bienvenidos santander.

¡En celebración de llegar en España, voy a escribir mi primero blog española en español!

Entonces, hoy es martes. Llegué en Santander el domingo. El domingo encontré mi “host family” y salí con mis compañeros de Cornell. Mi “host family” consiste de una madre se llama Lourdes, una padre se llama José, y dos hermanos se llaman Diego y Oscar. ¡Sí! Vivo otra vez con un Diego. Porque estuve el primero día de la liga primera, fui con José a mirar el partido entre el equipo de Santander, Racing, y Barcelona. Por supuesto Barca ganó, 3-0, pero disfruté mirando mi primero partido de futbol en España.

Después, mis amigos de Cornell: Josh, Caitlyn, y Hillary, me recogieron de mi casa a las 11 por la tarde, porque esto es lo más temprano que alguien sale en España. Fuimos a una plaza y el bar más barato de Santander, Peter Pan. Jugamos un juego de beber con dados se llama Quinitos. Bebimos calimocho, una combinación de coca cola y vino rojo, y calimora, calimocho con la adición de licor también. Regresé a casa después.

El próximo día era Día de Santander. Entonces, camino por la ciudad para explorar y conocer la ciudad. Encontré una plaza con mini tiendas que vendieron varios productos y la oficina central del Banco Santander. Paré a una plaza y me relajé y miré a la gente. Después de almorcé, caminé a las playas. En Santander, hay como diez playas, y son hermosas. Algunos tienen vistas de montañas mientras otras tienen arena bastante suave. Me reuní con Caitlyn, Hillary y su compañera de piso Reina a la Segunda Playa del Sardinero. Había mucho viento y hacía un poco frío, pero no me molestaba mucho. Regresé con ellas a su piso después, está muy cerca a la universidad pero muy lejos de mi “host house”. A pesar de su apariencia afueras, es muy cómodo a dentro.

Hoy tuve mi primero día de clase de idiomas. Tomé una prueba para decidir en qué nivel de clase debo estudiar. Creo que pasó lo bien y espero que coloco en un nivel bastante bien.

Pues, echo de menos todos que todavía están en los EEUU, y trataré de decirles todo que pasa aquí en España si les interesa. ¡Entonces, hasta luego!

So, for all of you who either don’t speak Spanish and are too lazy to put this into an online translator, or you do speak Spanish but are too lazy to try to read this, I will translate it. Also, for all of you who speak Spanish well, don’t make fun of my Spanish too much, I am trying, and hopefully will be better by the end of the year, but I make no promises.

English version:

So, today is Tuesday. I arrived in Santander on Sunday. Sunday I met my host family and I went out with my friends from Cornell. My host family consists of my “mom” Lourdes, my “dad” José, and two brothers Diego and Oscar. Yes! I am living with a Diego another time! Because it was the first day of the Liga, I went with José to watch the match between Racing Santander and Barcelona. Of course, Barcelona won, 3-0, but I enjoyed watching my first soccer match in Spain.

After, my friends from Cornell: Josh, Caitlyn and Hillary, picked me up from my house at 11 at night, because this is the earliest that anybody goes out in Spain. We went to a Plaza and the cheapest bar in Santander, Peter Pan. We played a drinking game with dice called Quinitos. We drank calimocho, a comination of Coke and red wine, and calimora which is calimocho with liquor added to it too. I returned home afterwards.

The next day was Santander Day. So I walked through the city to explore and get to know the city better. I found a plaza with mini street stores that were selling various products and I also saw the headquarters of the Bank of Santander. I stopped in a plaza and relaxed and people watched. After I ate lunch I walked to the beaches. In Santander, there are about 10 beaches and they are beautiful. Some have views of the mountains while others have the softest sand. I met up with Caitlyn, Hillary and their roommate Reina at the Second Beach of Sardinero. It was really windy and a little cold, but it didn’t bother me much. I went back to their flat after, it’s really close to the university, but really far from my host house. Despite its appearance from the outside, it was a really nice apartment.

