My sweater has those little fuzzy things on it and other mundane details of today

First, note the title change. Pretty fuuuunnnyyy, eh? Um, yeah. Please do me a favor and let me know if it sucks. Otherwise I´m keeping it. And by the way if you dont get it, well....

The reason I write so much in this thing is because the family I am staying with has unlimited Internet access in their apartment, and because I have so much free time I often kill it on the Internet. Sad, perhaps, but what else am I going to do between 11 and 3 when everyone I know is staying in? Read?!?!?! BOOKS?!?!?! (Though I have been doing more of that too.)

Actually my roommate and some people who he knows better than I went out tonight, to La Casa de Cerveza (that´s The House of Beer to you gringos, GOD!!! must I explain everything!) where you pay €10 for an open bar. Which is great but not really affordable on a MONDAY NIGHT when there are still 6 nights left in the week! So I had to return home after walking there, to bask in the familiar glow of the flatscreen monitor.

Which is fine, really, I´m not complaining or self-pitying. Point is, we only have 2 classes for the next 2 weeks, until our other 2 start at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, which leaves a lot of free time. Which isn´t always a good thing.

By the way, here´s a fun fact: did you know that witches use broomsticks, cast spells, and are often portrayed as females (old, ugly ones at that!). If you didnt, its because you werent in Religiòn, Magia, y Cultura Popular today. (I´m looking in your direction, Grover! Just kidding....I dont know anyone named Grover. But damn, wouldnt that be sweet.)

Long march til Junio

Junio means June. Isn´t it so clever and original to mix English with Spanish in titles? No wait let me use the ¿. Come on, you know it´s cooler...Anyway, I´ll be here til June (que guay), theoretically til June 26 though I hope not. I am still struggling with Spanish though I have the Spanglish thing down. I imagine my accent is comical but that´s what I get for laughing at foreigners all my life. Maybe not ALL my life, but at least the past few years when I realized other cultures are so amusing. They´re, like, different! Im kidding of course.

So last night a couple bad-ass 10 year olds tried to rob me. I kept feeling something brush against my jacket and sure enough its some boy, too brazen to be fazed by me yelling at him. He gave me a swift kick to the heel. But what can you do to a little kid. Well my rule is, if their age is in the double digits, they´re pretty much adults! In Cambodia thats like middle aged, in fact. Sorry that´s not really funny.

Truthfully it´s lamentable that kids have to go about at 1 in the morning trying to steal.

There is something paradoxically comforting about the loneliness of wandering more or less aimlessly, in a frigid, unfamiliar city far from home, in the late hours of the night, because you don´t want to pay 7 or 8 dollars for a cab ride home and the Metro wont open for another 2 hours. It´s an intimate way to come to know a city, when it cuts you off from the warmth of its regaling people and turns up its cold, brick and mortar, moonlit exterior for wayfaring exploration.

I´ve only been here for 5 days so it´s too early to pass judgement of any kind, but Madrid (in everything but its nightlife) seems to fall short of New York City. It lacks that electric, dynamic quality and that feeling of grandiose (self-)importance that everyone (even the homeless subway musicians) seem to understand and share.

Also it doesn´t have any damn Mexican places, pizza-by-the-slice takeout, all'night drug stores, all-night anything for that matter, and Chipotle. Sorry my comparison doesn´t penetrate any deeper than semi-fast food and things like that.

However, you can buy beer at Burger King, which is convenient.

Madrid, by the way, has more bars per person than anywhere in the world (did I say this already¿), and the discotecas (its hard using such eurotrash terms with a straight face) dont close until 6 or 7, which is highly conducive to wild, unabashed entertainment on the weekends (weekdays too if you please) and though its cheaper than NYC, its still expensive. Especially because the night basically lasts from 11 to 6. It adds up.

A pretty well-balanced mix of Spanish tunes and cliche American hip hop songs have kept us happy. Though the coolest place I´ve seen yet delivered a more authentic Madrid experience. Clogged with smoke and Spaniards (thankfully few Americans), they played a kind of flamenco-dance club music, a refreshing exoticism.

I´m rambling.........................................Im also tired. More pointless anecdotes and mildly interesting cultural observations tomorrow.

I´m in Madrid. Sorry for the uninspired title, but that basically sums it up right now.

