Spanish Misadventures

11:44am: haha I´m a little behind again... oh well. Sunday was boring cuz I just chilled at the paraninfo then went home in the rain and read in my room. Monday I was kinda freaking out about the paper thing so I went to class and then to the paraninfo afterwards for the entire afternoon. I still wasn´t finished when the library closed though so I skipped my last 2 classes on Tuesday to finish my presentation that I gave that afternoon. It went surprisingly well and I was really proud of it. ^_^ Alfonso called during the middle (the doctor that I tutor) and said he couldn´t make it, so I got online instead and did some fun things and found REALLY cheap London and Dublin tickets. I didn´t finish my paper that night but we didn´t have our first class the next day so I went to the paraninfo instead and finished and then arrived to the class 30 minutes late just to find that I didn´t have to present that day because he had a meeting and had to leave class early. Wednesday afternoon I went to play cards with my belgian friends and realized that spanish cards are INSANELY different than american ones. I bought a deck though so you can see mine when I get back ^_^ I tried to find people to go to London with me but failed so I won´t be going to London and Dublin for 4 pennies (a penny each flight :b) Damn. Thursday I took a nap in the afternoon and then met my spanish friend mar for coffee before packing. I got to the bus station and handed the conductor my ticket which I had bought on Monday and he stared at it for a long time. Then he handed it back to me and showed me that the time was wrong. So, I had to buy another 43€ ticket and therefore didn´t have enough money for my hostal. I switched some american money and had just enough for that and a metro card to see some sights...and none left over for food. So, I emailed my mom and supposedly yesterday she sent me some money but the password is wrong so now I have to wait for 1pm (7am in the states) to be able to ask her what hte right one is. Yesterday I walked A TON all over the city and took like 300 pics or something like that. I met up with a girl from south africa over breakfast at the hostal and then again at night and we ended up going out with her roommates. I met a drug dealer on the street who gave me some free "chocolate" and then tried to make out with me. I promised to go out for drinks with him tonight, so we´ll see what happens. The girls and I went to about 3 different clubs and got soooo many free drinks from guys who thought we were hot (me included...crazy, no?) Today my feet hurt from walking and then going out last night. I´m poor and want to go to the Picasso museum but can´t afford it. Can you imagine? Being a hour long walk from some of Picasso´s greatest works that were done directly BY HIM...and being 3€ short for the admission price??? I also want to go to Guell park which is a famous place made by Gaudi. (Best known for la Sagrada Familia...something you can´t go to Spain without hearing about) Plus if I did borrow 3€ then I couldn´t eat today (yesterday I ate some crackers someone gave me for free and the sandwiches Marta had made for me like 24 hours before I ate them....I hope they were ok.) Well, hopefully i´ll get some money so I can go see some art. Love ya´ll and leave me some comments so I feel loved back! 2 weeks and 5 days til I get back!

7:05pm: After dinner yesterday I changed clothes, grabbed some licor and coke, and took the bus over to Jack´s apartment. I was met by his little sister and father who were very impressed by my makeup-ed self. ^_^ I found Jack and 2 other girls talking to Jack´s brother through a microphone on a laptop. We listened to music and watched flashes like "Schfifty-five" and "The End of the World" and "stomping grapes" and "farting preacher." Afterwards, we played texas hold-em with whatever euro coins we had in our pockets. Jack lost all of his money and then started playing with another girl´s money because she had left the room to make a phone call and lost all of her money. We got bored of the game after about 2 hrs and then started talking about musical groups. At about 2am, one of the guys wanted to leave to see his girlfriend so we decided to split a taxi downtown since it was POURING rain outside. I went to the plaza and found Mar, caroline (the french girl), and Harrison and we went to Malaspina. I danced for a few minutes but then wanted to make a phone call so went outside. While I was outside my friends decided that they wanted to leave so we then walked over to Indian and found Trent, Bryn, and Corey inside. I danced with Caroline and Mar and tried to get Harrison to dance. Caroline and Harrison soon left and Mar and I went with Trent, Corey, and Bryn to eat a Doner Kebab. After eating, the boys went home and Mar and I headed towards the plaza. I was so tired from drinking beers all night while playing poker and from the dreary rain, plus almost everyone of my friends was staying inside their apartments, so I decided to go home. Mar and I shared my umbrella until I got home and then I let her take it home with her since she had a while to walk still and I have 2. I got inside and went to bed at about 3:15 and then woke up today at 2, ate lunch, walked through the rain to the library which was closed (as it was yesterday, bastards...) and then walked through the rain to the paraninfo where i am until it closes in 30 min. I am addicted to ebay though and desperately want a MP3 player... maybe an ipod or iriver. Oh and I love the photos option on Facebook...today I just went through friend albums to look at all the pretty pictures...even though the reason i´m here is because i have 3 essays due next week and i haven´t started any of them. Damn. Ummm maybe I can do them all tomorrow?