Today I had my first day of language class. I took a test to decide which level I should be studying. I believe that it went well and I hope that I place into a decent level.

Well, I miss you all back in the States, and I will try to tell you everything that happens in Spain if you are interested. Until later!

London Calling

My computer is a little bitch. Earlier today I was in London Stansted Airport, waiting for my flight to Santander. I am a nervous traveler when it comes to airports. I am not nervous about flying, that is no problem, but rather, I hate the thought of missing a flight. I was afraid of missing this one in particular because not only was I in an unfamiliar country without means of contacting anyone, but also because I knew Josh and Caitlyn missed this flight last month. So I arrived at Stansted three and a half hours early and got through security with still three hours to kill. I decided, what an excellent time to update my blog. Although I couldn’t access internet without paying £10, I could write about London in Word. What a great idea, right? Well, I thought so, until after about 45 minutes of writing (and not saving) my computer decided it was time to configure some updates. Fuck you Vista, update on your own time, not when I am pseudo-blogging. Needless to say, I lost all that I had written. It wasn’t literary gold, but I thought it was going well enough. Anyways, now that I have some time to kill in my host family’s house, I will try again.

SAVE

Pre Departure.

Before leaving for Europe, my parents came out to pick me and all of my crap up from Ithaca and bring me to NYC for my flight out of Kennedy. We spent two nights in New York. We didn’t do too much with such a short stay, but I did get to see Avenue Q (which showed me how racist my family is: Dad – “Turkey? Who would want to go there?”; Mom – “You have a lot of Orientals at Cornell”; Meghan – “Everyone should just learn to speak English”), and the Met. We didn’t make it to MoMA like my sister and I had hoped as it was closed on Tuesday (and all Tuesdays, who knew?) and there was a line outside down the block on Wednesday. All in all it was a good trip, but it served to remind me that I was ready to go to Europe. I love seeing my family, but those few days were enough (I will still miss you guys).

SAVE*

Day 0.

It took me over 2 hours in all to get from my hotel in Newark (what an awful city by the way) to JFK. Good thing I left almost seven hours early (see aforementioned neurotic tendencies about flights amplified by the fact that it was international). Jamie was already there when I got to the terminal about 4 hours before my flight, and Kim arrived within the next couple of hours. We just hung out until the flight and time went pretty fast as we were all pretty pumped about our London visit. Our plane took off on time and all went well. I watched Date Night on board the plane because I was too giddy to sleep and am kind of a bit in love with Tina Fey. There were so many other movies I wanted to watch too, but figured I should try to get some sleep. But seriously, I almost regret passing up Shutter Island and Kick Ass.

Anyways, part way through my movie, probably around 11:30 or 12 they served a pretty decent Indian dish for dinner. As a college student, I never pass up a free meal, no matter the time, but Virgin Atlantic was really trying to fuck up my schedule. London is 5 hours ahead, so I was eating dinner and 4:30 in the morning. How am I supposed to adjust to Europe when I am served dinner at midnight?

After the movie I put on some Mumford & Sons (Virgin has a great onboard music selection) and fell asleep (kind of). We got breakfast in the morning and landed. We made it through Customs well enough and even managed to make it on the Tube in one piece and without getting lost! I guess the New York Subway was good practice.

SAVE

Day 1.

Our hostel, Smart Russell Square Hostel, was decent as far as I could tell. The staff was nice, the facilities worked and were clean. My only complaint was the lack of outlets. There were 2 outlets for 21 people in each room. Yes, that’s right. ONLY TWO. How the fuck are 21 people going to coordinate sharing 2 outlets? I’m surprised no fires started with how many plugs were plugged into other plugs.

Anyways, we made our way to do the touristy things. It was raining fairly lightly, just like London should be I guess. We first took the Tube to Buckingham Palace. It was amazing how close to it I could get. I was expecting a set up like the White House where a gigantic yard separates you and the presidential home. But no! I could probably have egged the place, not that I would want to out of fear of the guards in the fuzzy hats. They may look cute, but I heard somewhere that they are lethal. I don’t want to take my chances.

So we walked around the circle near the palace and I spotted Big Ben in the distance. This is when I realized that everything in London is so close. I’m pretty sure I could walk around aimlessly and run into things I learned about in history or English class, or at least things that are older than the United States.

We made our way toward Big Ben, stopping on the way to take I’m a Tourist Taking Cliché Pictures in a London Telephone Booth photos. It was great fun to be sure. It started to rain sometime around then, but that’s to be expected while in London, right? So we saw Big Ben and

Parliament and walked across the River Thames (rhymes with hems, not James) and saw the London Eye. We noticed that we completely missed Westminster Abbey even though it’s right next to Big Ben, so we walked back to see that, but happened upon Trafalgar Square on the way.

We were pretty hungry, tired and wet by this point, so we decided to get out of the rain and get something to eat. We found a pub in what was most likely a business district. Everybody was wearing suits or work clothes. Kim and Jamie got some Fish and Chips while I got a burger and we each got some beer. Spitfire was a little dark for me, but it was so good just to be drinking legally I didn’t mind.

We decided to wait until dark before we headed out again so we could see Big Ben and Parliament at night. It paid off, although we were basically falling asleep in the pub from lack of sleep the night before. Everything looked so great lit up at night. Tired and ready to head back, we stopped by Piccadilly Circus, London’s Times Square. It was good to see, and I’m sure there was a lot to do, but after seeing it, we were ready to sleep.

SAVE

Day 2.

Waking up early after hardly sleeping and travelling was surprisingly easy, especially because what was in store for our second day in England: Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. We needed to catch our bus at a Holiday Inn near Kings Cross, so we got up an hour before our tour so as not to miss it. We got to the hotel 45 minutes early and were sure we would have nothing to worry about. The concierge at the desk told us to sit down and the driver would come in to pick us up. Great! Not. The driver did not come get us. It was 15 minutes past our pick up time, and we did not want to miss this trip. Fuck you concierge. We had to catch a taxi and rush to Victoria Station to catch the final bus. Luckily we did, but it cost us 15 precious pounds.

Windsor was “lovely” (as our guide put it). But really, the town was quaint, albeit touristy, and the castle and abbey were beautiful. We saw where Henry VIII and so many other kings were buried. We met a royal guard and he even talked to us! He said something along the lines of “You should take your picture and move out of the way soon, I need to get going.” Kim was in love.

Stonehenge was really something. I imagined it being out in the country, which it was, but I also imagined like a mile hike to see it. This was not the case. It was really close to a major highway and the parking lot was only five minutes away. Despite all this, it was pretty incredible.

We stopped in Lacock (lay-cock, apparently not la cock) for lunch after Stonehenge. Several movies have been filmed here, including HARRY POTTER! We saw Professor Slughorn’s house, Jamie and I acted out being Harry’s parents in front of their place and we visited a restaurant which was attacked by dementors. It was a really small, almost medieval town.

Finally we made it to Bath, easily my favorite place in England. I wish I had more time there. The place was great. Everything was built with a “honey gold” stone that shone in the sun. There were tons of pedestrianized areas and great old buildings. The architecture was exactly how I pictured Europe. We toured a museum showing the old Roman baths situated on top of the natural hot springs and explored the area a little bit before heading back to London.

We got back to our hostel with a mission of going out. We headed to Camden Town, which was crawling with 20-somethings looking for a good time. We ate at a shady little place that served burgers right on the side of the sidewalk and found a Cuban Salsa Bar. The drinks were expensive (7 pounds) and Jamie attracted all the men with her salsa moves. It was a good time, but with the drinks costing more than we could afford we found a cheap bar, Belushi’s and spent the rest of our night there.

SAVE

Day 3.

