So it all began last tuesday, when I decided to go out until basically Monday.
So bullet points, as its getting late...promise to fill in the blanks ASAP/post vacay:
- friday, emilie arrives, we have a crazy night of Beer pong and flip cup, at one point I decide to wear my St. Louis flag (that I brought, b/c I represent). I also wore blue shoes that gave me blisters as we went to the gay, but not gay club with my french BFF Caro.
- Emilie and I slept on a half inflated airmattress in the cold, and it was so bad it was funny. We were v. hungover and angry the next day and didn't want to move, but we had to get bagels, and then there was more on our calendar....
-Saturday we met with Emilie's friend Meme (Aurelien, but I call him Meme, as do his country friends) and his super super sexy friend Alban (who has a super cute girlfriend, so hey). I was not expecting such cuteness. We ate dinner, talked about toys, it was cute. Not as cute as Alban (nothing is really), but it was a cute evening with french dudes fussing over the quality of the wine and taking charge as boys out to dinner with girls (even as friends) should. Did I mention that Alban was cute?
- We then went to the Voxx, a cool loungy place where they'll actually play soul music from time to time. Excellent! We hung out with Beck and her bf, and some other french couple.
- Then we go to the 42 which is a very very preppy night club/ski lodge moment where they played the FRENCHEST music ever. It was a cliche, and it was awesome.
- Catch the bus at 5:30am to home.
- Sunday we were not as hungover, so we watched Harold and Kumar, and then went to Phillipe and Agnes' to sing, have some tea, and eat a "green dinner" (it was all made of green stuff) and just talk about life, politics, life and america/france. Good times! The caldero's are awesome. Philippe introduced us to some lovely french classics, and Emilie sang pink floyd, and we all sang us some David Bowie Ground Control to Major Tom goodness.
- Then it was Superbowl time. Lots of screamy Chicago types, and we colts supporters kept our cool. It was fun! Football culture rules. I will be frequenting bars for suuperbowls of the future to be sure.
- We stayed up in Jen's apt for a bit, and caught the bus at 5am to home. Monday morning was hard, and it sortof gave me a cold for the whole week.
But it was worth it!
Peace out. See you in a couple weeks.
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Friday, February 09, 2007
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
I am from Austria---Innsbruck!
"I am from Austria" is a song about Austria, and how it was big, but now it's small, but that doesn't mean it isn't still big on the awesomeness. It’s all in “Austrian” except for the chorus, which is in English, according to Doris - cheekily - so that, “everyone will know"
...that I am from Austria.
...that I am from Austria.
New years eve in
We went to the main square to watch Fireworks, dance the waltz, and to trade hats. (that last one’s not a tradition, but I think it should be!)
My chapeau, Herman the Red Tyrolean Hat (a purchase I had to make earlier that day) made lots of friends, and really suited everyone he found! We then went to a bar, and some Austrian guy tried to make out with me -- realizing/not realizing that I don’t speak ANY GERMAN AT ALL…I guess that’s sexy, the whole insta-dumb illiterate thing – anyway, I was like, eh, peace out. Though he did buy me a beer, and try to talk to me. Luckily, my Austrian buddies told him I was awesomely American, and didn’t understand anything he said. Plus, I barely drank that beer, it was like 2am on new years…I had had enough, and I needed to dance it off (and I did)!
Monday, January 08, 2007
Week before Christmas wrap up
After Christmas, I thought we all were poisoned by the weird Duchere water, b/c everyone was bein’ weird, and feeling weirder, like physically. We went to see this kooky show called Mayumana, sortof like poorman’s cirque du soleil meets stomp. I wanted to die through most of it, but most of the other girls were fairly entertained. It just seemed like a sortof semi-good Penn Performing arts performance of the Rhythmic, bang on trashcans in fluorescnent lights and do annoying clown sketches group to me.
