You know you're a smoker when....

i've decided that there are many different ways of deciding the degree to which you are a smoker...i've been on multiple rims of the spectrum so i think that i have some kind of idea on this subject....it's like this:'

1. Full-time Smoker (i'm talking like -all day, fullly addicted, smoking all the time, always has a pack, smokes every possible moment plus some, loves the taste, smell and idea of everything ciggarette related, loves being a smoker - kind of person)
2. Social Smoker ("the only time i smoke is when other people are smoking" or "the only time i can't control my smoking is when other people are smoking")
3. One puff smoker ("can i just get one puff? i really don't want more than that" or "i bought this pack of cigaret'tes but i only smoked one...do you want the rest")
4. One time smoker ("I've had one taste of cigarette smoke in my life and i hated it!" or "i tried it out one time to see what it was like and i had this whole wierd experience that made me never want to try it again")
5. Never smoked cigarettes before

at this point i believe that i have been a full time smoker (#1) for at least 5-6 full years now...

i dont think that i could ever sucessfully settle on being a social smoker at this point in my life (#2)...i know it would be too easy to break down in a situation where others are smoking...that's why i know that i have to distance my self from other smokers (specifically while they're smoking) in order to keep myself from wanting to join in...this presents an even more difficult problem given the fact that i have made many friends specifically due to the fact that i am a smoker...many of the relationships the i have with people depend on the fact that we go out and have cigarettes together........i haven't been able to decide whether it is a good thing or a bad thing to have a cigarette with these people.........

now..i also know, that my current goal - being a person trying to quit smoking - is to get to being a one puff smoker (#3) and say there untill it's completely out of my system

i decided to cut out ex - smoker as a stage because i decided that an ex-smoker can fit into pretty much anything ranging between #3 and #5...and you know what...i don't think i will ever be able to get the thought of smoking out of my system, because i know that cigarettes have already branded me for life! i will always either be a smoker or an ex - smoker...cigarettes will always play a factor...

i guess it is up to me to decide whether they will be the factor that kills me or the factor that i conquered

It took them 200 years to realize that that was fugly

Top ten things i love about Sevilla:

10. Partying until six am

9. Drinking in the streets

8. Having deliciously yummy food that actually healthy cooked for me everyday

7. Spanish candy is soooooooo delicious!

6. My host brother louis is sooo gorgeous

5. The shopping here is amazing

4. Classes here are really really interesting, but not at all difficult

3. This city is so beautiful and filled with the longest richest history ever, it's amazing

2. Walking in the Barrio Santa Cruz

1. Having tapas and sipping sangria and cruz campo for hours on end with people that truly amaze, entertain and enlighten me.

You have a HUGE ass! did you know that?

so yesterday me, jackie and annie went to see javi and his team play futbol (aka soccer, aka for pussies, lol) and while they were getting their asses kicked we were staring at their asses and drinking champagne...mmmmm..good times...so fran was playing, and he has a really big ass right, so we were making jokes about the whole time, and we missed seeing the other team score like three times cuz we were paying attention to fran's ass instead right? plus we were drunk...at 7 in the evening...

so afterwards we went to a bar to watch another game on tv and after that we went to javi's friend manu's house where he cooked us dinner...and gave us more booze...needless to say, i got pretty trashed. so there we are, me, jackie and annie, sitting in a room with about 8 spanish people, some of which speak a minor amount of english, but not much (fran and javi included)....we're drinking chilling smoking hookah, there's a general atmosphere of tomfoolery in the air..and bam! out of no where, jackie stands up and says in the loudest voice ever to fran "you have a HUGE ass!! did you know that?"...lol!...so me and annie immediately cover our mouths in shock and start cracking up soooo hard and all the spanish people are looking at us with the most confused expressions on their faces...javi told us to say it in spanish...but we were laughing too hard...none of them understood at all...and the three of us were splitting our sides about to die laughing...that was basically the best moment in spain's history...i will forever remember that!

which reminds me, that is something i will really miss about living here: being able to say whatever i want, whenever i want, and getting away with it because no one knows what i'm talking about...and we do that all the time too...we just talk about people directly in front of their faces and they have no idea what's going on...we say shit like..."look at that kids mullet! omg he looks like joe dirt!" or "can you believe how fucking fugly that chick's outfit is!" or "you have a HUGE ass! did you know that?"

damnit..i'm gonna miss spain

foyamierdajoder!

sooo, my spanish adventure is nearing it's end and what do i have to show for it? a shitload of cool crap, a minor improvement in my spanish and a bunch of really cool new friends that i will probably never see again...lame. good thing this has been one of the coolest thing i've ever done in my life.

