Hey.

Random thoughts

Yo, bars and restaurants need to chill with their choices of pictures to clarify which bathroom is which. Fuckin everywhere its a picture or a vague like drawing that they think is fun but in real life its fucking confusing. Especially when I’m drunk. Like one bar has a like weird Andy Warhol drawing of Mick Jagger with long hair, which looks like a girl, and the other is another weird picture of Marilyn Monroe. Like, chill out. Just do the normal block figure dude and the girl with the dress and stop trying to confuse me.

Fucking shit is going down in Red Sox Nation right now  and I have absolutely no idea what is happening. I need Sportscenter. Seriously when I get home I am going to watch Sportscenter for like 4 days straight.

Ok so I was in legitimate sports withdrawl on Monday. Like I was actually depressed because I had not/could not watch Sportscenter. Tkac told me to download the PTI podcast, which I didn’t know existed, and I proceeded to get four days worth of that, two of The Scott Van Pelt Show and Bill Simmons podcasts each. I listened to three hours of sports analysis and legitimately felt better. I didn’t know sports could be an addictive substance.

Tuesday we all went to see a movie called “No Habra Paz Para Los Malvados” (there will not be peace for the bad guys). It was a pretty sweet movie, a rogue cop tracking down drug dealers/terrorists. I understood the story, not quite all the dialogue, but enough to know what was happening which was really cool. So the news is that Kegger is coming to visit me tomorrow (wed) and I haven’t heard from her since last week sooooo don’t really know what’s happening. Don’t have internet so I won’t know until tomorrow morning. Good luck Keggz!

10/7

Kegger did actually show up, she was traveling with her two friends from Australia/New Zealand. It was pretty fun, I had class both days so I couldn’t hang out with them much during the day, feel kinda bad about that, but I think they had fun both nights. It was cool to see her all the way over here in Europe. I booked the flights for my week off, $231 for 3 flights, not too bad I guess, still need to get hostels but whatever its going to be awesome. Madrid-Barcelona-Amsterdam for a week. I’ll take it. So basically I am just waiting for it to be Wednesday, yeah sure Segovia could be cool on Saturday whatever, but next week I only have 2 days of classes and then a week of travel and baller status. The trips we go on as a group are so fun I am vurry excited.

It’s crazy how I am used to life here now, like I have been here over a month (what? How?). It is going pretty fast and that scares me. I am not really anywhere close to fluent, it probably isn’t going to happen, I still freeze up talking sometimes (when I’m sober) and I don’t like that. My problem is I think too much about past tenses and that is bad. But overall I am pretty sure that I am improving with Spanish, which is an awesome feeling. I have a feeling that October is going to go so fast, which I do not want, but oh well. I need to remind myself to look around more, slow things down, really appreciate stuff. Like, every day we walk past a gigantic, intricately detailed, amazing church and I don’t even look at it anymore. That’s just silly. I remember this feeling during West Coast, that I am having such a good time that I take almost everything for granted just because it is all so awesome. I need to remember that I may not ever get a chance to have an experience like this ever again. I need to take more pictures too. My camera is so bad though haha it is pathetic. I got it in 2007 and literally haven’t used it since like August 07 sooo yeah. Haha so I have been playing Tyler the Creator and OFWGKTA for people and everyone is like What. The Fuck. Is wrong with you. 

Week of 25th-1st

9/25-10/1

Pretty standard week of school and such this week. Watched football at that bar again, we went just in time to see the Pats lose to the fucking Bills. Fuck that I was so mad. Oh I think I forgot to mention this the whole time, but every day here it has been perfect. It is currently October 2^nd, I have been here for a month (holy shit) and it has not rained once in Salamanca. It has been somewhere between 70-90 and sunny legitimately every day. It is so great here. So yeah we have been having class every day, and now we have homework. I hate homework normally, but when it is in another language its so much worse. When it comes time to like write papers and study for tests I am going to be fuuuuhhuhuhuhuuuuuucked. I can’t even write papers in English. Seriously I am so fucked for that its not even funny. Ummm trying to think of what stands out from this week. Oh, I am glad I dropped that Cinema class because they have so much to do for that class, and I switched into Tkac’s class which will be helpful as far as grammar goes so that is good. A couple of us went out Wednesday night, nothing crazy just went to a couple small local bars and talked with some Spanish people. Some dude Carlos said I spoke Spanish really well, which sounds lame, but I was pumped, I still am, he was like surprised that I could speak Spanish. So in Spanish like in Spain they lisp C’s and Z’s and I started doing it and now I do it like 75% of the time and it really helps people trying to understand me. Una thervetha por favor. Yeah that’s right bitch. You heard my beer order. Fucked that sentence up. Lo siento I’m not lo siento. Friday was fun, went to Salas Bajas, the university outdoor like sport area, theres a big running track around the whole thing, theres a rugby field, dirt soccer field, basketball courts, tennis courts, ping pong tables etc. AJ played bball with some Spanish dudes and me and Kelsey W ran around and shit. People here have fucking awesome NBA jerseys. I have seen a D-Rose, Kobe (8 and 24), Cleveland Lebron, green Dirk, two Vince Carter, Jose Calderon, and a Michael Jordan All-Star game jersey. Shoulda brought my KG jersey. Damn. Then that night we went out and promptly got super drunk. There are a couple places that only serve shots, have I mentioned that already? Whatever its cool, gets people purty druhnk. Can’t really remember anything note-worthy, it was definitely fun though. And then Saturday we were trying to piece the night together and everyone is missing the same like 45 mins to an hour period. Woops. Saturday night was awesome, we found a bar that looks like a submarine inside. And there were these two dudes rapping in Spanish on a stage there, it was fuckin awesome. I had no idea what they were saying but they were flowing super hard. Went to another place called Peter’s and its like Peter Pan themed, which I know sounds gay but its actually pretty sick. And of course we all got up on the stage and danced. We always end up somewhere high up making fools of ourselves. Whatever, when in Spain. Oh and we were telling every bartender everywhere that it was Kelsey A’s birthday because it sort of is, its on Tuesday, and we got a flaming shot of something awful and one bar and a shot of Jager at another, for free. We should do that more often, tell them it’s someone’s birthday every day. Oh ok, so fucking this weekend, on the 8^th, is Sensation White in Barcelona, which is a crazy fuckin huge techno dance party, and every single person I know who is studying abroad in Europe is going to this. But guess what? We have a scheduled trip JUST FOR THAT DAY in Segovia. For like 5 hours. Cool. And Jesus wont let us reschedule it. Fuck. Whatever I just need to get through this week quick, because the next week, we have class Monday and Tuesday, then Wednesday is a yearly Salamanca fiesta so we don’t have class and thennn Thurs-Sun we are going to Andalucía, south of Spain, which is going to be awesome. And Gee, Meaghan Mooney, Leah, and Caitlin are all studying there so I hopefull will see some of them. Alright, time for more homework. Ew.

