CRUSTmas

today is friday, december 25th.

christmas. in spain! i am currently preparing a special christmas meal that consists of mashed potatoes, serrano ham wrapped asparagus, and cookies. like three kinds of cookies. and im drinking a mimosa. AND i am listening to 'last christmas' by wham, and also to mariah carry sing 'all i want for christmas' ON REPEAT.

this christmas has been delicious. i have nothing better to do than eat, shop for food, buy wine, and cook. and eat. i shot a little video of my christmas festivities. i found some rad flamenco christmas music, and then you can also see the organic polverones of which ive been partaking every hour on the hour, for good luck(i just made that up). i miss everyone, and i love christmas...

in bed with my slippers on

today is sunday,
december 20th.

its so cold! it snowed for about 12 hours yesterday, but theres still not that much snow on the ground. eric told me that i had to go to the show last night, even though it was like 30 degrees outside and the venue was like a 25 minute walk from my house. but im so glad i did, a fricken awesome band played called eskorbutines. i saw the flyer and i figured it had something to do with eskorbuto, but i wasnt positive cause i couldnt find anything about them online. which makes sense, because cover bands shouldnt have myspaces.s so it ended up being an eskorbuto cover band, and they were SO rad, i mean you cant really go wrong playing 45 minutes worth of eskorbuto songs. i didnt know it, but eskorbuto is from pais vasco, so now i totally understand why they are so popular here (well other than the fact that they are AWESOME). so yes, i had fun, thanks eric for telling me to do stuff i dont want to do, cause sometimes its super fun.

so i just finished reading that book you see up there. it was super good, and super gnarly and graphic and stuff. but i really enjoyed it, and now i want to read more bukowski stuff. i really like when people illustrate the works of great writers, and the illustration in this book is that kinda dirty looking scary kind of illustration that i love. i always want to compare everything to kevins illustration, but it kinda reminded me of ... kevins illustration.

last week this random duder was staying at my house, and we took a picture in front of rivendell cause we're DORKS. 'tis my new favorite place.

birthrite weekend

today is monday, december 14th.

i had a wonderful birthday weekend. eric came from san sebastian, and dahara came from madrid. i bought myself a burnt egg yoke cake that tasted like whipcream toasted marshmellows, deelish. dahara made me eat a whole can of pringles, then a whole bag of toothbrush shapped gummy candy. deelish. eric got me some slippers, which is fricken rad cause i didnt have any, and it has started to snow.

they totally loved vitoria-gasteiz, which is really exciting, because that means everyone else who comes to visit will probably love it too. i took them to eat hot toasted baguette sandwiches, we went to el abuelos (the rock n roll bar), we ate fried potatoes, we slept till 1pm two days in a row, and we also went to a new bar that i hadn't been to before. a metal bar. there are like 7 metal bars here in vitoria, but this one is special. this ones called rivendell. yes, RIVENDELL. i am leaving it at that, and if you understand the significance of this name, i love you forever. the ultra metal bartender/owner totally loved us, and he poured us blue hawaii shots. cause thats what metal dudes drink, blue shots that taste like bubblegum. he also gave us a cd of his band, Hard Rock Sound, and showed us a video on his cell phone of him doing some medieval battle-ry with his chainmail on. DEWD. SO RAD. haha. we had a wonderful weekend.

in other birthday related news: kyle sent me a fabulous mix tape with no track list, my mom sent me her top 'aint it cool news' nerdom picks, a letter arrived from kaitlin just in time from costa rica, i bought a ticket to rome with the dough i received from my grandparents, and matt purchased his ticket to meet me there. wowzers, i mean, he didnt specifically buy it as a birthday present to me, but im going to pretend he did. dude, i say it counts as a birthday present, and christmas present, and new years gift, and an easter present. for the next ten fricken years! geez thanks matt, all i got you was one lousy bottle of gundam flavored ketchup. and a baby tiger. ... jokes! i couldnt find any gundam flavored ketchup.

today on my walk home from work, it was snowing like crazy. its cold, and i am protesting going outside. and its not even winter yet! can you see the snow? is it possible to take a picture of snow falling? do the people i pass on the sidewalk think im crazy when im taking pictures of air? yeeeeesss.

thanks for the sweet hawaiian melodies kyle, theyz warmz the heartz.

simple pleasures

today is thursday, december 10.