it's just kind of crazy because everyone said this would be this crazy life changing experience that would be unlike anything i've ever done before and i would never be the same and all that...but i guess it just hasn't really phased me that way considering the fact that i've already done the whole move-away-from-home-really-far-and-experience-a-whole-new-lifestyle thing already, which i guess makes me kind of jaded with the whole novelty of it all. that's not to say that this isn't an incredible experience for me, i just kind of feel like it was all that different from what i normally do...i just wish i had more time here, i know i've done a shitload of really cool stuff, but i still kind of worry that i haven't really made the most of my time here, especially considering the amount of time i spend hanging out in my room and going online coughfacebookcough, not that i wouldnt be doing that at home, it's just that i'm not at home, and when i go home, how different is it really gonna be...at least there will be indoor heating cuz i'm freezing my little brown booty off here (inside!)

i guess one good thing that's goin down now is the fact that i have so little money left that i'm not going to be able to travel anywhere before i leave, which isnt exactly good in normal terms, but it does mean that i'm forced to stay in sevilla and try to make the most of the city. hopefully that will start today once i take a shower and get the hell out of bed (its 4 in the afternoon btw, i woke up and ate lunch and that's it, though i did have a pretty entertaining conversation with my host family about pranks you can play on people who double park you)

i cant even speak spanish very much better!!! oh well, i am alot more confident now, and i can definitely communicate and have conversations with people, which is awesome but i still can't like join a conversation between spaniards, i can basically only talk to people who are talking to me specifically and slowing down and trying to understand what i'm saying (and correcting me)..but the whole thing about that that makes me not feel so bad is the fact that when i was with my mom here, i realized that she doesn't speak perfect spanish either..(tho spain spanish and new mexico spanish are pretty different, that's another thing, i bet it'll be easier when i come back too, cuz people here speak with a really thick hard to understand accent)

so anyways, i thought i'd just muse for a moment, i thinks important to get this kind of shit down so i can remember later how i was actually feeling here, instead of only just what i did, cuz the feeling's amazing, i love that i can just switch continents for a little minute and grab a whole new perspective on life and then go right back and do what i gotta do. (which i dont want to do) this did also make me realize that i'm never gonna stay in the same place. i just want to go everwhere and always do something new in a new place...next venture: costa rica for the summer!! ojala!

Cuchinillo de Dios

sorry, i haven't writtin in a while, i've been relatively busy. My mom came to visit last week which was aweome and a half, we did so much fun stuff, i can't even believe it!

she got here on a friday -- the night before i got trashed and a half and then had to get up at six to catch the train to meet her in madrid! so we stayed in a little hostel/apartment place right in the center of madrid where we spent about three days...it was so sweet, Madrid is such a cool huge city. We went to the museums like the Prado which has stuff from the great spanish painters like goya, el greco, murillo and velasquez (amazing!) and the Thyssen which has some of the best works from all kinds of artists like picasso, van gogh, monet, dahli, warhol, georgia o'keefe, chagall it was insane to actually see all that crap, oh also in the thyssen they had some pieces that dated back to like 200 ad...it was insane!

also in madrid we visted plaza mayor, and ate at the worlds oldest restaurant called "el Botin" i ate a roasted suckling pig (cuchinillo), it was delicious! and since madrid has it's own broadway called Gran Via, we saw two musicals; La Bella Y La Bestia, and JesusCristo Superstar...both sooo amazing and fun to watch!

from madrid we rented a car and drove to sevilla (which took 5 hours!!) which was cool cuz we got to see alot of the country side and the place where don quixote supposedly lived, also we ate at a parador (historical building turned hotel) where there was the most amazing buffet that i've ever had in my entire life, it was amazing!

so my mom got to meet my senora, and they loved eachother, especially since my mom brought all kinds of presents! also in sevilla we met up with my third grade teacher Mrs. Valdez, who saw my mom on the plane and they got to talking or whatever, so we saw a flamenco show for her birthday...which was one of the best things that i've done since i've been here, it was sooooo amazing, especially since i'm learning sevillanas, it was really fun to see it in real life put to music (when i do it it's just kind of retarded), also in sevilla my mom stayed in the most historical neighbor hood in town where we got lost and i drove the rental car very erratically (tiny ass streets + lots of people + my driving = disaster) she also sat in on one of my classes cuz i had to go in to take some tests, and afterwards we got lunch and drunk off wine in the middle of the day! boy does my mom know how to vacation!

we also managed to take a trip to jerez de la frontera to see some dancing horses, which was pretty cool, we also got horrendously lost in jerez (like two feet away from the horse place) but ended up finding this delicous restaurant that had like the best steak and cuscus ever, also one day we drove to algeciras, a little port town on the gibraltar straight, where we crossed over to one of the last remaining spanish colonies (in morroco) where we drove around for a while and ate lunch...then we got retardedly lost on the way back (if you haven't noticed, there was alot of lost going on)

sooo, finally my mom came with us on a school trip that we took to granada, where we saw the alhambra and also got to hit up some arabic baths (beyond awesomeness) then from there we dumped the rental car (got lost) and took the train back to madrid..then my mommy had to leave the next day...que triste!

lastly, i rolled a joint and went to the modern art museum (Reina Sofia) after i saw my mom off...so i checked out guernica and a bunch more picasso's and dahli's high out of my mind and just stared at them for like three hours...and missed my train back to sevilla, so i had to buy a whole new ticket (like a hundred american dollars!) which was lame but definitely worth it.

