Two horrible felines

I love animals that look like they have attitude. My holiday project is to teach my kitten(s) how to use the human toilet. I temporarily adopted The Little Imp's brother, Thor, Cat of Thunder and Lightning, although I call him Thor, Cat with Thighs of Lard or just The Fat One because he's about twice Impy's width and not much longer. He eats and eats. I was trying to feed him less because with The Imp you can leave food out and she'll only eat when hungry (hence her svelte figure) whereas he guzzles but then he started eating our dog kibble.

They're not very open to new experiences, like using the human toilet. They understand to pee in it but to poo... ugh. Very pissed off. And my dream of having cats that could kill cockroaches has been squashed. They sat there looking at the disgusting bug and let it get away so I had to chase it with Mortein. And then The Fat One freaked out and dashed out of the room, but it might have been the smell of insecticide.

7 weeks of NOTHNGNESS

Holidays offiicially began for me today. I handed in my last assessment task on Friday and was FREE after that. Went to eat tacos with Alexis in Newtown, then saw Zodiac which was made so good by Jake Gyllenhaal. Whereas Mark Ruffalo... his voice just doesn't scream masculinity. Speaking of which..

Got into an altercation with some old fart on the bus today. He was annoyed because the window was open but I was extremely hot, even with no jumpers on. The windows were steaming up and I could feel the air getting saturated with bacteria from the non-circulating air. And it wasn't like I opened a massive window- it was one of those small ones high up. He said 'fuck you, bitch' and I stood up and said 'Excuse me? What did you call me?' but my mum was there and she made me stop and his wife made him stop. So then I turned to him and said 'Your anger problems are going to get you into trouble one day' and he said 'Yeah, and you're going to get a fist in your face soon.' To which I replied 'I'd like to see you try'. Maybe he's a wife beater and has practice hitting women, in which case I wouldn't stand a chance but otherwise he was pretty overweight and not fit looking and I would have kicked him in the testicles to sterilise him so he couldn't perpetuate his disgusting degeneracy in his offspring. And of course swearing is just such an unevolved form of retort.

I shouldn't have got into an argument with him, some people are not worth the time it takes to stab them in the eye but I'm just so sick of rude arrogant pigs that seem to be increasingly endemic to Sydney.

The Little Imp

Evil EVIL creature. I wish I could file her teeth down to stubs so she can't bite anything any more.

Last blog in Spain

I can't believe I'll be home in less than two days (30 hours of which will be spent on aeroplanes and at airports). Mel made an innocent comment today and I lost it. I've been walking around today in a daze.

I only had around 50 centimos left on my mobile so I took out my sim card and have been without a mobile since Monday. It's an incredibly liberating feeling, to feel (relatively) uncontactable.

Last night we had some final drinks at our flat. Javier and Beza came as representatives of the boys. I thought people would just come for an hour or two then leave by 11 pm but I didn't get to bed till 3 am. Was much fun.

Adios, Espana.

RULE # 1:

I have decided the most important rule to have in a share flat is this:

IF you use the toilet and the water changes colour, YOU MUST FLUSH. If you've been drinking water only for the last week or pee 10 mL or less and no one can tell anyway, fine, leave it.

BUT if you've been drinking beer for the last 30 hours straight and have kidneys on the point of collapse and the water is a murky yellowish brown colour, I think FLUSHING IS A GOOD OPTION.

DISGUSTED. ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED.

I have a good mind to take a photo of the toilet with discoloured water, get it developed and stick in on my new flatemates' door.

Tongue!

