Let it... no.

It snowed yesterday!
My first reaction was "Oh, how delightful! Like a snowglobe!"
Second: "Oh my god, what am I going to wear?!" But, really, what do people wear in the snow? (me to my mom: Do they use umbrellas? Her: That depends, how hard is it snowing? Me: I have no idea)
Third reaction: Unnecessary video documentation.
I've never felt more like a Californian.

Pay no attention to those books behind the curtain

Lest you think Madrid is all pasterlerías and shopping, this is a real picture from my desk. I wrote maybe 7 pages in Spanish this weekend, and I'm going to have to write some 17 more in the next week or so.

Things I never thought I would get used to

1)Smelling like smoke.
2)Sitting down on a seat in the metro and finding it warm from the previous occupant. (Actually a delightful experience in the cold)
3)Eating lunch at 4pm (if getting used to means learning to eat a snack every day)

Boo

This is a photo from where I work.


You all in the US have vacation right now and I do not. I give this situation a big thumbs down.

I am so smart

As you fashion fans may be aware, today was the big day for the Lanvin hearts H&M collection. In Madrid (and I assume everyother one of the 200 H&M stores carrying the line), the store opened at 8am and you had to be in line by like 4am to get a special wristband that would let you in for a 15 minute period later. I was going to try and line up for the spectacle (and Lanvin!), but I decided it wasn't worth the lack of sleep.

Around 1pm I was doing my regular old round of the shops between the Stanford Institute and home and I stopped by H&M and saw that there was a whole section separated with fencing and guards and very little Lanvin left. It appeared you still needed a bracelet to enter. Then, being the crafty shopper that I am, I went downstairs to the men's section where there was lots of delightful Lanvin menswear and no hubub.

I bought this man's shirt in a large for 20 euro! Its a perfect t-shirt dress and has sparkly jewel eyes. So, basically, I win. (I think I came out a little angry in the photo, but I am not! I was trying to get all of the shirt/dress in.)

Bing!

I've mostly dry and entirely-terroist attack free from Basque Country. Good for you and for me.

I took photos on the trip. These are some of them.

We went to the Guggenheim Bilbao!We stayed in hotels! The weather was not as bad as it had threatened to be!We went to San Sebastian! It was beautiful!
They eat these things in San Sebastian. They are called pinchos and they are awesome.

We went to a vineyard/bodega/wine museum/winetasting.

My camera died before the Bing dinner. It was also delicious. (The dinner, not the camera)

Now that I am back with the homework and whatnot, the official end-of-Spain is approaching faster than ever, complete with thousands of Spanish words to write.

Simply look around and view it

This is my new favorite pasteleria. It's in between my house and the Stanford center, a win for my stomach and a definite loss for my wallet.
You can't really appreciate it without Smell-o-internet. Why does that not exist? Get on it, Stanford.

Tomorrow morning (8:30AM! The horrors!) we're headed off to the north for wine tasting and fancy dinner and rain. (Typing that reminded me to pack my umbrella, which reminded me that I left it at work. Shoot.) We're not supposed to reveal the itinerary, but I will show you random, inconsequential things from the trip when I get back. And I will try to stay dry, I guess.

Just call me Alvy

So my neuroses have become more evident to me in Spain because
1) I keep getting told "No pasa nada" which means literally, "Nothing happens"or basically, "It's fine, you'll be OK, for god's sake stop worrying about it"
2) I end up by myself a lot in my room or on the metro or the street or what not and it's just me and myself in my head. We sound far too much like Woody Allen.

Oh my god Becky

Every week or so I have a reason to walk through el Plaza de Colon and I always see this delightful statue of a curvaceous woman lying on her stomach and I think, "You go girl".
So this weekend when Emily and I decided to go to el Museo de Libro I told her we should meet by the statue so she could take a picture of me and I could put it here.
As I was waiting for her by the statue I saw 7 or 8 tourists stop and take pictures with the lady, which I found utterly demoralizing. I like to think that I live here, that I am not a tourist.
Emily still took the picture for me but I want you all to know that I have a relationship with this lady. I am not some random Italian tourist coming up and putting my hand on her behind.

Make it work

This couple on the street is WORKING IT.

