Mazie

This is the (hilarious) story of why my debit card is currently locked in an ATM machine in Slovakia:

So it was Sunday, day #4 of our trip (I’ll post about the middle days later), and my friends and I had just hopped off our four hour bus from Prague and began exploring Bratislava, Slovakia. We had 3.5 hours to explore the city- Bratislava is super cool, but the real reason we ended our trip there was because flights were way cheaper than trying to fly out of Prague. About 20 minutes after we left the bus I spotted the most adorable souvenir shop ever. There was this one souvenir that I was dead set on getting for a certain someone and hadn’t bought yet, so I demanded that we look in this shop. Lo and behold, the inside was just as cute as the outside and they had exactly the souvenir I wanted. I went up to the nice lady at the counter to buy it and she informs me that they only accept cash. So I informed her that they had made a terrible mistake because I didn’t have any cash, thank you very much, and I would be getting that souvenir whether she liked it or not. Then, out loud this time, I thanked her and calmly set my souvenir back on the shelf.

A quick google maps inquiry told me there was an ATM 480 feet away, around the corner. It was one of the stand-alone machines. That was fitting because I was standing alone on this cold and rainy Sunday (that becomes important later), in front of the machine, my jacket and backpack slowly filling up with water. Determined to be as quick as possible so my clothes wouldn’t be soggy for the rest of the day, I fed my card into the machine and typed in that I needed 70 Euros in cash. An error flashed on the screen: insufficient funds. Right, I remembered that there were currently only $2 in my checking account, so I pulled out my phone to transfer money from my savings account to remedy that issue. I heard a small noise: ah, the machine had spit my card out for me to grab. Perfect, I would take it in one second, right after I finished this transfer on my phone. I hit “complete” on my phone and reached out to grab my card, only to see the ATM actively sucking it in. My heart dropped as I read the new message on the screen: “Your card has been retained. Contact your bank for more information”. Like it was sending me a big fat L and wanted to make sure I noticed, the words flashed on the screen for a few seconds before being replaced by the Tatra Banka home screen. Defeat in its most aggravating form (we don’t need to talk about the five minutes I spent banging on the machine and begging it to just give me my card back. Me, on my knees pleading with an ATM machine on some random street corner in Slovakia? No, never).

What that silly ATM didn’t realize was that 4am on a Sunday (Minnesota time) is not the best time to try and reach your bank… So instead I headed over to the fancy steakhouse next door, to get out of the rain for a moment just as much as to try and get help. As soon as I stepped in there I realized that if I wanted shelter from the rain, I was going to have to drop fifty bucks on a fancy steak. Nevertheless, the guy working was doing his best to convince me that would be a great idea (he didn’t speak much English so all I heard as I was trying to explain how my debit card had been eaten by the metal money monster next door was “Steak? Steak… Steak!”). Eventually I gave up and walked back outside into the rain. I needed to vent to someone who understood banks and maybe had some sort of ATM opener tool laying around, so I searched Google Maps my old pal for the nearest bank and found one right across the street inside a Marriott hotel. Beautiful. 30 seconds later I was inside the Marriott, dutifully following signs to this bank (it was wishful thinking to assume they’d even be open on a Sunday, but Google Maps had said they offered 24 hour service! It’s like it was too good to be true). And of course it was: I’d directed myself to another ATM. At this point I woke everyone in that hotel up with my groan of frustration and headed back to the entrance. Before I left, I decided to ask the receptionist if she was familiar with the sly box of death across the street or knew of any actual banks nearby that were open on Sundays. The answer was no and no, although she was very nice about it.