I had the best Saturday night ever in Logrono. It was just so typical and normal. I didn't want it to stand out or be sad because I want to leave with happy memories of this place but I knew I was leaving so every moment was a final moment of my time here. Except my hangover the next day. Which really is atypical. I only remember two other hangovers in Logrono (pretty impressive considering how much wine flows through this place). The first one was my first weekend here last year (thanks, Javi) and the other one was some other random night where I obviously drank too much. (Photo: Ruben and me with tickets to Concept)


Two new Brazilians have moved in. The landlady rang up Gian on Sunday and said she would be over in half an hour and when she arrived, she had two Brazilian boys in tow and told us they were going to be moving in when our lease ran out, but since it was only a few days till the beginning of February, they may as well move in now. If we didn't have a problem with it. Oh, no, we said, of course not. I think it would have been more tactful to have asked us when the boys weren't there, although I don't think they would have understood anyway. Today, I was talking to one of the boys, explaining how I could move my food off a fridge shelf if they wanted it and I was chatting away happily for five minutes and he just kept nodding and smiling. Then later he went and told Gian 'That girl just spoke to me and I didn't understand a word she said.' Apparently they don't speak Spanish. They're hilarious- they came to Spain a month early because they didn't know when the next semester started and figured they wouldn't miss it if they came now. And they hit the beer bottles as soon as the shops opened this morning (yesterday was Sunday- supermarkets closed) and haven't stopped since. (Photo: twilight in Espolon)


Tonight Alexis invited us over to his place for dinner. I made a tongue dish but I told everyone it was beef until they tried it and then I burst into hysterical laughter and shrieked 'They're bull testicles!' Mel had never tried it before and she said it was really tasty until she found out what it was. It was hard work. I had to go to four butchers before I found one with tongue and then I had to boil it for two hours and peel it and scrape off the taste buds. Actually I would have made the dish with testicles if they had had any but apparently they only get deliveries of criadillas on Fridays. At least I got to use my new word (Ruben told me you can't just go into a butcher and ask for testicles of bull because they have a special name for them. Trust the Spanish to have ten different words for balls). (Photo: tongue)

One night last week I made curry for our flat, the Croissant and Alexis and we were all sitting there but couldn't start eating because the Croissant and Alexis kept talking and talking. I was tired, it was late, I was irritable so I said snidely (but meant in a jovial manner) to Alexis 'From now I'm going to call you The Mouth and her The Other Mouth'. Now I think I have a better use for their tongues. (Photo: tongue in pot)

Less than a week

It's less than a week till I fly! It was really sad when Emily left. The end of an epoch (epoca? I'm getting my words confunded now with Spanish). We saw her off at the bus station, bought her a croissant to ease the pain of her goodbyes but afterwards we needed Zara and Mango retail therapy to anti depress us. (Photo: the completed Speak No Evil monkey that I made for Allen in class)

Javier rang me up tonight to go out but I've got an awful cough so I'm staying home, taking a panadol and going hard tomorrow night instead. I promised to go to Concept and stay out till 7 or 8. I don't want to be sad when I say goodbye. I'd rather go home and pretend it's just another typical Saturday night/Sunday morning. I've been alternating between elation and gloom. Last night I sent an email to my friends in Sydney to email me their mobile numbers because I lost them last year when my phone got stolen. Most of them got back to me immediately which reminded me how much I love them and how much I've missed them this year and made me so excited about seeing them again. But then of course I have to say goodbye to the people in Logrono, the exchange students I've gone out with and drank and cooked and ate with and it's miserable that I don't know when I'll see most of them again. Mel and I decided that instead of going to the monestarios on Tuesday, we'll stay in Logrono and throw a cocktail party for the internationals.

I woke up this morning and heard Gian speaking portuguese on the phone and it was incredibly soothing to feel so at home here, in my flat of four months with my flatmates and the sun trying to penetrate my wooden shutters.

Is it a hobbit? A dwarf?

Emily took this photo while I was ordering the sepia pincho. The guy next to me makes me look like a hobbit in comparison. He was so tall he knocked his head on the beer glass holders overhead.

