Ok, so the first morning of our trip to Lisbon we go.... somewhere else. Sure, technically, Sintra is now part of Lisbon, since Lisbon has certainly grown in the last 500 years since Sintra was the capital, and it's own city. It's picturesque to say the least. Set in forested hills, with two castles/palaces looking down from the crests on the city nestled in a little valley with the National Palace in the center.

The Palace that we visited was built in the late 14th century, and I believe that it housed the Portuguese royal family for at least part of the year for at 200 more years after that. The age would explain why, for a Royal Palace, it's really not all that luxurious. The furniture looks uncomfortable to say the least, and the rooms are big, and drafty, and currently lacking rugs and tapestries. I assume that there were lots of these earlier on, otherwise it's a miracle that any of the royals survived the winters.

The most interesting part of this palace was definitely the wall art. At Versailles there is gilt everywhere and crazy wall paintings. Sintra, on the other hand, has tiled walls and mosaics in most of the rooms. They vary, with some being fairly simple, and others extremely complex. In some cases, the tiles were painted, and then put together on the walls, which makes it suitably complex for royalty. In some of the more grand rooms, you get the gilt on the ceilings and paintings too. But all in all, this really did feel like a post-mediaeval/pre-Renaissance Palace. Not the great splendor of a palace at a later date, but not stone and tapestry like an earlier example might have had.

Of course, examples of the others are looking down on it from the hilltops. Funny story that, actually.

Ok, so our first night in Lisbon and we have so many choices of what to do once we get into our hotel. It's fairly early, and we've been doing nothing but sitting on a bus all day. We should've had plenty of energy. You'd think we'd ditch our stuff in the hotel, go out, find something to eat at a local restaurant, seek some nightlife, maybe shop, check out the culture.

Well, then you'd be wrong.

We stayed in the hotel all night and watched TV. And we all took long hot showers, and I think almost everyone ate Pizza Hut for dinner that night. Yeah, we're great cultural experts. But let me explain, before you peg us as typical American tourists, (which we were not). It was raining cats and dogs, and rain here has a tendency to overcome any umbrella you set against it, and the Pizza Hut was right next door to the hotel. We were all, with very few exceptions sick with one helluva nasty cold, (those who weren't were hung over from Carnaval celebrations), and none of us spoke a word of Portuguese.

It somehow slipped everyone's mind that Portuguese is a different language. Well, sure. Duh. In Portugal they speak Portuguese. We knew this. For the most part we could all read and understand written Portuguese, which gave us the mistaken impression that we'd be able to understand spoken Portugese. Not. I present to you, an example kindly donated by youtube.





Any of you who knew me when I was four will smile at these examples and shake your heads, because you'll remember that I know every word of the Little Mermaid in English, and I probably will for the rest of my life barring a head injury. Anyway--I defy any spanish speaker to pick up more than 20 words in the portugese version. It's DIFFICULT. Makes Spanish look like a walk in the park--lemme tell ya--but then I AM a little biased on that front, since I understand it. Though I will admit that the Portuguese version does sound really pretty.

So it dawns on us that we don't even know how to say please/thankyou in Portuguese. That's ok, Portugal shares a border with Spain. I'll bet they understand Spanish. Once again: Not. We tried Spanish a couple times. Nobody in Portugal speaks Spanish. I guess you could chalk it up to all those years of heavy competition under the papal theocracy. The Portuguese do, however, speak English. The Spanish, by and large, do not speak English, and the Portuguese do. It was WONDERFUL. So we all learned to say "I don't speak portuguese" and then we learned how to ask if the other person spoke English or Spanish. It worked great.

And the best part: TV in Portugal. They love American TV in Portugal just as much as the rest of the world, but instead of dubbing it, they subtitle! The simpsons were subtitled, like an art film. It was lovely. I stayed up late with Courtney, Jessica, Catherine, and Laura ignoring the subtitles. It was the best way to relax I've had since leaving the states. Especially since at the time, I'd only been in Spain for a little over a month and it was taxing to watch TV in Spanish, since I had to really work to keep up with what was going on. (You'll be glad to know that for the most part this is no longer a problem.)

