MAN. PHEW.

word up from brussels. have to say, I've enjoyed belgium so far, brussels seems like a town with a ton of cool less touristy things to do, club and music and art-wise, although the keyboards here are crazy and ridiculous, being as such basic things as the 'q' and 'a' are switched, and then all the punctuation keys make different characters than they are labeled as. finding a dash or slash is a treasure hunt worthy of a michael bay script. i look like borat trying to type on this thing. Other than that though, belgian has been great, nice people, cheap and delicious sandwiches, only i wish it wasn't so goddamn fucking cold here - it was 0 degrees (celsius, duh) when I got here, and the psychological impact of seeing '0' on the big digital thermometer just makes you FEEL colder. Also, i think this weekend has been a physical manifestation of my need to buy some warm soft gloves and a scarf. something to do when i get back tomorrow. Anyways, ilovetechno was a blast, all though the entire process of before the show was something of a ridiculous situation, which i will relate tomorrow probably, as i'm pretty exhausted right now. time to sleep, glad to have survived the weekend, just got to wake up at 6:30 tomorrow to get to my flight and get home, go to class, and study for my test on tuesday. as i said, PHEW.

damn

all i have to say about amsterdam is get your damn dutch hands off my wallet (metaphorically, it was just expensive, i didn't get mugged or anything). oh, and cali weed is better, even if you can't look at a menu. pretty canals though, and van gogh was a pretty rad dude.

oktoberfest

was a little too long ago for me to be motivated right now to write a full account, but suffice to say it was some of the best beer i've ever had. personal favorite (and probably for good reason, as we were lead to it by several massive german dudes we met at the campsite) was Pschorr. Paulsen was the worst. Hofbrau tent was amazingly fun. I saw roxanne raffiepour, who I went to elementary school with. Slept in a much smaller tent. Got rained on. Pilfered a stein. Ate much delicious roast chicken/pretzels/bratwurst/chicken wings - how come no one ever told me german food was so damn savory? got very, very drunk. hung out with kyle's friend from highschool who goes to UCSC and his buddies from study abroad in budapest. some hilariously rotund chick drank a large amount of a stein filled with urine (not mine). so many italians - who, by the way, blow america out of the water for 'drunk loudness' quotient. The bizarre cross-cultural shock upon hearing all of said italians using the bass-line from "seven nation army" as their drinking song. seriously, hundreds of italians hoisting steins and belting out 'DUNNNN, DUNN DUNNN, DUNN DUNNN, DUNNNNN...DUNNNNN' apparently italy coopted this song at the last world cup. strange, i wonder if jack white should be collecting beer-soaked royalties. running into maggie's roomate (hi ashley) from SB at the campsite, along with a guy who lived a floor below me in the dorms. trying to beat my grandfather's supposed record of 10 steins in a day. Getting to 8, losing any semblance of reason or restraint. Wondering next morning if my opa was kidding, or if they just taught them how to drink beer better back in the day. Waking up at 8 pm in front of our locker at the campsite. Losing my sweatpants. Etc, etc.

yep

still craving: mexican food, chinese food, thai food, any semblance of spice (although i did get my senora to start buying tabasco somehow), california weed (sorry mom and dad, but i'm not smoking anything here...and don't feel any better for it, strangely enough), the UCSB gym (my gym here is tiny, and smells like large spanish men), all my dudes in AEPi, all my dudes outside the frat, all my dudes from back in the day, all the girls in santa barabara i know, all the girls in SB i don't know (yet), diversity, american movies, my family, my house on sabado, my BBQ (well, my 1/4 timeshare of a bbq), my front yard, the shitty lawn chairs, the ocean, combinations of all of the above, watching american sports (a satisfied sports fan highlights do not make), riding my longboard (to class, to the store, to work, down a parking garage), playing guitar, playing videogames, trying to play drums, int'l relations classes (relevant to my interests, what a concept!), the dog, and a million other things. oh yeah AMERICAN MUSIC. and PARTIES.

addendum: dryers w/lint catchers.

down with: my senora's dinners, now that I have tabasco (fried eggs are a fantastic addition to all dinners I have learned), going out to clubs when i get on the list and get a free drink (too damn rich for my tastes usually), chillin at a cafe or bar, the style of the spanish ladies, the atmosphere for real madrid games (ELECTRIC), being able to take a 2 hour flight to amsterdam, or brussels, or paris, or munich, some of the people here (americans, english, or otherwise), taking the metro everywhere, walking home from the club at 4:30...and feeling perfectly safe, the big ass park with boats, watching football with expats in Dubliners, eating Doner Kebab (actually shawerma, not kebab, but tasty, and the only easy ethnic meal here), skyping from internet cafe's, the sandwich place right off campus (kyle got a sandwich named for him, so i'm in full warroom mode right now to think of the ultimate sandwich to answer with), the bands coming to madrid in november, the Cave Bar.

not chill: the cigarette smoking, esp. if you're trying not to smoke (something spaniards don't really comprehend), and esp. if you're wearing contacts to the club, instant glue-eyes. the racism which noone here thinks is racism because they've never actually hung out with a black guy, or mexican guy, or asian guy. the fucking drivers, even though i don't have a car. vicarious heart attacks from those fuckers. the bus, and drivers, and passengers with BO. oh yeah, the overall lack of deodorant usage. missing my parents phone calls. a lot of the people here. the music at the clubs. the attitudes of the spanish ladies. the homework. how exhausting traveling gets. not feeling any better at spanish. sub 50 degree temps (new york should be interesting), and my senoras horrific smelling shits in our one bathroom.