5:49pm: It seems like I JUST updated this thing...
and yet so many new things have happened. Sheesh. Tuesday I realized that I only had 2€ to my name but that I had a collection of coins from different European countries. I really needed the money, so I took a picture of the face of them (the only thing that is different on the coins from Spanish euro coins) and instantly gained 3€. Yay! I walked up to the tobacco shop and bought a bus ticket for 5€ which cuts the price for each bus ride in half. I then walked the rest of the way to school (which was only the 3rd time I had ever walked to the university because it involves scaling a MOUNTAIN which is just too much hard work at 8:45 in the morning with my bookbag and in a hurry to get to class on time because it takes longer to walk than to ride the bus.) I went to class and then walked home but stopped at the bank on the way. I was told by a friend of mine that she used her State Employee´s card to get money from an English bank named Barclay´s. One of the 4 in the entire city is on my street so I went in and asked to withdraw money. The old Spanish guy behind the desk glanced at my card and told me that he couldn´t help me. I told him that my friend had withdrawn money at the same bank and he told me that that wasn´t possible and told me to use an ATM (which I can´t do...otherwise I wouldn´t be insanely poor like I am). So, I went back to the apartment, ate lunch, and then to the Paraninfo. Wednesday I walked to school again, though today it was raining. When I finally reached the university, I bumped into Meriel, an english professor, who gave me the number of Alfonso, the husband of one of her students who wanted to meet with me that evening at 6 and speak English. She also gave me some papers with conversational questions on them to help us fill the hour. I ran to class afterwards; we didn´t have art for two hours like usual and instead had an expert on Prehistoric cave art come talk to our class. I was actually looking forward to it until he showed up. He spoke INCREDIBLY fast... so fast that my professor couldn´t understand him half the time. She must have asked him to slow down at least 4 times but each time he would say "well, I can talk slow in theory." before rushing off again. I was so bored by the end that I almost slept through literature and must have thought about leaving at least 10 times. I managed to sit through it though and finally ended up walking home in the rain and cold. I had forgotten my jacket and was wearing a tshirt so I was shivering when I finally reached the apartment. Marta scolded me and told me that I would be sick the next day and she wouldn´t help me at all. Her daughter arrived late for lunch so we had a nice time of talking together before she arrived. After lunch, I looked over the sheets Meriel had given me and then dressed up really nicely. I left at 4:30 to walk across town and ended up arriving 20 minutes early for my 6pm appointment. I stood in the gusty winds and the cold, stinging rain on the beach and watched the surfers for a while. At 6, I went to the hotel that Meriel had mentioned but at 6:05 was concerned that I wasn´t in the right spot. I called Alfonso and told him where I was and he came around to meet me (he was across the street at a café with the same name as the hotel). We ended up going to the hotel café and sat and talked together very amicably for the hour. He is 44 years old with a 20 year old son and a 18 year old daughter. He´s a doctor at a hospital outside of Santander, and he specializes in a certain syndrome. There is an american doctor who is quite famous in regards to that certain, rare syndrome as well and Alfonso´s dream is to go to America next year and be able to talk with the doctor and understand what he says. So, he pays me 10€ an hour every week to talk with him. At 7, we said goodbye and he paid for my hot chocolate and I caught the bus home where I ran into a older British couple who talked with me until I had to get off the bus. I ran home and got my flamenco shoes and skirt and ran right back out to meet my friends for dance class. I had a great time at the class and everyone was really impressed by how quickly I picked up new steps. The teacher is a fantastically nice woman and a great dancer. She offered to bring a video of her dancing professionally to show us, the three americans, the difference between Flamenco and Sevillanas (the dance I´m learning now is Sevillanas which is a certain type of flamenco). I went home afterwards and debated going out, but it had started to rain again so I just went to bed instead.
The next morning, my alarm didn´t go off. I opened my eyes to a bright room and a clock that said 9:04. My class starts at 9:10 so I jumped out of bed and started getting dressed. I was putting on my shoes when the door to my room opened and Marta jumped at the sight of me. She immediately started yelling at me about not telling her that I was going to leave early that morning and how we live together and I should be more considerate of her and turn on a light so she knows i´m there and blah blah blah... I had literally woken up 3 minutes earlier so I was completely confused and she had startled me as well so I started crying. I was completely exhausted so I took the bus into school and had missed Geography as well. The only thing left was the cave art guy for another 2 hours and so I sat there, staring out the window and not understanding a word that the guy said. I borrowed someone´s Geography notes and copied them so at least the 2 hrs weren´t a complete waste of my time. Afterwards, I stayed behind for 2 hours and surfed the internet, waiting for 2pm. Teaching Fellows has a thing called Junior Enrichment where you have to choose an activity to complete sometime between your sophomore and Junior years. Teaching Fellows gives $250 towards the activity and gets group discounts usually. The activities include being camp counselors for kids with cancer, volunteering at the special olympics, studying ecology at the outer banks, going to Japan for a week, touring America for a month, visiting Romantic Europe, and working with Spanish-speaking farmers all summer. I really liked the ecology one but when I saw that there was a NYC trip for $400, airfare and broadway show included, I knew that´s where I wanted to go. Registration was supposed to start at 8am (or 2pm here) but at 2:15 I still couldn´t register so I went home and ate lunch. Immediately after, I ran over to the paraninfo and registration was up at 3. I signed up for the NYC trip but for some reason it wouldn´t let me choose the ecology one as an alternate. So, I will most likely be going to NYC in March for 5 days (during UNC´s spring break so I´ll be missing 2 days of school). I then decided where I wanted to go during my free weekend next weekend: Barcelona. It has some kickass museums AND the craziest nightlife in all of Spain so I am completely excited! The only thing is that I had no one to go with so I was planning to go by myself until I found out some stoners from Oregon are gonna go as well. So, I´ll be going with them but probably head off by myself a lot while they smoke. After the Paraninfo, I went to the grocery store and picked up some licor for 2€. I´m not quite sure what it is, but it´s 15% alcohol and cheap so I just added it to a bottle of coke that I had lying around in my room. I ran to the library after dinner and checked out 2 books and Chicago the movie right before the library closed. I went home and read for a while and then went out to the plaza where I drank about a liter of cola mixed with a half liter of the mystery licor. A bar was having a promotion for a certain type of beer so the Belgian guys were there, drinking beer and winning lots of free stuff. 2 of the guys were just visiting so I talked with them in English while my spanish friend Mar talked to the friends they were visiting in Spanish. Mar is trying to learn English so she ended up talking to one of the visitors for a long time. They invited us to a party the next night and we gladly accepted. I then noticed that there was a naked woman on the wall and pointed it out to Wouter. He laughed and I remarked that she had a LOT of hair down there... almost to the point of ridiculous. We then started talking about the merits of shaving vs. trimming and I laughingly asked how he knew so much about the subject. He replied that he had 3 sisters and a mother. (Dunno about you but I´ve never talked about anything like that with any of my family members... must be a european thing >_<) I remembered that his girlfriend, Mickey, had visited the week before and jokingly said that she probably taught him some things as well. He looked at me strangely and said that she wasn´t his girlfriend but his ex. I was confused and told him so because they had looked awfully close to me... kissing and putting hands down each others pockets all night. He dismissed this with a wave of his hand and said "That´s nothing. Here." ...and he grabbed my hand and put it in his back pocket. Now I may not have mentioned this, but there are 2 boys who I have crushes on. One of them is Wouter. So, I was immediately blushing with my hand in his backpocket and shyly removed it after a few seconds. The second boy I have a crush on joined the group a few minutes later and was really drunk. I started talking to him and told him about the free stuff so he went to get a beer. He ended up buying the WRONG beer and therefore had 2 glasses and no free stuff. He was all upset and angrily tried to take a sip of the beer but it spilled all down the front of him. I laughed at him and told him he was a mess. We looked at the damage and realized that most of it was at the bottom of his shirt and on the top of his jeans...basically all in the crotch region. He then turned to me with a silly look on his face and asked me if I wanted to lick it off. I laughed and asked if his girlfriend wouldn´t mind that and he turned to me with the almost same strange look that Wouter had given me earlier and told me that he didn´t have a girlfriend. I mentioned the Polish girl that he´s been hanging around with lately and he told me that she and he were just friends. We then realized that everyone else had moved outside so we decided to go see what was happening with the other people. It was FREEZING outside, so everyone then opted to go to Bhengala for a while. We danced around and it was fun but not good for talking and too crowded for dancing. At about 3 we decided to leave and go to Buenas Noches Santander, the club where the Erasmus party was being held. We piled into taxis and went to the beach. Mar had called her family and asked to stay out later so she was there too. I danced around with her and with my french friend who is really sweet. I was hopping around and dancing to the music when I noticed that Jack, one of the americans, was there so I went over to dance with him. He was really drunk though and sitting down so I just kinda danced in front of him and gave him a back massage for a few minutes. I was pretty darn drunk myself and ended up giving him a really tame lap dance which he had to interrupt to go throw up. I then went to find some other people to dance with and danced with the belgian guys and Mark and Wouter and my gal friends. At about 4:30 I got really bored though and decided to ask a guy who was very obviously leering at me to dance. He said yes and danced with me for about a minute before jerking his head towards the door and saying "outside". I didn´t really want to leave Mar, but was really bored and wanted to have some fun so, I went over and told her I´d be right back, grabbed my stuff, and went to meet him at the door. We went to his car and he drove over to a few parking spots overlooking the beach. The spot was absolutely gorgeous and I decided that I would have to return when he started making out with me. I got back to the club at about 5 and realized that Mar was gone along with Wouter, Mark, Jack, and my other friends. I tried to dance by myself for a little while but was sleepy and knew I had to wake up at 8 for the field trip the next day. I went outside and contemplated the hour long walk or spending a euro on the bus trip. I started walking when I glanced back and realized Luis, the guy i had left with earlier, and his friend were coming out of the club. I debated for a second and then turned back and asked them for a ride. The friend immediately said sure and started sheparding me to his car. I realized that they had come in separate cars and turned to Luis who started gesturing at me to come ride with him and not his friend. I laughed at the obvious competition between them but decided to ride with the person I knew so I climbed once again into Luis´s car. He started to drive me home but stopped in the middle of one street and parallel parked on the side. An hour later, he finally took me home and I walked in the door at 6:15, tired, sore, and still drunk. I fell asleep then until 8 and then got up, got dressed, packed a bag, and headed out to the meeting spot where I was the second one to arrive. The group went to three caves which was really boring and I was completely crabby and sore and hungover all day. There was only one part that I liked and that was talking with Cassie who is really sweet and hanging out with her 3 year old daughter, Bailey. We returned to Santander at 6 and I went back to my room, lied down, and slept until 9:30. I quickly scarfed down dinner, took a shower, got all pretty, and then scaled the mountain to an apartment near the university where Wouter lives. I arrived at about 11 and met the spanish roommate and then started talking with the belgian visitors. Mar never came and so I felt a little bored and wandered over to the computer to check out the music selection. They were currently playing some techno that was pretty repetitve and so I asked if I could change the song and was asked to "Please do." I ended up making my own playlist and arranging songs and adjusting the volume all night, effectively becoming the DJ which I thought was pretty neat ^_^ We drank wine and I saw Wouter and Davy´s bedrooms and I talked to Mauricio on the phone. I actually had a pretty great time and was in a wonderful mood when we left and went to the plaza. I ran into my american friends and Mar and said hi to them before Wouter and Mark and some other people decided to go to a club called Malaspina. I was walking along with Peter and Wouter and Mark was holding Dominica´s hand, the same Polish girl who he told me was just a friend. Peter was SOOOO drunk and said that some guy looked gay and would probably like to be fucked up the ass. I jokingly said "me too" and he started joking around how he didn´t think that he would like to be penetrated but wondered if I would like to penetrate him. I sarcastically replied "Oh yes. It´s my dream to penetrate you with my 13 inch studded dildo." At this exact second, Mark and Dominica were right behind me and my butt was VERY firmly groped by Mark...while he was holding Dominica´s hand. I laughed and made a face at him and Wouter came over and we started discussing how 13 inches would be like 33 cm and would it feel good or not. Then Mark groped me again... and this time it felt like he was trying to shove his fingers in my ass. I squealed and must have jumped in the air cuz it frightened me so much. I turned around and told him that if he turned me on i would hold him responsible before turning back to Wouter who had a huge grin on his face. "you would like to be anally penetrated?" he asked me. Ummmm I don´t know about ya´ll but I´ve never been asked this question before in a crowded street in a group of people who I´ve known for a month by a guy who I liked. I just blushed and Peter decided to join in saying "How about double penetration?" I´m sure my face was beat red but I just shyly nodded and the boys were like "wow" and you could see on their faces that they really wanted to just take me home right then... we then got to the club and went inside and all talk ceased because of the awful noise. I started dancing and thought someone would start dancing with me but Mark danced with Dominica...and then she danced with Wouter and Peter and Davy when he came, and whenever she wasn´t dancing with them, the boys were at the bar. So, no one wanted to dance with me and the music was absolute shit and I was absolutely bored the entire time. Some girls showed up and I had fun dancing with them for a while but with all the people and no guy to dance with and the bad music I ended up going outside after an hour. I ran into a German guy and started scratching his back and we ended up talking and cuddling for about 30 minutes until the club closed. Afterwards, Wouter wanted to go clubbing, but no one else did but me so he ended up going home too and I had no one to dance with so headed home as well. Got home at 5:10 and woke up at 2, ate lunch, watched Chicago, and now I´m here at the library. Afterwards, I´ll return chicago, eat dinner, and then go play poker with the boys. Lata yall! Love you. *kisses and hugs*