so since then things have been relatively tame, just goin to school, got my grades back, looks like i have a pretty decent chance of getting all A's, ojala...our school set up a thanksgiving dinner where we all dressed up and stuffed our faces, it was pretty good, but the yams were kinda wierd and the stuffing was made with ground beef instead of bread...real wierd...the rest was awesome tho, plus it was a really fun time! we went to a little club after and danced for a while too.

lets see yesterday i went to the museum early and got high with carson before we checked out the artes and costumbes then i went home and slept like all day and didn't do anything but play cake mania all night...that was boring...but tonight our spanish friend is making us dinner and we are going to go watch a futbol game (boring) before that...after i think we're gonna go out...soo that should be fun...

we're also trying to get a trip to barcelona organized, which would be really fun before i leave...and i'm leaving sooo soon...boo hoo..it'll be nice to enjoy the comforts of home, but i am getting so adjusted to living here and i'm really just starting to get comfortable here, i am having such a good time and doing so many things that i never thought i would be doing in a million years, and it really just makes me think. it makes me wonder what is actually possible, if i am doing all these crazy unexpected things now, what could i be doing within the next few years, there are so many oppurtunities open to me, it's so exciting and nervewracking to catch just a tiny glimmer of what's out there. I can't wait to find out

America discovered itself

hello.

i had one of the most fabulous weekends in the history of me-ness.

so we had a four day weekend this weekend cuz dia de los santos is a holy holiday in spain so me, annie and jackie didn't know what we were gonna do, we wanted to do something, but we didn't really have that much money so we couldn't go anywhere really cool...like out of the county or whatever (so much for my grand plan of going everywhere! damn the american economy and our worthless dollar!) but i have been wanting to go to nerja (mediterranean beach town west of here) for a while because my teacher suggested it as being really nice and a bunch of people from our program went and really liked it, plus i haven't seen the mediterranean yet...jackie and annie weren't really showing that much interest or initiative so i decided to lift the whole thing off the ground

we ended up leaving to catch the bus on friday at six, the bus was four hours so we got there at like ten, then chilled and showered and watched the end of harry potter which we started on the bus..oh, we stayed at this hostel that was twelve euros a night per person had three beds a huge bathroom (w/biday) and an amazing terrace...by around twelve we started to hit the streets...

i heard of this plaza in nerja called tutti frutti (i know wierd huh?) where apparently all the action is... so we decided to find it...we got there and the first place we see is a bar called maui! of course we thought that was awesome (especially since it said "maui skandonavian/english bar") and we got inside and realized that everyone spoke english! aparently nerja is like some kind of haven for northern europeans! it was insane! they were sooo funny and so nice and the bartender gave us like 12 free shots and these dudes we met bought us drinks..

so we went to play pool, me this dude aaron (a male version of me...aparently..the 17 yr old kind) vs annie and this englishman james...the wierd thing about it tho was that the balls didn't have numbers or stripes and solids...they were all just plain red or yellow plus the black one..apparently they were english balls...needless to say countless jokes about never playing with english balls ensued...ps. we kicked ass!

so we stayed out until 7:30 in the morning getting free drink after free drink and getting flirted with by not-so-cute nerja boys...it was sweet! oh yeah and i met a dude who went to my preschool in santa fe!! it was so insane and i was so drunk that i could not get over it! he remembered so much shit about it too! i so don't remember anything from those days! small fucking world tho huh?!

the next day we slept through breakfast and barely woke up in time to get some lunch and check out the beach for a little while...then we rested in the hotel room for another few hours till we went back out

that night was like a marathon of free shit...first was the free drinks that kept coming from all directions...then some dude was like "i heard there was some american girls in here looking for pot yesterday" we never said anything of the sort but there were no other american's there so it must have been us...either way he had me open my purse and just shoved a huge handful of weed in there! awesomeness huh?!?! oh yeah and then jackie found a full box of cigarettes on the ground...i didn't think it could get better until we went into a bar that was having an eighties night! i asked for micheal jackson and they played billie jean immediately! it was the shit!

we went to bed a little earlier that night (scoring a free cab ride) and then went to see some caves the next day...those kind of sucked and i like almost had an asthma attack from the lack of oxygen down there but after that we ate some delicious calamari and paella and sat at the beach eating ice cream until we had to catch our bus...

i guess it was really nothing that special..but..it just was...perfect company, perfect environment, perfect price (free)

also i thought i had lost my pony express sweatshirt but then i found it later! (i am one lucky bitch!)...and my near asthma experience got me to reasses my quitting situation

so anyways..yeah i'm happy and my mommy's coming and i'm gonna make her buy me presents! woo hoo!