1 day until i am 1/4 of a century old. rad. yesterday i received 4 letters and a postcard, but i am being a good girl and waiting till tomorrow to open them.

last week i was feeling kinda defeated, and what better way to restore my spirit than to go shopping? unfortunately, there arent many places here in spain that sell used things. its just not really part of the culture. people hold on to their stuff forever, and when someone dies, they divide it up and keep everything for another 50 years. it kinda makes thrift store shopping more challenging, but i can dig it because i have nothing but time on my hands. and when you do find something rad, its just that much more gratifying. so last week, i found two new pairs of shoes, a bow, and a puzzle of the incredible hulk.

something else that keeps me excited, and helps me to get out of bed everyday before noon (instead of just sleeping till 2, cause you know i totally could): i have an advent calendar! it was only 75cents and its from germany. my favorite plastic/chocolate flavored image so far? a chocolate squirrel!

mmm, squirrels...

untitled

today is december 2, and i cant think of anything to say!

im not sure if its because i am being boring, or if its that there really is nothing going on. today was the last day of my work week? thats pretty exciting, if not for you, then at least for me. now i have a six-day weekend, because next monday and tuesday are school holidays. luckily im a grown-up and i receive a salary, because if they only paid me for the days i actually worked, well then we'd all be in trouble. this is probably the first and only time i will say this in my life, but i kinda wish it wasnt a holiday. i mean in my normal life i LOVE not working, but this is not my normal life, and i am not feeling normal. school holidays not only leave me with nothing to do (but eat/get fat at home), i also kinda like working. its kinda fun. my students are hilarious, and they are the closest thing i have to friends. they make me laugh, they talk shit to me in spanish, and they all want to say hi to me in the hallway-its like being popular or something. today we had to read a passage from Bram Stoker's Dracula. then we talked about vampires, and about Interview with the Vampire, and about Twilight. its awesome because there are a few goth/weird arty girls in my classes who are totally me when i was in high school. except they are shy! (i was a frickin' firecracker when i was in highschool) its so sweet they are so totally typically the 'weird girls'; they all have died black hair and wear too much black eye makeup, and of course they were the ones who were way into all the vampire talk. ha most of the class hadnt even heard of Interview with the Vampire, but one of the girls is totally like 'oh yeah i love anne rice. lestat is such a babe' well she didnt actually know how to say he 'is a babe', but i totally taught her, cause he totally IS. so yup. i like what i am doing. sometimes its super hard and frustrating, and i stand in front of the class and ask a question 7 times and everyone just stares at me and doesn't say a word. and sometimes i feel like a moron because i cant explain something well, or no one understands me, or i am trying to teach and no one gives a fuck about what i am saying. and other times, out of nowhere, its really gratifying. sometimes i know ive really helped them understand something, and sometimes i can tell they are really trying. i just want them to have confidence in themselves, and i want them to leave class feeling good about their abilities and about who they are. and sometimes they do. and on those days i leave work with a smile on my face, because i feel like ive been a positive influence in my students lives. it makes me feel real.

post-thanksgiving thanksgiving dinner

today is sunday, november 29.

wow that means its only 12 days until my early 20's are DEAD. forever. i talked to matt about it, and he says i cant make myself a cake, it would be way too sad. so can i buy myself a cake? im not even gunna ask him; a gurls gotta eat some cake on her bday and ill do it in secret shameful aloneness if i have to. and i will be so sad on my birthday because i am all alone, but then i will eat a whole cake all to myself and be totally stoked cause i dont have to share. but then ill be sad again cause ill feel like a fat ass. but then ill be happy cause i will read all the nice birthday letters my friends have sent me (hint hint)!!!!

