cositas

I decided to write a little, bulleted list of things I've seen or done since I've been in Spain. Let's empezar....

1. Affected a hybrid of an Midwestern American/Southern Spanish Andaluz accent. The Andaluz dialect was a surprise to me, and one that took some getting used to. I still find it hard to understand, sometimes, because of the lack of enunciation. The Andalusian people say that they "eat their words" and talk like they have a potato in their mouths, which I find all too true. Example: they don't say "hasta luego" (which means "see you later"), they say "staluego." "Supermercado" becomes "supermercao" and "Jueves" (Thursday) is "Jueve." "Gracias" is "gracia," and "Granada" (the city, and it also means "pomegranate") is just "Graná." The list goes on and on. It may seem like subtle difference in just looking at that list, but when it's a constant stream of shortened/butchered words, in a conversation, it can be difficult to keep up!
2. Swam in the Mediterranean Sea, in Málaga. I'd been to a beach in Europe before, but never to swim, and never to the Mediterranean, before.
3. Went to a botellón. Botellón is basically a massive, BYOB party with all sorts of random 20 somethings getting together, outside, to party. And in addition to partying, urinating in public. Personally, I hate it. Then again, who likes to show up sober to observe a raucous sea of drunken idiots? Throw a foreign language into that mix, and you're in for a good time.
4. Partied until the sun went up. In college, most of the time the parties were officially capped off at 3, but more likely at 2:30, because people were either too drunk or tired or itching to hook up with somebody and get going. In Spain, people don't even go to the bars until around midnight and then keep the party going until...I don't know...your legs buckle?
5. Met a lot of new people - not just because I would've anyway, from moving here, but also on the many trips I have taken outside of Spain. And it's kind of interesting to see how many people you meet while just on a weekend trip. Here's a little list of new people who made a cameo in my life over the past 8 months....

• November - Edinburgh, Scotland trip: Devlyn, Kieran and Lochlan. Interestingly enough, they are all Australian, but they're living/working in Scotland right now. At one point, all of us went to a Thai restaurant, so that would make us an American & Australian group, in Scotland, eating Thai food. That's me, Devlyn and Carole, below. Another interesting note -- Carole is a friend of a friend (that friend is Whitney, one of my best friends since I was little), so I had heard about her since I was 15 but had never met her until right before we left for Spain. We were in the Elephant House, which is a famous coffee joint in Edinburgh -- one of its claims to fame is that supposedly, JK Rowling wrote some of the Harry Potter stuff there. I look homeless sitting next to those girls...
  
• Met some Brits in Madrid, who have my same job. When I met them in my hostel (which was an odd location for them to be, seeing how they live in Madrid...I forget why they were there), I was at a table with an Aussie, 3 Brits, 1 Scottish guy, and 1 Irish guy. Throw in a Canadian and we'd have the major English speaking countries all represented.
• Met some Americans on our bike tour of Munich and then went out to get pretzels and beer with themMet some guys on Spring Break -- an American guy and an Aussie guy, and hung out with them for a few days while we were in Austria.
• Met a ridiculous number of people from other countries, in passing, because I just approach them and ask them where they're from and strike conversations that way. In the hostels you meet people from so many different countries, it's insane.

6. Saw Jesus Christ Superstar in Spanish (Jesucristo Superstar).
7. Visited more foreign countries in 8 months than I had ever in my life...I've been in Spain, Scotland, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Ireland and Italy. Before this trip, I had been in the US, Canada, France, Belgium and Italy. I still have more on my must see this, though, but those will have to wait, I suppose.


Speaking of waiting, that's all I got right now. Stay tuned.