On the steps of the post office.

My First Botellón.

Now, those of you who've never been to Spain may not know of the phenomenon of the botellón. It is a truly wonderful thing that was just recently nationally banned at the onset of this year. Banned though it may be, that hasn't stopped Cádiz from continuing on in its time-honored traditions of public drunkenness. A botellón, is a gathering in the streets (or during the summer; the beach) where everybody brings their own drinks/mixers, handily bought at the nearest grocery/candy/convenience store, and proceeds to drink and make merry in public.

This particular botellón ocurred at the onset of Carnaval, which is why though it was illegal (in theory), nobody cared that we were having a great time (because everyone else was in similar state, and there just aren't enough police to arrest an entire city... and I have reservations as to the sobriety of the police). We started early, around 7 o'clock, I think.

Back story flashback:

Whitney, Courtney and I had gone to El Corte Inglés earlier that day to stock up on botellón supplies and go to the Hipercor, which is the closest thing Spain has to a Fred Meyer. Botellón supplies turned out to be cookies, chips, crackers, munchies, mixers, and LOTS OF LIQUOR. Which conveniently, you can buy anywhere for extremely cheap. Hipercor, however, had a well-rounded selection. After acquiring a box of Oreos and some 2 bottles of Orange Fanta for myself, me and the gals went over to the liquor and bought some wine. Box wine. The plan was to make a concoction called Tinto de Verano, which is citrus soda/vino tinto punch. Now, before any of you wine afficionados sneer at the thought of box wine, I'll have you know that you can buy wine in little juice-type boxes here, and that LOTS of wine is bought in box form. Don't knock the fact that our mixing wine happened to be the mid-range selection at the reasonable price of a Euro per box.

End flashback.

So we go to the Plaza San Antonio to meet up with the rest of our group and make our drinks. Now, Tinto de Verano is made from a highly technical process which I will now record for the ages. Step one: drink, oh I don't know... a third of the citrus flavored Fanta out of your bottle. Step two: pour in vino tinto to replace the Fanta that you've removed. Step three: shake thoroughly. Enjoy!

Now that's a fairly weak brew. So say you drink about a third to a half of that, and you've got more wine in the box (which you don't really want to drink straight from the carton) so you pour more wine into your Fanta, creating a stronger brew. Do this every time you've got a goodly amount of space in your bottle. When the brew begins to taste too much of cheap wine, finish it, and break into another bottle of Fanta and repeat.

So, it's sevenish, and we've got our drinks mixed and ready to go, so we venture out to meet the rest of our friends, grocery bags of drunk munchies and liquor dangling from wrists and arms alike, at the Plaza Flores, which is where Cádiz's post office is conveniently situated between two grocery stores. This is convenient because the rest of our group hadn't had the forethought to get drinks/mixers before hand and split up to go to SuperSol and Carrefour to augment their supplies. Courtney, Whitney, and I (joined by Jessica, who'd bought her liquor the night before) sat on the steps of the post office, calmly waiting them out with drinks in our hands while the world walked by. Interestingly enough, when everybody got back, the consensus seemed to be that on the front steps of the second biggest federal institution in the city was as good a place as any to drink.

It was quite novel. Not only in the US could you never be unrepentantly drinking in public (bottle of liquor sans the obligatory paper bag), but you most certainly WOULD NOT do it on Federal property. In Cádiz, no one cared beyond the fact that we must have been loud and definitely not speaking in Spanish. (I've found that at the onset of inebriation all Spanish goes out the window, conversely further along into inebriation, Spanish flows quite freely--odd that.) So we're sitting on the steps of the post office, drinking, mixing more drinks, and then Laura opens her box of wine, which unfortunately does not have a reclosable spout like the rest of ours (well, at a price like 0.48 Euro, who can expect to reclose the box?), and now we have a problem: we now have to drink this wine as we can obviously not travel with it. But after a few rounds of drinking wine from the carton, much like I imagine some people drink milk at midnight without a glass, Whitney remembers that there's plenty of space left in her half emptied box of wine WITH a reclosable spout (we knew that extra 0.50 Euro would pay off), and so the rest of Laura's wine is poured into Whitney's.

