Alfa

This is a picture of one of the halls in our school. I figure I should mention it at some point since we spend 6 hours a day there.

Last night we went to a bar called Alfa in Gracia, the neighborhood I'm moving to in a couple weeks. The bar is known for it's 90s music and 45s hanging from the ceiling. I was so excited to go request 90s music all night, especially since the DJ didn't seem to know of very much good music. I went over to the bar to try to help him out.

After I requested "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell (my sixth request of the night), the DJ put his palms together and said - in English - "Please. This is my night. MY MUSIC." I walked away from the bar, defeated, and went back to dancing on the almost empty dance floor (the only other person dancing was a middle aged man who has mastered a soft-core dance imitation of Napoleon Dynamite). By the end of the night, it filled out and the music got slightly better.

Apparently (although I will deny this to the grave) I put my cigarette out in one of my friend's beers which he had set down on the bar to go dance. I guess I assumed it was empty. When he first took a swig of it (that's right, he didn't actually see me do this) he thought someone had slipped a rufee into his drink. A gross, huge, cigarette-flavored rufee.

House-hunting

For the last couple weeks I've been going through complete house hunting hell. Every apartment either had something very wrong with it (6th story with no elevator, 5 people sharing one bathroom, my only roommates would be two older men) or I wanted it more than life itself and never got a call back. Yesterday I finally looked at my last apartment.

It was slightly run down, everything was really bright, and it was very small. My new potential roommate showed me around, told me about how she hated her Italian ex-roomie and specifically wanted someone from California. Meanwhile, my other potential roommate - a raging lesbian wearing a nike t-shirt with the sleeves torn off - stood in the corner judging me. As I was getting ready to leave, they told me I could sign right then and there if I wanted. They even pulled out the strategically placed paperwork that they happened to just have RIGHT THERE. I glanced at the angry lesbian roommate, glaring at me from under her mullet bangs. I told them I was waiting to hear back from another apartment and left. Then I called them last night and told them I found another place.

I'm now going to live with Rose, a middle-aged woman who has a nice apartment in a really good area and two dogs. Hopefully that will work out. Regardless of how many good stories I would get out of living with the lesbian, it's not worth the extra 80 euro a month for an uglier apartment.

Beach Clubs

Our residencia that we almost got kicked out of last night/this morning.

Last night we decided to go to the clubs on the beach since they tend to be free and we haven't been down there yet. Since we didn't want to pay for expensive drinks, we drank in the dorms before we left, then we walked to the metro. We decided to try to beat the metro system by sticking together and only swiping our card once. I didn't really understand the concept of sensors and sprinted through (the sensors can tell where you are so if you're going to pull this off you need to appear to be one person) and the doors closed on Joanna (me sprinting and Joanna being 3 feet behind me made us not appear as one person).

We got to the bars, went into the first one and danced for a while, but then it closed. We spent the next hour or so trying to convince the club next door to let us in, but they really didn't want to and recognized us when we tried to get in again later, so we ended up catching a cab and going back to the residencia. We had arguably the coolest cab driver ever, who was blasting music and dancing with us, and let us into the cab even though we had too many people (he was from Granada, I miss Andalucia even more now).

When we got home, we decided to hang out in our dorm room, but the doorman kept coming up and yelling at us for being loud, even though there were only five of us and we really weren't loud at all. After a few minutes, he sent up a meaner, angrier door man who threatened to send us on a plane back to the United States and then call the police (in that order?). (This pissed me off so much, I apparently turned on my computer and blogged about it - this was at 5:30am).

Our night could have been worse. My friend Nick drank an entire fifth of vodka, started to go to a concert but randomly walked off the metro and spent the night by himself wandering around Barcelona, occasionally taking breaks to take naps on the sidewalk. At one point he bought some chips from a gas station, and a lighter so, if he met some hot chicks, he could hit on them by lighting their cigarettes (he had no actual use for a lighter himself; he had no cigarettes). He ended up by the constitutional building on the other side of Barcelona, staring at it and thinking about how cool it was. Then falling asleep in front of it. He eventually got on a bus to Plaça Espanya and took the metro home. So, even if I got yelled at by a doorman, I managed to stay awake and not lie down on the sidewalk.

Barcelona Residencia

They just threatened to kick us out of the residencia and send us on a plane back to the US for being awake and listening to music. No me gusta Barcelona ahora.

Sants: For Virgie

This post is dedicated to Virgie "Rookie Night" Poole.

Last night, Joanna's friend Steve was visiting Barcelona from London so we used him as an excuse to go out to dinner and try to do fun things. First, we took the metro to Las Ramblas - the "main street" in Barcelona - and got dinner at a Tapas place that might be a chain (Tapa Tapa). We ordered a pitcher of Sangria, and on the second glass, Joanna literally punched her glass all over the table reaching to show me something. We ended up going through two pitchers between the four of us, then drunkenly watching mice playing in a tree next to our table. Instead of being revolted by how arguably unhygenic rodents are, we thought they were the cutest things ever.

