Awesome Business Idea 10:58

With a tip of the hat to my dear friend Edward in Cazenovia, my new business idea:

The Very Realistic Fortune Cookie Company™

What's a typical fortune say? Something like, "All of your family are well" -- an actual fortune I've received. And when I read that one, my dad was in the throes of a losing fight against cancer. Sorry, traditional, overly optimistic fortunes: YA DONE GOOFED.

Our premise is simple, really. Open up a fortune after one's Chinese-food meal, just like any other, except that our fortunes are more likely to resonate with the consumers. (Pun intended on that last word.)

For instance...

• You'll probably never find whatever lofty vision of true happiness you have in your mind. LEARN CHINESE - 伤心 (sad)


• Why bother saving money? The ex wife's taking half anyway, and these Miller High Lifes aren't going to pay for themselves. LEARN CHINESE - 贫穷 (poverty)


• Odds are that you will get into a car accident in your lifetime. So if you haven't yet, you have that to look forward to. LEARN CHINESE - 恐慌 (panic)

• No matter how much you diet and exercise, you'll probably never lose a significant amount of weight because you lack the willpower - just keep eating Chinese food. LEARN CHINESE - 意志 (willpower)


• If you're very rich, you'll probably never be loved for who you really are. If you're very poor, you'll probably never be loved for you really are. LEARN CHINESE - 放弃 (give up)

What better way to end delicious meal of fried chicken and sodium than to read a fortune that will truly hit home?

And that's just to name a few fortunes - we'd hire a team of really depressing but clever people to write hundreds of unique, tantalizing fortunes. Feel free to provide suggestions; maybe we'll have a job for you!

The edible cookies themselves would remain the delicious subtle and understated sweets they've always been.

THE VERY REALISTIC FORTUNE COOKIE COMPANY™
Crushing dreams since 2010.

* - Just so we're clear, I'm only like 40% kidding about this idea. Investors, come hither!

The New Workout Plan 13:57

I just finished a jog of four miles in 95º heat as a warmup for an 8-mile jaunt tomorrow and I feel pretty good about myself for it. This is something like the tenth week of my half-marathon training, and I can feel my knees starting to hate me -- especially since I also work a job where I am on my feet in uncomfortable shoes for 6-7 hours at a time. I am not signed up for a race and I am not really sure if I will be able to run the full 13.1 miles on the appointed day, but training has been a lot of fun and I've really started to love running.

This would have seemed impossible to me about four months ago, as I was out of shape and really hated running. But for whatever reason, a few months ago I decided I was tired of feeling fat and eating like crap. I wore my weight pretty well but my good metabolism was bound to betray me at some point and I wanted to avoid that before things got out of hand.

A few months later, I'd lost about 30 pounds (depending when you start counting from) and I've kept it off. I figure I should document this, not necessarily because I think I've done something revolutionary and I want to tell the world, but more for my own benefit five years from now when real life has caught up to me and I've put on weight and feel like crap again. So, for your enjoyment:

THE MOST AWESOME WEIGHT-LOSS PLAN EVER

My brother was getting really annoyed with me when I started shedding pounds because he had been trying to lose weight and hadn't. He asked me what I was doing and I told him: diet, and exercise. He had been doing neither, so I wasn't surprised that he hadn't lost weight. He ate whatever he wanted, including going out for fried chicken tenders and fries about three times a week, and never did anything physical. And really, in a way, my awesome weight-loss plan was that simple. Diet and exercise.

Diet
When I made the decision to start losing weight, I realized that I didn't really DO anything physical (more on that in a moment). Without using any complicated calorie calculators or keeping a food journal or anything, I was able to see that. I kept it simple and decided that I would just eat a lot less, and at least for breakfast and lunch, I would keep it mostly to fruit and yogurt. I was working a 9-5 desk job so controlling portions during the day was easy: If I didn't bring it to work, I couldn't eat it. I also tended to wake up really late so controlling breakfast portions was no problem -- usually all I had time to do was grab a banana on my way out the door and quickly throw together my fruit-and-yogurt lunch.

I also drank a lot of green tea during the day.

Most days, I would be starving when I got home. I'd grab a quick, very light snack if I knew I'd be eating late, or otherwise I'd just hold out until dinner. Dinner was a much larger meal, and I aimed for some kind of protein (meat and/or beans), carbohydrate (rice, potatoes, or pasta), and vegetable. I tried to control portions and just eat my fill, which actually became easier the less I ate and the more I got used to my diet. Even though consuming most of your calories in one large meal is supposedly the exact opposite of what you want to do when you're dieting, I didn't have the restraint necessary to keep from eating big meals during the day, too. The moral there, I guess, is do what you need to do to keep from eating too much.

Most of the time, I'd have a glass of wine or two with or after dinner and maybe a SMALL bowl of ice cream. The nice thing was, portion control wasn't that hard because you actually remember what it feels like to be hungry, and of course, what it feels like to be full, instead of drifting all day in this nebulous "well, I COULD eat" phase (where you usually do, because why not).

I didn't deprive myself of foods I like, really, but I will say that after returning from Spain, really greasy and fatty food hasn't appealed to me that much. (The few fast-food burgers I have had in the 10 months since have left me feeling like I took a hook to the stomach from Sonny Holmes [yes, I know that's not a real boxer, but it makes sense to someone out there]). So that probably helped. But when I'd go out to eat, I'd just kind of eat whatever. I didn't go out a lot, but once a week I did go to my favorite bar in the Syracuse area and order a big ol' plate of "Scotchos" and chicken wings with one of my best friends, so there was that.


Exercise

I once heard that, when working out, you should "do what you hate the most." It might have been "do what you fear the most," but the message is the same either way because you would probably fear doing what you hate more than anything else.

I followed that advice and decided to try to start running. Any time I've ever belonged to or had access to a gym, it hasn't worked out because I've lacked the willpower to drive myself over there, shower after, change, etc. It's an ordeal. Running, though, is free. You can do it anywhere. You don't have to drive anywhere. You can shower in your own shower afterward and you can use your own towel. And you burn more calories per [time or distance unit of choice] than anything else. So I ran.

But part of the reason I chose to run was because I hate running. I had never run more than one mile in any one session, those miles were only done for school, and I had never finished in under about 8:45.

When I started running, I sucked. But I knew I sucked, so I decided to just run loops around my house. (I lived on a circular street about 0.4 miles in circumference.) I started slowly, trying to run a loop then walk a loop, doing as many as I could handle (or shooting for about 30-40 minutes) and making an effort to run at least as much as I walked. Over weeks, I crept up to run 1.5 loops walk 0.5 loops, and then I was trying to push myself by starting and ending my sessions with 2-loop runs. I was getting better but I never really thought I could do any sort of distance training (back to that soon).