Peace, Love, and Can’t believe I have been here for a month,

Tim

Weekend nonsense

9/23

Ow. The over/under on things I remember from last night is 4.5. I wouldn’t take the over. Holy shit. It is 1 in the afternoon and I literally cannot move. I can smell whatever Carmen is cooking and I am 3 seconds from throwing up. Blogs are fun. Oh my god fireleg has never been this bad. My legs are actually on fire. Holy shit. How the fuck am I supposed to ride a horse today. There is a 99% chance that I will throw up on a horse today. That is not good. Joder. Jooohhhddeerrrrr. _/ as Dr Evan Williams would say. For real though I don’t think I can stand up. HOLY SHIT this bar we were at was fucking sick as shit. It was called Barvel, and it had all kinds of Marvel characters all over the place. I was in nerd heaven. And all the shots were named after superheroes, but in Spanish. You know your boy took mad Green Lantern Shots. Duente Verde in this bitch. AND the shots had gummies in them. Tell me how that could get better. Blogs are fun. I’m so hype on Spain. Salamanca is the fuckin shit everyone come visit me right now. Ok, I am going to shower, eat lunch, probably throw up, and try to figure out what the H happened last night. Catch ya on the flip children.

Peace, Love, and Fireleg

Tim
UPDATE: we went to two different places after Barvel, I have zero recollection of this. Apparenty at the last one me and someone else got lost in the bar and ended up blasting through some rando side door and some dude came chasing after us and started yelling at me, while I was cracking up in his face. Woops. How do I not remember 2 different places? God damnit

9/24

As you may be able to tell from that last entry, I was a tad hungover today. I could barely eat lunch, I haven’t been that hungover in a very long time. We got to the bus at 4 pm, found out that Kelsey was just as hungover as I was, so that was nice, having a hangover buddy. We got to this ranch where we were going to ride horses around the place. I was a lil bit nervous because I had never rode a horse before. It was actually really fun though. The horses were all really well trained, so they kinda just followed each other along this loop. We started naming our horses, Drew thought of Shadowfax first which I was a little bit upset about, but its cool because I just named mine Patrick Swayze. So yeah I enjoyed that a lot more than I thought I would, I need to tell Gilly about that. Oh also, I had fireleg all day, including on the horse, which was an interesting sensation. Fireleg on a horse. Not the best thing. All the madres came with us and brought food they made and we had a big dinner there with everybody it was pretty awesome. We left at like 10 and I was so tired and not feeling great so I decided to stay in this night. I am hoping I was not the only one to stay in. Staying in on a Saturday makes me very anxious. I hope I didn’t miss anything ridiculous I will be upset. That’s about all from that day, good day overall, other than the all-day-Fireleg. Oh shit, I forgot to say this when it happened, but the final of the European basketball championship was on the other day and we watched some of it in a bar, it was Spain vs France, and the teams were stacked as shit. Spain’s starting 5 was Pau and Marc Gasol, Jose Calderon, Rudy Fernandez, and Juan Carlos Navarro. Ricky Rubio subbed for Jose, and guess who came in for one of the Gasols? Fucking Serge Ibaka. Apparently he has Spanish citizenship? I freaked out when I saw him though. And he had 4 huge blocks in 4 possessions in a row. France’s starting 5 was Tony Parker, Joakim Noah (what?), Boris Diaw, Mikael Pietrus’s brother, idk where Mikael was, and some other guy. And Nicolas Batum was the 6^th. That team is pretty dirt too. Spain won which I was excited about, basketball is pretty big here I did not know that. That was very cool, seeing all of them playing together. K time to do some homework, fun times.

Peace, Love, and Poor Eyes, Townmouse, Turno, Bed, Ethan, and Beng should probably come visit,

Buhtz

9/25

I am so sore from horseback riding and drinking heavily it is astounding. My entire abdomen is on fire. And my shitty old bed isn't helping. So basically today I didn't do anything. We went to the same bar and watching some more football, the fucking Patriots lost to the god damn Bills. It was fun, they gave us a bunch of free shots. Cool stuff. That's all. K later

Extremely delayed post

This is like 10 days worth of stuff. Sorry this is so delayed. There were complications, and then a weekend, and then lazyness, but I finally got up to date yesterday. Also, I will be on internet usually Mon-Thurs from 4-8 ish, which is like 10-2 eastern I think. So you guys should Skype me then. I don’t have anyone’s Skype name, send them my way kids.
K here it is

9/13

Today kinda sucked. It was ok, had class, lunch, we had a cooking class which was cool. Then I found out that kids on this trip read this. I thought it would be a good idea to write about exactly what happened and what I felt, but now it’s obvious that some stuff is not meant to be shared, especially on the internet. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that some stuff could get people in trouble. Somebody brought it to my attention that if I had written about people doing drugs or serious stuff like that, luckily I didn’t, people could get in serious trouble, which is obviously true I just did not think about it. So basically I am retarded and a huge asshole, so I need to clear the air with some people tomorrow, I hope it goes well. I fucking suck at confrontation and avoid it at all costs but I can’t do that right now. I don’t want the group to get all split up that would be a disaster. And it would be my fault, which would be the worst. As you could tell if you read beforehand I had had a problem or two with someone in the group and hopefully we can work that out, and I disagreed I guess you could say with what another did one night, but otherwise I really do not have any problems with anyone else. I never wanted to start any problems with this I just wanted to tell it like it was I guess, I don’t know it was just a bad idea. Ok ok sorry I’m done, I just wanted to get that off my chest. Um so today we had a cooking class which was pretty fun, we made a like fried potato pancake kinda and gazpacho which both actually tasted pretty good. After that we went to the JMU office and got our class schedules for the rest of the time here. I only have one class before 12, and only one class on Tuesdays and Fridays. Pretty solid schedule. Otherwise, I have a bunch of work to do tomorrow, there is a test and a presentation on Thursday so we shall work on the tomorrow. Buenas noches.

