December 19, 2011
Day 84 (final day)

I can't believe it is here. In about 16 hours I will be waking up, packing the few last minute things, getting ready and getting in the car to head to the aiport in Sevilla.
These last 3 months (12 weeks) have gone by so fast I can't even believe it. Honestly, I can't. At first the days just seemed to drag on and on, not that I minded haha, but now it's like the days aren't long enough. It's my last day here in Spain and every time I do something I think "wow, I won't be doing this again" and that's such a strange feeling. I guess techincally my last day is tomorrow but considering I will be travelling all day (starting at 4:30am my time), I don't really consider it my last day.
Yesterday while I was packing my bags Carmen came into my room and said "que estas haciendo?" (what are you doing?) and I looked at her not sure what to say. I just stood there, lost for words and said "just seeing what fits..." and she walked away and I could hear her ask her mom what I was doing. I feel so bad for this little girl it's unbelieveable. Her and I have gotten really close these last three months, hell she has stopped hating me when she gets home from school. Instead of whining when I would say hi to her when she got home now she comes inside and looks for me calling out my name. She's such a sweet, cute little girl and I feel so bad doing this to her but there really isn't anything I can do. I just hope when the next au pair gets here (I think she comes in January) that Carmen and her get along as well as we did.
This experience has definitely been the most amazing experience of my life. It's so different than just vacationing in Spain. Yes, it was like a vacation in aspects but I lived the Spanish culture. I didn't just come here as a tourist, see all the touristy things, eat at Spanish restaurants every day and all other things touristy. Instead I moved into an apartment in Spain, I ate home cooked Spanish meals, I saw all the touristy sites, I saw non-touristy sites, I shopped at the supermarket for food and necessities, I bought medicine at the pharmacy and all kiinds of other things that a normal tourist wouldn't experience... the list can go on forever. But most of all I gained a second family in a foriegn country. I can't wait to see what Poland has in store for me next year!
Hasta luego España. Te echo de menos ya! Hola America.

December 13, 2011
Day 81

Losing someone is always hard but I didn't realize how much harder it would be to lose a friend when I am half way across the world. Today is the saddest I have been since I got to Spain. I haven't had this feeling in three months and I don't even know what to do with it a) because I haven't felt it in so long and b) because I really have nobody here than can comfort me like my family and friends back home can.
I woke up this morning, in a good mood thinking about going shopping, and while I was getting ready I saw a Facebook messanger window pop up on my computer screen. Sarah Han. Now I haven't talked to Sarah in a while so I was pretty confused when I saw her name on the IM window. It's not that I don't want to talk to her it's just always that feeling you get when someone you haven't talked to in a while suddenly contacts you. I read her message and sat there in disbelief. Was she playing some kind of horrible joke on me? There was no way what she was saying was true. It was totally unbelieveable. I sat there for a few moments reading and re-reading her message not even sure how to respond. Finally I came up with the most common answer I could "what!!!!!". My friend Patrick Gow, and her cousin, passed away today (well I guess techincally las night for everyone in the US). He wasn't even 21 yet, in college and had so much life ahead of him still. He was working on the exhaust of his car and the his car suddenly fell on top of him.
It's not fair. It's not fair for him. He was so young, so happy all the time, such a great kid. It's not fair to everyone, including me, that didn't get to see him recently. I hadn't seen Patrick since earlier this year when he came up to Renton to visit his family here. It was great to see him and take him to Dicks (mind you for his first time ever) since the frat party we were supposed to go to got broken up but I just wish I could have seen him one more time, more recently.
I remember when I first met him. Sarah (his cousin), him and I were headed out on a road trip to Portland with a local Seattle band (Moneta) to support them at their show and help with merch and whatever else they needed help with. It was a long, hot drive to Portland but a totally fun experience. After that road trip there were many more to come. Going to Portland to donate blood to get backstage passes to Warped Tour, going down just to go down for fun, all kinds of things. I'm going to miss being able to do that. Most of all I'm gonna miss being able to talk to him, seeing his facebook updates, being able to talk about awesome music with him like Rusko.
He was a great kid, taken far too young and with no just cause but I guess they do say all the great ones are taken young. So Patrick, I hope you know you are a great one and I can't wait to see you again and dance our asses off to Rusko up there and show everyone what real good music is all about.

If anyone that reads this is willing to help me get down to Portland for his funeral (assuming it is in Portland and it is after I get home; still waiting on details from his cousin) I would appreciate it. Basically I just need help with gas money to get down there. I am coming home from Spain, as you all know, broke and without a job but I am not going to let that stop me from seeing my friend one last time. So if you have it in your heart or in your wallet to help me, I would appreciate it. I am already thankful to Sarah (his cousin) for informing me of this tragedy so quickly, to my mom for trying her best to be a mother and support me from 6k miles away and to Shanelle for being willing to make the trip with me down there to be my back bone.

