Deep breath... long post ahead!

Well yesterday was a bit frustrating… my 12:30 class had been canceled (luckily I actually knew about it beforehand this time so I didn’t make an appearance… just slept in a bit and hung out at the house helping out with Maria) so I wasn’t supposed to have a class until 5:30. The last time I tried to go to the translation class at 5:30, nobody showed up. This time was no different. After about 45min of running around asking various info desks if they knew what was going on, and nobody knew a thing, I gave up and called Merche… we were planning on meeting up to have chocolate con churros.
I made my way to Las Salezas to meet with Merche and Merce, did a little window shopping while waiting for Pedro, went to a few cross stitching stores so they could get some supplies (yes, there are entire stores devoted to cross stitch.. and entire stores devoted to buttons… and entire stores devoted to thread…) then made our way to the confeteria. The “chocolate” was like a really rich and syrupy hot chocolate, and apparently you’re supposed to dip the churros (little fried pastry thingys) into the chocolate and enjoy. I must admit, it was pretty awesome. I was so furious over the not-having-class fiasco, it was nice to just calm down and enjoy.

I emailed the professor of the translation class upon my return to ask him, what is the schedule NOW… apparently I’m not on some email list or something, I have no idea. I feel like I’m the Toby of Oviedo, you know, actually being immersed with the locals instead of hanging out with the international kids all the time… and thus, I have really nothing to do with the international student community here, and they all apparently talk a lot. I have a feeling this is how they are conveying some of these messages. I really don’t have any desire to become a part of it either, because all of the British, Scottish, and Irish students just keep on speaking English, and what good is that to me? Anyway, so I got an email back today and he tells me that on Thursdays the class is in another classroom. Seriously. Apparently even the information desk has the wrong time, place, and day marked down for the class. Sheesh. I just don’t understand how people can tolerate this. No notes on the door, nobody is informed, and no messages from anyone, despite the fact that I KNOW the professor and the international relations office have my contact information.

Today was better though, I went to film class and we watched The Cider House Rules, in Spanish of course. I actually thought it was really good, but I was angry with the chatty guys sitting next to me which made it hard to listen at times. The guy sitting directly to my left I seriously thought was a girl too. Whoops. When he had gotten up during our break, someone asked me if someone was sitting there, and I said yes. He asked who, and I said ‘I have no idea, some girl.” He was that convincing. I had no idea it was a guy until I heard him talk and then I noticed the patchy and pathetic attempt at facial hair on his chin. He was so thin and frail, he would make that woman from Ally McBeal look obese. Not to mention the very well-styled hair down to his chin, and the extremely fashionable clothing with matching belt and shoelaces. Seriously, he had me fooled.

All of the guys here seem really, really effeminate to me. Maybe I am just used to ultra turbo-testosterone men after hanging out with Jay and Cammarata for so long, but seriously… I would lose to 98% of these guys in a female beauty pageant. I mean, for you girls out there that like really well-dressed fashionable and non-threatening men, Spain is where you need to be. Me however… not so much my thing. Personally, I don’t think a guy should spend more time than me doing his hair, and certainly shouldn’t look more feminine in a tight pair of jeans than I do. Just my $0.02.

In addition, just for the record, an American emo kid could beat the crap out of a Spanish metal guy, at least, from what I’ve seen around here. Sometimes I can’t help but recall that excellent Colin Cowherd rant about UVA football. “Virginia Tech would walk up and punch you right in the neck.”

Furthermore, apparently mullets are “super metal/punk.” Yeah, seriously.

So when I returned home from film class, I walked into my room to discover a package had arrived for me from Julie and Cindy! It was full of awesome goodies, chocolates, Cadbury eggs, peeps, even some stuffed peeps which are adorable, a huge box of ringpops and pushpops (which I shared with the kids.. they were very amused by the concept.), and some Elephant-green slippers! Merce was happy to see me actually wearing bedroom slippers around the house… apparently going around barefoot is a bit of a faux pas here. Mint chocolate stuff is so hard to find around here, so I was happy to find a ton of it in my goody-box. It just isn’t that popular here.

Poor Jay is sick with bronchitis and walking pneumonia… so everybody send your good health vibes his way! Merce about died when I told her he asked the doctor if he could still lift the next day, haha… GET BETTER JAY!!!!

In other news, I was trying to finish that green scarf I had started knitting months ago but for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to finish it… I’m continuously tempted to start new projects. So, I finally did start something new, using some maroon and orange yarn I had bought in Christiansburg before I left. Merche thinks the color combination is hideous, but we all know the truth right? Yes, that’s right, maroon and orange is the most beautiful color combination on the planet and in fact, matches EVERYTHING. I taught myself how to slip-stitch knit with two colors at the same time, so the result is really cool. The pattern I was using unfortunately seems to have some errors, so after re-doing the same part about 4 times I decided to just revise it a bit… I think it turned okay thus far anyhow, check it out:




Jay says I must be the oldest lady in the house, you know, knitting and such. Merce seems to want to teach me how to cross stitch, but honestly, while the work is impressive, it doesn't really interest me.

Well I'll leave it at that for now... I wrote most of this earlier today, but since the internet has been really flaky lately... yeah... I really miss reliable internet. I also miss 2-ply toilet paper.

Back to the scholastic grind

I miss having an mp3 player :-( For those who don't know, mine finally bit the dust a few weeks ago and my warranty has long since run out unfortunately. I don't understand how memory can be so cheap, yet mp3 players continue to be so expensive. 4gigs was barely enough for me before and yet a decent 4 gig player is still $100+, although I would like t have more memory. Grumble grumble bahhhh. I miss listening to music on the way to class.