man

so it's been over a month since i've updated this thing, plenty of stuff to ramble about though, and this is probably a better place to aimlessly meander through my memory than bars and the disinterested listenings of the people around me. anyways, tonight is theoretically halloween - although it's not really a holiday at all here, but they do have all saint's day, and because of the amount of american college students OF COURSE clubs are having halloween parties. guess i'll go out since i don't have class tomorrow and it'd feel like a waste to just stay at home and sit on my ass. i will be dressing up, but nothing as ridiculously fun as i would plan for SB. instead, a slightly more sardonic/sarcastic (god, my english skills are seriously declining here, it's like my brain's language center can't decide if it wants to think in spanish or english so it just sits on the spiky, confusing fence between the two) idea for a costume - Kyle from UCI and I are dressing as spaniards. if i had planned ahead better i could have saved my long hair and gotten it cut into a retarded mullet for the night, but i will just have to give myself a fohawk with hairgel. Will be wearing a (borrowed) jean jacket, my euro pants that i bought at h&m (in the states though), my fancy shoes, and the brightest of my shirts (pink or yellow? yellow or pink?) along with a bugs-bunny-wolf-guy look (also see: blue steel) on my face whenever any female walks by. I will also be harboring anti-immigration, and mildly racists sentiments to complete the spanish translation. oh, and I will say 'vale' (means 'ok' and a million other things) every other vale word vale. vale vale. I wonder if they have fake facial piercings, because that would top it off.

going a little crazy

sitting around in my homestay reading gravity´s rainbow all day... i need to get out more. musuem-wise i´ve only hit up the reína sofía so far... it was excellent, saw guernica, pretty mind-blowing to stand a few feet from it, same with some of the dali´s. so far the language adjustment is still really hard - i´m trying to hang out with less american kids, but since regular classes don´t even start here at carlos III till oct. 1, i´m not entirely sure how to make spanish friends... have met a very nice group of about 8 or 9 english kids studying / interning here in madrid, met them at the concert i went to on the 14th (which was amazing), and they are somewhat incomprehensible as well... bocadillo time (i´m thinking chorizo, lamb, tomato, onion, lettuce today... maybe lamb and ham... like the rhyme scheme there). hasta luego

miscellaneous

so, just chilling on campus after my first class - spanish and EU law. seems semi-interesting, although understanding the profesora can be an adventure. right now i´m in the computer lab to save laptop battery power, using the extremely confusing spanish keyboards (also, this space bar requires like 50 lbs. of force. i´m getting quite a thumb workout). been a full week since i´ve been able to get off a good post, lots to talk about. Firstly, so I´m all moved in with my host-senora - it´s an apartment on the 6th floor of a building in little plaza, medium sized, although with many rooms, as there are 1. myself, 2. josefa (the senora) 3. Jesus (1 of her 3 sons - one of the others lives in madrid, the third in portugal), 3a. Mrs. Jesus, 3b. Laura (24 yr. old daughter of Jesus) and 3c. 13 yr old son of jesus who won´t talk to me beyond ´si´o ´no´. In addition, other relatives are always stopping by, and Laura´s boyfriend, Fernando, is over more often than not - a few times already i´ve come home at 5 or 6 am find him sneaking out. I like the encounters - a brief ´hola, que tal´and the assurance that i´m not the only person creeping around while Josefa sleeps. However, Josefa is very nice, and having had so many kids is very used to sleeping through semi-drunken 5am entries. By far the best things about the place are the location ( http://tinyurl.com/24pu3u ) which is a 7 minute walk from the main train station where the commuter train i ride to school departs from, 2 metro stops (about a 25-30 minute walk) from the plaza del sol, home of many landmarks, bars, clubs, shops, etc., and just in general i´m close to everything. Also, I have a room with enough space to walk around my (fortunately a full) bed, a little desk, little closet, and big ass windows that open up onto a balcony overlooking the alley behind the street through which i get many nice breezes. Oh yeah, and weekly laundry service is amazing. The worst things about the homestay are pretty much just the general restrictions of moving back into a household run by someone else - having to be home at a certain time for meals, being asked when/where i´m going out, not being able to walk around all day in my boxers on sundays etc....... and finally, the fact that i´m undergoing Gavage ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foie_gras ) every day at 2 and 9 pm. Every day I have the same discussion with Josefa: D -¨"Me encanta su comida, Josefa, pero no puedo comer todo! mi estomago no es tanto grande!" J - "es bueno, pero el estudiante que estaba aqui antes de tu siempre comio mucho". Well....okay, but 1. I am a different person...i get the vibe from many spaniards that if you´ve met one american you´ve met them all, which is extra funny since, as a whole, the american populace is VASTLY more diverse than that of Spain. seriously, everyone here looks the same, and stares at any black person like they´re from mars or something. also 2. was the student before me augustus gloop? what the fuck, you made me eat (well, more my sense of guilt made me) 10 giant pork meatballs, with bread, and potatoes (and constant asking if I wanted more) for lunch, so for dinner it´s something lighter right, something like.... 2 giant fucking hamburgers! which were a dirty trick - not actual burgers, but some gnarly mix of ground pork and chicken.... yeesh. I wish she´d just give me easy, cheap spanish food - bread, jamon and tortilla are excellent. anyways, lots more to ramble about, but my buddy kyle from UCI is out of class in 2 minutes and we´re walking off campus to this awesome little bocadillo place for cheap (< 2 €) and gigantic sandwiches. now if only this country would discover hot sauce....