Ode to OpenCor

Well, we found out where all the chocolate chips go when they are not used to make cookies.  Tonight started with four women and a simple need for chocolate.  What better way to fulfill that need than chocolate con churros?

Not pictured: Ann, buyer of the spoons

Usually, the answer would be obvious: there is no better way to fulfill any need than chocolate con churros.  But apparently the churro stand that is open at 4am on a Saturday is closed at 11pm on a Wednesday.  Clearly these people don't know how to party! However, where there's a will, there's a way.  After burning tens (if not twenties!) of calories walking all over the streets of Sevilla, searching for an open restaurant/convenience store/anything resembling a sweets shop at all, we found the solution to our soul-crushing problem:

OpenCor

Even though the word for "open" is abierto in Spanish, the store-founders had foreseen the great need that the copious amounts of Americans studying abroad here would create.  Hence, they named their great company OpenCor, knowing that the name alone would draw scores of lost, wandering college students..."It's 3am--why is McDonald's closed?"

I would like to thank you, OpenCor, for providing the antidote to the poison of the midnight snackies.  Upon entering, we found a little treasure called "Choco Chip Muffin" ice cream, and a pack of 25 miniature plastic spoons.  Feeling justly rewarded, we four sat by the fountain in Plaza de Jerez and did a favor for America.  We found out why Spaniards have chosen to ignore chocolate chip cookies and instead create chocolate chip muffins...

A job well done: Four spoons plus my broken one

Actually--who am I kidding, no we didn't.  Chocolate chip muffin did the job, but it can't touch its much more delicious counterpart, the cookie.  

C'mon Spain.  Get your act together.

There are some things euros can't buy.  For everything else, there's OpenCor.

Carnaval 2012

Millions of costumed people in the streets.  Dancing, running, drinking (mucho), wandering, eating...just about anything you can imagine, good and bad.  Welcome to Cádiz, home of Carnaval 2012.  What was everyone celebrating every night for a week?  

um. . . .

LIFE!!! Or something.  I asked around, and no one was really sure.  Hey, who needs a reason in the middle of February to dress up, drink a lot, and swarm the streets of a beach town?  

My costume summary:

Name: GLITTER!!

Theme: Obnoxious

Dress: Supahcheap by Blanco

Accessories: Gold mask, giant gold earrings, 

                           purple tights

Makeup: Excessive. With sparkly gold eyelashes.

Conveniently enough, I lost the cap to my gold glitter.  Obviously I couldn't store it, so I was forced to douse myself with a bottle of gold glitter.  Effect: AWESOME.

Here we have Kitty Cat, GLITTER!!,
Britney Spears/Davey Crockett combo, and Harajuku girl

The ladies and I boarded our bus at 8:30pm.  That was a party in itself, with everyone in costume and ready to go.  We arrived in Cádiz around 10, and the night's festivities were well underway already.  We followed the hordes.  It was just like a scene from Zombieland...Everyone looked crazy, everyone really was crazy, and the mob mentality that kept us walking towards the party center would have been eerie had it not been so much fun.

Madness.

The next 7 hours were spent walking around the packed streets.  People made fun of our accents, pictures were taken with a very attractive cowboy, we followed someone around because of his University of Sevilla backpack ("hey! we might know him!"), the eyelashes were left on a step somewhere, we devoured churros con chocolate, were separated, then reunited....

The night was absolutely insane.

By 4:30 in the morning, I was ready to get to my nice warm bed.  However, we still had two more hours before the bus was ready to board and take off for Sevilla.  We huddled for warmth until the glorious arrival of Number 10 was met with many tired cheers.

No matter how much fun the night was, I think my favorite part was the bus ride back.  

Silence.

Tattered costumes sprawled in bus seats.  The hour and a half ride back felt like five minutes, and it was dead calm except for my incessant cough.  "Sorry guys..."

To the right you see the world's worst photo.  At the risk of sacrificing my many manly admirers, I have stolen it from facebook and reposted it because it truly sums up my morning.  

