Easter egg endeavors.

Normally I think Easter is pretty lame. Conceptually it's a weird mixture of religion, zombies, rabbits, chickens, and candy that doesn't really make sense to me, plus as a kid I hated Easter egg hunts because everyone was always super intense about it and it didn't seem worth all that vigorous searching just to get some gross blue hard boiled eggs or like barely a handful of jelly beans. The best Easter celebration I've been to thus far was actually a zombie themed party at my house a few years ago, but the fake blood cleanup the day after detracted from some of the highlights.

Zombie throwback!

Anyway, I've been trying to do more projects and DIY type shit lately because I'm turning into a recluse and all, and my stepmom recently gave me some super sweet geese, turkey and chickens eggs, so I thought it'd be fun to try and hollow them out and make them purdy.

Three geese eggs, one turkey egg, one brown chicken egg- from Twin Palms Ranch,
plus two store bought white chicken eggs.

I followed some pretty generic instructions I found online:
1.) Poke a hole in each end (one bigger than the other) with a needle of some sort

2.) Use the needle to jab and scramble about the insides to break up the yolk

3.) Blow on one end and catch the goop that comes out the other in something

Apparently some people are freaked out about dying of salmonella but I just like...didn't ingest any of the egg, and kinda rinsed my mouth region as I went. 

The chicken eggs were pretty easy to poke into with a pin or needle, but the geese eggs (goose eggs?) were a LOT tougher, and I actually managed to break one of my thicker sewing needles! I actually found that using the tip of a small knife to break a little slit in it first and then following it with a thick needle (I used my cabling needle thingy) worked best. My first goose egg was a pretty big pain because the innards were a lot thicker than the chicken and turkey eggs, so for the next two I made the exit hole a bit bigger and that helped a lot.

I recently stumbled across this blog that inspired me to play with some natural dyes, and since I only had a few eggs I decided to just go with the turmeric, cayenne pepper and red cabbage. For the turmeric, I followed the directions and mixed 3tbs turmeric with 2 cups of warm water and 1/8 cup of white vinegar. I had a lot more paprika than cayenne pepper, so I decided to use them both to see how it turned out and mixed 2tbs paprika, 2tbs cayenne pepper and 2 cups of water with 1/8 cup of white vinegar. For the cabbage I followed the "hot method" directions and chopped up half a head of cabbage with 1/8 cup of vinegar and enough water to fill the pot, brought it to a boil, then a simmer, and then let them sit. Unfortunately, i didn't think at ALL about the fact that my eggs were hollow and wouldn't sink, so I had to get, uh, creative, to submerge them.

Yeah, those are cups on top of the eggs. Of course I could have dyed first, then hollowed, but I'm not sure that would have worked with the "hot method" and the cabbage ended up being my favorite color, so whatever. I let the eggs sit about 3 hours, at which point the cabbage and turmeric eggs looked pretty nice, but the paprika/cayenne ones looked pretty unexciting and brownish, so I rinsed them off and put them in the turmeric. But then I sorta forgot and went to bed, so they came out pretty dark and brownish anyway, but at least I was like, you know, well rested...

The brown eggs looked predictably dumb, so I decided to scrap it and use 3 yellow and 3 blue. The frustrating thing was that all the tutorials I found online explained the hollowing process in detail, but then just said something like, "String a ribbon through the eggs and you're done!" Which was not helpful because a normal needle wouldn't reach all the way through so I floundered for a while until someone sent me this link, which suggested using an unfolded paper clip with a hook at the end. I didn't have/couldn't find any pliers, so I just wrapped the yard (I used yarn, not ribbon, because it's what I had) around the clip and that worked fine.

Yippee! Some of the chicken eggs holes cracked a little when I was pulling the yarn through, but OH WELL. I just knotted the yarn so that it'd rest beneath the top hole and hold it up, then hung them in the door way at different lengths. A branch of some sort would also have been cool but our house is pretty teensy, so this seemed less obtrusive.

Ta-daa!

Mishka was obviously unimpressed by my efforts, but I had fun. Perhaps next year I'll try dying with red onion skins or tea or BEETS! Conclusions: geese rule, chickens drool. As far as egg-awesomeness goes, at least.

Pondering the Post-Humous Powerpoint on Thought Catalog

I just wrote an article about a weird professor I had in Spain, my delusions of grandeur, and death!
Check it out on Thought Catalog: Pondering the Post-Humous PowerPoint.

Too soon June.

May was mayhemic. Yup, not a word, but we all saw that coming, no? Kim's visit was fucking epic, we ran around with couchsurfers, boogied it up at the Booga club, drank wine at the huerto and played with puppies, caught a ride with Alberto (on the back of his motorcyle!) to a crazy rave party in a magical pine forest where we become polar bear and kitty cat and danced our souls off, trekked to the Quilombo and got our mothafuggin Drum&Bass on, we had tasty tapas and long talks and all time flew by far too fast. She was my last solid excuse to not study, as finals are fast approaching (first on is the 14th, aghhhh) but then the feria had to come to town, and seeing as it's a cultural experience and whatnot, I had to go. And I had to rage my face off in the punky/hippy tent until like 7am.