At one point, I went downstairs to go to the bathroom. When I came out of the stall, this woman in the other stall opened the door for a second, glanced at me, and then slammed herself back into the stall. My initial reaction was: "Oh God, this woman wants to have sex in the bathroom and thought I was her boyfriend. Awkward." I decided to really pace myself washing my hands to force an awkward interaction when she came out. After a couple minutes, she came out - wearing short-shorts and straw wedges - and crept into my stall, obviously looking for toilet paper, which I had just used the last of. She then crept to the men's bathroom, and ended up rushing in there and stealing some. The entire thing was way more comical than it should have been because her wedges were so tall, so she was standing really oddly.

After dinner, we went to a street festival in Sants. They have a lot of neighborhood street festivals here, where they intricately decorate the streets, and then party for a week. By the time we got there, it was getting toward the end of the festival and there was just a huge drum circle, but everyone was dancing and drinking (no open container laws) in the street, and I now feel a lot closer to Barcelona culture and miss Cádiz a lot less.

Sorry Virgie, no scandals, I'll try again later.

Barcelona

I'm here!

Homesick

In the movie Almost Famous, there's a scene on the bus where Patrick Fugit turns to Kate Hudson halfway through singing "Tiny Dancer" with the band and tells her "I need to go home." She responds by mystically waving her hand in front of his face and saying "You are home."

Most people who see this watch her and think "God she's so free and beautiful, if only I had been abducted by a mediocre band in my adolescence and gotten a chance to write for Rolling Stone and meet Kate Hudson..." But for some reason, my reaction was more along the lines of "You're not home! You're a minor and you're around a lot of unsafe shit and you should go home, regardless of how crazy your mother is! Don't fall for the groupie, you idiot!"

This is kind of what my homesickness is like. I'm really enjoying my surroundings and it feels dream-like to be this far away and this liberated. The most interaction I have to have with my parents is the occasional e-mail which I can choose to read whenever I want to. Ex-boyfriends, college counselors, and small fights that have been replaying themselves for years in the same friendships are so far away. But I still know in the back of my mind that this is not home and - regardless of how unpleasant things back home can be at times - I am really starting to miss having such a firm grasp on everything and being able to predict it all. None of this is familiar or comforting, and I still feel uncomfortable interacting with strangers in a language that I'm still convinced high school teachers invented to stretch our minds. I'm starting to think about everything I'm so far away from, which is really making me miss it. No matter how familiar this all gets, it's still going to be really foreign. At least I don't have to put up with Kate Hudson or other free spirits yet.

Finales

I just had my finals for my classes at Universidad de Cádiz, so now I have a couple days of fiestas and then I get to say bye to half of my new friends and go to Barcelona with the other half.

Today I was sitting in the Plaza in front of the Residencia eating sandwiches and the people at the next table over were not only stupid Americans, but loud, Southern, stupid Americans who were ranting about where to get a "DAMN BURGER" and how afraid they are of birds. I had friends back home who were afraid of birds but they came up with unique philosophical explanations (envy birds because they can fly; their unblinking eyes; etc.), but these people's explanations were slightly more primitive:

- "They all like, fly up in your SHIT."

- "Holy Shit, that one's just a-stopping by."

- "I HATE birds, HATE 'em."

Although I know I'm a total foreigner, at least the people on our trip are making a decent effort to blend in (buying brightly colored beads that aren't necessarily attractive but are very Euro-trendy; drinking throughout the day; wearing a strapless bathingsuit so there are no visible tan-lines - I'm definitely not ready to sun-bathe topless). Hopefully Barcelona culture won't be too different.

Ejercicio

Queso.

Everyone is realizing that, after living solely off fried foods, cheese and beer for the last month, that we're probably going to be fatter than our new friends in Barcelona. Especially since we don't really have scales in the Residencia and even if we did, they would tell us how many kilograms we weigh, and no one knows what that means.

Instead of embracing this and investing in a large bag of Bugles and holing up in our rooms, a lot of people have started exercising, which I find completely hilarious. So far the most popular thing among the guys involves going to the beach (usually by running) and doing pull-ups on a bar down by the water while trying to pick up chicks. The girls mostly just look at pictures of themselves on facebook from before they came here and think about how skinny they used to be - sometimes this results in a run. So far I've played in the ocean twice. I think that counts as exercise, and I'm sure that cancels out the hundreds of beers I've had.

Plaza De Las Flores

Joanna playing in the electric car in front of the Fried Food Restaurant. When you walk by these cars on your way home from the bars there are always little kids in them, having the time of their lives, even at 4 AM.

A week ago, my culture professor told us which restaurants in Cádiz were worth our while. Since it's the weekend and the comedor is closed, I decided to try this fish-frying restaurant close to the residencia. I got there, waited in line for a really long time, kept being asked if I was the last one in line, saying yes, getting cut in front of, etc. I finally got to the front and the shrimp I wanted (basically there's a large vat of every kind of fish fried but it goes fast) was out, so I had to wait a while so they could make more. Eventually, I got a quarter kilo of fried calamari and shrimp wrapped in butcher paper and went and ate it by the residencia so other people could get sandwiches - for some reason no one else wanted to eat that much fried food.

I got through a lot of the calamari and a couple shrimp (eyes still attached, I'm such a trooper) until I started to feel really uncomfortably full and sick. Although i'm a little disappointed in myself for not eating the entire quarter kilo (costs less than 5 euro) of fried food, I definitely did better than I would have a month ago. If I keep eating fried food for at least 2 meals a day, I may someday work up to the entire serving of fish. It shouldn't be hard since the only place you can get food that isn't fried (such as a salad) is at McDonald's which is on the other side of Cádiz, and it's extremely expensive.

