UI Girls Gone Wild… Abroad
Lauren & Brittney do Europe

Archive for February, 2010

Churros for breakfast

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Elisa’s friend brought over a sack of churros for breakfast again. AGAIN. This sack is probably the size of two babies…two greasy babies meant for dipping into chocolate. It’ll be a miracle if I don’t come back to the states with a heart condition or 100 pounds heavier.

We have a long weekend because tomorrow is Día de Andalucía, aka a day off work and school for the whole region. Most people I know traveled throughout Europe this weekend. I did not. Instead I went to the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, and it was worth my 1,80 euro entrance fee. I have a volatile relationship with contemporary art — I love the abstract and the deceptively simple, but some pieces are simply simple. And simply pretentious. I.e., the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, junior year field trip with my American Studies class. “alternating pink and gold.” Is this art? I don’t know. I’ve seen more artistry in my neighbors’ “alternating green, red, blue, yellow and orange” Christmas lights.

The museum in Sevilla was interesting and unpretentious. The temporary exhibit we visited focused on Madrid in the 1970s, which is a fascinating time period, I think, in terms of Spanish history (Franco’s death = 1975). But enough of that. I’ll continue being a cultured adult and and contributor to Spain’s tourism revenue tomorrow when we go to Jerez de la Frontera to visit a sherry bodega. Planning this trip led to a poignant moment of introspection yesterday when I realized, “Holy shit, I am a clone of my mother.” I remember going to a winery years ago with my family and nearly perishing of boredom. A 9-year-old has no business in a winery, and the highlight of the trip was when the winery folks gave my brother an ample amount of wine corks. To do what with, I don’t know, but it led to Robbie collecting corks for several years, keeping them in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag that he sometimes brought on road trips (I remember distinctly because one time he left the bag open and we lost wine corks between seat cushions and in the crevices below the bench in the old Ford Windstar).

Anyways, the point of that tangent is that I am, in some ways, Heidi 2.0. My mother bestowed me with her lousy taste in television (I watched “General Hospital” and “Inside Edition” every day after school), and apparently I’ve also inherited the wine gene. Morphing into my mother at the age of 20 isn’t all bad — I like my mom — but it’s a scary thought. Everyone wants to think they’re somehow a completely separate entity from their parents, not destined to one day evolve into the very people they came from and battled throughout adolescence. At least I liked to think that. Now, I’ve just given up.

So it’s official: I’ve aged into a vino-guzzling wine geek. My 9-year-old self would be floored. I’ve never been to a winery when I was old enough to enjoy it, nor have I been to Jerez, where apparently the mice are a major attraction at this bodega. Mice, as in the rodents I avoid and kill in cold blood when necessary. Spain is a strange place.

I’m also considering piercing my nose (don’t kill me, family members). I’ve wanted a nose piercing for a few years. I’m not sure why, exactly, other than I think they look cool. But is it really a good idea to accent my already enormous schnoz with jewelry? Is it pretty, or just tacky? Elisa did her own nose piercing and very generously offered to do mine. “Go buy an earring at El Corte Inglés,” she told me, then come home, ice my face, and we’ll do the damn thing. I politely declined.

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Boring update?

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Happy Almost Halfway Through my Program Week… WHERE did eight weeks go?!?!  This weekend has just been too much fun full of needing to study, wanting to study, thinking about studying, putting together all the materials to study… anytime now hopefully the actual studying will begin.  Almost ALL of the snow is gone, the weather is ridiculously nice when it’s not raining (which happens inevitably every day for at least a few minutes.)  One thing I have accomplished this weekend is the awesomely elementary school-style poster I made for German class.  Apparently we’re starting a unit next week on Glück (luck) but in German it also means happiness.  I’ve put a unnecessary amount of time into my “Mein Glück” collage which has lots of prettttty colors and words cut out from magazines and pictures of the 713 loves of my life.  I also freehand drew a fairly accurate Tigerhawk and made sure “TAILGATING” had prime real estate in the middle of the whole thing.

While the people in Groningen ride bikes more than another group of people on the planet, the Germans aren’t too shabby about cycling themselves.  Just this week I’ve seen a man riding a bike while holding a suitcase in his right hand, and multiple people riding while talking on cell phones.

This week my handle on Deutsch really clicked.  Two students who came here already knowing the language commented about how much I’ve improved for only knowing about three words upon arrival.  Once (if?) I get through my midterm tomorrow, it’s smooth sailing to Spring Break.  If the Air France strikes get in the way of me getting home (I fly Hamburg to Paris to Atlanta to Des Moines) I will fah-REAK out and man my own ship to get across the ocean.  NPH and PQ Skyped me yesterday– there aren’t words in any language to describe how excited I am to be at 713 again.  When I come back to Germany hopefully Spring will be officially sprung and we can play soccer outside, something I’m also oddly looking forward to.  I know May will get here way too fast and I won’t want to leave, but we’ll save that bag of mixed emotions for a later time.

Oh, in other news– that “spider bite” on my hand a few weeks ago definitely isn’t, and now we’re looking at an allergic reaction to something (so going home will be extra good to see if this swollen red fingers thing is exclusive to Deutschland.)  So that’s AWESOME.  D-Bag, bless his heart, gave me some Benadryl which has been helping and offered ice packs/ ibuprofen if I want to try them later.  Until then I’ll try to counteract the drugs with caffeine and finally… start…. studying…?

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Nackt

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Happy Hump Day to my legions of loyal fans and admirers!  (Who has two thumbs and has had way too much caffeine today?  THIS GUY!  When my laptop prompted me for my password this morning and I typed in “sleep” without thinking, there’s a problem.)

Just when the sidewalks were almost melted of ice and the air smelled just about like Spring (which makes me miss playing soccer something fierce) it snowed last night.  I kind of can’t complain because nice weather would only further hinder the massive amounts of studying I need to do, which brings me to announce the postponement of my Wittenberg trip this weekend.  We were given the study guide for our Intercultural Communication midterm on Monday and holy shoulda kept up the reading, Batman– looks like it’ll be quite the exam.  As a journalism major I rarely even have tests, let alone have to study for them and possibly write short answer/essay responses, so I’m just SUPER looking forward to tackling nine chapters of definitions, a handful of academic articles,  in-class discussions, etc.  Since this class is the only conceivable roadblock to a 4.0 this semester, I’ve decided studying should come before travel.  Ahh, maturity.

