toy story - 2 person slinky dog costume
Monday, November 8, 2010
Friday, December 21, 2007
New Photo Links
*Around the Town photos
*Ciutadella and Porto Olimpico photos
*Cavalcada de Nadal photos (christmas parade)
*Palau de la Musica Catalana photos
pretty much all purse-snuck..no photos allowed!
*Sagrada familia photos
*Navidad things photos
Funny Christmas Traditions:
Cagatio:
Explained, From a website:
"Spaniards don’t typically give gifts on Christmas day, that is reserved for the Three Kings Day (Los Reyes Magicos) on January 5th. Instead Catalans have a very strange tradition called the CagaTio. Literally meaning (politely written) pooplog, the cagatio is a log that is dressed up to look like Santa Clause, with a face drawn on it and everything. Before christmas you are supposed to feed the log Turron (chocolate nougat) and place a blanket over its backside. On christmas day all the children gather around the log and take turns beating it with a stick while singing a song. It goes something like… Cagatio, tio de nadal, no cagas arangadas, que son saladas, caga turrons, que son mes bones… (pooplog pooplog, pooplog of christmas, dont poop dried sardines, they taste really bad, poop out turrons, which we like much better). After everyone has had turns beating the log, the blanket is removed from the backside of the cagatio and small presents are revealed. Its supposed to be magic for the little kids. Isnt that the wierdest tradition you have ever heard?!"
Caganer:
The caganer- In Catalonia, as well as in the rest of Spain and in most of Italy and Southern France, the traditional Christmas decoration is a large model of the city of Bethlehem, similar to the Nativity of the English-speaking world, but encompassing the entire city rather than just the typical manger scene. The Catalans have added an extra character that is not found in the manger scenes of any other culture. In addition to Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the Shepherds and company, Catalans have the character known as the Caganer. This extra little character is often tucked away in some corner of the model, typically nowhere near the manger scene, where he is not easily noticed. There is a good reason for his obscure position in the display, for "caganer" translates from Catalan to English as "pooper", and that is exactly what this little statue is doing — defecating.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Italia y Otras cosas
ITALIA
I’ll start at the beginning. We had a Ryanair flight around
In the morning we were woken up by the vocal stylings of R Kelly and people chatting over breakfast. A friendly Australian let us know that the Pope would be coming out that day, so we made our way to the
Other things we saw include: Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, Palazzo Chigi, Trevi Fountain, the Colliseum, Arco de Tito, Palatino,
Italian food is magnífico. Much better than Spanish food. Well..most food is better than Spanish food. Although I do admit, there was a Doner Kebap across the street, and we did hit that up. To give you an idea: giant fresh sandwiches stuffed full with all sorts of veggies, a similar vegetable pizza, gnocchi with mushrooms, 4 cheese macaroni, risotto with seafood, wine, homemade feast of bread-cheese-salami-proscuitto-spicy oil, etc etc.
The second city(but literally 4th) city we went to was
Back to the bus ticket scamming. As we were on the (what we didn’t realize at the time was the wrong direction) bus, we came to a stop and noticed a bunch of police officers(uhh, public transport officers?) standing around. When one popped his head in and asked for a ticket that we didn’t have, they made us get off and started questioning us. We played dumb. Billete? What? We just got here… (5 days ago..) Anyway they didn’t speak much English or Spanish, but got the point across that “Now you must pay the penalty. 35 euro each.” We probably only collectively had about 10 euro, so, that wasn’t happening. After frantically looking around at each other and playing the ‘dumb american’ card (as I tried not to laugh the whole time), they let us go with only having to buy bus tickets. Heh. Lexi was escorted to the closest Il Giorno stand and bought some. 1 euro each. I think it helped that we were going in the wrong direction. Yessss.
If you ever go to
Otras Cosas...
I just walked to the library, and on the way I noticed a sign in the window with a picture of a phone and a ham, one was free, but I didn’t look close enough to see which. It was in the ham store though..so..I don’t know. Free phone? Free ham? They love their ham here.
Speaking of phones.. I briefly got to play with a HTC Touch. Hot.
I finally bought a coat. Good choice. Coats are swell, when it’s cold. Popsicles are for the summertime.
