Some quick stories

So, as I watch Inglourious Basterds, or rather, Bastardos Sin Gloria or Bastardos Malditos, I figure I can also start writing about my trip. I think though, before detailing everywhere I went, like I usually do in a boring manner, I thought I could take my first blog entry about the trip to explain a few of the more exciting stories that happened throughout the trip. So, without further ado.

Barcelona – He Punched a Hooker

Our last night in Barcelona, Mack and I were yearning to go out. After all, in Barcelona, there is always a party, regardless of the day of the week. We had dinner at a table in the hostel were a group from WISCONSIN!!!! was sitting. After bonding over our home state, they invited us to come out with them, they were just going out to dinner and would come back to get ready and meet up with us. Sounds great! See you in a bit.

After they left I went to siesta. Let’s be honest, it was a nap. After dinner at 9pm it is no longer a siesta. It is a nap. Well, as I napped Mack bonded with some Moroccans. They invited Mack (and consequentially me too) to go out with them. Well, I guess since they are here, why wait for the fellow Wisconsinites? We can make some cultural connections. They go to get ready.

I come out to the common room of the hostel and sit down with a guy from Utah, a Brazilian, a Swede, and some Chinese girls studying in Sweden. Luckily, English is always the go to language. We chatted and hung out for a while. The guys were getting ready to go out and said I should come along. First of all, I love that pregaming is international. And, yes, of course I want to go out with you guys.

Well, that was easy, we now had 3 options of exploring Barcelona.

One thing leads to another and Mack got pregnant.

That was a lie.

So I tell Mack we were invited to go out with this group. Mack says let’s wait for the other group. We end up with 3(?) guys from Morocco, 2 girls from Madrid, the Swede (already drunk), the Brazilian (even drunker), and the guy from Utah. And we are off.

To where? Who knows where we are going? Nobody. Great.

Luckily, in big cities like Barcelona, there is always somebody trying to lure you to their bar with the promise of free entrance or a free shot or a free drink etc. A guy tells us we can go to some club, Pandamonium? Sweaty Dancy Club? Who knows. We decline, and head to an Irish pub. Fun fact, apparently Spain doesn’t understand what Irish pub means. Is it in English? Okay, awesome put it up. Ah well, at least that meant they were playing American football, the Packers no less, and serving Coronas? Okay, sure. A Corona in an Irish pub watching American football in Barcelona it is. Shots of tequila? Even better. (Don’t worry mom, I was responsible, only one beer and one shot for me.)

Okay, well we are done here, where too? Oh wait, first, let us take several pictures. Good. Okay, I think the pub staff is sufficiently annoyed with us. Pay and leave. Good. Let’s go. Oh wait, where is the guy from Utah? He knew where we were heading. Whatever.

On our way to the next place we run into… the guy from Utah! Everyone celebrates in the street. Nearby bars hear us, think we are drunker and rowdier than we are. They deny us. Good thing this chap offering us free shots to come to his bar doesn’t care, okay, everybody calm down.

Well, of course we don’t turn down the free shots. I sit down with the Madrid girls and Mack. The others go play spin the bottle with a group of Asians and French? Okay, as most people in CCC can tell you, that game just gets weird. Come on, we are old enough that bottles are not needed. The Brazilian comes over and starts running his hands through one of the Spanish girl’s hair while the Swede kind of just wanders about, looking depressed. Hmm.

Everybody done with their drinks? Good, let’s move on. Good idea, Swede, you take the drunk Brazilian home. He doesn’t look good and is stumbling. Cheers, see you tomorrow. Let’s meet up for breakfast.

Halfway to the club, the Spanish girls and I head back. I’d rather not go to a club, smell like smoke and sweat? No thanks, these clothes have to last me at least two more weeks. My body odor will do enough to make me unapproachable. Adios, hasta mañana.

The Spanish girls make our way back to the hostel. We pass a woman on the street, she looks upset, and also slutty. Something is obviously going on. Whatever, not our business. Upon making it back to Las Ramblas, we see the Swede and the Brazilian. What? We left you guys like half an hour ago. You should be back by now. The Swede sees us and runs up saying, “A hooker stole his wallet. I told him to go back and said the hooker probably stole it. We went back and then I slapped the hooker.”

Wait. Hold on. What? You slapped a hooker?

He dashes across the street, the Brazilian following him. We see the hooker we had just passed and the boys run up to her. Cops follow. Okay, not our place. Let’s just stay and watch, maybe we can find out what really happened. Oh, okay, they are getting taken to the cop station? Let’s just go back to the hostel and wait.