I stepped back outside, not knowing what to do and still not wanting to accept that my debit card of 7 years was lost forever, even though I knew exactly where it was. I didn’t think ChatGPT would be of much help, but I decided to complain to it anyways. It came up with a few random phone numbers that I hadn’t tried calling yet and were supposedly 24/7 lines. Pacing back and forth in front of the hotel I dialed the first one and heard a muffled voice on the other end. A lady with a very thick accent was mumbling something I couldn’t understand. I had to ask her to repeat herself an embarrassing number of times, but we made it work and I was able to explain my situation. She told me she was going to fill out some paperwork to file my card as missing and would need some information from me. It wasn’t until she asked for my social security number that I got suspicious and decided to hang up. I’m guessing she was just following the script, doing her job, but I wasn’t about to take any chances and get anything else stolen. Before I hung up, she transferred me to this other lady with US Bank (why she was awake and taking calls at 4am I have no idea) who spoke loudly and clearly and somehow seemed more trustworthy. She sent texts and emails to verify my identity and read off long legal statements from US Bank, so I’m pretty sure she was legit. She asked me a bunch more questions and froze and reported my card as well. Unfortunately rip this woman because the call dropped as I was trying to transfer her to my air pods and I didn’t have her number to call back :(.

While I was otherwise occupied, my friends had to gone to a nearby McDonald’s for lunch (the second McDonald’s visit of our trip, actually. But again, don’t worry, Mazie T abstained). Out of people to call and realizing that we needed to get a move on if we wanted to see anything more of Bratislava aside from a souvenir shop, an ATM, and a McDonald’s, I walked their way and caught them up on the debit card situation. When I told them that the saddest part was not being able to buy my souvenir, my friend Gracie pulled out a 20 Euro bill and handed it to me. Slightly annoyed that I didn’t ask earlier but mostly grateful and excited, I ran back over to the store and located the shelf of glimmering, perfect souvenirs. “Shoot”, I thought to myself. I was 4 Euro short of being able to buy the larger version, but thankfully they had two of the smaller version left. Just to memorialize what could’ve been, I picked up the prettiest larger one and took a picture. I think the universe is telling me to stop hesitating or something, because as I went to set it back on the shelf, this lady- the only other person in the entire store- walks up behind me and snatches both of the smaller version off the shelf. She buys them both on the spot. Of course she’s the kind of lady to carry a bunch of cash around.

I could’ve screamed. Instead I asked the checkout lady if they have any more of the smaller version. She said no. I was about to ask if they had any damaged or unlucky ones that she’d be willing to sell to me for a discount, but she wasn’t done talking: “Oh, but you could check out our other store just down the block- they have a larger selection. It’s straight down the block, around the corner and to the right! Less than a two minute walk!”. I almost didn’t want to ask because I was afraid the answer would kill me, but the question came tumbling out my mouth, probably a bit more accusatory than I wad intending: “And, by chance, do they take credit card there?”.

I don’t think I need to tell you what her response was. The important thing is that I was able to buy my souvenir- and the size and color I wanted at that!- and thanks to my dad, a new debit card is on the way. I can’t wait to be reunited with my sea turtles again!

When you reuse essay questions you wrote last year for the same job application and they ask you to share more about the story which you don’t even remember writing about during the interview…

I’m obsessed and it’s not good aka it’s really good 🫣

Doors in Prague 🤩

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Proud mama moment right here. And by that I mean proud mama of myself I guess? We had 8,000 steps before 8:00am this day!

This is a post entirely dedicated to the newest member of my stuffed animal clan, my precious handmade bunny from the Budapest market. New grand total of the number of stuffed animals keeping me company in Europe= 2. I bought him on Friday, with two full days of travel still ahead of us, and our bond grew and grew the more I toted him around in my already stuffed backpack or, more commonly, my arms :)

I want to give an extra shoutout to the #Bunnyinabag photo and the selfies when I was carrying him around in my jacket because my hands got too cold.

Budapest pictures!!! I was going to dedicate just one blog post to all of my pictures from the trip but then I suddenly had like five million just from Budapest soooo…

Highlights include (going somewhat in order): The Dohány Street Synogauge, some very beautiful rainy streets, the Central Market Hall and the AMAZING Lángos I got there, me holding up the moon (of course) in my flattering pink jacket, beautiful views from and of the Fisherman’s Bastion, some cool statues, a lot of locks, the Városliget Castle at night, and my Nutella Chimney Cake.