I aimed to run three days a week, usually Monday/Wednesday/Friday but sometimes Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. Whenever I did it, I tried to give myself a day's rest in between runs so I wouldn't get injured. (I should also mention I didn't kill myself trying to stretch every muscle in my body and simply stretched out a bit after my run, before I got in the shower.) On the other days, I sometimes took a short walk with my mom. I always, however, did pushups (and later, I added crunches as well). I started training with the hundredpushups program around the same time I started running. The workouts don't take long. While it's months later and I've kind of fallen behind and still haven't "done the hundred," I do pushups and situps every week and it's a nice way to keep active and build muscle on the days I'm not running. I feel a lot stronger in my upper body, my biceps have grown, and my chest has gotten tighter.

Eventually, I went for a run with Resident Girl (returning from her hiatus as Girl and before she became Resident Girl) and she said that I seemed like I was in good enough shape to start training for a half-marathon using the same program she had successfully finished in the spring. So, I did, and since I had already been sort of working my way into it for about 6-8 weeks, it wasn't difficult to get into, even though I had never tried running much more than 0.8 miles prior to starting the program.


Honestly, that's about it.

As I got into the training, I still ate well, and didn't eat as much as I used to, but I did recognize that as the runs got longer, I needed more calories in my body so I would eat slightly bigger lunches on run days (or carb-heavy dinners the nights before). Not that much more food, though. I would try to eat a piece of fruit in the afternoon a few hours before my run to give me some fuel (and as a snack to tide me over until dinner and give me some energy in the meantime). I still try to make healthy decisions, I don't drink that much, and I try not to eat out of the house as much as I used to. (Seriously, if you told me before I lost this weight that I'd be living within two miles of a McDonald's, a Burger King, a Domino's, a Pizza Hut with lunch buffet, an all-you-can-eat Indian food buffet, a Chipotle, a Taco Bell, and a Wegmans with a sub shop, and that a month into living here, I'd only been to Chipotle twice and Taco Bell once, I would have laughed in your face. Most of that food doesn't appeal to me that much anymore.) I buy lots of veggies and fruit to munch on, I have cheap granola cereal with lowfat yogurt most days for breakfast, and I snack on chips and hummus.

I'm out of gas here and need to shower before work, but I'm glad I got this on the record so I can kick my fat ass back into shape five years from now.

The Syracuse episode of Man vs. Food: One Syracusan's Take 22:09

Note: Cross-posted from Nunes Magician...

This was a pretty run-of-the-mill episode... not terrible, not great. I thought they did the Dinosaur justice (though I wish they'd have mentioned the Today show thing that ranked it #1), and Heid's with Jim Boeheim was, of course, fantastic even knowing it was coming. I've never been to Mother's Cupboard so I don't want to comment on that... what'd the Nuneseratti think?

Minor Gripes:

• Have you SEEN Onondaga Lake, Adam? Not exactly pristine, and calling Syracuse a "lakefront" town is generous as I think most Syracusans prefer to pretend Onondaga Lake doesn't exist and only acknowledge it by rolling up their windows and going to Lights on the Lake.
  
• Also, it's not a Finger Lake and it's not pronounced OWN-ondaga.
• What was the lacrosse thing all about, besides being a blatant filler and shameless plug for SU? (In the next episode it showed a picture of him playing lacrosse as a kid but they made no reference to that in the Syracuse show)
  
• Would have loved to have seen a trip to the Hill—where would he have gone? I'd vote Acropolis, I guess.

Despidiéndole a Madrid 06:30

As I sit here now, three days almost to the minute from leaving this apartment for the last time, I feel really conflicted. This isn't exactly anything earth-shattering, but I am really excited to get home and also really sad to leave Spain. Four months have gone in a heartbeat, but at the same time, looking back on Mare Nostrum and my arrival at Pilar's house, it seems like another lifetime. I have done well in my time here: I've improved my Spanish by an insane margin, traveled to some awesome places, made some good friends, taught English at an elementary school, and had a really good homestay. Still, the little comforts and familiarities of home are appealing -- and not just those of my hometown, but the States in general.

I could talk about my second trip with Mare Nostrum to Andalucía but the truth is that I was quite sick for a good part of it. The hotel was nice! We saw a very authentic flamenco show, given by a gypsy family in an old cave, and the Alhambra and the Mosque in Córdoba were amazing pieces of Moorish architecture that remain well-preserved, but I've written enough lists of things I've done. I'm in a more reflective mood.


Things I will unquestionably miss about Spain

• Public transportation. It's good in just about any big city, but Madrid's Metro is king. Probably the best subway in the world (although some people argue for Tokyo) despite Madrid's only being the world's 50th largest city. (Honorable mention to London and Paris... not quite as good as Madrid's Metro but still very, very good.) Additionally, the buses are really good: both the local city buses, and the inter-city buses that run across Spain. It's all really affordable and efficient. Everyone owns a car here, unlike New York City, but if I lived here I honestly couldn't imagine needing one. It's a refreshing feeling and makes life a lot easier not having to drive everywhere, and as much as I'm going to enjoy having my car again, in the States you have to drive everywhere, and in the 'burbs it takes 10-15 minutes to get anywhere.
  
  
• My host family. I have gotten along with Pilar incredibly well. After hearing everyone exchange horror stories about their families on the bus home from Andalucía, I wished I could have had my recommendation form back. Not that I said anything even remotely negative about Pilar; I loved living here because it's a great location, she's a good cook, and I get along well with her and her family (namely her grandson Germán of 20 months and her daughter's dog Tai). No, the reason I wanted the recommendation form back was because I had the perfect answer to the last question in my head...
  Q: Would you recommend this family to another student?
  A: Let me put it this way... When everyone sits around and exchanges horror stories about their señoras, I can just sit back, smile, and listen to the conversation in silence, because I have absolutely nothing to add.
  
  
• The attitude toward alcohol. One of the biggest differences between America and Europe. Kids are introduced to alcohol younger, as a part of life, and it's not made out to be the Forbidden Fruit like it is in the US. Almost anywhere that sells food sells cañas of beer or red wine, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Returning to the US, where you can only order alcohol at a bar and not at, say, McDonald's will be strange. Enjoying a small beer or copa with lunch isn't done out of alcoholism here; more just because it's refreshing, you like the taste, and you get tapas too for the price of the drink. People here do not drink too much, ever, despite the fact that botellón (drinking outside in groups) and ir de copas (going out for drinks) is practiced by teenagers. The stereotype of Americans is that they have a tendency to, well, overindulge.
  
  
• The Spanish lifestyle. Especially during the summer, I think the Spanish really do it right. Light meals, the famous siestas (the extent of which are a bit overblown, but I enjoyed them in the summer heat), late dinners after the weather cools down, and bottles of wine and sangría shared among friends at outdoor terraces afterward. Madrid's a big city and the difference between here and home isn't as striking as in Italy, but things are just a half step slower here -- nobody's really in a rush at restaurants or supermarkets -- and that's just fine with me.
  