December 6, 2011
Day 74

Two weeks left in Spain! This time next Tuesday I will be somewhere over Canada on my final leg of my trip home (Newark to Seattle).
I can't believe how quick these three months have flown by. At first it felt like the days never ended; like there was 48 hours per day not 24. Now it feels like there are only 12. The days go by quicker than I can follow and I often get lost as to what day it actually is. To many people's amazement I am actually excited to come home though I will miss Spain very, very much and I do plan on coming back as soon as possible.
Why am I excited? Well I will be 21 six days after I get home. Now that is a big freaking deal, dude, big. Big enough to make anyone excited to go home. I will finally be able to drink in bars legally, I won't have to sneak in or make friends with the right people. I won't have to worry about asking friends to go buy me alcohol from the liquor store (soon the grocery store!). I won't have to worry about cops showing up at a party I am at and getting busted for drinking underage. It is going to be grand, I just know it! If it is anything like what I experienced here it is awesome. Of course here, in Spain, the cops really don't give a shit if you are drinking in public and the bars/clubs are open till 7am (serving alcohol the entire time). So there will be some differences but I am sure i can handle that.
Second, I am excited to go home because I miss my freaking animals. Yes, even the shit head dogs. Haha. I didn't realize how much I would miss fighting them for my bed, or miss getting jumped all over, or miss them barking at stupid shit but holy crap that is the first thing I started missing when I got here. I guess the saying is true, you never realize how much you'll miss something until it is actually gone. Thankfully, in my case, my animals were only gone for 3 months, not for forever. Got lucky there!
Third, I am excited to go home because I miss my family. And yes, I miss my animals more than I miss my family. Call me a bad person but that is how it always is with me. I think it has something to do with the fact that I can talk with my family (and thanks to Sykpe see them) but I can't talk with my cats or dogs. Sure, I can see them on Skype and try to talk to them but ya know, they don't respond. They look around lost and confused.
Fourth, I am excited to go home because I miss my friends. Sure, I made plenty of great friends here but nothing can ever replace the friends back home. The ones I spent every weekend with, the ones I texted constantly, every day about the most random bullshit. The ones I have the stupidest memories with like "bal-ance" and going to McDonald's at 5AM after partying and trying to order a McChicken and yelling at the guy behind the microphone because we couldn't order a McChicken. Those kinds of memories just don't happen with just anybody. It takes a certain type of person for those things to happen.
In other news, we got a Christmas tree yesterday. It is only like 3ft tall and looks totally fake but it's alright. Up north the family has a legit, massive tree and since they will be there for the holidays they didn't want to go all out for Christmas here since they won't be there. The tree was really only bought for Carmen, to make her happy since she kept asking for a tree. Nonetheless, it adds some Christmas cheer to the apartment and otherwise non-christmasy surroundings of the village. It's odd because most villages and cities here are all decked out for Christmas, with lights up and stuff, but I haven't seen any of that in Isla Cristina. Must be a village full of rare devil lovers or something strange like that. Maybe witches and wizards or crap I don't know... maybe they are just lazy. Who knows but the lack of Christmas cheer in this little village is retarded.
Oh yeah, by the way, Carmen is obsessed with my boobs. The other day she kept staring at them and pointing at my chest saying "GRANDE. GRANDE. GRAAAAAAANDE." then she would try to tickle my boobs. Funny little girl but awkward.

November 28, 2011
Day 66

I wish every weekend was like this weekend here in Spain. I am really not looking forward to going back to Isla Cristina tomorrow night. I'm going to miss all my friends here but I am glad that I got to come up one more time to see all of them and party with them! I will be coming back here, in the north of Spain, to kick it with all of them again soon that is for sure. And hopefully at least a couple of them will get the chance to come to Seattle and I can show them how us Americans live and party. Haha.
So I'm just gonna skip to the good parts and that would be Saturday night.
The night started off at a birthday party for one of Uxia's friend's. At first I was bored because I didn't understand what anyone was saying and I felt so out of place. But bring on the alcohol and bam I was talking with everyone, dancing, singing and just enjoying myself. Everyone was trying to talk in English with me which was nice. I always feel so exotic and like I am a celebrity when people realize I speak English. It is so foriegn here for someone to speak English so whenever people know I speak English they are so interested in me and everything about me. It's funny but cool at the same time.
The cops ended up being called so we all agreed to take the party to the pubs/clubs in town. Well on our way out one of the girls started puking really bad and ended up passing out and not responding to anyone so we had to call the ambulance. When the medics brought her out of the house I felt so bad for her. She was so pale and like jelly, couldnt even hold her own arm up. Alcohol poisoning I am assuming. Poor girl, I hope she is ok.
After we got her all taken care of with the medics we began our mile or so walk to where all the clubs were. Drunk and in 5 inch stilletos that mile walk felt like a lifetime but luckily my friend Tamara and I were enjoying ourselves. We laughed the entire way and just didn't give a shit.
Got to the club and I was only there for about 10 minutes before I went and met up with my friend Andy. Apparently he saw me and my friend Paula and heard us from across the town square. I don't exactly remember I just know that her and I were laughing the entire time we were walking to the square to meet up with him. Good times, of course!
Got to Andy and he and I hung out in the square before deciding to go back to his house. It was so freaking cold it was ridiculous and my feet hurt.
We get back to his house and end up watching soccer all night. Poor guy is a Real Madrid fan. Poor, poor guy. Barca is where it's at! Next thing I knew I could hear his dad yelling his name. We woke up and I looked at his phone it was nearly 4pm! On one hand I thought I should get myself home but on the other I didn't feel like getting up and walking home just yet my feet still hurt and I just plain didn't want to get out of bed. All my debating was useless because when Andy came back from talking with his parents he got back into bed and we cuddled more and watched more soccer.
Then I got a massage!
Out of no where he looked at me and was like "tu quieres massaje?" and I was like "what? a massage? sure" and he laughed and said "si o no?" and of course I wasn't going to turn down a massage so this girl got one of the best back massages ever! And then we fell asleep for about an hour or so.
Woke up and cuddled more before we realized it was nearly 8pm. So finally, at 8pm on Sunday I went back to my house. I would say I had a very successful Saturday night!
Now today, Monday. I woke up at 10am, looked at my phone and saw a text from Uxia saying to be at her school at 10:30am to be a guest in an English class. FML big time, I had to rush hardcore to get ready since I still had to walk to her school which is about a 10 minute walk, all up hill, so that left me with 20 minutes to do everything I usually do in the morning. Yeah, I didn't get to shower, thank god I showered last night at like 10pm so I was still feeling decently clean.
English class was fun. It was small but it was nice helping these 15 and 16 year olds better their English. I only did it for one hour and then helped some teachers for one hour with their English but I felt good about it. I talked with the teacher I was working with (she is here teaching for a year, I think, from California) and we started talking about the possibility that I could do something like what she is doing as a way to come back to Spain. Of course I would need to speak Spanish fluently but no biggie I was already planning on going home and taking Spanish classes at Highline.
Now I am laying in my warm bed waiting for Andy to text me so we can hang out again. I really need to get my phone reloaded with some money! And sadly this will probably be the last time I can reload my phone, so I gotta get Andy to get an email. haha.