I'm so BEEzy

My last week has been crazy. I can't even begin to give a detailed explanation of all the things I've done, food I've consumed... (Photo: Mel, Gian and me)

Brief outline:

Monday 8th- Em, Mel and I went out for our Christmas dinner. It was our present to each other, since we didn't want to give a gift that you would then have to take home because we have limited baggage space. We got dressed up and went to Leite's, a traditional Spanish restaurant. I got a pumpkin pie dessert (sounds more like a thanksgiving dessert from the US but was very good.) (Photo: before leaving the house)

Tuesday 9th- Lunch with Quique. He's so sweet. He bought us typical Spanish food (didn't want to cook in case he poisoned us all). We all sat around and chatted. Well, the others chatted. I just ate. He has a really cool house. It's actually a house! It's the third Spanish house I've been in since being in Spain (the other two were both in the country). And his house has this really cool wine cellar and an automatic corkcscrew. The ceiling was covered with splatters from the bottles that people didn't open properly. (Photo: at Quique's house)

Wednesay 10th- Alice arrived so we went to pick her up at the train station and then I cooked dinner for our flat and invited Croissant and Alexis along as well. I made a sweet chilli pad thai but we didn't have sweet chilli sauce so I used sweet and sour sauce and added chopped chillis and honey. It was a bit dodgy. At least nobody threw up afterwards. (Photo: Alice doing the glass recycling)

Thursday 11th- farewell dinner at Em's place. Stefano organised it and it was a general farewell because so many people are leaving in the next few weeks. I accidentally tripled my recipe of meatballs so ended up with 2.5 kg of meat that I got Alice to roll into balls. She smelt like a dead cow afterwards. Not really. Her hands did. But tasty dead cow. I made an apple sauce to go with them as well and everyone said they were great, except the Croissant who came up to me with one meatball left on her plate and asked me 'Do you want it? I don't like them.' I thought she was joking because she knew I'd made them but after a few seconds, I realised she was serious. So I said 'You do know I made them, don't you?' and she just looked at me blankly and repeated 'I don't like them. They have this flavour...' and pulled a poo face (the kind of face you pull when you realise you've just stepped in the shit of a dog with bad digestion). I mean, by all means tell me when my food is so bad everyone's going to end up in hospital with salmonella but if you don't like it, just leave it on the plate uneaten. I have been icy towards her since then (ahahah hahahaha hahahahah hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahahaha hahah!)

Friday 12th- had lunch at Alexis's place, ate 4 pancakes (everyone one else only ate two. I am officially a glutton.) He borrowed our saucepans because he only had one tiny crappy one and still hasn't given us ours back yet. The Brazilians came over and cooked feijoada at our house. They wouldn't put bull testicles in it like I tried to request, but they did put pig ear and blood sausages. SOOO tasty. I wanted to eat the whole pot. There were about twelve of us there, including Johanna's mum. Her mum had come to visit her for a week and she's the loveliest person imaginable. She told me she thought Spanish women needed to be emancipated. I say Yes! And also emancipated from their makeup. It was a completely Brazilian meal. I made pao de queijo for appetisers, then we had feijoada with guarana to drink (and caipirinha) and brigadero for dessert. Tanya, Marie (in the photo, left to right) and Gian made three huge pots of feijoada. Naturally, since one of the pots was left at our house, it was empty by the next day. (Photo: the pots of feijoada)

Saturday 13th- had a big night out with the boys. They took us for dinner at La Mafia, an Italianish restaurant where the food was delicious (embarrassingly, I think I ate more than the boys. Next time I eat out with them, I am not going to sit in the vicinity of Javier because his eating habits make me look like a 150 kg binge eater. Not attractive. But it was soooo good... how can you say no to crust?!) Alice didn't want to go out afterwards, so Luisfran, who lives nearby, kindly gave us a lift to our flat and I got to check out his Chopper in the garage. I got on it and tried to look like those angry butch photos of women on huge bikes but I think I just looked dwarfed and sulky. It's such a beautiful bike. This is the kind Allen wants so now I've decided it's not such a bad idea after all if he gets one. (Photos: Alice, me and Beza at dinner; digestive shots; me on Chopper, Luisfran's girlfriend)

