Category: Personal

In Living Color

6/28/2017

I've been prepping some changes to your favorite blog. I'm keeping the URL the same, but we're coming upon the third anniversary of this blog (July 21st!). I have two dedicated followers and it just feels like there needs to be a revamp of some kind.

My history has a blogger is storied and if you go deep into the archives you'll find out how completely inept it is. The first post I ever wrote on my very own blog was about Paris Hilton and her long delayed second album. She's an inspiration

When I was thinking, what was the next phase for this blog I asked the most important question: what would Paris do? I don't speak French, but I knew she would say go PINK and BUBBLEGUM. It's going to be cotton candy, lollipop, and I can't wait to unveil it to you, if I don't do it sooner!

A Father's Concern

6/21/2017

With both my mother and I out of the country my father is rambling around our reasonably sized suburban home with no one to fend for him. He's recently become quite concerned with our safety. He told me there was some crime in Barcelona and he wanted to know if it was a “safe city”.

Barcelona is not New York in the 1980's. I'm sure there is crime. I live in a nice residential high rise, a ten minute metro ride from the most expensive shopping district in Catalonia. I'm not sure what he thinks is going to happen. My mother and I don't PARTY or snort cocaine. We might get a sunburn, but we have sunblock so I'm not worried.

The Barcelona Cathedral

Apparently, the dog is sleeping on the bed. My bed? His bed? The mother's bed? I don't know. I'm supposing the dog is happy. My father tends to spoil him, which is great for the dog. I'm happy for him and he'll be supremely disappointed when we return and he's not allowed on the furniture anymore.

Girona, Spain

5/31/2017

I went to Girona this weekend, which was an event. Apparently, they filmed Game of Thrones there. Never saw it couldn't tell you if they were lying to me or not.

Things started out rather rough. We missed our train to Girona. This process involved running (something I found out I'm not good at) and also me tripping over this woman's luggage in the Sant Barc's station
Girona was about an hour and a half train ride away. The express was 40 minutes, but we had take the other one.

I call this "drinking by the bottle"

We did a lot of walking in Girona. I could not tell you where we were at any point. It was a very aesthetic six hours. The whole city was opened to art installations. For a flower festival there were a surprisingly few number of actual flowers..

The city for the most part was decked out in papier mache, metal sculpture, and anything else you can imagine.

We took some cute group photos, where I pretended like I was having a good time. But, it was nice. I really enjoyed it. Glad I got to see Girona.

Do As The Greeks Do

5/24/2017

Athens is one of my favorite places. It's beautiful and I can honestly say the people are really friendly. The Greek alphabet is wild. Thank God, most of their signs are translated into our Alphabet underneath their language.

All of our Hotels in Europe were beautiful (it is why I was in charge of that). Loved, The Stanley in Athens. It was truly great. We had dinner and drinks on the roof of the hotel and you could see the Parthenon. It was incredible. I also had my first drink! I wanted to accomplish that before I turned 21 and I did. I had a "Sex On The Beach" and it was very nice. There was even a balcony and even though I didn't really use it, I liked having the option!

The first day there we went to the beach. Athens isn't known for it's beaches, but it has a few and we were there in the off season so they weren't crowded. It was called Varkiza and it was a very pleasant two hours. Public transit in Athens is very well set up and even when we had to take the bus, I didn't mind it.

We split up the ancient world over two days, but we did most of the iconic Athens sight seeing on the Thursday. We went to the Acropolis Museum, that way we didn't have to hire a tour guide. We could read about everything, what it all means, and then go see it. The coolest part is that because I'm a student of the European Union, I got in for free!!! The cost for all the Ancient sights and the museum would have been about 25 euros, so it was a blessing. We had breakfast in the museum and let me tell you of all the places I've been Greek food is my favorite. No matter where we got it, the food was amazing. I really enjoyed it. I got these things called "pancakes" I don't know what they were, but they were really good.

