Estic Terminat*

Oh look, it's been 4 months and I'm already going home. I liked a lot, I didn't like a lot and I'm coming back.

Things I'm very very ready for

+Food
Specifically Chick-fil-a, apple cider, pumpkin anything, Hi Bombay!, peanut butter, flavor, popcorn, butter, broccoli, Mexican food, milk, and a source of protein other than pig.

+Being able to read a book from the library or a bookstore without having to think really hard whilst reading

+People I know

+Having a telephone that works

+Smoking bans in public places
I'm tired of airing out my smoky clothes from the night before since I a) forgot to bring Febreze b) don't get to do my own laundry and c) only have 2 pairs of pants.

+Snow
Until Christmas and then I want that ish gone.

+Being able to express anger or excitement or really any emotion and not sounding like an idiot

+Affordable shoes

Things I'm going to miss

+Being able to walk everywhere
Because it's never colder than 50F/10C, the sidewalks are huge, and everything's close. I'm especially going to miss my walk to school.

+People being really comfortable with their bodies
Also my breasts would like a healthy tan next year.

+The metro
The metro here had countdowns to tell you when the next train is coming, runs all night on Saturdays, costs 7.95€ for 10 trips, and has escalators. This is a far cry from arcade city Philadelphia, where the sham of the subway operates on tokens and frequently forgets to stop at my station.

+The metric system

+Noa
Yesterday, Noa built our pessebre/nativity which really deserves an entire post to itself for you to be able to fully appreciate the comedy value of it.

+Being able to speak three languages
This is a fun game: harto [spanish for tired] > fart [catalan for tired] > pet [catalan for fart, also a popular rock band] > mascota [spanish for pet]

+The beach

+The mountains

+The women
They have nice arms, they don't wear much makeup, they have shiny hair, they wear sensible clothes, they speak Spanish.

+Living next to a church
1/2 due to the laziness-inducing time-telling bells and 1/2 because it smells really nice and calming when I walk through it on my way home.

+Juliet

+Everyone having their own style
Note the stroller: actual adults dress like this.

+Dogs without leashes

+Kids
There's really no idea of kids' space and adults' space here. You'd have to search really hard to find someone who says things like, "Why couldn't they just have left the kids at home" and even if you did find them, they would probably not be from Barcelona. Parents bring their kids to bars, babies don't cry [much], and no one freaks the eff out about child molesters.

+Cheap things, flights, food, drinks, and metros

+Not tipping

+My gym

I would like to take Eloi, the trainer who chats with me while I exercise, with me please. And the cute cycling instructor with a tegan piercing who sings along to the music over her microphone while she's teaching classes. And the fingerprint scanners so I don't have to carry a card around.

+Monopoly money

+People standing patiently in line

If there is a line. You know those signs at King's Island:

Those would not exist here because people just don't care. If you're in a grocery chain or clothes store, no one cares about waiting around for 10 minutes until it's their turn, and if you're in a market it's an all-out push or be pushed smilefest of nice people.

+Assorted weirdness

Coming soon: Me throwing up all over you about how much I loved Morocco. As soon as my roommate from the trip sends me our photos.

*I know it should be "estic terminada" since I'm a girl, but you can't sing that to the tune of "Feliz Navidad."

Éis Éis Baby: Critical Vocabulary for Barcelona

+Vosotros
[you guys, y'all, yinz]
Remember when your Spanish teacher didn't make you learn the vosotos form for verbs and said it was useless? They were lying to you. All I hear here is ¿Cómo estáis? ¿Qué haréis?

+Butifarra/Botifarra
[sausage]
First, you should know another word, "menú del día." This is the Spanish version of a prix-fixe menu, is available at almost every restaurant for around 10€ and includes an appetizer, entrée, dessert, and drink. It's a great idea but almost all the menus here are in Catalán which is a cruel way to make someone learn a language: make them pay and then potentially starve. Yesterday, I saw "butifarras amb salsa d'all i oli" and ordered it because, I figured, what could possibly be wrong about garlic and olive oil. As it turns out, the olive oil was used to cook the giant garlic and pig sausage that landed on my plate. I was not pleased with my choice. Now I'm being haunted because I live next to this place.