3:48pm: The Goings-On
I am registered! I stayed after class today and brought a sandwich and looked up pretty teaching fellows things while I waited for 3pm and then...found out that I had an advising hold. So, I emailed my professor, talked to some people on AIM, and THEN registered. Whew. I know you´ve all been wondering about what I´ve been up to (or maybe I just want to tell you whether you were wondering or not) so here´s what I´ve been doing!: ( Various and Sundry Things... )

7:04pm: ( Germany cont. )

6:45pm: So yeah I tried to fall asleep in the car afterwards but everyone was at the car by the time so Wentz turned on the music realllllly loud. The boys started singing and I gave up trying to sleep. I went outside to get away from the music and took a walk around the parking lot by myself. The entire parking lot was empty except for one other car and there were no lights on and bushes every few feet. In other words, the lot was completely shady and I was really not surprised when we saw a cop pull out of the club parking lot. The boys all turned off the music and ran across the parking lot towards the woods except for Miller who came to talk to me. I apologized to him and he just kinda shrugged. I was pretty sure he wasn´t going to talk to me again when he turned to me and just said "why?" I told him that it was the alcohol and sleepiness... but really I think it was that I was too scared of getting attached to Miller so I distanced myself completely emotionally. He took my explanation and said that he forgave me and while we didn´t touch each other like we had earlier in the club, we still stood together and talked. Ray was acting completely weird. We think he might have been slipped something because Wentz says that he was dancing on a dance floor by himself when the club was about to close. Ray said that he just thought that there weren´t a lot of people around lol. The boys all took a piss in the grass and I used some nearby bushes and then we piled into the car. Ray almost immediately passed out on my shoulder in the backseat and started drooling on my jacket. Miller and I were trying hard not to touch each other and the music was BLARING in our ears. Sherman and Wentz had the front windows open while they smoked cigars that smelled like ass for about 3 hours while we went to a nearby base looking for a gas station. To get on base, I had to find Ray´s military ID by trying to stick my hands in all of his pockets which woke him up a little. Sherman then tried to ask for his ID and he handed over his camera. I finally got him to lift up enough to get his wallet out and then picked Ray up enough to get my passport which was at his feet. Finally, we managed to have everyone´s ID and Ray fell back asleep on my shoulder. We never found one and ended up driving back to the other city where the club had been where we finally found a station after the 3+ hours of looking. During this time, Ray woke up a teensy bit and picked up my hand and put it around his shoulders and promptly fell asleep on my chest. I was so surprised at first but then carefully moved his head to my lap where he lied doubled over for the rest of the three hours. We got gas and then wentz drove over to a gravel lot across the street and promptly passed out and snored (I was surprised that he managed to drive as long as he did as drunk as he was...) Sherman began to make drunken videos with ray´s camera, and Ray finally woke up enough to talk and move his head off my lap. We took a 2 hour nap and then started to drive home when we noticed that black smoke was coming out of the hood of the car...
More later! I have so much homework to do tonight and I´m trying a new flamenco class ^_^

7:40pm: dammit! wanted to set something straight: when ray came in after looking for me on Saturday he told me that perkins had told him about what she had told me and apologized a million times because it wasn´t true and he spent all day telling me that it wasn´t true and that he was glad to see me even though i do make him sad sometimes but that he gets sad anyway when I´m not there so not to worry. ^_^

6:58pm: Oh My...
Um as you know I went to Germany this past weekend. Everyone since has been asking me "How was it?" and I always answer "interesting." It´s hard to classify it any other way...
I arrived Friday morning with 4 people from Oregon. One of the girls was going to visit her high school friend on an army base as well so we waited to see if it was the same one I was going to so I could catch a ride. I had planned to take a bus to a city and then catch a ride with someone going from that city to Kaiserslautern or hitchhike so I was reallllllly hoping this guy could take me. Also, I turned off my cellphone for the flight and then realized that I had forgotten the PIN number to turn the phone back on so I didn´t have a cellphone all weekend and didn´t know ray´s number to call him to tell him I was in town and didn´t know the number of the person who was my ride. Turns out the guy wasn´t going to the same base but offered to take me anyways. Yay! We drove all around Kaiserslautern trying to find a phone chip to put in my phone so I could get ray´s number, but were unsuccessful. We finally went to Ray´s barracks and found him in the lobby. Crazy no? He then took me to his room where I waited for him for 3 hrs. He and I and Sherman just kinda chilled in the room until about 11 when we went over to the Cantina, the bar on base. Sherman left really soon after we got there and I started talking to some people that I had met last time I was there. I had a ton of fun dancing and meeting new people. I even had one girl come up to me and tell me how much she loved my shirt and we talked for a long while. One girl, Perkins, was EXTREMELY drunk and pulled me off to the side at about 1 in the morning. She talked to me for about 20 minutes, telling me how Ray didn´t want me there and how I just reminded him of Jennifer and how I needed to "move on" from all those home people because Ray was going to hate me if I didn´t and how Ray wasn´t "interested" in me ´that way´! I wish I had been sober at the time because I would have probably beat her ass, but because I was drunk I just kept saying "I understand" and forced myself to keep a smile on my face. I stood up and completely believed that Ray hated me with everything inside of him all night so I tried my best to ignore the way my stomach was turning over and accepted a guy´s offer to buy me a shot of "Stro"...which is 80% alcohol. My throat burned so badly that I couldn´t swallow. I forced myself to stay until the bar closed and then Ray said that I could just crash in his room. I quickly refused and found two guys to walk me over to the hotel where I was staying. One of the guys turned around the second we reached the door though and the other one kept saying he´d just walk me to my door, then that he just wanted to talk inside my room, and then he said he just wanted to sleep on my chair. And, unfortunately, I let him do all those things and we ended up talking for about an hour and he showed me pictures of his daughter who is absolutely adorable (HE on the other hand is NOT).
Saturday morning SUCKED because I was awoken by a phone call at 11:05, informing me that check out was at eleven and that I needed to get out of my room. I sat on the side of the road completely depressed nad not even sure if Ray was going to come looking for me because I still thought he hated me and ended up talking to this man who invited me up to his room (the guy was REALLY old so it wasn´t that big of a deal) We watched House of Wax on the TV and I watched out the window for Ray and he made me a turkey sandwich for lunch. We then scoured the phone book and talked to the operator, trying to find the number for Ray´s room, but no one knew who would know that information so I finally just left to find the library on base. I imed Miller at the library and said that I would go wait outside of the gates where the barracks are located. I sat outside by the side of the road for about an hour before Miller showed up and let me back on base. Turns out he had been asleep and had just woken up and gotten my message. Back at the room, Sherman called Ray who was out looking for me and then Sherman left and Ray came in. We just kinda hung out and I watched family guy episodes and ordered a pizza for dinner. At about 9pm, Miller, Ray, Sherman, and I went with a guy named Wents (I´m not sure if that´s how you spell it, but that´s how u pronounce it) to a club in Wurzburg which is about 2-2.5 hrs away. We arrived at 11:30 and got really lost. Sherman kept asking people for directions but everyone would say different things. We finally found it though and the boys all had to pay 6€ to get in, but it was free for ladies. Plus, I got reduced drinks. The boys immediately bought everyone 2 shots of tequila which made me feel like I was going to hurl. We started checking out all the different rooms (there were 6 different rooms, each playing a different kind of music) and finally ended up at the techno room. There was no one on the dance floor when we arrived but as we stood there 1 or 2 started dancing on it. I quickly joined them and just danced by myself on the floor while everyone stood around it, watching the dancers. Unfortunately, the boys were all trying to stick me and Miller together so they pushed Miller over to me and I had to dance with him (he´s a terrible dancer) instead of just having fun dancing by myself. Miller eventually went off to get a drink and I started catching people´s eyes and ended up dancing with this older guy who was not much to look at but was actually fantabulous dancer who followed my lead. After that I was feeling good and was all for going to another room with the boys when they struck out with the girls they had been talking to. We went to afew more rooms but the boys were just interested in talking to girls and drinking, not dancing so we never stayed in one room long. Ray and Miller and I went up to a bar and I just asked for a coke. Ray then noticed that I got reduced drinks and told the bartender to put 2 tequila shots on my tab. The boys did the shots and then the bartender brought my coke and I guess tripped because next thing I knew Ray was COVERED in coke and I had quite a few spots all over me. Ray immediately told the bartender that the bartender had to give him 2 more shots for free if he was going to "be his friend again." The bartender, looking harrassed by Ray´s loud insistance, refilled the tequilla shots which were quickly gone. I was just tired of the way the boys were acting and wanted to go to sleep. Miller finally offered to takem out to the car and Sherman was elected to go with us "so we wouldn´t have sex in Wentz´s car". We stopped by Burger King for a little bit of food and then we all went and passed out in the car. Ray and Wentz showed up an hour later and woke us up and Ray, Miller, and Sherman went back to the car while Wentz curled up in the backseat with me. I tried to sleep but apparently that was not on Wentz´s mind and before I knew it I was desnuda. I about had a heart attack when I saw the door open and Miller poke his head in. I immediately stopped but was too slow to say anything as he slammed the door closed and ran away across the parking lot.
Damn I have to go cuz the library´s closing. More later...

