buuuullshit!

yesterday in my geography class we were talking about how there are a lot of forest fires in the rural areas of portugal. then he said that one of the main causes for these forest fires is that people in portugal like to go on picknicks a lot and the usually bring a bottle or two of wine, ya know. and they leave these bottles of wine there because they have "no sense of civic duty" and the sun rays hit these bottles and they concentrate the rays like how magnifying glasses do and this starts fires. i think the chances of this happening is extremely slim, certrainly too slim to be the first reason he lists for thousands of hectares ( i dont understand this form of measurement) of the country side of portugal going up in flames.

RAVEN!

in my comp and con class we have to give presentations about "legends from our homeland" i though that there is probably no better legend than that of RAVEN STEALING THE SUN! so i just got out of class were i gave it and it went pretty well. i thought i would delight everyone by copy and pasting my story. it is in portuguese but i still think its funny. knock yourself out.
Raven Rouba O Sol
De acordo com a lenda do tribo dos índios do noroeste dos Estados Unidos, o tribo Haida, quando o mondo começou, nã havia nem o sol e luz. Raven, quem sempre existia, já não queria viver na escuridão.
Um dia, quando Raven estive a voar na escuridão, ele se aproximou de uma casa de um velhote quem morava com a filha dele só. Raven era muito manhoso e ele aprendeu que o velhote tinha um preciosidade muito espécial. O velhote tinha uma caixinha com todo o luz do universo. Raven decidiu roubar o luz para ele próprio.
Pensou para um tempo longo e finalamente ele descobriu um plano. Ele esperava perto do rio até a filha do velhote veio ao rio para obter água. Raven se transformou em um folha e se caiu no rio. No mesmo instante, a menina colocou sua taça na água e a folha foi na taça. A menina bebeu da taça e engolhou a folha porque ele não viu-la.
Raven foi para o estômago da menina e ele se transformou um outra vez para um humano. Raven ficou em sua estômago para um tempo breve e então a menina deu a luz a Raven na forma de um bebé. Raven cresceu muito rapido, e tão depressa como ele pôde falar, ele co meçou a pedir seu avô se ele pusesse brincar com o luz. Finalamente, o velhote permitiu-lo e trocou da caixinha uma bola de luz e atirou-lo a Raven. Enquanto a bola de luz estive na ar, Raven se transformou no pássaro. Raven apanhou a bola de luz em seu bico e voou através da janela para o céu. Deixou o bolo de luz no céu e como este é hoje temos luz no mondo.

i hate the portuguese language and people

i dont really. sometimes i just get very frustrated and thats how i feel. its been weird getting back from break and realizing how i have not very much time here but i still feel like i havent adapted that well. i can figure everythign out now and i dont do stupid shit like buying fabric softener to wash my clothes anymore but i would have a hard time describing people here other than like they all have dark brown hair and are short and can give some mean stares. and they like shopping malls. this sounds like i am having a bad time which is not true, its just frustrating sometimes.

