UPDATE wow:
http://parasolparagua.shutterfly.com/action/
I've actually put up pictures of Madrid, including the one or two I took when dearest Jake was here, but mostly of how I live normally. Not that people visiting me isn't a normal part of living here.

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I'm writing a billion little essays before Sammy my tall brother comes, and I've found another advantage to understanding more than one language: the wikipedia articles often provide completely different information. Spanish, english, and oh...did you notice there's a Wikipedia in "simple english"? It's a trip.


I'm thinking very seriously of taking German next year. Right now I'm thinking seriously of writing homework and buying lots of food to feed that tall hollow brother of mine.


Feeding People
Here's why somebody needs to fix my computer again. I have no way of twirling Jake around so you can admire his demure anticipatory posture. Mum demanded at least one photo to prove he was here, so here, he was here. Sideways. Eating absolutely perfect tortilla española which we made the gither. Jakel!


Oh! And I never put up any photos of Valencia. Here's Valencia:

Sideways! I'm so sorry. If you have a laptop, just turn it carefully on its side.

Bus station, Marrakesh

O Beloveds. Morocco was beautiful to me, and oh what dumb luck I have. Got out before the violence struck up, got out without diseases or debts or death, and all without knowing Al Qaeda had a morrocan branch, or that a I wasn't supposed to drink the water. We did it all wrong, and it all worked out fine: planned the day before, traveled a lot of space in very little time, depended on the kindness of strangers, traveled with them, bought food from the street and the street markets, drank straight from the tap, wore bathing suits on the beach (as opposed to yards and yards of fabric, as the women who truly live there did) and splashed in the freezing brilliant cold. There are so many stories from that wee week we had, of kindness and bribery and sugary mint tea, but I'm not up to writing it all at once. The pictures I've put here: http://parasolparagua.shutterfly.com/action/
as well as those from the Erasmus trip to Barcelona. My Moroccan travel companions were Lizzy, Chase from Reed who writes, ha, a terribly nice British artist named Sam, Mohammad who studied english lit and is a waiter, much like I will be, Rashid whose hospitality we relied greatly on, Nassima who sat by me on the bus and doodled in my sketchbook [neither spanish nor english were among the several languages she spoke), and a Chilean ex-banker named Nicolas in a fabulous striped shirt.
Ta da! More stories later.

flurrying! elizabeth (the tiny person next to me two entries down) and i and her friend chase are going to MOROCCO in four hours! i just finished buying the tickets, my lord. the subway, a bus, a ferry, our six feet. what are we doing? i don't know! chase planned the rest. so they say. we'll see. we plan to be very safe and very dirty. i'm sure there are enough terrible tourists (me! me!) to have vacuumsucked internet cafés into existence, so i'll write home, you betcha.


gone gone!