the two of us. We shared several delicious tapas: fried blood sausages, fried cuttlefish, meatballs cooked in squid, and bruscetta with melted cheese, onion, and more sausage. All of it was wonderful. And I got to legally drink Johnnie Walker at 3P. Analise and Holly ordered dessert which Craig and I liked better than they did; it was some sort of cake with liquer. Delicious. After sitting for 2 hours, we went to the train station to get our Eurorail tickets for Saturday and then went home for naps, showers, and dinner.
My last dinner from my senora was the potato-meatball-pea in yellow sauce dish that is really good, and tortilla espanola. Sylvia took one for the team and ate a lot because I was still full from comida and couldn't eat that much. After we were dressed and ready, we headed (for the last time) to Oveja Negra. Where I drank more scotch, talked to a couple foreigners, and got soaked in the rain. It was pouring when we were walking there, which was miserable. And we weren't having a great time there, which was worse. So Analise, Holly, and Sylvia dragged me to one more bar, which was so much fun. Jamboree was relatively close and was more club than bar. They played American music, some of it older, but it was fun to dance and drink (scotch and vodka gimlets) with some people from the group that we don't normally hang out with (excluding Craig. He stayed in because rain makes him melt apparently). After stumbling home (more drunk than I've ever been in BCN), I made it back and got a phone call from Holly.
Poor Holly. She had fallen asleep on the bus and missed her stop and somehow ended up in the mountains and couldn't figure out how to get back. She was so upset, I felt so bad for her. I googled where she was but didn't really knowhow to help her except to stay on the phone until she found a cab, which she eventually did and made it back around 5A. Ah, yes. 5 in the morning. I'm glad we met again. My second to last night out in Barcelona and I know I did it up right since I didn't go to sleep until 5.
No excursions today until later, so I woke up at noon (on my own which is weird. I thought I would sleep longer) and went to meet up with Craig. We walked around, shopping and talking, for awhile, stopping to eat patatas bravas and blood sausage on bread, got lost in the city, walked around the giant market again, and took pictures of the university. It was nice to be able to experience some leisure in Barcelona instead of constantly going. Now, I'm laying in my bed (which I will not miss when I leave this place), watching the flies buzz around my room. I must shower, though, and be off to our farewell dinner where I am guranteed filet mignon (we ordered yesterday) and other delicious Spanish cuisine. Afterwards, we're going out with Jordi, Silvia, Marianne, hopefully JCW for drinks and who knows. And at some point I must pack (which I hate) before tomorrow at 7:30A when I leave for the train to France. I'm mixed between sadness that the program is over and excitement for my next Euro adventures, but mostly excitement. Next time I write, I'll be in France!
Last time I left off I was leaving to meet up with Holly and Analise for lunch and some shopping. The weather had been somewhat horrible before that and was not looking like it was going to shape up. We met up and headed to find somewhere to eat and ended up at El Roncó. When we walked in, it seemed like a cool place; the food however, left a lot to be desired. First we shared salad, which was actually delicious and perhaps the best part of the meal. It was relatively simple: cured ham, greens, croutons, mandarin oranges, goat cheese, and a simple dressing. Then we got our main courses. Holly had this pocket thing with ham, cheese and mushrooms that was generally bland. Analise had pasta with red caviar and salmon. It was fishy and over salted. Sylvia had spaghetti bolognese which was normal and boring. I had skewers of beef and chicken which were burnt and didn't have much flavor to begin with. The house rose wine was really good, but in general this place was a bust.
After a mostly crappy lunch on an already miserable day, we decided to walk around in the rain. This did not help the lingering grumpiness that was hovering on the surface of my mood. We walked for a bit and ran into a cool American chica who is traveling around Europe for the summer. She goes to Rice (smartie) but seemed really interesting. We got her number and promised to meet up with her later. We kept walking, even though I had crossed the border into grumpyville and tried (unsuccessfully) to find somewhere to get a cafe con leche. We perused a sex shop which specialized in anal plugs (freaky) and eventually got on the bus to go home. I wanted to nap and spend some time to myself, which I accomplished and came out in a much better mood.
Following dinner and a shower, Hollly and Analise came over to drink wine and prepare for going out. We then headed out to Chupitos to warm up some more with their specialty: shots. We sat down next to this group of crazy, loud, fun Mexicans and somehow ended up friends. They were so much fun. They were all studying at a culinary school here (jealous) and spoke English pretty well. They kept singing some song that would demand us to drink, and of course we acquiesced. After feeling a buzz coming on, we wanted to go to an authentic Barcelona discoteca, so we got on the train to RazzMaTazz, which is in an abandoned warehouse somewhere far away from where I live. A ton of people from our group said it was a great time and so we decided to try it.
The train ride from Chupitos to RazzMaTazz was so much fun. The Mexicans we met up with were dancing and singing and acting crazy. Good times.
Once we got there, the line was horrendous, like wrapped around the building. It wasn't open yet (it didn't open until 3A and we got there like 15 minutes before it opened) but it was still long and treacherous. But we did it anyway. We lost the Mexicans because they had to pee and didn't want to stand in line, which we were really sad about seeing as how our morale for the night just went down considerably. We were standing in line in front of these three Spanish guys (one of whom I suspected was a skinhead) who were smoking and drinking beer for awhile. And then, one of them reached into his pants, as in the band of his underwear, and pulled out a tiny blue pouch. He opened it up, and it was undoubtedly cocaine. They all licked their fingers, dipped them in the coke, and rubbed the coke on their gums. Holly, Analise and I were just staring agape. Seriously? Cocaine? And then another guy popped some ecstasy. Sufficiently freaked out (and the club had filled so they weren't letting people in for awhile), we went home.
I had decided long before we even left to go out that Sunday would be a do nothing at all day. And it was. I woke up late, stayed in my pajamas all day, played cards with Sylvia, napped for 3 hours, ate, studied, and went to bed early. While I missed out on a couple sightseeing opportunities, I needed a day of rest.
Monday morning we had class. Since we had no excursion afterwards, we decided that in order to become unrecognizably tan (our goal) we needed some beach time. The weather was perfect for the beach. Sunny, warm, perfect. We stayed for 4.5 hours and I got some serious tan, finally. We all went home to shower and get ready to go out that night. Since it was our last week in BCN, we wanted to finish in style. So we went to Oveja Negra, drank a pitcher of sangria, and went home.
Tuesday of this week is by far one of my favorite of the trip. It was also Zach's birthday (my little brother). I called him in the morning while I was brushing my teeth, but he didn't pick up because it was like 2A US time. After class, we had several hours before our excursion, so we decided to beach it up again. However, we got there, got all set up, ready to get super tan, and a storm started to roll through. So we left and went to eat Hot Doks, which was very satisfying, as usual. Last Wednesday, when we went to Sitges, Jordi and Silvia told us they decided they wanted to take the group of us (me, Sylvia, Analise, Holly, Kate, Michelle, Craig, and Austin) to this cool restaurant/fish market because they thought we would appreciate it the most. So Tuesday we went to the Picasso museum as our excursion. The museum was cool. I didn't know Picasso really started out as more of a classic artist, the crazy paintings that he is so well known for came later on in his life. The museum had a lot of famous stuff and was pretty enjoyable, although the whole time I was distracted by visions of the fish market that we were going to afterwards.
After the museum, we waited around for a bit because the place didn't open until 8P. The group ended up being a lot of fun people: me, Craig, Analise, Holly, Dan, Ryan, Brenden, Claire, Deanna, Joe, Christina, Jordi, Silvia, and (best of all) John C. Wilcox. The way it worked was they had this table filled with different kinds of seafood: fish, clams, oysters, mussels, lobster, etc. You chose what you wanted, how much, and how to cook it. Silvia and Jordi helped us order to ensure that we got a good mix and good stuff. We got a boatload of steamed clams, mussels in red sauce, cold boiled shrimp, shrimp grilled in butter sauce, grilled octopus, grilled epia (similar to calimari), and the tiny fried things with eyes that were phenomenal. All of it was the freshest seafood I have ever had (which says a lot) since most of it was still moving when we picked it out. Since the Mediterranean is so salty, most of it was saltier than I'm used to, but equally delicious. We also had bread and Blanc Pescador which is a bubbly white wine. Between Craig, myself, Analise, and Holly, we put away 3 bottles. Dinner was amazing. Then, Jordi and Silvia decided they liked us enough to take us to get mojitos. We walked (the entire group sporting a solid wine buzz) to the bar. It was a cool place, great atmosphere for sitting and having drinks and talking. Craig and I decided to order different things and share them. I got a cava cocktail and he got a mojito. The cava cocktail was a fruity, girly drink. His mojito was really good. I put away the cava cocktail and went to get something more my taste which is when I remember my love for the vodka gimlet. Which was delicious. We were all sitting in a circle and Craig and I spent most of the night talking politics with JCW. I love politics and I love JCW, so it was pretty ideal. I took a lot of cool pictures, although some people think they're creepy because I really don't like posed pictures. We stayed, talking and drinking, until like 1:30 in the morning when I headed home to pass out, slightly drunk.
The next morning we went to class again as usual. We had an excursion planned for 3:15 so I went home and changed and worked on my project some in between. At 3:15 we met up to head to a bomb shelter built during the Spanish civil war. Our tour wasn't until 5P so we went to the supermercat (supermarket in Catalan) to get snacks and ended up talking to Marianna for like an hour. Marianna is great (she reads this too). She's so much fun. I signed up to take basic Catalan this coming semester and hopefully she'll be my teacher.
The bomb shelter was awesome, but somewhat creepy. War things creep me out. It was pretty big for what it was, and we had to wear hard hats inside because although it is sturdy, it is also pretty old. There wasn't any crazy stuff inside, but it was interesting to see where people went and how they dealt with imminent bombing danger. After the bomb shelter, we headed to a cafe to put together our final project. We got to sit outside and I ordered sangria but didn't like it too much (it was oddly cloudy) but we got it done. I came home early to make our powerpoint and sleep.
Thursday was our last day of class, sadly. The two Spanish 208 classes got together to watch each other's presentations. Ours was on hairstyles, which are pretty different compared to the US. Throughout our class, there's been a joke going about a Spanish singer, Chikilicuatre, and his awful song that was part of the Eurovision competition this year. Jordi hates it. So I tried to put it at the end of my powerpoint as a joke for Jordi, but the internet wasn't working and ruined my surprise. If you want to see what I'm talking about, follow the link at the bottom.
Once our last class we finished, Craig, Sylvia and I met up and headed to Las Ramblas to try and do some shopping. We stopped for some churros con chocolate and accidentally got 3 orders of churros when we only meant to get one. We still inhaled it all. Craig took care of most of my chocolate because I didn't want dairy coma. Sylvia got tired so she went home and Craig and I walked around until it started pouring. Then we met up with Holly and Analise to try and find some paella (Craig hadn't had it yet, what a loss). We wanted to get out of the rain as quickly as possible, so we ducked into a tapas place that JCW had recommended. I ordered Johnnie Walker Black (which cured some home sickness I'd been harboring) and kicked back with my friend Johnnie and let Craig order for the two of us. We shared several delicious tapas: fried blood sausages, fried cuttlefish, meatballs cooked in squid, and bruscetta with melted cheese, onion, and more sausage. All of it was wonderful. And I got to legally drink Johnnie Walker at 3P. Analise and Holly ordered dessert which Craig and I liked better than they did; it was some sort of cake with liquer. Delicious. After sitting for 2 hours, we went to the train station to get our Eurorail tickets for Saturday and then went home for naps, showers, and dinner.