Five minutes outside of Madrid (after an exceedingly long bus ride from Valencia on the eastern coast, during which we would take purely arbitrary stops just to kill time) I realized I had pinkeye, which is a damn shame when you´re about to meet the mother of the family you´´re going to spend five months with.

I´m not exaggerating, I really did have pinkeye, turns out it was allergic pink eye, thank you WebMD for empowering me to make an irresponsible self¡-diagnosis. Anyway, I´ve been in Capital City since Wednesday and last night and tonight finally managed to venture out and see what this place is all about.

Can´t quite some it up yet since I don´t feel like I´ve really thrust myself headfirst into the experience of the city. We spent a couple nights drinkingm barhopping, and dancing, in other words not drastically different from what people in New York City do, except you can buy FinkBrau for a euro on the street (along with sketchy sandwhiches if you so desire.) Ah, FinkBrau beer. It´s about as good as it sounds.

Supposedly Madrid has 100,000 bars, about 100 people for every bar, which really puts NYC to shame, and despite the fact that they close at 3 (discotecas remain open and oh yeah, we do call em discotecas, holla Detur), the madileño appetite for la vida nocturna is seemingly insatiable.

An interesting quirk of the nightlife is that the Metro closes at 2 but reopens at 6, forcing you to stay out til then or cab it, or decode the confusing, language-barriered nighttime bus system, or walk it. But it´s costly to stay out til 6 )FinkBrau nonwithstanding).

Madrid apparently puts NYC to shame however, with its liberated lifestyle. Without a ubiquitious polcie force, silly quality of life rules, and overly fetishized law-and-order mentality, the people here do as they please, without getting in each other´s way, and without the need for paternalistic law enforcement to look after them at every turn. But disregard the cynical note. Here´s to everybody´s semester, those far from home and those close to night, that we may all return to the same place having enjoyed our young lives to the fullest.

I´m in Madrid. Sorry for the uninspired title, but that basically sums it up right now.

Te Gusta and Pantastico

I am still in Valencia, fighting off the same cold everyone else has, looking forward to finally arriving in Madrid tomorrow. This morning I somehow dragged my aching, coughing, exhausted self to a porcelain factory tour, which was followed up by a ceramics museum, as if the porcelain wasnt enough. Then I skipped out on the rest of the activities (which weren´t much), walked back to the hotel, and slept.

I have been shamelessly exploiting this hotel´s free Internet. Last night I ate at Burger King across the street, followed up with a $2 bottle of wine. Classy. BTW the BK was quite delicious. (I wanted something cheap.) And also btw, the wine wasn´t that bad. A local red. Too bad I spilled some on my shirt.

We have done some amazing things on this trip. Toured 1000'year old Arabic baths, basked in the sun in Mediterranean gardens, sampled the out-til-dawn (almost) Barcelonian nightlife, walked among ancient Roman ruins in Tarragona, tried some Brazilian girls´Moroccan hash in an Argentinian bar in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. That last one wasn´t quite a group activity.

But I am really looking forward to settling.

Another random observation: it still hasn´t rained after 2 weeks here. Actually it was 2 weeks to the day that our flight left JFK. Seems ages ago.

I certainly miss everyone from home as well as the lifestyle itself. I miss NYC. I miss NY pizza as well, and I miss being on campus, even in weather that makes one wonder how humans survive this (and worse) every year.

I am considering moving here for good and opening a couple restaurants; One will be a bakery called Pantastico; the other, a, um, like place where you get tea, called Te Gusta. That´s probably only funny to anyone who has taken elementary Spanish. Oh well. It´s a pun.

I´m going get some more Burger King now and try to clean the wine stain out of my shirt. See you in Madrid....

Do you want my cocaine?

La Festiva de San Sebastia occurs in Palma de Mallorca, a city in the Mediterranean island of Mallorca (near Ibiza) each year, involving a bonfire, barbecue, drunk people, music, and other things that characterize kick-ass street parties in honor of some long-dead saint.

Naturally when 70 American college students descend on it and treat it like any other frat party, except with Spanish people (some of whom look like pirates), 80s-themed music, and barbacoa, things get a bit crazy.

After a long period of drinking several of us had to pee, so we ducked into some random, I think it was a vitamin shop, place, talked to some Peruvian ex-pat for a bit, and waited. I didnt have anything to do so I eyed a box of fruit sitting in the storage closet and, naturally, stole a coconut.

then, nos fuimos, into the night, throwing up the devil horns when we needed to feel like Ugly Americans. And I with my coconut.

I have a picture to show eventually, but basically I spent the next 30 min asking random Spanish people ¨Quieres mi coca?¨, meaning ¨Do you want my coconut?¨ No...no they didnt....Bastards. Well one girl did, but you know damn well I snatched it back from her. Es mio.

I got a lot of laughs and stares, of course, and not the good kind either, like when I go out wearing nothing but an oak barrel, Looney Tunes-style. Maybe because I was an obviously drunk, obnoxious, thickly accented American asking strangers if they wanted a damn coconut. Or perhaps because, I later learned, the word for coconut isn´t ¨coca¨but rather ´coco.´

Coca means cocaine.

Where have you taken us, Naranja?

There is much to write. This so-called traveling seminar, which academically speaking is a joke, has been much fun but is dragging on a bit, we are all eager to finally settle in Madrid. I´m now on a Mediterranean island (I know, it sounds incredibly snobby) near Ibiza, called Mallorca. In a city called Palma de Mallorca. It´s an amazing place. I watched the sun set over the Mediterranean tonight (from the hotel). So it´s um interesting, needless to say.

Barcelona was thoroughly enjoyable. The metro closes at 2, and doesnt reopen til 5, forcing you to stay out til then hehe. Its a good system. Shots for 1.50 euros and more kinds than you could ever imagine, at one bar. I didnt meet many Spaniards but did meet people from all over - Pakistan, Finland, South Africa, Manchester, London. Ed from London is the funniest dude ever by the way. So are Henry and Alexi from Norway - picture super-aryan Night at the Roxbury guys.

Ill write more about Mallorca soon. Adios mi gente.

How to get laid in Spain

Apparently, the best way to get laid in Spain is by growing a mullet, as evidenced by all the Spanish dudes walking around with nasty rat-tailesque things dangling behind their head. And its not a variation of the mullet - it is THE mullet, back in force. get ready america.


bah. i am running out of time at the net cafe. i cant believe all im writing about is mullets. i am in barcelona now, was in tarragano (an ancient roman city on the coast). barcelona is an amazing place, warm in the day, with palm tree'lined streets. ill write more later.

Blues Dance Raid

Also, for the record, the title of this "web log", or "blog", is borrowed from a song title (by Steel Pulse). It's topical. Look up the lyrics yourself if you like. Nope...nobody ever does.....

By the way...

By the way, Jah people, I have set this up mainly to keep in touch with people because it's easier than sending individual e-mails (did I say this already?), and especially during the summer, when I will be a-wanderin', possibly with gypsies, perhaps with anarchists, probably with your mom, most likely not with Mediterranean pirates (though that would be muy sexy also), all over Europe and wherever, and won't have regular access to the Internet and definitely won't have the luxury of sending individual e-mails to people.

And that way I won't disappear completely if I can update people as to my whereabouts/still-being-alive-and-stuff status from time to time. I like to think that more people than my mom might be interested to know that I'm kidnapped or penniless.

So yeah, behold the miracle of the Internet.

I saw "What Dreams May Come" again last night. I don't care if the dialogue is saccharine, the plot lines cheesy, and the larger issues completely unexplored except in the most gooey, superficial way. The movie is pretty. An abundance of colors splashing around. And if it looks good it IS good. In short it's very psychedelic, hence....

Dot dot dot.

Session rockin, yeah

This is one of my last few nights in Olney; naturally I am wasting it in front of the computer. Soon I will spend my last couple days in NYC too. I'll miss both places dearly, of course.

In a little more than a week I am supposed to board a flight from JFK to Barcelona (Barthelona), Spain, where I will spend five months of my life, on a continent where I'll spend probably a few more. My feelings fluctuate constantly between pure exhilaration and pure terror, which probably places me on the same plane as everyone else in this situation.

Espana: Que sexy.

I don't even know how to make !@$#^* Spanish accent marks and whatnot on the damn keyboard.

I make no promises about updating this regularly or at all, or making it the least bit interesting, or even coherent.

Also this doesn't make me a "blogger". It's just an efficient way of keeping in touch with a number of people without having to e-mail everyone individually.

I don't want to write anymore or think of a clever way of concluding this maiden post...Oh, um, HEY WHAT'S THAT! [cue running footsteps noise]