Riding this wave of uncharacteristic productivity and motivation, I’ve mapped out my course schedule for my remaining two semesters of college, have been researching summer internship and job opportunities, and giving the possibility of (gasp!) grad school some attention.  Right now grad school’s only got about a 5% chance since I’ve decided I will absolutely be attending pastry school within the next ten years.  If you sound confused, so am I.  My brain is on overload– all I know is I want to be about three different things (I’ll be wildly successful at all of them, natch) and being the most indecisive person on the planet is something I most certainly need to work on.  Also, this paragraph had nothing to do with my study abroad adventures.  Ooh but I did buy a German/English dictionary today.  (If you’re wondering WHY I waited until my program was half over to do this, I don’t know either.  I’m sure we could have Amazon-ed it for a fraction of the cost before coming here, but that would have required forethought.)  It’s my new favorite thing; I’ve already looked up probably 20 words in the few hours I’ve had it.  Also, it doubles quite nicely as a paperweight/ door jamb/ coaster (don’t worry, the cover’s made of pleather) not to mention I looked über studious and academic today at the Mensa table when I was really looking up how to say “naked” auf Deutsch.  (If you were wondering, it’s “nackt.”  Example: “Ich liebe nackt zu sein.”  My parents must be so proud of their firstborn.)

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Oh girl, shock me like an electric… fire.

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

My weekend started off with a bang. Literally. I’m not purposely abusing a cliche. On Thursday night I was sprawled on the living room couch when I heard explosions, and naturally I didn’t get off my ass to look out the window. Every day is a new orchestra of mind-numbingly loud, ugly sounds, so I assumed it was a neighborhood kid setting off fireworks. Two hours later when Elisa came home she asked if I realized there were firemen up and down the block… oops.

Park Güell in Barcelona. I wonder if I can live there as a vagabond?

The electrical box across the street was spewing fire all the way over to our side of the street. The firemen basically stood and watched this happen for a while, probably in the interest of not melting their faces off. Also of note, it was pouring rain. Perhaps another hindrance. Within an hour we lost power, which wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t put off packing for my early flight to Barcelona until the last minute. It was sort of cute, though. We ate Nutella sandwiches by candlelight and I packed my suitcase by cellphonelight. And eventually, by the time I went to sleep, we regained power. So there’s one thing I can cross off the bucket list — observe an electrical-box-turned-dragon while eating Nutella by candlelight. It was easily the most romantic experience I’ve had since I got here.

All electrical fires aside, I made it to Barcelona this weekend and I loved it. I went to visit my friend Adam, who’s studying there for the year, and he graciously revisited all the major sites in the city with me, probably for the 80000000 billionth time in his tenure as a Barcelonian. Really though, if college/being a real person doesn’t pan out, he could easily relocate to Barcelona and become a tour guide. We visited an impressive number of places (I think) for how little time I had in town:

  • All the necessary Gaudí (Park Güell, Casa Batlló, La Pedrera, La Sagrada Familia)
  • INSIDE La Sagrada Familia, which, if we’re Facebook friends, you already know from the seventy thousand photos I posted
  • An old bomb shelter built during the Spanish Civil War
  • The beach (fabulous, will return someday in warmer weather)
  • Old Roman columns, complete with a rock-hugging tourist photo
  • A bar where I had my first encounter with flaming absinthe
  • A bar that was (is?) owned by Manu Chao (!!!)
  • The main drag-y commercial area, the name of which I don’t even know
  • Other places that I’ll omit for the sake of your attention span

I’m not sure how to explain why I liked Barcelona so much. It helped to wander around with someone who knows the city, rather than being dumped off by my program and told “Good luck!” It was a distinct side of Spain that I hadn’t experienced yet. I expected Barcelona to feel like a completely different country, based mostly on the perception of Cataluña projected by people I’ve met in Andalucía (so yeah, slanted). And sure, it’s a city very unlike Sevilla, but also with a few similarities. Hearing Catalán and seeing all the signs in Catalán was different, but Spanish was still prominent, and it seems like anyone with reasonable Spanish skills could probably function in Barcelona. Actually, I met two girls from Barcelona who spoke Spanish more clearly than what I’m used to in the south. I’m definitely able to recognize the distinct Andalucían accent now that I’ve been away from it.

Looking up at La Sagrada Familia. The most interesting unfinished church I ever did see.

Aside from my linguistic observations (fascinating, I’m sure), I enjoyed the Gaudí architecture way too much. Too much, because I wasn’t kidding about the amount of photos I took, and because it required a lot of self control not to buy out the entire Sagrada Familia gift shop. It was indescribably REFRESHING to see a side of Catholic Spain other than the baroque and the gothic. Plus, Barcelona just has that intangible cool factor. It’s Barcelona for god’s sake. I’ve always associated it with cool things, and people who also possess that intangible cool factor. This is definitely one of my (many) thought processes that only makes sense to me, but to give one example: I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of Adam’s upstairs neighbor playing The Velvet Underground & Nico (“Femme Fatal”). How could I be upset about that? I want to live in an apartment in Barcelona and play The Velvet Underground and sort-of understand Catalán and go to bars owned by Manu Chao. Someday… maybe, if I ever develop that intangible coolness.

Visiting Barcelona and meeting Adam’s friends, who are all in Spain for the academic year, made me wish I had more time here. It’s already week five, and although I’ve hardly made any travel plans I only have a handful of weekends left in Sevilla, which creates even less incentive to travel. Adam and I talked about this at length, and a couple other people on my program agree, that there are basically two types of study abroaders: those who go overseas to experience their selected city and to practice the language as much as possible and those who come for a semester-long Tour de Europe. I’m not knocking the latter group. I just know that I came to Sevilla because I want to improve my Spanish and get to know the city, the region, the country. I like to think that someday I’ll come back to Europe and do justice to its major cities, rather than spend a weekend in a shitty Parisian hostel eating fast food to save a few euros. Oh yeah, and that reminds me — going out in Barcelona isn’t exactly a bargain. Nine euro for a gin and tonic?! Hostia.