I read the Fountainhead. Loved it. I just checked out 3 random classics for the
My new battery arrived, which is how I am enjoying my laptop in its literal sense of the word. On my lap. Sin enchufar. Looks like it will last about 2 and a half hours. However it still makes weird noises on battery power. Oh well.
Off to Paris! Bon voyage! Le garçon est sur la table!Sunday, October 28, 2007
*Parque Guell (part 2, better)Photos
*Panorama Video
Various
*Water Exhibit and Torre Acbar photos
Afterward, we wandered around La Ribera and stuff for a while, stumbled upon an art fair type thing, and also a ton of old people in a plaza doing a traditional dance. We don't know what it's called though. We also found a bagel place. YAY!
*Wandering Photos
*Old people video
Friday, October 26, 2007
*Casa Mila Photos
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Updates:
- Going to Italy on Tuesday. WOO!!
- Going to be broke soon. WOO!!
- Lexi and I got haircuts and a boniato yesterday. Boniatos are yams. Haircuts.. you're on your own.
- We did this intercambio program with students from a tourism school on monday. It was slightly awkward, they outnumbered us like 4 to 1.. so we got together in groups of 3-4 spaniards with 1 american. And chatted. About.. fast food, and how Americans only eat hamburgers. That's what europeans think anyway. However we did meet some cool people, and we're planning to all get together this weekend. Should be fun.
- I have some pictures from the Casa Milá and from Park Guell, but I haven't gotten the chance to upload them yet. However, I did finally buy a new laptop battery, which means in 10-15 days I will be able to steal internet more frequently and easily.
- I found a spot near our house with decently strong enough wifi to make calls.. so I am trying to slowly make the rounds of friend llamadas without looking like an idiot by standing in front of a bank on the phone for too long. Meh.
- That's about it for now.. Hopefully I will have pictures up sometime this weekend. And I'm sure I'll take 1000 in Italy... Ciao!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
about two things
Dia de la Hispanidad was Friday. Lexi and Jonathan and I wanted to go shopping but everything was closed. So we wandered around, ended up going from Universitat to Barceloneta(which is pretty far..) and saw some cool stuff. And accidentally went to a wedding. Oops!!
*Walking around photos
second-
Lexi and I had another slightly unsuccessful trip, to la Sagrada Familia. It was closed. But still amazing. So we took pics on the outside. It was started in 1882 and is supposed to be done in 2026. That wiki page has a picture of the model of it completed..crazy.
Then we went to Hospital Sant Pau, part of the Barcelona modernism route. It's like a little village with colored roof tiles and mosaics on the walls and all kinds of coolness. We both want to get sick or injured so we can go there. Knock on wood. Anyway, my camera battery died that day so I went back today for pics. Here are both!
*La Sagrada Familia and Hospital Sant Pau photos
Monday, October 8, 2007
Secondly, we bought tickets to Paris for €.02. That's right. One centimo each way. After taxes and such.. it was like €35. But still.
Thirdly, we finally went to the beach this weekend. It was nice. But crowded. And people go around yelling "aguacocacolacervezabeer?!" or just "beercervezabeer!" or any combination of beverage words. And little ladies come around and go "Hola, massage!" or "Masaje!" or "Massagee?! 5 euro! Very nice!" It's funny. And awkward.
Fourthly(edit), aaaaand I'm locked out on the balcony. HA!!!!
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Various
- I was eating a pudding and Luisa came up and dipped a cookie in it for me and stuck it in my face.
- I just helped her with Excel again, and with making folders. She is amazed.
- Beach tomorrow.
- Trying to organize a trip the week people are going to Morocco. I'm thinking Munich->Zurich->Milan, or Vienna->Zagreb->(Trieste?). I also want to go to Helsinki. Paris.. Rome... pshh, Those can wait. Greece probably won't happen yet because it's hella expensive.
- Spanish people are not good walkers, in general. Well, old spanish people. Like the ones who stop and eat ice cream in the middle of the sidewalk.
- Gelato is everywhere.. I'm not going to be able to go back to regular old ice cream.
- Luisa just unplugged my computer. Hasta luego!