After dinner, we went to the finca, the abandoned house at the edge of town. Had a few (read: lots of) drinks there then headed off to the city. Normal place, normal time, usual people, the wonderful and whacky friends of Javier. Except Fernando couldn't make it because he was too tired. He left us after dinner. I just realised I have one more weekend to party hard with the boys before I leave. *sniff*. At least my liver can do with a break. Andres, Em and I stopped off for a kebab. We were going to get our last potatoes but the woman said she was done making potatoes for the night, selfish cow. So we went to the good kebab place instead. (Photos: group; Andres, Em and I going for kebabs)

Sunday 14th- the first and last time that Alice got to go for tapas. Jason won't have the privilege at all but not my fault. (Photos: Lisa and Alice with the shrimp and pineapple pincho)

Monday 15th- Emily's last full day in Spain. We met up with Javier's parents for afternoon tea and his mum went to heaps of trouble of bringing out the nice English china with the plates piled high with cakes, tarts, biscuits, pastries, chocolates... It was lovely, although I didn't want to stuff my face in case I looked like I glutton in front of Javier's parents. (Photo: the Aussies with Javier and his parents)

Then, this morning at 1:15 am, Lisa and Alice left for the train to Barcelona so I'm ALONE ALONE ONCE MORE ALONE ALONE ALL ALONE!

I think I will be spending my time on skype with my creature.

Mind boggled

I am completely floored. I cannot believe anyone can be so precious.

Lisa has effectively destroyed my plans three times.

First, she was supposed to come visit me for a month before I left for Australia, which was fine, but then she asked if Jason, her boyfriend, could come along. They had been going out for maybe two or three months then and I'd never met him before and wasn't even sure they'd still be together by 2007 but I said fine. Whatever makes her happy. I didn't have a place then and didn't know if they would even fit in my new flat when I managed to find one but I thought I could work around that.

Then she told me she was actually coming for two months and that Jason would be coming for around three weeks. Two months is a long time but I planned all the stuff we would do and how we would get to places and everything.

Then she told me he was only coming for a week after all and for two or three of those days, they wanted to be in Barcelona. So I had to replan everything, try and fit as much into six days as I could, figure out accommodation, meals, car rental etc. And this whole time she kept asking me 'Why can't we do this with Jason? I'd really like Jason to do this and this. Can we go here and here?' Sorry, NO. I am not a miracle worker. If I'm given 24 hours, multiplied by 6 days, that's what I have. Don't blame me for the changes in plan.

And then today she's decided that when she meets her Jason at Barcelona next week, they're going to stay there and travel around there instead, instead of coming back to Logrono like planned. So scrap those new plans I made. And now I'll be packing nine days before I leave instead of three.

The point of her coming in the first place, the reason my dad is helping her pay for it is because she was supposed to help me pack up and carry my stuff home because I have a 20 kg limit on the plane for a year's worth of stuff. And she was supposed to help ease my load. Instead she's been more trouble than she's worth. She says she'll hang out the clothes or put away the groceries but is just going to have a quick chat with Jason. Two hours later, I've done the clothes and cleaned the flat and she's still on the computer/phone. Then she says she'll bring in the clothes and at 8 pm realises that she's forgotten about them. She wakes up, gets on skype to talk to Jason, has a break for lunch, gets back on the computer to talk some more through the afternoon, maybe finds a few free hours to browse the sales, we come back for dinner and she goes to bed.

If I asked her to stay she would but I don't want her to stay. The truth is it would be so much easier if she left and didn't come back from Barcelona but that's not the point. The point is I've been working everything around what she wants and it seems to matter shitall. It just takes a whim of hers to break all the effort and thought I put into planning things out for her. I truly feel appreciated.