My last dinner from my senora was the potato-meatball-pea in yellow sauce dish that is really good, and tortilla espanola. Sylvia took one for the team and ate a lot because I was still full from comida and couldn't eat that much. After we were dressed and ready, we headed (for the last time) to Oveja Negra. Where I drank more scotch, talked to a couple foreigners, and got soaked in the rain. It was pouring when we were walking there, which was miserable. And we weren't having a great time there, which was worse. So Analise, Holly, and Sylvia dragged me to one more bar, which was so much fun. Jamboree was relatively close and was more club than bar. They played American music, some of it older, but it was fun to dance and drink (scotch and vodka gimlets) with some people from the group that we don't normally hang out with (excluding Craig. He stayed in because rain makes him melt apparently). After stumbling home (more drunk than I've ever been in BCN), I made it back and got a phone call from Holly.
Poor Holly. She had fallen asleep on the bus and missed her stop and somehow ended up in the mountains and couldn't figure out how to get back. She was so upset, I felt so bad for her. I googled where she was but didn't really knowhow to help her except to stay on the phone until she found a cab, which she eventually did and made it back around 5A. Ah, yes. 5 in the morning. I'm glad we met again. My second to last night out in Barcelona and I know I did it up right since I didn't go to sleep until 5.
No excursions today until later, so I woke up at noon (on my own which is weird. I thought I would sleep longer) and went to meet up with Craig. We walked around, shopping and talking, for awhile, stopping to eat patatas bravas and blood sausage on bread, got lost in the city, walked around the giant market again, and took pictures of the university. It was nice to be able to experience some leisure in Barcelona instead of constantly going. Now, I'm laying in my bed (which I will not miss when I leave this place), watching the flies buzz around my room. I must shower, though, and be off to our farewell dinner where I am guranteed filet mignon (we ordered yesterday) and other delicious Spanish cuisine. Afterwards, we're going out with Jordi, Silvia, Marianne, hopefully JCW for drinks and who knows. And at some point I must pack (which I hate) before tomorrow at 7:30A when I leave for the train to France. I'm mixed between sadness that the program is over and excitement for my next Euro adventures, but mostly excitement. Next time I write, I'll be in France!
5.31.2008
La Vida Española
The Spanish life. I love it. Last night, I had cheese for dinner. Cheese! For dinner! Awesome.
Last time I posted was after Sitges. Sitges was beautiful, I'd love to go back there when the weather is nice and lay on the beach all afternoon. Thursday we had class in the morning and we didn't have anything else until 5P. Me, Holly, Analise, and Sylvia didn't think it would be a good day for the beach so we didn't bring our stuff. However, it was a beautiful afternoon. So we headed over to Las Ramblas to shop and found this really awesome store called Sky Republic. It was relatively inexpensive and had a lot of really cool, Spanish stuff. I bought some presents for myself and others. We walked around and tried to shop some more, but stores close from 2P-5P for comida (lunch, sort of) and siesta (nap...this is why I love Spain) so we headed to find some comida for ourselves.
Seeing as how it was paella day, we headed to a restaurant that Silvia and Jordi had recommended that was right down the street from the University. We sat outside in the sun and drank sangria (it was pretty weak, but still refreshing). For our first course, we all had paella. It was so much better than the paella of last week. This week's paella was not nearly as greasy and had pork ribs, calamari, and shrimp. It was Sylvia's first time and she's a true convert now. After that, we all ordered different second plates. I had bistec (steak), Holly had sausages, Sylvia had bacalau (cod), and Analise had tuna. Everything was served with french fries and a roasted pepper. I liked mine the best. Sylvia's cod was good, but it had bones in it. Holly's sausages were somewhat flavorless, and I didn't really like Analise's tuna at all. But none of it was terrible, I just liked mine the best. All of this and bread for 9 euros.
After sitting in the sun for 2hours, we needed something cold. So we found some gelato. I think Spain has ruined ice cream for me. It's so cold and creamy and delicious. I had hazelnut, which tasted like Nutella. Yummy. We went and sat around the jardín at the University and eventually met up with the group to head over to la Sagrada Familia which is a Gaudí work in the middle of the city. It is incredible.
La Sagrada Familia is a church that Gaudí designed (actually, he was the second architect to work on it, but the most famous and did the most work). It has been a work in progress since 1892 and won't be done for another 20 years. The details on the facade are amazing, so intricate and artistic. Just more proof that Gaudí is a genius. Eventually, it will be the tallest building in Barcelona, but right now it is still not finished. The inside is equally beautiful and demonstrates the different eras that have been spent working on it; for example, the material of the columns has changed over time because they have discovered that other things are stronger than granite. Gaudí designed this building the same way as he did the other: modeling the structure after nature. We saw some of his templates in the museum and then we finally got to go up into the towers.
It cost 2 euros to go up (last weekend I dropped 3.50 euros for a bottle of water so I figured I would be shameful not to spend 2 euros to go) in the elevator. It didn't go to the top, but it was certainly high and the view from the top was spectacular. You could see the entire city, the moutains, and the sea all at once. Absolutely breath taking. The passageways and bridges and stairs were tiny and crammed and the stairs were so narrow only one person (barely) could go pass at a time. I decided the narrow stairways were Gaudí (in his infinite wisdom) symbolizing the lack of personal space that the Spanish people tend to maintain. We made it down eventually, with breaks to check out the views of the city and listen to this crazy British kid. He told us he couldn't swear in church and was freaking out about the stairs and kept saying things like "Oh my bleep I'm going to bleeping die".
After surviving the stairs (they were really quite nerve wrecking), we headed home and managed to not nap and eat an early dinner so that we could go out. We had chicken (delicious), rice, salad and bread. Notice how there is not a laundry list of food, and finally not epic portions. It was really tasty. Around 11, Me, Holly, Analise, Michelle, Kate, and Sylvia headed to Oveja Negra to start out our night. We hadn't been out since Saturday, so we were ready to party.
Oveja negra was a bust. In Spain, they don't really start going out until most Americans are wrapping up their night, so getting to Oveja Negra at 11P was a tad early for Spaniards. We did sit next to some Spaniards who were trying to practice their English on us, even though we understand and speak Spanish. The guy I was talking to would take 2 minutes to respond to my questions that I asked in Spanish, and his responses were limited to less than 8 words. Luckily, I had a gin and tonic to get me through the experience. That got old very quickly, so we left and went to Chupitos, where we went last Thursday.
Let me preface Chupitos by mentioning my poor choice in footwear. Barcelona is a walking city, and wearing wedges was a bad idea. Anyways, at Chupitos we decided it was time for shots. At Chupitos they have flaming shots, which we had to do, naturally. We started with a boy scout. The bartender pours alcohol on the bar and lights it up and you take a skewered marshmallow and toast it over the flame. Then you put the toasted mallow in the shot to liquor it up, eat the mallow, and take the shot. I had 2 of these over the period of the night. They were tasty. After that we watched some people do something crazy, so we decided to try it. I think it might have been absinthe, but all I know is that it is blue. The bartender put the liquid and an empty shot glass in a bowl and lit the shot on fire. Then, she took a tall glass and put it over the shot glass which somehow (and I should probably know how, but I don't) the liquid went into the shot glass. After she pulled the glass off, she covered the tall glass with her hand while you drank the liquid with a straw. When you were done with the liquid, you drank the fumes left in the tall glass. Very strange, I must say. But interesting. We decided that was enough shots and moved on a liter of pure liquor, which tasted amazing and I have no clue what was in it.
We weren't really seeing any cute guys but we decided to sit down and see if some appeared. They did. Hot Spaniards. We started talking to them and they were fun (and incredibly hot) so we spent the rest of the night hanging out with them. That night, Analise had worn a skirt that was somewhat sheer, but only in really bright light. Well, at Chupito's, they have black lights and it's pretty dark. About halfway through the night, we discovered that you could see Analise's white panties through her skirt thanks to the black light. Her crotch was glowing, hilarious. We met some more people, including some Columbian girls who were really nice. We also did more shots (somewhere in there was another boy scout and some tequila). David took sweetly to Holly and the train conductor (he drives a train for the Metro) and I hit it off. I do not know his name/maybe cannot remember it. We left Chupitos as they were closing. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty drunk and really wanted to go to bed. They wanted to take us somewhere else, but we made the good decision to go home since we had to wake up so early in the morning for our excursion. We walked back to the University to catch the bus home and on the way, Analise had to pee, so she did so on an ATM. Sylvia and I headed home on the bus, where I was a bit of a drunk circus, but nothing too terrible; and the whole time I was barefoot. I got to my bed at 4A and passed out cold.
I woke up in the morning a little bit afraid to open my eyes, thinking a hangover was imminent. Luckily, my liver did me a favor and I was perfectly fine. I picked up some Hot Doks (this is always a good idea after drinking in Barcelona; the grease just works wonders) for me and Holly and got on the bus to Montserrat, a monastery about an hour outside of Barcelona in the mountains.
Montserrat was beautiful. We got there and on the way towards the monastery found some people selling local fares. I bought a couple surprises which will hopefully not get taken by customs (I'm totally prepared to lie in order to sneak them across the border) and Craig, Analise, and I decided to go down to Santa Cova, this place that has something to do with visions of the Virgin. This was quite a hike, but breathtaking views. We stopped several times to just sit and take it in. Santa Cova is (I would call) a shrine to the virgin. People also come here and bring tokens to offer up to God. Which is somewhat creepy. We went into the room where people left them and it was all at once sad, creepy, and somewhat happy. It was pretty cool to see, definitely something we do not have in the United States. We were supposed to be back by 1 to hear the choir boys sing, but we didn't make it due to some tram confusion. I have some trouble with my asthma here (Spaniards smoke a lot, and it makes my asthma worse) so we had to take the tram and didn't catch the one before 1P. We are pretty sure we heard them practicing as we climbed down the mountain, which was really peaceful and something I will never forget, sitting on the edge of a mountain listening to the boys choir and looking out over the mountains. Wow. Once we made it back to the montesary, we bought a cheesecake (not actually a cheesecake, more like cheesecake flavored flan) and inhaled it. We got back to Barcelona around 3 and headed home for a siesta and to prepare to see King Lear (or Rey Lear) that night.
(Warning: this might become somewhat explicit as I am still harboring rage towards the incident)
When I got home, I went to throw myself in my bed and noticed some brown streaks on my covers, which were definitely not there before I left. I knew I had been drunk the night before, but was 100% certain that I did not leave them there. I bent down to smell them. Unmistakably dog shit. The fucking dog had wiped her nasty ass all over my bed. I went and told my Senora, who was not nearly embarrassed enough in my opinion, who said she would wash my sheets. What the hell, dog? Why my bed? Ugh...I could kill that bitch.