Vall de Boi
*Vall de Boi Photos
Mercat de la Boqueria and Rambla del Mar
Aka Mercado for us non-Catalans.Lexi and I went a few days ago after an unsuccessful trip to el Palau Guell. Anyway- This is a huge outdoor market off La Rambla, with all kinds of fruit, vegetables, eggs(I know..), candy, fishs, ummm..lentils...figs...whatever. You'll see. It's very colorful and reminds me a little of the Farmer's Market in LA, only, with no restaurants, and lots of raw fish, so, I guess it doesn't remind me of the farmer's market at all. Nevermind.
*Photos del Mercado and YES they have chocolate hedgehogs. aww. mitch.
*Yes, Some were alive. Creepy. (video)
Rambla Del Mar
Naner told me about this before going. It's huge, so I don't know if this is the part he meant. But La Rambla is a huge touristy street where they even sell hamsters. Anyone? I'm down. Also Korean Squirrels. And ferrets and chinchillas, obviously. There were like 2 animal stands I didn't see though, maybe they have hedgehogs. Anyways at the end there is a huge dock-boardwalk type thing that was built around when the Olympics were here. And we went to hang out there for a bit.
*Rambla del Mar photos
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
* ~ * La Mercé * ~ *
This weekend was the celebration of la Mercé, or the saint of Mercy. The legend goes that some summer about 400 years ago the city was plagued by locusts and everyone prayed to Mercé to help them. The plague ended, so every end of September they celebrate the saint and the end of summer with a holiday and a weekend-long festival with tonnnns of events. Most of the concerts and stuff go until like
El Correfoc(Fire Run)
I had no idea what to expect. All we knew was that devils run around and shoot fireworks at you and you have to cover your hair and wear long sleeves. That is, if you plan to be in the front row. I didn’t plan to be in the front row..however, of course, we were all right there in it. At first there were a bunch of us sitting up on a big scaffolding but some policia came along and kicked us off. The street was hella crowded. So the firework-devil people(they were really just giant sparklers) came along in waves, followed by drummers. There were also some giant dragons that ‘breathed’ sparks and flames, wheeled all around in circles and down the street. It was actually really fun. And scary, and hilarious.
*Correfoc Video
Las Castellers (Castle-Builders)
There were teams from all over the country coming to compete in this competition. It happened in la Plaza St Jaume, which was of course absolutely packed. We didn’t really know where to look, until over in the crowd we saw a big mountain of people forming. After another minute or so, on top of that was a carefully constructed tower, with adults on the bottom and itty bittys on the very top. They all wore some kind of wraps around their waists, which were for each other to use to step on and climb up with. As soon as they got about halfway built, a little band nearby would play some simple drums and horns. Once they finished, people would just kindof take turns sliding down each other to the bottom. One of the towers was right next to us, you could see the people at the bottom shaking towards the end. It was intense. We saw about 3 towers total, however I think there were more after we left. People here are crazy. But the teamwork and the practice and all that goes into that is amazing.
Birthday Celebrations
Lexi’s birthday was sept 17. Luisa’s birthday(as we just happened to find out after a neighbor got on her case about water pipes and she started crying..aww) was a couple days later. She said we’d celebrate them both Sunday, so we did. After we showered and were both still in pajama-ish clothing, Luisa took us to a little pastellería to pick out a cake. We got one with a chocolate village on top.. complete with a little clown. And trees, and a couple people. And mushrooms.
Luisa made us paella for lunch, and then we had some cake and cava(the Spanish champagne). She also got candles, 71 for Luisa and 20 for Lexi. It was adorable.
*La torta de la mejor calidad & Lunch Photos
Giants Parade
For some reason here they really like big giants. There was a parade of them, which I didn't get many good pictures of. But here they are. And a few of us at Rambla del Mar with the italians and our roses.
*Giants Video
Hilariousness in the Plaza Catalunya station:
*An extra, for Dustin, or any Mitch Hedberg fan I suppose
Friday, September 21, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Two exciting wifi-related things
2) There's wifi in Lexi's room somehow.... YAY!!!
More on Luisa
Also she has her alarm set on news radio super loud and always sleeps through it. Awful. But in general she's great. And Lexi and I sometimes talk in English about ridiculous things at the dinner table just for fun. I know, I know, I'll stop.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Spain in general
Culture- its great. People don’t have a lot of room in their houses/apartments so everyone meets together outside in public places.