The ruins above are from the Temple of Zeus, but my personal favorite was the Temple of Hephaestus. It was clearly a lot smaller, but it was the most intact. Funny, enough Hephaestus was the God of craftsmanship, sooooo it seems everything worked out well for him.

I understand know why the Greeks and the Turks don't get along. Everything we read involved the Turks invading or destroying and I personally understand the dislike. One of the ancient sights was standing until the 1500 or 1600s, but due to Turk mishandling (they stored gun powder in it) the sight was destroyed. I got a brief overview of Greece's history and I can see why they don't get along. I wouldn't like them either.

Paris (France)

5/3/2017

I just got back from Paris. It was exciting enough. Gertrude Stein said that "America is my city, but Paris is my hometown" and I can't say I understand. I feel like I'm missing something. I didn't hate Paris, but I don't feel the need to go back. My younger sister on the other hand was supremely disappointed and hated it.

We ended up going to the Palace of Versailles. It's just as grand and impressive as you would imagine. No wonder the peasants revolted. It was luxe.

After Versailles we took in the Eiffel Tower. I wasn't disappointed by it. It was kind of just there. It was what I imagined. I don't think I've ever been impressed by it, so I was just kind of ??? The sisters and I took a cute picture of us doing the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" in front of it

The three of us then went to see Notre Dame. It's pretty cool, but not the coolest church I've see in Europe. We got crepes, a coke (which was AMAZING. Coca-Cola tastes different in every country and France has great coke) and then we went to the train station and I dropped them off.

The British Are Coming

4/26/2017

The roomie and I flew into Stansted Airport (the stamp on our passport says Stansted, not London). We then caught a train towards Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park. It was frigid the entire weekend. I had three layers on (my night shirt, a long sleeved shirt, a jacket, AND a scarf) and I was still cold at times. We never got actual tea (although I did get a Chai latte).

It was wonderful being in a country that speaks English. We could read the signs and understand the signs. We planned on meeting my sisters at the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. The ceremony was interesting, if over rated. The palace is massive, but we weren't able to tour it as the Queen is in residence until April I believe.

We went to Hyde Park that day and walked along the the Princess Diana Memorial Path. There's a beautiful memorial to her at the end of it. I love Hyde Park. It was truly fantastic. My favorite part of the whole city was seeing the Peter Pan statue there. They say if you visit Peter Pan, your lost love will return to you. It's romantic and corny, but I loved it. I had a legitimate photo shoot with the statue. My roommate was sick of me by the end of it.

We hit all the high spots that day in London. We saw the British Museum, which has EVERYTHING imaginable. British imperialism did wonders for their museum. We saw the Rosetta Stone, mummies, and native American artwork. They had working wifi and that was a blessing. We did some British shopping. I went to Selfridges. I had my heart set on Harrod's, but it was quite a walk out of the way. It was a shopping experience. Expensive clothes everywhere, people milling about. I enjoyed it.

Parc Clot

3/15/2017

That egg thing in the background is important. I don't know

I went to Parc Clot this week. I wouldn't call it a touristy place to go, but when you live in a city there's no reason not to go. It had some pretty cool aqueducts (my guesses from Roman times but my knowledge of architecture is limited) and I took some ugly pictures I actually really like.

I've continued to be really uncomfortable at school. This week I was talking to a French girl and these three French boys came up to talk to her and they shook my hand??? I was so unprepared for it that I greeted them in the following order: hello! Hello again! Hello, hello, hello. Because, I don't know how to interact with people. Also talked to the Swedish boy and when I asked him where he was from in Sweden, he asked me how well I knew Sweden and I told him, "I knew Stockholm" and he told me, "Well, I don't live there." YIKES

ALSO, one of my classmates got mugged this week (after having his phone stolen last week on the Metro). Both times he was partying. He has some cuts on his face. He "felt too ugly to come to school" and when the French girl told me that I said (far too quickly) "I don't see why that would stop him" and she said, "I didn't know you were so mean." So, I think I'm doing a really great job maintaining friendships in this country.