All right peeps, this is a blog post about the two Hungarian foods I tried while in Budapest. They were both delicious, but I’d have to say I enjoyed the Lángos more. I think I just really love warm, squishy bread and it was exactly what I was hoping which was really exciting.

Lángos

• Who: Just me. I’m the only one who got to experience this wonder.
• What: A giant circle of thick fried bread. If you get it served the traditional way, which I did, it comes with sour cream brushed on top of the bread and shredded cheese sprinkled on top of that. The bread is warm and fresh and the sour cream and cheese both go on cold. It was honestly a bit much sour cream for me but I pushed through in order to have the real experience.
• When: Lunch on Friday.
• Where: At a giant indoor market in Budapest, two blocks away from our hostel. We spent quite a bit of time wandering around here and there was so much candy I could’ve eaten and so, so many souvenirs I could’ve bought. I did buy a stuffed animal bunny that I am 100% in love with though!
• Why: Saw it online, looked like something I would be mad at myself for if I didn’t try.

Chimney Cake Apparently I ate this once in Arizona, but I don’t really recall that.

• Who: Me and Gracie both tried it!
• What: A thin-ish dough wrapped around a cone and cooked over open embers to golden brown. Once fully cooked, they immediately roll it in a finisher of your choice (coconut sugar, cinnamon sugar, cocoa, etc) and then fill it with the topping of your choice (basically just nutella or ice cream). I got mine rolled in cinnamon sugar with nutella on the inside, and Gracie did the same but with coconut on the outside. The nutella was more of a coating on the inside of the spiral, but if you order yours with ice cream, they shape it into something resembling a cone. You eat it kind of like a cinnamon roll, unwinding it and tearing off pieces.
• When: After dinner on Friday night.
• Where: At a food truck in a little market.
• Why: I also saw it online and after walking by and smelling countless chimney cake stands all day, I couldn’t leave without one of my own.

This weekend (honestly these last two weeks!) was chock full of adventure! Me and my friends Gracie and Allison embarked on a creative itinerary that took us through Hungary, Czechia, and Slovakia in just four days. The weekend started for me at 5:30am on Thursday, when I woke up to shower and catch the 6:30am metro to the 7:00am bus to the 9:25am flight. After some last-minute airport confusion we arrived at our gate and sat down to actually think about what we wanted to do on our trip. We used a style of trip planning that is not really planning at all and is probably more appropriate to call the Google Maps Checklist. All three of us looked up buildings/places that seemed cool and starred them on google maps, and then each morning we planned out what made sense to see that day.

The flight was relatively fine, and I absolutely loved the Budapest airport when we got there! It reminded me a little bit of Iceland: clean and orderly, with simple modern decorations. We took a bus into the city center and went to Fat Mama’s for lunch on a recommendation from one of my classmates who’d visited Budapest a few weekends before. After a little more walking around we checked into our hostel, Maverick Central Market, which we all loved. It was probably a 20 minute walk from the city center, but well worth it: they had free water, a guitar (with one broken string but the thought was there), free luggage storage for the next day, and the room and bathrooms felt very clean and cozy. I put Gracie and Allison down for a quick (by quick I mean two hour-long) nap, and then left to walk around Budapest.

As I’ve gotten older, I think I’ve become more and more like my mom with her (very small) range of acceptable temperatures. If I’m not wearing a sweatshirt and its not at least 70 degrees outside, you’ll probably find me wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket or, more likely, fantasizing about having a fuzzy blanket to wrap myself in. That is to say that I was very brave (or just cheap and not wanting to buy an entire winter coat for a four day trip) facing the rainy Hungarian 35 degrees with my windbreaker and no umbrella. Alas the bravery attempt failed me pretty quickly. I packed an insane amount of layers, so many that if I was wearing them all my backpack would have been empty, but I realized that no matter how many t-shirts you put on you’re still going to be cold. Thankfully I ran into a thrift shop while walking around and found a slightly oversized pink puffer jacket for just 4,172 Forint, or 11 Euros. A few minutes later it was mine and was already serving a double purpose as a rain jacket (although it was admittedly failing at that and definitely just making me colder).