Las Indigenas

Last night, we decided to go to Woodstock bar again, since it's dollar beer nights on Thursday. While we were there, we recognized the people who had been playing the obnoxious music in the residencia, and decided to go talk to them for a bit and figure out how much longer they would be lurking around annoying us. They're a travelling band from Valencia, the ones we met at the bar were:

Raúl - A 12-year-old who plays trumpet, and is the only one we could really understand everytime he spoke. At one point, he was talking about how he didn't drink beer, so I assumed he didn't drink (since he's 12) but it turns out he just really likes vodka instead.

Las Chicas - The 3 14-year-old girls who though I was a model in the elevator. I can never remember their names, but they're really nice, and like to cat-call Ben from our program, because they think he looks like Adam Brody from the OC. They don't drink or smoke but like to hang out with people who do.

Victor - A 17-year-old who grows mass amounts of pot back in Valencia. He looks kind of like a lesbian woman, but seems pretty cool.

Kiko - A 20-year-old clarinet player who is totally the token loser.

Anonymous balding 25-year-old who I didn't really talk to.

The girls taught us pretty much everything they know about swearing (including masturbating vocab), music (they love Green Day), and how hot they think Ben is. They also think we're awesome because we're American, and were telling Joanna about how they think I'm "guapa" while I was in the bathroom. Even though they're constantly trying to convince us to come to their concert which I want to avoid because I'm sure I'll have really brutal flashbacks to yesterday's nap the second I hear their music, they're great.

When we got back to the residencia, Jim and I went and smoked hash in Victor's room with him, where they told us several times that smoking in a circle and taking one hit before you pass is called "Americana" (two is "Polka") and to tell all my friends. The rest of them don't smoke but came and hung out with us, and we learned about how much more paranoid the Spaniards are about getting caught. For a while I thought it was Kiko's room and they were taking advantage of his semi-loserness because he kept coming out to the balcony - shirt unbuttoned, showing of his chest hair - complaining and telling us to go to sleep, but by the time we left he had gone back to his room. For a while I was worried something bad had happened to him, but when I got home from the Farmacia today, he was sitting by the Comedor waiting for it to open (first in line, by himself for mediocre food), so I guess he made it to bed okay.

Residencia

There are plenty of reasons the Residencia is great. I've started to adopt our cook, Lola, as my replacement mother figure, I count down the days until the cleaning ladies come and give me fresh towels, and I get my own shower (even if it floods). However, there are a few things that are, as Ben put it, "so shitty about this place." The internet only works about fifty percent of the time, and we're not allowed to drink in the building because they don't want us to get drunk and lose all self-respect, running through the halls yelling and disturbing the other guests.

Lately, there has been a really large group of extremely rude locals staying here who like to be loud ALL THE TIME, even when they're sober, and speak to us in broken English since they write us off as stupid, unilingual Americans. Today, I was crawling in bed for my siesta, when I heard an exteremly loud brass band playing outside my window (my window faces inward, toward the courtyard of the residencia). That's right, the obnoxious Spaniards are a travelling brass band. I assumed they would only be playing for several minutes, maybe getting some last-minute practicing in before an important performace, but they played all the way up until dinner. I ended up resorting to curling up under my covers with my pillow, holding my hands over my ears and waking up every 3 minutes, startled by the obnoxious noise. I eventually caved when it was dinner time and they were STILL PLAYING, and decided to go get some food.

I went and waited behind them in the dinner line, shooting angry glares at them and their loud children. By the time I got to the front of the line, Lola looked distraught. That's the last straw, if they're going to mess with my new mom, they're going to have to deal with me.

The only good thing about them: a couple 8 year old girls in the elevator were convinced I was a model from an ad they looked at. That was the biggest compliment I've ever gotten, even if it was possibly an ad for hemorrhoid creme for all I know.

"Odette, Una Comedia Sobre La Felicidad"

This weekend I went and saw a really cute French movie dubbed in Spanish ("Odette") which makes me want to drop everything here and run off to France, even though I hate it there. Like all great movies, there is plenty of lip-sincing, but unlike many bad movies, they are lip-sincing to Josephine Baker doing French Jazz from the 1920s (instead of to bands like Smash Mouth). Odette works in the make-up department in the French version of Macy's, and has a regular customer who is obviously being beaten by her husband and is trying to purchase make-up to cover it up. At one point, she comes in with a really bad black eye and tells Odette she ran into a door, and Odette tells her, "You're pretty, you should find a better door."

I assumed this was just an obscure situation, only today at school we talked about spousal abuse in Spain and apparently it's really common here. There are around 100 cases per year of a man murdering his wife and then killing himself, according to my culture professor. Today we read about a guy who stabbed his wife and then drove to a warehouse to hang himself a couple weeks ago. Usually they don't even get very much publicity for this kind of thing since it's so common (even among teenage couples). Maybe I don't want a Spanish "door" anymore.

Soy Euro

Reasons I'm getting to be legitimately Euro:

1. I can sleep through cathedral bells.
2. I am a regular at a tapas bar and they recognize me and know what I will order (minus a couple points though because I usually get crepes and sushi which are not too Spanish).
3. I accidentally say "con vodka" when I order soda, then have to correct myself because it's 10AM.
4. I feel unnaturally drawn toward neon-colored things.
5. I take multiple siestas a day.
6. I felt guilty about leaving a discoteca at 4:30AM because it was so early.
7. I enjoy room temperature beverages.
8. I can eat mass amounts of deep fried food and still be hungry.
9. Naked people in public seem totally normal.
10.I had FLAN-flavored ice-cream yesterday.

Why am I so good at mornings?

Yesterday I woke up to doors slamming in my Residencia. I glanced at the clock to note the time, so I could later relay how outrageous this early-morning slamming really was. But it wasn't early. I was supposed to be downstairs eating breakfast. My alarm was still set to "on," but it hadn't gone off. I checked to see if it was set to the right time, and realized that, due to my new relationship with military time, I had completely forgotten the concept of 12 hour clocks, and set my alarm for 8 PM. Luckily, I made it on time.

Last night, I checked my alarm four times. I made Joanna promise to call me if I wasn't downstairs by breakfast, even though she hates using her minutes. This morning, my room phone rang around 7:40. I rushed over, picked it up, but no-one was there. Obviously, they were trying to contact me for holding up the buses. Still guilty for being late when the program started a couple weeks ago, I threw on the first thing I could find, grabbed my towel and my purse and sprinted downstairs. After 4 flights, I realized that my alarm hadn't gone off because it was set to 8. And my alarm was set to 8 because we were meeting at 9. And my room key was still in my room. I walked down the last flight, to the front desk. According to the sign, they open at 9. I gave myself a quick once-over: my mouth tasted disgusting, I had to pee, I had managed to select a shirt that had grease stains on it, and I really wanted to get back in bed. I walked into the Comedor, and Inma, our program director/mom was sitting there eating by herself. Now, I have no idea why this woman woke up so early, but I explained to her in broken Spanish what had happened and she told me the maids should be here soon and they could let me into my room, but I should eat while I wait. In the long run, it all worked out. Joanna even called me at 8:30 when I was upstairs picking out clothes that weren't covered in grease, and I got to go back to sleep on the bus. Too bad I don't have anything to wake up for tomorrow morning and get to sleep all day.

Woodstock

Tonight we tried to go to a bar called "Woodstock's" but everytime we would ask indígenos for directions, they would be extremely confused. We would repeat Woodstocks several times each, drawing out the oooo sound, emphasizing every possible syllable, until they would say "OH! Woodstocks!" in the exact accent we had just used. I will never fit in. No matter what I do. I give up, I'm going to just be a stupid American.

This Just In: The Biggest Areolas Ever

Today at the beach, there was an extremely pale woman several feet to the left of me. She spent hours (HOURS) rubbing oil onto her bosom (something I have not yet witnessed). She definitely has the biggest (AND WHITEST) areolas I have seen thus far. Think whale+oil+specialty porn no one understands and you'll understand what I was going through.

There was also a creepy man who was in his 60s that liked to stand 2 feet away from me and stare at me and Joanna. Joanna looked directly at him a couple times (I was busy reading and utilizing him as a sun-shield) to try to create an awkward situation, but he didn't catch on. How did areola-woman not distract him? This is one of the many life-mysteries I'm trying to solve.

Laundry

Today I decided to cave and wash my clothes for the first time since I got here. I went and broke a 50 by buying a 2 liter bottle of Fanta Limon (my favorite thing in the entire world), packed my suitcase full of dirty clothes and hauled it up to the 6th (really the 9th) floor where the washers and driers are. It was so hot up there (since it was 104 at ground level) that I couldn't figure out what was going on, and managed to put all my change in the machine the wrong way and have to go downstairs, break my 20 by buying a bunch of water (same store). I recruited Matt, the guy who lost his luggage and has done laundry billions of times, to come show me how it's done. Of course, this time, the machine just magically starts without me pushing ANYTHING. I blame the heat for making me delirious.

I took a couple hours off from the laundry scene after getting my clothes in the drier and went to a really cool Sherry Tavern. Then, when I got back some loud, stupid Americans were putting my clothes on top of the drier which I really don't mind, but they apologized A LOT. I was trying to figure out if I should be mad, since they seemed so upset, but I'm pretty sure I'm okay with it.

Los Simpson

I saw "Los Simpson: La película" last night at the local movie theater. Movies are way cheaper here AND they have a candy shop inside where you can buy candy by the pound AND they sell beer. That's right, beer. Be jealous.

The Hillary

I'm trying to figure out how many people actually read my blog, so if you do read it, can you post a comment or send me an e-mail or something? Right now I'm pretty sure it's just:



Zoe.

Price

Price came to visit me!

The Club

The other night was a girl in our program's birthday so we all went out to dinner. Only we arrived a little late and they couldn't make room for us so we sat at the next table over and got drunk/loud/obnoxious instead. We then went and drank more in the residencia to save money on drinks at the club. This later backfired, since I ended up drinking just as much as I would usually at the club, and was way too drunk. After dinner, we decided to go to the new part of town where the clubs are (after we had been drinking at a bar closer to our residencia where I went in the men's bathroom accidentally and was so confused by the urinal). We got to the club and were immediately turned away so we went to a bar (brothel) across the street instead to wait it out.