last night i went to a thanksgiving dinner hosted by the other americans who live here in vitoria. i made ranch dip with veggies, and it was totally deliciously exotic, because spain doesnt have ranch. weird! so we had turkey and mashed taters and green beans and corn and stuffing! homemade stuffing cause they dont sell the boxed kind here (stupid spain). but yes, we all decided that its totally lame that we only eat stuffing once a year, cause its totally everyones favorite dish of holiday flavor. yum yum i dont think i should learn the recipe because i will totally try to make it once a week and all it really is is bread and butter and seasoning. i guess it has a vegetable component, celery, but not enough to make it ok to eat 3 times a day for 4 days in a row. oh i also brought to the party two bottles of champagne that cost $1.50 each and you all know how much i enjoy a good bottle of champagne. and guess what i didnt just enjoy a good bottle i enjoyed TWO good bottles and so needless to say i had a very pleasant evening.

i didnt take any pictures of our dinner, but you all know what thanksgiving food looks like. so above is a picture of my apartment building. thats my apartment on the top story on the left. and sorry i know i already posted a picture of a sunrise from my bedroom window, but this is another one. i love watching the sun rise, and it rises a little later here for some reason? when i get ready for work in the morning and the sun is rising all beautiful like, i get all excited to be alive. cause its like totally beautiful and shit, you know?

black friday is not as black metal as one would hope

today is friday, november 27.

happy belated thanksgiving everyone. yesterday totally wasnt thanksgiving here, it sucked! yeah they dont even know what thanksgiving means, or that its a holiday in the US. like whaaa? you dont have all of americas holidays memorized? well fricken get with, we're like the most important country in the universe, arent we? some people have heard of it, if i tell them what it is in spanish: el día de la acción de gracias. the direct translation for that from spanish to english is 'the day of the action of giving thanks'. which sounds pretty lame, so i pretty much just say thanksgiving but with a spanish accent, which probably sounds even lamer. so yesterday was pretty sucky, cause i knew everyone was hanging out in america eating american food, and having THE MOST AWESOME DAY OF THEIR LIVES, and i was here, in spain, where they dont even sell pumpkin cheesecake. how, you may ask, can someone survive in a land that doesnt even sell novelty flavored cheesecakes (my favorite is bubblegum)???? well all i can do it try to live my life as normally as possible, and each day it gets a little easier. so as a special thanksgiving treat, i decided to order my first pizza! ooo i was super nervous because it sucks speaking spanish over the phone and i didnt want the anonymous pizza worker to think i was an idiot. and i know its silly, but i felt like a total fat ass ordering a whole pizza just for me. and for some reason i always think they know! like when i call in they can totally hear my alone and fatassedness in my voice! im paranoid! i know! so anyways, the ordering went really well, i think the anonymous pizza guy was kinda flirting with me, which was weird, cause couldnt he tell i was foreign (and thus occupying the status level of a fricken LEPER in this country)?? so my pizza came, it was good, i got corn, pineapple, and mushrooms. and i had a very pleasant thanksgiving, with or without a pumpkin double chocolate swill with carmel chips and fudge lining cheesecake! (oh man but that would have been rad...)

i just at a 1/4 of a head of cabbage and guess what...

today is monday, november 23.

i dont even want to write about what happened at the show last night. cause nothing happened. nope, absolutely nothing. i went, i watched, a weird boy talked to me for a minute, i drank 1 beer, i said hello to my spanish acquaintances, and then i left crying and looking really stupid with liquid eyeliner and mascara running down all over my face. oh great i hope a whole bunch of people saw that. yes, so i got a little emotional last night. but sometimes its just too much to handle. i am trying to make the best of my time here, stay positive, keep my head up, and laugh at every stupid little thing that i actually want to cry at. and i do alright at it. spain is so rad! i just wish that it wasnt so lonely. it would be great to know just one person. to have just one measly little person to call a friend. like, oh i dont know, maybe someone to go get lunch with. or someone to drink an occasional cup of coffee with, or to invite me to get a beer. is that really so much to ask? and i know this is a horrible thing to admit to, but whenever i get discouraged about something, and then try to be undiscouraged about said thing, a line from the song "the sign" by ace of base plays in my head:

no one's gonna drag you up to get into the light where you belong.

