Carnaval II

CARNAVAL! Last night we walked down the beach to this HUGE festival with neon mask-shaped lights in the center of the streets, booming live Spanish music, and thousands of people dressed up in these costumes, old and young dancing everywhere in the streets! There were kids as young as 5, and as old as 80 at 3 or 4 am STILL dancing! I have never seen such detailed costumes, they HAVE to rent them or something, because the ones for Halloween in the USA SUCK compared to these professional costumes! WOW! These girls walk around all glittery pushing these huge plastic dresses that they drag around three times my size with peacock feathers and fruit spilling everywhere. They are like live Barbie Dolls complete with a background that they haul with them. There is constant live music, every kind of Spanish music, Salsa, Ola, Samba, Merengue, Cumbia EVERYTHING, and down another huge Plaza is Reggae and down another huge Plaza is hip hop/spanish! So I put on my huge feather mask (bright purple with a peacock feather), my neon purple/pink peluca (wig) with feathers, and my Hawaiian skirt thing and joined the throng (I just threw it together, I didn't know what I was trying to be.) In the reggae section, there were so many people, I literally thought that I was going to be crushed. I couldn´t MOVE, and if someone moved their elbow, something of mine would have to move to compensate for it. It was the first time I´ve been scared that if I fell, I would get trampled! Good thing there are policemen everywhere. There are also people laying out on the streets just making out, or just dancing and cheering at the top of their lungs at 5 in the morning!! We got up at NOON the next day to go tan at the ocean, and there were STILL people walking around in the same costumes they were in the night before partying!!!! THAT is stamina! It´s not EVEN carnaval yet, but Tenerife parties straight for 15 DAYS BEFORE CARNAVAL! Carnaval is on Tuesday tomorrow! Hasta luego!

Carnaval!

You will not believe where I am right now!! In Las Islas Canarias in the Island Tenerife for Carnaval!! Yeay I feel like singing Celia Cruz, La vida es un carnaval! Well here it is! (Carnaval is a national holiday...no one knows why but oh well yay no school... it´s like a Spanish Mardi Gras). So first I left on Friday to Madrid at 6am, got there at 9 dumped our stuff off at a hostal and ran to the big red tourist buses with no roofs! We´re listening to the headphones shivering outside on top of this bus, when it starts to hail. We were being pelted, the seats were wet, and it was freezing, but we were gonna enjoy it, damnit! We hopped on and off those buses for hours getting a feel for Madrid! So after that, we go back to get ready for the Latin American costume parties everywhere in Plazas, but they were all cancelled because of the rain! The only thing still going was a huge free concert in the Plaza Mayor! So we walked past all of the costumed people to the hostal and decided to turn in early to get ready for Tenerife, or so I thought. But then I get this phone call at 3 in the morning, and some of my friends were at the club and it stopped raining yeay! So I went across the street to meet them at this club Kapital. I don´t know what I´m doing, as usual, so I follow these spanish girls and walk right past the bouncer into the club. I look to my left and there´s this huge line of people and a sign that says 15 euros! There´s a guy behind me that was checking his name on the guest list, I guess he was with the girls! I got in for free! WHOO HOO! So I ran in to the dance floor before anyone noticed. OMIGOSH, let me just tell you I give this club Best Club I´ve Ever Been To Award! This club is huge, with 7 floors, stadium style, so you could sort of see other floors with balcony dancers and big moving light shows on the walls and ceiling: 1st floor was techno-house-trance-pop, 2nd floor: American & Spanish pop-80´s, 3rd floor: Salsa ish, 4th floor: Lounge/bar, 5th floor: Balcony Hip hop/R&B, 6th floor: Huge Cafe/Bar with chairs and fountains, 7th floor: Movie theater (closed). So I was dancing and then all of a sudden I look and and this humongous like 20 feet wide column of fog/dry ice sprays me in the face like a big fire extinguisher, so quickly I almost stop breathing. OMG, it was like beam-me-up-scotty, I LOVED IT, so different than the fog I´m used to at clubs, it was very cold and soothing. Then the fog rolled over the crowd like clouds, I´ve never seen anything like it! That club was so full of surprises...all of a sudden confetti would randomly spray everywhere at the crowd. QUE GUAY! Then all of a sudden the music stopped and this guy started playing the saxophone on one of the balconies, and everyone started clapping. It was SO RANDOM, like one of those whats-wrong-with-this-picture type things. Then the music started again...whoa. So I got home, took a shower, slept for like a minute, then went on my first ride ever on a subway, the Metro! I was so excited! We flew to Tenerife in a couple of hours, after getting a full course meal and unlimited drinks on the airplane. We checked into the hotel and headed out to the beach, which was ... black! These beaches in the north are volcanic sand, and when the waves hit the beach it sounds different. The hand-size volcanic rocks hit each other... you know what!? It sounds just like that cereal Rice Crispies...you know Snap, Crackle, Pop. If you don´t know what it sounds like, go out and buy some and listen to that cereal! Then imagine it BOOMING! It was my first time in the Atlantic! Speaking of cereal, I am sooo happy to be making my own food, and I have been eating CEREAL! OMG I ate an entire box of Special K Frutas Rojas in one day!

Galicia - Free stripper

So last weekend we left early in the morning and went to fill up the gas tank. We had NO CLUE what kind of fuel we were supposed to use, but good thing that this is España and there are gas attendants to figure that out for you, cuz our car ended up using diesel. I have never used diesel fuel in my life and I never would have figured that one out, pero bueno. We drove for 6 hours through these beautiful purple mountains majesty (you know that song My Country Tis of Thee), covered in purple flowers, and other mountains in gold flowers. It was so gorgeous! We took the free roads (you have to cuidate because lots are toll roads) to Santiago de Compostela, a ciudad that is known for its Catedral.The peregrinos are people who walk the Camino de Santiago over 900 km all the way across Spain from France with their seashell hats and sticks to this tiny city. Some people have been known to walk on their knees! So I did my own Camino de Santiago and walked one meter right up the steps to the Cathedral. This Cathedral was huge and I think the mass was in Latin. They speak differently in Galicia (with an accent called gallego), and sometimes it was hard to understand, like instead of ayuntamiento it would be axuntamiento, niñas would be ninas, etc. So when we went to the hotel that night, the room with windows across from us were see -through blurry with no curtains. I saw a blurry shape turning from different colors to skin color! This guy started getting naked in FRONT of the windows, doing a little show. So then all of a sudden the lights turned off, and I dont know what happened, but he turned them back on and opened the window. And thats when we closed our curtains! He probably would have walked on the roof to our window naked! It was crazy! But anyhow, we went to buy souvenirs and there were tiendas with religious objects, sex objects and witchcraft all in the SAME STORE! Only in SPAIN!

I miss milk...

OMG I really REALLY want a bowl of cereal and cold 1% milk and french toast. Ummm beautiful, beautiful cereal and lovely milk, which I could eat all day, morning, noon and night! No one eats cereal here...or drinks cold milk...or knows about french toast. On another note...can someone please explain to me, how it is possible that milk can stay out all day, and no one refrigerates it ... and yet it is still good?? Why don´t we have that in the US, so much easier! At first I was a little leery about trying it (and still am) ... but it seems okay ... just tastes a little funny. Why are eggs okay to sit on the shelf all day SIN REFRIGERATION? I don´t think I will ever understand....or lose my intense milk cravings!

Sick AGAIN!

So I´ve been really sick right, and someone told me it would be a good idea to take codeine (Can you believe it comes over the counter in pill form?). I am not really ever sick and I never take pills, so I have no clue, so I take it, and then I hear it´s bad so after about two weeks, I stop. I read to find out what is the big deal with codeine, and I learn that it´s a painkiller (used for after-surgery), extremely strong, and derived from opium, and 10% of it is transformed into morpheine in the body! AH! No wonder I was so happy when I was sick! Then all this week I have been really sick, and feeling like blecch (I probably had withdrawal symptoms), and I started taking another medicine. I was so sick on Thursday, and cold I was shaking in class and wearing other people´s coats and scarves. I was NOT about to leave the class because you are only allowed three absences in the semester and I want to save my absences for traveling right? No wrong, because the professor saw me and made me go home. DARNIT! I am bitter, I could have went to Barcelona or France this weekend, but my body just doesn´t want to cooperate with me. So I wasted another weekend willing my body to hurry up and heal.

Spanish Alcohol

I´ve decided that everyone here is an alcoholic! It’s in their blood. Every cafe, every bar, every restaurant has alcohol! Let me explain, so today I had coffee called a cubanito, from a little cafe to wake me up before clase. It was SO GOOD! It tasted like rich chocolate, coffee and a mysterious something else…maybe alcohol? But no way, I couldn’t believe it. So while I was drinking it, I noticed I was getting hot and I felt kind of whoozy. So after I drank most of it, I looked up at themenu and noticed the coffee said it had ¨leche, cafe, chocolate con cao, ron¨. I was like what the heck is ron???? So I asked the guy ¨ Que es ron?¨ and he showed me a bottle of freaking BACARDI! OMG!! I drank before I went to class at 9 in the morning! So I was really happy today in class and of course got most of the answers wrong. But I guess that’s perfect for today because en clase, Cultural de Espana (Spanish Culture) we talked about the importance of bars and alcohol in Spain!! So I learned all about Sangria, Calimocho, Cubatas, Whiskey and Chupitos and how to make them! My profesora even handed out instrucciones: Para Usar un Bar! Can you believe that? I have to say it was the most interesting class I´ve ever been to!
About the food situation...I have really lucked out!! Spanish food is really good, the only thing I don’t really like is paella (rice, seafood, tomatoes, eggs, a big mixture of things). And I´ve noticed when they cook American food like hamburguesas, it ALWAYS has a wonderful Spanish twist to it. For example, their ketchup tastes different, or they NEVER trim the fat off of meat, and ALWAYS use tons of aceite (olive oil) and the water never has ice in it. I am glad that Nico is a very good cook. I only say this because some of the kids tells me horror stories of their Senoras cooking them stuff like boiled eggs soaked in ketchup, or watery potato soup made of powdered fake potatoes, or of food that tastes like smoke, since EVERYONE and their madre smokes here, or super hard pan (bread). This certain madre makes her American kid eat every single thing she cooks, or she gets really mad and says, ¨Yo comi todo, you have to too!¨ But if your madre makes food that doesn´t sit well with you, at least there´s TAPAS. It IS possible for students to survive on tapas, which are the little snacks that los bares (bars) serve for free with your drinks. So here´s the legend: I guess way back in the day, the moscas used to fly around and land in the cervezas of the people in the bar. So the bartenders would cover the beer with a plate and stop (tapa) the flies from going into the drinks. However, it looked kindof ugly so the bartenders would put little bocadillas (snacks) on top of the plate, so it would look pretty! Then it evolved into tapas which can be anything from fish to fruit to Spanish tortillas to empanadas; really anything! Such a good idea!

Snake Hose

Have you ever had just one of those days? Like today, I woke up and I was really congested and coughing, and my roommate´s alarm went off 3 times and Gordo is chewing in my ear and AH! It gets worse! Then I go into the bathroom and turn on the water to take a shower and (the shower head is one of those ones that is connected to the end of this long hose) I guess Nico had cleaned the bathroom and wrapped the hose around the faucet, so when I turned it on, the thing sprays me in the face and starts whipping around like a snake, soaking ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, and hitting me! In movies, when I would see that happen, I always thought that it was so STUPID and it couldn´t really happen, but I´m here to tell you that YES, IT CAN HAPPEN! The hose fights dirty, whipping and hitting you, making it hard to turn the water off so that you can't kill its one moment of freedom. Honestly, it really hurts. So now everything is SOAKED in the bathroom, I hope Nico doesn´t get mad!And now I have class, and I am leaving to Andalucia tomorrow for a week, but I am really sick! I hope that it goes away soon!