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.