10:22pm: Gah... people should seriously check their emails ever 90 minutes. At least. That being said, I am going to Germany tomorrow until Monday. Maybe I will grab a hold of a computer and make an entry...and maybe i won´t. *shrugs* All I know right now is that I am a sleepy girl who doesn´t have a ride from the airport to the army base tomorrow (thus the emailing thing...i was hoping to have a reply from a girl about sharing her car tomorrow, but of course I only sent the request 90 min ago...) and I have the Pretty Woman DVD back at the house where 2 crazy french ladies are watching it. I can either go out and get drunk and be miserable tomorrow on the plane but happy because of my night of funness, or i can go back to Marta´s to watch Pretty woman, read until late, and spend a quiet night at home. Am I being boring if I say I like the latter more? And if I tell you that I haven´t been *out* since last Saturday which was pretty much forced on me since I was in Salamanca in a hotel room with a bunch of other college students. Maybe I will hit up the bar tonight... I just wish I had some money... (Oh! Remind me to tell u why i don´t have money sometime.... it´s a lovely story >.<)

6:17pm: Ok sorry for the long gap between updates. >.< I have been SWAMPED with school work and other time-consuming things. I´ll therefore only give a brief overview (maybe) of what I´ve been up to in the last week and a half.
The Friday after the crazy Thursday night I woke up really late and spent the day at the paraninfo. I went out that night but Pedro was sick and didn´t go out and no one else was really out either. I went to a few bars with my friends but ended up going home early at about 2. Then I woke up at 6:30 since the bus to San Sebastian left at 7:30. One of my friends didn´t make it and so there were only 5 of us. We had a 4 hour bus ride to the city and then got lost trying to find our hostal but finally found someone to point us in the right direction. The hostal was *weird* and a little bit scary at first. Everyone spoke english that we met and we had to wait for a little while for the guy in charge to get out of the bathroom. We ended up sitting on these couches that smelled funny and that were very uncomfortably saggy while a british guy watched Simpsons next to us. We finally found out that our rooms wouldn´t be ready for another 1.5 hrs so the girls went shopping. I was bored and so went looking for a disposable camera and finally found one so I could take pics of the pretty city. We then walked across the city to a Palace by the ocean which is just basically a big house, but when everyone lives in apartments, big houses are palaces. Then we checked into the hostel and I took a nap while they went shopping again. They woke me up 2 hrs later.
Crap! Group meeting. More later!

6:15pm: I just took a very interesting survey for UNCC and got paid for it! W00t $10! Too bad that´s only like 8€ and therefore only good for one dish at a restaurant or 2 sandwiches or 4 ice cream cones...
or something useful like a bus pass but the food is much more fun ^_^ So yeah the survey was about alcohol usage on campus and it was asking "how many times in the last month have you gotten drunk?" Umm let´s see here: I live in a foreign country where the drinking age is 16 but most bars let people as young as 14 in. We have 1 club that says 21 or over and I walk in every friday night with no problem. I walk into the grocery store and buy a 3 euro bottle of licor or 1.5 euro bottle of wine and then go to hang out with my friends outside in a plaza. We then get incredibly smashed, drinking big gulps from each others´ bottles, and go walking or go dancing until 4 in the morning. I used to do this everynight but since I´m sick I haven´t been out in the past 3 days. So how many times have I been drunk? Certainly not every night but a good majority I am at least tipsy because everyone else is; it´s a norm here and perfectly legal (though I still feel odd walking by a police officer while drinking out of a bottle of Bailey´s!) So, yeah I´m quite sure my survey answers were huge outliers compared to the other 19 year-olds... but then again people have been known to surprise me lol. ^_^

4:24pm: Ok. The reason I haven´t updated in forever is because I wrote this huuuuuuge entry last Friday about what had happened Thursday night and then the computer decided that I needed to be punished and shut down. Needless to say, I was not happy and not real anxious to write another account of the same story once again. But, I think I can finally try to tell it again...just with a big less details because it was almost a week ago.
I left the Paraninfo a little earlier than I needed to for dinner and walked down to the Lupa, the Spanish version of Food Lion. It was my first time walking into one and I was extremely nervous. I spotted the alcohol aisle the second I entered, but I walked down every other aisle in the store, trying to gather my courage, before finally reaching that one and standing in the aisle, looking up at all the different kinds of booze I could buy. I kept glancing off to the side, waiting for someone to tell me that I wasn´t allowed to be there but finally was able to concentrate on my mission: finding a cheap yet yummy drink for the party that night. I wanted Malibu, but it was in a locked cabinet and was 10 euros, definitely not one of the cheaper ones. I searched through the non-locked shelves for the cheapest licor with the most alcohol percentage, finally deciding on a 4.50€ bottle of apple licor with 20% alcohol. I bought the booze with a bright red face and shaking hands but the woman never even looked at me as she rang it up. I then stuck the bottle in my bookbag and headed home.
I left my bag in my room and fretted the entire time while I was eating dinner that Marta would go in my room and see the telltale bump in the back of my bookbag, but she never did. She left when I was cleaning up my plates so I put on some makeup and a cute outfit and literally snuck out of the apartment to avoid Marta. (I heard Marta coming in so I had to go down a floor on the stairs until she had gotten out of the elevator at the apartment and then called the elevator down to the floor i was on.) I stepped out of the building door to discover that it was raining HARD. Thankfully I had brought my umbrella, but I still managed to get most of me soaking wet on the hour-and-a-half walk over to my professor´s house. I reached the street and found the building and...realized that I had forgotten which side of the first floor she lived on. I cursed loudly in the wet, dark night and regretted also leaving my cellphone at the apartment. I had my keys with me and 3€ in case i had to take a bus and I was really not looking forward to using a payphone with any of my money. I stood outside the windows, trying to see inside but it was impossible to see anything and all the windows looked dark already. I finally gave up and went over to the club where the party was supposed to be much later and it was completely dead. (There was a huge party for all the exchange students but the NC peoples were going to drink before we left over at my professor´s apartment) The door to the club is located three steps from the beach, so I went down to the sand and found a little bench to sit on. I figured I might as well drink the bottle I carried around for forever and took a huge swig of it. Even though the licor was not very strong I was scared that I would get drunk by how quickly I was drinking it and didn´t want to get silly drunk hours before the party started. I headed up towards the boardwalk in front of the apartment building again and was going to look for a payphone when I ran into two NC people who were just going for a walk and didn´t know anything about the drinking. I filled them in and then the girl used her cell to call my professor´s son about the pre-party while the guy tried my apple licor. We got to the pre-party and found my professor and her husband asleep but quite a few people from our group drinking in her living room. I poured myself a glass of the apple which I drank pretty quickly and thought to only have sips after that, but someone wanted my cup so they poured me another glass of apple in a cup that already had ice in it. I drank that pretty fast too and didn´t feel anything. One of the guys had a bottle of absinthe that he was trying to mix with different things to try and dilute the foul flavor. He recommended Sprite and I thought how cool it would be to be able to say "I tried a shot of Absinthe." I grabbed the bottle to read it and got some of it on my hand which evaporated almost immediately. It is 85% alcohol after all... My professor´s son, Jack, is insanely hyper and came over to where I was sitting, grabbing the bottle of alcohol out of my hands. The rest of the people were over in the living room and we were on a little patio where all the drinks were set up so no one could see us unless they peered around the door. I watched as Jack poured the absinthe into a tumbler with some ice, getting it colder, and then poured me a shot in one of those really long shot glasses that look like 2 shots together. I poured a teeny bit of sprite into the shot glass and then hesitated because i hate taking shots from shot glasses. I poured it into my empty cup and drank the whole thing down in one gulp. It actually didn´t taste too bad and I was excited that I was still not really feeling drunk after all the things I had drank. I waited a few minutes, enjoying the fresh air on the patio, and then heard a really cool song playing on the laptop in the living room. I jumped up to go start some dancing when I realized that I was NOT unaffected by all the booze I had drank. The world tilted a little bit and I quickly readjusted my method of walking so that I could finally manage to dance around, but no one wanted to join me. Someone started up a card game so I sat down and actually ended up being the one teaching I got on to lj from the laptop sitting on the couch and made my drunken post. I then hung out in the living room for about another 45 minutes or so before going back to the patio where a little group was gathering again. I tasted someone´s drink that was supposed to be like a piña colada but was mostly rum. I decided to mix rum and my apple stuff together, but then added some absinthe and sprite. It was actually DELICIOUS so I made another, larger one. I probably had 2 full shots of absinthe in me by then, plus rum and lots of apple licor. We saw from the window some people starting to head to the club so we decided to pack up the party and go over there. The room still looked dead so we walked out on the beach and I went up to the water which actually felt warm to me. That´s how I knew I was REALLY drunk. I actually had a deep, religious talk with Sara and she recommended a book to me which I still need to read. We walked into the party which was almost empty and started talking to each other and the 2 or 3 people we knew. The dj was playing mostly english, american songs, so I found one I knew and started dancing. I grabbed a girl I knew and dragged her onto the dance floor with me since there was no one else there. We started dancing together, and soon everyone was coming over and joining us. The party picked up pretty quickly after that and I felt like I was on top of the world. I danced with SO many people and met their friends and had just finished dancing with some Italians when I locked eyes with a guy standing by a column. I was dancing to myself, singing along with the song and so I started singing the song to him and slowly made my way over to him. I finally reached him after about a minute of slowly dancing towards him and he just put his arms around my waist and we started dancing together as if it was choreographed or something. We danced together for a while before he had to take a break and talk to the friends he was there with so I went and danced with my belgian friends for a while, who had fun putting me in the middle of three of them. I went back over to the hot guy after a little while and we danced for about 20 more minutes, occasionally kissing each other while we danced. His friend had to go home and so I walked with them out of the club and said goodbye to his friend and then walked a little ways on the beach with Pedro, as I found out his name was. He´s a student at a university 4.5 hrs away and was just here for the weekend. I was feeling a little out of it and asked to stop when we got to this low wall just perfect for sitting on. The spot was actually perfectly secluded with trees and so it was perfect for fooling around. Afterwards he had to leave so I went back to the party, still pleasantly drunk but a little worn out and definitely happy. I danced with a few more guys and even ended up kissing one of the Belgium guys who likes flirting with me every weekend when we go out together. I went to dance with another Belgium guy but he stopped me from getting too close, saying "I can´t because my friend loves you." and then he pointed to the guy I had kissed! I´m not sure if it´s true or not but WOW was I blown away. I then decided 4:30 was a good time to go home so I said goodbye to the English guy Mark who I had a tiny bit of a crush on (with an english accent how can you resist?!) and he hugged me and then said "awww maybe next time then" and kissed me on the cheek. Not the "hello how are you" kiss but a sweet little kiss on the cheek. I walked to the bus stop feeling like a car had just run me over with all the weird things that had happened during the night and waited for 40 minutes before i realized the bus wasn´t coming. I then walked home 1.5 hours in the rain again, and found some adventures on the way home, like playing in the muddy dirt around a tree and peeing on the street. Friday, I woke up at 1:30 and spent the day at the Paraninfo. I got invited to go to San Sebastian with some friends (San Sebastian is a little town in Spain on the French border) and went home to pack. I then went out for a little while, hoping to run into Pedro, but instead ended up hanging out with Mark a lot and then some Spanish guys that we had met at the university between classes one day. Wow this is way too long so I´m gonna end it here. I´ll add more probably Monday or so since I leave tomorrow morning for Salamanca (where Pedro lives interestingly enough) and then get back on Sunday night. Love ya´ll and leave me nice comments please! ^_^

