I apologize now for my spelling and grammar—learning Spanish has officially made me forget anything that matters in the English language.

To try and tell everything that happened on our trip(s) would not only be extremely overwhelming (for all of us), but actually impossible. But some things just have to be told. So here goes.

Our first destination was Salzburg, Austria. We had a full day, night, and another partial day there. Upon entering our hostel room (me and three of my friends: Sara, Sabrina, and Stacey) we were greeted with a welcoming aroma mixed between man armpit, and man toe. We were in a room with 4 other grown men, all minus one were sleeping when we arrived—one of them was laying hairy belly up, one arm behind his head with his left armpit being one of the great contributors to the scent that so willingly engulfed our nostrils.
After walking around the city for a bit, we came back to the hostel to ask for some suggestions of what to do that night. There was some sort of “student party” at a cave-club (cave that was turned in to a club) that night, so we thought we’d give it a shot. We took the bus about 20 mins out of town, and found the raging party, including all 3 (give or take) people that decided to go that night. Needles to say, after being the only ones out on the dance floor, and finding that neither English nor Spanish would help us there, we were on our way, just in time to catch the last city bus at 11:13. As we left the club, we saw our bus (number 23) driving on the street near our stop, so we oh-so-discretely sprinted to our stop, only to find it was the bus going in the opposite direction. Its fine, we wanted to run anyway. When our bus finally came, we mounted, joined the other 2 people on the bus, and got on for free, because the driver wouldn’t let us pay. We must have done our make-up well that night. So they have this screen on the bus that has a feed going across it saying which stop was coming up next. We kept checking with each other making sure we didn’t have to get off yet, confirming that the stop we wanted, was in fact, Shranengasse Street. After we announced the name to each other a few times, out of nowhere, the bus stops randomly on the side of the road, the driver opens the back doors and stares back at us, then doors, then us, then the doors, hinting for us to get off. Sure of where we were going, we look at him and say “oh, we’re not ‘til Shranengasse—thanks though!” He wasn’t convinced. Some girl that was on the bus, studying in Austria and spoke English, straightened it all out for us—the bus we were on didn’t go to our stop. We were going in the opposite direction of our hostel. So not only had we been on the bus for 30 minutes, but we got on about 25 minutes away from our hostel to start with. So we were now about an hour away from where we needed to be, not to mention we had no way of getting there—this wasn’t new york—there aren’t cabs at your beckon call, not to mention NO ONE on the streets speak English. Awesome. The English-speaking girl suggested that we just go to the central station, and use our cell phone to call a cab. Hmm. Where the hek is central station, and what cell phone would you be speaking of? After we had held up our GREAT American reputation, the driver just closed the doors shaking his head, and we were off. About 5 mins later, he stopped again, and the rest of the people got off. So it was just the 4 of us, the driver who speaks no English, in a city we know nothing about, at night, not knowing where the hell he is taking us. So, we sat. Reminiscing about the good ‘ol times, loving the last few minutes of our lives together, assuming the bus driver had already started gassing us through the vents on the bus, on our way to a dark alley to never be seen again. But then out of nowhere, the bus does a giant U-turn, which confused us even more, so we just continued to sit and do nothing. Soon enough though, we started to recognize where we were, and realized we were headed in the direction of the original stop we needed. Minutes later, we read “Shranengasse”. You guys. This PRECIOUS bus driver took us allll the way back to our hostel, not only without charging us for the original ride, but didn’t as for anything after he drove us extra, and then when we tried to give him money he refused to take it, after his shift was over, and he was an hour and a half away from where he needed to be. The most heart warming thing I may have ever experienced. The only thing we could do was take a picture with him. And someday, pay it forward.