Efficiency- you’d never realize how wasteful you are until you’ve been out of the US. The hotels have a little slot next to the main light switch for your keycard, and when you leave the room and take it, all the lights turn off automatically. Also most bathrooms have individual little lights for the stalls, and they are on timers. The toilets don’t use much water, and usually you can choose how much of a flush you need. Most escalators slow down when no one is on them. And if a store has an escalator, a lot of times its only one upwards escalator. Also the doors of the metro trains don’t open automatically unless you push a button.
**edit: apparently i dont know the difference between elevator and escalator. fixed.
University of Barcelona
This place is over 400 years old. That’s older than anything in the
We haven’t started the Language classes yet, but we have culture classes in the afternoons already. There are 5 total, 4 of mine are literature :( but Lexi has all of those too. The other one is Cine Español, which should be great, since we meet every other week to watch movies- the first one we watched was El Laberinto del Fauno (if you don’t recognize it: Pan’s Labyrinth).
Codorníu and Sitges
This Saturday we went on a little day trip to a beach town about 45 minutes away. We stopped in at Codorníu, a vineyard where Spanish Cava(champagne basically) was first made. It was slightly boring, but the good part was taking this little train all around the caves(of course riding the train was more fun than looking at hundreds of thousands of dusty bottles of wine). And then we finished off the tour with a tasting, one of the better parts as well.
We spent a few hours on the beach at Sitges, which was my first time to the
*Sitges Photos *couple new ones
Since Then
We’ve gone on a few more little city tours and such, including el Barrio Gotico, which is an old crowded neighborhood with some great little stores, gelaterias, and chocolate places ;) Also the Picasso museum, which was really great, they even had little paintings he did as a child. It showed all of the eras and the different styles he has done, including a few months where he did around 60 renditions of Velasquez’s ‘Las Meninas’.
There’s a little pizza place by campus with about 10 kinds of pizza at a time, you can buy little slices and eat them on a little cardboard thing. Which we find kindof pointless. But they also have relatively cheap beer and it’s a fun little place to hang out.
One night after Luisa made us lentils(yum) and pork(fried of course), we were chatting for a few minutes about men and novios and stuff. After a moment of awkward silence when the conversation was done, Luisa says: “Pues. Ya hemos cenado, y yo voy a poner una peli. Un Porno!!” (ok, we’ve eaten, now I’m going to put on a movie, a porno!) After laughing for like 5 minutes straight and Luisa trying to backtrack a little, I figured out that she was talking about
*Barrio Gotico
*Piso(apartment) Photos
Barcelona
We finally got in at around
Anyway, the first night we all met up at the plaza Universidad(2 metro lines away, takes about 15 minutes), and ended up going out to las ramblas. La rambla is a huge pedestrian street with a ton of little stores and vendors. Its really cool looking, and really touristy too. I still haven’t been there in the day when everythings open, but at night it was packed and still really pretty. A few days ago was el Dia Nacional de Catalunya (Catalunia is basically the state
The next day we took the language level test, which everyone was super nervous about, but it wasn’t really a big deal after all. We got a tour of the university, did some shopping, and then a bus tour. We went to Montjuic, which is a mountain overlooking the city and the sea, and got a really gorgeous view of the whole thing. Then to Parc Guell, which is where Gaudi lived, and saw all of the tiled benches and crazy houses and such. Later on we went to an Erasmus welcome party(L’auberge Espagnole anyone?), met some Americans who thought we were Spaniards, and met some Spaniards who were pretty cool.
Toledo
Not
Also, he told us a couple little traditions. If you want a girlfriend in Toledo, you go to this place and ring a bell, and then go somewhere else to pray. If you're a girl and you want a boyfriend, you poke yourself in the ass with a pin and then go drop it off by this little virgin mary. Hilarious.
We were in toledo for the last night of this jazz festival, which was out in the street at night and right in front of one of
Valle de los Caidos and el Escorial
On the way to
After all that, we headed to
*El Escorial Photos
Madrid
We stayed in a pretty nice hotel in
There were some really cool things in
The Trip...
Going alone on the plane was slightly scary, although I’ve done it before, it’s usually not across the
I got to