Peace, Love, and Wish me luck

Tim

Nothing really happened til 9/15

We had our final day of Span 400 today, had presentations and a test. Our presentation went pretty well, I used my announcer/Chupacabra/Pan voice to introduce the radio show and for the weather report. Claire’s groups presentation was hilarious, for their commercial they started playing that Sarah McLaughlin song that is in those ASPCA commercials and Jordan was talking about something but I couldn’t hear her because I was laughing so hard. The test went OK too I hope, not super worried about it. Afterwards we all went out to the casetas and got celebratory cervezas. I was feeling a little sick this day so after we had lunch I passed out until like 6 because I wanted to get some sleep because we had to wake up mad early on Friday to leave for the weekend trip. This night me and AJ decided to go downstairs and chill with Kelsey, Pepe (her host brother) and Jitam (Pepe’s wife) and her friend for their little hookah night thing. Her friend was from Slovakia and was pretty cute. We hung out on their patio and played some Trivial Pursuit. Haha that sounds really lame but it was actually pretty fun, Pepe and Jitam are hilarious, and me and AJ killed it at Trivial Pursuit. I am surprisingly good at the new like updated version of Trivial Pursuit, I have way too much useless knowledge. One question was “Who is the artist that is known for drawing “happy little trees”. Bob Ross, of course. What’s up Nick Hayes. So yeah after that we went to bed at like 12 because we had to wake up at 6 the next morning. Joder. Now pronounced Joh-der. Completely American style. It’s funny, I promise.

Peace, Love, and Garber Crew What It Do

Tim

9/16

Hot damn we woke up early. Still dark out in good ol Sally when we walked over to Plaza G.G (pronounced Hay Hay). This morning proved to be more entertaining than I expected. Two people showed up still hammmmmhammmmed from the night before and hilarity ensued. Got on the bus at 7 and left soon after, majority of people passed out, I waited to see the sunrise which was pretty beautiful, and then I lost steam quickly and fell asleep. After a couple hours of sleeping on the bus we arrived at a prehistoric cave that we got a tour of, it was at a place called Altamira, which is in the Cantabria region of Spain, its in the north. This cave had actual drawings of bison and deer and shit from prehistoric times. It was fuckin cool. Around a couple corners I thought Manbearpig was gonna jump out from around a corner, but no seriously it was fuckin really cool in there. It is crazy that those drawings are still preserved so well. And like back then, they drew them so that when it is lit up by torchlight it would look like it was moving around, like a movie. I did not know that, that’s so cool. After that we drove up to the hotel we would be staying in that night. The road we took to get there was skettttccchhhh, we were in a huge bus and the road would like blind turn around a mountain side with a cliff on the other side. Jesus put on a movie for us to watch, it was Bangkok Dangerous, you know, one of the recent Nicholas Cage movies that suck asshole. It was real bad. Like really really bad. I went up to sit with Claire and we had fake relationship talk, it’s a joke between us that we’re dating because every picture we’re in together looks like it, and also she’s like 6’2 and I am NOT even close. Then we decided to watch the movie and immediately fell asleep. I woke up just in time to see us pull into our hotel. I literally didn’t believe it. It was a really nice hunting lodge looking building with a absolutely gigantic mountain right behind it. Like they planted a hotel right in the valley of this big ass mountain. It was the coolest thing ever. Someone woke up, looked outside and literally gasped. Crazy shit. They should not let us into nice hotels like this, we were far too loud, but it was cool because there were a ton of old British people staying there and they don’t give a fuck about anything anymore. Like they don’t even try to speak Spanish to anyone, it is god damn hilarious. We attempted to hike up a mountain trail behind the hotel but we did not get very far because it started to thunderstorm a lil bit so we decided to go back down instead of getting toasted on the top of a mountain. Dinner at this fancy hotel was increddddiblleee we got a fat steak and we all demolished it. That night, since there was nowhere really to go out to, we all chilled in the Kelseys room, aka Kelsey Manor, and got drunk together. It was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be, eventually people started scattering to go to sleep and eventually it was just me, Drew, and the Kelseys. So it was about 1 AM and we were chillin and flippin through the channels and I pass one that was clearly porn, but I was flipping so fast that I couldn’t stop it in time you know so we got just a flash of someone getting railed. I got to the next channel and paused and was like ….did you guys just see that? Was that porn on basic cable? So we started watching The Matrix in German, but not really cuz we were talking. Then as a joke I switched it back to the porn, but it looked a lot like The Big Lebowski, and I was confused for a little bit til I realized that they weren’t the same actors as that movie. And then I figured it out. They were playing a porno version of The Big Lebowski. Which I can only assume is called The Big Leblowski or possibly The Big Lecockski. And then I realized that the sound was Spanish but the people were talking in English. So. At 1 AM on basic cable in Spain, they were playing a Big Lebowski spin-off porno that someone took the time to dub into Spanish. One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. We screwed around for a while after that, Drew showed us how he can make his hand into a claw, etc. Passed out at 2:30 ish.

