Let’s write a screenplay, then we can go to sleep.

This is going to be long. I can tell. Spain is just too much. The highlight that I really wanna talk about is Lisbon, which isn’t even in Spain, but you knew that already. Still, Spain is too much without Lisbon tacked on.

First thing is first, I’m not Chinese. Surprisingly, at least to me, I’ve been mistaken for Asian more times than I can count in the US, but I feel like it’s happened more often in Spain. I’ll admit that my eyes are small, but they don’t, by any means, look like any type of Asian eye. I’ll also admit that I play into a few Asian stereotypes: Rubik’s cubes, rice, and occasional ping-pong are just a few. I’ve had four teachers in Spain, and half of them have commented on my Asian-ness (I bet the others would if I’d ask them if they think I’m Asian). The first one was my phonetics teacher. I was sick and tired, so my eyes weren’t as open as they could have been, I guess, so she got the idea that I was Asian. Then she noticed the way I speak or at least listen. Spanish r’s and l’s are done more with the tip of tongue and teeth than the back of the throat like in English. To me, they sound almost the same especially if I’ve never heard the word before. One part of our test was all strange Spanish words with l’s and r’s and I had a hard time with it. Do you happen to know which ethnicity has trouble distinguishing r and l? Yeah, stereotypically, it’s Asians. My teacher then loudly declared that I have to be Asian in the comical way Spaniards frankly comment on other people’s habits. The other one was my civ and culture teacher. During roll the first day, he was asking everyone what their heritage was since we were a room full of Americans with a diversity of last names. After I insisted that I’m from the Bohemian region and I think my name comes from Czech, he just plainly said, “Your eyes are really small. You aren’t Chinese?” No, no I’m not.

I went on a field trip to the beer factory. Yessss. The view of alcohol here is way different than in the US, especially in school. My school’s cafeteria sells alcohol. Iowa would be freaking out. Anyway, going to the beer factory was like being a kid in a candy store only more like being a Justin in a beer factory. Delicious.

The Fourth of July. I missed it. I was in Spain. How was it, everyone? Same as every year? Cool. Some of us Americans went to Madrid to celebrate, sorta. We had a picnic in Madrid’s largest park then went to the largest gay pride parade in Europe. There were 1.5 million people there. I’m not sure what I was expecting, so I’m not sure if that was it. It was definitely interesting, and I had a good time. After about 3 hours or more of standing there watching the groups of people snail by, we went to McDonald’s because it was the Fourth and we are American. It was a tribute. Although, I didn’t get anything at McD’s. I went to a ….wait for it…. an Asian store and bought food there. Then I ate a whole loaf of bread in one sitting. I’m not really proud of that. Then we went to an English theatre in Madrid and saw the new Transformers movie. It was a pretty sweet, American filled evening. On the way back to Alcalá, we had to take the Metro to the bus station because the trains were done for the night. The Metro was absolutely paaacked to the ceiling with drunk Spaniards with their drinks just on their way to the bars or between bars or something. It was only 230ish I think, so they definitely weren’t on their way home like us (it takes a while to get back to Alcalá), which reminds me that we don’t get unlimited train and bus passes this month. Only the new kids get them even though we paid the exact same amount! There isn’t even a reason they have them and we don’t since they weren’t valid during either orientation session and are only really for personal use. Luckily, I live close to the school, but some people live a 30 minute bus ride away, which they have to pay for twice a day now. It’s a pain. Unfair.

