Granada take 2

I had a very monumental last few day, Anna and I took a trip to my first Spanish home, Granada. It was interesting to compare how I had remembered the town, explained the town to others, and now saw the town upon my return. It was a quick trip (36hours more or less) but enough to be reminded of what life is like down there and why I prefer Madrid 1000 times over without hesitation.

First, I want to give an update for my other granaín@s that are reading this - most important change, La Senda de Oro is no longer operational. It has changed to Jazz Pub. Disappointment grande. Otherwise, ust about everything else is identical. It was a bizarre feeling to know exactly where I was going only by intuition and familiar alleyways. The women with sprigs of rosemary still lined the turistfares by the cathedral offering their "gifts" which they subsequently expected you to pay for if you accepted them. The viejita that ran the alimentación on Elvira is still truckin´on in her litte shop, though I didnt see her annoying yapping dog (thank god). The gente are still of the malafollá, the streets covered in dog poo, and te rastas run amuck along with the genie pants. The schawarma was still mind-blowing and my favorite pakistani schawarma stand is actually doing quite well by the upgraded look of their locale. The treehouse teahouse is still as amazing as ever, and El rincón de Lorca continues to offer swarthy yet friendly staff that serves a mean taza of cafe con leche.

Anyways, Anna has more pictures of our trip (along with the video clips that we are going to compile into a homemade music video) since my camera ran out of batteries about 3 hours into the trip. We did the Alhambra, the Albaicin, the Miradores, the mini graffiti tour of graná, the "Elvira experience" as I have decided to dub it (Granaín@s think of Animal the dog, the two lesbian owners, any sketch guy trying to sell you drugs, hippies, schawarma, and boatloads of tourists and foreign students getting ripped off at the various shops selling middle eastern themed items).

One last story the I think is my favorite of this trip is that of the bus ride to Andalucía. We board, the bus if chock full of foreigners chatting in various languages aside from Spanish and the driver starts to tell us safety precautions and such: he informs us of the need to wear our seatbelts at all times, to not take our shoes off because it gets really smelly and that "the bathroom is in the back of the bus.. Or rather, toward the back of the bus in a specific room" he added that he wanted to be very clear about the difference in case there were "very literal people on the bus". The Alsa Bus PSA was then concluded with "I don´t even know if you guys understood me just now..." Most didn´t but Anna and I giggled at this comment, an act we would later be repremanded for. So we stop at the rest stop and the driver tells us only the back door is open yet a dumb-ass dressed in pink tries to literally pry the front door open, setting off an alarm. The driver doesnt realize this until we get to Granada and makes an announcement "más grave" that the front door emergency alarm has been set off and the door no longer opened. Anna and I, knowing the source of this trouble laughed thinking how ridiculous the entire travelling experience had been up to that point. The driver heard us and on the loudspeaker commanded seats 11 and 12 (us) not to laugh because "this is a very serious matter for the safety of all passengers". Dude, its funny!

Ok, Im off to run. The three cups of coffee and zero amounts of food have me in a jitter that needs to be sweated out. Once more I will remind everyone to let me know if they want something from España (bc im coming back to CA over xmas).

Un besazo a todos,
Matt

Crunch Time

I wanted to start off this post by recapping just how long it´s been since I have made a post and just how lazy I am about such things, but I figure all of you are already very aware. Let´s get a lock down on my life right now...

Where: Sede Prim, calle Prim 19, Madrid, Spain
When: 17.30, otherwise known as 15 minutes before my last translation class for this semester. (SCORE!)
Who: Pretty much just me, an undergrad, and the activities director for the school all crammed into the aula informática.
How: Sin ganas. Wet surroundings from snow and rain. Tired form obsessive exercising in subconscious attempts to procrastinate. But luckily, NOT HUNGRY.

So that´s where Im at right now. And I want to remind you all of a few things...

1. IM GOING TO BE BACK IN CALIFORNIA FROM DECEMBER 19TH UNTIL JANUARY 7TH. I WANT TO SEE AS MANY OF YOU ALL AS PHYSICALLY, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, AND EMOTIONALLY POSSIBLE.

2. LET ME KNOW IF THERE IS ANYTHIGN YOU WOUDL LIKE FROM ESPAÑA BECAUSE I PLAN TO BRING A SUITCASE FULL OF GOODIES. Just like Santa Claus... just not bearded. or fat. and with a slight phobia of hooved animals... and not Catholic, but hey, i bring presents and that´s the most important part, right?

