Drum roll.... I'm Back!!

Hey guys,

So I decided that life really bores me and that I'm so busy that I need to add one more thing to the to-do list. Classes just don't seem to really do it for me anymore. And although I am not currently a world traveler--barely even a state traveler for that matter--I am still going to blog about ordinary, mundane, and often probably asinine things. My current predicament is whether or not to put two tampons in my nose. Seriously, I am really having this dilemma with myself. See, I currently am a snot monster.

Definition of snot monster: The person you run from who you suspect may actually have SARS. This person--instead of spitting on you when speaking--snots on you, snots all over the ground when bending over to tie his or her shoes, goes through a box of tissues in 1 day, can't control the snotfest even with the most potent saline concentration, which only produces a severe burning sensation in both nostrils. Essentially this person approaches levels of supreme grossness.

Picture of snot monster.

In my attempts at healing myself, I have excessively drank 6 glasses of orange juice (which has only increased my tendency to frequent the bathroom), poured 3 rounds of salt water solution into both nostrils (omg painful!!), taken 4 vitamin C tablets, and poured hot sauce in or on everything I have eaten today (this does not include cereal, though i may try that tomorrow....) So that is why I now am searching for the light tampons to put in my nose.

Other than my current plight of sickness, I am back at school, and just came back in town from spending the weekend in West Virginia. No I did not see Burt Reynolds in a leather vest holding a crossbow while riding down the river (I wish!), though I did get to do a bit of quad riding and scaring people when I was armed with loaded guns. Ended up being a somewhat traumatizing weekend, but I do now have a slight desire to own a revolver and shoot beer cans with it... God, luckily I'm in the perfect location for this. Thanks Cleveland.

Hmmm, maybe I'll go snot in some homemade ice cream now, or maybe just redo my resume. Or maybe I'll start a cooking a blog....

Teaser!!! Pizza my boyfriend, Lyle, and I made!

The Reunion: Part I

I don’t know how I did it, but somehow in the car ride, I managed to contain my excitement—I was asleep before we even hit the highway—for our impending family reunion in Gaithersburg, MD. Now, I do love my extended family on my stepmother’s side, but after recently having returned from Europe, I was not thrilled to pack up and venture off first to Amishville, Amish town, Amish land, or whatever that place is called in Pennsylvania, and then move again to Gaithersburg: a D.C. suburb. After sleeping for 3 or so hours, struggling in a futile attempt to go back to sleep for another few, and just plain pretending to sleep for another hour, I finally “woke up”, hoping that we would be approaching Day 1 final destination: Amish world a.k.a. Quarryville, PN. I took a good look around me expecting to see softly rolling hills with lush fields of green and Anne of Green Gables running around in a prairie girl dress offering fresh peach cobbler to passing by cars. But alas, this was not the case. I think my fantasy may have been a little bit too much to ask considering 1) Anne of Green Gables is not only from Novo Scotia, but is also dead, and 2) peaches are not grown in Pennsylvania. Though I saw no Anne or peaches, I did see lots of corn and some cows, which I thought seemed promising until I realized “oh wait, that’s all of Pennsylvania”. Needless to say, I had another 3 or 4 hours to go…. FML. So I contented myself the rest of the ride by reading Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, which I think it is a great critique on our current food system that most people should read. I emphasize “most” here because I think most people should read this book… excluding myself. For me, I think I should just not be exposed to these types of information, for I can become a wee-bit obsessive and can easily latch onto ideas. So, what once were pretty cornfields and dairy farms became evil cornfields filled of #2 corn—that we don’t even directly eat—destined to destroy the rumen of cows and be morphed into high fructose corn syrup and xanthum gum, and dairy farms pumped with antibiotics that will run-off and turn our fish into hermaphrodites and kill our children. Ok, a little far-fetched, but I can still believe it. In addition to ruining the beautiful landscapes around me, I now have turned pseudo-vegetarian and annoyingly read the list of ingredients of everything that I eat (or more like then refuse to eat) and pointedly explain to everyone else around me exactly which ingredients came from corn. See what I mean? Ideas are like viruses (for all you inception lovers!) and some people a.k.a. should just not read them.

Given that we already know that I readily accept and latch onto some ideas, we’re going to take this a few steps further, maybe a couple of floors, to paint an “accurate” picture of how I was poorly set up for Amish land. So, I get super into themes, themes of towns, themes of days, etc. When I first moved to Cleveland and encountered Little Italy, I was ecstatic until I could truly no longer uphold the pretense that anything about it was actually Italian. Sigh. So grudgingly accepted that Little Italy was a fraud and moved on. Holidays, Oh my God Holidays! I get pretty, (reluctant to use the word “super” here but for lack of a better term) super excited about holidays. For example, sophomore year I was totally ready to deck out my suit in Halloween gear: spider webs, fake spiders, hanging skeletons, bowls of candy—the works. I had even purchased a lot of the stuff, but thankfully I was vetoed by my more sane sweet mates and only kept put out the bowl of candy. The bowl that I got was one of those orange and black bowls that you get with the automatic creepy hand that grabs at you when you reach for a piece of candy. The bowl was cool at first, except that it didn’t really work to well when you reached for candy, but would, as I found out later, crawl on the floor, dragging the bowl behind it. I found this item particularly reminiscent of Furbies, which were alrite for a few days until you realized that they would still demonically gurgle “Feed me!” even after taking out the batteries and throwing them out the window. My furbie still popped open its eyes, saying “Feed me” years later. This is when I decided that I was not saving this toy someday for my kids and gave it a new home in the garbage. But back somewhat to the main point. In general, Halloween seems to be bad, but Christmas is the worst. Someday when I have a house and a family and maybe am slightly bored with life, I will without a doubt be that person stapling Christmas lights to their roof, trying to outdo her neighbors with the most Christmas decorations in a Chevy Chase-like manner. Now I think it is relatively clear how I would have expected Amish Country to be and how I would have easily bought into that façade.

