venice

Turns out I fell asleep for a little while, and waking up early to catch this train was not the best feeling in the world. Goba and I finally got our asses up and set out on our epic fail of a morning. First, halfway to the train station, goba realizes she forgot her phone, but we decide its too late to go back. Next, we wait in line at the train station to grab a ticket only to find out they are all sold out except for first class which is way more expensive, not to mention these high speed trains already cost an arm and a leg. So we get tickets for a later train in an hour or two. Then, we walk all the way back to gobas apartment to get her phone and decide to have some cereal, only to take a bite into very old and sour milk, yum. We ditch that breakfast and start walking back towards the train station. We stop at a café to get chocolate croissants and as we are walking out and along the street, goba gets yelled at by an Italian man. We turn around and see him pointing at a napkin on the ground. I safely assume it came from the bag since goba had just taken her treat out of it. Goba goes to the napkin and kicks it with her foot, and seeing it is nothing important starts walking back away from it. The guy gets really mad saying, ‘this it Italia! We are clean!’ and goba is utterly flustered not knowing what to do, thinking it wasn’t hers and the guy just wanted her to pick up a random napkin, even though I was on the side like, goba you dropped it. She stands there in complete confusion with the guy yelling at her, now, ‘where are you from!’ goba refuses to answer, finally picks up the napkin and walks away.
We finally make it safe to the train station. Overall, hysterical morning. The entire train ride over to Venice, I am trying to fall asleep and recover a little for the rest of the day, but one man makes it completely impossible because he is yelling into his cell phone so loud, im pretty sure asia fuckin heard him. I am seriously surprised not one person turned around and told him to shut the fuck up. Or even better yet, someone should have started an even louder phone conversation right next to him so he would fuckin quiet down. After sleeping for a possibly 17 seconds, I opened my eyes to crazily see water in every direction. I had forgotten we were going to Venice for a second. As goba and I were getting off the train, the older men who we had been sitting next to for the entire duration of the trip start asking us questions in Italian. Im sorry but we have been here the entire time and you pick now, the time when we are all leaving and going into different directions, to start a conversation and confuse us with your strange language? Similarly, we were Italian-verbally attacked by a restaurant greeter while looking for our hostel. As we were walking towards our hostel, which was conveniently located right across the grand canal across from the train station, we were walking down the road looking at the numbers on the doors but it was hidden at first and we didn’t see it so we were looking around near this restaurant and the greeter of this place, who are always really intense by the way, just starts yelling at us and pointing at a hotel a couple doors over, and we try to say, no thats not the number, and he just keeps yelling loudly and pointing at the place and walking over to us to walk us to the hotel as if we cant fucking see it. We get so harassed we end up walking in there just to get away from him. Seriously, this trip just keeps getting more and more hilarious. After a couple minutes, we dip out and find the actual place we are looking for. We get our keys and get settled in- it was a one bedroom with a big bed and a bathroom, so pretty simply but it does the job.
Armed with a map of Venice and directions given by our hostel lady, we immediately set out to explore the ‘sinking city.’ We walked along the main road up one way towards Plaza San Marco, the main plaza, where Dodge’s Palace and Accademia are, among other beautiful buildings and libraries. Along the way, we walked into a bunch of little churches and shops and even befriended a couple of the gondola people. Plaza San Marco was absolutely beautiful, with the San Marco Church absolutely breathtaking. It looks Indianish with all its points and its completely covered in gold. We went inside and that is even more beautiful. Definitely one of the most beautiful buildings ive ever seen; that alone was probably worth the trip. Next, goba and I walked through the entirety of the Dodges Palace which is the place of the government. That too was extremely lavish and gorgeous with all types of carvings and paintings, and everything so detailed. There were so many rooms for all different types of purchases with silk walls and carved ceilings and statues and everything is made of all different types of materials- silk, marble, wood, etc. After exploring this plaza quite thoroughly, goba and I headed over to Ponte Rialto, the bridge that has the Rialto Market. This was very busy and it had all types of goodies- so much glass jewelry, crazy masks, etc. after walking around some more, we made our way back to the hotel, figuring it was time to start getting ready.
We showered, chilled a little, watched some music videos, I learned goba loves that new black eyed peas song ‘ill meet you halfway’ which now get constantly stuck in my head, and then we headed out. We figured the best way to find the good restaurants and bars were to follow the crowd. However, we quickly realized there were no crowds. Hardly even any people at that! We were a little lost, hello Venice? We came to party! We asked a couple people and they led us to a plaza which was supposed to be one of the best- I think it had 5 restaurants and maybe 2 bars. There were people just botteloning in the middle and chillin, but not many. We decided it was just because it was early so we went to grab dinner at Campo Margherita, where I had the absolute best pasta of my life. It was tortellini in a white cream sauce with mushrooms and ham, yum! We got a bottle of wine too, of course, and ate slowly, waiting to see if the nightlife would pick up at all. To add to our awkward and confusing moments that encapsulated our life’s on our way to Venice, when a table of 4 people next to us were leaving, on of the older guys from it randomly asks ‘are you coming to the soccer game with us!’ looking in my direction. I was super confused and so did a complete turnaround, assured there must be someone behind me hes talking to because.. who is this guy?? But he was indeed talking to me, wanting to know if we were joining them tomorrow. I told him we were leaving tomorrow, sorry, and then goba and I burst into hysterical laughter as they walked away wondering where the fuck this random invitation came from. We finished our wine and on our way out asked our waiter where the discotecas were. He informed us there was only one, ONE!, discoteca in Venice called Piccolo Mundo, not giving us much to work with. Walking out of the restaurant, I saw a huge crowd of people with one guy singing and playing a guitar around a girl wanting her to kiss another older guy with a beard that probably housed a family of birds with all the crumbs he was packing. As soon as they saw us, the group immediately took after us, circling us, playing and singing, urging us that we kiss the guy. I quickly understand after realizing that this guy is dressed up as a baby with a bib and all that he is getting married and this is his party. I think ive already talked about bachelor and bachelorette parties and how they get all dressed up like the Duff man from Granada; well this was the same thing. I gave the man a kiss on the cheek while goba stood next to me horrified wishing she could hide into a hole. After minutes of unsuccessful harassing to get goba to kiss him, they walk off to their next victim. Walking away from this situation, goba exclaims, ‘weird shit always happens when im with you,’ to which I could only nod and agree- I have to admit its true. We headed over to the one open bar in the plaza which attracted us, and probably every else, with their bright lights. We got ourselves some drinks and then met these British guys, who I immediately informed that they would be able to get any girl just with their accent. They seemed pretty pleased with that but I doubt its anything new. We ended up hanging out with them the entire night, drinking, laughing, visiting the one other bar right next door which served sex on a gondola shots, taking absinthe shots, and also walking all the way to Piccolo Mundo to find a $10 euro entrance fee which we denied and so walked all the way back to the first bar. I forget their names but they were cute and quite entertaining. Overall, the best possible night we could have had to rock venice’s socks off with only 2 bars.

The next morning, we woke up slightly early, so that we could explore again. There were high waters which were quite inconvenient because the city was overflowing. Thankfully, it wasn’t so terrible that the whole city was underwater so I was somewhat able to keep my feet dry. Goba and I got our water boat tickets and jetted off to Murano island, the glass blowing island not far away from Venice. Several years ago, all the glass blowers were transferred to this island in fear that they would start a fire in Venice and now murano is overflowing with crazy glass art. They really make everything and anything- all types of jewelry, animals, lamps, tables, wine stoppers, anything! And everything is so wildly colorful I seriously almost couldn’t even handle it. I would said murano is like art on acid. There is no other way to explain it. I got my dad a sweet glass blown wine stopper, and some jewelry for myself and family members, and then we headed back to Venice on the water boat. We stopped off at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum which was pretty cool. It had a lot of sweet paintings and some statues, even with a little garden. We tried to see Santa Maria Salute church which was supposed to be awesome but of course we went to go visit it during its closed hours, no big deal. At least we got to see the outside. Then, we walked around the city more, walking past those guys who sell the fake purses. One time, I glanced at one and the guy goes ‘free for you’. I was like oh, no way, really? To which he says ‘free price’… of course, bastard. I was ready to walk away with it for free but hey, whatever. Later on, another guy offers me a ‘free’ bag. This encounter was much more interesting however. He then asks me if I want to be his ‘homie’. I say, umm, sure, I guess ill be your homie, like your friend, your pal, right?’ to this, he gets the absolute biggest grin on his face, looking back between goba and me, saying, ya my homie, youll be my homie! Then he says, ‘lets go!’. Ummm, where we going? What do I have to do? Whats going on?.. and here is his response: ‘hotel?’…. ya, no thanksss. I guess I don’t want to be your homie so much anymore, considering you have a grand total of 4 teeth in that mouth of yours and live on the street, you dirty rat. Goba and I then ended our Venice trip with a glass of white wine by the river before stepping onto our train back to Florence. This train ride was another disaster because since Venice was the first stop, all the seats were open so we just sat wherever, but throughout the trip, it started to get filled and goba and I kept getting kicked out of our seats and then going back into more wrong seats. Every time the same guy would say, those seats are wrong!, but I would just not care enough to find my right seat. I preferred waiting to get kicked out again. Seriously though, would it really have been that hard to find the right seats from the beginning? Apparently so.