god sorry how horrible was that that i just quoted ace of base? no but really i do think about that line all the time. like, when im running away from a surf rock party, and crying and being mopey and sad that no one will talk to me, what am i thinking was going to happen? like someone is going to come up to me and force their friendship upon me and make me be their best friend and make me hang out with them all the time? these people already have friends. they probably like the friends they already have just as much as i like the friends that i already have (whoa not possible, but still, they probably like their friends a lot). no one is going to see a sad little foreign girl with weird hair and NO sense of style (spanish style is WACK, and luckily i dont have it) and try to be friends with me. no one is going to try and make me happy. its up to me to drag myself up into the light where i belong.

oh man! im such a cheezeball!

oh and p.s. i got an email from best friend kaitlin today. shes working at an organic, sustainable community outreach center in costa rica, trying to make the world a better place for us all. and with quotes like this, she DOES force me to be happy, even when i dont want to be, cause i cant help but laugh when i read her emails:

"and if i have learned one major thing here its that i dont ever want to be a farmer."

im glad to hear you are doing well kaitlin. love you girl.

im getting carpel tunnel

today is sunday, november 22.

i am listening to a modest mouse/at the drive in/saves the day tape that adam made for me 9 years ago. cause im old as shit.

last night i went and saw new moon. by myself. cause im a fricken dork.

today i am going to a surf party, as in surf music party, alone. because im a loser and i have no friends.

the party is at el abuelos, my 'friend' pablo's rock 'n roll bar. i put the word friend in quotes because we are only kinda friends. fake friends if you will. like its totally a forced friendship; anytime i see him out i just attach myself to him and make him hang out with me. its like a little kid following their older sibling around. i think he thinks im okay, but he mostly thinks im annoying cause i follow him around like a puppy. whatever, i have no shame. and i also make him be friends with me by giving me stuff and letting me borrow stuff. i mean thats what real friends are for, right? so when i moved into my apartment there was a stereo system in the living room that obviously wasnt being used. i asked the landlord if i could put it in my room, and she told me that i could, but it didnt work. but it did work! someone had just cut the speaker wires, but that would be easy to repair. so i could have gone to the electronic store and bough speaker wire, yeah that would have been easy. but this was a great friend opportunity! i told pablo my dilemma, and i may have exaggerated a little bit ("i only need a little bit and i dont want to go and buy a whole roll of speaker wire, you know?") so yes, he had speaker wire, and sure, he would give me some. and he did! he remembered and everything and brought it to the bar to give me. and then i asked him to borrow a screwdriver! haha that probably doesnt sound as exciting to you as it did to me. oh my god i am pathetic. i sealed the friendship deal by borrowing a screwdriver. i am such a weirdo. but now i have a working stereo, and i can listen to my tapes at obnoxiously loud levels of volume. and pablo has to be my friend, cause one time he let me borrow a screwdriver. im so sneaky.

zem showzen

today is saturday, november 21.

i dont feel well.