5.4.3.2.1....Someone pee!

i know i haven't posted in a while, i've really been meaning too, alot's been going on that has been pretty interesting, but i haven't really felt the initiative to post, most of the time when i'm online i just like to stalk people on facebook and watch degrassi..but anyways, i'll just give you a current synopsis on what has been goin on lately in the form of bullet points:

• I went to the sevillian theme park, it was awesome, i rode a the roller coaster twice and drank a slurpee with rum in it...it was f-ing sweet...i haven't been to an amusement park since disneyworld
• me, annie and jackie have taken to watching degrassi in the park across from my house, i have converted them into new obsesees..muhahahahahaha...we just watched season six!
• i smoked my first spanish joint and got sooo high! it was awesome! spanish weed is slightly hard to come by, but amazing!
• i learned that it's about 8.7 billion times harder to not smoke cigarettes than to not smoke weed...living proof that marijuana is not addictive!
• i stayed drunk for around 30 hours straight (i lost count)..in honor of my little orphan Annie "bananie in my grannie pannie" koerner's birthday. It went like this:
• we started getting drunk at midnight the day of her birthday, we each drank a bottle of champagne to our face and hung our with our fave gay couple in the universo
• we had about four hours of sleep before waking up for a school trip to an ancient roman city...
• woke up still drunk...toured the city for about two hours then went to lunch, where we got all the beer and sangria we could drink included, needless to say we replasterfied.
• we got home from the trip and ron and marcel joined a degrassi love fest in the park with beer champagne and box wine..mmmm
• me and annie ate dinner (i talked to my host sister so drunkenly!) and afterwards went out to celebrate some more...with tequila and more boxed wine
• i chased some tequila with box wine and barfed (for the first time in spain! amazing!)
• we found a kareoke bar where some fat spaniard tried hitting on me so i made him buy me a drink but then when he asked me to dance i said no! lol! all the songs were in spanish so we left
• we went to the calle to meet up with some spanish friends, drank some more there (how was i able to do this you may ask...the answer is i have no idea) then we finally ended up retiring at around 6 or so...
• we had another school trip the next morning, needless to say, we slept through our alarms and missed it
• soo, what else has happened..
• last night i dressed as a demonia (devil), annie was a china(chinese girl) and jackie was a lenadora (lumberjack)...we went to a spanish party which was pretty lame at first (though he did make all his own decorations which was awesome) but then we taught them how to play kings cup (which is really difficult to teach in spanish, but they all got the hang of it really well) that had to be one of the funnest games of kings cup i've ever played
• we went to calle betis where not very many people were dressed up and i was wearing the skankiest outfit in all of spain...it was really embarrassing but still so fun...drunk dudes were hollering at us like every two steps
• everyone here dresses really scary, there were alot of elaborate costumes, but they were all really covered up, which was smart because it was freezing
• note to self: do not dress in spain as you would in hawai'i for halloween

sooo, i've been eating alot of delicious food (especially in italica! mmmm steak!) and enjoying the company of some really awesome people...i took some midterms, which was lame, but i did ok...tho i dont think i'm gonna be able to get an A in spanish... :( but whatever who cares...my mom's coming out here next week which should be awesome and a half...and it should be good for her cuz she's been really sad lately cuz she's all alone and has to deal with joe stress and my poor ivy just died and she really misses him...but this trip will be good for her and i'm gonna get to see madrid too, i also think we're gonna be going a few other places too so that will be awesome...damn summarizing my life is a bit harder then i would think

you like berber husband? we have many crazy nights!

so last night was pretty crazy one...just random i guess...we went out to celebrate jackie's birthday which was on monday (i'm a bad friend cuz i didn't really make it very special for her)..we wanted to go do some kareoke but realized that the kareoke bar we wanted to go to was really far away and we didn't want to walk there, so between five of us..me, annie, jackie, ron (my new favorite gay boy) and sara (my new favorite lesbian, hottest lesbian ever, i'd do her)...we chugged about 2/3 of a bottle of tequila(all the could fit in a water bottle) and decided to hit up a favorite spot of ours called the euro bar...we walked for what seemed like forever and when we got there i had to pee real bad, but it was pretty worth it because a bunch of our friends from school were there and they have 1 euro beers so i continued to get even more wasted...

it's cool because alot of the kids from our program are super nice and fun to get along with but i think alot of them kinda see me as a flake because i always say that i want to or am going to do stuff and then my plans change and i never let people know...oops...like last night i invited all these kids to kareoke, but we didn't go and then we ran into them at the euro bar later, they seemed kind of wierded out...i feel kind of bad because i know it sucks to get blown off but honestly...i don't feel that bad, i know it's just hurting me and my chances of hanging out with people cuz i know people won't want to hang out with me if they see me as a flake.

so anyways at this bar we kicked it drank a bunch and then it closed and i was still bursting with energy from all the alcohol and also from the fact that i haven't gone out all week due to both annie and jackie (aka my wing girls) being sick...i'm not really down to go out by myself cuz of the whole getting robbed thing and everyone lives really far so i'd still have to walk a ways alone to meet up with anyone else...so when we were leaving i saw some people smoking a doob with some spaniard and of course i had to invite myself, and i was talking to the dude in spanish about weed and he just handed me a nug...at first i didn't really understand and then he gave me a rolling paper so i thought he wanted me to roll it up, but then he left, it was so crazy cool..i can't wait to smoke it!