Never mind, it is 2am, I am not waiting anymore, I am going to sleep. I can wait until tomorrow.

I wake up, clean up and go to breakfast. The Madrid girls and I try to guess what really happened. We finally see the Swede. He confirms, someone indeed slapped or punched or kicked the hooker who they think stole the wallet. Well then, adios, off to Switzerland.

Geneva, Switzerland – Boarder Hopping

Mack asks, “So how are we getting to the hotel in Geneva?” Well, it is only a few kilometers from the airport, like less than three miles, I am sure we can catch some form of public transportation or a cheap cab ride there. Mack hesitantly agrees, that we should be fine.

We arrive in at the airport in Geneva. We go to the information desk for France. Our hotel is actually just across the border. She says, a bus runs kind of close to our town, but we would still have to walk. It’s better to just take a cab, it is night anyways. Fine, one cheap cab should be fine, we think.

Thirty five euros later, we disagree. We could have walked a few miles in the dark. Okay, let’s just drop off our stuff and walk to a restaurant, I am starving. Wait, you said the next town is a 15 minute walk away. Okay that is manageable. Oh? Everything closed half an hour ago? But it is only 7:30. Well, let’s just test it out.

No dice. She did not lie, everything is closed, we are wandering around in god knows where middle of nowhere France with no food. It is the middle of winter, it is night, I am cold. Let us just eat a big breakfast tomorrow.

Good, at least the stores open at a decent time. Breakfast was great. Okay, so now how do we get to Geneva? Okay, the lady at the desk says, we have to walk to the next town in Switzerland and catch a tram from there. Maybe a 20 minute walk.

Well, maybe a 20 minute walk when you know where you are going and it isn’t snowing. Well, at least it is beautiful. Do you think they will stamp our passports when we cross the border?

We get to Geneva. Where the hell was that border? Come on! I want a stamp from Switzerland. I walk across international borders and nobody even notices.

Paris – And he just stared at me

Being New Years Eve, we deemed it a good night to go out and enjoy some bubbly by the Eiffel Tower with the rest of the Parisians. A Brazilian notices us while getting to leave the hostel and says, “I want to go.”

“I am sorry? What?”

“I want to go. I am alone and want to go.”

“Umm, I don’t understand, do you speak another language.”

“Yes, Spanish.”

“Vale, que quieres?”

“I want to go out with you guys. I am alone and want to go to the Eiffel Tower but have nobody to go with.”

Oh, okay. Sounds good. Let me just put on a few more layers. I was freezing earlier today.

Mack lent me some long underwear, thank god. I go to my room to put it on. As I am taking off my pants to put on the underwear, another Brazilian comes in. Whatever, it is his room, too. Anyways, there is nothing to see.

He walks up to me, is about 5 feet way from me, and just watches me put on my long underwear, my pants and then belt up. Weird. Really strange. I leave, eager to go out, but more eager to avoid something like that again.

We wind up spending our night hanging out with more Brazilians. Luckily, none were as creepy as the other guy. One more thing, there are no formal fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. It just lights up at midnight. We didn’t even have a countdown. Oh well, still fun. And I got to pop open my first bottle of champagne while in Paris in front of the Eiffel Tower. Not too shabby.

How many ways...

... can I find to procrastinate?

Update blog with an entry that really serves no purpose.

Sporcle.

Meet up with my tandem partner for a few hours.

Watch movies in Spanish on cine-escape.com and peliculasok.com.

LA Times Crossword Puzzle.

Phineas y Ferb episodes.

Sporcle.

Read Huffington Post.

Check out everybody else's travel blog.

Sift through music collection.

Read through music blogs and online magazines. Thank you Paste for telling me the best of 2010.

Facebook.

Check email.

Sporcle.

Failblog.

Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Beiber.

Hipster Puppies.

LATFH.

weather.com? Really, I have better things to do with my time.

Like Sporcle.

Busy

Hay muchas cosas que tengo que hacer antes de escribir de mis vacaciones, pero quiero declarar que sí, estoy vivo y sano después de todo de lo que pasó. En las dos semanas siguientes tengo 3 examenes y una presentación (en castellano) sin mencionar una nueva pareja de tandem y las examenes finales que vienen después. Pues, debes echar un vistazo a mis fotos en Facebook. Saqué muchos, disfrútalos.

There are a lot of things I have to do before writing about my trip, but I want everyone to know that yes, I am alive and well after everything that has happened. In the next two weeks I have 3 tests and a presentation (in Spanish), not to mention a new tandem partner to meet and finals that are at the end of the month. So until then, check out all my photos on Facebook. I took a lot, so enjoy.