On our last day we got up early to see the British Museum. We got to see the Rosetta Stone, Greek, Roman and Egyptian Relics, the Sutton Hoo Helmet and a statue from Easter Island. We then headed to Tower Bridge. It was fantastic. I wish every bridge looked like that. We then found the Globe Theater (it’s a recreation, not the real deal) and bought tickets to see Henry IV Part 2. That’s right! I got to see Shakespeare acted out in the Globe Theater! Bud and Bal would be so proud.

We then made it to the Tate Modern. I had high expectations. I was immediately disappointed. Seriously. It looked like a gigantic prison made of brick, but also reminded me of the tower in LOTR. It was an architectural piece of crap from the 70s. Gross. The art inside wasn’t much better. There were some Picasso and Mondrian pieces, but some of the modern art was just so… dumb. Maybe I just can’t appreciate some things, but let’s be honest, I could paint something white or hang up a mirror.

We then went to Saint Paul’s. It is gigantic, and

much more impressive that what I expected. It was beautiful, and the weather was actually nice, so we enjoyed just sitting down and people watching. We then went back across the Thames, found a nice Italian place to enjoy our last dinner and went to the show. I had no idea what Henry IV was about, and still don’t. I was tired and zoned out a lot. Parts were funny, and I’m glad I went, but that was enough for me. We headed back to our hostel and I saw Jamie and Kim off before going to bed.

All in all, London was a great start to Europe, and I can’t wait to see more!

*I learned my lesson about saving, and actually saved much more often than this.

made it to europe!

Okay, so I officially made it to London! And I am not missing any limbs!

So although we were exhausted, we made the most of hour first half day in London. We saw Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and I don't know what else. We ate at a pub and I ordered my first legal drink outside of Canada. Tomorrow we go to Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor. We leave early so I have to get to sleep, but I will update you more in depth on my adventures and post pictures when I get to Spain.

Cheers!

august 19. 2010. post double down.

So it's 8:51 and I just got back from my Double Down Expedition in Cortland. As much as I looked forward to biting into two crispy chicken breasts with bacon, cheese and colonel sauce in between, I was a little let down. Don't get me wrong, it was good in the worst kinds of ways, but I wasn't wowed. It wasn't the trashiest, fattiest, grossest thing that I have had, although maybe when taken as a combo of all three categories it would place first in Most Artery Clogging Food Zach's Eaten. So overall, it didn't live up to my hype and I probably wouldn't get it again, but I am glad I experienced America's most recent atrocity in fast food.

In other news, we went mini golfing at the Pirate Mini Golf Course in Cortland too! Of course, I won, because I am just so great. I beat Erica by one stroke, suck it.

Oh, and Pete and I realized we are twins who like to dress alike, but not too alike, so we reverse the coloring of our shorts and shirts. Classy, I know.

august 19. 2010. pre double down

So today is a big day. No, I haven't arrived in London yet, that is still a week away. Today I am going to accomplish something that I have been looking forward to ever since I knew that it was something I could look forward to. It was a magical day when I found out that something called a Double Down existed. I was reading an article in Wired that described the delicacy as something "clearly concocted in a laboratory manned by maniacs." And these maniacs obviously know the way into my heart: two boneless pieces of fried chicken acting as a bread to colonel's sauce, bacon, and cheese. In a word, heaven.

Now, I read this article back on April 15. It has been over 4 months that I have had to wait until the fateful day that I would get to devour a Double Down, but it has finally arrived. You may wonder why it has taken me so long to get a Double Down. Now, I have been in Ithaca, NY up until now, and here we basically despise fast food restaurants. Especially in College Town. Therefore, the nearest KFC (and consequentially, the nearest Double Down) is in Cortland, NY. This is only about half an hour's drive, but the majority of my friends have no car and neither do I, so the trip was never made.

But that changes today and I feel like I have to document my life as it is now, as after I consume the Double Down, my life will irreversibly change.