I saw some more sights including a giant market, then returned to the hostel to pick my nappers up for the next leg of our day. We had an hour walk over to the port to meet the boat for our unlimited Prosecco cruise, but we extended the route a little to hit some sights we wanted to see along the way. 9 times out of 10 I love a good walk, but I was honestly dying during this one. It was cold and raining decently hard, I was only wearing a few of my layers (one pair of pants and two shirts), my new puffer jacket had become more of a cold soggy blanket that I had to drag with me, and the umbrella I’d “borrowed” from the hostel (because OF COURSE I decided I wasn’t going to need the beautiful, working rainbow umbrella I’d bought two weekends ago in Portugal) looked like a prank you would play on someone you really hated if they were stuck out in the rain. It had spokes randomly sticking out everywhere and half of the umbrella was sagging under its own weight and kept dumping water on me. By the time we got to the cruise, literally all I cared about was stepping into the cabin of the boat where I could be warm and dry (I eventually got warm-ish, but was never fully dry because wet jeans sadly don’t work like that).

One sip was enough to inform myself that I hated Prosecco, but I didn’t hate it as much as other alcohols I’ve tried so I drank a glass and then another glass, really really slowly and mixed with lemonade (the lemonade wasn’t good either). My favorite part was the atmosphere of the boat itself: it was very romantic with dimmed lights, slow tunes playing and roses on the table. Approximately every 1.5 minutes the Prosecco guy would saunter over and top your glass off. We were sitting at one of the best tables and got to see the beautiful lit up Parliament building through the rainy window (the rain kinda destroyed all chances of a good picture) and some other monuments that I don’t remember the names of. For all the romantic, chill vibes, it was obvious they were trying to shove as many people through this tour per night as possible, so after just barely an hour of cruising they kindly requested we leave in the most forceful way possible and we were standing back out on the windy, rainy, cold dock just like we’d started.

Actually it wasn’t just liked we’d started: Gracie and Allison were now under the influence of 6 or 7 glasses of Prosecco, and you could tell. Things stared to get real funny real quick, and we heard some very interesting stories. Gracie and Allison decided that we should probably get dinner before going back to the hostel, and put me in charge of getting us someplace. Definitely a good decision. I shepherded my giggly children back to the main street lined with restaurants, and then had a really hard time finding anywhere that seemed suitable for our group in our current situation. We eventually walked past this little gyro shop that had a slightly separated dining room and no other customers and my companions seemed good with it so we went in. I immediately regretted that decision, as I was a bit sketched out by the inside of the restaurant. I ordered a falafel wrap thing that I also immediately regretted ordering because I realized I wasn’t going to want to eat anything from this place. It ended up being fine because it came with Tzatziki sauce so I wouldn’t have wanted to eat it anyways, so Gracie ate it for me because she loves Tzatziki sauce. Allison got some french fries that made her throw up in the middle of the night (making me think that maybe my sense about that place was wise after all…).

After a very loud dinner during which I’m sure we were annoying the guy working there to death, we Ubered back to our hostel (none of us felt like enduring that horrible freezing cold hour walk again, especially at night) and went to bed. Good night!

Fellow froggers and bloggers, I wish I could muster up the strength to write a blog post right now but alas my eyelids are becoming quite heavy; its not their fault they splurged on some really beautiful sights this weekend.

Tomorrow my inner comedian and I will work to bring you a curated retelling of two of my new favorite stories from today. Call it unlucky or just call it memorable, but I hope to knock even your heaviest eyelids off with this one!

What a wacky but fun day! Once we arrived in the Budapest city center, we went to Fat Mama’s for lunch where I got some delish veggie pasta with Parmesan. Then we walked around and saw some sights and made our way to the hostel to check in as early as we could. We created a Google Maps checklist, you could say, of everything we want to see while we’re here, so we just have to plan the most efficient way to walk between all of our stops. I think it’s a pretty genius way to travel- doesn’t take much forethought or preparation, it’s easy to understand and pick back up the next day, and it ensures you don’t miss anything big.

