Casey, Cordoba and Curry

It's pretty daunting to try and come back and write after what seems like an eternity.

Casey is still here, but since I start school again tomorrow I decided to sit down and try and work on some homework and let him go skate for a bit. The homework thing is slow going, due to being absolutely non-academic for however long and forgetting what exactly my assignments were, and also due to the procrastination bug that I've contracted since I've gotten here. I should probably get my ass in gear, though, because I have less than a month until the semester is over and finals begin, and I have a few nagging projects that I should be taking care of like...now.

Having Casey here has been amazing and amazing and amazing. We've had a ton of fun and I've tried to be good about taking him to see things that are good to see. We've done a good deal of city wandering, trotted up to San Miguel Alto for the view of a lifetime (a few times), walked down the hill and meandered between the caves, and hiked up to the Alhambra and had a picnic lunch up in the gardens with a tubby black cat that enjoyed our potato chips.

He made me a Thanksgiving dinner, brought Torfurkey for me and everything and we cooked up stuffing and mashed potatoes and it was heavenly and lasted us three meals. He also brought chocolate chips and syrup and we made potatoes and have had a million tasty Casey-breakfasts with different varieties of his delicious potatoes and scrambles and omelets and fried eggs and toast with the honey peach jam my Karen sent me from Twin Palms Ranch and made tasty veggie burgers and homemade french fries and had Casey's tasty curry at a little dinner with some California friends.

We went to the sweet little cafe I fell in love with when I first came here, Bohemia, and stopped by El Piano for some of their tasty little boats of vegetarian, gluten free deliciousness; we went to the science museum and gawked at the T-Rex exhibit and the MC Escher exhibit and the human body exhibit and went up on the tower and looked at the mountains with binoculars. We had beer and tapas with Sydney, went to el Tango and la Marisma, and another veggie place I'd never been to and we went to FrescCo, which is exactly like Fresh Choice, except it's Spain so they don't have salad dressing.

We woke up painfully early one morning and took a bus to Cordoba, had greasy churros at the bus station, walked through the pretty green park and picked oranges and befriended ducks and found a stretch of pretty old fountains, wandered to the Mezquita with it's weird juxtaposition of intricate Muslim decorum and gaudy Catholic gold and statues, ate sandwiches and stumbled upon a calligraphy exhibition in a place called la Casa Arabe, where we found an unlocked conference room and pretended to lecture into the little microphones and then got kicked out, found the big Plaza de las Tendillas and searched in vain for a skate park, had patatas bravas and pizza for lunch and drank a pitcher of sweet rummy sangria, walked some more and had a coffee, and went back to the park where two kids on bicycles came swerving at us out of nowhere and one kid hit the curb and fell off his bike, and then smacked Casey in the face, claiming he'd been thrown off of it, and we just walked away because he was so tiny and it was so ridiculous, and then took the evening bus home.

We took Gypsy to the vet (thrills!) and Casey has been winning over the  kitties with his belly scratches, and they've both been sleeping on our faces and being ridiculous. We woke up early another morning and took the bus to the Sierra Nevada, since Case has never been to the snow, but we discovered that the snow was mostly blocked off for skiers or other paying customers, so we just wandered around and rode this silly little sled ride and broke the ice on a frozen over pond and pet a pony and had pasta lunch and befriended a sweet boxer dog and drank hot chocolate. We went to el Camborio and wooed each other with our equally horrible dancing, and slept in almost everyday, which is a real feat for Casey.

We celebrated our third year anniversary by getting fancied up and trying to go to a vegetarian restaurant called Paprika, which turned out to be closed for "technical reasons," and then walked down Calle Elvira until we stumbled upon an absolutely delicious Indian restaurant where I had the best food I've had since I've been here (maybe excluding our breakfasts): potato cauliflower curry and creamy spinach with paneer, rice and cheesy nan followed by a strange mango ice cream that was kind of...grainy. Then we rolled ourselves up the hill and watched two mediocre romantic comedies.

Now it's Sunday, and school starts back up tomorrow and Casey leaves in four days, which is kind of bleak. Having him here is worrisome in that it makes me preemptively miss him more than ever, but on the bright side my mom has finally gotten her tickets to come see me in February; exactly one month and one day away. I'm excited because she'll be here for two full weeks, and even though I really miss my step dad and brother, I know we'll have a ton of fun hanging out just the two of us. So, as per usual, life is good.