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Groningen & Spring Break

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

We set off in gorgeous weather Friday morning for Groningen, Holland with a vague outline of the train schedule and no hostel reservation (or map of the town) for when we hopefully arrived.  We rode the train for free to Hamburg-Harburg, then to Bremen, then to the border town of Leer, and then finally to Groningen.  About 20 minutes into our journey (big shocker ahead for any of you who have traveled with me before:) I had to pee.  Unfortunately we had some time to kill in Hamburg-Harburg and I decided I couldn’t wait to go on the train for free.  In Europe, one must PAY to go to the bathroom.  This to me is a clear violation of my human rights and why the Geneva Convention did not address the Right to Pee Internationally for Free is beyond me.  I went into the bathroom knowing I had literally two cents in my pocket, but thinking that the paying thing is more of a strict guideline than rule. Unfortunately, the 70-year-old 300 lb. German woman working the bathroom did not see this as merely a guideline.  She was not impressed by my two cent offering and instead barked at me in the huskiest smoker’s voice to e’er barrage my auditory system something about “Bitch gimme my money” (or that’s what I’d like to think she said.)  I tried to plead (in German) that this was all I had, and even opened up my wallet and managed to scrounge up 25 more cents.  By now she definitely got the “this foreign girl’s bladder is about to explode all over my bathroom resulting in much more than 50 cent mess” memo and let me in.  After my business was quickly done, I exited to wash my hands, and Big Bathroom Bertha started going off on me again.  I clearly had not desecrated the shoddy hole in the wall she was paid to “keep clean,” and knew my train was coming soon, so wasn’t really in the mood for a quick German lesson.  She then pointed to my right where I saw the sign that said it was an extra 20 cents to wash your hands.  OH OKAY.  That’s not exactly hygienic, Deutschland– if anything YOU should be paying ME to wash my hands.  Anyway, I finished and high-tailed it out of there without drying my hands (perhaps an extra 15 cent charge?) with the lovely German woman cursing my existence the entire way to the train.  D-Bag and New England were not comforting in the slightest about this traumatizing intercultural experience, and instead thought it quite hilarious that I have the bladder of a toddler.

We had a little over an hour to kill in Bremen, so we walked around their historic center and explored the city.  I fell in love with Bremen, possibly because the weather was so nice, but it’s a very clean city with an extensive trolley system and lots of amazing shopping/ restaurants (fun trivia fact: Beck’s is also brewed there.)  I also found coffee that lasted me more than 30 seconds– their XL size was roughly what an American medium would be… and in true European fashion cost roughly $2 more.  By some miracle we made it to all of our trains on time, although we ran to the last train leaving to Groningen (as such, we didn’t have time to buy tickets and miraculously were never asked for them on the train, thus were FUGITIVES once in the Netherlands.  Spring 2010: My life as a bad ass.)  As soon as our train crossed the border into the Netherlands, the sunny weather went away and the sky was an ominous storm-on-the-horizon shade of gray straight out of the movie Hostel.  Also, the one bathroom on board our last train was OUT OF ORDER (I actually said “I can pee, but it can wait til the next train” on the last one.  BIG. MISTAKE) so the last ride was mostly me splayed as comfortably as possible across two seats with my travel companions under strict orders not to make me laugh lest I explode and really put a damper (haha, pun?) on the weekend.

Finally we arrived in Groningen– about six hours after we initially departed– and I paid 50 cents for a NICE bathroom replete with candles and a much nicer Dutch lady who in no way verbally assaulted me.  We then decided it was best we find a hostel (only about half an hour of wandering and one stop for directions) where were able to get some of the last beds in the dormitory for the night.  The rest of the night was spent exploring the city, hanging out, going to an amazingly cheap sit-down pizza place, going to some bar where the Australian bartender (hel-LO Heath Ledger sound-alike) took a liking to us random Americans in his Australian bar in Holland.  Saturday we had the BEST CROISSANT I have ever had– so flaky, so many layers, can’t really talk about it right now without crying– which was cut down the middle then filled with cream (kinda like vanilla pudding) and topped with fruit.  No words.  D-Bag got another one and said something about living under the bakery counter for the rest of his life– they were THAT GOOD.  We decided to go back Saturday afternoon because there wasn’t actually that much to do there, but also because New England and I vowed to never step foot in that hostel again.

I am a very light sleeper.  I have never shared a room with 20 people (let alone STRANGERS) before.  We went to bed relatively early, so imagine how many times in the night I was woken up by various groups of drunk/high/foreign strangers stumbling into bed.  A LOT.  Also, we apparently missed the blanket memo and were individually huddled up in one top sheet plus our coats and any other layers we’d stuffed in our bags.  I’ve never before had to make a mental pro and con list of Which One of my Travelmates Would Be Less Creeped Out by me Climbing into their Bunk for Warmth?  Needless to say, we were the first three out of there in the morning, and if traveling again, I will plunk down many more Euros for a private room or hotel instead of saving a few but getting close to zero sleep.

It is this hostel experience that has me even more excited about my Spring Break plans (as if I weren’t already counting-down-the-days excited before.  Most of you know, but for those who don’t (everyone with me in my program), I am going home for Spring Break.  To Iowa.  I am leaving Europe and voluntarily spending a week in Iowa.  Now, when this was first presented to me as an option by my father, my reaction was “GROSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS NO WAY so laaaaaame, who goes HOME during study abroad?  Puh-lease.  I am so not doing that.  I am so worldly and will travel to foreign places and prove to myself I can go without the people I miss for four months.”  I would change my mind on going back at least five times a day, usually NPH being the reason to visit home, and traveling to cool places being the reason to stay.  In the end though, now that the tickets have been purchased, I am OVER THE MOON about visiting home in 12 days.  While traveling over Spring Break would have been great I’m sure, the cons definitely outweighed the pros in terms of money spent, time spent on trains, sketchy hostels, possibly traveling alone/ with people I don’t really care for, etc etc.  This is not my first or last time in Europe, and I’d much rather come back and see places like Spain and Norway with people I love instead of for a couple hours on no sleep with people I probably won’t see after May.  My week in Iowa City/Adel is already filled with plans, most importantly lots of time at 713, Mesa with Natalie, celebrating Lauren’s 21st birthday a week early, a screening of Shutter Island, perhaps a pedicure with T-Bone, and lots and lots and LOTS of Diet Pepsi and coffee.  A very special thanks to my father for making this trip possible, as well as essentially making the best decision for me because, when getting down to it, I was dead-set on staying if only to prove to myself I don’t need home for four months.  And then come late March we would have had one verrrrry volatile Brittney on our hands, and who really needs that?

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On being a role model

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

I took advantage of yesterday’s amazing weather (today: freezing rain.  Go figure) and wandered around town with no direction but stopping at the three big churches to check on Ashermittwoch activities.  ALL of them were closed let alone having any sort of service, but I did get to explore Luneburg more and ITISSOADORABLE.  I couldn’t possible see everything here in four months– narrow cobblestone streets shoot off onto even tinier alleys and old buildings have clandestine courtyard gardens  that are all filled with amazing gastronomy and specialty shops.  Yesterday I felt very zen with Deutschland (AND when I was walking down Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Straße, the ONE Bach song out of the thousands I have on my iPod came on shuffle.  Insert Twilight Zone music here.)

My routine here is well established, I know the checkout people at Edeka and ride the bus with familiar faces every morning.  One of my fellow bus riders is a chubby girl of about nine who watches my every move.  Homegirl has no problem staring at me for the entire trip, following my hand with her eyes when I change a song on my iPod, watching me push the button for the Rotes Feld stop and get off.  Perhaps even she can read the giant FOREIGNER sign on my forehead, but I’d like to think she’s fascinated with me and realizes that one day, she too can grow out of her awkward stirrup pants and become hot and awesome.  While Ben has been a fine little brother, I’d like to think I’d be an awesome sibling to a little sister.  Perhaps I will silently take chubby bus creeper under my wing and teach her life’s little lessons in the 10 minutes we share each day.  So far she’s probably learned how to How to Awkwardly Suavely Lung for the Stop Button When Realizing You’re About to Miss Your Stop, or today’s lesson, How to Cram For a Test on Public Transportation Because You Spent Last Night Watching Shaun White in the Olympics Instead of Study Akkusativ vs. Dativ Verb-Endings.

Speaking of, I will now take this time for a to answer a question posed to me by the two members of 713 without Facebook, WHY do you find Shaun White attractive?  Feel free to skip this paragraph if you’re not interested in my Shaun White tangent.  (For those of you above a certain age, Shaun White has won a billion medals in snowboarding, skateboarding, maybe surfing– I’m not exactly in it for the sports.  Google image him for evidence why.)  HOW CUTE is he?  It’s also the attitude, plus he got lots of Axl Rose minus being a giant Asshole vibes going on.  It is NOT, as pointed out by D-Bag last night because “you have the same hair!”  Shut it.  In my loft bedroom (RIP) I had a picture of Shaun White on my wall, next to Lil Wayne’s Rolling Stone cover, opposite the wall of shrine de Slash.  Apparently I’m late growing out of the J-14 magazine and scissors phase of my life.

In travel news: tomorrow D-Bag, New England and I depart for an overnight trip to the Netherlands.  We’re going to Groningen, a college town that could perhaps be called the poor man’s Amsterdam.  Yesterday I also booked a train ticket to hang out in Wittenberg next weekend and indulge my inner Lutheran. I’ll be attending a church service in English in Martin Luther’s church  on Saturday night and generally wandering about, hopefully vastly improving mein Deutsch.

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“My mom is afraid of you”

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

German is officially hard.  The honeymoon period of present tense verbs and randomly throwing an incorrect article in front of a noun has long passed.  We have a test tomorrow and I’ll actually have to like, study?  Das ist nicht so gut.  I probably should have realized this was coming since many natives have asked why on Earth I picked German to learn since even they don’t get it right most of the time.  Ausgezeichnet!

In better news, it may as well be summer– the SUN has been out in full force for a couple days now, and I can finally leave my apartment without gloves.  Buses are now only used if I need to be somewhere quickly, otherwise walking is my preferred mode of transportation.  Later I should like to walk to one of the three massive ancient churches in town and see what’s up for Ash Wednesday (my teacher has informed me probably not much since 1. To make a blanket statement, Germans aren’t very religious and 2. This is seen as a Catholic tradition to them and well, Martin Luther anyone?  All of the churches in town long ago became Protestant.)

Last night we were unable to attend our ritual Tuesday night Cheep Bear Bowling Night due to the local soap opera filming there (it’s called Rote Rosen.  Perhaps I’ll tune in some time and try to LEARN GERMAN.)  Our alternate activity was something that in theory sounded very similar, but in practice was a very awkward Twilight Zone-ish experience akin to acid tripping with the elderly.  The game is called Kegeln and it’s similar to bowling except the pins are attached to strings, there’s less of them, the ball is much smaller, the lane has slight bumpers but is much skinnier… and we had zero idea how to keep score.  Here is the Wikipedia page for it (and yeah, it’s in German.  Welcome to my life.)  The Kegeln place looked and smelled exactly like a church basement, and the median age of all others players was approximately 75.  To say that this was their most exciting Tuesday night in a while was an understatement– most of them decided to forgo their own games and instead spectate the slightly inebriated American kids who couldn’t get over the fact they were playing a game with the word “Kegel” in it.  Eventually I was KICKED OFF my team in favor of someone who showed up late (my strategy of hurling the ball as hard as possible wasn’t really working well for anyone) and spent the rest of the night attempting to make card houses with beer coasters.

I’m no scientist, but Germany’s water definitely has more iron in it than the grand ol’ U S of A’s.  THREE people have now noticed that my hair has gotten, wait for it, MORE RED since coming here, and I haven’t done anything to it color-wise since October (when I admittedly purposely put red in it for Halloween.  The box SAID it would come out in 20 washes.  I plan to file suit within the month.)  Nothing against redheads, but I don’t want to be one of them.  Thanks to my Casper-like pigmentation, it doesn’t look totally heinous, but I’ve long forgotten when my natural color even is and I’m only 1/64th Irish so I feel kinda like a phony.  Not to mention many people in NPH’s life have taken to referring to me as “The Redhead” and this irks me to no end.

I feel my mother has missed her calling in life and should uproot and move to Deutschland, stat.  Not only are they total recyling Nazis (YEP– I said it) but these people love their birds.  The grocery stores all sell suet balls (T-Bone makes ‘em homemade) and people hang them all over the place for the damn birds.  I’ve seen them in trees, on bushes, on campus, on my walk to school– it’s a bird feeding frenzy up in here.

And finally, for an update on personal breakthroughs: laundry is OFFICIALLY my most hated household chore (I’ve never had one before because they’re all mostly tied for Things I’d Rather Get a Root Canal then Do) but German has made me hate the entire laundry process especially.  If I don’t do it soon, I will literally have to wear a bed sheet to class, but I. DON’T. WANNA.  Also, not only do I want to attend (nay, will be) both Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza this year, I will be attending pastry school within the next 10 years.  These two things have nothing to do with each other, they’re just both things I decided yesterday while waiting for the next episode of 24 to load.  It’s good to have goals.