I’m not sure if it was the next day or a few days later, but we went back to Madrid for the official presentation of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid (soccer team). Doesn’t sound like much, right? It was insane. I had two plans when I came to Spain: run with the bulls and soccer riot. Bull running was too expensive and I went to Lisbon instead (see below) and someone from Alcalá actually died this year. Soccer season is not happening right now. Plans, ruined. I saw highlights of the presentation of Kaká and people were going crazy, so when I was asked if I wanted to go to see Ronaldo, I jumped on that wagon right away. Apparently, people had been sitting outside the stadium since 6am for the 9pm presentation. We got there at around 630pm for the 7pm door opening and there were already thousands of people there. When they did open the doors, it was a dangerous rush of people to get in. They were trying to make people go through these turnstile things, but, since it was a free event, they had one person there with one ticket putting it through the little machine letting one person in at a time. We decided to just jump the closed gate, run to some pretty decent seats, and then proceed to wait two more hours. I can’t describe the atmosphere and energy in the stadium. I think it’s a 90,000 capacity stadium and it was completely full with people sitting in the aisle, on the stairs, and on the ledges between tiers. I can’t imagine what an actual game would have been like. The presentation ended after a half hour (I think it was close to being done anyway) when people started rushing the field and the security was overtaken and Ronaldo was rushed away. Awesome.

I went to Lisbon for the weekend with a friend who’s a big fan of Dave Matthews Band. They were playing at Optimus Alive ’09, which is a three day music fest in…Lisbon, like I said. On the way to the train to Madrid, I was carrying food and a juice in my hands. I saw a mother and her son coming my way. As we were about to pass, the kid started to wind up. I don’t mean wind up like hyper and slightly obnoxious. I mean he wound up to hit me in the nuts, which he did. The worst part was that I saw it coming but couldn’t do anything to stop it. Tragic.

Do you ever see someone on a bus or in the airport and wonder where they are going? It happens to me a lot especially since I want to talk to everyone I hear speaking English. Well my dream came. We talked to these American girls from somewhere in the Midwest (a very, very surprising amount of Americans I’ve met in Spain have been from the Midwest) and were on their way to Rome for the weekend. We talked to them because they didn’t know which stop they needed for their terminal. Then we realized we didn’t know which one we needed either. We went with the odds and got off on the one that had the most terminals the closest. When you leave the Metro, you have to sometimes put your ticket through the thing again to get out so the double check that you paid for a ticket. Well, going to airport apparently costs more because our tickets wouldn’t get us through. At one point, I had gotten by the security guard, but he stopped Caitlin then called me back even though I could have ignored him and just kept walking. That would have been a jerk move to Caitlin, though. There really isn’t anything funny or interesting about this story. Apologies.

You can’t take liquids on planes. That’s the rule. Caitlin tried bringing all of her shampoo and conditioner, face wash, peanut butter, jelly, and a coke in her carry-on. It was depressing seeing it all thrown away especially since if we would have been thinking we could have just made our sandwiches at the security checkpoint and not had to throw any of the food away. Funny thing is, they didn’t even notice the coke. Are liquids really that dangerous? What if my sandwich had been a bomb? Scary? No.

I was really impressed with the plane. First, I was just happy to get on the plane. I had booked a 1pm flight but was told my flight was at 3 when I checked in. I was very confused. I went to the gate my plane was supposed to leave from anyway and just asked if I could get on if there were seats. Yeah, no problem. Then, they served us a meal…for an hour long flight AAANnnnd they had a movie. It was just a candid camera type of prank TV show, but still. I don’t get a movie on hardly any, or any, domestic American flights. The interesting thing was that they didn’t have headphone plug-ins, or at least the people I could see and I couldn’t find them. However, everyone would still laugh at all the same parts. I was sitting next to a German woman (she had a German newspaper, at least) and a Portuguese man (at least, he spoke Portuguese). I thought it was cool that we found the same things hysterical. Significant.

When we landed in Lisbon, we were picked up by a guy named José. I didn’t know him. Caitlin didn’t know him. We got in his car and stayed at his house for the weekend. Check out couchsurfing.org (I think it’s org. Google it.). He was an AMAZING host. He picked us up from the airport, let us stay with him for free, offered us a Portuguese cell phone for the weekend so we wouldn’t have to pay long distance, picked us up from downtown at 4am-ish the first night, and took us back to the airport. He’s a Portuguese film producer and had an incredible apartment with the most astonishing view of Lisbon and…some body of water. I don’t think it was the ocean. He called it “the river” which would be the Tajo, but I don’t think it was the river either. Hmmm. He was really helpful, letting us use his internet to get info about the festival, calling them and asking our questions in Portuguese, and helping us map out some cool things to see in Lisbon. Very good experience. Safe?