firenze

Yes, I made it! First of all, its sunny and gorgeous out- something I haven’t seen in so long since it has been nonstop rain in Sevilla ever since we got there. It actually hasn’t rained this much in 70 years, SEVENTY! Can you imagine? People are dying from floods in Portugal and France, its obscene. But anyways, back to Florence! And goba! I hadn’t hung out with that girl in way too long and here we were reunited again, the dynamic duo. She picked me up from the train station and we walked through Florence back to her house. I saw the Duomo for the first time on my way to her apartment and it was breathtaking. Its absolutely enormous and its so beautiful and detailed. Its mainly white but with green and orangeish color stripes, and of course the immense orange dome. Really gorgeous. I took a delicious shower when I got to her apartment (which is actually really cute- she lives with 6 girls!) and then we went out to lunch. We went to ‘Pino’s’ which isn’t the actual name of the place but it’s the name of the owner who is the cutest Italian man ive ever seen! I seriously regret not taking a picture with him. This place is kind of like a deli and Pino makes the BEST paninis- im not kidding, these things were heavenly. Great bread, and then all sorts of toppings from cheese to potatoes to spinach to peppers- anything you would want, and then heated to perfection.
After devouring lunch, Goba and I walked around Florence. We saw the Santa Croce church and that plaza and then walked across the Arno River and up a huge hill to get to Plaza Michelangelo, a viewpoint for the entire city. It was such a nice day out and the view was incredible. The first thing you notice is definitely the Duomo. At this plaza, there was a statue of David, but it wasn’t the real one. Apparently there are a lot of fakes all around Florence and the real one is absolutely enormous and in one of the museums- I never got to see the real one. Up on the same hill was the San Miniato Church, which was really pretty and all golden inside. Right next to this church was a little cemetery. I don’t know why but I have always enjoyed walking through cemeteries- not in a morbid way but im not exactly sure why, maybe because its peaceful. I don’t know, I find cemeteries pretty- how people are remembered I guess. This one was pretty cool though. There was only a little part of it that looked like an actual cemetery with tombs laid out next to each other but the rest was just all white walls with white marble stone heads that had names and dates written on them. These walls were covered and covered in hanging flowers. I had never seen a cemetery quite like this one.
Later, Goba and I descended back down to the city center, going by the Duomo, definitely one of the main attractions of Florence. It is extremely impressive. We didn’t go in but I did the next day. Next, we went into a cute little church that is gobas favorite because its quiet and pretty too. Later, we went to the San Lorenzo market which is a long street crowded entirely with street vendors. They sell typical tourist objects and clothes, but also beautiful creative Carnaval masks and jewelry, among other things. One piece that really made me laugh were shorts that had the David statue dick picture at the crotch- do people really buy that?? And if people really do buy them as gifts for people, do they really actually wear them?? I guess they are a hilarious joke gift- truly obscene. Also in the market, leather, so much leather! Wallets, jackets, keychains, purses- Allyson made sure to get at least one of each of these, no joke, she really went wild. Once you get to the end of the street, you start entering the more sketcky vendors. It was here that I saw a little vendor with hippie-ish bags and so I stopped to look. I immediately got hounded by the vendor trying to spit out deals and basically pushing the bag onto me. This guy was not taking ‘just looking’ as an answer. Next thing we know, goba and I have the thinnest shittiest rainbow string bracelets tied around our wrists. Oh shit, does this mean we are married? Goba panics, as always, which I shamelessly take pleasure in, because I like seeing her squirm in awkward situations. Finally, we do manage to escape from the vendor and continue walking until I see another one, the only one mind you, slightly related to weed and the red, green, yellow colors of bob Marley followers. There is a small selection of bowls, of which I pick one out for my brother and barter the price down at least a little bit. Although I think I did ok bartering, I wish I had Jill with me on that one and especially in Morocco because she is obsessed with bartering and quite good at it. Miss you girl!
After walking around some more, window shopping, and seeing the city, goba and I headed back to her house. We went food shopping and tomassa made us dinner- pasta with a light sauce of cherry tomatoes and random spices- so good, thank ya girl! We hung out for awhile and then went out. We decided to do a bar crawl to check out a bunch of different bars they hadn’t been to yet. We walked into this one bar that looked normal enough from the outside but then when you walked in and looked to the right, there were a bunch of people lying down getting massaged. It was a little weird and although I would have loved a massage, this wasn’t the time nor place. We were looking to get drunk, which we managed to do quite well at the next bar which was crowded with tons of people outside of it. We now refer to this place as Pedro’s because that was the name of the bartender and he made bomb ass drinks. Pedro didn’t fuck around- he gave us so much alcohol. We chilled there for awhile, drank a ton, stared at random pictures of half naked women on one part of the wall, and then walked down the street to check out more bars. We came across a couple and got more drinks but none compared to pedro’s, so we eventually returned to drink more before heading out for our final destination- Twice, a discoteca in Florence. Sadly, I reached blackout city before making it to Twice so even though we were dancing there for about 2 hours, I remember none of it. I guess its safe to say my night was a blur. Goba, on the other hand, had a fabulous time at Twice. The Italian Maneater, as they call her, apparently is always instantly joined with an Italian every time she enters this club, and this time was no different. She was ‘talking’ with one of her many victims all night, and thankfully for me, it was documented by one of her friends. The next day, we were able to rifle through several pictures that showed gobas entertainment for the night. At this point, she mentions, ‘hmm, I remember him being younger.. and better looking.’ I feel many of us think this the morning after. To her horrification, she receives a text the next day inviting her to drinks- I think his wife and kids would be rather upset. I guess this is a typical thing for goba though- getting Italian men and then half-regretting it in the morning. Walking around Florence, she has been called out by her full name before by an Italian man, to which her response was scurrying away with her head down.
Anyways, after all that action in Twice, goba and the girls all dragged my ass home and I woke up in the morning, feeling fabulous as I always do, even if the night before took place way beyond blackout city borders. Its both a blessing and a curse.
The next day, we went to Pino’s again for lunch which was so great. I seriously am gonna start making the same paninis he does because they are a delicious concoction. Goba and I set out again to visit some more of the city. We went into the Duomo, which is spectacular from the outside, but not so impressive in the inside other than the dome. The inside is enormous with big arches but other than that, quite plain, until you get to the inside of the dome, which is absolutely gorgeous. It’s entirely painted with people who look as if they are all looking down at you- it looks so real and its with great colors and its just SO bIg! That’s what she said. But yes, pretty cool. We also visited one of the bigger plazas where there were a bunch of big statues representing Gods and such. One of the biggest and best statues was one of Zeus, maybe?, on his chariot of horses. Its a fountain and from what Goba tells me, one of the most defaced articles in the city of Florence. Drunk kids used to take full advantage of the fountain when drunk to either pee or go swimming, so now they constantly have guards around it at night. We quite possibly stopped for a gelato somewhere along our walk throughout the city which was so fresh and delicious. Walking around the market again, guess who we saw! Holy shit, John Denapoli, a kid from our high school I probably haven’t seen in 3 or 4 years. He is an architecture major who is studying abroad in Florence too. What a coincidence. We also spent a little bit of time out at H&M before getting ready to go out to dinner.
We ate at Acqua al 2, a very authentic Italian restaurant. Goba, Ali, and I and decided to split this thing called ‘a taste of pasta.’ What happens is they give you seven different tiny tastes of different types of pasta. They were all entirely different shapes, colors, sauces, etc. it was really fun to explore a bunch of what they had to offer. We also split ‘a taste of steak’ which was really good. There were three different types all with different sauces again- the balsamic sauce was really good but they had a blueberry sauce that was absolutely divine. Of course, we popped open a couple bottles of wine with our meal as well.
That night we bar hopped out to several different places. The first was a little bar called Angie’s, which had wild decorations in the back room that was hosting a little dance club of its own with a girl dj. The paintings on the wall were fucking sweet though-would have fallen into straight tripping status. We danced and drank awhile at this place before heading down to a different bar, Kikuya, that was a little more original Italian, and to our surprise, who do we see but john denapoli again! We chilled here until the wee early hours of the morning until we decided to leave, at which point I actually perched myself on the back of a passing motorcycle hoping to get a ride until Goba screamed and tore me off. Instead, we went on a search for the ‘secret bakery’ which is a little bakery that bakes for other bigger bakeries but is only open from 2 to 4 am or something. Its not even marked as a bakery- it only has a sign outside that says ‘quiet please’ but it gives random passersby pizza and croissant type things for real cheap. Sadly, we were too drunk to ever find it and returned home feeling unsuccessful. Instead, we made a bertucci’s type of concoction with olive oil and red spices and dipped warm bread into it. Instead of going to bed which would have been a good idea since goba and I had plans to go to Venice for a couple days, I chose to watch ‘factory girl’, probably my new favorite movie. It’s about andy Warhol and his main girl inspiration of the time, edie segwick. It’s a ballin ass movie and im fully not embarrassed to say ive watched it twice since then.

pisa

Italia, here I am! I took a bus from the airport to the city center and decided to chill around there for a little while to visit the tower and a little of the city. I started walking around but keeping in mind that my intuition about directions and knowing where I am are very close to zero, I decided to ask a nice lady where the fuck I was going and where the tower was. She said we were kind of far and offered to give me a ride, to which I was hesitant because I didn’t know her at all but she seemed normal so I said, what the hell!, sure. I was then blindfolded by her gang and taken to a dungeon and… nah, she brought me right to the tower! What a nice lady, grazie! So I finally got to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, not bad. I think it may be smaller than I had expected but it was pretty cool. I wonder if it will ever fall over? Its situated in a little plaza with some other white buildings that were pretty. In that same plaza, there are a bunch of little vendors, a lot of which had very pretty decorated Carnaval masks with all different colors, feathers, sparkles, designs. I bought a purple feather one for Astrid which I knew was gonna be a bitch to carry around but I felt it was worth it. Since goba had told me that this was basically all there was to see in Pisa, I made my way to the train station and missed my train by less than 10 seconds. I hopped on the next one though and was definitely happy to sleep for a half hour more since I had gotten no sleep.

