well...not so so new

For those of you looking for the quick fix and the response to the inevitable question "How is spain going?" I provide you with this:

Spain is wonderful. My english worsens as I spend my days speaking in spanglish ; other wise i pretty much e about. My time in spain really humbled my artificial belief in the differences inherent in geography. Really, its just another part of the same world with another part of the same race. The most different thing is really just how they drive, and even that has the same comparitive feel that any american suburb has when compared to any other.
its odd but very cool.

For those of you looking for a slightly longer version, please read on.

Hola a todos!

I hope that everyone is doing well. I believe that everyone has factbook so I wont kill my self reloading photos. If you seek to sneak a view of Santander, tonight's menu has the photo albums entitiled Santander to quench your thirst. If you are vixen enough to view photos of London may I recomend the albums entitled London.

As you can see, recomending things is really easy and so has been the story of my job. The only hard thing I find is following directions. Last week, on saturday, I broke two bottles of wine, three wine classes, one regular glass, wasted two beers from the tap, and, to top it off, threw away a whole bottle of AguaDiente (think over clear, then mark up the price).

Yuppers, bartending is the life for me ^_^

But seriously, I have really just been spending my time singing and dancing. I have been singing more or less the same but dancing has improved. I have been taking a dance class every Monday and Wednesday and we have been Marangue-ing and Cha cha cha-ing it up. Im kind of addicted and Its been an awesome way to meet people. I'm excited to, how do you say, bust some moves this weekend...but I am far from excited to go to work. Who knows, maybe ill start the calling in sick stuff but I really must start saving for...

VACATION 2!

Thats right folks. Vacation two has been decided. You are now reading the blog of a proud soon to be visiting the vatican for christmas and venice for new years individual. Thats right folks...can you say fun? I can...but it seems to make my wallet substantially lighter every time; paradox? I think not.

Regarding London, it was a crazy sucess- failure story. To start negative and end positive: I ran out of money, the exchange rate killed me, I was stranded in london for two nights and lived in the streets, and my travel companions were dying by the last day from illness (not literally).

On the positive side, I had friends who kept spotting me monday, apparently bankrupt has the same value in every country so when I ran out of money I was no longer being affected by the exchange rate (that is REALLY stretching the rose glasses thing but I figure its better than nothing), of the two nights I was stranted, one I met really cool hobos and saw amazing sites like the Thames river, Parliment, Big Ben, the Churchill Monument, Westminster Abbey and some other stuff, and the second night i was stranded I dressed up really nicely with my friends and pretended to be guests at a really nice hotel close by and got free food (oh...Cornell has taught me so much ^_^) and beyond that I got to see my best friend and spend some happy time together.

On balance- i would say it was a good trip if for nothing else than the fact that i got STARBUCKS!!!!! you dont know how much you miss it till its gone, let me tell you lol

Other than that, time has been rather congenial. I have also resolved to relax EVEN more so I joined a swim team which competes around Spain, I changed my spanish class to a spanish literature class (it was grammer and i wanted to die but now its Burges and I just kinda want to smile all the time), and am looking for a second job. I also took it on my self and dropped a bunch of classes and so I am now literally taking 4 courses.

Life is sweet, coffe is bitter, I am poor and my boss is way to rich to fire me.

Despite everything, things seem to be looking up (even though whenever I do it rains in my eyes...but you can take the Cornellian out of Ithaca but you cant take the Weather from the Cornellian).

May your days pass you well as you dance right through them

respectfully submitted-
Z

ch 2. New life

Well, classes have starte and I was going to write this post latter but crazy stuff happened last night so I figured I would write THAT story and then deal with school stuff latter.

So I´m a bartender.

In a super nice restaurant.

That is French.

In Spain.

And it pays well.

But the story...is far less lovable.

So a few days ago, after being mortified by the scracity reflected in my bank account, I started to look for jobs. I went into this random restaurant and was like this preety! I awkwardly approached the bar and was like "Hi. My name is Zeta. I´m looking for work and I would like to lend a hand here." Note, three verb tenses...I practiced this little into in my head 700-800 times and it came out flawless, with a little smile at the end just to make things smooth...thats when things got rough.

The very cool chef, Fernando, came out and after a few formalitites was like sup kid? Do you want to be a Bartender/Waiter or Chef? I stupidly reply, Chef would be good but I can do either. He replied, Do you want to be a Bartender/Waiter or Chef? I reply Chef would be good but I can do either. This exchange was repeated about 2 more times before he was like, ¨So...bartender" and I pulled a little Wicked and said, with rather well placed emotion, "Sounds perfect!" while judiciously omiting the rest of the line, "lets go down to the oz dust ball room.."