  
• My elementary school kids. Most were very enthusiastic about learning English. I felt like the class started getting a lot more productive once I gave up speaking only English and explained more complicated concepts in Spanish. This helped on many levels; it helped me improve my Spanish by conversing with them, it helped them understand English, and it made the kids that much more attentive. I've heard the only way to really teach or learn a language well is to speak only in that language -- my host sister Arancha, who teaches Spanish to Arabic-speaking students, told me. But when you're trying to explain something very complicated, especially about grammar, no amount of gesturing and slowing down is going to force comprehension, and a short sentence or two in Spanish let my kids know exactly what I was talking about, and quickly.
  
  
• Getting to constantly practice Spanish. I need to lots watch of Spanish TV and speak whenever possible so I don't lose it. People here say I speak really well, I need to keep that up. (I probably peaked sometime in early November but am still doing very well with it.)
  
  
• The climate. The last two weeks, it's been a bit cold -- around 8 degrees Celsius, or 46 Fahrenheit -- but to a native Syracusan, that's nothing. Here, that's freezing. People bundle up with heavy coats, hats, and gloves in this weather, and always ask me how I can walk around with an unzipped coat and nothing else. "Hombre," I reply. "Soy de Nueva York. Hoy, no hace frío." And I laugh.
  
  
• Döner kebabs, good Spanish ham (and seeing big legs of ham just chilling in every restaurant), and actual tapas culture -- tapas should be cheap dishes received for free with drinks or ordered relatively inexpensively à la carte in moderate portions. They should not be what most "tapas" bars are in the USA: overpriced, posh bars where everyone's dressed to the nines, they only serve cosmos and wine, and there's house music playing. No. (It would actually be cool to open a Spanish restaurant / cafetería back home, because if it's done right, it's a fun atmosphere with good prices.)

Things I am unquestionably looking forward to at home
I'll be more brief here...

• Good pizza -- like, with tomato sauce.
  
  
• Fast food that doesn't make me wake up in a cold sweat with horrible stomach pain. (Taco Bell especially, because duh.)
  
  
• Being able to watch my American sports. I tried to stay away from them here, and I did a pretty good job of it, but the addiction to Michigan football and Syracuse basketball is hard to break and reading GameCasts and liveblogs just doesn't quite have the same appeal as actually watching a game.
  
  
• Walter's! Enough said. (Sub-thing: buying beer at a bar that doesn't cost 5€ / $7.)
  
  
• Video games; haven't touched one since I left in August, but MW2, MVP, and Gretzky are calling my name.
  
  
• Wegman's. Oh, Wegman's. And Pavone's. And Alto Cinco. And Cosmo's. And cheapish sushi. All-American classics.
  
  
• Living somewhere where it's socially acceptable to wear a baseball cap in public.
  
  
• TV shows where the commercials aren't literally six minutes long.
  
  
• Friends and family, of course.
  
  
• Finally, just a little bit... snow. (Remind me of this when it's still snowing in April.)

Advice I'd give to others studying in Spain and elsewhere

• Make sure you have $500-$1000 more than you think you need saved up. Until you get a hang of where and how to find the cheap food in a new country, you'll end up paying a lot more than you need to when you go out to eat or drink, or even when buying water or snacks. Also, you don't want to have to say "no" to taking a trip to somewhere that interests you because you're running low on cash. It's good to try to go on a budget but you're HERE in Europe, might as well see it. (I did pretty well with this.)
  
  
• Along the same lines... grocery stores -- NOT alimentación places or los chinos (named for their Chinese owners), as convenience stores are called here -- are the places to find the best deals on anything. Oh, you just paid €1.50 for that liter of water? The grocery store nearby probably has 1.5L of the same water for €0.30. Bread, meat, and cheese are really cheap, too, and if you have a knife (or don't mind a few crumbs), you can make your own bocadillos (i.e., baguette sandwiches) very very cheap... around €1.50 per person.
  
  
• Bring a water bottle so you don't have to buy lots of water -- especially if you're somewhere that has good, drinkable tap water (like Madrid). This is especially useful when going out to eat because some places will not bring you a tap water if you order it, no matter what you say. Also, water fountains in Europe more or less don't exist.
  
  
• Don't go in thinking you'll use your American phone. Just buy a cheap prepaid one when you get there. Everyone you'll be calling will have a Spanish number, too.
  
  
• Abuse Skype, both with your friends and family from home and with friends at school. Much cheaper than calling or texting on your Spanish/whereverish phone.
  
  
• Save your Spanish phone; you really can sell it back for 6€ if you have all the original stuff that came with it. And at the end of the semester, 6€ might as well be winning the lottery.
  
  
• Do postcards early. Otherwise you'll just forget until it's too late and you'd end up beating the postcard home.
  
  
• If your camera/SD card breaks the first week you're here, for the love of God do something about it. (Those last two things may apply to me.)

Well, that is about all that is on my mind. Tomorrow, I have my last exam -- Modern Spanish Art -- and Thursday will be lots of packing, culminating with my Farewell Dinner Thursday night at the Institute. I have been taking pictures of the house and random things that have defined my stay here -- not landmarks, but the more everyday things, so that I can remember them and so you can see them. I will post those pictures in a sort of photo essay here soon, perhaps even after I get back. Friday, my flight leaves Madrid at 16:55 CET and gets in at 19:35 EST -- an eight-hour+ flight that only takes 2.5 hours on the clock -- and then I get into Syracuse at about 23:45. Long day but I'm really excited! After I get back, I don't know what will become of this blog but that's a decision for another day.

¡Nos vemos muy pronto!

Segovia 14:08

As usual, it's been too long since I've written anything in here about my time here in Spain. My semester is finally coming to an end, but I've been trying to make the most of my limited remaining time here by doing some more traveling and spending time with my friends. I'll try to make this more interesting than just listing stuff off that I've done, because it's more fun to read (and to write)!

Two weeks ago, almost all of my friends here were on a trip to Morocco. (This was a trip sponsored by the school -- but not financially. Anyone who signed up had to pay something like 400€ to reserve his spot, and that was before booking a flight! I picked my battles, and while Morocco seems like it was an eye-opening trip, I had a great time on all of my trips and I would have had to cut at least one of them to do it.) Not wanting to take the alcoholic route and post at a bar by myself, or take the bum route and sit at home with Pilar, I decided to book a trip to Segovia by myself for the day on Saturday. This was my first time traveling by myself anywhere that wasn't just a solo flight to/from visiting someone or going to school. I liked the liberation of not having to answer to anybody but myself all day, but as being alone can be, I did feel a bit lonesome at a few points. (But not too much; spending time alone is important and not something that bothers me!)

Segovia is a very old city, complete with an original, still-standing Roman aqueduct running right up to the old walled section. My drive there was a really cheap bus ride, which was pretty cool because the weather was very un-Spanish: clouds and fog, obscuring the craggy peaks of the mountains. I could see clouds rolling up mountains, and distant buildings were completely enveloped. This isn't something one really gets to see that often in America -- I did this summer in the Berkshires -- but to see it in the dry, baked Spanish landscape was pretty cool. Out the window, I could also see Valle de los Caídos from a distance: a HUGE cross standing on the mountainside. That is the Spanish dictator Franco's grave, and it is somewhere I wish I had gotten to because of how much his life and legacy still resonate in Spain. Even just seeing it from afar, though, was very telling as to what sort of fear and respect he commanded.