The first day in Lisbon, we met up with one of Caitlin’s friends, Sara, from Wisconsin who’s studying in Valencia. She brought Derek, who is also studies at Wisconsin, and they were probably the best people to meet in a foreign city while traveling. They kinda had the same mindset toward traveling that Caitlin and I have, so we had a good time. Walking around Lisbon, I realized it is beautiful and I have to go back. It’s a need thing. It’s hilly, which sucked for walking, but it’s awesome seeing hills covered in city. The weather was perfect while we were there. It was sunny but not 200° like in Madrid. It was really diverse, too. Probably because it was a bit of a tourist town, but that actually didn’t bother me this time. I know, it’s surprising. We spoke Spanish whenever we needed something done. I’ve heard that if you know Spanish or Portuguese, you have a good chance of understanding the other one. LIES! I could read the signs but when it came to speaking and hearing….nope. There was an incident on the plane that had to do with coffee and another when we tried to figure out the public transportation system. Portuguese sounds like Russian or something. There are so many diphthongs and “sh” noises it’s not even funny. Ridiculous.

During the day we went to the Castle of Saint George. It was on the highest hill in Lisbon and provided some gorgeous views of the city. I feel like this won’t surprise any of the people who are probably going to read this, but it felt very Lord of the Rings. I didn’t hesitate to blurt out some quotes and fall into character a few times especially when I decided it was a good idea to try and climb the castle wall to get to a window. It almost got to it, seriously. There were also some cool arc like ruins and a Stargate, but it was broken. Oh, and peacocks. They only worried me once or twice, but I definitely overreacted each time. Frightening.

Portugal, and I think Lisbon in particular, has a very “look the other” way policy on drugs. Sara’s travel book, if I remember correctly, said something like 1/3 of the world’s hashish is in or from Portugal. There’s no way I could have kept track of how many times I was offered drugs in the middle of the street in the middle of the day. If caught and actually prosecuted, it carries a huge fine, but it brings too much money into the country that the economy would suffer that they don’t do anything. Why is it illegal, then? Curious.

That night we went to Derek and Sara’s hostel to chill for a bit before going out. We hung out in the common room. There was a group of Spaniards and a Brazilian with a guitar sitting around a coffee table, a group of Frenchmen/women (is that what French people called? Frenchie?) sitting on some beanbags, Americans on a couch, and a German girl writing at the table. The rest of the hostel seemed alive with a bunch of other travelers, too. I really liked that feeling. It’s like being in a building full of people who are after the same thing as me. Anyway, we naturally joined the group of people speaking the language we understood…the Spaniards. We passed the guitar around and sang songs for an hour or two. It was really cool how three different cultures could find something so in common. Someone would play the guitar while the others would clap, tap a glass with silverware, or sing. Then we all went out to the bars. Lisbon nightlife in Barrio Alto is pretty impressive. I thought Iowa City was pretty good when the ped-mall is packed and everyone is having a good time. Lisbon makes IC look like kid stuff. Think of the ped-mall on the busiest night, now take everyone out of the bars and put them on the street but doing the same thing they would be doing in the bar, now multiply the area and person density a few times. I forgot we were on the street until a lone taxi drove by to brave the crowds. People moved just far enough out of the way to let it by. I had another “we are all the same” moment in the bars. We were dancing around to this really hippie band and I don’t even remember what song came on, that’s not important, but I remember that we just started dancing like crazy. Arms around each other in a circle, we took turns showing off our stuff in the middle or breaking apart to dance with a neighbor. No, it wasn’t because we were intoxicated. We were very far from it, actually, well, most of us were. That Brazilian guy, Ronaldo, liked to drink, I think. Something I liked was the way they would buy a drink, but pass it to the person next to them first. The drink would be offered to everyone then the buyer took a drink. Brotherly.

