Oh hai.

Alright. I’ve not been as attentive to our blog-baby as I could have been. My bad, y’all. That said, I’ve been back in the States for about two weeks now, so I guess it’s time that I make my obligatory Barcelona post as well. 

So, somewhere along the way, I fell in love with the city of Barcelona. I did not expect that to happen. For the first month or so, I really thought I’d made a huge mistake. I hated it. There is a plethora of reasons, but mostly it boils down to two things. One: I was scared. Two: I was lonely. Luckily for me, the two things weren’t exactly mutually exclusive, so when I stopped being scared, the loneliness began to fade as well. There are a couple of people I can think of who helped me with that, but I’m pretty positive the Almighty Vodka Tonic is the real hero. Either way, things got better.

I stuffed homemade beanbags with stoner Catalans, and broke into a carousel at night with a Romanian vampire. The Romanian would later go on to call me another girl’s name…in bed. My friend’s name, actually. Yes, yes, fuck my life, etc. Anyway, while there were more moments like that than I care to admit, they are what make the city. There’s this sense there that you’re in the middle of everything, and even when it’s bad it’s so good. I met a boy, and he told me that he keeps coming back to Barcelona because, there, “It’s all happening.” (Tessa!)

So I guess that’s why, even though I am undoubtedly happy to be back with the people I love (lovelovelove), and the things I missed (CVS and dryers and not-ham), I also miss that whimisical quality that is unique to Barcelona. 

sunny day, my apartment

The night before I left, I ran into a friend (who just so happens to be a prostitute) on las Ramblas. She wrapped me in a hug and told me that she knew I would come back to Barcelona someday…then she started dry humping my leg, which effectively ruined any sort of moment we might have been having. Anyway, my point is that I think she’s right. Someday I’ll make it back. I got my ass kicked and my face punched (ha!), but I finally get what all the fuss is about.

Girl, he geeked up

 

you spin me right round

i am currently chilling in the lobby of “le beach residence”, hoping beyond hope that the maid will actually bring us fresh towels today and maybe even get rid of our full trash can. it seems that it has been difficult for “le beach residence” to mobilize their cleaning forces, or even just hand us new towels, but then again this is france, and everything runs on its own imaginary schedule.

to make my wait more enjoyable, i snagged a nutella-filled beignet from the patisserie across the street. it is gooey, dense, and satisfying. some precious old french man, whose face seems to be deflating with age, was asking me if there is anyone working at the front desk. i told him i didn’t know, so he eventually shuffled his plaid shirt and high-waisted pants back out onto the street. now every so often i’ll see him pass by the big glass doors of the residence. i wonder what he wants. 

today michelle and garrett and i leave for a three-day weekend in amsterdam. i am very excited. garrett’s dad’s friend kathleen is putting us up for the weekend, being incredibly accommodating. our flight gets in at midnight, and we were asking her if she would rather have us come straight to her place and get everything set up, or if she wanted to just deal with us in the morning in which case we’d just stay out all night. kathleen say: oh come whenever you want, it’s not a problem, i’m use to being up at odd hours with my work, please, whatever works for you! coming off of three weeks of hearing “it is not possible” from everyone in france, “it is not a problem” is a revelation. 

last night we played on a french playground near our classroom. spinning on the spinny thing, and climbing on the weird tour eiffel-shaped rope tower. no one telling us how to be, no one saying, don’t drink wine on top of the monkey bars. a moste diverting way to pass an evening. 

BONUS: this is the trailer for tsai ming-liang’s lastest film “visage”, which i saw at cannes last week. no one else seems to like it, and disgruntled people were streaming out of the premier in the grand lumiere, but i enjoyed it. i’m sure it will get arthouse distribution in the states, if not for the fact that it’s exceedingly confusing, then for the fact that it was in competition at cannes this year. 

I super miss

all of my friends.

I can’t wait for the next couple months.

I hate myself.