At this bar, a couple creepy guys bought Joanna and me drinks that probably had date-rape drugs in them since it took the guy about an hour to go get them and then he kept mixing up which one to give us. So, since I didn't want to waste the drink but also didn't want him around when I passed out, I started talking about my fake boyfriend and how I need to go find him. I sounded really full of shit though because I kept adding on random facts about him (e.g. "And he has a name, too, he's great.").

After we left the brothel bar, we went across the street to try again at getting into the club. We walked to the front of the line and started trying to chat up the security guard. He was not amused. We didn't understand why he wouldn't let us in since it seemed like old men and small children had priority over us, and eventually we gave up and got in line. By the time we got to the front of the line, instead of letting us in, they deferred us to another line, then a separate security guard came and started yelling at us about how he was going to call the police. Joanna was immediately terrified and kept saying "Don't call the police, somos amigos, somos amigos." Meanwhile, I was so confused about what he would tell the police ("These two girls are trying to get into a CLUB, arrest them immediately!") so I told him to go ahead and call them because it sounded amusing. Eventually, we just gave up and decided to take a cab home. The police couldn't make it.

We got in a cab that was parked nearby, and told him where we needed to go. Turns out, he was just a random cab in the middle of a line of cabs and you're supposed to go to the front of the line (who knew!?), but we ended up eventually figuring this out (after we had been lying in the back of the cab asking why he wasn't moving) and somehow made it home safely.

Goth Bar

Last night we went to a bar called "Ula Ula" to see our "buddies" that are trying to learn English. Sadly, the majority of the people in this bar weren't our "buddies" but obnoxious, loud, fat chicks from Texas. So, after about fifteen minutes of frying in there since it was so hot (probably because it was so packed with fat chicks) and realizing that the cute bartender probably has herpes because he's a cute bartender, we decided to leave to go to a bar we had heard of called Woodstocks - named after the music festival and totally decked out in paraphenilia from that era. On our way out we asked one of our friends where it was, but he was interrupted by a fat, Texan chick who really wanted to practice her English and give us directions. The entire time she was speaking I was thinking about funny, rude, snarky things I can snap back with but shouldn't say so I totally missed her directions.

We went outside anyway, and asked one of the people (the guy who had been circling like a hawk, grabbing people's almost empty glasses and bottles and putting them behind the bar to be "helpful) where Woodstocks is. He told us a couple blocks on the corner. So, we walked a couple blocks but there was just some other bar with an older couple in it. We stopped another man and he told us the same thing. So we walked back to the corner and across from the old-people's bar there was a Goth Bar. Now, I am by no means goth, I probably own 4 black articles of clothing and 2 of them are underwear but we figured the drinks would probably be pretty cheap and we would get GREAT service since it was literally empty, so we went in. They used more expensive/larger quantities of vodka, so we knocked back a drink each, posed for some pictures with the creepy wall art of Zena executing a large worm, Jesus being crucified next to a lava-dragon, etc. chatted up the less-attractive but probably equally STD-ridden bartender with long nails for a while, and then left.

By the time we got to Woodstock's it was pretty late, and I was pretty drunk (couldn't stop hiccuping enough to effectively consume my drink). I went to the bathroom - where they sold condoms for a Euro, panties for 2 Euro (come in all shapes and sizes, over 200! and you can't pick which ones you get, and vibrating cock ring for 3 Euro - and on the way back saw a girl in Crocs, which brought me back to reality that I need to just go home. So we walked home, and I continued to play online for several hours. Overall, getting really trashed to come home and play online alone: totally worth it.

Excursions

Today we went on another excursion - as we do every Friday. First we walked around Cadiz at about 9 in the morning to find this really tiny museum, and when we got there all they really had was a wood model of what the city looked like back in the day. We just looked at the model for about an hour, then got over an hour of free time - so waking up that early was completely pointless.

Then, we got on a bus (which I was very okay with) and got lost on our way to the docks to go to our next "museum." We went to the "dock museum" which just consisted of a bunch of pictures of people building boats and they made us run around and fill out a worksheet that involved figuring out what a tool was called and what it did/who used it. Then we walked through some bugs and brush but I don't really understand why we were out there. Mostly, the excursions totally suck and I'm really sick of waking up early on Fridays to go wander around with my hungover peers and look at really boring museums. Did someone really sit down, plan all these excursions out, and think we would have lots of fun on them? The best part was when we almost left five people behind since we don't make sure we have everyone. Being stuck at the dock museum forever would not be fun. I think the know that we drink in the Residencia to save money and are trying to punish us all.

Musica de Chicas

The other night, I was in an Irish Pub (still in Spain) with several other loud, obnoxious Americans (speaking English since we felt untouchable in a bar so similar to our motherland of America) and we were discussing our awkward plane rides over where our neighbors would glance at our iPods and we would tilt them away, hiding the blatant chick music we were using to pass the 10 hours over the Atlantic. I asked the boys what their favorite chick songs were, and luckily they had already (HAPPY ELLA!??! - everyone else ignore this) had several beers and were willing to name their favorite songs:

1. "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton - I don't even like this song, but this was the first one that came to their heads. They immediately were pointing at each other and quoting it as though they had held secret meetings in the past to discuss this song and its greatness.