Gracie and Allison took a little afternoon siesta at the hostel while I walked around some more and thrifted myself this really ugly pink jacket because I was FREEZING. When you’re walking around in rainy 36 degree weather wearing jeans (which are only making you colder because they’re sopping wet) and a thin fall jacket, with no umbrella because you didn’t even think about bringing it, it’s pretty easy to get pretty cold pretty fast. I did bring my hat, which was the only thing I had going for me.

We all left the hostel around 5:30 and accomplished a few more sightseeing stops on the 50 minute walk to the river for our unlimited Prosecco cruise. Coldest walk in recent memory: it was still raining and I’d borrowed an umbrella from the hostel in the hopes of it getting sopping wet again. However, the umbrella was broken and was honestly more of a pain for my ice block fingers to carry around than it was a hep for keeping me dry. Needless to say, we were all wet by the time we got to the cruise, but it was nice and warm (and fancy!) on the boat. I knew this in advance, but I paid $30 to sit on the boat and watch other people enjoy their prosecco as we wound slowly up and down the channel. I managed to drink maybe two glasses when I combined it with lemonade.

I’m getting really tired so have to hurry it up, but afterwords we wandered a bit looking for somewhere for a small dinner that could accommodate some slightly louder and more giggly than usual college kids. We settled on this gyro shop on a big street and proceeded to be super confusing and annoying for the guy working there. Whoops, sorry Gyro guy! After we finished, we endured some drama trying to get a taxi but finally managed to call one on Uber. Unprompted, the driver started narrating his entire life story to us, including how he almost died last year in a motorcycle accident when he ran into a bus, but how that also saved his life because one of his nurses became his girlfriend. He’s a full time driver now while he heals, but soon he’ll be able to go back to school and finish his law degree.

Things were just really, really funny during and after that but we all locked in when we got back to the room to make sure we didn’t wake anyone up.

We just landed in Budapest!! Prague and Bratislava coming up also this weekend! I can already tell I’m going to love Hungary. The airport was clean and orderly and felt very Scandinavian. It’s silly, but I feel like I can gauge tell how much I vibe with a place based on the airport bathrooms 😆.

I took a little photoshoot at the Barcelona airport while I was waiting for my friends to get there :)

And I figured I’d include the view from the window of the plane… I glanced over and gasped when I noticed those mountains 😍

Hashtag sitting in the coolest hostel ever in Morocco trying to do my homework one hour before its due because everyone forgot it’s Sunday but my fingers are too frozen to type and my classmates are throwing up all around me.

Hehehehe at least I’m in Morocco.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!!! I absolutely must go to bed, but wanted to send something on this holiday that I love so very much!

I love you all and eat some chocolate cuz I haven’t had ANY 😱. A valentines not to be forgotten, that’s for sure!

OMG WHAT THE HECK I’M IN AFRICA NEW CONTINENT UNLOCKED THIS IS SO COOL HOW HAVE I LIVED TWENTY YEARS AND NEVER BEEN HERE.