The next day we went to the Tower of Belem. At low tide, it’s dry ground to the tower; at high, it’s an island. I’m not really sure what advantage that would have had back when it was built. Maybe people back in the day thought it was just a cool idea and did it for the heck of it. I do that a lot. When we decided to try and find the tower, we were probably a few miles away. More than three, for sure, but it didn’t look very far on the map. We were just going to walk, but after like a half hour of walking, we had gone about one inch on the map and had three or four left. That’s when we realized it was very, very far away. Moral of the story: trams are faster than feet. Surprising.

The music fest went from 4pm-4am with Black Eyed Peas going on at 10ish and Dave Matthews Band at 12. We were there the whole time, and it was totally worth it. I’m not a huge fan of BEP or DMB, but I like them and Caitlin had an extra ticket and wanted someone to go with her. I had no plans, so I decided to go discover Lisbon and some indie European artists with her. BEP were so much fun! The energy and music they bring to stage is infectious. They had a lot of people on stage at once (them, dancers, musicians). Wouldn’t it be awesome to play the drums or dance or something for Black Eyed Peas? The answer is yes. My favorite part was before they played “Pump It.” I don’t know their names, but after their guitarist did the first chord, the black guy that wears the kinda nerdy looking glasses said something like this: “Did you understand that? Do you speak guitar? Say that again. (chord) Did you hear that? He’s saying ‘pump it.’ (crowd goes crazy) (chord) pump it (chord) pump it.” Then the song started. It was really cool because it seems like everywhere I go I manage to get into a situation where music is the center rather than the fact that I’m surrounded by people from different countries, cultures, and languages. Strange, huh? Everyone understands music. Sometimes, when I hear Spanish music without words, I feel like it’s in English because I understand it perfectly. When I realize that the person/people playing it may not understand a single word of English but still understand the music, it’s mind-blowing. I know that might be hard to understand, but try harder. Remarkable.

Favorite parts of the concert:
- The Portuguese couple that didn’t see BEP or DMB because they were making-out for literally 3 hours. This girl who was studying in France couldn’t see because she’s little and they were normal sized. I asked them in Spanish to get their big, saliva-y faces out of the way, still hoping that rumor that Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish was true. He nodded and moved two inches out of the way, so I pushed him to the side and her to the front. Language barrier: broken.
- From where I was standing, I could have touched a New Yorker, a Brit, some Portuguese, Spaniards, countless Midwesterners (ironically, the most people we met were from the Midwest), French people, and some Columbians. It was crazy. What did we all have in common? Music.
- Nutella and bologna sandwiches
- Realizing Fergie is more ripped than me.

The last day, Sunday, was pretty uneventful. I mean, we did almost get stuck in Portugal, but that was no big deal. First, we ate a whole container of Duo (a brand of nutella/nocilla) because we wouldn’t have been able to deal with __ of another meaningless loss of food. Then the lady at check-in said, “It’s closed.” We didn’t really know what that meant since we were an hour early for the flight. She was saying that after a certain time, they give the seats away. We were pretty angry and pretty worried at the same time. How can they just give our seats away for a flight we’ve already paid for and that hasn’t left yet and wasn’t going to leave for an hour?? She said she “can’t get us on.” We were expressing our frustration when she handed us our boarding passes. Language barrier: rebuilt…even though we were speaking English. Confusing.

Thing’s I’ve learned in Spain:
- I love juice and milk.
- I will purposely walk farther if it means there is even a meter more of shade.
- I eat so much bread and olive oil.
- I’ve been conjugating the verb “pensar” (to think) wrong for my entire life. Someone finally corrected me. It was only in the imperfect tense so I was only wrong every time for part of the time.
- Eating at 3 and 9 makes so much more sense than 12 and 6.