3. POST TO BE CONTINUED LATER BECAUSE I HAVE TO GO TO CLASS NOW.

Besitos a todos!

My liver is sobbing. Alcohol hiatus NOW.

Hi blog world,

I have officially dropped the ball on maintaining an appropriate level of bloggage with all of you TWO followers (Shout-out to Lut and Emmy WOOT WOOT!). Unfortunately, I have let too much time go by without chonicling my awsomely funny and unsuccessful interactions with men, stupid drunk things I did, and an all around thematic coverage of my life, so I can´t catch you up on those things without writing for about 4 more hours. Dont got the time, kids. Y'all can ask me about it when YOU COME TO VISIT ME! YAYYYYYY!!!! please?

So over the last month I have found an amazing appartment on the top floor of a building with large windows, skylights, and even an oven. Hello Spain, your luxuries are simple and fabulous. My roommate, Leah rocks my socks and we occasionally throw together a piso dinner that involves more or less 1-4 bottles of wine on any given weekday. I bought a duvet cover from Ikea (still my favorite affordable furniture store in existance) that is pin-stripey and candycane-esque and a super fluffy comforter. I'm sleeping like a baby.Oh and of course my first purchase for the piso, before bedsheets and food, mind you, was a coffee maker. I also found packs of coffee for 90. CENTS. EACH. My life is complete...ly oversaturated with caffiene.

On the scholastic front, classes are going pretty normally. I'm very happy with my selection of courses since others have been described to me by one hilariously accurate friend, Anna, as "finger painting for blind children." I'm in Morphosyntax (my inner linguist is giddy at the mere mention of the course title), New Narrative of Latin America, and Literary Translation. I'm also thinking about writing a thesis this semester about the translation of "Pedro Paramo" by Juan Rulfo and how its translation affected its reception in the US during the Latin American Literature Boom. So far I haven't started any reasearch. None at all.

Extracurricularly, I got an internship with www.universidad.es as I start tomorrow. I will be the in-house unpaid transaltor/helper person. I've been explained various times what the position actually entials, but it always becomes a blurry vagueness once I really think about what all those professional sounding job activities mean. Vamos a ver. Also, I have taken up running because my jacked up knee no longer bothers me that much. The floating chunk of whateveritis must have found a nice place to stay lodged into so my joint doesn't lock up when I run. In fact, I have taken up running to the point that I RAN A HALF MARATHON ON SUNDAY! WOOOOOOO!!!!! My first race was, unfortunately, in Leganes (small town outside of Madrid), but fortunately with awsome people. Anna, Danny and I entertained ourselves in the cold morning hours while waiting for our race to start by making various snarky remarks about either the children's race, the old people, the fat people, or DUMB COCKER SPANIELS. Anna has something against those dogs and after the 16th kilometer that inner canine-oriented fury came blasting out of her mouth when she saw one walking on the side of the road. It's ok though, we were in Spain, more accurately, a shantytown of Madrid, so I'm fairly certain neither the dog nor its owner understood the sweaty, angry woman's cry of absolute loathing.

Piso commetns, check. School comments, check. Extracurriculars, check. What else is left??? Well, I will mention one pathetic and humorous thing, out of the entire first month in Spain I realized at one point that there were only a handful of days when I had not consumed alcohol. 4 to be exact. Only 4 days of sobriety. I have since gotten my act together and I am a functioning scholar/member of society, so don't worry about your alcoholic friend abroad. I need to go recaffienate now so I'll end this before it turns into that 4 hour recap of my life I said it wouldn't be. I miss you all mucho and when I get reliable internet I will be Skyping you like there is not tomorrow.

Paz y amor,
Matt

Oh, hey there Madrid. Yeah, I remember you.

May i start an entry with UUUUNNNNNGGGGGHHHHHH. I´m in Madrid but what an effing trip! I had to get up at 5 this morning to traverse half the country of Belgium to the airport, arrive late because there is construction on the roads by the airport (which made the bus literally go in a circle. Absolutely ridiculous), deal with Ryanair baggage fees - thir computer system wasnt working properly when they sent me across the whole check-in lobby so I had to do that trip like 5 times and I arrived at the gate RIGHT when the last person got on.

The plane was REALLY yelow and blue. Oh yeah, it´s Ryanair. The seats were uncomfortable, the water cost 2 euros, AND we sat at the gate boarded and waiting for an hour. At least the flight attendants were nice and they spoke to me in Spanish. Score.