Hey loyal readers! Sup from Morocco!!! I’m here until Sunday and am ready to soak in every last drop (literally and figuratively- it was raining pretty hard today). Today we flew in (can’t seem to escape windy, bumpy flights) met our Morocco Exchange program leaders who are all super nice, rode camels on the beach, got a tour of a small Medina (city/town), exchanged Euros for Moroccan Durham, tried some traditional breads with cheese, took a 3 hour bus ride into Rabat, the capital of Morocco, and met the host families we will be staying with for the next two nights! Our host family is a mom and dad with two daughters who I would guess are 15 and 22, maybe? I could be very wrong. They are all so nice and welcoming and have told us innumerable times to make ourselves at home :). We learned about Moroccan culture throughout the day from our program guides, but there is nothing more real than actually staying in someone’s home. It’s things like being instructed on how to use a squatty potty and told that you won’t use silverware at dinner that really got to me. Then there’s the language aspect: I don’t know a single word of Arabic, and it’s not like Catalan where you can kind of piece it together if the words look similar to Spanish. It’s crazy how impactful it was to look at street signs and store names and just be so completely lost. At dinner, our host mom and host sister mainly spoke to one another in Arabic, which left me feeling unsure if I should interrupt to ask a silly question in English or just smile and laugh along. I can’t even put into words how cool and different it all was and how hard I was resistigg geeking out about every tiny little thing, trying to remind myself that this is just another version of mundane, everyday life. Before I zonk out for the night (I’ll attach a picture of our room), I have to say just how good the food our host mom made was. If I only had one word to describe it I would say: flavorful. She made homemade bread (actually everything was completely homemade) with a veggie/eggplant dip, and these roasted curried potatoes with chicken; those chicken and potatoes were some of the most flavorful I’ve ever tasted.

When school is canceled due to the weather 🤷‍♀️ (Me enjoying the Wind Day)

Tomorrow we have a Wind Day. There will be no school, no activities that aren’t completely necessary, and no absolutely no fun. Just kidding. But only about the no fun.

You might say: Huh, that sounds like a snow day… Just with wind. And you would be exactly right!

Although Mazie the Meteorologist says y’all are making a big deal out of a little breezy blustery wind, Weather App the more professional meteorologist argues back with a solid rebuttal, claiming a Severe Coastal Event Warning, Severe Wind Warning, and pleasant breezes up to 50mph.

Although I may not sound it, I am delighted that the Wind chose tomorrow to strike- I was really starting to question how I was going to catch up on six assignments, an ungodly number of pages of reading, two job applications, and packing for Morocco in the 0 free hours I had tomorrow. Well thank you, Wind, for saving my life: by vastly improving the quality of the assignments I will be turning in tomorrow when I would’ve been at my internship and by ensuring that I will not become a wind-flattened pancake on the sidewalk tomorrow (although that may still happen… there’s gonna have to be some pretty serious wind for me not to leave the house).

I don’t like to speak for other people, but I feel that my brother Tyler would also be delighted in this news. How often is it that you get a Wind Day on your birthday? Granted it’s a little less cool than snow (literally and figuratively).. and he’ll still have to go to school… but at least now he can stride confidently into Edina High School knowing that the Catalonians in Spain are taking the day off in celebration of him. If a lot of wind means sound travels farther, he might even hear us singing happy birthday on the breeze and think: If insanity starts to set in when you turn 16, I wonder the state I’ll be in at 60?

There’s actually another birthday tomorrow that might be just a bit more important for Spain, but certainly not for Meteorologist Mazie. It’s St. Eulalia’s day, the Patron Saint of Barcelona and martyr against Roman authorities. Legend holds that the 13 year old girl was beaten in 13 different ways before they managed to kill her- that’s true grit right there. St. Eulalia’s day is celebrated every year at this time to recognize her bravery and defiance and remember the values of faith and justice that her story surfaces. I am fairly certain this year will be the first combined St. Eu-Wind-lia’s Day, but there’s gotta be a first time for everything! Although strong wind and activities like stacking humans and playing with fire- what many Catalán traditions entail- is probably not the best combo. Maybe celebrations will have to happen on Friday the 13th… funny how that happens. As long as we don’t have another Wind Day.

I encourage you all, even if its just in spirit, to get out there tomorrow (probably leaning on spirit for this too unless you’ve been wanting to explore life as a flattened sidewalk pancake) and enjoy you’re Wind Day!

The day’s chocolate (and some other things I talked about in my super long post)!

All of the little scenes are from the chocolate museum and were made out of chocolate.

Even if I am putting other things off, posting is still a very valuable use of time on its own. It’s productive procrastination as I like to say. Anyways, there are two points to this blog post.

1. To tell everyone about my day (cuz why not)
2. To report on recent earth-shaking happenings in the music world that you mines while go bury yourself in a hole if you don’t know about. You can dig yourself back out after reading this.

