Behind Closed Doors......

So, you already got the censored pictures of the family. Now you can see the real dynamics....

Pilar's real feelings toward Rebecca come out. Go get her, Pilar! Check it out: Reb's hands are already in rigor mortus...

Familia: SPAIN STYLE

Wow, how lucky are we?! So, you all finally can see who I've been driving crazy these past few months. Here they are! They're pretty much amazing. And by pretty much I mean really amazing. The woman with the green shirt on is our Señora, and her name is Pilar. She's fantastic! She is really easy to talk to and is a great cook. We always have interesting convos at dinner. (And since no one in their fam speaks English, it's our Spanish practice time.) For instance, she listens intently as I tell her about my professor in my Volcanoes of Spain class and how hot he is. Then she makes inappropriate comments about other volcanoes going off.......YIKES! She's so blunt, it's hilarious! She actually reminds me alot of Grandma Ruef (and not just b/c she smokes). She's little and very straight-forward, but would do anything for you. She makes us feel right at home in Madrid.

The girl all in red is María, and she is 11. She is crazy, and I love it. Apparently music takes awhile to reach Spain. Her room is right next to ours, and she CONSTANTLY plays "Video Killed the Radio Star" (or whatever that crappy song is called). Oh, and she just bought "High School Musical," and she has a crush on one of the boys in it, so she now watches it todo del tiempo (all the time). Also, we constantly compete over whose cat Micho is. (Micho is the fat cat that I love. She won't accept that he's mine and just move on with life.) One more thing: she hates veggies. She's always pawning them off on one of us at dinner. DELICIOUS!

So, the other girl in the black shirt is Andrea, Pilar's other daughter. She is 16, and if you can picture the typical teenage girl, she is it. She has a boyfriend (Pablo, who we love and fondly call Pablito) and is constantly on the phone with him. She doesn't talk to us much (at all.........OK, she talks sometimes). She loves Avril Lavigne, Blink-182, and Fall-Out Boy. When she sings along in English I always wonder if she really knows what they're saying. Oh, and you'll all love this: she is the Spanish-speaking equivalent of me. Yep, she talks just as quickly as me. And the similarity doesn't stop there: SHE MUMBLES, TOO!! We could never have a convo in either language. Wah-Wah. (Debbie Downer)

Ok, so the one and only guy in the pics is Jesús, the beloved husband and dad. He is actually in the military and stationed in Kosovo. He was just home for 3 weeks to visit, and he leaves tomorrow. He is what I like to call "un hombre de pocas palabras" (a man of few words). There were never any lively convos at dinner with him, and it was sort of like the awkward dinner skit on Saturday night live where no one talks, and then when someone does it's really awkward (you might know this skit by its other name: the DODGE STRATUS skit). Buuuuuuuut the great thing about him being here is that we get to watch fútbol games on TV. The girls of the family aren't into sports, but Jesús (like any good Spaniard) loves it. So we've bonded (I use bonded very loosely) over a few games.

ALL IN ALL I COULDN'T HAVE ASKED FOR A BETTER FAMILY HERE! Rest assured that I've been in good hands. :o)

Ferry Boat Hell............THANKS A LOT, GRACIE.

Ok, so our trip to Venice had a little kink thrown in the plans. You see, there were 4 of us that stayed in the same hostal rooms the whole time. Well, we had 4 cities, so we each chose 1 city to cover the deposit of the hostal for the city we chose. Then when we got to the actual hostal we would pay separately for our own bed. Ok, so I chose to put the hostal in Florence on my card. Well, the hostal was really really nice with a great location. However, it seemed a little sketchy at the beginning. First of all, when we got there this little 40 something Mexican but Asian looking woman (whose name we later learned was Grace) was sort of arguing with the guy working the front desk. We stood there waiting for a good 2 minutes before we were helped. Oh, and let's not forget Grace's silent friend/side-kick who wore a winter hat indoors that had a big pot leaf on it. Yikes. RED FLAGS EVERYWHERE! Ok, so we ended up finally being helped, and we each paid for our own beds with cash. We never got a receipt, either. (Mistake that could have cost me.) Anyway, the stay was great, so we left Florence after 3 nights and continued on to Venice. I happened to check my bank account that night in Venice, however, and saw that the Florence hostal had billed my bank account for 50 euro, which was the cost of a room for the night. I was like "WHAT?! WE PAID IN CASH!" Then I remembered that we never got a receipt, so I thought they were going to try and say we never paid. I called and happened to talk to Grace (who we'll fondly call Gracie). What happened was that they mixed up my account information with a guest that never showed up. Instead of charging the no-show, they charged me. Well, you'd think there would be an easy way for them to reverse the charges. But no, no, no. Gracie seemed to think that would be impossible. Now mind you, when I called to explain the situation, Gracie went ape-shit. Not in a mad way, but in a very frazzled way. Her English was already a little shaky, and when she got anxious she was IMPOSSIBLE to understand. So, pretty much the whole time my friend, Sarah, acted like me. Gracie decided she would send the money via Western Union. Well, she ended up putting my name on the money transfer, but without my middle name that's on my passport. Long story short, we spent all afternoon trying to figure this all out. Well, we had decided to try and go to the island of Murano that day and see glass-blowing shows, which it's famous for. You had to take this big ferry boat there. That took about 30 minutes to get there, and by the time we made it the last show had already taken place. So, we hopped back on the boat to go to a different island that supposedly had a shipwreck. According to the map, it looked like it would take about 20 minutes to get there. If you ever go to Venice, remember this piece of advice: MAPS NOT DRAWN TO SCALE. It took at least 45 minutes to get there. Well, by this point we had been on the ferry for over an hour and a half. All we wanted to do was get back to our island and get the heck off this boat. So we continued on until we got back there. All in all we were on the boat for over 2 hours straight. And we saw nothing. Great. Thanks alot Gracie. (Oh, and I didn't get my money back from Gracie until I got back to Madrid. But she did feel bad. God love ya, Gracie!)

...as you can see from this post, I don't believe in paragraphs. Just one big block of text is what you get.

Venice: City of Waterways.........and overpriced gondolas

So, our 3rd city on our Tour de Italia was Venice. It was so different and so beautiful! Everything really is on the water, even the tons of taxis and the main public transportation. These pictures are of various things. One is of the main waterway of Venice at sunset. Another is of the gondolas waiting to rob people of 70 euro. Then we have the infamous Rialto bridge. Also, there is St. Mark's Square. There are a billion pigeons here, and people buy birdseed so they can get pics of themselves covered in pigeons. I just loved shuffling behind them (the pigeons). They don't like to fly unless absolutely necessary, so it's hilarious to shuffle really quickly behind them (Mocko, very similar to your penguin walk) and watch them scurry along. (Don't worry, I'll imitate it for you all when I get home.) And these birds make direct flights toward your heads. No fear. Finally, the last pic is of me on some random bridge.

Is it really leaning? Yes, it is.

So, since it was raining in Florence, we decided to take a little side-trip to Pisa to see if the tower really was leaning. And the answer is YES. No matter where you stand you can pose so that it looks like you're holding up the tower. The result: a bunch of people looking like idiots. Yeah, everyone is standing by themselves with their arms outstretched touching nothing. And it's not as if you can just hop in front of the camera and tower and take a quick pic. No, you have to move an inch forward, then a little back, then your top hand up, bottom hand down, etc. At this point you don't care if the tower falls on top of you; you just don't want to look like an ass anymore. Oh, and we had to sprint from one end of Pisa to the other to catch our train, which ended up being 45 minutes late anyway. Typical.