November 24, 2011

Woke up at 7:30am this morning. An hour later than I was supposed to. Woo go me! Thankfully I had packed my bag the night before so all I had to do was get the last minute things (toothbrush, make up, hair brush, etc.) in my bag. Simple.

I hate rushing around to get ready. It makes me so nervous that sometimes I nearly have panic attacks. I shoved some cereal down my throat took a shower in literally 2 minutes and got dressed. Was supposed to be out the door by 8. I was ready to go by 8:05. Amazing I got ready so quick, given I usually take about an hour to get ready. But I knew that if I didn’t leave before 8:10 (at the latest) my whole trip would probably be fucked.

Ended up leaving around 8:15 since Fernando wasn’t yet ready to take me to the bus station but it’s ok I made it to the station in time and got on the bus. No problem. Now here is where I really wished I spoke Spanish. This uber attractive guy said something to me (I think about reclining his seat) but I wasn’t sure what he said and hell even if I was, I didn’t know how to respond. So the entire ride (like 2 hours) to Sevilla he and I kept exchanging glances with smiles, of course.

Smoot ride to Sevilla then I had to find a taxi. Wasn’t that hard, they were all lined up outside the bus station. Hopped in and instead of feeling like I was going to be kidnapped by the taxi driver and murdered I felt safe. The car was clean, smelt good, the cabby lady was nice. All around I wasn’t fearing for my life the entire time. She was a nice lady although we didn’t communicate much because of the language barrier but she was still nice enough.

Now I am sitting in the Sevilla airport. I got here around 11:15am and my flight doesn’t leave until 4:30pm. However this was my only option, to get here super early and sit around and wait or not go on my trip at all. I’d rather sit around and wait, I’ve done a lot of that in airports lately to not even care anymore, than to miss my entire trip.

Tried to get some chips from the vending machine but the damn machine wouldn’t take my coin. It’s like it’s sitting here, staring at me, taunting me, telling me that I’m a poor bastard that doesn’t get to eat. Sure I could go to one of the cafes here and get something but I wanted some damn chips! Although I did end up getting 2€ from the machine that weren’t mine. So score I suppose! 2€ I wasn’t expecting to have. Hopefully the rest of the day goes this well.

Tried to get online. Stupid internet here tricks you. It connects to the wi-fi network no problem. Opens the internet to the homepage. Perfect. And then when you go to type in a different URL stupid jerks decide to THEN tell you “oh wait, loser, you have to either have an account with movistar internet or buy one now to use the internet. Oh you don’t have one? Hahahaha that sucks, you’re lame, go play in traffic now idiot”. So instead of surfing the oh-so-exciting web on this gorgeous Thanksgiving day I am stuck with playing solitaire which I play too often and get bored of quick.

2.5 more hours till my flight leaves. Going to get my visa and passport checked and head through security to wait for the gate to open. Gotta be one of the first there because it’s a damn free for all for seats on this airline. I can just imagine the African Savanna in this situation. Lions going after gazelles. Should be fun!

November 20, 2011
(too lazy to count days)

I never want to spend an entire day in Ikea ever again unless I am actually buying stuff for myself. Which we know that will probably not happen until I move out and get my own place, so that means I don't will not be stepping foot inside that Swedish hell until I finish college.
I usually love Ikea but not when the entire freaking country of Spain had the same idea as us on this extremely rainy day to go freaking furniture shopping. Holy hell it was a mad house in there. I don't think I have ever seen an Ikea so freaking busy in my life and there weren't even any insane sales or anything! Not to mention since I wasn't shopping it just made it that much less enjoyable for me. I was really hoping to try and slip across to the centro commercial (mall) but never really got the courage to ask so I didn't. Oh well, probably for the better anyways, kept me from spending lots of money that I don't need to spend right now.
All I gained from this Ikea trip was hangover burps. I was so excited to eat lasagna today that I can't even explain to you the level my excitement was at. This lasagna was advertised as having chicken instead of beef so that made me even more excited. Then I sat down at the table, cut into my lunch and gagged. It was cat food in there, NOT CHICKEN! Ok, well, it really wasn't cat food but hot damn it looked like it and even tasted like it. This isn't the first time I have seen this so called meat on food here before. I learned quick not to order the "ensalada mixta" (mixed salad) because it comes with pieces of cat food on it. The shit literally tastes like I would imagine cat food to taste and has the same texture I imagine too. I don't see how these Spaniards eat it and enjoy it. Barf.
Now you are wondering "wtf are hangover burps"? So you know when you are hungover and you become best friends with the toilet? Yeah, every time you puke it has that weird acidy, alcoholy taste to it. That is how my burps taste. I wish I could say it is because I am hungover but no it is because of that stupid cat food lasagna I ate earlier. I have even brushed my teeth, eaten a grilled cheese, some soup, some hot chocolate, coffee, sode and a donut. Nothing will get rid of these hangover burps. I cant stand it!
In other news, I am not feeling so sick. My nose is still an asshole sometimes but not as stuffed up and I am not really a mouth breather anymore.

O GROVE IN 4 DAYS!

November 11, 2011

Been a while since I have posted anything. Sorry to everyone that reads my entries and looks forward to a good laugh. Lately I've just been too lazy to sit down and write and hell I forget half of the time. Life is still splendid here and I am still not sure I want to go home. Haha. I will go home, I promise all of you, I will but I will be back in Spain very soon!
Saturday we are going to Cordoba for the day. It's a biggish city about 2.5 hours northeast of where I live with lots of history and I hear it is really beautiful. It is also Carmen's third birthday, so that should be fun.
2 weeks until I go to O Grove, alone, for five days. I am so excited!