last night i went to a punk show at a metal bar. it was terrifying. 90% of the people there were under the age of 20, but i guess that was to be expected. the bartender had dreadlocks down to his butt and he was wearing a slipknot shirt. i am not judging. i am simply making an observation. if you thought that i wrote that to make fun of him, shame on you, you are so judgmental. so yes, the band was not half bad. i kinda know the guitar player/singer, but not his name or anything, we just do the whole head nod recognition thing when we see each other at shows. but anyways. the show was so weird! i mean there was quite a lot of people there, and the place was pretty small, so there wasnt that awkward space that develops between the band and the people listening to the band when there arent a lot of people at a show. the band played a few cover songs, one was for sure parálisis permanente, which was rad cause i love them. and they played something else that people appeared to know which was cool or whatever. and the beer was way cheap, like 2 dollars a pint. okay, so decent music, a decent amount of people, at least a few songs that people probably knew the lyrics to (i mean even i knew the lyrics to at least one song), and cheap beer. so far so good. ok so here is what made it so strange. no one moved! not even a little! its not like, 'oh, there wasn't like a circle pit or anything, but people were still having fun.' no. no no no. people stood totally still, staring straight ahead. no head bobbing, no playful friend pushing, no highschool girls dancing with each other in the front, no pogoing, no over aggressive old dude pissing everyone off. nope. just pretty alright punk music played to a room full of really bored looking kids. LAME. it really made me miss my home sweet home in the way funner than i ever realized US of A. and california. i miss california.

Well, I'm going out west out on the coast
Where the California SHOWS are really the most

USA USA USA

today ive done nothing

today is friday, november 20.

i have done nothing today. well, okay, i did a few things:

i drank a cup of coffee

i ate some cereal

i went to 1 of 2 thrift stores in town

i found rad shit at the thrift store!

yeah it was really exciting actually, because i was kinda having thrift shopping withdrawals. so yes, first find: a bad brains tape! cool! then lou reed, transformer. awesome! and siouxie and banshees, kaleidoscope! which turned out to not be siouxie and the banshees after all. and bad brains turned out to be... quickness. blah! okay so 1/3, that snot so bad!

then i ate soup.

then i took a nap.

then i drank more coffee.

then i talked to my mom.

now i am going to a show, wish me luck...

too much free time

today is friday, november 20.

and the title of this blogentry is terribly appropriate. i really do have a lot of free time on my hands. enough free time that i can walk 20 minutes to my nearest milk vending machine to buy my milk, instead of buying regular old boring regular milk at the grocery store across the street from my house. no way, too boring, wont do it. must walk 20 minutes to milk vending machine. sorry convenience, im in it for style.

so here is a picture of yesterdays bounty. once a week i make the trek to this awesome organic farmers market that is hidden away in the deserted top story (so no one can find it, its a conspiracy!) of this somewhat dilapidated market building. there are only three stalls, and i always go to the old hippy man who is missing teeth cause, i don't know, i imagine him to be like, the penny rimbaud of spanish organic farmers or something. so anyways. in this building there is also a milk vending machine where you can purchase a plastic or glass (way more ELF) 1L bottle and fill it for 1€. it's nuts. so above you can see my totally stylish milk bottle, my organic fruit and vegetable selection for the week, and, oh wait. what is that you see in the background? some sort of shinny topped bottle of some sort? oh yes. thats brandy. you knew i wouldn't let you down.

katie d, sin amigos(that was a movie reference?)

today is thursday, november 19.

im starting to get a bit frustrated about this whole 'making friends' thing. im doing such a good job at trying, im really making an effort, and so far, nothing has come of it. i mean, you all know me, how often do i really want to 'go out' at night, and like, party? umm, yeah. im much more of a 6 dvds at a time from netflix type of woman; a tall can at home with the ladies kind of girl. so forcing myself to go out, speak, look at people, and have people look at me, well, its all quite a challenge. but im doing it damnit! against my will! last night i went to the library and picked up the third book in the 'northern lights' series (ladies...) and, even though i had all the want in the world to stay home and start/finish it all in one night, i set it down, unopened, put on a dress on, did my fucking hair, put makeup on (yes, makeup), and walked my ass to the bar in 42 degree freezing cold weather. and for what!? even colder stares and, well, cold beer. i guess that wasn't too horrible. but still! its wearing me out. geez, someone be friends with me already!