6:25pm: ok ok i know i owe you a loooot of entries about wha´ts gone on in the last week but I don´t have time cuz i´m insanely busy. I´m so sorry and I love you and I´ll try to have it up before i leave friday!

11:52pm: oh god... i just drank half a bottle of apple licor that i bought and a shot of absinthe, which is illegal in the us if you didn't know. Then, I played egyptian rat screw for the first time since high school and was the only one who knew the rules. Oh goodness... I can understand why people would see a green fairy cuz this stuff is strong...85% alcohol. Only 10% less than everclear and it's made of wormwood which tastes liquorice. After hanging out, we're going to a club to dance with a whole lot of foreign exchange students because tonight htere is a party at the club which is located ON the BEACH. ^_^

4:48pm: Fiestas y más...
Just realized that even though I´ve been in the library a lot recently but I haven´t updated since the purse incident. Monday´s flamenco class was really cool cuz I actually talked with two of the girls and we laughed around in class. The class was a bit harder but we started learning the dance that we´ll eventually learn all of. Tuesday was the purse thing and after that i stayed in the paraninfo a long time and I thought about buying some alcohol but when I got out of the paraninfo the stores were closed so I just went out instead with some Oregon people and their professor. We had the whole night to go out since Wednesday was a fiesta day and no one had classes and THE ENTIRE CITY was out drinking and smoking hash I think. One of the Oregon boys picked up some hash from a guy getting high in the plaza and smoked it right next to me so I smelled like it the rest of the night. I met up with some some of my european friends at the plaza afterwards and found out that one of my Grecian friends was mad at me because he says i was "saying shit" about him. That kinda made me sad all night because I love hanging out with him and I hate when people are upset with me. :/ I also saw my history professor there and he did the traditional kissing thing on each cheek and I swear I must have been bright red. I have this thing about professors where I put them on pedestals and am totally intimidated by them so to have one KISS me was absolutely crazy for me... not to mention that i was DRINKING at the time and worried about making a fool of myself. After the plaza I went to a club to try and find some people but they were buried in the mob of people and it was so hot that i had to leave soon after going inside. I tried another club and ended up with some friends of mine who are really fun to dance with. I ended up also seeing a guy that my friend Lucy had chatted up the last time we were in that club so I had a decent spanish conversation with him, and then left the club and chatted with an italian guy for a while. Lots of Spanish! w00t! Then a really drunk Spanish guy hit on me until I had to leave with my friends for the other club. However, the club had just closed so I went to see what my other american friends were doing and found two girls hanging out with two spanish guys. I went with them to find an open bar, but we just ended up at the late-night club, Indian. There was a huge line outside and I was worried about waiting but then the guys went straight to the front and breezed inside the club and the bouncers totally let them!! So we got in without paying as well! Score. ^_^ I stayed at Indian for a long time and danced with a guy who was probably 7´6" (no kidding! he was taller than anyone in the room!) and my flirtatious belgian friend. I finally got sick of the people elbowing us though and of the drinks spilled on me because people had to go the bathroom and couldn´t wait for us to move out of the way with our beers, so I went home and walked. The whole way. 40 minutes later I walked into my apartment and fell asleep at 6:40 (the clubs close at 4:30 so I was probably at indian for an hour and twenty minutes... a record for me since i usually hate that place ^_^) I woke up at 12:30 and ate the lunch left on the table for me. I was going to just head straight to the beach but took a moment to write some postcards. Marta came home and complained that I had eaten and not waited for her. (um yeah she left my lunch out on the table but was hurt that i didn´t wait for her... huh?) I took my postcards and mailed them before I realized that I had forgotten my beach towel. So, I sat in the park and enjoyed the GORGEOUS day by the bay, people watching and then later reading my Spanish book for my literature class. It got a little bit chillier though when the sun went behind the clouds so I went to the paraninfo and talked to people online and listened to music and other such lovely things until it closed. I planned to go out for appetizers with my friend, but when we walked out the door to the paraninfo it was POURING rain. So, we went our separate ways and I went home and did more homework. I then ate dinner when Marta put it on the table and then did more homework before going to bed. I woke up early and actually had time to eat breakfast. (Marta was amazed...) I then hopped on the bus and ran into Lisle, one of the Oregon kids. I started talking to her in Spanish and only spoke english once I think for the whole 30 min ride to school. ^_^ Then she invited me to go to San Sebastian with some people (a little spanish town 2 hours away right on the french border), so I might be going there on Saturday. This morning´s classes were boring as usual but then we had a program meeting where we learned why exactly we each had to pay 9,000 dollars to come to Spain and then get as few amenities as we do. Afterwards was CONVERSATION PARTNERS! whoo! Imagine about 14 Spaniards in a room with 21 American students with some olives, cookies, chips and coca-cola. The Spaniards were all studying to become English teachers to Spanish children up to age 12... basically they´re studying to do the exact same thing I´m doing except for them they have to learn a foreign language as well as all the education classes. They were very excited to learn that I was an education major as well and I had a good chat with about 7 different people and got about as many phone numbers so I can hang out with people again. ^_^ Afterwards I climbed on a bus with my American friend Matt and had a thoroughly delightful conversation in Spanglish. However, I came home to two frowning faces (Marta and her daughter) and was wonderfully reminded why I loathe the daughter when she watched me eat the whole time. As if she was just waiting for me to make a mistake... Unfortunately she was offered the opportunity to pick at me when a piece of bean was stuck on my lip and I tried to lick it off. She immediately picked up my napkin and handed it to me with a sharp "Use your napkin." ...and Marta was wondering why I was so quick to eat lunch by myself yesterday.
Afterwards, I came here to the paraninfo once again to do homework, but as you can see, not much homework is being done. Oh well. Jackie email today! I don´t know why but she makes me so happy everytime I talk to her... until I remember that she is very far away. ;_; Oh well, there´s a big party tonight that I am excited about so hopefully I will have lots of fun and forget about the MOUNTAIN of homework waiting for me at home... ^_^

6:20pm: *wipes brow* Ok found my purse. I walked alllll over the city today and I am now soooo tired but I finally got inside the paraninfo with my passport and was sitting next to my friend when my professor called her to see if she knew where I was. I ran to the police station and went through a lecture about losing things and then ran out with my purse. All my money is still there so I am so happy now ^_^ The police gave the report the man filled out who found my purse (apparently it was sitting at the bus stop in the middle of the street and this man just picked it up and took it to the police station) and now I think i´m supposed to send him a present to thank him or something. I just don´t know what´s appropriate in spain so I´ll ask my señora later. So, now i´m listening to Green Day and Weezer music and checking out the lj, email, and other such fun things. Only 2 hours to go til I have my second flamenco class... ^_^

12:08pm: LIFE SUCKS ASS. Or maybe just mine. I left my purse in the bus this morning and missed history to try and find it. Then, today we get out of class late so I won´t even be able to check if someone found it until about 4 pm when the police station opens back up! So, I might have lost my second cellphone, 52 dollars american money, 40 euros, my house keys, my debit card, my student ids, my phone cards, my receipts, some pencils, my lip gloss, my new wallet that I bought here in spain, an earring, some batteries, a flashlight, and my gum that I brought from the states. Well, it´s off to class so I can worry for an hour and a half about what the fuck might have happened to my stuff...