Any way, so I had a pretest to see i I was real on Thurday and then Friday was my first day of paid word. Thursday, things went find, I poured drinks, made my first cafe con leche, opened wines, poured, made mixed drinks, fucked up a gin by putting an orange in it...but at least that was to a chef and not a customer lol.

Friday is where the fun being. I arrive with pen and paper in hand to take notes and shit were there notes taken. I basically got a crash course in ridiculously fine dining...I mean I have never eaten at a restaurant this nice.

Some examples. Every table comes with a single, long stem, dried rose in a vase with a two page special apatizer menu. Breads come in 4 ways, there are three types of salt (whose names I can never remember), two types of olive oil (both of which have 4 names, all of which I have to say), and the only thin there is one of is the fish/lobster tank where you can casually decide what you want to eat that day.

When your bread is gone, there is a shiny, stainless steel, dust pan to pick up the crumbs and the music is a techno trancy version of soft pop and random british techno and pop, mixed with a bit of dance music, softly placed for ambiance.

It is beautiful.

I, however, do not add to this.

As I learned, everything went from bad to good, so transition was deffinitly in my cards. The boss´s best friend, the boss´s best friend´s girl friend, and the boss´s best friend´s girl friend´s mom all came to dinner and I, I, was given the HONOR of serving them...oh my god.

Everything from their special wine to start, please, of which I broke the cork, to the champagne to end, of which I broke a glass was a catastrophy punctuated by awesomeness.

The awesomeness was getting plates down, explaning two of the three salts (one I was just like, fuck, its white salt and rather then calling it Sal Maldun (HEY! I rememberd it!)), doing a crazy serving method so I dont ever touch anything so I have to use a special fork and spoon held in a special way to give napkins, place bread, to clear teh table, etc. Things that went wrong, my boss randomly decided today would be a good day to eat with his best friend so I ended up serving HIM too...I was like seriously...how you gonna do that to me on my first day? At one point he asked for the easiest bread to serve (with the special way or wahtever) and i gave him the harest one...and he looked at me and was like "no, you should have given me chapata." ater an awkward moment of internal trnaslation I just smile and walked away...mostoso like no other

Any way, things continued and the dya progressed. The bar wanned and the serving waxe and I was constantly remined of the act that Amanda is like you NEED to be a waiter to get appreciation and waht not and bc i really wanted to do this forever and all summer she was telling me to do this and I never did..well now I am and its fucking hard!

Ps- if you are a waiter you are invisible and its a strange and random feeling that is hard to explain why you feel it but its because no one recognizes you...its like background noise but then its kina liberating when you embrase it and let you self be like the wind!

Any way, so the night ended on a good note when, after the boss left, and just the serbian, columbian and I were left. Naturally, I dont even know why I was suprised sine its so obvious it woudl heppen, they kept on low lights and some special lights, poured rum and cokes (with orange and lemon inside...soooo gooood) and broke down this restaurant club style...very fun and very " i have repressed worker issues" but it was cool and remined me that things are teh same the world over

Possibly the best part though...I got a super official corkscrew-bottle opener-etc thing as a starting.

Any way...today is day two of the test and I hope i Didn´t jinx it by writing this but, as they say, good stories left to dry are moments forgotten and then soon die.

Your barrista,

A fin por los empesandos (The end of the beginnings)

Well, as is to be expected, the summer came to an end and classes have begun but not with out a last hurrah, of sorts.

I'M GOING TO BARCELONA!!!

Thats what I was saying last Tednesday. Last Tuesday night i relaized that I am devistatingly poor and my value, economically speaking, goes down with every moment i live in Spain and the dollar becomes weaker, as it happens even now...as I write, in comparrison to the Euro.

As they say in Spain, joder.

Any way, I thought a more earthy (read: cheap) trip would be more fun (read: wise). As such, last wednesday, and bunch of americans and I sudenly realized that we all love hiking. Less than 12 house latter we were on a bus to the Picos de Europa, considered one of the most beautiful ranges in Europe, becoming more and more accessible at its base but, with climate change, more hazerdous at its peak. Needless to say, it was phenomenal. We hiked through the picos (and under my auspicious [read: trickerous ways {I kinda convinved people that a red trail, the hardest, was a green, easiest...in the end they thanked me! it was beautiful...really, they did} -_- stop judging] took some beautiful walks)...like straight through. I never imagined it could be so beautiful. We started at a town called Fuente de, after passing a church that has the largest people of THE cross inside it!