Day 30
(it has officially been one month)
October 23, 2011

I got to feel like Harry Potter today.
Today was spent in Sevilla. And I literally mean all day. But it was aboslutely fabulous and I am definitely going to go back a couple times before I have to go home. I am dead tired though and not going to upload pictures until tomorrow; too lazy right now and the computer is being an idiot. Plus, wanna make you guys suffer... just a little bit. Drool in anticipation bitches! :)
I stayed up later than I should have last night, knowing I had to be up at 8:30am to get ready to leave by 10am and spend the entire day walking around the city... but hey boys make you do stupid things sometimes. And this would be one of those times.
I stayed up until about 3:30am chatting with that boy I met in O Grove. No, not creepy stalker kid but cute, eye candy kid. It was a bit of a task though given that we have a huge language mountain chillin between us like "oh hey, you guys wanna flirt? well that's great. i wanna plop my fat ass down right here and make your life difficult". But to top it off, he didn't just text me in Spanish but he texted me in shorthand so half the time the translator would only translate certain words and it would be a guessing game from there for me. But hey, love doesn't know language just like it doesn't know age... right? Hahahaha. I mean he did tell me that my true love may be in O Grove and that if he see's me again he is going to fall in love and follow me to America. Cute.
So anyways. While staying up late was well worth it my body is definitely ready to beat up my soul or something like that.
Got to Sevilla at around noon. We first made our way to the amazing Catedral de Sevilla (Seville Cathedral). It was once upon a time an Arabian temple but when the Catholic people of Spain won back the land they made sure to rid of the Arabian-ness of it all and make it a cathedral. Today there stands one piece of the building that is still of Moorish architecture and that is the Giralda (or belltower). The Catholics left that there but made sure to add some bells (to make it a bell tower) so that it made the church a cathedral and no longer an Arabian temple. I walked up that damn thing. All the way to the top, sweat my lady balls off and my perfume but the views were total worth it. There is apparently no taller building in Sevilla than the Giralda. I'm not sure if they are doing that on purpose when building or it just keeps happening that way. Either way, it makes the view perfect so I kind of hope they are doing it on purpose so one asshole doesn't ruin the view for everyone.
Oh by the way I met homedude Columbus today, and his son Hernando. Pretty cool dudes, even though they are dead and all. Haha. Yeah, both of their tombs are in the Seville Cathedral. It is kinda retarded though because Hernando's tomb is in the ground so people can just walk all over it and shit (if they decide to ignore the blue rope around it). How disrespectful. Then there is good ol Columbus high above the ground in his tomb. It is a statue of four dudes carrying his casket on their shoulders. I mean we all know Columbus is the big hero here and all but still, they could give Hernando a little bit more respect.. In my opinion anyways.
After the cathedral we made our way to a little restaurant near by and had lunch. Yum, delicious! Had paella for the first time and I loved it. It was chicken paella. I wanted the seafood but I wasn't going to make a fuss about it since I am, after all, not paying for my own food and shit when we do things as a family. After lunch it was more sightseeing.
I made a stop in a little shop before heading to the Real Alcazar (royal arabian palace) and bought some postcards and gifts for some people. Don't worry, I am not forgetting about those of you I promised gifts for!
OH. MY. FREAKING. GOD. The Real Alcazar is so amazingly beautiful. The pictures don't even do this place justice the only thing that will is if you actually visit it... so come on, get up, book that flight ticket and see it tomorrow! The Real Alcazar was an Arabian palace way back when they ruled the land of Andalucia. Then the Catholics came and took the land back and God forbid they let the place stay looking Arabian, so they went through and made all kinds of changes. Despite many of the changes you can still see the Arabian aspects of it, like the arched walls, some of the ceiling work and bits and pieces of the building. I spent most of my time in the gardens, apparently the largest and most renowned gardens in Europe... or one of them at least. And holy shit they are gorgeous. I wish I could have spent more time there. I could just go there for a day, sit under one of the massive trees and read a book. Srsly. I wouldn't mind paying 2€ like once a week to go do that. Chill with the peacocks and other exotic birds that live naturally on the ground. Hell yeah!
So the Real Alcazar is where I got to feel like Harry Potter. One of the gardens is a freaking labyrinth garden. I didn't think it was really gonna get me that lost but shit it did. I felt like Harry Potter when there is that competition or whatever and they are running through the labyrinth garden thing to find the trophy. Yeah, if only it were at night and I had my trusty wand in my hand. None the less I kept asking myself "what sick fuck decides 'oh hey, i want a labyrinth garden in my backyard, get to it slaves'"? I mean like srsly. Do you really want that bullshit for your kids to get lost in at night and the get swallowed up by the massive goblet/trophy that is lurking in there? What retards.
After Real Alcazar we wandered down to the Mayor's Building, took a picture or two and then it was off to the bullfighting ring.
Totally awesome. I have never seen one in person and have definitely never been inside one... until today. We went on a tour of the ring and damn I learned a lot. The ring isn't perfectly square like customary for bullfighting rings but it is actually oval and happens to be one of the oldest bullfighting rings in Spain. Hot damn! I also learned that there is two different kinds of bullfighting. The first and most common is on foot. Now, I always thought that bullfighting was just one dude but nope it is actually a team of dudes (usually about 6 dudes) that work together to kill the bull. First, you have the picadores which are two dudes that are responsible for "picking" (aka poking him with long, sharp sticks) the bull to weaken him. Then you have the next three dudes (don't remember their special name) that have to like put this ribbon thing-a-ma-jigs on the bulls shoulders (at this point people were kind of loud so I couldn't really hear the tour guide). And finally the matador (the dude everyone knows about) is responsible for then killing the bull and depending how well he does this determines how good he is at bullfighting. Apparently, the "perfect kill" is when the matador stabs the bull directly between his shoulder blades. Then there is the other form of bullfighting.
This form is a lot less common but does happen and it involves only one person. In this type of bullfighting the bullfighter is on horseback and plays the role of all three parts himself.
After our tour of the ring we decided to make our way back towards the car and stop by the Gold Tower. The Gold Tower was a tower built on the river in Sevilla during the time Columbus and others were making conquests to the Americas. It was built to house all of the silver and gold mined in the Americas, hence the name Gold Tower. It is not actually made of gold or anything like that, though I thought it was.. or maybe when it was first built it was. Misleading assholes.
Home now, post-Barca game (that they totally did not play their best at) and ready for sleep. Postcards should be mailed out Monday or Tuesday. (:
Oh and one other thing I forgot to mention. I really hate when groups of American kids go on trips (school or not) and act like dick wads. In the cathedral there was this group of American kids on a tour and most were not even paying attention. Instead they were being ridiculously loud, cracking jokes about everything and just being plain disrespectful. It made me so embarassed to be an American there, like seriously. You represent the country you are visiting from and twats like them are the reason Americans are not liked in many places. I don't understand why kids sign up for shit, knowing what they are getting into, if they are not interested in it at all. If you sign up for a program or some school trip you know it is going to feature of a lot of sightseeing and history, that is just standard. If you don't wanna do that kind of stuff, don't join the program or school trip. Go to Europe (or whatever country/continent) on your own time and enjoy the clubs and bars or beaches or whatever. Don't make everyone else from America look like ass whipes just cause you signed up for something that doesn't actually interest you. I wanted so badly to just go off on those mother fuckers.

