las photos de espana

pauline and christopher columbus both point us to the direction of America.

Tapas

Park Guell



La Sagrada Familia

a donde esta Yolanda?

graffiti

a long craved plate of nachos

you lookin at me??

innocent after all... wtf??

VALENCIA!


yolanda, juanita, y yessica

a bit too much wine



these are just a few, I will post aaaaalll the pics on ofoto soon. ciao.

no mas sangria por favor

HOLA!!!
back from Spain and crashing in Toulouse. In a nutshell:
first thing you do once you go to a foreign country is make up names.
me= Yessica
scarlett= Yolanda (adonde esta yolanda??)
pauline= Juanita

sad thing that we sound Mexican rather than Spanish. ahem, to continue.... upon arrival to Barcelona (pronounced "Barthelona" in Catalan) we set out to find Hotel Barbara which was at a key location, on the most amusing corner I have ever seen. For some reason "those people" as juanita called them kept standing around there, not talking to each other, old, young, trashy, so so looking, and just standing there and not looking or talking to each other. Later on it became a unanimous decision that it was the pit stop for prostitutes and we abandoned the idea of standing there with them trying to pretend like we are one of them once we saw the 4 cars of police. Barcelona is one crazy place. TAPAS TAPAS TAPAS, I just want to puke. You need like 5 of them to fill you up. What do these people eat?? I cannot survive on potatoes and calamari rings my whole life. Aside from the food, I was nearly robbed by a band of gypsies... but as soon as I started yelling at them when I saw my 70 euros disappear "WHERE THE HELL IS MY MONEY" they got scared and dropped the bills.

Gaudi: amazing, spectacular, crazy, mosaic, trippy, must have been on crack, beautiful, I enjoyed it.

That's right, we went to see Park Guell which was one of the most beautiful architecture I have ever seen. Also saw the Sagrada Familia... those of you who got post cards from me know what it looks like. The highlight of Barcelona was the architecture. In spite of the lack of normal healthy food, we all craved a big dish of CA food and although I feel that i have sinned, yolanda and juanita and I had a big plate of nachos at the Hard Rock Cafe Barcelona!! And I did not regret it. Oh it was gooood. People selling beer and hash on the streets, drunk weirdos talking to you, clowns, magicians, tarot card readings. The first night we had a little too much sangria and I was ready to puke at the thought of it for the rest of the trip. Hopefully I will have it once again sometime in the future. I was not crazy about the city in general and was a bit disappointed but thank god we went south to Valencia!

Valencia, Spain: why didn't we just go there to begin with?34 C THATS HOT! nice people, great hostel, the beach, the beach, ooooh the nude beach, oooh the topless tanning (yeah me!), peaceful, friendly.
I would go back there in a flash, I can even go back there right now and just lye out on the Mediterranean sands once again.

The dark side: more tapas and paella and sangria.... we had to do something! On our second try of talking a waitress into making us a coke float we succeeded and then parted with the beautiful city of Valencia and back to Barcelona to crash for the night before coming to Toulouse.

Last night in Barcelona: we knew where to go right away.. Hard Rock Cafe where we overestimated the size of our stomachs and ordered an ordinary American dish of appetizer and entrees which we almost vomited. OOhhh but it was good. The hostel was yet another experience. Apparently the beds don't come with sheets and we were way too tired and disillusioned after the big meal to find out the dealio. Either way, sleeping with even a sheet over yourself in that weather is suicide. As I am sure Yolanda will devote a full entry about last night at the hostel on her page i will make a brief comment. Who appeared at 3am as a bunch of rude French(?) guys started throwing stuff at Yolanda because they thought she was snoring when really it was the girl next to her (an 8 bed room) at the point that a shoe was thrown at Yolanda, she picked it up and attempted to throw it back as she said "Hey! You fucker! I wasn't snoring" and then it was quiet. The greatest revenge: take the shoe and throw it away on a random corner. Which is exactly what Yolanda did. Sorry Pier... good luck with the shoe, next time be a bit more polite. I am proud of you Scarlett. Shoe power forever.

Bus back, 6 more hours.
Back in Toulouse and ready to give mole another chance. Only because Claudia is making it.
Pictures to come.
Long version of everything over the phone.
Love everyone.