quickie in barcelona

Great fucking time even though I was only there for one night because I got to see carly! Made my flight over there alive, although once I arrived, it didn’t seem so sure I would make it alright. After approximately 17 seconds of sitting down on a park bench where I will be waiting carly for the next half hour, this sketchy guy with half his teeth and obviously not from Barcelona comes up to me and goes, ‘hey you wanna smoke?’. I was like, uh ya, if you weren’t the one askng me, or more politely said, no thanks. So he starts walking away and back to his gang of outlaws. They all start scheming and I keep getting random older guys and people from his crowd circling around me. At this point, im like ok, uh, no, im not about to get fucking jumped. The original guy that approached me comes over and sits down on the bench next to me with some friends and is like hey, come over, we are cool, we are good people. Ya thanks, not really. Later on, hes like ‘there are a lot of thieves’. Im like, thanks for pointing that out , you guys didn’t look sketchy enough… and he literally pushes my possibly believing in him as a good person by saying. ‘oh hey, if you want to go smoke or get a drink, I can watch your stuff’. … oh really? Thanks so much! Haha are you serious? No way dude. At this point, I feel as though swarms of his people are watching me, circling me, talking about the best possible way to grab my shit and rape me in the back corner. Awkward. Thankfully, carly calls! My savior! she’s here! We half run to each other because her ankle is about the size of a football. Im almost sad to see she doesn’t have her cane, which she has apparently been hopping around Barcelona with. She explains that she had been trying to catch the metro so she jumped down four stairs and rolled her ankle. The result was an enormous, black, blue, and purple growth on where her ankle was supposed to be, and the acquirement of a cane haha. Priceless. It was so great to finally be reunied with her! We start walking down the metro steps when a real dirty drunk guy with a bike follows us, smiling with his half tooth grin and sketchy eyes. He then starts circling us with his bike and chants ‘sex, sex, sex’. Like, seriously? WHERE AM I? WHAT IS THIS PLACE? My first impression of barcelona now consists of trying to get robbed by some gang and getting eye raped by some homeless drunk. And why, why does no one here have teeth? I can only hope the rest of Barcelona has more to offer! We catch the ultimately last metro ride back to carlys house with no more major mishaps other than another sketch raising his eyebrows wildly and repeatedly at us as the metro drives away. I later learned from one of carly’s Barcelona books that there is still a place in the city where girl prostitutes with dicks walk the streets looking for customers (normal)- I bet I was near that fucking street earlier. ‘prostitution is the oldest profession on earth”- Barney from ‘How I met your mother’, a great show Al introduced me to. Anyways, we finally make it back alive to carly’s dorm, a room with two beds, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. I automatically know which side is carlys- the one with all the books neatly stacked, clothes put away, and the bed made… oh wait, no, I meant the exact opposite of that. We get ready to go out and go to this bar called Dow Jones, yes, like the stock market. It’s actually a really interesting concept- drinks are worth a certain price but at times, the stock market crashes or rises and drinks change price. And surprise surprise, this place actually had legit drinks! Tequila sunrise and sex on the beach and anything my little heart would desire! We got ourselves some drinks and I went to meet some of her friends. I met romy, a girl that had spent last semester in sevilla so she was so excited to talk to me about her time there. I met some people that knew Kevin from my program in sevilla back home from school. Small world. After chilling at this bar for a little while, carly and I set out to go dancing! (typical). The cab driver didn’t know what we were talking about so he dropped us off somewhere else, at this club called Bikini. To get in was some work. The guys at the first entrance were debating whether carly would be allowed to go in since she was wearing a flip flop on the foot that was bandaged up. The second entrance guy said we had to pay, and frankly, I was having none of that, so I told him it was my only night here, please, please, etc. he finally let us in for free, but he told me I had to work on my negotiating skills, especially if I was studying business… good to know. Bikini was an entertaining time but probably wouldn’t go there again- first, it was all guys, which I wouldn’t have minded so much if second, they weren’t all so creepy. All of them would continuously grab carly and mines hands and try to pull us to them. Gets tiring after a while. I did get a sweet score from that place though- full bottle of vodka with two sips taken out of it. Pocketed that, and we left. Got another cab home- that’s one thing that is annoying about Barcelona is that you have to take cabs everywhere and they get expensive. Metro closes down at night and they have sevici bikes but they are only for Barcelona residents. Since it was 4, 5 or 6 ish, I tucked carly in and just stayed up until the time that I had to get on my bus to get to the girona airport, which was so convenient because the bus station is literally around the corner of carlys dorm. From there, I was glad to take a little nap on my plane heading over to Pisa, Italy!

granada

After a week of sevilla partying, we are on the road again going to Granada. As I just learned today, and will for the rest of my life, I just don’t learn. As with any other time that allyson and I have had to catch the bus, today was no different, and we decided it appropriate to leave the house at the time the bus was supposed to leave. The walk isn’t too long but when youre carrying a bag of heavy shit and walking fast, its kind of a bitch. So naturally, you say, well ‘next time’ we will know NOT to do this and we will leave earlier because we now know how miserable this brisk walk is. So, keeping this is mind this morning, at 9, when we should have been leaving, we went upstairs and sat ourselves down for a bowl of cereal… oh wait, sorry I just started talking about this morning, like 3 weeks later. Ok so I will come back to that in another post. Anyways, you get the point, it sucked but either way, we made it on the bus. And actually waited on the bus for 15 minutes before it left, so we might as well have walked calmly. Granada is probably a three hour bus ride, of which I took full advantage to catch up on some Zs. Getting to Granada is all going through winding roads in the mountains- definitely good for road tripping and seeing some pretty stuff. Ive probably most definitely mentioned this before but road tripping here is soo much nicer than in America; its not just all highways and rocks and that’s it. You really get a sweet view of all the land and olive trees and pretty sunsets and cool trees. Its nice. Somehow just made me think of that time I saw two cows fucking each other in france- that was wild. But that’s another story. So we get to Granada. First stop: hotel, which is real nice, and all the way at the top of the city. API has been real good about that type of stuff- we always get put into 4 star hotels, which now that I think of it isn’t entirely necessary at all since I think I spent about 5 hours total in our room, and I would actually much rather sleep in a 2-3 star hotel and get 500 bucks back in my pocket for my alcohol that week.. alright, make it two weeks. In the hotel lobby, I saw a flyer for Arabian baths that were real cheap so allyson and I book a couples massage and bath for later that day- so exciting. Right away, allyson, Kevin, eric, Chelsea, adam, 2 spanish girls, and I left the hotel to go explore Granada. We start descending down the hill and theres lots of little spots where we can get a sick view of the whole city on the bottom. There was so much cool graffiti in Granada too. I have always thought of graffiti as art, but I definitely prefer the really sick art graffiti that is actually drawings and paintings rather than people who just sign their name 37 times on the same wall. And there was some sick shit in Granada- real graffiti art. We found a little restaurant that did drinks and tapas so we stopped in- got tinto verano (basially wine and a sprite ish type thing, they serve it everywhere and its delicious!), and as a group, we got this couscous with peppers dish (not that great), croquetas (my favorite), shrimp, sausage, and bread. We stayed there for too long so we missed the beginning of the walking tour for Granada but met them halfway downtown- we went into a cathedral that had the tombs of Isabella and Ferdinand, I think it was. It was a pretty simple church but the outside was real pretty. Granada has sweet architecture and culture because it was the last region to be under muslim control so it has all the repetitive, symmetrical type of architecture which is real sweet looking. Allyson and I went through this one alleyway that had soo many little stores and they were all hippie-ish and chill and Buddha-ish even with all sweet decorations and colors and, yeah, I wish I could have bought that whole street. We had a chocolate crepe and then we headed to our Arabian baths appointment. The place was cool- it was in an old caves type setting. There were 7 pools, one that was freezing cold, and the other six were different temperatures ranging from warm to real hot. They also all differed in size and depth. We were given one hour to chill and switch between all these pools. They served caramels and tea too in one of the nice colored tiled rooms. Then, it was time for our massage, yes! We got to choose between back or legs, to which I chose back, and it felt so great, except it only lasted 15 minutes! It was an interesting type of massage though- it wasn’t necessarily hard at all which I usually like, but it seemed like my massager’s fingers always went right into the muscles or along them that they made them move and took out the knots, idk. We chilled in the pools more after that too. It was so relaxing and we stayed warm for many hours afterwards. With all our tensions melted away, we made our way back to the hotel for dinner which was buffet style and had really good paella, a typical Spanish dish ive been meaning to try, which its base is rice and you can add vegetables and meat to it.
We then all headed out as a group to the caves to go see a flamenco show, another typical Spanish activity id been dying to see. We were seated in a long narrow room with all the chairs placed alongside the walls. At one side of the room were all the singers and guitar and drum players and then the dancers would go up and down the narrow hallway dancing in between us. They all had different dresses on with different colors and patterns, and flowers in their hair. It was a little different than I had expected- it is a lot more about intensive footwork than anything else. It made me think of tap dancing. And the singing is very unique. Towards the end, a guy came in, who was super hot and super in shape, and super good at dancing, and, marry me? At times two women danced together and at the end, a couple danced together. Apparently, one of the girls was only fifteen and had started at age 3, but they all looked so much older so it was crazy for us to know that. After the show, we went out looking for places to drink. A lot of bars we came across were not yet open for the night but then we came to a plaza that opened to a couple of bars and a bunch of people with drink and entrance tickets trying to lure you to their club. Before heading into a bar, we were lucky enough to see people training for semana santa. It was a group of guys carrying a huge load topped with cement- they would walk slowly, all in unison, and stop at every street corner. That thing must have been damn heavy just like the semana santa floats, so that was pretty interesting. The first bar we went into wasn’t very busy at all but we decided to start the party early. All of a sudden, Michael Jackson walks in and starts showing off his moves- well, not the real MJ but his dance competition. After a couple more drinks and song requests, I actually got to meet this character because he told me that his brother, cleverly dressed in a Duffman (from the simpsons) costume, was getting married and he was celebrating his bachelor’s party. Im not sure if it’s the same deal all over Europe, but definitely in Belgium, france, spain, and italy, whenever guys or girls are getting married, they have a bachelor’s party out on the town and the bride/groom to be has to get dressed up. Ive seen a bunch of people walking around like that. This guy was no different. He requested allyson and I write down our phone numbers to which al wrote 123-sex-sex. We never got a call from them- maybe they lost our numbers… MJ was cute but got kinda creepy kinda quickly. I wasn’t ready for a blatant makeout show for the whole bar yet so I ducked out and went back to my group which happened to be standing approximately 1.7 feet away. Then, on my way to the bathroom, he caught and my arm and was like ‘you disappeared’ to which I said Im going to the bathroom. He takes this as an open invitation, follows me up the stairs, and tries to come in with me. Uh, no thank you. Shortly thereafter, we leave that bar and make our way to a different bar where I was able to get everyone free sangria, yay! We then headed over to this what was supposed to be a great bar/club right near the caves where we saw the flamenco. When we got there, we were told entrance fee was 8 euros to which we said fuck that. So allyson and I started walking away back towards the hotel. On our way back, I stopped to pet a dog, obviously, and we started talking to two guys. They said they were going to that club we were just wanting to get into, and I exclaimed we had just been there but that we hadnt wanted to pay. They, of course, offered to get us in, how nice. So we climbed all the way back up that wretched hill and they paid for us. We immediately dipped into the bathroom, and when we came out, we weaved in through all the caves in the bottom floor, where we legit found zero people and I thought, ‘thank god I didn’t pay for this shit, nobody is here!’. But then we headed upstairs without bothering to look for the guys and there was for sure a party up there. It had a whole inside club and outer patio that had a sweet view. We found all our friends from API and started raging. Not long after, two extremely angry guys start yelling at me saying they aren’t dumb and aren’t just going to buy a ticket in for American girls who think they are retarded because they disappear right after, etc, etc. with some expertise, I calm them down explaining we didn’t see them so we went upstairs and im so sorry, blah, blah, blah. He asks for the ticket back which I learned 4 seconds before that it was actually a free drink ticket as well as an entrance ticket so I explained I had accidentally thrown it out in the bathroom because I didn’t know. Then, I of course went to the downstairs bar, pulled out my ticket from my pocket and got myself a free drink. Ruthless. The night was really fun and walking back to the hotel late that night didn’t seem so bad since we were singing like crazy fools. Im sure the sleeping town appreciated it.
Next morning, allyson and woke up late and got the breakfast door closed on us. There were still so many people in there and the guy wouldn’t let us in and was watching the door like a hawk, bastard. Everyone said it was delicious with chocolate croissants and everything. We then all headed out to go explore the Alhambra. Its real fucking big and its more commonly referred to as ‘patios with a palace around it’ or something like that because its all patios and wide open spaces with walls around it rather than a legit palace. Its all really pretty, and its actually all white even thought it used to be all colored but because of the sun and erosion and whatnot it, it all turned to white. It still looks gorgeous though with so much detail. Only thing that was lame was that the main fountain piece with the lions was gone and in restoration and has been for the past 5 years or something and will be for the next probably 10 years. But still, real awesome. The Alhambra claimed one of my rings as hers also since I fucking lost it. It had a ton of real cool looking gardens though. After exploring this immense area, allyson and I walked out for lunch. She was absolutely set out for pasta. We found this little restaurant that was a good deal for a menu- it was all real good, except that as for dessert, I asked for fruit, expecting a fruit cup with fresh fruit and instead got an apple with a knife. Oh hey, thanks, I coulda got that on my own…
Bus back to sevilla…

