Over the Holy Week in Spain practically everyone I know took this vacation opportunity to travel to all sorts of fun places (mostly Ireland for St. Patty's Day) and I stayed here in Granada. I attribute this inability to travel to my job that has an insane payment system schedule so I get paid every 3 months. But whatever, I have complained about that way too much.
Anyways, there were a few of us here in Granada like Ashley and Elyse and Rachel who I went to see a Semana Santa procession with. We saw el Gitano Cristo (Gypsy Jesus) which is known as lo mas bonito de todo (the most beautiful of them all). I am no longer surprised by the pointy hats and robes that the people marching in the procession wear, which to all you American's look like KKK outfits; so instead of bewildering it was actually pretty. Now, as I mentioned, gypsy christ made an appearance there. No, it wasn't someone dressed in a crucified Jesus costume (although I would have had a great laugh at that), it was a statue that ~20 people stand under and carry along in the procession route. Its supposed to symbolize their penance and cleansing of sins or what have you. That's pretty typical of the Catholic religion, I'd say. But I digress, I wanted to talk about how special everyone considers the gypsy christ. Now, here in Granada there are gypsies that live in caves up on the hillside above the town so perhaps that unique characteristic of Granada lends some appeal to this statue. If its not that then it is merely the fact that Jesus's feet are not crossed. Yeah, there was a non gypsy Jesus statue the next night that looked identical except that the feet were crossed. Ashley even asked some people about why g. christ is so special and they said the foot crossing thing. Maybe this religious stuff is just a little too profound for me in a deceivingly simple sort of way.
The next statue following Jesus was of his mother, the holy mother that is. There is some sort of appropriate parental symbolism there I think. Anyways, the amusing part about the Mary float was not the ornate decor nor the plethora of candles threatening to burn down the whole float as it swayed back and forth with every statue-carrier's step, rather the way the statue moved. Now, each city does this differently, for example in Cadiz they arch slowly and in Sevilla they do it faster, but here in Granada... Mary had places to go and had no time for interruptions. The cariers would stop for a minute or two and rest up to get ready for their sprint to the next rest stop 500 meters ahead of them. Very amusing. The statue stopped, pictures were taken, marveling was done by the crowd, and then *UP* and *MAD DASH FORWARD*. The Granada gang (Californian's staying in Granada during Semana Santa) nick named her Runnin' Mary.
One last note, I went to see Como La Vida Misma (Dan in Real Life, as its known in the English speaking regions of the world) and it was a cute movie. Enjoyment was had and the soundtrack was very nice. Upon further research I found out that Sondre Lerche provided pretty much all the music for the movie. I guess Steve Carrel is an indie kid at heart. So I decided to download his music to enjoy it in a non romantic-comedy context. Its good stuff and it seemed like something that would score indie points for obscure band/musician name dropping... but I guess Im way behind the times. He was indie-cool back in like 2002 or something. I tried to boost my indie points by talking about him to someone and they basically responded something like "oh is that old music? does he have new stuff?" Oh... they've heard of him... I guess Norwegian indie rock/folk musicians are more well known than I thought. Sigh. Another step down on the wannabe indie ladder. And I know I said this was the last thing but something just happened that caught my attention. The spellcheck on my computer knows the word "wannabe" its like, oh yeah thats cool, but "indie" wtf is that? you made a mistake sir *red underlining squiggles*. Crazy...
martes, 25 de marzo de 2008
lunes, 10 de marzo de 2008
Dude! I just remembered a funny story!
Ok so, over my blogging hiatus that was xmas break and the subsequent weeks, I fogot to tell you all this story! Its pretty much my favorite embarrassing moment ever. So...