Segovia was lovely. The weather cleared up and its famous sun made me wish I'd remembered my sunglasses I bought at the Roman market. The cathedral was very nice, but I am starting to get a little burned out on Gothic cathedrals, to tell the truth. Something has to really make a church stand out for me to pay special notice at this point, and Segovia's cathedral had a few things: very ornate and well-placed stained glass, a gorgeous meeting room with a ceiling that legend says was gilded by the first gold brought back from America, and a small museum that had some very well-preserved artifacts from as far back as the 1300s.

After hitting the cathedral and seeing the aqueduct, I wanted to treat myself to a nice meal, so I walked into the restaurant of a nice-looking hotel -- Casa Mudéjar -- and ordered the Menú típico segoviano: the "typical Segovian meal," which came with a copious amount of wine and left nothing to be desired. The first course was sopa castellana (Castillian soup), which was incredibly rich and a bit heavy, but really delicious. It was almost more of a stew, full of meat and vegetables, with a ball of mozzerella-type cheese at the bottom. The main plate was cochinillo, which doesn't have an exact translation but I saw it on English menus as "roast suckling pig." It was essentially a (very small) portion of a roasted young pig. It felt a bit like eating chicken: the meat was very tender (could hardly believe it was pork), and you have to work around the pig's bones. Some people get a little squeamish with this dish. It didn't really bother me; it's not so different from eating a whole chicken / duck / adult pig... but I do confess that the first thing I did was cut off the protruding EAR sticking out of the side of my cut of meat.

The dessert course was an extremely rich and extremely tasty pumpkin-flavored cake. Cannot get over how good this thing was, and I'm angry with myself for not writing down the name of the dish (or just remembering). I love pumpkin stuff anyway, and this was probably the best pumpkin-themed dessert I've ever had. Plus, as I mentioned, they gave me a jarra of wine, which had at least five glasses' worth. I was stuffed and a bit tipsy at the end of that meal -- extremely satisfied. I ordered an espresso to perk up, and hit the town again.

I went next to the Alcázar, which is a large fortress on the far end of town. The admission was cheap, and the interior was the well-maintained former residence of the King and Queen of León. The tapestries were huge, and there were huge suits of armor everywhere standing guard everywhere. At night, the place would look like the Addams Family mansion. The best room was the Room of the Kings, which boasted a very ornate ceiling whose thunder was stolen by the busts and short descriptions of every Leonese king lining the walls, from the 700s on. The rest of the place was pretty cool, too: you can see the King's actual bed from some 500 years ago -- not too big or comfortable looking! -- and apparently the Alcázar used to house the Spanish Academy of Artillery, so there was a (surprisingly large) museum that showcased many of the weapons, books, and uniforms that the students used throughout the Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries.

By this time, it was starting to get dark so I just wandered around town in the twilight. I stepped outside the walls to see everything lit up, and made my way through the Jewish quarter of the city. (Unfortunately, the old synagogue -- turned church -- was not open.) I was struck by the architecture of the city. There was a great deal of intricate brick work mixed in with the classic Spanish Baroque sandstone. It did not look Spanish, nor did it really look like anything I knew. I will have to do some more research. It actually looked a bit Andalusian to me (more on that later).

I wish I could have taken some pictures. Well, check that, I did. But my camera's memory card has failed, and the batteries also failed me on this trip. So, I got a few, but I want to download more because I don't want to forget Segovia, and unlike my other trips, I don't have my friends' Facebooks to pilfer pictures from. I will write more later about this weekend's voyage to Andalucía soon -- until then, I will see you all stateside in about 10 days!

Salamanca y la preparación para América 06:21

This past week weekend, Kelly and I took a trip to Spain's first "college town," Salamanca in Castilla & León. After a short bus ride from Madrid—and arriving on time for it was no given—we made it to Salamanca. I was pretty blown away at the city's beauty. Although the bus station is in the modern part of the city, once you cross the River Tormes into the old city, everything changes. Sidewalks are covered with overhanging roofs and arches. Almost every building was constructed of beautiful sandstone, giving everything an orange and sun-baked glow in the afternoon light. It looked very quintessentially Spanish. We were hungry and tried a few cafés for a bite to eat, to nearly no avail. Salamanca is very serious about its "tapas" culture—called "pinchos" there. Most cafés in the city don't serve a fixed menu but rather only do pinchos or raciones with drinks. This, although it was a fact we learned to love as the weekend went on, was frustrating when all we wanted to do was pig out!

The city was also a lot cheaper than Madrid, or basically anywhere else I've been, because of the prevalence of tapas bars. We found one bar near the historic Plaza Mayor on a side street run by a nice guy named Tony and full of regulars whom he knew by name. There, Kelly and I were able to get a glass of wine and accompanying tapas each—plus an extra porción—for under 5€... or, in other words, about the cost of a pint of beer with no tapas in Madrid. (No wonder I'm quickly running out of money!) At night, there were lively student bars that were colorfully decorated for Halloween weekend: an Anglo-Irish holiday that's just starting to catch on in Spain.

After Kelly and I settled into our hostel, we hit the town with very little idea of what we were going to do, simply hoping to take it all in. We wandered up the street from the hostel and immediately found the Monastery of San Esteban, which was a breathtaking place. The exterior was extremely ornate for all of its Baroque stone carvings covering the façade; it reminded me, to some extent, of Gaudí's architecture at the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona some 300 years later. The Spanish call that "plateresco," meaning "silver-like" for the appearance of being smooth sculpture. The interior of the church there was one of the most intricate and, honestly, excessive, things I have ever seen. But I loved it anyway.

The Catedral Nueva—and the term "nueva," meaning new, should be taken lightly as it was finished in the early 1700s—was my favorite part of the city. I will have pictures up soon, but it was a stunning neo-Gothic cathedral. The pillars in the interior of the church are very thick, and the ceiling was extremely high. It was imposing and threatening. There was beautiful stained glass and an organ mounted high up above the choir loft... I'm lost as to how one actually gets up there. All told, the cathedral in Salamanca was probably my favorite cathedral I've seen thus far in Europe (although I didn't get to linger too long in Westminster Abbey). There were other cool churches, the Casa de las Conchas (House of the Shells, ornately decorated with large seashells), and the façade of the Universidad de Salamanca—unfortunately the interior was closed due to construction. All extremely beautiful.

The crown jewel of the city is its Plaza Mayor, which is spacious and beautiful at night, filled with little boutiques and expensive restaurants on all sides. That was Kelly's and my home base for the weekend; the only way we knew how to get anywhere in the city was to leave from a certain arch in the Plaza. What struck me was the sheer number of people in and around the Plaza around dusk each night. There were great shops lining one street off the Plaza, and they were always packed, with long lines and many browsers like ourselves. (The crown jewel of our weekend was this little Mexican place we found near the Plaza—Cantina Mariachi—with a good prie fixe menu, cheap tequila and margaritas, and a willingness to make gluten-free substitutions. We ate dinner there two nights in a row, without hesitation. Good Mexican food is surprisingly hard to find in Spain. Locals have told me it's because many Mexicans emigrate not to Spain, but rather to the USA.)