When I got to Madrid I was releived to find that my luggage had not been lost or rifled through. I picked it all up and began my insanely long subterranian journey to my hostal via metro. 20 million stops and a sweat-soaked shirt later I emerged into daylight again to have a man tell me my backpack was open. SHIT. Yes, I had been pickpocketed. I wondered why no one said anything. It´s not like they weren´t all staring at the weird sweaty foreigner the whole time... But worry not, reader, I am anything but a novice at travelling. I put all my valuables deep down in the big pockets of my backpack. I still have all my important documents, cards ,passport etc. I guess the pickpocket didn´t want to steal my Middlebury College ball point pens. Or my voltage converter adapter. Menos mal, right?

My hostel, however is BOMB. At the risk of being labeled a total weirdo, I might take picutres of it and the cute receptionist that works here. Once the stores open up again I´m gonna go get me a phone and do some piso hunting. I´ll put my number on facebook so you all should feel very at liberty to call me and chat me up, ok? And, send addresses if you want postcards. I´m gonna nap for a bit in the true style of the misnomered "siesta" time in Spain. L8r sk8r boiz n grlz! Yeah, sorry, I had an Avril Lavigne moment...

Horse sausage and pig face on toast.

I have a lot to catch up on in this here blog. There has been a lot of travelling this week and there are so many stories to tell.

August 23rd to 25th - Amsterdam!
I did a three day trip to Amsterdam while Lut and her bf spent some quality time together. I got to navigate the Belgian train system all by myself and only messed up two times! That's not so bad, right? First I missed my stop going to Brussels; I stayed on the train an extra stop and went 40 minutes out of my way to another town where the conductor kindly told me to get the hell off the train I hadn't paid for. Oops. I backtracked to Brussels and caught a train to Holland. Honestly, Amsterdam is one of the few cities that has made me go "wow!" when I got there. It's beautiful, interesting and the people speak really good English which was great for me. The next amusing anectdote happened when i got to the station in Amsterdam and found out that the tourist information office was closed on Mondays and I hadn't brought a map or even the address of my hostel. I know, fantastic planning, but that's the stuff adventures are made of, right? I ended up wandering around the city going into random hotels asking for maps and directions and ended up by sheer luck in front of my hostel after a couple of hours of aimless guessing as to which direction I shoudl be heading in. The enxt day I visited a couple of museums and saw the rest of the city, pretty chill especially after visiting a coffeeshop where I made very good friends with a cat who was sleeping at my table while I read a Dutch book about films from the 80s. I didn't understand much but the pictures were nice. That night I decided to go to the movies and thank god I bought a ticket early because in the hour I had to kill until the movie I went to get dinner. I was eating at my table and a downpour started driving the people on the street into any shop along the road. An older man came into the schawarma shop where I was and sat down at my table since the rest were filled with other patrons. His name was Rudi and he worked for Delta. He had a layover in Amsterdam for 12 hours and he was determined to 1, "burn those calories", a phrase he must have thrown out at least 13 times in the 30 minutes we interacted, and 2, "have a good time with the new toys [he] bought" at a sex shop. He certainly wasn't shy when he pulled out o bottle of poppers and lube. Ew. He told me a story of how he tries to go running and workout no matter where he is, for example, he was in a beach town and went running on the beach (GENIUS!) and then he found a large rock which he started to lift a few times to immitate weights. I quickly showed him my ticket and said the movie was starting as I speed walked away from him. Arent' you guys just sick of hearing about all my successful interactions with guys? HAH. The movie was good. It was about a man with downs syndrome living in Sevilla and he falls in love and yadda yadda the woman doesnt want him but has sex with him and life goes on. It's called Yo, tambien if anyone is interested. The next day I wandered more seeing the last of the sighs I coudl fit in my schedule before my train left. The problem was that I got on the wrong train. Again, the conductor told me to get the hell off the train I hadn't paid for and I waited another hour for the next correct train to take me back to Dendermonde.

Thursday 26th - Dendermonde festival!

