The "I Just Got Out of Theatre School and Don't Understand Free Time" Guide to Avoiding Boredom

And what does a recently-graduated, barely-employed, almost-resident of New York City do with herself? (Anybody who knows me keeps asking me what on earth I'm doing with myself all day.) Thusly I present to you:

The "I Just Got Out of Theatre School and Don't Understand Free Time" Guide to Avoiding Boredom

1. First of all don't you dare be bored in NYC. People are only bored if they're boring. Don't be boring.
2. When was the last time you read Harry Potter? It wasn't recently enough. (I read the whole series every June, NO SHAME.)
3. Go see FREE outdoor theatre. The New York Times kindly posted this article with a list of tons of free theatre to see this summer. You could see a show or two a week all summer without paying a dime. I'm personally looking forward to the Pearl Jam Hamlet that will hopefully be a spectacular disaster.
4. Write a play! Try it. It's a great thing to do by yourself. David Bowie just showed up in my play. I think he's the fairy godmother.
5. Try to "tan" in a park. Lots of parks. Read Harry Potter in the park. There are so many parks. New parts of the High Line are open! Go there! I did, today!
6. Make funny pandora stations. I found out that if I just add Motley Crue to my David Bowie station, pandora will basically play all of the music I would normally listen to, which maybe defeats the purpose of listening to pandora.
7. Remember that play you're writing? Does it require research? Probably! I'm obsessed with Cold War Berlin so my play is set in Berlin in 1975. I'm pretty sure reading Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell: The Dangerous Glitter of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed counts as research since Bowie was in Berlin then and he's in my play. But I'm reading In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, too.
8. Learn a new language! I'm learning French for free using Duo Lingo. I'm also keeping up my Spanish skills that way. Woo. Too bad they haven't taught me how to say "I am learning French" in French. Um... Estoy aprendiendo francais! Culture.
9. Jump on any random money-making opportunity, such as being one of approximately three women working at a gay pride party attended by no less than 1,000 gay men and a few women. (Yes, I did that. It was hilarious.)
10. You still haven't gotten hooked on Mad Men and Breaking Bad yet? Get on that. They're on netflix. Yes, fine, you can rewatch all of Weeds first. The new season does start July 1...
11. Write in a blog a lot. Oh and make a list of the things you do so you can feel accomplished and share it with other people.

That covers most of it... Plus working sometimes, hanging out with friends sometimes, talking to my family sometimes. And, you know, reestablishing my credit cards and bank account nonsense. Having access to cash is nice. Depositing checks is nice.

Oh and obsessively checking the weather to strategically open and close my windows in my non-air-conditioned apartment. You didn't like that mid-90s high-humidity last week? Yeah try doing it without air conditioning. Uh huh.

Gonna go back to Prisoner of Azkaban now. :)

Fin (Days 15 & 16)

Our last day in Paris was a rainy one and we were pretty exhausted so we had already decided we would spend the day in the neighborhood. Both of us felt we'd done all we wanted to do in Paris for this trip, so we had a leisurely morning repacking and having breakfast, then walked around near the hostel. Le Village hostel is in an area with lots of fabric shops, which really interested Mom, so we spent some time looking at fabric and then went souvenir shopping.

Fortunately we really hadn't bought much more than postcards anywhere else (with a couple exceptions from the Harry Potter studio tour), so we knew how much space we had for extra stuff. We got a few presents for family and a few things for ourselves - I hadn't bought anything the last time I was in Paris, and I hadn't started my shot glass collection yet when I was there, so I bought one and a few other things.

As we were heading back to the hostel we passed Le Petit Musee du Chocolat - a chocolate store that could give Honeydukes a run for its money - so we spent some time exploring it. There were lots of colorful sculptures made entirely out of chocolate, including a scale model of the Eiffel Tower. It was a fun little thing to do before we left, and we managed to not buy anything, which was good since traveling with chocolate is not the best idea.

Back at the hostel we ate a small lunch of whatever leftovers we had from various meal purchases - a little Chinese food, some fruit, some cheese and bread. Then before we left I ran up the street to Subway to get us food for later, since we figured we didn't want to have to eat dinner in the hotel restaurant. (We were staying at the airport hotel for the night since our flight was pretty early the next morning.) We walked to the train station where we would take a train out to the airport and then catch the hotel shuttle back to the hotel.

But our adventures weren't over.

While waiting in line to purchase our train tickets, we spotted a guy with an adorable puppy. Turned out he was American and was homeless because his roommate didn't like the dog, so he asked if we were leaving Europe and had any coins to spare (since banks won't convert coins, just paper money, even if it's 2 euros). After we purchased our tickets we had a 2 euro coin to give him and as we were playing with the puppy he mentioned that he cut hair and asked if he could give me a haircut. I kid you not. As it had been two months since my last haircut and was going to be about another two months before my next one, this was perfect. He did it right in the station, on a platform. We got lots of stares, but apparently he does this all the time. He's the hair cowboy. Google him. It's for real. He's kind of famous:

So I got my hair cut in Paris, in the train station. His puppy, Nanook, was tied up over by our stuff where my mom was patiently waiting, but he quickly got free and ran over to us. So then it became my job to stand on his leash and keep him from eating my boots while also trying to stand still as Kanu cut my hair. Ultimately it worked out great. I got a haircut, I got it for way less than I could ever get it cut in NYC, he got some money. We got to meet a cool guy and an adorable puppy, and it's a great story to tell.

Kanu and Nanook walked us back to where we would get our train and we parted ways. We were able to catch a train right away to the airport, an express train that got us there in half an hour at that. Then as soon as we got up to where the hotel shuttles arrive, our hotel shuttle showed up (which only comes every half hour). We got to the hotel, checked in, and went up to our room where we ate, as it had now been a while since our last meal thanks to my haircut. Relaxing baths, comfy beds, one more round of packing, and bed.

The next morning we were on the first shuttle back to the airport at 5:15. I hadn't been in this terminal last time, and it was super cool. Very technological, space age aesthetic. There was a weird atrium area that had a bunch of escalator-ramps that all went to different floors and pointed in strange directions and seriously looked like that shot in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when you see all the Hogwarts staircases for the first time. I half-expected them to start changing places while we were riding them.

We were flying Iceland Air home, so we flew from Paris to Rekyavik, basically three hours straight north. I watched 500 Days of Summer, which I actually found pretty depressing, and then found Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1) and started watching that. I was about halfway through when we landed in Iceland.

Our layover in Iceland was only about an hour, but we got our passport stamped since we were heading back to America and then quickly bought food at the only place to buy food in that section of the airport. It was a weird experience, with everything in kronor, having absolutely no sense of how much something cost. We got our food and checked out and it was like 2,500 kronor or something, which meant absolutely nothing to us but felt like a lot. Apparently it was like $18 or something, which was a lot for what food we were getting, but it's an airport.

Then it was time to board our flight to JFK. We ended up seated next to a girl from Iceland, so we got to hear her speak Icelandic with some of the flight attendants. I watched the rest of Harry Potter and was in the middle of watching The Hangover (which I had never seen - I know, I know) when our screens stopped working and they couldn't get them fixed. So mostly I tried to sleep for the rest of the flight.