flying kites

God daym! I haven’t written in this thing in damn long, huh? Well, I sure do have a lot to say. Lets start at the beginning.

Going back about 2-3 weeks.
High as balls adventure with allyson, matt, and Kayla.
We decide to park ourselves right at the inside entrance of the Parque de Maria Luisa (which I now realize may not have been the smartest idea since just this morning I saw a cop on his motorcycle doing rounds right where we had been sitting. Oops. Other side note on cops on motorcycle- one night allyson and I were bike riding slightly drunk and one of them was following us right along side us reallyyyy creepily). Anways, back to smoking our joints. Mhmm, I miss blunts. So naturally, we start talking about the most obscene and hilarious topics. Somehow got on the important question of what it would be like if there were a million cigarette butts right where we were. Being the germophobe that she is (she always carries hand sanitizer with her and doesn’t want to touch the metro bars), allyson comments, “oh my god, imagine all the germs that would be on you from their mouths! You would be so wet!” hahahah you would directly take that towards germs. Classic. Next, comes Thomas Edison. Kayla claims she did a report on him once and he was deaf and it had something to do with a train conductor. After debating for some time, she decides to look it up on her phone and lo and behold, she was right! For all you who don’t know, Thomas Edison had early middle ear problems due to infections and then grew completely deaf when a train conductor hit him in the ear. My next question was, the train conductor as in the person or as in the electricity conductor, but I guess that doesn’t make any sense, which is exactly why I kept it to myself, until allyson asked the same thing. Haha. Great minds think alike. We sit on the bench and enjoy the ten minutes of sunshine before the storm. Matt comments on how his pants are ripped. Very unfortunate. Him and allyson have a very elaborate conversation on what the quick fixes are, how it bothers him, what he can do to fix it later, etc, etc… to which all of a sudden, I blurt out ‘.. omg you guys have been talking about a pants rip for so long! But im sorry your pants are ripped!’ it does not sound funny at allll on paper but allyson for some reason found that hilarious and kept repeating ‘im sorry your pants are ripped’ for the rest of the night.
We decided it was time to head over to our next portion of our adventure- the movie, avatar. Oh yes, that’s the one Kayla has already seen 3 times, haha. Because Kayla doesn’t have a bike, she shares one with matt by balancing on the seat and matt sits up, and then allyson and I each have our own bike. We go, and we ride fast, real fast, and we have no respect for any of the typical rules of the road, but then again, neither does anyone in spain. There was for sure a close call at one point though when we charged through a construction point on a busy street going in the opposite direction of traffic with a huge fucking truck coming our way! We finally, thank god, made it to the nervion mall alive, where the theater is. And just in time too! Because about 3 minutes after we got in line, there was the biggest downpour ever! Matt and I get in line for tickets and Kayla and allyson get in line for candy. Matt and I sadly learn tickets are sold out for that time, and as we go to relay the bad news, Kayla and allyson round the corner each with two huge bags filled with candy- sour, chocolate, hard, soft, whatever you wanted. They were like two little kids on Halloween about to devour all their treasures from the night. After telling them it’s a fail, obviously, we head into the mall to discover what it has to offer. We find a carousel and fake horse to ride, oh joy! While we all wonder whether that carousel has an age limit, or at least I do, we watch a 3 year old ride the horse like it’s a bucking bronco- one hand and everything, quite impressive I must say. We go into cien mondatitos, which is about 23 times larger than the one in the center, to get something to eat, oh right, on top of that candy. Some funny moments there- allyson strolls up to the counter about to demand the food she hasn’t even ordered yet, of course.
We then leave to go see avatar, which I basically sleep through, but I justify it because I have already seen it, so its ok! I needed to nap after smoking anyways. Considering its past midnight by then on a Sunday with nothing done for school yet, not that that even matters and anything ever gets done, we part ways til our next toke.


Another day, allyson, Kayla, matt, and his two friends, Stephen Harvey and kyle, and I went to Tigris, the hookah bar right around the corner from us. Its pretty legit- has some sweet decorations, good pillows, cool lighting, big hookahs, and a nice bartender! We got two rounds of hookah- melon and then tutti-frutti, very yummy. I loooveee hookah. Oh, I forgot to mention our most interesting topic of conversation- butt sex. ‘I mean I didn’t receive it, if that’s what you mean’-kyle. Hahaha. Oh man. I think Stephen was shocked way past his comfort levels, entertainingly enough. After hours of chillin, Kayla and I decide its ‘time to dance! I wanna dance!’ but we all decide to smoke a joint, from which we get pretty fucked and by the time we get to the club, are so retarded our dancing has turned into stumbling swaying and ignoring creepy advances from guys, and our conversations have turned into mutters and jumbles of words. we, naturally, go to the bar to get another drink, which of course they have run out of orange juice or juice in general. Seriously, the bars here could not be any less prepared! HAHHAHA I just remembered something!! ‘ive got some business to take care of.’ We ran into Kaylas friend from the other night, a supposed businessman who wouldn’t reveal his nature of business so clearly, we would assume drugs. He was at Buddha which is another reason why we went- to go find him, so Kayla calls him. At the bar, waiting for our drinks, he comes right up and blurts this, to which Kayla is slightly horrified because she remembers him as much younger and better looking and not as awkward and weird, ha. Just goes to prove what a couple drinks will do to you, huh. We decide to sit down for a little cause all of a sudden Kayla is super fucked and then just leave, being too high and dumb to interact at all in any sort of appropriate manner. I remember getting home and being upset I didn’t get to dance more, which is however probably good because I sure as hell know dancing like Elaine in Seinfeld is much worse than not dancing at all.
Oh and yes, during our epic fail at Buddha, allyson had an epic fail of her own. She graciously broke a chair at the Hamburgeuseria and fell straight on her ass, high as fuck. One of the funniest texts ive ever received and I think I laughed for 8 straight minutes when I read it. Only wish I had been there. Priceless.