Why yes, I AM summering in the South of France

I’m blogging at you live from Juan-les-Pins, the silly little town outside of Cannes where we’re staying for the next month. Well, actually, I’m blogging at you live from my bed in JLP, where I’ve been lounging listlessly for the past 24 hours. I have a bit of a sickness going on, have no idea what’s wrong with me, but I’m feeling better than I did 12 hours ago, so there’s that.

festival de cannes

We had a lovely man from the Hollywood Reporter come by the Hotel Victoria in Cannes for a Q&A with our study abroad group, and one of the first bits of advice he had concerning the festival was “pace yourself.” I think in general I’ve been doing a pretty shitty job at that, and I think that is why I got sick.

But onto the fun stuff! Only a week into the Cannes Film Festival and I have already seen “Up”, “Air Doll”, “Nanayo”, “New York, I Love You”, “Fish Tank”, “Un Prophet”, “Taking Woodstock”, and “Yuki & Nina”. It is pretty exhausting to watch so many films, which sounds silly I know, but also the whole ordeal of getting into movies is super tiring. Our group was given “Cinephile” badges, which means we can get into any movie, provided we score a ticket. Depending on who is guarding the doors for certain movies, you can slide past without much hassle, but some of them old French ladies are super irritable.

the view from our classroom terrace

There are basically three kinds of screenings: red carpet premiers, market, and cinephile. For the premiers, everyone, regardless of badge rank, has to have a ticket. For market screenings, which is a vast majority of them, you can get in easy peasy with a market badge. If you don’t posses one of the famed market badges, you have to smooth talk/bullshit your way in, or go directly to the film distributor to ask for an invitation. And then, the lowly cinephiles can sometimes hop in line for overflow theaters, or can catch a bus out of town to go to the cinephile theater, La Licorne. Yeah, it’s French for “unicorn”.

The badge system is a total clusterfuck. But, I’m beginning to think everything in France is. The French do not give a shit. Period. Traffic laws, optional. Store hours, flexible. Willingness to communicate with someone who speaks less than perfect French, whateverable. The trains go on strike whenever they feel like it, you choose something off the menu provided to you at a restaurant only to be told they don’t have that item, you can drink and smoke anywhere, it’s like anarchy.

That being said, I really love it here. I really really do. The beach is awesome, there are naked people there all hours of the day and night. The weather has been gorgeous. The people in JLP have been for the most part warm and willing to help. They really like it when I speak French at them and tend to try to work with me if I do. But that doesn’t mean they won’t scoff at me when I ask why they stopped serving paninis at 2 today when I got one there yesterday at 3. Duh. Consistency, France. Get on it!

waiting for the 5:30 a.m. train back to JLP

The kids on my trip are really cool. Thank God. I was worried that a whole group of UGA kids may translate into lame asses dragging me down, but nay! There are 25 of us, and so many of us are so down for whatever. These kids like to party and bullshit and don’t take ‘no’ for an answer – exactly the kind of people who can rock Cannes. We’ve gotten wasted on the beach and had cart-wheeling contests, broken into a trampoline pit near the boardwalk, gone to a foam party at a skeezy euro-trash joint called “club m”, order shots by the dozen, take turns carrying each other’s drunk asses around, and beg borrow lie and steal our way into film premiers so we can score enough tickets for everybody.

I’ve already done so much, seen so much, experienced so much I feel like I’ve been here a month already. I’m having a blast, and could not be happier that I’m doing this. Yay.

Well well

I do quite believe that everyone has forgotten about this blog, but I really have no room to talk. I’m just going to keep it going for a bit. In any case, I am finally back in the United States – I left London thinking that it would be pretty easy to get back into the swing of things, but it has been a bit more surreal than I was prepared for. Nice, but surreal. First of all, it is weird being around Americans again. I just feel so dorky. Also, extremely out of place after being in London. I had forgotten about the American “bro” phenomenon, but remembered it when I ran into one and we both mutually decided to hate eachother for no reason. I did not miss this. I also miss the tube/metro a lot more than I had anticipated – it really is sort of a pain in the ass to have to get in a car to do anything, not to mention that while I am in D.C. drinking is out since I live too far for a taxi to be worth anything and I would have to drive. One of the other reasons I moved out of this area for college, but that is another subject entirely.

