Why are there so many Christs?

This is the slightly blasphemous question that I am forced to continually ask myself as I study frantically for my art history exam. Why in the world???? Cristo de la Clemencia, Cristo atado a la columna, Cristo de la buena muerte, Cristo del amor....the list goes on. I mean, Jesus, you only need one right?

Wrong. Apparently.

Went out this weekend with a friend I've made here whose name is Tracy. We were out for a good nine hours, didn't come back in until 6 in the morning. It was awesome, I danced for like ever. I haven't danced for...well for a long time. The rest of the weekend I staid in and worked on my book. I feel like one 9 hour night was a good contribution to my life experience, and therefore chillin in the casa was definitely a needed recovery time.

I've also made an important life discovery. I miss breakfast. Real breakfast, not toast. I never really liked toast in the first place. Why would you intentionally eat toast for breakfast? I mean....breakfast is the best meal of the day, generally. It is cruel and unusual to cut down to two burned pieces of bread and some jam. Not that toast isn't a valid contribution to breakfast (with other things) but I have this vague feeling that by the time I leave here I am going to be rather fed up with toast. In the most unliteral sense of the word.

Meg's mom is here. It actually makes me kinda sad. But that's okay, cuz yesterday I talked to Catherine and Meghan and Cyncyn at the SAME TIME! It was awesome. I miss them. And I also got to talk to Mom and Dad and Jacob, of course. It was a really good day.

wandering around town

Last night my intercambio and I wandered Triana and found this sweet Moroccan hookah bar. I'm really psyched by it. I'm going back tomorrow night hopefully, so that's good. There are teapots here that I want to take home, they're really awesome and I think they'll survive the journey since theyre metal, and I could possibly put the cups in my carryon....

Anyways.

I had a dream last night about going to Japan. I don't know what to do about that. I don't know that I would like living so far away for a year, but facing facts I have to accept that I am going to have to move beyond casual visiting range of the familia sooner than later. I just don't know where that's going to be. In some ways, this semester has been good practice for that. Probably in a lot of ways actually. But it has made me question a lot of things that I was already questioning in the first place, and I don't know what the answers are. I would like to do something really amazing, something that made me happy. But I haven't the faintest of what that would be. I'm fumbling about in the dark.

I think I just need to take it on faith. Some people don't get to fall in love with what they do. It's possible that I'm too rational. So I should just take it on faith that what happens to me is what is supposed to happen. The world isn't about accidents. I don't know what that says about our world, about this world that we've made for ourselves, but I do know that accidents don't happen. I've seen nothing in this life that makes me think that they exist. So obviously, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Because there is something to learn from everything that we experience.

Now I'm going to go listen to 3OH!3 and translate poetry. Because that's kinda how I work.

where have all the arabs gone?

yes, a possibly offensive title.

So this weekend was amazing. We went to Granada, the last stronghold of Moorish Spain before they were forced out by the Reyes Catolicos. It was absolutely phenomenal. There was so much more cultural diversity in Granada, because the Moorish influence is something they treasure, and there were real trees and tons of green things! Of course, I still went to the Catedral at Granada and viewed all of the majorly Catholic art. I'll be honest, it's all very pretty and all, but after you've seen more or less the same depiction of Jesus by three different sculptors you start to get bored. The Alhambra was much more entertaining because of the overall aesthetic, and the gardens rocked my socks. It wasn't my first time in a castle, but it was my first time in a castle this luxurious, although all of the furniture and wall hangings have of course been stripped bare. I am excited to return to this city, as there are a few things that I didn't get to do that I think should probably occur in my life, not least of which is to actually explore the Alhambra on my own, at my own pace.

I also had the best tea of my life in Granada, and I am now on a search to find tea shops of the traditional Arabic variety in Sevilla. My host mother assures me that they exist, and has indicated where three are on the map, but I fear that I will not be able to match the tea that - or the prices - that I found in Granada. Still, I think it's worth a shot, so I will keep you updated on how that epic search goes.

In more news, I think I'm getting sick and I don't know why. I've never felt this way before. It's really an unfortunately, dizzy and not good feeling. Hopefully if I just sleep a lot it will work its way out of my system. I want to be better by this weekend so that I can properly celebrate Carly's birthday and sunbathe.

Wish me luck

Jewel sings a good song about this feeling

Today is kinda a bad day. I am fighting against having bad days, but today is a bad day.

That doesn't mean that anything bad is happening. Far from it. I started my job yesterday, which was sweet, though I'm going to have to be much stricter with the kids or I'm going to get fired lol. My intercambio and I went out to dinner, he took me to this little tiny italian place with amazing pizza. It reminded me of the type of pizza Dad likes. Which is the problem.