6:18pm: My new favorite thing is to listen to launch.yahoo.es videos ^_^ or wopvideos.com. You all should go check out "La Camisa Negra" by Juanes if you haven´t heard it already. I´m really tired right now because I stayed up until 6 this morning reading The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. I got home from the plaza at 3:30 and then read the book cover to cover. I think I was crying before I even picked up the book and then had to stop every few seconds to blow my nose or wipe my eyes. Ok what have I done this week? Well, Wednesday´s Flamenco class was really fun and I learned that Flamenco is SOOOOOO pretty. However, I didn´t have a skirt to practice with because they didn´t have one to fit me. ;_; I met a girl named Laura there who was really sweet and we chatted for a few minutes and I actually understood what she was saying! It was cool. ^_^ The teacher was really impressed by how quickly I picked up some of the harder steps, but I explained to her that the really hard steps are just like tap steps, which is something I know really well. I went home afterwards and fell asleep. Thursday´s classes got out at noon so I got online and talked to Aras and Paul since they were up at 6:30 (crazy people!) and to Jarod for a little while on his lunch break. Then a friend of mine and I went to eat Café con Leche and croissants. I ate lunch and then went to the public library. I browsed the shelves for 2 hrs before asking about how to get a library card and found out that i´d have to wait 7-10 days for one after turning in the huge application. I went and bought my flamenco skirt for 80€. It was the most expensive one but it is GORGEOUS!!!! I wish I could show it off to everyone... I went home and wrote my essay that was due tuesday and watched dirty flashes from newsgrounds with Jennifer until midnight and then went home and slept. Friday was a big long field trip that I thought was terribly boring though interesting in concept (roman ruins are exciting to see but riding 3 hrs in a bus to see them and then hiking a mile to a castle that was barely 4 walls standing on top of a mountain was not my idea of fun) We got back late so I went to eat dinner and then came to the paraninfo for a little while. I then went to meet my friends at the Plaza and I hung out with sooo many international students that I hadn´t seen in a while. We went to Zen, a local club, for a little while and one of the Grecian students were soooo drunk that he kept grabbing my ass until I was ready to punch him out. One of the london students kept pelvic thrusting into random girls in the club and he and the drunk greek guy kept touching random spanish men in a very...friendly way. (Neither remembered ever going to the club the next day) Lucy and I met these 3 drunk Spanish guys and one of them actually turned out to be very intelligent and fun to talk to so we hung out with him until the club closed at 5. I walked home after that and went to sleep so I could wake up at 12. I woke up later than I had planned (damn snooze button) and ate a quick lunch before scurrying over to the ferry office. I caught the 2 o´clock ferry over to Somo and met some of my friends from the night before on the beach. The boys were all surfing (or trying to..the waves were crap) and 2 german girls sat on the sand with me. They talked in german so I just chilled on my beach towel and almost fell asleep. Then I got up and walked into the water (it was VERY COLD and low tide so I could walk out almost to where the surfers were at) and said hi to the surfing guys. The boys were impressed that I had walked out into the water without a wetsuit and 2 followed me in. Soon, everyone came in and we sat on the beach, talking and hanging out. Someone made a grocery store run for some beer and got me a coke and then the boys went back out into the surf. I watched a couple who was making out a little ways down the beach and got very lonely and sad. I called Jarod up and we talked for a little while, but he can´t make me feel any better since he´s in germany and we try very hard not to get attached to each other since I´m only here for 2 more months from yesterday. I started crying then and had to go to the bathroom, so I packed up, said goodbye to the girls, and left around 5. I found a local bathroom and then caught the ferry back to Santander where I went straight to the Paraninfo to talk to Jarod and other people online. However, the library closed an hour later and I went with some friends to eat some Chocolate con churros and then went home for dinner. Marta hadn´t been there all day and wasn´t home by 10 when I fell asleep on my bed with my clothes on. She finally came back at 11:20, woke me up, and then yelled at me for not eating dinner. She fixed me some food which I then ate groggily and afterwards stumbled over to the Plaza. I hung out until 3:30 when someone brought me a book I had asked to borrow. I went home and snuggled under the covers and ate chocolate and read til 6. The end. Oh and I used OK Cupid to find me a spanish penpal! So now I have someone to write to in Sevilla (which is a million miles away but I want to visit sometime) and it´s actually the birthplace of one of the types of Flamenco. Well, library´s closing once again so I´m off. I hope everyone´s day is going well and that you all will be happy to know that I come home in less than 2 months. Now. Go listen to music!!! *starts grooving to Juanes again*

5:37pm: Germany, continued.
So after I got to the hotel, I just watched the adult channel for a little while until it got cut off (apparently you´re not allowed to watch porn after 5 in the morning...) and then fell asleep. At 9am, I woke up and was WIDE AWAKE. I bounced around the hotel room, cleaning a little, changing my shirt, fixing my hair, and watching more television until I heard a sound at the door. I watched as Ray, Sherman, and Miller walked into the hallway that I shared with my neighbor and threw the door open, accusing them of being slow. I realized at that second that I was still wearing my pajama pants so I slammed the door shut and scurried around my room, changing. Then we all got into the car and went to their movie store. We looked at movies for a little while and then looked around the store for other necessary items. Ray got a cheap phone and then we left to find something to eat. We were going to go to Doner, but then someone mentioned Chinese food and I seconded it so we went to a German Chinese Restaurant. The food was really different than I was used to and Sherman got mad at the waitress because she said that he couldn´t order three egg rolls. (They were huuuge rolls and she didn´t want us to not eat them and then not pay for them.) We left the chinese restaurant and went back to the barracks because we had nothing else really to do since it was raining and cold outside. I hung out in Sanchez´s room and checked my email while some people got dressed. Then I flipped through Blood of the Fold because she was just starting to read the Terry Goodkind series and had random books from the series. I tried to lie down and take a nap for a little while, but people kept waking me up, like May who wanted to take me out in the hallway and tell me about how sorry he was for the night before and that he wanted to start over from scratch. I didn´t mind the talk but I did mind how he kept bothering me after that; I think he wanted to make me like him again in the space of a few minutes, but I was tired and he was keeping me awake. Miller was really sweet all afternoon, giving me a backrub and letting me lie my head on his leg when I needed a pillow. We just kinda hung out all afternoon until 6 or 7ish when Sanchez decided to start getting ready to go out. She noticed that I looked kinda crazy from being out in the rain and then lying on her bed all day so she lent me her perfume, hairbrush, hairspray, and a coat with fur at the sleeves and neck which just barely fit over my shoulders (I am quite bigger in the front than she is so it wouldn´t zip >_<) Afterwards, we collected everyone in her room and they taught me how to play Asshole, a drinking game with cards which is a lot like Trash or Scum that we used to play. During the game you drink A LOT though so by the end I think everyone was very trashed. We then took 2 taxis over to a pool hall and drank another drink while waiting for a pool table to open up. We played 4 games in teams and Miller was my partner. I stayed near him most of the night but when he was in the bathroom I said something really flirty to Favre who was about to take his shot and he turned to me, amazed and said "Are you really like that?" lol I don´t remember what I said, only that he said that to me. Then Miller came back and we went with Ray and Sherman over to the Harp where Miller started dancing with me. I was really self-conscious about being the only ones dancing so he stopped when I asked him to. We then hung out with some people and I took some pics with my camera. A few minutes after midnight, Miller came over and asked if we could leave. I was pretty tired so I agreed and we told Ray that we were leaving...Together. Lol the look on his face was priceless...I guess he wasn´t expecting that. We took a taxi to the base but got dropped off on the wrong side of the fence. I tried my best to climb it but couldn´t so Miller walked with me all the way around to the other side even though he easily could have jumped right inside. Then, we went up to my hotel room and fell asleep. The next morning Ray came into the hallway at 4:50am. We packed up all my stuff and carried it down to the car where Sherman was. We dropped off Jarod at the base and then the three of us drove the 2 hr ride to Frankfurt Hahn. Ummm yeah I won´t even think about if Ray was still a bit drunk or not since I´m pretty sure he didn´t go to sleep at all before driving out there. We rushed out to the airport and reached the terminal with 10 minutes left for me to check in. Ray and Sherman each gave me a hug and a goodbye and then sped off and I ran inside the airport. I checked in without a line but then stood in a huge line to go through security and then to board the airplane. I bought some hot chocolate to take on the plane with me and was lucky to find a window seat that wasn´t taken. Thing was that it wasn´t taken because it was an emergency exit seat. So, I had to fit my huge bag into the small overhead compartment and I was soooo scared it wouldn´t fit. Then I spilled my hot chocolate on my pants. I flopped down in my seat and hardly remember taking off. I remember it was foggy and then a flight attendant asking if my empty hot chocolate cup was "rubbish" before I handed it over to her to put in the trash bag and then I was OUT. I slept until we were landing at the airport. Then, I met one of the Americans who had gone to Oktoberfest, Matt, and we took the bus back to Santander. I walked him to his house, told him I´d see him in class the next day and walked to my apartment. I answered a few questions from Marta and she told me that I could sleep as long as I wanted to. I walked to my room, lied down in my bed, and next thing I knew, it was 9:01pm and dark outside. I slept for 10 hours. I got up, ate some dinner, and went out until 12:30. Then I turned in early and overslept for school the next day. I arrived late and suffered through my first day of all-Spanish classes. I came home and did some homework and took a small nap before going to the paraninfo. I had to wait for a while to get a visitor card and then had to leave early because i had to go to the bathroom. I went and bought some things for my flamenco class, went home to eat, and then had to wait on Marta for an hour to come home and make my dinner. While I was waiting, I called Ray to see if a missed call I had was his and he told me that he had my digital camera and that he couldn´t come to Spain this weekend like we had hoped. After I ate, I went back to the Paraninfo and talked online for a while with some people until the library closed for the night. Yesterday, I went to classes and then went out for appetizers with some classmates. I got home late, ate a quick lunch, and then ran back out to the university for another class. After class, I was walking home and ran into a girl from Oregon who invited me to go out to appetizers with her friends later. I agreed and then went home and got ready for flamenco class. I still had some time to kill before appetizers, so I checked out a bookstore and found a shelf full of english books. I browsed through some very cool looking novels before I came upon a book of erotica. I was blushing so hard in that bookstore, but no one knew what I was reading so even when an old man had to walk by me (it was a narrow aisle) he didn´t even lift an eyebrow after looking at the cover. I was soooo tempted to buy it but it was 19 euros and not even that thick. So, I went with the Oregon group to appetizers (or tapas as they are called here) and then rushed off to my dance class. However, the dance class had been changed since I had gotten the information and now i have class on Mondays and Wednesday and I missed the first class! I went ahead and paid though so that´s all done with. Then I went to bed early last night after a quick call home because I had a weird number on my calls missed list and I wanted to make sure everything was ok. The next morning I woke up to a strange beeping sound. It was my cellphone, sending me a message from the day before from the same call missed from the day before. Turned out, it was Jarod who was on duty but i woke up too late to call him back. I left him a message on his voicemail and went to class. After class, I ate lunch and came straight to the library where I´ve been since. Jarod called me when he woke up and so we talked online for about an hour/hour and a half. He´s incredibly nice and fun to talk to and he´s promised to come up to Spain some weekend and I found out that flying to germany is incredibly cheap during the winter. ^_^ Well, I´m about to be late to dance class so that´s it for now. Whoo. I think I´m actually caught up now. Yay! I hope everyone is doing well at home and I´ll talk to u later!