Kelly and I took a bus back to Madrid on Sunday afternoon and parted ways for the next seven weeks or so, as her journey in Rome doesn't end until December 18th. We had a fantastic month traveling together, though, and I felt truly lucky that we were able to spend so much time together seeing Europe when we had initially thought we'd get to see each other maybe twice. I feel very good about our relationship, though, and I'm looking forward to another Christmas together when Kelly gets home.

Back here in Spain this week, the dawn of November has suddenly made coming home seem real and imminent. Last night, I finished my application for the Baltimore City Teaching Residence, which is an intensive summer training course in elementary/secondary education followed by placement—with full teacher's salary and benefits—in a "high-need" school in Baltimore. I am simultaneously thrilled and terrified by the idea of being offered or taking this job. But I think I'd do it if I got it. As I sincerely answered on one of the application questions, I've been in a very cushy suburban bubble all my life. An easy career path for me would be to find some sedentary, autopilot office job somewhere that pays relatively well until I really find my "calling," but I'm 22 years old! There is no other time to try new things and take chances in life. I want to do something that I'll feel truly good and satisfied about at the end of day, no matter how challenging. But I'm getting ahead of myself here—I just completed my application. We shall see what happens.

What has really gotten me into this idea has been my teaching here in Madrid, which I've really come to enjoy. Last week, I felt like I connected with my students more. I began to speak Spanish with them a bit more—to explain difficult and confusing concepts—and I feel like this has made them more engaged in the learning. I read them a home-made version of the Tipperary Hill stone throwers story a number of times, stopping after each reading to ask and field questions, write key words on the board, and explain a bit. Finally, by the third or fourth time, I not only felt like the students were understanding most of what they heard, but that they were also interested and engaged, asking lots of questions! The teacher asked for my copy of the story to make copies for the class, and they're going to read it over and bring in questions about grammar, pronunciation, and spelling for the next class. I am really disappointed that this is my last week doing this volunteer job, but when I get back to Syracuse, I am going for this job, "Literacy Corps," where you work—for money!—going to underprivileged Syracuse schools and helping to promote, well, literacy by tutoring struggling students. I am also looking for other jobs during the week, as the Literacy Corps is only about four hours a week. (Barring catastrophe, I will be free all day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, as all my classes KNOCK ON WOOD will be on Tuesday and Thursday.)

Well, that's about all the time I have right now. Most of my friends are away this weekend, so I've been getting lots done, but it will be nice to go out in Madrid again tonight. Relaxing in this city is something I just have not been able to do due to my travel schedule. This afternoon, off to the Sorolla Museum. ¡Hasta pronto, to all those stateside!

Muy atrasado 11:23

So it's been a couple weeks since I got on here and talked about London and promised that Dublin was coming soon! Between then and now, I have gone on two more weekend excursions and have another planned for this weekend. For now, though, I have a free hour before class, so I will try to get caught up as best I can.

Dublin
We arrived in Dublin late on Friday night and as soon as we stepped off the bus from the airport, we were greeted by a couple of friendly Irish folks about our age that showed us to our hostel and invited us out for a pint. We never ended up finding them for that beer but the fact that they walked with us for a couple of blocks for no reason other than the fact that we looked like tourists and they wanted to give us a warm welcome was really cool, and was pretty typical of the entire weekend; the Irish were extremely nice and the three of us -- Alberto, Kelly, and I -- had a great time.

The next morning we took a free walking tour of Centre Dublin led by a jovial, knowledgable dude named GAR (which was short for something but he said to call him GARRRRRRRRRRRRRR). The tour was really cool, and we learned a ton about the city of Dublin and the history of Ireland. Really interesting was the story of the church/pub in one, which, although it just sounds like a typical Irish joke, actually served a purpose when the British outlawed Catholicism; the Irish would dress up on Sunday morning and tell the policemen they weren't going to Mass but to the bar. They would hold Mass in the basement, and, to make their story hold water on the way home, get drunk. (Some crazy dude also came up to us and starting mouthing off about how he was molested as a child because of the priests. Fun day!) I told Gar the story of Tipperary Hill and the stone throwers in Syracuse, which he thought was really cool. That is about the only thing about me that is Irish.

The Guinness Storehouse was an extremely fun museum, dedicated of course to everyone's favorite Stout. It was laid out more or less vertically, with about nine different levels culminating with a free pint at the top of the factory, which was a large circular glass room that overlooked the whole city. I loved eating the malted barley they had out -- the essence of Guinness -- because it tasted, well, just like Guinness. I was EATING Guinness! Even Kelly gave into her coeliac Kryptonite temptation and had to try a couple sips at the "Testing Lab." (She likes it.)

Going out to the Pub Crawl in Temple Bar was pretty fun. We got one of our big goals done in that we saw live music at one of the pubs... not exactly Flogging Molly but rather one guy with a guitar singing folk music. Nevertheless, great times and great beer. We were in this one bar when the Irish national team tied up a key match against Italy. The place went absolutely bonkers. One of the coolest sports bar moments I've ever had... and then as wild as it was, it was equally somber when the Italians scored a cheap goal in the 89th minute and it ended in a tie.


Rome
I got home from Dublin on Sunday night and on Thursday night, got to the airport and headed off to Rome to see Kelly, and her parents who were visiting from America. The Ciampino airport is a modern marvel. It's literally about three rooms! (I love it. Its size is what allowed me to make my plane Monday morning, too.) The Snavelys had a rented apartment for the weekend, so there was no cramming into a mixed hostel dorm -- we had tons of space to chill out and drink some wine. We had a packed itinerary the three days I was there, and we saw just about all the really big tourist sites in Rome: the Borghese Gallery, the Spanish Steps, TONS of cool churches that over there are probably nothing special, the famous fountains, the Vatican Museum (including the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica), the Coloseum, Palantine Hill, and the ruins of the Imperial Forum. I don't have the time to go into each and every thing that we did, but it was all absolutely gorgeous.

Italy is just a very different place than America, the British Isles, or even Spain. The quality and style of life is extremely different. I can't even describe it. It's a modern country, but at points it seems a bit backward or antiquated, too. I don't know what exactly it is or how to describe it, but in many ways Rome was very much what I expected. Long, winding streets, great food and coffee, and people who know what's important to them in life and what isn't.

We ate extremely well. Cheese plates with honey, mixed salamis, and of course, great pizza and pasta -- not to mention wine. The food was a lot closer to what we have in America, just in that the food was rich and made with lots of cheese. My stomach was hating me, though, for breaking my strictly Spanish Mediterranean diet, consisting mostly of fish, fruits, and vegetables. I got somewhat sick Saturday night and had to sit out while the Snavelys went out and got a drink or two. But the next morning I felt just fine. One of the more striking things was how good the olive oil was. WOW was it good -- as much as Spanish olive oil is better than American, Italian was that much better than Spanish. Really delicious.

