The peculiar happenings of Monday, November 9

I didn't expect today to be any more or less spectacular than any other day, nor did I expect it to be any more or less banal. And to begin with, it wasn't. The main events of today don't stand out as being unusual in any way either - got some coffee, went to class, did homework, had tooth pain, took a nap, went to a meeting... I was fighting Monday, or Anyday as days tend to become. Trying to stay in the swing of things, check things off the list, prioritize, economize, supersize, but the world kept sticking out little peculiar happenings that forced me to take a moment out of the routine and pay attention to them.

The first was early this morning in class. I didn't think anything of it at the time, because I usually don't think much of anything in the mornings before a heaping serving of caffeine. But, as I stared down into my cup of coffee and listened to a presentation on business ethics, I noticed little swirls in the cup.

The next one didn't hit me until much later in the day. I was fighting off terrible tooth pain (REMINDER: CALL THE DENTIST!) and trying to beat the 5:30 deadline of the assignment I had to turn in, and I heard my watch ticking. The watch, which was on the other side of the table, was SO LOUD for just a few seconds that it completely snapped me out of my rush and MADE ME pay attention to it. It's like it was just screaming, "HEY!!! TAKE A SECOND TO REALIZE THAT THERE IS MORE GOING ON AROUND YOU!!"

Later, I was on my back porch and I noticed a leaf sitting on the window ledge. Thing is, the whole porch is enclosed by screen so there is really no was for leaves to get in. Except for one spot, where there is a tear in the screen, and this little leaf is sitting directly under the little tear. "Check me out! I defied all odds!", it said. Because really, a leaf shouldn't be there. It would need to have blown in at exactly the right angle, and with exactly enough speed to make it through the hole in the first place, and then to be precariously perched on the ledge like it was? I wouldn't have placed any bets on that happening. Special little leaf.

And just now, I was blowing soap bubbles for my cat (she loves to chase them) and one landed on the couch. It caught the light just so, and even though the bubble itself was still the surface of it was swirling and changing in a myriad of colors. And then it popped. I know there is a metaphor in there some where, I just haven't figured it out yet.

SOOKIE!

Just a short post here about Halloween, which activity-wise ended up being pretty lame (as it always is in Albuquerque). But, I was really proud of my costume, and enjoyed all the ghoulish goodness leading up to Halloween. I think I'm still going to be renting scary movies and making monster themed baked goods for a while to come, and I'm excited about that!


This was my costume. I was Sookie Stackhouse, from the HBO shoe TrueBlood! A guy that I work with has said a few times that he thinks I look like Anna Paquin. When I shared this information with the rest of the people I work with, they seemed to agree and from there my costume was born. And, as it turned out I had almost everything I needed to make it happen at my house anyways! I had received a Merlotte's shirt and bar rag made for me from a swap I was in, and I had the shorts and the apron and shoes already. The only thing I bought was a hair clip thing to make it look like I had longer hair. That thing was waaayyyy too much fun! I could never live with that much hair, but for a few nights a year I think it could be tons of fun.

For comparison's sake, here is a picture of the real Sookie Stackhouse, played by Anna Paquin:


I hope that when the new season of TrueBlood starts, I can find a place to host "screening parties" and then I can wear my costume again!

Cada-Kiss!

Actually, this place is called Cadaques, and is the eastern most town in Spain. To get there, you have to drive up the coast and over a way-too-treacherous mountain pass, and then back down it. I think that this town was my favorite in all of Spain, and so worth any travel pains it took to get there. It was also my first experience of a classically styled Mediterranean village and I pretty much fell in love. It also deepened my desire to go to Greece. We happened to be there on a holiday weekend and the place was PPAACCCKKKKEDD! And we were only there for about an hour. But still... it was awesome. I'm pretty much just going to let the pictures speak for themselves from here on out...

Packed.

Guaging the Crunchiness of Leaves

Things are crazy right now. I'm feeling WAY overwhelmed, possibly even more than I ever have before. I was walking to school yesterday (which was a SUNDAY, mind you) to try and get some work done, only to realize that the computer lab didn't open for another half an hour. So, I trudged my way to the duck pond to sit and wait, and I realized that, without even thinking about it, I had been tracing a zig-zag path that ran me through what I was judging to be the path of the most crunchy leaves. I think it can be agreed on that there is some kind of joy that every person experiences when stepping on leaves in the fall. I have a few theories for why this might be - it's either our desire to be in a childlike state of bliss again, we all have the desire to destroy something beautiful, or it's a fun stress reliever. Like popping bubble wrap. I'm pretty sure it's the latter, although the unbridled desire to destroy seems a bit more interesting....

So, I continued to walk and pay attention to the leaves which I was set to annihilate. What makes this one appear more crunchy? Do I like the leaves because they appear crunchy, or do I dislike them and want to crush them because of it? What course of action should I take when there are two leaves of equal perceived crunchiness in opposite directions? Is a satisfyingly crunchy leaf worth the risk of backtracking?

I have not yet reached a conclusion.

Dali-Mania!

Welcome to the Teatro de Dali, or Surrealism Central. This museum is located in Figueres, about 2 hours or so north of Barcelona, very near the French border. This place was totally weird, and pretty awesome. Although I don't *love* it, it's definitely recommended. But really, this place "couldn't be goofier" (Mom quote).