Agnes had a fun party full of singing and eating. It was really fun getting to go over to Agnes’ and hang out with the Caldero family and make cookies. Very Christmas indeed. I accidentally said, “putain” (which I think is some sort of multi-use cussword), and was quite ashamed at uttering such profanity in the presence of family. But I’m a foreigner! I usually only cuss to creepers on the street, anyway.
Solene, agnes’ daughter who shares my birthday, was awesome and kept me company while I tried to make the peanut butter, hershey’s kiss cookies, though I had to improvise, cutting French chocoloates in half, to make makeshift Hershey’s kisses. It was pretty awesome that everyone but me was like, WOW these cookies are so novel! And I know them as the cookies that everyone has all the time and they are soooooooo common and boring and even a little bit annoying to me. How many times did those cookies show up at snacktime, seriously? But in france, this whole, putting the chocolate on the cookie thing was like, totally cool.
So that’s totally cool!
Thursday, November 16, 2006
You can't spell Barcelona without....
Later that evening, we were to experience the spectrum of charm to creeptasticness that makes up the rainbow of culture that is the Barca, for better or for worse. (dare I say you cannot spell Barcelona without BAR?)
Before heading home, we went to the Mayor’s square, where I’d read that people dance in the streets in some sort of Catalan dance. I was right! There were all these old people in white shoes dancing in a circle doing some sort of tappy toe tappy toe step step step jump and be awesome dance.
The dance was forbidden in the Franco years, and you could just tell that these older people were rocking their feet off to this dainty little dance, repping their Catalunianness. The music was super cool (there was a full band in the square as well, and I gave’em a Euro…represent international civic-mindedness!) and I was happy to see some young people doing the dance as well. Things like that I just hope go on forever. If I were a Catalunian family, I’d be like, ok family, time to go dance in the square! It’s rep your heritage through vernacular dance time! And the children would rejoice, as they had grown to associate dancing with love. And I would even make my 13 year old son do it, b/c one must learn to represent one’s people through the art of dance at a young, even pubescent age!
Anyway, it was just so charming. I loved the sassy jumping old ladies. I seriously loved them. I could just feel how proud they were to be sassily jumping and tappy toe-ing! Dancing!
Made me wish that people did the St. Louis Shag in the street.
They probably used to.
Vow to myself to have authentic street dancing children? Made.
Anyway, after some napping, we went out to an excellent tapas restaurant called Taller de Tapas, where we got free champagne, the best tapas ever, felt very fancy, and had a wonderful waiter who used to live in Santa Fe (he recommends a visit…duly noted!) and who spoke English with the inflection of a game show host. How cool is that.
One bottle of wine later we went to Jamboree, the hip hop club just below our hostel. We met Colin, our favorite ginger kid, just trekkin’ his way around, as well as Kofi the American businessman who works in London, and his friend from Chicago. I celebrated as much as possible the victory of the Cardinals (or was I just dancing so that they might be infused with my good will as they were on their way to victory? I don’t know, at some point, I’d drunkenly discovered that the Cardinals had won) with every Nelly song that played…there were 2, and the dj even played Kanye for me…though most people had left for the other room by then. Met some Irish Bartender and he invited me and Emilie for a “party” (his friend and some Mexican girls and me and Emilie…interesting definition of party) and after making it through the mean streets – yeah there were prostitutes on Las Ramblas…that was a first -- we made it to the “party” and he told us all about how Sunday Bloody Sunday should be Ireland’s national anthem. Yeah, ok.
I think I made Emilie pledge that she would never pronounce Missouri the wrong way (no I don’t mean miz-ur-uh, and of course not miz-ur-ee…I mean Miss-ooohuur-aaauh and Miss-oooohurrr-eee. Sacrilege!) , and we of course had to defend our country against European public opinion that Americans are all of the breeding that produces the “stars” of the hit TV series, COPS or Prison Break, Desperate Housewives, and every Michael Moore movie known to movie screens. Don’t get me started on Borat. All my French students think Sascha Baron Cohen is American. French newspapers think he is a british comedian in the vein of Monty Python.