I went around with Lut and Stefanie and we visited the smallest village in Dendermonde. Then that night we went to Dendermonde's town celebration which in volved acrobats, a parade with giant puppets, peopel dressed as large wolves called, literally translated, "clap tooths" and a circus show having to do somethign with a butterfly and a bee who fight over flowers until a spider comes. The spider, a mutual enemy of the butterfly and bee, cause the two to join forces to fight him. They get trapped in his web and all seems lots until the sun comes out (a man dressed as the sun) and then everyone danced around happily. No one understood what it all meant even when they got on the loudspeaker and said the only dialogue of the whole show "this has been the circle of life". Mystery prevails. Also, I ate horse sausage and ground pig face on toast, typical foods of this region. Kind of delicious and kind of very different....

Friday 27th - Brugge!
Toured Brugge with Lut and Saskia. Beautiful city with a lot to see and lots of chocolate shops. That day i discovered that I can't make one of the vowel sounds in Dutch. There were signs everywhere that said "te huur" which means "for rent". However, when I pronounce it, despite my best efforts and multiple attempts to change what i'm saying, I always spit out "for whore". I have to work on that....

Saturday 28th - Brussels!

Lut and I went on a 10 euro per day day trip to Brussels and we saw the sight, eat some BOMB waffles and took silly pictures around the city. Good times, thrifty times. Pics on facebook.

My battery is about to die and I am far away from the cord so I'm gonna wrap this up and click publish entry before my computer dies. I <3 you all!

Pukkelpop and recovery

I survived. I survived the 3-4 day craze that is Pukkelpop. This music festival in Kiewit, Belgium is one of the craziest things I have been to even though my new friends here assure me it is not that uncommon. I can only think of maybe 3 or 4 music festivals of this size in the US that happen every year, but Belgium and its fame for parying put on aroudn 20 festivals annually. Oh where to begin describing this...

I guess I´ll start on Wednesday... Stefanie and Lut and I went to do some provision purchasing for 3 days of camping and we stocked up on the essentials: chips, waffles, sausages, sangria, red wine, vodka, campari, etc. I dont exaggerate when I say that I doubt I have eaten a vegetable in the last 5 days. That night we stopped by Lut´s aunt´s surprise birthday party and left for Kiewit. We were the ones that would arrive early to set up everyone´s tent. And by set up I mean more "fight to get a space for eveyone´s tent". Here´s the stats to give you an idea...

"No less than 198 musical acts played at the festival, 41 of which were Belgian. Pukkelpop continues to promote Belgium’s musical pride. Each day Pukkelpop received more than 65,000 visitors of 51 different nationalities. Mainly Dutch, British, Irish and Swiss music lovers found their way to the Kiewit fields. Even Australia was amply represented.

We counted more than 54,000 campers. During the past three days, De Lijn transported 78,000 music lovers. About 30,000 people came to the festival by train, a rise by 20%, which caused NMBS to have two trains on stand-by in addition to the 15 extra trains on Sunday.
Between 8 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. on Sunday, trains with destination Hasselt will leave Kiewit station every fifteen minutes.

For the first time the festival was completely sold out with 62,500 paying visitors a day. The maximum waiting time for the identity control at the waiting desk was 11 minutes."

So, yeah it was crowded. My tent was stepped on numerous times over the 3 days, each time someone´s foot coming dangerously close to my skull. But I am unharmed! Anyways, that night Lut and I went to the preparty and then the next day the insanity began. I´m stoked I got to see so many bands -

Snow Patrol, The XX, Boys Noize, The Kooks, Groove Armada, Kele, Goldfrapp, Benny Benasi, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Yeasayer, Kate Nash, Foals, Broken Bells, The Drums, Caribou, OK Go, Four Tet, Aeroplane Dj Set, Matt and Kim, Cymbals eat Guitar, DOMINIQUE YOUNG UNIQUE (one of my faves even thought she had to play at 11am saturday morning and no one was awake to go to her show), Broken Glass Heroes, and more... Sad story!! Ou est le Swimming Pool played at the festival and then that night after they performed the lead singer killed himself in the parking lot. Just sayin. Kind of crazy.

Also, my friends tought me a lot of Dutch and that´s pretty fun. I´ll write more later but for now I need to nap. the four days of sleeping on the ground in the middle of a refugee camp with alcohol have taken a toll on me. More to come!

Belgïe

Hi all!