This turned out to be a pretty nasty mixture since cheap wine+cheaper wine=something akin to bottled wino. Now, you might ask, how does one overcome the stigma of 'bottled wino'? Well, you do the only logical thing, add more liquor. It happened that Andrew and Autumn had some cheap brandy in the mobile wetbar (aka: Autumn's backpack), so we added a good dollop of brandy to the mix... which seemed like a good idea at the time. If 'bottled wino' was bad, 'cheap box sangria sans fruit' was worse, however the more of it one drank... the better it seemed to get.

Naturally, at this point I'm feeling rather convivial, as are the rest of us to varying degrees, I believe Whitney, Erin and I might have been the worst off. This being due to the drinking of the 'cheap box sangria sans fruit' done by me and Whitney, and a rather strong mix of vodka and juice that Erin had. Meanwhile Jessica is passing around her bottle of whiskey and everyone else was well into their various other cups. So we decided to move the party (for no reason I can remember) to the middle of the Calle Ancha, which is a main shopping drag and was pretty much deserted at 10 o'clock that particular night. There the drinking continued, as evidenced by the pictures in the gallery, although the munchies set in and therefore we began eating the cookies and chips. I happily sucked down one bottle of ever-stronger Tinto de Verano, a goodly amount of the box wine abomination, and at least a couple of shots of Jessica's whiskey.

We moved on from Calle Ancha to the Teatro Falla, where I swallowed down the OTHER bottle of T.d.V. and that's where things start to get hazy. In hindsight, that last shot of whiskey was probably what did it, considering everything else seemed to have a rather... delayed effect. Interestingly enough, the last picture in the gallery of this night is the last thing I remember first hand.

Everything related after this is second hand, since I blacked out at some point. So apparently we decided we wanted pizza, and while Whitney was buying said pizza I keeled over onto my face. A face plant, as it were, and knocked my nose pretty good. No permanent damage, just a nasty bruise and a slightly fat lip that I got to bring with me to Lisbon which drew extra attention from onlookers, shopkeepers, random EVERBODY. I guess, also after this, (where everyone has assured me I was obviously drunk but not overly annoying), I knocked over someone's moped and began laughing hysterically, which in turn made all my compatriots begin laughing hysterically. Sometime soon afterward, Courtney and Whitney decided it was time to take Fun Erin home. I lost a shoe on the stairs. Which the next morning I found hillarious considering these shoes have been to punk shows and crowd surfing with me and I've never lost either, but I manage to ditch a shoe drunkenly walking up the stairs. Luckily Courtney noticed it on the way back down and had the presence of mind (just barely from what I understand) to pick it up and safeguard it for me until later the next day.

I woke up the morning after, wondering vaguely what happened, still a little drunk. Laughing to myself because I'd lost a shoe, but I'd had the presence of mind to remove all my clothes for bed, change my undies, and take out my contacts (even getting the contacts into their solution and everything), all while head-over-heels, and apparently falling-down drunk. But I decided that I would not imbibe quite so... freely the next night.

Funny, how that was the very beginning of Carnaval, and I was already tired of drinking.

The Wake of the Vaporcito What you see in the distance is the thoroughly modern (not unlike Millie) port of Cádiz. It's a fairly short ride from Cádiz to Santa Maria, only a half an hour I think, and especially quick and a bit chilly outside due to the quick moving nature of the hydrofoil. Quite a nice ferry.

I lie to myself and say Yeah, Brooke was swaying, and there was low light and the flash didn't go... I still rather like this one though.

I'll post more when I get back from Lisbon.

This post has no photos. I have decided that due to this effrontery I will attempt to illustrate some of the more comical points in this journal entry. There aren't galleries to back these pictures up, so if you'd like a closer look, just click on them for the full-sized version. Once finished viewing whatever I'm attempted to call art, just tap your browsers "back" button to return to my delightfully droll diary, (yay: alliteration!)