Oh yeah, you think the fair is for riding rides and eating candy? Well, we did that, too, of course, but this is Spain, so everything comes with a side of loud music and alcoholism. Their fair includes discoteca tents, and that shit doesn't close down until 5 or 6 or so. Naturally, I set my bag down like a dumb ass and all my shit got stolen. Goodbye bag, wallet and money and credit card, keys, fourth or fifth stupid goddamn cell phone, cracked screen Frankenstein ass iPhone, house keys, favorite leopard leggins, red bandana, and sweatshirt! Spain is teaching me so many lessons about the non-importance of physical objects, eh? Shit could be much worse, don't y'all fret.

In other news, I've semi-certainly decided to try and find Gypsy a good home here in Spain because of all sorts of flight fuckery that is too tedious to get into. Basically they want to charge me 400+ euros to have him transported and he wouldn't get to travel with me so who knows what those frightening money hungry fucks will do with him for those grueling 16+ hours of travel? Much less trauma to hand him off to someone who is (almost) as capable as loving him as me. Bummer, but, that's how it goes. Anyway, I'm supposed to be studying right now, which is obviously why I am writing this long overdue post instead. Exams end July 4th ('merica, fuck yeah...) and then I will hopefully trot over to Germany and take a gander, maybe dip a toe in Denmark, who knows, planning is not really my strong point. I'm giving myself to destiny. Or whatever. But that's about it, folks. No flight home QUITE yet, still wanna make sure my kittles is taken care of before taking off, but I aim to be back in August.

You have no idea (unless you do) how fucking weird it is to watch this trip come to a close. So many mixed feelings. I'm super fucking jazzed to get back to my boy, my puppy, the fambam, the redwoods, the food. But it's also a little like being torn in half. So much love for the place I've created for myself here, it's definitely a home. But, gotta keep on flowing.

Let the Mayhem Begin

Alright, it's been a while since I've sat down and written something about what exactly I've been doing these days. Here's what's been going on:

My house is still wonderful, and it's more of a BroMansion than ever, since yet another dude has taken to inhabiting our basement, but he's also a mega chiller; David's long-haired juggling friend, Guillermo. He's older and cleaner than everyone else. A while back Matteo found a kitten in a trashcan (and when I say kitten I mean eyes-still closed, so small I thought it was a hamster, kitten) and we all become a like four-headed cat mama and fed him with a little squirty thing like a billions times a day, UNTIL: one fateful day we took him to the Huerto de Carlos V, because no one was home to take care of him, and I ran into Alberto, a jolly dreaded festival friend we made at the Dragón, whose housemate really wanted a teensy kitten. So we handed him off right there and then. Thank god he didn't end up as the fifth animal in our furry family; it's already impossible to cook without eating hair in this house. We plan on visiting him someday soon, though.

What else? A few weeks ago one of the biggest music festivals in Spain, el Viña Rock, took place in Villarrobledo, about a four hour drive North of Granada. The actual festival was quite expensive, but since Spaniards are awesome, they tend to set up the "anti" festival, or in other words, a free electronic rave fest, right outside...why don't we do this, California? Anyway, Leon, Adam, Carlos, Jarir and I rented a car and headed over. It rained ALL weekend, but we had an amazing time.

Picture: rain, mud, my polar bear hat (muddy), face paint, bodybuzzing speakers, thunder, lightening, short-lived, weather-defying nudity, vodka, muddy boots, muddy tent, muddy car, cereal out of the box and rain-soggy bread, one precious avocado (no knife), beer, star stickers (a gift from a fairy with a glowing wand!), strange coincidences and shared acquaintances, the thizzle dance, goosebumps, shit-smeared Port-o-Potties and bared asses in the field of stubby bushes, huge tarps billowing over the sweaty gape-faced masses, that collective stomp with the drop, bonfires, lakes of mud, giant pupils under sweeping colored lights, three hour sleep sessions cramped up in the front seat of the car, losing my third phone, losing Adam (who we recovered, unlike the phone), and then Monday morning deliriously scrubbing the seats of the car, vacuuming up the ashes, the roaches, gathering soggy brown articles of clothing, eating oranges and melting into couches, into bed. Twelve hours of recovery sleep. And then, in Carlos' case, fever.

Since then I've been in quite a mellow mode (understandably, right?) Recently had some couch surfers by- German and Finnish- and took them tapa-ing, strolled around the Albaicín, showed them the Huerto where I stopped briefly and had my face painted and befriended a gorgeous Australian Shepard and a hairy-chested shirtless old English hippy man. I also now know how to say "laughing sausage" in Finnish.

This is the last month of class, and I've quite honestly been a horrible slacker. It's become quite clear that all  my scholarly motivation is based on an actual interest in learning, something that is not really an option in this University system. Anyway, the slacking is at least half due to the holidays and strikes that have knocked out probably like 50% of the classes I would have had these past months. (For example,  I'm not at school right now because of striking...) But classes end soon and then I have June to "study" and exams at the end of June, beginning of July.

In other news I'm shitting bricks of anticipation and glee because my babygirl Kimmykins is coming to see me in 9 short days! Balls Almighty, it's gonna be a frolic and a half! I don't really have plans for June or July, but I want to go somewhere at some point... I'm kind of just waiting for the adventures to manifest themselves- they always do! Vin has mentioned planning some sort of roadtrip, to Poland, for example, and I also really want to go to Germany (there's apparently an amazing festival near Hamburg in June!), and Ireland is also high on my list... This world is so big and beautiful, I just don't have time to tackle it all, but I suppose this is really only the beginning.