We landed in New York I think a good 40 minutes early, and then began the next adventure, but that's a story for another day.

A French Day (Day 12)

We flew into Paris Beauvais (have fun pronouncing that one) and then took a bus into the city, which took about an hour. From the bus we took two metro trains to our hostel which was just two blocks away from the metro stop. I was familiar with this hostel because it was the one Ganesh stayed at back when I was in Paris in October. The location, right in Montmartre and so close to the metro, made it ideal. Plus I knew it would be quiet and comfortable, and we had a bathroom in our room which we only had to share with one other person.

Despite the walk being only two blocks to the hostel, we stopped just a few feet from the metro at a little crepe stand and got crepes for lunch. Then around the corner I popped into Dia (the grocery store I regularly shopped at in Madrid) and got us a liter of orange juice for a euro. Our room wasn't ready yet when we got to the hostel (it was only about 12:30) so we sat in the lobby and ate and did some research on what else we wanted to do that day. Mom had a list of free things to do, one of which included a Friday afternoon fashion show at the Lafayette Galleries, the Parisian equivalent of Harrods, Macys, etc. Right before we left, we checked at the desk and our room was ready, so we dropped our stuff off upstairs (taking the tiny elevator one person at a time) and then headed off.

We couldn't find anything about a fashion show at the store, but it was in a beautiful building with a stained glass dome in the middle and, from the top floor/roof, we got a pretty beautiful view of the city, for free. Mom got her first real view of the Eiffel Tower. We sat for a while, took a few pictures, looked around, and then headed down to explore the store. We took some time taking pictures of the dome and then went to the actually gallery, which had a modern art exhibit that we didn't understand at all. A lot of it was cartoon drawings with writing on it, in French, so we were pretty lost. Something involved Kanye West; I don't know.

From the store we decided to walk back to the hostel to see more of the city. Along the way we found a farmers market where we picked up some things for dinner - a potato pastry, artichoke salad, cherries, bread - and looked around a lot. It was all a bit of a challenge since we couldn't politely get anyone's attention in French, so we kind of had to just stand around and wait for people to help us, but it was a fun experience seeing everyone at the market.

Without very much happening, we had a very nice, French day doing things it didn't really seem like tourists would do, most of it without trying. It was a nice easy first day in Paris, and we went to bed early to catch up on sleep before the next day's adventure.

Where Dreams Come True

No, not Disney World. This is me we're talking about. LONDON!

My final trip of the semester was the one I was most looking forward to, since I've wanted to visit London since I was eight. I flew out on Thursday night, December 1st. It was so weird to walk into the airport and be able to read everything in English and only English. (Even in America at this point a lot of things are translated into Spanish as well, and I'd seen very little English in the last three months.) I got my passport stamped and then withdrew money from an ATM so that I could pay the bus fare to the train station. I chatted a little bit with the bus attendant about Bruce Springsteen, though we were both surprised the other knew who he was (because I'm too young and he's too British.) Anyway I got to the train and experienced my first London sticker shock when I found out how much a one-way train ticket cost, even before converting pounds to dollars. (The exchange rate, at least at the time, was about $1.5 to £1, which was killer.) With a little help from a nice gentleman who was also waiting for the train from the airport to the tube managed to find my way to Southark station, where Kerry picked me up.

Kerry and I met back in 2008 when we were both winners of that RENT contest that afforded us the opportunity to party at the Life Cafe and attend a final performance of the closing weekend. Though we haven't spoken a ton since then, Kerry was gracious enough to let me stay with her and even fed me sometimes. Thursday night we caught up for a while despite the late hour and made some plans for the following night.

Friday I got up fairly early and headed out to explore. Kerry happens to live in a very trendy part of London along the South Bank, not far from The Globe Theatre, the London Eye, and the Tate Modern art museum, not to mention being right behind the Young Vic and not far from the Old Vic. So I went off to the Tate, which is a donation-based museum, which in student language means "free." I spent a couple hours there, seeing some works by famous artists and some I'd never heard of before. There were some really interesting exhibits with focused themes combining different artists. From the museum you can see the Millenium or "Wobbly" Bridge, which is that big shiny bridge the death eaters destroyed in the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Price. After some pictures of that I walked over to the Globe, which unfortunately didn't have anything playing. Still it was cool to see.

Then I headed back to Kerry's apartment where she and I ate a little dinner before heading off for a walk down by the Thames by the London Eye, where there was a cute little Christmas market. Most things were overpriced, but Kerry found some funny little finger puppets (supposedly to entertain the kids she helps in Tanzania, but I think really just for her) that we named Harry the Hippo and Mike the Monkey. I found a necklace with a pocket watch pendant - the case has an owl on it. So perfect. On the way back to the apartment we bought a small bottle of Bailey's and made hot chocolate every night I was there. (A cheaper alternative to the overpriced drinks at the Christmas market.)

Saturday morning I got up early to go wait in line at the Young Vic to get a rush ticket for Hamlet. I figured I gotta see some Shakespeare somewhere while in London. Things were very nonchalant and so I ended up waiting longer than I should have had to because the ticket people didn't seem too concerned with being on time, but I eventually got a ticket and went back to Kerry's. I had porridge for breakfast, which is in fact just oatmeal made with milk instead of water and isn't quite as thick. I'd been craving oatmeal for months, which is not a thing in Spain, so I was quite happy.

After breakfast I went to meet up with a free walking tour like I'd done in Berlin and Paris. I got confused about what time it was, thinking it was an hour later (Madrid time) and thought I had missed the tour so went to get lunch at Chipotle (a New York favorite that doesn't exist in Spain). Then while back in the subway realized I had been an hour early, so I went back to the tour meeting place. The walking tour covered Hyde Park, St. James's Park, Buckingham Palace, all the royal-y places. Pretty cool. Buckingham Palace is actually not that impressive compared to Spanish palaces or Versailles though.

That night I saw Michael Sheen (who I best know as Wesley from 30 Rock) as Hamlet. I had issues with the production - it was set in an insane asylum but they didn't really use that convention once they set it up - but Michael Sheen was amazing. Hamlet is like three hours long, but I stayed interested. Not bad for £10.

Sunday I went to the National Gallery though only briefly. I couldn't get into the DaVinci show and everything else was a lot like what I was always looking at at the Prado. I caught a glimpse of The Last Supper, looked at the Spanish art, and left. Then I went to Harrods, because I figured that would be amusing. It was. It's more expensive than Macy's. But, while I was looking at funny little ornaments in the Christmas shop, I saw a sign for "the Harry Potter store" on the third floor. So then I spent a good half hour there. I could have stayed there for quite a while, but I had to head off to a Harry Potter walking tour.

The Harry Potter walking tour was led by a guy named Richard who was like a flamboyant, British version of my favorite theatre studies teacher, Bob. While walking through Leadenhall Market where Diagon Alley was filmed, Richard needed someone to say "Can you buy all this in London?" so he could say "If you know where to go." And yours truly was suddenly playing an 11-year-old Harry Potter in Diagon Alley. There may have been an accent. Of course the only time it rained while I was in London was during this tour, but it was fun anyway.

