So I’m now in Spain with my parents for a whirlwind tour of Europe. My itinerary thus far:
Thursday: Madrid
Friday: Day trip to Toledo
Saturday: Madrid, and Fly into Seville
Sunday: Day trip to Granada and Alhambra
Monday: Seville
Some random observations. Sorry they’re not really polished. Internet time is expensive..:
- I”m okay with saying 2-3 word phrases and simple sentences, as long as they’re in present or past tense and I can think about it beforehand. I’ve completely forgotten more complicated grammar, like future and subjunctive tense. Basically, I can get around, but I sound like Tarzan.
- Itsth fun to sthpeak with a lithp.
- We’re seeing alot of cathedrals and palaces. They all look the same. I should just stop taking pictures.
- The Spanish eat alot of garlic. Garlic is good.
- They also eat alot of ham. At every other store there’s large pig haunches with hooves attached hanging from the ceiling. Some of them even have bits of hairy skin still.
- The lunch hour is from about 2-4, and dinner is at 9:30. Going to sleep after a big dinner feels gross.
- We went to the Prado museum and Museum de Reina Sofia in Madrid. Really cool. Got my picture in front of Velasquez’s “Las Meninas”
- If you ever need to boost your body image (and are female), just go see some rennaisance paintings. “The Three Muses” have cellulite.
- Speaking of body image, how did Spanish women all get so hot?
- In my experience, seeing famous pieces of art usually ends up being a letdown after all the hype (The tiny Mona Lisa at the Llouvre, for example), but Picasso’s Guernica is *awesome* in person. It’s huge… takes up an entire wall, and really intense. Dali gives me the creeps, but I really like Picasso.
- The best attraction by far has been the Alhambra in Granada — a Muslim fortress done in that architecture style. I’d like a Moorish garden one day.
- I don’t like tours. My bladder doesn’t work on someone else’s schedule.
- There was an older Japanese couple on our tour to Toledo. The wife carried like two large bags on the 3 km walking tour, and the husband only carried a camara. My mom says it’s like that in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese cultures. Hrmm… I like chivalry…
- Today my parents decided they were tired of eating tapas and we went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. *sigh*
- It’s a really traumatic sight to see a 50-60 year old man dry humping with his gf in a public garden. Watching the expression of tourists as they walk by and see him, however, makes it almost worth it.
- Flamenco is officially one of the most awesome dances ever. I don’t think I know of any other dance with so much pent up emotion.
Yup yup, tomorrow to barcelona.
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I was in Philadelphia this past weekend — primarily to see Kenli before he disappears off the face of the earth (joins the peace corp), but I also managed to time the trip so that I’d catch Harold on his weekend home. Thanks to Kenli and Shaw for hosting me and feeding me lots of good food, and to Harold for going to a really disgusting museum with me and also introducing me to good Philly food.
So without further ado… highlights from Philly:
- Before the advent of refrigeration, interesting medical specimens were preserved (pickled, dried, etc.) and put on display in Medical museums for the benefit of medical students. If you have a strong stomach, I’d recommend the Mutter museum in Philly. You get to learn cool things like — “it is possible for the colon to stretch to a 10 inch diameter if you routinely go for a month without using the restroom,” “fat people turn into wax when they die,” and “there’s lots and lots of things that can go wrong in fetal development.” Definitely go before lunch though.
- Authentic philly cheese steaks apparently are made with cheese whiz. I chose to not go that authentic, and ordered one with provolone. Another regional treat is “water ice”, pronounced “wooder ice”, and is kind of like Italian ice. Below: Harold with a cheesesteak at Reading Terminal Market.
- Kenli and I relived our high school chorus nerd days by recording a 4 part song on his computer, with me on soprano and alto, and him on tenor and bass. I quickly found out that bad things happen when altos try to sing soprano for an extended period of time. I also found out that Kenli has a higher range than me when he sings falsetto. Here’s a picture of our setup. Note the pitch pipe, headphones, and the computer that’s elevated on 4 books so that the fan won’t turn on in the middle of a recording:
- And here is the finished product. Heart of the Fugue.mp3.The computer actually crashed as we were finishing up the last line, so we redid the whole song in two takes. Which is basically my lame excuse for the several cringe-worthy offtune sequences. But I’m posting it because I get a kick out of this whole singing with yourself thing. I love the squeaky flat soprano on the high F’s (or more like G’s since we kept on going sharp), or any of the high notes for that matter. Hehe, it was alot of fun . I’d definitely recommend it for people who like to sing but can’t find a chorus.
- And Kenli and Shaw in their living room, watching Friends, which they apparently do at least twice a day.
- On the way home, I again fell into umbrella gluttony. My newest purchase is a $20 manual umbrella from brookstone. Aluminum frame, vented teflon coated canopy, folds up to about 5 or 6 inches. I love vented umbrellas.
- All in all a great trip. I’ve decided that I might skip out on some dance conventions and use the money to visit friends instead…. People are more important than west coast swing (gasp, did I just say that?)
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Yup, so I’m on wordpress now. Notice that this isn’t actually my first entry on the blog, since a moment of exasperation during the setup inspired me to post an entry before the official welcome post. (Okay, my conscience is kicking in and making me acknowledge that the aforementioned obnoxious individual did take 2 hours of his Saturday afternoon to help me set it up and also fed me chile afterwards, so I shouldn’t be complaining too much…)
But anyways… welcome to my new home. I’ll be posting here and linking from Xanga until RSS becomes mainstream enough for that to become unnecesary. And meanwhile, non xanga subscribers… yes, I mean you ..I moved here so you could post comments, so why don’t you get started?
Ciao,
Livs
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Jeff is really obnoxious when he’s helping you set up wordpress.
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