Let's get down to businessssss.......

Okay I have a laundry list of things to get out on the blog so I stop feeling like a neglectful person:

1. Whales.

2. (okay so the list was huge yesterday and then I went on a tangent about hiking. And now I can't remember. Typical. Did we discuss cheeseburgers yet? Let me go check.) If we didn't discuss them, Cheeseburgers are next on our list.

3. Okay this is just sad. I need to write things down as I think of them.

I suppose we'll go with whales for now, and I'll just tell you about how good my cheeseburger was for like the ninth time. (LIES I just checked and this is definitely the first time. GOOD. I love talking about cheeseburgers. Let's do this.)

Okay first you need to watch this because:

A. How perfectly correct is Dory about men?

and

B. Because I want to speak whale.

and

C. Because I say so and it applies to what I'm going to tell you next.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk3ZxmptZy8

Okay so you went and watched it, right? Okay good. Isn't Dory kind of your favorite fish ever? Whenever I'd be swimming 500 frees at meets, I'd get that stuck in my head. She pulls it off cause she's cute and blue, but after the first two hundred it gets real old, real fast.

So here's my "go green" speech:

We were in the Maritime Museum, here in Santander, last week. They have this huge skeleton of a blue whale that is hanging from the ceiling. It is super creepy looking but the kind of thing you want to touch and climb on. We all sat down under the rib cage in this circle on the floor and the museum guy who hated us started telling us about the whale. I'm going to name the whale Arnold, because I feel like that's a good name for a whale. So anyway, Arnold died. Obviously. But then he started telling us why and I had one of those super emo girl moments where I almost just started bawling. I really don't cry very often, but its usually over ridiculous things like random acts of kindess in the form of free burritos or roadkill. So Arnold and his fellow whales eat krill (SWIM AWAY!) and not clown fish or Dory fish. But they have very poor sense of sight and smell, and find krill by listening to the vibrations in the water. Here's the issue: plastic makes the exact same wave length vibrations in the water as krill. So as trash is dumped in the ocean by companies, fishing boats, fishers, people, etc whales hear it in the water and eat it, thinking: Oh yay! Some yummo krill just waiting to be munched up! And all that plastic "krill" can't be digested and fills up their stomach. The more they eat, the less room there is for actual krill. At some point, once they eat enough plastic, their stomach is too full to ingest any krill and the whales swim around and slowly starve to death, until they wash up on shore like Arnold.

As much as I want to punch every Greenpeace employee who tries to attack me on the Plaza at CSU, this was about enough for me to just put all my savings into a "Save Arnold Fund." I'm not saying ya'll need to go and put your life savings into a whale saving foundation, but I feel like things like this are just 100% ridiculous and embarrassing for humans. Kind of like the oil spill. So maybe every now and then, order a fountain drink instead of a bottle of Coke, or when you go to buy soda for a party, spend the extra buck and get the aluminum cans so you can recycle them, instead of cheaping out like we do cause we are broke and in college and getting the liter plastic bottle. Cause I really like whales, and sea turtles, and seals and sea lions and all those little watery animals. Kay? Kay.

Okay now I need to tell you a 100% opposite from healthy for the planet story called: Michelle FINALLY ate a cheeseburger. And I am ashamed to say it, but I love those Golden Arches. (However, the McDonalds here was in the straight up ghetto and had ONE golden arch.... they are Spanish, maybe they don't know that the arches are an M. For Michelle. I'll educate them.)

So we wake up Sunday after the six hour hike (I'm obsessed with parenthesis, I'm sorry. When I say we, I mean we both woke up, but I was the one who hiked and Rachael stayed home. Just saying.) So we get up and I am ready to just stay in bed all day and pretend to be dead since we made the highly educated decision to go out after the hike and so not only does my body hate me, but I am exhausted. That's what meeting random South Africans in a bar and then getting free Foster's hats and then losing them and then walking home because it is only 20 minutes and compared to six hours that sounds pretty short does to you. The whole staying in bed thing would be kind of perfect seeing as we are in Spain and it is kind of a sin to get out of your house to go anywhere other than church, but by three, my month long desire for a cheeseburger matched with Rachael's constant "OMG I want McDonalds NOW." obviously won. I mean this is me, have I ever refused a cheeseburger? No. I mean I used to require one every time I was going to swim, you know, a cheeseburger and a coke and cheetos are kind of the magic food if you want to rock at swimming, I might patent that idea and sell it to Michael Phelps. He has got the wrong magic "food" down. If only he knew that cheeseburgers are not only better than pot, but are also legal and won't make you look like a real prick... I am still holding a grudge against him for his childish/college baby behavior.

Back to the story. We Google Map McDonalds, and there are six, but none of them are in the city center or anywhere near our house, they are all out in the boonies and beyond. So we hop on the bus that looks like it goes the farthest, and decide it is a good plan to just ride the bus till we see it. It seemed all intelligence and ingenius till the bus driver stops the bus and is like "Kay bye!" and gets off in the middle of nowhere. So we obviously are totally lost and he kind of must have felt bad because he asked us where we were trying to go. So we say McDonalds and he kind of looks at us like uhm wow okay you idiots, and then instructs us to get on the opposite bus, and he asks that bus driver to tell us when to get off to get on the right bus, and sends us on our merry way. So two bus stops, two bus drivers and a cute but strange Spanish old man later we see those lovely Golden Arch(es) and are all proud of ourselves. Until we drive right past it. And until the next bus stop is literally five minutes down the highway, and through two roundabouts. To cut to the chase, thank God my heart and soul needed that burger because my body was not pleased with me as we walked back up the highway to Micky D's. Ohhhh let me tell you though, that was the best eight euro I've spent thus far. Hmmmm Hmmm Hmmmmmm I'm lovin' it.

So two things are now check off my list of what I need to write about. When I think of the other fifteen, you'll know. Because I'll WRITE IT DOWN and will stop failing at remembering the funny stories, as opposed to my food obsessed ones.

Today in Spanish class, my professor was having us practice saying things like

"It is important to study in the library so you can focus."

or

"It is difficult to understand another language."

She straight up asked me if I am obsessed with Italy and food because all mine were:

"It is difficult to go to class at eight in the morning because I am always so hungry."

"It is important to always eat lots of Italian food."

"It is exciting that I get to eat pizza and pasta and gellato for the next five days."

"It is likely that I will be fat by Monday."

I think she's kind of shocked that I am not a whale like Arnold.