Goodbye Spain Hello Morroco

We spent the last couple days in Sevilla, Spain and man, was it gorgeous. Kinda reminded me of Rome, the way sometimes you turn a corner and see some gorgeous monument and think, 'look at this! Why is nobody looking at this!?' My mom always calls places like that a jewel box because no matter where you turn, your looking at something pretty. I think my favorite part of Sevilla (other then the fact that they had two starbucks AND a frozen yogurt place) was the Alcazar. It's this huge palace that has been continually built through out the ages. What I really loved about it was the art and design that combined Christian and Islamic styles as a representation of the two religions coinciding. Let me tell you, I've seen a lot of wonders created by both religions but never together like that.

Yesterday we took a couple buses and a boat and today we find ourselves in Africa. Chefchauoen, Morrocco. It's blue city and I actually mean that literally. All around us buildings and walls and taxis and doors, are all blue. I don't really know details but my understanding is that when Jews fled persecution from Spain they decided to incorporate blue in everything they did because it's a sign of protection. Though now the majority of chefchauoen is muslim, the blue theme has stayed. It's beautiful and calming and so much fun to just walk through as we did this morning.

A final thought: Congratulations to the parents, couple days ago those crazy people who raised me celebrated 29 years of marriage. Holy wow, and they still seems to like eachother more then any other pair of people I've ever met..

I might be able to blog again, maybe not. From here our trip picks up, just a couple days in a couple more cities in morocco, a night back in Madrid, then home. No telling if there'll be Internet close. Either way, I'll be back, soon onto your side of our spinning world:)

A word of advice...

to all my girls who, like me, want to travel the world after high school: Bring a boy. Yes, its true, in general there nice to be around. I find they make girls less crazy and everyone seems to be more happy with a hot guy around but thats not why I`m telling you to do this.

A boy will make you feel safer. Don`t even think about going to the middle east without one. Egypt is especially out of the question. You could yell rape at a train station and not get a second glance. Its part of the culture. Men will stare at you like your a piece of meat, without even trying to hide it. And believe me being cute has nothing to do with it because it doesnt stop just cause your wearing sweats and a rain jacket and havent showered in three days. When we were in Luxor I didn´t even feel okay walking up the street from our flat to get water.

When my dad or even aidan were around it was a completely different story. Sure there were jokes. when I tried to send kari a letter, the hotel manager said he could send it but first, would I marry him? The same kind of thing happened at markets, shop owners wondering "how many cammels for your daughter?" But no one really tried anything beyond that.

Although its not necissary, bringing a boy on a trip to Europe will make you happier. Being an American girl on your own will attract cat calls and whistles. Thats what its like when I`m by myself shopping or just wandering here. But if anyone is with me, again all of that is nonexistent.

This is just something thats been on my mind because a couple days ago this really creepy old guy tried to feel me up on the Metro. You always tell yourself your gonna give him a sharp elbow to the ribs but in the moment you want to believe the way he just brushed your leg was an accident and when it keeps happening you just feel so paralyzed. Thank the lord for Aidan who was watching and loudly offered to switch spots before anything could happened.

Beautiful Barcelona

What a pretty place! For the past couple days life has consisted of the beach and sight seeing...and fruit. Theres a fruit stand across the street and I cant help but eat everything in it. Its helps for making friends too- offer a strawberry to the guy with the dreads and tats in the elevator and by the time your on ground floor you know his name, where hes from and if hes going to the soccer game tonight.

The sea is only a bus ride away and we cant help but visit everyday. The sun is hot, the sand is soft and the water is just cool enough to be comfortable. We rent towels, play in the sand, splash in the waves and fall asleep in the sun. It´s a topless beach and although I decided to forgo such an experience there are plenty who enjoy the... freedom. Its all fine, but it was funny to watch liam and walsh´s reactions as they discovered that there were bare breasts all around them... they´re faces are halariously especially when they think no one is looking at them.