After I peeled the sheets off my bed, I fumbled around on the internet for awhile and tried to sleep, but sleeping without sheets was difficult so I got up and cleaned my room. After a shower, I got dressed for the theater. I thought I should dress like I would in the states, dress, heels, etc. Heels were again a mistake. This time a much much more terrible mistake. Analise, Sylvia and I took the train to the theater. Craig had said it was right next to this building, so when we got there, we walked towards that building thinking we would find the theater. By the time we realized we were going the wrong way, it was like 13 minutes until the door closed. I took off my shoes and jogged and barely made it. I will not be wearing heels in Barcelona again, unless I plan to take a taxi. The play was well done, I think. For the most part, they spoke really fast and I didn't quite understand it. As it is, King Lear is hard to understand in English. But the adaptation was really interesting in terms of the set and the costumes and King Lear the actor was amazing. The rest were somewhat mediocre, over dramatic and such. Overall, it was really awesome and I feel really cultured now that I can say I've seen King Lear in Spanish.
After King Lear, I once again walked home barefoot, and we stopped into Hot Doks (it was the only thing open on our block) for a drink (Fanta Naranja is my favorite here) and snack. After our appetizer, we came back to our apartment and had cheese, grapes, and bread for dinner at like midnight. It was nice to do something relaxing, and I could eat cheese for every meal and not even want something else. I used the phone to talk to Daddy and Kaleb (phone cards here are thieves...I can usually only use them for like 30 minutes max) to say hi and that I'm alive. Later on, Mommy called me and we talked for awhile. It was good to talk to people at home. I haven't been home since March so I'm a little homesick, but Barcelona is incredible so I don't let it set me back. At 5A my time, Rachie called! I was sleeping, but I woke up and we got to talk, which was great. I slept until noon and have just been putzing around here, trying to decide something to do. The weather hasn't been good for the beach. They had a really dry winter and now the weather is making up for it by raining a lot. Which is good because they need the rain, but bad because I want a tan. I'm sure we'll find something good, if not just go eat somewhere new and different and maybe go to Park Guell. Sylvia has been there so she's not sure she wants to go, and I'm not sure the weather will hold out. I should go get dressed and ready.
¡Les quiero y hasta luego!
Last time I posted was after Sitges. Sitges was beautiful, I'd love to go back there when the weather is nice and lay on the beach all afternoon. Thursday we had class in the morning and we didn't have anything else until 5P. Me, Holly, Analise, and Sylvia didn't think it would be a good day for the beach so we didn't bring our stuff. However, it was a beautiful afternoon. So we headed over to Las Ramblas to shop and found this really awesome store called Sky Republic. It was relatively inexpensive and had a lot of really cool, Spanish stuff. I bought some presents for myself and others. We walked around and tried to shop some more, but stores close from 2P-5P for comida (lunch, sort of) and siesta (nap...this is why I love Spain) so we headed to find some comida for ourselves.
Seeing as how it was paella day, we headed to a restaurant that Silvia and Jordi had recommended that was right down the street from the University. We sat outside in the sun and drank sangria (it was pretty weak, but still refreshing). For our first course, we all had paella. It was so much better than the paella of last week. This week's paella was not nearly as greasy and had pork ribs, calamari, and shrimp. It was Sylvia's first time and she's a true convert now. After that, we all ordered different second plates. I had bistec (steak), Holly had sausages, Sylvia had bacalau (cod), and Analise had tuna. Everything was served with french fries and a roasted pepper. I liked mine the best. Sylvia's cod was good, but it had bones in it. Holly's sausages were somewhat flavorless, and I didn't really like Analise's tuna at all. But none of it was terrible, I just liked mine the best. All of this and bread for 9 euros.
After sitting in the sun for 2hours, we needed something cold. So we found some gelato. I think Spain has ruined ice cream for me. It's so cold and creamy and delicious. I had hazelnut, which tasted like Nutella. Yummy. We went and sat around the jardín at the University and eventually met up with the group to head over to la Sagrada Familia which is a Gaudí work in the middle of the city. It is incredible.
La Sagrada Familia is a church that Gaudí designed (actually, he was the second architect to work on it, but the most famous and did the most work). It has been a work in progress since 1892 and won't be done for another 20 years. The details on the facade are amazing, so intricate and artistic. Just more proof that Gaudí is a genius. Eventually, it will be the tallest building in Barcelona, but right now it is still not finished. The inside is equally beautiful and demonstrates the different eras that have been spent working on it; for example, the material of the columns has changed over time because they have discovered that other things are stronger than granite. Gaudí designed this building the same way as he did the other: modeling the structure after nature. We saw some of his templates in the museum and then we finally got to go up into the towers.
It cost 2 euros to go up (last weekend I dropped 3.50 euros for a bottle of water so I figured I would be shameful not to spend 2 euros to go) in the elevator. It didn't go to the top, but it was certainly high and the view from the top was spectacular. You could see the entire city, the moutains, and the sea all at once. Absolutely breath taking. The passageways and bridges and stairs were tiny and crammed and the stairs were so narrow only one person (barely) could go pass at a time. I decided the narrow stairways were Gaudí (in his infinite wisdom) symbolizing the lack of personal space that the Spanish people tend to maintain. We made it down eventually, with breaks to check out the views of the city and listen to this crazy British kid. He told us he couldn't swear in church and was freaking out about the stairs and kept saying things like "Oh my bleep I'm going to bleeping die".
After surviving the stairs (they were really quite nerve wrecking), we headed home and managed to not nap and eat an early dinner so that we could go out. We had chicken (delicious), rice, salad and bread. Notice how there is not a laundry list of food, and finally not epic portions. It was really tasty. Around 11, Me, Holly, Analise, Michelle, Kate, and Sylvia headed to Oveja Negra to start out our night. We hadn't been out since Saturday, so we were ready to party.
Oveja negra was a bust. In Spain, they don't really start going out until most Americans are wrapping up their night, so getting to Oveja Negra at 11P was a tad early for Spaniards. We did sit next to some Spaniards who were trying to practice their English on us, even though we understand and speak Spanish. The guy I was talking to would take 2 minutes to respond to my questions that I asked in Spanish, and his responses were limited to less than 8 words. Luckily, I had a gin and tonic to get me through the experience. That got old very quickly, so we left and went to Chupitos, where we went last Thursday.
Let me preface Chupitos by mentioning my poor choice in footwear. Barcelona is a walking city, and wearing wedges was a bad idea. Anyways, at Chupitos we decided it was time for shots. At Chupitos they have flaming shots, which we had to do, naturally. We started with a boy scout. The bartender pours alcohol on the bar and lights it up and you take a skewered marshmallow and toast it over the flame. Then you put the toasted mallow in the shot to liquor it up, eat the mallow, and take the shot. I had 2 of these over the period of the night. They were tasty. After that we watched some people do something crazy, so we decided to try it. I think it might have been absinthe, but all I know is that it is blue. The bartender put the liquid and an empty shot glass in a bowl and lit the shot on fire. Then, she took a tall glass and put it over the shot glass which somehow (and I should probably know how, but I don't) the liquid went into the shot glass. After she pulled the glass off, she covered the tall glass with her hand while you drank the liquid with a straw. When you were done with the liquid, you drank the fumes left in the tall glass. Very strange, I must say. But interesting. We decided that was enough shots and moved on a liter of pure liquor, which tasted amazing and I have no clue what was in it.
We weren't really seeing any cute guys but we decided to sit down and see if some appeared. They did. Hot Spaniards. We started talking to them and they were fun (and incredibly hot) so we spent the rest of the night hanging out with them. That night, Analise had worn a skirt that was somewhat sheer, but only in really bright light. Well, at Chupito's, they have black lights and it's pretty dark. About halfway through the night, we discovered that you could see Analise's white panties through her skirt thanks to the black light. Her crotch was glowing, hilarious. We met some more people, including some Columbian girls who were really nice. We also did more shots (somewhere in there was another boy scout and some tequila). David took sweetly to Holly and the train conductor (he drives a train for the Metro) and I hit it off. I do not know his name/maybe cannot remember it. We left Chupitos as they were closing. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty drunk and really wanted to go to bed. They wanted to take us somewhere else, but we made the good decision to go home since we had to wake up so early in the morning for our excursion. We walked back to the University to catch the bus home and on the way, Analise had to pee, so she did so on an ATM. Sylvia and I headed home on the bus, where I was a bit of a drunk circus, but nothing too terrible; and the whole time I was barefoot. I got to my bed at 4A and passed out cold.
I woke up in the morning a little bit afraid to open my eyes, thinking a hangover was imminent. Luckily, my liver did me a favor and I was perfectly fine. I picked up some Hot Doks (this is always a good idea after drinking in Barcelona; the grease just works wonders) for me and Holly and got on the bus to Montserrat, a monastery about an hour outside of Barcelona in the mountains.
Montserrat was beautiful. We got there and on the way towards the monastery found some people selling local fares. I bought a couple surprises which will hopefully not get taken by customs (I'm totally prepared to lie in order to sneak them across the border) and Craig, Analise, and I decided to go down to Santa Cova, this place that has something to do with visions of the Virgin. This was quite a hike, but breathtaking views. We stopped several times to just sit and take it in. Santa Cova is (I would call) a shrine to the virgin. People also come here and bring tokens to offer up to God. Which is somewhat creepy. We went into the room where people left them and it was all at once sad, creepy, and somewhat happy. It was pretty cool to see, definitely something we do not have in the United States. We were supposed to be back by 1 to hear the choir boys sing, but we didn't make it due to some tram confusion. I have some trouble with my asthma here (Spaniards smoke a lot, and it makes my asthma worse) so we had to take the tram and didn't catch the one before 1P. We are pretty sure we heard them practicing as we climbed down the mountain, which was really peaceful and something I will never forget, sitting on the edge of a mountain listening to the boys choir and looking out over the mountains. Wow. Once we made it back to the montesary, we bought a cheesecake (not actually a cheesecake, more like cheesecake flavored flan) and inhaled it. We got back to Barcelona around 3 and headed home for a siesta and to prepare to see King Lear (or Rey Lear) that night.
(Warning: this might become somewhat explicit as I am still harboring rage towards the incident)
When I got home, I went to throw myself in my bed and noticed some brown streaks on my covers, which were definitely not there before I left. I knew I had been drunk the night before, but was 100% certain that I did not leave them there. I bent down to smell them. Unmistakably dog shit. The fucking dog had wiped her nasty ass all over my bed. I went and told my Senora, who was not nearly embarrassed enough in my opinion, who said she would wash my sheets. What the hell, dog? Why my bed? Ugh...I could kill that bitch.
After I peeled the sheets off my bed, I fumbled around on the internet for awhile and tried to sleep, but sleeping without sheets was difficult so I got up and cleaned my room. After a shower, I got dressed for the theater. I thought I should dress like I would in the states, dress, heels, etc. Heels were again a mistake. This time a much much more terrible mistake. Analise, Sylvia and I took the train to the theater. Craig had said it was right next to this building, so when we got there, we walked towards that building thinking we would find the theater. By the time we realized we were going the wrong way, it was like 13 minutes until the door closed. I took off my shoes and jogged and barely made it. I will not be wearing heels in Barcelona again, unless I plan to take a taxi. The play was well done, I think. For the most part, they spoke really fast and I didn't quite understand it. As it is, King Lear is hard to understand in English. But the adaptation was really interesting in terms of the set and the costumes and King Lear the actor was amazing. The rest were somewhat mediocre, over dramatic and such. Overall, it was really awesome and I feel really cultured now that I can say I've seen King Lear in Spanish.