2. Anything by NSync - Not surprising, especially since it recently became not-gay to like Justin Timberlake.

3. "Beatiful Girls" by Sean Kingston - I kind of like this song too, but I'm still going to be embarrassed for them. I asked if they though about a particular girl when they listened to this song but they claim they just like it for it's catchiness.

4. "These Words (I love you)" and "Unwritten" by Natasha Bettingfield - I was embarrassed to hear that my roommate freshman year liked these songs. I can't even imagine how Ben's girlfriend must feel...

5. "Umbrella" by Rihanna - Enough said.

I've never had certain songs that I've really liked that identifies with a group outside of my own, so I'm not sure what these guys are going through and almost feel bad for exposing them while revealing their names (Ben, Travis, David) on the internet. I can't help but think back to my time in "the states" or as the Spaniards call it "AMERICA," when my neighbor (see: hillaryswoolley.blogspot.com it's funnier than my blog and it's in my honor even though she never writes about me) had a freakish obsession with "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John which is targeted at absolutely no one because no one should like that song. So I guess I should ask her what she was going through with that whole liking a song where she wasn't the target audience.

Topless Beach-goers

Although I have seen plenty of topless women (and men!) at the beach since I've been here, for some reason today was especially disturbing. First of all, there was a group of carnies - all topless - with their children - also topless and apparently practicing to become hookers or something of that vein since they were standing on top of rocks whistling at strangers - sitting in front of me at the beach.

To my right, there was a woman with the biggest aereolas I have ever seen in my life, who also had incredible saggy boobs even though she appeared to be in her early twenties (ah, the drawbacks of never owning a bra). She was spending some quality time with her boyfriend who appeared to be around fifteen years old. They enjoy activities like: her lying on top of him (note: topless) while he's lying on his stomach like a beached whale, him shoving her head in the sand and then forcing sand in her hair, her rolling in the sand once she gets wet so she can be wearing a sand t-shirt, etc.

Behind me there was a man who was trying to change out of his speedo and into some clean, tighty-whities to go to work after taking his siesta on the beach. This process somehow required multiple attempts, and a towel that was wrapped "around him" but was really just kind of resting on the ground next to him. He kept clutching his genetalia during these various attempts but it wasn't helping much to conceal it. Meanwhile, a two year old girl was running around him, clearly working on becoming a lesbian and being traumatized by this seemingly old man, but now that I think about it he's probably just 20 and aging really quickly from sleeping on the beach every day.

There was also a family wearing matching speedos taking creepy, sexual pictures of each other. I've noticed that ass-tan levels are very important here. If a guy isn't wearing a speedo, he pulls up his shorts so his upper thighs can still get as tan as possible. I'm just waiting for my first man-thong and then my life will be complete.

Sfera

When I thought my luggage was never going to get here and bought a bunch of clothes, I just threw them in a drawer when I got home and didn't look at some of them until a couple days ago. I realized that one of the shirts still had the "I will break your clothes and set of detectors" device attached which is probably why the alarm went off when I left the store. I decided to go back to Sfera today and have them remove it.

On the way there, I stopped by the SuperSol, which is basically a really small market that has a plethora of olives and limited amounts of everything else. There's a security guard who works there whom I was chatting up a couple days ago when my friend Joanna was walking around touching everything while I waited outside. (Only me "chatting him up" sounded more like I was just practicing Spanish I had just learned - asking riveting questions like "Where is the nearest bookstore?" "Where can I buy a towel," etc.) As I walked into the SuperSol, my shirt (which I had just been stuffing in my purse) set off their security detectors. I took the shirt out and showed it to the guard who forced me to put it in a locker after explaining that I have to take it back to the store where I bought it, that they don't take them off here. I kept trying to tell him I was on my way to Sfera anyway but he kept saying really slowly and deliberately what it was. On my way out of the store, I went to get the shirt out of the locker and couldn't get it to open, so he had to come help me. As he was turning the key with absolutely no effort whatsoever, I said "Soy muy inteligente" to myself and he laughed at me.

I walked down the street to Sfera, and the second I walked in the door, it set off the alarm and the saleswoman came running up to me. I pulled the shirt out of my bag (shopping back that I bought it in, not my purse) and said "I bought this here - " and she grabbed it from me and showed me the detector and started explaining it to me. As though I have no idea why this shirt I'm carrying around - for no apparent reason - keeps setting off detectors everywhere I go. So she quickly ran to take the detector off, and as I followed her, Joanna was falling down in the doorway slipping on water that had been dripping from the ceiling. We probably can't go back there anymore, but it doesn't matter because becoming best friends with the security guard at SuperSol is really time consuming anyway.

Discoteca

Last night we decided to go out to the Discotecas that all of our buddies we met in class told us about. These are the same buddies that think that California's water is so shark-ridden that you can't even slip your foot in the ocean without it getting bitten off, and that everyone in the United States carries a gun so it's not very safe to visit there. Since the Discotecas don't open until really late, we went and bought some 40s of Cruzcampo and ate them on the steps of the church. Then we went and got a bottle of wine at a nearby café, and were pretty wasted. Joanna and I decided we needed cigarettes, so we found a vending machine at a restaurant and bought them.