The next morning, we took a tram thing up to some castle that has a look out of Salzburg, took some pictures, soaked in all the view, then went on a mad hunt for green rolling hills to record an embarrassing rendition of the theme song for The Sound of Music. Mission accomplished. After rolling around in what we thought were spider eggs but turned out to be some type of fertilizer, we were itchy enough for a lifetime. We walked to a nearby hotel to call us a cab, went back to our hostel to gather our things, and headed to the train station to make our way to Vienna. Have you ever had grass fertilizer itch. I think it’s the worst kind. Try sitting on a train with THAT to deal with. And then walk around one of the most bustling cities on a quest for food at 23:00. With jeans on. And we all know how the inside-of-the-jean itch goes. No matter how hard you scratch, you will never get it and be satisfied, so you just have to slap. And even then you’re not fully relieved. So the four of us were walking around the lit up city slapping, scratching, and doing the awkward leg shake hip twist to get that blade of grass out of the rectum area. NOT a great feeling.
The next few days were spent in Vienna, riding bikes around the city, touring castles, cathedrals, parks, famous neighborhoods, etc, etc, all the while taking extremely embarrassing pictures. Like when Sabrina fell off her bike at the busiest intersection in Vienna. I wasn’t peeing my pants or anything. She was in the back of the bike line, hit the curb wrong on a curve, and I hear behind me ‘’OH NO, OH NO’’ and I was in the front of our squad so I had already reached the other side of the intersection. I turn around to see her on the ground, bike on top of her, and I lost it. But being the extremely concerned friend I am, I called across the street to see if she was okay, and a grown man with a razor scooter and his son SHUSHED me. Can you even believe it?! I looked at him and said EXCUSE ME? He just faced forward and didn’t say anything. That’s RIGHT sir. You just watch out and I’ll put a rock in front of your little toy and then we will see who is on the ground. Anyway. We are QUITE the tourists I must say, im kinda proud. We did not have nearly enough time there though, as in most places we go to. With hunger dictating our every move, it goes unsaid that we are well educated in the cuisine of each place our journeys bring us….more or less. Including cheese-filled Vienna sausage wrapped in fluffy bread. It changed my life.
We then took a boat down the Danube to Bratislava, Slovakia. Unless you have a specific reason to, NEVER go there for 3 days. One is plenty. Of all places I have been to, I must say their English was the most non-existant. The next best thing you can think of when someone doesn’t know what you are saying in English is to whip out the Spanish. Which is clearly a good idea considering if they can’t even understand the world’s most common language, why would they know the language that only one country in Europe speaks. Yet, it always seems like a good idea at the time. The few people we could communicate with (the hostel workers) were very precious though. Some of the sweetest girls I have met so far. Their English was quite interesting though—like when I would say thank you, they would say please…every time. But hey, manners are manners, right?
We tried going to a city in the Czech Republic, but the train system in Slovakia is a lot more complicated than you probably imagine. Sure, you can buy a ticket, but it doesn’t tell you what time the train leaves, where its going, or what track the train is even on. So we were running the train station like crazies (we didn’t look like foreigners at all) until we found what we thought was our train. And boy, the trains there are NOT quite the good ol Amtrak or Metrolink. As we sat sweating on the seedy-diner-like cushions, we began to wonder. The train we bought tickets for was leaving 4 minutes after our purchase….and here we sat. We tried asking the girl across from us if we were on the right train, but she didn’t speak English, so she asked someone else on the train, who asked someone else, and finally we found the girl who “spoke English” and got absolutely no clarity of anything. So after 30 minutes of sitting on the train going to who knows where, we fled. There were better things to do. Like find food. After we re-energized, we put our tourist fanny-packs on (k not REALLY-who do you take us for) (although Stacey actually tried to hook her camera case on to her belt at one point but don’t worry we didn’t let her leave the room like that) and continued our explorations. After a sufficient amount of wandering around a soaking up this eerie country, we put on our night-caps and found some random underground