New Year, New Boys

Victoria's Secret has a shirt that says: New Year, New Boys. I want it. Lizzy has it, and I am jealous every time I see her picture in it. She also has one that says "Warm Me Up" and I considered getting the "Let's Makeout" shirt, but that might have been a little much and we all know Spaniards would take it quite literally. Not that they ever need an invitation to feel it is their right to kiss you.

This year has been so full of change that I feel like I have been living in some ridiculous whirlwind of someone else's life, of which I sit and watch and laugh at, constantly surprised at the ridiculous things that occur. Sometimes I wonder if I had a camera following me around like on The Hills, if I wouldn't be more famous than all those blonde idiots simply because there are so many creepers in my life. Regardless, this year I am determined to make a few adjustments. I can't complain about a single thing that has happened in 2010; 2010 was one of my favorite years so far. Which means 2011 will take a lot to top it, and I can't wait :)

Bring it on 2011, I am going to take you down in the following ways:

1. Stop starting all my sentences with "I"

2. Write about things that actually happen each day

3. Update this list regularly with the things I am forgetting right now

4. Go on a walk every single afternoon in Santander.

5. and stop watching so much TV instead of going on walks

6. Stop Facebook stalking for hours on end.

7. Email as many newspapers as possible forcing myself on them in the form of a blog.

8. Go to either: Ireland, Germany, France, or Switzerland

9. Find a great apartment and have lots of mismatched dishes

10. Find a couch for great apartment (also, apartment must have fireplace, bathtub, and large area for football parties.)

11. Go to a Broncos game.

12. Go to a warm beach and get a killer tan (possibly Spring Break '12 but make it a goal for money saving)

13. Ride pretty blue bike everywhere and maintain Euro-style walking instead of driving three blocks due to laziness.

14. Do not get addicted to Starbucks, Coke (a-cola) or regular coke, tanning, dying hair, or Facebook (but first must break FB addiction, then avoid it in future)

15. Stop spending money on things like Cosmo, nail polish, beer, and burritos.

16. Keep Mackey clean and take to car wash regularly.

17. Do not get pulled over or arrested.

18. NO MIC or MIP before 21st birthday.

19. Survive 21st birthday.

20. Pass calculus

21. Fix knee/ankle

22. Go backpacking and fishing and hiking

23. Camp in the Pouder in the fall

24. Learn to be really awesome chef

25. Avoid kissing bartenders

26. Stop falling off sidewalks

27. Make it until phone upgrade without breaking phone

28. Stop getting fat in Spain by doing crunches every night, push ups, power walking (sexyyy) and avoiding donuts at Lupa

29. Find job in FoCo

30. Stop worrying about ending up alone/with cats/size of whale/with ugly husband.

31. Refrain from thinking Worst Case Senario as a fun past time, as it is not fun and really just induces stress

32. Don't get bombed in terrorist action while in Europe

33. Don't spend only money left upon returning to the States on Noodles and Company, sushi, Chai, Qdoba, chicken tortilla soup, Ciao Gellato

34. Stop fantasizing about fictional characters

35. Stop fantasizing about boy six packs and find personal motivation to go to the gym other than beefy boys.

36. Go to gym on regular basis.

37. Eat healthy (not entire bags of chips in one sitting)

38. Pray more, and go to church, and stop being selfish/un-holy

39. Behave better in public and stop saying rude things about weirdos

40. Be fluent in Spanish (as to allow for yelling at people in Spanish when upset)

41. DO NOT buy a puppy.

42. Fall in love, please?

43. Fall in love with a hottie, actually.

44. Figure out what is going on with life/what I am supposed to be doing with myself

45. Maybe declare English major, but as a double major since Business will make sure I have some type of job

46. Be braver, smarter, wiser, politer, not so messy

47. Find cure for cancer, global warming, save polar bears, stop pollution

48. Become famous for saving world and then write novel that is better than Harry Potter

49. Stalk JK Rowling and force her to teach me her ways

50. Love life. In the cliche be all you can be and love yourself and have a blast and be stupid and young and crazy way. Also involving lots of crazy nights, lots of hugging and sappy movies, lots of love and babies and puppies and kittens and baby seals and eat lots of cheese and tell everyone I love you and smile at everyone and don't kick pigeons and always write thank you letters and just in general be happy.

Quarter Life Crisis

I am old. Old. Old. OLD.

I dreamed about being 13 for so long... one of the six times I wrote in my diary after the age nine was right before my 13th birthday and I was determined that life would be fabulous, I would suddenly have huge boobs, and my hair would automatically be calm all the time while bouncing in beach waves that would turn blonde over night. Being a teenager was, I was sure, going to be the best time of my life. Last night, in our hostel in Seville that I am sharing with my mom who got here on Wednesday, I layed awake as my 20th birthday ended and thought about how depressing it is that in 10 years I will be 30. Nothing good happens after 30... except that hopefully I will be married with screaming kids all over the place. He better be a hot husband, cause after 30 what's a girl got left? Not her size two pants or freedom or "Daddyyyy please...." ability, that's for sure. My 20's will probably be fabulous too, but there is something so carefree about being in your teens. You don't have to have life figured out or know what you want to "be" when you grow up. I still have no idea what I am doing with my life, but 20 seems so much more dooming; I better figure it out cause apperantly everyone else already has. Or we all go 'round pretending to know what we want to do when really we are all just hoping to get a hot boyfriend, not wake up too hung over, and pass the required science with a lab class. I won't deny how superficial most of my desires are in life right now:

1. get rich

2. find hot man resembling Mark Darcy in looks, character and financial situation (preferably with large estate like Pemberly in England)

3. have unlimited amount of time for reading and going to bookstores

4. have a six pack

5. have the best clothes/European look ever, thus making all other girls jealous

Not the exactly best priorities, but I am 19 and a day. Or 20. Whatever.

I should probably make a grown up list of New Year's resolutions, but honestly, how boring is that? I really have no desire or intention to grow up... obviously I will have to find some way to make money and pay for food and gas and the shoes that I can't stop buying, but for now, who wants to think about that?

Plus I am in Spain, which is kind of a total joke when it comes to school. They haven't figured out higher education yet, so this is more of a "Eat, Pray, Love" kind of year.... mostly eating since I can't seem to find anything to say to God other than "THANK YOU! THANK YOU! but please don't make me fat or old!" and when it comes to loving, all I am loving on is patatas bravas and Tinto de Verano.

The pro-Spain part of this blog should tell you all about what I have seen since Ma arrived. However, I feel like today needs to have a few posts, each about their own thing, so just kidding and that is going to be a new post! Sorry!!

Left or Right

Dusty Reed ran me over.

I was in sixth grade. Brittany and I walked home through Butcherknife Creek every day. Butcherknife was that childhood playland where we would spend every summer afternoon in the swimming hole, or running around releasing pet mice. And the place that creepers would get naked and model pose for us as we walked to school in eighth grade.

But in sixth grade: he ran me over.

Maybe it is just me, but if you say "On your left!" I am going to move right. So then if you come speeding down the hill on your bike and yell "On your left!" but then due to some lack of kindergarten level knowledge go to my right and run me over, I will never forgive you. Literally never because my sixth grade picture was the next day.

After the left but going right incident Brit left me bleeding and freaking out as Dusy rode off without pausing, to tell my mom I got hit. She thus thought a rouge car ran me over (not sure if one would even fit in Butcherknife but a mother in panic might overlook that) only to find me walking home with a massive bloody nose and ego that was about as intact as Baghdad, my closet, or Macy's on Black Friday.

After the whole getting run over incident, I have this twitchy and dive-y reaction to hearing any type of wheels behind me; cars, bikes, skateboards, rollarblades, you name it and I will immediately take cover as if I am about to be the man who got bombed in Nagasaki and survived and then drove to Hiroshima and got bombed again. Or vise versa if they were in the opposite order. Talk about having the worst luck ever- I commonly think that bad luck is just really stupid choices, but in his case, I really think he got the worst luck a person can have.

When walking from the train station to Linnea's house, you can hear every train that goes by. However, when wearing a hat, it sounds exactly like you are four seconds from getting run over... not by Dusty Reed in his manic bike horror, but by a large truck. The fact that they have no large trucks in Sweden doesn't matter: for that second you are positive that a huge Chevy is about to smush you into something resembling a worm on a highly busy sidewalk on a rainy day.

I would just like to ask, for the sake of walkers everywhere, that before you are going to ride a bike, please make sure you can pass the intellectually challenging left or right test. If you can't do so without using your hands, please avoid biking. Because adding a left-right hand test as you try to pass people will only further contribute to the number of bike related homicides that occur each year.

Dear Santa

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR FINALLY LETTING THE BRONCOS WIN! You are my new best friend. If I could, I would kiss your fat, red and squishy face. Waking up to the 24-23 score after falling asleep at half-time last night was possibly the best gift I have ever receieved. I will never complain about the lack of a puppy in my stocking again. (Okay, well maybe I will but for today I won't.) And frankly, I knew they had it in them, but you probably gave Tebs a little extra umph in his arm and allowed us to end our streak of humiliation that was nearly equivalent to the scrawny white bodies of the boys who streaked at my junior homecoming football game.