Day 27
October 20, 2011

I can’t even explain how amazing it is to take a shower, get out and not fight with sweat while I am getting dressed and doing my make-up. It is like one of the best things ever. I was starting to worry that I was going to have to deal with this my entire time here and that was making me slightly angry. The point of showering is to feel clean and when you get out and start sweating you definitely don’t feel clean anymore. At least I don’t. Maybe some of you freaks out there do. Haha.

I was going to go look for a pre-paid phone today but I know it wouldn’t go over so well with this language barrier so I am hoping Fernando wouldn’t mind going with me this afternoon. That way everyone understands each other and I won’t get ripped off (accidentally or on purpose) cause of the impassable mountain range between me and the sales representative. Also, I wanna see if maybe Fernando and Carmela have an old phone they aren’t using that I can borrow to put a new SIM card into. If they do that will save me money! I saw online that you can just get the SIM card for free and put it into your phone you already have instead of buying an entire phone. I mean, that is online so it might not be the same way in stores but who knows, it’s worth a shot. I wish ATT weren’t such dick licks and would just give my mom the unlock code so I could just use my iPhone here under Vodafone and then switch back to ATT when I am home. Oi! Somewhere, someone has to make things difficult, always; that’s life.

I can smell lunch cooking and I am so excited. Smells like we are having tortilla aka Spanish omlette for lunch. Yum! Freaking love that stuff. Then after we are trying the brownies we made last night. That should be good too. Or maybe not good since we kind of guessed on measurements since they don’t have actual measuring cups or utensils here; that made me kind of annoyed. I am one of those people that when I cook I hate estimating on shit… Gotta love my OCD! So hopefully our estimating went well and we will have delicious brownies!

Gonna read for a bit. I will update this more later tonight.

Made it to the mobile phone store today. Not Vodafone but Movistar. Found a decent phone for like 19€. I was going to buy it right then and there but didn’t have enough time for we needed to go get Carmen from school. Poop on a stick! But I am going tomorrow morning to finally get my lifeline. Next, is planning my weekend solo trip to O Grove! Maybe I can convince some friends from O Grove to come down here for a weekend sometime too. That would be fantastic!

I must say, I love living in a country that understands my love for bread. Bread of all kinds! We eat bread with basically every meal, except breakfast, because breakfast is usually just a cup of coffee. And I don’t mean just plain sandwich bread. I mean freshly baked, that morning and bought that morning baguettes and tasty bread like that. Yum! The family noticed right away that I really like bread and instead of laughing at me and saying “it’s just bread” like people do back home they told me that 99% of Spaniards can’t even eat their lunch without bread on their plate. Wonderful!

Almost made a guy crash on his Vespa today. Yeah, my good looks are dangerous. And I am dead serious here. The guy was passing by on his Vespa (with a girl on the back mind you) and looked right at me. Not once. Not twice. Not even three times. But FOUR times! And the fourth time he nearly crashed into the curb and fence. Damn I am one sexy mother fucker. It’s that exotic American-ness about me. Too sexy for words.

Then I almost got ran over by a guy on a bicycle. Guess he just wanted to get as close to me as possible. Be in the bubble of a gorgeous girl. Yeah, I have that effect on people. No worries though, nobody has been seriously injured by my beauty.

Tomorrow it’s phone time, possibly visiting Huelva and perhaps a bit of shopping here in Isla Cristina. Found a new store that I am in love with here! So now I have two stores I will frequent here. Then Saturday is hopefully off to Sevilla for the day and then the Barca game at night. Yeah buddy!

And btw as of tonight I have ran out of books to read. Damnit! I wish I could go to a bookstore and buy a couple books but I am sure they are all in Spanish. FML!

Day 26
October 19, 2011

So let me just start this out by saying a few things. First, I had my very first stalker. Second, I got my very first hickey… ON MY FACE. Third, I may have found my Spanish boyfriend. And fourth, O Grove is 10x better than Isla Cristina.

Last week (the 6th-17th) I was up north in a small village called O Grove to visit relatives of the family I work for and also for an annual festival- a festival of seafood. Seemed kinda weird to me to have a festival all about seafood but come to find out that is the primary source of an economy for this village and always has been so it makes sense to celebrate something so important. Now, that doesn’t mean people dressed up as different types of seafood, or there was seafood all over the streets. No. It was like any normal festival. Restaurants were having specials on their seafood dishes, stores were having specials on items they had, there were play toys for the little kids and live music at night. I never really went during the day, so the day time festivities could have been different than at night but damn were the nights fun! Lots of drinking, lots of dancing and lots of laughing.

I know I made a small entry last week while I was in O Grove but this entry is going to be a little more detailed than that one since I have more time and nothing better to do right now. Haha.