then everyone was getting ready to go home but i was even more pumped about going out and i definitely wasn't ready to call it a night(annie had already left with javi)..so ron was talking to this one spanish dude who said he was gonna go to the center (of the city, kinda like downtown i guess) and he had a car, and since the euro bar is about a million miles from my house and the center is about two feet away from my house, we decided to go with him cuz i was definitely still down to party...so we went to this bar in the center that i know i will never ever see again..it was like an alternative bar that only played alternative music which was pretty cool...so we were playing pool and me and jackie were on a team and we we getting killed, we had three balls left and the other team had one, and when i went up for my turn i totally hustled the table and made all the balls! it was so sweet and everyone keep calling me a hustler! yeah baby! i'm bad

oh so about this guy that was driving us, i think at first ron thought he was gay so he was flirting with him, but when we got in his car i wanted shottie so i like shoved ron and jackie out of the way..lol...and i was talking to him and found out the he actually spoke really good english and we were having some really good conversation while i spoke spanish and he spoke english (one of my favorite things to do with spaniards)..so when we got to the alt bar jackie was like, "that guy's trying to get into your panties" and ron was like "no, i just think he wants someone to talk to" which is what i thought, he was really nice and it was fun talking to him...so anyways when the alt bar closed i was still rearing to go but everyone else wanted to go home and i was really bummed out..but that guy told me that he was gonna still go back out after he dropped everyone off...and that he wanted to buy me a beer...so i said i would go out with him after wards...luckily ron came with us too cuz right after that, that guy asked me if i wanted to sleep at his house! i was like..."uhhh...no puedo..." it was really awkward...he was really nice tho..just..eh

so finally i got home completely trashed out of my brain cavity and annie called me, i think like right after i layed down to sleep, cuz at first i didn't know what my phone was and just shut it off, but then i realized what was going on the second time she called and answered..it turned out that she had left her key with me and needed to get in, she said she would be there in ten minutes so i got up and put on some clothes and got my key to go get her, but i thought..she said she'd be here in ten minutes to i can just lay down untill then...sooo...lol...i woke up this morning and looked at my phone and it said 36 missed calls from annie! i have no idea how i slept through that!! i must have been blacked out hardcore! she was pissed and not only that but aparently everyone in the house heard my phone ringing a million times, annie had to wait for like half an hour until our host sister left for work at like 7! i feel so bad! oh and the worst part about it is that this morning our host mom bitched out annie hardcore for staying out so late all the time and not having our key and for waiting with javi downstairs in our lobby! it was messed up! crazy huh?

well, that's all for now, i know that was practically a whole novel about one night...but hopefully i have shocked and entertained you..lol...

Minhas calcas estao no fogo

ok so, it's tuesday...i just got back from portugal on sunday and that was awesome...and when i left you last i was on my way to a tarifa beach adventure...tarifa was great, fran never showed up, but i still had an amazing time, the weather was perfect and the beach was one of the most beautiful i have ever seen in my life, once the day cleared up we could see all the way across the straight of gibraltar to africa...it was f-ing sweet!

so i went to lagos, portugal this weekend and that was pretty much a drunken adventure, we started off checking out the beach which was really nice but annie and jackie were being total negative nancies after the three hour bus ride so i bitched them out and told them that if they didn't have fun i was gonna beat them with seagull..that shut em up...the first night we had a kick-off party at this place called joe's garage where i got completely wasted, i drank some really yummy drinks and there were a bunch of hot bartenders and me and jackie danced on a pool table...at least i wasn't as drunk as she was (i asked her if she was gonna barf and she said no, then i told her she looked like she was gonna barf and she did barf..haha...she told me it was cuz i kept saying barf...lol) that was super fun, it was this other hawai'i girl liz's birthday so we were rockin out hard core...it was great

me, annie and jackie decided that we wanted to go really cheap with this trip so we hit up the free breakfast in the hotel every morning (which consisted of sandwich meat, like twenty kinds of bread, canned fruit cocktail and cornflakes..pretty lame)and used what we could to pack up sanwiches for lunch so then all we had to pay for was dinner...we spent the second day on the beach where i climbed this huge rock and then jumped off (awesome!) and then we went out to Cabo San Vicente (also known as the end of the world) to check out the sunset...which was amazing by the way!

so the second night we had dinner at this place called nah nah bah which was really really yummy, but i was feeling like crap cuz i had pms and i guess it was bringing down annie and jackie too, so we all ended up turning in pretty early, especially since we had gotten so rediculously shittattered the night before...