I think Borat is partly funny, and mostly very very impolite.
Returning to barca, in short, I said I wanted to leave the party so naturally there was passing out on the couches at the party for the night, and then we wander the morning/afternoon streets of barca back to our hostel so we can get ready to go to the beach. I’m a little hungover/angry, but we go to the sea, and I totally fell asleep on the Barcelona Mediterranean shore, as well as got a bit of a tan, despite my anger/hangovertasticness. Emilie went swimming b/c of some sort of “always swim” pledge she made with herself – but she’s Swedish, and her Viking blood, and lack of anger (unlike myself) helped her to enjoy the frigid Mediterranean waters….though it was quite hot outside at the end of October in Spain. Upon my return to the hostel, I pass out and Emilie meets our Oregon friends, who really had the potential to be awesome, but actually were not all that fun, but they were good to throw around.
Ok, we had crappy paella, but got to make our own awesome tomato bread by rubbing pink garlic (best garlic ever, seriously it is AWESOME) and tomatoes on a piece of toast. We discussed many things including how, geez, Barcelona was kicking the crap out of us. Seemed like every time we were like, no, tonight we will be calm and get in at a sensible but still late enough hour as to not be too Puritanical, we ended up just like, not coming home at all and walk-of-shaming through the afternoon streets of Barca. So before we set out for the beer drinking room of the hostel we decided to go for some reverse psychology and pledged to each other that we would attempt to become impregnated by the end of that evening.
We made it back to the hostel for some drinking games the likes of Beer goggles, one frog, Hoe Down (with the Billy Ray) and other such, if you say “mine” you have to do 5 star jumps (Jump up and say, “I’m a STAR!”) and the repeat game where if someone repeats what you say, you get to flick them in the head…all with the Oregoonies and some dutch girls and slutty Canadiennes. Emilie got to flick the one cool Oregoonie in the head b/c he repeated “I’m not an ambiturner.” I have a feeling the boys were not ready for 2 girls who could giggle and bring their A game to drinking time and actually compete. Everyone kept on being like, hey, she’s smart, she went to UPenn…she was a HisSTORY major, hahah. Ok? Anyway, Emilie lost some bet, or must have, b/c she had to spoon with the irish dude later on. I was chaperoning, no worries. We actually went to sleep (not passed out) that night, so that was nice.
Take that Barca! Score -- reverse psychology :1 Barca: 3-5
Before heading home, we went to the Mayor’s square, where I’d read that people dance in the streets in some sort of Catalan dance. I was right! There were all these old people in white shoes dancing in a circle doing some sort of tappy toe tappy toe step step step jump and be awesome dance.
The dance was forbidden in the Franco years, and you could just tell that these older people were rocking their feet off to this dainty little dance, repping their Catalunianness. The music was super cool (there was a full band in the square as well, and I gave’em a Euro…represent international civic-mindedness!) and I was happy to see some young people doing the dance as well. Things like that I just hope go on forever. If I were a Catalunian family, I’d be like, ok family, time to go dance in the square! It’s rep your heritage through vernacular dance time! And the children would rejoice, as they had grown to associate dancing with love. And I would even make my 13 year old son do it, b/c one must learn to represent one’s people through the art of dance at a young, even pubescent age!
Anyway, it was just so charming. I loved the sassy jumping old ladies. I seriously loved them. I could just feel how proud they were to be sassily jumping and tappy toe-ing! Dancing!
Made me wish that people did the St. Louis Shag in the street.
They probably used to.
Vow to myself to have authentic street dancing children? Made.
Anyway, after some napping, we went out to an excellent tapas restaurant called Taller de Tapas, where we got free champagne, the best tapas ever, felt very fancy, and had a wonderful waiter who used to live in Santa Fe (he recommends a visit…duly noted!) and who spoke English with the inflection of a game show host. How cool is that.