+Vale
[okay]
Don't say "okay," "alright," "sure," "gotcha," or "yep," say "vale."

+Nevera
[fridge]
You want to know what they refrigerate here? Nothing. Try to spot the offending items below.

+Bollo
[i don't even know]
Allegedly this word means "lesbian" but I just looked it up and it's a type of pastry. Do what you want with that.

+Izquierda
[left]
In Philadelphia, New York, Montreal, and probably every other city in the world, I lose money on a daily basis due to handedness discrimination. Handedness discrimination is a manually-based offense that is considered especially heinous and affects nearly 10% of the population. Luckily, you swipe your card on the left side in the metros here so I am good to go.

+Montañas/Mar
[mountains/sea]
Since the city's on a tilt, geographically, no one here tells you that anything's north or south, it's toward the mountains or toward the sea or "arriba" or "abajo."

+Segundo Piso
[2nd floor]
Oh, you thought living on the second floor meant you only had to walk up one flight of stairs? WRONG. The first floor are shops, the second floor is "principal," the third floor is the first floor, and the fourth floor is the second floor. This is probably why everyone is skinny.

+Clara
Why don't we have this in the U.S.? It's a drink that's 1/2 lemon soda and 1/2 beer and 2/2 delicious. Other drink words your should know are botellón, horchata, and cubata. Botellón is where you stand on a street corner and share a bottle/giant juice box of wine. Horchata is a weird but really nice drink made out of somekindof nuts that would be really great with a soft pretzle if they sold those here. Cubata just means a mixed drink but each part comes separately. This is good because a) you know exactly how much you have b) you get a bottle of juice or soda to share with your friend c) if your bartender is a jerk, they can't do the jerk thing where they turn around and fill up the entire glass with sour mix and charge you for a real drink. See below for two-drink excitement.

+Otro
[other]
According to my Spanish teacher, the number one way to scream "I'm American" is to say "el otro" instead of just "otro." Other ways of being American include: going to La Ovella Negra, tipping, and not wearing a scarf.

I Could Get Used to Unrefrigerated Eggs, I Promise

It's October 3rd and I spent the day on the beach listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows audio book. If I can just find pre-made hummus, reliable internet, and food with a flavor other than "olive oil" or "ham," I might have to move here permanently.

fireside chat

first of all, last night i was riding home on my bike and heard some girls on the sidewalk talking about a cute boy. like any good gay lady, i turned around to check him out, but didn't see anybody else on the street. then one of them was all "look at his helmet," and i was like "oh they're talking about me." huh? i don't look anything like a boy. not even at 15 mph.

second, this guy's taken about two weeks to get up--half because dani and i had to finish editing it and half because my computer was in a fight with me. i went to the tech center to get help and the first thing they did was ask for my student id and password. which is when i remembered that i really couldn't tell anyone my password. because it was 'african queen.' keeping in mind that i am tiny, white, and was recently called a 'cute boy,' you can imagine how ridiculous/probs racist that would have sounded.

just to clarify [sort of], the reason it was african queen was because i got a reminder e-mail about changing my password while i was listening to this:

and in a moment of idiocy, thought it would be a really good idea to make it my password. what can i say? i love this song.

aynway, i told them i couldn't remember it and ran away before they could go online to look it up for me. i changed my password, fixed my computer, and we finished our video. we tried so hard[ish] but couldn't get it under 10 minutes and our audio still blows, so turn it up allllll the way.

i was of three [or four] minds

xiii
it was evening all afternoon.
it was snowing
and it was going to snow.
the blackbird sat
in the cedar-limbs.

[wallace stevens: 13 ways of looking at a blackbird]

1: winter means being cold

sometimes when i’m outside, i try to think “cold is just a state of mind,” because maybe, if i think about it [or don’t think about it so much] the cold won’t get me.

i like how it feels when you first go outside, suffocated by your too many layers, and then this wind cuts at your face and blows through you. and i like that cold weather means that i can stay inside with a hoodie and my comforter.
but after a while of winter, the cold outside seems intrusive and the cozy feeling inside starts to be sickly, like when there’s too much sugar.