So my first Friday night I went out with Uxia (Carmela’s niece) to the festival. I was a tad uncomfortable at first because I didn’t know anybody and well all the music was in Spanish. So while everyone around me was getting down and laughing I was kind of standing there like an idiot. As the night went on I got a little more comfortable and joined in on some of the dancing but not a lot. Then we hit the bars… my place! There I met these two girls Katia and Paula mostly because Uxia needed someone to translate for us and Katia speaks English fluently, given that she has an English mother. So I ended up hanging out with Katia and Paula. We went to this awesome bar in town called Fou’s Bar. Delicious shots at a decent price… had 3 shots for about $8. Now compare that to the US and that’s only one shot! We then decided to go see if any of the clubs were “poppin”… they weren’t really but I guess that is Friday nights around there. Sometimes people go out in mass amounts, sometimes they don’t but Saturdays are a WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY. We ended up at Plateria 48 and hung out for a bit with some friends before all deciding to go home and just meet up the next day.

Bring on Saturday!

I went to Santiago de Compostela for the day. Rode a train for the first time in my life as a means of transport. It was realtively nice, though I could hear these stupid teenagers talking about me. I don’t know EXACTLY what they were saying but when they would talk and motion their heads in my direction, it’s obvious I’m the topic. It was probably about how pretty I am and how jealous they are of my good looks. Yeah, I am sure that’s what it was. I mean, I am an exotic foriegner with blue eyes and light hair… Not the standard dark eyes and dark hair. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that (the men are super hot here with their dark eyes and dark hair and tan skin… yummmmmmy!) but still, my exotic looks just prevail over all!

So I finally get to Santiago and I have one goal in mind: get to that damn cathedral! I figure if I just walk straight from the train station it would get me to the city center and there would be signs telling me where to go from there to get to the cathedral. Wrong! Either I am fucking blind, their signs grew legs and ran away or I just plain can’t read the word ‘cathredral’ because I sure as hell didn’t get any help from the street signs. I saw lots of signs for damn hotels but mother fuckers I don’t need a stupid hotel, I need to see that cathedral! Wandered around for a bit, sweating my ass off (I thought it was going to be a bit chilly but nooooo it was a tad on the warmer side FML) and got lost. Then I decided to just walk in a straight line, I mean I have heard the saying “whenever you are lost, just go in a straight line and you will get yourself out of the mess”. Yeah, that shit worked! I ended up finding the cathedral all on my own- go Adri, you fucking rock dude! When I saw that thing I couldn’t believe it. It is freaking huge and holy crap lots of detail!

I took a few pictures of the cathedral’s front and the cathedral square before asking this German lady to take my picture in front of the cathedral. Now, usually this means “get the whole damn cathedral and me in the picture, thanks” but apparently in Germany it doesn’t. This damn lady zoomed my camera in a bit and got me completely but cut part of the cathedral off. Stupid lady. I didn’t even want to bother asking her to retake it because God knows how it would have turned out. Probably would have been only my feet and the ground the second time around. Now it was time to wander the inside of this ancient building.

The inside was even more breathtaking than the outside. High vaulted ceilings, a massive chandelier, an organ that scaled the sides of the walls, gold every where, just plain insane inside of there. I walked around, took pictures of all the small little rooms off the main center of the church then decided to hop in this line I saw. I had no idea where the line went but I figured “whatever, it goes somewhere obviously and I am sure this line isnt for sacrificing yourself so I might as well join”. Turns out the line went down to the tomb of one of the Saints. Cant’ for the life of me remember his name… I wanna say St. James but I am most likely wrong. So anyways. Brought you down underneath the uhm… area where the priest stands (I don’t go to church obviously because I have no idea wth this thing is called) and you got to see the Saint’s tomb. Kind of creepy. I wonder if his body is actually in there.. I mean, I know it’s his tomb and all but maybe they moved the body since people can go down here and view. I don’t know, that is just something I would do to protect such an important person… but then again, I am not the one that presides over the church and it’s happenings; I am just an American tourist that is going to hell at some point in her life haha.

After wandering the inside of the cathedral for probably almost an hour I decided to get one photograph of my inside before heading back out to wander the grounds around the cathedral. Once again, I ran into a German lady and asked her to take my picture. When I first asked her she said “no, no” and did that ‘go away’ motion with her hand. I stood their confused for a moment before decided to be a pesky American and bug her again. This time she laughed, apologized and said she would take my picture. She apparently thought I was asking if I could take her picture… Wtf, you idiot, I don’t want some random haggard old lady on my camera. No thank you! So she took my picture. A better job than the last German lady but eh, could have been better. Whatever, not going to deal with it.

Now time to wander outside. Got myself lost again. Go figure. The little maps that they placed around the grounds were no help. They didn’t have a compass on the maps so you just had to guess which way you were going.. I seemed to always guess the wrong way. Now I was getting pissed. So I decided to go find myself something to eat. I got a little picky and ended up basically back at the train station. Oi! I wanted a restaurant with not many people at it.. since you know I don’t speak Spanish, I didn’t want everyone staring at me like a total idiot when I tried to communicate with the waiter. Yeah, being too picky got me way away from where I needed to be. So I decided to head back toward the cathedral but on a different street. Found myself a cute little café with nobody sitting outside so I plopped my sweaty, tired ass down on a seat and kicked my feet up. The waitress came out and I tried to ask if she had a menu. She informed me she didn’t speak English, go figure, 95% of the people here don’t. So I pulled out my little Spain guide book because I know it told you how to ask for the menu but just my luck I couldn’t find that stupid phrase anywhere. She asked if I wanted a sandwhich and I just said sure and I asked for a coffee with milk.. though I really wanted a beer but didn’t want to try and figure out what kind they had. Too lazy and too hungry to bother. My food was delicious! After satisfying my stomach I decided I would go look for one more thing in Santiago before heading to the bus station. Well, this one more thing got me all kinds of lost.