oooo barracuudaaa

haha well last night was hysterical.
and before that, the day was sweet. i can proudly say that i am no longer a 'cien mandetitos' virgin! god, that place is heavenly. its a little restaurant right near the cathedral that has a menu of 100 (cien) little sandwhiches (mandetitos). they go from really simple to more complex, on really good bread, and with potato chips. whats the absolute best is that on wednesdays, every mandetito is only one euro! so i think its going to be tradition to go every wednesday after our later class! even better, on wednesdays with every mandetito, you get a huuugeee pint glass of tinto verano or beer. so along with my jamon and tomate, chorizo y brie, and bacon y pimiente verde, i got 3 amazingly delicious tinto veranos. got a little tipsy off those which was great. so many people showed up so it was awesome, except that place is tiny and it was packeeddd. and next time jose luis doesnt go pick up his mandetitos for a twenty minutes, im absolutley stealing it. yum!
next, we hauled our half-drunk asses to corte ingles (with kayla and alena). per usual, i looked like the typical american drunkard with a bottle of wine and bottle of vodka in both my hands, walking around. oh, and the most delicious chocolate you have ever EVER had in your life, ferrio rocher. its everything you would ever want- its nutty, chocolately, silky smooth, crunchy- basically infinite heaven in your mouth.
but our real night started when we walked over to the residencias right near plaza cuba. they are pretty sweet. its all american kids housed dorm style- they are right by the river and they have little porches- perfect for smoking. our pregame at chris, jeremy, mike, and their spanish roommate alfonso (i think) consisted of a hilarious game of naming movie quotes and drinking wine, along with blasting typical american music. some memorable movie quotes:
"... im pregnant" "...with emotion?" - knocked up
shit, i cant think of the ones from last night... dammit. there was for sure superbad, wedding crashers, dirty dancing, all the best comedies because thats all i know. anywayss, we continued on to calle betis to 'alberquerque' (haha) for some cheap shots. tequila all the wayyy baby- below one euro. probably meaning they are half water. but hey, who cares? the bartender is real chill and sold us weed, so no complaints there. hopefully we get to free shot status real soon. this hoppin' bar usually has quite the display of inappropriate tv shows on ranging from a selection of hard core porn, dick-in-a-hole surprises, violent yet sexy escapades, among others. quite entertaining, in fact. sadly, last night lacked this fantastic aspect.
next stop, bike stop. kayla, chris, jeremy, and i were all happily on our way to cathedral when at one point, kayla and i turned around and -poof!- they were gone. thanks for ditching guysss! finally made it to cathedral- place sucked this time, unfortunately. filled all the way up with straight creepers on the prowl. after several minutes of dancing while feeling on display, we decided to ditch.
on to the next episooddee, da da da da da. spliff time! reminder to self: buy papers. or even better, 'hey moomm, could you just go into that drawer in my room and send me that little orange rectangle box that says zig zags right on over to here..no, no, dont worry what its for, just send it over. thanksss'. after dissecting out the tabacco of a ciagerette, a serious operation by the way, we sat on some lucky person's doorstep and packed it up. hailed down a cab to buddha, and smoked it right outside. 'thats a funny looking cigarette you got there.'
well, contrary to popular belief, or maybe just my belief (?), wednesday nights are not bumpin'. repeat: NOT bumpin'. i had been convinced that wednesdays were the new thursdays (which they technically are, since allyson and i have no class thursdays), but i was miserably proved wrong last night. because as kayla and i strolled into buddha like we owned the placed, we were able to count about 17 people in there. knowing this could not possibly be it, we hiked up the stairs to the other levels, and there was noone, nooonnnee i tell you! bummer. but it didnt matter, cuz high as balls like we were, we parked ourselves in the bottom level, in a nicely cushioned corner, perfect for people watching, and we had ourselves a fucking ball. first, we had the dumbest and creepiest waiter. he comes over, asks what we want for drinks. first request, as always, i ask for a margarita. and dude, im telling you NOBODY here knows what a fucking margarita is. even if its on the fucking menu, they dont have it or know how to make it. the other night, i went to the bar, asked for a variety of drinks, they had none (or couldnt make them), so i just go 'ok make me something good and strong' and the lady, being an expert bartender brings me jager and red bull... are you fuckin serious? like for real? oh, the best part, she charges me 7 euros. riiight, bitch. but anywhooo, where was i? oh yes, our waiter! he knows no drinks, so we just say ok, 'vodka and orange juice', can we make it any simpler for you? he brings it over, basically entirely filled with ice, and were like, wtf?, so hes like ok, free shots! and in the middle of this, when we couldnt understand wtf he was saying, kayla just starts saying 'somos americanas, somos americanas'. i was like ha! duhhh! im pretty sure everyone in the entire world knows we are from america! (but apparently he had asked). so yes, free shots! what do we want, he asks. after more offerings of shots, with him having no clue, i just go ok, tequila, tequila. (love the shit). with a perfect oblivious look on his face, (the one i usually sport- haha homer simpson & duff), he goes 'ok, ok surprise shots!'. so he comes out bringing shots and we are like omg! what is it! and he goes, guess!, TEQUILA!. we are like... sweet surprise. and get this, seriously this place does everything wrong! the shots are in tall glasses with ice cubs in them and the place apparently doesnt have limes, lemons OR salt. for tequilaa, hellooo!?! so we are like, ok whatever, and he awkwardly and creepily stands there watching us as we down the shots. ok byee dumb waiter.
but the night only begins. theres a threesome of 30 years olds, 2 guys and a girl, sitting right near us, most blatantly enjoying our high dumbness, as we are continuously laughing hysterically. "oh look, theres a buddha!' -(which i cant believe i even dared say, since the place is fucking called buddha!) to which kayla goes 'did u just say, oooo barracuudaa'? haha classic. i then understood that wrong but cant remember what in the devil i thought she said. but anyways, this 3some approaches us and after us establishing that no, we are in fact not lesbians, we had some quality conversations about how the girl didnt know how to flirt because she straight up straddles her possible one-night-stands of the night, and we should add her on facebook- she even gave me her card, shits getting serious. truly nice people though. even added it was probably better for us to pretend to be lesbian anyways in order to ward off all the creepy wednesday night guys. well, we have finally experienced buddha wednesday and it is not the same as buddha weekend. hysterial high night.





random thoughts:

things spain needs to be introduced to-
1. toilet paper!
2. the internet

- croquetas are delicious. but not from the hamburgeuseria right down the street from us, which however, still does have delicious hamburgers and fries served until 4 am. how convenient.

- a hookah place is called a 'teteria', which is not to be confused with a tit show.

- having an entire ham leg in your kitchen is considered legit. (side note: our sexy marketing teacher, nano, told us one of his students had wanted extremely badly to bring back a ham leg to the united states and had been scheming for weeks trying to figure out how to put it past the customs point, and finally decided to stick it in a violin case. very creative, i must admit.

vodka & vespas

this will be a compilation of random thoughts and funny encounters.

Numero uno favorite thing right now: VESPAS! Thought I was gonna say vodka, huh? But seriously straight up obsessed with vespas- slightly not funny ha. I rode on the back of one and it was fabulous- plus it was one of the only days of sun and everything looked so pretty. I need to get myself a boyfriend with a motorcycle- so damn sexy. Allyson wont stop making fun of me cuz they have them all over cali, but this is my new thrill.

Other accomplishment: I sang karaoke for the first time! Can you guess the song? ‘Summer love’ from grease, oh ya. With allyson, caleb, and one of his friends- together for boys and girls parts. Summer lovin, havin a blast, summer lovin, happened so fasstttt. So drunk, so great. Happens every Monday night at Phoenix so something tells me this wont be my last song.

Mondays might become salsa Mondays because they offer free lessons. That would be fuckin sweet. Maybe I can redeem myself from the embarrassment of a show I put on dancing flamenco with caleb.
and also karaoke nights.

we got in trouble with our madre because we are slobs. ha, typical. we know perfectly well that the maid comes every thursday and we are (reasonably) expected to have put out our laundry, taken off the sheets ,and cleaned up our room a little bit so that the maid can clean our room. well, this past thursday, our "ladyships" decided to completely ignore this fact and instead cleaned nothing, put out no laundry, did not even attempt to hide our extensive collection of alcohol bottles, and i simply stayed in bed with the lights turned off. then we skipped lunch with the family. oops.

ive recently explained to allyson upon request that there are several levels to guy creepiness. she, hilariously enough to my enjoyment, gets extremely uncomfortable very quick and i find it all too entertaining. one particular case, which i admit was at the highest level of creepy, took place on calle betis, big surprise. this particular guy waved me over multiple times and thought he was being all smooth with his spanish moves- quite the opposite in fact, but still hilarious. he told me he would marry me and as i stepped away to go order more tequila shots at the bar, allyson joined me and he kissed her arm. hahahha i thoroughly enjoyed seeing her uncomfortable. great moments.

every group of friends has a karen. fuckin karens coming. fuckin karen. thats her name. fucking karen.

cadiz carnaval. epic fail.