so i know its embarrassing to post a picture of yourself on your own blog, but listen, im going to do some theologizing and it has to do with how adorable i have been looking lately (thanks to all my FREE TIME CAUSE I HAVE NO FUCKING FRIENDS). but really, how cute do i look? im not trying to sound conceited (wow kinda unavoidable at this point.) but i mean, how come people don't look at me and say, 'wow, that girl is adorable, i want to be friends with her' ?? i mean, i say that to myself all the time about other people! am i not as adorable as i think?! anyways, so spain is helping to prove, once again, my 'men don't want to be friends theory'. and if you haven't heard me bitch about this ever, which im sure the majority of you have, if not once then a few times, then i shall sum it up for you here. men dont want to be friends with women. well actually its more like, men dont want to be friends with women they dont want to have sex with. now, like every good rule, there are quite a few exceptions. if you have been friends with the dude since highschool (kyle who is the best) or since junior high (willy! eww!) then you can be friends without any stupid sex complications. if this dude has dated or is currently dating one of your friends, then you can also be friends without sex complications. if the dude wants to have sex with one of your friends, then you kinda get out of having any sex complications, but hey, your friend still has to deal with it so that kinda sucks. matt graciously pointed out to me a 'co-worker clause', and im going to say thats a 'half-exception', because, well, i proved him wrong by showing him the example of, well, uhhhhh me and him. hmm, what else? i dont know, there are a few other exceptions, i mean homosexuality is kinda a given, or asexuality (seth only kinda fits into this category, kinda), umm, i don't know i am sure there are other exceptions but i could probably argue my point against any of them. so anyways, back to my original point. i can't make friends here, because the boys just want to have sex with me, and thus not be friends, and the girls just want to beat me up or hate me, cause the boys/their boyfriends want to have sex with me and i am competition. so yes, woe is me. feel sorry for me, starting. . . now! no but really its kinda cool getting to travel the world and test your scientific theories on foreign soil. and even though its pretty cool to be so smart and have all your theories proven to be correct, it actually sucks really bad, cause i dont have any friends. ha.

i have THEE INTERNET

today is wednesday, november 18.

on my walk to work this morning, i listened to 'horn the unicorn' (wmt 04) by our dear friend ty segall. i was feeling a bit nostalgic, and kinda crazy.

i came to this conclusion:

life is super fucked up and rad.

autumn always turns me wild!

san sebastian/donostia/donosti

today is friday, november 6.

i am in san sebastian. i was here last weekend, and now i am back, because last night we had tickets to see "Død Snø" at the annual horror film festival. it was awesome! as you can see from this fine foto i have posted here, the theater is really cool and old and the festival is a pretty big deal. the movie started at 12:30 so after trying to waste some time drinking beer at a german bar that was playing techno, we showed up to find a huge mass of people hanging out in front, everyone wearing black, the occasional hipster milling about, and tons of nerds! it was all so exciting. so yes, being that its an old theater, it is obviously super neat inside, and our seats were upstairs on the balcony. they sell beer at the theater (duh, this is spain!), and the screenwriter and producer where there from norway, and everyone was being wild and yelling and saying stupid stuff the whole time. oh and in the foto there is what i understood to be frankenstein dressed up as santa claus? yeah i dont really get it either.

but ... san sebastian is beautiful, it feels a lot like san clemente. except like, medieval and freezing cold. but there are tons of surfers here, including lots of ladies, which is rad. eric and i hiked up the mountain behind his house, and i was moved...

but i really like vitoria, and i kinda can't wait to get home? aww how cute its growing on me...

today is sunday, november 1.

there are punks in vitoria! well at least 1! and she or he left this amazing tag for me to find, just around the corner from my flat. now i know you are thinking to yourself, "why are the anarchopunks in the shower?" and i myself pondered this same question as i stood and stared while everyone who passed looked at me as though i was insane (as usual). but i just didn't get it; i love anarchopunks, but i hate showers. and then suddenly the geniusness of the tag dawned on me: the anarchopunks weren't in the ducha, they were in a lucha. they were in a struggle, not in the shower! and then some clever passerby decided that the anarchopunks had a rather offensive smell, as they are usually known to have, and changed the tag to shower. anarchopunks in the shower. awesome. i laughed for 10 minutes straight. aww spain, yer so funny.