I realize that because I was overly spoiled this year by this win I might have exhausted my present allowance for about fifteen years. This one was probably a hard present to pull off, but you did it. You were a real champ, Santa. If I had a more precise address for the North Pole I would send you a dozen roses and a real thank you note. However due to your need for privacy I shall settle for this thank you blog post.

I realize that you don't specialize in birthdays, but since you are on such a roll this year with rocking, perhaps you could arrange for a pork green chili burrito to suddenly appear at my hostel in Seville on the 30th.

Thank you again, you really know how to make a girl smile. Mrs. Claus is one lucky woman.

-Michelle

Hej tomtegubbar!

Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. America had it best, I was sure. We got the Macy's Day Parade to kick us off and we have Bing Crosby and lights and Buddy the Elf. What more could a person want, need, or dream up? Ha. If only you knew the glory that is Swedish Christmas drinking songs.

Swedes celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, so yesterday I was seated next to Linnea's uncle Anders, who works in the Swedish music business. I knew we would be friends when he told me that his friend wrote songs for Taylor Swift, and that he thought Lady Gaga was mentally insane. I knew we would be best friends when he insisted on singing about a Christmas Elf repeatedly every time anyone drank their Schnapps. Take a swing at this, after a few drinks, and try to tell me it is not the best thing you have ever heard of:

"Hej tomtegubbar slå i glasen och låt oss lustiga vara!"

I don't particularly care for Schnapps; everything in Sweden tastes like black licorice which is about enough to force me to introduce them to cherry flavored cough syrup as a happy relief. But as Linnea's cousin Sabina said "You don't like Schnapps, you just do it because it's tradition. But a tradition that we just have all year.... Spring, Summer, Christmas, you know. So really more of a habit that we call a tradition."

Each year Santa arrives on Christmas Eve with a gift for each person in the family. This year he came in the form of six Schnapps red Anders, and to my surprise and relief Santa brought me the CD Anders puts out each year which is titled Absolute Hits. And yes, they did get a law suit filed against them by Absolute Vodka over the name, but turns out Absolute didn't copyrite it in the music business so tricky Anders won. Being taken to Linnea's relatives was one of those "Hi, I am the American you don't know but are being forced to have in your home on one of the most personal days of the year" moments. Nearly as awkward as if I showed up at the hospital the day after a stranger had a baby and said "Oh, hello, just thought I'd come and visit!"

I managed to escape the day without crying over how nice they all were (I have a tendency to cry when people are really nice to me, ie: over a free burrito at Chipotle) and was reassured that my family is only partially insane when Anders/Santa gave their dog a present. At least there is one other family I know of that wraps their pet's gifts and receives mass amounts of joy watching them struggle to open it. I feel like their dog was at a particular disadvantage, however, because he is an American dog and apparently doesn't "speak" Swedish according to Sabina and happens to be blind in one eye. I've experienced one half of that, and found it equally as easy to open my gift, but you never know what being half way blind will do to you.... not to mention having paws and a ridiculous haircut.

Today, other than forcing my boyfriend Sigge the cat to snuggle with me, I can say that I did drag myself out of bed and onto a sledding hill. Swedish children aren't the brightest of the bunch and seem to think that walking directly up the middle of the slope is the wisest idea they've imagined. I would have found "Swedish Sledding Bowling with Swedish Children" to be very enjoyable, but didn't think that plowing through a bunch of six year olds would have really shown Sweden how grateful I am to be here.

Linnea's family has been discussing going to church tomorrow; Linnea pointed out that they never go to church except on Christmas, to which Kristofer responded that they haven't even gone on Christmas in five years. So I, in my obviously devoted Catholic manner, am "evangelizing" the family, right? Bengt-Goran pointed out that if they were to go to church tomorrow, which would be twice in one week thus surpassing any record of their lifetime, they would have to Google Maps the church, because they don't even know where it is.

That, my dear Lord, is devotion. Oh, and happy birthday, Baby Jesus :) and thanks for the Schnapps Santa and for the snow.

Amen.

Naughty or nice?

Mrs. Lorenze taught us to "gleek" when I was in seventh grade. It is quite easy: chew a smartie in the back of your cheek, press your tongue up and forward on the roof of your mouth, and watch in awe as you shoot spit wherever you so please. Gleeking seemed like a useful tool, and if she had only taught it to the girls it would have been acceptable, but I'll let you imagine the sheer joy that was the skill of gleeking to seventh grade boys. The fact that people who are obsessed with Glee are called "Gleeks" is just totally strange and brings back wet and slimy memories.

On an episode I watched tonight Mr. Schuester tells one of his students that someday she will find someone who falls for the things about her that she doesn't like. It is this type of deliciously romantic moments that force every girl to fall madly in love with Mr. Shue, adding yet another man to the list of fictional characters we will all force other men to try to live up too. Those famous men such as Jacob Black, Mark Darcy, Ron Weasley, Jack Sparrow, Derek Shepard and the unbareably desirable others practically doom all men to living lives of insufficiency in the eyes of every woman who has read a love story, heard a country song, or watched a movie. I have also been contemplating my possibly unhealthy addiction to country music and Mark Darcy. There is no denying that I am a totally and unashamedly corny girl. Give me a guy who can sing George Strait and I'm a goner.

In Sweden, Christmas is celebrated on Christmas eve, and a friend here just asked me if I have been nice this year. I was all ready for bed and exhausted, and then he asked that, thus sending me into a fabulous frenzy of panic that I wasn't nice enough. Regardless of if I believe in Santa, the fantasy of it is enough to make me have that full year evaluation of my behavior hoping that I will be deemed nice, and not naughty. I could ask Santa for a George Strait singing boy who would like the fact that I snore, talk in my sleep, can't bake cookies and have no photogenic gifts whatsoever. I could ask for that guy the Mr. Schuester was talking about, but to be honest, this year I just want Starbucks, Taylor Swift, or a puppy in my stocking. The whole puppy deal is kind of a lost cause; I figured Santa didn't really love me much when, after nine years, I am yet to get a puppy for Christmas. And frankly, Taylor is probably off being blonde and fabulous and not willing to sit under a tree simply so I can drill her on what hair product she uses. No girl will turn down a great guy, but unless Mark Darcy was waiting for me under the tree, this year I would really just rather have a peppermint mocha. Which is also impossible since Sweden is yet to have a Starbucks in a location other than Terminal Four in the Arlanda airport. Not that I Starbucks Locations-ed that prior to coming or anything.

The whole evaluation of naughty or nice will be determined tomorrow night; my faith in Santa is dwindling, so unless there's a puppy waiting for me in the morning, I am going to go to bed tonight hoping that SOMEDAY Santa will stick a snuggly baby dog in my stocking. Until then, I will be as naughty or as nice as I feel like at whatever the moment is. So take that, Santa.

"That's so typically me, oh baby, baby"

We had a code word, we had a plan, we were prepared for that dreaded moment when you are served the food you have no possible ability to eat yet are served in a new country and are expected to eat. The beauty of having an "exchange sister" was that I was surely to be rescued from this; I would simply say the word and she would then find some way, preferably by feeding the food to her orange cat Sigge who thinks I am some sort of crazy person stalking him and speaking to him in some language involving lots of "rawr precious baby kitty come cuddle" which probably means "give me all your mice and milk" in his native language Swedish. I don't speak fluent cat, or fluent Swedish, so mostly Sigge just ignores me and pretends that I don't exist.

In the second, or maybe third since I honestly can't remember at all when I first learned this, but anyway at some young age I realized that hot dog was disgusting and was made out of horse. My cousin Brittany told me that, and also informed me jello was as well... I did my part to save horses by avoiding hot dogs, yet stuck to jello because of how bouncy and great it is. Most kids figured out that it was really made out of cow, but I missed that boat. Brittany is a doctor now, so hopefully she realized it isn't horse either, but I suppose patients care more that she knows a gall bladder from a spleen so who knows.

My first night in Sweden in eighth grade I sat down, totally terrified by Kristofer, Linnea's older brother who had thus far spoken one word to me: "hey" and who would finish my three week stay with an effective "bye," concluding our relationship with a startlingly large total of two words. Upon arriving here on Saturday, and his pairing of a full sentence welcome with a voluntary hug was about enough for me to wonder if Linnea had given him a few shots and threatened him with a machete, like the one my dad would like me to carry in my purse incase there are "bad guys." I had sat there, at fourteen, not only terrified by Kristofer and her huge Swedish father with legs that were as tall as I was but also by the massive foot long and four inch round hot dog sitting on the table infront of me.

I was served first, and was given four slices of this magnificantly huge and absolutely vulgar hot dog, while Kristofer was given the single last piece.... I am fairly sure that his starvation that night did not greatly contribute to his desire to be friends with me. The whole point of having a code word to save you from massive hot dogs in mass quantities is that you use it, which would, therefor, involve remembering it. Which I didn't. Four slices and a strong desire to die later I progressed to tell them how wonderful the meal was, at which point Lena said "Oh good, you like it, we will make it again!"

