Granasty

View from my balcony!

February 1, 2009

KAPITAL!

After hibernating for the day after skiing from being so sore, I got back in action the next night.

Side note: I think I know the reason for my terrible showing on the mountain. Black diamonds (the hardest) are reds on the mountains in Spain. We went down probably 6 reds. So not only was I completely inexperienced, but I was going down black diamonds. The stadium seating along the side should have been a pretty good tipoff that we weren’t going down the blues anymore…I HATE myself, because I even told my friends “no way in HELL are we going down the blacks” and also “guys, are reds hard?” and they of course didn’t know and said no and that they were in between a green and a blue. GREAT.

Okay, back to 2 days ago. We decided to go disco-teching at a club called Kapital, but first we went to a place called a Chupiteria. The Chupiteria has 100 different types of shots that all cost 1 Euro. For every shot a person takes, they get a token as sort of a “proof” of the shot. If you save up the tokens you get prizes like t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, etc. Hopefully by the end of May I can get one of these bomb prizes. We left that place around 1 or 2 and headed to the club Kapital that stays open until 7 in the morning (crazy). It was pretty empty around 2 but became packed probably by 2:30. We danced all night until around 5 and then decided to go get some food at a kabob place (seriously, my obsession).

I woke up around 10 (yes, 5 hours of sleep is ridiculous, but since we nap everyday for at least an hour, it seems to be working), ate breakfast, and then watched the Australian Open with one of the guys in our dorm, Antonio. He was OBSESSED with Nadal and it was really fun to watch with him because of his reactions to everything that happened. Other people would come in and out of the tv room, but he would lead his own chants and cheers, clap to certain beats, scream at the tv, curse at the tv (hijo de puta directly translates to son of a bitch, so that was hilarious), etc. For lunch we had Paella, which is a typical Spanish dish of rice flavored with something awesome and with shelfish, shrimp, chicken, and anything else you want to put in it. I was so hungry that I got 2 HUGE plates of this, along with the fried fish, salad, fruit, and bread. Portion sizes here are honestly ridiculous. I’m going to take a picture next time I remember to bring my camera to lunch/dinner so that you all can understand. I couldn’t eat until about 10 at night after my huge meal because I was sooooooooooo full.

For the super bowl my friends and I went to Hannigans, an Irish Pub, where a TON of Americans went to watch it. We only stayed for the first half since it didn’t start until midnight here, and we had all had a long night the night before. The Spanish men in the bar got surprisingly into the game, but we quickly figured out that they were not cheering for either team and just loved to yell and get super excited on any big play.

Some things about my dorm:

1. I bought a lock for my laptop, for fear of it getting stolen. Let’s just say I haven’t taken it out of the bag I brought it in yet. I have never felt so foolish for thinking I would need that (maybe if I lived in a random apartment, but NEVER here). Nobody would steal from anybody, and it’s really refreshing since that is the opposite of how things were in my dorm at Minnesota. People leave their laptops sitting in the main lounge overnight without worry here. The same can be said for any other personal belonging. It is really cool.
2. Our room is FREEZING, like, FRIGID. They told us it would be fixed about 4 days ago. It is warmer outside than in our room most days. We each have 3 heavy blankets on our bed and we sleep in our coats sometimes. Leah, my roommate, wears a couple pairs of socks and scarf most nights. I have never been able to sleep in socks, but here I HAVE to, it’s crazy. I also have never been able to sleep with my sheets and blankets tucked in at the bottom because it feels so claustrophobic, but here it provides the necessary warmth to be able to get to sleep.
3. Our room is huge. They told us to expect to live in a place smaller than most American dorms, and that we would have close to no closet space. Both are untrue, thank god. We each have our own closet where all of our clothes fit, there are 3 desks, lots of chairs, a really comfortable sitting chair, our 2 beds, our own bathroom that is actually getting cleaned right now as I write this. A few times a week we get new towels, our whole bathroom cleaned, and all of our trash taken out for us. I think about twice a week we get our entire room completely cleaned, it’s really nice.
4. Our shower is RIDICULOUS. It is the kind that can be removed from the wall or up on the wall. However, the place it rests on the wall comes up to about where my shoulders are, so the option of standing underneath it is nonexistent, I think even for my roommate who isn’t that tall. This wouldn’t be that bad, but the water flow is slim to none. It sort of just drips out, and since our room is SO COLD, it is sometimes painful to shower. An example of how weak the water flows is that if you take the nozzle off the wall and try to get your hair wet, the water will not make a noise when it hits the ground because your hair soaks it completely up. It is task to wash your body or shave your legs because it is just so cold. We asked our friends in the dorm about this and they said that’s just how it is, crazy. I will never take a normal flow of a shower for granted again, seriously, it is a luxury.
5. We learned the hard way that no toilet paper can go down the toilet. They never told us, so for the first week we just did it because no one would ever think that something like that would be restricted. After coming in one day and water being all over our floor, we asked our janitor-type person and he sternly told us to never put toilet paper down the toilet. Crazy.
6. The people our SO nice, still, in our dorm. I thought it may have been a passing thing and that they would be nice the first couple days, but then maybe exclude us, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. One girl that we call Booty wants to be a translator when she is older, so she talks to me in English, and wants me to teach her things everyday. I love it. She wants me to only speak to her in Spanish, and her to speak to me in English. She is really impressive. Also, yesterday I dropped my glass and it shattered EVERYWHERE in millions of pieces in the lunch room. I was cursing myself and they all made me feel so much better. All the girls were saying “no pasa nada, no pasa nada” which means it doesn’t matter at all and don’t worry about it. Lorenna, my friend, got out the broom and cleaned it all up for me, even after my begging to let me do it, because I was such an idiot. They gave me a new cup and everything was fine, but I just thought it was so nice for all of them to help me and make me feel better, instead of being like “stupid American”.

My friends and I are going to start planning some trips around Europe. We are kicked out of our dorm from April 3-13 so we will probably travel to Prague, Ireland, Amsterdam, and places around there for those 10 days. We also really want to go to Greece, Morocco, and Portugal at some point. I also want to visit Katie in Barca, Sara in France, and Tara in Italy, so we’ll see how it all plays out.