9/17

Woke up vurry tired. Manned up and went down for breakfast at 8:30. All I fuckin want here is a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast. Just once. And I am never going to get it. Anyway, this morning we went on the gondola to go up into the mountain right behind the hotel. It looked like it was going to be a crappy day because there was so much fog so we were not really that excited. Then we got on the gondola. It went all the way over the fog and up and up wayyy up this mountain. The view at the top was unbelievable. Completely insane. Check out my pictures on facebook, it was indescribable. We hiked around up there for a while, we found some words someone wrote with rocks on the mountain side and rearranged them to say Go JMU. Good stuff. We chilled there, taking pictures, being in awe, all that stuff for a while, it was so cool. Probably the coolest thing we have done so far. After that we got on the bus and drove til lunch time, stopped in some shitty town that had bad restaurants and it was gloomy out and awful. We went to some other cave next, it was ok it wasn’t as good as the other one. Thennnn we went to the Spanish Inquisition torture museum which was craaaazzzyy. I don’t know if it can really be called a museum, it was a house with a bunch of old torture devices and descriptions of how they were used and it was real gross. One of them, they hung you upside down naked and just started sawing you in half. Like. No. Stop it. Another one was they tied your feet to a tree and got them wet and then got a goat really thirsty and had it lick the bottom of your feet down to the bone. What. Who. How, what, what in the hell who thinks of that. Like, jesus christ. So that was pretty interesting. We proceeded to drive up to Santander, the capital of the region, which is right on the beach. And so was our hotel. Right on the beach. I don’t know why they let us stay in such nice places. We really shouldn’t. Disturbing the patrons and whatnot. Someone actually told us to be quiet this night. Not sure why that took so long. Anyways, dinner this night was ridiculously good, and the table I was at was ridiculously inappropriate. Some people may have been a tad drunk. So basically the whole time everyone was making inappropriate comments to each other the whole time, with the teachers at the table next to us. That night we were actually in a city so we could actually go out which was cool. So we started pregaming, got mahself a 2.99 euro bottle of wine, thew it in a plastic bottle and brought it outside with errbody to get it started. Apparently people aren’t allowed to be loud outside because some dude told us to be quiet at 10 on a Saturday night in Spain. So there’s that. But yeah so a couple of us ended up finding the live night area of Santander, found a bar that gave us lollipops with every drink, don’t know why, but I didn’t hate it. Then we found a pretty sick club, round bar in the middle with floor all around it, the counter would change colors every couple seconds, would only take a shot when the bar light was green. Sup Chels. Was on my damage control shit and bought everyone shots and spent like 30 euro haha GREAT I MAKE GREAT DECISIONS. Pretty standard night, it was fun, we got back to the hotel at like 2 maybe or 3 and hung out for a little while and then passed out.

9/18

We left in the morning, and it was raining so we didn’t get to go see whatever museum that was planned so we just headed home. We stopped in a town called Burgos for lunch and we were there for like 2 hours ish. It was pretty fun, just walking around with everybody being tired and funny. There was a store with sweet watches for 5 euros but I like didn’t realize they were that cheap so I left and when I came back ready to buy some it was closed for siesta. As cool as siesta is, its pretty annoying. Shit closes from like 2 to 5. But yeah I need to get a sick watch. Def on my to-do list. Nothing else really notable happened today, it was fun though it was like the morning after a party where everyone’s still a little drunk slash delirious because no one slept so everything is hilarious. We got home, had some dinner, and slept. Very very solid weekend overall. That mountain we went up was possibly the coolest place I have been besides the Grand Canyon and Zion and all that. Traveling with this group is hysterical too. Oh my god I almost forgot. Me, AJ, and Reid went out to try to find a bar here that would play American Football because the 4:15 games start here at like 10 so it works out like that. And we fuckin found one. It was an awesome bar, you walk down a flight of stairs to get there, its called St Patrick’s Museum and it was super tight. There were two hot ass bartenders working, and we sat next to this one dude Jose who works at a casino and we talked to him about football and a bunch of stuff. It was so cool. Oh and also it was the Pats game so I was basically in heaven. Sitting at a bar with my boys, speaking to people in Spanish and watching the Patriots win, can’t get much better than that. We watched the whole second half and then stayed there until closing time, when the bartenders gave everyone still there free shots. Such a sick night. Arite lets finish this post. Night kids

Peace, Love, and I have almost spent $1000 already

Tim

9/19

Actual classes started today. It was a little bit overwhelming. Actually it was a lot overwhelming. These teachers, unlike the last one, talk pretty fast, don’t say anything in English, and have an actual curriculum that we have to understand and all this, but I cant really because I don’t speak Spanish very well yet. Kinda freaked me out today. I am in Spanish Civ, theres a bunch of us in that class, Medical Spanish, theres only 6 of us, Intro to Spanish Lit, with a bunch of us and a really cool teacher she is hilarious, and Span 320 with Tkac, which will be helpful. I switched out of the Cinema y Literatura class because honestly it scared me. And I figured I would rather take a class with Tkac who I already know, and reinforce my grammar and whatnot, then have a class with some lady I cant understand, watching movies I don’t understand. And I get that it would have been more of a challenge and I kind of gave up, but like I don’t know I just feel better about being in class with Tkac, because this first day freaked me out so much. Oh, right, Tkac is the teacher I had for 300 at JMU, he is a professor there, who I really liked, and he is the JMU faculty member in residence here. He is the man and one of the reasons I decided to come here this semester. It is weird having a real schedule of classes here. When it comes time for tests and papers I am not going to be a happy camper. I can’t even write papers in English. Anyway yeah so some people went out this night but I decided not to because me and AJ stayed out late and got real drunk the night before.

9/20

More classes, cannot really recall anything special that happened this day. Oh right, Jen, Megan, Tanner, and I decided to go out because we were bored. For some reason no one else wanted to, so we just did the damn thing and went out in a small group. It was very fun though. There were not a ton of people out, but whatever that means no line at the bar. We ended up at Medievo and fuckin Turbulence with Lil John, Steve Aoki, and Laidback Luke came on and I fuckin lost my mind I threw my shoulder out fist pumping. Solid night overall.

9/21

Didn’t have class until 12 so I was all set sleep wise, wasn’t hungover, had some classes, went to the JMU office for some internet. Everyone decided to go out this night too, it got pretty rowdy. Kelsey W and I met up with the group kinda late because we, along with AJ who stayed there, went to a bar with Pepe and Jitam to play this like trivia thing they do there, they give out prizes. It was pretty cool, American trivia so I was dece at it, but me and Kels got bored so we left and went to find the group. Went to Chupiteria and zero people were inside, so we took some shots and went to find them. Went to Medievo, again, we need to stop going there, but it was pretty fun. Everyone was pretty drunk by the time we got there. We missed the BP sign up, didn’t get a shot at the 100 euro, but oh well another time. We met some British chaps, holy shit one looks exxxaaccttllyy like Chris Diachok, the picture will be up soon, it was fuckin uncanny. We all decided to leave and go somewhere we hadn’t been before and wound up at Gatsby. I can’t really figure out a way to set this up, so here it is, there was a pool inside this bar. A pool. Not like a kiddie pool or blow up pool, it was a permanent fuckin pool. Like, the walls of it were hard. And fixed. I was veerrrryyyyyy close to getting in, until someone threw out the idea that there was definitely Hepatitis swimming around in there. Hilarious. Me and Kelsey A got in trouble there because we started splashing people with the water. And Amanda got in trouble for being in the pool. Bro, if you have a pool in a fuckin bar in a fuckin college town, what the hell do you think is going to happen? People are just going to look at it? Absolutely not, I am getting in that shit and splashing everyone else. It’s basically a law that someone is getting soaked. So yeah after that we went home, got to bed at like 3:30.

