monday nights = my reason for existence

molly and i with fran


twins.

March 9, 2009

Once again, I have been slacking on my blogs. I have been super busy here, but I am now going to take the time to write about the past 2 weeks-ish.

After Rome I didn’t go out that much because I was so exhausted from all of the traveling and all of the adventures Molly and I had there. We went out one night for my friend’s friend’s birthday and it was a lot of fun. I ended up at Babylon with Leah and Stina and we hung out with my friend Fran who bartends there until about 4 in the morning. It was a really fun night and Stina and I accidently dressed like twins..so that was special.

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stina, leah, happy man, me


babylon, night i got locked in

Saturday Morning at 10 am we went to catch the bus to Cadiz for Carnival. My friends and I decided we were going to dress up as cigarettes since Spaniards are more than addicted as a whole and because we came up with a really ridiculous costume to make it look legitimate. We were a “pack”..a five pack..of cigarettes. We won best costume prize on our bus too! The bus was a double decker with about 80 people on it. We partied and listened to music the whole way there and we arrived at about 3 or 4. It was really nice there and the beach is one of the best in Europe. We saw a rock right when we arrived that was right on the edge of the ocean/beach and decided this would be a perfect place to take a team pic of the cigarettes. As I was climbing up on the rock a small wave crashed into the rock, and I got a little bit wet, but I didn’t think anything of it…BIG MISTAKE. Once we were all up on the rock, and most of the people we came with were on the beach, along with about 100 other carnivalers, we were DEMOLISHED by a huge wave that crashed into the rock and drenched us. We got a picture before, luckily, but we were littlerally head to toe sopping wet. People told us it was probably the funniest thing of the day and that it was really hilarious to see our reactions. We all decided to run and jump off the rock and my friend Katherine actually captured my jump on her camera…very impressive, I will put it on here if I can! BUT, the best part of my jump was that I was holding my water bottle in one hand so when I jumped, I fell. I basically just collapsed into the sand. So I was drenched with water and then all of the sand stuck to my whole body. THIS WOULD HAPPEN TO ME. The people who saw the wave and thought that was funny said that seeing my wipeout was about ten times funnier…I’m glad I can be peoples entertainment…We then all had to take off our yellow boots and shake the 2 or 3 inches of water out of them. Luckily it was really sunny out so we dried off within about an hour of laying out on the beach.

infamous jumping off rock picture..check out those crashing waves..

Carnival was just a huge mess/party. People were dressed in all kinds of costumes and we got a lot of compliments on the originality of the cigarettes! The main party point was in front of a cathedral (not sure how appropriate this is…). There were tons of shows and music playing all over the city. We walked around and just partied everywhere with all of the Spaniards. We went to the beach around 8 or 9 and hung out with some hippies on the beach and they were really really nice to us and that was probably my favorite part of the day. We lasted until about 4:30 am when we decided to go sleep on the beach for an hour or so since our bus didn’t leave until 630 am. The bus ride home was dead silent because everyone was so tired and ready to just sleep, so that was awesome. We arrived home around 10:30. Leah and I slept from then until 2:30 and then from 3-9 that night..we were EXHAUSTED.

5 pack

MOLLY’S STORY (of course):

Molly doesn’t have a phone right now, she lost it on the way to Rome, so it has been about 3 weeks now, but what she DOES have, is a whistle on her keyring. So we decided that she could just “call” each of us with our own unique whistle call and that would be her “phone”. We each thought of what call we would like to have and she wrote down each one on her hand…kind of like...a “phonebook”, if you will. We each would come running by her side when we heard our own call, this seemed fool proof. Well, of course, Molly got separated from the ENTIRE group..not just the cigarettes, but everyone. She was lost for probably 3 hours and had no way of getting a hold of anyone. She told us later that she was standing up on a stage/platform doing the whistles to try and get us to come. Unfortunately, a whistle doesn’t have “service” or even a range of anything over about 100 feet away, so she was just blowing the whistle (calling us) and getting nowhere with that (I can just picture her doing this and it makes me laugh almost everytime). Luckily she found a group of Spanish chickens (costume) and they helped her get back to the bus just in the knick of time. She was really freaked out (as anyone who was wandering aimlessly for 3 hours would be) but of course, the story makes for a good one now.

So Carnival was a success and it was insane. It was like Mardi Gras/a tailgate and I loved it all.

molly on the bus


babylon

During the week last week it rained a lot so I didn’t get to lay out, but we went out a few nights. Monday Nights have become my friend and I’s favorite nights here in Granada. We go to a bar called Dolce Vida and then to Babylon where Fran works and then to Granada 10, a club that is free on Mondays and it is really not crowded and fun. Mondays are always a successful night and since Molly and I have 8:30 am class, we enjoy them even more. Our business class on these mornings is HILARIOUS and our teacher is so funny/crazy. She is always cracking jokes and she loves us. There are about 8 people in the class and she loves the four girls from my program and so we just have a really good time.

I think I am going to end this blog here and write a different one for Barcelona because it will be long too! For now, all I will say is that Barcelona was INCREDIBLY fun and I love my Minnesota friends. We had such a good time and it was so weird to be in Europe with all of them. I still don’t think it has hit me that we just all met up. I love them and I loved Barcelona. I will write more either today or tomorrow!

Some other things I just remembered:

1. I got locked in Babylon the other night because I didn’t leave soon enough. My friends were on the opposite side of the door, and I was locked inside. Luckily my friends Fran and Stephen were still inside, but it was bizarre to be locked inside. I just ended up going out a different door about 20 minutes later, but it was scary!
2. I got to be a bartender for like 20 minutes! I helped Fran make drinks and his other bartender friend, the owner, taught me to make some things for people, so I think I have a real future here..
3. I have gone about a week without a shwarma/kebob and I think I am slowly dying because of it, hopefully these will re-enter my life tonight
4. I fell down in the middle of the street the other day because it was raining and I had flip flops on…this was really embarrassing, but not unexpected at all
5. I think this is all for now..I will write about Barcelona today or tomorrow!

me and my fave bartender, fabio