This morning when I woke up it was raining really hard, so I thought it might be a good day to debut the waterproof trenchcoat Jay's mom got for me for Christmas. Lightweight, packable, but waterproof... perfect right? Well by the time I finished breakfast, it was blue skies and sunny. What?! Oh, no worries, by the time I put my books in my backpack it was pouring again and gray. The weather is really strange here.

As I made the trek to campus this morning for the first time in what seems like forever (but was actually about a week and a half), I was experiencing a great deal of pain in my chest as I struggled to breathe. Normally the air is humid and thick, but today I was literally breathing water, and it made it all the more difficult to climb those hills without good old fashion oxygen. I'm not sure why I seem to have so much trouble with it still, but I suppose I am still getting used to it.

I am in the computer lab right now and I had brought in my practical (homework) assignment for International Public Law, which honestly, I'm not sure if it is due today or if today they are assigning it officially since break started right after the last class. I did it anyway, just in case. Better safe than sorry. I plugged in my new flash drive that I got from MediaMarkt (4gigs for 16 euros I think it was... and yet a 4 gig mp3 player costs how much?!), made a few last minute grammatical corrections, and went to print out my 2 pages worth... nothing. I finally go to the printer to see what the dealio is and the guy monitoring the room tells me that it is out of paper.

I stood there waiting for him to refill it, and then he informs me that they are no longer giving "free paper" to students, in fact, we can't even just pay for it... we have to bring in our own paper from now on. Seriously, for a city that is so anal about recycling everything, it seems like they could invest in some cheap recycled copy paper and just keep another recycling bin nearby for the rest. The guy graciously provided me with a couple of sheets of paper and told me to remember to bring in my own next time. Sheesh. Order a shot of vodka in a bar for 1 euro and you'll get 3 shots and some snacks to go with it... but you can just forget about a free sheet of paper. I guess I shouldn't be surprised... I have to pay to have the copy-center print out my one page homework assignments for me. Heaven forbid an email attachment instead.

I'm getting over the culture shock a bit, but sometimes I just can't help but get a little frustrated with things here.

I miss 7-11 slurpees and high speed reliable internet.

Farewell, Andreas!!!

Here is "the Spanish fam" with Andreas sitting in front, in the back from left to right is Merche, myself, Merce, and Pedro. Andreas is leaving early in the morning to go back to Germany, and Angelica will follow in a few months.

I start classes again tomorrow... finally. I've already forgotten where my classes are to be honest. This should be interesting.

I need to get some sleep though, more updates later on perhaps.

Semana Santa...

In absence of the Easter Bunny, I thought I would share a bit about what has been going on here culturally for Semana Santa, this past week. These images are all borrowed from other websites by the way, I didn't take any of them myself, but I've been watching this stuff on the news all week long.

Okay, this creeped me out a bit to be honest. This is the traditional costume for the Semana Santa parades which are particularly big in Seville... you can guess what my first thought was, but it turns out the KKK actually were copying the Spanish who have been doing this for many, many generations.


Okay, the fallas: Every year in Valencia, people work on these really elaborate parade floats. Usually the floats sort of poke fun at something cultural or political. You can see here just how massive they are, and usually they involve lots of detail.


Here is another float from a past year... every year they vote on the best one and then...



....they burn them all to the ground. Yes, that's right, they burn them on the streets. This woman is in some traditional dress watching all of her hard work go up in smoke... literally. On the news it is actually quite morbid, because children and adults alike are all crying and sobbing seeing all of their work get burned to a crisp... and then news reporters interview them asking them just how crummy they feel. If that's not a life lesson, I don't know what is. Brutal.

Elephant meets Baldur

This is Elephant posing with Baldur, a little rabbit named for the Norse god of light and love, and son of Odin. He travels around with Andreas apparently so the whole idea of the traveling green elephant wasn't so strange to this German. Baldur and Andreas leave on Wednesday, and it is hard to believe it has already been a couple of weeks since they arrived.

Feliz dia del pasqual!

Not a whole lot has happened in the past few days because it has been a lot of lounging around the house and relaxing, and doing homework haha. Last night Angelica (Andreas' girlfriend) came over and we watched Gladiator on TV in Spanish... I kept on waiting for the commercial to get up and get something to drink, but after about an hour or so of waiting for the commercials I realized they were never going to come.... a long movie like Gladiator, unedited and full length by the way, and NO COMMERCIALS on regular ol' cable TV, not pay per view or a dedicated movie channel anything.

Andreas bought some "Coronitas" because they reminded him of the time he spent working in Hawaii. Coronas, you know, the common Mexican beer, for some reason that we don't quite understand undergoes a name change when marketed to Spain, even though they are bottled in Mexico just like the rest.

I was hoping to do a little shopping and such during my break, exploring of the city and get a few photo-ops with Elephant, but it seems like my plans continue to be foiled... the weather has been pretty lousy the days that the stores are open, and the only days where it hasn't been pouring down rain the stores have been closed on holiday, haha. Oh well, there is time still.

The Easter Bunny doesn't visit the Spanish, although last night during our little movie-party Andreas said "oh Angelica! The strangest thing just happened, I saw a rabbit in the kitchen! Come look!" and when she went to go look in the kitchen, there was a vase full of red and white roses waiting for her. Apparently for the Spanish, the tradition is that the godmothers/fathers give gifts to their "children", chocolate chicks and things like that.

I went to bed a bit late last night (Well okay, late for me, not late for the Spanish) and I got up really early to catch the Formula 1 race at 8am... unfortunately I fell asleep about halfway through and missed the end of the race and Merche didn't bother to wake me up. I woke up during the post-race report and decided to retire to my bed once more. I had never seen a Formula 1 race before, and it was actually pretty entertaining... unlike Nascar, haha.

Well there really isn't much else to say, I just wanted to let you all know I was still alive and well and such. Hope the Easter Bunny didn't forget about my American friends :-)