¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

Happy 51st Birthday to my wonderful Dad!!!! I'll be celebrating here in Spain on your behalf!

Te quiero muchisimo!!!!

Also, Happy 233rd birthday to the USA! I do love my "stepfather" of a country.

Granada

I've been a bit too busy clearing up some academic doo-hickies and completely forgot to post about my trip to Granada! Shame and woe!










Flamenco was born in Andalusia, where Granada is located.









We went to see some Flamenco shows. Of course, OF COURSE I was an idiot who almost never videos on her camera and held the camera side-ways thinking it would look better...only you can't rotate videos on picture editors. Nice. Well, if you have a laptop, you can just turn it to the side. If you have a desktop, the neck pain is pretty worth it.








Some stills of the dancing, if you want to skip the videos.








We went to the Al-Hambra palace.








I'm convinced that this was one of the predecessors to the Playboy Mansion. Think about it: once guy in silky clothing, three official wives, innumerable scantily clad concubines, and a big pool of water in the middle of a courtyard.















Dr. Cano and Javier let us hit the beach for the rest of the afternoon. Good thing, too. Little Al needed to work on his tan. In contrast, I got too tan and now look like a Hindu-African mix.


I apologize for any naked or unattractive naked people that may appear in these pictures. It's Europe.


The Mediterranean is always this gorgeous.




Granada by night.

Bottom line: I need to find some way to come back here.

Heat

When I was really little, I would scream my head off if the temperature of my surroundings was one degree hotter than what I liked. I think that now JesusAllahBuddah is making me serve my punishment for torturing the poor souls who had to deal with the screaming.

It's hot as Satan's armpit after a 4 hour work-out here in Alcala de Henares, minus the humidity.

Pardon the graphic description.

This week, we got up to 50 degrees Celsius. In American speaking, that's 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Granted, if you're from Arizona, you're used to that. In fact, I thought that as a sort-of Alabama native, I would know how to handle my heat.

My experiences with the measly 100 degree (37.7 to you Celsius people) 100% humidity have lead me down a path of deceit.

Mornings used to be pleasant. Now that July's hit, my 1.5 mile (2.4 kilometer) morning walk to school has me covered in a sheen of sweat that makes me question why I even bothered showering and why I didn't think to bring a bottle of ice cold water? One morning, I'll remember...

Not that I love love LOVE air conditioning. My ideal temperature is around 75 degrees. I must also emphasize how much I hate the abusive 60 degrees at which most American locations set their thermostats. But I feel you can agree that once the temperature creeps up into the mid-hundreds, it's time to re-evaluate the necessity of this invention.

Ironically, the Spanish don't seem to believe in ceiling fans.

My way to beat the heat: staying in the pool, which my host family claims is still too cold to use. Lies. 50 degree water is like Nirvana in my dry-heat hell.

*giggle*

On my way home from school today, I spotted what appeared to be two fifteen year olds having sex on a park bench. I'm talking pants-down action.

The best part: the boy had a rat tail. The girl's earned her, "Oh god, what was I thinking?!" high school experience.

Is the apocalypse near?

Haha, my host family was so shocked and depressed about the shame that comes to losing to Americans in soccer:

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=ap-confedcup-spain&prov=ap&type=lgns

Spain: US win at Confed Cup an anomaly

By PAUL LOGOTHETIS, AP Sports Writer Jun 25, 9:21 am EDT

BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa (AP)—Although admitting the United States was the better team, Spain believes its loss to the Americans in the Confederations Cup semifinals was likely a one-time thing.

“In all sincerity, only one time in 10 do I think we would lose against them,” Spain captain Iker Casillas said Thursday, one day after the Americans upset top-ranked Spain 2-0 to reach Sunday’s final. “But yesterday, they deserved to reach the final.”

The United States scored on swift counterattacks and put in a solid defensive performance to snap Spain’s record winning streak at 15 games. The European champions, who hadn’t lost since November 2006, stayed even with Brazil’s 1993-96 team with the longest unbeaten run of 35 matches.

“It’s clear we weren’t going to be invincible for life,” Casillas said. “There’s no reason to get on the players or the coach for the result at this tournament because we managed an impressive streak of wins.”

Spain has won plaudits for its attacking style of play and quick one-touch passing in the midfield, but at the Free State Stadium that philosophy didn’t pan out.

“It just goes to show that the team that plays better and holds better possession doesn’t always win,” Casillas said. “Luck doesn’t always follow you, so you have to look at positives.”

There were few defensive positives to take away, however.

During its 35-game undefeated run, Spain conceded only 11 goals. It’s normally steady back line looked sluggish from the opening whistle and blunders led to both goals.

“They didn’t have so many chances,” said center back Carles Puyol, who was often troubled by striker Jozy Altidore’s speed on the counter.

Puyol wasn’t worried about Spain’s defensive frailties even after it was exposed by a quick United States team. Puyol believed Spain could weather a more potent foe like Brazil or Argentina.

“They came out very aggressively and only had two or three chances on goal and scored both,” the Barcelona defender said. “The team has shown that defensively that it is strong, so we don’t have to be worried.”

Casillas was more realistic after glaring blunders by Joan Capdevila and Sergio Ramos led to the goals.

“Defensively, we lacked the final 10 meters in front of goal,” the Real Madrid goalkeeper said. “Those two absurd, rare plays cost us the goals.”