9/22

Had class at 10 today, still a little tired for that guy. Our madre Carmen thinks its hilarious when we get home late and have class early. She was like soooo, muchas fiestas anoche? With a huge smile on her face. I like her she’s funny. Today in class was like a Friday at JMU. Several people in the class are clearly hungover as fuck and everyone is a little loud because we are talking about last night and the dumb shit that happened. Good times. Took a very solid 3 and a half hour siesta then went to the JMU office to do some HW. Oh also, got some new shoes today. Had to do it. The nice shoes I bought are from KUA and are old and have started to slice up my feet so I got some new boat shoes to replace them. They’re pretty sick I am pretty stoked on them. Lookin all fancy and European and shit. Thinking about getting some green jeans too. I have been contemplating green jeans for a while, and like here any kind of clothing style is accepted pretty much. Green jeans would not phase anyone at all, wouldn’t even get any second looks with them shits. It is a serious possibility at this point. We shall see. Tonight I did not go out because I need a night off, and the weekend is tomorrow sooooooooo it’s a def poss that I will be saliring the next couple of noches. Did I already write about how Spanglish is huge for me right now? Because it is, I think it is god damn hilarious. Alright time for sleep. Night kids

Peace, Love, and I’m going to ride horses on Saturday? Uh-oh

Tim

Update

Update #2: Joder. So I have edited it now. I wrote a bunch of that when I was angry, not feeling well, etc. A lot of that was extremely uncalled for and I definitely should not have used names with some of that stuff. I feel like Harriet the Spy right now. I thought it would be better if I wrote it down instead of venting at the people, but obviously I was wrong. I would like to apologize to everyone. I was using this journal/blog as a way to vent for the first few days because I was kind of having a hard time coping and I did not go back and take the very personal stuff out. I didn't really tell anyone, I keep a lot of things to myself but like yeah it was a little tough for me, not being in the States, away from my friends/family etc. Obviously not an excuse but I thought I'd put it out there. I really am sorry. If people hate me its understandable. Come talk to me if you're upset, I will listen and not give excuses. I feel like a dick. Again, I'm sorry. Night kids, I hope we can get along soon.
Tim

Portugal Weekend. Yikes.

9/8

My dick. Anyways, um today was cool. Woke up at 1, notttt feeling great. Popped some Advil, sacked up, and moved 10 inches up to my chair to type up that last entry. Huge effort. A little before 2 Carmen comes into my room and asks me if I want pan con mis hamburguesas, and I went What. Hambuguesas. Yes please. Literally couldn’t think of anything better for being hungover than homemade cheeseburgers. I was so happy. Later on me and Tanner went to a café to get our internet on, met Haley, Megan, and Sarah there. We were there for like 2 hours and the staff there looked like they were getting pissed at us so we left after that, went over to the Plaza de Anaya, where there was like a gypsy-run puppet show and there were mad little kids and their parents there. Little kids speaking Spanish is the cutest thing ever. We all chilled on a little mini quad there, it was perfect out, jchillin on the grass it was so great. Anyways, after that we headed back to the casa for dinner, dinner was god damn hilarious. Carmen fuckin went OFF on Chinese people, she fuckin HATES them. Oh my god it was so funny. We were talking about mystery meat at Chinese restaurants and she goes (translated of course), “yeah, and when Chinese people die, where do they go? When normal people die I know where they go, theres a funeral and they get cremated, where do Chinese people know? I’ve never seen it”. We were geeeeeeekin out oh my god. And then she was giving AJ shit because he always slams doors, especially when he’s drunk. She was like “what do you do at your house? Do you not have doors at your house?” Then he goes to demonstrate that he can close a quietly, he closes the door, and then like sorta under her breath but loud enough for Tanner and I to hear she goes “what was that earthquake?” She is hilarious I am really glad she is our madre. After dinner AJ, Kelsey, Megan, and I went to meet some kids at the Plaza Mayor, there was a big ol concert goin on so we went to the Plaza de Anaya and met a bunch of other kids and we just kinda chilled. We talked about Portugal, it is going to be absurd. Arite kids I gotta pack for this trip. Buenas Noches

Peace, Love, and Heads Up Portugal

Tim

9/9

“On a scale of 1 to 4^th of July, how American do we look right now?”- AJ. Quote of the week. So we had class, learned about bars and restaurants etc etc who cares. We had lunch then rolled out to the bus stop for the Portugal trip. Drive was 6 hours, real long, because we were going to Lisbon which all the way on the east coast of Portugal. On the way there we pre-gamed the pre-game, aka we got drunk on a bus. We got to the hotel, walked in to the lobby to check in, Drew grabbed a Portuguese newspaper and sat there smiling and reading, hilarious. We got to our rooms, changed, and started to pregame again in a room. That got a little rowdy, we played Never Have I Ever, found out some goooodd stuff.  Went to the metro, some dude in the train had a purple marker and was just tagging shit all over the car, fuckin weird. The bar area was coolish I guess, I don’t remember a whole lot, we met some Portugese kids they were cool. Everyone there speaks English but not Spanish it was pretty weird but cool I guess. I got really mad at someone, I get way to riled up when I'm drunk I need to chill out. Like, hindsight, I really need to chill. Fuck. Ummmm I don’t really know what else happened that night, we kinda just chilled there maybe. I should drink less. When we got back to the hotel we kept drinking, went to Glenn and Carl’s room and Glenn was already passed out on his bed, he started saying random Spanish words at us in his sleep. Umm so then people started going to bed. I should drink less.

