One Thing Right

I've gotten fed up with the slow, slow uploading process. So this will be a photo-free update.

Everything is pretty much status-quo. All of my school work is piling up though. We have final exams in addition to 10-12 page papers for each class. Which I know isn't so much compared to SU workload but come on. I'm in Spain. This is not supposed to be real school. I'm getting along very well with most of my professors. My language prof, Fabiola, and I have quite a report going now. I'm allowed to call her Fabs and she shares her clementines with me sometimes. I had to put on a play with a few other students for my Lorca class. We performed outside in the plaza by school. We drew quite a crowd. As humiliating as it was, at least it was short. And Barry came! Barry is the announcer for Pub Quiz, a trivia game that Chelsea and I play every Monday night at Hannigan's 2. I think we're Barry's favorites. He did come to my play despite how early it was.

We went to Cadiz a week or so ago. It was "eh." On the way we stopped at a natural park. I was expecting trees. Instead there were some awesome rocks. Really great for climbing. After scrambling around for a while, we had lunch. While we were eating a little fox crept up. He let me get pretty close and I took some pictures with Chelsea's camera. When we got to Cadiz we did get to see a fairly spectacular sunset over the water. The next day we saw a Cartujan horse show. It had a couple of jazzy numbers but horse-drawn carriages get old pretty quick. Then we went to Tio Pepe's bodega. Turns out "bodega" means sherry-making place. Also turns out I don't like sherry.

This upcoming weekend Chelsea, Heather and I are going to Barcelona. We are very excited. Me especially because I get to see EVA GRAHAM! I haven't seen her in so long. And how cool is it that I'll see her in SPAIN? Plus we get to see all the cool things Barcelona has to offer. Our hostel is really cheap and in not the best part of town. It's not sketch but the words "tranny hookers" were used. You know how much I love tranny hookers. (A LOT) So as long as school doesn't kill me first, I'm anticipating a wonderful time in Barcelona.

Thanksgiving is this Thursday and I am so bummed out that I can't be home for it. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. And usually we go over to Alabama and have the most wonderful feast with my mom's side of the family. I still haven't seen Krissy's baby Hadley. It's been a year now. Thanksgiving just reminds me so much of being with family that I'm worried I'm going to get homesick. But there's a Thanksgiving dinner at a fancy-pants restaurant that I'm going to. And this year's Thanksgiving can't possibly be worse than last year's. So I'm trying to be optimistic.

On a lighter note, I had somehow managed to remain completely ignorant of the wonder that is Lady Gaga until I came to Spain. After being mercilessly ridiculed when I honestly did not now who sang that "Dance" song, I looked into some of her work. I'll spare you everything else except that I am now a fan. And everyone should go watch the video for "Bad Romance." And "Video Phone." That's Beyonce but it might as well be Lady Gaga. Oh wait! Look what I can do.


It's hard to believe that I have less than a month now. As much as I love it here, I miss everyone back home and I can't wait to see everybody again. It's coming up fast. So if anybody needs anything from Spain, get your orders in quick, 'cause I'm coming home!

One last thing. In an attempt to shake things up a bit, there's going to be a contest. Whoever can decipher this message and email me first, will get a very special Granada souvenir. The only person I can think of that would have an unfair advantage most certainly doesn't read this blog. The slashes mark words. It's actually two completely unrelated statements.

53/ 71,23/ 56,6,8,7
56,5,39/ 4,18,16/ 5,33,19/ 5,88,74,7,39

Good luck!
Besos

Ok, one picture. This is me and Chels from Halloween.