Guess Ive decided to revert to my old ways of visiting blackout city, currently known as cadiz. Saturday we went to cadiz for carnaval, which is basically spain’s Halloween. A supposedly real wild time, which from other people’s pictures, I can tell that it was an absolute shitshow. Only downfall: I can probably only recount about twenty minutes of a night that lasted over four hours. Allyson and I both were a little overambitious in our downing a fifth of rum on our way to carnaval. Apparently that is a bad idea when not having had dinner? Oh, ok. Strike one.
We should have known right from the beginning this night was going to be an absolute fail. Per usual, allyson and I left our house late, at the approximate time that the buses were supposed to be leaving. Good start. Thank god that at least there were bikes at the station right near our house- or so we thought at the time. We realized our mistake once we searched for all the closest bike stations and the first 12 we found were all filled up- joke. Finally find a couple empty spots and have to sprint back 2 miles to where the buses are- and we don’t even know the exact location of where we are supposed to meet. Strike two. After running around a circle of a huge building, we see hoards of people and spot two of our friends on one of the buses. Being our considerate selves, we cut everyone to get on this bus. strike three: this turned out to be the lamest bus ever. No one was partying, no one was drinking, the music was terrible (allyson and I ended up jamming to our own beats on the way), the kid in front of us threw up, no one we knew was on our bus. Only possible highlight: the bus pulled over on the highway and about 30 kids got off to pee in the bushes- classy. So we already have three strikes. But please know, the bad decisions only continue from there. Once we arrive, we immediately leave the bus stop to find something to eat, just us 4, Kayla, alena, allyson, and i. we for sure should have stayed to see where else fucking everyone was. I hardly remember this sandwich shop and I think from there, I was just drunk stumbling with the girls. Later, allyson and I separated from Kayla and alena to go find people we knew. Well that was certainly the biggest strike of all because I don’t know where the fuck we went, but we took allll the wrong turns down all the little side streets that led to absolutely nowhere. In the hours that we were way-too-drunk stumbling, we never EVER found the main plaza or ANYONE we knew. How is that POSSIBLE? I have no answers- only vague recollections of asking for water at a bar and being turned away, hitchhiking with my raver outfit and sunglasses on and being denied, stealing a water bottle from a Spanish guy, sitting on the corner of two streets waiting for a miracle, calling everyone in my phone book 17 times to no avail, and walking through a Spanish concert. So overall, epic fail. At least it wasn’t fucking raining, for the first time in a week. Even better, allyson woke up to an empty bag of potato chips in her purse the next morning… when did that happen? Finally, FINALLY, harassed a cab to pick us up and he brought us to the buses just in time for them to leave. Were given a sandwhich and water bottle- thank god allyson had fallen asleep cuz I downed both those water bottles in less than 37 seconds. When we got dropped off in sevilla, I saw hitchhiking as another great option- grabbed a car with Emilio and Pablo, such nice guys who gave us a ride home haha. Upon returning finally in our warm room, I expressed my ultimate jealousy of allysons rainboots and big ass water bottle because mine is half that size and I have to wake up 3 times a night to refill it since I down so much water every night after a night out. The only way we have been able to content ourselves about this night is that it is a fucking slopfest and most of the people who went on the trip were in between blackouts as well. Basically, im ignoring the fact this ever happened.

and also! before going, we looked absolutely fucking everywhere for glowsticks to complete our outfits as ravers, but no luck. we asked a bunch of people and everyone kept recommending 'chino'. blatantly telling us to go to the chinese stores that are all over the place and have all the random shit you never thought u needed but now you realize you absolutely want. we did get a couple light up things but still, no glowsticks. and the chinese fucking follow your every step the second you walk in those stores. all of a sudden, they are like 'oh ya, im looking at this exact section of things, and now as youre moving over here, i also, coincidentally need to get something over here..' fucking hate that shit. im gonna steal something specifically out of spite. cant wait.
on a funnier note, in corte ingles, which is the closest thing to a supermarket here, we were on our way to get alcohol for the trip and in the next aisle over, who do i see but the nerd (his name is jordan i found out) who was dancing in cathedral the other night with glowsticks. i was like holy fuck, no way! cuz i had been saying for the past 2 days that i needed to find this kid to ask him where he got glowsticks and damn, there he is right there! buying some rum, just like us. small world. i hesitate for a second, deciding whether i should pounce on this kid or not, and decide of course to go ahead. he is all startled and nervous, its cute really haha. but he hadnt bought them- the glowsticks had been given to him at the club. damn. strike seventeen. shoulda seen our wreck of a night looming ahead.

we went to cadiz the day before too during the day to visit the town. didnt see much of the town or the beaches due to shitty rain the entire time. instead ventured into a couple bars, had a couple drinks, befriended the bartender. overall, still a good time with some good people... i really need to think about getting myself some rainboots though cuz the rain has been nonstop and i specifically refused to pack anything rain related with the assumption that it was going to be 80 degrees once i arrived in sevilla. apparently, my weather predictions arent quite on point... maybe ill get some from the chino.

Almeria beach weekend getaway

Quick side note: new favorite song: Pursuit of Happiness by Kid Cudi, Ratatat, & MGMT. absolute love.

This weekend was fabulous! Alena, Kayla, pepe, quique, and I hit the road and set out for a weekend getaway at Almeria, a province by the sea that is not especially pretty but has the best beaches and is also the cheapest in all of spain, meaning more yummy tapas! Considering alenas and I lack of sleep due to the other night, we were slightly fading on the what I had been told was a two hour drive and what turned out to be a four hour drive haha. Alena made herself comfortable in the back seat, sleeping, while I suffered trying to stay awake to talk to our driver, pepe, who was probably just as tired as us. Im glad I stayed awake though. The views were incredible- it would go from huge bright green pastures, to olive tree fields, to rolling hills, to big snow-capped mountains- just all so gorgeous and varied. Nothing like the highways in America where all you can see is the highway and rocks on either side. These views made the whole road trip part of it that much better. And the sunsets- oh man, fabulous. However, I made sure alena took the front seat on our way back so I could pass out on our return trip haha.
Got to Almeria around 9 maybe. Chilled for a little while. Started watching a typical Spanish movie, Hitch. Obviously. Really opened my eyes up to Spanish culture. Ha. Starting off our night, we went right downstairs to the restaurant under their apartment, which btw was right on the beach, like step out of the porch and theres the beach! So great. Its pepes grandparents house who had NINE children, god damn, they were busy. Anyways, this restaurant is sweet- we got a bunch of tapas for real cheap. Jamon y tomate, queso y otro tipo de jamon, croquetas, other yummy stuff. And of course, the whole time downing tinto verano, a wine and club soda type mix. We had a couple two three laughs, especially when Kayla told us quique had told her “you can go down now” (patting his thighs) as they stopped on the side of the highway. She was like… uhh, what time is it? But what quique actually meant was she could get out and stretch her legs. Haha you can go down now hahaha. epic ‘lost in translation’ mistake.
After dinner, we headed out to caramelo, not to be confused with caramelA, which we went to after. With pepes extensive knowledge of the streets of Almeria, it only took us 45 minutes to get to our destination, of course after asking several people for directions along the way. Sounds about right to our usual adventures- always plan for 3 times longer than actually ever necessary. And when we finally got there, the first thing we wanted to do was leave! Don’t get me wrong, the place was poppin’- it had bright multi colored lights, was playing lady gaga, had music videos playing all around, had a sweet balcony up top, and hot bartenders. Only little detail: I was slightly terrified of seeing my parents sneak up out of nowhere cuz everyone in there was no doubt at least 20 years older than us. If we didn’t feel like our grandparents could walk in any minute, this place woulda been ballin’. But it still was, because making the best of our situation, we started showing those oldie fools how its done. So dressed in our best high boots and mini-dresses, us three chicas started an epic dance party. Ignoring disgusted and hilarious side glances, we rocked hard to Christina Aguilera on the balcony, mostly also due to the amount of free drinks (probably because we were the youngest in there) we got from the bartender (which included caramel shots, of course, yum!). after resting assured that most everyone in the club had had the opportunity to look up my dress as I was glancing over the balcony, we decided to head out.
caramelA was our next victim. Or was it the other way around? Caramela then caramelo? Does it really matter? But really, you guys should have seen the trees lining up these streets- trimmed like cylinders- quite entertaining. But im getting slightly off topic. Caramela, or o?, was not as bumpin as all those 50 years old, sadly I must say. But us dancing fools still jammed to the all Spanish music. It was a much plainer bar and I was already starting to miss my usual environment of bright lights, way too loud music, and possible ecstasy breeding ground. Listen, I like Spanish music, I really do, but they don’t really know what a drum is, and I need a BEAT yo. With my protesting of being in dire need of American music so I could forget about the fact that my shoes were causing me severe pain, and in the hopes of more free drinks, we set out to a different discoteca. And this place sure was sloppy. Apparently its only ‘bitches and drunks’ that go here, am I right? Well, we certainly all fit into that category, fo sho. Upon entering, I was almost dragged to the floor by an aggressive and over eager Spanish guy as he grabbed the hood of my sweatshirt- yeah?, you get many ladies that way? This last stop included more entertaining people watching (we were so lucky as to witness, no joke, a couple stabbing tongues at each other.. whatever floats your boat, I guess), more free drinks (which at one point, I was double fisting, and a guy next to me gave me the most disgusted look- dumb americans. All I could do was laugh, naturally.). at maybe 4 points during the time we were in there, we were able to experience a little taste of home- american music, my lord. But don’t get too excited, only for about ten seconds at a time at intervals of half hours. And every time I heard a beat I recognized, I happened to be across the room and in the time I tried to fight my way back to alena so we could celebrate American beat, the clip was over. Real sad. Also tragically, in the process of a fabulous night, I lost the tie-thing to my jacket. We made it back to the casa around 7, 730. And the night was not over then- alena and I listened to pepes drunk ass rambling, basically to himself, as he was vigorously shaking my contacts case. Entertaining. We took our first opportunity as he stepped out of our room for one second to close the door real quick. Haha. And that sentence does not really make sense but you get what I mean.
My recollection of my sleeping is quite terrible- alena and I were both crunched up in fetal position shivering under too thin blankets. Absolutely freezing. As soon as the sun came out, I took my handkerchief of a blanket and a pillow, laid out on the porch to soak up the sun while being serenaded by the guy playing the accordion- much warmer, plus maybe I got a tan.. hopefully? God, I cant wait for sun! supposedly sevilla gets ten days of rain a year, and apparently we have been here for all of them- way lame. Anyways, we spent the day relaxing, recovering, by watching another classic Spanish movie- forgetting sarah marshall. I had totally forgotten how fucking hilarious that movie is- straight up hysterical. This day was way more relaxed- couple bottles of wine, lunch, walking by the beach- real trippy looking boardwalk, watching soccer game (Barcelona won!). reminder: I need to go to a soccer game in sevilla! Dinner was at the asian restaurant right down the street from us, and since the boys were being lame and were tired, we went back home around 130, 2. We chilled, watched part of ‘jersey girl’ and then fell asleep. Ps- never subject yourself to that terrible movie. Almost as bad as ‘funny people.’ Horrendous.
Next morning, lunch tapas, tinto verano, and ride home. Sweet time.