For our first day’s excitement in Quarryville (after getting stuck behind a horse and buggy on the drive in), we took a tour of/hung around my step-grandfather’s retirement home. Pretty exciting. Then we did what I had long been hoping for: a quest for jelly. I am actually serious and kept pestering my parents all the way here that we needed to find the delicious jelly they always brought home after trips to visit him. So off we went. We found this local barn right around the corner. I excitedly picked out some jelly right away as well as some Orange Blossom honey, vanilla and peppermint extract. Feeling pretty pleased with my purchases, I sat back down in the car, happily to examine my jar of blueberry jelly, only to discover that it was sweetened with grape juice from concentrate and made and packaged in Maryland, not in my Amishville in Pennsylvania. In addition to this little incident, the whole wheat peach and apricot fig neuton-like bars that we got my dad had corn syrup listed as the third ingredient and peaches as the tenth. My vision of Amish Country crashed down around me and reluctantly I accepted that it too was a fraud.

After the disappointment in PN, we hopped back in the car and headed to meet up with the rest of the family in Gaithersburg, MD. Our hotel was actually located in German town, where I don’t think any Germans actually live or have ever actually lived there. I had initially thought that we eat terrible food and not really do anything the whole weekend, and that if we actually did it would be things that we all hated, which turned out to sometimes be the case, but not nearly as much as I initially expected.

Hello

Hey all who read this. As I'm sure you all have noticed, a.k.a. my brother, that I have not updated my blog in a while. A large part of this is that I am pretty busy and becoming somewhat settled here to the point that I really am not sure that I want to come back, but the other, more prominent reason is just that in general I find it moderately irksome to open up to people, so having people read my thoughts via a blog somewhat bothers me. I could tell you crazy stories and entertaining things (which I still might) because there have been quite a few lately, but really these stories mean nothing to me other than maybe give you a few chuckles. So if you're looking for more than just an entertaining read, this is probably not the place, and if u are looking for something entertaining, the onion will probably suffice quite nicely. I may change my mind, but as of now blog is and has been temporarily terminated.

Palma de Mallorca: Home

MMM the hilarious American bar that we are going to on the 4th that serves....tex mex!!! Take note of the Native American statue on the left. ;)

Me at Playa de Palma and Cala Contessa, Illetas.

My beautiful friends and I on the beach!!! And this is my lovely room for the month.

Us and our program direction and another beach shot. So cool that I live here now!!

Me climbing and all us who came in for part II of the program. We are all so tight now and pretty much best friends, having the absolute best time of our lives and I love every single one of them!!

Beach!!!

Ahh, so I am now in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, my new home until I finally leave for the United States. I arrived very tired, in poor health, with a broken foot, and lots of dirty clothes. However, when I arrived, instantly felt right at home here for my program directors are amazing, my new friends are the best motley crew bunch anyone could have (these are the 4 best friends that anyone could have ;) hangover anyone?). My host mother a.k.a my Spanish love is amazing and jumped right in and did all my laundry, cooked me amazing food, fixed all the things that I broke along the way and helped me with my Spanish. I can also not express amount of relief that I felt when I could finally unpack my entire suitcase, hang up all my clothes, and have my own private bathroom!! I think this is something that people take for granted, but it is amazingly nice to be able to find all your stuff because it’s in one place and not have to lock it up every time you leave the room. I am not sure really where to begin about my travels here, other than that I love every minute of it!! Though I did like traveling before, I did feel like an outsider—a tourist—because that is exactly what I was but here, I have my friends, I have a bit of a family, and I also have my school…. It is honestly becoming a bit like a home to me, and I am starting to feel like it might be weird to go back to the U.S. Before, I traveled, but still missed all my friends and family and felt as if I was in some transient stage, just waiting to return back home. However, now, I feel as if I am starting a life here. I am becoming more familiar with the language, the town, and am even taking classes here. So pretty much it’s just like I’m back at Case, but only on an island with better classes, better food, better beaches, and a family to come back home to every night. As I become more and more comfortable here, my vision of home has become fuzzier and fuzzier. Though I miss you all and of course my family, I have had so little contact, that all I have left of anyone is my images of them a few months ago and my random thoughts about them. Though I can think and think, my concept of people has come to the point where people back home aren’t necessarily very real anymore because I am so detached and I only have the images that I have transformed and even entirely created if that makes sense. I think everyone back home is also getting used to the idea of me being gone as well and it’s kinda like the initially shock has gone and now it as if I am finally gone and starting a new life here. And I hate to say it, but I wouldn’t mind starting a new life here because the way of life and pretty much everything except my family and friends I like better here and I also have a chance to somewhat leave all the stuff that I had to deal with back home. Although the island is very much a tourist island in many ways, with Germans and the drunk English men crowding the beaches, I still am in love with the idea of having water all around me and also with the language and the native people of the island. I have gotten caught up in the Tranquilo vibe of this place and only seem to get super excited when there is a another football match on, for I know I will go to a huge party full of Spaniards, shoot fireworks and champagne off the balcony, and watch Javier as he runs around half-naked with a Spanish flag tied around his neck…

I am finding that not only do I enjoy the people and the life here, but that I actually fit in pretty well. I am decent enough at Spanish that I can talk for hours with people in their native tongue, and that I am very easily able to navigate the city. I also have recently ditched my boot and now am walking exclusively in tennis shoes, hopefully merging occasionally into sandals sometime soon. My next goal is to find a gym so I can start getting my legs and left calf back into shape…

