Winner- Best Costumes 

Our priest serving shots 

Breda the bird 

Louis the Slime 

Louis the Ghost Slime, Breda and I 

Bartender 

Ghost Buster box 

Kermit the Frogs 

Javier the Ghost Buster 

Cigarette boxes 

Tetris pieces 

The bar 

The Three Musketeers 

Charlie's Angels 

Drew and Lucy 

Me as Lucy Liu from Charlie's Angels and Louis 

Fiestas and Carnaval

Emily, Louis and Breda had a party at their place on Friday night. Mel and I were pretty tired so we decided to go early and leave early. Ha! We ended up being the last ones to leave with Javier. The party ended at around 1:30 because the neighbours complained and the police came and told us to shut up. I'm not surprised- if I were a neighbour I'd be really pissed off too, especially if I were an old and cranky person. Javier told us the police usually come with a sound measuring device and if you're making over a certain decibel of sound you get fined around 150 or 200 Euros. But the police that came weren't fining police. I'm not a very social person, and I find chitchat very inane and pointless but I like talking to people I already know, so I spent most of the night talking to Javier, which I enjoyed. The top photo is a photo of the party. The smoky look is probably from all the pot smoke that was floating around. I was sitting next to the window, taking a breath of air every now and then. I think that's Melissa taking down some people's details for pisos. Poor girl. She got accosted by some freaky guy who kept calling me to ask if she'd found a place yet. Don't know how he got my number.

On Saturday night, Mel, Emily and I decided to dress up as Charlie's Angels. Guess which one I was supposed to be. We got these really cool guns from a variety store that shout 'FIRE!' and then make machine gun noises and flash lights, except Emily dropped hers before we went out and broke it. Some costumes were absolutely fantastic. My favourite were these guys that dressed up like desert islands with a palm tree over their heads and skinny little legs on their desert. People really put an effort into looking good. We weren't going to get dressed up but Javier said everyone does. He and his friends dressed up as Ghost Busters and some slime ghosts from the movie.

We went to a party first but left after around 20 minutes because it seemed more fun to be in the city with the other people. Shame it was raining and freezing. The Ghost Busters were playing drinking games so we went there to meet them, then to some bar/club/dancing place where they played old pop hits and Spanish songs. It's great- you can't get that kind of music in clubs anywhere in Sydney because it's just not supposed to be cool, but here everyone was dancing away and laughing their heads off. After this place, we went to another bar/club/dancing place, but left soon because there were some idiots who kept shoving us and when we left they followed us out and punched Javier's friend Boby in the face.

It was kind of freaky but funny at the same time because the guy was dressed as a cardinal or priest with a sparkly pink wig. I was so tempted to take a photo of him shouting at Javier's friends but I was afraid he might see me and punch me in the face too. I don't chivalry is very alive in Spain. In Sydney, very few guys would hit a girl in the face but here they didn't seem to care who was around or who got involved. Breda was very angry because Boby is a very harmless and sweet looking guy who hadn't even been near the cardinals in the bar, and she looked like she was about to start her own brawl with the guys.

We ended up leaving because it looked like our night was over. Not a bad effort- got home at around 6:30 in the morning.

Drano is the smartest invention on Earth

The three of us from Australia

Melissa arrived today. She's sleeping in my spare bed at the moment and she can stay as long as she wants- she's a STAR. She brought a whole brand new container of Drano, and IT WORKED!!! I thought our bathtub was in too sorry a state to be done with just two tablespoons of Drano, which is what the bottle recommended, but it worked. I was so excited I nearly kissed the bottle, but it has a very big 'POISON' label on it and says things like if it makes contact with your skin or eyes it may burn through to the next five layers. Also, when I first put it in the plughole, it hissed at me, and steamed a little. Melissa said she was only going to bring a little bit, but had visions of it getting wet and burning a hole through her luggage. So the next place I live in, I won't need to worry about crappy hair clogging up the bathtub. I'll also make sure my flatmates are cleanly people.

She also brought me a Milo bar because she couldn't bring a whole tub, and two full packs of Tim Tams. Breda keeps calling them Tam Tams. Apparently Canadians don't have Milo. I was trying to explain to Kaley, Breda and Louis what Milo is. No Tim Tams, no Milo... the deprivation would be unbearable. Tomorrow we're going to eat Tim Tams with hot chocolate. Perhaps we should wait till my 3 kg of Milo arrives from Taiwan.