I am in Europe once again. Currently I am residing in Dendermonde, Belgium and having many adventures with Lut Verhas. I arrived yesterday at 945am after losing 6 hours from US East Coast time (the same 6 hours in which I usually sleep). So, yes, I was extremely tired and had an entire day ahead of me. Fun part of this trip is that I speak pretty much no Dutch at all so today while Lut is at work my excursions into the city are pretty entertaining. I get accosted by people making foreign noises at me and I have to smile, shrug, and pretty much walk away. Most of the time the people turn to others around them and comment on what I imagine to be a commentary of my weirdness. BUT today I ordered a sandwich and I dont think they had much of idea that I was foriegn and frightened. Yay! Matt-1 Belgium-17,698. And tonight I am goign to eat dinner at Lut´s grandma´s house. She is making us Belgian fries.

Im about to go grab my camera and walk around a bit playing the tourist role. At least people might think twice about saying something to me, wondering if I really speak their language or not. One last thing, right now I am watching the Disney Channel in Dutch and wow. It´s still not funny. More updates to come.

Non-rhetorical question: Why am I here?

Hola blog world,

Once you read this blog entry you will get a pleasant Spanish language music video surprise at the bottom of the box...blog. Not box. Sorry, I´m thinking about how ravenously hungry I am and how amazing cereal would be right now.

So here is my pseudo existential crisis of the moment:

Two days ago I was leaving my creative writing class and sprinting to print out a poem we were going to discuss in my next class (which, of course, I hadn´t read) and while i was cursing under my breath at the snail-paced computers in the library my professor walked up to me, one Señor José Kozer, and he said hello and asked what my major was. I told him linguistics because I thought he would already know it was an M.A. in Spanish, just with a linguistics concentration, because everyone in my creative writing class is in the Spansih M.A. program. In fact, if you are not in that program you can´t even take the class... Anyways, he nodded his head and said "linguistics, interesting. Is it a B.A.? M.A.?" An M.A. I responded. "In...Spanish?" Yes.... This might be a good time to mention he is 70 years old. After that small confusing interaction he said that he thought I was a really good student and if I´d be in Middlebury next year he wants me to take another class he is going to be teaching. I told him I´m goign to Madrid and might not be back in Vermont so he said I need ot take the class on Quijote and he was going to tell the professor who teaches that class about me. I found this all very flattering and I walked away with my chest puffed out not really caring that I had forgotten to print the poem for class...

Later that day I realized that I hadn´t really done any work for my classes for about a week and a half. I had figured out how to coast in this program (which is actually not such a bad thing because I woudl go crazy if I didn´t slack off a bit). My other professors have also mentioned that I´m doing really well in their classes, in not such a direct way as Kozer. SO, given:

1. that I was nervous about not beaing able to do the Masters level work at first,

2. that I was nervous about attending an institution that is pretty much the best in the country for what I want to learn,

3. that my professors like my work and really believe in me -

-is it an abuse of that respect that I hadn´t done any work for their classes? I feel like I should buckle down and work my ass off for the next 3 weeks. It´s not a super long time and why am I even here if I´m not going to take this program as seriously as I can, right?

So naturally we got shwastey last night and went to a dance party. I don´t regret it even a little bit. Of course I had a blast, as I always do with music and alcoholic influences, but depressing moment of the night: I bought a bottle of Red Stag because it was the cheapest whiskey I could find that didn´t seem like it would cause internal hemorrhaging. When I got back to the suite my friend informed me that none other than the illustrious KID ROCK was the spokesperson for Red Stag. On second thought that whiskey might be capable of causing internal bleeding... Again, in my style of defying my moralistic decisions (i.e. work hard at school vs. drink at a dance party), I drank the Red Stag.

Ok, as promised, your Spanish language treat! And I am off to gorge myself on greasy foods and caffiene. Hasta la pasta! sorry, im hungry...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBXx1pPXjds

if you liked it continue with...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZepwVXqiewo&feature=channel

I got really drunk and got stuck in an elevator. (separate occasions)

I know, the title is kind of a tease, but I just thought it was really humorous. It´s all true, I hope you know. Here´s the recap...

Saturday - A group of us went to Burlington which turned out to be a pretty cool town. It is the smallest biggest town of a state in all of the US. Super confusing, I know. Here´s how it breaks down - so every state has it´s largest city, right? Well Vermont´s largest city is Burlington (smaller than Santa Cruz, just for a point of reference), and so out of all those largest cities in all the states in the US, Burlington is the smallest. Go Vermont. Quaint, yeah. Low key, pretty much. But fun nonetheless. We found a really kitchy clothing store which was perfect for the costume party that the Spanish school was hosting that night. I bought a sailor hat for $6 (cuz I´m a big spenda´) and drew an anchor tattoo on y arm with a sharpee. This all sounds really fun, right? Well it was except that I got BELIGERENT. Me + that much vodka = NEVER AGAIN. Sunday I was having flashbacks of all the embarrassing things I did (por ejemplo, dancing on stage with two other people in front of all the professors, getting DOWN with some guy on the dancefloor with pretty much everyone watching, tripping up and down stairs all night and trying to enter the closed Juice Bar while a group of people watched me tug pathetically at the door). Wow.