Spain has nearly qualified for the World Cup and was happy to accept defeat now rather than at next year’s World Cup, which will be played in South Africa. But Casillas downplayed Spain’s chances of picking up its first trophy from soccer’s showcase event.

“First we have to qualify and with the team we have we can do great things,” Casillas said. “But not in any moment do we go as favorites. We have to be cautious.”

The end of Session 1

We had exams this week at school, which means that session one is over. I'm pretty sure that I dominated both my Lit and Arts & Museums exams. Woo! Actually, I know I did really well on my Lit exam. 98! I also was able to answer all the questions on the slide that I got. It was a Goya painting that I knew by heart. Snap!

A lot of my friends are leaving on Monday to go back to the States, but I'll still have Brooke, Erin, and Alex. I also am making friends with some more of the non-drunk fratties.

Which leads me to add two things to my Things I Don't Like about Spain List:

1) Complainers. I'm not going to name names, but there have been certain people on this trip complaining all the damn time. I absolutely cannot stand that. I can understand the difficulties that can come with adapting to a new culture, but this is just absurd. I've heard the following phrases so many times:

"Why doesn't Spain have American food? I hate eating seafood! This all sucks!"

Answer: Yes, they do. But who in their right mind would come all the way to another country just to eat at Burger King and Taco Bell? Oh, that's right. Dumb American college students.

"Do people not know about air conditioning? I'm sooooo hot!"

Answer: They don't have the same electricity prices everywhere, so a good way to save money is to not have the air on all the time or not have it at all. Even when I've explained this to people they still feel the need to make a comment about Spain being so stupid.

"I hate speaking Spanish all the time. Ugh!!!"
Answer: Why are you even here?!?!

"Spaniards are so rude!"
Answer: Stop trying to impose American culture values on them. Also, stop speaking English to them.

"My professors hate me. Why am I failing?!"
Answer: Don't show up to class hung-over or worse, drunk.

2) Drunkards: I'm having all kinds of reverse culture shock being amongst my college peers again. I've forgotten how the Greektastic college culture at Bama promotes getting drunk every night, even if it means making a damn fool of yourself.

Mainly, I'm pissed about this because on more than one occasion a lot of students have shown up hung-over to class. I understand the excitement that comes with being in a foreign country, really I do. I mean, France and Spain are both really exciting and I went out to celebrate being in a new place. However, I still don't see the point in getting pants-shitting drunk every night in a country where it looks incredibly immature, since it's something they all got out of their system when they were 14.

Not only this, but it makes the whole group look bad.

Mainly, I'm still kind of mad about this one incident. This kid turned 21 while we were over here. Yes, I understand that the rite of passage in the States is to get so drunk that you barely remember the night. Cool, that's totally fine. However, if your birthday falls on a day when you have class the next day, it would be smart and logical to do the hard core partying either the weekend before or after said birthday and do something a little more low key on the actual day.

That's not the route that some of these kids decided to take.

20 people showed up hung over to class. I was late that day b/c this one guy asked me to walk with him and then he almost puked all over me. Gross. It barely missed me. Needless to say that the professors were pissed. But the real kicker was the birthday boy himself. He decided to show up to class still drunk from the night before. Who does that?!

We have one day that we have reserved for sick leave. He could have taken it. Instead, he showed up drunk, passed out in class, insulted the Professor, and made the whole group look bad. We got a huge lecture that day. I don't blame Dr. Cano for being mad, but he handled the situation really well.

Sigh.

To balance it out a bit I'd like to add one thing to my Things I like List:

Genie pants: What are they? Well, they're brightly colored pants that look like Jasmine's from the Disney version of Aladdin. At first, I was appalled, but now I really want a pair. I'll probably buy some and then post a picture. They're fantastically terrible =).

Portugal

I ventured to the other side of the Iberian Peninsula this weekend.

Here's what I found:

Lisbon is the capital and where Melina goes to school. She was a fabulous guide!




We went to see this modern art exhibit. Pancho Guedes is now one of my new favorite artists.





This one was from his time in South Africa during the massacres. It's two dictators discussing the amount of people that they've killed.


Inside the Monastery de Jeronemo.



One of the most delicious desserts that I've ever had: Pasteis de Belem.



Little Al also came along.


Melina ventured up the watch-tower. I did, too, but promptly climbed down when I saw the fall...yeesh!



The wind was all in my hair, but I still love this picture.


They had just finished up another summer festival, so I got to see the left over decorations.


I thoroughly enjoyed the amount of cats that I encountered. Note: The majority had families and were not strays.


These wonderful purple flowers could be found everywhere. As much as I love the flora and fauna of Alabama, we could use some of these.


Next, Melina and I headed to Aveiro where her family lives. There, I finally met my mom's high school friend, Adelaide, and her other daughter and husband, Ines and Manolo:


An example of the "azulejos" that I found Portugal. They decorate all the houses, leaving its cities looking stunning.




One of my favorite houses that I spotted.




People were using this bike pedal "boating" contraptions. Unfortunately, I couldn't do one this visit, but this is just another excuse to come back.


The train station in Oporto.



Melina and Adelaide joined me while venturing Oporto.







Un peu de francais.



A bridge that was designed by Eiffel.


Port wine deliciousness.






Striped housesof Aveiro. Lovely.


My favorite of the striped houses.


Roll Tide! Haha!




Last but not least, the wonderful family that stayed with me. Adelaide, Manolo, Melina, and Ines, "Obrigado!"