At first when I first got here, I was so tired and a little apprehensive because everyone in my group was so different and it seemed that everyone had a significant other back home except me. Since I just recently came from Venice, which is definitely a city for couples, I even saw someone get proposed to there (gag-kill me now), I was not looking foreword to a group of people not wanting to go out and talking about how they missed their boyfriends/girlfriends. However, it turns out I was totally wrong (which sadly, I have to admit is now often the case) and that mostly everyone here is not clingy and still willing to go out. Furthermore my friend Lindsey is totally like me, us taking the place of what would be the asshole guys in the group, haha. So, this so far has not even been close to a problem or a let down, for our group (the ones that came in for session II only) are absolutely awesome and we are already so close. There is a little bit of conflict though between our group and the people that were here for session I and are staying also for session II for they have already been here for a month and formed their group of friends. Both groups are tending to distance themselves from each other; they keep to themselves and there is so much drama and craziness in the dynamics of their group that we are staying away from them as well. When we first got here, we all went out to a club together. The girls from that session were all in Barcelona for the weekend—I think trying to escape from the guys a bit—and the guys were all talking about each other like little drama queens. One girl is and has been hooking up with one of the other guys, but has a long term boyfriend back home who is about to visit in about a week and a half (just reinforces my thoughts that I may never want to date again because it seems that most people aside from me do f*%^#ed up stuff to their partners). And the dynamics of that group just go on and on. Other than that little bit of clashing here and there, I have had an awesome time and marine biology class has been somewhat interesting, mainly because the Spanish teacher—oddly with a British accent—reminds me of a what would be the Bonnie Childs of marine biology. I am also kinda sitting in on a Spanish class that starts right after mine as well, just so I get a little bit more Spanish in my diet. This makes for some pretty intense days because that means that I have class for about 6 hours a day, after which I usually go straight to the beach or some other excursion like visiting cool castles and stuff like that.

Hope all is well back home!! Btw pretty much all of you that I believe read this, I have gotten some pretty sweet souvenirs for. J Still do miss all..

You can call me: The Situation

Sometimes I think my purpose on this world is simply to entertain others. If there is some higher power watching over us, I think he/she/it put here simply for entertainment, for I always seem to get myself into relatively absurd situations which become quite interesting to get myself out of. Though not always am I the protagonist in these situations, but I am at the very least a witness. Maybe I just notice things and/or subconsciously do weird things to entertain myself, I really am not quite sure. But let’s recall some of Nicole’s interesting adventures and thoughts on the matter. Rome was pretty straight foreword. There was the twilight adventure, which was pretty cool. Then I saw a kid get hit by a taxi drive: not just hit, but nailed by a crazy taxi driver making a left hang turn. Which by the way, drivers in Italy are out on a mission to injure/murder tourists, which is odd because at every bar they seem to love Americans… Anyways, there are no speed limits within the city boundaries and no lanes either for that matter. Essentially the roads are free for alls: Vespas racing Vespas, both racing pedestrians. Also people seem to ride Vespas, motorcycles, crotch rockets a little differently here. In the states you will see the machos in leather jackets on the Harleys kinda leaning back, giving the message, “I’m the shit, I’m an American”. Then you have the boys leaning unnecessarily foreword on crotch rockets, often with girls clinging on to them for dear life because there is no backrest for the poor ladies to brace themselves against. Now I must say I am more a fan of the crotch rockets in the states and totally would get one (that I already have picked out) 1) if I had the money that I just spent in Europe, and 2) if there was anyway my parents would allow such a thing but I know my dad would find some way or some bill to make me pay so I could never get such a thing. Ok, but anyways here in Europe there are some crotch rockets, not necessarily as many Honda’s and Yamahas as in the U.S, but more like intense BMWs and really nice ones that you don’t see everyday in Ohio. And if it’s not a nice bike here, it’s usually a pretty pimped out Vespa, my favorite being a bubblegum pink Vespa LX something. And these bikes line every street corner. What is really sweet is that people wear their work uniforms and girls will drive with fancy dresses on and pimped out heals. It would be so badass if they weren’t on Vespas. Now, you wouldn’t think that these things could be such a hazard, especially considering that people drive them sitting unnaturally erect, but they are quite dangerous and can cause serious damage (was a witness) to poor unsuspecting tourists.

Alrite enough ranting about European Vespas. I guess the main entertaining story of Rome happened in the Roman Forum. I honestly couldn’t tell you exactly what the Roman forum was used for other than meeting of the Senate, where the Vestigal virgins lived were, and some miscellaneous temples of some sort. I probably would have learned a bit more if the monuments a.k.a. piles of stones and pillars were actually labeled in accordance with the map I was given, and if plaques on these stones had been in English instead of Latin. All in all, it was a pretty miserable experience, for nothing was easy to find or labeling to be ergonomically friendly (thank you U.S engineers and marketers for making life so easy). The main walkway was a series of boulders to climb over. I guess at one point it was a very nice road where victory processions would be carried out, however, when Napoleon conquered the city, he and is men tore up the road because they thought it was in too good of condition to actually be the real thing…retards. And of course people like to “Preserve history” and so still haven’t redone the damn thing. Eventually I got tired of fiddling with the damn audio guide and slipping and sliding over boulders, so I decided to be a good American and wander and destroy things. So, I went underground into what was part of a long series of Roman aqueducts. At first all seemed well; there were lights and even a billboard with some information about Emperor Nero. The only misgiving I had is that there was not a single other person in sight. Eh I figured this site was just hard to find and so continued down the tunnel. After a few twists and turns, I was in complete darkness, no one else around, with water dripping on me, and no solid ground to walk on. It was then that I figured out I probably was a bit of the beaten path and not exactly in a main tourist zone. But I had no idea how to get back and figured continuing on was just as good an idea as turning back around. So, I prayed that no stones would fall on me, tried not to freak myself out in complete darkness, and continued on. Eventually I tripped over something that I soon discovered to be stairs. I almost kissed them I was so excited, for at that point I knew that up was good and down was very, very bad. As I climbed the stairs, I was able to see more and more of the grossness around me as the stairwell became lighter and lighter. Eventually I came to a small opening that I crawled out of only to end up smack dab in the middle kinda close to what I think was the hut of Romulus. Well, I didn’t rightly want to go back that’s for sure, so I decided to do my part in destroying history and proceeded to climb over pillars and stones dating back to the first century A.D. As I was climbing trying to make my way back to the main pathway, families stopped to stare and take pictures of me. Great, not only was I desecrating tombs and ancient ruins, I was being recorded doing so!! After a bit of trekking I made it back to the main path and realized I was fenced in. Damn it. I only saw one option: to climb the fence (granted it really wasn’t that high but still a bit of challenge for me in my boot and a skirt). But I made it safely over, all the while, being watched, now by multiple families. I brushed myself off, waved to everyone (thought about bowing), and continued on my way.