Westminster Abbey costs about £20, so instead I went when they had a free organ recital that night. I couldn't wander around, but I got to see plenty from my seat and hear amazing music in that amazing place.

Monday I failed again to get tickets to the DaVinci exhibit. Then I went to the changing of the guard, getting there ten minutes earlier than my tour guide had advised and still unable to really see anything. Plus I was surrounded by Spanish tourists, since the reason I was in London for five days was Spanish holidays. But then an amazing thing happened. The royal marching band played Don't Stop Believing as if they knew I was there.

After that random joy, I went to the British museum for a bit, saw some old stuff including the Rosetta Stone, and then met up with Kerry to go ice skating at Somorset House, my treat as a thanks for her hospitality. We had a great time and played a little bit with the penguins which were training tools for kids age 8 and under. After ice skating we met up with a friend of Kerry's for a drink at a pub and then I headed off for another night at the theatre.

In contrast with Hamlet, Monday night I saw We Will Rock You, the Queen Musical. If you know Rock of Ages, it's kind of like that but without the show being in on the joke, so it wasn't quite as good. Still I had a really good time, and my mom won't want to see that when we go in May anyway, so I'm glad I went on my own.

Tuesday morning I did a little souvenir shopping and then went to the train station to get to Birmingham. I tried to find Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross and couldn't find it. Which was incredibly embarrassing and I don't want to talk about it.

Then I was in Birmingham and it was amazing and then I went back to Madrid.

So much thanks to Kerry for all her hospitality, and hopefully we'll see each other again soon!

A Punto de Salir

So it's about 3 am, and my flight from Madrid leaves in about 5 hours. I'm leaving my apartment in a couple hours. It's that weird period of time where you sit in a place knowing you're about to leave it, trying to drink in everything with your senses to paint a full memory.

Tonight I just hung out with Isa and Yasmín, later also with Nidhi and Leigha, and briefly several other NYU-ers came over before they headed out to party up their last night in Madrid. I was happy to chill out here with my friends, watching youtube videos, reading stupid tweets, and just passing the time together, laughing, taking funny pictures, and so on. Madrid is a beautiful city and I will miss it, but more important to me than the place is the people I've gotten to know here. I can't think about it too much right now because every time I think about leaving my Spanish family indefinitely I want to cry. (I cried far more than I'd like to admit throughout Wednesday, both in anticipation of and after leaving their house.)

Most likely I will need a little time at home before I can fully appreciate all that I have learned here, putting it in perspective with my return to America. Still I am so grateful for every experience I have had here, good, bad, frustrating, painful, incredible... I think it still hasn't fully hit me that I just lived in Europe for almost four months and have started to create bonds around the world. I have seen ancient artifacts, not just behind glass but in the streets where they first existed. I have become nearly-fluent in a second language, an invaluable skill. I have made some incredible friends and together we have done some amazing things.

Yeah it's definitely too soon to try to analyze all this. I feel the experiences of the whole semester still simmering in my blood, just barely starting to settle. Really, school just ended yesterday. I had two exams and a final presentation just yesterday. The end of the semester here is so compressed because of the Spanish holiday schedule.

I am unspeakably thankful for so many things, experiences, people, perspective. The reminder that the whole world is a place in which to learn. Classrooms are so often confining, but the world has everything, in a much more hands-on manner. I have been so, so, so lucky. I can't wait to get home and see my family and my dog and sleep in my bed and speak English and use American money. At the same time particularly over the last few days the thought of leaving has gotten harder. I was way more ready to go home in October than I am now. I wish Chicago and New York and Europe were not so far apart. Seriously, who is getting started on making apparition happen? Because I know for sure now that if I could have one special superpower, that would be it - the ability to instantly transport myself between places, like my home that is New York (hogar), my home that is my family (tierra), and my new home in España (casa).

To those of you reading this that I have met on these travels, thank you so much for the fun times we have shared, whether at NYU, in Madrid, or elsewhere in Europe. I cannot yet know exactly all that I have learned from all these experiences, but I know that you were a part of it.

The world is a remarkable place if we open our eyes. I know this part, the leaving part, would be hard if I stayed a month or a year, and I know I'm ready to go home. And I know I will come back. There's not much else I can say right now, as I'm feeling pretty emotional and simultaneously exhausted but attempting to not fall asleep before going to the airport. This is not the end of this blog at all, but quite likely the last post from Spain. So I leave you with this:

"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes."

Henry David Thoreau

Madrid, te echaré de menos. Besos y abrazos.

To Barça by Bus

This past weekend I went to Barcelona. It was rather last minute, as I was holding out hopes that my mom would make it. Unfortunately due to various circumstances she isn't here, so I went to Barcelona by myself. Because it was so last minute (like always, here, apparently?) I decided to take the bus instead of flying, because it cost about half as much. And I'm sick of hauling myself to the airport before the sun rises. So instead I went to the bus station before the sun rose. And I took an almost 8 hour bus ride on Friday to Barcelona. It wasn't too bad; I slept some, read The Glass Menagerie for my Lorca class (don't ask), slept some more. Watched the empty Spanish countryside. It's very desert-esque actually. Really dry with shrubs and wimpy trees. And mountains.

Eventually I arrived in Barcelona and figured out where the entrance to the metro was, after being thwarted by some unforeseen construction. Without really any more trouble I made it to the train station of my hostel. So I go out, and start following convenient signs for my hostel. Well, good thing those signs were there because my hostel, it turned out, was in the mountains. On google maps it looked like a short walk up the street to the hostel. Turns out that short walk up the street was actually a ten to fifteen minute steep uphill walk through the woods (but lit, at least). It was actually really pretty and smelled very fresh and, well, woodsy. After all the work to get to the hostel I decided to stay there for the night, do a little Barcelona research to get oriented, and go to bed early and get going early the next morning.

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day. It was sunny and in the 70s - t-shirt weather for the first time in a month! The hostel included breakfast, so I ate there and then took the train back into the city center to go on a guided tour of Gaudí's architecture. Gaudí did some reforms to the main altar and some other parts of the cathedral in Mallorca with which I am so in love, and he did a lot of things in Barcelona, where he lived most of his life. It was really cool for me to get to see so many of the places I talked about in my Spanish presentation a month ago. We saw his only public commission, some lampposts in Plaça Reial (back to Catalan land, guys), followed by Palau (Palace) Güell, Casa Batlló, Casa Mila also known as La Pedrera (the stone quarry), and, finally, La Sagrada Familia.

La Sagrada Familia is a huge cathedral 120 years in the making and it's still not finished. Gaudí spent 43 years of his life working on it, and for the last 20 or so it was his only project. My two and a half hour walking tour probably spent at least 45 minutes walking around the very ornate outside of Sagrada Familia, as it has three facades (two of which are done) that depict the life of Jesus. The nativity facade and the passion facades are finished, the glory facade really has yet to be started and in stark contrast with the other two looks a lot like an ugly gray wall. The tour ended there and I got in line to go inside, bought a ticket and an audioguide, and then spent the next three hours walking around the entire building. I don't know what else is on my bucket list, but seeing Sagrada Familia again when it's finished is now officially on it. It's awfully beautiful for a building that's only maybe 2/3 done. Of course, some of the stained glass has been installed and that's all I really need. There's so much to say about La Sagrada Familia but pictures are really necessary. (I'm going to try reaaaallllyyy hard to get caught up on pictures today and tomorrow, somehow while I'm writing two papers.)

