All good things come to an end...

Last trip to the Mirador =(

To start off my good-bye blog, I want to share a little story with you all.

Friday night was Lizzie’s last night, so we decided to head down to our favorite tapas bar, Poe. Along the way we passed a hotel, where there were many screaming Spanish men above. At first we didn’t pay attention to them until I noticed one little thing.

Me: Are they naked?!?!?!?!?

Someone else: I think they are?!

Another one: Oh my good-ness!!!!

Marianela: I’m going to take a picture!!!!

This is why I didn’t have a Spanish boyfriend. They like to get naked with other men in hotel rooms.

Anyway, back to the sad part…

I’m sitting in EVL’s apartment writing this blog because I am officially homeless.

Today I moved out of the apartment and tomorrow I head out for my two-week adventure to the exotic lands of Portugal, Paris, Prague and the precious state of Michigan!

This week has been a week of lasts. Last club in Spain, last tapas and last experiences with some of the best people I’ve ever met. Since last Sunday, I’ve said hasta luego to six people so far. It’s a good thing that half my gang is from New Mexico, because at least I’ll get to see them when I get home. It won’t be the same without the rest of our foreigners/Bryce from Florida!

This week has been surreal. I am having a hard time believing that this chapter in my life is over. Even though I’ve only been here four months I can’t imagine my life anywhere else. The past semester was everything I hoped for and more! I’ve seen so many breath-taking places, gotten lost, ate my weight in Poe Tapas, met the most ridiculous Spanish men and learned a lot about myself in the process.

Since I was in high school, I knew I was going to study abroad my second semester of my junior year. Now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do next. Besides graduating in two years time, I have no other immediate dreams and goals, so I guess I’m going to have to make up some new ones… here is my list so far:

New Life Goals:

1.     Become more outdoorsy. Learn how to snowboard, mountain climb, repel and kayak. I also need some wilderness skills. A few months in Montana with my Uncle Steve would turn me into a pioneer woman for sure!

2.     Learn another language. I still haven’t mastered Spanish, but maybe I’ll have better luck with something more challenging and obscure, like Hungarian!

3.     Start my novel(s). So far I have three ideas that I want to manifest into the written word. I’ve worked on bits and pieces of each, but nothing substantial. If the job market is this bad when I get out of college, I’ll need something to fall back on.

4.     Compete in running competitions! I think a marathon might kill me, but I could probably do a few 5k’s or something like that!
5.   Visit another continent! Now that’s I’ve done Europe twice, I need some new cultural influences in my life. Egypt, China, Japan, Thailand, India, Argentina, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand are all high on my list. This will all be possible due to the high amounts of royalties I will collect from my best selling novels.

There is a silver lining. Nippy is also coming on this adventure with me. So just in case I don’t blog about my last travels, there will be pictures of Nippy so be excited for that!!!

In retrospect, the only thing I would have done differently would have been to take my love of Enrique Iglesias more seriously by heavily stalking him. I know it would be love at first sight. When he finally meets me outside his bedroom window, he’ll want to be my hero and stand by me forever.

So for now this is not adios, but hasta luego Spain! I will someday return to you with my future children and show them all the exciting places that I visited: 

“Here’s the club, El Camborio, where mommy spent most of her weekends making out with random dudes.”

Yeah… that conversation is going to happen.

"I Hate You. Don't Touch Me!"

I’m really becoming a night owl. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night have been filed with so many activities.

First of all, guess how much all this costs? A four-course meal consisting of beef stew, chicken and rice, strawberries, a mini baguette, wine and water?

7 Euros? 9 Euros??

 3 EUROS!!!!

Tuesday afternoon, we continued our lunch tradition at one of the uni’s comedors. It’s basically the Spanish version of a cafeteria (La Po for all you UNMers out there) but it’s not disgusting! It was like a home cooked meal that made me miss Sunday dinners with my family and Charles at my sorority house. For three Euros, it’s the best deal I’ve found that tasted so exquisite.

Our friend, JT, who we met at the hostel in Madrid, was staying a few nights in Granada. We met him at Hannigan’s for drinks Tuesday night. He came with some really cool people that he was staying with at the hostel. David from LA, Elyse from Australia, the Doc (who’s name I can’t remember at this moment) from Brazil and a girl from Canada, but she doesn’t consider herself Canadian because she’s from Quebec. 0_o

It was also Hannigan’s open mic night and JT went up and played a few of his songs. When I first met him and he told me he was a musician and he was in Spain “on break from touring and recording” I thought he was full of shit. Turns out he’s a legit artist and he’s actually pretty good. Then David, in his slightly buzzed state decided he wanted to debut his cover of Under the Bridge, so he played guitar while JT sang. It was a more entertaining night than I thought it was gonna be!

