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Hola!
Sorry I have 100%!d(MISSING)ropped off the face of the planet for the last week- I was just too busy having fun! And as a result, this is going to be a book- sorry in advance J
So the week started out fabulously, what with it being the fourth of july on Wednesday and all and having pretty much no serious homework. Monday and Tuesday we went shopping because everything is on sale. And I literally mean everything. Apparently July is just the month where they try to break everyone’s bank by suckering you in with good prices. Besides the point. During these shopping sessions, I found some fabulous (and a few delicious) gifts for my family, which then made me miss my family, but oh well, 3 weeks- bittersweet.
My friend Christina wing-manned it for me on my date Wednesdy and came with me and my little spanish novio to a bar she and I go to probably 2 or 3 times a week. So, his name is Hugo, hes in his 20’s… might be a little older than me haha, but details shmetails, and for those of you (Daniel) heavily creeping my facebook, yes that’s whos in the photo I posted. Oh and more importantly, yes he has a moto. I have yet to ride it, nor will I without 1. A helmet, 2. It being daytime and 3. Without knowing him better. Don’t worry madre Marie gives me that lecture on the daily. So we went to meet up with him at this bar called Casa de Lopez, which by the way, has the best sangria and mojitoes I have ever had, and since we have now become frequent visitors, we get discounts and free shots whenever we go. So here we are sitting with good ol’ Hugo, getting to know the guy, and we start asking him about why, if you do not speak english, do you have english tattoos all over you? Well…. Here’s the thing, spanish men are all about trying to be smooth. And it never works, which makes it that much funnier. So he’s all trying to be philosophical about how life is a mystery and you never what’s going to happen blah blah. We had no idea why he was telling us this until he turned over his wrists and showed us that he had the words mystery and life tattooed on them…. However. It said “mistery” and “lyfe”. Well I had a mouthful of mojitoe when he showed us them, and then after realizing they were spelled wrong, proceeded to choke on my mojito with laughter, and no longer had any liquid in my mouth, but rather all over the bar and my dress. Attractive. We gently informed him that his very permanent, very black, and very wide lettered tats were in fact spelled wrong. The best part was, he tried to tell us that we were wrong, and so eventually we just gave up and let him think he was right. But it was hilarious. After trying to be all intelligent about how life is a mystery you don’t even have the intelligence to look up in an english dictionary how to spell your tatto…. What a Joke. Needless to say, how seriously I took this date after that, was not at all. That was strike 1. A couple of minutes later we were talking about how he wants to move to the states, and he asks us where we are from. He then proceeded to tell me Colorado is his favorite state and that he goes there a lot….when I asked why, he told me that the beaches there are amazing. Christina almost died of laughter and then asked him what his favorite season was there. His reponse? Winter because it’s not too hot but not too cold. At this point I was only still at this bar solely to see how much more pathetic he could get with trying to impress me. The bartender at this bar, Oscar, actually has been to Colorado, and is about as entertained by this as we are and starts saying things like yeah I love how it doesn’t get too cold in CO when it blizzards, totally sarcastically, and Hugo agreed with ALL of it. Strike 2.
Strike 3…… speaking of spanish smoothness- I have a new pick up line for ya’ll “estas como un tren”. Not sure how in the world calling someone a Train sounds like a good idea, but its “apparently” one step up from queso. At this point in the evening, we decided that we had had enough of Hugo and told him we would be leaving. He told me not to go too long without calling him, becauase it might break his heart to never talk to the love of his life again….. For those of you seriously doubting my judgment, ouch, because No, I have not and will not be calling him or seeing him at any point soon. I suppose I’m just a heartbreaker.
So when I told my program directors the next day about all of this, along with many other details and small jokes that I do not remember, Marissa and Nacho literally started laughing so hard they cried. Glad my pathetic non existent love life is so entertaining for everyone.
We finished off the 4
th of July with a flamming shot of some alcohol I cannot pronounce, or remember the name of, but it tasted like a werthers hard candy. (Boulderites- think The Attic’s “slippery nipple shot). I also got to skype with my family (sans Luke, Christian and Anthony) and my host mom officially thinks my family is blonde purists because we are all blonde and have only blonde dogs. She also thinks my mother is 35 and would like to know how often she colors her hair. Ahhhh Marie.
Thursday night we went to see Blanco nieve (snow white) just to see how well we could understand it and because we didn’t really want to go out after Wednesday’s festivities. We get to the movie theatre and see this gigantic poster with the specials for every day on it. Turns out that Thursday is couples night. Well…. Christina and I decided that it would be 1. Funny 2. Worth the 50%!d(MISSING)iscount and free popcorn and 3. Totally normal looking in Spain. So imagine 5,10” Annemarie, and 5’ nothing Christina walking up to a movie window pretending to be so in love in order to get a discount. I have never successfully kept a straight face this well. The man in the window totally didn’t buy it though, but gave us the discount for trying. Hey, 3€ for a ticket and popcorn in exchange for holding hands with one of my good friends? Why not.
Friday there was a concert in the Alhambra but when we went to buy tickets they were sold out, and we instead ended up going to a free concert that was local Spanish music with all sorts of cool instruments and outside in the open air of one of the Plazas. Going to things like that is so different here because you have to focus so hard in order to translate all of the words to understand what the song is about. While it was enjoyable we were pretty braindead and decided to go get tapas and margaritas because we stumbled upon a cute little Mexican restaurant. There was 6 of us there and we were talking about all of the weird things that people in each state say that are not said in other states. For example. In NJ they say “salty,” but it doesn’t have one specific meaning. It could be cool, it could be terrible, it really just depends on the tone of voice. And then Kaitlin started talking about nightlife in Texas….. I officially think they should be deemed their own country. First of all they have pickle shots. Which are pickle juice and tequila. Think that sounds gross? She asked if we ever had just taken pickle juice poured it into ice cube trays and frozen it to eat. THEN we found out they have pickle margaritas, pickle snow cones, and many other beverages. I personally think pickles are disgusting and would never eat any of this, but the fact that they deem this socially acceptable is simply wrong. I do not approve.
Saturday Christina and I left with the new program kids to go to Seville because we could ride the bus for free there. We spent 5 or 6 hours walking around seeing things in Seville we had not yet seen like the hercules towers and the plaza de torros etc etc. We found a hostel online and kind of just decided we wanted to get out of Granada and away from some of the people for the weekend. We picked a random hostel on the internet and it ended up being the single coolest place I have ever stayed. I think that there is something to be said for things like that that are not really nice, but feel like home. We had a kitchen at our hostel, and had just been talking about how much we missed cooking so we went out and got groceries and made a delicious pasta sauce with some fresh raviolis and veggies and a bottle of rose wine. We met a couple of girls that had just finished dental school, people from Sweden, switzerland, Australia ,England…. Oh and Italy. The boys from Italy were the single handed most persistent people I have ever met. I have never had someone ask me so many times if we would like dinner- maybe in an hour? No? maybe drinks later? Maybe we go discoteca. Blah blah, but they were funny and our bunkroom partners so it was fine. We met up with the tour guides I went to Lagos with last weekend who manage a bar, got us in Free and Christina and I spent the night dancing in an open Air club with some of the coolest people I have ever met. I wish I had more opportunities to stay in hostels on this trip because I really do think you meet so many cool people in them.
Today we went to the gardens of the palace and walked around the cathedral area and seville some more and then afterwards headed back to Granada. All in all it has been a pretty freaking fabulous week and I am sad I only have three more weeks left here L Time flies when you’re having fun.
Estaís como queso (ya'll are like cheese)
; )
XO
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Mom
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pickles in Texas
They also deep fry them - fried pickles!