We returned at 8am.  After a brisk walk home and a bowl of cereal, my bed welcomed me with open covers.  I slept until 2.

Success?  No question.

Parents Strongly Cautioned

Before I begin: Chloe and JT, if you really do read this like you said you would...go play outside.  This entry is rated PG-13.  I'll write something better for you soon!

My host mom Rosa has recently expressed interest in learning English, so I've been helping her to fulfill her dreams.  As I learn useful phrases in Spanish, I repeat them to her in English.  She's even purchased a notebook from the neighborhood Chino store (like a dollar store, but always run by Asians) with golden retriever puppies on the cover.  So naturally, I taught her how to say "puppy."  Because the Spanish letter u is more like an English oo, the result was, "Poopy?"  We'll work on pronunciation later.

Most Important Things to Know in Spanish/English
Que putada!  What a bitch!
  This was actually one of the first phrases I translated for Mama Rosa.  Somehow it came up during dinner, and I felt it was necessary for her to know the same phrase should she ever get cut off in traffic in the United States.  She uses it often.  "Whatta beetch!"
Rebote  Rebound
  We were discussing her daughter's past relationships, and this word literally took hours to extract from the mounds of roundabout explanations in broken Spanish.  But once I found "to rebound" in my pocket dictionary (thanks Annemarie!!) it was pure gold.
Me voy a correr.  I'm going to...
  This one is so awkward I almost don't want to include it, but really--knowledge is key to survival.  Translated literally, "I'm going to run" sounds like you're going for a workout.

Do not say this ever.  

It really means "I'm going to pleasure myself." 

Hortera  White Trash
  We were watching telebasura (trash tv) one night when Rosa called out the program host to be an hortera.  No dictionary was handy, but this word is useful when describing a tacky, classless woman (i.e., Snooki, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton...). Hortera may not translate literally to "white trash," but it is used to describe the  Spanish versions.
Teta  Theta
  I was describing the ins and outs of sorority life one night (we have the best dinner convos) and used my sweatshirt to assist in the explanation.  I pointed at the letters KAΘ on the back, then to the THETA written across the chest.  She immediately burst out laughing.  I was confused for a solid five minutes until she finally contained herself and could explain.  Since the h is silent, Theta looks like teta in Spanish.
Teta  Tit
  Awkward.  I'm not wearing my favorite sweatshirt outside.  Not now, not ever.

Coke, Fries and Gosling

Tonight, someone was on my mind more than usual.  What is the one place anywhere in the world that can make you feel at home?  I'm almost embarrassed to say it, but I went to McDonald's tonight.  They serve Coke and french fries just like in the states, albeit more expensive and without free refills.  This McDonald's was pretty classy, as you can observe in the picture below, but it did lack a certain something.

The best french fries are served after 10pm at the McDonald's drive-thru in Moscow, Idaho.  However, if you get fries, you also need a chocolate milk shake and two apple pies (for a dollar!).  Then you need to listen to Danza Kuduro while parked at the "scenic overlook" at the U of I golf course.  Even though it's dark, you can still pretend it's a beautiful view.  Of course, you also need your favorite blonde sophomore and your favorite redheaded freshman, one of whom will refuse to eat the $.50 apple pie until you really chuck it at her.  I know these conditions are pretty rare, but I tell you--if you can manage to combine all these elements in the fall of your junior year of college, you will never look at a crunchy golden slice of potato the same way again.

It's been almost three months since the accident, which at the same time has felt like three days and three years.  Sarah Asmus was a wonderful Theta sister, roommate, friend, and recruitment gosling for the short time I had the wonderful pleasure of knowing her.  Katie Bulcher, you mean the world to me and I thank God for your life every day.  Even though I am more than 5,000 miles away, not a day goes by that I don't think about these incredible women.

Please keep the Asmus family in your prayers.

San Valentin

Personally, I don't have an 

hombre to give besos to here, but I want to wish all of you a very pleasant platonic day.