When were not at the beach we´ve been seeing everything we can designed by Gaudi, an incredible achitect that lived about a hundred years ago. Google `Sagrada Familia´ and you´ll see what I mean. It´s absolutely breathtaking and the detail is just goes on forever. It reminds me of those sand castles you build by dripping wet sand in a tower. Sagrada Familia is a church and it isnt even done yet, thats how extensive it is, its due to finish in 150 years!

Two days ago we biked to the edge of town to the park, and saw more Gaudi. Past the 80 column entrance with stairs and whoville like buildings is this beautiful bench shaped as a serpent and covered in mosaics. I know its stupid, but I was actually really excited for it cause it was in one of the Cheetah Girls movies. I watched too much tv as a kid...

Last night we saw a championship soccer game! Madrid v. Barcelona. Ofcourse we rooted for the home team and after a heart pounding game, they won. The fans are DIEHARD. screaming about absolutely everything and we joined in, even though we had no idea what they were saying.

Its about midnight here, and although all of Barcelona is awake, I´m going to bed. Recharge for what life brings tomorrow. Goodnight from my side of the spinning world:)

Ben.

When people ask about your trip they usually want either a colorful adjective ("amazing!") or a sentence, two max. They want you to know that they know that you went somewhere, or they´re just trying to be polite or sometimes, they really do want to know you had a good time. But time is a precious thing and in a world of facebook updates, texts messeges, and a myriad of other people that need talking to, their time cant be wasted with a lenthy speech on your vacation to Europe. I`m not complaining, its difficult to decribe to anyone what a trip was like and "incredible" makes it easier. I`m just pointing this out because it was the opposite of Ben.

Whenever I saw Ben, he wanted to know every detail of my latest travels. He would ask every question he could think of and become engrossed in whatever I was saying. He would remind me how lucky I was and I would always profusely agree. Then we`d laugh at a stupid story I was telling and after that we´d talk about all the places we wanted to go in the future, or mostly the places I wanted to go. Ben never made anything about himself.

The morning after Ben took his life last spring, I woke up with my eyes swollen shut from crying so much the day before. When I went upstairs it was twenty minutes before my mom found me crying into my coffee cup. We sat on the couch and watched the sun rise and talked about life and happiness and Ben.

It´s the hardest thing I´ve ever experienced to lose someone like that, but what hurts more is the idea that he was so trapped in life and in this dark place that he thought the only way to make the hurt go away was to end it all. I can`t understand it and I dont think I`ll ever get even remotely close. But I know that that idea is more painful then anything.

Life is beautiful, but you dont need Spain to realize that. Spain just reminds me of Ben because of the way I think I would describe it to him if I could.

Coffee, Museums and Bull fights

Here´s what I love about Madrid: the way it makes you feel perfectly okay to move at a perfectly slow pace. Nothing here needs to be done quickly and so therefore everything we do takes twice as long as it has to.

Yesterday we spent the day at the Museum Prado. There we observed the works of fabulously renoun artists that struck me as only vaguely familiar and wandered through halls of great paintings that I did nort recognize. All the same it was fun, although my mom had a little bit too much enthusiaum for the place and was still full speed when everyone else was burned out. After the museum we headed to the park and then out to dinner. Between it all we milled around vendors and sat at cafes. I spent an excess of money and drank far too much coffee- no regrets!

Today our style of action was no different, we wandered to a market in the morning cold sodas and pastries always in hand. I bought silly trinkets (who says trinkets?) for my girls at home and liam got a pair of fake Ray Bans that he now refuses to wear because my dad has real ones and he thinks that would be tacky? whatever.

Tonight we headed to the bull fight. The consensus leaving was that we were all glad we went (except for my mom who bailed early) but were not sure if we would do it again... Its a little much, a little too gory.

