S cubed....a lil late b/c of spring break

CHECK OUT THIS KID'S AWESOME BDAY HAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! why wasn't my bday crown ever that big????

Spanish Stranger Saturday

spaniard: hector, my EU professor.

Sure, by this point in the semester he might not be a stranger, but hector wins this week's award for 2 reasons:

1. he insisted on wearing a bright yellow belt to class. 2 class meetings in a row. (not like a yellow karate belt that's in the photo. and no, hector looks nothing like the ninja in the photo)
2. we got to class and he asked if we liked barcelona. everyone said yes and someone shouted that we got to go to a barca game. hector asked who we cheered for, so we said barca. he proceeded to take his pen from the table and stab himself violently in the chest over and over for a good minute.

SS3: Barca advertisements

No answers. A lot of questions.

SSS2: Hammer Pants

You can't touch this
You can't touch this
You can't touch this
You can't touch this
You can't touch this

My, my, my music hits me so hard
Makes me say "Oh my Lord"
Thank you for blessing me
With a mind to rhyme and two hype feet
It feels good, when you know you're down
A super dope homeboy from the Oaktown
And I'm known as such
And this is a beat, uh, you can't touch

I told you homeboy (You can't touch this)
Yeah, that's how we living and you know (You can't touch this)
Look at my eyes, man (You can't touch this)
Yo, let me bust the funky lyrics (You can't touch this)

Fresh new kicks, advance
You gotta like that, now you know you wanna dance
So move, outta your seat
And get a fly girl and catch this beat
While it's rolling, hold on
Pump a little bit and let 'em know it's going on
Like that, like that
Cold on a mission so fall them back
Let 'em know, that you're too much
And this is a beat, uh, you can't touch

Yo, I told you (You can't touch this)
Why you standing there, man? (You can't touch this)
Yo, sound the bell, school is in, sucka (You can't touch this)

Give me a song, or rhythm
Make 'em sweat, that's what I'm giving 'em
Now, they know
You talking about the Hammer you talking about a show
That's hype, and tight
Singers are sweating so pass them a wipe
Or a tape, to learn
What's it gonna take in the 90's to burn
The charts? Legit
Either work hard or you might as well quit

That's word because you know...

You can't touch this
You can't touch this
You can't touch this

Break it down! (Music breaks down) Stop, Hammer time!

Go with the funk, it is said
That if you can't groove to this then you probably are dead
So wave your hands in the air
Bust a few moves, fun your fingers through your hair
This is it, for a winner
Dance to this and you're gonna get thinner
Move, slide your rump
Just for a minute let's all do the bump, bump, bump

Yeah... (You can't touch this)
Look, man (You can't touch this)
You better get hype, boy, because you know (You can't touch this)
Ring the bell, school's back in (You can't touch this)

Break it down!Stop, Hammer time!
You can't touch this )
You can't touch this
You can't touch this
You can't touch this


Break it down! (Nice pants, Hammer) Stop, Hammer time!

Every time you see me
The Hammer's just so hype
I'm dope on the floor and I'm magic on the mic
Now why would I ever stop doing this?
With others making records that just don't hit
I've toured around the world, from London to the Bay
It's "Hammer, go Hammer, MC Hammer, yo Hammer"
And the rest can go and play

You can't touch this
You can't touch this
You can't touch this
You can't touch this
You can't touch this
You can't touch this
You can't touch this
You can't touch this

SSS1: the dread mullet

oh the horror! spain! what gave you the idea that this was a good idea???????

spanish stranger saturday/ french style

i loved this! in spain we just get accordion players, every now and then a clarinetist. but this! genius!!!

it's a guy who turned the polls in the metro into a mock puppet stage and he had the puppets dance to Wooly Bully. the whole metro applauded at the end. fabuloso!

spanish stranger SUNDAY?

i know, im a day off, but sunday starts with an S and i took the photo on Saturday, so it still counts...

we went to segovia on saturday to see the aqueduct, cathedral, and castle that they claim inspired disney to model cinderella's castle after...

anyways, then we were walking around plaza mayor and i saw this street musician (and you know my love of metro musicians? well street musicians can sometimes be even better!)

so we have this guy standing in this ultra important square just jammin away on his saxaphone. it was awful! worst music ive ever heard in my life! i thought people's ears were going to bleed out. to make it worse, this guy had a tiny squeaky sounding dog at his feet singing along. i'm pretty sure the dog was possibly begging his owner to throw away the saxaphone and pick a new career path. then the guy finally stopped playing (thank god!) and started singing and dancing! if the sax part was bad, the song/dance routine was worse. you can't say the guy didn't try to earn his euros, but geez!