Today I woke up like any normal day (any normal day that follows a night of black out debauchery) at 11:15. The sun was shining in through the window, warming my already hot room. I wandered into the main room of my apartment in a daze. I showered, shaved, ate and lazed around all day. Nothing too exciting, you know, like usual. Rebs sent me a text asking me if 5 was okay to get Double Downs. Of course I responded positively. I lazed around more, waiting anxiously for the hour to arrive. Rebs suggests to me that I write a blog entry about this, she tells me she just likes the word blog and uses it at every opportunity she has. I know she just likes to read about things that happened to me while she was present. So I write this entry which leads me up to this moment in time.

I guess you need details for the Double Down Expedition:

Location: KFC in Cortland, NY

Co Conspirators: Erica, Pete, Dan & Rebs (of course)

Weather: Sunny, 82, no wind

Time of Departure: 5:15

Estimated Time of Arrival: 5:40

Estimated Time of Pure Bliss: 5:43

I will describe later how this day has changed my life.

august 16. 2010.

So it has been obvious to me that this blog is painfully dull and boring. Up until now, the most interesting thing that happened and was documented in the blog was the discovery that I am Jewish, and I pretty much glazed over that story. As I know it has been boring, I do not need my friends (Naj) to point out how boring it actually is by accurately mimicking my writing style on my Facebook wall. Yet, I will try to spice it up with this blog, probably unsuccessfully.

Up until now, I thought I had 2 choices for my blog: write about nothing or write nothing at all. I chose to write about something, so my blog would actually have some kind of life, no matter how excruciatingly dull it may be, but I realized I, in fact, have a few more choices. One being, I could include pictures and videos of cats, because everyone who looks at blogs, also likes to look at funny pictures of cats in boxes or wearing pots and pans with poor English written beside it. So, without further ado, I present to you (thanks to Huffington Post) fancy cat with top hat.

If fancy hatted cats don't impress you, I am not sure what will. Maybe I could attempt to write fiction. Alas, I am an engineer, and although I have overcome some engineering stereotypes by being somewhat sociable and able to talk about things other than video games (it took me months to figure out what WOW meant), I am not a writer. I have no mastery over the English language, and will not be able to rival J. K. Rowling or Hawthorne.

Besides cats and fiction, I am not sure what you guys could want. So I will try to make my own life more interesting in the next year, but until then, I will leave you with your first and last post about cats. Enjoy this while it lasts.

Oh, and I have 9 days until I leave for Europe!

(Some things won't change)

august 12. 2010.

I think tomorrow is my last day of my internship. I am not sure. I know that it is supposed to last until the 20th, but both of the other interns will have stopped by tomorrow. I'll find out I guess, but the suspense is kind of killing me. One good thing, though, is that there is a pizza party for the interns tomorrow because it's the Parks Intern and the Planning Intern's last day, too. I'm guessing this means I'm done.

Besides my internship winding down, I got together with Jamie and Kim and we booked a tour of Stonehenge, Bath, and Windsor Castle. My goal is to get into a bath at one of these places, preferably Bath (but I would accept a bath in Windsor some type of achievement by itself). We also looked up the best night clubs in London. There are some pretty gigantic places or interesting places which struck me:

1. Fabric - 25,000 sq ft (over half an acre) with 5 sound systems and 3 bars

2. Club Aquarium - 5 rooms including a pool and jacuzzi

3. Pacha - a stained glass ceiling with a balcony

4. Egg - Outdoor balconies with fake grass and, again, a swimming pool

So those are just a few that I found and thought would be fun. I'm guessing I will only go to one, so maybe vote or suggest another?

Besides my London plans, there really hasn't been too much to talk about. I'm not making it to Montreal after all, which is probably for the best because the French are awful. The French Canadians are probably worse.

I'm not sure there really is anything else to write about.

Oh wait, I promised Jamie I would link to her blog, so take this suggestion, and follow her blog on Cornell's website: Copenhagen Without a Helmet (it might be With a helmet but her title is in Danish, which I haven't mastered yet) and find the link somewhere on this page, or below her profile picture on Facebook!

