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 :)