Sevilla Fotos

Mi cámara rompió en Tarifa, no sé por qué, solo paró de funcionar. Pero, aquí están algunas fotos de Hillary de Sevilla. Tenemos fotos de flamenco, la catedral y el alcázar.

My camera broke in Tarifa, I don't know why, just that it stopped working. But, here are some pictures of Hillary's that she took in Sevilla. Here are some pictures of flamenco, the cathedral, and the alcazar (fortress slash palace).

Morocco

Getting to Morocco wasn’t too hard, but it was definitely a round about way of going. I will sum up the transportation situation first.

Taxi to Santander Airport. Fly to Malaga Airport. Take a bus to Malaga city center. Walk to Malaga Bus Station. Take a bus to Algeciras. Take a bus to Tarifa. Walk to Tarifa Port. Take a ferry to Tangier (finally in Africa). Take a ferry back to Tarifa. Walk to Tarifa Bus “Station”. Take a bus to Seville (the second real stop of the trip). Take a bus to Malaga Airport. Fly back to Santander Airport. Take a bus to the city center. Take a bus to my apartment.

All in all, 7 busses, 1 taxi, 2 flights and a lot of walking. Not to mention a camel ride or a tour of the Moroccan coast by way of van.

Algeciras, Spain

As my guide book blatantly says, nobody comes to Algeciras for its beauty, it’s only a stopping point between Spain and Morocco. I couldn’t agree more. We got there late at night and left early in the morning, but that was enough. The only memorable part was when we first got to the hostel we were kind of bouncing on the beds like children, taking pictures when all of a sudden CRAAACK!!! Hillary broke the bed. In order to hide the evidence, we took the slats to Morocco.

Tangier, Morocco

We arrive in Africa after a short ferry ride from the very southern tip of Spain (Tarifa) to be greeted by our guide Rashid. Right away we are rushed off into a van past what seemed like a palace for every ruler of a Middle East country to see the Atlantic coast of Morocco. We pit stop for some pictures of the ocean and speed off to an area where camels are waiting. We are told that a short ride costs a euro. WORTH IT! We ride the camels as our guide and our driver shout “SMILE! RIDE THE CAMEL! CHRISTMAS CARD!” We then return to Tangier and get out of the van for a tour of the Medina, the old part of town with all the shops and restaurants, on foot and for lunch. At the restaurant a group of old guys are playing music on a guitar and drum in this place with great Moorish architecture. As we ate our cous cous, I thought to myself, yes, we are in Africa.

After lunch we are hurried from store to store, where we are taught about traditional Moroccan rugs and spices. This is the point where Morocco unfortunately started to make me feel uncomfortable. I have been to other touristy places before, where people surround you, asking you to buy their goods, but I thought if I had been on a tour the stores we stopped at wouldn’t be quite like this. I was wrong. The carpet guy reminded me I was making a mistake when I didn’t buy a carpet (I showed not even the slightest interest in purchasing a carpet, yet the man went down from 80 euro to 50 to 30 without me even offering a price), I was offered hash, but most of all I was reminded I was among friends and if I didn’t like what they offered, I shouldn’t feel pressured. The spice store was better, and we learned about the uplifting effects of ginseng and I actually purchased a Moroccan spice mix for dummies.

We escaped the Medina and were brought back to the hotel. We asked our guide where we could get falafel, and he told us to just to go the new city center, not to return to the Medina. Okay. So we dropped off our stuff in the room and made our way toward the new city center, with our eyes peeled for falafel. Sadly, we didn’t locate any falafel, instead, we met this old man, and I made a mistake that would lead to an awkward encounter ultimately leading to a sour note in my memories of Morocco.

So as I said before, we met this guy while we were just wandering the streets. He said he was a cook from the hotel down the street and wanted to welcome us to Morocco (as a blond male, outside of the US/Canada and eastern/northern Europe, I essentially have an arrow with the word TOURIST directed toward my head). He said that he would show us the next street up because it had more places to eat and then he would be on his way. Seeming nice enough, I agreed that it couldn’t hurt for him to show us the next street up. He then said there was a market that we shouldn’t miss, and he could show us there and then he would head on his own way. Again, he seemed nice enough, he was old so obviously he couldn’t cause any physical harm, so I said okay, but was a little more hesitant. Once we got to this “market” (read: outdoor pet shop) he kept on leading us to different stands, telling us we could take pictures of the animals. Feeling pretty uncomfortable at this point, I told him we had to go, and he said he did too. Once out of the market area he asked for one euro from each of us because he had acted as a guide for us. I told him we didn’t ask him to be our guide and explained that we didn’t even have a euro (not a lie by the way, we weren’t carrying much money on us for clear reasons). Hillary offered him the change she had, probably around 70 cents or so and I only had 10 cents. Caitlyn and Reina walked off, pissed that he wasted their time and then asked for money. He looked at our change, took it, and insulted, threw it back at us. We just quickly walked away toward the crowded streets. I felt pretty horrible after that, not because I didn’t pay him, but because I allowed me and the girls to get into that kind of situation and because, being from the Midwest, was being too trusting of people. Besides about a half hour of time and some 80 cents lost, there was no actual harm done, which was a very cheap lesson. We all agreed that we would no longer talk to anyone on the street for longer than 30 seconds.