When I decided to study abroad for the full year, Sweden was the one condition that made me positive I would survive. Linnea spent Christmas with my family last year; she was studying in California and working on a year long tan, and this year I am with her family, after working on a year long albino look in the land of endless rain in Santander that I am determined will be very in fashion someday. Preferably that day would be when I arrive in the States in April, but one can't get too high of hopes. My room here is just like I remember, and if my mom wasn't meeting me in Spain in a week I don't really know if I would be able to drag myself out of this deliciously poofy bed and back to mine in Santander, of which I can feel every spring and commonly wake up with a neck stuck strangely to one side and a limp that might start requiring a cane soon.

There is something about Sweden that I absolutely can't get enough of. There are forests all over the place; the government allows you to camp anywhere you want for one night, you can literally pitch a tent in anyone's yard if you want. So all those forests are just screaming my name and tempting me to save all my money and fly right back here as soon as the negative twenty degree weather is gone. And the people here, though supposedly cold according to the Spanish, who think everyone is rude, are actually some of the most genuine and welcoming people I have ever met. Basically: I have a crush on Sweden.

On Sunday night I got to go to what is called a "Christmas Table." Each year, it is Swedish tradition to go and have all the traditional foods; ours was in a beautiful house type building and full of Swedes and food, so obviously I was in heaven. A mandatory part of being Swedish is liking herring, which I don't, so I will never be able to pull of saying I am a Swede... liking herrig would be as impossible for me as learning to make that weird throat noise necessary to speak Swedish. I stuck to the Swedish meatballs and desserts and cheese. Rudolf also made an apperance at dinner, in the form of sausage. Santa probably would neglect me a tad more than usual (I am still waiting for a puppy after ten years now...) so I avoided Rudolf and his friend the horse, also in sausage form. Some things are just not on my to-do list of eating. Which is quite vast, so if you are excluded from it you are very strange and nasty or just politically/morally/digestively incorrect.

What I don't have a crush on, however, is the fact that you need to wear a polar bear in order to stay a reasonable temperature. Or you need to drink excessive amounts of whiskey, thus explaining why the Swedes and Finns are notorious for drinking and why their government basically makes buying alcohol as easy as getting through an airport with a bomb strapped to your forehead. Freezing to death is on my agenda here on a daily basis: Sunday was the walk to the lake, Monday was the walk around downtown, and yesterday was the Ghost Walk. Which was, to be honest, probably the most freezing and most interesting thing thus far, aside from all the eating and Bilar. I find this slightly amusing... people paying to walk around at night freezing their booties off to be taught history and ghost stories by an Australian who enjoys popping up in your face and making loud noises to scare you. He told us all these stories about ghosts in the palace, and despite the fact that I also have crushes on all the Swedish guards, I listened the entire time. Props to the Australian cause I have sever ADD when you try to lecture me while I freeze to death. I'm not really one for ghost stories, but if you can give me real history that is totally messed up, I will definitely listen. (As the Australian pointed out, Swedes has a sick fascination with death... apparently, so do I.)

We came to this super cold square (named "Big Square" in English, another of the Swedes talents other than death obsession is obviously naming things in very creative ways.) In this square is now the site of a Christmas market and a fountain for little kids to play in (in the summer, if they tried to dance around in the water right now it would freeze in the air and they would be stuck to the fountain like little dogs on leashes, thus getting hypothermia while their parents drank) but in 1520 was the squre that hosted the ever-interesting event known as: The Stockholm Bloodbath. Here's the short and "sweet" version of what you missed if you weren't there (if you want a first hand account just ask Mrs. Conlon):

the king was having a dinner, lots of people were invited, the Dans arrived and crashed the party, and took 17 women and children hostage and then decided to murder the other 83 men at the party. So they lined them all up in a square, and the executioner started at one end and began chopping their heads off. Apparently it took two blows, and the details made me want to either cry or throw up on the Australian. Half way through the line, the executioner just got a little hungry (of course) so had lunch and some shots, and then kept at his merry work. Only the sword was dull by now so it took more than two swings, and he was a little drunk so he kept missing (fun for you if he gets your arm instead of head and then you have to bend back over and let him have another go) and thus progressed to kill the 83 men. He must have gotten a little tired because he didn't have the energy to clean them up, after all that hard work he was putting in all day, so then when it rained the whole square filled up with blood and rain and thus: the Stockholm Bloodbath.

Neat, huh?

The Australian gave us a few tips for the Ghost Walk, mostly involving not falling down stairs or down the sidewalk. Which, combined with the fact that I was in a group of people, pretty much guaranteed that I was going to fall down. I wasn't super thrilled when the man with the bucket of rocks walked by me, as I attempted to stand up from my little spill, and tossed rocks out where I had just made an ever so graceful slide/crash/bang. Anyway, I am ashamed to say that, upon falling the only thing that seemed appropriate to say was "Oops, I did it again."

ADD and DVD battles

(To warn you, I have no idea how to get the ridiculous underlining to go away... there is no underline button even availabe, but it seems Blogger has a life of its own. Kind of like my hair in the mornings.)

Okay so first of all, I have blog ADD where I have about fifteen things to tell you about and yet somehow only manage to explain half of each thing. It would be better to just pick six things, and actually explain them.

I ranted about how much I love patatas bravas in my last post, without actually explaining to you what they are. COOL Michelle. So here you go:

patatas bravas fried potatoes with spicy tomato sauce fried potatoes with spicy tomato sauce

that is the "official" definition according to my best friend spanishdict.com (try saying that outloud and imagine the strange looks I get when telling people I like that site.) If you want my definition, here you go: they are these chopped up potatoes that are really lightly fried and then depending on where you go you get a variation of this semi-spicey tomato ish sauce and sometimes they add mayo which is weird but good, but it isn't at all like ketchup. The patatas bravas I was raving about were homemade... some places like La Rana Verde have this standard pre-made but still delicious sauce, but really you shouldn't even compare them because the homeade sauce is completely different and better.

I was super motivated on the plane, and bored, so I wrote you a nice little message, so here it is.

Running has never been my strong suit, but I am proud to announce that I successfully ran my way through the mMilan airport and made it to my flight on time, with approximately two minutes to spare. My flight form Madrid to Milan was an hour late, thus pitching me into a fit of freaking out and calling my mom at one am her time to figure out what to if I missed my flight to Sweden. Not to sound like a baby but after my night in the Milan airport in October, I really had no intention of waiting for the next flight to Sweden tomorrow evening. About fifteen minutes before landing, when the pilot announced that if we hurried we might make our flight, I pretty much decided that I would bawl or beg my way onto that plane. Due to my obviously fantastic running abilities, I didn’t have to cry. However, once I boarded the plane I kind of wanted too. In nearly every seat, aside from the ones with wrinkley old men, sat Heidi Klum’s more attractive twins. The problem with Sweden is that everyone looks like they stepped out of a beauty product ad, all the time. Even the boys are beautiful, in this “we are clean and blonde and blue eyed and look perfect” kind of way. And then there was me, panting from my run, wearing my clothes from when I got on the bus last night, and completely sleep deprived due to spending the past 16 hours in random stages of moving between buses, terminals, gates, etc. Let’s just say that it is enough to make any one of the Victoria’s Secret models want to go re-check her hair and makeup.

I felt like a genius yesterday, having found a free dvd compatable thingy (obvious work of a genius since I totally know what it was that I downloaded…) and got the DVD laptop player to work with my Dell mini. The only problem is that now I am on the plane and it has decided that, ohhh ps. It doesn’t really work. Neat. So now I am trying to decide if I should read Harry Potter (yes, I realize it would be the third time since getting here.) or if I should try to nap again. Napping sounds kind of good, except for the guy sitting next to me who is a tad bit on the strange side; maybe this is just me, but I don’t find wearing tight, tight leather gloves to be necessary at all times. Perhaps if I was going to ride a motorcycle or impersonate someone like Michael Jackson, but for daily enjoyment, not so much. I just found some random de-coder thingy (and THEY JUST WALKED BY WITH THE FOOD CART. I am sorry but I maybe in love with Lufthansa. I can honestly say that my food on their flights has been better than any food I had in Italy. On the flight to Italy a few summers ago, I had the best pasta and chicken that I had the entire trip. And no my last hour and a half flight they just gave me a Panini with cheese and turkey, and I almost kissed the woman out of happiness. When’s the last time an airline didn’t charge you eight bucks for a snack pack of four crackers and cheddar? I think that the eating part of flights is possibly my favorite, and am probably going to try to fly Lufthansa whenever I have the option. Not only do they feed you like you are eating for two and nine months in, but they give you constant Toblerone and wine… not suggesting that nine month pregnant women need to be drinking excessively. What more could I ever need? I could probably be perfectly happy just flying around on Lufthansa and never actually getting out to look at the places I flew too if it meant so much good food.)

