Churtemosque

NOW I am in Sevilla, which is in the Andalucian province in the South of Spain for our week-long trip! Too bad its raining and I am super sick! Everytime I breathe, my lungs ache, I am so tired of breathing! Okay, but anyhow I went out last night (hey when am I ever gonna be in Sevilla again?!) and we were walking down the street and see a beautiful terraza! You look through the black wrought-iron gates and there are plants everywhere and cute little apartments. SO one of my friends decides that it would be fun to take a picture there. She trespasses through the gate which as open and shuts it. Yeah, so it clicks shut and locks by itself. LOL! She was stuck in there, it was like a big birdcage! HAHA, I was laughing so hard I almost had an asthma attack! So we rang all of doorbells (buttons for apartments on the outside of the gate), but no one was home. Then this 90 year old lady walk out and we ask if she can open the gate, and she says ¨NO!¨ and slams her door shut! SO then we were starting to get worried and think about calling the guardia civil (policia) or something to get her out. SO then she starts knocking on doors and FINALLY someone tells her where the secret buzzer is to get out of there! SO FUNNY! She was in there for a good half hour! HAHA! So after Sevilla, we made a pitstop in Cordoba and saw a really famous a churtemosque or in spanish iglestemesquita...now if you´´re wondering what exactly THAT is actually it´´s church, temple and mosque all in one. This churtesmosque was beautiful, it had koran inscriptions on the wall, with a catholic altar and crucifixes...inside of a jewish neighborhood next to a jewish temple...how crazy is that!? I guess they all used to live together happily, and then fought to take over each other. WOW! But anyways so that was nice...one of the billions of beautiful churches here in Spain! I am so uncultured for saying this right now, but I think I am really tired of visiting cathedrals! Í never expected THAT to happen...( I know I know i´m awful, but how would you feel if you saw every cathedral ever made in your state every day for a week?) By the way, guess what! I made up the word churtesmosque... (and iglestemesquita)...could you tell??

Morocco III: I am a piece of bologna

I´m walking around and then I realize I´m upstairs alone with about 5 salesman all attacking, BUY! BUY! BUY! My friend saves me and says ´NO SHE DOESN¨T WANT IT!¨ (they only listen to guys), and Thug tour guide gets all mad at him and asks why my friend didn´t let me buy! So then after all of the salesmen get pissed off cuz we students don´t give them commission that they want (Thug tour guide was yelling at us to buy)! (By the way I have a picture of the Creep, owner of the rug store and me)Then next we go to a farmacy, and the owner is giving us a presentation of all of these different types of weeds/herbs and their uses. It was interesting and cheaper and many people bought stuff, like me! (fyi: Face cream, wood eyeliner...also a snake bracelet and a huge gypsy necklace) Anyhow, so we plow back through the narrow, dirty streets, me clinging to my friend, when we realize that we are alone (people were ahead or behind) and there are a ton of salesmen surrounding us shouting for us to buy their: Morrocan spoons, T-shirts, mirrors, dolls and other RANDOM paraphernalia! Buy this time, I wasn´t even looking I was hiding my face and closing my eyes. They were screaming at me ¨ OPEN YOUR EYES! LOOK! LOOK AT THIS LOVELY SPOON!¨ I was like ´no I dont want a spoon!´ THEN we finally caught up and these damn persistant vendors like flies to honey followed us all the way back to our buses and one was screaming at me, ¨what is your lowest price?¨ I was like ¨one euro for a spoon¨ He got soo mad at me and yelled, ¨YOU ARE A PIECE OF BOLOGNA!¨ HAHAH! Can you believe that!? He was so creative, I was almost proud, I stress the ALMOST! Then we loaded into the autobus and drove on out of there...we all looked at each other half dazed and confused! PHEW! And then, as we enter the ferry there are MORE freaking vendors selling things! I wanted to buy something that says Morroco, so I buy a key chain for two euro...however, I ONLY have a ten. So this man cons me out of my change by making me wait until my ferry almost leaves, so that I finally buy a Moroccan drum out of desperation to make him give me at least SOME change and stop already! Never buy anything from a street vendor unless you have EXACT CHANGE! AY! But overall it was a wicked cool (Erin´s slang from the east coast) experience, and I would totally do it again, even though we all got jipped by Thug tour guide, and Hottie knew it!