May is gorgeous and sunny and I love it. I've started doing yoga on the terrace, and reading on the terrace, and generally living on the terrace. Three hurrays for sunscreen!

California, I do miss you, despite all the shameless fun I've been having. I can't believe I'll be back "home" in three short month! I hope you guys are all prepared to burrito binge with me, to Boardwalk our faces off, to embark on facepainted frolics, get our fresh produce on at Twin Palms Ranch, spazz out at the dog beach with my flufferbutt and my tan man, get some three am nacho fries at Saturn, be critters in the Meekerite woods, and I guess take a peek at some American bars for the first time in my life (unless you count the Jury Room in Santa Cruz...I don't.) I also hope y'all don't expect me to come back fashionable and cultured-- quite the contrary; Granada has cultivated the wild child in me more than ever!

Anyway, I take my leave to try and get some useful things done right quick before heading to Mauna's for breakfast-for-dinner tonight, hitting up a screening of También la Lluvia at some bar and maybe checking out a concert/party at a nearby squat on Friday, and who the hell knows what else! ¡Hasta pronto, bitches!

Fiesta de Primavera

 

The weekend begins with little boats of vegan curry, sweet grape juice and a couple of cold forties, hoards of young Spaniards armed with plastic bags, plastic cups, plastic bottles, the pervasive stench of piss and piles of trash. We down our first forties and then meander through the masses, looking for familiar faces, or new faces. I climb up on Leon’s shoulders and call out for his friend, who we never find. Down below, people applaud or raise their drinks up at me. Someone hurls a chunk of ice against my back. I keep drinking up there.

Eventually we have to pee. There’s a high cement wall, and on the other side are bushes, full of women, mostly, as the guys are resigned to just lean against any old wall and let loose. We climb up a skate ramp and a group of girls protest, yelling that we can’t pee up there, go fuck ourselves. They are delighted when I attempt to lower myself over the edge and eat shit. Sydney makes the leap much more gracefully. We wait outside a particularly promising bush that a cute girl in a floral skirt tells us is “occupied.” She quickly gathers that we are not from here, and gives us her contact info, hoping to meet up for tapas some day and practice her English.

 Once we’ve peed, we eye the wall suspiciously. Climbing back over does not seem to be an option, but further down, it’s much lower, so we run over and hop on. But we’re a long way, a tin rooftop, and a group of people away from our friends. Fuck it. We take off, hopping precariously along the wall, and people start to take notice. Three boys are blocking our way and protest, not wanting to hop down, but I just ask them to scoot over from each other, and then step behind each one. A few people cheer. When we reach the rooftop, Syd climbs up first. Now people are really watching. We must look crazy, maybe we are. We dash along the rooftop, not wanting to break it, and people really begin to cheer. Someone throws a chunk of ice, again—sonofabitch. But finally we reach Leon and he lowers us down.

He’s acquired people, and I run into Carlos, serious as ever, but drunk as fuck, complaining that he can’t pee. Andrew, a British kid, has a backpack full of warmish tinto de verano, and I chug some of it, and then Matteo calls, saying to come home, so I take off dashing through the crowd and up, up, up the hill. Later, of course, he texts me saying he’ll actually be a while, so I stop and buy vodka and potato chips.

Morocco: Desert Tour Day Two

 

We wake up early for a bleary eyed breakfast—oily crepes with butter and jam, bread, coffee, and tea. Then back to the van, back on the road. Keith is running behind so we pull the van away from him, pretending to take off, giggling. The hostel’s proprietor seems more concerned than he does.

Our first stop is along a tall cliff, to snap photos of the huge bulbous rocks that are supposed to resemble monkey thumbs. “I can see something, but it’s not a monkey’s thumb, “ Joe comments.  “Looks more like troll dick,” Mom adds helpfully. The rocks are incredibly phallic, it’s true.

We’re on the road for a good while, twisting and winding through the insane streets as the sun begins to creep up and send shadows along the roads. Our next stop is at the deep Dades Gorge. It’s freezing but beautiful, We keep running into the same groups of tourists and are unable to escape an American family with their horrible blond little girls that keep yelling, “Get me in the photo!” every time they see a camera. Moroccan children follow us with little woven grass trinkets, trying to stick them on our clothing, especially Mom. They tell Mohamed that they need money to buy a soccer ball, but he says they told him the same things last week. “Always the same story.”

I feel similarly when lunch rolls around and we encounter the same menus in French—Moroccan salad, omelets, tagines. I order a salad and a vegetable tagine. After lunch we stop at a fossil shop, where we are shown trilobites and squid captured in stone thousands of years ago when the desert was a sea. We watch them lifting, grinding, polishing huge slabs of rock, and still the workers stop and smile flirtatiously. Then we are taken into a big gallery with huge polished tabletops, necklaces, sinks, business card holders, all made of fossilized stones that can be shipped to our home countries.