Right now we are flying over what I think are the Alps. Judging by the freezing appearance and massive mountains with absolutely no sign of life, I think I am right. I also think my geography skills might be just good enough to remember that when I was going to Milan we wanted to go up to Switzerland into the Alps, which would mean I am right. I always try to take pictures out of the plane windows to show my mom, but there’s something totally different about actually being thousands of feet above mountains that you know are huge but look small. I want to drop a small bomb out of the plane (OUT OF IT, not on it) and see how many avalanches I could set off when it landed. I kind of doubt that anyone would give me the opportunity to do that, but perhaps I will suggest it to Al-Queda as a birthday present to me. Since we are so friendly and everything.

After opening that de-coder thingy, my Windows Media player won’t work. I probably jinxed it by telling my mom I was smarter than my computer. It is a very moody little thing. We aren’t really on the best of terms. I have a love-hate relationship with it: I love how precious and little it is and how it is almost as cute as a puppy, but hate it because regardless of how much I love it, it refuses to cooperate, also like a puppy. Speaking of which, I keep having dreams that I get a dog, or that I am babysitting Roo, and I lose them. I’ve dreamt this in various variations for about six airplane naps and two nights in a row. The sad thing is that it is probably a true prediction of how I would do owning a dog. In one dream I lost it in the elevator of a hotel when I went to buy it McDonalds because I forgot dog food. So I will have to hope that Lizzy gets a dog so that next year I can live with her/her puppy but not have to feel bad if we lose it. Unless I lose it, which would be worse.

I seriously want to punch the Mini right now. So I am going to fight with it and will update you on how fantastic my food is in a bit. Oh and also, I just wish that Mac and Dell would have a baby. And it would be a Mac but would have the Dell programs. Not the stupid Mac versions, but a Mac with exactly Vista and everything, minus how bad Dells suck.

On today’s menu: Salmon with veggies and rice or potatoe dumplings with cheese and mushroom sauce, served with an apple cheese cake and bread, along with two beverages. Oh, and don’t forget the chocolate cone of hazelnut goodness for an extra dessert. And also, hand glove guy and I just had a conversation about how horrible the education financial aid system is and about how ridiculous it is that airports freak out when it snows. If only he was a few years younger and didn’t have a leather obsession, he could have had potential as my future Swedish husband.

At the moment I am flying over what appears to be a large blob of clouds, but according to the pilot is somewhere near Berlin. I’m not sure where that puts me in relation to Sweden, I exhausted my geography abilities telling you about the Alps. And, of course, the DVD player is malfunctioning. At least my four am to six am stretch of airport sitting was aided by the functioning that occurred for those two hours before the DVD player decided to commit suicide again. What a surprise.

I realized the two things I forgot: my tooth brush, as always, and the scarves that we got Linnea and Lena for Christmas. I was halfway to Madrid on the bus last night when I realized that I forgot those presents… I had sat in my room staring at my closet for hours trying to figure out what it was I was forgetting, and even brushed my teeth right before getting on the bus yet somehow managed to forget my toothbrush. I also went through all the presents doing a mental inventory yet never remembered the scarves sitting my other suit case. Turns out the mass of clouds is actually the ocean, goes to show how bad I am at listening. When the flight attendant asked if I wanted potatoe dumpings or salmon I told her I wanted chicken dumplings please… to which she said “You mean potato right? I want to make sure you know what you want.” She either thought I was challenged, or that I was under the impression that she is a short order chef (like my mom.)

HA I got it to play again! I am watching the five hour version of Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Darcy might possibly be my favorite fictional character ever, both in P&P and in Bridget Jones’ Diary. (glove guy has the gloves back on… perhaps he has bad circulation in his hands.) So anyway, now I am off to fantasize that glove guy will be Mark Darcy when I wake up from the nap I told him I was going to take (following our random discussion about the education in America and that I find it pathetic that students who are failing classes and do poorly in school get aid because of their parent's financial issues, but I don't get anything regardless of being a good student... basically ended up with me informing him education was a privilege for people who care and not a right for stupid students. Am sure that he is fairly terrified of strangers now, and will no longer talk to girls on planes, and might even start wearing a full body leather suit so he doesn't catch my diseases like being opinionated and loud.)

Let's just hope he isn't observant enough to realize that my DVD player is now working and that I am not napping, but drooling over Darcy. Then again, he might drool too, who wouldn't?

In Mrs. Conlon's class we were never allowed to have writer's block. But I'm not in her class, so to be honest: I have writer's block. I think that it is that finals week slump. Last year, first semester's finals week I watched Elf six times on ABC, just to avoid studying. I am not the kind of person that has to wait a long time between movies to want to watch them again (obviously.). Thus, I have watched Elf twice this week and am now a fully addicted Gleek. (For those of you who don't know what that is, it is a person obsessed with Glee. If you don't know what Glee is, watch this and I promise you will want to watch it. I mean, who doesn't like hot boys singing about love????? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tt2u-S7NTs)

Basically, I have had about six really amusing stories to tell everyone, but I am in a pre-Christmas slump brought on by a lack of snow, lack of Christmas music playing everywhere, and the realization that kids don't believe in Santa here. The three year old I nanny didn't even know who Papa Noel was. That was about enough for me to want to cry. On the bright side, Glee last week had an episode about Brittany, the girl in the show, still believing in Santa. Which boosted my spirits for 43 minutes until the show was over.

At the same time though, as being in this bahh humbugghhhhhh mood, I plan on arriving in Sweden full of 100% excitement and happiness for the holidays. This Christmas I will be staying with Linnea, my Swedish exchange sister from my trip there in the 8th grade aka my first addition to travel and the creation of this crazy and awesome international sisterhood. Tonight we will get on a bus to Madrid at nine and will get to the airport at 3am for the first flight that leaves at 6. My flight to Milan is at 9:40 and then I will have 20 minutes to get to my flight to Sweden. If ya'll read this before tomorrow, send a few prayers up to the Big Man Upstairs that there are no delays and that my flights are in the same terminal and that they check my baggage through for me. Flying is one of my favorite things; I love taking off but hate landing, and love the flight but hate getting through security without losing anything or getting lost. I always end up thinking that I lost things like my boarding pass or passport. The whole concept that I love to travel and love flying could just be my own confusion, because I wonder how this can be my favorite thing to do when I hate not being in total control. I suppose it is good that I am drawn to something that pushes me out of my comfort level in every way.

Now I just have to tell you about patatas bravas. I think my life changed yesterday when Rachael and I had patatas bravas at this little bar called Chupi's yesterday. After nearly three months I had never been into Chupi's despite that it is about a block from my house... this was probably a blessing because I would have spent all my money on patatas bravas. The guy at the bar spent 20 minutes making them so I was really irritated but let me just tell you: if you are ever in Santander, you will find the best homemade bravas EVER at Chupi's. I can't decide if I am thrilled that I found it, or terrified because now I obsessively think about them.

It is raining today, which is a weird change because we haven't had rain in about a week. I always forget how icky the rain is, but at the same time how much I love it. This blog is just full of my not being sure if I love things or hate them. My whole "get up early and motivate" plan was immediately shot down by the fact that the shutters on my window were banging with hurricane force wind. You try waking up and wanting to go do errands when it is pouring and blowing and freezing out. I'll bet that you'd stay curled up in bed for an extra hour or two. Grooveshark.com is my new love; I have spent the day in bed (other than my brief excursion to school to print my boarding passes) listening to Christmas music. Mark, my friend who is abroad in Germany, enlightened me to Grooveshark.com and became my new favorite person. The battle between my laptop and I is now over as well, after a day of downloading random programs trying to get it to play DVDs after I managed to throw away the DVD serial number. Maybe I didn't make it outside for much productivity, but I won a battle.

I keep freaking out that the first semester is already over. While the past two and a half months have been the fastest in my life, I feel like I have learned way too much to have only been here for that short of an amount of time. Being here has made me realize how outrageously blessed I am, both to have a second home to go to, and to have such amazing people in my life. There is no way I would be able to survive here if it wasn't for my friends who allow me to have daily freak outs about the same things over and over, or without my mom giving me her motherly wisdom over Facebook. There is always that moment every now and then that you realize life rocks and God obviously loves you way too much. I kind of wonder what God is thinking, giving me so many great people in my life and making life be so fantastic.... either He just realized that it was more fun to send me off on fabulous adventures or He accidentally directed 15 extra good things my way. Which would be unfortunate for the 15 people who didn't get their present, but I'm not complaining.

Now I just need to have a little I love Taylor Swift moment. I realize that most of my blog has been me ranting about things, but let's face it: I am all over the place and so that's just how it has to be. Whenever girls have awesome voices I want to punch them and somehow in punching them transfer all their vocal abilities to myself. Same goes for girls who can dance. I am trying to figure out what my "talent" is.... everyone seems to have a talent like sports or singing or drawing or dancing, and all I seem to be able to do is bullshit and argue. And write tangents about things that are relatively pointless. Before coming here, my friend Lizzy and I decided that if I continue to lack a talent I will learn to chair dance or something. Let's hope for the love of God that I don't have to do that. Back to TSwift though.... I would love to know how she manages to write songs and have every single one of them apply to my life in some way??? Not only does she have these crazy ways to write what every girl is thinking, but she gets to sing too? Let's just say that I want her vocal abilities, writing abilities, or hair. I'd pretty much settle for any of those things.

