creeperz

sooo today i tried to go on a nice peaceful jog to Parque Retiro per usual. It was a nice day con mucho sol and i was just minding my own business running down some streets before getting to the park. I'm running across a big street and this guy comes at me from the opposite direction and like grabs my shoulder. Clearly he's a creeper so I continued running past him without a second look. THEN he turns around, runs after me, and stops me on the other side of the road. woah buddy. I reluctantly take out an ear of my headphones and he proceeds to ask me, in English, if I want to run with him tomorrow. No. NO I do NOT want to run with you tomorrow random-creepy-asian/spanish guy. Would I like to run with him next week? Also no to that. I decided it was best to run away, quickly, but for the rest of my run I had a strange feeling that he was going to run up behind me and stab me with a knife--- you never know with these types, right? Perhaps I'm a little paranoid... (but he was exceedingly weird)
Anyway, as I was coming back from running in the park, one of the limpiezas (street cleaners) got all up in my grill and said something to me, probably inappropriate, but luckily I had my headphones securily blasting some Eminem (old ipod, get at me).

Good news of today though-- Allison and I had coffee with her Comitas buddy (a girl who goes to our school and who's actually from Spain) and we're gonna go out with her on Friday woooooo making new Spanish friends!

I miiiight be a little obsessed with Amsterdam

Where to begin!

First off, I’m sorry if this blog gets boring because I’m essentially just going to repeat how much I love Amsterdam. As of now, it is one of my favorite cities, if not my favorite city, in the world.  We did lots of exciting things there so I’ll break this up into parts so it’s better to look at.

Rotterdam

First stop on our trip was Rotterdam to stay the night with Noah and visit Penn kids before touring Amsterdam. We went straight to Rotterdam from the airport via a Harry Potter train. Private cabins meant that we could blast the jamzz, and I quite enjoyed being deejay and reciting various HP quotes.

After about an hour of literally bouncing up and down in our seats, we arrived in Rotterdam where Noah so nicely greeted us, paid for our tram ride (which we tried to avoid) and welcomed us to a pregame that was in full swing in his room. So strange, and nice, to see ruit tables set up and red solo cups decorating the space- flashback to America hollaaaaa. First stop was up to the roof to …show us the scene of Rotterdam from above, and of course introduce us to some international friends and the Colonel. Then back downstairs to rep the U. S of A with a game of ruit. Afterwards, we headed off to club Hollywood which appeared to be the scene of a 14 year olds birthday party (baby blue and white balloons were decorating the ceiling and there was a big “14” plaque). We went inside to see a crowd of people that was quite younger than what we were used to. Although it was in fact not a birthday party (rather the 14^th anniversary of the club), we were amused to find many teenagers on the dance floor (one of whom literally nuzzled my neck when he danced with me- awk central). We decided the dance floor wasn’t really our scene at the time, so we purchased coins (yes, coins at a club) and went to the back patio to buy delicious mini pancakes from this Dutch woman (you couldn’t pay with Euros, only with coins which seemed pretty silly to us).

We danced some more and then headed out around 3 to go get K___ which is terrific after-club fare: French fries with thinly sliced shwarma with a little cheese and lettuce and garlic sauce. In retrospect, this sounds kind of disgusting, but I swear it was amazing. Finally off to bed alongside the ruit table. Frattyyyyyy

Amsterdam Day 1

The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed (literally dragged) and trained back up to Amsterdam to sightsee. Despite the rain, we walked through an outdoor market, where we equipped ourselves with touristy looking, but functional, hats and gloves. Then we went to the Heineken Experience which is what it sounds like. Mix of educational video clips, ‘rides’, and of course various taste testings. When we were done, we took a walk around to get a feel for the city (including the red light district which was filled with bored 20-something year old girls in bikinis just standings in windows and sometimes texting) and experienced some of Amsterdam’s culture.  After relaxing inside for a little, it was pretty dark and still raining, so we headed home.

Allison and I stayed in a B&B on account of needing to sleep before our Sunday run, and got a glorious fluffy bed, sofa, kitchen and clean bathroom to ourselves. Heaven.

