Crepes, Cocktails and Confusion- Paris

First open this up: http://www.myspace.com/natashabedingfield

and listen to pockets full of sunshine.

I love it right now.

Ok ! Wow...Paris made me wish I studied French, not Spanish. It is such an amazing city. I went with Olivier (who is French) and 2 other Americans- Heidi and Matt from my program. We stayed in the Latin Quarter, which is a student-ish neighborhood that I would def recommend. Our hostel worked out really well because there was four of us and we had our own room (for 23 euro/person/night - not too shabby for Paris).

There were crepe stands lining our street, but we mostly gravitated towards one crepe guy (who we actually called "the crepe guy." And there's a picture of Heidi and me giving him a kiss on the cheek. We loved "the crepe guy." Nutella and banana crepes, ham and cheese crepes, chicken breast crepes, the list goes on and on. Everything is better on a crepe. I promise.

I also tried escargo for the first time - delicious and had creme caramel. We ate pretty well for four college students travelling, but I think it was worth it in Paris. The food was amazing- 100% better in my opinion than Spanish food. Throughout the trip, though, it was hard for me to not speak French. . even though mostly everyone speaks English, I am used to knowing the language in the country I'm traveling in - Argentina and Spain. So having to rely on someone else's ability to speak another language was different. It was awesome going with Olivier and having someone who could totally communicate. It didn't help us get into a "private club" on Friday night though, yet Matt was able to sneak in to that one. Even slipping the bouncer 20 euros wouldn't get the rest of us in...Paris at night gets a little snottier than Madrid I'd say. But the city is so beautiful (and the people too) that I don't even mind.

This video is from the Eiffel Tower at night. I have clearly become paranoid about getting robbed. I think I say it like 15 times here. And I look really scary haha. And we sound like we have the worst midwest accents. Gotta work on that for next time.

Traveling is like....

Studying abroad is like being pregnant. Or I guess it's how I imagine pregnancy (don't worry guys...I'm not eloquently breaking news or anything). I've been having these random cravings for things that I never have craved, or even liked. I think one common, cliche item that I'd kill for is peanut butter. It's just the principle of knowing that peanut butter, more or less, is an ocean away if I did want it that makes me want it.

On a more serious note, the marshmallows my brother sent (along with s'more ingredients) were no longer fulfilling a craving, but a pure life necessity. Eating a s'more today, or rather the entire process of making the s'more on the stovetop, compiling the mountain of chocolate and smushing the roasted mallow between two graham crackers, was the most euphoric moment I've had here yet. My roommate Paco ate them with me, but his lackluster "They're ok" response to my absolute favorite food just revoked his right to future mallows.

I also miss the convenience of Walgreens or having a State Street where you can choose between "un monton" de restaurants where (gasp) you know what you'll get when you order. Maybe my relationship with Spain as a country is stuck in between the phases of honeymoon bliss and the comfort zone. I bet in a week I will be blogging over Spain things again and "dejar de quejarme" and lust over pre-packaged and processed foods.

On a sidenote, our prof read us this Jorge Luis Borges (famous Argentine poet-writer) quote today. He finally fell in love for the first time in his life in his sixties. He wrote this poem for his "girl." Sometimes a line from literature stands out to you and resonates in your thoughts all day. This did it for me today:

Estar contigo o no estar contigo, es la medida de mi tiempo.

(Being with you or not being with you is how I measure time)

"Mean Girls" Spanish style

Watch this video that one of my lab friends made of his 2006 Halloween experience in Madison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pin1KMA6IeE

The pictures above are some more from Spring Break with the fam. Lindsay, my older sister with her singing "man-os" as she called them. And then one of all of us at a discoteca in Sevilla.

A new friend from one of my classes is doing a report in her English class about American style Halloween. If I could only brag about one thing about being a UW student, it might just be how we rock the face off Halloween. Anyway, I'm giving her this video for her presentation. Pretty good representation of American culture huh?

No new exciting news. I've been reading a book called "El cuarto de atras" (The back room) in my lit class. I really like it, it's all kind of stream of consciousness and goes into the author's life, starting from the Spanish Civil War and ending pretty much with Franco's death. I ordered an English copy from Amazon because I am a big cheater, but it won't get here for 3 weeks. Hopefully in time for the exam, because some parts I'm really lost by.

In other news...I've been playing futbol with an intramural team here, and I'm terrible. We had a bye today (is that how you spell bye?) and I was sad. The girls are all really fun, one is a French student studying here and I love her accent. I ate lunch with some of my teammates today. The cafeteria at the school constantly evokes high school-esque feelings of insecurity (even worse...think Mean Girls scene, only the Americans are like the Asians in that scene), so having someone non-American to sit with is a huge jump in social status. I helped one of them with a different English presentation a week ago and she promised to help me with my Spanish ---- which by the way she said is very good (unlike my favorite person in the world/roommate who told me today that I've lost a lot of fluidity over Spring Break...wow what a nice guy).

Got to go to bed now, so I can regain my "fluidity" in Spanish tomorrow. haha that sounds really bitter. I'm just joking. Here's to you for reading my blog!

Napolitanas and Gaudis

More pictures from Barcelona. The left is a Gaudi and the lower center one is his Sagrada Familia (or the front facade at least). Pretty much our whole trip was focused on seeing all of Antonio Gaudi's work in Barcelona. The Sagrada Familia is his last one that is still not completed.