the third day we had a all-the-sangria-you-can-drink booze cruise, but apparently the swells were so bad that we couldn't even leave the dock...so we just sat on this stationary boat in the harbor, which was pretty lame...but i did decide to drink enough sangria to make it worth it, and i ended up chugging like twelve cups..lol..yummy! haha, oh we also went on these awesome speed boats that were like water rides and it was really fun...so after we got incredibly wasted on the non-cruise-booze boat they took us to this other beach called Meia Praia where they had a keg for us, which of course i got down on, drinking like at least 8 cups of beer...needless to say i passed out on the beach and jackie couln't wake me up for like an hour...and even when i woke up i was still wasted out of my mind for like six more hours until we finally had dinner..lol! (oh and side note, i was being really retarded and wasted in our hotel room after the beach and i touched my leg to a lightbulb for not even half a second and i burnt the shit out of it and now it has a huge blister!)

so yeah, there was more beaching more booze and then we ran out of money completely...all in all it was pretty sweet...though javi offered to take us over to lagos on our own and i think we should have just done that, cuz we did the whole group organized trip thing and i think it was pretty over priced and there was a shitload of abnoxious americans there which made everything kinda lame...but it was still really beautiful and i enjoyed myself for sure...and this weekend i think were gonna try to go to another beach on the mediterranean which should be awesome...i just hope i get a chance to take a breather before then!

cigarillo maroqui

so, post-mugging i've been feeling pretty sketched out in general, but i guess it's all for the better cuz i now know that i need to excercise more caution when going out...you know whats wierd tho? europeans think that americans solve everything with guns, and that we have all kinds of gun problems and blah blah blah..yet the only time i have actually encountered any kind of forceful gun use has been here in sevilla..ironic huh?

i guess it wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't happened literally on my front door step..cuz now i'm nervous about coming home at night altogether...since then the only times i have been out have been during the day or when someone could drop me off right outside my doorstep and wait till i go inside...the worst part about it all is being super broke and having to borrow all kinds of money from jackie until i can get some new credit cards.

anyways, in unrelated news, last night me and annie saw a shooting star (a really fatty awesome one too) and i wished for a spanish hottie...then guess what? my wish came true! i found a really hot spanish hottie named francisco, he's the cousin of javi (annie's pantaloon pal), he's staying here with javi for a few days then going to london for like 20 days and then coming back to live with javi. anyways he's really hot and wants my bod...yay!

i realized that i never said anything about morocco..i was gonna post lots of detail about my trip but i'm kinda over that now, what i will say is that i had an awesome time...me and jackie and annie shared a hotel room which i snuck out of the first night to go hang out with these two really cool kids from texas, becky and thomas, and we found the only place in morocco that sells alcohol during ramadan..which was fun...then the next night we tried to go back but i guess it was too late cuz it was closed..then becky found some hot moroccan bellman to make out with, but they got caught and he probably lost his job..lol...sad huh? well anyways we also met some other cute moroccans and one of them gave me some hash, which we tried to smoke out of the hash pipe that i got for my brother, but it didn't really work..lame...so anyways the moroccan country side is one of the most awesome sights to behold, looking out there is like stepping 200 years in the past, we also visited this medina in fez..which is a market place just like the one in aladdin..and they say that place has really changed very little in over 1000 years..it was so awesome...and i bought a whole bunch of crap, i got really good at bargaining...i was able to get some of my shit for like, 1/3 of the price that the merchants were asking..yeah baby!

so anyways tomorrow i'm going to a beach party at tarifa, the southernmost point in europe, at the top of the gibraltar straight where the winds from the mediterranean and the atlantic cross to stir up your soul..and my spanish hottie's gonna be there, so it should be pretty much awesome...and then next weekend i'm going on a beach trip to lagos, portugal and i'm gonna get some of my tan back and lay out topless euro-style...damn i love my life

so, i was gonna wait til i had a bit of time to post a long as post about my amazing trip to morocco (which was awesome)..but...i just got mugged...me and jackie were sitting on the front steps of my apartment building trying to figure out what to do when a young skinny dude ran up to us, pointed a gun at us and then stole my purse...it was by far the scariest thing that's ever happened to me...i could just see a bullet going through my stomach. letting go of my purse never seemed so easy...now i realize that i no longer have a cell phone, keys to my house and worst of all, my wallet...which had about 120 euros (around 200 usd) my cash card, my credit card, like five ids, my insurance card, and countless other random cards that i keep in there...and for some reason the one thing that really makes me sad is the fact that i had the sketch for my next tattoo tucked in my wallet as well...i don't think there was much else in there, and my mom said that i could probably get my money replaced by our insurance...i'm just really lucky that my camera and my passport we left behind in my room.

fuck

Comes muchas hamburguesas?

so..last night was a wierd night...it started off all fine and good, we went to a flamenco show and got really good seats so it was really good...then we went to a bar and met up with friends that were real cool and i was definitely enjoying myself...i guys i should have known that things might go awry when i got felt up by a gay boy...

but it's wierd, sometimes i can't tell how fake people in our program are, i really like all of them..but then again in know one of thess bitches stole my i-pod...and i also know that sometimes when people aren't there, we talk about them...so i don't know what people are saying behind my back...also a few of the guys here seem a bit sleazy like they are trying to get in some pantaloons..and as much as i'd love a little something in my pantaloons, i'm pretty sure that i don't want to do that with anyone from my program because 1) the sleazyness...these guys would probably use me and abuse me..and 2) the talk...if anyone in our program became "special friends" everyone would know about it in like two seconds...and the last thing i need is for more people in the world to think i'm a slut...