Sunday - Recovery and homework.

Monday - Classes again, but here comes the interesting part of this story... I was talking to some friends who I saw for like 2 seconds at the dance. One asked me, "so how was Sunday?" I said it was fine though I had a headache, I figured he saw me extremely drunk and naturally knew I had the world's worst hangover. And so I asked "Did you see me Saturday?" He said only few those few seconds but he had a suspicion of something. "A suspicion of what?" I inquired. "Well, I heard you were dancing..." Pause. Analyse. If he didn't see me dancing but heard from someone else I was dancing, and then thought there was something goign down afterwards - that means like everyone saw my mortifyingly embarrassing moment AND THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT IT. Fml.

Monday part 2 - I was studying in BiHall (I know how that sounds, it's not important) and all of a suddent there was the most intense downpour I have ever seen in my life. There were insane bolts of lightning and thunder that shook you when it clapped. I don't think I can do it justice in writing, but it was insane. So my friends and I thought it would be cool to go up to one of the higher floors of the building and watch this storm from one of the giant windows. We get in the elevator and we are on our way up to the 6th floor... 4 *ding* 5 *ding* 6 *WHAM* and the elevator stops. The doors don't open. We were trapped in the elevator uring a lightning storm. No, in retrospect I do not consider it a good idea to have taken an elevator in a lightning storm, but it is what it is. I was about two seconds away from whipping out my cell phone and calling a friend to say "oh hey, what's up? Can you do me a solid and call campus security and maybe the fire department? I'm trapped 6 stories up in an elevator. Thanks." But before I could do that a friend actually tried pushing a button for the 5th floor and the elevator went down and the doors opened. We took the stairs back to the 1st floor when we were done watching the storm.

I shared a poem with my class....AND THEY LIKED IT!

Dear blog readers,

As you have read before I am in a creative writing class and all we do is write poetry. The prof is awesome, the class is really chill, but writing poetry is as difficult for me as is having successful interactions with men. You know how that goes... Needless to say I was slightly terrified when it was my day to share a poem with the class. Whatever cosmic power is out there must have had it´s mojo working the day I wrote the poem because everyone thought it was really good! I still don´t think I´m any good at writing poetry, but it´s comforting to know that it isn´t completely out of the question to have momentary stokes of luck and inspiration. Anyways, since I´m kinda proud of this guy, I want to be self-published in my own blog. Here you all go...

LA CIUDAD

Por este puente dorado llegamos,

los Hendrixianos cenan en el césped

tocan

y se ríen a carcajadas.

Las casitas victorianas comprimidas

suben la loma

marrón, salmón, crema, turquesa, amarilla…

... es ésa más pajiza o áurea?

Desde la cumbre se despliega todo,

un sintonizador

salta en el centro

el pulso, energía –

Es verdad, sí rascan el cielo.

Intoxicado hubiera podido perderme allí.

ninguna persona sabe quien soy,

las luces

las ventanas más altas…

Seguimos bajando a la jungla,

vallas, bares, basura, cerveza, cigarrillos, humo taxis

taxistas roqueros punks junkies pijos artistas

banderas bandas vagabundos

burguesía Banana Republic,

Valentino.

Jo´er k caló.

Hola a todos!

I'm going to break the "Language Pledge" for this blog entry because I want all y'alls to know what's up and because I AM DYING. Due to the insane heat wave over here in Vermont. It is humid as all get out and really really hot. Get this, classes were cancelled today because of it. This program is only 6 weeks long and we as students fail if we miss 3 classes - so if the administration OK'd us to miss a class, I'm assuming it is because they don't want us all dead in a classroom on the 6th floor of Warner hall that doesn't have AC. Last night I carried a case of beer about 100 yards (you know, since we didn't have class today everyone figured that getting crunkcrunk was our best option) and I had to take a shower afterwards.

