6 spaniards that get a thumbs up

1. lola, the host mom who has been fabuloso with the sandwiches this week. nothing weird.
2. the boys who hop on the same metro car as me with their accordions playing for money. they also have stereos and tape decks bungee corded to wheeled carts so they can carry all their essential accordion gear with them.
3. the guy from niger that stands outside the grocery store by school every day asking for money. He tells me I'm a good person every day. (then he asks for some change). He told my friend he was here illegally, so when we passed him on our way back from the candy store, she gave him a gummy bear. He wasn't as excited as i thought he'd be.
4. guille (short for guillermo). I thought adrian was adorable, but his cousin guille (2.5yrs) is sooo cute, and he calls lola "abu" because he can't say abuela, and he wanted to know if she had a strong skeleton, b/c that's something important a 2.5yr old would have to know.
5. the lady in the elevator this morning (it's really warm outside) who was wearing a fur coat that must have taken 100000 animals to make, wayyyy to much red lipstick, and jackie-O style sunglasses. i held the door open for her and she told me i was pretty.
6. in general, i give a thumbs up to the spaniards who wear awesome pants. sure, the shoes in spain are amazing and shoeboy would have gone into a shoe coma if he was here, but the pants i've seen people wear in the past couple days have been AMAZING. i'm talking red pleather and some more of those MC Hammer pants.

2 of my fave spaniards at the metro....

spaniard 1:

this is my favorite guy in madrid right now. he plays the accordian and has an amp and a tape player that provides the background music. every day he plays the same song (the theme song from Titanic). its a great way to start the day lol. this week he's learning a new song.....Let's Go Fly a Kite, from Mary Poppins. i'm so proud of him for branching out into new musical genres :-P

spaniard 2:

this girl that i saw at my metro stop belongs in tdr. i was so mad at myself for not having my camera with me to take her picture. imagine this:
-purple denim jeans, MC Hammer style pant legs
-black socks
-bright yellow ballet flats
-yellow halter that didn't cover enough skin with black flower outlines all over
-way too short black puffy jacket

it was gloreous.

a post on spanish milk

so the milk in spain is weird. they don't drink cold milk. they actually don't refrigerate milk on a consistant basis. my host mom puts it out on the table before going to bed so she can have it ready for my hot chocolate when i wake up at 10.

if that wasnt weird enough, the milk doesnt expire until may 09.

so today i was reading the milk box when i saw an advertisement. you mail in 6 bar codes from the milk boxes and they mail you back something. the "gift" if you will was called, and i quote, "the machine of the future for your kitchen".

any guesses on what this futuristic piece of equipment is??





























a blender!

"clubbing" at the salamancan discos/ SPANISH STRANGER SATURDAY

Ok..so this is a good story...and it's true...

these past two days were spent in salamanca. it was fun, and rainy, and really really windy. it involved universities, plaza mayors, and cathedrals. dinner was questionable, rice with pasta sauce, sausage, and eggs. a weird combo. during the day some college guys from Universidad de Salamanca ran up to the whole group. they yelled...

viva palestine!!!!
viva espana!!!!
then they took off their pants and boxers and ran down the cobblestone street.

yes, you read correctly.

that's not even the best story.

after dinner, elena, our program director/salamancan guide, told the whole group (most of whom got dressed up to see the exciting salamancan night life) where we can go for bars/clubbing at the discos. she pointed out that salamanca is divided in half, half for the younger crowd and half for the adults/upper 20s-30s.

we all decided to stumble upon a good place to go dancing, when a half hour later, we run into elena. she decides she's gonna get us into this disco for free, which somehow she manages to do, so picture 21 AU students plus their professor, going into this disco (elena's fairly young).

turns out the disco is not for the "early 20s" crowd. it's for high schoolers. like 15 year old high schoolers. in costumes. like halloween costumes. i saw aliens, popes, 3 musketeers...you name it. they were all smoking cigarettes and trying to get drinks. sooooooo awkward.

anyways, i tried to get a photo of them. it's really far away but look closely for the 2 girls in Jetson's-ish outfits with silver wigs on. click the photo to enlarge. they're up against the buildings on the right.

i know i had discussed doing a segment called Spanish Stranger Saturdays. both girls win the first week's title. way to go alien girls, way to go.

more reasons to love my host mom

she's so awesome that she deserves another post, and probably will get more posts as the months go on.

