London II

I say that the turkey meal was a miserable failure because, well, because...just look at it:

It was kind of a mess, and a little bit tasteless. And it lacked delicious sweet potatoes. Have you seen the recipe that my mom used this year? They were apparently fantastic. It's a pity that I wasn't there to eat them ALL UP. 

But this is what the inside of the restaurant looked like. It was a lot like Christmas, what with the tree and hall. And the fact that it was a restaurant at the Christmas Market. You know, 'cause that makes a difference.

London I

I was in London for Thanksgiving. It was awesome. Actually, it was more like I was in London for Black Friday, but same dif.

I got there Thursday night, and after a little bit of a hassle with the express train (note: an express train to Victoria Station does NOT stop at Clapham Junction), joined up with K, M and friends for a delightful dinner at The Stonehouse Restaurant (I think it was more of a gastropub).

Friday, we wandered around the city, which is my favorite thing to do in Europe. And we wandered into a lot of dessert shops, which is my favorite thing to do in life.

First up, Notting Hill, and The Hummingbird Bakery. They had whoopie pies (both chocolate AND pumpkin!)! And they had a delicious red velvet cupcake (unfortunately not as delicious as Bent Spoon, but still delicious). This was at 11 AM. Who says you shouldn't eat dessert for breakfast?

Next, we headed on over to the delightful Christmas Market in Hyde Park. It reminded me of a mixture between a State Fair, a Renaissance Fair, and Santa's playground in the mall. It had all of these cute little wooden huts all decked out with garland and holly, selling spiced cider, mulled wine, hot chocolate, fudge, candy, and bratwurst. There was a lot of bratwurst. I guess Christmas Markets were imported from Germany.

At the Christmas Market, we ducked into a little restaurant that was selling Roast Turkey with all the Trimmings in an attempt to make up for the delicious T-day meal that we had missed the day before. It failed kind of miserably, but at least it gave us a chance to sit down someplace warm and chat for a while before going back out in the cold!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's the most wonderful day of the year! Seriously. T-day is my favorite holiday...partly because it hasn't been commercialized, and partly because it is a day specifically devoted to FOOD! Other holidays also have delicious treats, but there's just nothing like T-day.

Of course, a European T-day isn't quite the same. For one thing, I actually had class today. Boooooo. At the same time, a European T-day makes me ever more grateful for the wonderful tradition of giving thanks for all the blessings in my life. For instance:

• I'm thankful that I get to go to LONDON (!) this weekend to visit my brother sister-in-law and friends. T-day isn't T-day without family.
• I'm thankful that I have awesome parents who let me come all the way to Spain for a year.
• I'm thankful for the awesome Master's program that accepted me.
• Even if I currently feel like all the work will give me a heart attack.
• I'm thankful for a whole lot more than that, but I have to get to the airport.

Hope someone somewhere eats lots of stuffing for me! and mashed potatoes! and sweet potatoes! 

Letters

As you know, I've got a letter project going on. Nothing much...just write one letter a week to a different friend/acquaintance and then two more per month to the same people. It's been great fun, and now that I'm almost done, I've got some ponderings to do.

To repeat or not to repeat? That is the question. And that is a question that won't be decided until the end of December.

However, I have recently discovered a new, far more serious pondering that requires my full attention: the dilemma of international postal systems. How do they work? How does a letter addressed to a city in a different country (whose name might be spelled differently depending on the language) still arrive at its proper destination?

Can anyone answer that, because I have not the slightest idear.

For instance, I write to a friend in Poland often. When I was in the States, I never questioned how the letters arrived to her house when I had written the address in English. I just didn't.

Now, however, I am in Spain, and Spanish people don't really speak English all that well. I am still writing her address just as I knew how to write it back in the States, which means that it is addressed to someone in Krakow, Poland (not Cracovia, Polonia, as they call it in Spanish), and yet they still somehow arrive at her place without any problems.

I don't get this. Do all Spanish postal workers know how to read English? Do all Polish postal workers know English (or even Spanish for that matter. I'm sure there's someone in this country who has sent a letter to Poland and written the city name in Spanish)?

Is there a letter party somewhere? Do they al hook up and then travel with their letter companions to their new country?

Is there a big international mailing centre where all the letters of the world reunite and then go their happy, separate ways? Is there?

These are the things that I worry about when I have final projects to attend to.

I'm Flabbergasted

Studying in Starbucks today (it happens, ok?!?!) and I notice that this guy at the table next to me spills his coffee. Had that happened to me, I would have run almost immediately to the napkins to start mopping up the mess. At the very least, I would have notified a member of the staff so that they could get their mop on.