Then it’s back to road, where I attempt to study half-heartedly. Our next stop is for water, then scarves. We drive through a gate to the scarf shop, and men come and greet us with leathery hand shakes and jagged smiles. The shop is beautiful, covered floor to ceiling with rugs, scarves and djellabas, the ankle length robes with pointed hoods that are so prevalent. The prices are good, and everyone digs through the big piles of cloth in every color imaginable. The shop keepers wrap Mom’s head in a lovely turquoise cloth and joke with her, “How many camels?” They wrap the men’s heads, too. We leave with three scarves. Everyone seems to have found something—Keith even scores a black djellaba. On our way out, a boy around my age smiles at us and rushes ahead of us and stops us in the doorway, saying, “Sorry, excuse me, look.” He points out a big sword hanging on the wall. His face is proud. He stands by the door, beneath a big goat skull, and waves as we drive away.  In the car we practice wrapping our heads as the men showed us. Tomás masters it quickly, and leaves his turban for the rest of the ride.

When we arrive at the dunes, we are given a few moments to leave our belongings in a hotel room, just taking with us our cameras, extra layers of clothing, and water. Across the street from the hotel, we can see the camels (dromedaries, to be exact—they only have one hump) lined up, lying down. As we approach an unexpected hum of nervousness build in my stomach at the prospect of riding these strange creatures.

There is an older Berber man, Omar, and another boy, my age, Mubarak, to help us onto the dromedaries and guide us. The camels are ornery and smelly and generally hilarious, tied tail to snout in a row. They protest and bellow as we mount them, one by one. Mine is named Baksheesh, the guide tells me. Tomás is riding Jimi Hendrix, who seems to be the grumpiest and keeps foaming at the mouth. They walk in big awkward strides across the dunes, led by Mubarak, who walks ahead of us in long straight-backed strides. Every now and then he glances back at us to make sure we’re alright or shouts out, “Hold on!” when the animals are on the verge of ascending or descending a particularly steep dune. The sun slinks down behind us and we stop to take photos as the dunes turn to a deep, burning red, and the sky ripples into a myriad of yellow, orange, green and finally a dusky blue. The rhythm of Baksheesh’s careful, long-legged steps is almost meditative, despite the ache that begins to set into my thighs and lower back. Slowly, crystal clear stars begin to appear overhead.  The desert is absolutely silent save for the plodding steps and our fragmented conversation. Three or four camels ahead burn a tiny orange ember, the scent of tobacco wafts through the air from Mubarak’s cigarette. About two hours later, in near complete darkness punctuated only by the sparkle of the persistent stars, we arrive at a clump of shadows that is to be our camp for the night. Mubarak coaxes the camels back onto their knees and they bellow and moan, again. He steadies us as they lurch down in two heaving motions. 

The camp is comprised of two or three rings of tents surrounding an empty fire pit, illuminated by one bare bulb that we later learn is powered by a little solar panel. We shake hands with the enthusiastic young Berber, Yousef, and Farrah, a woman from Mauritius who made the desert trek on her own. The men build a fire and we vacillate between multilingual conversation—French, Spanish, English, Berber—and contemplative silence. Eventually Mubarak reappears, announcing dinner, and we enter the dining tent, illuminated also with a bare bulb and a few candles. Farrah’s place has been set in a dark corner of the tent, and the boys tell her, “You Berber.” We insist she come and eat with us.

We start off with a tasty rice and tomato vegetable dish, something I hadn’t come across yet. Bread is plentiful, of course. Mubarak and Yousef take turns checking in on us. “Everything good?” they ask. Joe tries to tell Mubarak that it’s the best meal he’s had in Morocco but his English isn’t up to the challenge and he stares at Joe with dark, confused eyes. Joe finally makes that universal smacking gesture for delicious and he gets it. Next they bring us two tagines, one only with vegetables, one with chicken. It’s sizzling hot. We follow it up with big juicy oranges. After our plates have been cleared away we gather back around the fire and the boys bring out drums and play for us, pounding out fast rhythms and calling out in playful broken voices, encouraging us to clap. Yousef pulls our chairs away from the fire and dances, pulling at the edges of his robe in a goofy bent over camel dance. “Baila! Baila!” he calls to us. They yell out, “Aiy, aiyaiyeee!” Yousef keeps telling me, “Estás durmida!” Mubarak hands his drum over to Tomás, and Mom plays for a while, too.

Conversation and song blend together in an easygoing flow of sound and gesture. Yousef tells us riddles—“What is born with two horns, lives with none and dies with two horns?” He asks us twice, English and Spanish, and when we can’t figure it out he says, “Es algo natural,” and makes a gesture with his hands. “La luna?” I guess. Yes. We ask him, “Why is six afraid of seven?” He loves it.

It’s getting later, and Keith has already slipped off to bed, not feeling well. Mirjam and Florian follow shortly after. The boys tell us the moon is coming up and that the fire will obscure our view, so they lead us away from the tents. We climb a steep dune in the absolute dark and shiver and stare as the moon creeps up, a big luminous half-orb, outshining the clusters of stars smeared all across the black sky. I want to lay on my back, but the sand is freezing. Mubarak sees me shivering and offers to wrap my head in a turban with my scarf. He brushs my hair away and winds it carefully around, covering my mouth. It’s much warmer. When we descend he offers me a hand he later comments, “Becomes like the foot of a camel,” rough and calloused as a hoof. We return to huddle around the first, but this time Mom and Farrah drop off to sleep. The fire is dying down, and the men scoop up coals and toss them between their bare hands to keep warm. Even Joe and Tomás catch them for a moment. Omar tells us of cold desert nights when they’d spread our the remaining coals and place their mattresses over them for heat. We share heavy woolen blankets that smell faintly of the dromedaries. We stay up for hours that way, exchanging broken sentences around the warm ashes.

Thursday Night Drums

Thursday night the black air felt like ice against my face. I didn’t bundle up enough, and we crossed through the wall and wound against the face of the hill to a cave where we could see the orange glow of a little fire; we could hear drums. We peeked inside and were ushered in, told to sit on dug out stairs, and someone moved a TV to make room. A man that Clara knew came up to kiss us on the cheek, it was his birthday and he was vibrant with energy, with humor. He made jokes about how he had to keep smiling or we couldn’t see him in the dark, he told us age was just a number; that the music filled up his soul. He talked with his whole body, spreading out his arms and then clenching them to his chest. He told us his brother was a faggot but he loved him, he giggled.

They offered us little cups of spicy coffee that we passed amongst ourselves, it was strange but warm. He told us when you give you always receive, and one of the men began to sing, to call out, facing away from us, toward the fence, above the fence, up to the sky. The drummers began to drum in earnest, singers gathered together in a little clump, walking in circles around a bucket and crying out in sync, they were dark silhouettes with frenzied dreadlocks, one of them raised his arm up as he sang. The man who knew Clara touched her hair and made fun of us for being cold, urged us to drink more coffee, shook his hair and limbs and told us again that the music filled his soul. A smaller woman, also with dreadlocks, got up and joined the chanting circle; she looked as if it filled her soul. We were told we could not drink alcohol inside the enclosure and eventually went outside and sipped on wine from the bottles. The men came up to us and asked unabashedly for wine, one of them took the bottle, drank off it for a long while, but eventually returned it. A younger man said something to the man who knew Clara and they laughed, and he shined the light from his cell phone on Leah’s face and said he liked her. We laughed and she was uncomfortable; we drank more wine.

Borja decided to leave as the music came to a close, but suddenly everyone was telling us that there was food, we must eat to close the ritual. We came back inside and there were three big pots on the ground, everyone was gathered around them, kneeling and leaning into the pots. They urged us to eat, and Leah and I were awkward and uncertain, being vegetarians, but I not wishing to be rude, I reached my hand in and found something that felt like cabbage, and ate it. They urged us to eat more, so I put my hand back in and drew it up to my mouth, this time empty. The pot was emptied quickly, and we washed our hands under a cold running faucet. You ate well, someone told me, she did not. The younger boys flocked towards the entrance, suddenly ready for a night of partying. The one who’d shined his light on Leah asked if we were going out, he shined his light on her again. Borja was heading home and we couldn’t stop shivering, we lost sight of Clara and the other girls, picked our way back down the path and through the wall.

Highlights from a Thanksgiving in Spain

Explaining a turducken, that look of simultaneous amazed confusion and understanding; ah, this is why Americans are so fat.

The question, "What do American people do in Thanksgiving? What do they eat? Same than films?"

Deciding to make apple crisp, opening a brand new flour package and discovering bugs living in it.

Running extremely late, feeling like a jerk, arriving to find everyone is a panicked whirlwind in the kitchen and running even later.

Dinner that was scheduled for 9pm occurring at 11pm.

Tortilla de patatas as a Thanksgiving dish.

Spanish people trying a sweet potato dish for the first time.

Spanish people failing to properly grasp the concept of Thanksgiving gluttony; consequently eating more than all the boys.

Explaining appropriate and inappropriate uses of the word "swallow."

Being asked if American people always invite a homeless person over for Thanksgiving, also due to movies.

Hilarious impressions of American "bros" or "gangsters." Imagine: "What's up, bro! Oh fuck yeah, my man!" etc with a (impressively diminished) Spanish accent.

Spanish kids attempting to steal Leah's red solo cups because they are the cups from American Pie, the ultimate party cup. Spanish kids examining and admiring said solo cups.

Hilarious impressions of French accents in order to achieve "sexiness."

Laughing so hard I wanted to die.

Things wrapping up at 3:30am; getting shit from Spaniards for not going to the discoteca afterwards.

Bartleby, Wall Street and Not Having Bread

Have you ever read "Bartleby, The Scrivener" by Herman Melville? I've read it a few times, and even though it makes me anxious and uncomfortable, I find it really, really interesting. We read it again for my North American Lit class, and as always, the discussion we had was pretty simplistic, one-sided and boring. The professor had decided that Bartleby was a metaphor for Melville, and that since he'd written it after the relative failure of  his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, it was a commentary on his refusal to continue "copying" old literary forms, etc. I'm sure there's some validity in that argument, but I definitely don't think that it's the only valid reading and she was really dismissive to other students' attempts to look at the story in different ways. Plus she has this really weird way of talking about authors in an over familiar way. "Poe was this like, really shy guy," for example. So, naturally, I just stopped paying attention, and instead decided to expand a joke I'd made about Bartleby being the original Occupy Wall Street movement with the following contemplation:

Bartleby, living dead man, died alone and lived again, in pages, in pages. You were a machine man, zombie blank, computing capitalism since the beginning, sorting through the ruins of a system born broken, born jagged and cold as an upturned car. Your hands charred and stained with dead words, dead ink, dead paper, thoughts extracted and fallen short, you were put to the task of recreating the dead place all around you, cloning and copying the dead ideologies, dry word after dry word, your very ink blotted out the sun. You were a solemn gray shadow, persistently eating through the lawyer soul; you laid heavily against those profitable brands of apathy, and with all the weight of your whole, evaporating existence, stood. Stood as the brick walls climbed up, closed in, crushed your thin flesh, weak bones, and consumed your disturbed, subversive soul. You were a skeletal occupation, a haunt as white and persistent as breath. You preferred not to exist within the parameters available to you, and therefore you became a person disordered, out of order, unwell; you became as broken as the brick garden you were born into. Spindly and steadfast, Bartleby, you died when they dragged your passive, certain body away from the white walls and ideals to which you’d fused your soul. You occupied with the slender bulk of your inconvenient body, preferred to waste away in passive resistance instead of working your bones into the tomb—still as gray in wealth as in poverty.

As you maybe can tell, I'm having trouble deciding how funny or serious this idea is, but I think Bartleby is kind of like that. Absurd and funny but deeply disturbing and kind of tragic.

Anyway, Monday was my last day with my favorite professor, because there is someone else coming to teach the second half of Pragmatics today, which makes me kind of nervous. It's a complicated subject and I was really excited about the old professor's teaching style. She was awesome, friendly and also easy to understand and really careful to make sure I knew what was going on. So. We'll see how that goes.

In other news, not having money sucks. As far as food goes its come down to half a tomato, half a jar of aioli (pretty useless without bread) and some noodles. Time to chip into my savings! (By savings I mean the five euros I found in my jacket pocket. )

First Day of School, Friends, and Food

Last weekend was fun, but it seems ages away. After my last post, I ended up meeting up with Leah and some of the girls from the program and then meeting up with a group of Spanish guys that Leah and Mauna had met. They'd told us they were going to take us somewhere cool and we just kind of assumed it was a  bar, but they actually brought cars and took us up to this big hill with a beautiful view of the whole city. It turns out that we were actually drinking in front of their juvenile hall! Definitely a strange juxtaposition; the beauty of Granada, and a youth correctional facility. The guys were really nice, though, really funny and sweet. Plus, hanging out with Spaniards feels productive no matter what you're doing.

After a while we went to Camborio which was PACKED. Like, insanely. It was fun for a while, but after a bit I realized I'd kinda become a third (fifth? seventh?) wheel, and I was also pretty cramped in there. Felipe texted me, so I decided to leave and go hang out with him, but I was pretty tipsy and overwhelmed by the crowds so I didn't end up saying anything to the girls, which became disastrous. I found Felipe fine; he met me in a plaza that was pretty close, and we went to his apartment and he showed me a video he'd made, which was really awesome. I ended up crashing there (my apartment was WAY across town and it would have been pretty sketch to walk alone). I actually specifically checked to make sure the volume was up on my phone in case Leah called, but then next day when Felipe and I were walking back to my place, I got a really frantic text from her and when I called her she said she'd called me a billion times that night and my phone was off, but my phone was definitely on, and I had no missed calls. I was a mystery, until I hung up and told Felipe and he informed me that his apartment doesn't have good celly service. Oops. When I got home even my housemates were worried; apparently the guys drove Leah over to my place to see if I was there and woke them up and scared them. I felt pretty bad...

After taking a hot shower, I went over to Leah's and a bunch of the girls and guys were still hanging out. We ended up chatting (and getting made fun of, in my case, of course) for several hours, until everyone was so hungry (at like four) that the girls all went to get food and the guys went home to have food made for them (guess most of 'em live with their parents.) SO. That was my adventure.

Sunday was just one big long semi-nap for me, and I went to bed really early because I had class on Monday and wasn't entirely sure how to get there. Lucas had class in the same place at like 8:30 so I got up and walked (and kinda ran; he was running late) with him. I was really nervous for my classes to start, but I had a lot of time to kill, so I found all my classrooms. I ran into a girl from our program, Audra, and this Erasmus girl, I forget where from. We went to the cafeteria and I got a sandwich with tortilla de patatas for two euro which is a REALLY good price. And it was LARGE. Excited! I also discovered that they have a vegetarian menu of the day (which is like two dishes and a desert for a good price.) After more time killing with Lucas, I finally went to my first class (Literary Languages and Audiovisual Languages). I was early, so when another girl came in I asked her if I was in the right place, and I was. Shortly afterwards, another Erasmus girl (from France) came in and asked the same, and we all sat pretty close and ended up chatting. They were really super nice. Eventually the professor came in late, explained that she'd been in the wrong class, and then told us her name, met all of us, told us we'd have class Wednesday, and left! Pretty ridiculous, because my next class didn't begin until 5:30. The French girl (Claudia) and I went to the cafeteria because she was hungry and because I didn't have anything better to do. She was really awesome and I had a nice time chatting with her. When the meal was over, she went home but I ran into a bunch of people from the program so we hung out until they had class at 3:30, at which point I went to the library and fell asleep with my face in an art book full of paintings of the ocean.