Brussels and Paris
Last week was an extremely quick turnaround. I got back from Rome, as I mentioned, Monday morning, almost missing my plane. I was home all day Tuesday, and first thing Wednesday morning -- like, 05:00 first thing -- I was up and showering and heading to the Madrid airport that I know oh so well to head off to Brussels with Alberto and my friend Zach! We didn't have a ton of time in Brussels and there really isn't a ton to see, but sometime soon I will copy pictures from ALL of these trips and you can see the Great Square in Brussels, which was something else. Just to put the city in perspective: their biggest tourist attraction is Mannekin Pis, a three-foot statue of a young boy peeing into a fountain. (He apparently sometimes dresses up à la the bear on Woodchuck Hill Road but it's a bit cooler than that. Though I wouldn't know because he wasn't dressed.)

We took great care to sample the local flavors -- we consumed a, let's say, healthy amout of the local wheat beers. Hoegaarden and Blue Moon are the Belgian whites of choice in the States, but there are of course tons of great craft beers over there, too. One is called Delirium Tremens, and we went to the bar the company owns. That beer costs about $60 per case back home, but in Brussels a normal-sized glass was only €3.20 or so. We also, of course, needed to hit the absynthe bar across the street (yuck) and we also had great waffles and fries (the two local specialties). We also had great, spicy Vietnamese and Thai food, which was fantastic.

We took a train to Paris the next day and took a walking tour from the same (free) company that we used in Ireland and while the tour wasn't as good (as evidenced by the fact that I didn't quickly remember her name but I just rememebered it's Anne Marie, she was Irish too). It was still a good tour, though. It was interesting being back in Paris, as I'd been there once before with American Music Abroad. I remembered a lot but I think then we were moving too quickly and frantically to really take very much of it in. I loved walking along the Seine and crossing the footbridges. After the tour, Kelly and Sapir and Kelsey and Robin met us at the Louvre for FREE ADMISSION on Friday night. Kelly and I lost the rest of the group but we were into other stuff anyway; we got to see many of the sculptures that were pilfered by Napoleon from the Borghese Gallery in Rome. There was so much stuff in there I couldn't possibly hope to get to it all, but Kelly took lots of pictures and those will be up soon, hopefully next week.

The next day we saw the Notre Dame cathedral (and climbed to the top of the belltower! Woo!). It was pretty awe-inspiring but there were just so many tourists it was sort of difficult to enjoy. We then headed up to the Sacre Coeur church on top of Montmarte, which is one thing I specifically remembered from Paris the first time. That night, we climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower at dusk and saw the most incredible view of the city in a light rain. Kelly and I enjoyed a romantic bottle of water at the top! She and I then went and bought some stuff for a picnic dinner. We went out and sat on what many call "the most romantic bridge in the world" and had our picnic dinner -- it's where the finale of Sex in the City was filmed, apparently, but the Seine was all lit up and it was fantastic. One of the best nights of my life.



Tonight, Kelly's here and Salamanca this weekend! ¡Hasta luego!

Un fin de semana en el Reino Unido e Irlanda 14:20

This past weekend kicked off a very busy month of travel for me. I'm sitting here on Monday evening just before dinner a bit tired—but not too tired to write—after a whirlwind weekend in the UK and Ireland! I left for London Thursday afternoon with my friend, Alberto (who despite the name is not Spanish but American, although of Ecuadorian descent)... but that ended up being Thursday night because our flight to London was delayed three hours! No explanation from easyJet's crew on the delay, but in the end it turned out just fine: we indulged in a couple mini-bottles of tequila from the Duty Free store and met another American studying in Madrid who happened to be on the same flight. (We also ran into our friends from Syracuse on their way to Portugal. Small world! Except not really because we all had good reason to be in Madrid.)

We finally arrived in center Centre London around 11:00 that night, and we took a taxi out to Picadilly Circus to meet Kelly at our hostel (after a bit of aimless wandering because I may have forgotten to note the address before leaving). We took a walk around the neighborhood and just explored the nearby city before hitting the hay in preparation for a long day Friday.

This hostel we stayed at was supposed to be the best hostel in London—maybe even the UK—and if it was the best, I don't want to see the worst. It wasn't horrible, but certainly not as nice as either Valencia hostel. But I guess that's what you get when you travel on a budget. As a Brit muttered to me as easyJet botched the boarding process after making us wait three hours, "you get what you pay for." It's true. But to be able to see lots of great European cities on the cheap, in my eyes, makes up for crap like waiting for three extra hours in an airport terminal, or being crammed into a hot, dirty room with a dozen others and being woken up at 4:00 AM to see if I stole a pillow. (Answer: Uh, I didn't touch your pillow.)

The next day we got up early and tried to cram as much London as we could into just a few hours, as we had a flight to Dublin at 9:30 that night—needing, of course, to head to the airport at 7:00. We started off getting into the "Tube" and heading toward Westminster and all of the big sights. Quick note on the London Underground / the "Tube": people talk about it a lot. And, no doubt, it's a really nice subway system. The trains arrived promptly and it was on the whole very clean. I really enjoyed the layout and design of some of the stations and the modern technology of the tickets, Oyster cards, and kiosks. There were some things about it that are better than Madrid's Metro, but on the whole, I still think Madrid holds true as the best Metro in Europe. The trains and stations in the Underground are very small and made me a bit claustrophobic, whereas the Madrid Metro has wide, spacious trains and platforms, despite being a smaller city. There are also NO redundant, overlapping lines in the Madrid Metro, nor lines with multiple terminations. I mean, it's splitting hairs, but for what it's worth, I love my Madrid Metro and will defend it to the death.

We saw and snapped pictures of the Parliament building, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. We then headed over to St. James's Park and over to Buckingham Palace to try to catch a changing of the guard. Not much happened; we waited probably 40 minutes and just saw a group of soldiers riding by on horseback led by a (struggling) bugler, but hey, it was still pretty cool to see at least that. Kelly and Alberto took lots of pictures and I will try to steal some of those and post them to Picasa and Facebook. I would take more but the memory card on my camera died while I was on Mare Nostrum—along with about 200 pictures—so I am limited to 20 pictures or so at a time on my ancient camera before the internal memory fills. I have taken some and I will get them up when I can.

We ate a great lunch in a little restaurant right on the River Thames—and right next to Sir Francis Drake's galleon!—and I also enjoyed a British craft brew along with it. We had bangers and mash—i.e., sausage and mashed potatoes—and enjoyed the very typical, classic London cityscape: overcast, gray, blustery day, with a scattered drizzle (or, as we were catching the airport bus, downpour) mixed in. After (before?) lunch, we wandered toward a cool outdoor market with a lot of interesting food for sale. There was a great pot of SPICY West Indian Chicken Curry, and Kelly and I stocked up on candied almonds and walnuts, as well as chocolate/cinnamon-covered hazelnuts and white chocolate fudge raspberries. All pretty cheap, too—this, of course, being a relative term, given that in England everything costs twice as much as in the States because of the exchange rate.