As an extremely thoughtful and sweet christmas gift, Max and Laura picked out a pair of fuzzy tiger handcuffs for me. Classy, I know. So, they gave them to me in Zurich from where we took a train to Budapest and then another train to Vienna. Upon returning to Granada, Emmy and I bussed it over to Bratislava to catch a Ryanair flight. In the airport we were waiting and waiting and finally our flight started letting people into the holding area otherwise known as the boarding gate area (its a pretty small airport, and I think the only one in the western half of Slovakia or something...) Anyways, we are packing up our things and heading through the security check when my bag is stopped. The woman asks me in the English she knows to open the bag to check it and I thought that my shampoo bottles or deodorant was too big so Id have to throw them away. I opened the backpack and apologetically pointed to the shampoo when she told me, no, not this pocket. The other one... wtf is in the other pocket? I open it up and she reaches in and pulls out the tiger print fuzzy handcuffs. OH. SHIT. I forgot those were in there... I laugh nervous and embarrassedly and she smiles at me with this look on her face like, "lolz, really? you freak." And in my embarrassment I come back with the line, "they were a gift." which is what any person caught with handcuffs for kinky sexual practices would say. That just made her start laughing at me. Then she said we had to throw them away to which I quickly responded, ok. thats fine. So that was taken care of and she let me go on my way and as I was picking up my belongings in the gray plastic tub I looked back over to her at the xray station where she continued to laugh to herself. Glad I could make someone's day a little more humorous.
Just wanted to share that story with you guys since I find it very storytelling-worthy.
Paz y amor,
Matt
As an extremely thoughtful and sweet christmas gift, Max and Laura picked out a pair of fuzzy tiger handcuffs for me. Classy, I know. So, they gave them to me in Zurich from where we took a train to Budapest and then another train to Vienna. Upon returning to Granada, Emmy and I bussed it over to Bratislava to catch a Ryanair flight. In the airport we were waiting and waiting and finally our flight started letting people into the holding area otherwise known as the boarding gate area (its a pretty small airport, and I think the only one in the western half of Slovakia or something...) Anyways, we are packing up our things and heading through the security check when my bag is stopped. The woman asks me in the English she knows to open the bag to check it and I thought that my shampoo bottles or deodorant was too big so Id have to throw them away. I opened the backpack and apologetically pointed to the shampoo when she told me, no, not this pocket. The other one... wtf is in the other pocket? I open it up and she reaches in and pulls out the tiger print fuzzy handcuffs. OH. SHIT. I forgot those were in there... I laugh nervous and embarrassedly and she smiles at me with this look on her face like, "lolz, really? you freak." And in my embarrassment I come back with the line, "they were a gift." which is what any person caught with handcuffs for kinky sexual practices would say. That just made her start laughing at me. Then she said we had to throw them away to which I quickly responded, ok. thats fine. So that was taken care of and she let me go on my way and as I was picking up my belongings in the gray plastic tub I looked back over to her at the xray station where she continued to laugh to herself. Glad I could make someone's day a little more humorous.
Just wanted to share that story with you guys since I find it very storytelling-worthy.
Paz y amor,
Matt
domingo, 9 de marzo de 2008
Bulgarian Gypsies are pretty guay
Hey yall! So, the last two days were pretty eventful here in Granada. First, I´ll tell the story of my trip to the airport...
So, I booked my roundtrip ticket for Spain through a travel agency and it turns out that they have some ridiculous rules that (aside from not telling us about) forced me to take a trip out to the airport to book a return ticket a few days before my ticket would have expired. I wont go into details, but suffice to say that it was a stupid rule and I would write them an angry letter if I werent so lazy. So, Ben and I paid the 6 euros to take the bus to the airport and got there before siesta to go to the only Iberian Airline office in Granada. We got to the window and it was freakin closed. I then saw a man coming out of the office so I ran to him and bombarded him with frantic questions about if the office were open that day, when, how can i get a ticket, etc... to which he responded, I dont work here. I just handle the baggage. Oops. Embarrassing. Anyways, we waited half an hour and finally a woman came to the window. We asked her about the tickets and she told us we need to go to the other Iberian office window that didnt open until 5. We waited 4 more hours. We didnt want to have to pay 6 more euros to take another trip out to the airport and we really wanted to just get this done with so we hung out in the food court area and ate airport food for lunch. We also made our own deck of cards instead of paying for the expensive packs they had in the gift shop. We tore up pieces of printer paper I had in my backpack and wrote numbers and suits on them. We managed to play go fish, jacks and five, crzy 8s, war and soem other games before getting really bored.