This dude (and his wife, who is sitting right next to him!) do nothing. NOTHING! Just sit there and finish their conversation and then leave. They don't even say something to a barista as they walk by the counter on their way out!

Over the next 45 minutes to an hour, at least 8 people try to sit down at this table, but promptly leave as soon as they notice the big puddle of coffee on the floor. It's not on any of the chairs or the table, really, so they theoretically could have sat down, but they all chose not to do so. Not one of these people thinks to go grab a pile of napkins, or even to tell a barista that there's a spill that needs fixin'. (While most napkins in Spain aren't particularly absorbent, Starbucks' ones are relatively normal, so cleaning up with napkins is a distinct possibility there).

And it's not like this Starbucks wasn't busy and all of these people could have simply sat at any table in the place. Oh no. This Starbucks was packed! The spilt-coffee-table was off hiding in the corner behind the staircase and the only reason people were even considering sitting there is that there weren't many other options in the rest of the store.

And you are probably wondering how I know that no one told a barista about the spill if I was off hiding in a corner somewhere. I know this because, when the barista finally came around to pick up people's glasses off the tables, he was genuinely surprised and annoyed to see spilt coffee on the floor. He even muttered 'joder'! (which isn't actually saying much because its one of the most popular invectives in Spain, but it's not something he would have said if he had been prepared to see spilt coffee).

Big whoop, you say. Mr. Barista took his pile of dirty cups back to the kitchen, grabbed a mop, cleaned up the mess, and you were able to go back to your reading, right? WRONG! Mr. Barista disappears for about 10 minutes, and the next time I see him, he's out on his SMOKE BREAK!

wtf, Mr. Barista? wtf?

After that, he's gone for another ten minutes and then he finally appears with a mop and cleans up the mess. Finally. I'm sort of surprised that the coffee hadn't congealed to the floor by this point.

Man, there are some things that I just do not understand about this country. And I probably never will.


***You are probably wondering why I am criticizing people for not cleaning up spilled coffee when I didn't lift a hand to clean up the mess either. 

• First off, I seriously thought that the first couple had told a barista about the mess right until the barista finally showed up and acted surprised to see spilt coffee on the floor. 
• Second, I already had a table and the spill wasn't affecting me, except for the fact that it was keeping me from doing my reading. 
• Third, as I kept watching people refuse both to sit at the table and to clean up the spill, I just decided I'd wait it out and see what happened. 

Not my brightest hour, I confess, but I really don't care...I have to get back to my reading.

Dear Mr. PC City dude:

Thank you so much for getting rid of that pesky virus from my flash drive. I mean, I know that it really didn't affect me so much because I have a Mac, but I still was really afraid to use anything that was on there, or even to transfer it to my mac and then email it to myself because, well, just because.

See, I've gotten a really nasty virus on a flash drive before. It apparently made duplicate copies of my files and then hid the real ones and was apparently a pain in the butt to get rid of, and I really didn't want to mess with the three random files that existed, since I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to computer-y things.

So, thank you Mr. PC City dude. I know that you said it was a tontería and that it only took you 5 minutes to fix, but you really didn't have to do it for free. I mean, this was my first time in your store. I didn't even buy anything to make up for it. But your very wonderful customer service has ensured that I will totes come back whenever I need anything remotely computer-y related.

That's all, and muchas gracias.

DNorton

Remember this Window?

I once said that it was my favorite part about my room. Wooden and peeling...it made me feel so bohemian.

That was when it was warm out.

Now it is quite chilly (and only going to get worse), and my prediction that my lovely, peeling, bohemian window was drafty (draughty?) has been proven true.

It doesn't help that my desk is right near it, so I feel the draught (draft???) every time I am sitting at my computer (which is quite often).

And what is with the word draft/draught?  Honestly, I'm looking at both spellings right now and thinking that both look alien, even though dictionary.com says they're both right.

Katy Perry + Being Mooned by a Random Spanish Dude

Last night was the EMA's (The European Music Awards, for those who pay absolutely no attention to either the pop culture scene or the outside-of-the-USA scene).

The EMA's were in Madrid. Ergo, there was a ginormous outdoor concert (FREE!) at the Puerta de Alcalá.

This is it on a normal day.

This requires quadrupling the security forces in the streets, shutting down several major thoroughfares, and all around transforming a beautifully classical space in Madrid into a modern concert venue for 1 million+ people.

Being a concert in Spain, it didn't get started until about an hour or so after we all thought it would, but that was ok! It gave me time to actually get there!