P.S. to my girls... WTF??? I feel it in my fingers... I feel it in my toes. Adonde esta Yolanda? That feels good. Like no other! ....etc. Love you guys.

pardon my french

It has come to my attention that my blog entries have not been completely accurate. Ahem, aside from spelling and grammar mistakes I have made inadequate views about the Frenchies. I must apologize and say that French men not only enjoy women but men as well. So with that brief apology, here are some pictures.


I love my girls!!

walking down the busy street


nice ride

fishermen pants!!

tanning by La Garonne

a la sante!!

the view from out balcony

St. Sernin

Place du Capitole

fondue

Toulouse

alouette

Ok so another update. I am having a great time here in Toulouse, if that has not been mentioned yet. I have met more people here than I have in San Francisco in just 5 days of visiting. Lesson to be learned: rely on your abroad girlfriends to create a social life for you instead of making the effort to do it yourself. I have also learned a lot about France and have lost many of my old stereotypes. Although... some still do remain. French people like to party, the are relaxed, they have a funny accent, they love women(the men), they wear tight pants, they have exquisite cuisine, and their day begins at 6pm (well, pauline and scarlett's does). Today Pauline and Claudia and I sun bathed by the Le Garonne river. It was probably 90 degrees, or at least it felt like it. The sun here does not go down until 11pm and the whether is amazing. You can walk around naked pretty much at night and still feel warm. Last night was pretty crazy so I will not go into detail, but in a nutshell, we went to Chez Tonton, a bar which is well known for its densely packed space and extreme amounts of hard liquor. I felt like I was standing in an extremely packed elevator and drinks were being poured all over me, literally. Plus my feet were practically sticking to the floor!! There we met the Frenchies again where "Magician" was showing me his magic tricks and actually proposed to me. I kindly declined his offer. After being practically wasted we made our way to some other bars, most of them to use the restroom. We then danced our booties off and I got a free sandwich on the street. All I did was say that I had no money. I guess the sandwich man felt sorry for me, or he probably thought I was really hot. I think it was the latter. Stumbling home I sang alouette in broken French and a touch of English and I found my inner secret, I can be a fish and swim late in the dark in a stranded street in France. We then(4am) met up with the Frenchies one more time back at the house and once again I did not understand a word they were saying cuz I don't speak French. But it was fun. We stayed up till 7am!!! I was proposed to once again... and as I declined one more time I went to sleep with Scarlett. But we were yet again disturbed by the noises next door (Pauline's room!) No no.. nothing like that you sick perverts. Long story short, its kinda hard to get 3 drunk French dudes out of your house at 7am but finally we did it and it was a fun night for all of us. Tonight we went to a goodbye potluck party for some of Pauline and Scarlett's American friends. Good time. Next week, Spain!

ooh no je parle pas francais

what can i say as i sit in pauline's room as scarlett irons claudia's(awsome girls) back as claudia jiggles her ass. Today was nice. It was so hot. I went in the morning(ahem 11:30 am) with cory to the marche (market) and bought some delicious strawberries and apples and a mango for scarlett. I introduced cory to parsimone. He said it had an "interesting" taste... The market was on the street with vendors selling their fresh goods. Very colorful, busy, and smelled of fruits and vegetables. Then we visited some of pauline's french friends in their house in the "suburbs". lets just say that french people around here like to have alot of pets. this guy had 3 dogs, 2 cats, 4 turtles, and an owl. We fried in the sun by the pool as we were catered with cherries and cookies. Funny how those 2 guys barely spoke english but only listened to American music in the car. After food at a vegetarian restaurant (9 euro menu!!) we visited claudia and now we are off to the bars. Apparently Thursday nights are the best and the wildest. Fun fun fun with the girls.

Disillusioned

i am so drunk... today was fun. woke up late. walked around.. hot as hell. ate fondu. clogged the toilet. guacamole night. avocados too hard. drank secretly on the balcony with pauline(sorry scar you were busy with your guests). went to frog place. sang songs. played darts. cheated darts. felt loopy. am drunk. life is nice. good night.

Bonjour France!!

