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http://soimovedtonewyork.blogspot.com/

But I have a new blog!

When it's raining in paradise

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Two of my good friends from Wisconsin- Erik and Willie- made a 6 day stop in Madrid on their month-long trek through Europe. We all met each other cutting cartilage and breaking rabbit knees in the Kaplan lab, so of course, we have a lot to go on. Oh - and we also SHOULD have won the intramural softball league last year, but we all keep the trophy in our hearts.

I gave them a two day tour of Madrid - I think I've gotten to be a much better tour guide now, and it's a lot easier with two people versus eight, like when my whole family was here. We ate tapas at El tigre, little sandwiches at 100 montaditos, and all saw our first bullfight. Which we all enjoyed...but a definite guilty type of enjoyment. We had to scalp the tickets in front of the Plaza de Toros because they were sold out. Haha, never want to do that again... the boys thought that Ali and I were about to be thrown in the back of a black Ford Falcon and never to be heard of again. Yeah, it was pretty sketchy.


After Madrid, we left for San Sebastian. It's a six hour train ride north, in the top east corner next to France, sitting on cliffs overlooking the Atlantic (bigger region = Pais vasco). A huge surfer's destination, and we did meet a lot of Californian and Australian tourists there with their wetsuits and longboards. It was beautiful, but we never mustered the cajones to jump into the ocean because it was pretty cold and cloudy the whole time. At night time we discovered the Tas Tas, a sweet little bar tucked into the Old Town in San Sebastian. Roberto, a super friendly bartender poured us a few free rounds of beers and shots, which was more than enough to get us all to stay later, and come back the next night.

In that part of Spain, vasco is spoken, which is totally it's own language with no roots in Spanish, English or French or anything spoken now really. I put up a picture of a street sign to show how distinct it is. We couldn't even learn Thank you or another beer or please or anything. It all sounded like gibberish.

Well the boys left, early flight out to Rome to continue their marathon trip. And I started writing this paper for my literature class. I'm comparing the novel La verdad sobre el caso Savolta to its movie version. It's a horrible movie but a great book, and I probably wouldn't have picked this topic to write about it I knew just how terrible the film it... but it's due in a week, so too late for second guessing...I guess...haha

And I'm studying for the poetry section of the test. Luis Garcia Montero is the poet who I'm going to focus on- and all of his poems in the anthology Habitaciones separadas are themed around time, love and the city. This is the last verse of his first poem in that book, called Las razones del viajero or the "Reasons of the traveler."

Sabe que le resulta necesario
aprender a vivir en otra edad,
en otro amor,
en otro tiempo.

"He knows that it will become necessary to learn to live in another age, in another love, in another time."

I do feel like I have been living in another time (aka no dryers or dishwashers, haha) and in a whole new world. I am starting to wonder how it really will feel to go back home in July. Excited and sad at the same time.

Leave you with what I've been listening to all day... ingrid michaelson...you can find her at myspace.com. I really like "Breakable"

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=11436578

Broke in the city

This article pretty much has my life in Madrid down to a T. Unfortunately, it's also a dreary foreshadowing of my future spending habits in Manhattan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/nyregion/25scrimp.html?ex=1369627200&en=211861dee949e072&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

"Allison Mooney, 27, whose first job in the city was in publishing, often skipped dinner before going out, and instead took along mixed salted nuts in her purse. When things got really tight, she occasionally sneaked a flask filled with vodka into bars. Other times, she reluctantly resorted to flirting."

I've gotten way beyond the whole "reluctance to flirting" gig. Ask Ali, we no longer have shame. The only thing is that European flirting is way different than American flirting. Or just the frequency of flirting (and perhaps intensity) needs to be adjusted when crossing the Atlantic.
O sea, que los machos espanoles no estan muy acostumbrados a recibir atencion de las chicas espanolas. Entonces, hay que tener mas cuidado en Madrid que en Manhattan diria yo.

Ok I'm off to the gym. This "done" with exams until June 17th thing is super weird. I have given myself the week off to do nothing. And I'm doing it very well.

Song of the day:
Young folks. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=36904484

Oh one last thing... the Grey's Anatomy season finale changed my life. So cheezy and so Grey's and so what the show needed! Friggin candle outline blueprint ending. I loved it, so go ahead and judge. I like cheezy television.

Flexibility

I want to start this blog entry by showing you a series of pictures.