I found a packet of exotic dried fruit mix at a different supermarket to the one I usually shop at. However, it has dried coconut slivers and lots of raisins which I'm not too keen on. They are cheaper than the fruit and nut mix I normally buy though, for twice the amount, so maybe I could go through and pick out all the dried coconut and most of the raisins. Fruta Deshidratada. Interesting.

I went to my first class today. It's called Cine Anglonortamericano, and sounds very similar to a subject I did last year, Cinematic Cultures. It's also completely in English and I can write the assessments in English too. Ha! The only downside is of course that I've done a class almost exactly the same in Sydney and I wouldn't be learning any Spanish because it's all in English, and the teacher talks in English except when he's clarifying things in Spanish, and I don't get marked on it. So I'd be doing the subject for fun. I do get to watch a free film every week though. I asked Allen to send over the essay I wrote last year for Cinematic Cultures to see if I can modify it and use it for the 75% assessment task for this subject. Surely it's not plagiarism if you copy from yourself. The essay question is almost exactly the same too- I can even write it on the same film I analysed last year.

More strange sightings

Here is another list of strange things I've noticed in Spain:
* A lot of the men go jogging in shiny lycra and flourescent sneakers
* Mullets are in vogue here- the fuglier the better. Yesterday I spotted a guy with a mullet who had made the back bits into dreadlocks
* Double parking is cool. It's even cooler if you're the parked-in car to honk your horn for half an hour until the other driver comes along
* The CSIRO in Australia is pronounced 'Seziro' here

This is a photo of me in my 2,90 Euro sunnies I bought from Bershka because I lost my expensive Christian Dior ones the day before leaving Australia. The couch has an ugly cover because underneath it's even uglier. And the wallpaper completely complements the decor. We have a vinyl tablecloth that has green frogs with flyswats on it.

My sister gave me this fantabulous idea because I couldn't find a hot water bottle anywhere and I didn't know what it was called in Spanish. I bought a pair of stockings, filled them with rice, then got a long sock and used that as a cover. So now I have a heat pack. Except it steams and smells like cooked rice every time I microwave it. This is a photo of it. I've decided to call it Fat Panda.

Statue of some obscure general

Avenida 

Breda and Emily 

Nice motorbike 

My gym 

Strange things

Ha! It's raining today and it's a Sunday so I have no reason to go outside. Nothing is open. At least I think it's raining; it might just be the upstairs neighbours doing their laundry. But it definitely looks grey and foggy. Kaley, my other flatmate got back yesterday morning at 2am. She's very nice and clean. She told me the fan above the stove doesn't work because a few months ago, a bird flew into it. It's apparently not stuck there any more because it doesn't smell, but it must have done something to the fan and destroyed it.
Photo of me and Emily

I didn't go out last night, and so glad I didn't. Spent two hours talking to Allen on skype instead. I've been out the last three nights, and they sort of become very similar and monotonous. The other night we went out with Breda's friend Ion who took us to the same tapas bars that Javier took us to, and then he and his friends went to another drinking game place and played a different drinking game, but the concept was very similar. And they drank kalimocho too (a mix of wine and coke). Bah. I'm so antisocial.

Here's a list of things about Spain that I have yet to get used to:
* Almost everyone has a dog and no one picks up after them.
* They don't check your credit card signature, they check your name against a photo ID
* It's very difficult to find lined notebooks- everything's grid paper
* People don't tend to jaywalk (except for this one old man with a cane and a hobble who took three minutes to get across the street and the cars had to wait for him)
* People stare
* There are naked photos on the front of magazines that are equivalent to Women's Weekly that just sit on top of the counter at magazine stores
* No soy milk at the cafes and you can't get hot chocolates at regular cafes, only at ones called chocolaterias.
* No MILO

I'm sure there are more but I can't remember them. I'll be sure to update my list.

Washing clothes

I was so excited yesterday because my towel was finally dry and I could dry myself with the large towel, and not the hand towel I'd been using for the last few days. Because most people here live in flats they don't have a clothes line like in Australia, or if they do it hangs out of the window. But in my piso, we have a rack in the living room and it took my socks three days to dry. Cannot wait till Summer when my clothes are thin and I can wear thongs all the time.

