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Some things I miss:



(There's more but I'm sick of uploading pictures.)

I'm getting really excited to go home. Especially since I get to see Zoe and my non-biological family. And it'll be cool to see my biological family too. Even though I'll be on the longest flight in the world in 18 days, I think time should speed up a little bit because right now I just have essays and tests for school and they are really getting in the way of me becoming the biggest piece of shit ever.

I haven't made it to my Introduction to US Literature class since last Tuesday (this includes me not going today). I started out with a legitimate excuse (being in Portugal) but that quickly evolved into "I haven't read what we're discussing," "I don't want to waste a metro ticket," "I don't feel like interacting with Rosé because it's too early and I can hear that she's awake." I haven't actually managed to oversleep yet. Obviously, I go back to sleep after I decide not go to class, but I always wake up, snooze, then convince myself not to go.

All this is going to change, soon. I have a test on Monday (so I have to go to that class - even though I'm ditching the class before to meet up with the Linguistics babe and study) and the last possibly essay prompt has rolled around for Intro to US Lit, so I'll be making an appearance to turn in my 350 word masterpiece.

You would think I would be attending every class possible since I'm missing the last week of classes to go home (always a good idea - missing the classes before the finals). I wonder if you could actually get kicked out of school here?

Rosé

The other night I went to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth, and through the wall I could hear "Jump For My Love" by the Pointer Sisters. Using my brilliant skills of deduction (and kind of embarrassing skills of having seen too many romantic comedies), I figured out Rosé (my mom/landlady/woman) was watching "Love Actually," which I really like.

I almost never leave my room and don't hang out with Rosé ever - which makes it slightly weird when she does things like ram pieces of magnet in my soap then design an apparatus where she can suspend it from the underside of shelves in the shower and say nothing to me about it - but this was a good chance since we could just watch the movie and not really interact very much.

During the commercial breaks of the movie (it was on TV and here they do 15 minutes of commercials every 45 minutes) she pretty much told me her life story. Her husband left her because he fell in love with another woman and she's had a couple failed relationships since then, but nothing has ever worked out so now she's just sticking to herself. Her life dream has always been that some man will marry her and take care of her so she won't have to work but that's never happened. It was pretty depressing.

She also told me about her daughters - one lives on Ibiza (probably selling drugs), and the other one is a traveling actress who usually lives in the South of France - and she semi-analyzed the personalities of her dogs for me.

Apparently I remind her of this girl from Texas who lived with her a couple years back and was really sweet, so she likes me.

Lisbon

I went to Lisbon this weekend with some people in my program. When I first got there, I was sure it was my new favorite city. I started imagining returning to Portugal on my honeymoon and then - if I was lucky enough - moving there for a little while. I even started considering what my life would have been like if I had chose to study in Lisbon instead of Barcelona. I was reminded of San Francisco just because it seems like a pretty normal port city, but prettier and more European (and less people). We walked around and actually made it to almost all of the tourist attractions (Fado Museum, Monestary, etc.) but by the end of the weekend I liked Lisbon a lot less.

The main issue is, I don't speak Portuguese. There were multiple instances where I would try to buy something by speaking to the clerk in Spanish and they wouldn't speak to me in Spanish or English. It wasn't really an issue of them not understanding the languages but more the need to be huge douches about how I'm not from Portugal.

One of the attractions of Lisbon is that it's cheaper than Barcelona, but this means there is a lot more poverty. When we were walking home at night on the unlit streets past all the shady Lisbon folk, I felt pretty unsafe. Apparently 95% of the population consists of old men who have accidentally spent their life savings drinking and now have strange deformities that look like they're the result of accidents. These men can be found on the tram, or right outside your hostel.

There's also a lot more physical deformity in general than the rest of the world. We actually had a conversation about dwarfs versus midgets because we saw so many of them and needed to be able to easily classify which was which.

Overall it was a really good trip. We still haven't really had anything bad happen to our group on vacation yet (knock on wood) so hopefully the next couple weekends will go smoothly, too.

Sleep

Right now it's 4:36AM Spain time. I have class at 10:00AM Spain time tomorrow (technically this) morning. I haven't made it to this class in a week and we now have "group work" that we turn in at the end of each class so I really should go.

It's not looking good.

This is not my fault, though. I really can't fall asleep. I've been trying for a few hours and I keep getting distracted by really complex, unlikely scenarios (kidnapping, high school reunions, buying things at convenience stores while speaking English, etc).

I've decided my body has just gone back to California time. Probably because I'm coming home in 26 days for Christmas.

Linguistics

Today I befriended the kid from Penn in my linguistics class. After close evalution, I've decided I can totally take him in a fight. I'm now just trying to pick the perfect time to attack him and steal his notes.

When I introduced myself today, he said "Oh yeah, I walked by you in the courtyard today." As though I would say "So THAT'S how I know you!" Not us having class together twice a week since September or anything. Maybe he's not that smart, after all. He is majoring in Urban Studies. Whatever that means.

Heater

Earlier this week, I went to Sevilla to see my dad and stepmom who are currently road-tripping through Spain. When I left Barcelona there was roughly one cloud in the sky, and the Spaniards were incredibly bundled up. I was on the verge of adding "Seeing what ridiculous things Spaniards will wear when it's about 68 degrees out," to my interests on Facebook after observing how many layers people can wear and somehow not die of hypothermia and exhaustion.

I checked the weather in Sevilla, noted that it was supposed to hit 75 my first day there, then get progressively hotter, packed a couple pairs of sandals and left.

Thursday night, I got back to Barcelona. While I was gone, Cataluña managed to enter some sort of ice age. I was convinced my toes were going to fall off before I made it inside after my cab ride from the airport. After getting inside, I pretty much donned every article of clothing I own and haven't taken them off since. The woman I live with likes to leave every window and door open during the day (even though she was the one telling me I was under-dressed a week ago), and at this point I'm positive the eskimos have it better than I do.

I couldn't figure out how to turn the heat on in my apartment, and was forced to fall asleep completely submerged in my covers, trying to exhale toward my feet to avoid frostbite. I would shift in the middle of the night, exposing a couple square inches of my leg and almost enter a hyperthermic seizure.

Today, Rosé (the woman I live with) gave me a heater. It's about a foot wide and a couple inches tall and I'm pretty sure it will burn the entire country of Spain to the ground if I leave it on for longer than six minutes. There are several settings, but I've been instructed to only use one because the rest "smell like burning." Upon close inspection, I realized the heater has enough lint and paper wedged in the heat-emitting section to burn down a small village, but at this point I really don't care. If it breaks, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have no other option but to kill myself.

Girona

I went to Girona on Saturday. It was pretty, but kind of boring.

We ended up wandering for about two hours before we realized that we had some pot (this realization happened shortly before I almost died of boredom - ok maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit), which we smoked and then walked along the wall to the city. The wall didn't really go anywhere (since it just goes AROUND the city), but we made about a million un-funny jokes (e.g. "Are we in China? Is this really the great wall of China??!?)

Joanna and I took a million pictures of everything (like always), so that also saved us from getting too bored. We were planning on spending something like 5 hours total in Girona, but didn't quite make it. We started looking for the train station after about 3 (during this 3 hour span we ate twice).


Marc and Joanna during our train-hunt


Cathedral


Some leaves along the Great Wall of China

Linguistics Class

For the most part, my classes are ridiculously easy. But, I have a linguistics class (which I am not taking by choice but because Davis is pretty much forcing me to) that is going to be close to impossible for me to pass. We discuss the evolution of Latin to 14th century Spanish, and there isn't homework or anything to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Instead, the teacher lists off a bunch of information and then people ask her questions - but not questions to clarify. Not only do these people not need any clarification, they want MORE information on this fascinating subject.

My only hope at this point involves befriending this guy from Penn who is in the class and then beating him up and stealing his notes. The only problem with this plan (which is otherwise pure genius), is that I booked my flight home at Christmas for a week before classes end (luckily we don't take the final until a month later), and he's going back to Penn before I get back from California.

I'm working on the befriending thing, though (just in case I can beat him up and steal his notes so far since he's one of those people who asks questions). I've been progressively sitting closer to him (today I was only TWO seats away!) but I'm pretty sure this is getting misinterpreted as me being interested in him. I mean, who can resist his blindingly white New Balance sneakers with white Nike socks. To top it all off, he consistently wears shorts (even in winter) to show off his pale, hairy legs. What a babe.

Amsterdam

This weekend I went to Amsterdam for two days with Joanna and some other people from Cádiz who are studying in Barcelona. All in all, it was really fun to go somewhere where weed is legalized and it's socially acceptable to sit around doing nothing all day.

We spent the majority of our time in various coffee shops where the customer just goes up to the counter, reads a menu of marijuana, and picks out what kind they want to buy. The shop-keepers have pre-arranged amounts (either a gram or 2.7 grams) and one usually spends around 25 Euro for 2.7 grams, and around 10 Euro for one.

The owners usually encourage you to get a drink, but they don't serve alcohol in the coffee shops and they aggressively card EVERYONE to make sure they're over 18. You get to use their rolling papers for free the rest of the time you're in that particular coffee shop, or you can go in a smoke shop and buy your own papers/pipe or rent a bong from the Roor store.

We did some touristy stuff: went to Anne Frank's house (depressing), the Heineken Experience (closed), the sex museum (after eating some edibles - mostly it was really disturbing), and the Van Gogh Museum (I was on shrooms - which you can also just buy in stores there, but usually in smoke shops instead of coffee shops. You get to pick which effects you want and then they tell you which ones to take).

There were times when Amsterdam became a little disturbing, such as seeing prostitutes standing in windows wearing only underwear and trying to look sexy (half the time by acting out little roles that might fulfill the fantasies of the old, British men walking down the street). Then, when they did get a customer, have to haggle the price with them and end up selling themselves for something incredibly low. All in all, it was a really cool place. I would never be able to study abroad there or live there for an extended period of time, but it's a cool place to see.