OMG, I Heart Studying!

I just really heart studying. I absolutely heart studying so much that I have stooped down to the obnoxious level of using the word heart instead of the word love to express my undying heart-ness for studying.


FALSEIDONOTLOVESTUDYINGINFACTIHATEITWITHAVERYSTRONGPASSION.


Good thing I haven't done very much of it, then. Don't get me wrong, I love learning. I'm just not a big fan of having to regurgitate facts to prove I really know something. Especially when an Italian excursion is right around the corner.

Midterms have been surprisingly easy so far (knock on wood) so hopefully I can continue this trend of minimal cramming and get by with decent (...I mean....EXCELLENT...) grades.


Names I have been called since arriving in Spain (mostly, but not entirely, by Mama Pili):

• Elizabeth (obviously)
• Eli
• Corazón
• Cariño
• Nena
  
• Hija
• Niña
• Stephanie
  

To be continued...Mama Pili calls me something new every day.


Last night I had a dream that someone was trying to kidnap me. It was rather scurry, but even more frightening was waking up to someone (or something) actually crawling on my bed. After about 15 seconds of an under-the-covers panic attack in which I quickly reviewed Gracie Lou Freebush's Miss America Pageant self-defense tactics (S-I-N-G...Solar Plexus, Instep, Nose, GROIN!), I emerged from my sleepy stupor and realized that my would-be captor was, in fact, a feline. Apparently Lola snuck into my room before I closed my door to go to bed and after waiting until she knew I was slumbering, she decided that she was going to share my bed with me. I guess she wasn't comfortable enough so she was just re-situating herself when I woke up thinking she was about to abduct me. THAT DARN CAT! I am not a fan. I kicked her out immediately. Sorry, Lola, but we are not at that level of friendship yet. Maaaaaaybe I would have let you stay if you hadn't tried to bite me and then scratch my eyes out the one time I tried to be nice and hold you.

playing for real, studying for....not real.

This weekend in Toledo might be ranked in the top 5 all-time weekends in Spain so far. A myriad of wonderful things happened to make it extra spectacular.....

1. Thursday after work, came home to eat an absolutely delicious meal. Took a nap for 4 hours. FOUR!!! I was feeling a little under the weather, though, so I suppose that's excusable. Woke up around 8, bummed around the house for a few hours, ate dinner, and went back to sleep at 11. Until almost 11 am the next day. I haven't felt so rested since before I left the States.
2. Free trip to Madrid to visit the Prado. Guided visit through the Goya paintings. Además, our teacher gave us a ONE WEEK extension for our ten-page paper! Originally it was going to be due the day we got back from fall break (ew), but now we have until November 9. Holler.
3. Raged in Toledo Friday night and spent less than 5 Euros.
   
4. Saturday night went to Madrid again, but for less educational purposes...partido de fútbol! Real Madrid v. Racing Santander. See TIHLALIS #23.
   
5. Slept in today, and ate an amazing brunch of ham, scrambled eggs with mushrooms, and a delicious unknown melon.
6. Leaving for Italy in 2 days...only 3 midterms standing in my way.

TIHLALIS #22-23:

22. Reality TV in Spain is very different from reality TV in America. It really is reality...and it's actually kind of boring. It's the same idea, only the cameras never stop rolling so you get to see every single moment of what goes on. Every. Single. Minute.

23. Fútbol = Life. The Estadio Santiago Bernabeu was filled to the brim with more than 80,000 fans. Many things about sports in Spain are similar to the States...airhorns, screaming insults at opposing players from the second-to-last row, all that jazz. But the extreme dedication to the sport was amazing. Every aisle was completely empty the entire game. Everyone stayed in their seats, glued to the game. Even at halftime! Instead of heading to the nearest snack stand to buy a footlong hotdog and a giant coke for $20, when the halftime whistle sounded, everyone simultaneously reached under their seats and whipped out their bocadillos they had brought from home. Luckily Jose Luis had told us about this before so we were prepared too. Courtney and I went to walk around after we ate our bocadillos and it was practically empty! No one wanted to miss a single second of the game so they just stayed in their seats. We probably should have followed suit because we missed the first four minutes of the second half...including a goal. Oh well. We saw 6 others! The final score was 6-1, Madrid. Haha, in your face, Santander! ...I know. I'm mature.


Fall break starts on Tuesday, so one of two things will happen between now and then. Either I am so focused on studying that I can't post at all until I get back from Italy. OR, I procrastinate lots and lots and post a million times a day until I leave. I feel like the latter is more likely, but we shall see. Studying starts.......now! Or maybe in a few hours.

Priorities

I'm staying here in Toledo this weekend and Mama Pili is simply ecstatic. I am too, even though I have three tests to study for and a 10-page paper to write before leaving to go on a grand tour of Italy on Wednesday. But I'm still excited to spend some time at home. Here is my dilemma:

Elizabeth's Self-Imposed Weekend Itinerary:

• Thursday - go to internship, come home for lunch, begin researching art history paper.
• Friday - wake up early-ish, finish research, go to Madrid for Prado visit with art class, come back to Toledo, start writing paper.
• Saturday - wake up early, finish writing paper, go to Real Madrid fútbol game as a reward for finishing paper, stay in Madrid.
  
• Sunday - come home to Toledo, sleep, eat delicious food, start studying for exams Monday and Tuesday.

Mama Pili's Weekend Itinerary for Elizabeth:

• Thursday - go to internship, come home for lunch, siesta, go out Thursday night.
• Friday - sleep in, wake up just in time to grab a sandwich before the Prado, come home to Toledo, go out Friday night.
• Saturday - sleep until 3, eat delicious food, movie marathon with all the chick-flicks Javier refuses to watch, Madrid for fútbol game, stay in Madrid.
• Sunday - come home to Toledo, sleep, eat delicious food, maybe sleep some more, Mass, dinner, possibly studying at some point.

What to do...WHAT TO DO???! SUCH a hard decision. I suppose I should think about this later and instead focus on the current task at hand--studying for my Philosophy exam that I have in 3 hours.

Toasters For Bread, Toasters For Bodies

Toasters For Bread:
All I want in life right now is a toaster. For bread. I found this amazing strawberry jelly in the refrigerator this morning and I wanted to put it on a million pieces of toast and eat them all for breakfast. But alas, I could not find a toaster. So I just put my new-found berry obsession on two slices of cold bread and ate it like that. It was okay, but warm toasty buttered bread would have made it SO MUCH BETTER.

Toasters For Bodies:
Yesterday afternoon I was sitting at the seldom-used dining room table doing homework (aka uploading facebook pictures) when the doorbell rang. The doorbell never rings. I answered the door and a short man with a strange looking machine asked for Raquel so I fetched her from her room (10 feet away). Apparently she and the short man are friends and they were catching up on each others' lives for a few minutes before he took the strange machine into her room and left. After he closed the door I asked Raquel what that máquina was and I was stunned by her response. It was a MINI TANNING BED!!!! I'm totally serious. Nothing got lost in translation here, I swear. She told me the Spanish word for it and when I didn't understand, she said, "Es una máquina para ponerme morena." In English, "It's a machine to make me tan." And if that's not clear enough, it gets even better. She told me I was welcome to use it whenever I want, and when I politely declined, she said "Oh yeah, you'd probably get burned by it, right?" ...Awesome.

But here's the thing. I don't understand how that machine is a tanning bed. It's SO small. And Raquel is a small girl, but even she couldn't fit in there! I'm pretty sure you have to stick in one limb at a time to use it. Seriously, just imagine sitting there with one arm in the tanning machine, then switching to the other arm, then each leg. I have no idea how it works for the stomach/back. I'm laughing just thinking about it! I want to ask her for a demonstration. Maybe I'll take a video and post it on here.

A Vegetarian Converted

A few weeks ago two German girls started working at the Tourist Office. Sarah and Vanessa are interns just like me and they will be here for 4 weeks. Today I was working at the desk with Sarah and we were just chatting about random things during our typical mid-morning lull. We were speaking in English and all of a sudden she says,

"I have never aten? ate? eated? How is the past of eat? Eaten! Yes, I have never eaten hamburgers in my life before I come to Spain. But now? Everyday."

After Google Translator helped her learn the word for vegetarian, Sarah told me she used to be one for 7 years. Then she came to Spain and started eating a little chicken here and there, and then...........she tried a McDonald's cheeseburger for the very first time in her life.

Now she is obsessed. She and Vanessa both. They don't have internet in their apartment in Toledo, so every day when they walk to the library to send emails and get on Facebook, they stop in at McDonald's and get a cheeseburger. Literally every day for the last ten days or so. And this was the best part...in addition to her daily cheeseburger snack, Sarah said, "And when I am drunken? That is the best. I will eat five." WHAT!!! How is that even possible??! Sarah and Vanessa are both these tiny little blonde-haired blue-eyed skinny minnies but I now fear for their figures. They still have two weeks left in Spain and if this consumption pattern continues, that's 14 cheeseburgers--plus a generous allowance of 20 drunken hamburgers, assuming they go out two nights per weekend.