Did you know that codeine cough syrup tastes the same everywhere? I didn't. But I sure do now. As some of you may know, (Mom and Dad), I have had a long and illustrious relationship with a few basic prescriptions, among the various permutations of amoxicillin and cipro, there has also been the sleep giving concoction of Codeine cough syrup, ("jarabe codeína" for all you Spanish speakers). In the past, codeine has always made me a little dumb and a lot sleepy and from what I remember of my translation class this morning, nothing has changed.

Like an old commercial I seem to remember... Check out my photoshop/WACOM tablet/drawing skillzzzzzz... NOT.

I believe the above doodle about sums up my train of thought through the first two hours of my day, since Angelita insisted that I take the cough syrup before I went to class. Last week she had me taking the Spanish equivalent of Dimetapp, which has never done me any good, (although my mother will attest that it can only do me good if I take it instead of hiding it in the sofa: well Mother, the cough syrup neatly circumvents that method of medicine avoidance--I hope you're happy), but since I continue to cough she's stepped it up to the hard stuff. I have a feeling that if I don't stop hacking I'll be writing you all in a few days to tell you all what it's like to visit the doctor in a foreign country *cringe*. I can only imagine how fun that will be when I have trouble communicating, I'd better get some vocabulary ready so I can at least prepare half of a possible dialog.

But on to the joys of my translation class. I have recreated the title page of my class handbook for you all to see, because I believe that it's just too precious NOT to share. Take into account that these are products with American names which are meant for a non-English speaking public, (I probably shouldn't post it, but it's all in good fun, though not necessarily for the faint of heart).

I kid you not. Yes, this is the handbook cover, our Señora has a definite sense of humor.

Yes, this is the cover page of my handbook. Awesome, ¿no? I think so too. Everytime I go to that class I'll giggle when I open the book, but then I'll start to translate, and that will stifle the giggle pretty effectively. I'm of the opinion that Translation will be probably my hardest class, but we'll see.

What did I do last weekend, one might ask? Well I'll tell you. I went to see:



Yes, that's right, I went to Noche en el Museo. Some of you might ask: Wait-do I care? Well, probably not, but I care, and I have something to say about the subject. Did you know that the entire population of Spain has never heard Ben Stiller's true voice? That's because in Spain, they don't believe in subtitles, they dub everything. Now, I may have mentioned this before, but I learned some interesting new facts about dubbing on Saturday before I went to see Noche en el Museo. Apparently, Franco didn't want to make the English language easily accesible/didn't want English supplanting Spanish in movies, so they had all incoming English movies dubbed. However, they don't just go around dubbing willy-nilly, oh no. There is a single actor who dubs all Ben Still movies. So in EVERY Ben Stiller movie released in Spain, Ben Stiller's voice sounds the same. I guess they do this for every major actor. One voice actor might dub more than one actual actor, but this way the actors always sound the same, which is interesting and adds a level of complexity to dubbing which I hadn't supposed existed. However, the movie was fun to watch, and I actually understood (more or less) the dialog, such as it is in a Ben Stiller movie built for ten year olds, but whatever. Likely it amazes me more than it does any of you, but I was impressed with myself.

Interestingly enough, later as I watched an episode of "Desaparecido" (which for those of you state side is called "Without a Trace") I found (to my utter delight) that no matter how you dub him, Anthony Lapaglia sounds pretty much the same in every language.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Never did it occur to me that I would look to Barry the Blade for a sense of home.

I'll sign off for now, being as I need to go SKYPE for a while and talk with the 'rents, but I fully plan to post another journal entry tomorrow. I will probably call it "I am Erin's complete and utter lack of coordination" and it will (most likely) detail my harrowing adventures in the world of Spanish Belly Dancing lessons.

Hasta Luego.

The Fog I really wanted a haunted ship of undead pirates to come silently through the fog... but I was setting myself up for a fall. All that came through the fog was a seagull.

Remember: to see the entire gallery, click on the above photo. After doing that, viewing the photo, and reading my pithy comments, go up to the right-hand corner and click "Up to Gallery." This will show you all the pictures within the set.