Any way, so we started off to some...sites that were all right, in a pueblo called Funte De. I'm not bragging or anything, but it may have, possibly, been awesome. the hike up was a beautiful trail of many many switch backs that took us up through the pass you see there.




a



The trai was marked, as shown here. It was carzy to see the random yellow and white bands but eventually it became an imspiration, well possibly annoyingly so, because I started called the trail the trail of equality an, in a moment of exasperation, one of the hikers quitely mused "Open minds, open hearts, open trails." Her absent musing was so awesome that I literally fell off the trail (luckily up hill) laughing. Any way, you can take the student out of cornell...



Any way, on the way up to the top, I, being me, naturally got scared out of my wits. literally, as we were toping the pass and going between the highest point on our trail, out of nowhere, a vaca/cow appeared with horns like sabers, ready to spear me.


The other people on the trip said it was cute and slow, but, trust me, I know...it was blood thirsty and about to turn to a carnivors life...if you could have only seen its blood thirsty eyes and sharp teeth, pefectly suited for chewing grass...or flesh!


Any way, the view from teh top was, to say the least, inspiring.





That night we stayed at a hostel which was basically a refridgerator with 4, unused, cold, sad, beds. But, other than that, it came with a kitchen, utinsils, a stove, tables, napkins, and everything- all for 7 euros...













While leaving, the view was pretty good too.







The next day had some random sites...

I thought this was a house but apparently it was a mine walled up because you could not go inside any more after it had been closed up because ther was a collapse











This is hte awesome tree that I thought was a ... well tree but it was an AWESOME tree!




There was also some very exciting water along the way which was a strange color and of course an awesome bridge, because what trip is complete with out the perfect bridge with running water beneath it?




















Any way, the rest of the trip was eventfull...ish. We all kinda hyperventilated when the never ending valley didn't end but then it did, and that wasnt so bad. We made it back safe and sound and classes have begun. Ill send a happy message soon about classes and everything im learning and what not ^_^

Heres to all you chaps at home!

New Beginnings

We'll its been a few days now and there is so much to say. each of these is a little vignette of what I have been up to and should give you a pleasent taste (moreover, these are written in this manner because I have been composing them for some time now and am only now getting around to writing them down....)

**************

Well two days ago I was in class and I made a friend. It started off as bad luck but, with enough control of my frame of reference, all things turned out for the best. The first day of class, bad luck. I was getting to class when EVERYTHING in the world was conspiring to attract my attention. A flock of pigeons in perfect formation soared over my head and I had(!) to stop and watch them fly into the bay, the sun rising through the church on my way to class caught perfectly in the steeple glass and it would have been high nigh sacrelidge to let it pass, the sun rising over the mountains across the bay was perfect and I would have been bereft to leave it unseen and unloved. Any way, needless to say, I was late which landed me in the very front, by my self, with a large, screaming professor. Day two, worse luck. I didn't go. Didn't really feel like it, nuf said. Day three, GREAT luck. Apparently, day two had added a student to the class that, also left with no seat, was forced to the front. So day three I made friends with Oliver.

Oliver is English. Very english. He was born a block from Cambridge and goes to Edinborough where he studies geography (Yeah, I didn't know it was a major either but its basically GIS). Any way- both of those schools sound better when spoken in a harsh english accent. Any way, day three was comming to a close when i was talking to the one other american in the class, Rachel, another english kid, Rob, Oliver, and some germans (Germans dominate the Erasmus program) we decided to play a pick up game latter that day of Rugby. While we were talking, I realized that Oliver has gone silent and he had a distant look in his eyes. I asked what was up and then, as if to typify american romanticization of the English life, he replied "I was thinking of Rugby..." Being the brash american I am I said "I've never played but I've always wanted to it seems like os much fun..." and cut off more by his silence then by his look, he continued "Rugby always reminds me of cold english mornings." Now, I ask you, seriously, imagine an Oliver, with a harsh english accent, eyes soft with memory and hard with experience, saying that. It's kinda self explanatory.

**************

Um, I love rugby. We played Germans and Italians versus England and US (Yes, the WWII reference was not lost of any of us...except perhaps the Germans who were eagerly planning aloud in German which was kind of unfair but such is life). Any way, I scored the first goal and the third (the first was rather unnecessary beacuse we made a lucky break and despite the fact that it was a clear point in for us, I still dove into the sand and made a mess of my self. Totally worth it). The third point was an exciting tackle INTO the goal which makes for a nice story. The game ended 5-6, germany/italy winning in the last of it.

**************

Um, I Love rugby. We played again yesterday and I was sore from the first. So naturally we played tackle this time. It ended with a friend in blood and everyone else pretty much happy since we got to tackle each other. Any way, Rugby is fun.