Today was of the go-go-go type- not quite rushing from one thing to the next, but walking to the next thing, just really really fast. My route to class Monday and Wednesday mornings is: Metro L7: El Puxet - Plaza Catalunya, then a 20 minute walk from Plaza Catalunya to Carrer de Casp 130, Oficina COACB. From there I scan my fancy little student access code and walk up seven flights of stairs and down the hallway to my class. It’s literally the farthest classroom in the entire building. One of these days I’m gonna make a day in my life vlog and you can all watch this process instead of reading about it, which I’m sure is just riveting. Anyways, the point is that I can be a bit of an optimist in the mornings and sometimes the Google Maps walking calculations really do forget that you have two functioning legs and are not 105 years old. This morning I attempted to shove the 20 minute walk into more of a 10 minute kind of thing, which is better than some mornings have been but still not ideal (my dream is a lazy walk down the street where I can stop into a bakery for a croissant). I was 5 minutes late to class and sounded like a freight train bulldozing into the room after championing all those stairs.

We took a field trip today in my Comida y Cultura class to the Barcelona Chocolate Museum (I don’t think micro.blog really does emojis, but I would put a shocked face or chocolate bar or something here cuz thats how I felt when I learned there was a museum about chocolate in this city- and that we were going!). It was a very small museum; the coolest thing were the sculptures made purely of chocolate. They had Messi, the Smurf’s, Yoda, some historical scenes, a giant elephant, and a bunch more stuff made out of chocolate (I’ll include some pictures). Oh yeah, and our tickets themselves were bars of chocolate! Delicious! Turns out me and one other girl from my class took too long inside, so the rest of the class walked back without us and left us to rush back (no wonder…) to school just in time for my second class.

Cross-Cultural Psych was also fun today- we watched a documentary about babies. There was no narration which would usually bore me, but this documentary was actually really interesting! It followed four babies and their mothers from distinct areas of the world- Namibia, Madagascar, San Fransisco, and Tokyo, during their first year of life and hinted at the multitude of different ways to raise a happy and healthy child.

After class I have a break from 1:00-3:30, and today I set out on a mission: All I wanted for lunch was my absolute favorite “Empanada Pollastre” (which is just an empanada with chicken and peppers) from a bakery, or Forn de Pa in Catalan, right by my internship. As my internship is a solid 30 minute walk from school, I usually try out something different on school days, but today my mind was set. But when I arrived at 1:30 with a chicken empanada shaped hole in my heart, the lady told me that they hadn’t made any today and they’d be back tomorrow. Cry. After much deliberation I found a solution: Tío Bigotes, an empanada chain place that looked good. Another 30 minutes later I walked in the door there and ordered two empanadas: a spicy chicken and a caprese. These empanadas were a little longer and flatter than the one from the Forn de Pa by my internship, so they weren’t quite capable of filling the hole in my heart exactly, but nevertheless they were quite good (and they were heated up!). On my way back to school, and with time to spare, I passed the most adorable and delicious looking bakery I had ever seen in my life and simply had to stop. I ordered this mini hazelnut-filled donut thing and it was the most adorable and delicious tasting donut I had ever eaten in my life. And an added plus was I got to sit there amidst the heavenly smells for a while and do some work before I had to head back for my next class!

My last class of the day is Sustainable Development where the lectures are genuinely so interesting. Today we continued learning about how the city of Barcelona as we know it today has been shaped by historical factors and conflict, especially the Spanish Civil War, Franco’s dictatorship, conflict between Madrid and Catalonia, and the 1992 Olympics. We also had some time to work with our final project groups- we’re building a project proposal for the UK’s Darwin Initiative, assisted and constructed largely by AI with us as overseers and quality control. Its funny how professors have completely opposite views on AI use for assignments- I think my Ecospirituality professor from St. Olaf would faint if she heard about this project.