When I finally found it (after about an hour and lots of debating wether or not I should just head to the bus station or keep searching) I realized I had been at this exact spot about 3 times already. I was beyond pissed. Beyond pissed. I can’t even explain how pissed I was. At that point I was done exploring this damn city and just wanted to get on the bus. So I had about an hour and 15 minutes to walk to the bus station. Made me nervous because I knew the bus station was a bit of a distance and if I didn’t make that bus I would have to wait to fucking hours for the next one. So rushing around like a maniac I followed all the signs to the bus station. The damn signs brought me to the back of the stupid station and once there, there weren’t any signs telling me where to buy tickets. Now I am even more irritated. I have 15 minutes before this damn bus leaves and if I miss it because I couldn’t find the ticket counter I will kill someone. Finally decided to go upstairs and see what was there. Ah, the ticket counter! Bought my ticket with about 10 minutes to spare. Huge sigh of relief.

Go back downstairs to wait for the bus. Then I look at my ticket. The damn thing says I will be on the 8:30 bus. Oh fuck no! Stupid idiotic ticket counter employee. I wanted to strangle him. I told him I wanted the next bus to O Grove… that would be the 6:00 bus not the 8:30. Stupid man! I was going go back upstairs and have a major bitch fit but I knew it wouldn’t solve anything. What would happen is I would get my way, he would change the ticket and it would be too late, I would miss the bus so I would have to take the 8:30 anyways. Now I got to sit in the cold bus station for 2.5 hours with nothing to do and nobody to talk to. Wonderful. I filled out the postcards I bought but that took a whole 30 minutes.. or maybe even less. So I still had two hours and I kept getting homeless people coming up to me asking me for money when I would shake my head no they would all get pissed and yell at me in Spanish. Then I would say “ sorry, no Spanish, English only” they would only get more pissed. I was pretty sure I was gonna get my ass kicked by a sticky bum, so I went upstairs to wait inside where it was warmer and there were bus station employees around to keep the bums away.

Sat on my ass for two hours, which was actually ok because my left leg was killing me (still does to this day a little). It was like I pulled a muscle in my groin and knee. I bet I looked so cool when I was walking, limping like an idiot. Awesome. This was really going to attract me some hawt men. “Oh, she is handicapped, let’s talk to her” “Oh, how sexy, she has a limp” “She must be retarded, just the kind of girl I like to date”. Too bad none of that is true! The bus finally came and I got on. Yay! Time to sit back, relax and sleep for a couple hours since the bus ride was roughly 2-3 hours. Everything was great on the bus until I realized cold air was blowing on me even though it was chilly outside. I looked up, joy, the vent for my air was broken and there was no way to close it. I hopped across the aisle to a different seat. Same bullshit. Tried a second time. Once again, bullshit. Third time is a charm right? No. Not in this case. The third time I tried to switch seats the stupid vent was broken too. Now I was pissed. I was getting irritated by jumping around the bus but also irritated that I was freezing. Debated for about ten minutes and decided to try once more. Success! This seat had working vents and both were closed. I happily reclined my seat and started to close my eyes but something caught my eye. I looked at the window and nearly screamed. There was a god damn spider crawling on my window… on the inside! Panicking I put my leg up and kicked the window, just hoping I wouldn’t bust the stupid thing in my attempt to kill this disgusting spider. Didn’t break the window but now I had spider guts on my window and the bottom of my shoe. Yeah, no sleeping for me now because I was too paranoid that a spider was going to come at me for revenge for killing his wife or something and crawl up my nose or whatever. So instead I sat there, paranoid, trying to just relax on this ride.

Got to O Grove finally. It was just me and this old dude left on the bus. Luckily the bus station was right across from where I was staying, so I didn’t have to walk far. I don’t think my leg would have allowed it anyways… It probably would have just said “fuck you” and fallen off. Home sweet home. Made myself a sandwich and I heard the door open. Guess it was time to go out. Oi! As much as I was excited I was also slightly bummed, I thought I had a good hour or maybe two to just relax. Stuffed down my sandwich, changed and headed out the door with Uxia. Met up with her friends and hung out for a bit… drank a bottle of vodka on the side of the street. I was kind of paranoid at first that I was going to go to jail but nobody else seemed to worry so I tried to just relax my shoulders and enjoy the night… Oh I did enjoy the night. After getting a nice buzz off the bottle we had we headed to Plateria 48 where the real fun began. Me, Uxia, Ire and Valentia decided to to the meter which consists of 25 shots of whatever we wanted. So that meant 5 shots in a row for each of us. No biggie. And to top it off it was only like $8 for all 5 (cheaper than Fou’s). That got us all going. We all started dancing and just having a good time. Then came the mixed drinks. Delicious. Ended up meeting this kid. Seemed nice enough so I decided I would go bar hopping with him. All was fun and I ended up getting home at like 6 or 7am. No biggie, totally normal here in Spain. Made plans to hang out Sunday night.

I felt like shit all day Sunday and to make matters worse lunch was big (like usual) and all seafood. Definitely not the smells or tastes you want when you are hungover. After lunch it was time to go back to the apartment. Carmen and I ended up sleeping for a bit, thank God. Nothing really exciting happened until aroun 11 when I met up with the kid from the bar and we went to a town near by for a beer festival. Had a beer or two and then went back home. I wasn’t trying to spend too much time with the kid… he was kind of annoying me. Don’t ge tme wrong, I like making out but this kid just wanted to do it way to much, I couldn’t handle it.

So the week was really boring. Didn’t do anything exciting, well, Tuesday night I did a little. Schools were closed Wednesday for Spain Day (a national holiday here), so there was a concert with a live band. Went to the concert with Uxia and everyone else then hit the pubs. Not many people were out, which I expected, so we only stayed out for a couple of hours. Still had a good time though, but I knew the weekend would get better.

Here comes Friday. The day was like any other day, lunch at the grandparents and watching Carmen in the afternoon. Then we went to Cambados at around 6pm to meet with Fernando at his mother’s house since he was coming back into town after being in Isla Cristina for work. Got home around 9 or 10pm, had dinner and then it was time to relax. I wasn’t sure if I was going out or not but I figured I was.. though I was feeling kind of sick (I had been puking all night the night before for some reason…). Around midnight I figured I wasn’t going out but then I heard Uxia come in. We talked about going out but decided not to because nobody really was and she had just got home from handball practice. We would just go out Saturday and punchin punchin (aka fist pump) a lot. So we just sat online and made me a tuenti account and blahblah…. Then the real interesting shit happened.