9/10

Woke up at like 9:30 because we were leaving at 10 to go to Sintra, a place with palaces and stuff. My left eyebrow area hurt when I woke up so I went to look in the mirror and it was fuckin swollen and huge, I had like a black eye above my eye. I have NO idea how that happened. Like pretty sure I’d remember getting in a fight, so like either Glenn kicked me in the head, or I got beat up in my sleep, I do not know but it fuckin hurt. I should drink less. Go downstairs for breakfast definitely still drunk with a huge eye, no one else knows how it happened either. We all thought we were gonna go to the beach so we were all wearing super American bathing suits and stuff, didn’t quite work out. After a fuckin way too long bus ride where I passed out even though the bus is super uncomfortable, we get to the beach and it is raining a little and cloudy and shit. Only Carl and Amy went and the rest of us went to Sintra to see palaces, best decision ever. When we got there Sebastian our “tour guide” basically said “Alright here we are, be back here at 6:30, kbye.” So we didn’t really know where we were going at all, wandered around til we found a map and then people started to scatter. I decided to stay with Kelsey W, Claire, Olivia, and Sarah because I kinda just needed a break from some people on the trip. Another great decision. I hadn’t really hung out with those girls other than Kelso and they are super funny. We found this big mansion with like a bunch of area behind it with fuckin awesome stuff to see and do. There were these caverns that were like pitch black and we had to flash our cameras to see where we were going, felt like we were in Saw. But it was so cool, I will put the pictures up on Facebook. Everything there was so cool I am so glad I went with those girls and went to that place it was soooo cooooool. After a couple hours there we went back to the lil shops and I found the cooooooolest hat I had to get it. Pics are on facebook. Check it out. #getatme. We went back to the hotel and I napped pretty hard. A couple of us went out to dinner, we found a little place but me, Tanner, Megan, and Sam were not stoked on it so we went somewhere else. It was in a hotel I think, the restaurant was called amo.te. It was pretty awesome, Tanner and Sam got sick sliders, and I had a salad with crab and shrimp and stuff in it it was mad good. All the food here is so good it’s insane. Ima be fat as shit. So afterwards we went back to the hotel to pregame. Once again I was just swigging out of my shitty vodka. I had a liter of vodka this weekend. I should drink less. Anyway the pregame was funny as shit again. Then we played Hot Seat which was fucking terrifying. It is everyone grilling you for like a minute and you drink every time you have done whatever weird thing they say. Tanner was hilarious he was like “have you ever stuck a finger in your butt when you were feeling squirrelly”. Good stuff. Eventually we went out to try to find a club, we heard about a place called Lux that was supposed to be sick, but when we got there the bouncers were like “its 240 euros to get in.” Bro, just tell us we can’t come in, don’t fuckin gimme that bullshit. That was fucking annoying. We met some girls from Israel who were pretty cool, and we saw them again the next day. I should drink less. Um then like a bunch of drunk stuff happened, we tried to find another club, went to the docks, they were filled with old people, Glenn got almost stabbed, Drew spent 10 euro on 2 beers, we got back to the hotel and hung out and did drunk things, someone fell asleep in the hallway, I owe Alexa money because I didn’t hook up with anyone, etc etc. Damn that was long, my bad.

Peace, Love, and I should drink less

Tim

9/11

Ok so I forgot to mention in the last two entries that in Portugal, all drugs are decriminalized, so if you got busted with any it is just a fine. So walking on the streets, literally every 7 minutes some dude walking towards us would go “Cocaine, hashish, marijuana?” and would hold it out for us to see. The first time it happened I legitimately laughed at him. Nah dude, I’m good, its 1:30 in the afternoon. Sunday we checked out of the hotel and went to see some more statues and a like church thing. They were cool, all the statues in Lisbon are fucking enormous. There are pics on fbook. We wandered around the church/museum for a while, there was a whole like wing of this place that had a ton of Egyptian artifacts, mummies and art and jewelry and stuff. Egypt must be pissed at everyone for taking all of their artifacts and history, they’re everywhere but Egypt. After that we grabbed some lunch and then started the 7 hour bus trip home. Not very comfortable. Everyone was so tired and delirious that it was actually pretty funny. It was me, both Kelseys, Amanda, Drew, AJ, and Carl in the back just being retarded and delirious, it was pretty funny. We came up for a nickname for someone. Its Peter. Hahahahaha. We would call it out on the bus and he wouldn’t respond. Nothing else really happened, we stopped in some town because the bus driver needed a break or some shit, there was no one there. We got home at like 10 and had dinner and just fell asleep.

Peace, Love, and Peter. Hey, Peter. Hey! PETER. Peter never answers me dude

Tim

9/12

Today was pretty standard. I think I am getting sick though. That would suck. I should drink less. Anyway, yeah we just had class, the other class got more homework, we don’t really have any. After class was lunch and siesta. Siesta is so clutch I can’t even stand it. America needs to sack up and allow that. After siesta we worked on our presentation for Thursday, should be pretty facil. We are trying to go out, sort of, tonight because it is AJ’s birthday. He is turning 21, but in Europe where it doesn’t matter, but it is still pretty cool. I’m not trying to drink too much because I don’t want to get more sick, which always friggin happens to me. We are trying to watch Monday Night Football here, it’s the Pats, but it starts here at 1 AM and it probably won’t be on anywhere. Whatever. Uhhh yeah that is about all. Needed a pretty chill day after this weekend. Oh, apparently Tanner met some hot Spanish chick in the elevator of our apartment and she said we should all hang out with her and her roommates, so that is pretty sick. If I hook up with a Spanish girl I will fucking cry. I’d be so happy. There are a tonnnn of hot girls here. I guess it’s ok here. Update- Ajs 21^st bday was kind of a bust. No one really came out, I’m the only one that stayed with him the whole time, and I’m getting sick. We drank and watched tennis at a bar with some people, they left slowly. Then we went to McDonalds in Spain. Guess what they call a McChicken in Spanish. It rhymes with McPollo. Its McPollo.
Peace, Love, and McPollo

First Week

Hey guys, I'm keeping a journal on my computer of what we are doing every day here and I thought I might as well put it up so yall can see what is going on. Don't show your parents, its not quite all appropriate. I don't have internet in my house so I only get it in cafes and stuff, so I think I'm gonna like mass post several days worth. I'll tidy it up if it looks too annoying. Awwww here it goes (anyone...anyone...Kenan and Kel...arite whatever)