club beneath our hostel. The world’s LARGEST disc jockey was getting his groove thing on to some pretty acceptable tunes, etc, etc. The next day we made our way to the famous Botanical gardens. And wow. If that’s not where God resides, I don’t know where. It was absolutely HUGE, with every bush, tree, flower, insect, grass type, pond, sun ray IMAGINALBE to mankind. Like the kind of environment that makes you feel numb to the world—until you hear the shreaks of screaming babies enjoying the sand in the man-made playground. This is supposed to be a PEACEFUL place. Whatever happened to discipline at a young age. Sheesh. So we joined them. May or may not have had an extreme photo sesh on the monkey bars, teeter-totter, grass, etc. Funny thing tho—for such a large tourist attraction, they sure didn’t have the bathrooms to accommodate. I wandered my way back to the entrance to ask the lady at the booth (with two wandering eyes) where the bathrooms were (mind you at this point I was abouuttt ready to wet my pants. Like it was COMING) and surprise, surprise she didn’t speak English. Or understand it. Not even the word BATHROOM. So I had to explain to her with loud (for some reason you always think that volume increase will help), simple words—still didn’t work. So I then preceded to hand motions. Yes, I did in fact fake drink water, then made flowing motions out of my “region” with my hand. About 20 styles later, and the game of figuring out which wandering eye too look at, she finally understood me, said something in gibberish, pointed to the exact direction I came from, and I still had no idea where to go. So I started wandering back in that general direction, and by wandering, I do mean briskly walking because at this point I’m beginning to hyperventilate from extreme demand of urine release. I start desperately searching for this mysterious bathroom, to no avail. It was time. And there was NOTHING I could do about it. I know you know what I’m talking about it. When it hits, it hits. I heard dull voices here and there, darted my eyes to find a safe haven away from them, and dropped trou in the Botanical Gardens of Slovakia. I had to. Then went back to take more pictures on the jungle gym. Its fine. Once we had our fair share of nature and bug bites, we packed up shop and head on our way out to the tram. Lucky for us, right as we were getting to the tram stop, it pulled up. Sara got on first, and I followed, but right as I stepped in, the doors slammed shut (on my pony tail, no big deal) and left—with Stacey and Sabrina wide-eyed and confused—as me and sara waved with pity, nearly pissing our pants in laughter. CLEARLY the conductor saw us all getting on, esp when he closed the doors on me. Yet he left. Maybe its because he saw that we didn’t get a ticket….but we’re tourists we don’t understand how it works….anyway. that was fun. Almost as fun as when a man and his wife got on a few stops later—the woman sat down casually and relaxed into the seat. The man saw his wife’s great ease, and attempted to do the same—only he didn’t see the bar above his seat, juuust in line with his head. As he plopped down, he banged his head on the bar which made a substantial THUD, followed my and “oof!” on his part. Being the compassionate person that I am, I couldn’t help but burst in to laughter. I thought I was the only one who saw it, so since there was no one to provoke me, after I gathered composure I slowly turned back around to face him, only to see Sara turned the other way in hysterics—apparently she saw too. Once we made eye contact, all was lost. I think I gave myself a hernia within 2 minutes. We carried on, finished out the day, and went to bed pretty early to get out of Slovakia and on to Hungary.
The next morning, we made a quick run to the bagel shop, and rushed to catch the last tram before our train left. Since the bagel lady took about 12 minutes to bag each one, we were literally running WITH the tram in order to catch it at the stop we needed. We didn’t all have on huge backpacks or anything running through a small town. I’m sure we didn’t cause a scene. I don’t think I was made to ride trams. But after dealing with the previous day’s incident with the doors closing on me and leaving to of my team-members behind, I was ready. As we ran up to the stop just in time, I was first in, and serving my new nick-name (tank), I burst in to the doors to hold them open, and oh-so-gracefully ate it on the stairs up in to the tram, and immediately grew a huge blue and purple lump on my ankle. There may have also been slight amounts of blood. I think they call that taking one for the team, stepping up to the plate. Someone had to do. But hey, we got on the tram, and caught our train on time.
Which brings us to Budapest, Hungary.