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Random updates

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!  (This is my favorite holiday– except for my birthday of course, which might as well be a national holiday.)  I will spare you the stomach-churningly sweet details of all my Valentine back home has done for me and just summarize the whole day as a Win.  My day has been oddly similar to Lauren’s in that I am one of the few students in my program who did not attend some sort of Karneval celebration (most people here took a trip to Cologne.)  I wasn’t really feeling spending the Euros and multiple hours on a train to stand outside and get drunk in costume, call me anti-social if you must.  D-Bag and I did have a fun day of activities that included mimosas, an insane amount of guacamole, my first screening of Snatch, his first viewing of Gone Baby Gone, and Maulwurf Kuchen (mole cake)– aptly named because there’s “dirt” on the top and it looks like a mole hill.

You can all breathe a sigh of relief that my freak finger bite appears to be on the road to recovery.  There were about 30 minutes yesterday where I WebMD’d myself into think I had rabies with only days left to live, just sure a bat’s been creeping around in the night (did you know you often can’t even tell a bat has bitten you?  Until you start FOAMING AT THE MOUTH AND SEIZING?!)

Class is cancelled tomorrow so I have nothing to do until 4 pm.  Our Berlin plans have been nixed for the weekend in favor of scoping out all the Netherlands has to offer.  It has snowed for about 72 days straight, and methinks I’m only slightly exaggerating that estimate.  For Spring Break I will not be attending a Lady Gaga concert (I KNOW, I’m sad too, but I had no one to go with and that woulda just been kinda weird.)  I will be attending Bonnaroo in June instead with the Iowa City loves of my life.  I refunded all of the Diet Pepsi bottles in my room and got like 2.50 Euro back (yes, a lot of bottles, but they also refund much more for each.)  Trying to think of something to give up for Lent– if you’re thinking caffeine you’re absolutely high, alcohol worked well last year but my current location makes that one impossible, I could try to do swearing but would fail miserably 20 minutes into Ash Wednesday.  I wanna go somewhere really cool for Easter, like Spain or Norway, we get quite the extended weekend off for it.

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On romance, and caves

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

Happy February 14. This Valentine’s Day is arguably less meaningful than any other I’ve experienced in all my 20 years. I won’t spend it scrambling to book a restaurant reservation (see: 2009), nor will I hand deliver Snoopy and Charlie Brown valentines to every little troll in my third grade class, including the boys I don’t like (see: 1999). If you must know (which you mustn’t), or if you care (which you don’t), I’m spending this Valentine’s Day with…. the space heater! I also picked up a 2-euro bottle of Rioja for this special, solitary day, but it turns out that I’m sick as an unruly Spanish dog (the dogs here shit everywhere, wear sweaters and don’t have leashes). The only liquid celebration I foresee today is the crushed up Ibuprofen mixed with water that Elisa sometimes prepares when I’m sick. So yes. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Although I’ve been blowing my nose on a nonstop loop since Friday night, today began with some revelry. Elisa’s friend brought over a mountain of churros for breakfast. I wish I had taken a picture, because I’m not exaggerating: a mountain. I could vom, I indulged in that many churros. Elisa declared that our meals for the rest of this week will consist solely of lechugita — in English, we will survive on iceberg lettuce for a while to compensate for this week full of churros and pastries.

Nobody cares much about Valentine’s Day here. There’s no overwhelming pressure to have a significant other or to go anywhere with your significant other. It’s just another Sunday, another hangover, another day when most of Catholic Spain forgets to go to mass. I discussed Valentine’s Day traditions in the States with Elisa and she explained that nobody here gives a flying flamenco about the holiday, other than El Corte Inglés — the only Spanish business that tries to market V Day goodies and specials. I tried to explain the stigma of celebrating Valentine’s Day alone, but it ended poorly. The phrase “Killing a bottle of wine by yourself” doesn’t translate into Spanish.

I like being in a country where it doesn’t matter that I’m in my pajamas eating churros on February 14. Unfortunately, I’m still very much connected to my own country, where it does matter. Even Dictionary.com is rubbing V Day smut in my face with today’s Word of the Day: “billets-doux.”

Bootlegged photo from La Gruta de la Maravilla. Please don't turn me in to the authorities.

Most of my study abroad cronies won’t celebrate much today either, not because they are sick or wallowing in self pity, but because they all went to Carnaval in Cádiz last night, a coastal town about an hour south of Sevilla. To American students, Carnaval is a cracked-out Mardi Gras-esque drinking marathon. To Spaniards, it’s a drinking marathon combined with men in costume performing comedy and music routines. I don’t have a strong grasp of what Carnaval truly is, just that I’m the only student I know on my program who didn’t go. I felt lame about this at first, but in retrospect, I made the right decision for my sickly self. The bus for Cádiz left by 8 p.m. last night and didn’t come back to Sevilla until 6 or 7 a.m. today. Twelve hours of binge drinking, which would have proceeded a day full of nature appreciation in Andalucía.

Yes, nature. I rose before the sun yesterday and ventured off to the Minas de Riotinto in Huelva and La Gruta de la Maravilla in Aracena. La Gruta de la Maravilla was about thirty billion times more interesting than the Minas de Riotinto, but of course we weren’t allowed to take pictures in the cave, because this would somehow destroy the beauty of a ton of rocks. Being a rebel with reckless disregard for rules and rocks, I managed to snap one clandestine photo from inside the cave. The tour guide noticed and yelled at me, but whatev. I won’t lose any sleep over being blacklisted from Aracena.

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Spider bite

Friday, February 12th, 2010

ATTENTION, PLEASE: I woke up yesterday with what we’ve only been able to deduce as…. A SPIDER BITE.  On my right ring finger.  Can I get a collective What. The. F<censored>?!  Pretty sure I’ve never had one before, and now it’s all red and swollen and it HURTS and D-Bag told me there’s probably now thousands of tiny spider eggs in my finger getting ready to explode and rain tiny spiders all over my room.  (I’m not even sure how this German devil spider managed to survive the Arctic temps of my room, clearly they breed ‘em hardy over here.)  Since there is no type of student health on campus and seeking actual medical treatment would require 1. An appointment/ getting on a bus/ generally way more work than I’m willing to put into it; 2. A much better handle on the language than I currently have 3. Something more than a slight red bump on my finger, I will suffer in silence (well, beyond complaining about it every five minutes to everyone within earshot.)  So if I drop dead tonight, blame it on the arachnid, not the amount I plan on drinking after my test today.

Two days until my favorite day of the year, and yesterday’s Valentine Party was perhaps the most adorable show of hearts and red and pink and ribbons and The Notebook and weird German love songs and balloons and croissants and glitter I have ever had the privilege of getting caught up in.  I made four homemade valentines that clearly rival Hallmark, yet don’t really have anyone to give them to.  Germans see V-Day as a purely American commercial holiday and hardly acknowledge it.  The Deutsch don’t mess around, so if I were to give them to my flatmates,  they would take my “Ich liebe dich” und “Sei mein” literally and think I wanted to film them in the shower.  Perhaps I’ll decorate my room with them or give them prime real estate space in my carry-on upon my return home– Mom will definitely be displaying these for years to come.

In some other, possibly life-altering news, the Internet has only been able to provide me with half of Season 5 of “Weeds.”  Nancy just had the baby of a drug kingpin/ mayor Tijuana, it is IMPERATIVE I find out if he kidnaps the baby and kills her for ratting out his illegal sex and arms trafficking tunnel to a DEA agent (who has long been killed off, don’t worry.  I didn’t like him.  I find myself cheering for the drug lords in this show– Showtime is one giant anti-D.A.R.E. commerical.)  If you could be of any assistance in this, my most pressing dilemma, perhaps you will be a recipient of one of these four faboosh valentines (which weren’t exactly easy to make with a giant red handicap on my dominant hand.  So really, it would be a collector’s item… or tainted with spider poison.  If I soon develop the ability to shoot webs out of my wrists, you are SO gonna wish you had something with my autograph on it.)

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Syllabus week in Spain

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Today was the start of my “real” classes, which is great — it marks the end of 7 a.m. wakeup calls, at least on most days.

The beauty of my program is that classes are only offered from Monday to Thursday. I’ve never been able to piece together such a flawless class schedule at Iowa. My first class of the day was Editorial Projects, because I’m still a J-school nerd, even overseas. We put together a bilingual magazine, and it’s also a chance to work with students from the Universidad de Sevilla who study English and translation (you can check out previous issues here). They don’t use Associated Press style in Spain, so I’m going to learn new style rules from the El Mundo guide. I’m almost embarrassed by how thrilled I am to learn from a new style guide… and how nervous I am to wander from my totes fav AP guide that I’ve worshiped since my days as a high school journalist.

My second class was a Spanish film class at the Universidad de Sevilla. The professor is very passionate about Spanish cine, which I think is great, and we kicked off the class by watching two short films (“El Censor” and “El Columpio”). I am in love with both — YouTube it if you happen to speak Spanish. If you haven’t noticed, today has been a giant Nerd Day for me. I will always be a loser who gets excited about the first day of school, as hard as I try not to be that girl.

Most parts of my daily routine have slowly become more beautiful, and more importantly, less confusing. I learned a new “shortcut” to the river, if you can call it that. It still takes me 35 minutes walking like my feet are on fire to make it to class on time.

I meandered through Plaza Nueva and the Paseo de Colón on my way home earlier and it was sunny and warm, but not too warm, and it started sprinkling even though the sun was out, and there was a freakin’ rainbow that stretched all the way across the center of town. I shit you not. I never witness things like this in person, only through photos on postcards and travel documentaries. I could have cried, it was that absurdly picturesque. I also felt like a badass when a Spanish couple asked me for directions earlier — I couldn’t help them at all, but does that mean I don’t look entirely out of place here?

I still deal with the little frustrations of living in a new country, but the weeks here go too quickly to spend much time fretting about it. I’m finally starting to write more (outside of this blog), and luckily I have good friends at home to keep me motivated (or, intimidate me into writing), even when I’m feeling less than inspired (shoutout Team Shreya!). My, my, a lot of parenthetical abuse in that sentence.

Ah, but it’s the times like right now when I remember the annoying parts of Sevilla: the constant honking of horns and car alarms and the asshole in my neighborhood who plays a mind-numbingly loud pipe flute at odd hours of the day. Almost makes me miss the subdued streets of suburbia.

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Upon review, a lot of shout-outs

Monday, February 8th, 2010

I’ve been in Germany for one month, but it feels like I left home YEAAAARS ago .  Do you know what I need but can’t be found?  Giant amounts of coffee.  Ein Tasse Kaffee ist sehr klein, I need my caffeine in more than three swallows.  Good coffee here is like BUTTER, oh my sweet Moses it’s tasty, but generally the good stuff’s not found in the dusty prison-esque machine I visit in the basement of my school building every morning.

Saturday D-Bag introduced me a to a magical, magical treat that will reverse my slight weight loss more than any German beer or Schnitzel could: it’s called marzipan, and I haven’t yet decided if it’s sent directly from heaven or hell.  If you have any backstory on my love for all things almond-flavored, you get why this amazing almond-paste sugar butter awesomeness will be my inevitable undoing.  When he suggested I try this dark-chocolate covered (!!!) marzipan bar for only 70 cents in the checkout line at Edeka, I had what I can only imagine is the same internal debate a first-time heroin user ruminates over before tying one off.  It’s textbook bad, but oh baby it’s so, so good.

This weekend was relatively quiet– I caught up on some more episodes of “Weeds” (when it becomes tolerable to be outside for any period of time, I promise I’ll have better stories to share.)  Friday night we went to Jekyll & Hyde and the bartender was fascinated by our blatant foreign status (it’s a good thing I hang out with people from the coasts, the Germans are half-tempted to ask for D-Bag’s autograph when he tells ‘em he hails from California.  They usually just politely smile and nod when I mention Iowa, so for the first and hopefully only time in my life– I never thought I’d be one of those people– I name drop Chicago and that usually elicits some sort of response.)

I’m glad I didn’t go to the one bar in town playing the Super Bowl (at 11:30 pm our time) last night because there were NO COMMERCIALS.  Due to, I’m not sure, international advertising laws (there’s no ads here after 8:30 pm?  I need to investigate this further) there was apparently just extremely proper German commentary during all breaks.  Congrats to the Saints, I’m glad they finally got theirs (Super Bowl win + Mardi Gras?  It’d be pretty fun to visit New Orleans this week, to say the least.)  On a slightly related note, many YouTube videos are also blocked due to copyright laws.  I can’t see most official music videos (for example, “Sex on Fire” by Kings of Leon.  Sometimes I miss Bryce, so sue me) AND NBC.com’s clips of Saturday Night Live are “unavailable in your area” as well.