Then there was Florence…

Florence was undoubtedly amazing, but I do think Rome beats out over Florence despite the better food and more relaxed atmosphere there. My trip to Florence consisted of lots of carbs, lots of art and markets. One infamous market—the San Lorenzo market—proved to be quite the experience. Italy, namely Florence is known for its leather. My purse, almost reaching its final breaking point—literally—needed to be replaced. So we ventured there on this mission. During my purse-searching endeavor, I found this leather jacket that I fancied quite a bit and with it came an overly friendly storeowner, Freddie. The day that I was there was Freddie’s birthday. Freddie and I talked for a while and I ventured into his hut/tent thing to check out some more stuff. As I walked in I saw beer cans lining the table, I mean it was his birthday, who doesn’t drink at work for birthdays…. Leather goods became a thing of the past as Freddie continued hitting on me calling me his beautiful American girl (Fyi people love American girls here, why, I’ not sure I want to know). We left the shop and went out for drinks while Saimah tried on clothes. After numerous drinks, Saimah joined and Freddie covered hers as well. Later, I pestered Freddie about the jacket that I liked so much, which initially cost 395 Euros or something in that range. Eeek, way to steep for a student on a budget. I kept trying to give it to me for free haha but knew that was never going to happen. His response was that if I lived in Italy and was his girlfriend then I could have anything in the store for free haha. So I then asked him if he would get me a bike to go with it. He said he had a horse that he could give me. shakes head. Well, he ended up giving me the jacket for 90, which was totally worth it in my book, especially because when I asked another owner how much she would pay for the jacket, she said 140. Then when Freddie told his co-owner the price, she got pissed, glared at me, said something in Italian, and stormed out of the shop. I later asked him (after he and another gay guy paid for numerous drinks and dinner for Saimah and I) how much he actually paid for the jacket, which was 120, so I think I got a pretty good deal for a pretty badass jacket. Now I just need a bike to go with it ;)

A couple other interesting things happened in Florence, namely hanging out with some Arizona bros with Venti sunglasses. We had fun, were hated in the Ufuzzi museum for making fun of the artwork, which by the way, if you look all the women are pretty jacked up. This is because at the time there were no female models, so painters would use male models and just add female heads. Not only do the paintings have nude manly looking women, but also all the men in the paintings were very feminine. As I walked around and looked at the paintings, lines from “The Hangover” kept popping in my head, such as when I saw a famous painting of a naked child with his hand on his crotch. While everyone else stared and admired this painting for who knows why, all I could think was “Not at the table Carlos”, which ended up with me laughing almost in tears and other Europeans glaring at me.

Not too much happened in Venice. We met up with some other Clevelanders—it is such a small world—trudged through the sinking city, which is really quite beautiful, but really meant for couples, and is actually kinda depressing if you’re single.

Barcelona has been very relaxing. I ventured out to a Salvador Dali tribute museum, which turned out to be a porn museum run by two creepy old men; each painting having the same underage model, no piece actually done by Dali. I quickly left there, saw a cool looking convent that was open and so of course walked in, straight into a Spanish demonstration/rally/riot saying how they hated foreigners in their country. Hmm didn’t really fit in too well there either and so booked it out of there.

City is beautiful and has been a blast otherwise. I definitely think if there is one city I’ve seen so far that I think I could live in—despite the anti-foreigner rally—I think it would be Barcelona.

When in Rome...

As a city, Rome is beautiful, as a land, it is not. The beauty of Rome comes entirely from the people, for what man can create. Around every corner there is some spectacular fountain, building, something from many years past. Everything about the city speaks greatness, blending art and functionality at every turn. Now, many people dislike Rome for they say it is cliché, but no one can argue that it is beautiful, that the ruins are spectacular, and that the wonders of ancient history hold a strong prominence in this city’s current life. For these reasons I found Rome to be the most beautiful and enjoyable city I have stayed in, and upon leaving it has been the first city—out of 10—that I have actually been quite sad to leave. I stayed there for 3 days and 4 nights but would have loved to stay there for weeks, maybe months. The first day was spent becoming oriented with the city while visiting various sites like the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, various piazzas and cathedrals, as well as checking out the shopping scene. The first day, I was blown away by the beauty of the city, the wonderful coffee & wine, and so thankful not to be eating Spanish food and worried about eating Moroccan. The second day, I fell in love J, for this day I spent in Vatican City, exploring the museums, the Sistine chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica.

Vatican City is quite interesting because it is not governed by Italy and essentially is it’s own sovereign nation. It has its own for of government—the hope at the head—its own set of laws, housing, post offices, university, shops, restaurants, form of taxation, hospital, and even its own passport! Vatican city is in no way tied to Italian laws and government. Vatican city’s independence actually came about I believe just before WWII, for Mussolini struck a truce with city, granting it its sovereignty. Another interesting tid bit that came out of this, was that during WWII, Vatican City were able to smuggle Jews out of the country and Mussolini couldn’t do anything about it. Though, on the flip side, they also used their power to smuggle Nazis out of Italy after the war. The city is entirely enclosed by stone walls, with one entrance for business, archways for the Pope’s quick escape if needed, and one entrance guarded by the Swiss for tourists and everyone else. The city only has a population just shy of 400 people, but employs 25,000 people a day!! Obviously not all the workers can live in such a small place, but many live just outside the city’s boundaries.