I can't stop thinking about going home.

I'm going to Granada this weekend so that should help. A change of scenery certainly can't hurt anyway. But I am homesick beyond belief, and, though I know that I can work through it, it's been a while since I've felt this bad of a desire to just go home. Months. Not here certainly. And it is more than frustrating. I know that it's not that long from now that I'll be leaving here, and it is all I can do not to count down the days. Though honestly that might help.

But yeah, Granada. I'm really excited to see the Alhambra, it is one of the only surviving mosques in Spain and it is - by all accounts except roomie's, who doesn't like anything Moorish really (she really did come to the wrong region to hate Moorish things so much) - amazing. So I am excited. I have to buy batteries for my camera before I go so that I can put up pics on FB. No doubt you have noticed the decided lack of pictures posted recently. That's because I'm cheap lol.

Anyways, I'll let you know how that goes. I'm really excited for this weekend. It should be pretty amazing.

The navy comes to Spain

Yesterday I did something spontaneous.

Mirais (Roomie) has a friend who is in the Naval Academy from home. Said friend hopped a Navy transport jet with some other friends and arrived in Spain a few days ago, and appeared in Sevilla last night with little forewarning. Roomie was going to go out with them alone, but I kinda was intrigued by the fact that they were so randomly spontaneous, which provoked me to get dressed and follow her even though it was almost midnight on a Sunday. To make a long story short they climbed an orange tree which was highly amusing and I didn't get back to my house until 5am. Then I got up again today at 10:30 and went with roomie to show them around Sevilla. I skipped a shower out of sleeplessness and roamed around Sevilla actually experiencing the way a tourist would. It was, needless to say, interesting.

Probably the most markedly touristy thing we did was go on a tour of the Torreo, which is the ring where they have the bull fights. Needless to say it was pretty cool. I'm not into bull fights, but it was def interesting to learn more about that aspect of Spanish culture, and now I can get a bullfighty postcard to send to someone without feeling like a complete poser.

After that we went to Las Columnas, which is one of the better tapas places in the city according to the Biblia (roomie's guidebook). I had a bocadillo (kinda like a sandwhich) of tortilla (kinda like a potato omelette <- don't knock it they know what's up) because its always the safest vegetarian friendly option. Then we had icecream. It was great. I spent money but I'll live. And I had a really good time. They were all really nice guys, more or less amusing and pretty chill all things considered, and it was fun to meet them. And I needed to meet some random people. I think from now on I'm going to try to do it once a week.

Now, as I am tired and have class, I must leave. But that's what was up.

I really do start all my blog entries with "so"

That has got to be annoying for you guys haha. Thanks, Brett, for giving me a head's up.

Today I am exhausted. That's because of two reasons. I didn't take my vitamins yesterday (I know, Mom, I'm fail) and I got up this morning and ran again. At least my legs aren't hurting as bad now. That was all one reason. Reason number two is that Spanish people don't freakin sleep and now it's warm enough that it's becoming a problem. Refer to my earlier entry, entitled "Spanish people DON'T SLEEP" or something to that effect.

I have an exam tomorrow in my Crossroads of Immigration class (the one with the professor who keeps trying to teach me things that I already know) and I'm actually kind of worried about it because I've decided he doesn't like me lol. I could be wrong, so we'll see how it goes. I haven't really studied for it yet, but I don't see that it will be too bad of a problem so I'm going to study this afternoon and tomorrow morning, instead of running maybe idk.

My ability to communicate today is lethal fail.

The weather is ridiculously warm during the day, though kind of cold in the morning and late afternoon. As soon as the sun goes down the walls of the buildings start radiating heat. It reminds me of the beach crossed with Phoenix. I'm excited to go to visit the beach in a week or so more, since I don't want to go just yet (I need to find sunscreen and stuff first lol which is looking like a possible problem of epic proportions and will likely involve a day of investigating). You'd be amazed at how many sunburned German tourists were here this weekend. The sun here is vicious, but I think I'll acclimate to it somewhat as I spend more time outside wandering. The people from here are still wearing heavy sweaters while I'm running around in a tshirt or a tank and a jacket. It's actually kind of amusing.

Well, I'll update on Friday with how the exam went and any other useful information that I may have accumulated. Now I need to do some studying.

P.S. I am officially a tutor of small children, which should pay about 20 euros a week. I'm ppmpp.

weekend adventures and the plot

So the flamenco bar was amazing. There was this amazing flautist who was jazzin it up flamenco style and the place was like an old fashioned tavern. No cover charge to, though it was hard to hear the flamenco music if people talked. But it taught me something interesting about the culture of Spain. You see, there are catcalls built into flamenco songs. Flamenco being one of the central tenets of Spanish life, this means that catcalls are normal. Which means that when I get hit on or yelled at everywhere I go....that's socially acceptable. Though my coloring doesn't help haha.