I left the library a little early to find the next two classrooms I had, and ran into MORE people from the program. Amber and I had the same class at 7:30, so we went and found the classroom together, but there was a confusing sign on the door about how there wouldn't be class. It was really vague as to whether it's permanently cancelled or just for the day, but there was an email address. (That reminds me...I need to email him...) My next class was Methodology of Teaching English, which was taught in English. The professor was an English woman and seemed really nice. I'm definitely not worried about it being too easy because we had a little group "quiz" to see what we knew and I really didn't know shit. It was mostly learning theory type stuff, but I felt kinda awkward because the two Spanish girls I was grouped with kinda seemed to expect me to know the answers and I really, really didn't. We did some little activity worksheets and played a game and had a lecture and we even have a worksheet to fill out before next Monday. After the class I went to ask the professor if taking this class even though I speak English was a good idea and on the way a British girl came up and asked me if I spoke English, too. We both were in the same kinda awkward boat, and she was really adorable and nice, so I felt better. The professor said that the class was definitely still fine to take as a native speaker, and that the concepts could also be translated to teaching other languages (Spanish, for example), but she did say that like 75 people were enrolled and since we're foreign we're not technically enrolled yet, so... We'll see.

Since my last class was cancelled, that was it for the day. I walked home a little uncertainly and made it fine, although not super efficiently, I don't think.  I came home for snacks and relaxingness and then met up with Leah to go meet up with a few Spanish guys and Courtney at a bar (which turned out to be La Marisma!) They were all super funny and cool and one of them, this guy Fran, works at a skate shop and was wearing a Santa Cruz "shred til you're dead" shirt which was exciting. I asked him about skate parks around town and they know of a pretty big one, which is more ammo to entice Casey over. I liked them because they were all super chill and more into having beers and going to bars than like dressing up and going out. Also, Fran had a smiley piercing, which is what I was going to get originally before deciding on my medusa. Anyway, we had some beer and hung out and they threw sunflower seeds at each other and we told them dumb stories about screwing up in Spanish and whatnot, and then we went and got tapas at this AWESOME little place called Tango, which had sweet black lights and super chill reggae type music and all their tapas were named after dirty words. So we got to learn a few things (which I've forgotten of course) like "tittyfuck" or "cumshot." All in all, an academic kind of evening. Oh, aaaand, Fran has a kitten, aaaand he told us he has a friend who lives in a cave house in the Albayzín and has like live music and parties every Thursday and he sometimes DJ's. So down to check that out!

I slept like a rock last night and woke up nice and early in order to arm myself for the day with this beauty:

Yeah, that's right, toast with melted cheese, avocado and scrambled eggs with onion. Best breakfast I've had since I've been here, I have to say. I need to buy some potatoes though. I also have to say I'm impressed with the timing of writing this, now I have a perfect 15 min to brush my teeth and go meet up with Leah and Courtney and get to class! Life is good, life is good.

Camborio and Coincidence

What a lazy Sunday! Definitely a multiple-naps, reading, music and kind-of-sort-of-but-not-really-doing-homework type of a day.

This weekend has been all sorts of exhausting fun! Friday night a group of us went to a club called Camborio, which is in the Albayzín and it was AMAZING. Seriously, go there. We got there just before 2am, so we got in for free, which was nice, but the actual structure of the place was so exciting. The first level is composed of a bunch of connecting caves. The air down there feels all thick and underground-like, and there was hardly anyone in the caves. The next level is even better; it's a big terrace with couches, chairs and tables and a truly incredible view of the Alhambra, all lit up at night!

The Alhambra at night! [These are all photos I've stolen from Leah; I didn't bring a camera.]

I swear, even if I hadn't felt inclined to have drinks or dance or anything, just sitting up on that terrace would have made for a great night. The third level is a smaller enclosed area with a bar and a dance floor. The walls are glass, too, so you can see out into the terrace, and funny enough, you can peer in and see people getting their groove on from the outside. The music was actually really awesome, too. They played some of the typical popular dance songs, both from the US and from Spain but also interspersed these dancey tunes with unexpected gems like a compilation of songs from Grease, or a random Al Greene song, or even the Red Hot Chili Peppers! And everyone seemed to know and love ALL the songs, which made for a super high energy vibe.

A lot of our time was spent dancing and taking one euro chupitos, but at one point Christina and I went outside to take a breather and admire the Alhambra, and we were instantly surrounded by raucous underage Spanish boys, who turned the full force of their attentions to Christina once they learned I had a boyfriend. It was a bit obnoxious but generally hilarious, and we managed to get some good Spanish practice out of it, especially after dragging Dan along to mitigate the weird gender imbalance. They spent a lot of the time yelling at Christina about how much they looked like Justin Bieber in broken English, which was pretty funny.

Leah, Courtney and I with some of the Justin Bieber enthusiasts. You have to admire the "serious face" going on towards the left.

Leah, Courtney and I with Pedro, who stayed with Leah's family when he studied abroad in the USA. I didn't really meet anyone else in this photo...