The second day was hopefully my only splurge day in Europe, which started in Vatican City. Since I was so interested in the history of the city and fearful of being lost in the maze of the Vatican Museum (one of the largest museums on the world) and not making it to the Sistine Chapel or St. Peters, I decided to pay for my first tour. The tour and all my entrance fees totaled 35 Euros—ouch—but was definitely worth it. I was taken through most of the museum—the rest which I later explored on my own—and the Sistine Chapel. I cannot rightly explain how amazing it was to walk through museum and into the Sistine Chapel. In a way I am glad that I was not allowed to take pictures in the chapel for they only could have put the beauty of the artwork to shame. The Sistine chapel is one intense work of art governed more by math than by whimsical creativity. Various artists such as Boticelli Girlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli, Perugino, and of course, the famed Michelangelo Buonarroti, worked to complete the inside of the chapel. Construction of the church first began in 1475 its purpose to be used for papal assemblies as well as to defend the court against possible attackers, such as Muhammad II’s Turks. Today the church is still used by the papal court as the place where the new pope is chosen and inaugurated.

To enter in the cathedral, I had to walk in the former back entrance of the church. Wow was my first reaction. I must have looked quite stupid with my mouth open, staring up at the ceiling, walking backwards to try and look at the pictures right side up—absolutely oblivious to the people around me, but then I looked around and saw that everyone looked just as goofy. The room was so crowded with oblivious smitten observers that it became like a game of human bumper cars: some would survive and some would not… Nah I’m just kidding, but I did see a few falls and a bunch of people backing into each other. Anyways, the rectangular room was set up as follows: across the entire back wall spanned Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment”, on the opposite wall was the front door and some other paintings; in the center on the ceiling was essentially the story of Genesis; in each of the triangles set above the windows and in the corners were the stories of Christ’s ancestors; other spots were other biblical stories; the two longest side walls paralleled the story of Christ’s life with that of Moses. The interesting part here is that the story of Christ’s life was painted along the right side, while the story of Moses was painted on the left. The general consensus is that this choice was made to show that Christ was the true Messiah—the main point of contention between religions. I found the most interesting picture on the sidewalls was the last picture narrating the life of Christ. The image shows the infamous last supper (fyi not Da Vinci’s last supper—this image I believe is in Milan, or at least somewhere else in Italy other than Rome, Florence, and Venice). However, in the background of the supper are 3 windows, each depicting a different ensuring scene: Christ crying for he knows what is to come, Jonas kissing Christ on the cheek, exposing him to officials, and lastly, Christ being crucified. Other than this there was the ceiling—which was of course amazing—and the Last judgment. Look this pic up online, it’s pretty sweet. And the interesting part: the nasty skin-like thing hanging in center of photo is Michelangelo’s depiction of himself.

Easily the Sistine Chapel was the most beautiful work of art I have ever seen, though St. Peter’s Basilica (my next stop) was not very far behind. St. Peter’s Basilica was constructed to honor the saint and currently can hold 20,000 people during mass. I was lucky enough to be there for a little bit of the mass, which was quite the experience in St. Peter’s Basilica!! After spending 4 hours in the Vatican museums, I still managed to go back into the Basilica 3 times: before, in between, and after wandering around the tombs of popes, and climbing 365 f*&%ing stairs with a freaking rope to hold onto just to get into the Basilica’s cupola—view was definitely worth it. Fyi the short story of St. Peter & the Basilica is as follows:

St Peter= 1 of the 12 apostles. Jesus passed the “keys” to him, pretty much transferring leadership to Peter after his death. He took over and was crucified—head down—later under Emperor Nero’s reign. The head down part was chosen by St. Peter because he believed he was not fit to die in the same manner that Christ did. He was buried in 64 A.D. where his Basilica currently stands.

I would have felt bad spending 6 hours exploring Vatican city and leaving Saimah to wait (she saw it all her last trip to Rome) but luckily there was some big twilight thing. As we initially were walking towards the city we saw a huge line that spanned maybe half a kilometer. First we thought the line was for the city but then we decided that really there was no way that hundreds of teenage females were waiting to rush into Vatican City. It turns out they were waiting to see the stars of Twilight who were coming to sign autographs and talk about their upcoming movie. As soon as we figure this out I was psyched because I figured the actual lines to get into the Vatican would be shorter and mmm, they were!! Saimah decided to wait for this, thus allowing me not to feel bad about spending the whole day in the Vatican. I tried to get Saimah to get me the stars’ autographs so I could sell them but she wouldn’t do it. As I’m leaving the Vatican to go find Saimah, I see tons of people crowded around this door underneath a massive Twilight billboard and hear hundreds of girls screaming. I could only assume that Taylor Lautner must have been stripping or something to cause such a riot. So, of course I ran over, hopped onto a statue/light pole-like thing to see some male nudity, but alas, he was fully clothed. I was a little disappointed and hopped down, nailing this girl in the face with my boot. I immediately tried to apologize to the sobbing girl, but realized she hadn’t even noticed that I kicked her head. She was crying because she got a picture of this werewolf actor!! I shook my head and walked away, the sound of screeching girls serenading me for what seemed like miles.

Left: Me being cheesy at the Trevi Fountain. Right: Before dinner Pic.

Left: Dome of St. Peter's Basilica Right: Let's see if anybody can guess what is wrong with this picture...

Left: View of St. Peter's as walking towards the city. Right: Found statue, maybe is a jacked Jesus?? Who knows. But Michelangelo studied this statue to learn how to depict the human form.

Left: Epic Failure: Man tries to save his children from being eaten by snake. Keypoint: tries.
Right: In Vatican courtyard. Peacocks represent eternal life. Pine Cone: no idea

Left: Some metrosexual dude washing himself. Right: Lovely mantel pieces made from pouring hot wax onto dead people's faces. Seemed to be the thing back then.

Standard child casket. There were imported from the Syrians and all fully carved except for the face. Once the child's face was recorded via a hot wax mold, the mold was used to carve the child's face into the figure.

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Imagine if this were filled with Tequila at a party...