Now I am going to try to be productive and clean my room and get ready for my crazy next two days. Love you all :)

great success

After nearly two months of "nannying" two hours a week, I am proud to say that the only English I seem to have been able teach Maria is: I am hungry.

The end.

Good morning America

I saw an article posted (on Facebook) about how students who use Facebook receive 20% lower grades than those who don't. I read this while "studying" for Marketing. Today during my "studying" session in the computer lab, I realized how pathetic it is that I was frustrated with the time difference because it meant that I had to wait for everyone to wake up and start posting things for me to stalk on Facebook. Each day, our eight am class sits on Facebook talking to the stragglers who are still awake in America, doing their pre-bedtime stalking. Then in our two pm class we talk to the earlier risers, doing their pre-class morning updates and status complaints about having to shovel snow.

I do promise that my life consists of more than Facebook. For the first time since being here, I was able to go downtown today during the day. I had a three hour break because one of my classes is finished, so I had time to walk through Lung Cancer Tunnel and go downtown to get churros and chocolate at a cafe. It was so weird to be downtown when it was a. daytime, b. sunny and c. a week day. People were out living. Living and working and having normal daily life! Which is so strange because I feel like here, everything is always closed. It's either too early to be awake, it is siesta, or the stores just didn't feel like opening.

I would like to say that I spent the day eating churros and enjoying the sun, but in reality I spent the afternoon probably failing my marketing test. I have never been the world's best mutiple choice test taker, since I panick if there are more than two of the same letters in a row, and always want to make neat patters on my scantron. So a test on marketing that was written by someone who isn't a native speaker just added to my inability to narrow down answers. When I got home, I immediately kicked into "I am totally over school it's time for Christmas break mode" and packed for Sweden. On Friday night we are driving to Madrid to get there at three am (my flight is at nine that morning so that will be a fun fun time in the airport) and I figured I might as well get ready now, since I am bound to be late. The only problem is that I packed two suitcases to come here, one full of clothes and one full of food and books. A girl's gotta have her priorities straight when packing for six months. Now that I have packed my bag for Sweden, my closet now looks like I got robbed and was left with only the ugliest and least loved clothing I brought. The next few days will be interesting, going to school wearing things that I don't know why I brought here, let alone why I brought them in the first place. I should probably send out a mass warning to school and everyone on the streets that I am not a freak, just a girl living out of the dregs of her closet.

babies on a plane.

This is just a short one about a hilarious article I just read:

There are new concerns about if babies need to be strapped into their own seat on planes instead of being held by their moms.

I would just like to know what good it will do to have a baby strapped in its own seat if the plane crashes. Ensuring that it is strapped in will definitely be the first thing on anyone's mind when they are in a crashing plane. Also, if I was about to die and had a baby with me, I would probably immediately grab it out of the strapped in seat and hold onto it screaming that I loved it. So while I realize that there are lots of concerns about babies being strapped down, perhaps Homeland Security should try to pass regulations about strapping kids feet to their seats so that while in your flight you don't have to endure the endless seat kicking. Or hair pulling. Perhaps we should just have body suits for small children, if we are gonna get serious about this.

I'm just saying there might be a better way to spend time "ensuring safety." The lives of the horribly behaved children on planes are regularly endangered by the other passengers who endure their hellish actions, and it will only be a matter of time before someone gets creative with their lack of weapons and uses a SkyMall catalog to smack down a little yelling seat kicker.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40575974/ns/travel-family_travel/

Go home gringos!

The whole "don't give into peer pressure" campaign hasn't reached Spain. I made the highly educated decision to allow my two friends to convince me to stay out until the wee hours of morning in traditional Spanish style... six am. I would like to say that after all their hard work and peer pressure we made it, but after a "Go Home Gringos" party at "our" bar and a few dud dance clubs and of course, papas fritas, I can only say that we made it till four thirty.

I won't go into too many details about the night, because personally I tend to get a bit bored with hearing everyone's "Oh my gawwwddd this one night..." stories, but...

oh my gooooddddd Spanish people love their PDA. That is the only way to put it. Our American boys, in true form, preformed a table dance for us. It takes an insane amount of passion and obsession to be so engaged in a public makeout that you don't notice six American boys and an Italian bartender table dancing two feet from your face. Cosmo magazine claims Spaniards are the best lovers, which might be true based on the obsene need to lick eachother in public and have no problem making it very clear what they were going to do an hour later. I understand that sometimes it is completely necessary to express your affection, for example when you get proposed to in an airport, when your boyfriends gorgeous ex is hanging on him in a party and kissing him infront of her will have the same effect as dumping ice water over her head and tiny dress, or when you are 80 and are walking and want to steal a kiss from your precious wife. Unless it is any of those circumstances, get a room. Or, if you are in Spain, get in your car.

The other day I wrote about everything I ate and how I was obsessed with it.... that was just my warm up.

Today, it is four in the afternoon and I just finished the most amazing lunch I have ever experienced, one to rival Thanksgiving:

bread and hot chocolate for breakfast

about 20 different kinds of cheese at the Cantabrian food market

shrimp, jamon cruido (super yummy thin ham), really soft cheese, a salad with green olives, tomatoes, corn, lettuce, and vinigar, paella, bread, and two pieces of chocolate turon (traditional Christmas candy) and regular turon, and then two mystery candies that I am going to eat while trying to focus long enough to write.

The thing about Spanish food is that as tiring as it is and boring to eat fried chicken and salad all the time, the days like today make you fall instantly in love with the Spanish food. As if this one meal is all that you will remember eating and every other meal was just to tide you over until this meal, at which point those memories of the old food are immediatly whipped away and you are left with a fresh love and a desire to eat for six hours on end.

This meal would be the highlight of my life right now, if it wasn't Christmas time. I keep bursting out into random Christmas carrols and scaring people, but today I woke up to a blue sky, a Cantabrian food fair, and Christmas shopping to do. I love buying presents, I am horrible at it, but I always hope that regardless of how bad of a memory I have, I will be able to find something that each person will love. So today, despite the massive amount of studying I will theoretically go do in a cafe accompanied by a cup of chocolate and a massive plate of fried and sugary churros, I am so completely content.

I was having a conversation yesterday about studying abroad. I remember the first couple days when I had finally decided and committed to coming here for a year, and how terrified I was. I am coming to the end of my first semester here, and because I know that due to procrastination and meetings and packing, this week will be insane, I have been thinking a lot about the past few months and what they have meant so far. Studying abroad in Spain was one of those decisions that I felt like was made for me.... I tend to have these life "breakdowns" where I totally freak out and can't handle making decisions and then specific things occur making it so clear what needs to happen. Thank God (literally) that the Big Man Upstairs has got it under control for us, because now I can look back at the last five months of my life (starting a bit pre-studying abroad) and see that everything I have gone through has had a direct correlation with something major that I have learned about myself so far. I really thought that by now I would be depressed, crying daily and wanting to go home. Instead, I spent today with a huge smile on my face thanking God over and over that I am here. I get to wake up and walk by the ocean every day, I get to eat paella and massive amounts of food, I get to travel and I get to live this insane adventure. Sometimes I feel like I will wake up from this dream and think, "Well that was nice, maybe someday...." but this is real life. How crazy is that?

I randomly found this article and it only reaffirmed how much I love Christmas:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40582683/ns/us_news-giving/

I realize that it isn't directly related to Christmas, but I think my obsession stems from this idea that during the holidays, everyone smiles a little more frequently at people they walk by and everyone is a little more inclined to do random acts of kindness. So here is my Christmas challenge: try to do one random act of kindness a day. Here is my list of ideas:

-pay for the next person in line's Starbucks

-pick up the trash on the road (Mother Nature needs kindness too)

-write someone a note telling them that they are pretty

-leave random sticky notes saying "You are loved!" or "Smile, today is beautiful" all over your ---desks or on random people's car windows

-bake cookies and put them in little baggies and give them out to people (but if you are gonna do this, make sure that you don't creep people out thinking you are trying to poison them)

-hold the door for someone

-if you win the lottery, but a random plane ticket and give it to someone

-shovel your neighbor's driveway

-drop lucky pennies all over

I am sure there are about a thousand other small ideas to think of, but maybe just try and squeeze a few in before Christmas :)

ps. I am famous and on the UIMP website. FINALLY. http://www.uimp.es/ (you have to scroll down, and I realize that I am the reject standing in the corner not paying attention, but for reals, the camera man was speaking Spanish, and you'll realize that really only the teachers had any idea what was going on. EPIC fail. But at least we are famous now, right?)

#234 you're a Facebook addict.