Morocco II: I am worth 3,000 camels

I had gotten decked out in my best gypsy costume with the scarves and everything because I wanted to kind of fit in! NO, I was so wrong! First of all picture me wearing this bright pink scarf on my head, when all the Moroccan women were wearing tans and grays. (We heard that if your hair is beautiful, they quickly cut it off while you´re walking by and sell it, so we were all trying to hide or minimize our hair) All of us Americans (about 25) were bunched in a group, with two bodyguards and two tour guides, Hottie and Thug leading. As soon as we stepped out of the bus we made SUCH a commotion! Everyone was staring, and the women were SO mean to me, ONLY ME! They were hissing at me, and glaring at me! OMG! I thought they would be all over my other friend who has beautiful goldlocks hair, or other girls but NO! Only me! (I think they thought that I was Arabic or something and not wearing the right attire, because the street vendors came up to me and kept asking are you arabic? are you arabic?) All of a sudden we were barraged with street vendors coming up to us and screaming in our faces TEN EURO, YOU BUY, YOU BUY! (In english). So we were rushed out of the streets into this elegant store that was like the Neiman Marcus of Morocco. They had mint tea all set up for us and these really good pastries and had a fashion show of rugs ( I didn´t think that was possible, but it happened) About 10 guys would come out of the backroom like models with huge rolls of rugs, walk down the freaking CATWALK and roll out beautiful rugs while this guy would talk about the quality of each! HAHA! They were trying to sell us college students these 2,000 euro rugs! RUGS, HA, yeah freakin right! After the fashion show, they turned into street vendors. ´´YOU BUY YOU BUY THIS, You are beautiful and for this I give it to you for special deal, shhh, only 300 euros´´. WHATEVER! Then the owner comes out and sees me taking a picture and says ´´Are you arabic?´´ and I´m like no, and he keeps following me around the store. I don´t know if he´s joking or not but he says to my friend with the Goldilocks hair, ´Two thousand camels for you. ´He looks at me and says ´you look arabic, three thousand camels for you!´ I just laugh it off and go look around, cuz I´ve never heard that one before! Then he asks me to look at a special collection he has and it´s just me and him in the corner right? So he looks around all secretively and hugs me really close and says ´Look at me, look into my eyes! You can have any of these rugs, all of these rugs, if you will stay here with me forever.´ I look at him like HELL NO! And he says ´no, no don´t answer now, look around and consider it.´ So then he comes around TWO MORE TIMES, and tries to hug me again and I´m looking away for someone to help me, and he keeps saying ´look into my eyes´! So finally I go far away into a corner, where his salesmen keep harrassing me and saying, ´COME COME, I have special offer for you back here.¨ (TRYING to take me to the backroom where I´m sure the owner was waiting like a spider, the Creep!) Finally the Creep says, "I know where you are in Spain. I will come to visit you soon. I have business in Salamanca! Do not turn away from me!" I clung onto one of my guy friends and would NOT leave him for anything.

Morocco I - Bellydancing

You will NOT believe what happened to me today!!! I went to Africa and got a marriage proposal for rugs and 3,000 camels! Ok so it all began when I woke up this morning at 5am (ew) to take this hour and a half hour busride, with the hottest tour guide (or en espanol, ¨como un tren¨)I´ve seen yet to Morocco! Oh yeah by the way I am in Costa Del Sol (I am getting much better with this fantastic SOL and PLAYA!) OMG! Then we take a ferry ride into Morocco, which is a total dreamworld...I felt like I was entering fairyland it was SO beautiful. When the waves hit the sand, the water mists everywhere making a thousand rainbows with each wave (this doesn´t happen in Cali)! And then I saw how poor it was there was trash and all of the buildings looked a little...dilapidated (except for the governors of course..his was lavish). Anyway, all of the women were wearing scarves over their heads and Arabic signs were everywhere, and at every street were fully decked out bodyguards with huge guns. We met our really shady other tourguide who spoke Arabic, who I just KNOW was some kind of Morroccan thug (which was confirmed later by Hottie tour guide who said he was a thief) who proceeded to take us on our tour. He was soo evil! He said that if Spanish me got sick of their wives, they could go to Morroco and get a women, but that she would be second class. (I was like ew you´re third class, just for saying that). Then he said that the belly dancer that we would see was short and fat (I can´t believe he was so non-chalant about it). We drove through this gorgeous country at top speed, and as we passed by the sights the Thug tour guide would call out the names. We found out later, the reason for this was he was in a hurry to get us to the bazaars so that we could buy lots of things (cuz he got commission). We step out of the bus and all of these people are outside dressed in these crazy African outfits smiling, oh-so-happy to see us, banging drums and cymbals. There were camels standing there perfectly waiting for us to ride. WOW! I felt like a reina! Then after we all took turns riding camels, we went inside this huge white tent, where they had prepared a Moroccan lunch for us. We sit down to eat cous-cous, lamb, some kind of stew and arabic drinks. In the background, these guys were playing music and serenading us, then they brought out a belly dancer. She was NOT short and fat, she was gorgeous! (She probably rejected his @$$, and he´s still upset about it) She did a dance, really provocative, which is kind of amazing considering all of the women are so conservative. Then she took one of the guys and started undressing him! Then she put a skirt on him, put a bra with two oranges on his chest and made him shake it and dance with her! HAHA! It was great! After that we went to the Moroccan bazaars, which was the craziest part!

Super-Gordo

BACK TO GORDO! He is the most annoying (bicho) bug I have ever heard!! I think the acetone made him morph into Super-Gordo now, because he is crunching the wood louder than ever! I am SURE Erin and I will wake up one day and she won¢¥t have a bed anymore! Okay so we told our senora about the bicho in the wood and she wasn¢¥t happy...then she told us that while she was cleaning our room, she heard him as well....and so we were like "yes... and?" (so what are you going to do about it?) but NOTHING happened! Then Cristina said it might be electricity! ELECTRICITY?!? You HAVE to be KIDDING me, in the wood, no way! So our next trabajo (job) today will be to buy bug spray and drench the wood in it. I just hope he doesn¢¥t come out, because I am SCARED TO DEATH of bichos, especially Super-bichos like Gordo...after all if he can eat through wood, then he can DEFINITELY eat through skin.

Gordo the Bug

Okay so Erin and I have another roommate that we call Gordo. Gordo is a termite (we think) that lives inside the wood in Erin´s bed, right near her head. This termite´s name is Gordo because it constantly EATS!! I have been silent for a week on this subject, but Gordo is SO ANNOYING!!!!!! I hear him constantly chomping, it sounds like moraccas, constant chewing; he just can´t get enough of that wood. We haven´t said anything to Nico or Cristina because 1) We don´t want to be rude and 2) We don´t know how to say it in Spanish. So last night, we turned off the light and he just wouldn´t shutup! I turned the light back on and told Erin, ¨That´s it, Gordo has to go! I can´t sleep! ¨ Then we tried to figure out where the little sucker was exactly and started pounding on the wood which didn´t bug Gordo one bit. He kept on happily chomping the wood. So we took out the most acidic thing we could find: Erin´s bottle of nail polish remover, and poured it all over the bed frame....then we lit a match, JK! We poured acetone in all the holes we could find, and then SILENCE. We thought Gordo had finally died. But lo and behold I woke up to the sound of moraccas this morning, and Gordo was having his breakfast. I just don´t know how to kill him, but 'I want him dead, I want his family dead and I want his house burned to the ground!'

110 volts versus 220 volts

I brought a curling iron because my hair is out of control! Before I left the US, I also bought a converter which changes the shape of the plug becasue obviously I can´t just plug in my curling iron. (The plugs here are really weird, they are long and pointy) But I wasn´t really sure about the difference between a converter and transformer or if mine was also a transformer. So after much prompting from my roommate, I decided to just plug it in and see what happened. BIG MISTAKE!!! The whole thing started smoking within 5 seconds. I was like OMIGOSH I am going to burn down their house! So I quickly unplugged the thing which was super hot and I learned that converters and transformers are not the same thing. So later I went into this tienda that said ¨electricidad¨ and decided to ask her about the voltage situation. So I learned that 1) the US has 110 voltage and 2) Spain has 220 VOLTAGE!! SO Spain has double our voltage! I am so stupid I can´t believe I just plugged it in! I am lucky that it didn´t blow up right then. Anyhow I bought the transformer it was only like 13 euros. I was very wary about plugging in my curling iron because I was afraid I might have internally fried it. But I plugged in all of the parts very slowly and watched for any sign of smoke and then....BOOOOM! It BLEW UP! J/K! Wouldn´t it have been terrible if it would have!¿ But it didn´t! Thank GOD! It just makes a funny whirring noise now and I have to be very careful!

Spain - Day 1

Buenos Dias! I arrived in Spain after a whirlwind trip through London. I can’t believe my Senora, Nico and her daughter, Cristina, are here picking me up already. They greeted me with a classic Spanish kiss on the cheek. Instead of the warm and inviting feeling I was anticipating, it felt cold. We barely touched cheeks, as if we didn’t want to. I watched the other Senoras do the same thing to their American students. I don’t care what anyone says, an American hug is much friendlier than a Spanish kiss. We caught a taxi and went directly home. I didn’t understand really anything they were saying. How can this be, I’ve studied Spanish for years? They were speaking way too fast. As we go up the elevator to the 5th story, I am wondering, how would I ever survive this alone? Thank God I am getting a roommate; I hope she’s cool. We eat our lunch in almost silence and I go to my room. This is so awkward. I don’t know about this place; it is nothing like the friendly Latin American culture I expected it to be. I wanna go back to London.