And at the top is my mom, Gin Gin, learning all about Spain and their different colors and shapes for things like mailboxes. Aww. I miss my mom and her cuteness. And her chocolate cravings. And I miss my dad constantly telling me "Hold on Beth, mom went into a bakery...again." My whole family acquired my weakness for napolitanas (even my dad!), which are chocolate filled croissants. It really was one of my 2 food groups for a while there.

I've been having trouble uploading my favorite procession night video. Shoot. I have another exam tomorrow (History of Islam in Spain class). Here's the low down on that:

711 - Spain invaded by Arabs. 1492 - Columbus discovers America and the Catholic Kings finally take back the last Arab stronghold which was Granada. And in between all of that...well that may or may not be on my exam tomorrow.

Landlord/roommate is back! He made a surprise 5 -6 am re-entry to our Madrileno palace this morning. With a tan and everything. There goes the bet. Well at least I'll have clean clothes.

But I thought it was TEFLON!

Here I am with the padres in a restaurant in Barcelona...the champagne is in celebration (I just had gotten in to UPenn).

Sorry for the lack of pictures. I've been studying my butt off all day for my Contemporary History of Spain test tomorrow. Basically all you need to know is that every other year from 1808 until 1875 Spain changed not only presidents, but total governing systems. And that Isabel II's children were not the king's (who was presumed homosexual according to wikipedia facts) but one of the member's of the Royal Guard. And with that knowledge I'm hoping to rock the face off an essay exam.

It's Sunday night (exactly 2 weeks from when Adolfo told me he was leaving--- Adolfo is the owner/roommate/guy who kicked out my friend Eduardo from the apartment putting me in an awkward situation landlord). Paco (who moved in to replace Eduardo) and I have a bet on when he will be back. Now this is complicated, possibly in the future I'll draw a visual map to guide you through it, but Adolfo basically lies to us when he leaves so that we don't have parties. And he told Paco from the beginning that he would be back in 4 days (two Thursdays ago) and told me that he'd be back today (2 weeks from take-off). Now that he's not back I give it 2 more weeks, Paco gives it 1. Which is all fun and games until I need to do my laundry (washer's door is still not fixed). Interestingly enough it's all connected because the broken washer door was part of the initial ammunition for "echando" Eduardo.

Maybe a map would be better next time? Wow, it's like more complicated then Spanish history from the 19th century.

Basically moral of the story is as follows...don't live with the owner of the apartment and don't ever pay 2 months security deposit because then you can't leave. And never put plastic in the oven (I'll explain that one next time)

sevilla catchup

The backblog continues...

This is Lindz and me in the Alcazar, a famous castle in Sevilla; we are learning interesting Spanish history facts as you can see.

Brian, my brother made it up there too for his infamous shrimp dinner at La cueva restaurant. Poor guy spent the first hour of the meal deshelling his prawns, then proceded to eat them all, and then I believe got food poisoning. Well he does look happy for the moment.

Wanted to put in one more video from the procession night in Sevilla. Learn more about the Holy Week events in Andalusia here http://www.exploreseville.com/events/semana-santa.htm.

And here's a link to a random youtube video that Brianna introduced me too. I think Lauren and I watched this three hundred times before we fell asleep on the couch the night before she left. Maybe you've seen it and it has already changed your life. Maybe your life's about to change.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM

So I don't know if I've mentioned it before or not, but I'm teaching English to a 9 and 11 year old here. Only three hours a week but at least it's something. The 9 year old girl really has no interest in learning English, so I try to do like 55% of the class discussion on things she does enjoy, aka making friendship bracelets and the other 45% actually teaching English grammar. Last week I started teaching the past tense (which is really difficult I think, because of all the irregulars). On the sheet of irregulars, I saw "drink" to "drank." And I'm doing a drill of saying a sentence in present tense and making her give me the past tense. But the first thing that comes to my mind when I see "drink" is "He drinks beer."

"ehh, como?" my 9 year old student asks. "Que es 'beeah'?"

And I'm the idiot who taught a 9 year old the word for cerveza.

o soberbia o sangria

Stay tuned, because wow is there a world of Spain drama that I've kept you from. For now, I'm off to bed...I'll leave you with a picture from Kapital (the 7 floor discoteca I took my fam to over Semana Santa, the 3 sisters and Bri on the right).

after a while

This catch-up blog will be a short one. I stopped for a while there because my family and friend Bri were here to visit me for Semana Santa. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Haha, no seriously asides from a few mishaps and moments of 7 people being lost in translation or in transit or in discotecas, it was really fun to have everyone here. And really depressing to see everyone go.

Yeah, so I cried on the metro after saying goodbye to everyone. All alone Beth in Madrid crying on the Metro. I felt pretty sorry for myself. And then I felt more sorry for myself when I was told my two Complutense classes can't be taken as PASS/FAILS. So that's awesome. I was really pissed, and still am. But eh? I'm in Spain right? So I guess it's time to dry the eyes and get to work.

(And that's why the blog is short...getting back to work and it's starting today...or tomorrow....or maybe Saturday)...

I'll include some fun pictures of the trips. Right now I only have time for to get one up there. Just wait for it...I thought I'd get up one activity at a time. SOo here is the famous procession night. Hope you enjoy the vids.

Oh and favorites were tapas in Granada, and processions in Sevilla. And the whole family tending to add -o to every word in English to get by here. At the end they were even putting "El" in front of words...so progress was made.

K, "El juico" is out.