In the end, it was 5 and we went to get the tickets fixed. Ben had no problem since he had his booked in advance and just had to sign some papers. However, when I went to do mine, the woman couldnt find any dates open in July for me to return as I had been planning this entire year. Instead it took her ages to keep telling me theres nothing. Finally, frustrated and just wanting a way back to CA, I asked her what about his flight? He just made it so it must still be open, right? And so it turns out I will be goign back to CA the 26th of June instead of the 15th of July. Iberia, YOU SUCK.
Ok, now abotu the Bulgarian Gypsies. Ali and I heard about a concert of Bulgarian Gypsy music yesterday and went to check it out with Isaac and Laura. It was up in the Carmen de somethin or other by the Alhambra and that place is realy pretty at night. You should all take a trip up there sometime. Anyways, we get to the ticket office and it turns out its not free like the band´s manaer told Isaac on the bus earlier that afternoon. So as I was about to peace out with Ali, the manager came out and saw Isaac and magic was worked and voila, 4 free tickets. Score! It was a really fun show, although I dont think Im totally used to Bulgarian gypsy music, but fun was had nonetheless. A big gracias to Isaac. Afterwards we made some mac and cheese (since my mom sent me 7 pounds of it in the mail) and watch Love Actually. It was a good night.
And now, I have nothing to do since I was actually productive this morning and wrote my essay and read what I needed to read for class. Now, Im off to watch the Simpsons. Later!!!
So, I booked my roundtrip ticket for Spain through a travel agency and it turns out that they have some ridiculous rules that (aside from not telling us about) forced me to take a trip out to the airport to book a return ticket a few days before my ticket would have expired. I wont go into details, but suffice to say that it was a stupid rule and I would write them an angry letter if I werent so lazy. So, Ben and I paid the 6 euros to take the bus to the airport and got there before siesta to go to the only Iberian Airline office in Granada. We got to the window and it was freakin closed. I then saw a man coming out of the office so I ran to him and bombarded him with frantic questions about if the office were open that day, when, how can i get a ticket, etc... to which he responded, I dont work here. I just handle the baggage. Oops. Embarrassing. Anyways, we waited half an hour and finally a woman came to the window. We asked her about the tickets and she told us we need to go to the other Iberian office window that didnt open until 5. We waited 4 more hours. We didnt want to have to pay 6 more euros to take another trip out to the airport and we really wanted to just get this done with so we hung out in the food court area and ate airport food for lunch. We also made our own deck of cards instead of paying for the expensive packs they had in the gift shop. We tore up pieces of printer paper I had in my backpack and wrote numbers and suits on them. We managed to play go fish, jacks and five, crzy 8s, war and soem other games before getting really bored.
In the end, it was 5 and we went to get the tickets fixed. Ben had no problem since he had his booked in advance and just had to sign some papers. However, when I went to do mine, the woman couldnt find any dates open in July for me to return as I had been planning this entire year. Instead it took her ages to keep telling me theres nothing. Finally, frustrated and just wanting a way back to CA, I asked her what about his flight? He just made it so it must still be open, right? And so it turns out I will be goign back to CA the 26th of June instead of the 15th of July. Iberia, YOU SUCK.
Ok, now abotu the Bulgarian Gypsies. Ali and I heard about a concert of Bulgarian Gypsy music yesterday and went to check it out with Isaac and Laura. It was up in the Carmen de somethin or other by the Alhambra and that place is realy pretty at night. You should all take a trip up there sometime. Anyways, we get to the ticket office and it turns out its not free like the band´s manaer told Isaac on the bus earlier that afternoon. So as I was about to peace out with Ali, the manager came out and saw Isaac and magic was worked and voila, 4 free tickets. Score! It was a really fun show, although I dont think Im totally used to Bulgarian gypsy music, but fun was had nonetheless. A big gracias to Isaac. Afterwards we made some mac and cheese (since my mom sent me 7 pounds of it in the mail) and watch Love Actually. It was a good night.
And now, I have nothing to do since I was actually productive this morning and wrote my essay and read what I needed to read for class. Now, Im off to watch the Simpsons. Later!!!
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