lots of things to say...

so once again i am sorry for not being able to post more often...some weeks give me more free time than others...BUT that doesn't mean that i am lacking in stories :) here they are in no particular order:

THE STORY OF THE JUDGMENTAL LITTLE GIRL IN THE METRO
so i was on the metro, and having failed at breaking in my boots the day before, i had a nice sized blister on my foot....because of that i was wearing flip flops. it is also, in my opinion, prime flip-flop-wearing-season, and any excuse to wear them is a good enough reason in my mind. Not so, said the little four year old spanish fashionista(i'm not upset that she hated my cheep flip flops...no, not at all....). the girl looks at my shoes and says to her daddy "what's wrong with that girl's shoes??? you can see her feet! why isn't she wearing boots? they only have a strap between her toes! why would you wear something like that???" this went on for 20 minutes, this girl ripping me apart for wearing flip flops.

THE STORY OF THE CARNIVAL
99% of the carnival story cannot be told, or rather, typed. ask me about it and i will share. what you should know is that i saw my favorite tv show characters as costumes in carnival (the ants from that amazing tv show "ant hill"

THE STORY OF CARNIVAL DURING THE DAY SLASH MY SPANISH STRANGER FROM SATURDAY
yes, carnival was on saturday, and yes i saw plenty of spaniards that were spanish-stranger blog worthy. this one was my fav. he was dressed as a bull fighter and had an all out bull fight (everything from taunting the bull to chasing it to having it walk under the red cloth) right in the center of the city. ppl were cheering! what made it even better was that the "bull" was actually a five inch battery operated bull.

THE STORY OF PORTUGAL AND INDIA
so we went to portugal and had this really nice tourguide and all, but judging by her word choice, it's safe to assume that portugal is still a little bitter that they're so tiny. she went on and on about how w/o portugal brazil would be nothing. then she spoke about that awful time in history when "we lost india". that was in the 16th century. they just can't let it go.

THE STORY OF BEING HOME ALONE
lola wasn't gonna be home when i got back from my group trip. she showed me where all these things are in the house. she lectured me on how to open the freezer door and look inside if i was hungry and had eaten all the food. i reassured her that i'd be fine. she left for granada, i left for andalucia and portugal. i came back, and couldnt find a thing. not even olive oil. and the spaniards lovvveeee olive oil so i knew we had it. i found it 30 min later in this drawer that i never knew existed. i didnt know where the olive oil was b/c ive never had to add my own dressing to salad here before...just goes to show you that my host mom does EVERYTHING for me :-P

THE STORY OF THE MEAL PLAN
this is an ongoing discussion at my host home. we talk about housing on campus and eating on campus all the time. i said that i wasn't getting a meal plan next semester bc i barely used it in the fall. lola's concerned. she's worried i will starve.

SPANISH STRANGER SATURDAY!!!

UGH! I just hate that my camera isn't in my hand 24-7.  I'll have to fix this. today i saw teh most PERFECT spanish stranger. it's true, he was dressed like a butcher, covered in fake blood, with fake burns and chunks of face missing. he was also holding an assortment of bread.  i can't make this stuff up. we made eye contact and i was too scared he was gonna kill me to take my camera out.  i promise it was just a costume tho, bc there was a girl there with him dressed up in costumes. 

i can't let another saturday go by without photos.  here is my spanish stranger of saturday 2.0.

His name is green-shoe-and-even-greener-shoelaces-boy and he has a dog i've named killer.  they were at parque de retiro which is this awesome public park.  killer wasn't so happy to be there tho, and i'm actually happy that killer's owner used a leash (not so many spaniards believe in leashing their dogs).  enjoy the photos:  

killer and his owner (check out the shoes!)

killer wants to bite spaniard's face off
killer no le gusta french bulldog
time for killer and his owner to go back home

spanish stranger saturday!

i feel like all week has been devoted to spanish strangers with awesome fashion sense. saturday was no exception, although i lack photo evidence, i did see something blog worthy...

first, let's backtrack a day or so. i was walking down the street and saw a sign for "rebajas" which is spanish for "sale" and so i turned to look into what was this crowded shoe shop. i saw these AMAZING boots!! purple. faux fur. reminded me of grimace (thanks for reminding me of his name wikipedia) the purple blob from McDonald's heyday.

flash forward to yesterday. walking through the streets of toledo, someone was infact wearing the exact same pair of boots!

"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.