After class ended it was another 30 minute fast walk over to LOVECYCLE Barcelona for my first in-person spin class in Spain, which also happened to be free! The building was hip and cool, and so were the other people in the class (if I’m going to judge books by their covers). The class itself was SO much more fun than any other spin class I’ve taken, probably because it was live and the energy in the room was palpable, but also because the instructor literally had us dancing the entire time! It was never: Set your resistance to blank and cadence between blank and blank, but instead she would tell us a number of times to spin the resistance dial and then everyone would naturally fall into rhythm with the music. Every song was a dance party- she would give us a sequence of new moves for each one. I’m not kidding when I say dancing while spinning had so many benefits: it gave your upper body and mind a workout along with your legs, it noticeably increased the group’s energy, it made me connect with the music more, and it helped keep me from getting bored. I felt like such a newcomer trying to understand the instructor’s shouted Spanish over the loud music (also in Spanish) and being constantly surprised by class routines and traditions (like when everyone waves their towels in the air during the last song). But it was seriously a really fun time- cultural immersion for the day? check!

It was also right on my way home, so I had the perfect amount of time to get home in time for dinner at 7:40 after class ended at 7:05. If, of course, you define perfect as 35 minutes for a 35 minute walk. I barreled up those streets and ran red lights for fifteen minutes until I glanced down at Google Maps and saw that I somehow still had 30 minutes to go and was going to arrive late for dinner. So I shook off the confusion (my route was basically a straight line following a big road for 2km, so if I actually did manage to stray from the route, I’m honestly impressed) and barreled even harder this time all the way back. I did some serious barreling and walked in the door 8 minutes late, but better 8 minutes than 9!

Dinner was the most wonderful experience tonight. Cristina made cheese tortellinis with tomato sauce which was just so perfect, and we had our usual salad with the crunchy fried onion bits and bread. She also put out these fried fish stick things which were pretty good. After we cleaned up, Natalie rushed off to go see a movie and I ate my leftover chocolate pudding while watching a bit of Cristina’s game show. Then I decided to be smart and kind to my future self and hopped in the shower. Turns out that shower was an experience almost as wonderful as dinner.

Back in my room drying off, it was almost 10pm and I was still lingering in all that wonder and dreaming about getting a lot of sleep when I opened up my laptop to the scariest email I’ve ever received. The sender was Wrangell Mountains Field Studies, Alaska, one of the places I applied to for the summer, and the subject read: “In google meet call- here’s the link if you’re having trouble getting in”. I had totally forgotten that I scheduled an interview with them for tonight, because who schedules an interview for 9:45pm other than a forgetful study abroad student? I immediately turned the light in my room back on, threw a professional-looking shirt on, and logged in, blurting out an apology that was 70% truth and 30% excuse. I quickly realized that it didn’t matter that I’d been late, because there was no way I was going to be participating in this program anyways. Just a few of the reasons, from most to least salient, include: It costs $14,000 for seven weeks, there’s a bunch of fancy required gear, the guy interviewing me was way too cool, and you’re conducting actual field research and writing scientific reports the whole time. I know that last one is literally in the name, but somehow I read “field studies in Alaska” and understood “fun camping trip in Alaska”. It was still cool to hear about the program though, and now I’ll get to see if I even would have the option to go (if they accept me).

Then I did like two minuscule productive tasks and began writing this and, just like that, it appears my dreams of getting sleep jumped out the window to their death. I should’ve known to never leave dreams unsupervised. Ooooh inspirational quote moment, I like that! Tomorrow I’m back at my internship and part-time piano teacher position with a growing interest base, and then Friday at 4:00am Natalie and I will be heading to the airport bound for a verified 100% rainy, no getting around it weekend in Portugal! But its all good because tomorrow I am going to have a chicken empanada for lunch.

OMG I forgot I was going to write about Noah Kahan! No time- he came out with a new song, you have to listen, it’ll change your life, you also have to go to his tour, that’ll also change your life. And text or call or talk to me about it cuz I’d love to change our lives together :)

Some (ok actually kind of a ton) of pictures from the last week!