1. she makes me 2 sandwiches to take to school everyday. one is always meat, like ham or turkey or spanishy meat...the other is often questionable. she likes to combine tomatoes and cream cheese.

2. i showed her a map of the US and pointed out NJ and DC. she saw philadelphia on that map and got excited. philadelphia is the brand of cream cheese.

3. she likes obama, but thought that michelle obama's green gloves didnt match her inauguration yellow outfit. she approves of michelle obama's white dress though.

4. she tells me i dont eat enough. she said my mom's going to call and say she's not taking good enough care of me. i don t think she realizes how few meals i eat during college, and the quality of tdr food.

there's a reason this has taken so long to post....

And the reason is crappy internet. But i have lots of good stories, i promise.

first, my family:

it's me and my host mom lola. i love her. she's absolutely adorable, and she loves it when i say "text" as in text message. i thought text was a universal word- it's not, and she cracks up because it sounds like "tocks" which isn't even a real word, and she says tocks makes her think knocks, which is funny to her, and then she knocks on the table. it's weird, and makes no sense, i know. but it's true. she pinches my cheeks, tells me she likes my smile in my photos, and makes me take a map everywhere so i won't get lost. she also loves my stuffed sloth bear. (obviously i took it with me to spain). i told her the real thing is even better.

my host mom has 3 kids, but they're all grown up and have kids of their own. Her grandson, adrian, is my favorite spanish person ever. he's adorable and 5. he thinks that i dont know anything because i speak english and not spanish, so he explains everything to me. for example, pinoccio, and basketball. he also tells me i type like my fingers are running a race, and that my name is REALLY REALLY funny.

About the spaniards:
They have this weird obsession with manaquins and stealing them from stores. I saw a manaquin the other day without clothes on sitting on a patio in one of the apartments, wearing a WWII style gas mask.

My keys:
my keys look like they're meant for a pirate's treasure chest. I have issues opening the door to the apartment every day, and every day my host mom let's me in and locks me out again so i can practice. i'm not getting any better.

the media:
we don't watch a lot of tv here. we also don't get greys anatomy, lost, brothers and sisters, rock of love, or double shot at love. i told my host mom that if she got rock of love on her tv she would watch it a lot more. they have this really boring show where a news crew interviews four ppl from madrid. it's absolutely aweful, and i can die of bordom, but i need to get on that show before the semester is over. also, i'm famous. i already made the newspaper, having been here less than a week.

my name:
they tell me i have a difficult name to pronounce. they asked me if there's an easier way to say it or if "hay" can get any shorter.

christmas:
in spain, santa (papa noel) is interchanged with the 3 kings (the wise men). Kids leave out food for the camels when the wise men come to deliver gifts. none of that reindeer nonsense. i have a new love of camels since coming to spain, and apparently you can ride them in the canary islands...something i have got to do.

hopefully that's enough stories to last a day or so. i leave for salamanca tomorrow and will write again this weekend. it's gonna be a more consistent blog now that my internet is better (and i think we're getting wifi on the 30th!)

The suicide bridge?!?!

This is all i remember from Day 1's hour long walk after hopping off the plane and feeling jetlagged was this:

there's a bridge in madrid called the suicide bridge. people jump over the edge into traffic so the city put plexiglass walls up around the railings.

my trip to london!

so ive never been to london before, and i wanted to make this trip as awesome as possible, even if it was only for an hour in an airport. anyways, i have photos of the typical london weather, and of the english channel!

Packing...attempts 2 through 40927340

packing was a lot harder than i thought. i couldn't bring my stuffed monkey victoria with me :(

packing...attempt 1

i thought about packing today. i decided against it.

side note: did you know that creeper apparently is not even a real word? well, it is but it has something to do with a plant. so if you want to talk about people, you have to say creep (in spanish)

because i know you're curious, it's adulador.


obviously i'm using my precious packing time well.

one small step closer to getting ready for spain

t minus six days