Once I got there, I still had to wait for a good long while before the concert started and the crowd was getting pretty restless. So when the concert emcee came on and promised the crowd that the band would be on soon, things started to look a little promising.

Of course, my failure at Spanish colloquialisms means that I missed the part where the emcee said that if the musical group 30 Seconds from Mars wasn't on ready by the time he finished his bit, he would pants himself.

They weren't ready.

And he stuck to his word.

And that is how a crowd of a million+ people got scarred for life at the EMAs.

(I do not have a picture of this. In fact, I barely have a mental image because I shut my eyes as soon as I figured out what was going on.)

In other news, after 30 Seconds from Mars played, it was KATY PERRY TIME!!!!!

That little white speck in the lower left corner...THAT'S HER!

She puts on quite a show, but I'm not gonna lie, I kind of thought she looked like Cher in her getup: a sparkly nude/red unitard with super high red heels and a spony.

You can kind of see the getup here. A little. I think.

She sang: "Hot and Cold", a remix of "I Kissed a Girl", "Firework", Teenage Dream", "Peacock" and ended with "California Gurls". The crowd wasn't a huge fan of the "I kissed a girl" remix, since it started off kind of slow and unrecognizable, and "Firework" also started off a little iffy, since it's a new song. I don't think that anyone here was really familiar with the words yet, since it probably hasn't had much playing time. But we all recognized how great of a song it was at the end, when they literally shot fireworks from the stage.

FIYAAAAH!!!!!

And ending with California Gurls was perhaps one of the best decisions ever made in the history of the world.

There definitely is something to this "living in a major international city" thing, isn't there?

Gothic Arches, Anyone?

This pretty cave is in the Reales Alcázares. It's a part of the baths. Hence all the water reflecting the pretty pointed arches.

It's also a sign that I have finally figured out how to take clear pictures in a poorly lit place.

Seville & Córdoba (Part III)

Next up: The Cathedral! It's kind of ginormous, in case you can't tell from this picture:

It's also really pretty on the outside, once you kind of get up close. Since it's so big and my camera's so small, my close-up isn't that close, but it's good enough for government work!

And of course, the bell tower is the best part. You might know it as La Giralda. There's a miniature version of it in Kansas City, but trust me, the real thing just can't be beat. 

I didn't get to walk up it this time, but as I recall, it was quite a climb! La Giralda was the minaret of the mosque that existed in this spot before there was a ginormous cathedral. The Christians decided that it would make a cool belltower, and I definitely agree with them, although the campanile that they added doesn't quite match the rest of the building. 

 And like all cathedrals, it's ginormous on the inside. It might actually be one of the most impressively large cathedrals I've ever been in. The whole point of cathedral is to draw the eye upward, and let's just say that the architects achieved their aim in this one.

Seville & Córdoba (Part II)

After Córdoba we headed down to Sevilla (which took up pretty much the rest of the day). Our hotel was a pretty sweet place, and we went out to tapas/dinner in a place kind of near the old Jewish neighborhood. Towns in Andalucia almost always have an old Jewish neighborhood (like from back before the Jews were kicked out of Spain in 1492), and it's always a pretty well-preserved example of medieval Spanish architecture. But that's beside the point...

The point is that for dinner I got a goat cheese and raspberry crepe, and it was one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten in my entire life.

It was actually a lot simpler than I had anticipated. Goat cheese. Crepe. and Raspberry sauce. I dunno...for some reason I was expecting real raspberries, not sauced ones. But it was still delicious.

The next day, we hit up the Reales Alcázares (Royal Castle-Fortress-Thingy), which were originally built by a Muslim king, but when the Christians conquered Seville, Pedro el Cruel decided to do some remodeling.

(BTW: Pedro el Cruel was probably no more evil than your average run-of-the-mill conqueror, it's just that this is the moniker that stuck).

Castles in Spain are awesome in that they have the cool little wall decoration/archer turret-things which are definitely my favorite part of castle architecture.  No matter how many arches and spires a castle has, I will always get the biggest kick out of the top of the walls.

And Pedro el Cruel really know how to get someone to spiff up a castle. The reason to visit this one is that it is one of the best examples of Mudejar architecture in Andalucia.

Mudejar architecture is the Islamic style of architecture, but built for Christian purposes. So you see a whole bunch of Islamic details, like Arabic writing or awesome capitals, or even this cool starry-golden ceiling.

And of course, castles are never complete without gardens, and gardens are never complete without mazes. (And PEACOCKS!)

Molly and Catalina are lost in Wonderland

Pretty Peacock