okay, okay

spring break has been good to me.
first i went to ioannina, greece to visit steph. it took me about a day and a half to get there-leaving at 3am on saturday the 1st and arriving around noon on tuesday the 2nd. i guess it was worth it because steph and i watched little mermaid and cold mountain and i broke a glass and an empty bottle of wine. i also got to use the Internet(the spell check told me to capitalize this and i think that it is really funny) a lot. i sat next to a very cute little old greek lady on the bus to ioannina wearing the most typical little old lady clothes i have ever seen. she got really antsy (sp?) at the end of the trip and then i smelled a poopy smell and i am afraid she pooped her pants. i cant speak any greek so i couldnt help her and i felt bad. i was also tired because i had slept 4 out of 40 hours.
then steph and i took the bus back to athens and hung out there for a day and night. it was great because steph accidentally booked us our own room with a big bed and a tv and we watched some funny, random shit. we watched-2 episodes of the simpsons which i hadnt seen in forever, an episode of seinfeld which i hadnt seen forever, ben herr (sp?) which was weird and funny kinda? and awakenings which was also kinda weird but good. and we watched this greek show called spaghetti. they eat spanikopitas for breakfast in greece.
then we headed to london. i love london. it is exactly the way you picture it to be. the weird british sayings, the pubs, the big teeth, the beer-everything. i met a douche bag who said he hated muslims and i got in a fight with him bc i am studying islamic art and really like it. we saw dan radcliffe (harry potter) in a play and i we teared up and it was the best experience of my life, not only because we saw him jump around naked. hes a great actor. people in london gave my red shoes very very mean looks.
right now i am in granada staying with eric nusbaum. granada is cool. carly from portugal is here with me and its funny introducing friends. it was also funny in london when steph met carly and caleb who were there and asked if they were taking a train back to portugal.
i just started a great fantasy novel called the wheel of time. i really really like it. i am reading book one of 7, i believe, and it is called the eye of the world. its intense.

some new shit

today is my friend and apartment-mate's (?) birthday! he is turning 22. his name is nick leo. we are having a sweet ass party for him tonight and i am excited. carly and i are going to paint our faces and i am going to wear my bulls shirt. to me, life cannot get much better. we went to the store today and got a lot of stuff (booze, 2 kilos of oranges and peanuts) and we were all very excited. i also got a pack of uno for the party and uno=fun. carly and i decided to sacrifice our lingua class and clean instead.
the weather the past twoish weeks has been amazing and its so great. its been in the high 60s/low 70s and super super sunny almost everyday. we have gone to the river a lot and hung out down there and we went to the beach again last sunday. it is still very cold at night in our apartment and i still have to wear long underwear (2 on the top one on teh bottom), sweatpants and a wool sweater but its okay beacuse the days are so nice.
tomorrow carly caleb and i are going down to lisbon to meet my PARENTS! i am very excited. my brother is coming from italy on saturday night. there should be some good eating. i am a little nervous because everyone else in my family has been to lisboa except me and i feel as tho i should be the one showing htem around, not the other way. on sunday we are coming back here to coimbra and htey will stay until tuesday. here are places that i am going to take them and have little or no meaning to most of you: campus, the baixa, the river, either the jardim botanico or another garden off of the praca de republica annnddd drum role....PEDRO NUNES my old dorm! i am going to take them there so they can realize how ridiculous it is.
right now i am sitting outside in a square in front of the cathedral a block away from my house and while i may have some issues with the portuguese people-it is really really awesome here.

today in class

i just got out of my conversation and composition class. the teacher in that class is really ridiculous and you are often put on teh spot and have to answer questions which really are too simple to be answered or discussed about. but it is a class that is really focused on improving our normal, day to day, portuguese so talking is beneficial. today we were talking about stress (for the entire 2 hour class period) and she was asking what things make us stressed out. i decided that since a lot of small things make me stressed out this would be a good oportunity for my first time talking out of my own free will. i started saying how a lot of small things make me stressed out in normal activities but that it usually doesnt last for long so its okay. i said this MUCH less eloquently in portuguese and had to stop a lot to think. then she asked me what and i realized that a lot of the thigns that make me upset would sound ridiculous in front of a lot of people who dont know me, not the mention how foolish i already sounded speaking. so then i was like umm....i dont know cracks in the street (i did know how to say this so it came out more like lines in the road) and then paused a long time and said i was just superstitious. then my friends in the class started chiming in with other things. it was somewhat ridiculous but was way more amusing to me then embarrassing.

i moved!

on thursday we moved out of the dorms and into an apartment! its really really awesome because we are about a 3 minute walk from out building on campus. the apartment is very big and smells like shit. we havent found out what is causing the smell but we have tried hard. i also bought 2 birds yesterday. they are loud. last night we had people over for dinner which was fun but a little hectic because we didnt have enough plates, chairs, table space, cups, silverwear or food. we did have enough wine though.