Following that encounter, we decided it was late enough to return to the hotel, and if we found falafel on the way back we could stop. We stopped at a convenience store for some cards and a guy told us that falafel isn’t Moroccan. Thanks Fodor’s guide for telling us that Arabia in Madrid had the best falafel north of Morocco. That should be a given, seeing as Moroccans don’t have falafel.

We returned to the Medina the next day in search of some souvenirs. Caitlyn bartered like a champ and the girls got their fill of fezzes and we boarded the ferry back to Spain.

Tarifa, Spain

After one of the choppiest ferry rides back to Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar, we disembarked and found our hostel and settled in. Now, we didn’t expect anything from Tarifa. It was just a stop in our way towards Seville, but I would have to say it was one of the most fortunate stops we have had.

Tarifa is this great port town with great a really nice beach and crazy wind making it a perfect wind and kite surfing site. Well, on our way to the bus station to check the schedule Caitlyn just happened to glance toward the beach and asked, “Can we go over there?” She was referring to the beach facing west where the sun happened to be setting. Eager not to miss the moment, we ran towards the beach for some pictures. We kicked off our shoes and ran towards the water where there were some rocks peeking out from the water. The whole scene was perfect, the sunset, the beach, the rocks.

After checking the schedule we headed toward this restaurant that my book recommended for falafel. As we were disappointed by the availability of falafel in Morocco, we were really looking forward to some good fried chickpea balls. We brought the falafel back to the hostel and had a feast, it was delicious.

Not really feeling like going out, we just bought a bottle of vodka and started playing cards in the hostel lounge, probably one of the best decisions we made. After some cards and an intense round of Uno, we heard an accordion and a guitar/ukulele coming from the kitchen. We went in and found a group of French and a German singing and jamming out. We offered some alcohol and sat down with them, singing along to Zombie and the Beatles. It was just a perfect night.

Details about Seville will be up later.

Morocco Pictures

I am in the process of writing an entry for Morocco and Seville, but wanted to put up a few pictures in the meantime while I finish writing it.

Turkey Day Pictures

Thanksgiving Update (Finally, I know)

So, I should probably update you guys on Thanksgiving first, seeing as I promised an update on the following day and it is now more than a week later.

Well, much to my surprise, Thanksgiving was a raging success. No, we didn’t actually rage, but we had a turkey (a $50 turkey I might add). We had pie, we had bread rolls, corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, great stuffing, cranberry sauce. What more could we have asked for? Well internet wouldn’t hurt, and that was installed on Thanksgiving too! Which meant we got to slingbox the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and some good ole American football (thank you Mr. and Mrs. Richard). The four Spanish students that are coming to Cornell (Alberto, Borja, Deivid and Raquel) all came to celebrate with us, and even helped with the cooking. I don’t think our celebration through gluttony scared them too much either.

This isn’t to say that Thanksgiving was easy. The power probably cut out on us seven times. We burnt the tops of the two pumpkin pies (which we strategically just peeled away) while trying to figure out how my oven worked. We (apparently) cooked the turkey upside down. We had to DEFEATHER the turkey. The turkey leaked turkey juice everywhere.

But, I repeat, it was a success through all these problems.

Lied about the update

Okay, the update will come after I get back from my trip to Morocco and Sevilla! The trip is going well so far, though!

PreThanksgiving

I just got the turkey. It is about 6.2 kilo, or according to google's converter, 13.67 pounds. Most places say that you need 1.5 pounds per person, which leads me to at best 9 people eating all the turkey they want. We have 11 to 12 coming, and half of them are Spanish, so probably will not stuff their faces like the Americans will, so I think we are alright in that department. Oh, and last night we made pies 3 and 4. We have stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls, green beans and corn on deck so this looks like it should be a successful Thanksgiving ala Spain, as long as the turkey turns out. Fingers crossed, I will update you on the outcome tomorrow.