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. (:

Day 20

October 12, 2011

So if I don´t have nice legs, a nice ass and a slimer body from all this walking when I get home someone is going to die. I haven´t decided who but someone will. Advice: stay on my good side just incase.
I don´t think I have ever walked so much in my life. In America if I want to go five blocks to 7-11 I get in my little car and drive my lazy ass there. Here, if you want to go to the other end of the village (way more than five blocks) you put on your comfy shoes and walk your ass there and don´t complain about it. It really shows me how fucking lazy American´s are and it is ridiculous. I´m not saying I am going to keep up this walking bit when I get home (it´s too damn wet outside all the time) but I´m just sharing my realization. America: the country of lazy mother fuckers.
Something else I realized about America. We are all so stressed! Holy shit, it´s like I am on a completely different planet when it comes to stress level here. American´s run around like they just got their head cut off by the queen of England for stealing their neighbors pig. Everything has to be perfectly scheduled, nobody can even be 30 seconds late, everybody is worrying about multiple things at one time in one day, people walk too fast, the days are too short... Ok, I think you all catch my drift. Here though, it´s different. Everyone seems so much more chill, people mention being somewhere at some time but being a bit late to the date is ok, the days seem like they last forever. I love it. I haven´t been stressed once while here. And no, it´s not cause this isn´t reality. It is. I am living here with a responsiblity and that responsibility happens to be another human so it´s a pretty damn big responibility chillin on my freaking shoulders. So nobody try to tell me that all of this seems this way just because I´m living a dream or some bullshit like that. You come take care of a 3 year old five days a week, all day, when she doesn´t speak your language and you don´t speak hers and you can´t even really talk to people you meet and tell me that this is all a dream. (: Needless to say, I am learning to live a more carefree (but not stupidly carefree) lifestyle and try to let things that are unimportant roll off my shoulders and get run over by a semi-truck.
So let´s see... how to sum up the last few days since I blogged last. Lots of walking. Lots of partying. Lots of attractive men. Lots of new friends. Lots of firsts.
For the first time in my life:
I got into a bar/club... legally.
I consumed alcohol... legally.
I sat outside on the curb and drank alcohol without worrying that police would come arrest me for drinking in public.
I flirted with men that don´t speak my language and I don´t speak theirs.
I wandered the streets of a city alone and made it out alive.
I took a train as a means of transport from one city to the other.
I took a bus as a means of transport long distance and not a metro either... think Greyhound.
I got drunk for about $12 and that meant five shots, and a mixed drink at a bar.
Needless to say I am having a fantastic time and I´m am more than happy I´m not jumping over puddles in my flip flops and looking like I just came to the surface of the bottom of the ocean after a couple years. Seattle, you are fun but you don´t compare to my life here and you better start shaping up or we are gonna have some problems.

(I apologize to everyone that this isn´t like my previous posts but the wifi here sucks and I don´t feel like writing a lot tonight haha because there is too much to write)

Day Ten

October 2, 2011

Beach. Beach. Beach. Five topless women. One completely naked 12 year old girl. Parents holding their small children in the air next to trees so they could piss on the side of the street. A group of 6 old people sitting in a circle on the beach sharing a cigarette like it was a joint. Shot of a Portuguese almond flavor liquor- delicious. An ice cream dessert with a shot of Grand Marinier- also delicious. Dubbed Cindarella.

That basically sums up my weeked/last few days. I apologize to everyone for not writing lately but a) I´ve had a nasty cold that makes me sleep cosntantly, b) my computer has been acting up and has finally died and c) not a lot of stuff has happened that requires a post all by itself.

I will however elaborate on the things listed above.

Beach. Beach. Beach/Five topless women: I literally spent all day Friday, Saturday and today on the beach. Friday and Saturday in Isla Cristina and today in Portugal. I freaking love the beach in Portugal. Favorite beach that I´ve ever been too! Friday was the day I saw my first two topless, adult women. For me, it was not exciting but more of a ´wtf you barely have any tits to even be showing off..´ Then today, it was the same thing except I saw three topless, adult women. Man, I don´t even know how these people here would handle it if I decided to go topless. They would think I´m some monster because my tits are huge compared to these ladies. Oh! And I can´t forget to mention that one of the topless ladies was about 65 or older and her boobs were wrinkly and down to her belly button. Attractive? Oh most definitely!.... NOT!

One completely naked 12 year old girl: saw this today in Portugal. Now I´ve gotten pretty used to seeing babies and toddlers running around completely nude on the beach but a 12 year old that clearly had at least an A cup or maybe even a B cup, no I´m not used to that and never will be. Even some of the non-foriengers were staring at the girl and her mom like wtf. There comes a time when it´s not longer ok to let your kid run around naked in public and this child has clearly passed that time!

Kids pissing on the side of the street: Ok... wtf. I was always taught to hold it until we could get to a bathroom but no, not here apparently. Here when a small child has to go pee when they are outside they tell their parent and their parent lifts them up (holding them so its like the child is sitting on a magical floating toilet) next to a tree and lets them piss on the side of the street. I don´t understand how this is ok. First off, there is no toilet paper around to be used (can anyone say HELLO BLADDER INFECTION???) and second, this kid is going to be so confused when they are arrested later for pissing in public... at least I am assuming that´s illegal here also since I have yet to see and adult do it. But watch, now I will and just convieniently at the same time a cop will be sitting down driinking his coffee and not even care that an adult is pissing on a tree like a damn dog.

Old people sharing a cigarette: Picture that 70´s show with adults in their 60´s or 70´s, on the beach, under an umbrella, drinking coke and passing around a cigarette instead of a joint. Yeah, that´s what I did.. laughed and said wth. How did I know it was a cigarette and not a joint? Because joints don´t have filters unless that´s some weird Spanish thing but I doubt it. After a few runs through the circle they all got up and rushed off to play in the ocean...

Alcoholic Dessert/Portuguese liquor: So for lunch we went to the restaurant we went to last weekend and had basically the same food (still just as delicious as the first time) but instead of the crab we had a tomato and mozzarella cheese salad and the giant skewer was pork and chicken instead of pork and prawns. I wasn´t planning on having a dessert but then the dessert menu was placed in front of me and I was instantly drawn to one. It was a scoop of blackberry ice cream, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, kiwi & mango slices, whip cream, strawberry sauce, a cookie and to top everything off A SHOT OF GRAND MARINIER. Absolutely fucking delicious! I have found my new favorite dessert. Haha. And it´s easy to make at home! Then when I thought dessert was over a shot glass was placed in front of me with some kind of alcohol in it. I looked at it, confused, and Fernando (the father) said ´Try it, it´s for you´. So I did. And hot damn was it yummy! Come to find out it was a shot of a Portuguese almond flavored liquor. I wish I knew the name so maybe I could find it in the US (that´s what Google will be for in a minute) but holy shit was it good. Got a little buzzed before going back to the beach. (;

Well, that´s it for today. Tomorrow I have the morning off so it´s shopping time and hopefully sending out the postcards finally! I only have six right now, so those that don´t get one this time around I will try to get you next time. (: