Wait, I do have one exciting thing to announce! Anna and I just booked our “Winter Break” trip! We are hitting up Granada and Seville (south of Spain) followed by a quick rendezvous to Lisbon, Portugal! I’m super excited to see the culture of Southern Spain – flamenco, the birth place of tapas, Moroccan influence, more gorgeous cathedrals and architecture. I’m also thrilled to go to Portugal! Lisbon is supposed to be a very charming city and the food should be amazing as well. So hooray! I’m also counting down the days until my mom, dad and Chris arrive in Barcelona! I get to show them my new hometown and then we head to Italy to celebrate Christmas. I can’t wait. If you have any suggestions of places to see and experience while in Rome or Florence – please let me know! Especially any restaurant suggestions – always welcomed. Okay, so enough with the exclamation points (!!!) for this paragraph…Onto the funnies:
I know I keep saying that Anna and I have reverted back to our college days but we REALLY have. Just with a twist. So I wake up this morning…Okay, more so this afternoon… and creep down the hall towards our living room. I see someone on my couch. I get closer to see Anna passed out. I wake her up and inquire why she is passed out on our couch to hear her simple explanation that she was too tired to walk to her bedroom and the couch was closer to our front door (it’s not). So we start to recap our evenings. Everything seems very normal-day-after-partying, right? Well, here is where the TWIST comes in: I have writing on my arm. Okay, nothing too crazy from an evening out that involved consuming many Jack & Cokes. BUT – the writing – it’s all in Swedish. That’s right. I have dirty expressions (and some helpful ones, I’m sure) written down my arm in Swedish. After we have a good laugh, Anna goes to the kitchen to get us some food to start helping with the hangover hell. TWIST: She grabs a baguette. I mean, who the hell eats baguettes to help them with their hangover? Europeans. And because we are the newly, sophisticated Europeans that we are – we decide to reenact our favorite Flights of the Conchord video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuXdhow3uqQ) with the baguette. Moving on – after the baguette couldn’t help us we decided that we needed grease. We get dressed and make our trip to the nearest McDonalds. TWIST: Versus doing it drive-thru style still in our PJs with makeup and hair from last night ½ in tacked, we have to actually dress nice, clean up our faces, wash off Swedish words on our arms and WALK 5 blocks to the Mickie Dees that faces Sagrada Familia and wait in line with all of the other tourists for our greasy-goodness (although the difference between us and the tourists – we are possibly still drunk). So still living as if we are in college – just with a European twist.
This past Friday we had the best of intentions to hit up the Modern Museum of Art here in Barcelona. As we decided to do a menu of the day for lunch (best concept of ALL time) we ended up finishing our lunch too late to make it worth the trip to check out the museum. So we trekked it to one of my top three spots in Barcelona: Park Guell. On the way there we got the genius idea to take our Christmas picture while in the park. How Barcelona of us, right? In the Gaudi ginger-bread setting – what doesn’t say Christmas greetings from Barcelona? Well, just to make sure that people would know we are keeping with the Christmas spirit, we stopped at a Chinese Gift Shop (the same one as the mean lighter man) and bought two of the most obnoxious reindeer antlers to wear for our photo shoot. So we get to the park and, after surveying who we could ask to take our picture that wouldn’t judge us TOO much, we pick this nice mom and ask her to play photographer for us. As she gets ready to click the shutter – we bust out these red and green foot-long reindeer antlers and pose. Not only does she burst out laughing but we get other people around the park staring and laughing at us – some even came over and started taking pictures of us! It was hilariously embarrassing. After three tries, we ended up not getting even close to a decent picture. Anna and I look so freaking awkward in these photos as – due to how huge the antlers are – we are sitting so far apart from each other, you would be surprised to know that we are sisters/friends/roommates. We plan to attempt another Christmas photo shoot in the near future. I’ll keep you posted...