I am online and I get a message from the kid I met at the bar the previous weekend. He wants to hang out. I told him I wasn’t going out because I was sick and couldn’t leave Carmen alone in the apartment. Then I get the next message. He told me he could see the light from my bedroom and just wanted me to come down for 5 minutes so he could kiss me. I couldn’t believe it. This kid showed up at my house, some how knew which bedroom was mine and was literally standing outside waiting for me. Uhm… can you say freaked the fuck out????!!! I was already kind of freaked out by him before because during the week he told me he had a present he wanted to give me. When I told him it was unnecesarry he told me it was necessary because this way whenever I looked at the gift I would be reminded of him and it was a gift he had never given any other girl before. Uhm. Weird. But this night (Friday) just brought freaked out to a whole new level. Uxia and I both were looking at eachother then outside confused as fuck.

A couple hours later Uxia went back to her apartment and I went to sleep, still freaked out a bit but I knew nothing could happen because a) I am on the fourth floor and b) the only way to get into the apartment is if you have a key to get into the building (and a different one for the specific apartment you want to get into) or someone buzzes you in. So I was safe.

Now Saturday (my last full day in O Grove). Went to a big family lunch for a couple of hours and then Uxia and I went to a handball game with some friends. Interesting to say the least. Kind of like basketball and soccer combined. Apparently it is a HUGE sport here in Spain. Not as big as soccer (futbol) but pretty damn important. After the game we were standing outside and I nearly shit myself. I was pretty sure I saw my ex boyfriend. I looked again and realized it wasn’t him but it was super freaky how much he looked like my ex. So freaky that I had to actually walk away from the place and get away from the guy. We wandered the streets of town, got some sweets at the little sweet shop then met up with some other friends for ice cream and waffles with Nutella. Both delicious. Wandered some more to this little park where we hung out for a while before heading back to the stadium to watch Valentina’s little sister play her basketball game. Then we all parted ways.

Went home, ate dinner and relaxed for about 3 hours before getting ready and heading out for my last night in town. Went to the boat marina where I met some more people and we all pre-funked before heading to the bars around 2am. Ran into the kid we dubbed my stalker. Oi! Made myself busy so I wouldn’t have to talk to him. It worked actually. Hung out at Plateria 48 for about an hour, had a drink and then decided to head to TNT which turned out to be a western style bar. Kind of cool but odd because I didn’t think Spain really had western style bars.. I thought that was just an American thing. Danced, laughed and had a good time. Around 5am we all decided we were going to go home. Except we didn’t. We sat outside for about an hour talking and just goofing off. And that is where I saw my sexy Spanish boyfriend! Come to find out my friend Paula knows him (and actually used to date him way back when). Odd. She actually offered to introduce me, which I denied at first since they used to date but she laughed and said no, she would be glad to introduce me to him. So then we decided to hit up another club, Curb, where he was at with his friends.

Curb was a nice, upscale-ish club. As we are walking, who do we see but my stalker. He tries to stop me but I told him just a minute and went inside where I met Andy. Oi! Soooooo hawt. Literally. Total Spanish eye candy, dude. He said he was going to go outside with his friends and drink his drink but he would be back in. So when he came back in Paula and Uxia decided to take it upon themselves to try and get me to go talk to Andy. Mind you, I was sober so there was no way in hell I was going to talk to him. Too nervous. Lady balls were definitely not out.. Especially because we don’t even speak the language. I asked the girls wtf I was supposed to say to him since we speak two different languages and they just laughed and said “not talking, just kiss him”. Of course I just ignored them and kept dancing. Then finally he went up to the bar and the girls were like pushing me toward the bar. All I had was a 50€ bill and I really didn’t want to buy one drink with such a big bill, but they convinced me. So I walked up to the bar and tried to order something simple, vokda and coke. I repeated myself twice to the bartender but she couldn’t understand me so Andy waved over Uxia and Paula to order my freaking drink for me. Embarrassing. And as I am waiting for my drink I am suddenly knocked over into Andy. I look to my left and Paula and pushed into Uxia who then pushed me into Andy. I just laughed and Andy did too. Then we grabbed our drinks and went back to sit down. Mind you, he practically sat on top of me. But it was ok, he’s cute.

So we are sitting there, drinking our drinks when this girl passes by and does the whole “I’m watching you” thing with her fingers. I look at her then to Uxia and shrug my shoulders. Back to Andy. We aren’t really talking because we can’t really but it’s ok, gestures mean more than words. The Paula decides to take a picture of us. No problem. Then Ines (his sister) comes over and starts talking to us. She tells us that we should be boyfriend and girlfriend because we are so cute together and then Andy tells me I am very, very, very beautiful. I blush of course and say thank you and he says “psh, nada” which basically is like “psh, no problem”. And as we are listening to Ines talk about us dating Paula tells me that Andy wants a kiss. So I lean in to kiss him, we start making out. When we are finished I looked over and notice that Ines has been taking pictures (there are about 5 of us making out on my camera… hahahaha). It’s like 6:15 now so we all decided to part ways. I end up going on a walk around town with Andy, just walking. It was nice. He offered me his jacket and everything. About 7:00 I tell him I have to go home, so we head back to the club and run into his sister and her boyfriend(?). We get in the car and I get a ride back to my apartment. When we get there Andy is sweet enough to get out and walk me to my door. We of course end up making out again and then I have to stop him because I really need to go inside. Don’t really want to be walking in when the family is getting up. It would be weird. If it were my own family, whatever, but I would just feel weird doing it here. So he tells me to get in contact with him because he wants to keep talking to him.

I try to find the kid on tuenti and facebook. No luck. Then his sister informs he doesn’t have a tuenti account and all he has is his phone, which she gives me the number too. Sadly, I don’t have a phone here. So now I am on the hunt for a phone so I contact this handsome man. I mean who knows, he could be the one I bring back home or the one that gets me to stay here in Spain… as all of you say! Haha.

Wow, that was a novel but details had to be written. (: