sanguine orangina, amelie, and tessa are my saviors

dear tessa, i will miss my sleepovers at your apartment ultimately.

ok, so tessa and i like to have marathons it seems. and so this day, we begin with falling in love with art at MACBA. it was one of those days, you know? where you suddenly remember why you love. i dont know, i'm ridiculous. but thats what is was for me. and i think i could be happy living in these exhibits (other than the fact that i might become quite twisted after a bit). one of the exhibitions was called "the killing machine", and it was very sound oriented. sound sculptures.

it was amazing, and for more than just the fact that it was among the most inspiring exhibitions i had been to in a long time, but because i got to witness tessa slapping a punk ass, tripping (literally) spaniard teenager. he completely deserved it (after completely ruining a part of the exhibit for which you had to wait in line to see), but we still left imediately, avoiding eye contact of any security guards.

that night i joined tessa at her apartment for a night of amelie, sanguine orangina mixed with peach liquor (i know, super girly, but oh so good), and goat cheese salad. mmmmm. i managed to fall asleep in the middle of the movie (thankfully i pretty much have it memorized by now) and consequently woke up super early on tessa's couch. sitting in another person's apartment is quite awkward when that person is asleep but their roommates are not. so i decided to leave, only to be convinced to return again by a text from tessa (who could deny a promise of pancakes).

return to the apartment. take annoying pictures of tessa cooking the marvelous pancakes. make way too many pancakes, eat 7 each, follow with a carbohydrate comma. oh so good. just how a saturday morning should be.

the marathon continued later that day with some sun time at parc de la ciutadella, where we fed the pigeons and watched people juggling and tight rope walking. and then we moved on to the magic fountain and waited as long as possible for it to get dark so that the show would be amazing. but it never really got dark enough. sadly. and we decided to make ourselves feel better with some good good italian food from the place below tessa's apartment. (which shall be fully described in the following blog)

international karaoke is even better

ok, so we decided that karoke was long overdue. but, the thing is, although i could easily karaoke at any time of day, jeanna sometimes needs a little help. so i went on a mission to find drinks for her. sweet drinks. vermouth or malibu, to be exact. to make a story short, i ended up accidently buying an expensive bottle of dessert wine (which i never even got to try), finally buying the vermouth, run the bottle to jeanna, only to be late for dinner because i witnessed a car accident turned to fist fight and was questioned by the police (all in spanish keep in mind).

needless to say, the night began with a bang. and only continued as such.

jeanna, kevin, and i go to josh's apartment (wine, vermouth, and soda at hand) in order to start the night. but were immediately told to leave by frank, the usually awesome RA, and exited to the street with our drinks in hand to wait for josh (and his friend visiting from rochester). the above photo is from us sitting on a bench outside the apartment (notice the pet store sign behind us). we had quite a lovely time on the street. i felt like a real spaniard.

but then the vermouth hit us (or maybe just me...as i had about half the bottle, without even noticing) and we were hungry. so we went to this diner like place on the corner for some patatas bravas (they are a staple food now for me, i dont know what i am going to do without them. they are perfect for all situations).

and finally we made it...the karaoke bar. and i would just like to say, it did not dissapoint. jeanna and i picked out two songs. 1) don't turn around, by ace of base...and 2) every morning by sugar ray. we even convinced josh and his friend to sing a song (brown eyed girl). but they cheated, and all ready knew the song cause they sing it in their acapela group at school. i must admit though, the harmony was damn impressive. especially before i realized they were cheating.

between ace of base and sugar ray, a group of spanish began singing shania twain, and jeanna and i had impressed them so much with our stellar performance, that they invited us to join them! it was a good time had by all, and the spaniards definetly needed our help with the country lyrics. oh boy.

i would love to post some action shots. but they are very dark, and, well, pretty embarrasing. so you will just have to ask to see them if you really want to.

i am officially a rock star

i never knew tipsy pizza could be so awkward

my senora's birthday. she had no plans, thinks she is old and busted. and for as much as i don't particularly like her, it was sad. so when she called and asked if i wanted to go out for some celebratory pizza i couldn't exactly say no (besides, i wasn't going to miss my free meal). she comes home, and i find out that what celebratory pizza really meant was going to pizza with her and her boyrfriend.

so then we get there, order our food, and the man (who's name is raffa...which makes me think of rafi every time, and sometimes i can't help but laugh. i am so rude), raffa, decides that we should order some champagne. so we split a bottle of champagne. and then my senora makes me order a dessert. and they drink more. and she tries to hook me up with the waiter, and tells him he should sit down with us and have some champagne. needless to say, she was tipsy by the end.

she asked me if i wanted to go to balmes 314 (which is a fancy bar near our house) but it was 11 and i still had to write a 15 page paper...so i quite unfortunately had to say no. happy birthday juaq

gertrude, i miss you and your green rusted hood (end of spring break)

i miss driving. a lot. and in france was the first time i was in a car that was not a taxi, and it was beautiful. we did a lot of driving, and saw a lot of garden gnomes (they were all over the french country side! amelie doesn't lie). and this really random bridge decorated with bright paint and old bicycles.

and on this drive it suddenly seemed very much that i was back in southern illinois driving the wine trail. really, it probably didn't seem at all similar. but i realized that i missed home, and it was beautiful to be there for a moment.

and then we turned the corner, and there was this huge castle looking building in the middle of nowhere. you just can't beat that.

so, what exactly did we do besides drive through vineyards and past castles that end up just being expensive places to rent for the weekend?

1) i bought some shoes to replace the ones i lost in the canary islands. but apparently france doesn't believe in tennis shoes. so i ended up buying the most expensive pair of converse currently in existence. but my feet weren't cold anymore.

2) we went to les tours, which is this amazing place where there are ruins of 5 huge towers/castles that were built on the top of mountains. it was really pretty, but we didn't end up hiking up...somewhat dissapointing, but it was still gorgeous.

3) move on to a crazy cave, that is pre-lit with timers for the tour and everything. it was ridiculous in a sad/funny sort of way. the tour was in french, so the only thing i understood was when our guide answered questions for a group of spanish people at the front. regardless of the extreme tourist factor of the cave, it was pretty great. first, there was this random mary figure stuck in the corner of one of the "rooms". second, apparently the towns people used to have town parties and dances and such in the cave. who wouldn't want to take part in that?! third, it ended with a light show to music by mark knopfler. it was so ridiculous and amazing all at once. and to end, tessa and her dad discovered smarties push ups. good goodness.

and then return home for a nice homemade meal with good wine. tessa, want to open the wine? what do you say? you can't get the cork out? you broke the corkscrew? in the cork?!

it was a bad situation, and we were sent on a mission to rescue the wine. and so tessa and i went strolling through town searching for a way to open the wine bottles and for a loaf of bread. after three closed bakeries, and complete lack of corkscrews in any open store, we were saved. peter the crepe man. i owe him. he even gave us a cork to replace the one that had gotten torn and unuseable (we returned it to him the next morning with a note and the present of some candy)

we had wine just in time for dinner. and it was a good dinner, with no ham or fried substances. yum. at one point tessa decided she didn't want her wine (as she sits with a completely full glass), so i ended up double fisting it for the majority of the night. monkey face in front of parents is just not appropriate (thanks tessa).

the next day we drove back to spain, spent a day in figuerres with our friend salvador dali and inside his intense mind, and then tessa and i caught the train to barcelona.

spring break over. (ah!)

the land of never ending pastries and vineyards can't posibbly be all that bad (spring break #6)

after falling in love on tenerife, tessa and i moved on (taxi, bus, plane, train, and finally car) to france where we met her dad and sheryl. it was nice to finally not have to make any decisions, or figure out public transportation, and the house they had rented was amazing. the bathrooms even had towel warmers. but, to be honest, i dont really remember what all we saw. the first day we mostly just walked and drove around a few random towns and places.

we stopped in one particularly cute town, but there was literally nobody around. and completely randomly, there was confetti all over. the streets and sidewalks were covered and we had no idea why. i would like to pretend that there was nobody around cause it was a town filled with beautiful people that had spent the night having a townwide fiesta.

then we moved on to carcassone, which is this midevil town where people still live in the crazy castles and stuff. it was pretty cool looking, but i pretty much felt like i was in disney world because the bottom floors of all the buildings were cheesy stores and cafes. i did get some rocking tee shirts there though.

there were a lot of pictures of pigs everywhere. i couldnt figure out exactly why because i don't know french...but it had something to do with this princess that saved the town by throwing a pig over the town walls....haha, yeah, i dont know.

we also got some freakin amazing candy in carcassone. it was hard candy with this intensly amazing gooey middle. i am addicted.

return home, no electricity. what should we do? crepes of course! so we walked about five feet to the crepe place in town, and met peter the crepe man. hard cider and crepes are a pretty good combination. and then tessa's dad got a grand marnier crepe flambe, and that pretty much made my night. a flaming crepe just can't be beat.

rooftop eggs, black sand, and pepsi wine (spring break #5)

our last day in tenerife

part one:
we made the most amazing breakfast of scrambled eggs with tomatos and cheese that we bought at the market. we ate it upstairs, and manfred came and joined us in the sunshine and we talked and bonded over the beauty that is hostal intercambio. you could see both mont teide and the ocean from the roof, and it smelled like freshly cleaned laundry becuase manfred had sheets hanging to dry. pretty great.

part two:
tessa was SUPER sore (ok, and yeah, my butt was pretty sore, but she pretty much couldn't move...watching her walk was pretty great) so we decided that the day was a beach day. so we took a bus down the hill to the closest beach. we got lost, but only for a little...and while lost discovered the amazing amounts of lizards all over, and afterwards i couldn't stop seeing the millions of lizards that were crawling around everything. it wasn't exactly the most natural beach on the island, but it was the easiest to find...and there was black sand! and although i feel like there is so much to say. and would like to write forever about it, there really isnt much to say. it was a beautiful beach, with tropical weather and surfers, where we layed in the sun for hours, while eating melty principe cookies and cheese and tomoto sandwiches.

although, i do have to admit that it took me almost an hour to realize it was a topless beach. and its not like there wasn't really anybody around that was topless. in fact, i would say over half of the women were topless. i just seriously didnt even notice.

once we were both pretty fried (even though i actually put on sunscreen this time...twice!), we walked down the beach a bit, bought some necklaces from a street vendor, and went to find something to drink. it only seemed natural to get some girly tropical drinks at beach side bar, so we did. and they were pretty great.

part 3:
we came home, showered away the black sand stuck to everything, and went to dinner at this little place down the street that manfred suggested called los compadres. it was amazingly local, with paper towl rolls on every table for napkins, boys playing a game of soccer that ranged between the street outside, as well as the area just inside the side door. when we came in the woman gave us three choices...chicken, lamb, or goat. i got chicken and tessa got goat. we also got a salad, potatos, and wine to share. the meat was mostly just a vehicle for sauce, the salad the same old spanish salad i've had all semester, and the potatos the same potatos we've been eating, with mojo sauce. all were pretty great. but, oh the wine. it was in a pepsi bottle, poured straight from the barrel! you can't get much more local than los compadres, and i wanted to stay forever and drink pepsi wine.

instead, we returned to our hostal, to sit in the common room once again, for our last night with manfred and try one more canary island specialty, ron miel (honey rum). it was, as you would expect, pretty sweet. but i liked it enough, and manfred REALLY liked it. even though he claimed that it was too sweet for him, he ended up drinking the majority of the bottle and spouting out manfred wisdom at us all night. it was a good sort of ending, if there is such a thing.

sometimes you say you are in paradise, but you are really just in florida (spring break #4)

our second day on tenerife.