My favorite thing we did in London was attend an Evensong service at Westminster Abbey, which is the Anglican evening choral church service. Attending the church service gets you into the Abbey for free, and while you can't really wander about and look at all of the tombs, you get to see the incredible inside of the cathedral and hear the traditional "men's" choir, with child sopranos and altos—really haunting and pure sound.

It was just weird to be in an Anglophone country again. Walking into a shop and NOT saying "¡Hola!" to the shopkeeper. Bumping into someone and telling them "sorry," and not "perdón." Ordering fried food and having eggs for breakfast instead of dinner. That, and the weather, made me feel at home.

Dublin was awesome, too! More on that in a bit. For now, cheers!

La visita de Kelly y mi primer viaje 10:32

This has been a good week! Kelly came from Rome to visit me here in Madrid on Friday afternoon, staying until very early Sunday morning—unfortunately, the only flight back that day, so we lost almost an entire day together. Kelly met a bunch of my friends on Friday, when we went out to an amazing Japanese food buffet—on a conveyor belt, like the Lickitung mini-game from Pokémon Stadium!—, found her hotel, and then went out for drinks and tapas with my friends!

Friday night, we met Alberto and a few Spaniards he met, Laurel, Duncan, and Berber to go out. Everyone in our program loves this little place in Chueca called El Tigre, and for good reason: the drinks are relatively cheap, and they serve you a HEAPING plate of great tapas with every beer/sangría. When we tried to go on Friday, though, there there was hardly room to breathe in El Tigre. So we took a short walk down the block, and found another little bar with much better drink deals and comparable tapas with half the number of people in it. Although we were still in a touristy neighborhood, I actually liked the second bar much better than El Tigre. It felt more real; more authentically Spanish. It was pretty busy, but you didn't walk by crowds of people and hear nothing but English. It was an actual place that actual Spaniards go, not a façade of Spanish-ness designed to draw non-Spaniards in.

That's what I like here. Madrid is a pretty big city, but it's not huge. It's not New York, where every square inch of Manhattan, more or less, is a giant tourist trap. You don't have to get too far away to really experience the native culture—in our case on Friday, just about 500 meters. But a lot of the kids here don't really seem to realize this, or don't care to embrace it. El Tigre was CRAWLING with Americans that night. And the night after. And when I was on the Metro with a few SU kids on Monday, they said they were going back again. Sticking with what you know you like is OK for a while, but there's a lot more to this city than the big, touristy bars and discos, and I want to explore that "hidden" side of it more often.

Saturday, Kelly and I really explored the city, finding some spots that I hadn't even been to yet. We started off with a coffee, and then set off for some sightseeing. We went to the Ópera Metro stop and saw the exterior of the Palacio Real and the amazing gardens in front. We worked our way through some side streets and found a pretty good looking paella place—typical Spanish food, and cœliac friendly, of course. From there, we made our way to Plaza de España and the big Cervantes monument and Quijote statue, and then we walked a bit more down Calle Princesa and found the Temple of Debod, an ancient Egyptian monument moved stone-by-stone from, well, Egypt to Madrid. The surrounding park was also very nice, and there was a serious view up there, not only of most of the city but also of the surrounding mountains.

Then, Saturday night was La Noche en Blanco, a huge city-wide arts festivals where most of the main streets close to vehicular traffic and people stay out all night, casually drinking and enjoying all the free entertainment and extended museum hours. (That sentence didn't even come close to describing it.) Calle Gran Vía, one of Madrid's busiest streets, was so crowded with people that you could hardly walk; it was almost like a city-wide crowded frat party. We saw a number of marching bands, did some of the dances they had up on the big screens, and listened to a swing band that made me wish I knew how to swing dance. We followed a crowd into a museum that at first didn't seem that interesting, but actually ended up being really cool: some architect and scale models and displays of his public works projects in various cities around Europe. It was just really interesting. We had to cut the night somewhat short to make it back before mass transit closed, because Kelly had a 7:10 flight in the morning, but we had a really good time experiencing such a surreal event.

---

In other news, I finally got an assignment for my "service learning" today! I am going to be volunteering at an elementary school just around the corner from my house on Calle Pradillo assisting teachers in their English lessons for a couple hours a week. I really have no idea what to expect with this. I am hoping for something better than unintentionally saying something hilariously awful to these Spanish kids and getting laughed out of the room. At best, maybe this will go very well and convince me that education is a field that I could get into, after all.

This weekend, I am taking a somewhat short-notice trip to Valencia, which is a beautiful city famous for its paella and oranges and lord knows what else. According to Pilar, it's really gorgeous—marble sidewalks, anyone?—but the paella is nothing to write home about. They do, however, have a fantastic aquarium and science museum that I am definitely planning on hitting up. It will be interesting to see how this weekend goes. I am going to try to travel on the cheap, but this will be my first go at it so I should cut myself some slack if something goes wrong, too. I will try to take as many pictures as my sorry little camera can handle, and I'll be back Monday for—gulp—first midterms.

¡Hasta luego!




Super mega-entry bonus: I made a list.


American Foods I Could Really Go For Right Now*

• Mexican food, especially guacamole or Mrs Anderson Dip
  
• I forgot to mention Taco Bell. Taco Bell.
  
• Popcorn
  
• A nice, greasy Little Cæsar's / Papa John's / Dominos / Pizza Hut pizza; especially Sit-Down Pizza Hut lunch buffet
  
• Buffalo chicken flavored ANYTHING
  
• Pancakes
  
• Wendy's
  
• Pastabilites stretch bread, especially with the SyraJuice tomato dipping oil that Sam claims I abuse but IT'S FREE
  
• A Philly cheesesteak

* - May or may not actually be "American" but are nevertheless foods that are difficult to impossible to find here in Madrid.

Me gusta / No me gusta 13:40

I've been in Madrid for a few days now... it's time to play ME GUSTA / NO ME GUSTA, the exciting game where I pass judgment on things that I have seen here so far!


ME GUSTA living with a host family. I think that Pilar and I are getting along very well -- nice sobremesas after dinner, and some quality time just watching TV or reading. I think that my Spanish is getting better from living here and trying to express thoughts that occur outside a Spanish classroom. I am a little bummed that my American friends don't speak Spanish outside the classroom really, but once school starts we will be getting a lot more of that classroom time.

NO ME GUSTA how hot it is here. I'm living in a 9th floor apartment so while we sometimes get a cross-breeze, more often than not it's just hotter than blazes with a wicked sun. I think all the squinting and sunshine -- things I was NOT accustomed to this summer in Syracuse -- are tiring me out, causing me to need to take a siesta late each afternoon. (Hey, nothing wrong with that, right? Adopting the culture.) Only problem is I wake up from said siesta drenched in sweat... for the heat. I guess it's unusually hot for this time of year (90+ºF every day) and it seems to be all anyone can talk about, but still, being here has made me appreciate my Syracuse summers a little bit.