If it sounds like I’m chained to my laptop, well kinda.  I’m certainly not letting my time in Europe pass by, but even during foreign study there’s downtime (ALL DAY SUNDAY, anyone?!  Still getting used to that one…)  I was spoiled last week with two lovely Skype dates– my future roomie Lauren and fellow PRSSA hottie Natalie.  Kudos to students who studied abroad pre-Internet, though sometimes having “home” right in front of you but oops not really, just on a screen, almost makes it more difficult.  I actually just had to prepare a chapter on culture shock for my class tonight, and overall I think the whole transition has gone oddly smooth.  Instead of something here making me miss everyone, it’s usually something from home that triggers feelings of less-than-cheerfulness (Furry Raptor tweets, for example.  99% of you have no idea what I’m talking about, but to the one person who does, I LOVED it and thank you.)

GUESS WHAT– we’re having a VALENTINE’S DAY PARTY in class on Thursday.  I can’t produce a squeal of excitement loud enough.  Clearly I will be going way over the top with this, I’m thinking cupcakes and handmade valentines and appropriately colored clothing.  Then perhaps actual Valentine’s Day will be a dawn to dusk drunkfest due to everyone in the program either being utterly alone or miles away from their freund/freunde (fun fact: there is no German word for boyfriend/girlfriend.  They just use “friend” and context clues are needed to figure out how close of “friends” they really are.)

Oh and sorry if you’ve clicked on the Photos tab above only to be met with a blank page– we’re working on it.

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“A clue! A clue!”

Friday, February 5th, 2010

“Here’s the mail it never fails, it makes me wanna wag my tail– when it comes I wanna wail, ‘MAAAAAIILL!!’” (Thanks to years of baby-sitting, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my freak Blue’s Clues’ knowledge.  It is both my blessing and my curse.)  I got THREE pieces of mail yesterday– one from my parents I’d been expecting for about a month, one musical Disney Princess Valentine from my Grandma, and one Step Brothers t-shirt courtesy of my valentine in IC.  Overall, a pretty great way to wake up after an equally great nap.

This morning was my first final (piece o’ caaaaake, or auf Deutsch: eine Stück Kuchen.)  Then it was BROCCOLI DAY in the Mensa; cooked broccoli might just be one of my top five favorite things of all time.  Raw broccoli involuntarily makes me puke up my lungs. Germany’s cooked vegetables aren’t so much steamed as they are soaked in butter with enough sodium to swell a moose ox, but it makes me feel slightly better than eating the mystery battered meat drowned in mystery booger sauce.  I also got some Hot Roomie one-on-one time when I saw him sitting with his friends and had to be all, “Oh hey, favor?  I locked my keys in the apt, can I borrow yours for two minutes?”  If only this were a lame flirting attempt (at least I no longer lock them IN my room, just forget em on the table.)

Do you know what’s different (okay, one of about 3,000 things) over here?  Germans never hang out in their living rooms.  Everyone spends free time in their bedrooms, even when people come over.  This is something Sebas noticed to be totally different when living in the US– he wasn’t allowed to have girls alone in his room for long periods of time, whereas in Regensberg that’s where he’s expected to take his friends.  It’s sehr weird, as most mothers I know would assume we were up there devouring each other between meals.  In many apartments over here there isn’t even a common room– just a kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms.

I’ve finally decided to embrace television auf Deutsch, though Family Guy just isn’t Family Guy without the exact voices (and the jokes are so tailored to American culture that most Germans don’t bother watching.)  The voices for Die Simpsons and Spongebob are actually pretty accurate, and they’re pretty helpful to watch because I’ve seen a lot of the episodes/ generally know what’s going on.  OH and some Sex and the City episodes were on last night, so I learned some new Deutsch phrases, though not really useful unless currently sleeping with a Russian man almost twice my age.  (Slightly humorous side note: In Regensberg last weekend one of my drinks came in a martini glass, and numerous people in the bar ooohed “SexandtheCity!!!” in the unison.  I have no problem being these people’s laptop-pounding, cigarette-puffing late-90s sex goddess.  Especially if a German Mr. Big comes with the gig.)

I’m off to enjoy the Am Sande nightlife with my main amigos New England and D-Bag.  Zero plans for this weekend, though next weekend might be a quick jaunt across the border to the Netherlands!

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Pie party

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

After the excitement of this weekend, the last few days have been nothing to bother writing about.  I’m officially done with my first four credits of German, the final exam is tomorrow.  We can’t really wrap our heads around the fact that the past four weeks of Deutsch would have been spread over an entire semester back home.  Granted we wouldn’t meet for 3.5 hours a day and there  would be at least five times the amount of people, but still– even our teacher said she’s impressed with how far we’ve come.

Last night, Ich kochte mit meiner Lieblings-Jungs and we had another family dinner.  Apparently the theme was pie because we had two kinds– pizza and pumpkin.  D-Bag’s mom sent him all the fixin’s for a pumpkin pie before the holidays so he figured it was probably time to get going on it.  Being the baker extraordinaire I am, I fixed a semi-passable pie crust (did you know the conversion from cups to grams is different depending on what you’re measuring? SO CONFUSING) but the filling was Thanksgiving-grade awesome (quite the feat considered I just used guesstimates for the amount of each spice.)  Pie is pretty non-existent in Germany, especially of the pumpkin variety, so we shared with my flatmates and a few of the droves of people Hot Roomie had over last night.  When we told them it was pumpkin, they said their only knowledge of this word was the “orange thing with a face.”  They thought it was super delicious!  Before we pumpkin pie-d ourselves into a coma, we made homemade pizzas.  Apparently D-Bag is quite the chef and made homemade dough (yeast, garlic and all!) and homemade sauce and they turned out pretty tasty as well.

Afterward I hung around in our kitchen packed full of people and did some more intercultural intermingling (two cheers for the awkward American!)  The first person I talked to was an Albanian student who has been studying in Germany for two years.  He knows like five languages and said that he’s here because German degrees are very rare in Albania and are pretty much a guaranteed ticket to success.  He spoke some Albania to me, which is pretty unique and kind of dying out, and then asked me what I think of the Germans.  He thinks they’re a bit cold, and then went off about how much they drink.  He said the amount Germans drink is “disgusting” and that the drinking culture in Albania is far different.  In his first three weeks here, his friends went out 12 nights whereas back home he drinks maybe once or twice a month.  In Albania they also go out to a bar first and then perhaps to someone’s home instead of the opposite way we do it in America and Germany.  I told him that Germans and Americans drink/ party about equally when we’re at our age, but the adults here drink much more than adults back home.