Generally a bull fight goes as such: it begins with 6 matadors each taking turns to rile the bull up. They wave pink capes in his face getting close as they dare, then run away fast to take refuge behind the edge of the stadium. The show then progresses to men on horses with spears whom provoke the bull to charge and then they stab it repeatedly until hebacks away. There´s blood everywhere and it proceeds to spurt generously out of the bulls back for the duration of the fight. After the men on horses leave, 2 more bull fighters come out. They have shorter more decorative spears. They take turns running at the bull then throwing the spears. By the end of this act the bull has 6 or seven spears hanging from his back and is losing steam. The show ends with the final madador again provoking the bull, getting inches away then dodging it at the last second. Then finally he sticks a sword in the back of the bulls neck. If the bull still isnt dead, it is stabbed repeatedly with shorter daggers until it ceases movement. If it all isnt enough for you: they do it over again- 6 times! mmmm, seems alittle excessive. All the same we had a good time watching, eating candy, cheering, jeering and joking on the matadors in the pink suits.

So now this is good-bye to Madrid! It has been very good to us and no one is ready to leave. All the same, I`m exciting for the next chapter in Barcelona. Beaches for dayssss coming up on my side of our spinning world:)

Starting just right. Madrid, Spain.

Madrid is everything you imagine it to be. Streets covered in cobble stones, ancient buildings, cafes everywhere you look... There are pretty girls in summer dresses and Spainish boys with cigarettes eternally pinched between their fingers. The sidewalks are always filled with venders and theres always some magnificent thing close by.

In Madrid, when the city finally wipes sleep from its eyes, the the sun has already been awake for hours. As the day progresses, the city gets louder, the sun gets hotter and murmer in the streets becomes a dull roar which escalates until it is late at night and everyone seems to be up.

Sometimes I get this feeling right in the middle of my stomach. It comes when I´ve stayed up all night with my girls, just talking about absolutely everything. Or when my boyfriend kisses me goodnight. It comes when I give a gift to some one and they look at me, straight at me, and say thank you so much. Its this light inside that makes me so happy, and so thankful to be so blessed in this life.

Today we are all still in a jetlag fog. We sleep too much at the wrong times and then lie awake in the middle of the night. Aidan has provided to be an excellent roommate. We stay up together listening to Hoody Allen, Mac Miller and the Nomads (Aidan as the song Weed plays: ´I feel like I should have to wear a beanie to listen to this`). Its funny how we always have a new style of music to jam to when we take a trip. Maybe this time we were a little too heavy on the rap but, what can you do..

In the hours that we happened to be awake when we were suppose to be we wandered because we´re good at that. We went to the royal palace, ran through the rooms and joked on the cheesy audio tour. We stared at the fresco covering ceiling and gawked at the ornate walls and furniture. It reminded me of Versailles, ofcourse there was a little less gold and none of my classmates were around to help me ask the tour guide uncomfortable questions but there was still an essensce of true power that is not easily created. The rest of the day, and the day prior was spent roaming the streets and eating much too much gelato. We moseyed around squares and sat at cafes drinking coffee and fantas while my mother read us the history of the city from the lonely planet guidebook that we take absolutely everywhere.

Who knows what to come in the next couple days, were only in Madrid until Sunday, then its off to see Barcelona. Maybe well see some museums, we´ll definately go to a bull fight. Obviously we´ll be eating more ice cream.. well see. Right now im just excited to live life on this spinning world.

You

[A piece in the 2nd person]

You wish, as always, you hadn’t started this mess, but now you’re worried you’ll have to go through with it. There’s flour on the floor and eggshells dripping onto the counter and you can’t help but know that if you had been a bit more organized when you started, there wouldn’t be vanilla extract cascading off the table and milk puddled in the corner of the chopping block. And it kind of reminds you of the way you started with him, because just as with baking this cake it was a mess… why do you always have to do that to yourself and why can’t you plan things out before you go or at the very least clean up on your way to the next step? Why do you always see the disaster but create a new one instead of dealing with the first?