This room was built around this ancient Roman bath once it was found.

Top: Me after I kissed the stone foot of St. Peter's statue. Is it sad I wanted and seriously thought about purelling the foot beforehand??

Bottom: Michelangelo's Pieta: Mary holding the body of Christ.

Top: St. Peter's Basilica. Bottom: Rafael's Transfiguration.

Top: Ceiling in room of Maps. Right: Statue of St. Helen in St. Peter's Basilica

View of Rome from the dome in St. Peter's Basilica

Hopefully more to come bout Rome, Florence, & Venice! Am currently in Barcelona :)

Blah

Though Rome is absolutely beautiful and the food is a hell of a lot better than Spain, I am starting to get very homesick and want to go home. :(

I am glad that I am traveling, but am definitely ready to settle down for a little bit or at least stay put in one spot. Be home in a lil over a month.

Miss y'all.

Marrakech

Though Morocco has been a bit of a clusterfuck so far with little to no planning, no tours, and no pre-booked hostels, I think Saimah and I did fair a bit better once we got to Marrakech. We actually did pre-book a hostel this time: Bab Joukala or something like that. It seemed to be in a pretty sketchy part of town, but that may have also just been what the entire city was like, and it took a few twists and turns to get there. Our landmark telling us which street to turn on became a huge dirt pile at the end of the street that two golden stray dogs tended to frequent. So after a seven and a half hour train ride with no air conditioning and cramped compartments, I was just praying for the hostel to actually be nice and have bathrooms with soap and toilet paper. Once we reached our hostel, we had to wait outside for a while until one of the guests came to let us in because there was no one else to let us in: seems promising. In reality though, this place was awesome for once the owners did finally arrive (one guy was actually the owner from a different hostel but used to work at this one) they were so cool and treated us like family. They gave us cups and cups of mint tea the first night, maps, told us where to go, what to see, how much to pay for everything. Saimah and I finally had our own room with our own clean bathroom that was fully equipped with a shower, toilet, toilet paper, and even two bars of soap! After settling in we went out to the open air living room and smoked “sisha” a.k.a. hookah with one of the hotel managers then ventured out to the infamous Jaam el fdna square. Ahhh so crazy. This square was probably the largest I have ever seen with numerous fruit stands and an abundance of outdoor food stands that serve relatively the same food for the same price. In front of each place people will also grab you, shove menus in your face and harass you until you are at least 4 or 5 stands away and even then sometimes they will still follow you until you start screaming at them. I seemed to have a bit of an easier time than Saimah, I think 1) because I am a white girl, and 2) because I just never made eye contact, never responded to guy’s pleas, and would just bolt so fast if people started talking to me. I also found it highly entertaining and eventually just started joking with the guys, saying “You give very good price for pretty lady?” and “Five star?”, “Air Conditioning”. These were phrases that continually were used to try and get us to buy things to the point where I think the guys must have all been trained at the same school of harassment or some equivalent.

After a hellish time at the square but a somewhat decent meal we headed back to the hostel to smoke some more sisha. The next morning—our only full day in Marrakech—we took a tour with the owner of the hostel, Hammid. Though it was overpriced, we still had an awesome time. Hammid drove Saimah and I out of the city and too some Berber house, showed us how people bake their bread, cook their food, churn their own butter, make their mint tea. We saw the cows that slept in the same house, had a delicious breakfast with the best butter and honey I’ve ever tasted. Then we drove a little ways further, road some camels into the beautiful Atlas mountains. Though really we road the camels for like half a mile, which kinda sucked. The most enjoyable and worthwhile part of the journey was our quest into the mountains up to a waterfall. I probably shouldn’t have gone on this trip that involved somewhat intense adventure portions, for it was impossible to wear my boot in these situations. So, I went from wearing my boot one day to climbing a stone-faced mountain the next. I was a little nervous and cautious at first, but once we started climbing all the rocks, the albino monkey portion of me came out and I started quickly scaling the mountain, jumping from rock to rock. I think I almost gave Saimah a heart attack a few times when I decided to just slide down 10 foot rocks. Luckily everything turned out fine with no more breaks, maybe only a bruise or two by the time we reached the waterfall. I wanted to go swimming in the freezing pool, and even brought my suit, but no one else was, so I decided maybe this was not the place to swim and risk hypothermia. Instead I just rolled up my pants, took off my shoes, and waded for a while, getting as close as I could to the falls, without wiping out on the mossy rock floor. Hommid’s job was to take pictures of us, which he did for a while, but then got bored because when I looked at my camera there were a bunch of pictures of this stone camel that we got posed on the rocks to look like it was smoking real cigarettes. Love Hammid. On our way down we five fingered discounted a cereal bar, which Hammid took and ran down the mountain with, while I held up and possible pursuers, hobbling as slow as possible behind. We stopped to have a laugh, got in the car/dance club with crappy American pop music and ventured to an awesome Moroccan restaurant with couches and copious amounts of amazing food. After being thoroughly broke by the time we got back, we saw the “some Moroccan word” tombs, which sucked, called it a day and headed back for some more sisha. After smoking sisha to the point of absolute vertigo, we decided to take a break and then come back with some wine. Saimah was trying to save this bottle of wine that she bought from Granada for her boyfriend. Well, let’s just say it didn’t quite make it there. Our reasoning was that wine needed to be kept at relatively 14 °C for it to be any good. Morocco was quite hot and Italy would probably be even worse. We just couldn’t sit there and let good wine go bad. It would have been a crime against nature, sinful to disrespect the hard-working people/machines that made and bottled it, and right about then sounded pretty delicious. And oh it sure was. I kinda I wish I would have gotten a bottle for my dad, but I know that I inevitably would have ended up drinking it for the same reasons, and maybe tacking on so I wouldn’t have to carry it around as well. Wonderful night, wonderful day and now am headed to the beautiful city of Rome!!! Then Florence, Venice, Barcelona, and finally in 10 days time I will arrive in Palma, where I will stay until I leave to go home on the 21^st of July.