Ok so I am safe and sound in the fabulous city of Toulouse. From the beginning, I made it to the airport on time (a surprise) and managed to befriend a Russian girl on her way to Moscow on my flight at the terminal. She actually befriended me in a desperate need to find a buddy who speaks English since she still had no seat assigned. She was nice. I sat the whole way next to this couple who couldn't keep their nasty hands off of each other, honestly.. they couldn't wait to get a freakin room. They also massaged each others feet and back and it was really disgusting. Anyway, I connected in Paris and got here sooner than I thought.
Toulouse. what appeared from the plane as we descended as Sacramento, turned out to be a pretty happening place. It is the epitome of brick pebble streets and old Victorian(but not quite) buildings. Vespas, hippies, croissants, couples holding hands, people riding bikes at 2 am. After meeting a few of the roommates and peoples I took a long nap and then my wonderful hostesses cooked me a real French American dinner. Yum, it was good those mashed potatoes, turkey in tomato sauce, and apparently Scarlett's famous zucchini. We met up some more of their EAP peoples at The Frog, a British Pub. After a few beers (I barely had one... I'm not much of a beerker) and a White Russian we made our way out on the street where we were so kindly named "fucking Americans." The French have peculiar ways of hospitality. Then we walked to Deniz (pronounced Dennies) where I was introduced to kebabs. More yum. Also, if anybody knows a Mike from Minnesota please let me know, some dude on the street was asking about him. Well, then we had some adventure with roommate Cory and the neighbor upstairs. I'm still jet lagged, more to come with more excitement.Bonne nuit.

...before I go...

Traveling makes me realize just how irresponsible, lazy, and absent minded I really am. Before I even go on my trip I have problems. First, I wait until the last minute to do the last minute things... Like, oh shit I'll be doing a lot of walking huh and all I have are my torn up Vans. Today I realized that I didn't exchange any cash into euros, knowing of course that I can do it at Charles De Guille but hey.. Wasn't I supposed to plan for this? Also waited till the last minute to call my airline and confirm my flight and when I did realize my mom spelled my name wrong on my ticket. Great! Just what I need the day before I go, I'm thinking they would send me off somewhere in the middle of nowhere and watch me suffer, all for a misspelled name. So after I figured that out with the airline I thought I was ready and.. That's what I like to call denial. I've got no money, no calling card, no shoes, and half a bathing suite. Hopefully France will accept me open armed, which would happen huh? In other news, I was at Albertson's with Anjali yesterday, what a date huh? And they like to play that background music so that you have that wonderful shopping experience and so I was singing along to "Black Velvet" and once I hit the ".. if you pleeeeease" this old man without even looking at me says "don't quit your day job" to which I so kindly responded, "I don't have a day job" and kept singing. Jerk. I know I can't sing but why does EVERYBODY have to point that out to me. Sigh. Well, off to Europe tomorrow. I am going to rip it up!!

back in the sunshine

Sunny LA how I've missed you.

Every time I come home everything just seems so serene and peaceful and.. perfect. I can never imagine myself living anywhere other than here, right here. Everywhere I look I see things screaming "HOME!"to me and I just kind of fit into this wonderful place. But enough about that, I remember waiting to get out of here and telling everyone that LA is "plastic" and yeah, I still think that it is but i have grown to accept its plasticness.

So little time and so many things to do, people to see, people to do, things to see...
I sometimes think, am I ever going to find myself in a stable place? I've been living in San Francisco for almost a year now, and although the streets are becoming familiar, the bus lines a piece of cake, the old crazy Asian ladies on the bus yelling at each other as a regular staple of my life, but I'm not sure if I can really call it home. And when I travel? When I'm spending a year off in Europe or doing Peacecorp in Africa or escape to New York with my girlfriends? Will I be able to come back to all of those places and still feel home? Maybe that is why they call it "travel" you don't actually stick around for too long. But I like to think of the world as my home. Why is it that we stick only to the most familiar places to us? The ones we only feel comfortable at? I'd like to change that. I'd like to go back to SF and through my friendlessness and uncomfortableness still feel at home.

Enough of sad and pathetic. I am going to FRANCE in 4 days!! Will be back with wild and crazy stories. Till then, aurvoir.