Happy Birthday, Megan!

When I previewed the picture I had just taken, I told Megan we would have to retake it.

“Why?” she asked me, obviously not happy to have to pose for yet another of my pictures.

 “Well for starters,” I tried to explain to her, “there’s a naked woman on the beach down there.”

For Megan’s birthday we had decided to go to a beach not far from our campus.  After a short hike on a beautiful path through the woods we came to an opening right at the beach.  We were sure "our" beach had to be very close, since our directions had taken us right to this spot.  Assuming that the picture-ruining woman was simply on the nude part of the beach, we decided we were probably supposed to walk through the nude beach to get to the regular beach.

After some convincing and a few moments to get over the shock of it all, I had Megan courageously lead us through the beach.  As I watched each step she took, careful not to see anything but her feet in front of me, I was hopeful that we would soon reach a spot where I could perhaps look around and enjoy the beach instead of Megan's feet.  When I saw her feet stop moving, I somehow knew that we hadn’t walked far enough to be out of the nude beach.

“We’re trapped.  There’s nothing on the other side of that rock.  We have to stay here,” she told me.

Perfect.  All I'm trying to do is go somewhere with clothed people and now we can't even do that.  Trying not to make the situation more awkward than a nude beach is to begin with, we decided we could just stay there and mind our own business.  After finding two rocks to use as blinders and wedging ourselves far out of view of anything, I realized the nude beach wasn’t so bad.  But I also figured it wouldn't hurt anything to pretend to be asleep the whole time I was there...you know, just in case.

“Do you know what this beach is?” we heard a man ask us, the only clothed people on the beach, about an hour later.

Wanting to seem like we weren’t just some Americans who had somehow stumbled upon a nude beach, Megan simply told him we did.  (I’m not sure what he was expecting us to say at this point.  Oh, this is a nude beach?  I hadn’t noticed that everyone around me wasn’t wearing clothes but now that you mention it... )

“So, umm, your clothes…Why?” he tried to ask us.

Now, I’ve never been asked this question before so I had no good answer as to why I was wearing clothes.  “I don’t know…because that’s what I do every day?  I get up and put on clothes,” was the best I could come up with.  Luckily I was “asleep” and left Megan to answer it.

Megan, understanding that he was actually asking us if we would be partaking in the -uhhh- culture, told him, “Not today,” and laughed as if we were simply not in the mood to be naked in the middle of a beach. 

Right, Megan.  Not today.

March? Let's hit the beach!

Sometimes, no matter how many times people may tell you about something, you can just never be prepared for the situation.

This is how I feel about the beaches here…

As we passed by her, Megan and I struggled not to giggle.  I know, I know.   I am 21 years old.  I should be more mature than this.  I just can’t help it.  I laugh when I feel uncomfortable.  And right now, I was feeling really uncomfortable. I’ve just never seen it happen before.  But that woman was just on the beach…in public…like it was no big deal.

“That was definitely her underwear, right?” I asked Megan just to verify that’s what I had just seen.

Appalled, Megan and I ranted about how offensive it was that someone would just be out on the beach in underwear and a shirt.  The woman, probably in her fifties, and her underwear, appearing to be just as old, just didn't care who might be passing by.  If she had been wearing the bottoms to a swimsuit it wouldn’t have been a problem.  Or even if she'd had on underwear that resembled a swimsuit I maybe could have understood.  This, however, was simply inappropriate for a public beach.

(I really never expected what would happen next.  If I had, we would have sat somewhere else.  We could have walked down the beach a little more.  Or we could have positioned ourselves around the big rock.  But we didn’t think it could get worse.)

As the sun came out, Megan and I smiled as we thought about how we were spending the day at the beach…in March!  Our lives were so wonderful.  We had a nice blanket to sit on, books to read, music to listen to, and cookies to share.  Life simply could not be any better.

And that’s when it happened.

It only took seconds for us to change our I-can’t-believe-she’s-in-underwear attitude to an I’m-so-thankful-she’s-still-wearing-underwear attitude.  As we saw her shirt on the ground beside her, Megan and I realized that we certainly were not in America anymore.   

And this was a "regular" beach.  Check back for our next beach adventure!

Escargot (A Picture Guide)

Escargot in six easy steps.

Step 1: Be convinced by friends that it's a good idea to order snails.