This is our kitchen. On drugs. Or on French. If anyone can message back with a picture of a kitchen messier than this... well I would be surprised. My favorite picture is the one of the mysterious spots on the floor, that appeared nearly hours after I mopped. But it's a close call with the picture of the Chips Ahoy cookie left on the floor of the living room. Just saving it for later I guess.

Something about living abroad that teaches a person to be flexible but I think I've learned more to be agile. Agile enough to dodge bugs in my kitchen, to avoid a punch in the face from a certain crazy ex-landlord, to sprint to catch buses, or a plane, and to jump off bunk beds in hostels where the ladders are broken, or non-existent. Part of every adventure I suppose.

Just like part of this adventure has been learning to live cheap. I mean cheap...like walking into convenient stores and making cracker and nutella sandwiches instead of paying for lunch "cheap." I never thought the day would come when I would be excited to go to Manhattan for the lower prices. But I am!

I finished the 3 finals and 3 papers for my American style classes and have but one to go - a Complutense Spanish literature final, and a paper for that same class that is due on June 17th. So a lil travel in between... a little study, enough to pass , which is harder than you would think here, and I'll be done.

Song of the day ... here we go. It's this little Irish cutie , Fionn Regan who I discovered from Damien Rice's webpage. I like his song: Blackwater Child. Check it out here:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=27759526

Oh and here's a quick shot of my friend Ali and our two lovers (or the fun bartenders at our favorite tapas spot in Arguelles!)

Pues nada, hasta manyana o cuando de nuevo tengo ganas de escribir!
Besos!

S'mores here, s'mores there

Got another shipment of marshmallows and graham crackers. I made s'mores for the new French roommates. They liked them.

Here's Sam and his friend eating my "American specialty" Haha they look quite French

So it's starting to hit me little by little that I'm going to move to New York in a few months. Like when I use my UW Credit Union card, I think to myself, this probably won't make sense in Manhattan. Or when I check my e-mail , I realize it'll change to something very cool soon. Like gausden@medcornell.com or gausden@toocoolforschool.com. Something of the sort.

Song of the day: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=43976834 Hit up "Heaven's in New York" Wyclef was really who tipped the scales for me to choose Cornell.

I'm also super stoked to finish up these classes and get my butt traveling. So far, I have trips planned to Italy, England, and Ireland. May be going to Greece and Croatia as well. Don't worry, I will pack the s'mores.

The haircut

First of all: song of the day- http://www.myspace.com/jessicasonner

Check out "Rescue me"

I took a big step yesterday. A step that was preceded with 4 months of anticipation, hesitation, and practice saying things like "thin out the back" and "just trim the ends" and "nothing weird" and "I don't want a mullet" in Spanish. After all that, I got a haircut. And this time, there it wasn't in a bar, or by a crazy cuban woman, or while drinking coffee and rum. if you need a reference for that story, check out my old Argentina blog. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=46613477

French boys are messy. At least the ones I live with . Like NEVER clean up after themselves messy. Which makes me never wanna clean up because the sink is always clogged with French boy food that's by that point soggy and gross. Sorry for the visual. I should take a picture of our kitchen and post it up here. To prove a point.

Exams are next week! And my papers are due the day of the exams. And then I have a month before I have to take my last exam on June 17th.

Can't wait to travel after that. Travel and then go home to see my dog and eat American food. WIth preservatives. And microwavable. That seriously is what Spaniards think we eat all the time. I really am craving a barbeque. Bbq chicken sounds delicious to me right now. Or buying a big burger with ketchup that doesn't come in a tiny packet that tend to cost a euro each.

And I really miss dollars. American dollars. Yum. So much cheaper than euros.

The move

Whew...A couple of weeks without a blog, but for a good reason. I moved. I was right about there being more drama to come. I won't bore you with the details (although they're not that boring, just there's a lot of them, too many to write in a blog, and too hard to explain). Maybe they'll resurface someday in the form of an epic novel, or a Spanish telenovela, or something of the sort.

I now live in La Latina, and am a much happier camper. I have been pretty busy with school, and just gave a 30 minute presentation in Spanish to a class of Spaniards today. Talk about intimidating.

Oh! And I decided I'm going to Cornell for medical school, and made it official last week. And yeah, you can visit me in NYC, and no I can't promise you a place to sleep because I'll be living in the dorms. Although I'm sure that Lindo and Mike (sister and bro-in-law) will try it.

Haha love you guys. (ps photo is of ali's birthday party)

I'm out.