haus without thee intraweb

today is saturday, october 31.

halloween is here! but not here here. i have purchased a squash, and already eaten half of it, so i guess the other half can serve as a poor excuse for a jack o' lantern. and my dad emailed me a case of 30 candy bars, so ill probably eat half of that too. but im afraid the festivities will probably end there. and although halloween is turning out to be, umm, nothing, there are other redeeming qualities about this country, i swear!

other redeeming quality number 1: the cities end! on the outskirts of town there is a street, and on one side is civilization, and on the other, nothing. so last sunday, being that there was nothing to do because the whole town was closed, i decided to walk west until i could walk west no more. i almost made it! here is where vitoria ends:

redeeming quality number 2: on my way back from the edge of the world, i found a small village that had been eaten by my town some years back. there was a lonely looking stone church all overgrown with wilderness, a small school house built of stone, and tiny stone houses with shuttered windows and gardens in the backyards:

it was rather neat, and as i sat in the tree covered plaza of the village, i pictured myself in one of those houses, one that was probably built 200 years ago, eating vegetables from my garden, and having basque babies. i like it here...

yo te quiero

today is thursday, october 22.

things are very up and down! i really do like it here, but at the same time, its proving to be completely impossible to meet anyone. yesterday i visited the local record store and attempted (in vain) to befriend the woman who owns thee fine establishment. she was not having it! in my stuttered, broken spanish i asked her various questions about the store, about an Lp i didn't recognize, about a local zine she had for sale. but alas! she was barely willing to utter an annoyed 'yes' or 'no' in response. i wanted to be honest, i wanted to tell her i was new in town, and lonely, and that if i couldn't meet people in a record store, than i was a lost cause. i wanted to grab her and shake her and yell "you must understand, you're my only hope!!!" but instead, i bought a zine, and left, defeated...

the fine picture you see here is my daily commute to school. my town is beautiful! my spirit restored!

oh my corazón!

this is getting harder! my throat has started to hurt from my lack of speech. no one will believe it, but im quite a shy and quiet lady in spanish. i think it has something to do with the fact that i hate being wrong. and im always wrong in spanish. so i keep quiet. and now my throat hurts. i woke up this morning from a terrible dream. i was dreaming that i was pulling something out of my mouth, or trying to at least. it wasn't like throwing up. it was more like trying to pull large clumps of something gross out of my throat because i was chocking on it. i kept pulling it out and pulling it out, but there was always more. i had a similar dream 2 nights ago. but last night it was kinda rad actually, because i was throwing this stuff up into a circle of dead rats. i guess i understand the significance of the gross stuff stuck in my throat; but the dead rats? im pretty sure all that means is... im super goth.

chilling dayz in a strange land

its getting cold! the air is crisp and it smells like fall. i've have been drinking much to much coffee and preparing elaborate meals of steamed broccoli and cheese. life has been pretty uneventful, and not much adventuring to post about, so i took some pictures of my house. this is a foto of my messy little room.

and so is this:

and the kitchen:

the entry way:

and what i've been doing in my spare time:

that is a bottle of beer, keler, and its made in the town where my friend eric lives, san sebastián. next to it is a 1euro bottle of wine that i drank last night, and then a bottle of cider, that really just tasted like apple cider vinegar, because it too cost only 1euro. not pictured: a cup of coffee (its in the sink), and the 1euro box (yes box) of sangria i drank 2 days ago. what other delicious drinkable delights does the future hold for me? tune in next week to find out...

somehow i always show up at the wrong time!

today is tuesday, october 13.

