Barcelona

Well this computer is some language I dont understand, probly Dutch or some eastern european one, because i was just told to logga in, which i dont understand, but it got me here to write on my blog.

the past few days have been like a bruce willis movie, fuckign non stop.

the flight to barca was fine, its jsut the sightseeing thats killing me. its nice to get my feet off the pavement, but im also glad because i saw shit without being a lazy asshole as usual.

ive got some good stories including the hostel and the nightlife here in barcelona, but id rather share it later or in person.

the hostel is not bad, we only paid around 60 euros for 3 nights, which is sweet, but i wishe we were at hello bcn, where the atmosphere is much cooler. this ones much more laid back and less organized but its not too bad. this is probly like the 5th time ive paid for internet, and i finally learned to buy 1 hr at a time instead of the short ass 30 mins, which usually only feels like 15.

anyway we did so much crap in barca. the city is really amazing, actually. i finally understand what people mean when they say they fall in love with a city. i guess thats not true, because i finally fell in love with gville, too, but it was more like an ugly girl whose personality wins u over at the end, so barcas more like the hott girl who u immediately see and are like, wow, and realize at the end, that shes sorta annoying and ridiculous but u still love her bc shes freaking sweet.

the amount of artwork and architecture thats crammed into a block is immense. its like gaudi shat all over the city and thats a wonderful thing, not in the least negative. id have to say parc guell was my favorite sight, mainly because a lot of work went into getting there and it was just very chill and relaxing, especially the marble breezeway.

if i had known barca had manmade beaches, i would have brought my trunks, but wed have been too tired to go anyway, id say.

i got to try crema catalana today, too, which was really good, as the rest of the group can attest to. especially jlo, she loved that shit. now time for a siesta because we have a killer 630 flight to catch back to sevilla. and then hopefully a bullfight on sunday.

hasta luego, dawgs.

Lagos y Buddha

Hace un poquito de tiempo que no escribí y por eso, perdoname.

Lagos was last weekend. Really pretty place, really touristy, really sunny, really cold water, but reallllly short. I wish we had spent un poquito más tiempo como Brady, Wells y Raquel. Ellos quedaron un día más, pero I wouldnt have been able to. Missing a day of a 2 hour class is almost crazy, if u think about it.

Esp with that test coming up in Jimenez´class. oh yeah, thats tomorrow, crap.

But im not too worried, since ive taken his course before the and the authors are almost all the same. Cortázar, Borges, Quiroga, Lillo, these guys are my homies, so im not too worried in the least.

The indian restaurant at Lagos was pretty funny, though, because we were like 20+ people and the only ones in the place. The guy must have been ecstatic that these tourists decided to choose his Indian restaurant among the millions in Portugal(after talking to my parents, it makes sense since the Portuguese colonized part of India, especially around Goa, which also explains the last names like D´Souza and all). anyway, the point was that we asked for spicy food and the man made it spicy! interesting cambio de la comida de españa porque por alguna razón, la comida es tan picante como creía antes de llegar a este país.

Oh well.

Last night yo miré una película gratis a traves de Carmen quien trabaja con ISA. Se llama Machuca. Interesting movie, sad, and I liked it. It was interesting because we watched it at FNAC, like the Spanish version of Best Buy but much more upscale feeling. Afterwards, I was sorta late for dinner and Andre was waiting patiently as usual so we had our dinner of Puchero(sort of like a hot soup with jamon, carrots, an potatoes and other stuff soemtimes and also thin noodles) and then mashed potatoes y pollo baked, i think?

After getting really full, i just sorta passed out at usual at around 1230 after reading the story for hoy.

Today i feel so free, even though im not because i actually read the story in advance for the first time.

Actually, I should be studying, but I have a little screwing around to do on the internet. Its such a luxury, damn.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I met a girl, or woman, on the bus to Lagos from Sevilla who is backpacking across a lot of Europe. it was funny because our entire group was sitting together on the bus to Lagos until we had to change buses for some reason and then while leaving, Andrea (from our UF ISA group) got her bag stuck in the back part of the bus, like her zipper was stuck on that mesh type rope-y thing u put things in on the back of each seat, and i was doing my best to get it undone, but neither andre or i could, so we had to get the bus driver to come back with scissors and get it, so when we finally ended up making sure our bag was in the second bus and eveyrthing, i ended up being the odd man out without someone to sit with, so i sat next to this girl, but andre told me to ask her and the girl in front of her to sit together so he could sit with me, but i didnt really get it so i was like, whatever, ill deal.

and then i sit down next to the backpacker, and she asks me ¨Do girls have gyms?¨ and I was like, huh and she repeated that, and i was stuck in this sorta no-mans-land where u dont really know what the person said but u sorta feel bad asking them to repeat for the third or fourth or fifth or however many times because u dont want them to get mad or feel bad, and beyond all this im still not sure if everyone on the bus speaks english, portuguese, spanish or even czech or whatever so im trying to just figure out what language shes speaking, but in the end i sorta figured it out when i said, ¨gyms¨?? and she was like, GERMS.