One bottle of wine later we went to Jamboree, the hip hop club just below our hostel. We met Colin, our favorite ginger kid, just trekkin’ his way around, as well as Kofi the American businessman who works in London, and his friend from Chicago. I celebrated as much as possible the victory of the Cardinals (or was I just dancing so that they might be infused with my good will as they were on their way to victory? I don’t know, at some point, I’d drunkenly discovered that the Cardinals had won) with every Nelly song that played…there were 2, and the dj even played Kanye for me…though most people had left for the other room by then. Met some Irish Bartender and he invited me and Emilie for a “party” (his friend and some Mexican girls and me and Emilie…interesting definition of party) and after making it through the mean streets – yeah there were prostitutes on Las Ramblas…that was a first -- we made it to the “party” and he told us all about how Sunday Bloody Sunday should be Ireland’s national anthem. Yeah, ok.
I think I made Emilie pledge that she would never pronounce Missouri the wrong way (no I don’t mean miz-ur-uh, and of course not miz-ur-ee…I mean Miss-ooohuur-aaauh and Miss-oooohurrr-eee. Sacrilege!) , and we of course had to defend our country against European public opinion that Americans are all of the breeding that produces the “stars” of the hit TV series, COPS or Prison Break, Desperate Housewives, and every Michael Moore movie known to movie screens. Don’t get me started on Borat. All my French students think Sascha Baron Cohen is American. French newspapers think he is a british comedian in the vein of Monty Python.
I think Borat is partly funny, and mostly very very impolite.
Returning to barca, in short, I said I wanted to leave the party so naturally there was passing out on the couches at the party for the night, and then we wander the morning/afternoon streets of barca back to our hostel so we can get ready to go to the beach. I’m a little hungover/angry, but we go to the sea, and I totally fell asleep on the Barcelona Mediterranean shore, as well as got a bit of a tan, despite my anger/hangovertasticness. Emilie went swimming b/c of some sort of “always swim” pledge she made with herself – but she’s Swedish, and her Viking blood, and lack of anger (unlike myself) helped her to enjoy the frigid Mediterranean waters….though it was quite hot outside at the end of October in Spain. Upon my return to the hostel, I pass out and Emilie meets our Oregon friends, who really had the potential to be awesome, but actually were not all that fun, but they were good to throw around.
Ok, we had crappy paella, but got to make our own awesome tomato bread by rubbing pink garlic (best garlic ever, seriously it is AWESOME) and tomatoes on a piece of toast. We discussed many things including how, geez, Barcelona was kicking the crap out of us. Seemed like every time we were like, no, tonight we will be calm and get in at a sensible but still late enough hour as to not be too Puritanical, we ended up just like, not coming home at all and walk-of-shaming through the afternoon streets of Barca. So before we set out for the beer drinking room of the hostel we decided to go for some reverse psychology and pledged to each other that we would attempt to become impregnated by the end of that evening.
We made it back to the hostel for some drinking games the likes of Beer goggles, one frog, Hoe Down (with the Billy Ray) and other such, if you say “mine” you have to do 5 star jumps (Jump up and say, “I’m a STAR!”) and the repeat game where if someone repeats what you say, you get to flick them in the head…all with the Oregoonies and some dutch girls and slutty Canadiennes. Emilie got to flick the one cool Oregoonie in the head b/c he repeated “I’m not an ambiturner.” I have a feeling the boys were not ready for 2 girls who could giggle and bring their A game to drinking time and actually compete. Everyone kept on being like, hey, she’s smart, she went to UPenn…she was a HisSTORY major, hahah. Ok? Anyway, Emilie lost some bet, or must have, b/c she had to spoon with the irish dude later on. I was chaperoning, no worries. We actually went to sleep (not passed out) that night, so that was nice.
Take that Barca! Score -- reverse psychology :1 Barca: 3-5
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)