Nada se compara a ti

So everyone went out of country a few weekends ago and Heather and I were the only ones here. So we decided to have a romantic weekend for two. The first night we met up to get dessert and drink wine on a bench in a plaza like real Spaniards. We picked Plaza de los Lobos because it was close to Bib'Rambla where we got dessert. Perhaps we should have taken the name as a warning and steered clear but this was a lesson we had to learn by experience. Our second clue that this was not the place to be appeared right after we made ourselves comfortable with a slab of cake and 1.5 liter bottle of tinto de verano. A person approached us and asked for money so they could buy a beer. I say "person" because Heather did not agree with me that it was a woman until I pointed out the breasts. Even after we told her "no tenemos mas dinero, lo siento," she insisted on standing awkwardly a foot and a half in front of our bench with an unlit cigarette in her mouth. In case we changed our minds? It didn't really matter why, because right then our attention was redirected to a group lucky enough to already have forties of Alhambra (yes the delicious, delicious beer comes in forties and yes that is awesome). One man was very drunk and vocal. Heather and I assessed the situation and decided that if he even looks like he's thinking about talking to us, plan A, B and C were all titled "Get the Fuck out of the Plaza." Luckily(?) he chose instead to pick a fight with another drunk man. When things escalated into one chasing the other with an empty forty bottle, we put our plan into action and changed location. The next day we went to el parque de las ciencias. My host sister described it as "science for children" so I figured it was on my level. I was totally right.

There is a temporary taxidermy exhibit at the museum. This was just a teaser in another room. We got the museum only a couple of hours before they closed and so we were informed that our tickets would be good through tomorrow too. This was great because you definitely can't see everything in a couple of hours.

Optical illusion mirrors. I understood how this one functioned. Look at all the Heathers!

I must be an idiot because I couldn't figure out how to be looking at the camera in this picture. Oh well. Grace said I look like her in this picture so apparently it's a very flattering angle.

This one completely baffled us. Why is she upside down?!

This guy was on his way to the "Birds of Prey in Flight" exhibition. We didn't make it to that one, but his handler was nice enough to let us snap a picture.

This was our second day here. The taxidermy exhibit! Look closely, there is practically no support system for the animals. How did the get the to stay like that?

No strings, no rods, nothing! Maybe taxidermied animals are really light?

{Insert your own Lion King reference here}

Is this a natural pose for rams? Are they frequently seen leaping from rock to rock in large herds? We don't know because we don't speak Spanish.

Tigers and warthogs and bad lighting, oh my!

A nautilus in his tank. Ever since Blue Planet, I've wanted to see one of these up close. Now I can cross this off my list.

Thermal imaging. Apparently my arms are really hot! I like this because it made my camera blue.

I've never been to the Bodies exhibit but I've always wanted to go. This was the Journey through the Human Body and they had a couple of things on loan from Bodies.

There was a butterfly garden too! And some very friendly fish and turtles. I think they were hoping I would feed them.

Mariposa!

Blue. Duh.

Darwin and I had a chat. (I never understand anything he's talking about.)

Heather and the magic floating ball.

Then on Sunday we went to Salobreña. It's a beach about an hour away. We took the bus and it was slightly confusing but we figured it out in the end. While I napped, Heather got to see legendary Spanish PDA meets Spanish beach nudity in a spectacular display of inpropriety and awkwardness. There was mouth to nipple action.

The water was freezing! But it was so hot on the beach. We kept getting in the water for ten minutes at a time because that was as long as we could stand it.

There was no sand which was awesome because that is one of my least favorite things about the beach. That and salt water and how hot it is...

We had open ended return tickets so we headed about to the bus station around seven to secure our seats eight. We had an hour to kill so we ate tapas at a cafe across the street. The waiter was so nice. He asked us if we liked something, but we didn't know what word he was saying. So he told us that we could try it. Turns out it was whole shrimp, complete with eyeballs. He saw our uneasy looks and my face after I tried one, so he took it away saying "No pasa nada." In its place he brought...octopus. Which was actually pretty good.

Proof that we both ate it.

Pues, that concludes our marvelous weekend together. I was a little sunburned but not as bad as I usually get. We were both exhausted and went to bed very early. Mira, now I'm almost caught up to the present. Tune in next time for Tales of the Alhambra (by Ann Garrigan, not Washington Irving.)

Besos.