But you know that those are stupid questions; you can’t quite change who you are and that’s another thing he doesn’t understand. And some times you don't quite understand it either because although you want it to be this way, it always comes out that way and not in a good way because no one wants cookies that are hard on the bottom or bread that’s still gooey in the middle. So why is it that you still come into the kitchen when its obviously too hot outside to cook, and begin to pull out pans and bowls and spatulas just to create something that no one wants to eat anyway? And in the same way, why is it that you still call him back even though the line just hangs heavy with all the unspoken, distrust and frustration life has offered you two.

So what to do from here? Because you don't really want to keep going, except you obviously can’t stay where you are.

But you don't really know anything else,

so you’ll continue to stir the batter and you’ll still let him in when he knocks and maybe when it’s all over you’ll have created something beautiful for once. Or maybe you won’t and as always the cake will be too chewy and some of the mess on the counters will still preside in the kitchen even though you tried to tidy up. And maybe this time it will really end with loud yells about neglect and carelessness.

But maybe it won’t,

so later you’ll do it all again.

Sound

[a poem about an abstract concept]

Sometimes sprinting, sometimes gliding, sometimes dancing through obstruction.

Starting with rigor then petering out, to become nothing.

Tiptoeing or stomping- traveling in its own way until exhaustion demands it cease.

Making it to it’s destination, or not.

Caressing. Nestling in the ear,

or crashing painfully into the side of the head,

or just stopping somewhere before that…

But in it’s existence, carrying all the importance [and unimportance]

we care to share with one another.

A Poem about a Landscape

And then the sun began to steal into the sky

pushing the moon to the other side,

blinding the dark so the stars were lost,

coloring the clouds with yellows and reds

splashing momentary paint on them which always wore away much too quickly.

How was is that she could do that to the water below-

coaxing it to sing with sparkle so that shine itself

flipped and danced and hovered the way it did

What made her so beautiful that each green

on the earth climbed up towards her wishing only to reach her radiant being.

She colored the world everyday

Bringing the contours of the mountains and the lake and the city

into hues of sweet color,

So that life

could be lived just as the last and the next and the one after.

Tragedy

[three different poems with a central theme]

I. Some days you feel like the world is turning for you. Like life has been orchestrated to do no other but make you happy. Other days you sense that the band playing your rhythm has fallen hopelessly out of tune. Life becomes shaky and unsure and you can’t help but feel that if the drummer had been just a little more on beat- you would be blissfully unaware of the tragedy that had just occurred. But the drummer was off and that’s that and now the backdrop on the stage of your world has fallen into disrepair. You’re not quite sure if you’ll ever be able to build back up. Because even if you do, there will always be some tiny imperfection or the presence of discord reminding you of what happened.

II. He stood unmoving, as he often did when awful filled him. He didn’t know what to do, so he just stood

stagnant. After a while, just as water when too still for too long, he began to feel foul, realization infiltrating him- a pollution that overtook his body.

Vomit and wipe his mouth on his sleeve,

Time

passed, as he tried to decide what to do with this thing that was making his heart twist in ways it shouldn't.

He needed to

put the phone back on the receiver because the empty line was making his head hurt and then he would

Not cry.

III. She let the tears stream down her face and did not think

about it. She tried not to let the crack at her throat let all the fear down into her chest.

The fear that it was true, because it wasn’t and couldn’t be and the faceless handwriting on the page was lying.

If she just cried, maybe the sorrow making her body numb would run its course.

Crumple to the floor, shaking with sobs and grief and refusal she just cried and pretended she was invisible and nothing had ever happened.

Because it couldn’t be true. And telling herself it wasn’t true made it better.

Then she didn’t want to feel like that anymore

So the door slammed behind her and she began walking. Even when it got dark, and the trees got thicker.

She broke

into a run.

Hades Lust

[a poem in the form of prose inspired by a myth of legend]

And when he heard her name, he whispered it to himself.

Persephone.

And when he tried it again, Persephone, he carefully attempted to the make the sounds fit in his throat just right so that the corners of her name exited perfectly from his lips, just as she deserved.

