BARCELONA!

Have you ever been stuck a boring place for a while doing lot’s of work and then you take a vacay and it feels like life could NOT get any better? That’s what Barcelona was like. We all got off the plane and just started screaming. We took a group trip to one of the top points of the city and took a gondola across to another large tower. So beautiful. Obviously we went out the first night and had a blast. The local people were all really nice to us; cab drivers, bar tenders, waiters, across the board super friendly. I’ve heard from people that Barcelona is not a very welcoming place but we felt right at home. I met a guy from U of Georgia and after making fun of him hardcore for going to a club alone (which I do all the time as well as most of my excursions in Spain) we talked and hung out all night. Of course I fly half way across the world to hang out with an American, but don’t worry the next day he introduced me to his friend who was from Italy and was living in Spain for five years. We went to a fountain show. It was SO cool. Fantasmic style awesome, but while we were there this butt-face started making fun of us for being American (in Spanish, like I don’t speak that or something). We got mad but he had a pony-tail and was wearing a denim tuxedo so the jokes on him.

We went to an Irish bar to see the Italian guy’s buddies play. They sang all American songs: covers of “Superstitious”, “Boots are Made for Walking” and lot’s of Red Hot Chili Peppers. They were really freaking good and the lead singer was DEFINATLEY on some very heavy drugs, but he had a really sweet beard so I’m totally not judging him. I think I might grow a really sweet beard…if I ever hit puberty.

The next day we went to the Picasso museum, which was sort of underwhelming. I did a report on him in class and was very excited to see the museum but I like his work in the Reina Sofia in Madrid better. The Blue Period room was very cool but we were literally DRENCHED from head to foot after a serious rainstorm so we were not the happiest campers.

The day after that I went to the Park Guell with that kid from Georgia. It’s so gigantic and beautiful. Then we met up with other kids in my program ate some paella and got the best crepes ever. Nutella, chocolate and banana. I just want to have that delicious formula in my mouth forever and ever. Later that night we went to a club called Cabaret Berlin where all the dancers were on these very strange apparatuses that moved across the ceiling from one side of the room to the other. They were very awkwardly draped over them. It was the opposite of sexy, although I think that’s what they were going for.

The last day there I spent at the out door Greek Theater, which was really freaking awesome. There weren’t any shows playing while I was in the city but the theater itself was really incredible to see. A beautiful park and garden surround it. It really made me want to do classical theatre outside. Then I downed a goffre (waffles sprinkled with powdered sugar and covered in either jam or chocolate). They are my new obsession. 

BurGOsomewhere else besides Burgos.

Burgos is boring. We traveled for like an hour on a hot bus and the city is kinda lame. The nightlife doesn’t really exist, but we tried to make it happen anyway. We saw one guy black-out and fall into the arms of his friends, but that could have been him just passing out from the smell of B.O. which was quite prevalent in one club. Defeated, we went home and decided to just chill in the hotel the rest of the weekend in this city that can only be described as the Wyoming of Spain. No offence to Wyomingers…(it’s a word trust me), but when you visit the States from another country your first thought is not “I should really go to Wyoming”.

During the next day we went to the famous Cathedral in Burgos, which was actually really amazing. It’s one of the biggest churches I’ve ever seen and the stuff inside is pretty incredible. Then we got to go to an old castle and go under ground into a well, which was also pretty sweet. Just when Burgos was looking up it went right back to earning the name BOREgos. We went on an archeological dig…it sounds cool, but trust us, it was not! We did not see any fossils and it was nothing like Jurassic Park. The tour guide kept speaking really quickly and our teachers informed us that she wasn’t saying anything worth repeating in English. SO, one of the girls and I decided to fake translate what she was probably saying in our own words. This consisted of us taking one word of a sentence in Spanish that we could understand and turning into a story about how she caught her boyfriend cheating on her and she knows that the skank is one of the women on this very tour. When she held up the head of a skeleton we decided she was saying “this is his head. I ripped off his mandible jaw”. The guide kept looking at me while talking cuz I try to be a responsive audience member, but I was trying so hard to stifle laughter that it made me laugh harder and I started crying. Like full on shaking crying, while tears streamed down my face. I hope she thought I was really emotional about cave men.

When we got back from the trip my host mom had me come to the beach with her daughters and their husbands. THEN they told me I had to come over and watch the futbol game on TV. I did and it was SO much fun. They kept serving me Calimochos (wine mixed with Coke-sounds gross but it’s delicious) and giving me food. They also kept making sure I knew what was happening in the conversation and focused everything on me, you know how I hate to be the center of attention, but I played the role of the martyr in this case, lol. The only awkward part of the night was when they invited their cousin over because they wanted to set me up with her. I never told my host family that I like-a-the boys and that made this slightly uncomfortable, but she is a really nice girl and I think she pretty much knew what was going on. Either that or she just wasn’t interested in me and let’s face it: THAT could not have been the case. 

Bilbao Wow Wow

We file onto the bus for Bilbao and after we are all seated the bus driver says that we have to get off and wait for another bus, because we are a group and we are taking up to much room…There are many over-dramatic screams just to let the everyone know we are Americans… how embarrassing, lol. We get on another bus and after about an hour of really stuffy hot traveling we arrive in Bilbao! Home of one of the nine Planet Hollywood’s left in the world… I’m great with random facts that no one cares about.

   

When we get to the city we go to a super-boring museum about the Basque people. We were all expecting it to be a lot cooler. Then we eat together at a restaurant with a built in 3-course menu. I get paella, which is a traditional Spanish dish. It’s basically rice, seafood and DELICOUS all cooked together in a very interesting way that I don’t know how to explain. I also had fish. They were not afraid to leave the whole fish head on the plate, so I was not afraid to turn it over so at least he wasn’t staring at me.

Completely stuffed we walk along the BEAUTIFUL river to the Guggenheim Museum!! Sooooooo amazing in Bilbao. A lot of people were all “meh, there’s one in NYC and it’s probably better than the one in Spain”. WRONG! I like the one in NYC but I LOVE the one here. (“I finally learned the difference between like and love. Cuz I like my skechers but I LOVE my Prada backpack…But I love my sketchers…That’s cuz you don’t have a Prada backpack”. Sorry, but when I get a chance to quote 10 Things I Hate About You, I take it). The museum was incredible. I liked almost every exhibit. The featured work was a humongous room with about six different mazes made out of iron, I think… you walked through the maze and each one produced a different reaction. One made you feel like you were leaning to the right the entire time, one gave you the impression that when you entered you were leaning right but by the end you were leaning the opposite way and one made you feel as though the wall was getting closer. Really interesting. Another exhibit I loved was a cave made entirely out of cardboard and packing tape. It must have taken a lifetime to build. It was massive and each cave alcove had a different subject, but they were all connected by a similar theme. Some alcoves had books, some had posters of movies, some had (soda) pop cans, but the whole exhibit had aluminum foil explosives inside it connecting the entire cave. I took it to mean that all of these things pack so much information that the knowledge you obtain from them is explosive and that you shouldn’t let the fact that they were pop-culture-induced deter you from learning from them. Someone else thought it meant that pop culture was destroying the world and turning your brain into a cave of dynamite waiting to explode. Interesting that we got totally different things out of it. 

When we leave the museum there is a GIANT dog sculpture. It is at least two stories high and is covered in many different kinds of flowers. As Deuce Bigalow, male gigalo, would say... "Damn that's a huge bitch!" 

"You'd have to be a fool these days...to want to go to school these days"

It’s Saturday and I don’t have class! Let’s do this Spain. It’s beautiful outside and I head to the gym on campus. They won’t let me in because they say that I paid for academics, but not for use of the gym. I explained that I paid the University of Miami a very large sum of money to use everything and they get pissy and start saying that “all the other students in the world” pay extra for the gym why should you be any different (kind of slamming me cuz I’m American…oh no you didn’t!). I try to explain that I’m not going to pay for something I already paid for and UM should pay them whatever the fee is (especially since we were told the gym was included), but that did not fly. This entire convo was in Spanish…my first argument in another language lol. I don’t let it phase me and I decide to just run outside when I find an OUTDOOR public gym…What??? It’s not very nice and all the machinery is made out of the material that jungle gym’s are made out of, but it’s better than nothing. Plus I’m lifting while staring out at the city, the ocean and the mountains. Kind of amazing.

Then I go back to my host mom’s house and do yoga on her terrace. Yes, she has a terrace, no I don’t really do yoga, but I did try it. lol. I’m just not the type of person who likes to stretch for that long, I really like to have time to think to myself but I’d rather be moving.

When I’m done I head out to get coffee. I’m a coffee addict and without it I turn into something very unpleasant resembling that big pile of angry leaves from Fraggle Rock. Local coffee shops are my favorite thing ever, but the coffee here is very very small. There is almost no water in them and they are like half the size of a Starbucks TALL!! So tiny. It’s taken me awhile to get used to it, but it’s so strong and delicious (like me). This particular instance, however, I wanted to order a different kind of coffee I hadn’t had yet so I just randomley picked something on the menu. I’ve been doing this a lot and it almost always works out. You just ask for something at a restaurant and it’s so thrilling having no idea what you are going to get. This time it was coffee with liquor in it. WHOOPS! It’s the middle of the day and I just bought alcohol. I have no choice but to down it and then do some homework. I’m very adventurous. I hope my mother will be proud when she reads this.

That night my host mom made me an incredible plate of cheese, meat and fruit. They eat dinner super late here (like 9:30 or 10) and lunch is a huge meal, while dinner is small. It’s a lot better for you to eat your bigger meal earlier in the day, hence the lack of fat people here. That, and there is only one McDonald’s in the whole city. I haven’t been there yet, but I’m sure if I ever get homesick I will order a 50 piece chicken nugget and let America just coarse through my body. Clog my arteries with the taste of freedom? There’s nothing more patriotic. 

Mi Casa Es Su Casa

It’s been about a week since I got to Spain and living with a host mom has been nothing short of fantastic. Her name is Carmen and she is basically what would happen if Betty Crocker, Hillary Clinton and the lady from Facts of Life had a baby. In short, she’s the bomb. She cooks, she cleans, she knits, she has a full time job, three grown daughters, she can school most people in movie trivia and she has a lot of really interesting opinions about politics. The only thing she does not do is speak English, but that has turned out to be an up-side for me because ONLY being able to communicate in Spanish has made me light years better. The first couple of days were very challenging, but never really disheartening. We got through a lot by pointing at things, very Hellen Keller-esque.

As we got to know each other better and my Spanish started to rapidly improve we were able to move on to topics more in depth than “do you like fish” and “do you need to use the restroom”. We are both big tennis fans so it was fun to chat about that for a while. I told her I would kick her butt on the court and the joke landed, which was very exciting (my first joke in another language!). Either that, or she just felt really uncomfortable and decided to laugh it off, lol.

Then we moved on to movies, which we could literally talk about for days…Julia Roberts in English is Julia Roberts in Spanish, it’s really a great way to make small talk with someone of another background. PLUS the movies here are almost all American movies with Spanish voices on top of them. I think I always thought that there was a whole other culture of films here. After all, there is a Best Foreign Movie category at the Oscars, I always figured that they imported one or two really huge American movies and the rest were Spanish based but it’s just the opposite. We saw Pirates de Caribe (Pirates of the Caribbean) the other night…long and boring in English, longer and more boring in Spanish. We had a long convo about Hitchcock and we watched Rear Window in Español. I told her that in the USA some people compare me to Jimmy Stewart…again more uncomfortable laughter (as if to say, “that’s sweet of them” lol).

There was a big election here and she was not pleased about it. She kept yelling things out at the TV. The conservative party here won big and the liberals are not pleased. She does not really identify with either party and she was telling me that it’s not like the states with just two huge parties and the rest unimportant. There is always a left side and a right side but there are a few different parties that play a big factor in different elections. She asked me how I felt about the death penalty and Osama Bin Laden. Its interesting to discuss something complex in another language, because you want so badly to get your point across, but finding the words in English can sometimes be tough enough. She couldn’t understand any time when the death penalty would need to be used and although I tried to explain that Osama couldn’t be captured, because he kept escaping she still did not agree with it. Then we got into a very interesting convo about the death penalty and how weird it is that it’s so accepted in the states. I agreed and that convo led into the topic of the mentally ill who are treated equally as poorly here as in the states.

The economy is majorly struggling here as well. There are no jobs for young people after graduation. Sound familiar? The only difference is they pay very little for college… oh and they don’t have to worry about paying for healthcare. We’ve started to discuss that as well, but I hope to form a better opinion on universal healthcare at the end of this trip. It’s still very complicated for me. While discussing all this stuff she is literally serving me three meals a day (when I don’t go out with the other students). The food is amazing! She is a great cook and if you get past the fact that you are eating an entire fish that is staring you in the face, it is freaking fantastic. She also does my laundry… I’m spoiled. She even told me that Gwyneth Paltrow came to Spain and lived with a host family so things can TOTALLY happen for me, hahaha. ‘I hope she likes dinner theater’ was all I could think. But how cool would it be if I got famous and then I could fly her to the states to see movies and shows. I think I’m gonna make that happen… but only cuz Carmen has been so awesome. Wonderful people deserve to be rewarded. Maybe I’ll even marry Neil Patrick Harris…BUT only so she can meet him. I’m so selfless sometimes. 

You never forget how to ride a bike... which is not true for learning a language

The second day of class was kind of long, because we were all really anxious to get out and enjoy the city. We still had fun as we tried to explain to our teachers (in Spanish) how ridiculously expensive books and tuition are in America. The Spanish students at the University in our town pay less for their semester than we do for one class in America…………QUE??? Kind of wild, considering we have one of their teachers and its basically formatted the same as college in the states. Our Spanish professor couldn’t believe how expensive our schoolbooks are. “Hoder”, is the phrase she used lol, it basically means “f**k”. Then we explained what parties are like in the states and then when she asked me “if I like girls who wear skanky clothing”, I said…”No me gusta muchachas” WHOOPS! There it is, out in the open in the first week of class. Whatever, I really didn’t want it to come up in five weeks and have an awkward “why did you lie about that” convo.

After a very funny class we all decide to meet by the ocean and rent bikes! We take the bikes all the way around the city of Santander. It’s stunningly beautiful. The water is so blue, the sand is a very light brown and we are surrounded by mountains. A girl in our group “broke the chain of her bike”, AKA she wanted a “guapo chico”, to help her fix it. A Spanish guy jumped up immediately from the sand and fixed the bike for her. Best pick up maneuver ever? We traveled on up to a place where we could really see the lighthouse and the famous palace in Santander. 

We were climbing uphill (Sherie Renee Scott style) and finally made it, to discover that you can’t actually go in the palace cuz we are not “royal”. I started screaming that I was Kate Middleton’s third cousin once removed, therefore I am now royal. Don’t worry, I did it in a British accent so now they will totally think that Brits are the loud annoying ones, not us. You’re welcome.

We zoomed back to the bike stop and walked over to meet all the other students and teachers at a restaurant. Our group leader decided to just order a bunch of different things for us to try, which was an awesome idea! There were tamales, Spanish sausages, salmon, tomatoes, calamari and an assortment of desserts. We got the works and it was all really good. LOVE SPANISH FOOD! Totally stuffed, we all said goodbye and walked home. I got lost, cuz I’m a turd fergusson. I kind of panicked and thought I was going to die, then I literally stumbled upon my house. Later I found out that this is one of the safest towns in the world…there’s like no crime. Ever. Kinda like Detroit???

SantanDER I? Oh, I SantanDARE!

I finally make it to Santander, Spain and I’m completely exhausted but am too excited to care. My host mom was waiting for me in the airport, but because of all my last minute delays she ended up having to leave for work, so I am left to fend for myself in a place I’ve never been, where no one speaks English…I get a calamari bocadillo (sandwich basically) at the airport and immediately feel like I can do anything. So freaking delicious.

I start walking toward the bus station, which was like 2 km away…very far considering I have ALL my luggage for the next six weeks. I’m basically walking along the highway with a huge ass suitcase, backpack and very little sleep. I couldn’t take a cab even if I had an abundance of money, because this is kind of a small town and cabs are not easy to come by. Plus I have no internet on my phone and I’m basically walking blind toward what I hope is the bus station. Once I finally reach what I think is the bus station I try to ask a local woman which line I need to take to get to my street. She cannot understand a word I’m saying, nor I her. I was speaking in Spanish but my first day I was especially rusty, plus I just don’t know as much as I probably should. Her daughter pulls up in her car to pick her up and she speaks some English! I ask her which bus I should take and she doesn’t know. Sad that she can’t help me she says “Get in, I’ll just take you”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT!?! Thank God for nice people in this world. It was one of the coolest ways to be introduced to a city. The people here are for the most part really nice and helpful. It was so amazing. She drove me right up to my door for free and said “Welcome to Santander”. If she hadn’t done this I would probably be in a ditch right now by the airport cooking beans on a fire, homeless-guy-in-Dennis-the-Menace style. I said “if you ever find yourself in NYC look me up and I’ll show you around or help you with whatever you need”. She was all “sure”, but I bet she was thinking “can you just get out of my car so I can go on with my day” lol.

I wait outside the apartment for my host mom. She gets home from work, shows me the apartment and I pass out for like four hours. I wake up and decide to walk to the school so I have some idea what is going on here. The school is cool. It’s about a twenty minute walk from where I am staying, which is kind of perfect. Just long enough to feel like I’ve gotten some decent exercise everyday especially since the whole city consists of hills.

I head home and sleep through the night until the next day when I go to class. I meet up with the other students from UM and feel a lot better after speaking to some of them about how intimidated they were by all the communication barriers. School is good, but I have more trouble than most of the other students understanding people. It has been YEARS since I have taken a Spanish class and though I studied a lot on my own before coming to Spain it takes your ear a while to get used to the accent and the incredibly fast speaking. Besides the fact that I can tell it will be challenging, I like both my professors and I go to a local restaurant with one of the girls in my class. We get traditional Spanish tortillas and drink white wine for stupid cheap. All the wine by the glass in Santander is like $2.20 and it’s actually really good. We drink, people-watch and talk about how a day ago we were surrounded by chain restaurants, lot’s of obese people and multi-tasking galore. If everyday is like this, we might never leave Spain!