10:42pm: OK OK sorry about earlier. >_< Now I have an hour before the library closes for the night (it´s 10:45!) and a lot of homework to do besides so I´ll try to make this short. Wait...that´s what I said the first time too right? Haha, sucks for you. ^_~ Nah j/k. Ok so Ray walks in at 7:30 and I´m sitting there crying because of the movie and because I´m so hungry and I tell him so and he goes "Oh wow... you haven´t eaten all day." So, he took me back to the barracks and was picking up the room when I finally just said PLEASE get me some food. He had forgotten again so he ran across the hall to get a menu and the phone (his phone had been smashed against the wall by one of the drunken guys from the night before) and we ordered a french pizza. Sherman and May came into the room then with a lot of alcohol so mixed drinks were made and everyone had a shot of Southern Comfort (I think that´s whiskey). They also had some Crown Royal which smelled a LOT like that stuff that was in the thermos Curtis had at my party in Feb. We drank a lot and ate pizza and then went to the Cantine on the base for some cheap drinks and to listen to the Karaoke. May kept kissing me and holding my hand and telling me that he liked me and I let him just to keep him happy. Then I started talking to another guy that was at the Cantine with us and his name was Miller, Jarod Miller. He was really nice and we talked really easily. May went off to talk to some friends and Miller offered to give me a back massage which was realllllly good. I had drank a lot and not eaten a lot so my stomach kept hurting. Plus, I had a terrible cough from a cold that I was getting over so I was really afraid I was going to throw up. We ended up leaving Cantine pretty soon and went over to the Harp, an irish pub in downtown K-town. There were some good songs playing and I started dancing with May who then went off to find some of his other friends. I kept dancing and so Sherman came over to dance with me and Miller moved up behind me, sandwiching me. We were the only 3 dancing in the bar but soon some other people we knew started dancing with each other. Wood, an older officer came over, and I yanked on his sweater so he was dancing with us too. Sherman leaned over me so that I was fully supported by Miller who was keeping me up and keeping me dancing and then started kissing me. Miller moved his hands up under my shirt and was actually under my bra for a few seconds before I moved his hands away. Unfortunately, May came back at this point and yelled at me before running outside in a jealous rage. I was immediately depressed so Sherman ran out after May to "set him straight." I followed soon after and found Sherman and May being broken up by two Military Policemen. May took off walking and I followed him, just making sure that he was ok since he was really drunk and angry in the middle of downtown K-town, which is not wholly safe after dark. I made sure he was ok until I met up with the rest of the group and we then went to a doner stand for some cheap food. I was going to buy something when I realized that there was no money in my wallet. I immediately started crying and realized that the only person who could have taken it was May who had held my purse for me earlier when I was having trouble walking. So, the boys went running after May and got my money back from him because he had apparently just taken all of the money out of my wallet for safe keeping. We went to 2 clubs after that, but they were dead and the boys were ready to start fighting with each other over who would "get" me. We finally went back to the barracks and they snuck me in after hours. I was going to sleep in Ray´s room, but I wanted to go back to my hotel with Miller, so I asked him to walk me there. We walked about 10 min of the 30 min walk when I heard quick footfalls behind me. I was so scared it was a thief or something but it turned out to just be May, who ran the entire way down the road to catch us. He then walked with us to the hotel and talked the entire way about how mad he was at me and how he wanted to hurt Miller and what a jackass he was for being too emotional... Then we finally got to the hotel and May asked to come up! I said no, and Miller was too scared to come up with me.

Library is closing for the night! Gotta go!

6:30pm: Hola once again! Well, I´ll try to make this update short because I have an essay to write AND homework to do. (eek!!) Wednesday, I had a "meet the professors" thing in the morning and then went to the beach from noon to about 4 in the afternoon. I was sooo burnt by the time I got back, but when I walked through the door Marta looks at me and says "back already?" I limped down to my room and started picking up my room. After I had cleaned it a little bit, I was sleepy so I lied down for a nap. 2 hours later, I started packing my clothing and such things for my trip the next morning. It was a struggle to fit everything I needed into my bookbag, but I managed to do so. I took a shower while Marta was gone (so I could take as long as I wanted, yay!) and then left the house to see what was up around town. No one was out at the usual hangouts, so I went to a payphone and called my mom. Well, tried to at least. The card that I had only used once before and that had said "You have 200 minutes remaining" before I talked for 40 was out of minutes! I finally ran over to one of the kiosks and asked for another card. He tried to sell me another one of the same cards but I showed him that I already had 2 other cards that had screwed me out of minutes and wanted to try something different. He looked at the two cards that I had only gotten one use out of and said "Joler!" I about fell over laughing because I was so surprised. You see, Joler (pronounced Hole-air) is the spanish word for "Fuck" and I hadn´t heard anyone else use it before. I think he repeated the word throughout our conversation at least 10 times lol. I finally ended up buying a new card and calling my mom to say goodbye before I left. I talked to her for about 40 minutes before I noticed that one of the people passing by was actually the same african guy who had waited for me out of the library. I just kept talking to my mom while he sat on the picnic bench behind me, but thankfully there was a big tree in the way so i couldn´t see him clearly. I finished talking with my mom, never telling her that anything was wrong and then said goodbye in a conversational tone so he wouldn´t know that the conversation was ending. Then I hung the phone up very quietly and *ran* around the back side of the phone and down the street. I heard him call out once but when I finally turned around, no one was following me. I stayed near groups of people all the way home and then quickly went into the apartment. I think it was the first night that I had gone home and found Marta still awake. I went straight to bed.

