a quick update on the pig leg...

 this is getting to be too much....

i thought there was a towel on top of the pig leg. it isn't a towel at all.  it is a genuine pig-leg-cover, designed for the sole purpose of keeping dust off the pig leg... it's embroidered and says "JAMON" (spanish for ham) in fancy lettering.....

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

a scary surprise :-O

yesterday i made a discovery of a lifetime....

our house has this wooden stand with two metal poles coming out of it so you can rest something on top of these poles.  it looks like this:

|      |

|___|

the two poles are pointed up and basically stuck into this block of wood.

now there is a towel draped over this metal/wood contraption, so i never really got a chance to take a good look at what's underneath.

yesterday i saw that under this towel is a pig leg. that's right, the whole leg, including hoof.

it's being displayed on this wooden stand. god only knows what i ate that had part of babe's foot in it. 

this picture was gonna be a bumper sticker for nicole, who heard the story first, but fb bumper stickers apparently hates me.

another bit on my obsession with metro performers

3 teenaged guys in the metro the other day.  one played the accordian, the other two played clarinets.  they also brought along their amp/speaker/background music player on wheels.  one clarinetist was considerable better than the other, and none of the three were particularly good and after playing a song they didn't make any $ off of it.  the song was odd- kind of like a cross between german polka music and hip hop.

as they left the accordian player knocked over their bungee-corded speaker set up, causing everything to go flying in the metro car.  the guys obviously weren't having a great day.

best tv show ever!

as a general rule of thumb...spanish tv...not so good. there's no rock of love and they're behind in seasons of greys anatomy b/c of the time it takes to dub the episodes in spanish.

anyways, last night i saw a show that i can only describe as amazing

it's called "hormiguero" which is spanish for ant hill. it's about an hour long, and it's a talk show on at prime time (so around 9ish). it features:

-obnoxious host

-two ant puppets that pop out of the table to comment

-the game "is it a palindrome or not?"

-the host and this woman fighting about quality romantic commedy movies

-magic tricks

-dancing

-mad science segment, complete with bunsen burner that the crew had to keep coming on stage to relight

-ending the show with a song about how kids should go to bed so their parents can play.

unrelated sidenote: i saw those purple boots in a store the other day. again i was camera-less :(  one of these days i'll capture a photo of their awesomeness

the chinese

you know how we have dollar stores in the US? Most everything for a buck.....

well they have them in spain too.

they go by a different name though...."chinos"

chinos = chinese

today's conversation with my host mom:

we can get the mask for adrian's costume at the chinese store. the chinese have everything.

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!