Now, to the request of the ever lovely Jessica Mullins, I am going to say just briefly that:

I am very fed up with these ridiculous facebook games like sending someone a number and they post it as their status with their opinion of you. First off, it is completely fake because so many of them say "You are such a great person and you are so wonderful and I wish I knew you better." For real???? If you want to know them better, stop giving them compliments that can't be 100% genuine due to you not knowing them well and also, if you really wanted to hang out you would get off facebook and call them. On top of that, if people sent me numbers, I would have to be honest because we all know how horrible I am at lying (or for those of you who don't, in 7th grade my mom found a book "Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, which is actually a hilarious book and I highly recommend it, and I progressed to lie and tell her it was about a girl who plays flute and loves it so much that she named it Angus. WHAT???) and therefore I would progress to tell everyone: #11, to be honest, I thought you were five months pregnant when I first met you, or #22 too bad you keep drinking away your grades, good luck getting a job, we'll see who is cool in three years, or #33, who are you? and #44, you are a horrible kisser and #55 I'd like to punch your eye, and #77, rawrrr. However, the whole concept of publishing novels to people seems to be the latest fad and frankly it is just getting tiring to have to sift through endless friend life stories to find a real status update. I mean come on people, I have two hours a day of class to stalk so keep it interesting at least and if you are gonna analyze friends, post something juicy so I can stay entertained. Please.

Jess took particular issue with the changing your picture to a cartoon for child abuse awareness. Theoretically if you wanted to raise awareness you should say "change your picture and donate to an organization that helps them." Or to quote a more effective idea from my ever compassionate friend Chris: oh haha man i must of missed that and shouldnt we be aware of it all the time not just tell the 6th i mean come on after the 6th lots of kids are going to be beaten twice as much to make up for the lost time

The whole idea that changing your picture will really have an impact is slightly skewed, since chances are if a little kid randomly gets on Facebook, seeing your cartoon profile picture is not going to make them feel better. And chances are also that you are going to feel all nice and fuzzy for being aware for a few days that three year olds are going through traumatic things while you sit and Christmas shop online. Real helpful, for that baby or that little boy. So anyway, I just wanted to inform people that, as a fellow Facebook addict, there are some things that just promote being fake, coping out of taking real action on issues like child abuse, and are a nice bandaid for the guilty feeling that people get when they think about actual kids living in houses where abuse occurs. Next time you change your picture, maybe you should change your motives away from Facebook and actually donate or volunteer at a relief center. And instead of posting hundreds of pointless statuses about people you wish you knew better, call them. Put your money where your mouth is and your actions where your words are. And for the love of God's Green Earth, if you are going to post more statuses, please make them a tad more scandalous because studying abroad in Spain does actually involve class and I prefer that you spice up my life if you are going to pollute my Facebook.

(afternote: in a moment of total clever-osity, my roommate decided that she would make up numbers and write really mean things about the fake person.

for example:

‎#8364 i slept with your ex and then we made fun of your pictures on facebook

‎#72 I saw you naked one time and peed myself laughing)

Tapas and the art of eating

When you ask most normal people what they enjoy doing, they will tell you they like to run, rock climb, play soccer, paint, play guitar, or sing. They might enjoy rollarblading, skiing, or if you are my dad spending excessive amounts of your time doing "physical activity." I would really like to act like I work out or participate in a sport. I can say that I did a spin class twice a week this past summer, although can't fail to mention the excessive amount of very loud moaning, groaning and grunting that occured with that. The man who owns the Pilates studio gave us a discount on our next session of spin classes, which seems suspiciously similar to a "I really feel bad for you because you trying to get in shape sounds like a woman giving birth to quituplets" pity present. I could tell you that I like to write, but until this blog I have started about eleven "journals" in the past four years all of which say "I am going to start writing down something every day" and all of which are blankly naked beyond the first day of random inspiration.

My diary from when I was nine should have been a hint that I was going to be a lazy writer. It is full of entries sporadically written when I hated my mom, hated my dad, hated Emma, thought only my dog loved me, and was determined that I wanted to grow up immediately and move out. At nine, I was sure that moving out involved moving into a pre-furnished house with a full refrigerator and full bank account, and a nice cute husband sitting around waiting to tell me I was great. I think the full fridge part should have been another warning, not of my lazy writing habits but of my mental obsession with food.

I could spend hours explaining that I love food but I'll break it down to a few key points:

1. I eat all day. Normally five meals and constant snacking.

2. If given unlimited money, I would buy every cook book possible, would eat at every type of restaurant I could find, and would buy a cheese plantation.

3. When deciding where to study abroad, my key goal was somewhere with great cheese. Studying abroad in Spain therefore had to rotate around the best dairy region, which, apparently is Cantabria but to be honest, I think that's a huge lie.

4. My number one hobby and favorite way to spend my time is eating.

5. My top favorite things in life are: cows, eating, cheese, love and my family.

The only problem that comes with eating is that if you spend hours in bed taking siestas, it starts to have "negative" effects or as I am determined to believe you start putting on padding for winter. Yesterday I ate:

three pieces of toast

two crissounts

a cup of hot chocolate

two clementines

a sobao (these cakey bready things that are kind of like a sweet bread that you sad on and sucked the air out of)

a package of crackers (the peanut butter and toasted cracker ones that I brought from the States. I came with eight boxes, am down to three packs in the final box.)

two bowls of potato soup and churrizo(traiditonal Rioja region soup, hmm)

a salad with corn (hm)

a yogurt

a tapa with: toasted bread, zucchini, bacon, Brie cheese and tomato

a tapa with: toasted bread, grilled and crumbled fish covered in melted cheese and tomatoe

a class of Rioja wine

an egg omelette

another bowl of the potato soup

half a plate of stir fried green peppers

and last but not least

a chocolate pudding.

In my ideal world, there would be a way to preserve smells and tastes and put them into other people's memories. If I was able to do so, I would bet a very large quantity of Swedish cheese that all of you would immediately make it your new life goal to study abroad in Spain, regardless of your age. (A side note, there is a 57 year old man studying in Salamanca. Think what you want.) However, until I find some way to make it possible to provide you all with a vivid enough description to do the tapas justice, I just have to beg that if ever given the chance, you will pop to Spain and eat as many tapas as is humanly possible in however much time it is that you stay for.

The future and fairytales

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to improve one’s self. About how you go about doing that, how you grow and change things to be better. If you want to get in shape, you do daily exercise, you go to the gym, you run, and you take direct measures and do specific things to achieve fitness. But how is one to go about changing themselves? Improving sounds nice and it is a cute idea and goal but when it comes down to it, I have rarely seen someone decide to change and do so. It usually takes an event or traumatic experience to induce change and that isn’t a person deciding to do so. In all the classic novels you see a character put into extraordinary circumstances; a death, a quest, a betrayal, and from there they are forced to grow up. I have wondered about being in Spain and if this is my “quest” but at the same time what is so traumatic about studying in a new place. I could probably have gotten the same level of change if I went to Texas for college.

The fact that I am overanalyzing the “meaning” of being here doesn’t really surprise me. I have spent a lot of my life wondering who it is that I am supposed to be, what my purpose is, who I will grow up to be. Worrying about the future is probably completely normal, but I have never been a patient person. This past summer, much to my horror and surprise, I spent three days in bed after being broken up with crying, eating, and wondering what the hell was wrong with the world. After being forced on a five hour hike (half of which I spent crying and the other half being grumpy) I realized that maybe things like getting your heart broken and having to move forwards are the real, modern day trials. There is a reason books are classics: they are the stories that someone dreamed of; if we all lived “classics” there would be no reason to read a book. You can read a book and escape reality, escape the heart breaks and the doubt and live someone else’s life where every trial results in positive growth and you can dream of that. So here I am, spending another day in bed, and contemplating if my life is worth writing a novel about. Which it isn’t, but isn’t that the dream? To be having adventures worthy of life changing growth?

Perhaps I put too much stock in the idea of being the best… I have always had this fear of coming in second. Which goes to show how competitive I am, regardless of the whole “I really don’t care” attitude I pretend to have. On top of wanting to be the best though comes the problem that I am "good" at everything. That sounds very arrogant, but I can get an A in just about any class and am yet to feel like I am really engaged or learning. Education should be about provoking your mind and stretching your ideas, which is why I think it was necessary that I came here. There was no way that learning accounting or statistics was going to make some triggering mental activity happen. Now is when I wish I would have a book of answers from God, telling me what I need to do with my life, and if banking on the hope that I will love business regardless of having taken only two classes for my major is a good plan. I’d love to keep taking writing classes but who can bank a future on the idea that you’ll teach students to write. I have fairly limited desire to ever be a teacher, and the chance of getting a job writing sarcastic things and rants about not having any idea who I am is pretty non-existent.