I've got two weeks left in Spain. I need to finalise things with my teachers because I'm not here for exams, I have to close accounts, work things out with the landlady, pack, say goodbye to all the great people I've met in the year overseas, get ready to go back to my normal life again. I am perhaps a tad stressed. So please don't blame me for feeling bitter. And I also think it's wonderful that at this point when I'm a teeny bit upset and call Allen he can't give me his full attention for five minutes because he's offering advice online about a computer game to some guy he met on the internet half an hour ago, who paid him a bit of online gaming cash that he can only use in this one game, that has no real world monetary value, to answer his questions. Talk about priorities. Well, at least when I get back to Australia, I'll be important to my dog.

I have never publicly said anything nasty about friends or family (although I may have thought them) so excuse me this one time. I AM COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY PISSED OFF.

Part three- Porto

We were only in Porto for two and a half days but I've already decided that it has joined my list of cities I would be happy to live in for a long time. Well, maybe except for the thigh sculpting, body-fat-percentage reducing hills. They were really painful and cobbled. But the views from the top were amazing. When we crossed to the other side of the river, we could see a thick mist floating on the top of the water. It almost looked like the city was suspended in the clouds. (Photos: Porto by night; Porto by day)

Between the two of us, Lisa and I drank eleven glasses of port (at the port wine houses) and a bottle of wine. But I think I drank the majority. We got back to Spain on Saturday and I'd budgeted enough time for us to leave our luggage at the bus station, spend a leisurely two hours in Salvador Bachiller looking at the beautiful sale items, grab a soy coffee and wholemeal muffin and trot back to the station to catch the bus back to Logrono. BUT IT WAS A PUBLIC HOLIDAY. THEY HAVE FIFTY BILLION PUBLIC HOLIDAYS A YEAR. So everything was closed. I nearly threw a tantrum. Apparently the Friday was a public holiday too. I wonder how the productivity levels are in Spain. (Photo: port wine tasting, before; port wine tasting, after)

Photo: Se Cathedral, Porto

Dublin and Kilkenny- Part Two

As soon as we got off the plane, I sent a message to Allen saying 'They really sound like leprechans!" I was so excited. I could understand most of the people but some of them had such strong accents while talking to each other that I could only pick up a few words. We made the Guinness Brewery our top priority. I had no idea Guinness is so commercialised. There was everything from chocolate (flavoured with real Guinness) to pens and postcards. There was even a beef sauce (also flavoured with real Guinness). We bought a packet of Guinness caramels because we were starving and they tasted great- not like Guinness at all. Lisa decided she liked the free pint of Guinness we got at top of the brewery and sculled it down like a true drunk. I have to admit it's nicer here than in Australia. Problaby because it's a draught so it doesn't taste so much like soy sauce.


The next day we went on a Dublin walking tour and saw all the usual tourist things. I have to admit I felt a bit disappointed by Dublin. I'd expected something more... Irish (whatever that may be). At any rate, something less like any other capital in the world. It might have been because we only stayed around the tourist areas. The Dublin Writers Museum was fascinating. Had no idea Oscar Wilde and Oliver Goldsmith were Irish. (Photo: mummified cat and rat found in the organ pipes at Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin)


We stayed near Kilkenny for New Year's Eve because I had no desire to be in Dublin for the festivities. I find New Year's such a letdown. People hype about it so much and why are they so keen to be rid of an old year and start a new one anyway? Are their lives so miserable that they want to drink themselves stupid on the last evening (or the first morning) to forget about the horrors and indignaties of the year past? And what right have they to be optimistic that the new year will be better than the last? Most people go back to their wretched routine and their wretched existence as soon as the holidays are over. Five kilos heavier. Not very inspirational. (Photo: Kilkenny countryside)


We stayed at a B&B about ten minutes drive from Kilkenny. It was in the beautiful Irish hills (they really are beautiful) and Dermott, the owner was incredibly hospitable. One thing I have to say about the Irish is the whole time we were there, we didn't once get a cranky shop assistant or bus driver or waiter. They were unbelievably cheerful and after eleven months of having my change thrown at me by shop assistants and being glared at like it's their birthright I felt so loved *sniff*. (Photo: the view from our window on New Year's Day)