There was a waiter on his break smoking at the bar, and neither of us had a lighter so we decided to see if he had matches he could give us (for some reason I assume Europeans carry around unlimited amounts of matches to dole out to us stupid Americans who leave our lighters at home). He let us use his lighter, but started taking off his clothes first, which was really strange. I think something got lost in translation there. We were asking him if he understood the English writing on his pack of cigarettes (something about sperm count), and I think he took it the wrong way.

On the way to the discotecas, we stopped at a pool bar for a little while. I met a group of 16-year-old locals who thought my accent was hilarious. They liked to repeat the last word of everything I said and then laugh hysterically, holding their sides and prodding each other. I tried to get them to help me sound less foreign, but I'm pretty sure it's hopeless. One of them played pool with me, but he kept cheating and we needed to get going to the discotecas. On our way out, we managed to meet some British guy who thought our California accents were extremely sexy (his favorite band is Red Hot Chili Peppers - I don't know why I asked him that). He followed us around the streets for a while but eventually he disappeared.

We then walked all the way to the discotecas which took a really really long time. Turns out, you're not allowed to wear flip-flops in the discoteca so we couldn't get in. We went to a bar across the street instead that was really packed and smoky. But instead of being packed with cute, European college students it was full of middle-aged obese men and a few really disgusting women. It dawned on me that I might start to sober up soon, and wouldn't want to be sober for the walk home. So, we bought some Fanta-limon with vodka (the mix was something like 30-70 - they're not stingy with their vodka at all) to secure our drunkenness.

The discoteca closed and we walked all the way back to the Residencia. For some reason I was convinced that the night was still young, but it was around 5am and the sun was coming up. I ended up waking up at noon this morning, missing breakfast, and lying on the beach for a while in an attempt to burn off my hangover.

Pueblos Blancos

Yesterday we went on an excursion to Los Pueblos Blancos in the mountains of Cadiz. It took about two hours by bus each way up this really windy, really narrow road, and I still don't really understand why we went there. We walked around for a while and went on a tour but I couldn't understand the guide's accent and had really bad cabin fever from being on the bus for so long so I just ran around and took a lot of pictures.

Once we finished our tour (which also involved seeing a wool factory) and got back on the bus, I thought we were coming back to the Residencia, but instead we went to a wheat mill. They had us make rolls that were similar to those you would eat 500 years ago when people made bread from complete scratch. We had to wait an hour for the bread to cook, so we went to a nearby bar to hang out and wait as a group. My friend Joanna and I interpreted this as "get really wasted at the bar," but no one else seemed to feel the same way. We went to the bathroom before getting back on the bus, and I couldn't figure out the sink. Luckily, there were some 10-year-old Spanish girls watching me as though I was the dumbest thing they had ever seen in their lives. Then, we took the bus home and ate our bread, which was totally disgusting but I ate it anyway because I was drunk.

I fell asleep on the bus since it was Siesta Time, which was going really well until we rounded the final corner and I rolled/slammed my head into the window. When I got off the bus and was walking back to the residencia, I forgot that I was kind of drunk and thought that I couldn't walk straight because I had just done irreversible damage when I hit my head. Don't worry - I'm fine now.

Classes

Today was our first day of class. We have to go to two hours of grammer and then we get a break, and then two hours of culture. During the break today, I bought a beer from the vending machine. I need to start strategizing about how drunk I can get in the 20 minutes before culture class because sitting still for that long is really hard.

During grammer we exchanged classmates with local Cadiz students who are trying to learn English. Their English is really bad, so we just end up speaking Spanish the whole time. My buddy's name is Pedro, and his favorite movies are "300" and "Gladiator." He's shorter than me and claims that Americans are just really tall and that all guys in Cadiz are short. At the end of our exchange he asked for my e-mail and my cell phone number "if I want," and I just wrote down my e-mail trying to play it off like I didn't have a phone yet. Everything was going well, until a guy in my class yelled "Hillary, will you look in your phone for my number, I can't remember it," as I'm passing my e-mail address back to Pedro. Oh well, I'll probably see him at the bars he told me about and drunkenly confess that I just want to be friends or something humiliating.

After class today, we decided to skip the siesta and go to the beach instead. There was a plethora of small children in thongs, which was pretty disturbing, so I felt inclined to take a lot of creepy pictures which will be on Facebook. There was also an old guy who was really tan, using the public showers to wash his genitals by pulling the waist of his pants out really far. I took some creepy pictures of him too.

I miss Zoe and our old diving board. I can't wait for her to come visit me. Story of my life...

Clothes

Today I decided to suck it up and buy some clothes since I'd been wearing the same thing for the last three days and they smelled like plane. I had all ready gotten a cell phone, so it was probably time to invest in some clean underwear. I was on my way back to the residencia and found a cheap-ish store where I bought a bunch of stuff that is very basic and I never would have purchased otherwise.

I got home, jumped in the shower and my phone rang. I jumped out of the shower, spilled water everywhere, and answered it, but it was totally dead. No dial tone or anything. I started mopping up the room and someone started to come in my room. I yelled at them in jibberish (since I'm still not really sure what the punishment is for speaking English), and the went away. A little while later, they came back. Of course, it was my luggage.