Amsterdam Day 2

On day 2 we had planned to go on a bike tour, and the weather cooperated with us surprisingly. We went to Mike’s Bike tour to find our hippy guide with dreads ready to go. Score. She was actually really knowledgeable and gave us a brief (very interesting) version of Amsterdam’s history before we started off on our 4 hour adventure. Highlights include: going to a cheese/clog factory in the Dutch countryside, complete with samples of course; seeing a windmill; going through Vondel Park; and of course biking along beautiful river boats, canals, reclaimed land, parks etc etc. We also got to be a part of Dutch culture by ringing our bells at stupid tourists (role reversal) and learned some super fun facts. Only 20% of Dutch people have tried weed (our guide didn’t try it until she went to Australia ironically enough), whereas 40% of Americans have; there is a biker’s union and a prostitute’s union in Amsterdam; the number one crime is bike theft; the city symbol is XXX (the connotation with porn came because porn was shipped through Amsterdam’s port and thus each box was stamped with XXX); and their first Dutch king was William of Orange. This is the (unfortunate) reason that the country loves orange. In my opinion, this is its only downfall…

After the countryside tour was finished, we walked into town and Allison and I saw the Anne Frank museum. This was also really interesting and something I truly enjoyed. The museum is incredible in the artifacts that it holds: a map on the wall where Otto Frank (Anne’s father) traced all of the Allied troops’ movement as they neared the Netherlands; marks on the wall showing the changes in height of the children; pictures/postcards that Anne had glued to her walls; Latin homework between Anne and her teacher (with corrections in red); documentation of the family members and their journey through concentration camps; and documentary footage of Otto Frank (the only one of the 8 living in the Secret Annex to survive) when the museum was completed. Powerful and educational. A must-see in Amsterdam.

Later we headed to Vondel Park to pick up our running packets for the race the next day!

Amsterdam Day 3: Race day whaddup

RACE DAYYYYY!!! After carbo-loading the night before with a homemade pasta dinner for 2 (romantic, eh?), I was ready to run.  I met up with Lane and Rick McVey as we prepared to dominate the 8k course. We started at 10:30 just outside the Olympic Stadium, ran 8k through Vondel Park and Amsterdam city, and then finished on the Olympic Stadium Track. It was pretty awesome because it was my first race, I got to see Lane, I got to see a new city in a whole new way, and I got a medal! Sweeeeet. To make everything better, I finished in about 46 minutes which was under my goal time. All in all, very exciting

Then while Allison ran her ½ marathon, I shopped around Amsterdam and found some quite interesting things…

We met up again and headed to the airport where they stole my face lotion (I swear the bottle was not too big UGH), and obvi suffered delays because of strikes in France- how typical. But other than traveling woes, Amsterdam was an INCREDIBLE trip. Sorry this is absurdly long but seriously, what an amazing city.

ps. along with cheese, you gotta try stroopwaffels - DELISH- got free samples of cheese, chocolate, and these cookies at a store across from a coffee shop (typical) on a side street near Dam Square. ah-mazing

bloggin boredom

so right now i would like to be watching The Sound of Music via iTunes library, but alas my plans have been foiled and I cannot find it. I'm too afriad to try some random site becasue last time I did that, my computer crashed, and now I don't have the IT peepz of Penn at my disposale to fix it. ugh.
Since TSoM didn't work out, I decided that I wanted to watch Breakfast at Tiffanys. FOILED AGAIN! iTunes insists that I need to download a new version, which I have done about a total of 3 times now... still not working. F you technology.

So now I'm sitting in bed contemplating reading but notttt really feeling like it (I just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo this weekend on the bus from San Seb). My current boredom/hunger is about to make me book tickets to Barcelona for Halloween weekend though- pretty excitinggggggg!

sidenote- my goal for the week (aka Mon-Thurs) is to not eat bread, because I have eaten an absolutely absurd quantity since I've been here. It's worked so far, but led to a very bland lunch of ensalada mixta from the school cafeteria (gotta love being on a college budget and spending money on flights instead of food!). This will change once the weekend starts because I'm going to Amsterdam on Thursday for my race wheeee!

Prost! 2

Ok sooo the next day, we got up at 6:30 and were in line at the beer tents by 8am. Then we were basically herded (think cattle) into the tent. You have to get there super early because tents fill up very quickly and everyone is pushing and shoving each other and it's quite the scene. But we finally got in and got our first beer of the day at 9am. As Allison put it, Breakfast of Champions. Then essentially you sit at your table and continue drinking, standing up every so often when everyone starts to yell PROST and gets up on the benches, and also singing the tune of the chorus of the White Stripes song 'Seven Nation Army'. I still don't really understand why this is such a popular tune, but it was repeated multiple times on that weekend (and also curiously this past weekend when I was in San Sebastian...)
After staying in the tents until the afternoon, we went back to our hotel to take a much needed nap. We woke up and went back downtown for dinner etc
The third day, we thought we had to be at the airport earlier than we actually did, so we just walked around downtown more and explored and went to the airport. Hard to handle more than 2 days of Oktoberfest.