My flatmate's cleaning habits haven't seemed to changed much after her last exam which she didn't actually sit. There's a quarter of a loaf of bread that's been sitting on the chopping board since Tuesday. I don't know whether to throw it out for her or leave it there for decoration and see how long it takes to go mouldy. At least she eats instant meals most of the time so there's not much washing up to do.

I went to the bank today, to get my card activated and the man there said it would take another week before I could get my PIN. I also told him my last name was spelt wrong, and they'd put my last name as my middle name and my middle name last, but he looked at the card and said 'It doesn't matter.' How can it not matter???

We've had a lot of meetings with the other international students, parties for the last two nights, and one tonight that I really don't want to go to. They plan so much for us but really I'd rather just sit at home and sleep. I ate chips and two very very delicious biscuits that were full of fat and sugar for lunch because I couldn't be bothered cooking.

Happy Venom-times Day

I've decided that February 13th is going to be Venom-times Day, as an antidote to the consumerism and fake love of February 14th. On this day, you tell the people you know what you really think of them. And then possibly make it up to them the next day by buying them a box of chocolates or a Hallmark card and ask for forgiveness.

I have to admit it's hard not to get sucked into all this when everyone around you is doing it, and when all the windows have huge red love hearts displayed, and when the world thinks being single is a crime, or that you're defective if you don't have a partner.

Speaking of which, the funniest thing happened... Actually, it's not funny at all, I'm slightly unnerved and irritated. Gym Guy called me yesterday after my big night out, when I'd just woken up at 5 pm, to ask if I wanted to go for a coffee with him. I didn't understand a word he said so handed the phone over to Louis my French-Canadian friend who speaks pretty good Spanish. I said yes to coffee because I didn't know how to say no politely and also because I didn't want everyone to hear me say no, but about half an hour before I went I asked if it would be a problem if Emily came as well. (It's not like you can say no to that). He said he was going by himself but Emily could come if she wanted (more like I wanted). When we met up we were all talking and he asked me what I liked doing. I said 'WELL, my BOYFRIEND likes swimming so I've been swimming a lot lately with him, and it's a lot of fun.' I thought he'd get the picture after that, and he seemed to. But today Emily and I and her new flatmate whose name I can't spell but it sounds like 'Breeder' (like people who mate dogs and sell the puppies) went to a Latin dance class and Gym Guy was there. He offered to walk us home, and I was going to go home but I didn't want to get walked home with him by myself so when Emily and Breeda asked me to their flat for dinner I jumped at the offer. Emily accidentally asked him over as well- bad Spanish wording- but managed to amend that by saying 'Thank you for walking us home' and 'Goodbye'. On the way home though, he was telling me how he can speak some Japanese and he likes manga and other Japanese things, and how he's single because all his female friends are in different cities and how his friends have girlfriends... I'M NOT JAPANESE. And I don't want to go out with him. And BLERGH!!! SO ANNOYED!!! He asked me if I was going to the gym tomorrow and I said no. I was thinking of going, but not if he's going to be there. I hate working out with other people anyway. I need to concentrate on nurturing my muscles. And I have a boyfriend who is as lovely as the pretzel I took a photo of. Lovlier because he's not encrusted with salt which is the only thing I don't like about the pretzels.

On the plus side, today I went to my first capoiera class. So much fun. I'm definitely joining up and doing it twice a week. When I get back to Australia I'll see if I can do classes with Allen. I'm very inept but not as bad as this guy who looks like Mr Bean.

Photos of my room

My flatmate from France (still haven't met the Canadian one- she's holidaying at the moment around Europe) is more of a grub than I am. The first night I wanted to take a shower, I had to pull a thick wad of hair out of the plughole before the water would drain away and even still the water stays in there for a few minutes after you turn the taps off.

There was a pile of dishes in the kitchen sink that kept growing and growing so finally I bought some gloves and washed the whole lot. Also bought 'super-poder' disinfectant and cleaning solution to sterilise the bathroom and kitchen. I feel very anal compared to Laure, my flatmate. There's a picture of Jude Law from Alfie in my cupboard that is staying there.

I've stuck up some photos from home around my mirror so when I feel lonely and homesick I can look at them and cry. Must get Allen and friends to send me some more.