finally i understood and said, no no i just wanted to sit with my friends, and then we began speaking. she told me she was backpacking for about 3 months, had already seen a lot of italy, spain, and a few other places, and i was instantly jealous. she was from australia and 26 and doing some pretty cool shit. she gave me a few recommendations about what to do in italy and france so that was great.

also, last thing is that theres this chinese restaurant, jardin oriental that andre and i always pass on the way to class and even on the way back and theres a statue of a wooden buddha outside that has just become a ritual to stop and rub his belly. actually, theres usually a chain-type fence that we have to reach thru(like at the mall when a store closes), but its always worth it.

and finally on sunday night when we got back from lagos, our familia no estaba en casa, y teniamos muchisimo hambre, y al final we were able to get some grub on.

check it out¨:

6.5 euros, which is almost 8 dollars, for:

cruzcampo beer,like the heinie of sevilla
flied lice(forgive me, asian friends)
hot and sour soup
and a chicken dish, i got chicken with mushrooms, and asked for it picante, but as usual not that spicy. either way, though good deal
and also, flan for dessert

the only negative is that im positive they use msg, so i got a little fucked up and tingly and not feeling so good which sorta ruined it, because that shit sucks a lot. so about an hour or so later i felt okay, but it was still not fun. even askin the waitress about MSG proved futile, since she didnt know what MSG or emme esse hay or monosodium glutamate(if thats even the right formulaic thing or whatever) or anything was. so my guess is they just use it nromally as like a recipe made in advance or something. either way, it sucked.

but ill end up going again.

okay tios, im sorta beat after this gigantic update so ill chatear despues.

espero que todos are having a great summer, by the way.

love,
Nikhil

Leer

Leer leer y leer.

Actually, im complaining over nothing.

Its really not the fact that we have reading, its just the fact that we have to read at all. The stories are sorta annoying, but once u understand all the words, it isnt too bad...

We ended up buying the bus tickets today for Lago, Portugal this weekend

It was 34 E for a round trip and then the hotel will be like 17 E. Hopefully Papa will make us some bocadillos to help the cost of the food for the weekend. But Ill do my best to take some breathtaking pics, or at the very least steal them from Wells.

Yesterday wasnt too bad, we hung out by the Rio which was nice and calm, until my stupid clumsy ass dropped a glass off the table we were sitting at and broke it. Luckily they´re probly just used to dumb gringos doing shit like that all the time.

Tengo que hacer una lista corta de todos mis mishaps...en serio

I´ve almost died at least 10 times while misunderstanding the walk signs and the beeping that goes along when its almost done for crossing. It sounds like a bird chriping and soemtimes the man in green starts fucking sprinting. Its bpretty cool I gotta take a video of it so i dont forget how it is.

Anyway the lista:

1. Ran into a pole (andre was talking with a friend behind me and called my name as we were walkin one direction, so I turned around to say what and....BAM!)
2. Spilled water at dinnertable...not just a little, like a full glass. what a fucking ´gaffe´...thats the spanish word for klutz, says papa
3. Spilled fanta limon at dinnertable....but luckily papa was able to use his fav phrase, ´no pasa nada, no pasa nada´ and then recount a story abotu when he went to the piscina with mama and her friend and they were both wearing black swimsuits and papa was under the water and pinched mama´s ass until he realized it wasnt mama....funny shit right?
4. Almost slipped and broke my head open right outside the isa building with tiphanie and missel...that dirt road will probably kill me soon enough
5. When on a fake boat at Huelva, I almost fell twice on these metals things on the ground, and it was bad because the the boat was on a slope, so i literally would have fallen all the way down the damn thing, titanic style....

i know there are more but class is in 6 minutes and i still havent finished all the way(not that i will) but thats all i got now.

peace and much love to ya!

Lunes

Nothing much to say, we got new friends, though. Parita and the rest of the 60 new ISA students got here today, so me and Andre are a bit scared of our scarce internet access, but hopefully it will work out. We just had a pretty sweet bocadillo(casi literally)...it was of some sort of dulce type apple dura nonsense and cheese. u could call it the pb and j or something of españa. so we´ve met a few of the kids from the general isa group and bunch are from uf and texas and other shit, we´ll be able to impart whatever info we actually know (which is actually nothing)...

now we have to read for our class as usual and we havent done it so im finna cut it corto. ciao a todos.

Post written yesterday but had no internet....