Hey all. Long time no write. Yes I know, I need to keep up on these things, but I'm not really extremely pleased with Livejournal as a photo storage service. However, nothing else seems to be any better, and I'm too lazy to do the Kodak thing--plus you have to sign up for stuff and that's just not cool. Back to the whole "what have I been up to?" question.

Let's see. The last two weeks have been spent in various states of intensive grammar and vocabulary lessons. Have they helped? I don't know, but I start university on Monday. Sometimes I understand people well, other times not-so-much. So far, in class though, I seem to be able to put together the required concentration to really listen and understand what's going on, but there are no distractions there. It's more difficult with everyday speech, that and Gaditanos (citizens of Cádiz that is) are the fastest speakers of Spanish in the country. This knowledge makes me less than giddy, but I'm trying hard all the same. Did you know that in Spain, when kids go to primary/grammar/whatever school, they sit around and just memorize verb conjugations? This is not something that happens in English, where all the memorization of verb conjugations won't help you that much, because there'll always be some strangeness that will pop up.

It's funny though, because the Spanish people are as uppity as the French about keeping their language pure, they've got lots of rules about how english things will be named in Spanish. For instance, in Mexico if you've got a computer it's una computadorak, if you've got a car, it's un carro. In Spain not so--you've got un ordenador and un coche. I only say this because when I learned the spanish verb for the infinitive "to surf" I was surprised and pleased to find out that in Spanish that translates to surfar. Which you conjugate just like any other Spanish verb. Silly. When you job, you hacer footing. When I have to go to the bathroom, Angelita asks me if I have to "hacer pipi" which quite literally means: "Make pee." Now, I know I'm a mature 21 year old girl, but that totally makes me giggle everytime.

So, like I said, classes at the University of Cádiz begin on Monday. I'm only taking five classes, and only one of those is in with the general population of UCA. Here's the laundry list: Language 3, History of Spain the Americas (yay Juan De Fuca [who was greek?] and Hernán Cortes), Translation, Spanish Linguistics, and the class which I look forward to with great anticipation: Colloquial Spanish. This is the class in with the general population of the University, but it should be fun because native speakers of Spanish don't take it so much (afterall, they SPEAK colloquial Spanish). Instead, you get into a class meant for the ERASMUS students, who do interchanges all over european countries to learn other languages. So in a way, we should all be on the same footing, because while they may not be part of my private class schedule for the program, they WON'T be born to the language. The teacher won't expect super awesome comprehension if none of us are native speakers. Good times. Thursday I also start a belly dancing class at a dance school--why not? I can get 2 credits for it as a spanish elective if I take two months worth, and the NW Cádiz program will pay for 80 Euro worth of extra curriculars. Should be interesting if nothing else.

Cádiz is a city in a state of constant prefunk from now until Carnaval. Granted it really only goes on during the weekends, but still-it's a little odd to see every body out and about celebrating the fact that carnaval is coming. They celebrate here for 10 days. That's ten days that I don't have class. We're going to Lisbon for four days during Carnaval, because Rita, the directora of the program doesn't really think it's that important for us to be present for all ten days of a costumed debauch. Shows what she knows. Anyway, the reason that I bring up the constant state of Carnaval prefunk, (for those of you who don't know what a prefunk is follow this link: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=prefunk), is because I went to a big party in the Plaza San Antonio near where I live to view the mayhem. Now, no one told me that there was a dress code, and that apparently was a black windbreaker, jeans (either dressy or no), a pair of shoes (heels or no), and at least one 40 oz bottle of beer per person. This would strike any American funny, as never have I seen an entire population of a city playing at least half a game of Edward forty-hands (follow the link for an explanation of Edward fortyhands if you don't know: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=edward+fortyhands). So, not knowing about the dress code, I went out whearing a predominantly white SKIRT and a white cardigan and heels, thinking I would do well to look good for the big party. It never ocurred to me that I might need to ask myself the question: "What if it's red hat day and I'm wearing a purple hat?" I'm sure I stuck out like a sore thumb, being super pale, rather blonde and gleaming like beacon in WHITE, especially since I wasn't drinking but watching the festivities and taking pictures. I took a short video too:




So earlier this week, before it started to rain and my stupid friend Pete gave me his cold, I went to the beach... to do my homework. Now, I don't know about you guys, but for me, the novelty of standing up to my behind in the ocean in January will never end. I didn't even feel like my legs were being gnawed off by frost bite. That's right, I could still feel my feet. Granted, it wasn't WARM per se, but I was up to my behind in roughly 2 minutes, instead of the requisite fifteen minutes of numbing yourself to all feeling that one is required to do when entering the ocean in the northwest. I didn't turn blue, nor did I have super silly looking goosebumps. It was wonderful. I can't wait until the weather is uniformly great, I'll do my homework on the beach every day while I work on my tan, and I'll swim when I get tired to thinking. I'll not be learning to surf, however, because I think we all remember that I can barely swim, so when I said swim earlier, I actually meant "wade" although I suppose I might do a little body surfing too.

There is entirely too much shopping to be done here. There are stores EVERYwhere. The shoes call to me, though I've not bought any yet. Soon, my precious ones, very soon. So far I've only speant money on food, alcohol, and cell phone minutes. We go to El Puerto Santa Maria tomorrow, though for some sort of "Congratulations you've survived 2 weeks in a foreign country without dying of inarticulate embarrassment" surprise. Rita told us to bring money, so maybe I'll pick up something good there. Vamos a ver. I'll take the camera and get some pictures, although with the inherent slowness of the Spanish internet connection I use, it may take me another week to get any of them up. Bear with me.

That's all for now. I'm sick, I've got to get up in 10 or so hours, and I really want to go to bed. Have fun kids.

Flowers in Winter According to Angelita, these flowers are confused.

Ok, so here's how the pictures will work until Howard shows me a better way to do this. I'll post whatever the first picture of the first group is, and from there it will be in the hands of you, my dear readers. What you'll have to do is read my entry, ooh and ahh over it and my genius, and THEN click on the picture that may or may not be in the post. From there, you can take a look at the picture all big, YAY! We all love flowers.... and then, in the bottom left corner, click the blue hyper-link that will say Cadiz1 or Cadiz(insert appropriate number here) and so on and so forth. From today on, I'll number the galleries, so that people don't have to look through all of the old pictures to get to the new ones.

On that note, I plan to post another entry later tonight with more social commentary and anecdotal information. We'll see how it goes.

3 days in the country.
3 daughters to the family where I live;
on the 3rd floor of a building
that's probably over 3 hundred years old.
And I talk like a 3 year old.

Naturally, I'm thrilled, but down to the nitty gritty.

Since the jet-lag has fully worn off at this point (maybe, it's hard to tell with a nine hour time difference), I think I can honestly say that I could like this schedule, except I haven't really gotten used to the idea of eating the last meal of the day at a fairly routine 10 o'clock. Now, this happened at home a lot, but it was something that we tried to avoid, even while it was happening.

Now you're all probably wondering about the family that I live with, and the place that I'm living, so I'll start there. First off, I live in a 4 story apartment building (which actually has 5, apparently the entrance floor doesn't count), one of many in the old town, near one of the larger plazas called La Plaza de San Antonio. I live with a woman called Angelita, her husband Antonio and their youngest daughter Isa (which I think is short for Isabel, but I'm not sure). The building is made of stone, the walls are stone, the floors are marble, and all the windows look out on inner courtyards where people hang their laundry. It should be fairly interesting to see how Angelita decides to hang up some of my skimpier pieces of underwear and my socks... hmm.

I think, even though I've only been living here for 2 and a half/3 days.... I know exactly what it was like to live in a castle: cold. Even when it's 60 degrees and sunny outside, it's maybe 50ish in here, and damp. Apparently stone keeps all the cold out, and all the cold in, and the heater, Angelita told me, is iffy. I should have brought more sweaters. As it is, the one that I brought is getting a lot of use, and an extra blanket wouldn't have gone amiss either.