Aside form all that, I have been here for one week. It feels like so much longer because I am carrying around the nagging fact that I'm not allowed to communicate with all you Angloparlantes. So far the classes are good. I neglect my homework as usual, I still can't write poetry to save my life, and the reading assignments seem not all that crucial for me to complete, but seeing as how I don't want to be a grad school drop-out it all gets done.

Also, I went to a lake for sort of the first time. I'm not counting Lake Renee in Montana since there is no..."beach" as people here call it. I describe it more as a rough pseudosandy perimiter of the lake the extends about 3 feet from the water's edge, but it's just semantics, right?

And so far there are no interesting stories of boys that I can gossip to all of you about, it would just be normal stuff, not like cornfields, Russian pirates or puppy euthanization.

Two last things I will mention is that I rediscovered the Baile Chikichiki (It's on my facebook and you should all watch it if you are not familiar) AND my friend Leah finally taught me how to say 'dog' and 'horse' correctly in Chinese - the former of the two has been eluding me since high school. YAY!

"de puta madre"

Ha acabado la primera semana del semestre de verano aquí en Middlebury. Era una semana de solo dos días, pero bueno. Es una semana todavía, no? Este es un programa fenomenal en voy a aprender un montón, estoy seguro. Pero será un poco duro, por ejemplo, ayer viví una pesadilla. Lo que pasó es que estábamos todos en la clase de escritura creativa y habíamos traído 5 palabras nuevas relacionadas. Yo, por ejemplo, escogí 5 insectos. Dijimos a la clase nuestras palabras y el profesor nos dijo "tienen ustedes 5 minutos para componer un poema. Cuando vuelvo los vamos a compartir." RUH ROH. Así como no me quedaba otra opción, compuse un poema sobre insectos.... Lo saqué de mi culo y de verdad fue una mierda. Se lo leí a la clase y el profe se rió, no sé por qué, me dijo que son unas partes bien flojas y que he de traer 10 copias del poema para que la clase lo corrija el lunes que viene. Joder. Los otros poemas, por mayor parte, estaban muy buenos como muchos de los alumnos llevan años de experiencia con la literatura. No sé, como ya dije, voy a aprender mucho, no?

Y anoche los chicos de mi planta de la residencia fuimos a un bar que se llama "Two brothers" en el pueblo de Middlebury. Lo pasamos muy bien pero os digo que era rarísimo hablando todo el rato en español. Llamé a una amiga a medianoche y casi empecé a hablar en español, salió naturalmente! Es una prueba de que este programa es muy eficaz, jajaja. PERO, como prestaba atención al hablar español no me di cuenta de que me había emborrachado MUCHO. Hoy tengo resaca, o estoy crudo como se diría por unos compañeros de trabajo, pero menos mal que sea sábado! Ok, voy a comer. Buena suerte con la traducción, y si tenéis dudas me enviáis un email, vale? Os echo de menos a todos!!!

Matt

El primer día de clases

Hola a todos!

Hoy es el primer día de clases y me consuela tener algo que hacer aparte de andar por todo el campus, lo hermoso que sea. A ver si pueda evitar dándome vergüenza hoy.

He hecho unos amigos y todos me caen bien por suerte. Todavía es algo muy raro estar aquí con cada persona hablando en otro idioma que no es inglés. Oigo ruso, japonés, hebreo, italiano, francés, alemán, portugués, y unos más de los que ya no me acuerdo ni entiendo. Me encanta la pasión que tienen todos en la escuela por aprender una lengua, pero al otro lado es realmente una lastima que no se me permite hablar con todos. Además, entre los hispanohablantes existe una brecha de niveles y tampoco puedo comunicarme con algunos de los alumnos más jóvenes que estudien en el nivel 1 o 1.5. Es un sentimiento de aislamiento pero es obvio que todos sientan igual. Y basta con todo eso, os cuento una historia...