Today we went to the beach. Yeah, the playa…it wasn’t too bad. I got to work on my tan, which I definitely needed with all the sun in Sevilla, for sure…and we walked a good amount, saw some topless women, at last count, I think it was 5, and visited juan ramon jimenez’ house, which was fucking awesome…..or actually, not really. Mario told me some dirty jokes(hes one of our ISA directors; good guy) and the hr long ride was pretty sweet. What else have we missed out on commenting on so far….there was a smoking club…let me tell you, pretty crazy experience. It was like a mix of a faux clockwork orange+Moulin rouge type shit. Actually, it wasn’t that crazy, but it was definitely weird since we sorta signed our lives away, endured watered down cruzcampo(like the sam adams(sorta?) of espana) and horrible hord oeuvres(I don’t know how to spell that) and a cheesy magic show. Basically, it’s a smoking club that offers young people an easy way to get exposed to madd propaganda from cig companies. It was called L Screw and I highly recommend you don’t go. There was free wi-fi, some video games and other shit, but not exactly that great. The playa today was pretty sweet, we just sorta walked towards these rocks we wanted to climb, but ended up not reaching cuz it was so damn far. We also saw something before that but ive seriously forgotten what it was…tonight we’re finna have our first real Saturday night in sevilla, so it ought to be good…hopefully. We got that don simon(cheap boxed wine or sangria) and other goodies. Also, tonight is a huge game for Sevilla FC (Futbol Club) and a whole bunch of people are already going out for the game to bars and shit. I typed this in my room at like 8:45, and I can hear them cheering outside.. Hopefully we can catch some of it on tv at home. I’m really pulling for La Coruna, the opposite team because I’m a “betis fan”, the rival team. I only think I’m a betis fan cuz theyre like madd horrible and I usually go for the underdogs, even though they’ve got no chance in doing well this season. In fact, they may bajar and fall to the second level(like a death blow)

Anyway, that’s what I got for now, Papa is finna make us lasagna(SWEET) and Leandro’s here, I’ll go play with him.

Ciao, bitches.

Ps Leandro makes Andre and I tios---for real.



Just to add on to this post, last night was pretty cool--we ended up going to this disco called la catedral thru some american girls we met at plaza salvador(which I like a lot better than Nueva) and we drank and sang with this pigeon friend(which was pretty fucking scary, actually) and then to this club, but not before we met a fake marilyn monroe who was getting married and having her bachelorette party...andre and i just attract 'em, I guess.. Anyway, I just woke up from a ridiculous 5 or 6 hr nap and I'm trying to figure out what I should do(read, obviously). So ciao for real.

Tío

Well,

I´m pretty sure i overuse a lot of words like tio and vale and tia but for some reason i cant stop.

anyway, its about 330 and we got class at 4 until 6. still not used to the keyboard, y por eso no hay mucha punctuacion o cosas asi. la clase no es malo, but its a bit long, especially when ur cranky from not getting ur nap, knaamean?

we had our first como assignment de clase hoy, leer el matadero y escribir algo sobre lo. no fue tan horrible, pero, es casi que no tenemos mucho tiempo en el dia, excepto cuando estamos messing around, like usual. im glad im rooming with andre, even if i said it before, its almost perfect, even though hes a chupapinga asshole a lot.....just kidding by the way. we joke around a lot with each other and its really uncanny how we can sing almost anything sin problema.

anyway, im getting used to our schedule, our bocadillos becuase walking round trip 1 hr home is casi insane for lunch, even though im gonna miss good lunch and probly we wont see leandro much or my hermano, but no se, really.

last night fue awesome, we went to a bar for allisons bday but before nos tomamos at plaza nueva and wells and i and rachel had a good time there and then chupitos at brown suga. we met this other group from ttu who were going on like with their chant of RAIDER POWER or some shit, so i started the gator chomp but didnt get much backup, which sorta sucked. anyway, we talked to them a bit and waxed poetic about our football teams an thatwas about it.

i was good all night until that awful walk home. literally about 30 or 35 minutes. and the entire time i complained to andre who had to bear me the entire walk home. when i got home, i felt so bad, but i decided to run to the kitchen and get as much food as i could to eat in the room. i got a small yogurt,some kind of pastry and crackers....and before i knew it, we had to wake up. it was 945 and we left sin shower to class this mornign. luyckily today was pretty harmless and i felt fine.
now its getting nice and hot and i would love a siesta, but class beckons. entonce, hasta luego, chavales y tias.

El primer día (de clases)

Rapidamente, voy a hablar de ayer.

We had fun, a welcome dinner with tapas, but still, nothing compares to my mama and papa´s food.

we ran home thinking we were late for lunch---macarrones con queso y carne...good stuff, just like baked ziti. and when we got home, leandro, nuestro nieto was home, but our parents were like chill, yall.

anyway, we toured la giralda y la catedral---3rd biggest in spain, what what...and had the dinner last night

todays first day of classes, whichs tarts in exactly 8 mins so i gotta cut it short, and hope u guys are all doing well. love u and miss u, tios.

ciao


¡joder!