Step 2: Observe the brightly-colored substance.

(various methods are acceptable for Step 2)

Step 4: Decide you'd rather not test the flavor.

Step 3: Test the flavor.

Step 5: Realize you just ate a snail!!!

              

Step 6: Then realize it just tasted like garlic butter.

The Five Food-Ordering Techniques

A girl’s gotta eat.  And that means a girl’s gotta order food.  Unfortunately, I have yet to find a method that isn’t embarrassing.  Depending on the country, the cashier, and the restaurant, I use any one of my five techniques for ordering food. 

1) Try saying it in the local language. 

This is obviously the ideal choice.  About 80% of the time I even get the food I want.  It is most successful when the other person speaks English.  Usually I’ll order in French and they just repeat my order back in English.  I used to wonder how they always knew I wasn’t a native speaker but then once I accidentally introduced myself to the cashier instead of ordering.  I think that probably gave it away.

When it goes bad: Once the cashier and I tried it all in French and somehow my chocolate muffin became an M&M McFlurry... without M&Ms. 

2)  Asking what things are.

Particularly effective at la pâtisserie, asking what something is, listening to the description, then agreeing to it is another technique I often use.  In my mind I’m tricking them into thinking I speak their language as I smile and nod while they list the ingredients. 

When it goes bad:  When I don’t actually know what they’re saying, sometimes I just agree to it anyway.  Once I thought I was getting some sort of sweet cheesecake and ended up with flan.

3)  “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Since I strategically place myself behind one of my friends, I often let them struggle through ordering and take notes.  If the person working is particularly unfriendly I usually walk up to them pretending to be as French as possible and just tell them I’ll have “the same”. 

When it goes bad:  On one of our first days here I forgot how to say “the same.”  I figured I’d just use a similar word so all I said was “too.”  They laughed at me.

4)  Use any language.

Spain was really the only place we’ve had major trouble communicating because we kept going to places where they didn’t speak English.  To order, we would just use any language and hope one of the words is similar to a language they speak.

When it goes bad:  While that method is effective for many words, “cheese” is one of the words where this will not work…and we really liked the cheese sandwiches.

5)  Point, nod, smile and take whatever they bring out.

In Spain I often used this technique.  Usually the server understood it to be the universal sign for I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing-here-and-I'm-sorry-you-got-stuck-waiting-on-me-today.-I-hope-this-isn't-too-awkward-for-you and probably made fun of me to my face but what do I care?  I’m just a dumb American.

When it goes bad:  We wanted grilled chicken sandwiches once and the man tried to give us microwaved ham and cheese.  When we finally got him to understand what we wanted he came back and told us they were out of chicken but we would be having “white beef.”  

My First Time in a Police Station

(We get through rough times by laughing at them...you can laugh at them too!  All the other parts of our trip went really well so don't feel bad for us.  We're in Europe!)

“Call your family and tell them how much fun you’re having!” mocked the calling card I found in my purse as we waited.

 After being pick-pocketed within minutes of our arrival in Madrid and walking in the cold to the police station, pepperspray in hand, “fun” wasn’t exactly the word I would use to describe what we were having.

“Well it’s shaped like a hot dog,” I heard Megan saying as she reported her stolen wallet.  "Yes.  A hot dog," she repeated, cringing at his reaction.

I'm not sure what the man on the other side of the phone was thinking at this point but I would imagine he thought he had heard her wrong.  Perhaps there was some translation he had missed.  Or maybe he was talking to a sweet eight-year-old girl who had lost her Monopoly money.

“It’s red and tan and yellow,” she said as she tried to describe it. I hoped she would talk about how the yellow was the mustard that was squiggled across the hot dog or how the hot dog looked up at her with a big smile on its face every time she used it but she said nothing more as she struggled to hold back laughter.

At this point, I imagine phone-man sitting at a desk somewhere, feet propped up on the desk, laughing as he tried to figure out how to make a stolen hot dog wallet sound like a real crime.  Three hours later we finally got to sign the report and leave the police station.  Apparently writing police reports in Spanish for hot dog wallets is as hard as you'd think.

Hoping they would have pity on us, we shivered out in the cold as we asked the police how to get back to our hostel.  It’s after midnight.  We’ve already been robbed.  We’re lost.  We’re cold.  We're hungry.  And the only word I know in Spanish is “arriba”.  Surely they will see this is not a good situation and give us a ride back.  That'd make sense, right?  I was convinced they wouldn't just send us off into the night like that.