2: and getting sick
i have vertigo. i knew i was sick and not just bitching about having a cold because i kept falling up stairs and feeling like i was sinking into chairs. after waiting in student health services for 4 months, a doctor played the “follow my finger” game with me [which i lost at] and told me that vertigo can last from two hours to two months. my reaction: at least it’s got a good name. my mum’s reaction: “DO NOT RIDE YOUR BIKE. YOU WILL DIE. AND IF YOU DON’T DIE, I WILL KILL YOU.”

also: rabies. i don’t have it, obviously, but i

listened to a “this american life” around halloween about rabies and since then, i’ve been a walking psa. rabies is FUCKED UP. do you know what it does? it makes animals senselessly violent, takes away all their inhibitions, makes them immune to pain, heightens their sense of focus, and makes adrenaline practically ooze out of their eyeballs; basically, it makes them into real life, tiny, furry versions of superman, but evil. i know what you’re thinking: superman can fly and raccoons can’t. BUT guess what the number one carrier of rabies is? bats. and bats fly. if you wake up and a bat is in your house, you should get tested for rabies STAT. if you don’t get a vaccine within 72 hours, you die. new york and the surrounding area has experienced a ridiculous increase in rabies outbreaks, with over 300 reported attacks last year. and since it’s not bad enough that i live by new york during the school year, there is a new rabies epidemic spreading towards southwest ohio, i.e. cincinnati. i am going to be attacked by an animal and i am going to die.

3: it turns out that all your friends, they were just mean, dressed up
i can’t figure out how someone can spend so much time hating me; planning and whispering and manipulating and then pretending like they don’t care. but then, i’ve only recently started to understand what a waste it is. when i’ve figured something out, i expect that it’s something that everyone already knows. i have this skewed view where i’m just catching up with the rest of the world, when really i’m learning along with everyone else.

so sometimes i get sad for people i don’t even like. i wonder who has left them and how big that shadow is. i’ve decided that writing someone off as crazy overlooks too much and is too easy. it’s like denying them humanity, to say that they have no other motivation.

4: waffles

i’m trying to make a budget and track my spending and all those nice grown-up things that i really wish i would be better at, but i haven't been very successful yet. if i were going to estimate where i spend my money, though, i am guessing that it would look like this:

what this graph illustrates, besides that i spend too much on waffles, is that i should probably weigh a lot more than i do right now and that i should start saving my money so i can by a graphics tablet and actually draw pictures on my computer.

if you ever come to philadelphia, i will take you to eat at bonte before getting you a cheesesteak. meat and cheesewhiz just sound gross together, but that’s not the point, the point is: bonte’s waffles are bangin’.

homemade oreos aka black maureens aka will you marry me? want a cookie? how about now? how about now?

these are hands down the best cookies in the world. hands. down. they're kind of magic, too, because everyone who eats them instantly falls in love with you. you could cut the recipe in half, but that would be stupid because then you'd make half as many friends.

for the cookies

+2 boxes of devils food cake mix

+4 eggs

+2/3 cup of vegetable oil

the dough ends up being really really thick and hard to mix, so either use an electric mixer or your hands. when you make it into balls to cook, make them smaller than normal because otherwise you'll end up with like 5 gigantic cookies instead of 40 normal ones. cook them at 350 degrees for 6-8 minutes but more on the 6 side of things because no one likes hard cookies.

for the icing

+a stick of butter [that's 1/2 cup]

+a block of cream cheese [i don't know how much that is]

+3-4 cups of powdered sugar [that's 1 pound: YUM]

when the cookies are cool, ice half of them [of the flat side, obvs] and them stick them together with un-iced ones. sometimes, you get lucky and have an extra cookie that you get to eat. or, if you count before you bake them, you end up with an extra ball of dough to eat, which is soooo much better. they're also 800 times more moist and delicious the day after you make them, so put them in a baggie and wait.