So after the photo shoot failure, we decided that all we could do now was start our Friday night early. We walked around our neighborhood (Gracia) and barhopped. Come 11ish we realized we were starving and stopped by a local tapas restaurant near our apartment. As the bill came, Anna and I realized the most embarrassing thing ever… We didn’t have enough money to pay the bill!!!! We both assumed the other one had enough money to cover the other one and yeah…too bad we didn’t communicate this earlier before we stuffed our faces with patatas bravas and grilled peppers. So, after we explain that we are 3euros short of our bill, we tell our waitress that they could keep me at the restaurant while Anna went running back to our flat to get more money. Yes, I was kept hostage at the local tapas restaurant. Anna returned back with more money and we went along our way. Luckily I was “valuable” enough that the restaurant knew Anna would come back to rescue me with money for the bill – and lucky enough for me – she didn’t just peace out. Although that would have been hilarious. I could just see myself sitting at the bar until they start closing down the restaurant. And then having to go in the back and wash all the dishes and take out the trash because, that’s what happens to people who can’t pay the bill, right? They do the dishes in the back. At least that's what Hollywood says. Either way, I have never had this happen to me before (nor has Anna) and it made for a hilarious night… I know you must be thinking that our good luck from the bird poop is running out. But we decided, as it was FRIDAY the 13th – all good luck from the birds was null and void on this day.
Last night (which led to the funny hangover story this morning/day) we went out to celebrate our dear friend Casey’s birthday. We went to one of my top three bars in Barcelona – Alfa – and danced the night away. Casey is in the art school here so we got to meet a bunch of his fellow art student friends from, literally, all over the world. One of the boys who is from Sweden had a bunch of his friends visiting as well (yes, this all results to the Swedish writing on my arm) and let me just say – what a precious, fun bunch they were. And a bit confusing. So at first glance, one would assume these boys liked only other boys. And at first chat, you would assume the same. They liked my whole 1930s look I was rocking (gay-vibe) but then they would dance with me in a very hmm…non-gay way (hetero-vibe) then they would talk in explicit detail about their designer glasses (gay-vibe) but then buy me a drink in a very “I’m kind of hitting on you” way (hetero-vibe). Come to find out – they were all bi-sexual. Can I just say that bisexuals have got to be the most CONFUSING people on this planet! I mean, it’s one thing to say that you are curious regarding sexuality or that you perhaps have dated both sexes before…But in the same night – you hit on everyone that moves? Is this fair? Is this just being horny? I still don’t have an opinion on the matter and I’m all for freedom of sexual expression and choice but in conclusion: bi-sexuals are confusing. Anyhu, the night ended with a dance party at one of the art boy’s flats and, of course, this led to my impromptu Swedish lesson where the translations were recorded on my arm. Teaching is going along fabulously. My trouble-maker student of the little girls can no longer take English classes so it was a tremendous change teaching the girls this week. They were so ridiculously good that they got three stickers each and the promise to do a Hannah Montana song for next class. Amazing how one bad apple can sour the bunch. My high-school girls continue to be one of my favorite classes to teach – it brings out my old SJA self- gossiping about cute boys and fashion. My hot student is well, still ridiculously hot. And then Domingo is still full of wonderful insight and precious anecdotes. I totally have the teaching bug and wonder what will happen next year regarding my career path – will I want to continue teaching or go back to event planning and fundraising…
Speaking of next year – I’m starting to realize that I may not be ready to return to the States in a year’s time. I decided to not fret over it yet. A good friend of mine reminded me that I have over six months in an AMAZING city and to enjoy each day as it comes. I really don’t need to make any decisions until March-ish so again, I’ll keep you posted…
This week is going to be a busy one with classes and trying to get back into a working out routine. Perhaps I won’t have anything fun or funny to write about come next week. But then – it’s me. And even on my most routine days – something bizarre that results into something rather funny is bound to happen. So, I’ll keep you posted…
On the search for my matador (that possesses a fabulous sense of humor),
Linds
Song Suggestions:
(nothing new but just some songs that make me smile)
“Eyes” – Rogue Wave
“Recovering the Satellites” – Counting Crows
“Body and Soul” – Tori Amos
“Closer to You” – The Wallflowers
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