In other important news:
I have muscular calves (we're going to blame it on ballet). While I have no body issues with my calves it makes shopping for boots extra difficult because size 6 boots have very small calf spaces.
I think I still have a welt on my finger from pulling on boot zippers yesterday. In the end, success was found and I have a new pair of boots so I can look like all the other girls on the street. (This is very important).
They've already stretched out since yesterday, so it only takes 10 minutes to put the two on.

Hello.

Segovia

On Wednesday we took a big old group trip to Segovia. We took a tour of the University, my film professor gave a lecture, we went on a bus tour, and then walked about for an hour ALL while freezing our patooties off. Stanford students are so good at multi-tasking.

Here are some of my standard below-standard photos.

Aquaduct:

This is the castle in Segovia that supposedly inspired Walt Disney for Sleeping Beauty's castle.
The large majority of my pictures came out incredibly fuzzy. Bus tours are silly. Looking at this one makes me seasick. So I thought I should share.


I've decided that studying abroad is a little like knowing you're going to die in 6 months. You're presented with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you know exactly when its going to end. We end up listening to the id a bit too much -- always have seconds and deserts and going out.
Lately, it's been stressing me out, because we've crossed the half-way point and I think I have to make the most of every second. It's resulted in a lot less sleeping this past week.

Mooo

I bought these socks this weekend:
They are from a Spanish store (I just Wikipedia-d this and it turns out to be part of the same company as Zara, in case you were interested) called Oysho which sells sweaters and underwear and the like.

My host mom said that they didn't seem Spanish because they were too creative. She said clever things like that are usually American. She also thought that corn dogs (as I explained them) were ingenious. They're definitely not something Spaniards would invent.

You can travel the world but nothing comes close to the golden coast

I am writing from the second day off in two consecutive weeks. (Last week -- no school Monday, this week no school Tuesday). This is extra excellent because we always have Fridays off. Two three day weeks in a row! Tomorrow we go to Segovia and that will be almost vacation-like except for the lecture we will attend.

On Sunday night, I went to the European Music Video Awards outdoor-concert-ma-bob along with, oh I don't know, ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND other people. (This may be rounding up, but it is not exaggeration) It was very crowded and very difficult to see anything.

Still, I got pictures of a screen of Jared Leto (be still my heart):

and Katy Perry:

And I got to sing along to California Girls in Madrid, which I found utterly delightful and the Madrileños around me found annoying.

and Linkin Park. When "Linkin Park" is chanted by a lot of Spanish people it sounds more like "Leaky Park". Which I like a lot.

1st surprise of the night: although I don't like Linkin Park very much, I enjoyed their performance.

2nd surprise: KANYE! He was only onstage for about 1 minute with 30 Seconds to Mars but it was delightful nonetheless.
For some reason I thought that this face would be the best one to make for a picture, and in retrospect I'm not sure I was wrong.

Acetie

I think a lot of people think of Spanish food as paella or maybe ham. They should think of it as olive oil. Olive oil is the absolute center of cooking in Spain and they even bring it to you at the table in restaurants:


Salt and olive oil. This is a pretty classy olive oil container, I hope you believe me that there's oil inside.

Kitten update!

Yesterday, I happened to return to the same spot as the man with the kitten. The kitten was still there, and still adorable, but no longer on the man's knee.
I did not take a picture.

Oops

I thought we (the Stanford program) were going to Segovia today.

We're going next week.

What it's all about

Check this out(pun intended):


That's right. I'm an international library member. I've never been so proud.


In case you were confused about why it was so necessary to buy the two croissants for one euro, let me tell you that this weekend I spent 1.90€ on ONE croissant. It was smaller than either of the croissants you get for 50cents. Ludacris.

Things I love about Spain, number 102

GIANT sugar packets. Always.


My bad... you can't really tell the scale in this picture because the cups are smaller here. Rest assured, the sugar packets are giant.

So you want to be a metro-musician

Imma let you in on a tip: have an adorable baby on the train, and have that baby be really into your music. Seriously, these guys cleaned up. I'm not sure the baby wasn't a plant.

Another way to profit off adorableness:
Yes, that is a tiny kitten perched on this man's knee.