Spain Food Round Up

I was really excited for the food in Spain (obviously), but unfortunately we missed out on a lot of good restaurants for various reasons (mostly because Steve doesn't seem to care much about food, and often we had to eat where ever he managed to drag us). But, I did experience plenty of good food, even if it's not as much as I expected. One thing that I found really bizarre that I couldn't manage to get my mind around was the Prix Fix menus. I usually expect those menus to be over priced and lower quality than A La Carte ordering, but this was not the case at all. For example, at one place we went, I ordered a bowl of soup, and my Mom and Steve got the Prix Fix, which included wine, water, and coffee, soup or salad, an entree, and a dessert. My soup was more than their meal, and the soup was the same soup that I ordered! It was baffling!

The best place we ate in Barcelona, hands down, was Can Majo. It is right on the boulevard on the beach, and has the freshest, simply prepared seafood I have ever tasted. We started with muscles, and I don't think there was any sauce on them at all... just plain ol' muscles - and they were SUPERB! So fresh!
Clams, Muscles, and Conch at Can Majo.

In Bilbao, we ate at a place called El Perro Chico, which is the most famous restaurant in the city. I really wanted to experience some Basque style food, and this was pretty authentic, I think. It was hard to eat because it was so hot outside, and Basque food is made for surviving cold, mountain winters, but it was still really good. We also had a FANTASTIC bottle of wine on the chef's recommendation. We were one of 3 tables in the dining room that night, and the chef came out and took our order and personally took care of us. It was really awesome.

I had high hopes of going to some of the most famous restaurants in Spain, even though they were cost prohibitive. Luckily for the wallet, most of those places were closed for the month of August (for summer vacation I guess? I sort of wish my restaurant gave us a month of summer vacay!).

Back in Barcelona, my mom and I went to La Bouqueria, which is said to be one of the best food markets in all of Europe. I'm SOOO glad we went! One of my favorite parts was watching a fish monger break down a whole fish in about 45 seconds! It was awesome.


The ham all the way to the left is $92/pound!



This is only about 1/8th of how much seafood there was!




Crawfish!


Candy!


Beef Heart & Tongue! Ick!


Tripe Tripe Tripe.


I got a lot of inspiration from the food there, and have had a good time trying to play with the flavors here at home. So much in fact that I ended up with four pounds of the Padron peppers and have been eating them almost every day for a few weeks. Yum.

Spain pictures (Muy Tarde!)

My previous Spain travel blogging was dry and wordy, and ultimately pretty lame. SO - I have decided to be a good writer and SHOW you what I saw, not TELL you. I also have a one up on most writers who follow this rule, because I have some pretty rockin' pictures to share (it's not cheating, really...). Mmmkay!

What better way to start off a story about Barcelona than with a little bit of Antoni Gaudi, Barcelona's patron modern architect. He had a thing for arches, grandeur, and (I think) the absurd. Some of elements of his work are sleek and beautiful (see above) while some are just... weird. Or so I think.


This is the front of Casa Batillo, which is an apartment building! I'm not sure if anyone actually lives there right now, but it's a pretty magnificent place. Every SINGLE detail was thought of when it was constructed, from the walls and ceilings to the ergonomical shape of the window handles. If I had to describe this building in one word, I think it would be "whimsical". Or possibly "wobbly".

wobble wobble

We hit three of the four really famous Gaudi buildings in one day. Our second stop was at la Pedrera (or the Stone Quarry). This place was a commercial building of some sort. The first picture posted here is from the attic of the building, which was pretty cool, if not a little claustrophobic. There were attendants herding everyone this way and that, and so we didn't get to spend much time looking at all the things they have in the museum that was there. We got ushered on to the roof.

My mom takes terrible pictures of me...

The roof was one of the more interesting roofs I have seen in my time, with big spiral, smoke shaped spires of broken tile ascending into the gray sky. Whoa. Sorry about that flowery language dump, I must be getting carried away. Anyway! We didn't stay here long, partially on account of our not-so-friendly human-shepherds, and partially because we needed to move on to bigger and better things.


La Sagrada Familia. Aaahhh yes, an ENORMOUS cathedral to which Gaudi devoted the last 14 years of his life (before it was cut short on account of him getting hit by a trolley and being left unattended to die in a homeless shelter because nobody recognized him. Dark). The Sagrada, still unfinished and in a perpetual state of construction, is one of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen. To paraphrase my guide book, from a distance it looks like a clumsy giant poured wax all over what would normally be a pretty standard gothic cathedral, but upon further investigation you can see that every. single. little. lump is a shape - a flower, or a bunny, or a person - someone who was influential to Christ during his early years. There are all the characters from various Bible stories, including this super-angry baby-killin' Roman guy:
Yikes.

That is the front facade. The back represents the crucifixion, and is my favorite of the two sides. It has a much more modern look, and has a creepy minimalist style that I totally dig.


Each little cluster of people represents one of the 13 (?) stages of the passion. Note the bad-ass looking Romans in the middle. I wouldn't want to cross those guys... Also, the man in the bottom right is the most hopeless, sad statue I have ever seen. I think that's one of the reason I tend to like depictions of the crucifixion more than of other familiar religious scenes - it forces the artist (and the viewer) to understand and depict man in absolute misery and despair and you end up looking at how dire the human condition can be...


Alright, enough depressing stuff. Below is the inside of the cathedral, and it's just about all that's been completed, but it's absolutely stunning! The rest is just a sea of criss-crossing scaffolding that is so thick it almost blocks out the light of the sun!


Just to give you some scope of how really REALLY big this place is, here is a picture I grabbed from Google images:
Yeah. It's big. And only two of the three facades are done. I think they hope to have the whole project complete by the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death in 2028, but they are going to have a tough time, because all the construction is funded by donations and revenue generated from admissions.


Sadly, all of my Parque Guell (the fourth and final Gaudi stop) photos suck.. so.. yeah. This concludes the Gaudi post! Again, apologies for the delay in posting pictures! I still have many, many more to show you!