After King Lear, I once again walked home barefoot, and we stopped into Hot Doks (it was the only thing open on our block) for a drink (Fanta Naranja is my favorite here) and snack. After our appetizer, we came back to our apartment and had cheese, grapes, and bread for dinner at like midnight. It was nice to do something relaxing, and I could eat cheese for every meal and not even want something else. I used the phone to talk to Daddy and Kaleb (phone cards here are thieves...I can usually only use them for like 30 minutes max) to say hi and that I'm alive. Later on, Mommy called me and we talked for awhile. It was good to talk to people at home. I haven't been home since March so I'm a little homesick, but Barcelona is incredible so I don't let it set me back. At 5A my time, Rachie called! I was sleeping, but I woke up and we got to talk, which was great. I slept until noon and have just been putzing around here, trying to decide something to do. The weather hasn't been good for the beach. They had a really dry winter and now the weather is making up for it by raining a lot. Which is good because they need the rain, but bad because I want a tan. I'm sure we'll find something good, if not just go eat somewhere new and different and maybe go to Park Guell. Sylvia has been there so she's not sure she wants to go, and I'm not sure the weather will hold out. I should go get dressed and ready.
¡Les quiero y hasta luego!
5.28.2008
More Than Halfway Through
We're more than halfway through the program and I am exhausted. They have us going all the time and when we finally stop, sleeping seems like such a good idea. I haven't been out since Saturday, and I am not the least bit ashamed at my lack of going out this week.
Sunday I came home and uploaded like 500 pictures to the internet. I've been working on adding captions since, for the most part, most people have no idea what they're looking at. I'm through like 100 or so. Monday we had class and then took a break to the cafe across the street before our afternoon excursion. I had some sangria (which was much stronger than Oveja Negra and gave me a little bit of afternoon buzz) and a chocolate crepe. I think I could eat crepes of various varieties for every meal and would not get tired of them. They are delicious.
For our afternoon excursion, we went to the Gaudi museum. Gaudi is a famous architect from Barcelona who designed things based on nature. For example, when he was creating the arches for his buildings he used a simple string model. He would hold the string so that it created a parabolic shape which would represent an upside down arch. He designed everything with purpose. His furniture is strange looking, but it is highly ergonomic, which is really cool since he was around in the late 19th, early 2oth century, before ergonomic was hip. We saw his La Pedrera building which has been converted to a museum, and then Casa Batllo which was also really awesome. Casa Batllo has a sort of dragon facade and is mosaicked across the front, it is one of my favorite buildings in Barcelona. Tomorrow we'll go see one of his most famous works, which is still being built, La Sagrada Familia, which is a church that will eventually be the tallest building in Barcelona. I'm not really sure why, but due to the complicated nature of the building, it is still not complete. Also, Park Guell has some more of Gaudi's works, including the long, tiled bench that is hugely famous all over the world; hopefully we'll go there this weekend.
After Gaudi, we headed home for dinner of leftover city, and not really good leftovers really. I don't know what's up with Senora lately but the food has not been awesome. I'm not too worried though, I definitely eat enough. Monday was Jessica's (the French girl who lives with Kate and Michelle) actual birthday so Sylvia and I met up with Jessica, Kate, Michelle, and Austin for coffee a couple blocks away. I had Brazilian coffee which definitely had whiskey in it and helped me sleep like a baby when we finally got home at 1A. It was nice to do something relaxing, though.
Tuesday morning I woke up in a stinker of a mood, which is strange because I've been sleeping more and drinking less. We went to class and didn't have any excursions in the afternoon. Craig, Sylvia and I headed over to Las Ramblas to try and get some shopping done, but didn't really accomplish anything. We did, however, spring for Chocolate y Churros again. And they were consistently amazing. I could go for some right now, even though I've had Chocolate today. After that we met up with some people from our group and headed over to Arc de Triomf. Its a giant park and the entrance is this awesome arch. We walked around the park, which was beautiful, for a long time, looking at stuff and taking pictures. I lusted after some beautiful, giant dogs (since I'm starting to really miss my Bartimus) and we walked down to the Harbor area. I bought some rioja wine, which Jordi says is excellent Catalan wine. I haven't opened it yet, but I can't wait to try it. Here they drink all wine chilled, even red wine, which I like. I think I'm going to chill this, but I haven't decided.
After walking, I was tired again, so I came home and napped for 3 hours. We ate dinner (noodles, hot dogs, salad, bread, etc. Basically nothing new or interesting). When we were out and about, I was totally pretending that I wanted to go out, trying to convince Craig that Tuesday was a great night for going out (pretty much every night is a great night for going out in Barcelona); however, when I got home and passed out, I woke up not pretending anymore. So we didn't go out. We played hermits and went to bed around 12:30.
At 1:30A, Analise called me because she and her room mate had gotten in a fight; they're fine now. I woke up this morning in a much better mood. We had class again and then headed straight for Sitges, which is about an hour away by train. The train ride went right along the coast and was stunning. Sitges is also beautiful. It's tiny. Not as tiny as Besalu, but much much smaller than Barcelona. It is kind of touristy, but still very pretty and cute. There are shops and restaurants, but the beaches are the main attraction. We didn't spend any time at the beach because the weather wasn't beach weather, but we saw them and they are beautiful. Sitges also tastes like the ocean, which I loved. It was like being back on the boat with Gabby and Popop. We went to several museums that had important Catalan art, modern and romantic. The art was beautiful and I got some really cool pictures, even though we were supposed to take them in the museum. Oops.
After the museums, we went with Jordi and Silvia to a cafe for a marienda (snack). We tried a variety of pastries and of course, Chocolate. I didn't really like mine, it was thick (Silvia tried it and said I must have gotten the bottom of the barrel), luckily Craig ate most of it in my honor. We walked around Sitges some, looking in shops but not really buying anything. We got home around 8P and I fell asleep until Senora, who must have been hollering at us for awhile, came and turned the light on to wake me up for dinner. Dinner, to be perfectly honest, sucked. Coming to Spain, I was hoping to eat Spanish food for every meal, and we do, but not really. Tonight's selections were pizza (in the place of noodles) which was burnt black, hot dogs, cheese, salad, bread, ice cream, and juevos rellenos. Let me tell you about juevos rellenos, or surprise eggs as I call them. It's looks like deviled eggs with a mayonnaise sauce on top. But, the surprise is: it's stuffed with fish. Suprise! It was salty and fishy and mayonnaise-y all at once. I ate one, going my philosophy to try everything, but am not really enamored. Especially when I got the surprise of being stuff with fish. And we've been eating at 10:30P. I asked Silvia about this and she said 9 is normal but 10:30 is a little late. I think we eat that late because our Senora doesn't get home until 9 from work. I'm getting used to it. I don't mind eating later than most Americans (8:30 is ideal for me), but 10:30 is pushing midnight snack time. But I love the experience of being immersed in a different culture, which definitely out weighs my hesitation to wait to have dinner until 10:30. I have learned that eating too much at 10:30 is a bad idea, unless I have definite plans to go out, because usually I go to bed like now and having a full belly is not ideal for sleeping. Tonight, though, our plans to go out fell through. Which is ironic because I spent part of the train ride home trying to convince Craig that Wednesdays are better than Saturdays in terms of going out, clearly I am a hypocrite.
I'm starting to yawn, so I'm off to bed. Hopefully next time I blog I will have more interesting stories to tell.
Sunday I came home and uploaded like 500 pictures to the internet. I've been working on adding captions since, for the most part, most people have no idea what they're looking at. I'm through like 100 or so. Monday we had class and then took a break to the cafe across the street before our afternoon excursion. I had some sangria (which was much stronger than Oveja Negra and gave me a little bit of afternoon buzz) and a chocolate crepe. I think I could eat crepes of various varieties for every meal and would not get tired of them. They are delicious.
For our afternoon excursion, we went to the Gaudi museum. Gaudi is a famous architect from Barcelona who designed things based on nature. For example, when he was creating the arches for his buildings he used a simple string model. He would hold the string so that it created a parabolic shape which would represent an upside down arch. He designed everything with purpose. His furniture is strange looking, but it is highly ergonomic, which is really cool since he was around in the late 19th, early 2oth century, before ergonomic was hip. We saw his La Pedrera building which has been converted to a museum, and then Casa Batllo which was also really awesome. Casa Batllo has a sort of dragon facade and is mosaicked across the front, it is one of my favorite buildings in Barcelona. Tomorrow we'll go see one of his most famous works, which is still being built, La Sagrada Familia, which is a church that will eventually be the tallest building in Barcelona. I'm not really sure why, but due to the complicated nature of the building, it is still not complete. Also, Park Guell has some more of Gaudi's works, including the long, tiled bench that is hugely famous all over the world; hopefully we'll go there this weekend.
After Gaudi, we headed home for dinner of leftover city, and not really good leftovers really. I don't know what's up with Senora lately but the food has not been awesome. I'm not too worried though, I definitely eat enough. Monday was Jessica's (the French girl who lives with Kate and Michelle) actual birthday so Sylvia and I met up with Jessica, Kate, Michelle, and Austin for coffee a couple blocks away. I had Brazilian coffee which definitely had whiskey in it and helped me sleep like a baby when we finally got home at 1A. It was nice to do something relaxing, though.
Tuesday morning I woke up in a stinker of a mood, which is strange because I've been sleeping more and drinking less. We went to class and didn't have any excursions in the afternoon. Craig, Sylvia and I headed over to Las Ramblas to try and get some shopping done, but didn't really accomplish anything. We did, however, spring for Chocolate y Churros again. And they were consistently amazing. I could go for some right now, even though I've had Chocolate today. After that we met up with some people from our group and headed over to Arc de Triomf. Its a giant park and the entrance is this awesome arch. We walked around the park, which was beautiful, for a long time, looking at stuff and taking pictures. I lusted after some beautiful, giant dogs (since I'm starting to really miss my Bartimus) and we walked down to the Harbor area. I bought some rioja wine, which Jordi says is excellent Catalan wine. I haven't opened it yet, but I can't wait to try it. Here they drink all wine chilled, even red wine, which I like. I think I'm going to chill this, but I haven't decided.
After walking, I was tired again, so I came home and napped for 3 hours. We ate dinner (noodles, hot dogs, salad, bread, etc. Basically nothing new or interesting). When we were out and about, I was totally pretending that I wanted to go out, trying to convince Craig that Tuesday was a great night for going out (pretty much every night is a great night for going out in Barcelona); however, when I got home and passed out, I woke up not pretending anymore. So we didn't go out. We played hermits and went to bed around 12:30.
At 1:30A, Analise called me because she and her room mate had gotten in a fight; they're fine now. I woke up this morning in a much better mood. We had class again and then headed straight for Sitges, which is about an hour away by train. The train ride went right along the coast and was stunning. Sitges is also beautiful. It's tiny. Not as tiny as Besalu, but much much smaller than Barcelona. It is kind of touristy, but still very pretty and cute. There are shops and restaurants, but the beaches are the main attraction. We didn't spend any time at the beach because the weather wasn't beach weather, but we saw them and they are beautiful. Sitges also tastes like the ocean, which I loved. It was like being back on the boat with Gabby and Popop. We went to several museums that had important Catalan art, modern and romantic. The art was beautiful and I got some really cool pictures, even though we were supposed to take them in the museum. Oops.