This brings me to another interesting point: the people of Cádiz are convinced that a sunny sixty degree day is cold one. I walked on the beach today, where it was nice and sunny, barefoot in a pair of jeans and a tee shirt and people looked at me like I was crazy. Well, right back at them. Really, sixty degrees does NOT a winter make, nor does it require a down jacket and scarf. I know that cold vs. warm is all relative and really, one can't expect people who live here to be able to understand that sixty degrees is nothing when you left snow behind, but still--this is ridiculous. The climate here is lovely, flowers are blooming in January and it's only mildly brisk at night or in the shade, (or of course, if you're INSIDE anywhere), and Angelita told me they haven't had rain here since the end of October.

This makes taking a shower even more fun. I did everything I could think of to shorten my shower time. I bought a 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner, I wash my face in the sink, I'm going to start waxing my legs instead of shaving, and I'm glad I did all this. However, now that I've been here for a little bit, I'll acknowledge that it was actually for a different reason. The shower water is cold. Well--that's not exactly true. The hot water is extremely hot, but it's just a trickle which you have to add cold water to to get any water pressure. Unfortunately, to get enough water temperature to get the shampoo out of your hair/soap off your body, you get to take a rather tepid shower. Tepid on the hands is one thing, but tepid on the whole body is actually quite chilly. I think that by the time I'm done here I'll be looking forward to a nice hot bath in my warm bathroom in Arlington, but I'll make due. I'd rather not stink, and since everybody smokes like chimneys here, I don't have much choice.

So everybody smokes, everywhere. I've resigned myself to smelling mildly like cigarette smoke. When in Rome right? Everyone else does, so it's not like any one is going to notice. And everybody my age drinks. All my American compatriots were very excited when they found out how cheap a beer or a glass of wine is here, and it actually is pretty cheap, (think less than 2 dollars), but there's also the issue of making sure you get exactly what you want. One of my friends had a glass of port that she ordered by accident last night, and for the life of me, I couldn't duplicate the request she made that resulted in receiving port, I got this odd sherry, which was... odd, but not bad--and certainly not the port I was going after. I guess this region is known for its wines, so I'll have to follow that up, if only to figure out what the hell that kind of wine was that I drink. I can't figure out how to say "port" in Spanish and have it mean the wine, but alas...

On to the talking like a three year old. My comprehension of the people that I live with is slowly getting better. I can probably understand about 50% of what's said to me now, as opposed to the original 25% of yesterday. My ability to respond is somewhat less articulate. I do a lot of nodding and smiling and just trying to play down my "I'm-super-concentrating-face." That expression can't be too flattering, but no one's laughed at me yet, and for that I'm thankful.

I sat in the middle of the tiny living area off the kitchen with Angelita, Antonio, Isa, and their other daughter Jema and her husband Fernando, and just tried to soak in everything said. My ability to understand, I'm finding, varies greatly person to person. Angelita I'm beginning to understand just through sheer force of will, I think. Isa and Jema spoke too fast, and are probably way to hip in their vocabulary for me to follow, and Antonio... well, that's on THICK Cádiz accent, there. Actually it ended up that I understood Fernando the best, but I think he's originally from Sevilla, or maybe he just sensed that I was struggling and worked to overpronounce or something, but his accent was different.

I'm fighting my performance anxiety, because logically I know that being nervous and not speaking will only hinder my learning, but it's still hard to go from being super articulate in one language, to a babbling monosyllabic word or primer-type sentence user. We start intensive language workshops tomorrow, and they run for two weeks before classes begin at the University, I'm hoping that if I focus all my force of will at that I'll regain some of my prior language confidence. Hopefully, language really does come as easily to me as it has seemed in the past, we'll see.

On that note, I'll write more in a few days. I've got another big day tomorrow, but it seems that most of these days are shaping up to be "big days," so that's nothing new, but I DO have to get up early. So good night to all.

I now have a blog. I hope to make it a "travel blog" but the offense has still been committed. Some of you are here to keep track of me and see me through my trip to Spain and some of you who are "anti-blog" will be disgusted and are here to rail about my succumbing to the opiate of the masses... kinda like I am. But alas, this is easier than sending off multiple emails and less costly than sending home letters and postcards (which I'll still probly do anyway).