Ayer reunimos todos de la escuela española y conocí a un tipo muy amable que tendrá unos 30 años? Más? Me senté con él en las butacas de la sala. Estábamos charlando y de repente me preguntó "hablando de la astrología (no habíamos dicho nadita de la astrología), cuál es tu signo?" Ruh-roh... Me estaba coqueteando? "Soy escorpión." yada yada yada después cuando le hablé de Granada y el fenómeno de la Mala Follá (yo ya sé como se lee) me preguntó "entonces te gusta follar?" JODER. Sí me estaba coqueteando. Expliqué lo que realmente quería decir sin hacerlo caso ese comentario. Y no dejó de hacerme sentir incómodo! Poco después cuando fui a poner mi taza de café en el suelo me tocó la espalda y dijo "estás muy tenso." "Siempre estoy así," respondí sin saber qué más decir... Eso es culpa mía, ya sé ya sé, jejeje. A los finales de la reunión me fui con mucha prisa, por supuesto. Pero ahora me voy preguntando por qué a los hombres latinos con más de 30 años les gustan tanto coquetear conmigo? Y por qué a nadie más le gusta hacer lo mismo? Seguro que depende de la persona pero no puedo creerme que es solo una coincidencia que sea así por todas las veces que me han pasado iguales.

Hasta que tenga cosas más interesantes para contarles.

Paz y amor,

Matt

P.d. no confiéis vosotros en Google Translate mucho, es que os da una historia en la que parezco más tonto que cómo me había pretendido describir.

2 Hours Left in California

Current Location: Oakland, CA - Emmy's house

There are 2 hours left until I have to hop a BART train and go to the airport. I'll have a layover in JFK and then on to Vermont where I will lose my English speaking privileges (there's a Language Pledge they take pretty seriously), but don't worry bloggers, I will blog in English for you despite it all. Although I will throw in a couple of entries in Spanish, Google Translate or Bablefish can help you out.

So to summarize my last weekend in California in one word.... "Funtastilicious." No, that is not a real word, but rather a combination of "fun" "fantastic" and "delicious." I have gorged myself on 4 burritos in the last 3 days, among banana milkshakes (1AM snack in Oakland), tacos, quesadillas, galettes, and too many Long Island ice teas to count... hence the "delicious" aspect. I have partied in Dolores Park (Dyke march), Badlands (midday drinking, WHY NOT!?), the Fox Theatre (Goldfrapp concert), the Haight (random wandering through town), the Civic Center (Backstreet Boys concert for Pride), and various other places over the Pride weekend - "fun"; and it has all been with amazing people who I would descibe as nothing less than "fantastic". Shoutouts to Lauren, Paul, Nicole, Rachel, Lily, Max, Kristan, Emmy, Drew, another Nicole, and so many others. I corazon you all very very much.

Ok so enough with the mushy stuff, onward to the entertaining stories!! On Saturday I went to Badlands bar for one last dance. Every other time I have gone I always find myself drunkenly stumbling to La Tortilla taqueria at 2AM to soak up some of that latent tequila that's still in my system, but this time I found myself buzzed and dancing at approximately 4PM. While I don't wish to implicate anyone in illegal activities, I will mention that none of the people with me had brought their IDs since it was midday and no one cards at the doors. It dawned on us that we might not get drinks if they ask to see proof of our age so I, being the oldest looking one, was sent to buy everyone's drinks. In two hours I ordered around 8 Long Islands (not all for me) and I tried my best to hit up different bartenders so they wouldn't think I was a raging alcoholic. No one thought twice about my seemingly excessive alcohol consumption, but one bar tender did stick his tongue out at me while counting back my change. I won't lie, I was surprised and kind of confused and couldn't stop myself before blurting out "WHAT WAS THAT?!" I think he realized his flirting didn't quite pan out how he expected and transitioned into asking me my birthday.

"November 19th," I evasively replied. Again, not having the conversation go in the direction he was expecting it to (i.e. asking my age for the drinks) he stuttered and sheepishly said, "I meant, what year...is..."

"1986. I'm a Scorpio. What's your sign?!" I over-aggressively shot back without realizing. He smiled and thanked me for my patronage and turned away with a wink. Flattering? Possibly. Crazy? Mostly. For those reading this who don't know me that well, this is just another example of my "succsessful" interacting with guys. Life is hard...

Sometimes you just have to live out of a suitcase.

Followers, this blog is your way into the deepest inner-workings of my life over the next year (and maybe longer). It's sure to be full of thrilling, intriguing, disturbing, hilarious, and just kind-of-weird antics that I want to share with you all!

So my job is to keep you abreast of all that's blog-worthy and to make sure you don't forget me while I'm off and away.

YOUR JOB is to comment and remind me of all your lovely selves for whom I tirelessly chronicle my adventures, deal?

Here's a preview of what I'll be kick starting my blog with: SF Pride, Lauren Salinas *MEOW*, Goldfrapp, Banana Milkshakes, Hoofing it across the City, and other things one should expect when living life of of a suitcase.