After the museums, we went with Jordi and Silvia to a cafe for a marienda (snack). We tried a variety of pastries and of course, Chocolate. I didn't really like mine, it was thick (Silvia tried it and said I must have gotten the bottom of the barrel), luckily Craig ate most of it in my honor. We walked around Sitges some, looking in shops but not really buying anything. We got home around 8P and I fell asleep until Senora, who must have been hollering at us for awhile, came and turned the light on to wake me up for dinner. Dinner, to be perfectly honest, sucked. Coming to Spain, I was hoping to eat Spanish food for every meal, and we do, but not really. Tonight's selections were pizza (in the place of noodles) which was burnt black, hot dogs, cheese, salad, bread, ice cream, and juevos rellenos. Let me tell you about juevos rellenos, or surprise eggs as I call them. It's looks like deviled eggs with a mayonnaise sauce on top. But, the surprise is: it's stuffed with fish. Suprise! It was salty and fishy and mayonnaise-y all at once. I ate one, going my philosophy to try everything, but am not really enamored. Especially when I got the surprise of being stuff with fish. And we've been eating at 10:30P. I asked Silvia about this and she said 9 is normal but 10:30 is a little late. I think we eat that late because our Senora doesn't get home until 9 from work. I'm getting used to it. I don't mind eating later than most Americans (8:30 is ideal for me), but 10:30 is pushing midnight snack time. But I love the experience of being immersed in a different culture, which definitely out weighs my hesitation to wait to have dinner until 10:30. I have learned that eating too much at 10:30 is a bad idea, unless I have definite plans to go out, because usually I go to bed like now and having a full belly is not ideal for sleeping. Tonight, though, our plans to go out fell through. Which is ironic because I spent part of the train ride home trying to convince Craig that Wednesdays are better than Saturdays in terms of going out, clearly I am a hypocrite.
I'm starting to yawn, so I'm off to bed. Hopefully next time I blog I will have more interesting stories to tell.
5.26.2008
More Good News
Pictures are up! Either go to the bottom to see the slideshow (which doesn't work at the internet café because this computer still has Windows98) or go to www.picasaweb.google.com/scotti.wingfield
There are 473. Enjoy.
There are 473. Enjoy.
5.25.2008
Good News
The internet is fully functioning. Which means I can write from my computer. Which means I have spell check. Which means I can write more often. Senora had just unplugged it...oops.
It's 5 o'clock (AM) Somewhere
Actually, I keep meeting 5A in Barcelona. My señora probably thinks I'm the laziest person alive. But at least I have internet, sort of.
Yesterday, after spending way too much time at the internet café I went out and ran some errands. Snacks, cash, etc. I took a nap and then Holly, Michelle, Kate, Analise, and I headed out to the football game. The game was held at the stadium that Fútbol Club de Barcelona (or FC Barcelona) plays in, which was huge. We met over by Analise's place and walked about 26.2 miles to the stadium. When we finally got there, I hadn't eaten much beyond the croissant because I was saving myself for Argentinian meat, so we found some food (I couldn't make it to scavenge for really good food so I just got a hamburger and some sausage at a stand and inhaled it) and clara. Clara is beer mixed with lemonade. When I had it yesterday it was lemon Fanta and I'm not really sure I like it, although it does taste better than beer. John C. Wilcox bought Craig a beer (jealous) and we walked around with JCW and some people from the group before the game started.
Eventually, we climbed 8,000 stairs to get to our seats. Nosebleed, of course. Which I didn't mind because we could see the whole field and the whole stadium. It was a friend game between Catalunya and Argentina so it wasn't that packed. There was a suprising amount of Argentinian supporters considering the political meaning behind the game.
A lot of Catalunya believes that it should be a separate nation from Spain since it has its own language, food, culture, etc. There is stuff here that would never happen in other parts of Spain, which is really cool. I don't really know enough about it to have an opinion, but most of the TA's think that Catalunya should be a separate nation. Part of the politics behind the game were that the Catalunya team is not recognized in the international arena, unfortunately. So they don't get to play against the national teams or in the World Cup. Either way, we saw a lot of mullets.
The game was cool, but I don't really know that much about soccer so it was fun to watch but I thought it would be more intense, more like lacrosse. There wasn't enough fighting for my taste. But the fans were something else. It was definitely the loudest and proudest game I have ever been too. I took a couple videos because I was in couple awe of how wild the fans were. They had drums and were bouncing up and down the whole time. The game itself was pretty mild, since it was friendly, but the fans were totally worth going. Argentina won, 1-0. After the game, Craig, Analise, Holly and I headed back towards my neighborhood for some Hot Doks.
As Michelle wisely said before we even left, we live really close to the stadium, like literally 3 blocks. We could have avoided walking an entire marathon, sorry Michelle. We went to Hot Doks where we encountered the same Dominican waiter. Craig and I ordered 2 sandwiches and shared them and some fries. They were both a combination of Texas toast, fried egg, ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and pure delicious. After eating dinner, Craig said he would set up my wireless for my señora so we headed across the street to my apartment. She wasn't home so I was just going to change and we were going to go out but she showed up. We drank cava while he set up the wireless successfully (finally) and in Spanish (impressive) and we headed over the fairy forest bar/coffee shop. I drank Tanqueray and tonic and we checked the place out. Its like a forest inside, its so cool. There is greenery and artwork all over. Craig thought it was creepy, but the rest of us thought it was awesome. It was more a place to get a drink and sit and talk than the dive bar that is Oveja Negra
We left shortly before it closed (we really only stayed like half an hour) and headed down La Rambla del Mar and walked along the harbor trying to think of something to do. It is Jessica's (the French girl that lives with Michelle and Kate) birthday on Monday so we wanted to do something fun, at least get her trashed or something. But we didn't want to go to Oveja Negra, we wanted something new. So we were walking and we just kind of followed the crowd into this club inside a shopping mall, strange. Sunset, I think it was called. Poor Craig had to pay 15€ whereas the rest of the girls didn't, since we're girls.
That place was eurotrash central. It was like Lesbian Night and Bachelorette Party Night. And there were a lot of people beyond the age that it is acceptable to be out beyond 2A. The music was crazy. It was like something for everyone, literally. They even played a Grease montage. Which was hilarious; the lesbians were doing the entire dance to Greased Lightening. There was a group of super eurotrash guys who kept coordinating their dance moves like N'Sync and doing them in unison. Some guy stroked Kate's heel inside her shoe. The same guy asked Analise if she preferred his pants rolled up or let down. And, on the walls, they were playing movies. While we were there Spiderman and Star Wars were the featured films of the evening. It was a great time. And, for once, we didn't get absolutely accosted by strange euro men. We danced with a couple but they got the hint when it was time to step off and leave us alone. They don't keep calling 20 times a day because they weren't trying to get our numbers.
It was hotter than hell in there, so we stayed for like 2.5 hours and headed home. We made it on the Metro and I rolled into bed at 5A, per the usual. I tried to use the internet, thinking I could talk to people since it was like 10P in the States. However, for some reason, it wasn't working last night or today when I woke up at 3P. Craig suspects she turns off the router when she's sleeping because the lights blink. She wasn't home so hopefully I can figure it out when I get back, I'm at an internet café now.
After waking up at 3, we were going to go see a movie because the weather is miserable here. The movies were starting for like 2 hours so we headed over to a café on Las Ramblas that was recommended to us by Marianna and Jordi and Silvia, so we had to try it. We had a giant plate of all things fried tapas, which was phenomenal, fried cheese and fried crab and other stuff fried. That ws delicious. Then we had chocolate con churros which is churros and hot chocolate. But the hot chocolate here isn't like it is in the States. Here it is essentially hot, melted chocolate. You can't really drink it, its way too thick. That was amazing. The fried churros were so fresh and hot and the hot chocolate was so rich, I'm still full and we ate it like 2 hours ago. After that we did some shopping on Las Ramblas but most stuff was closed because its Sunday. Soon, I'm going home to see if I can fix the internet, if only to put pictures up and catch up on TV shows. Tomorrow we have class and then an excusion to a museum, maybe something about Contemporary Art? I'm not really sure. I am sure, that I've been away from my bed for far too long and am going to head home for dinner and sleep.
¡Hasta mañana!
Yesterday, after spending way too much time at the internet café I went out and ran some errands. Snacks, cash, etc. I took a nap and then Holly, Michelle, Kate, Analise, and I headed out to the football game. The game was held at the stadium that Fútbol Club de Barcelona (or FC Barcelona) plays in, which was huge. We met over by Analise's place and walked about 26.2 miles to the stadium. When we finally got there, I hadn't eaten much beyond the croissant because I was saving myself for Argentinian meat, so we found some food (I couldn't make it to scavenge for really good food so I just got a hamburger and some sausage at a stand and inhaled it) and clara. Clara is beer mixed with lemonade. When I had it yesterday it was lemon Fanta and I'm not really sure I like it, although it does taste better than beer. John C. Wilcox bought Craig a beer (jealous) and we walked around with JCW and some people from the group before the game started.
Eventually, we climbed 8,000 stairs to get to our seats. Nosebleed, of course. Which I didn't mind because we could see the whole field and the whole stadium. It was a friend game between Catalunya and Argentina so it wasn't that packed. There was a suprising amount of Argentinian supporters considering the political meaning behind the game.
A lot of Catalunya believes that it should be a separate nation from Spain since it has its own language, food, culture, etc. There is stuff here that would never happen in other parts of Spain, which is really cool. I don't really know enough about it to have an opinion, but most of the TA's think that Catalunya should be a separate nation. Part of the politics behind the game were that the Catalunya team is not recognized in the international arena, unfortunately. So they don't get to play against the national teams or in the World Cup. Either way, we saw a lot of mullets.
The game was cool, but I don't really know that much about soccer so it was fun to watch but I thought it would be more intense, more like lacrosse. There wasn't enough fighting for my taste. But the fans were something else. It was definitely the loudest and proudest game I have ever been too. I took a couple videos because I was in couple awe of how wild the fans were. They had drums and were bouncing up and down the whole time. The game itself was pretty mild, since it was friendly, but the fans were totally worth going. Argentina won, 1-0. After the game, Craig, Analise, Holly and I headed back towards my neighborhood for some Hot Doks.
As Michelle wisely said before we even left, we live really close to the stadium, like literally 3 blocks. We could have avoided walking an entire marathon, sorry Michelle. We went to Hot Doks where we encountered the same Dominican waiter. Craig and I ordered 2 sandwiches and shared them and some fries. They were both a combination of Texas toast, fried egg, ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and pure delicious. After eating dinner, Craig said he would set up my wireless for my señora so we headed across the street to my apartment. She wasn't home so I was just going to change and we were going to go out but she showed up. We drank cava while he set up the wireless successfully (finally) and in Spanish (impressive) and we headed over the fairy forest bar/coffee shop. I drank Tanqueray and tonic and we checked the place out. Its like a forest inside, its so cool. There is greenery and artwork all over. Craig thought it was creepy, but the rest of us thought it was awesome. It was more a place to get a drink and sit and talk than the dive bar that is Oveja Negra
We left shortly before it closed (we really only stayed like half an hour) and headed down La Rambla del Mar and walked along the harbor trying to think of something to do. It is Jessica's (the French girl that lives with Michelle and Kate) birthday on Monday so we wanted to do something fun, at least get her trashed or something. But we didn't want to go to Oveja Negra, we wanted something new. So we were walking and we just kind of followed the crowd into this club inside a shopping mall, strange. Sunset, I think it was called. Poor Craig had to pay 15€ whereas the rest of the girls didn't, since we're girls.