Two weeks and I am in London! Cheers!

august 9. 2010.

So I have been a little confused as to when I am leaving Ithaca. I talked to my Mom today, and she let me know that I am actually leaving for NYC the morning of the 23rd (that's a Monday). That means I have an extra day at Cornell to complete my last Hurrah. That also means I now have exactly 2 weeks here at Cornell, and 16 days until I leave for London!

As always, my life, in my opinion, has been pretty uneventful. I haven't been in any shoot outs or high speed chases. I haven't met a mermaid or found a dragon egg in my closet. But I did get rid of the bat, or at least it left of its own volition. I had Dinosaur BBQ at my company picnic, too! I even won a gift certificate to Boat Yard Grill (who wants to go?)! To compound the awesomeness, Ben and Eve visited again. This time it was to go camping. Although our original number of campers had dwindled, camping was great. Anna brought us to this great lean-to in Shendagin and we had so much good food. Never had I eaten cow & goat cheese off a toasted baguette in the woods. I ate better from a campfire than back in my apartment (aside from the hot dogs that is).

This weekend was the first of my good byes though, which is now alerting me to how close Europe, the actual topic of this blog, actually is, and I couldn't be more excited. After stalking the other Cornellians already in Santander, I learned that they are already partaking in a drink that should have already made it to the states, Calimocho. My friend Liz, who just returned from Spain has told me about Calimocho (1/2 Coke, 1/2 wine) and I can't wait to get in on this drink. Jamie and I agreed that we want to have a small going away shindig that is Denmark and Spain themed. I was thinking Sangria would be the drink of choice, but I guess it will have to be Calimocho.

We lost our last intramural softball game today, too. Although we haven't won an actual game all season, we played our first playoff game and sent it into OT, just to lose it in the first inning of overtime. Oh well, I don't think softball is very big in northern Spain.

So, as they say in Denmark, Skaal; and in Spain, SALUD!

Let's make these last two weeks really count!

august 5. 2010.

Like always, I will update you all with a countdown: 3 weeks until I am in London, 16 days until I leave Ithaca, NY.

Now with that over, I have no real news.

I did find a bat flying around my apartment yesterday morning! It freaked me out, but once I gathered my nerves I trapped it in another room with the window open. I called my dad to see what I should do, and he told me it should probably just leave on its own. Thanks for the help, Dad! Just hope it takes care of itself, great life lesson. One of my friends told me to let it bite me so that I might become a vampire and a werewolf. Yes, for those of you who don't know, the night of my bar mitzvah was also a full moon in which I turned into a werewolf. I don't feel like I can handle the responsibility of being as hot as Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner so I will remain just a werewolf.

Other than that, everything is winding down. I'm hanging out with friends, finishing up the last few weeks of work, and losing miserably in intramural softball, you know, the usual.

august 1. 2010.

So it's officially August, and I leave Cornell in 3 weeks! I'll be in Spain in less than a month, starting my language classes. But until then, I am still in Ithaca, and Ithaca has been good.

Ben and Eve visited again. We made banana pancakes and went to a park and blueberry picking. I would say it was pretty romantic. Well, maybe not the blueberry picking, because we drove about half an hour to Dryden and ended up at a little house with a garden in front saying fresh blueberries. We were like, WTF? Do we just pick in this tiny garden? We are the only ones here and will get raped. But it turns out the owner was an awesome old lady and the fields for picking were out in the back. We didn't get raped, and picked a ton of blueberries.

Also, I talked to Josh, who I will be in Spain with for the next year. He, Caitlyn and Hillary are already in Spain for the first language class, lucky bastards. I'm ready to be done with my internship and head to Europe. But anyways, it seems like apart from a few problems, things are going well for them. I will see them soon!

So yea, the countdown has really started now. Next week I will be camping around Ithaca with Ben and Eve, then the following I should be in Montreal, pending a car ride, and then it's my last week in Ithaca. It's going quick now!