A girl from the first night I ventured into the kitchen came up and asked how I was, then we talked a lot because she spent six months in America when she was in high school.  She (and every other German who’s visited America) LOVES Taco Bell.  They think it’s just the greatest thing in the world.  She also asked if I lived near a Six Flags because they don’t really have amusement parks like that here, but she wishes there were.  Overall, she said she absolutely loved America and asked why in the world I’d want to come to Germany.  She thinks English sounds much prettier than Deutsch and said America is “like it’s own world” because of the size/ how many different cultures/ regions we have in one country.  We then talked about the difference between American and German boys but couldn’t really think of many, except the overall consensus that American boys are “bigger douchebags.”  She was also not a fan how American boys don’t ask before they kiss you– apparently the German ones do?  Lame.

Last, but certainly not least, I met two German guys who were also fluent in Spanish.  They had each spent their year of civil service in South America working with kids or something adorable like that.  One of them lived in Colombia and when I said I only know one thing about Colombia, he entered into a diatribe about how the country is so much more than cocaine and how great the people are and yes, there is cocaine but COLOMBIA DOES NOT EQUAL COCAINE, OK?!  But he was much nicer about it than this.  Then I made the mistake of telling him I actually have only begun studying German, to which he decided he would no longer speak to me in English because I will never learn Deutsch if people continue coddling me with English.  Um, ok.  I tried– I really did, and I got some words (the other stuff was communicated much more clearly in Spanish.)  They just talk so FAST!  After my weekend in Munich, my German has improved exponentially, especially if I’m reading it, but when speaking my mind still goes completely blank.  He then told me I had to go out with them (which I’m quite certain they never did) but I politely declined due to my still uncompleted Hausaufgaben and early wake-up call for class.

Three friends and I have booked a trip for Berlin in two weekends, our next three-day weekend.  I’m much more confident about my ability to figure out the train system, and am pretty excited to see the wall and Checkpoint Charlie.  I’m mulling over a trip to Spain over our long Easter Break, though cooking Easter dinner here for everyone would be cool, too.  No big plans for the weekend, should probably do laundry and go grocery shopping but the likelihood of either of these things happening is slim to none.

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Hombre!

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Córdoba, Andalucía, home to even more architecture that I've studied.

Ohhhh, dear blog, how I sometimes abandon you. I often think to myself, “I should write a post tonight,” but instead I fall asleep or begin huddling so close to the space heater that I can’t type at the same time. Speaking of the space heater, it started making sparks last night when I turned it on, so I’m now operating out of the space heater-equipped living room, which is at least 15 degrees warmer than my own room.

Class this week has been tolerable. Most of us are still resentful of the ungodly early hour of our class compared to the rest of our peers, who don’t roll out of bed until noon or three or six in the evening. I just hammered out six pages in rusty Spanish about mudéjar and baroque architecture, so at the very least, I’m learning. Even if I am rising before the sun.

Yesterday was monumental — I booked a flight to Barcelona, my first trip outside of Sevilla and also the first time I will truly fly solo. When I booked my flight from Chicago to Spain I assumed it would be my first time flying alone, but since I met an entire tribe of kids from my program, I really didn’t make the trip by myself. Luckily, flying from Sevilla to Barcelona should be No Big Deal. I feel like I’d have to go out of my way to get lost or screw it up. Hopefully I’m right!

Actually, yesterday was doubly monumental because it also marked the first time I broke down and offered my patronage to a Spanish McDonald’s. That seven-hour stretch between lunch and dinner is a killer, and I fell prey to a 1 euro “Cono Kit Kat” — a vanilla ice cream cone with a Kit Kat bar sticking out the side. Best-spent euro of my life. I haven’t been tempted much by the sangria or the tapas here, but nobody warned me how many pastry shops there would be in this town, nor how divine the churros are. Churros con chocolate with be my demise before anything else in this country (that, or the erratic drivers heading in all directions down one-way streets). Francesca and I prefer to refer to buying sweets as “supporting local business.” There’s a surplus of healderías and dessert shops, and somebody’s gotta keep them afloat.

Aside from the sweets, I’ve also experienced Sevillian nightlife on one occasion since I’ve been here. A miracle! Elisa, the woman I live with, invited me out with her and her friends last Saturday. I don’t think I was paying attention when she told me where we were going, because suddenly we were driving 20 minutes out of town to a discoteca at 6 pm. I was confused; I thought these people didn’t go out til midnight?? Regardless, I enjoyed myself. I looked like an idiot. People dance flamenco here… I don’t dance, period. I think I was that goofy American girl who existed to provide entertainment for locals, with my new collection of Spanish swear words and insults and my inability to dance. But whatever, at least I got away from the now-defunct space heater.

Airport layover buddies engaged in a bit of botellón.

One mistake I made at the discoteca was wearing jeans. The Golden Rule of Sevilla: LEGGINGS LEGGINGS LEGGINGS. TIGHTS TIGHTS TIGHTS. And more tights. All you need to survive here is one pair, and it doesn’t even matter what goes on top. A potato sack or a Longaberger basket molded into a bustier would suffice. Spanish fashion warrants its own post, and someday there will be one, but for now I’ll leave it at that. Leggings and tights, tights and leggings. People wear all kinds of weird shit here, and I generally look frumpy and unshowered (because I am). I don’t know what came over me, but I bought a jumper yesterday. A jumper. Apparently J. Lo and I switched bodies in some kind of Freaky Friday scenario, because the Lauren I’ve known for 20 years would never look in the direction of a jumper, much less purchase one, but being in this strange place has convinced me that I can get away with wearing a silk-ish jumper that I snagged on sale. I’m not the only one who’s lost her mind to Spanish fashion. Last weekend we went to botellón (drink near the river), and all of the girls in my program got the memo about dressing like a vamped up Endora from “Bewitched” and marching around in heeled boots. I’ve stopped resisting the metallic leggings and neon tights, and perhaps for a few months I’ll welcome them into my wardrobe.

I’m starting to feel more comfortable with my living situation, my knowledge of the city and the friends I’ve made here. I can’t believe it’s already February, and the rapid movement of time has hit me especially hard this month. I prefer not to write about anything very personal outside of my private journals, but for the past few days I’ve had a hard time grasping the fact that it’s been almost a full year since my cousin Neil passed away. It’s these times that I hate being away from home, being away from my family, because over the past year I’ve become acutely aware of how quickly life can slip away from any one of us. I’ve also seen my aunt and uncle in an unimaginable amount of pain, and it’s an agony I wish I could erase more than anything. Though I’m happy to be here, this is perhaps one of the only points of the semester that I regret not being back in the States.

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