After two nights of peace and quiet, we moved into Kilkenny centre. We'd booked two hostel beds but the place, Macghabbain's Hostel, was literally a shit hole (I tried to leave this as a comment on hostelbookers but it has an automatic censor that tells you if you have used 'an offensive and discriminatory word'. So I replaced shit hole with turd hole). We knocked and rang the bell for twenty minutes and finally a girl came down in pink pyjamas. The first thing she said was 'Careful of the poo behind the door.' But she was only a hosteller so she went back to bed and we waited another fifty minutes for any staff to arrive. We heard a guy get up and go to the bathroom, release a long, loud fart, cough up the morning's phlegm and piss with the door open. By this stage we were feeling a bit sick. The kitchen smelt like old food and there was a dog and a half-naked man sleeping in the hostel common room. I had nothing against the dog but the person was snorning his head off and the room smelt like morning breath. As soon as the guy came to open the hostel, we cancelled our reservation. (Photo: sprawled on the steps of Kilkenny Castle)


We visited Kilkenny Castle (if anyone ever buys me a castle, I'd like it to be Kilkenny Castle) and went back to Dublin. Lisa developed a taste for baked beans so since we were too poor to eat in cafes and restaurants, we ate ryvita and baked beans for about four days straight. In Dublin we bought tickets to see a play called The School for Scandal. It had a predictable storyline, but we nevertheless nearly peed our pants with laughter. (Photo: scene from The School for Scandal)


I refused to book hostel beds on the last night because we had to be at the airport by 4:15 am anyway. After her initial horror, Lisa decided it was a practical and economical thing to do and it wasn't like it was uncomfortable or cold or anything. I also appeased her by telling her she wasn't so fat after all, and probably didn't have cellulite. (Photo: disabled/geriatrics toilet sign in Kilkenny)

Photo: rainbow in the Dublin sky. Ireland is a very wet country.

First part- Germany

Lisa and I caught the plane from Barcelona to Frankfurt and had a day in Barcelona to visit the Boqueria (as always- my favourite tourist attraction). Then we went to Figueres, a Basque town near the border of France. The people there are strange. Some of them looked a bit inbred. We visited the Dali museum which was bizarre and a bit grotesque as to be expected. I think my favourite part was the jewels collection. Dali had made this golden heart encrusted with rubies, pearls and diamonds and whenever it sensed anyone near it, it would start beating. Lisa said it was the creepiest thing she'd ever seen but I thought it was cool. He bought Gala, his wife, a castle to demonstrate his love for her. Wish someone would buy me a castle. (Photos: a room and a doorway in the Dali Museum)

Caught the plane to Frankfurt and then our great uncle met us in Giessen. He lives in a beautiful tiny German village near there and we stayed with him for six days. Every day we'd go for walks through the fields and forests or visit a nearby village. It was the most relaxing and great time ever. Except that I had a 5000 word project to write for UTS so I was slaving away madly at that on Christmas eve and Christmas day. (Photos: my great uncle and Lisa. He's actually quite young but apparently his hair went white when he was in his 20's; the completed tree)



But it was such a traditional Christmas. I got to feel the true Christmasness of Christmas for the first time in many years. There weren't any tacky Christmas decorations, no awkwardness between people... it was comforting to know that Christmas isn't always about Santa Claus and presents and eating until you're bloated (although my great aunt did cook excellent food). (Photos: us putting up the Christmas tree; Christmas dinner)

My cousin Jenni's mum, my great aunt's sister and a distant relative of ours were there as well. Despite the fact that I'd never met any of them before, there was no awkwardness or stilted conversation. I would have been so happy to stay there till after New Year, but we'd already booked planes to Dublin and Porto. The thing is our families live so far away from each other it's hard to know whether we'll see each other in the next five years or the next ten years. (Photos: the countryside; Lisa and I)