Finding Love And My Credit Card

3/1/2017

I've been doing some match making. My roommate told me she thought the German guy was cute (I'm not sure what his name is. I don't know). Anyway, the three of us have class together and I struck up a conversation together as a group and quietly exited to use the bathroom (a blatant lie since I hate public restrooms) and when I got back they were still making pleasant, if not deep conversation. If it is love that is meant to be, they will work it out for themselves. All I can do is stir up conversations and let them figure out if their a match. WHICH REMINDS ME. He mentioned my entrance at orientation. I don't know why this is a consistent trend, but EVERYONE at school talks to me about it. Apparently I made quite a first impression. Falling does wonders for your reputation.

In other news I don't know if you've ever gotten into A Day At A Time (I've finished it and I love it), but there's this boy at school who looks like Josh (the one that takes the daughter to her quincenera) and I was so excited (excited is the wrong word more like "oh cool it's josh" but I don't know how to describe that). I was like it's Josh??? The captain of the baseball team. I was convinced I knew him in real life and it wasn't until I finished my next class that I realized there was no way it could be Josh. Since, he's not real. I just thought it was funny how convinced I was that this fictional character was part of my daily life. I'm not even in high school???? What convinced me this was him?????

My credit card also came in, just in case you were worried. I've been destitute for two weeks. But no more!!! Now I will own it all!!! Nutella!!! Ben & Jerry's!!! Plums!!! Burberry jeans!!! I will limit myself no more!

In Barcelona

2/22/2017

Spain is not the land of options. Everything is small. There's three grocery stores in walking distance, but they all sell the same things, with a little variation. I miss the gluttony of American culture. Options, everywhere.

The only store that comes close to it is El Cortes Ingles. It's a Spanish Department store (think Macy's), except they also have a grocery store in the basement. It's probably my favorite place in Spain. I was there yesterday and I thought about buying this coat, but I decided 1,000 euros for a coat was excessive.

Cups, plates, bowls, there all practically demitasse size. I drink my coffee by the gallon, not the tablespoon. Beer is also cheaper then water here. I kid you not. You can buy six cans of beer for roughly 66 cents in American dollars.

I've been attempting to learn Spanish and a wild thing about the language is they don't always say "I" or "we" or "you" in conversation. A literal translation would be "need coffee". The way they conjugate verbs it tells you who the speaker is referring to, so you don't have to say "I need coffee", because the verb tells the listener who your referring to. That's been a learning curve. As you can tell I'm an American with no culture. To everyone who took Spanish in high school, I now know things. Kind of?

Lost On The Metro?!?!?!?

2/15/2017

I've made the decision to go full Spanish while in Spain.

All the shows I'm watching are in Spanish (with English subtitles). I've been watching One Day At A Time and there have been a lot of ads for the new Drew Barrymore show in Spain, Santa Clarita Diet. so thought I would give it a shot.

Public transportation is still a trip. Buses are not for me. The metro is definitely the way to go. Today my roommate went home without me from school and despite getting lost on the metro, I was still able to make it back to the apartment. Everyone uses public transportation here. It's like a... THING.

They don't use lined paper here? They write on graph paper, so that was something to adjust to. I'm still translating my Spanish Vogue (it's painfully slow, but I'm picking things up. "Ahora!" means "NOW!". It's also pronounced very similar to "a whore". I learned from the title of an article how to say "where is this going to end?" (Donde va a parar!) and I used it on one of my Spanish classmates when we were in International Marketing (so boring!) and she laughed at me I said I was saying it with a French accent.

ANOTHER thing I forgot how hugely popular Madonna's song "Sorry" was here. I here it EVERYWHERE. It's from the early 2000s, so it's old enough know to be a throwback I guess. I heard it on the plane, in the department store, in offices, in the gym at school. It's been an experience. I'm well in the honeymoon phase of my trip.