Spain Journal

9/1

I’m in Spain. This is absolutely insane. When I got to Philly where a bunch of us were I was freaking out. Apparently my hand was shaking when I sat down and took a sip of water, that’s what Tanner said. It might also be that I have the shakiest hands ever of all time. Anyway, the flight over was pretty fun, I was next to Katherine with AJ next to her, and Kelsey and a hot chick in front of us. She’s studying in Sevilla. I watched the Dragonball live action movie, totally worth it. And obviously I couldn’t sleep at all because I never can. I took 2 Benadryl at 4 am EST and the plane landed at like 7:30, so I was groggy as shit. The airport in Madrid was missserraabbbleeeee, we were all in this room in the food court just passed out everywhere, kind of funny now that I think about it. We were there for 5 hours. THEN we got to wait 2 more hours because Alexa and Lauren had like the worst day of travel I’ve ever heard of. Their flight got delayed, then redirected I think, they got here 2 hours late, and then their bags didn’t show up. They were all smiles when they got to the bus though, I would’ve been ripshit. On the bus ride to Salamanca everyone passed the eff out for 2 hours, very very good stuff I was incredibly tired. When we got there we met our host families, AJ Tanner and I’s madre se llama Carmen and she is very nice. We each have our own room in here, and Kelsey W and Megan are downstairs. Us 5 went walking around for a little bit and got some beers at a bar on our calle. 1 euro y 10 centavos for a beer. Yes please. Now I am lying in my bed trying to fall asleep while my internal clock is wayyyyy off. We are going to walk around Salamanca tomorrow and get to know it, which is awesome I am so excited. I cant wait to get to know these kids better, I really want us all to be tight, that would make this experience so fun. I am also excited to see all the students at the Universidad and see where all the clubs are. OH also I need to ask Jesus where the liquor stores at. Haha. OH OH also there are ham flavored chips here. It’s hilarious. AND I actually understand like 80% of what people are saying to me, and I can respond in crappy choppy childish sentences, so, awesome. LONG first day, but I am so excited for this semester.

Peace, Love, and Shout out ski team,

Tim

9/2

We had orientation this morning at 9. It was a little overwhelming because we had to listen to a lot of important information that Jesus had to tell us, and it was in Spanish obviously so I had to focus pretty hard to get all of it. After this we all kind of wandered around, we went to get internet at one of the buildings on campus because we don’t have any. At 6:30 we all met up at a bar to hang out and drink a little before group dinner. It was really fun, and it was here that I started to realize that I am super down with this group, everyone seems really cool. I was chatting with Reid and Tanner on the end of the table, and yelling stuff to people on the other side, it was great. Then we met up with Jesus and went to the JMU office here in Salamanca where we got our shitty little cell phones, mines the coolest obviously. I’m scared to call/text anyone because it costs money and I have to keep putting money on it. After that we went to dinner, had a great dinner, watched the Spanish national team beat Chile 3-2, and then the party started. We rolled 27 deep to la Plaza Mayor, and some girl came up to us and was like hiii do ju guys want to come to a barrr? And we were like hell yeah, went to a bar with 4 Euros, all the beers you want and got drunk. It was fun as fuck. Everyone was talking, joking, dancing, buying me shots, it was tight. We went to another club after this and everyone at it legit looked 15 years old, but they were selling alcohol there, I don’t get it. It was fun though; I was super drunk by then. Danced with blonde Kelsey, got fucking blue from her jeans all over my shorts that shit better come out. Anyway it was so fun. Its funny how open and relaxed people get with a little (a lot) alcohol in their system. Like after this night we are all really good friends now, like we all know each other and can joke around and stuff. I can honestly hang out with any of these people and I would enjoy it a lot they’re all really cool. Anddd this is what I wrote when we got home at like 3:15 after walking Olivia home. “Me encantan todos en este grupo. Todos. Este noche fue el mejor. Tengo que dormir.” Like I didn’t even think in English. Could be a good sign I guess?

Peace, Love, and No more vodka red bulls,

Tim

9/3

“omg Patrick im in love. HOT Australian chick, she goes to Georgetown. Joder. Literally in love.” And that was my entry from last night. So Saturday we met up with Jesús and Tkac and they made us walk to places using our maps and they didn’t help. It was alright because Reid used to live here so he knows where everything is haha. Afterwards we didn’t really do much, we went to a café and got some internet, walked around.  Lunch was good again obviously, siesta was baller, slept from 2:30 to 6:00. AJ and I tried to find somewhere that we could watch college football but no dice, so we just chilled and had a beer. At like 10 we went downstairs to chill with Kelsey and her host brother and his wife, they are real cool. We smoked hookah for a little bit, I blew my first smoke ring. Baller. Then we went to meet people at O’Hara, I fell in love, etc. No for real though this girl was so cute AND she had an Australian accent. That shouldn’t be allowed. She lost her friends so she was chillin with us for a little bit, then she found her friends and left. Sad face. Oh and we met some kids from Colby, they know AFab and Julia and Gian. Pretty crazy stuff, it’s a small world. The night was pretty interesting after that. A bunch of people were pretty drunk and all I wanted to do was drink but I didn’t have anything to drink really until like 2 or 3. Fuck. We all started going to La Chupiteria, a shot bar, then we got split up and I didn’t want to wait with all the people who were drunker than me because I was getting mad again, so me and Haley dipped. We got pretty lost, which was annoying too but I was calming down. We did finally get there and I had like 3 shots of tequila I think. We went to Camelot after that, that was pretty fun. Ton of people there dancing, a bunch of us got up on stage hahahaha ok me and Kelsey tried to get up on the huge speaker and dance and when I tried to pull her up I fell off, I was pretty drunk at this point. But we managed it and we danced up there a little but it was super sketchy and wobbly so we got down pretty quick. Good times. Oh and then I almost got kicked out because I kept climbing up the fence upstairs. The bartender was throwing ice cubes at me to get me down. Sorry bout it bro. We left at like 5. Jesus. I am not used to that yet, like I didn’t feel that tired and I know that people stay out that late and even later here, but god damn. I slept until 1, and I felt kind of bad because Carmen’s just chillin like waiting for us to get up. Arite time for almuerzo.

Peace, Love, and I better see Australian Kelsey again,

Tim

9/4

Today was very chill. We woke up at like 2pm because we got home at 5 am. Lunch was great, obviously, then me and AJ just kinda hung out and talked about last night, then I took a nap haha. We went to a café at like 5 to get internet, we met up with a couple people. Alexa got fuckin robbed last night right next to her door, shit is fucked up, people here are so god damn aggressive towards girls it sucks. She seemed ok today though, he took Laurens phone from her pocket though. AJ, Kelsey W, Megan, Alexa, Lauren, and I went down to the river with Kelsey and Megan’s host cousin Luna. It was awesome, it was very peaceful down there. Luna was really really cool, she’s 17and knows English so we were asking her how to say certain things in Spanish like how to swear and shit. We came back for dinner at 9 and Tanner was here finally. I feel so bad he has anxiety issues and was with Tkac all day and had to get Xanax and stuff, such a bummer. He seemed better at dinner tonight though, he was laughing and talking and he actually ate. Dinner was awesome, she had some parmesan-ish cheese and fresh tomatoes in olive oil, I made lil sandwiches with the fresh bread, joder it was good. Then a couple of us went to the plaza mayor to hang out for a little bit, met up with some kids and chilled it was fun. Aight it’s bed time, we actually have class tomorrow. Seems weird, even though I know I’m here for classes.

Peace, Love, and Donuts ice cream

Tim

9/5

Jo. Der. Arite so we had class this morning at 9, we took a lil placement test to see what level everyone was at, because they had to separate the group into two classes because our group is so big. So that was alright, the last like 20 questions were hard as phuck, like I had no idea what was going on. The groups got split up and we had class, I am in the class with Javier as the professor, he is really cool and funny we all like him. He taught us that joder isn’t a bad word here. Joder. Class was fine, AJ and I went to get some internets afterwards and then we went to eat lunch. The lunch had like mad legumes and shit in it and it fucked my stomach up real bad so I took some Benadryl and slept for a while. When I woke up I felt way better and we went to walk around down by the river and found the like USal sports area, its pretty sweet, AJ played some bball with some Spanish ballers, one dude has a Kobe jersey on and one had Derrick Rose, that was legit. We went back and had dinner, and then we went out. Joder. AJ and I went out at 10 saying, let’s not get too drunk we have class tomorrow, lets just go to work at BP, collect our money, and go home. Yeah. That didn’t happen. SO this club/bar called the Irish Rover was having a beer pong tournament with a 50 euro prize. Obviously we went, got there at 10 there was no one there, and at 10:30 there were fuckin like 500 people. Clearly me and AJ were the favorites to win, like who in Spain is going to beat us? Serious question, we go to JMU, Spain found out about beer pong like 4 days ago. Come on now. So it started at 11 ish, there were 18 ish teams signed up, and we won our first game in approx 4 minutes. Wasn’t even fair. Then we began to wait. And wait. And wait. In like an hour and a half time 10 more games had happened, and fuckin like 50 more teams signed up. They let 100 TEAMS SIGN UP. Fuckin horseshit. So by this time everyone from the group was there and we all figured that this was going to be going on until like 8 in the morning because no one can play so we peaced out to another club we heard off. Keep in mind I had drank the cups from beerpong, after we won of course, like 3 shots and 2 beers. So, off to Medievo, and there was no one there. Which is surprising to me, because it was pretty cool inside, and one of the bartenders was legit the hottest girl I’ve seen here. And she had a glow in the dark tongue ring….so she’s down. Ella se llama Esmerelda. Ongh. The owner, I think he was the owner, was pretty young, knows English really well, and knows the other JMU kids that have been to Salamanca, so he hooked us up. Like. 20 free shots and a free giant ass cup of beer, which I got refilled. So it was like 1 ish by the time I think, more people showed up to the club, and they left some of us work behind the bar. Like they just let her work at the beer, she was taking orders and money from people, hilarious. Um, I don’t really remember a whole lot after that. We chilled there getting free drinks from our bartender til like 2 I want to say, and then we went back to the Rover to see if it was our second game yet. They had skipped us by the time we got there, I talked to some Spanish girl for a while there, no idea what she looks like or what her name is or what we talked about, but I think I remember that she said my accent was pretty good for only being there for 5 days. Maybe. And thennnn eventually me and AJ walked Alexa and Lauren home so they wouldn’t get robbed again. Then we got home somehow, at 4 oclock. Shit. Passed out.

9/6

Woke up at 8:15 I think, deffffffffinitely still drunk. That’s my favorite. Our madre thought it was pretty funny that we got back at 4 on a Monday, but she didn’t really care she was like yeah its normal, people go out here. Walked to class and was drunk for the majority of it, but I wasn’t tired so that was pretty legit. Probably shouldn’t do that very much though. Because when we got home for lunch I ate and then paasssedd out until like 6. Needless to say we didn’t do much after that, went to the JMU office to do some hw, chilled with people, went back for dinner. AJ basically just passed out after that, Tanner too because he cant really nap during the day. I went to chill with people on la Plaza Mayor. I love how we can just walk like 10 minutes to a place and be around so many people. So much different than NH, its so great. Then it was bed time f’sho. Adios

Peace, Love, and Joder

Tim

9/7

Wasn’t drunk in class today. Congratulations are in order. Class was fine today, nothing special. We are planning on going to the casetas today. Starting tonight is the Feria de Salamanca, which is a 2 week long festival here. There are these things I just mentioned, casetas, everywhere, they’re like mobile bars. You go up to one and order and beer and tapas, chill there for a while then go to another one. And apparently today and tomorrow people are going to be errrrrywhere. Its sounding like its going to be like Springfest, with more Spanish people, and less riot police. Sounds good to me. And there’s more beer pong, at Medievo, prize is 100 euro, and there is hopefully going to be fewer teams. We shall see. Wish me luck…..Yikes. That was interesting. So we went to the casetas to eat and drink at, it was really cool. They were playing music and everyone was outside. We went to go see the parade they had, with everyone in homemade traditional clothing, it was the celebration of the Virgen de la Vega. It was pretty cute, them all dancing and playing instruments, cool thing to see. There were also fireworks at 10, they went on forever it was legit. Then we started drinking. Went to the shot bar, no one was there, so we decided to do a shot of absinthe. Don’t do that. I felt that shit for like an hour. Um and like people kept making me take shots, we hung out there for a little bit until everyone got there, then went to Medievo because we told him we would. And the bartender kept giving the girls giant cups filled with like whatever and however much alcohol they wanted in it for 5 euros. People were putting like absinthe, vodka, rum, whisky, and Fanta together and shit, retarded. But it was cool because I didn’t have to buy any drinks because I would just drink theirs. I am just looking forward to Portugal; we are all going for the weekend, without supervision. So. Hmm. Giddy up.

Peace, Love, and Chill on the absinthe,

Tim