New great look, same great taste

          OOhh my my my how ironic is that last post?? Talkin all about how I'm going to work harder to keep up with my blogging and posts and then dropping off the face of the earth for a good 6 months.  If there's one thing to learn from that last post it's this: I. Am. A. LIAR!!  Big fat stinkin' liar, huh?!?  The saddest part about the statement I made claiming to keep up with this: I really believed it.  Don't feel bad for checking back in hopes of me keeping up my promise only to be duped.  I too fell victim of the nonsensical claim that I would prescribe to new blogs on a daily basis.  Therefore I hold no grudges against the people who don't believe this next statement. --> I WILL start keeping these post coming fresh to ya as frequent as possible.  Honestly, THIS time I fully intend to keep my word and hit the blog scene running once again :)
         I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that I am the busiest person in the world and that is my resoning for not writing about all of my outtings.  That would be an exaggeration.  But it wouldn't be a complete lie to say i was probably in the top 5.  Between getting my masters finished up, writing my thesis (surprise! I waited 'til the last minute to write that bad boy), hosting my family, hosting some rowdy canadians, getting my last minute travel in (malaga, granada, italy, and barcelona), and trying to muster up enough lesson plans to last the rest of the complete whirlwind of a school year...I've had my hands full!  However, this doesn't excuse me for the lull that has been experienced during the summer months.  To sound completely selfish (not sound, I HAVE been completely selfish this summer) I just wanted to relax and have some good ol' fashion quality time with my bad self.  I spent quite a few nights at the lake which, after all my traveling, is still my most favorite place on this incredible earth.  I went kayaking, water skiing, tubing, and had my fill of adult beverages.  We also took trips up to Niagra falls, toledo to visit some family, Michigan (booo) to visit my beautiful sister (yaaayyy), Chicago to catch a Sox game, and a finally a week long stay in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  Now, you might find yourself wondering "where the heeeccckkk is that??".  Don't worry, I assure you that you are not alone.  Up until I met people that lived there did I believe that Nova Scotia sounded like a city that Old Navy thought up to write on their clothes as an adventurous ocean side getaway.  Forget the Old Navy part and to my delight, that previous statement held to be pretty true.
         Now, after almost 2 months outside of Europe, I'm starting to prepare for another go.  Round 2 begins on September 7th and although it sounds like I've been relaxing for 2 months, I'm not so sure I'm exactly ready to dive back into the world of teaching.  This may come as a shock, but I rather enjoy living on my own time :)  Don't get me wrong, when the time comes I'm sure i'll be thinking to myself "What were ya thinkin Bren, you LOVE this stuff!!" The best way to describe it is like eating an incredibly delicious and filling dinner and then hearing the waitor say, "who saved room for dessert??" At first you kick yourself for not realizing that there is the possibility of dessert but after they bring out the perfectly sculpted ice cream scoops you have no choice but to dig in.  It's at that exact moment that you think to yourself "I wasn't sure if I was ready for this but DAAAMMNNNN this is good."  Oh yeah...just like that :)
        Welp, now that I believe I've taken the past few paragraphs to do a poor job of catching you up to date on what's been going on, I will start to get my things ready for the trip back to Spain and am promising you to do a better job of keep all in the loop of my happenings.  I'll leave you with a great quote that I've decided to live my Spanish time by and a pinky promise that you'll hear from me soon!


"Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world.  Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before.  Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before."
-Eirch Fromm

Back in the saddle again

I´M BAAAAAACCCKKKK.  Okay: I´m going to really work on updating this as often as I can fit into my schedule.  I know I know, you´ve read this before but I really do plan on keeping this up THIS time :)  I´m telling you, I can´t wait until next year when I have the time to sit back, relax, and blog as much as my little heart desires (and obviously have more of a social life, meet more people, and travel at least double as much as I am this year).  This year the classes I am taking, the classes I am teaching, and all this spanish nonsense is keeping my pretty busy.  Next year, however, I´ll be free to gallavant around the city as I see fit.  Monday I was completely exhausted in classes after the superbowl situtation the night before BUT I somehow managed to fight through the grogginess and pump out some fun lessons.  Classes were a bit hard to sit through on tuesday night and by the time I got home (around 10) I was more than delited to see that my roommate had made a family dinner.  I grabbed a burrito, a shower, and hit the hay in a flash.  Wednesday was another B-E-A-utiful day in lovely Madrid and I even pushed through and walked the 7 miles back to my apartment after school instead of riding the train.  Such an amazing walk through the city.  I work on the northern outskirts of the city and live on teh south so I get to walk all the way through Madrid.  A nice little tour of the whole city and a great way to get an idea of where everything around me is :)  Keeping it real quiet for the week but there are big things to be had this weekend!!  So glad it´s thursday!  sooooo close  to el fin de semana i can taste it!!   :)