That place was eurotrash central. It was like Lesbian Night and Bachelorette Party Night. And there were a lot of people beyond the age that it is acceptable to be out beyond 2A. The music was crazy. It was like something for everyone, literally. They even played a Grease montage. Which was hilarious; the lesbians were doing the entire dance to Greased Lightening. There was a group of super eurotrash guys who kept coordinating their dance moves like N'Sync and doing them in unison. Some guy stroked Kate's heel inside her shoe. The same guy asked Analise if she preferred his pants rolled up or let down. And, on the walls, they were playing movies. While we were there Spiderman and Star Wars were the featured films of the evening. It was a great time. And, for once, we didn't get absolutely accosted by strange euro men. We danced with a couple but they got the hint when it was time to step off and leave us alone. They don't keep calling 20 times a day because they weren't trying to get our numbers.
It was hotter than hell in there, so we stayed for like 2.5 hours and headed home. We made it on the Metro and I rolled into bed at 5A, per the usual. I tried to use the internet, thinking I could talk to people since it was like 10P in the States. However, for some reason, it wasn't working last night or today when I woke up at 3P. Craig suspects she turns off the router when she's sleeping because the lights blink. She wasn't home so hopefully I can figure it out when I get back, I'm at an internet café now.
After waking up at 3, we were going to go see a movie because the weather is miserable here. The movies were starting for like 2 hours so we headed over to a café on Las Ramblas that was recommended to us by Marianna and Jordi and Silvia, so we had to try it. We had a giant plate of all things fried tapas, which was phenomenal, fried cheese and fried crab and other stuff fried. That ws delicious. Then we had chocolate con churros which is churros and hot chocolate. But the hot chocolate here isn't like it is in the States. Here it is essentially hot, melted chocolate. You can't really drink it, its way too thick. That was amazing. The fried churros were so fresh and hot and the hot chocolate was so rich, I'm still full and we ate it like 2 hours ago. After that we did some shopping on Las Ramblas but most stuff was closed because its Sunday. Soon, I'm going home to see if I can fix the internet, if only to put pictures up and catch up on TV shows. Tomorrow we have class and then an excusion to a museum, maybe something about Contemporary Art? I'm not really sure. I am sure, that I've been away from my bed for far too long and am going to head home for dinner and sleep.
¡Hasta mañana!
5.24.2008
This Morning...
...I woke up with a cold. Not anything serious, just a stuffy nose and sore throat. Nothing that will stop me from living up Barcelona to its fullest. But there is nothing like the panic that fills you when you realize that the conglomerate that makes Nyquil has not found its way to Spain, which I discovered when I went to the Farmacía. Spain doesn't have commercialization, everything is a special little shop, I love that. I think the man in the Famacía (which is conveniently located right across the street) is an actual pharmacist. When I hissed out "Tengo un resfriado" (I have a cold) he said something quickly in Spanish and pointed to his nose and his throat and I said "Sí, por favor". He gave me some pills and told me to take one every 8 hours (which either means I just scored prescription meds, they are much stronger, or much weaker) but I went to the café next door for a café con leche and a croissant. I downed the pill with my coffee and am feeling almost 100%. I don't know what it is about Spanish coffee, but I'm pretty sure that Starbucks will never taste the same because Spanish coffee has ruined it for me (which I don't mind).
So, last time I left off I was off to the beach. The beaches here are beautiful, but different from like Galveston (which anyone from Texas knows the truth about Galveston) and Florida. The sand is more like a combination of dirt and rocks, and it doesn't make you itch like Galveston sand, but that could just be Galveston sand that makes itching happen. We got there and found people from our group who were laying out and joined them. It was a beautiful day, not too hot, a light breeze, and lots of sun. It was so relxing to just lay there and have nothing to do, nothing to think about except how long should I tempt not getting burnt, and get accosted by the sales people on the beach. When you lay on the beach and don't look asleep, these people (Paskistani/Indian men and Chinese women) approach you trying to sell you things. Its very convenient if you want to pay a hugely inflated price for an ice cold, beautiful beer (that's how the men describe the beers...I don't think they actually speak Spanish outside the realm of their profession), or a massage. The men sell goods, the women services. They are ridiculously obnoixious and after 10 minutes of this, I no longer feel the need to politely decline; I'm trying to nap after all. The Chinese women approach you and are like "Masaje? Masaje?". Go away, lady, I don't know where those hands have been. They also seem to come in waves; like for 5 minutes you'll be bombarded and then it will be calm for awhile, like they come in bus fulls and one bus just unloaded. So if you can ignore that, which I have honed my skills at, the beach is wonderful. The water is a little cold (like Antartic or so) so I didn't actually get in, but some people did. And the bottom of the ocean is mostly rocks, so I want to get some shoes to wear in the water to avoid slicing up my feet. There are also a lot of boats out on the water. Mostly blow boats (sail boats to the uniformed), but a beautiful, giant yacht passed and I though of Popop, he would have loved that boat. We left after about 2.5 hours and headed back to my neighborhood and Hot Doks.
After being in Spain for like 2 weeks-ish, people were craving something familiar. Hot Doks is a restaurant across the street from us that serves hot dogs, hamburgers, brats, and these Spanish sandwiches that are like a heart attack topped with a fried egg. We had a Dominican waiter who was flamboyant and fun. I had an hamburguesa completa, patatas fritas, and Fanta Naranja. My hamburger was so good. I'm pretty sure it was ground up pork but the meat was mixed with herbs and had cheese and bacon and lettuce, tomato, mayo, the works. The fries were perfectly American and Fanta Naraja is not orange soda like in the States but rather carbonated Sunny D. It's better than Coke Light in my tastes. After that me, Holly, Analise, and Sylvia laid around my room (its the largest and the best because it has 2 french doors that lead to a balcony) and eventually sauntered over to the towel store for some better beach towels. Holly and I found cute towels that are giant with matching bags that will accomodate more stuff for the beach and a few other things. I finally started buying presents, both for me and others. And we talked to Paulo, the cute guy who works there and is around our age. He told us about some places to go, which I can't remeber. He's into electronic music, so we'll see if we end up at any of his reccomendations. He was nice and really good looking, and not Brazilian, so who knows.
After that we all went our separate ways. Sylvia and I headed home and ate dinner. Lately, Señora has been feeding us like the same stuff everday. I want to try more Spanish food so I hope she shakes it up some soon. That night we had Spaghetti with red sauce, salad, hot dogs, beef (it was just cooked beef fried in oil. Sylvia said it was tough so I didn't try it), and french fries and flan. Señora hasn't been eating with us lately which is sad because we always have lots of fun teaching her words in English. After dinner, I finally finished my book (Dry by Augusten Burroughs. Anyone who has ever been a recovering anything or gone to an AA meeting should read it, it is really good and somewhat funny. Although not as funny as the others by him that I've read, but he never disappoints) and knocked out.
Thursday we had class so we woke up and headed out. In my class we were doing a special activity. When we got there we were handed a questionnaire and told to go ask people on the street the questions. Apparently, Thursday was a special day in the Catalan region. They told us to ask older people because young people wouldn't know. So we approached an older woman who had no clue, and then we went up to this old man and asked him because he looked older than dirt. He didn't know what the special day was but said that to him, everyday was special because he had the birds in his windows and the trees to look at. Nice outlook, but no help. So we headed over to the tobacco shop where I had bought my phone card. The man in there was really nice and had been in the local newspaper, so I thought maybe he'd know. He wasn't there but his wife and the clerk were and they knew! It was Corpus Christi. The celebration of the body of Christ. The women explained what it was and we headed back to class where our TA's explained it even more. Part of the celebration is emptying the contents of an egg and making it dance on the top of a fountain. Naturally, we had to see this so we headed out to a couple different places to see their fountains, which was really cool. We also got to go into city hall and see the civil part of the celebration. I like learning about traditions and things like this, celebrations we would never have in the states.
Afterwards, Holly, Analis, and I headed out to the harbor area to find some paella. Sylvia and Marianna (two of the TAs) have been telling us that Thursdays are the day where paella is on the menu del día. We found a cute place that looked out over the harbor. Popop would have loved the harbor. Our meal consisted of a first course of gespacho (which is amazing and fresh), salad with tuna, and raviolis with cream sauce. The second course was of course, paella. Paella is a rice dish that typically has seafood or chicken but it can have all kinds of good stuff in it. It has a tomato and fish broth base and is eaten family style. They brought us a giant pan with mussels, shrimp, and scallops and we went to town. The paella was amazing; similar to my mom's, but different. We had ice cream with a liqeur sauce for dessert and walked around a bit. We were all tired and planning to go out so we headed home.
Sylvia had gone off to a park and wasn't back yet, so I walked around the neighborhood for like an hour while she made her way back. She got lost because she is terrible at directions (hahaha...she always jokes about not being able to make it without me directing her, which is true) but once we were home I slept for 2 hours. After a dinner of strange potato salad with peas, carrots, green beans, and tuna (I really did not like this. I make an effort to try everything but this was just not good), salad, noodles, patatas bravas, and bread, we made plans to go out. ç
We decided to try a new place, finally, and got on the bus to Chupitos (which means shots in Spanish) sans Sylvia since she headed to London yesterday and wanted to get some sleep. We met up with Craig and some others from our group. The place was tiny, crammed, and hot. As we walked by the bar, there were flaming shots being prepared, that was pretty cool. We met up with Craig, who hadn't had that much to drink, recommended Animal Balls, so we got a liter. I watched her pour it and it was mostly hard liquor with a splash of pineapple juice. Awesome. Holly, Analise, and I shared it (Craig stole a couple sips but the 3 of us really knocked it out) and were quickly on the train to wastedville. I stopped after Animal Balls. We hung out at Chupitos for awhile but eventually I left for Live Barcelona with Craig, Austin, Amanda, Alex, Jake, Suzi, and Adam and Analise and Holly stayed behind to talk to some Spaniard guys they had befriended. Live Barcelona was a bust, big time. No one was there and no one was dancing. The cocktails were expensive and it was like 3A. I was ready to call it a night but when we walked outside, we discovered Austin was worshipping the trash can and Jake, his room mate, had already left. So Craig, Mike (Craig's room mate) and I spent the next hour getting him home safely. Austin was a mess all day Friday.
After making sure Austin made it, I headed for my bed and landed on my pillow at 4A (at least it wasn't 5A this time, I've seen the wrong side of 5A too many times while I've been here) and slept until 7A. I'm getting really good at living on 3 hours of sleep, which is probably why I'm a bit sick.
We made it to the school in time for our excursion and slept on the bus on the way to the Dalí museum which is in Figueres. I would have come to Barcelona if the only activity we did was go to the Dalí museum, it was indescribable. Dalí designed it himself in the 1970's and has mostly his works and things he likes. Everything in there has been meticulously planned. From the way the domed roof reflects off the window to represent the eyes of a fly to the distance from each painting, everything has been placed just so that Dalí's fans could consume his art. It was incredible. I could have spent a week in there. Unfortunately, we only spent an hour and a half, but it was one of my favorites so far. After the Dalí museum we headed to lunch which was at this tiny restaurant in the middle of no where nestled in a mountain. It was delicious. We has salad, noodles with groups beef, roasted vegetables (red pepper, potato, egg plant, and onion), and bread for the first course. The second course was braised beef, chicken, beef ribs, and sausage. The meat was to die for; it was incredibly tender and seasoned differently than I've ever had. For dessert I had crema catalunya, which was essentially Creme Bruleé. Craig had home made flan (when we have it for dessert it comes from a pudding cup), which I decided I do not really enjoy, and some people had ice cream that was sweetened with honey and had almonds. That was wonderful, too.
After lunch, we headed back down the mountain to Besalú, this tiny historic town. I mean tiny. And we were the only tourists there, which was nice. It seems every where we go is ravaged with tourists. We toured the town and saw the churches, which were stunning. They showed how romantic and gothic architecture have been intertwined over the centuries. After touring the town, we headed back to Barcelona. Since my throat was sore (a warning of this morning's discovery) and I was really tired and kind of grumpy, I stayed in. Sylvia went to London from Besalú so I ate dinner alone (sad). I had more noodles with red sauce, fried beef, tortilla española, and bread. I read for awhile and finally Mommy called! I haven't really talked to her that much since I got here, so that was really nice. After talking to Mommy for awhile, I went to sleep.
Today, we're going to a fútbol game (soccer). Argentina (one of the best teams in the world right now) is playing a friendly match against Catalunya. There are some politics regarding Catalunya but I'll explain those later because I've been here forever and I still have a couple errands to run. Hopefully I'll have internet this evening, we're supposed to set it up this afternoon before I leave for the game. There's a festival before the game, so I'm mentally preparing for traditional Argentinian and Catalan food, which I can't wait for!
¡Ciao!
5.21.2008
Finally
It is finally beach weather here. That's where I'm going after I write this, straight to the beach to sleep off last night. I can multitask: tan and get rid of my slight hangover.
So last time I was off to Spanish lunch. My policy on Spanish food (and really food in general) is to try everything they put in front of me, and order things that I have no idea what they are. So far, this has worked. Me, Holly, and Analise took the bus back to my neighborhood to find some place to eat. Here they have something called the menu del día which you get several courses and a drink for really cheap. This time we paid 11€ for 3 plates which included dessert. And you get to choose, this time between 3 choices for the first plate and 2 for the second and dessert. For the first plate, we had a salad with greens, pineapple, and prociutto with balsamic vinegar. It was so simple and so delicious. There was also arroz cubano which is rice with tomato sauce and a fried egg on top. You mix it up to the egg yolk makes this deliciously rich sauce, loved it. And then the third was this strange thing of sqaures in sauce that had the consistency of oatmeal. I don't make it sound very appetizing, but I swear it was incredible. The second courses, when he described them, we had no idea what they were, so we ordered them. One we knew was fish and the other was some sort of either beef or pork cheek. The fish was really fresh with a tomato sauce, it was a little salty but better than stuff in Chambana for sure. The beef cheek became one of my new favorites. It was served on the bone and cooked to the point that it was so tender it fell off and was served with potatos, peppers, and onions. It was like beef stew, but somehow better. For dessert we had a brownie sundae, which I liked, and some sort of whipped yogurt, which was okay. The yogurt was high acid and mostly unsweetened except for a tiny bit of raspberry sauce, it was good, but not my favorite so far. And I had a glass of red wine. All for 11€. I can assure you I'll be doing this again soon.
After that we did some more shopping in Chinatown and I finally found a bag that I can carry my school stuff in so I don't have to pawn it off on other people. After shopping we went home to chill for the evening (we were still recovering from both jet lag and our good decisions the previous weekend). We ate dinner with our señora, who I adore. She is so fun and so cute. She things we are hilarious, especially our Spanish, and that I make stuff up. At dinnertime we teach her English, like she now knows the days of the week and the word rocks. Only she says rrrrrrrocks! Yes, with the exclamation point. Oh, and shut up. We taught her to say that to her ancient dog who barks at her for food during dinner. If Yulie (the dog) was Bart, she would not have made it to her ancient age of 14 at home. After over feeding us and telling us not to leave anything, we took our food comas to bed.
Tuesday we woke up and went to class, which was fine. We has another trip to look at old stuff and rocks so we walked around a little bit and I got some McDonald's. All this pork makes me want to worship beef. Don't worry, I'll still worship pork too, at a later date when I don't eat it for every meal. McDonald's was a welcome addition to my day. It isn't as greasy here, and Coke Light, aka Diet Coke, tastes more like Coke here than in the US. After pigging out (and enjoying every minute of it), Me, Holly, and Analise ended up by ourselves and somehow managed to find the museum in the very confusing Medieval Barcelona by ourselves. With lots of stops in shops and to drool over the gelato in the gelatarías. After a lovely tour of more old history stuff and churches, we went to the Mercat. Which I want to live in. Its this huge open market in the middle of the city. Everything is super fresh. There are stalls for candy, fruit, mean, fish, eggs, everything food. We bought some chocolates and Holly and I got a kilo of cherries, which was pretty close to buying a kilo of cocaine in my mind because now that I'm talking about them, I feel like I need them, and sat on Las Ramblas eating cherries and people watching. We eventually made it home after some more shopping and had a typical dinner of noodles, hamburgers, hot dogs, salad, bread, french fries, and tortilla española. And flan, of course. The tortilla española was especially good last night, as were the french fries. For some reason Tuesdays seems to be American food night. We ate American food last Tuesday too.
After dinner we decided that since we're in Barcelona and its Tuesday, this warrants a trip to Oveja Negra, the only nightlife we can manage to experience. Analise and I planned the excursion but she fell asleep and ditched us. Lame. After Holly, Sylvia and I cleared one bottle of cava, we headed on the bus to Oveja Negra. We weren't planning on going crazy (it is only Tuesday), but managed to get pretty drunk. I met some Swedes who weren't as creepy as the Brazilians we always seem to find. They've been travelling for 6 weeks in a Volkswagon Bus around Europe and apparently don't get to shower often, their English was not so good. We eventually left, and deposited a very drunk Holly on her bus and headed over to ours. We decided to try a new stop that was closed to Las Ramblas. Being drunk, we didn't think to ask if it went where we needed to go. And that's how we ended up going the wrong way for an hour and a half. Sylvia passed out on the bus and didn't really notice, but I was secretly and drunkenly panicking. When I started seeing huge hills (its mostly flat) I went and asked the bus drive and he said we were going the wrong way. Cool. So we got off in the strangely quiet place and caught the bus the other way. Now we know and will not do that again since it delayed sleeping by an hour and a half (I went to bed at 5A again. Me and 5A have got to stop meeting like this) and woke up at 8:30 this morning for class, annoyed naturally. We got it together and went to class and now I'm in a better mood because we're going to the beach! So, I'm off to multitask! Hopefully not so many adventures for next time...
So last time I was off to Spanish lunch. My policy on Spanish food (and really food in general) is to try everything they put in front of me, and order things that I have no idea what they are. So far, this has worked. Me, Holly, and Analise took the bus back to my neighborhood to find some place to eat. Here they have something called the menu del día which you get several courses and a drink for really cheap. This time we paid 11€ for 3 plates which included dessert. And you get to choose, this time between 3 choices for the first plate and 2 for the second and dessert. For the first plate, we had a salad with greens, pineapple, and prociutto with balsamic vinegar. It was so simple and so delicious. There was also arroz cubano which is rice with tomato sauce and a fried egg on top. You mix it up to the egg yolk makes this deliciously rich sauce, loved it. And then the third was this strange thing of sqaures in sauce that had the consistency of oatmeal. I don't make it sound very appetizing, but I swear it was incredible. The second courses, when he described them, we had no idea what they were, so we ordered them. One we knew was fish and the other was some sort of either beef or pork cheek. The fish was really fresh with a tomato sauce, it was a little salty but better than stuff in Chambana for sure. The beef cheek became one of my new favorites. It was served on the bone and cooked to the point that it was so tender it fell off and was served with potatos, peppers, and onions. It was like beef stew, but somehow better. For dessert we had a brownie sundae, which I liked, and some sort of whipped yogurt, which was okay. The yogurt was high acid and mostly unsweetened except for a tiny bit of raspberry sauce, it was good, but not my favorite so far. And I had a glass of red wine. All for 11€. I can assure you I'll be doing this again soon.
After that we did some more shopping in Chinatown and I finally found a bag that I can carry my school stuff in so I don't have to pawn it off on other people. After shopping we went home to chill for the evening (we were still recovering from both jet lag and our good decisions the previous weekend). We ate dinner with our señora, who I adore. She is so fun and so cute. She things we are hilarious, especially our Spanish, and that I make stuff up. At dinnertime we teach her English, like she now knows the days of the week and the word rocks. Only she says rrrrrrrocks! Yes, with the exclamation point. Oh, and shut up. We taught her to say that to her ancient dog who barks at her for food during dinner. If Yulie (the dog) was Bart, she would not have made it to her ancient age of 14 at home. After over feeding us and telling us not to leave anything, we took our food comas to bed.
Tuesday we woke up and went to class, which was fine. We has another trip to look at old stuff and rocks so we walked around a little bit and I got some McDonald's. All this pork makes me want to worship beef. Don't worry, I'll still worship pork too, at a later date when I don't eat it for every meal. McDonald's was a welcome addition to my day. It isn't as greasy here, and Coke Light, aka Diet Coke, tastes more like Coke here than in the US. After pigging out (and enjoying every minute of it), Me, Holly, and Analise ended up by ourselves and somehow managed to find the museum in the very confusing Medieval Barcelona by ourselves. With lots of stops in shops and to drool over the gelato in the gelatarías. After a lovely tour of more old history stuff and churches, we went to the Mercat. Which I want to live in. Its this huge open market in the middle of the city. Everything is super fresh. There are stalls for candy, fruit, mean, fish, eggs, everything food. We bought some chocolates and Holly and I got a kilo of cherries, which was pretty close to buying a kilo of cocaine in my mind because now that I'm talking about them, I feel like I need them, and sat on Las Ramblas eating cherries and people watching. We eventually made it home after some more shopping and had a typical dinner of noodles, hamburgers, hot dogs, salad, bread, french fries, and tortilla española. And flan, of course. The tortilla española was especially good last night, as were the french fries. For some reason Tuesdays seems to be American food night. We ate American food last Tuesday too.
After dinner we decided that since we're in Barcelona and its Tuesday, this warrants a trip to Oveja Negra, the only nightlife we can manage to experience. Analise and I planned the excursion but she fell asleep and ditched us. Lame. After Holly, Sylvia and I cleared one bottle of cava, we headed on the bus to Oveja Negra. We weren't planning on going crazy (it is only Tuesday), but managed to get pretty drunk. I met some Swedes who weren't as creepy as the Brazilians we always seem to find. They've been travelling for 6 weeks in a Volkswagon Bus around Europe and apparently don't get to shower often, their English was not so good. We eventually left, and deposited a very drunk Holly on her bus and headed over to ours. We decided to try a new stop that was closed to Las Ramblas. Being drunk, we didn't think to ask if it went where we needed to go. And that's how we ended up going the wrong way for an hour and a half. Sylvia passed out on the bus and didn't really notice, but I was secretly and drunkenly panicking. When I started seeing huge hills (its mostly flat) I went and asked the bus drive and he said we were going the wrong way. Cool. So we got off in the strangely quiet place and caught the bus the other way. Now we know and will not do that again since it delayed sleeping by an hour and a half (I went to bed at 5A again. Me and 5A have got to stop meeting like this) and woke up at 8:30 this morning for class, annoyed naturally. We got it together and went to class and now I'm in a better mood because we're going to the beach! So, I'm off to multitask! Hopefully not so many adventures for next time...
5.19.2008
Apparently...
...I live in Chinatown. Chinatown of Barcelona. There are a bunch of Chinese people who have shops and stuff in my neighborhood. I like it because shopping in our neighborhood is much cheaper.
So Saturday, we just kind of walked around near Las Ramblas where everything was super expensive and Analise suggested that we go walk around one of our neighborhoods. So we headed near me and Sylvia's place, which is how we discovered that it is in fact full of Chinese people. We went to the supermarket to buy cava, which is Spanish champagne and it was only 1.75€ and is delicious. I also bought some chips which are tomato and red onion flavored...so tasty. And some fiber sticks, because it seemed like a good idea. After shopping, we went home and had rice with this wonderful red sauce, a hamburger patty with cheese, a fried egg, salad, and potato salad (its not really potato salad, its like boiled potatos with a spicy sauce. They're Sylvia's new favorite) with fruit for dessert. Everything was delicious as usual.
After dinner, we got ready to go out, and I finally unpacked. Analise and Holly came over and we downed 2 bottle of cava on the balcony before going to Oveja Negra. When Sylvia was opening one of the bottles, she popped it so that the cork went across the street. We finally got to Oveja Negra and planned to go over to a club, RazzMaTazz (I think that's how its spelled but I'm not sure). At Oveja Negra we drank some more sangria. I had sat down with some Spaniards who were nice and telling me about the city and I went to go get some more sangria and keep talking to them and I was intercepted by these Brazilian guys (not Rubens, I haven't found him again) and never made it back to the Spaniards. I looked for them later but they had left. Our group that was going to the club left without us so we thought why not go with the Brazilians. We never made it anywhere because the group was so big; we just ended up loitering on the streets at 4A. We decided we didn't want to go anywhere anyways and headed home to go to sleep, especially considered how drunk we were it was probably the best idea we've had so far.
I passed out right away until like 1P. We wanted to go to the beach so we slowly got ready and finally left at like 3:30. Somehow we didn't get there until 5. The beach is beautiful. It is so much cleaner and nicer. However, there are people (mostly Chinese and Pakistani people) who come and try and sell you things like beer, chips, and massages. We declined. It was kind of chilly so we only stayed like an hour and a half but are definitely going back on Wednesday. We came back from the beach and took showers and naps. Dinner was chicken soup, meatballs with potatoes and peas in a yellow sauce, salad, and more potato salad with flan and whip cream for dessert. After dinner, I tried to study some but fell asleep doing so and went to bed at like 10:30. We had class this morning and now we're going to have a spanish style lunch and do some more shopping in Chinatown. Hopefully it will warm up soon!
So Saturday, we just kind of walked around near Las Ramblas where everything was super expensive and Analise suggested that we go walk around one of our neighborhoods. So we headed near me and Sylvia's place, which is how we discovered that it is in fact full of Chinese people. We went to the supermarket to buy cava, which is Spanish champagne and it was only 1.75€ and is delicious. I also bought some chips which are tomato and red onion flavored...so tasty. And some fiber sticks, because it seemed like a good idea. After shopping, we went home and had rice with this wonderful red sauce, a hamburger patty with cheese, a fried egg, salad, and potato salad (its not really potato salad, its like boiled potatos with a spicy sauce. They're Sylvia's new favorite) with fruit for dessert. Everything was delicious as usual.
After dinner, we got ready to go out, and I finally unpacked. Analise and Holly came over and we downed 2 bottle of cava on the balcony before going to Oveja Negra. When Sylvia was opening one of the bottles, she popped it so that the cork went across the street. We finally got to Oveja Negra and planned to go over to a club, RazzMaTazz (I think that's how its spelled but I'm not sure). At Oveja Negra we drank some more sangria. I had sat down with some Spaniards who were nice and telling me about the city and I went to go get some more sangria and keep talking to them and I was intercepted by these Brazilian guys (not Rubens, I haven't found him again) and never made it back to the Spaniards. I looked for them later but they had left. Our group that was going to the club left without us so we thought why not go with the Brazilians. We never made it anywhere because the group was so big; we just ended up loitering on the streets at 4A. We decided we didn't want to go anywhere anyways and headed home to go to sleep, especially considered how drunk we were it was probably the best idea we've had so far.
I passed out right away until like 1P. We wanted to go to the beach so we slowly got ready and finally left at like 3:30. Somehow we didn't get there until 5. The beach is beautiful. It is so much cleaner and nicer. However, there are people (mostly Chinese and Pakistani people) who come and try and sell you things like beer, chips, and massages. We declined. It was kind of chilly so we only stayed like an hour and a half but are definitely going back on Wednesday. We came back from the beach and took showers and naps. Dinner was chicken soup, meatballs with potatoes and peas in a yellow sauce, salad, and more potato salad with flan and whip cream for dessert. After dinner, I tried to study some but fell asleep doing so and went to bed at like 10:30. We had class this morning and now we're going to have a spanish style lunch and do some more shopping in Chinatown. Hopefully it will warm up soon!
5.17.2008
Cultural Differences
So, last night we went out again. But it was just me, Holly, Analise, and Sylvia. We went back to the Ovella Negra to see if we could find Rubens because his number didn't save in my phone...he wasn't there. He had offered to take us to a Brazilian party and get us in for free, so we might try again tonight. So we met up and started walking down Las Ramblas which our group leaders warned us not to do alone (you really shouldn't do anything alone at night here except maybe a taxi because we stick out like you would not believe). We were together, so we weren't in too much danger, except for the lurking creepy men who like to tell you how beautiful you are. We had finally reached the end and were headed home when this guy came up to me wanting to kiss me. I told him not to touch me and he was oh, come on, its just a kiss, it will be the best kiss of you life. I told him no and push him away and when he came at me again, my dear friend Analise pushed him and said 'Fuck you! Puta!' (puta = bitch) and he walked away with his tail between his legs. There was a group of guys on another bench who thought it was hilarious as well. We decided we're only going to Las Ramblas on Thursdays when its mostly college students and not so many nasty, creepy guys. I mean, I think its great that I'm so pretty we literally have to fight them off, but I'd prefer to not have that happen again.
So, some cultural differences. Personal space here does not exist. If you want personal space you get it in the bathrooms, which are tiny. Obviously the food is different, but I am not making stuff up when I say I've had ham with almost every meal. Except when I eat cookies for breakfast. They also eat a lot more fruit, which gets things moving if you know what I mean. They walk everywhere which is cool because we get to see a lot of stuff that we would miss if we didn't. And nothing is commercialized. There are no supermarkets like Kroger. You have to go to different stores to get your meat, bread, and everything else. We are going today to get bottled water (the tap is really hard) because all the walking and climbing stairs has made us dehydrated. I did eat Burger King last night (don't judge...I really wanted beef) and it wasn't terrible. I actually liked it better than BK in the states. All the food is really high quality though. So, from going out, we have learned about how it is much more acceptable here for men to cat call. Much, much more acceptable, like almost every icky guy we pass. The more civil ones don't, though. And, when you walk through the plazas and down the streets at night, people stand around trying to sell beers from six packs. There isn't a huge police presence here, but there doesn't seem to need one. And there are people everywhere until all hours of the night. Everyone takes public transportation because gas is really expensive (like $4/liter) and there isn't parking. There are a lot of vespas and motorcycles, and they drive in between the lanes, which is frightening. Things like music and movies that are American are a little behind, and we have yet to hear rap music. Oh, and people stare at us. I'm not sure if its because we are so obviously Americans. Jordi warned us that this would happen but I am shocked how much it happens, usually I just stare back. We're having a great time, and its a huge adventure.
We decided against Tarragona because we haven't slept much and were grumpy (and it was like 20€). So we slept until 2P today, which was wonderful. Now, we're going shopping and probably out to another part of the city tonight. The señora is supposed to set up the internet today but she accidently dyed her hair like bright red and might need to take part of the day to fix it. She's really nice and thinks we're great even though we stay out until like 4A and make noise when we come back. I hope she's going our laundry because her washer looks like a cheese grater that I have no idea how to use. And she hangs everything dry on a line that runs from her balcony across the side of the building outside. So, Barcelona is going to see my choonies. But drying laundry outside is like the standard, so I'm not too worried about it. I'm off to shop now so we can go to the beach tomorrow!
¡Luego!
So, some cultural differences. Personal space here does not exist. If you want personal space you get it in the bathrooms, which are tiny. Obviously the food is different, but I am not making stuff up when I say I've had ham with almost every meal. Except when I eat cookies for breakfast. They also eat a lot more fruit, which gets things moving if you know what I mean. They walk everywhere which is cool because we get to see a lot of stuff that we would miss if we didn't. And nothing is commercialized. There are no supermarkets like Kroger. You have to go to different stores to get your meat, bread, and everything else. We are going today to get bottled water (the tap is really hard) because all the walking and climbing stairs has made us dehydrated. I did eat Burger King last night (don't judge...I really wanted beef) and it wasn't terrible. I actually liked it better than BK in the states. All the food is really high quality though. So, from going out, we have learned about how it is much more acceptable here for men to cat call. Much, much more acceptable, like almost every icky guy we pass. The more civil ones don't, though. And, when you walk through the plazas and down the streets at night, people stand around trying to sell beers from six packs. There isn't a huge police presence here, but there doesn't seem to need one. And there are people everywhere until all hours of the night. Everyone takes public transportation because gas is really expensive (like $4/liter) and there isn't parking. There are a lot of vespas and motorcycles, and they drive in between the lanes, which is frightening. Things like music and movies that are American are a little behind, and we have yet to hear rap music. Oh, and people stare at us. I'm not sure if its because we are so obviously Americans. Jordi warned us that this would happen but I am shocked how much it happens, usually I just stare back. We're having a great time, and its a huge adventure.
We decided against Tarragona because we haven't slept much and were grumpy (and it was like 20€). So we slept until 2P today, which was wonderful. Now, we're going shopping and probably out to another part of the city tonight. The señora is supposed to set up the internet today but she accidently dyed her hair like bright red and might need to take part of the day to fix it. She's really nice and thinks we're great even though we stay out until like 4A and make noise when we come back. I hope she's going our laundry because her washer looks like a cheese grater that I have no idea how to use. And she hangs everything dry on a line that runs from her balcony across the side of the building outside. So, Barcelona is going to see my choonies. But drying laundry outside is like the standard, so I'm not too worried about it. I'm off to shop now so we can go to the beach tomorrow!
¡Luego!
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