Anyway, back to the whole idea of growth. My dad emailed me last week telling me about how proud he was that I am here, learning to be alone. Which was super sweet and confusing, because girls especially spend so much time sitting around worrying about being alone. Every single one of my favorite movies, favorite shows, favorite books and favorite songs are about the undeniable love in life. I decided, while spending three days in bed, that I would never date someone who didn’t love country music, because they have to listen to it to know what they are up against and to be able to be like “ps this song is what I would sing to you if I had any singing talent.” From as far back as I can remember I was forcing Emma or Matt or Drew to marry me. Emma and I would spend hours making houses and forts in the snow, taking care of baby dolls by the fire, and watching Disney movies. We grow up dreaming of that guy that will think you look adorable when you look like you got hit by a bus, are totally sick and haven’t showered in three days. I know guys like that are out there, cause my dad is that guy, but when you see so many girls letting guys walk all over them, so many girls settling for less than what they deserve it gets discouraging. We can tell ourselves daily that we don’t care about relationships but let’s be real: every girl wants to be pursued, cherished, and seen as worth giving up every other girl for. Not only are we faced with the doubts about who we are as a person, but also with who we will fit with, who will love us just as we are. That leaves us not only with the idea that we need to grow and change for ourselves to be better, but also that we need to be thinner, prettier, stronger, more confident and theoretically perfect in order to find that guy that will think we are all those things. Which is twisted, really, because if you had to be all those things there would be no real love, no love that overlooks the extra five pounds you put on or the mad hair you have when you get up in the morning. Isn’t there something hopelessly romantic about Tom Hanks taking Meg Ryan flowers in You’ve Got Mail when she looks like utter hell and he can still look at her with that “I adore you and think you are one hot mess” look. Don’t get me wrong I am all about dressing up and trying to get my hair to lay right, but maybe my dad is right and the true beauty of being alone is that you are happy and whole in the presence of just yourself. Then, once you have that ability to love who you are, it won’t matter if you aren’t perfect. Because you will be perfectly you. And the person who is perfect for you will love that. At least, that’s my theory.

Inevitably, I am still in bed contemplating the idea of growth and growing up. I hoped to come here and immediately be fluent in Spanish, be European and fabulous with lots of new clothes and a busy crazy life, but in reality I am far from fluent, am wearing all the same clothes I brought with the exception of the socks and jacket I lost, and spend an unacceptable amount of time worrying and watching Glee wishing I could sing. Figuring out how to improve, how to have all the answers and how to be on top of life is probably slightly unrealistic. But I can’t stop thinking that I obviously ended up here for a reason, so if God would hurry up and get over it and show me what that was, I would be very appreciative. My old habit of reading the last page of a book is not applicable to life, which is such a bummer because I would love to know how it ends. Perhaps that is the whole point of being here though… I have to be patient and stop trying to rush and control life. Spain is the ultimate test for a control freak: regardless of how hard you try, the system will never let you control it. Another year is coming to an end, and my to-do list once again involves figuring out who I am. But maybe this year I will mix it up, maybe the point is that you don’t figure out who you are, you just are. And each day you become more yourself. It could be that the whole idea of changing or improving is just part of life, that, like in the classics, you rarely see it coming and unless you are an AP English student you might not even realize it happened. So until then, I suppose I will stick to writing rants and hoping that when some exciting story comes along, I’ll have a long enough attention span to sit down and write about it. Starting with the last page, of course.

peeing in the dark and other activities

This should probably also go on my FYI for future students page, but I feel it is worthy of its own post. Mostly because I am running out of clever things to write about, and partially because I am worried that lots of other people who share my distaste for being alone in the dark might experience this if I don't post a warning.
I feel that perhaps this should be a public service announcement, although between the air traffic controllers striking and shutting down the Madrid airport and the Wilileaks creator being a sex offender, this might not get the attention it deserves.
It is a simple matter of turning on the lights, really. God bless the American light switches, that you can nearly always locate just inside the door, at the height your arm instinctively knows to reach for, and with one quick flick you have light. If only life was so simple... I'd understand things like math and the subjunctive tense and why my cooking always looks so ugly. I would also have escaped a slightly intoxicated freak out involving my first experience with Spanish light switches.
The tricky thing here is that electricity is expensive. I'd like to say that Spaniards are just very green-consious, but when it comes down to it, they just dislike you leaving the lights on. So bars, and restaurants and public places have timed lights... you push the switch in and you have about 20 seconds of light. Maybe it's just me but that just won't do, especially when I am trying to manage to make my tights look normal and stop bunching weirdly. Not to mention avoiding pulling the classic dress stuck down your tights scenario. For forgive me for saying this but twenty seconds just is not enough time.
Here comes the fun part two: if the person before you still had light left, chances are you are on such a mission to make it to the bathroom that you don't think about checking where the light is. And never count on it being in the same place. In Italy, it was behind me on the wall. I won't go into details on how I found that, due to the groping of bathroom walls being a low point in my life.
So please, for the love of sanitation and sanity, check where that damn light is whenever you go into a bathroom. Because trust me, when you are suddenly plunged into a toilet paperless darkness, the walls of a bathroom are the last place you want to be feeling around.

One point for getting out of bed.

Here is a brief run down of my weekend:

Christmas music. Sleep. Elf. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Christmas music. Sleep. Fantasize about Christmas. Sleep. Eat. and repeat.

Throw in forgetting the name of a guy that I met the first weekend who for some reason remembered my name, my entire life story which I apparently felt the need to tell him (not short of the fake boyfriend I made up and my supposed desire to be taught to surf. Always wonder where I find things like this to say, apparently have very vivid imagination after a few drinks...) and obsessing over the dog named Marley in the bar, whose life story involves being one year and four months old. Between the dog in the bar and watching a little boy get his diaper changed in the middle of a pool bar I am becoming less shocked at the things that occur. I am sure that I have done my fair share of contributing to the strangeness (ie: falling out of a bathroom to "Sweet Home Alabama" due to an inability to walk in heels) but some things are just strictly Spanish. If you tried to take your dog to a bar to hang out/help you DJ you'd prolly get fired in America. But here, you are every homesick girl's new best friend and the most popular guy in town. Amerian boys take note.

I am proud to say that I emerged from our cave today and went for a walk. On Sundays and "fiestas" aka work holidays/government holidays everything shuts down. Which means that everyone sleeps all day, watches TV and goes on walks. Two minutes into my walk I realized I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to go babysit the baby doll obsessed and slightly insane three year old at six, and had no idea what time it was. So then bolted back home, realized it was 5:30, called them and was told that I could just come tomorrow. Which is nice but also a bummer because I was lucky enough to remember it today, and banking on remember that two days in a row might be asking too much.

Walk attempt two went much better. I didn't have anything else to have forgetting about (well, I might and just don't remember but that is beside the point.) and was reminded again why I love it here. I could take a hundred pictures of the same beautiful views every day and still not be able to appropriately portray how gorgeous Santander is. From the point of the bay, you can see the sparkely Christmas lights, the water with the light reflections, the tall pretty buildings that look like skinny and disproportional blocks and the snowy frigid mountains behind them. I'm not sure that many things are more beautiful than the ocean with white mountains behind them. Santander might be small and relatively limited in things to do, but I can never get enough of it. I think probably any "city" is an upgrade from the size of Steamboat, but the fact that I have a city on the ocean with mountains just about makes me want to kiss God fifteen times and ask why I am so spoiled.

Two toilet paper rolls later

I am proud to say that my cold has contributed to global warming. I have officially used two rolls of toilet paper blowing my nose. Which is bittersweet because I am highly impressed with how nasty it is and at the same time am shocked that it is humanly possible to need that much tissue.

I have realized that I might possibly be Mother Nature. I am not positive about this yet, so don't go making too many demands or requesting any type of weather quite yet, but I am fairly positive that:

If I get a cold, it will be sunny and

if you want it to rain, ask my to straighten my hair.

I should start charging people who are having weddings to NOT straighten my hair that way, as a promise that they will have blue skies. I could also offer to lick all the toys in a daycare to ensure that I got a nasty infection/cold, further guaranteeing their perfect day be matched with a cloudless sky.

Despite the nose blowing and random swollen hurty throat I forced myself to go outside and go on a walk this afternoon. When the sun comes out in Santander, every single family goes outside. It is so rare that I am beginning to think the vitamin D physically pulls people out of their houses and into the sun for as long as possible. Then this afternoon I went to the Christmas market to try to find presents. Normally, I have no problem buying people gifts. But this year I realized that being away from my family means I have no ideas at all, and Santander has shopping that is nearly as horrible as Steamboat. Okay well not really because we don't only have a Walmart and fast food, but when it comes to anything affordable and unique... not so much. At least I haven't found anything yet. I did however find a store full of cow salt shakers, cow mugs, cow bowls, cow plate, and cow bags but I decided that everyone might be slightly irritated that I simply bought them everything that I want for Christmas. I might have to buy myself some cow mugs for my apartment next year. I also am considering just buying a cow, but am not sure how it would do living in my apartment and I don't know if it would be down for cuddling. So perhaps I will have to get a dalmation and name it Vaca or Moo.

There is a strike going on right now, SURPRISE surprise, since there are only strikes in Spain about every two months. This one was a particularly dick move though, because this is a five day weekend for Spain so the air traffic controllers who decided to "call in sick" shut down the Madrid airport which basically shut down the entire Spain flight system. I'm sorry but if you are gonna strike just come out and say "PS we are striking" but don't play hokey like you are in the third grade and Mrs. Seatman with her stupid lectures and anti-recess tactics is going to be your sub for the day.