When I finally made myself leave - a benefit and curse of traveling alone is no one ever makes you leave things you like - I walked what was probably at least two miles (I had no sense of scale on the map I got at the hostel) to Parc Güell, also designed by Gaudí. It was nice to see some of Barcelona as I made my way to the park, which is at the top of a hill and provides a nice view of the city where I watched the sun set and wrote some postcards. Then since it was getting rather dark I decided to head back to the hostel, where I got some homework done and made some plans for Sunday.

Sunday I tried to go to mass at the parish church of La Sagrada Familia (church isn't held regularly in the basilica) but got tossed back and forth by signs pointing in opposite directions and I never found an entrance or anyone to help me. So instead I went and sat on the docks by the sea and did some writing. Then I went back to Plaça Reial for a walking tour of the old city. My tour guide's name was Gorki and he was from Bilbao, in northern Spain. He was really cheerful and funny We saw one of the oldest Gothic churches in Europe, the Jewish quarter, and a lot of tiny streets and such. Half an hour into the tour, though, it started to rain. And it didn't stop. Sometimes it let up, and if we walked close to the walls under balconies, we stayed pretty dry. (My water proof not-quite-Leather jacket helped.) We made it through about 2/3 of the tour before our guide gave up after we tried to wait out the storm inside a building for 20 minutes.

On my own I went to see Santa Maria del Mar, a famous church that was really pretty, and then I went in search of lunch. I found the café that Alejandro had recommended to me, Bosque de los Hades, Forest of the Fairies (which is kind of like Rainforest Cafe but less aggressive and prettier) but they didn't really have much real food so I kept looking and ended up eating at a little place close to where the walking tours started, which was organic or something but cheap. I got a crepe with apples, cinnamon, and almond, and a cappuccino to warm up. (I spent the day walking around in wet shoes. No fun.)

After lunch I headed to the Picasso Museum, which is free after 3 on Sundays. I waited in a line probably as long as a New York avenue block, but it moved pretty fast and I had time to enjoy the museum before my night plans. It was really interesting to see the evolution of Picasso's style, although I saw a lot of it out of order because the floor plan of the museum is really confusing. I wish I had had more time there, but I had a little subway trouble getting there and I wanted to leave myself plenty of time after because I had exciting plans for the evening.

Sunday night I went to see a musical called Cop de Rock which is Catalan for "Time of Rock." It's a musical of 80s Catalan classic rock, I think basically their equivalent of Rock of Ages. I had an AMAZING time. I only understood like every tenth word of the dialogue, because Catalan is more like a combination of Portuguese and French than it is related to Spanish, but I followed the whole story. And the music was great, and everyone in the audience was really into it. The choreography was probably the most enjoyable part, as it was a bizarre mix of West Side Story meets Elvis meets contemporary hip hop plus a little bit of stereotypical 80s rock star posing. I bought the cheapest seats (and got a discount for being under 25) but was able to move a lot closer once the show started, so I had a pretty good seat, and had a blast. I've now seen theatre in three languages I don't understand.

After the show I headed to the bus station a little early just to make sure I knew how to get there and had time to eat something and whatnot before heading back to Madrid. Our bus left at 11pm and I had the misfortune of sitting in front of the only unhappy baby on the bus. It didn't help that my iPod battery was almost dead because I had been counting on an outlet to plug it into on the bus, since I'd had one on the way there, and there weren't any on this otherwise-identical bus. I did get some sleep off and on, and eventually made it back to Madrid around 7 am, before sunrise. I took the metro home and slept happily in my bed for a few hours before getting up to go to class.

And that was Barcelona! A really fun couple of days. So glad I decided to go, but I still really wish my mom could have been there. She would have loved how colorful it is.

This weekend I'm going to Roma! So excited for lots of gelato, pizza, and pasta, the Coliseum, hopefully some Opera, so much art...

Tomorrow if I have time I'm going to write more about my Spanish family, with whom I am totally in love. I also realized I never talked about Columbus Day, and last week I took a day trip to Toledo, so there's still much to report!

Beginning in Berlin

So as you've seen Berlin was a bit of a sobering trip for me. I'm really glad I went; I did have some fun, but a lot of my time was very somber.

I flew out Friday morning - after almost missing the flight. My alarm that was supposed to go off at 4am so I could pack my clothes that were still drying when I went to sleep 3 hours earlier never went off. I woke up at 6:25 for my 7:45 flight. I threw clothes into my bag and ran out the door to the airport express bus ten minutes away, waited anxiously for the bus and ran into a couple other NYU kids (whose flights weren't until 9) and made it to the airport at about 7:05. Ran through security, rushed to the gate, and made it onto the plane, somehow landing a window seat in the 9th row even though I was in the last ten percent of people to board the plane. I slept most of the way to Berlin, an almost three hour flight.

Upon arrival at Schönefeld Flughafen (I cannot take a language seriously with words like that), I got to start following the page-long essay of directions sent to me by my friend Jessica, with whom I was staying. She gave great directions but unfortunately didn't know about some construction that affected one of the trains I had to take, so as I was watching for Warschauer Strasse, I ended up at the other end of the line in Pankow. So then I tried to understand the Berlin metro map, took a train halfway back to the airport, changed trains, went one stop, changed to a different train, and finally arrived at Jessica's apartment a mere two and a half hours after the plane landed. On the bright side this meant Jessica was already home from school and I didn't have to find a cafe to hang out at in the meantime. I was also really lucky that it was fairly sunny and in the 60s the whole time I was there. This was the weekend it snowed in New York and elsewhere, and it had previously been a lot colder in Berlin, but I got a weekend of beautiful fall weather.

Jessica went to PHTS for a year and a half, then did a semester abroad in South Africa, and has been living in Berlin since March. Her mother is German and she grew up speaking the language right along with English, so Germany is an easy place for her to be and study theatre for cheap. Fortunately for me it meant I had a free place to stay for five days (ouch, potential hostel fees), and a theatre person to chat with. This also meant she was really busy and didn't have much time to show me around, but we spent Friday together, grocery shopping, planning my weekend, and that night we went to a senior showcase of scenes at the so-called best acting school in Berlin. It was all in German, so I can't say too much, but there was a lot of yelling, and not healthy yelling, which made my throat hurt in sympathy. I also got to meet a few of Jessica's theatre friends from school, and it was really fun to be around crazy actor types for a bit.

One great thing about Berlin was getting to eat food that doesn't exist in Madrid - my first food of the day on Friday was cheap noodles from a place called Asia Box right around the corner from Jessica's apartment. With the exception of that vaguely-fancy-French-Japanese food in Paris, I hadn't had Asian food since August. Normally I get cheap Chinese food in NYC all the time, so it was so great to get a box of take out noodles for 2.50. I also got salami at the grocery store for sandwiches, because while they've got a lot of meat here in Spain, they don't seem to have salami. So there's that.