so anyways..last night, since me and jackie didn't have class today, we wanted to get crunked and party..but everyone was going home, but this one guy (who is seriously trying to get some pantaloons, from like every girl in our program) said he was down to stay out, and these other two guys said we needed to follow them to get anywhere...

lol, right when we started walking, we heard someone yell out their window "BE QUIET" and i'm thinking this is pretty curious because someone's yelling at us in english, so i go "why?" and get yelled back "because i'm trying to sleep" i'm just like, "oh, sorry"...yeah, for some reason that was really humorous to me...

so anyways we were all walking in one direction where me and jackie had no idea where we were (we took a cab to get there and followed this dude who said he ususally has know idea where he is but gets "gravitationally pulled" to where he wants to go) and then me and jackie decided to go pee in a hideyhole in the calle (where we also got yelled at "debes tener verguenza!") and when we came out the guys had split in all directions and were leaving us...we thought if we just kept going the direction we were going we would get somewhere, but that ended in a dead end...so we were completely disoriented, had no idea where even the bar was that we were at and we're basically lost like crazy...it sucked...so we walked for a while until we found a road that there were any cars on and caught a cab...of course as soon as we got in the cab we realized where we were..but damn...who the hell ditches girls in the middle of the calle with no directions whatsoever...that was pretty fucked..that's when me and j decided that some of these people really aren't as cool as they play themselves off to be...asses

so yeah..then the real shit went down...after the cabbie dropped off jackie, i was telling him about how those dudes ditched us and he's like que malo, whatever...and then he goes.."estas muy gorda si? comes muchas hamburguesas? si?" and he just kept saying that..i was so fucking pissed i didn't even know what to say!! how fucking rude you ass! who says that? i know he doesn't work for tips or anything but that doen't mean that it's ok for him to call me fat damnit!

so as you can imagine..i'm pretty heated right now..and to top it off i'm sick..bleah...

Pantaloons

so, yesterday the spanish man that is trying to gett into annies pannies told me that europeans think that americans can't drink cuz they just pound booze until they're drunk and then when they're drunk they're obnoxious and belligerent and the women are easy and we have too many gangs and solve everything with guns...so that's when i pulled out my gat and told him what's what

i guess it's kinda lame that people think such crap about us...and it's really apparent alot of times too, people peg us as americans instantly and definitely have all these ideas of us formed in their heads before they even hear us speak a word. like the other day i was walking with some friends and i guess these spanish dudes heard us talking cuz they kept yelling at us "oh my god! oh my god!" it was pretty funny..but then again it just shows that people here think we're really ditzy...which i dont get because there is so much american influence here, so many people are trying to be like us, so how can they say that we're dumb and obnoxious and what not....i guess the real problem here is the fact that american's perpetuate these stereotypes...in some cases this is somewhat unconsciously, but it still happens..

i dont know i guess there are just certain mannuerisms that leave us giving off the dumb vibe...it's like, in america its perfectly normal for a girl to just be like "i dunno!" when we don't understand something or need help with something, here people just look at us like we're complete idiots...and i'm sorry if we like to get trashed all the time...but it's fucking fun...being completely crunked is what being an american is all about...europeans need to grasp that shit! fuck..i love america...land where i'm free to get as drunk as i damn well please...here i can't even maintain a serious buzz for more than an hour...i'm like hello? where's the high gravity beer...why does my first drink burn itself off before i even get the chance to have a second one...i'm serious...it's been almost three weeks and i've gone out everynight for at least three quarters of that time...and i haven't even been actually drunk the entire time...they told us we would be out all night partying which we are..but where's the fun if you don't even get to be belig all over the place...not to mention the fact that i'm just pouring money down the drain to not get wasted and no men even buy me drinks!

ok enough ranting...it is actually pretty fun to be able to remember all that happened the night before and not waking up with a hangover...oh..and not barfing's always good too

mmm cookies

now that i find myself in a new place i'm not quite sure what to do with myself...everything here costs money, it's all in the damn expensive euro and i can't work while i'm here...so me and my roommate have been perpetuating eachother's anti-social behaviors by sitting in our room and going online for inappropriate amounts of time...we keep asking our host sisters what there is to do around here and they keep saying mucho mucho, nececitais explorar la ciudad!

luckily, we found some spainish friends with a car very recently (one is very cute, actually they're all pretty cute, but...one in particular) and we're definitely gonna make them drive us around all the time.

but still i can't escape the feeling that i can't really get the most out of this experience without money...what a pain in the ass...yesterday this guy at a bar was hitting on me hardcore..i mean hardcore..he wasn't that cute but i thought "hey, maybe i can get a free drink out of this"..but when i asked him to buy me a drink he got kind of huffy and said no! what the hell is up with that...fuckin spaniards and their non woo-ing ways...lame...oh yeah, did i mention that the men here are all freakin metrosexual? they dress up like mad to go to clubs and huddle in little groups like chicks and dance together! apparently they don't buy girls drinks and they are intimidating to approach and it's pretty lame...i don't understand how i'm supposed to find a sexy spanish man to teach me his language of love if they all halfway gay...