here we go...again

Superbowl weekend and the weather is fantastic.  at home we are getting dumped on with snow and wind and everything horrible for ohio winters and here it’s freakin beautiful and in the 60’s.  holler back.  Saturday i did a bunch of much needed laundry and got in some ultimate frisbee like a champ :)  sunday all i wanted to do was lay low until the superbowl but that obviously didn’t happen lving in the most beautiful city in the world.  Callie and i met out sydney and we walked all over downtown checking things out and of course stopping once for an ice cream and then again for an alcoholic coffee beverage.  A-MAZ-ING.  So my quiet day in turned into a whole day out in the city.  Usually I love these days but the superbowl starts at 6:30PM in ohio which is a solid 12:30AM here. aaaahhhhh!!  around 8 my apartment started to buzz with the silly packers fans i live with and myself breaking bread before the game.  I made a steelers t-shirt from an old white T i acquired (no idea where that came from!) and made my own terrible towel out of yellow construction paper.  That was a 30 minutes well spent :)  

AT around 10 we left our apartment and walked to sol to cheer on our respective teams.  Good thing for me, all the people that we met out were steelers fans.  

wooooo calle caceres!!

We even managed to meet 2 spanish guys and turn them into steelers fans as well. 

Juan and Carlos with the terrible towels!!!

I also ran into a group of German men that were in town and happened to be lucky enough (or incredibly unfortunate, depending on the way you are looking at it) to be at the same bar as us!  Needless to say I convinced them to be steelers supporters.  I dazzled them with my high school German.  Works like a charm :)

Wir wollen die Steelers zu gewinnen! (we want the steelers to win!!...i think haha)

However, no matter how much beer i drank (a disgusting amount) or how much Carlos and Juan cheered (surprisingly 80% in english)  Ben and the boys did not pull through for us. 

STEEELLLEERRRRRSSSSS!!

The game came to a nasty ending with green coming out on top, me stupid drunk, and exactly 3 hours to walk home, sleep, wake up, and get to class. yyaaayyyyy :)  We somehow found our ways home, fell asleep, and with the help of the Lord above I made it to my morning class on time :)  Seriously, it went by so fast I don’t even remember waking up, changing my clothes, and getting to classes.  The first three hours teaching all i was doing was feeling a massive headache, trying to keep the kids busy, and fighting will all my might not to violently vomit all over the class.  To my sheer amazement the other teachers and the kids were all clueless to the lack of responsibility I was displaying the night before.  We stayed out, cheered on our hardest, and still the steelers didn’t pull through.  O well, there’s always next year :)  we had such a kick ass night (as you can see from the pictures)  that I really don’t care and even though I am STILL hurting from all the booze and partying, I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat!! 

Buckeyes in spain!!

The week at school has come and gone yet again i’m still not completely convinced i’m not just dreaming this whole life up.  Friday’s classes went swimmingly well and after Callie and I met over at Belen’s house for a nice evening of shit shooting and buckeye making.  Of course every time I go over there it feels like home to me but this time was a little different because we were making the very food that I grew up making all fall season with my mom, mana, and auntie Joyce.  We got to my home away from home around 5 and were immediately greeted with a homemade meal and yet another deceivingly delicious spanish treat.  Every time i get over to Belen’s she offers me something that I can’t imagine would ever taste good and every time she makes me try it I am pleasantly surprised.  This time was homemade pizza and a rice pudding style spanish desert that I am a big fan of :)  After desert, naturally we opened a bottle of wine and i FINALLY got to meet Belen’s husband Miguel.  HE. IS. AWESOME!!  not only did he put up with 4 females chatting away all night (Belen, Callie, Bea, and myself)  he also played camera man when we started putting the buckeyes together, he put on some background music, lit some incense, and let me call him tio on the way out!!  

all the goodies

in the making...

AAAHHHHHH!!!!

The actual buckeye making turned a little ugly because they were a bit sticky.  BUT they tasted amazing just the same and we sat and chomped on some buckeyes as we drank coffee and wounded down for the evening.  It’s so strange how you can travel half way around the world and run into people that are exactly the same as your family back home.  yet another night out a huge success.  Not to mention all the extra buckeyes we made...