Saturday I did the New Europe walking tour of Berlin, but didn't run into Arnaud, my tour guide from Paris. My guide was named Rob, who is originally from Manchester, England (England, across the Atlantic Sea... sorry, Hair moment.) The tour was really interesting, again almost four hours long with a coffee break in the middle, and though it felt shorter than the Paris one I didn't like it as much. It seemed like a lot of what we saw was at a distance, and, of course, there's no way to make the history of Berlin less depressing than it is. We saw parts of the wall, the parking lot that is over where Hitler's Bunker is (it still exists but is sealed off), a memorial to all the books that got burned on my birthday in 1933, lots of architecture I can't remember, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Berliner Dome, the Holocaust memorial, the lust gardens, Checkpoint Charlie, and lots of squares and parks.

After the walking tour I did a lot of wandering around, happened upon a march that I think was shouting about freeing Libya and/or Syria, checked out the Berliner Ensemble (founded by Bertolt Brecht), decided there was no way in hell I was watching a Chekhov play in German (as it's hard enough in English), and eventually worked my way back to the Holocaust memorial because I wanted to go to the exhibit that we had skipped on the tour. It was fascinating and, of course, depressing. But very well done.

I then went to the English Berlin Theatre and bought a ticket to a new play called The Man of Shadows, performed by a Berlin theatre company comprised of English actors. Before the show I then walked to what the guidebook (and later, Jessica) said was the best currywurst in Berlin. Currywurst is the typical food of Berlin, you can find it on practically every block. It's a lightly spiced sausage with ketchup (that isn't like American ketchup) and a dusting of curry powder. I got mine with pommes frites (French Fries, served with mayonaise because that's how they do it in Belgium?) and I asked the guy what a good beer was. He gave me a Berliner Kindl, and it was pretty tasty, as was the currywurst. (I had it again on Tuesday at the place by Jessica's, and it wasn't as good.) So then, very full and happy, I walked back to the theatre for the show. (I even drank a little of my beer on my walk, because real Berliners seem to drink everywhere all the time.) This was the first time I've seen theatre in English since August, and the production was well done and well performed, a good time, and the tickets were cheap. I then hopped on the train and after chatting with Jessica went to sleep.

Sunday I slept in (a luxury of having five days in a city instead of three) and then headed off for a day of museums. I went to the Musical Instrument museum, a curious little place that has a bunch of really old every kind of classical instrument imaginable including a piano played by Bach and a glass harmonica made by Ben Franklin. I then walked to Kultureforum, which is four museums in one, for four euros (as a student). I spent a lot of time looking at really old things that seemed a little irrelevant considering all the modern history right outside. The best part was the art museum, the Gemeldegalerie, which seemed to be kind of like the Prado of Berlin. I don't think I saw anything particularly famous, but they have works by a lot of famous artists, from the 14th to 19th centuries. Kultureforum also has a print and drawing museum which had a Rembrandt exhibit, and a library, which just confused me.

After Kultureforum I was all museumed out and headed back to the Berliner Ensemble, to see an actual Brecht play in German at Brecht's theatre. (Sort of the equivalent of seeing a Renaissance French play at the Comedie Française.) On the way I got cheap Asian food again, this time from a place called Noodle Box. (There's only about four words involved in any of these places - Snack Box, Asia Snack, Asia Noodle, etc.)

I got distracted when changing trains on my way to the Berliner Ensemble theatre by a section of the wall in Potsdamer Platz (platz means square, I think). I was reading all the information about conservation of pieces of the wall and whatnot, and then found on the other side a stand with two guys dressed up as soldiers. There's a lot of that in Berlin and it kinda weirds me out - guys dressed in period uniforms of the US and Soviet army, at Checkpoint Charlie, at the Brandenbugur Tor, at this part of the wall. Anyway, these guys, for a small fee, would stamp your passport with the seven - count them, seven - stamps that one had to get to cross the wall when it existed. There's the US stamp, the other allies stamp, the DDR stamp, a visa stamp, I can't remember them all. But now I have eight stamps in my passport. And seven of them mean nothing in 2011.

I still don't know what play I actually saw. Because it's Brecht's theatre, they don't just do Mother Courage.  I showed Jessica my ticket and she said she'd never heard of it. Anyway, I got there at about 6:15 for a 7:30 show, and there was a line waiting for the box office to open at 6:30. When I got up to the window there was only standing room left, but that suited me fine as it was only 2 euros. I have no idea what it was about but it was thoroughly entertaining the whole time. The main character seemed to be an aspiring actor and behaved like what I imagine you'd get if you mixed Porky Pig and Hitler and threw in a dash of neuroticism. Exactly. The production was great, all the design and everything. I'm so glad I went. The lighting was pretty interesting, which isn't always true for a play. But the designer seemed to be trying some things with white light that were new.

After the play I went back to Jessica's apartment but she was still out at rehearsal. I tried to wait up, but I was simultaneously trying to do some homework - reading an entire play in Spanish - and I just couldn't keep my eyes open and fell asleep.

Time for me to make dinner, after all this talk of food. Perhaps tomorrow I can report on Monday and Tuesday's adventures. Wish me sunshine! It's been raining ever since I got back!

Falling in Love in/with Paris

Paris. Paris, je t'aime. It's the truth. I fell in love this weekend, and was so sad to leave. Paris was like a combination of the things I love about New York and Chicago and Madrid in one city. Somehow it's fast and busy and metropolitain but relaxed and elegant and spacious. I walked everywhere and took the metro a million times. There's so many different neighborhoods, so much to see and do, and I got into all the museums for free because my six-month student visa makes me a "long term resident" of the EU under the age of 26!

I flew to Paris Thursday night on a pretty uneventful flight. I slept some on the plane but happened to wake up in time to see the Eiffel Tower lit up from the plane, so I accomplished some sightseeing before ever landing on the ground. We deplaned away from an actual gate, so for the first time I descended a set of stairs onto the tarmac like they do in all the old movies. When I got to the airport, I followed signs (in French, Spanish, and English) for "Paris by train," planning to take public transit to my hostel, which I had figured out before I left. Unfortunately the train station within the airport was a good 15 minute walk from my gate and when I got there I found out trains weren't running from that station for some reason (which I never did figure out, because I took the train there on Sunday night just fine). Anyway by the time I walked back to the signs for "Paris by bus" I figured out that the bus had stopped running for the night. I thought about just sleeping in the airport, but as I was going to have to pay for my hostel anyway and I just wanted to sleep in a bed, I ended up taking a taxi. The most expensive cab ride of my life. Not gonna go there.

But, I got to my hostel in the Latin Quarter, checked in, and went to bed in a room I was sharing with five other people. When I finally saw the room in daylight, I was very pleased with how clean it was, and the hostel had a really cool aesthetic as well. I didn't take any pictures of it, but you can check it out here. It was certainly nice to have an ensuite bathroom, which I didn't have at my hostel in Palma. I showered Friday morning and enjoyed breakfast in the hostel - a croissant, a roll, coffee, and granola cereal. A good start to the day.