I have discovered the old world

Soooooo...where to begin...i'm here to write about my great adventure...which so far has been pretty great...i guess i'll just start with coming over here

the flight itself wasn't that grueling, in fact it passed by rather quickly and uneventfull which is never the case when i fly...the real drama actually happened when me and jackie got to madrid and decided to follow through with our plan to take the metro from the madrid airport to the madrid trainstation...bad idea, especially considering the fact that we were both carrying about 70 pounds worth of crap which we had to lug up and down endless stairways and get off and on at at least four different metro stops...by the time we finally got on the damn train i was so exhausted that i passed out instantly in my seat...i didn't even get to see any of the spanish country side..whatever...that was horrible..we're getting a cab next time

so the first day i got here was mainly spent unpacking, sleeping and eating...it was pretty uneventful, but the day after that we had our orientation at the school...immediately i could tell that the group of kids in my program all seem really cool and laid back and easy to get along with..all of them were really friendly and approachable and we were all really excited to be there...not only that but everyone was working on plans to go out and party that night..woo hoo, i love these peeps already!

soo, blah blah blah, i got a cell phone, i checked out my class schedule, met some kids and we all made plans to meet back at the school to go out that night...about a million kids showed up and we were in the hugest group ever...we started walking vaguely hoping to find a place called aqua that supposedly had bikini-clad gals swimming around in a tank...but as we walked we passed bars and pretty much at each bar our numbers got smaller...i guess some of us were more ambitious than others because we treked on and on until there was only a faithful six of us...me, ron, sydney, leilani, jackie (who's roommate ditched her, taking the keys to their place with her) and my roommate annie (who didn't really want to go on...but i convinced). we never ended up getting to aqua, but we did got to several other places instead, enjoying drinks and finally ending up back at one of the first bars where we started losing people, we got to see a fair amount of the city and we got to know eachother all a little better, it was f-ing sweet if i do say so myself....btw..jackie slept in the park that night(she is now officially a bum)

and now...wowo...i have done alot of other shit since then already, considering that that was two weeks ago...i don't know if i can even really get into what else i have been doing...

let's see, my classes have been pretty cool...every monday and wednesday i have three classes in the morning which are long as hell, pretty interesting, but too long and early to be enjoyable...then i go home for lunch everyday at 2:30 (the normal spanish time for lunch..they eat at wierd times)then i go back at 5 (after siesta) for my last class, spanish, which i love, it's really the only one that's much worth my time at this point cuz i've really been learning alot...then i kind of wander around or maybe go get tapas with jackie and then i have dinner at 9...after dinner i usually relax and get ready and then go out at about 11:30 or midnight(most bars don't even get hoppin until at least two!) so then i party and drink which costs me an assload and come home at like four in the morning with my feet and legs burning and passout hardcore...

did i mention that the school is almost a half an hour away from my house, so i end up walking a minimum of two hours on school days! i have been walking non-stop since i've been here(i've probably walked more in the last two weeks than i have in the last two years), but i still cant help thinking that i'll probably gain weight anyways...the meals that we have are usually really huge, especially at lunch where there's often more than two courses and our senora force feeds us fruit down our throats(me and annie have been getting better at asking for less food tho)...the lunch food is really really yummy (she makes everything with fresh ingredients) but the wierd eating schedules leaves me wanting to snack between meals hardcore especially since i'm always with jackie who just has to eat every few hours, so we always get tapas (little dishes) at like six even tho there's no where that has kitchens open at that time (wierd) we usually end up getting cold tapas if we can find anywhere with food (potato salad, and crap like that)...so then by dinner, which for some reason is often way gross and largely consisting of pizza and hot dogs, i'm not that hungry (which is lucky i guess cuz a person can only eat so much hot dog-pizza)..but then when i go out till four a.m. i get hungry again and there isn't anything very substantial left in my stomach...lame...but anyways, i've been doing crunches everyday before lunch which will hopefull help with my fat crisis, maybe all the crazy walking will help too

sooo...i miss my mom, i miss a comfortable bed, i miss being in a house where i can use as much toilet paper as i want, i miss house parties, i miss my friends, I MISS WEED, and i miss guys that really mean it when they say they don't know how to dance

i hate the euro and i hate that everything costs money

but i love the time table here, i love my new puppy diego (even tho he barfed on my foot), i love tinto verano(wine + fanta), i love tapas, i love being in a new place and discovering new things, i love smoking wherever i want, i love having my meals prepared for me everyday(unless it's hotdogs and pizza), i love meeting hot spanish men, and i love partying all night long and sleeping all day

New Blog

Hello, just getting this whole thing started, thought i should start off with a little intro blog....just to get things started...Some know me as Irena some know me as Eve...either way this is my blog...i should start actually blogging within the next couple of days...