WOW. Aside from Portugal, definitely my favorite place I have been to this year. Just soooomethin about it. Between the caving (yes, caving—and not the kind where you casually walk underground—the kind where you have jumpsuit and helmets with lights on them and you have panic attacks of claustrophobia when you get stuck on your way through a hole that you thought was a joke when the guide said you were going through it that you have to have your head at the perfect angle to fit through with one arm above it and the other arm straight with a flat palm and then get paid special attention to by the guide when your helmet jams and your whole body is then stuck so the guide tells you to “move your bum up and down” which doesn’t make you feel awkward at all until you finally manage to somehow morph through the God-forsaken sliver of stone, only to make it to slippery mud and fall on your arse on hard cold rock. All of this hypothetically speaking of course, not from personal experience) and Turkish baths with endless pools to choose from with various temperatures and therapeutic techniques or mint saunas to relax in not to mention the worlds largest spa that actually puts you to sleep the second your body is engulfed in it. These activities may or may not have been among the reasons why I put “professional vacationer” in the ‘occupation’ box when filling out the customs sheet going from country to country.
We spent our last night in Budapest with two Swiss musicians at a picnic table outside the street fair grounds. One of the most entertaining nights to date. By far. Describing the night is in itself entirely impossible, and to try to write it in words—well there’s just no chance. But it was absolutely one of the highlights of our trip. For more details, inquire within.
The next morning we were off to Glasgow, Scotland. It was amazing. We were only there for two days and one night, but better than nothing. The train ride from the airport was absolutely gorgeous—the countryside looked fake it was so beautiful. The people there were super friendly and outgoing, once again a huge change from the Granadinos. And the best part about Scotland—there was a pizza hut. A good one. WITH BOTTOMLESS FOUNTAIN DRINKS. Now if that doesn’t bring joy to your heart ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know what does. Needless to say, we took advantage of that little glimpse of heaven. Then after a hint of sight-seeing (more like making sure the starbuckses are the same in Scotland, as well as a few other minor stores) making friends with the Quizno’s workers and gettin a few free things thrown in here and there (Sacramento is the original “land of Quizno’s”, hence being from California had its perks in this instance), we made our way to the train station, then to the airport, and back to Malaga, Spain. Where the last bus to Granada was filled, so when we got to the station and the lady with her panties in a knot told us there were no more buses, you can imagine our feelings since all we wanted was to sleep in a bug-free bed after being so deprived for 13 days. But, being 4 girls that have actually ENDLESS things to talk about, we made the best of it and got yet another hostel for the night and headed back home to G-town the following morning…or afternoon.
And there you have it.
Now I’m sure there was more than enough left out, but let’s be honest. You’re tired of reading about it, I’m tired of writing about it, and some things just shouldn’t be broadcast anyway.
Which brings us to my last months/weeks in Granada. You may or may not remember my dear Italian roommate. She officially is either bipolar, a schiz, or gets blacked out drunk all too often and has no recollection of what she does. One night I come home and as soon as I get in the door, she marches up to me, and says “we need to talk—in the kitchen''. So i'm like okay whatever. What now. She opens the cupboard, and holds up a half-gone jar of whoevenknowswhat. Looked like a mix between marmelade and jam. So anyway. Shes asks me if I ate it and i'm like umm nooo its not mine and it looks like elephant dung why would I even go near it. Then she asks me again if I ate it—i'm sorry were we not just in the same room when I answered you? So again I reassure her that I have not eaten her jar of mystery slosh. Yet she is not satisfied with my answer. As she becomes more upset and spiddle from her italian raging mouth launches upon my face she informs me that if I there is not 20 euro on the table in the morning to cover the cost of the missing slosh, she will report me to the police for robbing her. So I ran to my room and gave her 20 euro. Noooooot. Why would I ever. Is she serious? As if I would actually give her money for something I most certainly did not do. So the next morning, she went down to the Policia and reported her roommates for robbing her. Awesome. However I was not too worried. Keep in mind this is the same police that when were called to my house by the neighbors because of a noise complaint, they asked if I had a shot they could take. I told them it was time for them to leave. Needless to say, nothing ever happened. So take that, little italy. But, fear not. The escapades were not over. A few days later, for whatever reason, my crazy duena (owner of the piso I was living in) decided it would be a good idea to come to the house, break in to my room with her spare key, and snoop around. She saw a blanket on the floor, and for whatever reason decided that was proof that I had someone living with me. So she and her giant cankles changed the lock on my door. So when I got home from the gym at 10 pm that oh-so-memorable friday night with nothing with me but a key that served me no purpose, you can imagine the feelings I had. After trying various times to break down the door or climb across the balcony, I finally had to call her. With what phone—mine was in my room. That was locked. And her phone number was in that phone. So I had to wait for one of my roommates to come home who had her number, then go over to my friends house and use her computer to skype her. Of which the reception is always horrible. So things were about to get real interesting. It was in that hour of screaming to my vocal chords' capacity that I realized how much spanish I had learned. I was saying things I didnt even know I knew. It was like diarrhea of the mouth. And for whatever reason, she understood me. After much bargaining, screaming, and threatening, I got her to ''consent'' and have her husband bring the key...but wait it was too late for him to come to my house, so I had to go to theirs. Excuse me? Late? Youre damn right its late and Im locked out of my freaking room lady so get your cankles over here and fix it. But no. the only way I could get the key that night was if I met her in a part of town I had never even heard of, let alone knew how to get to. So I wrote it down on a piece of paper, and handed it to the taxi driver. About a 12 minute drive later, he dropped me off in Compton. The street lights were those eerie yellow ones, I heard awkward screams, and a spanish woman was walking by briskly holding on to her purse like it was life itself and pepper spray in her other hand. So there I waited for this man I had never met to come and bring me they key to everything that mattered in that country. Meanwhile I had to keep doing 360s to watch my back so I didnt get slaughtered in the back ally by a bitter gitano. About 15 minutes later a man with fake teeth came down, handed me a key and said, “its a bad thing, what happened'' (referring to me having someone live with me—did you not just listen to what I said for the past hour senor?) so I made a loving remark back to him and turned and walked away. To go where? Good question. I had no more euros cuz the first cab was so expensive so I started running. Using the great instinct I have, I ran my way home-still don't know how I made it.
That was a few weeks before my dreaded departure, just enough time to keep precious Lola (my land-puta) at a distance without her questioning too much, so I could flee the country without paying the last month's rent. But I payed a hefty security deposit, so she didn't really even lose any money. Unfortunately.
So a little of this, a little of that, a long wait at the airport over night, two flights, and 36 hours later, I was landing in America.
Which brings me back to a very harsh reality. Coming from being a professional vacationer and world explorer, to taking 21 units and spending my “spare time” studying has been far from pleasant. But I guess that's what I get for spending a year of my life in absolute unexplainable bliss. I still pause on occasion when trying to respond to someone in English when I first meet them—something about meeting new people always prompts me to respond in a quick Spanish slang—so as if its not awkward enough starting silently at them trying to think of how to translate, the word that actually ends up coming out makes it even worse. Like normally when someones says ''nice to meet you'' in spanish, you respond “igualmente'' which translate to ''likewise'' but instead I start to say ''equal'' cause it sounds more like that. So you can imagine some of the awkward groans that have come out of my mouth as I try to save myself from looking like a complete iiiidiot when attempting to engage in small talk.
It has been a very long few months reflecting longingly upon last year, looking at pictures that bring me back to it all instantly, causing a slight tingle in my nose and dampness to my eyes. I still can't believe it was all real and went by so quickly. Wow. What a life. Now back to my studies where class presentations have taken on new meanings because I actually know the language I am speaking in. For the most part.
Viva La Sangria




Well ladies, we'll always have Spain, won't we.
-Tim Sullivan