The next morning, I woke up at 6:30 and got everything together, ate breakfast, and got ready to meet Ray and his army buddies. His friend Dave May was picking me up from the airport, and I had talked to him on the phone once so I felt pretty sure that I was safe my whole trip over. I ran over to the bus station and found out where the airport bus was and climbed on the bus. I thought to myself that the bus was a little earlier than the brocure was, but paid the euro and sat right up front. I was a little confused when the "Stop Requested" button first flashed on and someone got OFF the airport bus. I mean, doesn´t that seem like something that would be direct? The time to arrive at the airport came and went and I kept looking at my watch, wondering how in the world the airport could be so far away. I finally asked the driver an hour later if the bus was going to the airport. He stopped the bus in the middle of the street and said "AIRPORT??? No, this bus is definitely not going to the airport. You must have gotten your buses confused." I started crying at this point so he looked at his watch and told me that we would return to the station at 8:40 (I got on the bus at 7:25!) So, I rode the bus for forever and felt sick to my stomach by the end of it. Then I had to catch another bus the second that we arrived at the station, pay 1,50 euros for the ride, and arrive at the airport with 30 minutes to check-in and a HUGE line to stand in. I was rushed for time, but finally got on the bus ok. I was a little freaked out when I had to walk up a rickety staircase to reach the door to the airplane instead of walking through a corridor. I managed to snag a window seat though and no one sat beside me so I had plenty of room for my bookbag. After the hour and 45 min flight, I walked out the door since I didn´t have any checked luggage to wait for and explored the german airport. I was tempted to buy a german souvenir, but finally decided to buy some coke to go with my Spanish packed lunch that Marta had made me. I wandered around the airport some more, killing time, when I came across a sign: "Shops upstairs: Erotic shop and Italian Ice Cream" lol So, I went through the bright red curtain into the german erotic shop and looked around for a few minutes. I finally got bored of the erotic shop, so I went outside to wait for Dave to show up. I was just pulling out my lunch when someone said to me "That doesn´t look too healthy." I looked up to find a red-haired guy standing there with a sign that said "Male Escort Service". I laughed since Dave had joked on the phone that he would be my escort from the airport and said "You´re Dave?" "Nope" he replied, before turning around the sign which said KATHRYN on the back. We then drove the almost 2 hour drive to Kaiserslautern and Dave and I talked the entire way. He was a smartass and so we kinda picked at each other the whole way, whenever he wasn´t showing off his speedracer moves and making the car engine smoke (yep... the car he was driving was so old that we had to stop and let it cool down) I showed my passport at the gate and then was taken to the barracks where Ray lives. I was just getting signed in when I heard someone behind me say "Hello" and I turned around...into Ray´s chest. lol I´d forgotten how tall he is compared to me. We went up to May´s room and I checked lj really quickly while Ray changed out of his uniform. Then we went over to the Air Force Hotel. Ray paid for the hotel room for 3 nights and got 2 sets of keys so he could let himself into the room. He sat down in the chair and I lied down on the bed and we started talking about home and people we knew and how our lives were going. After about an hour we went back over to the barracks and returned the car to its owner. Some people were going to the Mexican Cantina so Ray and I went back to his room to wait and found Sherman (his roommate) and a guy named Lace drinking Sobe and Bacardi Gold so Ray and I split one bottle. We migrated down to Sanchez´s room (a 26-year-old woman who happens to have her own room which is *huge* and wonderful for hanging out) and then left for the Cantina. I couldn´t find my wallet, so I had to borrow money from Ray to pay for everything. Lace and another guy turned out to be on AA and they got REALLY badly drunk. The night ended pretty early and so we took a taxi back to the barracks and put the guys in their rooms. Then, Ray and Sanchez drove me to the hotel where I watched some TV for a while before falling asleep. I found out that I had a free adult channel and that on German talk shows, nudity was not blurred out on men. At all. But they never showed the most important male part on the Adult Channel. Crazy, no? I fell asleep at like 1 and at 1:20, the phone rang. I got up and answered it, but apparently just missed the caller. I tried to put the phone back down, but missed the cradle, so the phone was off the hook all night. Turns out it was May calling, seeing if I wanted company. The next morning, I woke up at 9am and watched more tv. I couldn´t leave the hotel building so at 11am I got dressed and went down to the reservation desk and asked if there was a message left since my phone had been off the hook. They didn´t know anything about it, so I walked around a little bit more and then went back up to my room. I couldn´t leave the hotel building without a military ID and my wallet was still missing, so I couldn´t eat anything until Ray got off of work at 5. I think that was the longest day of my life. At 5, I was really hungry and thought Ray would be there any minute so I walked around downstairs. Then I realized that I could miss him so I waited upstiars by my door. At 6pm, I got tired of waiting and went in my room and started watching The Interpreter, in english, on the TV. At 7:30, Ray finally walked in and I about pounced on him because I was so lonely and hungry.

EEK I have to pee. More later!

1:56pm: Last night, a friend of the two african brothers was waiting for me outside of the library. He said he had seen me inside on the computer and then waited for an hour for me. He offered to go somewhere and just talk but I was really tired and just wanted to go home, study for my test, and sleep. He wouldn´t take no for an answer and even grabbed my arm at one point to try and pull me in the opposite direction of my house. He at first told me that he wanted to be my friend, but finally ended up saying "I want you to love me. I want you to be my *some french word*" I broke away and ran home, ignoring him. I let myself into the door, hearing him say "I´ll be waiting for you here." just before the door closed. I was so scared that I turned all the lights on in the apartment and closed all the windows facing the street without looking out them. Then I ate my dinner, turned off all the lights for when Marta returned, and locked myself in my room. To distract myself, I called Ray and then he called me back so I wouldn´t have to pay for the call. We decided on a course of action finally and I feel so much better for having done it. I arrive in Germany on Thursday at 12:30. Ray gets off of work at 2 or 3 and he´s going to borrow his friend´s car and drive out to get me. If he can´t get the car, I´ll take a bus or something down to where he is. Thursday night we´ll hang out and I´ll spend the night at the hotel service there. I´ll be by myself on Friday which is actually good because I have an essay due on Tuesday, and then Friday night we´ll leave for Munich with a friend of his after they get off of work. I have a hostel booked with a single bed and we´ll probably all end up sharing that room. Then, we´ll chill at Oktoberfest on Saturday and figure out a way to get me to the airport by 8am the next morning. Sounds exciting right? lol Well, it will be a nice break to just get out of the country and to see Oktoberfest before coming back to classes on Monday. Starting Monday, I have Spanish Geography, Art, History, and Architecture classes (or something like that) and no class on Fridays with class ending at noon on Thursdays. The only problem is that the coursework will be a LOT harder. Crap! I´m late for lunch. I´m going to go run home. Lata gatas!

6:59pm: ( Read more... )

2:16pm: Worst night EVER last night. Quick cliffnotes: Got robbed of my money, phone card, and cellphone; stayed out til 6:30 when I haven´t gotten more than 5 hrs of sleep all week; got burned by a cigarette in a club; and danced with a belgian who continually groped me and another girl all night and tried to hit on me in the worst english ever. Oh, and it was raining. Now, I am in the library, late for lunch so Marta will be angry, and with no way to contact my friends cuz I have no cellphone and with 5 hrs of sleep and a feeling of ickiness from drinking too much last night. I was so proud of myself cuz I only spent a total of 6€ on alcohol last night but now I wish I had spent more because the thief got about 20€ in cash and coins from me, including some foreign euros that I have been collecting. Thank god he didn´t take my passport, credit cards, bus pass, or ID card. The only difficult thing to replace will be the cellphone because it cost 60€. I´m gonna go eat lunch and then come back and I should hopefully update then. If not, I´ll be at the beach for a surfing competition. Lata.

11:50am: Well, this is going to be a super-quick update since there are people waiting to use the computer and we only have 10 minutes until class starts. You see, we have an intensive language course for the first month of september. From 9:30am to 10:30am I have Oral and Written Spanish class, then from 10:30am to 11:30am we have Spanish culture class. Afterwards there´s a 30 minute break and then Grammar class from 12-1pm. The Grammar teacher is the best. His name is Gonzalo and he is very funny. The best part is that he can speak a little bit of english and explain things really well when we are confused. Lourdes, the culture professor, doesn´t speak english and just lectures all class about the different regions of Spain. Anne Gonzalez, who is a professor at Charlotte that is just here for the year, speaks both languages but nobody here likes her because she´s not very definitive and is not used to Spain-Spanish so she´s not very helpful most of the time.
I really wanted to update today to tell of two pieces of good news. The first is that I talked to one of the education professors here named Meriel and she may be able to get me a teaching assistant gig here. That would mean that I would go into elementary classes here in Spain and watch how the teachers teach English to the Spanish kids. Then, when I felt ready, I could help teach a few lessons. How cool is that?? That would also help me to not be so far behind the other teaching fellows at Charlotte since they are all doing clinicals this year.
The second news is that I ran into the athletic director yesterday on the bus. His name is Ken and he´s really nice. I told him about how I take tap class in the states and he told me that I should look into Flamenco classes because they are similar to tap in the states. I went home, grabbed a yellow pages to look up the closest dance studio, went down there, and managed to tell the woman that I wanted to take Flamenco classes. So, starting october 4th, I will be a Flamenco dancer! How cool is that????? I get to go buy the shoes today and I am sooooo excited. Well, it´s time to run. Lata!