I didn't have any particular plans for how to spend my time in Paris, and my friend who is studying there for the semester had class during the day, so I used the hostel computers to start some investigating of where I could pass some time. While checking a destination on the (free!) map I picked up at the hostel, I realized there was a free walking tour at 11 and it was about 10:15, so I set out on a walk to Saint Michele to join the tour. I only got a little lost on the way and arrived just a few minutes late while they were still getting organized, so it worked out well. The free tour is operated by a company called New Europe, which does free walking tours in a bunch of European cities including Barcelona, Madrid, London, Amsterdam, and Berlin (which I'm going to do this Saturday). All of their tour guides are native English speakers who have moved to the cities they give tours of. My tour guide was named Arnaud (pronounced R-no), but he's not French, his parents are just mean. He's from LA, where he met his wife Jennifer, who is French, and they moved back to Paris three years ago.

So Arnaud showed us all over Paris - the walking tour took almost four hours including a short coffee break in the middle. We saw Notre Dame, the "New Bridge," a statue of Henry IV the party king, the outside of Saint Chapelle, the Louvre, the Musee D'Orsay, the Grande and Petit Palaces, the Tuileries Gardens, the Eiffel Tower, the Obelisk, the Arc de Triomphe, and so much more. I learned a ton about the history of Paris and got oriented to the city, and Arnaud taught us how to recognize French scam artists and pickpockets. He was really funny and at the end of the tour led those of us who wanted to go to a restaurant where they have a deal for New Europe tours for lunch. I got to try French wine, a white that I really liked, and had salmon, which was just okay. It had a flavorful sauce on it though which was nice since Spanish food is so plain. Arnaud told us before he left that he would be leading the Montmartre walking tour at 6pm on Sunday night if anyone wanted to join him again, and I did, with my new friend Ganesh.

Ganesh was also on the walking tour and was also traveling alone, and we both wanted to go to the Louvre Friday night, so after lunch we wandered around together and headed towards the Louvre which was free for anyone under 26 after 6pm. Ganesh has been traveling around Europe for the last six weeks and will be finishing his trip next week in Madrid, but is unfortunately leaving before I get back from Berlin. (Hi Ganesh, welcome to my blog where I talk about you.) Guys, Ganesh majored in aerospace engineering and just got his masters in 5 years. And he went to the Bronx High School of Science like my dad!

So we went to the Louvre. We're pretty sure the rules of time and space do not apply in this building, because every time we tried to figure out where we were on a map either on a wall in the building or the one we carried with us, things didn't match up. We did eventually make it to the Mona Lisa - there are so many signs pointing you to it you'd think the Louvre cares as little about the rest of the art there as most people coming to see the Mona Lisa do. It was about the size I was expecting, since I'd been told in the past it's pretty small. Might be a little overrated, to be honest. We also saw over the course of two hours: The Winged Victory of Samothrace, that famous portrait of Louis XIV, the Venus de Milo, and the Code of Hammurabi, which was probably the most impressive because it's essentially 4000 years old and if you could read Mesopotamian heiroglyphics, you could still read it today, carved in stone. After that we ran out as fast as we could, having been thwarted by the Louvre at every turn when trying to navigate the three wings and four floors of the most famous museum in the world. (For the rest of the weekend if anything went wrong, we blamed it on the Louvre. It's now our favorite exclamation, Looouvre! We're trying to make it a thing.) It seemed like we'd spent years in the museum, though it had only been two hours. Seriously the whole thing was like living in a surrealist film.

Post-expedition in the Louvre, we decided to go to Montmartre for dinner near Ganesh's hostel. (He had just gotten in that morning and hadn't even fully checked in yet.) I first tried to get in contact with Stephanie, my friend, but she apparently doesn't have much internet access on the weekends and the phone number she gave me was answered by a French woman. And then my phone died. So I sorta gave up on that. Ganesh and I weren't terribly hungry, as we'd had a big lunch, so we found a little cafe and shared a crêpe filled with cheese and mushrooms and - wait for it - crêpe flamboyant. Yeah. flaming crêpe. The waiter brought it to the table, just a plain crêpe, then poured some kind of orange liquor over it (Ganesh knows what it's called), and then SET IT ON FIRE. I mean, the flames weren't huge, and I couldn't really get a good picture of it, but people don't set food on fire right in front of you too often, so it was still pretty exciting and delicious.

Also in this little cafe was a group of probably a dozen Brits who were all playing some strange game with complicated rules. There was a guy in charge who would give a pair of initials, and then each of the (unclearly defined) teams had to name someone with those initials. Scoring seemed to be based on the type of person named. We figured out you get a point for fictional characters, two points if they're dead, and three points if they're Spanish. Don't know what happens if you name a real, living, non-Spaniard. It was funny when they got into arguments over whether or not people were dead. Including Harry Potter, which got Ganesh and I briefly involved as we told them that of course he died but wasn't dead. We wanted to play too, but they left before we had the chance. They were good entertainment though. After dinner we were both really tired, so we said goodnight and I headed home via metro to my hostel and to bed. It seems that everyone I was sharing the room with also spoke English, although I think the rest of them were from England or New Zealand.

Saturday morning was much like Friday morning, early shower and breakfast so that I could meet Ganesh near the Musee D'Orsay before it opened. It was pretty cold, as the morning was cloudy and it's also actually fall in Paris; highs were in the low 50s. We got in line around 9:15 because it opened at 9:30, but found out around 9:40 that the union, which had been on strike the day before, was going to be voting at some point to decide whether they were opening that day or not. We decided not to risk a fruitless long wait in the cold (good chocie, as they were still on strike that day), and headed instead to the original Shakespeare & Company (near Saint Michele, so I had passed it on my walk to the walking tour the day before), a bookstore that has a branch on Broadway right by the Tisch building. Shakes & Co. was closed until 11 and it was just after 10, so we sought out a patisserie to grab a coffee to warm up in the meantime. This was enough of a challenge, as it seems most things don't open until at least 11 on weekends in Paris. But we found a place, had coffee and split a piece of flan-like cake (we thought it was creme brulee, oh well) and returned to the bookstore at 11.

It was everything I want a bookstore to be. I want to live there. It was packed floor to ceiling with books of every kind on everything. There were books on shelves under the stairs. There was a shelf on a diagonal along the side of the stairs full of books. There was an entire wall of Shakespeare. It felt kind of like what I imagined Flourish and Blotts to be like when I started reading Harry Potter. We spent a good hour in the bookstore. I found (but didn't buy, somehow) British editions of Harry Potter, but instead purchased a copy of Patti Smith's Just Kids, because it's a book I want to own anyway, and I wanted to own a book from the original Shakespeare and Company.

After working very hard to separate ourselves from the bookstore, we went to the Saint Michele station where I took a train to Versailles and Ganesh headed to meet a friend of a friend for a flight over/near Paris. Fortunately for both our plans it cleared up over the next hour, and I spent a very sunny afternoon at Versailles, which I also got into for free with my visa! The tour of the palace alone took about two hours (accompanied by an audio guide) and was really impressive, of course. The epitome of French royal grandeur. I thought about going to the gardens after, but I'd seen them from the palace, which I think gives better views of their patterns than you can get walking through them, and I was pretty tired of walking. I had, after all, spent essentially the entirety of Friday walking. So I went back to the train and headed back to my hostel to figure out some things for Sunday and relax for a little bit.

Ganesh and I reconvened outside the Comedie Francaise around 7:30, because Arnaud had told us that an hour before the show they release tickets for 5 euros. However we showed up about 5 people too late, because a few people in front of us (and everyone behind us) didn't get tickets. We were disappointed, but started wandering to find dinner. We saw, sort of by accident, the really lame light show of the Eiffel Tower from across the Seine, and then decided to eat near my hostel, because everything near where we were was closed. All the French places were excessively expensive, but we found a reasonably priced Japanese place, and as I hadn't had any kind of Asian food in the last two months, I was happy. Plus it was just a block from my hostel so right after dinner I got to fall back into bed.

Sunday morning was my earliest start yet, as I was planning to go to mass at Notre Dame at 8:30. It was still kinda dark when I left my hostel, duffel bag in tow. I was a tiny bit late to mass due to train complications, but I was there for most of it and it was all in French and I'm still not Catholic so I was going to be confused anyway. Notre Dame actually wasn't as impressive as the cathedral in Mallorca, but I walked around it and took a few pictures after the service and then headed to Ganesh's hostel to drop off my bag before our day of adventures. (Thank goodness we became friends, or I would have been hauling luggage all over Paris.)

Our first stop was the Rodin Musem (not risking another pointless wait at D'Orsay), which was small and lovely. Saw The Thinker and The Kiss and a lot of other really impressive works, plus a very nice garden. One particular sculpture is definitely a major inspiration for a theatre piece I want to create with Colleen when I get back to New York. After the Rodin Museum we headed, quite early, to the Comedie Francaise again to make sure we got tickets. We succeeded and then rushed to eat a quick lunch before the show.

We tried to find a cheap coffee shop but instead ended up at Le Pain Quotidien. Yes, they have them in America, but not like this, and it was affordable. We couldn't really read the French menu, but figured out (thanks to Ganesh's questionable four years of high school French) that something said Belgian waffles with red fruit. We both ordered that, and I got an amazing (though overpriced) hot chocolate, which I had been craving all day. The waffles were amazing, crispy on the ouside and soft on the inside, with powdered sugar, raspberries, and strawberries. Perfection. They came with a sprig of mint on top, which I put in my hot chocolate at Ganesh's suggestion, which was such a good idea. Awesome lunch and we made it to the show on time.

The Comedie Francaise is where Moliere performed right before he died. It's so famous and was incredible to be in that space. We saw a Marivaux play titled The Game of Love and Chance. I of course didn't understand anything, and the production wasn't that good, though I think the actors were pretty talented, so it wasn't a life-changing experience, but I'm glad I went. Especially since it was only 5 euros. Mediocre costumes and set, confusing sound design, almost non-existent lighting design. But I tried something new.

We did go check on D'Orsay, which was in fact still on strike, so we went back to Montmartre to just sit for a bit at Ganesh's hostel before the walking tour, which started just ten minutes away. We reunited with Arnaud and met some new people as we walked around an incredible part of Paris. Our tour started right in front of the Moulin Rouge which is not as impressive in real life as they make it look in the movie. The walk was amazing though, as we saw where van Gogh lived with his brother, where Picasso traded paintings for food, where he lived with Modigliani, where Toulouse-Lautrec painted. It was really inspiring to see where so many famous artists got their starts back in the bohemian days of Paris. The artist in me couldn't get over it. It was also particularly beautiful as day turned to night during the tour. We walked around and went into the Sacre Coure, church of the sacred heart, and saw the amazing mosaics on the walls and ceiling. No photos allowed though.

The tour ended at a little bar close to the artist's square, where we were each given a free (very generous, thanks Arnaud!) glass of wine. Well, it was a paid tour so I guess I got a free tour with a 9 euro glass of wine or vice versa or something... Anyway a good deal. While in the bar Ganesh and I talked to a few other young people on the tour. One was a guy from Chicago (of course), there was a girl from Canada studying abroad in Lyon, and another girl from Canada studying abroad in - this is unreal - Birmingham, UK. Birmingham is where the Mötley Crüe show is that I'm going to in December, and I now have a place to stay or at least stash my stuff if I need it. Serendipity, man. The five of us wandered around Montmartre looking for a place to eat and settled on a nice place with a heated outdoor patio. I had incredible chicken with a mushroom sauce - definitely not something you could get in Spain. We all kind of shared a communal meal; three of our group got full courses with an appetizer and a dessert, so there was plenty for everyone to try. The chocolate mousse was amazing.

After dinner we said goodnight to our new friends (exchanging names for facebook contact, of course. 21st century...) and Ganesh and I walked back to the Moulin Rouge to get some night shots. It is prettier at night, for sure. Then we walked back to his hostel, where I made sure I had all my stuff. Ganesh walked me to the subway stop (not far, but he's a gentleman) where we said our goodbyes until we reunite in New York in 2012 - with B52 cheesecake, right, Ganesh?

I fell asleep on the train because I knew I was taking it all the way to the end of the line. I got out and headed to my part of the terminal to find the comfiest bench I could to sleep on. I actually figured out a fairly comfortable way to sleep despite the armrests. Half an hour later though I was woken up by police officers who asked to see my passport and then asked if I was traveling, I guess to make sure I wasn't just a well-dressed bum sleeping in a really obvious place in the airport. Then I went back to sleep for a few hours and woke up around 4:30 because I was really cold. I figured out this was because people had started arriving to the airport, meaning the doors were opening a lot letting in cold air from outside. I went through security and slept a bit longer at my gate. We boarded again on the tarmac, which this time was annoying because the bus took forever and it was really cold and I just wanted to get on the plane and go back to sleep. I think I did fall asleep before we ever took off. Definitely missed the security spiel, but it's always the same. Woke up briefly during the flight because there was some kind of scary turbulence, but we landed safely back in rainy Madrid before 9am, and I successfully returned to school, already missing Paris.

That might be almost all of what I have to say about Paris. I'm still working on editing the pictures (along with the remaining ones from Mallorca, no worries). I don't have anything to do tomorrow night other than pack for Berlin, so hopefully I can upload some then!

Mallorca Without a Map Part I

So this one time (literally this is the only time I've traveled like this) I decided at the almost-last-minute to travel somewhere by myself with no one I knew in the place where I was going. This one time was last week, when I decided on Monday or Tuesday that when Brian left for the airport on Friday morning I was going to go with him and fly somewhere. I decided to go to Mallorca because it's close, pretty cheap, and my best friend told me in June I had to go and see Gaudi's cathedral. (My response at the time was something like "Well, it's on an island, but maybe.") Plus it's also, you know, an island in the Mediterranean. (Technically it's in the Balearic Sea but I'm pretty sure there's not actually a difference.)