Wednesday night I went with the hostel group on a hot springs tour. It sounded fun, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I met everyone at the hostel and we walked over to Plaza del Triunfo to meet the person who was picking us up. We all pile into a rape van and head out to the middle of nowhere. I was too busy talking to different people to notice exactly where we were, but it looked like we were out near the airport.

Then she turned off the main road and we stopped at a random shack because we had to “change cars.” This process took a lot longer than we thought. We were all waiting in the van long enough to consider the fact that she wasn’t coming back and we were all gonna get slaughtered. She did come back though, with a safari truck.

This was definitely a “WTF” moment. Again, we all piled into this little safari-looking vehicle, with no seatbelts up to the hot springs. There were so many bumps and dips in the road I felt like a Mexican crossing the border.

Joke of the Night:

“Hey David, is this how you moved to Cali?”

“No dude, but my parents did.”

We finally get up to the hot springs and thank god it was so dark because everyone who was there was naked. I’m not a prude or anything, but these people where all old and wrinkly and I’m just not into that. All the boys except JT were totally into it though. They all got naked in the water and for a while a couple of them ran around the hot springs being free and one with nature.

We all hung out, had some beers and just enjoyed experiencing nature’s hot tub. I’m not sure when we left, but it was really late.  We went back to the hostel and had a late night sharwarma, which was not as good as the kebabs I’ve had before. We all went our separate way and I went to bed at the early hour of 3 a.m. just enough time to sleep for my 10 a.m. class!

Thursday was quite mellow compared to the late nights I’ve been having. That evening, we went to watch a Tango show at the Uni. Apparently Granada has the biggest Tango festival outside Argentina. I was really excited because anytime I can see free dancing is pretty awesome.

Turns out it wasn’t as awesome as I thought it was gonna be. In the 1+ the show ran there was only 4 dances and the majority of the show was some middle-aged woman singing sad tango songs. I was already tired from the 8 hours of sleep I had in the past two nights and this lady knocked me out. If I had to pay for that, I would have been pissed. However the dancing we did see was pretty cool, and there will be a video coming soon in a later post.

We were all hungry after the show. Valerie told us about this great deal at everyone’s favorite tapas bar, Poe. If you buy a bottle of wine, you get six free tapas of your choice. Lauren and I had yet to go and between the three of us it was a great deal.

We ordered a bottle of white wine and I had a pork and pineapple skewer, Thai chicken and rice, and then coconut chicken with polenta. Delicious!!!

Being St, Patty’s day and all we thought it was appropriate to go over to Hannigan’s for some Guiness and Magner’s. I’ve never seen it more packed! There was nowhere to stand inside so we spilled out to the street with everyone else. While we were out there was some ghetto action taking place. Some guy pushed a drunk girl into the street and took off in his car. Her boyfriend must have been watching because he threw a beer bottle at his car and the guy got out and they almost threw chingasos in the street! This was also the first time I saw the police in Granada. It brings back great memories of NM!

Last night was the biggest botellodromo in Granada. Basically a botelledromo is a a gathering of students who bring their own alcohol and drink in the streets. It started at 3 p.m. and there were supposed to be an estimated 20,000 people there! Of course we aren’t as ambitious as the early birds so we got there about 10 p.m. and it was completely packed. We found a place to stand and drank. We also were in for another treat because there was more ghetto action, except there with real chingasos being thrown this time!

I would also like to point out there is such a thing as a hot Spaniard, they just aren’t at El Camborio on a Thursday night.

All throughout the night drunk guys were coming up to us asking for our alcohol. Sorry dude, if I want to get close to your level, I’m gonna need this.

People were also too drunk to realize they left their perfectly good Tinto de Verano unopened and rolling around the street. We found 3 full liters hanging out on the street, which was fabulous because Lauren and I ran out of our wine. Score for us!

Everything started winding down and we headed back to Valerie and Emily’s place.   Even though it was the biggest drinking party in Granada, this was the earliest we had gone home, 11:30 p.m. On our way back we ran into some Spanish guys who were pretty wasted. There was one who was talking to me but I only understood half the conversation. He was talking about eggs or something and Valerie made a comment that it could also mean his balls.

“Yeah I have two of those.” 0_o

However, it was nice to practice my Spanish.

Then there was this little shrimp sized guy who was super drunk and yelling the only English phrases he knew:

“I hate you! Don’t touch me!”

He had nothing to worry about.

We went to our favorite Kebab place and I tried it with Lamb instead of chicken, which I like 100 times more.

Now that all the craziness is over, it is finally time for me to study for midterms. A whole week of tests and since I never have homework or assignments I have to do well or else I’ll have some sad looking transfer credits at the end of the semester. Thursday can’t come fast enough!

Palabra del Día: Pecas, meaning freckles. It’s one of the words I need to know for my test. Por ejemplo: Gingers tiene muy pecas.