Later in the night, a few of us went down to check out the caves a little more. There was almost no one in them at all, so we began our own private dance party with tons of space and no inhibition and I have to say, despite the fact that I don't consider myself a particularly dancey person, it was an amazingly liberating and incredibly fun moment. Laurel and I danced through some of the adjoining caves and we discovered a few couples occupied with vigorous make out sessions, but no one paid us any attention and it was all around a superb night.

As you may have ascertained from my last entry, Saturday was an extremely sleepy one. I didn't wake up until 2pm, and then it was only because Courtney and Leah came by to see if I wanted to get breakfast with them. Which was a good idea, so I went and got some tortilla de patatas. So much yum. The day was really quite uneventful: homework, naps, etc. I did speak to Felipe and last night we all met up and drank a bit. We were supposed to go to a music festival but our knowledge of how to get there and whatnot kind of petered out until it was too late to really bother going. We did go to Six Colours and La Sal for a bit and see Angie and Patricia and some CA people. We met some some people and hung out in their apartment until the discussion about economics became unbearable, stopped by La Marisma for a bit, got some felafel, etc, etc. All in all a kind of meandering uneventful but definitely fun night.

Fun fact: I just discovered that Felipe's brother is also named Ulysses. How weird is that?

Today has been semi-productive but mostly lazy. Definitely going to crash hard tonight, but not before going out for tapas with Chelo!

Exams, Exploration and Insomnia

Gooooood morning. It's my third day here in Granada, Sunday morning for me, Saturday night for my Californian counterparts. Look how good I'm being about keeping things up to date, eh, eh?

My last post I ended by mentioning that I had a test in the morning. Some of us were a little worried, a few people even studied some grammatical things the night before, but it ended up being far from what we expected. We were ushered into an auditorium type lecture hall, where one of the program directors read us a text about the magia de la joventud (magic of youth) and the responsibilities that come with it. Then we had to summarize, using similar language. Not too bad.

After the test we had a free hour, so I went to a nearby plaza where one of my classmates had found a nice fruit stand and I bought some nectarines. One of which I ate and was AMAZING. We also wandered a bit, looked at pastries and came upon this lovely picturesque little spot where people were selling tea in bulk with funny names like fantasías de Granada.

Afterward we returned to the lecture hall where we were given a few little guidebooks and a shit ton of information. It was a bit overwhelming, especially in the heat. After the directores spoke to us for a while, they introduced us to student monitores; locals that we are assigned to in small groups, the idea being that they can help us with things like buying phones, finding housing and integrating in general. Our group went out for tapas and tinto de verano. Three of us were vegetarians and we got veggie pizza tapas which had carrots, olives, cheese and mushrooms (which I removed) and were actually not that bad despite their unusual ingredients. Or should I say ingredient: the carrots.

When we finished she showed us where gym and sports facilities are and then took us to a grocery store where they had hilarious little mini carts the size of our normal shopping baskets but equipped with wheels. I purchased Nutella and croissants. What else do you need in this world? (Hint: the answer is nothing. Or maybe water. I also got a big jug of water.)

Once we got back to the resedencias, I took a long, long siesta and then woke up to read and write a bit. Later, a huge group of us along with two of the monitores gathered to go watch a fútbol game in a bar. As we were waiting, a van pulled up and a few men unloaded (drum roll please) my SUITCASE! Words cannot express how much I appreciate all my clothes, etc. Anyway, our crowd was enormously conspicuous and I imagine hard to fit into any bar, so some of us stayed behind and went to a few places on our own. We got sandwiches in a little cafe/restaurant/bar where we watched the game (kind of) and then met up with a few more people and went to a bar. Our numbers were still pretty massive, so it was kind of hard to fit anywhere all together.

The residencia at dusk.

After a drink and some tapas we decided to go to another bar and perhaps later a club, but we split up for some people to change into more club-appropriate attire. My little subdivision forgot the name of the club and ended up wandered around for quite some time. It was an all-female group and a few men approached us or made comments, but at one point an older man literally ran at us and jumped a little railing yelling, chicas, chicas! It was creepy but vaguely hilarious. Eventually we ran into another group and found La Marisma, a scummy little bar where you get sunflower seeds with your drinks and everyone spits the shells on the ground.

Right when we got there, I managed to bump into a guy standing behind me that happened to be carrying three beers, one of which spilled on both of us. I apologized, but he looked a little pissed, and shined a flashlight on me to show the group of people whose beer I'd spilled that I was the culprit. It was hard to tell if he was actually angry or fucking with me, because he ended up giving me the beer... So I guess despite the awkward, I win.

The bar was playing metal when we arrived but ended up playing Zepplin and some other awesome tunes. We stayed until about 3:30 around which time we were planning on going to a club, but for the most part we were tired and no one felt like spending more money, so we walked back to the resedencia.

Strangely, though, this morning I awoke at 8am. I tried and tried to fall back asleep, but to no avail. Showering with my newly acquired toiletries and getting dressed was pretty divine though, and this morning my little group is scheduled to get churros and chocolate for breakfast. Hasta luego!

[PS. Sorry for the lack of photos; nightlife stuff is hard to capture with an iPhone that's all I have here!]

JFK

Stuck in New York for a night due to missing my connecting flight. Despite all the stress, all I can think of while in the JFK Airport is:

Anyway, major sleepies, must succumb to the king sized bed I'm all up in. More to come soon.