Grand total? 34 CHEESEBURGERS.

Also Sarah is flabbergasted that extra ketchup packets are free. I guess at McDonald's in Germany if you want extra condiments (ketchup, mustard, mayo, etc.) you have to pay 30 cents per packet. So she loads up on those too. "Ketchup is free, why would you not take so much?"

Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good cheeseburger just as much as the next person. But really? 40+ cheeseburgers in 4 weeks? Dear McDonald's...LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO THE WORLD!

I WANTED A STAMP.

I wasn't homesick for Toledo this weekend. Not one single bit. I could have stayed in Portugal for the rest of the semester, except my Portuguese is terrible, so I wouldn't have fared well. The only things I know how to say are "yes," "no," "how are you?" (TUDO BEM???), "I don't speak Portuguese" and "I'm really thirsty, would you buy me a drink?" and I don't think any of those phrases would get me very far in life. However, despite the language barrier and many thanks to our traductora Sofia, Lisboa and I got along just swimmingly.

The airport sleepover was rather uneventful. And by that I mean it lacked events. Including the event of sleeping...but it was nothing that a nap on the plane and lots of coffee for breakfast couldn't fix!

My bed in the airport. The Bacon Wallet slept fine on this bench. I, however, did not.

I think I have already discussed my fear/hatred of being labeled a tourist. But this weekend we did the activity that I would consider to be the EPITOME of tourism. We rode the red bus. Yes, the red tourist bus with the open air top level that drives around so nerds with cameras can take lame blurry pictures of random buildings while listening to an audio track that doesn't even work.

I can't believe I actually paid to ride in this thing...

And it was actually.........kind of awesome.

Since so many of the main sights in Lisbon are at opposite ends of the city, we got to see them all within a few hours, and afterwards we went back to explore the neighborhoods we liked best. It was perfect! But still, SO touristy. It took me a little bit to warm up to the idea and even the first few minutes on the bus were kind of painful, but I have to admit, it was cool. BUT my pictures were terrible! I thought I was getting better at taking pictures whilst riding a moving bus, but when I uploaded them to my computer...boy, was I wrong. They are awful so I'm only posting a few. I was going to put the link to the Facebook album on here but Facebook is being stubborn and won't let me post pictures right now. I will later, though, doooooon't worry.

After our bus tour we walked around what I think was the Bairro Alto and saw a lot of free things...the free outside of a castle, the free church, the free gorgeous view of the coast, the free view of the trolley most people pay to ride when they explore Bairro Alto. We did come thiiiiiis close to renting go carts to drive but it was getting late and we had already paid for the bus tour. We are pretty cheap, if you couldn't tell. We thought about splurging on a Cirque du Soleil show that night but it was sold out...darn.

Free views of Lisbon and the coast.

Saturday night was a true testament to our thriftiness. We went to a supermarket, spent 2 Euros each on baguettes, ham, cheese and sangria, came back to the hostel and hung out with the two Portuguese girls who worked there...dinner, drinks, BS, Portuguese pictionary, some sweet new dance moves, and of course, the Notre Dame game. Only the first half though, then we got...distracted. It was so much fun and it hardly cost a thing!!! Also another man who worked there brought out a bottle of vino verde for us and when we asked him where he got it he said, "Don't worry about it." Ok.....what does that mean?? His English was terrible though so maybe something got lost in translation but it was pretty funny.

Only negative part of this weekend: they didn't stamp my passport!!! I really wanted a Portugal stamp but I guess Madrid-Lisbon is a pretty common journey so passport control is zilch. Oh well, I'm mostly holding out for my stamp from AFRICA. Stay tuned for that adventure next month.....

Ok this is getting long and I'm trying to work on writing shorter posts (not working so far) but anyways Lisbon was awesome and I wish we could have stayed longer. Maybe when I get a real job and have real money I'll come back and go inside all the places we just looked at from afar.

ALSO.
It appears that the revelation of my family connection to Paris Hilton has caused some people (COUGHCOUGHSHEERINMEHDIANANDKATEO'CONNORCOUGHCOUGH) to question my integrity and the validity of my newest fun fact. So, just to prove you two haters wrong, here is the family tree:

Peter and Anna Laufersweiler had seven children when they came to America. Elizabeth and Conrad were two of the seven. Elizabeth Laufersweiler married Henry Kuhlmann Their daughter Mary Kuhlmann married Frank Depweg and they had Neoma, who is my great grandmother (my mom's grandmother). Conrad Laufersweiler married Caroline Wasen. They had a daughter, Mary Genevive Laufersweiler. She married August H. Hilton and had a son, Conrad. Conrad Hilton married Mary Barron. They had a son William. William B. Hilton married Marylin J. Hawley. They had a son Richard. Richard H. Hilton married Kathleen E. Avanzino. They had a daughter Paris.

So that makes Paris Hilton a 5th cousin to the great grandchildren of Neoma Wetzel (AKA, ME). HAHA IN YOUR FACE, SHEERIN AND KATE.

Una Smorgasbord De Cosas

Partly for your enjoyment, but mostly so that in 20 years, when I log on to this old-fashioned thing called the internet to look at this blog and reminisce, I can remember these little gems that are are more like fun facts than stories. So here are a few totally, completely, 100% unrelated tidbits of LIS. Not necessarily TIHL, but just LIS in general.


Raquel is MIA. Or AWOL. I know what those acronyms stands for, but I've never really understood the difference. Anyway, the point is, host mom and I haven't seen her for 4 days. She left for Madrid (we think) on Sunday and went to Zaragoza (we think) with her cousin (we think) to go to a concert (we think). According to a note left in the kitchen, she got back today and is asleep in her room. However, she has not emerged, so I can't be certain. Host mom was rather peeved about the whole situation, especially on Monday which was her birthday. When I think about what would happen if I just peaced out for 4 days without telling anyone.......I just have to stop. My phone would be exploding with "Where are you? Call me." texts from my mom and it makes me cringe.


I really need to learn some children's vocabulary. Javier's niece was over the other night and we were having a tickle fight and I didn't know how to say anything child-like to her so I just made some kind of weird noises and we laughed a lot. Luckily she's only 5 so she doesn't think I'm that weird. I hope.


TIHLAL #7:

7. Lola is the watchdog of the house. If there is ever a noise in the hallway, she runs to the door, ready to pounce and attack anyone who might be about to break in. Too bad she just got her claws cut or else she actually might be able to do some real damage.


Tomorrow night I will be going on an adventure called "Sleeping In The Airport Because My Flight To Portugal Leaves At 8 AM Friday Morning And It Takes 4 Hours To Get From My House In Toledo To The Airport In Madrid So Therefore I Have To Go To Madrid On Thursday Night And Attempt To Fall Asleep On A Bench Or Something Of That Nature." This adventure has great potential to be a disaster, but at least I know I'll be on time for my flight this time. UNLESS I OVERSLEEP OMG I'M SETTING 5 ALARMS. Wish me luck.


TIHLALIS #20-21:

20. Bare feet indoors are unacceptable. You must always have something on your feet. Shoes are preferable, slippers are acceptable, and socks are a last resort. I need to invest in some cheapo slippers, because I'm going through socks like it's nobody's business.

21. Spaniards never go to work! Tuesday was a national holiday so most people didn't work (we still had class, though...probably Notre Dame's idea). On Monday, host mom skipped work because it was her birthday. She also stayed home last week for two days because her leg was hurting. Raquel skipped work this week to go on her mystery excursion. Everyone gets at least a month of paid vacation every year, no matter what your job is or how long you've been working there. Siesta lasts for 3 hours...every day. People in Spain complain all the time about how the economy here blows. I wonder why???


Classes are going really well. They are all so interesting and I am learning more about current events, politics, economics, and business relations in Spain than I have ever learned about America. Also I hardly ever do homework. And it's not even that I'm being lazy...we just don't really have any. And our profesor de filosofía told us today that our midterm is going to be facilísimo. So that's good.


Today I ate the exact same soup for lunch and dinner. Seriously. It was the EXACT. SAME. SOUP. Lentil soup with vegetables and little pieces of sausage. And of course a piece of bread on the side, because no meal in Spain is complete without pan. I couldn't bear to tell host mom that I already ate the exact. same. soup. for lunch earlier at the Fundación because I am 100% sure that she would have cleared my plate and cooked me another meal on the spot. Hers was better anyway, but still. The exact. same. soup. And now that I've typed "exact same soup" four times, it looks weird to me. Is it even grammatically correct? Spanish language is doing strange things to my English skills and I have to be extra careful sometimes.


I'm related to Paris Hilton. This fact is not at all related to me being in Spain, but when I typed the words "fun fact" earlier I remembered this fun fact and also the fact that I HATE that ice breaker where you have to say a fun fact about yourself. So I'm publishing it. This is my fun fact and I will use it forever and ever. Paris Hilton and I are fifth cousins and I have the family tree to prove it. Wetzels rule.