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."