Aye, que guapa!

Today I went to Don Diego for coffee with Mama Rosa, and as I met her Spanish friends I was reminded of an interesting phenomenon that occurs here.  Whenever I meet someone (and don't think I'm special, this happens to every woman here), I am called "guapa," "guapissima," "bonita," etc., before my name is even mentioned.  Now unless a frat guy is creepin' hardcore, this never happens in the states.

Por ejemplo (in Spanish):
Rosa, "This is my host daughter, she is from the United States."
Stranger, "Ooh, how pretty, you are very beautiful, how do you like Sevilla?"

My question is, how does one respond to this?  That scene from Mean Girls flashes through my mind each time:

Regina: "But you're, like, really pretty."
Cady: "Thank you."
Regina: "So you agree?"
Cady: "What?"
Regina: "You think you're really pretty?"

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, watch this 3-second clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex51QJfN1d8

I've just refrained from acknowledging the "pretty" part, so as to not repeat the aforementioned scene in Spanish.  I'm sticking with my polite, slightly-puzzled smile as I meet new Spanish friends.  Ignore the awkward comments, power straight through to:
"Me llamo Courtney. Encantada."

I think it's going to be a rude awakening when I return home and only my dad calls me pretty.

Chocolate chip...que??

A great American tradition that absolutely no one currently living in the United States should take for granted is the baking of chocolate chip cookies.  That golden, delicious, crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside, milk's real best friend cookie is something that has been missing in my life lately. So Sarah and I decided to fix that problem.  Here is a sample of how our conversations have been going for the past couple weeks:

Fourteen days ago: "Let's bake chocolate chip cookies!"
Thirteen days ago: "I bought white sugar and flour...couldn't find anything else..."
Ten days ago: "Found vanilla! This tiny bag of chocolate chips is...4 euro!"
Nine days ago: "Baking soda is 'biscarbonato' in Spanish."
Eight days ago: Sarah to every grocery store worker,"Tienes biscarbonato?"
                            -"Que? Bis...que?"
Seven days ago: "We have brown sugar!"
Three days ago: Rosa to us (in Spanish), "I found baking soda...at the pharmacy!"
Today: "Let's bake chocolate chip cookies!"

-"How do you use the oven?"
-"Rosa says we can't use the hot water...so let's microwave it a cup at a time."
-"Why are there pills in the mixing bowl?"
-"I just google translated 'teaspoon'...Rosa still doesn't know what I'm talking about...."
-"She has no measuring devices...wingin' it!"
-"No te preocupes Rosa, vamos a limpiar la cocina."
-"Does this look like a cup to you?"  "Yeah, sure...."
-"This 'no electric mixer' thing is a real workout."

  -"Why won't the salt come out of the thing?"
  -"Si, Rosa...vamos a limpiar...."
  -"Why is the brown sugar exactly like white sugar?"
  -"....ate too much cookie dough....ugh...."
  -"No cookie sheet.  We're using the oven rack."
  -"No Pam here.  I sprinkled melted butter instead."






-"They're turning into one big cookie..."
-"Vale Rosa, vamos a limpiar la cocina pronto."
-"Why is the oven smoking?"

 -"Well...they taste pretty good."

.....

-"Oh jeez...why did we have to eat so many...."

Baking Cookies: what an adventure.

Bodega 4 Dayz

Well, I'm not one to be partial and choose favorites among family members, but I met my favorite uncle today.  We took a day trip to Jerez, a nearby city that is famous for its wine.  Tio Pepe is the name of the largest and most popular brand of sherry in Spain, so of course we took a little tour of Pepe's winery.  I've now joined the club of People That Drink Nice Wine with Steven Spielberg, Pablo Picasso, Orson Wells, and countless European royals.  This bodega bottles wine for mass at the Vatican.  If the pope is sipping on this sherry, it's my duty as a good Catholic to at least try it, right?

Maturing sherry

Tio Pepe!