I got back yesterday. One of my cats developed an extremely bad limp over night and I woke up in the morning to find him completely pitiful. Being that it is Sunday today, we can’t do anything about it and it doesn’t seem to warrant an E.R. visit since he is basically behaving exactly the same except in a much gimpier, pathetic fashion – well, he is also cuddling with me, which is something he has never really done before. In all honesty, he is more of my sister’s cat than mine. But I like him so I’ll keep him around.

I’m on my Mom’s laptop – I feel bad admitting this, but what a pain in the ass not having my own! We are going to best buy to get another one tomorrow, luckily. I really did want a mac, but the cheapest deal I could get would be around 1200 dollars – not too terrible, all things considered, for a good laptop but unfortunately I cannot afford that price (or…any price) on my own and my parents are helping me out, and, understandably, they can’t afford that much right now so I am going to go for a cheaper, but still good, HP. I’m pretty excited about it, though, it looks pretty sleek and has a lot of things that I wanted the MAC for (except for Linux, which I am completely in love with). What this all means for the complete lack of anyone that reads this is that I will be able to finally post some pictures from Spain! Which I am excited for.

Anyway, I’m going to go exercise at 7 am tomorrow, so I am off to bed at 11 pm. It is going to be embarrassing. I am going to look like an idiot. Fuck it, I’ll never see these people again once I go to Georgia so I may as well get in some sort of shape before I embarrass myself in the UGA gym. Oh hell.

Ethan

Mum has a Day

Happy Mother’s Day! In case a mother stumbles across our page. We totally support you, except for when you roll your baby onto the tube into a gigantic, tricked-out stoller. And then everyone on the train hates you. 

I’ve been wandering around London for the past couple of weeks. Seen Little Boots, Modernaire, Handsome Furs, and a bunch of other bands that I probably just can’t think of right now. I will say that while I am ‘hella’ excited to get back to Athens right now, I will miss having something to do every damn minute of my life (if I wanted to) in London and Barcelona. I’m so cosmopolitan! Just kidding, y’all. Tessa has flown to Cannes to work on the film festival by now – I am whole heartedly looking forward to updates from that total skank – I bet she is going to have the time of her life. How awesome would it be to work the film festival? I guess that will be a question answered for us in the near future. 

I’m off to Bricklane for a birthday party at the drunken monkey!

Oh, dormant blog

How we have forsaken thee in yon winter!

No, but, yes, I have been a complete and utter asshat about updating. Then again, so has everyone else and I have the added excuse of not having an actual working computer, any sort of home internet connection and generally just being alternately sort of happy and totally miserable with my (now, thankfully, over) situation in Barcelona. Oh the things I could say about that place. I will, actually, say some things about that place, maybe over a few entries, but I am going to start with the good things.

First of all, I really (as a whole) enjoyed Barcelona. I did not enjoy a lot of things about my individual experience there and if I could do it all again, and I’m not entirely sure that I would, but hypothetically speaking if I DID choose to invoke some sort of masochistic urge on myself and relive a very liberating, hard, at times depressing, happy and (above all) self enlightening experience, I would change a bunch of shit to cute out a couple of those negative adjectives. But first, the things I loved:

I loved all the obvious things like the weather (do yourself a favor and go there for spring and summer, not winter like I did), the languages, the strange and completely interesting interaction of cultures that manages to be a completely different experience from any American city I have had the pleasure of being in, the beach, the learning experience (I feel quite spanish fluent now, to be honest with you!), the mountains and their cable cars, the incredibly simple and mostly reliable metro system, the feeling of being out of my element (which also came with downsides, but I feel was indelible to my experience as a whole). I loved meeting people from all over Europe, I loved meeting people from all over the States (which also was frustrating when you couldn’t find anyone from Spain anywhere in sight due to the touristic nature of Barcelona). I could go into so much detail that you would want to explode, but I wont really. I’ll save that for phone calls and other things. I don’t want to nit pick the experience so much that my memories begin to bore even me, but I want to leave it a little general. Go for the food, the sea, the architecture, the weird experiences that I feel are only able to manifest themselves in Barcelona (a friend having a brick thrown at her by an angry protesting mob and getting a prostitutes number to go have coffee with her as a friend the next day after-work are two that come to mind). 

At the same time, as much as I am very thankful that I got the experience, I would change so much of that shit your head would spin and you would say “damn, girl.” I would NOT NOT NOT live with a host family. I would live with room mates, preferably not from America and at least one of them from the city itself. I feel this is good advice when moving to any city. If at ALL possible, live with someone and, mejor, live with someone from the fucking city. This will prevent several things. Loneliness, above all, a problem I had with my host family working at nights and sleeping all day and generally being uninteresting as a whole. Second point of interest, they will go out with you and, if you are lucky enough to have a local room mate, can show you cool things and INTRODUCE you to people. Its awesome; I have a friend named Katarina who is Swedish and lived in Barcelona with a Portuguese girl, a guy from Israel and another from Barcelona itself. It was an amazing apartment and the food that was served there was always awesome when I went for dinner. Plus, its just amazing to be interact with such diverse people on such  personal level. 

Second, get a job or volunteer. It will fill up your free time and let you meet people and practice the language, if that is part of your stay. Believe me, there is such a thing as too much free time.

Three, don’t be scared. When I was in Barcelona, for the first month I was too scared to even go into shops by myself because of the language barrier and just the fact that I am a pussy. Its not worth it, no one gives a shit about you, do your thing and don’t stress out over dumb shit like I always do. It ruins things.

Four, don’t attach yourself to one set of people. Expand, meet people, go out with people all the time and don’t wait around for things to happen. Waiting, especially during a short stay abroad, is the enemy. Go out and do your shit.

Additionally, I would not have been robbed. Barcelona is a notorious city for being, as we say, robbalicious. And it is a reputation well deserved. One, be really god damn careful. Two, be prepared to get robbed if you go to Las Ramblas at night and drink. Leave all your important shit at home and try not to bring credit cards. On the other hand, there is little to no VIOLENT robbings in Barcelona (more than I can say for my current place of residence, London). So, while pickpocketing and petty theft are almost unavoidable, its very unlikely you will get, say, shanked after leaving a cash point by a junkie. 

So, this is my Barce entry. If its not long enough, whatever. I said what I want to say for now and I’m sure more tidbits will pop up later. Maybe not. Who the shit knows. I’ll post pictures whenever I buy a computer that is actually mine. Oh yeah, if you study abroad, try not to bring a computer that will decide it is old and die. Its not convenient. And evidently a pair of eyeglasses causes customs to lose their fucking shit and you have to write them a letter but do not even get me started on that total bullshit of a mess.

What the…

…piss. Somebody post something.

I’m never drinking again until tonight.

I really think everything in my body is failing epically because I have been drinking so much. It’s a good feeling.

I know I haven’t written in this stupid blog in a while but once again, alcohol can’t drink itself.

Nothing that interesting is going on at the moment except London Fashion Week… which I actually might go to a few little events throughout the next week. My birthday is March 5th. Send me presents. Lots. Of. Presents. Ethan will be coming to London for it too.

I’m now going to post some pictures from the past few weeks.

The infamous Blizzard of 2009

A little Sassoon runway show thing at the Wella Centre (obv. located in London)

Dinner with the Norwegians.

Barcelona. I know, doesn’t our hotel room look awesome? You don’t want to know what happened all over that hotel room…well, Minna might.

 

Okay, I’m too hung over to write anything else so I’ll leave you all with this shyte.