we had talked with manfred and asked for some hiking suggestions. with his amazing accent he informed us of the trail at masca, where you have to take a bus to the other side of the island, to this town called masca on the top of a ravine. from here you continue to hike down the ravine for about four hours until you make it to the ocean, where you take a boat (maybe get to see some dolphins), pass by los gigantes, and end up in another town where you can get a bus back home. it all sounded quite perfect.

so we set the alarm clock to go off the next morning at 6 AM, just in time to catch the bus. snooze. snooze. snooze. claire, its 645!...RUN. we barely made it to the station in time to stuff down some bus station donuts and catch the bus to buena vista. we then had to catch a connecting bus from buena vista to masca. and my definition of bus is loose. really, it was a van stuffed with unsuspecting victims. germans, spaniards, tessa, and me. it may have been the scariest ride of my life. i couldn't even understand how the van could be going up the mountain and around those curves so quickly. at one point you could see where a car had crashed, and was no left on the side of the mountain. that didn't give me too much hope for survival. everyone was scared, it was an international bonding experience.

and so we finally get there alive, and it is the cutest village. and i know i have said this a lot, but i should probably live there someday.


we stopped to buy our boat tickets, for once we got down to the ocean, and then to eat some breakfast/lunch/pre-hike goodness.
white coffee, salt water potatos with mojo, and goat cheese with honey and mojo. (tessa- you are an evil cheese and potato doofus...sorry guys, i would explain, but its really not all that funny to begin with anyway)

exploring the town we
1)made a cactus friend
2)discovered that cactus flippers can be very dangerous when they get old cause they get too heavy and just randomly fall. seriously, i think you could probably die if one big enough happened to fall on you
3)tried to find the museum, but either it was closed, or we are too challenged to be able to find a museum in town about 3 meters across.
4) bought some mystery tropical fruit from a little old lady on the side of the road. one was guava, i am pretty sure, but the other we have no idea what it was other than yellow, round, and with black seeds. but they tasted good, so it didnt really matter.




and we started off on the trail. all i can say was it was amazing. one of those times when you don't believe that you are actually doing it, and you know that it won't feel real once you leave either. highlights:

1)tessa taught me some cool geology stuff. (dykes are vertical stripes in the rocks and sills are horizontal stripes...i think)
2)we stopped at this little wooden bridge for a fruit break and sang loudly (well, it was more like me singing loudly and tessa being embarrased and laughing at me)
3) we made friends with the german hiking tour group. we couldn't get away from them...those german tours are fast!
4)scaled cliffs, climbed rocks, rock jumped, butt slid, and got laughed at when i fell down by a french family. (the kids were badass, but seriously, did they need to laugh at me?)

apparently when manfred said "hike down a ravine", tessa heard "stroll merily along a hill"...so the climbing and scaling took her quite by surprise. she went from excited, to amazed, to crazed, to a bit grumpy. thankfully the grumpy phase was only towards the end (seriously, we LITERALLY can't get any lower now....i think we died yesterday on the plane, and now we are in hell and this ravine is never going to end!)...and all that meant for me was less talking besides the funny tortured comments on her part, so i didnt mind. when we could see the ocean tessa could not have been happier.


basically it was unbelievable.

we then boarded a boat, floated on turquoise bright blue water past huge cliffs (called los gigantes)...didn't see any dolphins, but it was ok...and ended up in the town called los gigantes, which is this super tourist, ugly, same as any other tourist resort, town. but it was good enough for sitting and eating (potatos and mojo once again, and tessa got some calamari).

it was also good enough to rid our feet of evil binding tennis shoes (we had been hiking in some quite innappropriate shoes, so our feet weren't too happy), and buy some flip flops. unfortunately, after stopping at a bar to waste some time (where they had strongbow!-i got one for you rach!), and suddenly realizing we were going to miss the bus..i left my shoes! so i have officially sacrificed my favorite green and blue shoes to the god of masca and strongbow.