Vineyard "sample"

In order to get a real feel for the type of class I experienced today, please just follow this link for .5 seconds:
http://www.bodegastiopepe.com/presenta.php?lang=EN 

So after the tour, we sampled a couple of the winery's most well-known types.  I'm not a wine person, but this was very good vino.  

                            My Review

• The first, Fino, gave a very fine aroma hinting of flower and almond.  It was rather a rather dry sensation, but the palate would be balanced perfectly with ham, cheese, or seafood.  
• Croft Original, Pale Cream is a brilliant pale color that is very clean and subtle to the nose, yet soft and sweet to taste.  Ideally, I would recommend to accompany it by fine pastries or a delicate salad of fruit. 

...And if you look in the Tio Pepe pamphlet and find strikingly similar descriptions, it's a total coincidence.

Just Ronda'n around

Today, we took a day trip to Ronda, which is about an hour and a half south of Sevilla.

My. Goodness. 

It is an incredibly beautiful town.  Seriously, people LIVE here? I decided pictures do it much more justice than words, so here are these, and check facebook for the rest.

We started the day with the "Best toast in Andalucia."
Mm, quite.  Fancy toast, indeed.

Welcome to RONDA.

Plaza de Toros

Built in the 1700s and still used today

To fight the bull, you first must BE the bull.

Don Miguel: restaurant, hotel, paradise.

The path we hiked along the bridge

Like, whoaaahh boots and Spanish countryside

So, the next time you're in the area, be sure to check out this place.  Because it's amazing.

Trip to la Farmacia

I was tired of keeping Sarah up all night with my incessant coughing, so I ventured to the neighborhood pharmacy the other day.  When I walked in the door I realized that I had no idea how to ask for cough syrup and cough drops.  In my years of studying Spanish, not one chapter of our activity books has ever been titled "Hacking up a Lung."  Strange.  In my foggy-headed haze, I got bashful and forgot how to form a proper sentence in this new language of mine.  The pharmacist totally spotted the American as soon as I walked in the door (darn that blonde hair) and tried to keep from smiling at my attempts to explain what I needed...

"Yo necesito...la medicina que es contra la tos...como...*HACKOUGHECH*...entonces...no mas tos durante la noche.  Sabes?"

She got it! It was harder to explain cough drops, though...

"La dulce que come durante el dia y...no mas tos...comer la dulce, y no mas tos.  Si?"

Somehow I ended up with a bottle of cheap cough syrup and a box of funny tasting tablets that do indeed work against "la tos."  The syrup is a blackish-brown substance, and tastes as sketchy as it looks.  It is certainly no NyQuil (sigh).

Here's to no more coughing.  Cheers!

First Day of School!

Today was my first day of school as a big girl attending the University of Sevilla.  What to wear, what to wear!! My first class, Spanish Cinema, started at 9am.  Sarah and I much prefer university classes to our intensive ISA course already, as it's only half the walk. I couldn't miss out on a Barry First Day of School tradition, so here you go, Mom:

Classic 1st Day pic

Classes are 2 hours long, and right now I am signed up for 7.  So I had class from 9am-7pm today.  I am really, really excited to drop 3 of them and get down to a normal course load.  But hey, who am I to complain...the University of Sevilla is basically Hogwarts.  It's gorgeous.  Picture a very tasteful, classical art museum, then add a few classrooms.  We took some promo pics...

"OhemGEE this is MY favorite 300-year-old fountain here, TOO!"

Check facebook for the rest of my University of Sevilla ads!  All of my classes are completely, 100% in Spanish...and I'm going to be just fine.  It's possible that the 2 hour periods spent in desk chairs from the 1930s could get a liiiiiiittle old, but right now I'm concentrating too much on what's going in front of me to think about that.  I accomplished my first day without getting lost in a 500-year-old building...so yeah, I'm a big deal.

Tienes cojones?