all i do is party ha ha ha ha

oh mann.. well, that was fun! ha.

upon returning home last night, or morning really, at 730 am, i had some great skype conversations with kim, and then later with connor, owen, dom, and their new roommate who i knew from before! i loveee small world moments. hahha first thing kim says when she sees i am online, 'are you hammered?'. yes. haha love youu! it was so great skyping with all you guyss.
'oh my goddd, why did i drink so much and smoke so muchh, owww.. fuck'- ahah swear to god sounds exactly like you dom!

last night was real fun! actually this entire week has been great! and its only friday! considering i only have school 3 days a week, going out is a necessity every night! lets seeee. what the hell did i do this week? we went back to 'la carboneria' a couple nights to start off- thats the cool place with the live flamenco music which is really awesome. its pure sevilla. and the bartenders are cool. hold on.. now that i think of it, i think we were supposed to meet up with one of them? the place closed and alena and i got separate from the group- typical. and he was walking out at the same time as us and he helped ward off some creepy that was following us. i think he might have gotten on his motorcycle and was maybe gonna meet us at buddha?.. little blurry. but well see him again another night. so yes, last night was buddha again. so much fun! fucking love that place. tequila shottsss. couple guys, couple dances, lots of fun. met someone named alberto whos chill.

the other night was really fun too. its been raining these past couple days which is sad but whatever. but the other night allyson and i rode our bikes across town to this bar that was playing the soccer game. sevilla won 2-0! we got there real late so we didnt see too much. afterwards, we had planned on going to this club called cathedral for an 80s party, but that didnt end up happening, so i looked like a major dumbass wearing those bright green tights, ha. everyone bailed out on me to go out except for caleb! so we hung out- went to a couple bars. the first one was a little hole in the wall type place with all local people having drinks. it wasnt very busy but it was a sweet place to sit and talk. then we went to this bar the specializes in chocolate drinks which was sooo good. we bought chocolates too and they were delicious. there were only about 3 other people here that night. but the best part of this place though was the owner and her 6ishfriends. she starting dancing flamenco with one of them while another one sang and played music. it was soo cool. and then of course, they made us join them and i felt like a total retard trying to dance it. but it was really fun and we switched partners and redid the whole dance again which has like 4 verses haha so great though. another real spain experience. really cool. then, we waited in the pouring rain for an hour trying to find cabs that didnt exist haha. great night.

a different night we went to this american bar right behind calle betis called fundicion that hosts beruit tournaments every tuesday night. only americans can enter haha. but its real serious- people have to sign up online in the morning and there are like 30 teams and they play all night. 2 guys from api won! congrats adam and partner!

shit, i gtg. im going to almeria which is on the coast. not sure if its beach weather yet but still, it will be pretty. just heard its a 6 hour drive. gahh. kind of a spur of the moment decision.

hasta luego

sevilla mi casa

i need to work on updating this thing more often...

allow me to ramble on a little about this fabulous place called sevilla where i will be spending the next 4 months of my life!

its absolutely gorgeous here! there is obviously beautiful art and architecture everywhere, plazas around ever corner with pretty fountains, beautiful people. i love how its a new city but there is still so much old culture with all the little cobblestone winding streets with little shops all lining the streets. i love it! orange trees have become my new favorite obsession lately. there are soo many here- along the streets, in the alcazar plazas (which is ridiculously gorgeous btw), dangerously placed in my path when im riding my bike. before learning you are not supposed to eat the oranges (which doesnt even make any sense!), i tried one out. not too bad, just realll sour.

about mi casa..
we got pretty hooked up. i live in centro, sevilla, with 2 other girls, renee and allyson, from my program in a homestay family. i have a mom, dad, brother named azur, sister named erna, and 2 dogss which i loveee. they are the cutest! they are both mixes but one is a yellow lab and the other is a dark brown haired pointer. so adorable. they would wake up the entire street every time we walked in the door for the first week but they like us much more now. our mom is nice- we got to know her a little the first night we got there. she basically told us the only rule is there are no rules, which is totally fine by me! we have our own key to come and go as we please, which we absolutely take full advantage of, coming back at 7 am some mornings. breakfast and dinner, allyson, renee and i eat on our own. usually cereal in the morning and toast and leftovers at night. she makes a pretty sweet lunch- this is definitely the biggest meal of the day. we usually eat this all together as a family except for when some of us have classes.
allyson and i sleep in the rooms that are connected through the bathroom. yet, even though its been a week of knowing each other, we are completely comfortable sleeping in the king bed in the bigger of the two rooms, falling asleep together to 24, which thank god we finished the season because now we cant give ourselves excuses to stay in! even though, rain was definitely another hater on that. which unfortunately, there is supposed to be a lot of that tonight.. grr.

about school.
i am taking 4 classes at pablo de olavide university. and its pretty ballin. well, actually not the university itself because thats kind of situated in the middle of nowhere with pretty miserable looking surroundings of bare earth, fallen trees, and the bad outskirts of town. and my first impression of the school was that i had heard it used to be a prison and they renovated it into a school. apparently, thats false. but its definitely not the same campus as umass. its muuchh smaller and really only has one main corridor with all the buildings off of that. so at least its easy not to get lost in i guess. but theres not much to do on campus, unlike umass where u can walk to the center of town or whatever. it has a gym i could join.... naahh.
my schedule is pretty fucking sweet though. first of all, no classes on fridays so thats sick. but i also got my schedule to have no classes on thursdayss, bitchess. i have 3 classes mondays, wednesdays from 1030-1 then 4-530. only things that sucks is that kind of long break in between and i dont feel like going back and forth. i think im just gonna read books, sleep, do homework, draw, whatever and lie in the sun when its nice out. so it wont be bad. today i napped in order to make up for last nights lack of sleep.
my classes arent bad, and my teachers are pretty awesome. im taking international marketing, early modern and modern history of spain, spanish cinema, and don quijote (which actually might be slightly brutal because its a huge fucking book, i had no idea! and kind of old spanish, but im making the correct assumption that ill be alot more of skimming than actual reading, so no big deal.) but yeah, i have sweet teachers. they are all young and chill, so thats cool.

about the sevici bike system..
fucking best genius idea ever. and goddam, i always misspell genius. every time! but anyways, this bike system is sweet. there are bike posts literally on the corner of every street and you can ride them anywhere and then put it back and its only 10 euros for a whole year! incredible. only downfall is that the other night i tried about 9 bikes in a row that FAILED TO WORK. not kidding, it was obscene. broken chains, nonexistent chains, blocked wheels, wouldnt come out. absolute joke. i ended up having to walk cuz the bike post had run out of bikes cuz another thing is that half the bikes dont even show up on the computer when you try to take it out. so when you see 6 bikes available, we literally pray for two, just two!, to work for allyson and i. we have seriously have had some of the greatest times on these things though. sadly, current score: bike:3 me:0. these were due mostly to balance and alcohol. still, its been fun, sevici.

i have great sevilla domination plans of riding my bike through every single little street and somewhat knowing every cute little store. ill let you know how far i get.

i have made other goals:
1. go see a sevilla soccer game. it would be sweettt to see the last one that is sevilla against barcelona but thats probably gonna be mad expensive. but i will definitely make it to one soccer game. maybe ill change my other goal into this one. watch soccer, instead of play. ha.
2. shit... why cant i remember any of my goals?
3. go out every night unless its absolutely necessary to stay in- this requires extenuating circumstances.
4. go to a flamenco show, might have been mentioned before.
5. ..dammmit, i had a really good one! and i cant remember... freshman year, you did this to me. and sophmore year, you certainly didnt help.


alright, well i guess i will have to leave it at that because i cant for the life of me remember what the fuck i was gonna say!

time to run out, get some hard liquor and wine, since allyson and i feel its completely appropriate for us to down a bottle of absolut in 1.5 nights. classy.

peace

laasstt niightt

its always a fabulous feeling when you wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and see that all your teeth are still there.

this morning was a little different...


ha no, just kidding. that would suck though, huh jenks? haha love youu


anyways, 'slurry mcgee' (side note:false) had a great night yesterday. after a refreshing nap, we took off to the streets armed with our rum, vodka, and orange juice. the lucky group was allyson, chelsea, alena, kevin, eric, bryan,and justin. deciding against sitting sketchely in a park drinking our booze, we sat on the side of the river which was actually reallyy nice. it had a great view and it was not too cold. at several points, i think we were all debating diving in the river when cops rolled by but they ended up leaving us alone, so good news there. lord knows i need no more of that!

we headed down to an authentic live music jazz place near where i live- it was separated into 2 parts; one side where 2 guys were playing guitar and singing and the other was the bar where we were most of the time, getting drinks and talking. the bartenders were pretty cool, showing us magic tricks.
'its like 'bikini' but only one 'kini'' haha.

after a while, we wanted to go to buddha, this sweet ass club with 3 levels where the bottom is basically typical american radio music, the second is a little more techno but still music, and the top is wayy techno and electronica, so pretty awesome. plus the lightss are greatt haha.
as always, i made an intelligent decision to grab a bike and ride alongside people walking but after several incidents of going straight into the park fence, my fellow drunks forced me off it and made me walk.. bastards! haha kidding- i should try harder to not be such a danger to myself and society, thanks guys.
the club was real fun! haaa something that i thought was an absolute riot was that this guy waved me over when i was sitting down so i went to go talk to him and we took a shot together and then talked for a little, got up to go dance, and then i kinda left and found alena and then was dancing with other people, and ahhaha he always somehow positioned himself so that i would be looking at him if i were to look up. hahah literally this guy was a ninja- i dont know how he got around so fast but he was everywhere at once staring me down. kinda thought that was funny.. ha 'manneater'
other people from api joined us at the club- nataly, leilani, adam, joel, umm. others?
allyson, her bf matt, his friend caleb, and i were the last 4 people in that place. jamming til like 530. we took bikes to get home- no accidents this time!

i cant wait for it to be reaall nice out and we can always sit by the river and drink and chill cuz its so nice there! its been kind of raining alot which is sad- and sucks even more cuz i refused to plan for rain because i only want sun, so naturally i brought no shoes for rain, so every time my shoes get soaked through. im an idiot. 'sun sun sunn love love loveee' hahahahhaa oh man that fucking ringtone. 'its in your baggg' ' whattt!??!' oh so great.

'red or blue?' 'red or blue?' 'red or blue?' hahahahaha
almost wasnt able to do it without you, allyson.
milk was a bad choice.

honneeyyyy!
'i hate this shit, i havent had it since middle school... i love this shit!' haha i love our dinners.


anywaysss, great night, repeat tonight, fo sho.

Holy Toledo!

Wow! What a city! Its about an hour away from Madrid and it has sooo much culture. It is absolutely gorgeous and everything is in extremely good shape. The city is built like a fortress like walls around because it was invaded for quite some time. First by the romans, then the visigoths, then muslims, and finally christians more recently. So it has a wide variety of styles, so much pretty architecture, and art. At first, we took a bus tour to go around the city. At the top of a side mountain ,we could look down on the whole city. It was amazing! There is the alcazar, the enormous cathedral of Toledo along 80 other churches, and many houses. There is also a river that just started running again that goes around the city and another bigger one that uses a water mill. It serves as a moat. We descended back down a little bit and started on foot. We went up some outside escalators that had just been put in because it was always so steep to get into the city because it was so protected. Walking around Toledo was beautiful- its all little cobblestone streets with tons of artisan shops all around. There are so many stores with swords because Toledo has the best steel- this is considered one of the most popular souvenirs from spain. There was one store that produces decorative plates from tiny gold threads that are so detailed- there was one depicting the view of the city we had previously seen and it was worth 80,000 euros!!! Whoa!

The first thing we visited was The Cathedral of Toledo- this must be the most extravagant and beautiful thing ive ever seen. This only would be worth the trip to Toledo. it actually used to be a mosque but when the christians came back, they converted it into a cathedral. Its ouside is very pretty and detailed too but when you see the inside, it literally takes your breath away. It took 270 years to build! So it has all the different architectural styles from over the years- renaissance, roman, gothic, etc. You wonder what kind of genius artists and architects were able to construct this. As like in any cathedral, there are huge stain glass windows, high ceilings, sculpture, paintings, little side chapels with churches, but this cathedral goes way beyond anything ive ever seen!

We started our guided tour at the altar. In a cathedral, by tradition, the altar always has be facing east or the rising sun, just like a mosque has to always face Jerusalem. It is always the first thing ever built and the most important. The last piece always put in a catherdral is the keystone- this completes the entire building and is considered finished at this point. This cathedral had a huge altar with an enormous piece of art in the background- it was extremely detailed and all carved from wood and then painted in bright colors. It was the story of jesus, starting from the bottom and going all the way to the top where the cross were. Since so many people were illiterate in those times, the church knew they had to picture the story of the bible, which is why there are always so many sculptures and colored windows and paintings to tell the people the story. There were also tombs in the altar part. The ceilings are so high and the altar is so impressive.

Across from the altar was a place for the bishop to sit in a big compartment almost as big as the altar. All around there were seats from wood that you could fold the bottom back up, all ornately decorated with the story of the war. All around that above the chairs, were sculptures of all of the important people in the bible, plus others. Everything always so detailed and telling a story.

Then, we walked around the corner to behind the altar. WOW!! Absolutely magnificent. Where the sun would rise and come in from the east, at the top of the cathedral, there is a huge hole for the sun to shine through. This part is decorated with lots of people that stick out from the walls and look like they are sitting on the edge and looking in at us. They are colored and sitting in a circle and in the top there are lots of baby angels. So gorgeous because they all stick out like real people from the stone. Opposite that, where the sun actually shines, is a huge artistic piece made from silver that depicts jesus and virgin mary among many others. In the middle is a big sun made in gold that shines throughout the piece. Really beautiful.

All along the sides of the cathedral are little chapels that were always kept private and are now used as tombs for the most important people. The entire underneath of the cathedral had been used as a burial ground earlier but the tombs were dug out because it had become weak and dangerous for the people to walk on. However, they left all the cardinals in the ground and from above you can tell where they are because above each of their tombs, there hang a red hat with tassels. The theory is that as long until the hat falls to the ground, the cardinal is still waiting to go to heaven- not one hat has fallen yet. Hehe. Oh, religion…

Another part of the cathedral has been devoted to the virgin mary. In there, they showcase a piece of stone, saying that mary stepped on it and asking the public to touch it and ask for her help. It used to be flat but is curved in with so many holes now because millions of fingers have touched it.

In another part, they converted a small chapel into a little museum. All the pieces are there from donations. There are gold crosses from the cardinals and little paintings. But the most impressive thing is a gold structure. The queen had been given a beautiful golden piece that depicted so man little characters and a circle in the middle that was for the holy to sit in. this had 17 kilos of gold, not including some parts in silver and all the beautiful gems and stones. When the queen died, she asked that all her belongings be auctioned off and the money given to the poor. The bishop bought this piece and asked an artist to build an altar on which to place the first golden piece. It is now made up of over 200 kilos of gold!!! No big deal… its so beautiful with so so so much detail- every little person and animal is so tiny and there are millions of them all making up the design. Wowww.

In one side of the building, there is a room with lots of paintings, many by El Greco. This is not his actual name but because his name was long and hard to pronounce, and he was originally from Greece, the spaniards called him El Greco. Toledo became his second home because he completed the majority of his art here. All this art was also telling a story. On the ceiling was a hugeeeee frescoe covering the entire ceiling. It was beautiful and definitely looked like real people were sitting up there. This was painted by ‘speedy lucca’ who painted with both hands!

In some of the paintings, you could see that they had been cut out. This had happened during the war when some of the paintings had been cut up and really destroyed. Now, many of them have been restored but you can still tell how they were stolen.

Next, we went to go see El Greco’s masterpiece which is located in the San Tome Iglesia. The painting is called ‘ the burial of count orgaz’ and its pretty huge. It was really great. Its actually placed right over the actual tomb of count orgaz. The painting depicts a dead orgaz in armor about to be gently put down into the tomb right below by 2 priests in bright beautiful clothes. They are surrounded by several monks, along with 2 men leading the ceremony and watching are lots of men that represent the nobles of the time attending the burial. In the entire picture, there are only 2 people looking at you; everyone else is looking somewhere else in the painting. These two people are believed to be el Greco himself and his son at 8 years old. The son is in the bottom left corner pointing to the burial as in inviting us to join. In his pocket, there is a hankerchief with el greco’s signature (he always signed discreetly like this) and a year. However, this was not the year of the time of the painting and the same year his son was born, but 8 years from then, which is why the son is depicted at 8 years old in the future. His father is believed to be one of the noble men- they look very alike and again, are the only people looking at the audience so it means something.

The painting is divided into two halfs- earth and heaven. Jesus is right at the top, virgin mary beneath him to the side, with another man below him on the other side. Right in the middle, there is a huge angel carrying a cloud-type thing in the shape of a baby- this represents orgaz’s soul- into a cloud canal. These people are guiding his rebirth into heaven. There is st peter on the side holding the keys to heaven. Really cool painting. I never was one to truly appreciate religious paintings but when all the details are explained clearly, it really makes a good story and you also have twists with the painters sometimes being in there, and with the son too, that’s really cool.

Next, we went to the santa maria blanca synagogue that was later transformed into a church. From the outside, it looks really plain because it was considered disrespectful to show fanciness from the outside, which is why many buildings look simple from the outside but they are always extremely rich inside. The style inside was Moorish still with the big arcs and repetitive designs. The original design was kept even after being transformed. The christians built their altar on the east wall as with all churches but this east wall was also considered sacred for the moors. Now, the Christian altar has been removed so that they can start to discover the sacred wall that was left behind it. Some frescoes still remain on the walls on the inside of the synagogue.

This completed our tour to Toledo. Really marvelous, wow! Such a rich city! We grabbed a slice of pizza and now are on our way to sevilla! We have been riding and we already took a stop where I ate a Spanish tortilla (eggs, potatoes, spices, really yummy). There have been olive trees on both sides of our highway for at least 10 miles. Man, these people must love olives. Cant wait to get to sevilla- we meet our families tonight!