Friday morning Brian and I both woke up early (before the sun, but that's anytime before 8) and headed to the bus stop around 7:45. We took the airport express bus (which only costs 2 euros) from a stop just ten minutes from my house to the airport, where I said goodbye to Brian at terminal 1 and stayed on the bus all the way to terminal 4 (where I had previously not found Brian on Sunday, as you may recall). Right after Brian got off the bus the radio started playing "It's Raining Men" and I laughed really hard to myself, wishing he was there to share in my love of classic American music. I got to my terminal around 8:45 and then had nothing to do for three hours, as my flight wasn't until 12:05 (about an hour after Brian's international flight, thus the long wait time).

My flight of course hadn't been assigned a departure gate yet, so I decided to get breakfast at McDonald's (SORRY) because there was a sign for it right by where I happened to be standing when I got through security and I desperately wanted American breakfast food, and I hadn't been to a McDonald's in Spain. At first I just got a coffee, which was actually excellent (and only a euro!), and then I caved to a sausage and egg mcmuffin. And enjoyed every bite of it and will not apologize for it. While I was sitting there I saw a guy about my age sit down and plug in a computer with an adapter, pegging him as an American (based on his computer plug; the UK uses a different plug than America or Europe because they're difficult like that). So after I finished my breakfast and a little journaling, I got up to leave and as I passed him asked if he was from America. He was. :) And so I, who never talk to strangers on my own, spent an hour and a half talking with Rocco, who's from California but goes to Northeastern in Boston. He was traveling to Rome to visit his sister who's been living there for about six months. So fun to make a new friend, and a great way to pass the time until our flights took off. We talked about college, and graduating (he's also a senior), traveling, and 9/11. It's fascinating to me how tragedy are common experiences we can rally around with strangers, even ten years later. That led to talking about being a generation older, about how there are kids who are ten years old now who never knew a world with the twin towers, without these endless wars. I felt like we could have talked for ages, but eventually it was time to head to our gates for our flights, so we hugged and went our separate ways.

The flight was only an hour and somehow I ended up with a row to myself. I slept a little and read a little Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal and of course listened to Mötley Crüe. I landed in Mallorca, and thus began my adventure with navigating without a map or any form of useful information.

Cátalan

English

German

Spanish (Salida de no retorno made ma laugh)

I knew I needed to take the number 1 bus from the airport to Plaça de Espayna (Cátalan... whyyy) and then change to the 3 and take that to my hostel. So I managed to do that without getting lost, and after a picturesque (though cloudy) drive through central Mallorca, I arrived at my hostel.

Palm trees and the sea!

The hostel room. There were two other beds, but no one ended up sharing my room, so I had it to myself for three days. :) I got settled and then decided to go for a walk along the main street and found a bit of beach called Cala Nova.

Still life with sandals.

Cloudy moments at the beach.

After a while sitting at the beach, I was quite hungry (having not eaten since McDonald's) so I ended up at a Jamaican place called Jamrock where I chose the menu del dia. My main course was jerk chicken (which was spicy, hallelujah! Spanish food is generally pretty plain), and a salad with avocado.

After I ate, I went back to the hostel intending to take a nap. Instead I met another guy staying at the hostel, originally from Turkey but who had lived most of his life in London. We chatted for a while and then decided to take a walk until we couldn't walk anymore and just explore the city. So we wandered, first back down to the beach where I had been before, to see how far along we could walk. My friend took this picture of me:

We kept walking until it got dark, and stopped for a bit at Cala Major, and saw sights such as these.

Eventually we made our way back to the hostel, and as I had been up since very early that morning, I went right to bed to get a good night's sleep before the next two full days. Which will be coming soon! (Along with the update about the last couple days of Brian's visit.)

Spanglish

Alejandro wanted me to tell you that he can say Yankees properly now. Also that he is helping me with my Spanish and that he is a good person. I suppose these things are true.

But really talking with a Spaniard has seriously improved at least my writing skills (we always chat on facebook), now I just have to learn to speak. Haha. Ironic, I know. The problem though is that Spanish grammar is actually hard. The hard thing about English is pronunciation (Yankees!), the hard thing about Spanish is grammar, which is a lot more... fundamental to speaking.

I have to give a presentation in one of my classes on Tuesday, in Spanish. It only has to be 3-4 minutes long though, which is nothing compared to the 20 minute presentations I've done in English, so I'm not too worried. I just need to mejorar (improve) my Spanish a bit. And Alejandro says he will help. And now he will know that you all know that he said he would help, so he has to help. (Alejandro, could you read that sentence?)

Not doing anything on this Thursday night. Nidhi and Emily went to Cádiz for the weekend so I have the apartment to myself. (I'm not really a beach person, so I opted out.) I'm trying to get as much work done as possible before Brian arrives on Sunday. Oh. Right. BRIAN ARRIVES ON SUNDAY! He's teaching for a year in China and coming here on his week off so there's gonna be some serious UU action up in Madrid next week. Which means this weekend has to be productive - tonight I'm doing my laundry (which takes forever, due to a 1.5 hour wash cycle followed by air drying), tomorrow I'm going grocery shopping, and all weekend I'm doing as much homework as possible to leave me free time during the week. Wooo.

Heads up - I have skype free calls to phones anywhere in the world for a month (thanks, Mom!) so you might get a call from a weird unknown number or something. It might be me! If you want me to call you, send me your phone number, because I don't have any of my phone contacts here. I already tried to call my grandma in Florida who doesn't have a computer, but I got sent to voicemail. So. There's that.

Anyway, back to "Una Ley Integral" y más tarea. ¡Hasta luego!

English Perspective

Just a short one today, as I have a lot of homework to get through before four classes tomorrow. This post was inspired by today's purchase of a can of Pringles, which seems to be, for some reason, the only potato chips sold at the grocery store by my school. (Sidenote, somehow in Spain, sour cream and onion Pringles taste like America.)

Before I came to Spain I thought that English pervaded the globe and that due to Western imperialism and English-speaker laziness, essentially everyone in the world spoke some degree of English. Upon arriving in Spain, I immediately found out this is not true. My land lady, who rents this apartment to NYU students every semester doesn't speak any English (although she seems to like the word "flight"). And I soon came to learn she wasn't an oddity. Well, she is, but not because she doesn't speak English. (Ruth is a cool lady in her 60s who loves to chat and wants to make sure everything is okay and also likes to wear leopard print. But I digress.)

Products here often have labels in several languages. We got a carton of rice milk a while ago (after a bad experience with some regular milk) and it had a description of the product on the back and side in at least a dozen languages, but not one of them was English. This I do find odd. And I thought about this today because the Pringles container, God bless it, does have English on it. I don't know how the kids here who don't speak any Spanish are getting by though, because in so many cases there is no English to help you out. However, I think just as everything is coming to be in Spanish in addition to English in the States, some things here are in both Spanish and English. All the signs next to artworks at the Prado are in both languages, though often maltranslated. I wonder if things translated into Spanish in America are so grammatically incorrect.

Anyway, that is my minor musing for today. My Spanish is getting so much better due to daily use and with some help from my friend Alejandro. We talk on facebook and I told him to correct me whenever my grammar or a word is wrong, so I'm learning all the time! Now if I could just speak as well as I write... (Not to mention the minor problem that my English skills diminishing as my Spanish ones improve.)