I should probably start working on my project on the Spain economy, but that is kind of going nowhere seeing as I, despite living here, have no idea what is really going on with the economy other than the Spanish people's obsession with strikes. My mom has been attempting to help by telling me articles to read, which makes life a little more sad because even my mother knows more about the nations crisis that I do. On the bright side, I have another five days to put it off and I am sure my procrastination won't be curbed by being in Spain. Especially if we keep having sunny days. That may be another key to the weather: if you have finals, a huge paper, or a huge project, it will probably be gorgeous weather regardless of the time of year. And the days you are finally free to do something, it will snow. Regardless of the time of year for those of you in Colorado, and rain for those of you in a not freak snow type of place.

Paper snowflakes and the art of being an old woman.

When I was little, I would spend hour cutting things. I cut my sheets, my hair, all the fur off of Emma's huge stuffed puppy playing Emergency Vet, I cut cherries with my mom in the kitchen, I cut all the hair off Emma's Repunzel barbie and told her it would grow back, I cut the back of Margaret's hair (she doesn't know that and I don't think my mom does sooo....) and I cut a million paper snow flakes. I used to have a book of designs, of super fancy ones that you can make. Most the time, I stuck to hearts and triangles, kept things easy so that I could produce them in bulk. I was fairly sure that if I made enough I would fill our whole house with snow and would be able to sled in it. Or jump in it like a pile of leaves. The amount of trees I destroyed probably rivals the amount of paper used to print the entire Harry Potter book series. Today in Spanish we were in one of our usual food discussions when Miguel (Mike) opened the door and came, as I think it is best put, strut-sliding into the room. He was carring one of those hand made snowflakes that you cut out of paper and leave tiny pieces all over the floor for your

mom, the janitor, the responsible roommate or your baby sibling and playing that song "If you want my body and you think I'm sexy......." and progressed to cross the room, tape the snow flake on the wall, stroke our teacher's leg and leave. I'd really like to say this was a surprising or abnormal experience, but we all know that would be a lie. Between the paper corn, paper hand turkeys from Thanksgiving and the snowflake on the wall, I am fairly sure our teacher half sprinted out of the room when class was over. I can say proudly that I have learned a handful of useful Spanish phrases, I have learned about the EU, and I have learned how to perfect a hand turkey in class this semester. My college advisor will be over joyed at my extensive education and increased knowledge. A few days ago she wrote me telling me she hoped I was soaking up the experience... I don't really know how to respond to things like that because I don't know what is normal for a study abroad experience and if that is what I am doing, but if so, I am very proud of America and our ability to make sure everyone knows just how much we learned in Kindergarten and that we are still able to transfer our art abilities with paper to real life situations. You never know when you'll need some paper snow or an Indian paper headband, and honestly I would be far more interested in a job involving either of those than a job involving Calculus. Which comes to conflict with the fact that I will never have the patience to teach Kindergarten, and seeing as I can't just be in Kindergarten repeatedly and have to go to college, I really find the fact that we are reverting back to that while in Spain to be the most "soaking it up" experience possible.

Yesterday I got lectured by my mother about walking home... it was 4 degrees celcius and rainy, which apperantly is code for "You better get your behind on a bus or else." in Spain. Meanwhile it is -15 in Sweden and they just got three feet of snow. That's more like what I'd call unacceptable weather, but if you are from Spain you are allowed to think that rain and 30 degrees is unacceptable. So I am destined to get yelled at on a weekly slash daily basis because I refuse to think that it is necessary to pay three bucks a day to ride the bus when I could walk and spend that ten minutes being grateful that it isn't a blizzard and that I don't have to shovel my car out of the driveway every morning. I am also completely anti-umbrella, mostly because I have had far too many in-the-eye experiences with them while crossing the street. When it is raining, bus stops and cross walks become the number one eye-trauma zones, I strongly recommend wearing sunglasses and ski helmets at all times.

I wrote an email today to Margaret, and realized that the extent of most our conversations thus far have revolved around food. She told me every single thing they had at Thanksgiving dinner, at which point I had a pity party and ate the other half of the box of Wheat Thins my mom mailed me. I knew I was broke when I went to the secretary today to ask about my lost sweater (I lost my Lululemon. I want to punch myself and am suffering anxiety and will go through the five stages of grief soon.) and saw post cards that say "Universidad International Menendez y Pelayo" which nobody would want because they are hideous, but I was thrilled about because they are free. Everyone can expect some very awesome Christmas cars with "UIMP" on them. When people ask me which school I go to here, it is never fun to say "Oh, I go to UIMP." They literally call it wimp. There's nothing class and awesome about telling someone that, but if you call it the full name you either a. mispronounce it or b. sound retarded because nobody calls it that.

I'm laying in bed right now in all my clothes with two sweaters and a scarf wishing that the heat was on. I have spent the past three hours trying to get Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice to load while repeatedly contemplating if I was going to get my runny nose self out of bed to go watch them light the Christmas tree down town. Somewhere between the pipe leaking in my brain causing me to spend the vast majority of my time blowing my nose, and the pouring rain I decided the wise idea was to accept my old lady existence and stay trapped in bed. There also gets to be the point that your warm socks and wallet are begging you to stay in. Your socks because, well, for the first time all week they are dry and your wallet because in the morning it would be a lot nicer to buy donuts with the money that would have been spent on drinks and cab rides. The way food motivates me to make healthy decisions is kind of appalling... it motivates me to run if I bribe myself with a treat, it motivates me to study if I refuse to snack until I am done or if I go to a cafe and get coffee in exchange for a study session, it motivates me to be my liver's friend and buy food instead of drinks and it motivates me to work so that I have money to buy more food. The fact that I am not yet obese is also appalling and fantastic. I am determined that I will be an old woman in about two weeks because between the food motivation of staying in and my desire to finally have time to read and sleep is just too great to match the prospect of going outside and freezing and smelling like smoke. So I think that for the time being I am simply going to accept my old granny life and take a bath, read Pride and Prejudice and spend the next five hours watch the BBC Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and pretending like the rain is snow and that the kleenex all over my bed are paper snow flakes.

For any future Spain Study Abroad Students

Here is my list of things you need to know as you begin the process. This is going to be an ongoing post that I keep updating as I find things out.

FIRST OFF: Go here. http://studentsabroad.state.gov/

You can register yourself with the US government so that if there is an emergency they can help. And there is information on visas, documents, what to do in case of an emergency, etc. It also has info on: Smart Traveling, Voting while you are abroad, travel insurance, and finding your nearest embassy.

Visa Info: For students staying over 180 days, here is the info explaining the process of your visa and residency card. Here is the website for more info- http://www.spainexpat.com/spain/information/student_visas_for_spain/#morethan

and here is what is important for you to know so you don't have a panic attack:

student visas in spain for more than 180 days

In order to apply for a student visa that lasts more than 180 days, you will need to complete the procedures for a student visa per the section above (Student Visas for Up to 180 Days). In addition, you will need to prove that you have no criminal record in the form of a Certificate of Absence of Police Records (Certificado de Antecedentes Penales) and prove that you are in good physical and mental health by submitting a letter from your doctor attesting to that effect.

You are initially given a student visa for only three months. But don’t panic. This is just part of the process. Therefore, within one month of your arrival in Spain you will need to go to a Foreigners’ Office (Oficina de Extranjeros) or an office of the National Police (Policía Nacional) closest to where you live in Spain and apply for a student card for your Autorización de Estancia por Estudios. The student card will replace the student visa that you were issued in your home country. The card is generally valid for one year, but it can be renewed every year as long as you continue to fulfill the requirements.

To apply for the student card, you will need to bring to the Foreigners’ Office or office of the National Police:

• An EX-15 form that you have filled out. (Download the EX-15 form here.)
• Your passport.
• Three recent passport-sized photographs in color.
• Your student visa.
• Proof that you have been accepted into a program of study in Spain.
• Proof that you have sufficient financial resources during your program of study in Spain.
• A receipt that you have paid the student card fee.

One month later you must return to be fingerprinted, and another month later you will be able to pick up your student card.

Free TV for those of you addicts who can't survive without your shows, be warned that Hulu, ABC, CBS and the NFL are impossible to watch on their actual sights so here are some places to get you by:

tv-dome.net (this one is the best, rumor has it.)

fastpasstv.com, Project Free TV, and ch131.com will all get you by.

There are more so I'll figure that out soon.

For radio, if you google country radio or whatever type you want, you should be able to find something. Site like Pandora do not work here yet.

Ya'll love me because of this: Grooveshark.com.

gettt it.

Even if you aren't in Spain yet. You'll love me forever I promise

Starbucks: get it when you can aka in Madrid.

Cell phones: You can get a cheap phone here from Vodafone, Orange, Moviestar, etc and you load up minutes at Tabacco shops. If your program offers Realcom I recommend using that because it gets billed to you (or your parents hint hint) each month and as far as I can tell, I have used 20 euro a month on my cell phone and I don't have to keep going to fill up minutes.