Publin

Alright, I am not that brilliant - I stole "publin" from my tourist book.
This will be a post strictly of quotes from last night, in the pub. Excuse the language, we were in Ireland....haha......:

Drunk guy at lunch: "American food is shit"
me: what kind of American food did you have that you didn't like?
him: your sodas are enormous and your KFC sucks.


me: What's your name?
fake patrick: what do you want it to be?
me: patrick.
fake patrick: that's what it is!!!!!
--- we're still not sure if he was telling the truth. He offered to show us ID if Courtney kissed him. haha.

fake patrick: "I have outside and inside feelings for you" (to Courtney)

fake patrick: "Let me give you some advice, from some one who has been with a LOT of women. If a boy ever says "I love you...but" tell 'im to fuck off!!"

Fake patrick: are you ladies single?
me: we are single tonight!!
court: (aside) Stephanie I'm always single!
me: SHUT UP it sounds better that way!!!


fake patrick: "What shall we do tonight....do you like helicopters?"
me: I've never been in one....
fake Patrick: YOU WOULD LOVE MY HELICOPTER

hahaha, all in jokes, of course

Fake patrick (he was our favorite): "You see that guy over there? Last time I saw him I crashed 'is barge! He said stay between the balls and I was like what balls!? But don't talk to him about that.....*turns around* ....HEY! do you remember when I crashed your barge!??! (guy comes over)
Guy proceeds to tell us that it wasn't a barge, it was a 12 man "gentleman's yacht" that was 90 summot years old. Which doesn't explain how Patrick killed its electric motor.....which is what he did, he didn't crash it. And apparently he tried to row it to shore............didn't work.

Then the guy told us about the last time they had been in a pub together. They told the owner that if they could have free drinks all day, they would play a gig that night. So they drank all day and were too drunk at the end to play, so they ran out the back door.

we meet fantastic people.

"I love courtney, she's so beautiful, on the inside and out. (aside to me) she's a dark horse......
and I'm a fuckin' cowboy." - Fake Patrick

Courtney bought a lighter that looks like a can of guinness, which is genius until Irish people ask you for a light....They thought that was QUITE hilarious.

me: we're going to the bathroom
fake patrick: WHERE ARE YOU GOING!?
me: we'll be back. Promise.
Fake patrick: Don't GOOO
me: I'll be back. Pinky swear. do you know what that is? It means if I lie to you you can cut off my pinky.
Fake patrick: *pulls his hand away* listen if I lie to you you're not touching my fuckin' pinky.....

We met a guy who worked at IBM, and had worked for Apple. I told him I was a communications major and he got all excited. He probably said "keep it simple" about 20 times in 5 minutes.

Fake Patrick: New York....what a fuckin shit 'ole. For a city that never sleeps there's nothing to fuckin' do!

Liam: (ever time Fake Patrick would come around...) aaaaaaapppy biiiiiiirrrrrtthhddaaaay tooooooo youuuuuu!!!! (using a different name for him every time, we think it was so Fake Patrick would get some random action....)

Liam aka Bob Dylan: Where are you from?
us: the states.
Liam: THANK YOU. Listen, I've been to America three times!
us: yeah? where?
Liam: Cuba, Chile, and Peru.

Old Guy (the captain of the gentleman's yacht): So do you guys know cows?
us: cows?
Guy: yeah, like do you have cows around where you live?
Court: yeah....
Guy: So I have a question for you. If you have a tree, in the middle of the field. *pause*
us: yeeeeaaah?
Guy: and you have a cow with a rope around it's neck, how much grass can it eat?
Me: What?
Guy: how much grass can a cow eat in one day?
Courtney: how long is the rope?
guy: doesn't matter.
Me: Cows have like 8 stomachs.
Guy: so?
Me: uuuuh.....100 yards.
Courtney: as long as the rope is!!
Guy: WRONG! it's not tied to the tree! *cracks up* tell that to your friends at home!!!!

Liam: You guys are lovely for American.
Court: really? you don't think we're stuck up?
Liam: Oh you're still stuck up!!!!! But you're lovely! Just lovely!!!


A random guy asked us for a light...
me: where are you from?
guy: The shittiest country in the world. guess.
me:.......uuuhhhmm....Russia?
guy: no.........Americans hate us.
me:.........uuuhhhhmm......Russia.
guy: This isn't the 60's!!!
me: mmm.....France!
guy: yeah.

Liam: I mean, you guys are, technically, the bastard children of England.....

Fake Patrick: "ere, have you got a pen? I'm going to give you my website"
me: I have an excellent memory, let's hear it
fake patrick: duble-ya duble-ya duble-ya duble-ya
friend of FP: That's 4 Duble-yas!! You haven't even gotten to the name yet and you're already fuckin' lying!!!
Fake Patrick: Well how many bloody double-yas would you like?!?!
me: usually 3.
Fake Patrick: LIKE... I was saying......duble-ya duble-ya duble-ya.......DOT.......a-r-t-u-r gutentag.
me: Arthur Gutentag?
Fake Patrick: without the H!! ARTUR!!

Me: Fake Patrick! Don't spill your beer!
Fake Patrick: Hey!! Listen to me! I don't spill a fuckin drop of beer.
Friend of FP: That's the first honest thing you've said all night!!!


At the end of the night....and it was true....

Free chupitos, eh?

Last night, we went to a place we had been to for the first time last week. It's called the DowJones bar, and the prices of the drinks go up and down depending on who's buying what. They're listed like the stocks in the stock market and you can watch the prices change. Every 30-50 drinks or so, the market "crashes" and all of the drinks drop to their base price for the night. Super fun, and dangerously cheap. Plus we all know how I love a good game. :)
aaaaanyway. We got there kind of early (around 930) and we were the only ones there, so we made friends with the Swedish bartenders Martin and Maria. They told us all about what it's like to live on minimum wage in Barcelona, moving from Sweden, and then they took turns chasing eachother around the bar and putting gel in each other's hair. It was hilarious watching this girl with a completely gel-covered head and a side pony tail sticking straight out the side of her head serving real customers drinks later on :). We got some free tequila (aaalways a plus) and hung out with a kid from Georgia who we had met earlier that week writing love letters for money on las Ramblas. I bought one, if you're lucky I'll let you read it. If you're really lucky, I'll translate.

I didn't end up getting home until about 230, (we had to leave to catch our plane at 5am...) and court made the wise decision to stay out all night. hehe. 5am rolls around and a very schnocked roomie stumbles into the room, throws some clothes in the bag, and yells "LET'S GO" haha. We went to catch the first train into town and got through the ticket gate right as the train was there, but then the door (like normal, wooden door, no card necessary) was locked and we couldn't get out to get in the train!! I ended up jumping through a window (suitcase and all) and yelling at a veeeeery confused courtney to do the same, and hurry the heck up because the train was going to leave. hahahaha probably going to be an awesome memory after I get enough sleep to think about it.
the rest of the plane/bus rides were fairly uneventful, touched down in Dublin at 10 something in the morning and found our hostel pretty easy. This cute guy on the bus (and when I say cute, I mean IRISH and cute....) told us that a pub that's right around the corner from our hostel is a really good "irish" experience and so we're planning on going there tonight.
Irish people are so bomb. They all want to talk to you, they're soooo nice, and I noticed when we got off the plane and were looking for our bus that the lady working actually asked if she could help us. That was the first time that has happened all summer. In Spain you have to flag someone down for like an hour before you can get some slow service.
All in all I think Dublin was an excellent choice for a visit. After paying the hostel bill, I am officially dipping into a bit of debt but I only have a week left so I think I'll be ok. PLUS
**news**
I called work and my boss gave me a raise while I was gone!! (I'd been 'working' for the company for a year) and she said she'd schedule an interview with me to become a shift manager. Exciting times. So yeah, I figure a couple hundred in the hole when I get home from europe isn't a big deal. Glad I'm not travelling for 4 more weeks and really screwing myself over.

Not all of you know, I actually fly out of Barcelona on the 2nd, and I'm spending a week in Wisconsin at our family house on Lake Geneva. I'm sooooooo excited! Court and I have a list several pages long of all the food we want to eat when we get home, and wisconsin corn and steak are DEFINITELY on there!!! Plus I need to actually get a tan before I get home haha!!

Lindsay and I went to Paris two weeks ago. I loved it, but I know I could never live in France. Just not my style. Plus have you HEARD how thick some of their ennunciation is?! I literally can't do it. I was sitting on the metro trying to copy them making a fool of myself and I just can't make the sound. Gives me some perspective on people who can't roll their 'r's :)
We went to the Louvre for free (people under 28 are free on Friday nights after 6, take a note!!), and walked around in the parks. Then we went and saw the eiffel tower light up at night and ate a late dinner at a cafe. I had a cheese salad and white wine, and she got escargot, which I tried a bite of. It wasn't bad, but I don't think I'd pay to eat it. (I've been saying that about alot of stuff lately, haha). Very similar to this trip, we had been travelling all night (I can show you the intinerary I wrote it, it's quite complex) and we were dead tired but it was still awesome.

The food was definitely one of the highlights- crepes, croissants, espresso, a really good panini...mmmm I spent way too much money.
We also went to the Musee d'Orsay which I actually liked better than the Louvre. They had more recognizable artists (Van Gogh, Degas, Monet, Manet, Rembrant...). Hmmmm what else did we do. Took a boat tour down the Seinne (or however you spell it) which was kind of stupid yet entertaining. We waited in line almost an hour to get on the boat, and the Spanish people standing in line behind us started yelling at the nordic people in line ahead of us about how they cut and "we" (he pointed to us) would like to have a word with them. Then we got on and there were these adorable little black twins with their hair in tiny little balls all over their head, it was soooooo cute. And our tour guide was HOTT. haha
We went to the Arc de Triompf, which was fun, but alot of stairs. Nothing compared to the stairs at the Eiffel Tower though. Those things.....I swear I thought I was going to die. It was fun through. Fun looking down and seeing all the people below, and there was alot going on because it was the day before Bastille. Then we waited on the lawn for the fireworks for Bastille day and this weird French guy came up to us and had horrible english but he kept saying "excuse me..." and then asking questions. And then he started being all french and telling us that he wanted to give us roses, and when he laughed he said "is not nice?!" and then he offered to buy us drinks (we declined, a bit skittish about letting a strange bring us an open bottle) and a mercedes. Every time we said no he's get real adament and say "IS NOT A PROBLEMS!!" haha. Weird french people. Anyway, there were no fireworks. Not sure why, they just announced at like 11 that there wouldn't be any that night. Awesome.
So then we went home and helped some chinese boys find our hostel and got harassed by french people on the walk back to the hostel, but it's all a part of the game, I guess.
I was talking with that dude last night about how incredibly strange it is to be a woman here. All of the things about safety you have to think about that never would have bothered you at home. All of the attention you get and have to deal with, just because you're blonde or american looking or you don't have a guy walking with you. Something I expected, but never at this level.
I'd say I've gotten more badass, but I've probably just gotten more frank. It's good in some ways, because I can fend for myself, but bad because I could end up being a bitch to someone who doesn't deserve it just because i'm used to telling people to back off.

anyway, random.
Suffice it to say that 3 hours of sleep is not enough. Our room will be ready soon *hopefully* so I'll bid you "adieu" and say I can't WAIT to see everyone when I get home. :)

- S

It's an american with a potato in his mouth

It happens quite a lot. The people at the front desk will be struggling through English with a customer, and they never come and ask us for help. I can't figure out if it's a 'not wanting to ask for help' thing, a 'not liking us thing', or what. But today, it was freaking hilarious.

This guy calls and talked to the French girl who is learning Spanish, in English. So she passes it off to my boss ("es un Americana"), who speaks fairly decent English, and I hear him saying "I can not understand you, could you please speak more slowly?!" and once he finally gets it, he transfers him to the room he wants to talk to.
We watch from our 'office' and he walks by and laughs, saying "it's an American with a potato in his mouth!" in Spanish. I think this is hilarious.
Ten seconds later, the guy is transferred back to our desk, because the extension we transferred him to didn't pick up. The French girl: "Es la americana!" I get up and I'm like "jeez let me talk to him!!"
So I get on the phone "Hello"
A thick cockney accent comes over the line...."Oi! I want to talk to the tennis playa in room TWO-FIFTEEN. 'is name is so-and-so!"
blah blah blah...blah blah blah...

I hang up.
HE'S BRITISH!!!! NOT AN AMERICAN WITH A POTATO IN HIS MOUTH!

sheesh. And you wonder how Europeans get the wrong impression of us.


also....

We were having printer problems, and the event planner we are working with walked around the corner and goes "#(*)&%^" in spanish when she realized we had sent it to the wrong printer AGAIN. I knew it was a cuss word, but I wasn't sure which one, so I just giggled.

Then my boss walks around the corner and goes "That means FU%$"

I almost peed my pants laughing.
When else would your boss just say that to you? hahahahaha.
Thanks for the translating help Oscar. :)

every day is an opportunity

so this time, I actually wrote a blog for my required UoD blog (yes, people, i am getting school credit for this). So you get sloppy seconds. :)

Enjoy - and remember, you are breathing new air every second. So enjoy it, and take advantage.
"Every day is an Opportunity"

CHEEZY, I know. But it's really been hitting home lately. I've been talking with a lot of people about the UoD company itself, and it's weird to me that there are people doing this in the states. It's just such a completely different experience. If I were to tell someone what I learned on my internship I couldn't start listing off different ways to format things, or presentations I completed, or databases I mastered, but I could tell you more about people now than I knew a month ago.

I could tell you I've MASTERED the art of picking up on when someone is saying something they think is funny - even if I have absolutely no idea what they just said. (Oh Catalan, how I one day hope to understand you.....)

I've learned when to ask a question, and when to use my intuition. There's a difference between being self-starting, and just pulling things out of your ass.

I wouldn't say I've learned, but it's been reiterated (so maybe this time I'll actually remember it) that the quality of a relationship is extremely important. Leave behind people who will be glad to see you've called, later on down the road. maybe I'm not great at finding a LOT of those yet, but I'm focusing on quality over quantity. Along with that goes sincerity. Realizing that all people are real people, and you can find the human inside of them if you stop long enough to look. It takes longer with some than others. Spaniards make it easy :)

I've truly realized that my dreams aren't going to accomplish themselves. Those things that you think about and say to yourself "GOD that would be so awesome"....they're reachable. I talked to a guy who ROWED for 4 months because he wanted to get across the atlantic on his own - ANYTHING, is reachable. You've got to sort out the difference between fantasies and true dreams, calculate the risks, and make it happen. My motto for the last few months has been "I have one life to live" - ps thanks mom for the inspiring card! :)

I've learned the importance of learning, and language, on interpersonal relationships. While I'm not championing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (look it uuuuuupp), I understand that the words you use, and the ease with which you use them can make or break a relationship. Sometimes relationships are formed because one person had the patience to struggle through with you. Others are broken because you weren't willing to try to struggle through your own language difficulties that day. If I could say one thing, it would be to always try. That's how you learn. With anything really. I'm not saying I do, in fact I'm quite lazy with my spanish....but if I were great at life, I would always try.

Lastly, I've realized what a force of nature curiosity is. How it needs to be fed in order to thrive, and how giving in to your curious side can produce great benefits and harsh consequences. Por ejemplo - I tend to ask some aaaawkward questions. That can be bad when trying to make friends :) BUT, being brave enough to ask the lady walking down the street where the metro stop is in Spanish, can produce a great result! :) Don't worry, some day I'll be brave enough for some deeper questions than that hahaha.

A bit more of what's up in spain....

Lately the people we work with have taken to teaching us a word, in Catalan, Castillian, and English. Usually they do it because they think I have no idea what's going on, but I let them, because it helps me to learn the subtle differences between Catalan and Castillian. The passion for language that the people here have is amazing. I wish we had that kind of intellectual environment in the states. Even the maids in the hotel will spend their entire lunch hour discussing the slight tonal differences in a specific catalan word between its castillian counterpart.

I've been translating menus alot lately, because I switched to event planning on monday. It's interesting to see the different kinds of dishes they serve. I learned about a cold kind of tomoato-ish soup they serve with oil and stale bread aka croutons (ps- these people are craaazy about oil and vinegar!! but you'd be hard pressed to find butter, or salad dressing). Then when I went in to eat lunch with the staff, they were serving it! haha, I thought that was hilarious.

We went out on the Ocean yesterday evening for a "sunset cruise". It was definately an awesome time - nice to get out there for awhile. I made a few comical observations - a girl was trying to take a picture, and one of the skippers got in her way. She said, quite loudly actually, that that &*^(% was in her way! We've gotten too comfortable thinking that people can't understand us- the skippers were australian....not Spanish.... we were also told that they'd never sold so much sangria in one trip before, and they sold out of the ten bottles of champagne they had on board within the first hour. It just made me think about priorities. I'm glad I'm not getting piss ass drunk every weekend. Though it's fun sometimes, I want to go home having gotten something else out of this place than "I can't beliiiiieve I did that i was so drunk!" Plus I'm turning 21 in November, there will be plenty of time for that in good ol' McMinnville :) hahaha.

Until next time, dear "dreamers" :)

S

my parents smoke pot?

On Wednesday, I got a few beers with a kid named Ollie Hicks (and some other UoD people). He's 26, and he was the youngest kid ever to row across the atlantic ocean (and did i mention heeee's BRITISH!?). This october (well, really two years from this october, since that's how long it will take) he's planning to be the first man to ever MAKE IT, rowing around the world. It's kind of cool drinking with a guy like that. Toasting a tequila shot to his victory, and knowing in two years when he makes it I will be calling ALL of you and saying I drank with him haha.

Sooo Thursday rolled around and I juuuuust wasn't feeling up to work :) "sick day!" :) :)
Instead I slept in, ventured in to the city to meet my roomie for lunch at a really cute Mediterranean Cuisine place (mmmmmmm) and then waited for her to finish up her last hour of work in the quiet peace of a starbucks armchair with my book. It was so nice.
Then when she got done, we ventured into the MAZE of a world that is the gothic quarter, and eventually found the Picasso Museum. THAT...was amazing my friends. I had no idea. I mean I had some idea, but it was none of the normal faces with noses on the forehead type stuff. It was about the periods in his life and what impacted him. They had two different rooms that would show a small image of a very classical looking painting and 5 huge replicas that Picasso had created, all of which didn't really look like the original except for key ingredients. All of which were created with such different style and imagery. It amazes me that one mind can carry that much creativity.

Last night I passed up going to a shots bar (which I plan to go to later, over 200 different kinds of shots! sweet!....too bad I can only handle two of them aaahahaha) to stay in and plan a travel weekend with my roomie. We booked tickets to Dublin!!! (so exciting!) And then I got a phone call from my credit card company about 5 minutes later lol. Unfortunately there actually was a charge (for zero dollars) on there that I didn't recognize so I went through the process and answered all their questions and my card was promptly shut off. Awesome. I had to call and make sure the tickets were still ok, which they said was fine.
This morning I got on my e-mail and I had (besides a THOUSAND e-mails form BofA and thank you's from the airline) an e-mail from a company that looked like it would have the same initials as the transaction that got flagged yesterday. huh oh. I look it was like "thank you for choosing to get flight insurance with us!"
FIRST of all - I know I unchecked that box like seventy two times.
SECOND - damn, I'm glad I cancelled that transaction. try to trick me. I just hope my flight still goes through ok. But seeing as they are separate companies, i don't think it'll be a problem. *crosses fingers*

Oh....so you were wondering about the title of my entry? hehe.

I had a dream last night that I was going home (idk, maybe booking flights triggered that...). I got home and I had forgotten the bottle of wine that i bought my parents *sooooooo pissed!!* and then I went downstairs to tell them and my dad was rolling a big FAT thing of pot (don't laugh at me because I don't know the names, maybe YOU shouldn't know the names! eh!? eh?!). I was like MOM WTF. She's like "well you had to find out sometime.......your parents are pot heads"......for all of you who know my parents, I was all "WHAAAAT?!!". So I was like "when, how much do you smoke?! Are you kidding me?!?!" My mom was like "oh not that much, just like 7 or 8 joints with dinner (hey I remembered the word...).
And then the dream faded out with me watching my dad try to light this joint that was like the size of a quarter around in my family room.

sooooooooooo strange.


idk, maybe it was the fact that my parents went to Hawaii and FORGOT THEY HAD ANOTHER DAUGHTER. Guess my subconscious thought they had gone nuts. :) Must be on pot or something to forget about me hahaha.

some inspirational quotes, courtesy of my "University of Dreams" newsletter:
You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.
--Deepak Chopra

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

--Eleanor Roosevelt

This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well. Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly. Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature. Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you. Take the power to make your life happy.

--Susan Polis Schultz

my brain is full

so I need to let some of it out on here. Let's do this through pictures, so I can remember everything that's happened.
Numero Uno - This is the ceiling of a....let's call it a "foyer" at Parc Guell. I've been there twice, once on a group tour for about 20 minutes and once on my own trip with some girlies for about 2 hours. It's a nice place, although honestly it didn't live up to my expectations. Everyone said it's awesome, and the artistry of it certainly is, but as parks go, I've been more entertained before. The last time I was there, we bought some sandwiches and the guy was SO impressed that I spoke spanish, and wanted to give me a personal tour of barcelona when he got off at 8. I politely declined :) (for those of you who watch the hills, this was no cute 23 year old guy in a band, aight? he works at a sandwich stand and he's probably at least 40)
We also went to Sagrada Familia that day, and I got my first starbucks since I left home. 15 days sans caramel macchiatto - no one understands. La Sagrada Familia was really cool, we paid to go inside, and got to take pictures of the stained glass and structures and stuff, which was really cool. I'll probably post pictures from that on my facebook as soon as I get done with this blog.

On our tour we also went to this place, which is an old palace, now a modern art museum. I really want to go back soon - it was so beautiful, and I didn't get to go in! I'm going to be so severely disappointed when I have to come home to crosses with neon lighting behind them on the side of the highway. *cough*or just bad architecture in general. I mean really.....

side note - here are the public links to my albums, I think gramma might be the only one who doesn't have facebook, but hey. Gramma deserves to see pictures. :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047131&l=a1258&id=68603662
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047134&l=989e1&id=68603662
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047140&l=dd4f9&id=68603662
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047319&l=12632&id=68603662

So anyway, that day was really fun. We got to walk around the city during the day, which I hadn't done a ton yet. And I can say I did the big touristy things. I'm going to try to fit in a visit to the Picasso Museum after work one day this week.

This was the view to the side of the roof-top terrace that we had our "nice" dinner on, on our girls night out last weekend. We were going on a long day trip so instead of going out to the bars we decided to have a quiet dinner and actually get some sleep. So, we got a dinner reservation for 1130 :). The food was aaaaa-mazing. We had a french white wine that (get THIS) I actually liked. I tried mussles and calamari and....something else squishy, I think clams, for the first time.
It was an all together very enjoyable night, and we enjoyed the next day so much more having had a decent amount of sleep, and no hangover :)

This last Saturday was full of beautiful countryside and culture. We went wine tasting at one of the biggest wine companies in the world (they have wineries in Chile, Spain, Africa, Napa...). It was soooort of interesting, but fun to be out on the land, taking in some fresh air :)

Then we went to Montserrat, which is a cathedral that monks still use as a retreat. I thought we were going to DIE driving up this huge mountain on a tiny little road, our bus swaying back and forth as it takes a sharp corner. Eek. But once we got there it was so awesome. It was gorgeous in ways I don't even know how to describe. Just the view, and the inside of the cathedral, very peaceful. I found myself in an offering room on accident and saw that people had left their wedding dresses their. I wonder what it means to donate your wedding dress to the church. We supposed that it meant that you wouldn't need it anymore because you're married forever, so you donate it as a symbol of your commitment. The pessimist in my said it was because you got divorced :D



Other stuff I don't have pictures for yet....we went to the town down the road to try and hit up a local bar on Sunday night. We found a golf bar and got to watch the shoot out in the Spain vs Italy soccer game over a beer surrounded by locals. That was really cool. Just watching them dance around when they won :) Then we went to this place called Sant Sam which was more like a club (but still nothing close to the stuff in the city) and it was fun to see how the locals interact with eachother in an non-touristy setting. Lindsey had a guy who looked like Randy Jackson buy her a few drinks, and tell her that he hadn't seen his wife who was back in Colombia in 12 years, and offer us a ride home (with a drink in his hand...). Needless to say we didn't accept.
Overall that was a fun, more chill night.

I've got out to the clubs a few times too. One time the guy who was going back on the metro with me almost got his wallet stolen, and chased after the guy and threatened him and got it back. Kind of badass. (mom....don't worry, i was horrible person and left him to defend himself and high tailed it back to the club so fast...lol)
We're developing a few favorite spots within the city, which is nice. Cheaper drinks because the bartender knows you (or your friends, in my case, because I'm not that much of an alch-ee) and knowing when to go where makes the experience better. It still amazes me out redic people can get when they're drunk. On el dia de san juan there was a group of australians walking ahead of us, and they would randomly turn around and get in a football stance and shuffle side to side so we couldn't get by. They weren't being violent, just playful, but still what the heck are you supposed to do at that point?!? I've been giving alot of titty twisters to strangers :D. I knew hanging around boys too much would teach me something useful. I keep saying I'm going to come home, and not be scared of anything, because I've had some scary crap happen to me or next to me, and I've gotten through it. I just can't imagine having a huffer try to sit on your lap o n the max :D.

San Juan was fun, although we stuck to places we knew because there were soooo many people and most of them were smashed. A lady i work with today said that one of the girls from Texas who was staying at the hotel got all of her stuff stolen that night. I got made fun of because I wore my money belt, but hey....momma didn't raise no foo. :) My favorite quote about San Juan was Jordi (one of the U of Dreams staff, and a Barcelona native...) "On this day, people get really really drunk, and then they play with fireworks. So be very careful, especially if you are blonde and you have glowing skin, because they will throw them at you" hahahaha. it wasn't that bad. But it did sound like we were in a war zone.

Work is.....going. It's getting pretty frustrating. We finally met the boss lady and she was just like "oh...hi!" and that was it. We were pretty much ignored all day today, and I get the feeling my boss thinks there's like a rule against letting us go early, because after lunch we literally just sit there for 3 hours. I maybe did one useful thing today. It just gets frustrating when they want you to answer the phone (and ask you to if you don't) and then you can't understand what they're saying, because they're speaking Catalan or French or some language you don't know, and you go to try to hand it off to someone who understands Catalan, and they're all doing something else, so the phone just sits there, and once you finally get their attention, the person on the other end has hung up. Then they tell you to "try harder" to understand the person on the phone before you ask them to wait. Well I'm sorry but I gave up on that when the lady LAUGHED at me last week after I asked her to repeat what she had said.

It's not that bad, just frustrations with the job. There's basically nothing to do, and my boss is kind of being...well....a prick. There I said it. but everything else is fantastic, so it's all worth it.

alright well I'd best be off -

buenas noches, y buena suerte

S

Emotion, and train of thought

We had a seminar (since we get class credit, we have to go to like 4 different 1 hour things) last night on the cultural distinctness of the Catalan. I found it more interesting to notice the mannerisms of the speaker than to actually listen to what he presented (he was Catalan, and he presented all this history about how the Romans built the city which I found entirely uninteresting).
When a Spanish/Catalan person is explaining something, it goes someone like this.

Question

Begin to explain >>>>
Subpoint 1 - elaboration on subpoint one (usually has nothing to do with the main purpose of the answer, just for more information), Elaboration on this elaboration, back to first elaboration, back to main subpoint.
Subpoint 2 - (same process)
Subpoint 3 - (same process, with possibly fewer elaborations since they are beginning to notice the confusion/elaborateness of their answer)
Complex, somewhat ambiguous analysis of all 3 subpoints, and what they have to do with the answer.
Answer.

Por ejemplo -
How does the structure of the city, reflect the way of the Catalan (Barcelonian?) people?

Well the romans were the first ones to build where Barcelona is located.
They believed in (insert ideology) and (more ideology) and used these words for them.
These words have latin root, meaning ______ and ______. This is similar to this other culture _____. Because they had this ideology they built the streets very crooked and complex. Have you walked through these streets? it is the only way to see barcelona! Some say it is dangerous but it is not! Just do not walk around drunk and loud because then the culture will reject you.


Then, in the 1500's, the borders of the city changed.
The borders of the city changed because they were trying to unify the country. But language and their culture was very important to the Catalan and they resisted.
Then so and so came in and took control of the city. Barcelona was known for its revolts so the king built a fortress in the shape of a pentagon to fight the revolutionaries. Do you know that the shape of the pentagon is the best for defending a fortress? where they built the pentagon is now the park called ____ have you all been there? It is very beautiful. and is right by this street that is very popular to tourists. Have you been there? It is not the best place to go for experiencing culture. You should go on the crooked streets.

(and a few more subpoints, but I want to finish this blog sometime today.)

And so, the Catalan people accept you when you accept them.

haha, I mean I'm not dissing this guy's speech. It was just funny that the way he gave it illustrated more culture to me than the actual speech did :). And it is like this with everything. I have been shown how to count the safe at work 6 different times, each time, it is step by step, and each time they will show you by doing at least half of it themselves and explaining what they do eeeeeevery step. It took me awhile to begin to do things on my own, because I was so sure as soon as I did they would come running out and be like 'OH NO I HAVE TO SHOW YOU!!' hehe. Everything that I do (be it speaking spanish, or knowing to do something I've been shown before) is "incredible!" to this one guy. haha. He's hilarious. He knows little phrases in english like "let's go girls!" and "you are so funny!" and says it with this huge smile on his face.

so I titled the post backwards from what I wrote....on to emotion.

I have yet to see genuine American anger. You know, the kind where there's a knot in your stomach and tension in the air when someone says something and everyone knows shit's about to go down. maybe I see that plenty in America because I work at a Starbucks, and we have the bitchiest customers in the world. (*cough* i mean i appreciate your patronage). But there's that distinct moment when two people clash.
maybe it's the time thing, because nobody here cares if you slow them up for something. Or maybe it's just the fact that showing anger isn't culturally accepted - but I just haven't seen it. Even when the lady at the grocery store and I got into a tiff because I didn't know that I needed my passport. I was so frank with her, in spanish. Throwing my arms up in the air and saying "well i don't have it!" (it being my passport). She just goes "ok" and goes about undoing the mess I had gotten myself into. (refunding me all but 60 cents........). Not even the bat of an eye. And I KNOW it's not customer service policy because Spain has no idea what that means. You get your food when it comes and what am I supposed to do about it and what's the problem with getting it late anyway? i know that in many Asian cultures it's rude to show emotion, but here...everything is happiness. Maybe I'm just blind to it, but nobody really gets angry at each other. Everyone just says what they think and lets the others do the same.
"no pasa nada" - ideologically speaking, it means "it doesn't matter, don't worry about it", literally it means "nothing doesn't pass" (or, for those who have problems with double negatives, 'everything passes').

Other minor details -
The blister count on my feet has been lowered from 13, to 8.
I think I ate deep fried shark for lunch....it tasted like McDonald's chicken nuggets except for....diiifferent.
I don't know if I can bring myself to leave a country where they ask "when would you like to come in to work?"
might be going to Madrid in a few weekends, we have a 4 day weekend.
Free cafe con leche whenever I feel like it (and croissants whenever I'm brave enough to ask) is preeeeeetty much the best part of my day. Especially because it's basically like taking a half hour break the minute you start work.
The sleep count the last three nights has been 4, 6, 6. Pero no pasa nada. :)
I saw two LEGIT transvestites last night. One walking on the street, who looked like something straight out of reno 911. The other was a paid dancer at this club we were at. (don't worry, not that kind of paid dancer).
How can a people who don't realize that building a dorm into a hill would impact the wireless internet, think of the GENIUS invention of the bottomless dish rack built into the cupboard right above the sink.
Hopefully I'll get a phone this weekend, it would be lovely to hear some of your voices.

Les extraño mucho -

S