¡Buenos Dias Princesa!

Last night I was flipping through my Spanish tv for the first time and I found Life is Beautiful (one of my favorites) en español. I found it funny that Guido's phrase for his wife had been turned into "¡Buenos Dias Princesa!" I don't know what I expected, but I thought it was funny. I even considered temporarily changing the name of my blog while I'm in Spain.

Armpits

So when I was taking Spanish in high school my friends and I once discovered a picture of a female with a raised arm pointing to something in the distance. This young woman had very hairy armpits. Our Spanish teacher explained that women don't groom their armpit hair in Spain. This was very shocking news.

Since I've arrived in Madrid, I've been carefully peeking at women's armpits to see if my Spanish teacher was right. So far I have only encountered 1 pair of hairy armpits. However, it seems that Spanish women keep their armpits pretty well hidden. I've also only seen one pair of shaven armpits.

I'll report back with the conclusion to this study at a later time.

(and in case you were wondering, yes, I do occasionally feel weird for trying to spot armpit hair on the streets and the metro of Madrid)

Day 2 in Madrid

So this morning I went into the office and finally found the kitchen. It's not that hard to find, it's just that I wasn't looking before. It was awesome. Apparently Spaniards have a thing for orange juice because there was a fantastic orange juicer in the kitchen. It looked like this:


So a coworker explained to me that Spaniards consider the country to be the orange country and they drink oj all day, not just ask breakfast. It's even considered a dessert!
Did you know they make white chocolate Toblerone? Because I didn't until I saw it in the kitchen at work today.

Another observation about Madrid: there are no ads on the metro trains. Where there are normally ads there are just blank spots or big maps of all of the other metro lines.

Subway cheese

While browsin the net and trying to stay awake at what Madrid wants me to think is 4:30 PM, I found this cartoon

I think you should listen to this cartoon's message, as it's a powerful one.
By the way, that was found on The Consumerist

Welcome to Madrid

There are a few things I've learned about Madrid in the short time I've been here (5 hours).
- I thought they don't believe in street signs, but it's just that they don't believe in street signs on the STREET. They're instead high up on buildings.
- Buying metro tickets is very confusing. I still don't know why I had to buy a suplemento. Do you? Exactly. That's as much as I know.
- The dollar sucks against the Euro!

About my hotel:
- There's no iron! I have to pay someone 5 euros to iron a shirt for me. I think it'll be cheaper for me to just purchase an iron and throw it away at the end of the trip. I'll let you know what I end up doing.
- I found a nice little window in my bathtub. Story and annotated pictures to come later.
- My room includes one of the very first hair driers ever produced. I attempted to use it and decided that it would take approximately 35 minutes to dry my hair using it. (again, a picture to come)
- I think I have a bidet in my bathroom but I'm scared of it because I don't know how to use it.

Kwik-e-mart

So in case you haven't heard, some 7-elevens were converted into
Kwik-e-marts to promote the Simpsons movie. One of them happens to be
in my town, so check it out. My favorite parts were the old dude in the
freezer (trying to freeze himself into the future), the pink sprinkled
donuts, and the cashier saying "thank you, come again"

Advice needed!

My little bro is graduating from high school. I can't believe he's old enough to be graduating from high school, but that's beside the point. Do you have any idea what a big sister is supposed to get her little bro for graduating? Right now it looks like he'll be commuting to Penn State Berks from Collegeville (about a 45 minute drive) but he might also rent an apartment. If he were moving out of the house I'd definitely get him some badass college-apartment stuff - like a TV. But if he's not moving out of the house he doesn't need a tv so I have no idea what to do. I'd give him cash, but I'd rather he did something useful with it than spend it on chicks.

Party cups

I have a recommendation for you if you're going to be holding a party soon: http://etch-it.com/index.html. They're pretty awesome. Here's an illustration:


Basically, these cups have this stuff that you can scratch with your fingernail to write on. It's very entertaining when you've had several beverages and you don't waste cups. :) They were a big hit at this party I went to in San Francisco, so I want you to be a cool host/hostess too. Don't forget to invite me!

In NYC

So this week (5/20-5/25) I will be in NYC. I'm here on business but I definitely want to hang out with anyone who's around. I'm really into eating amazing food, so if you'd be willing to hang out with me I might make you have dinner with me. :) I wonder when restaurant week is...probably not til June. Damn. Oh well, come eat delicious food with me anyway.

Vegas pig

I'm in Vegas at this Harley Davidson themed cafe. I found this pig
holding condiments on my table

Toilet art

So I saw this piece of art in the stall of a bar bathroom, thought it
was a little weird

Easter

I feel like a bad Christian girl. Today I had a talk with my boyfriend about the importance of this day to Christians. The Christ rising from the dead is pretty much the entire event that Christianity is based on. Then after this conversation, we headed over to our friends' house for an Easter Egg Hunt. An easter egg jello shot hunt. While I can't deny that it was delicious, I feel a little guilty for celebrating this day by gratuitously consuming alcohol. At the same time, how is it any different from the way children celebrate Easter? They hunt for eggs and indulge in candy, so is it wrong for me to hunt for eggs in order to indulge in alcohol? Probably...because I know better.

I miss the struggle...almost

I think I found life more satisfying in college even though it was a much bigger struggle. I felt like I was getting something done, making a difference, and going somewhere. It's not that I don't feel that way now but I think it's different. It's just being in the real world I suppose. There aren't anymore compulsory milestones. In college I was working toward graduating and getting a fantastic job in 4 years. Now I have that, I achieved that. What is the milestone now? There's no 4 year mark to look forward to.

Gift from Beijing

One of my coworkers in the Beijing office just dropped by to introduce
herself and give me this awesome gift. It's a paper cutout. Apparently
these artists use knives to cut out these designs. Mine is full of fish
which signifies 'more' as in more luck, more money, more food, more
people, etc. My cubemate choose a peacock design which signifies
beauty. :)

Bacon is a vegetable

I recently found a great reason to embrace my vegetarianism...

Bei

Like I said before...Bei was in town and he did something crazy. This
is a photo of his half shaved head which he raffled off to raise money
for an ill professor. His boss at Disney won the raffle and got to do
the honors

Update

I've been bad and I haven't been updating as much as I should. Let's see...tonight i was busy making plans for when I head back to CMU for Carnival. Anyone else going to Carnival?

Bei is in town...

At the moment I am watching Bei get his head shaved by his boss at an
ETC event in San Francisco. Oh, Bei

Seeds growing out of my strawberry

Do you see this? The seeds under the stem? Am I crazy? Have I just
never noticed this before? It's kinda weirding me out....like those
tentacle things on the underside of ferns.

Wax

Dude(ttes). I waxed a guy's chest on Friday. It was pretty badass. It's still all patchy. I will attach photos.

I wrote a lot more but he was bitching about it so now there's no info.