Alas I am done and will spend the rest of my flight watching the sunset over a snowy blanket of clouds.

Fez

The next day we traveled to Fez. After a nice fruit juice mix for breakfast (most juices here and in Europe are freshly squeezed with juicers and are amazing), we headed towards the “bus station”. The bus station was really not a station, but rather a gravel parking lot where a few buses were stopped. Once the bus to Fes arrived, we were ushered in Arabic to run down to the end of the street with all of our luggage to catch our bus. Then for the next six, yes six, hours we road this cramped, hot bus with no air condition, though thankfully there were only people on the bus and not any type of live stock. In addition to the heat, the lovely smell of shit and weird cleaning supplies constantly bombarded my sense of smell, while crappy Arab music played from peoples’ cell phones added a nice cacophonous symphony to our journey. This bus was not exactly like the charter buses seen in Europe or the U.S. The open hatch in the roof served as our air conditioning. The bus driver would get off a couple times to have meal and tea breaks because he wouldn’t come back for twenty minutes or so. This creepy guy with black teeth who would check tickets frequently hit me on. My knees were scrunched against the seat in front of me and there was definitely no bathroom. On a side note, the bathrooms in Europe are terrible and the ones here absolute dreadful. The fad in Europe just seems to be little to no toilet paper at bars, but here there is never toilet paper and usually no toilet seats. I guess in Arab countries people don’t really use toilet paper; they use a bucket of water to clean themselves instead. I have not ventured to do this yes, especially typhoid is a common concern here, but usually spend quite a lot of time asking around for it and now carry a thin cinnamon scented one that I found at the hostel in my purse. They also rarely have soap in any of the bathrooms—no wonder typhoid is a problem.
Other than the buses, bathrooms, and hassling my other new experiences in my first visit to a 3rd world country have been with horses, donkeys, shit all over the streets, the constant smell of BO in every public place mixed and with food venders. Though tourists are strongly cautioned against eating food from street vendors, fruit without thick skins, and drinking the water, I quickly abandoned these rules and have done all of the above. So far I have been fine cross the fingers here but the food is so cheap and the fruit—especially the cherries—looks so good, even when it is next to hanging horse heads and vendors beheading chickens and I sometimes get so thirsty and don’t want to brush my teeth only with bottled water.
As for the two cities I’ve seen so far, Chef town was beautiful and a bit more relaxing than Fez. It’s either Fes or Marrakech that is the 3rd largest city (tour guides claim that each is the 3rd largest). Fes was incredibly crowded, Saimah and I getting lost and stuck in the main street vendor portion of the city, although we did manage to make it over to the tanneries. Though this is supposed to be pretty interesting to see, it was not worth the smell. Because of the extreme acidity of pigeon poop, it is one of the main components in a lot of the dyes and leather treatments. In addition to this reeking smell, the surrounding streets are surrounded with competing amounts of horse and donkey poo poo. A guy gave us some mint to help with the smell, but of course with my luck, my sprig if mint also smelled like shit. Eventually Saimah gave me some of hers and that was quite nice for a few. We walked around for a while, kept getting harassed until I came up with the brilliant idea to only speak Russian to the vendors! Thanks Vlad and Christy! I figured that I could quite easily pull of German. Russian, not so much, but maybe could be mistaken at German. Given that I didn’t know any German, I decided Russian was just going to have to do. It generally worked for all I received were a few confused looks and a couple scratching of the heads, but no future pestering. My next challenge after conquering street vendor harassment was to avoid getting horse poop on my boot—cuz that would be too disgusting—and to avoid donkeys and horses in the streets. I did get stepped on my one donkey as I pushed myself up against the side of a mosque trying to avoid collision with this heavily loaded animal. Well, guess I wasn’t quite thin enough, because the donkey ran right into me and stomped on my foot. Luckily the donkey stepped on my bad foot, because it was so tightly bound in this metal-reinforced boot that I barely felt anything. Thank God I possess the tank of the orthopedic world. The donkey herder—not really sure what to call him—did what I think must have been profusely apologizing, but since I couldn’t understand what he was saying, I didn’t really know. This was one time that I wish I could have just hopped into the mosque to avoid harms way, but because I am not Muslim, I am not allowed in any mosques. Saimah can go in but I can’t, but that’s alrite because I get the experience of waiting by where everyone takes off their shoes and almost getting run over by donkeys.
This trip always manages to be an adventure.
I am now on my way to my third Moroccan city, Marrakech. On Tuesday, I will leave this place and fly to Rome, staying there until Saturday at which point we will travel to Florence and then Venice. Though I am enjoying seeing all these places and different ways of life, I am excited for when I can settle down in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, for a little bit. Before heading to Mallorca and after leaving Venice, I’m going to hit Barcelona for a few days and then hopefully fly into Palma on the 25th and stay there until I head to Madrid to fly home.
I am also beginning to miss my family and friends back home more and more and am realizing just how good I have it back in the states. Though there are some things such as the corporate America feel that has now tainted the once beautiful grounds of my home town, my friends are all there and the food, especially my cooking, is of a hell of a lot better than most of the food I’ve had over here. I wonder a lot what everyone else is doing back home, how everyone’s summer is going, and if I cross anyone’s thoughts at all because I know that I sure do think about everyone else back home quite a bit. I wish I could e-mail and skype more, but my internet connection, if any, is usually quite poor and given the rapid place of city hopping, my only free time to write these entries is as I travel around on planes, buses, and trains. I knew I would have a bit of a hard time, which I am sure is just exacerbated by the culture shock of Morocco, but am thinking that I am quite glad that I didn’t decide to study abroad for an entire semester. A few months away I can tolerate, but more than that I’m not sure how well I’d handle.
Miss you all and hope that anyone who reads this is having a wonderful summer! :)