Fast forward through a fun week in Madrid, including a great trip to the Prado (which I thorougly enjoyed becasue we had an extremely knowledgable, though long-winded, tourguide named Pablo), botellon-ing in the street with 60cent boxed wine (define: class) and clubbing at Vanilla, and then taking a trip up to San Sebastian with Allison and Annie this weekend.

San Seb was absolutely beautifulll- we didn't dress appropriately for the 80 degree weather on the first day, but that was our only snag. Otherwise, we had a great time touring the city itself- walking up a hill to see a giant Jesus statue and beautiful views, visiting a sideria (inadvertently crashing what we decided was a 15 year old's birthday party) and also going up to the town of Hondarribia which is on the border between Spain and France. We walked around the old city there which was beautiful and ate some very fresh and delicious food. We also took a 5 minute (uneventful) trip across the border to France, basically to say we did and to see if there was anything interesting in the town (there wasn't). Then we went back to San Sebastian, took a nap, and decided to treat ourselves to a fancy pants dinner. It was SO GOOD. We ate a a restaurant called La Muralla and I HIGHLY recommend it. You can choose from two menus - 35E or 38E- and it includes starters, main courses, desserts, wine and coffee. San Sebastian is known for it's fabulous food, and we really got to experience it at La Muralla. I literally took pictures of every part of the meal (I'm sure the waiters judged me but whatever) so you can check that out on Facebook if you're interested. Seriously phenomenal, and a great change from the bland food that we're used to here in Spain.
After this wonderful meal, we went out in old city and hit up a few bars/a club. Turned out to be a really fun night- we made lots of friends (duhhhh), and Allison picked up a few husbands (and a possible job in France?) and we met a fellow American who gave us some good club tips.
The next day (Sunday), it rained, but we just went tapas hopping and caught our bus at 4pm (after sleeping in of course) so it wasn't too much of a problem.
All in all a really great weekend. Allison and I are definitely sad to see Annie go though!

Prost!

firstly, i hate how everyone's album title or blog thing or status or whathaveyou is "prost!" upon their return from Oktoberfest. But it's just very iconic (and easy to pronounce/spell), making it very popular among the americans who visit Oktoberfest. Because I have no german skills whatsoever, I too will call my blog 'prost'.

Anyway, I have to be short-winded in this blog because I'm about to go botellon/go clubbing so my time is pretty tight. Oktoberfest was muchhhhh bigger/better than I imagined. For some reason, when i heard about 'beer tents', i legitimately thought people went to tents. Not like camping tents but like circus tents or something. i dont know, this sounds silly now but whatever that's what i thought. However, when i got to Oktoberfest, i found that the 'tents' were more like 'temporary buildings' (though i guess that 'beer temporary buildings' doesn't really have a good ring to it...) and they were hugeeee. The first day we got there later so we went to a beergarden/ outside of the tents for a more relaxed atmosphere. It was really fun and we met our first german friend, Peter. Peter gave us lots of good advice (even though his girlfriend did not appreciate him chatting with us), so that was quite helpful. He was also wearing leiderhosen (germans ACTAULLY wear leiderhosen and drindle dresses to oktoberfest- staring at them NEVER got old) and he explained to us that they wear it on like national holidays/festivals... or at least i think that's what he was trying to convey... his english wasn't too good and he kept apologizing for it, but he was really great. He gave us suggestions about where to eat and other tips about the festival too (which is like a GIANT carnival with lots of beer tents, tons of food, games and rides- and PEOPLE).
Following Peter's advice, we headed downtown to Marianplatz (sp?) for dinner. We ate at a traditional Bavarian restaurant (hello meat and potatoes) and met some Jewish Germans who forced us to take these shots (tasted GROSS) and force drank us (yes Hope, i just recoined the infamous phrase) Kosher red wine, which was actually quite good. They also proceeded to force feed us dinner number 2 (since our massive pork knuckles, saurkraut, and mashed potato piles weren't enough), which consisted of veinershnitzel (sp?) and fries. really good buttt then the guys started to get creepy (they were 40+ but whatever, right?) and so we ran for the hills before our dessert came.

ok so this is like half of oktoberfest but i have to go now, however since i know you all are DYINGGG to hear more from me (thanks for all the comments...notttt), im gonna post it unfinished. stay tuned for part two.