kevin! there are chemtrails here. next to mansions of course. but chemtrails none the less:

and mom! i've been eating! a diet to make any mother proud:

today was my first day of actually working. terrifying obviously. i still can not believe that they have entrusted me with their children! i don't feel much older than a lot of them. in one of my classes there was a group of 5 girls that all recognized me from the rock n' roll bar. they all look older than me. great. another girl, a little skinhead, was at the show at the squat the other night. im sure that after class she told everyone how i stood alone at that show for 3 hours and drank the equivalent of 2.5 bottles of wine all to myself. ha. im not sure im ready for this, i dont feel grown up enough. and at the same time, seeing those girls at the bar and at the show, i feel terribly old. too young to be old and too old to be young. what a dilemma. what a horribly depressing and sickening dilemma.

today is saturday, october 10.

the sun rises quite late here. i awoke at 8:15 to this view from my bedroom window. i wanted to live somewhere where i would wake up and say "holy shit, i live in spain". i feel as though i succeeded. my apartment is two blocks from the medieval center of town. its a 5 story building, probably build in the 50's, and my apartment is on the top floor. there's no internet, and no tv, so most of the time i just look out the window. its dark, and quiet, and kind of dirty. its home.

bullet holes in cemetery walls

today is thursday, october 8.

and i have no internet! so im a tad bit behind. yeah so?

vitoria is proving to be pretty rad. i have located a record store, a vintage store, a book store with an impressive selection of graphic novels in spanish, a 'garage rock' bar, and a bartender who IS joey ramone in disguise. i attended my first show on saturday last. it was at some sort of squat/okupa/radness that technically belongs to the church but has been taken over the youth of euskadi (see below). i happened upon it when i was wondering the medieval section of the city, and there was a flyer on the door for a thrash show. i knew by 'thrash' what they really wanted to say was like, 'metal', and not like 'thrash' as in punk, but eh? what else was i going to do? so i went! all by myself! here are some fotos of my epic first metal show in Basqueland...

The photo in the middle is of me with my new friends, Mar and José María. Jose María was the first to speak to me at the show. He drunkenly came up to me and mumbled something about the camera he was holding. I didn't understand him, so I said "que?". He responding by saying, in an asshole tone of basque voice, "oh, you don't speak basque?". well obviously not jerk, or i would have understood you. and then "well, you dont really speak spanish either, do you?" rad. thanks. josé maría went on to educate me about a few things: basque language is called euskara. basque country is know as euakadi. basque punks are known as assholes. well, that last one was just a little keen observation on my part. so, insults duly noted, i smiled and laughed, and was immediately welcomed into the group, basque or no basque. thats how i met Mar, and then the band you see above, Impalator. José María continued to be a dick to me throughout the evening, but by 4am his true drunken feelings came out. i guess being a total fucking jerk to someone REALLY means that you are in love with them. oh wait, same as back home, huh? anyways, the evening started to wind down at about 10am, and my new friends and i wondered the streets of my precious medieval village, and after one last beer, they were off on the rest of their tour, and out of my life... oh the life of a lonely punk!

in the days of '39

today is friday, october 2.

im reading the sun also rises by ernest hemingway. my mother gave it to me as a parting gift. today i read it while drinking red wine at a cafe. i don't particularly like drinking wine, but i felt it was the the appropriate thing to do. so in the spirit of things, i 'utilized' 4 glasses of vino tinto, and after couldn't help but feel a little 'tight'. i think i will get the hang of this.

spanish bombs in andalucía

today is thursday, october 1.

i arrived the night before last to vitoria-gasteiz, my new home in spanish basque county. i have spent the last 2 days wondering the streets, not eating, sleeping more than i should, and compulsively checking my email every 20 minutes. so far: everything is very spanish; i haven't figured out how to feed myself; i saw a dead pigeon in the street; there is a new rail line through town, but there is no map for it yet; i smoked one cigarette; I made a friend from chile; i found a squat; 37 old men have stared at me; and one old woman pinched my butt and asked me if i was french.

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