Instead, the man pointed up the hill and gave us only one instruction: ¡Arriba!

LineNine and ¡Arriba!

I was wrong. 

All those times I thought I had no idea what people were saying to me because it was in French; I was wrong.  After spending almost a week in Spain, now I know what it means to have no idea what people are saying to me.

Thankfully, the Spanish know to keep their directions simple for us Americans.  Two particular instances come to mind:

1) LineNine

After landing in Madrid, we followed signs in the airport to a train.  We lost track of the arrows at one point and asked an airport employee where we needed to go.

“LineNine,” he informed us in hurried English.

Sounded simple enough.  As we headed towards LineNine we were faced with yet another problem: how do we get through the fare gate?

We knew enough to understand we needed a ticket to get through but the tickets we had just purchased didn’t work.  Luckily, we saw a man standing on the other side of the gate. 

“How do we get to the trains?” we asked him in slow English.

“LineNine,” he also responded.

Right, I see the large nine above the gate and the picture of a train…you know, the one that’s right over my head.

“How do we get through?” we asked him.

“LineNine,” he told us again.

No, that didn’t answer my question.  I see that you might think it’s funny because you’re already through but it’s significantly less funny being on the other side of the gate.

“Where can I buy a ticket?” we asked him, including a few motions in case he just hadn’t understood our question last time.

“LineNine,” he responded and then turned his back to us.

Thanks.  That really cleared up all my questions.

2) Arriba

In Barcelona, we decided to search for a post office.  When we got to the department store where the post office supposedly was, we saw a sign for it and a big arrow pointing up.

So up we went.

And up.

And up.

After taking the escalator up four times, we thought we had perhaps missed the post office.  We found a cashier and pointed to our postcards.

“Arriba,” she commanded us while pointing above her.  We had already arriba-ed, lady, but we'll try it a few more times.

So up we went--past the boys’ clothing, past the housewares, past the appliances… We had to be following her directions correctly, right?  She pointed up.  This was the only way up.  As we arrived at each floor, we looked around thinking surely we had arriba-ed enough.  After mutually agreeing the post office was not on that floor we would look at each other and yell, “¡Arriba!”

“¡Arriba!”

“¡Arriba!”

Nine floors later we arrived at our destination and decided we should never, ever doubt arriba again.

A Room for 12

“Megan,” I whispered at 7:30am to the bed below me, “I hate Madrid.”

AWHOOOOOGA

“What?” she whispered back, careful not to wake the homeless man beside her.

“I,” I waited for the alarm to sound again.

AWHOOOOOGA

“HATE,”

AWHOOOOOGA

“Madrid,” I finally finished.

AWHOOOOOGA

“Me too,” she responded as we laughed at our lives.

When I reserved our spots in a 12-bed, co-ed room, I imagined it would be a slightly more scandalous version of summer camp.  We could change our clothes in the bathroom and as long as they didn’t mind my risqué pajamas (sweatpants and a t-shirt), we would make a great cabin.  No big deal.

The first night of camp every cabin always makes a Cabin Covenant, addressing anticipated problems that might occur during the week.  Unfortunately, we forgot to make our Cabin Covenant in Madrid.  At camp, a typical Cabin Covenant looks something like this (complete with pink crayon and yellow construction paper):

     :) Have a good attitude

     :) Try everything once

     :) Respect each other

     :) Respect others’ belongings

     :) HAVE FUN!!!

If we had made a Madrid Cabin Covenant, it would have needed to look more like this:

     Alarm clocks must be turned off immediately and definitely not 30 minutes later

     Do not turn the overhead lights on when you come back at 2:00am

     Excuse yourself from the room for all bodily noises

     Shower when you start smelling bad

     Do not hang your underwear all over the room

So a hostel isn’t really like camp.  That, of course, is no reason to hate a city.  Lucky for you, I'll soon be posting about some of our other Spain experiences (including three hours with the policia) so that maybe you'll understand our temporary hatred of Madrid.

No need to worry...

The lack of posts is not because I have suddenly figured out Europe.  I've been traveling through Spain and will be finishing my trip with a little stint in Paris.  Check back in a week or so to begin reading about all the embarrassing things that happen while I travel!