2 rants and 2 questions

It's sad actually, because I'm quite fond of the metro and its many accordian players (some better than others), but today, one of the metro's patrons just ruined it for me (ok maybe i'm over reacting slightly. i still love the metro, it's just...this non-accordian playing metro rider (how dare he) was walking up the stairs, and there was considerable space between us. so up he went and then out of the blue he punched me right in the stomach with his briefcase. i almost A doubled over and B fell backwards down the steps. Man did that hurt, and the dude didn't even turn around and apologize or anything.


Rant #2: the security guy.

the security guy at the court where I intern wouldn't let me bring my water jar into the court because, as he demonstrated for me (yes i understood better when he did this) the jar filled with tap water can be used as a weapon to knock someone out on the head leaving them in a coma or in a pool of blood for hours before the amulance arrives.  it's a good thing that he demonstrated this for me.  

now the water jar is simply a glass jar that used to have juice in it that i bought at the grocery store so i can refill it and won't die from thirst during seminar. it cost 1 euro and came with the juice.  it's probably worth .25euro without the juice.  the man tagged my jar with tap water and gave me a claim ticket for it.  the ticket was probably worth more than the jar, but at the end of the day i showed up to get my jar back and i looked at the water level to make sure no one drank from it.

Questions:
1. how politically incorrect is this?
the court case today was these 2 guys who were bored so they beat up guy #3, a chinese immigrant who speaks no spanish.  All throughout the trial, everyone and i mena everyone (the judge, lawyers, translators, witnesses, police...) kept refering to this man (who btw was RIGHT THERE) as "el chino" aka the chinese. 

2. translation help...
so my favorite illegal spaniard, the grocery store guy, is always asking for money. he says Buena Personal (good person) Ayudame buena persona (help me good person) Buena suerte (good luck)...but here's what i dont get....

"primer suerte"- literal translation: first luck.  im pretty sure primer suerte is not a real spanish phrase. this makes me even less likely to give him any money.  (i still give him my sandwiches gone wrong though, so I'm not 100% heartless)

the proof:

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