Too blessed to be stressed

The whole month of January has flown by faster than I could ever express and before I knew it, it was already saying February on the calendar.  During that time we had a great house guest: the one and only JAMES HARRELL III.  We of course had a jacked up good time and went out to a new club in town.  Not new to the town, but new to us.  I hate to say this, but I feel almost too old to be going to those places.  Where do all the twenty somethings hang out???  I look around and all I see are kids that are the same age as my students.  weeeiiiirrrrrddddd.  James came and went in a flash but we had a brilliant time.  I have been doing a lot for classes; both teaching and studying, and I feel like I am in such a great place in my life right now that I could never ask for anything more.  You are all aware of my thoughts on my magnificent family and I have friends to die for.  I’m living in a fantastic city in a downtown apartment with the most perfect roommates.  I couldn’t have been placed in a better school to teach at and my classes for my masters program are actually going better than I had imagined.  This time is such an amazing experience that I have decided to apply for another year here.  I don’t find out for a bit if I get accepted back but I really am putting all my eggs into that basket because I can’t think of another place I would want to be next year.  Not to mention it is February and while winter is kicking the shit out of the states, it’s a mild 55 degrees here.  The sun is shining.  The birds are chirping.  And life couldn’t get any better (except of course if I had a valentine for next weekend....but I still have a week to figure that out!!)  HAHAHA :)  livin.  the.  dream.

Catch ya later USA, HOLA Españaaaaaaa

My last day on home soil I got a farewell brunch with the Balemians and mana and papa and was pleasantly surprised to see my cousin Ali, my Aunt Tammy, Steve, and Aunt Tracy and ROB with my mom, dad, and Kyle, and uncle Mark.  I can’t express how much I love my family.  They mean more to me than words could ever get across.  Brunch was amazing and just the way I wanted to leave the states: on the highest note.  I spent quite a bit of time trying to talk my cousin Ali into applying for the program I am in this year, I want her out here with me soooooo badly!!  Fingers crossed she applies!  Of course she’ll get in and then we will be ruling Spain together :)  I got to the airport early with Kyle, mom, and dad after some pretty hard goodbyes and we B-lined it straight over to the Wendy’s in the airport to get a last minute frosty.  So great!!!  I finally had to say goodbye to my parents and Kyle and headed for my gate and waited for my plane.  After a 2 hour ride, I touched down in Atlanta, made way to my gate and waited for the plane.  We finally boarded, I found my seat, settled in, and heard the welcoming voices of the Españoles all around me.  Funny thing about it: hearing spanish all around my felt a lot like home.  After 9 hours and 3 movies later we touched down.  IM BACK IN SPAIN, BABY!!!

D is for Dentist

I got back into town just in time to head over to my dentist appoint and to my lovely surprise I was in need of not 1, not 2, but 3 freakin fillings and they would have to do them the following day.  Feeling like crap the only logical thing to do was to ride over to the quilt shop with my mom and do some damage.  I always though that my mom and I were pretty different individuals and to my dismay I am slowly realizing that we are EXACTLY the same!  The good news: the older I get, the cooler I think she is.  Now, at 50, my mom is cooler than ever and I am soo pumped that I have that in my future.  My mom and I would sew for days on end if we could and the quilt shop is our little home away from home where we spend hours looking at different fabrics and finding a million new projects to start on at once.  The following day, the last full day I had in America, I spent in the dentist’s office getting shop up with novacane and getting huge holes drilled in my teeth.  Awesome.  After the torture was done and I was freed from the chair my mom and I went over to target and sipped on slurpees while we made our last minute purchases for my departure.  I also got to go bowling with my mana and papa (grandma and grandpa)  which was just perfect.  Kyle, dad, and mana and papa and myself tore it up on the lanes.  Not to toot my own horn, but....... TOOT TOOT.  I’m sick!  I haven’t bowled in at least 10 years and I cot about 8 strikes.  I had some major competitions with my pro bowler papa but we all did pretty well.  Well, almost all of us.  God bless my mana, she is the sweetest lady you will ever meet in your life.  But seriously, the SWEETEST lady in the world.  However, let’s just say if I had to guess from whom I got my athleticism from, she’d be my last guess haha.  She had fun with us just the same tho :)  We also had a great goodbye party at my house with my awesome godmother and of course Auntie Joyce and Uncle Bill (the most super badass old people you will ever hear about.  When they are gone books will be written about them.  They’re epic), My aunt Tracy and her almost husband ROB (all caps for a badass) and the rest of the fam.  So good to see my Aunt Tracy, she’s so happy all the time, can’t help but be in a good mood just thinking about her.  I am beyond excited about her wedding with ROB because he’s the greatest guy and she doesn’t deserve anything less.  Unfortunately I will miss their wedding in May but I can’t wait to see the pictures, she’s going to be a total babe in her wedding dress :)