Persephone.

He loved the way it sounded… like how peppermints taste: sweetly lingering in one’s mouth.

And when he saw her, a tactic began to form in his mind. And as it grew, so did his lust. And in turn with his lust grew sureness that he must have her. Hold her. Love her.

And all these things grew, in much the same fashion that excitement grows in the heart, traveling into the stomach and twisting that around and then moving into the fingertips making them tap and fiddle with everything around them. It grew until he was only a jittering anticipation. And as these sentiments accumulated, his brow began to glister with just the tiniest bit of sweat and his hands became the slightest bit wet as well. But it was not because he was fearful or nervous. Because he wasn’t as he would fiercely claim if you asked. He was just unable to wait.

So he didn’t. And without the slightest knowledge of him, Persephone was whisked away. Stolen. The flowers that had been nestled in the corner of her arm were strewn about, and the daisy waiting next to be picked, stood tall and wondered why it was still rooted to the ground.

Persephone screamed.

Summer at Brown

So, then my mom was kissing me good-bye and telling me I'd be just fine but I'm pretty sure it was herself she was trying to convince. Then I got on a plane and 6 hours later I was in Boston taking a bus to Providence, Rhode Island and then blinking in the bright sunlight of Kennedy square and tripping my way into the beautiful campus of Brown University. And as my dad said, I was done with the most difficult part- not getting really lost, which was, in itself a small miracle.

Experimental writing is the name of the program I'm taking here at Brown as college prep course. I'm loving it! What started as a 'immabesicktomystomach' nerve racking class has turned into something I can't wait to get to each day. Between my wonderful professor and the great, intelligent girls I collab with, I've already learned so much. And when I'm not in class, life is great too. Class only goes from 3:50 to 6:40 but between the gym, meals, assignments and eating frozen yogurt theres no time at all! Still I love it, and this wonderful group of people I've met, have me laughing every second.

ANYWAY back to my class, Rebecca Van Laer, my professor, has to have some kind of magic because she make us read of book made up of poems yesterday (Beauty of the Husband if any of you care to look it up) and I actually liked it! AH, Whats happening to me!? I never thought I would like any of this but here I am spending lunch hour in the dorm room writing poetry.

I'm just kidding- there is no "lunch hour" and all who know me know that even if there was, I wouldn't miss it. But what I'm not kidding about is the poetry thing. cause for the first time in years and years of classes, it's actually making sense, to read and to write.

SO I thought I'd share the assginments I have each day and what I come up with in my response. Soon well switch other types of writing, but anything were doing, I'm excited for.

And thats just me, experiencing new things everyday currently across the country on our spinning world:)

10 things about me..

On facebook everyone's doing a 30 day challenge. So ofcourse i had to do it. Each day you post a picture, the 1st one requires 10 facts. Mine:

1. I could live off popcorn and crystal light
2. If the snows goods I’ll probably be at the mtn snowboarding with my kari
3. My friends are the most wonderful people in the world, I pick good ones:)
4. My family doesn't take vacations- We go on adventures across the world; sleep in dank hostels, live on cheap food and have the time of my life
5. Getting in fights with people I love bothers me more then anything else even if I don't show it.
6. Dance parties top are probably my favorite thing, like- ever.
7. Making new friends is a close second.
8. I pretend to play soccer and tennis but anyone who knows me knows I’m nothing special on the soccer field and I spend my time on the courts with Bridget laughing my face and hitting balls in the wrong direction.
9. When it comes to any sort of competition I talk huge even though I don't really have any talent in anything..
10. I'm out to make the best of life, stay upbeat and laugh too much everyday but that doesn’t mean I'm not counting down the days till I graduate and get out of this town.

And it's these little things, prefrences, likes, hates that make us who we are and I love everything about the fact that no ones exactly the same as any one. It just makes our world that much more huge and exciting. Because knowing this, how could life ever be boring?

Just an insignificant thought soon forgotten on our spinning world:)