After Meg and Ariel and I went to this place called Lobo Bar, where we discovered that its also apparently acceptable to watch porn in bars. After seeing the kids/adults/everyone making out in the street (I'm thinking about making a documentary on it, just to explain to you exactly what I mean) I'm not really surprised. Needless to say, we didn't hang out there long.

I also started running this weekend (though I failed this morning, which I'm kinda grateful for since my muscles needed healing time). And it has been really nice. I feel tons better, and I have way more energy, when I go running during the day. I think I'm going to find and exercise mat so that I can start doing real Yoga and situps and pushups too, since doing those on hardwood floors is kinda painful. I need to do real Yoga so that my body doesn't hurt as much, and I need to do situps and pushups so that my body hurts equally haha.

Oh, and I had chocolate and churros, finally! Even though it's pretty much too warm for them now, not that you could tell the Spanish people that, running around in their winter coats when its eighty. I'm terrified of two weeks from now, btw. It feels kinda like the beginnings of high summer here. But chocolate and churros were sweet, they remind me of a good funnel cake covered in chocolate syrup.

And I wrote a poem.

Now the plot. I'm going to MAKE my professor teach us things through sheer force of nerdliness. And I'm going to use aljazeera to do it.

Take that jerk.

reading in spanish and other fun things

So i haven't written in a while because I haven't really done anything this week. I'm saving money for the weekend : ). We're going out to eat and then going to drink and watch free flamenco. I'm excited.

Also haven't been writing because I bought a book last weekend by Haruki Murakami (in Spanish, of course) to read. Its amazing. He's amazing. I love him. We should be friends. Unfortunately I think he lives in New Hampshire or somewhere vaguely cold like that. And he probably gets stalked all the time so he probs wouldn't like me : /

I'm starting to make more friends at CCCS which is kinda nice. There are people I have classes with that are interesting, now that we've started more specialized things. My potentially fav class (the immigration one) is still boring. So far we haven't talked about immigration at all, we're going over all the basics of my major which is good review but I din't exactly take the class for review so I'm a bit frustrated.

I had a job offer from a neighbour of my host mother, but because all of my classes are so late it fell through. It is very sad, since I was hoping to augment my meager travel budget. Meg and I are planning our mad wanderings to Oviedo (its up north on the coast, she wants to rent a car so we're going), though we haven't gotten farther than Oviedo and expensive. And there has been some talk of possibly making it to Paris, but we have to look at prices before I can commit to anything on that front. As with all things, the question of my life is money. I've started keeping a tally book because it makes it easier to keep larger sums of cash money without spending it all if I have to count everything exactly, and if I keep larger sums then I save on withdrawal charges which is roxxors. All in all, this intense money managing thing is at least a good thing to learn. Next I need to learn how to cook. Since if I ever want to live anywhere I think I'm more or less going to have to cook for myself, and that's cheaper anyways lol.

Anyway, that's what's up. Oh, and I need to start applying for summer jobs, but that's not much to do with Spain lol more with the aftermath. But overall life is good.

back to the week

So I went to Carmona this weekend, which was adorable. My new weekend activity is officially going to be to get out of this bloody cityscape and hike around tiny towns with Roman ruins. Which is something interesting to note.

Spain is basically built over the ancient Roman empire, which isn't something i greatly realized up until coming here. Sevilla was said to have been founded by Hercules, and Julius Caesar himself granted the city the rights of citizenship to the Roman empire (as opposed to basically being glorified slaves of the empire with no legal status). Both men are depicted in the artwork of the Ayuntamiento (the building which houses the local government), which is a fun fact I learned in my art history class, and are considered the fathers of the city in a way. Yay places with abjectly staggering amounts of history. I don't know what to do about it really.

Still, I prefer going to the countryside and seeing the ruins. As I was explaining to Meg on Saturday, it's amazing that there's still enough of a shape to these places that you can actually tell what they are, much less rebuild them. 2000 years ago, someone laid all the stones to the Bridge of Five Eyes by hand. There was a river or large creek there, which is gone now, though you can see the tracks it left in the land. Now only the bridge is left, though all those who built it are dead and the world has more or less forgotten their names.

**UPDATE**

The Spanish have a saying that goes "al mal tiempo, buena cara". My response to that is: screw your buena cara my umbrella is broken. Again.

Sevilla strikes again.