On top of having a bunch of new clothes I don't really want/need, when I was being rung up at the store, there was a woman putting price tags on earrings at the cashier's desk. She had accidentally thrown a pair of really ugly earrings into my bag. They're HUGE cubic "diamonds" which I would never wear unless I was husband-hunting among 80 year olds but anyone could spot those as fake from miles away. So I played with the idea of returning my clothes while completing the good deed of returning the unpurchased ugly earrings (valued at 3 euro), but decided I'm too lazy and don't want to jeopardize my spot in hell. If anyone is in the market for poorly made t-shirts and ugly earrings, contact me immediately on my new cell phone that I don't know the number for.

Cadiz

I just got to Cadiz last night, and we went on this semi-brutal walking tour to see the whole town. It was only brutal because my feet hurt from lugging my backpack around trying to find the residencia for the university. After that, we had dinner and showered, and then went to a cafe which served beer and ice cream only, next to where we are staying. So far, I've made friends with a few people on the trip, and they all seem really nice.

Halfway through the day today, one of the program coordinators pulled me aside and told me that I owe the main director an apology for all my difficulties with getting here. I don't really understand this, since I was the one crying in airports by myself, but apologized anyway. She was oddly unreceptive to my apology and is still mad at me (I think?).

We went over to the Universidad de Cadiz to take placement tests and they had a little party for us where we met some local students who told us all the stereotypes they knew about Americans (we hate ham, we drink too much, we love Burger King more than life itself, etc.) and fed us some wine (gross, sweet white wine which they told us to be careful with because we would get super-drunk even though we were barely buzzed after five glasses), and massive amounts of ham. They really like ham here.

Seville

By the time I got to Seville, I couldn't find my luggage anywhere. I was forced to run around to a ton of places trying desperately to get my hands on it. I was eventually forced to call my Mom (in tears), unsure what to do. I called the program director, too. They told me to go sleep at a hotel some where, which I did, only I lost the folder of my visa information and the program director's phone number in the cab. I overslept and woke up after noon to the lady at the front desk asking if I would need an additional night. I checked out and was (literally) stumbling down the street toward the train station/somewhere to eat. I stopped and got some chicken skewers and beer from this bar where every guy who came in ordered a small plate of snails and a mixture of tonic water and wine.

I continued my stumble to the train station and am now just strategizing how I'm going to get ahold of this woman who will tell me where to go.

Even though there's not a doubt in my mind that I'm totally miserable right now, I'm extremely happy just to be in Spain and to be able to go to small bars and have them offer me beer in Spanish. I kind of miss coffee, though, because they don't like to make it after 11, but other than that, I'll be fine.

Airport

Everything was going so smoothly. I had just successfully had a Spanish conversation with a food vendor in the airport who informed me they did NOT have ice cream. I was finishing off my book and my flight still hadn't shown up on the monitors. For some bizarre reason, the Spanish have decided that they are only going to monitor the flights that are all ready boarding. I realized this about an hour before my flight, so I started asking around. Had another successful Spanish conversation where I learned from some guy with a toddler that I should find the information booth. Then I had a failed Spanish conversation in the VIP lounge of SpanAir where I learned (in English) that I need to walk towards the shopping area. Then I had another English conversation 20 minutes later where I learned exactly where I needed to go. There was a really long line and I didn't have a boarding pass, and was starting to panic. I didn’t even try to speak Spanish to these people. They wouldn't let me on the plane. Since they had started boarding, I wasn't allowed a pass. Since it was completely my fault because of my tardiness, they weren't going to give me one for another flight and I would have to but a completely new pass. Since I wasn't getting on this plane, they weren't going to let my luggage on it and I had to go claim it at baggage claim.

For the record, this is officially the first time I've cried over something relating to this trip. There were a lot of almost-cries on my way to the Visa office when I was half-hour late for my fifteen-minute appointment, or saying bye to my family, but I completely broke down over this one. I was sobbing uncontrollably and it was totally humiliating. I didn't know where to go or what to do. I realized that even if I get through all this and make it to Cadiz today (or tomorrow at this point), those people don’t know me and will not be a comfort to me.

I called my dad, which is usually the last thing I would do in any situation where I'm stuck, ever. He told me to calm down and that he would buy me a new ticket, which he did. I went and stood in line for a couple hours with some of the rudest, most obnoxious people ever. I don't care how much crap people talk about Americans; at least they understand the concept of lines. Here, it has something to do with priority but no one is ever allowed to announce his or her priority. If you try to assert your priority, some well-dressed French bitch will stick her arm in front of you casually and flirt with her asshole boyfriend. But I finally did it, and I'm going to finally get out of this airport. And it's going to be so great.

Flight

I've been on the plane for about two and half hours at this point, and - even though I was extremely excited for this from the get-go, since I would get a lot of reading in - I'm really bored.

Right about now, I'm realizing that this is one of the only times in my life where I'm completely starting over and will know no one. Instead of looking forward to meeting new people, I'm more excited to be forced to leave behind the desire to hang out with certain people that I know now. Right this second, for example, there are a handful of people I would love to spend a couple hours with, and there is no way that I can see them. It's so liberating.

So, reading has all ready gotten old. My clever playlist of songs that involve leaving/planes/being gone 'till November/etc. has also gotten old because the plane is making half of the song impossible to hear and the other half really static-y and every time an artist uses the letter "s" I get this weird shooting pain to some unidentifiable region of my brain. I wish I had internet. I could be playing so much mahjongg right now.