Chefchaouen: The Blue City

Today I wholeheartedly can say that I was questing (Bob I hope you’re reading this). This was day one in Morocco and a big day of traveling for me. Saimah and I went from Cadiz—where we had stayed the previous day—to Tarifa on the Southern tip of Spain. We walked through Tarifa and then hopped on a ferry to Tangier Morocco. Morocco is an entirely different world than anything I have previously experienced. We get off the boat, only to be harassed by people with very few teeth who grab your bag, run up the stairs with it, and then demand money from you. After making it past this hurtle, a guy waiting by the information desk decided to help us orient to the city. We were trying to skip Tangier and take a bus to Chefchaouen because we heard Tangier was just awful for tourists-people just prayed on tourists and that all in all, it was just cheesy. Well, the last bust to Chechaouen (will now be referred to as Chef town) left at noon. It was now 12:45. I also quickly learned that Friday is the holy day—the Sabbath—in Islam, kinda like our Sunday. It’s called the Jummah. Everything shuts down around 1 or 2 for prayer and doesn’t start up again until 3 or 4. Essentially, it is the equivalent of Spain’s siesta, except they actually do something during this time. This put a little bit of a damper on our plans, but we managed to get a taxi driver to drive us all the way from Tangier to Chef city, which was a 1 hour and 45 minute drive. The trip was kinda pricey, but I think worth it, for it was “safe” and quick. The safe part came from not hassling around in multiple cities with little Arabic knowledge, but the car not so much, though it was entertaining. This guy’s taxi car was a really old, maybe ’75 Mercedes. So you knew that it was at least going to run well and make it to wherever you were going, but nothing above that. There were no working seatbelts and only one handle that we shared to roll down the windows in the back. I didn’t care, and just laughed as Saimah and I passed the handle back and forth, rolling up and down the windows, and leaning out taking pictures.
I tried my hardest to stay awake for the drive because the countryside was absolutely beautiful with farms, rolling hills, and green everywhere, but eventually the steady movement of the car lulled me to sleep. I woke up to Saimah patting my arm. I guess my had was just kinda hanging over to one side and she thought I might hurt my neck and so woke me, but we were close enough to the city so I forced myself to keep my eyes open the rest of the way.
We arrived in the city, paid the overpriced cab fee and turned around to face our nearly toothless tour man. He claimed that he was an “official” tour guide, flashing us his government badge and spitting at us through his two teeth. He seemed nice enough and showed us to our hostel. We told him that we’d meet him later for a tour, but decided to call it a day with nearly toothless Nick and ended up going out to dinner instead. Oops, oh well. The dinner that we had definitely placed in my top five meals of Europe so far, for it wasn’t Spanish food and that’s really all I cared about. Initially, I was quite excited for the food in Spain because everyone said it had some of the best food in the world. This may be true if you like fried food, smoked fish on bread with olive oil, and pork. I don’t really like pork or smoked fish/raw fish except in sushi, and definitely do not do well with massive around of fried foods. Though I haven’t had much native Moroccan food yet—mainly fruit from street venders and bread—it does look and smell good, which seems promising.
After dinner we wandered around the city. I got harassed quite a bit, but I knew that was going to happened right from the start, especially since summer has turned my hair into a sandy blonde color. On our way to our hostel, some guy started hitting on me in Arabic. I’m pretty sure he was asking to sleep with me based on hand gestures, but am not entirely sure. These types of mutterings continued all night in Chef town and all through the next day in Fes, which made me quite thankful that I didn’t understand a lick of Arabic. Here I am finding that Ignorance definitely is bliss. I also incurred quite a few glares from the local men and women. The lady who cleaned our hostel would stop and glare at me every time I passed, despite me speaking formalities in Arabic to her. She would also mutter insults and I think once spat at me. Such a charming little lady.
Though I don’t think I was spat on any other time, I definitely was the prime target in “souika” areas, which are essentially huge bazaars where 100’s maybe 1000’s of vendors prey on tourists. Each vendor usually sells one specific type of good such as fabric, rugs, shoes, tons of leather goods, jewelry, hookah stuff, herbs, spices, pretty much everything. Shopping here is a very different experience than shopping in the states. People here are extremely abrasive. They will call out at you, get right in your face, and sometimes grab you and pull you into their shop. For a while I didn’t mind; it was a new experience and I figured it was a good time to get some souvenirs for people. In Morocco, there is also very rarely a “fixed” price like in the U.S., and if there is a fixed price, there will be a sign that says so. Rather, items should be bargained for, it’s the Berber way. It is even expected and vendors get disappointed if you don’t bargain, it’s like a small game. And although this is terrible, I wanted to and actually did start buying some cheap stuff just so I’d get to barter with the vendors; it was so much fun for a while after the I made it past the initial stress of the situation. After successfully purchasing gifts for most of my family and friends, and I began the search for a scarf to wrap around my head. Although I started to become somewhat immune to all the unwanted attention and stares from people, I decided it might be kinda nice to try and ward off this attention a little bit more. I settled on a nice blue scarf that of course matched most of my clothing and the city itself as well. Even though I was still obviously not Moroccan—Saimah fit that mold a little better than me—I did seem to get a little less attention and a few people even said it looked nice on me. The scarf wearing didn’t last too long though because temperatures began to creep up to significantly uncomfortable levels, making scarf wearing and unbearable option.
The city itself though was absolutely beautiful. There colors of a wide range of blues and turquoise were painted all over the city. After filling our cameras of pictures of the buildings, Saimah and I realized that all of our pictures were of pretty blue doors or of us standing in front of pretty blue doors. Later I learned that the blue and represented the Jewish hold on the city for at one point the city had a significantly large Jewish population. The blue and white maybe come from the Israeli flag, though I think the city was painted this way before the flag existed, so I’m not entirely sure. The city was also called the “holy city” for a period of time for it served as a stronghold against the growing Almohad army at one point I believe. Maybe?? Despite numerous encounters with goats roaming the streets and the smell of shit everywhere, I did still find the city quite beautiful.