ME GUSTA the food. I have grown to appreciate red wine much more since I've been here, and I love me some tinto de verano, served ice cold. I've had the old standbys: tapas like patatas bravas and calamaris, paella, tortilla española, and copious amounts of olive oil... but I've enjoyed all types of things here, including some great sandwiches, Italian food, and sushi. I guess being in a big city is conducive to finding new, delicious food choices, and I am loving it.

NO ME GUSTA paying for lunch every day. It IS better than having to pay for all my meals. But expensiveish cafeterias/restaurants coupled with a bad exchange rate = DEATH. I need to find a reliably cheap bocadillo place near Syracuse's campus where I can grab a sandwich for 2-3€ because while I like eating well and there are tons of great food options in Madrid, I cannot afford to be spending 9-12€ every day for lunch.

ME GUSTA the fact that my new cell phone has games. What ever happened to that sterling ideal of American culture, that cell phones should have simple games to keep you occupied sitting on a train or in a boring class? Being able to play Minesweeper -- check that, "Buscaminas" -- on my phone is awesome. Snake is no slouch, either.

NO ME GUSTA the cost of my prepaid, Poser Mobile plan or the fact that this phone doesn't have a camera. TwitPic is officially on hold until my return to the States. (However, I can RECEIVE calls for free, so feel free to give me a call if you've got an extra $20 laying around... or a calling card.)

ME GUSTA the people here. There's always this reputation in the States that Europeans are snobby elitists and so far in Spain that has simply not been true. Any Spaniard I have talked to has been very nice, helpful, and friendly. (Except certain clerks, naturally.) Last night, on the taxi ride home, my driver noticed by my accent that I was American and started speaking to me in English... but my Spanish was definitely better than his English so we switched over. We had an interesting conversation that was partly in both languages, where he'd ask me a question in Spanish, I'd answer, and then he'd ask me how to ask that in English and repeat with sometimes hilarious results. Also had a nice chat about American and Spanish politics with Alberto and two Catalans late one night in Girona. It's been fun getting to know locals and I hope I can do more of that.

NO ME GUSTA some of the fashion choices here. It's true: Madrid can be a very fashion-conscious, posh city, and a lot of people look pretty good -- I need to step my game up. However, for a lot of people here, looking good means a faux-hawk/mullet combination with a popped collar and man purse (or, "murse"). Before I left, I seriously contemplated starting a blog called "Nice Capris, Dude" -- cast from the same mold as "Straight Cash Homey" -- where people would be encouraged to send in pictures they've snapped of, well, dudes wearing capris. I'm glad I didn't start the blog, because living in Madrid, it's a little too easy. Capris on dudes are everywhere. Now... jorts I can deal with. I won't wear them, but I can deal with them. Japris, though? Oh God. I'm not a fashion snob and I dress like a bum 3/4 of the time, but that won't get a "smart look," even from me.

ME GUSTA the public transit! The Metro is awesome: clean and easy to use. (This was one of the things I was looking forward to, being in a big city.)

NO ME GUSTA the cost of taxis. Blah.

As usually happens with these things, the idea has run out of gas. So, until next time, thanks for playing ME GUSTA / NO ME GUSTA!

Things I Have Thought Of 17:44

Ideas I've Had
Don't steal them!


* Laundromat/Restaurant - You bring your laundry and instructions for your clothes, hand them to the maitre d' (two loads only!) and sit down for a nice dinner! The service won't be especially fast -- this is a restaurant, not a McDonald's, and we need time to do the laundry -- but when you've enjoyed a modestly priced three-course meal, voila! Your laundry is clean and folded, and you're full. Everything would be covered under one blanket price -- the three-course meal and the laundry service. This would be perfect for middle-class couples looking for a night out and a break from laundry all at the same time. (Also for families!)


* Worldwide Umbrella Network - Umbrellas must be cheap to make because ballparks and promotional events give them away all the time. So as a rider on some important Congressional bill, include the following provision: The United States will produce about a billion national umbrellas. Every business and non-profit in the United States will receive about five. (Rough estimate.) Then, the National Umbrella Network can begin. When it's raining, you simply take one as you leave a participating entity from an area at the front of the building. When you arrive somewhere else, you put the umbrella away when you enter there. This way, umbrellas are always in stock wherever you are. You could always keep and carry your own umbrella, but there's no reason, because you could also use the National Umbrella Network. (Sounds like the healthcare issue, too.) No need to register or anything -- just take an umbrella, and leave an umbrella later. (Hoarding, of course, would be punishable by imprisonment.) Assuming this is a wild success on the domestic front, the operation would expand worldwide, creating a Worldwide Umbrella Network. IT JUST MAKES SENSE.


* Hot Dr. Pepper - Everyone loves their hot drinks: cocoa, tea, coffee, mate, etc. Everyone loves soda! (Except me, but that's a lie. I still love it, I just don't drink it anymore. Except when I drink.) The obvious connection is to combine the two. Boil up some Dr. Pepper and see what comes out the other end! If it's anything besides caramelized sugar on your tea kettle, it will probably be fantastic. I mean, how bad could it be? I really want to try this.


* Butter Soda - John and I tried to make this once, with... well... questionable results. Just melted butter and club soda. (When we tasted it, it wasn't pretty... to quote FFVII's Cid, "!@#$#$^#$@!##^$%^#$@#!!!") There's a potential ingredient that spruces it up a bit -- trade secret, of course -- but if we ever perfect this, we could be rich, having invented the next big thing at state fairs nationwide.


* Vodka Tea - This isn't like Irish Coffee -- normal, brewed coffee with Bailey's and Irish whiskey mixed in -- this is tea brewed with HOT VODKA INSTEAD OF HOT WATER. I know, the idea sounds phenomenal in theory, but I've tried it, and it's not really that good. Problem is, though, I used cheap shit. If I were to When I try this again, I will use a top-shelf vodka like Gray Goose to hopefully yield more delicious results. (Also to try: White Russian ice cream! And what about the same concept but dripping hot vodka through coffee grounds? Maybe some Three Olives grape vodka, for grape vodka coffee.)


* Rum Oatmeal, or R'oatmeal (for short) - Exceedingly simple: normal oatmeal made with hot water and milk (plus brown sugar to flavor), with a shot of spiced rum mixed in. In the words of the great Merill Howard Kalin, "Mmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!" If there can be butter rum ice cream, why not Rum & Spice R'oatmeal?


* Super S'mores - Use Low-Fat Chips Ahoy (the greatest mass-produced cookie ever) instead of graham crackers to make your s'more. (They have a sort of graham-y taste.) And you don't have to stop there! Split an Oreo, or use two Oreos, and try that! Or maybe a bagel. Or two pieces of French toast!