Today, I learned something valuable.  Sarah, Mama Rosa, and I were enjoying some coffee at Don Diego (chyea, they know who we are now that we're regulars) while speaking with a local man.  Javier is originally from Madrid, and has been learning English for a few years.  He showed us pictures of his wife and two-year-old and we exchanged phrases in English and Spanish.

Cajones = chest of drawers
Cojones = as he put it, "man eggs"

Don't mess that one up.  However, I told him I already knew the difference between the two, since "cojones" is one of the Spanish words I learned from my dad.  As he was preparing to leave, he mentioned that he had to get back home to his "house wife."

"If I am not home within ten minutes, this phone will be ringing and my house wife will be asking where I am."

I explained it's better form to just refer to his spouse as a "wife."  Unless he's got a car wife, a work wife, a street wife...you know.  The one he has is hopefully multifunctional.  Listening, speaking, and translating for such a concentrated time really turned our little coffee date into a mental workout.  This learning process is so...slow...but it's coming along.

I am le dying...

Evidently, my immune system is still crappy even if I am 5,000 miles away from home.  I am suffering (yes, suffering, my life is hard) from the typical stuffy nose-sore throat-lost voice I expect this time of year at home.

Useful Spanish phrases (in terrible grammar) for being sick:
"Necesito arreglar la nariz" = I need to fix my nose...I don't know, I should really look up better lingo for "my nose is dripping snot."
"Tengo resfriada" = I have a cold (wear your pathetic face)
"He perdido la voz" = I've lost my voice
"Necesito una montana de gantas" = I need a mountain of tissues
"Me voy a dormir por dias." = I'm going to sleep for days

It's hard to find reasons to whine here, but I'm doing my best.

Big Mac & Chicken Fried

One very interesting aspect of the Spanish culture is the catcalling that occurs in the streets.  In the states I've always wondered what the purpose could be...is the back of that girl's head really that ridickiluss?  I mean obviously yelling in the streets gets the ladies every time, and the natural thing for a woman to do is hand out her number...but what inspires someone to shout about a particularly fine updo in the first place?  If you don't know what I'm referring to here, you must watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTFZyl7hfBw

Then watch it 20 more times because it's that hilarious.

But really.  I was warned to look forward to random whistles, shouts of "Rubia!" (blondey) and other flattering comments from strangers...which I've just learned to enjoy because hey--that sketchy old man thinks I am pretty!  Wow!
Here are the rules for any woman with hair a single shade lighter than slate:
1.  Keep head straight forward and chin up when walking alone so as to follow Rule #2...
2.  No eye contact. Ever.
3.  If you're not sure what that random old guy said in rapid Spanish, don't acknowledge it.
4.  Walk with a guy friend--holla atcha invisibility cloak!
               And most importantly...
5.  DO NOT SMILE.  This means "I like you. Let's go enganchar." (Google that)

I've been sticking closely to these rules since I made the mistake of breaking Rule #2 on my first week as a Spanish noob.  Accidental eye contact with a 40-something sweater vest won me a snort as I walked by.  As in, he oinked.  What??
However, the best example happened just the other day when Sarah and I were walking home.  One of the itty-bitty cars the Europeans drive slowed to a crawl with all windows down, so the male inhabitants could show off their English skills.
"Hola! Big mac! Come to my house!"
"Oye! Chicken fried! Pollo! Chicken fried, big mac...hola!"
It was really, really hard to keep a straight face as they kept trying to win us over with their lingo picked up from McDonald's and KFC, but we passed the test.  And now we have new nicknames!

Sharing Spaces

My wonderful roommate Sarah Bigelow and I share a nice little room in the upstairs of our nice little townhouse.  I have labeled everything so you can clearly see how we have utilized our spaces.  

Red = me

Blue = Sarah

Orange = Shared

White = Mama Rosa

Unfortunately you can't see the window, which is probably my favorite feature (besides Sarah obviously) but you CAN see the heater.  The heater is my best friend from 7-8am, then again when the sun goes down.  

This is where I live!