**************

Nothing much else has happened. Had my first 5 am dancing nights, which were exciting, and am gearing up for some fun tonight (Rugby game at the celtic tavern) and then tomorrow for sangria.

Well...here's looking at you ^_^

Ch 1. The Illustrated Version

Doing it right...all night. That right folks, apparently my dad is in the admirals club and the admiral's club is kinda fucking awesome. We got free drinks and food, nice music, relaxing lounges, and, best of all, 20 or so very waspy rich looking old men who gave us odd looks. Maybe it was just that I was taking pictures...
This awesomeness is to say nothing of the fact that I had access to every top newspaper and a staff of like 4 girls who basically just sat around, waiting to be asked to do things like bring you stuff, or chagne the channel, or chagen the music, or get flight information. It was kind of amazing...and then kind of perfect. The best part of it all was that you could live in the admirals club. It had a gym, showers, beds, wake up services, phones, work areas...everything you could ever want (except free wireless internet access....x.x, but whatcha gonna do?)!

ps i love america and i love my camera and thus i took a picture of the huge american flag...hanging inconspicuously over the international section of the Boston Logan international airport (which, btw, has a shitty admiral's club with a very angry looking woman who stairs and people when they move [to be fair, she reminded me of my self in a libraries...rather intimidating but it got the job done]).
After that, we had a pleasant transatlantic flight with a good time watching spiderman three and this cool movie about a lady who makes pies...like dead-baby pie, i-dont-want-to-sleep-with-you-earl pie, and sinful-flights pie (my personal favorite). It was good and a pleasent way to make our way to London.

To keep the unexciting parts short, we got to London (which has random packets for things like mayonise, brown sause, red sause and other things....), left london, got to madrid, which was beautiful. The roof was basically...um hard to describe accurately. Imagine a plane of waves in all directions and at the top of every other arc there is a sky light. Also, the whole place is lined with pillars which go from red to violet in accordance with the color spectrum. Also, everything is glass so it just fun to look at in general. Also, the people did to my dad what he does to them. They were like "take off your belt" in spanish and my dad was like "what." It was perfect- they just looked at him and very slowly and very loudly, they said again, in spanish "take of your belt." it was all i could do to hold back tears of laughter as they helplessly pantomimed removing a belt, which looks conspiculously like...well something that men should not do in public or in airports.





Just another picture of Madrid Airport.










Any way, we got to Santander and it was beautiful. We spent time on the beach, on the mountains, in the bay, with my family (where my abuela screamed at my dad in spanish and my dad screamed back in english [a personal favorite memory is lying in bed trying to sleep when my mom called the home phone and kept screaming "zaheer zaheer" into the reciever and my abuela screamed "sleeeeeeep sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep" back in crackling english. i almost just stayed in my room to hear how long it would go on...but I ended up running downstairs to get the phone.]).



This is the dog. Cute and rather hyper. the first day I bent down to pet her and she just started gnawing on my hand. It was adorable and strange. But I think I showed her too much affection because she seems to really enjoy jumping on me when I wake up which is a bit annoying but kinda cute. I cant help but sneak her food and let her back into the house when mi abuela locks her on the patio in the blistering 80 degree heat and the dog helplessly laps at the door.












Um...Spanish globe from pre fall of USSR. Just a fun little tidbit of history.















In the plaza for the Olympics, there is this thing called the Palacio de Desportes which is this HUGE stadium with an awesome structure. It is set inside one of the valleys and has a whole garden of awesomeness around it where people race remote controleld boats and play futbol.




Here we have one of the random chappels that lines the city skyline at night. It is amazing when the sun sets and from the bottom of the hill, laying on the beaches and looking back at the slightly abbandoned city- filled with its mindless tourists and jadded inhabitants, neither of which throws a second glance to the city- the sun reflects gold and pink through the stained glass windows of the city's religious structures and dances from the top of the crosses that top every street.













This is a little microcosm of my region taken from atop one of the mountains we frequented. You can make out the cute little homes, the pleasent life style, and the whit ebeaches in the back. That body of water is the bay of biscay and, if your eyes permit, the atlantic ocean.









On my first day there, in the building across the street (the state bank building), there was a concert going on which was fun. When I asked my host mom what was going on, she was like "oh, its just a bunch of mexicans playing music or something. Some of the older people like it so they just let it go when they want." I dont know why but it was a thoroughly ammusing comment and after I asked her why they were singing she was like "Its what mexicans do: sing and work." The random bit of spain eliticism tickeled me rather pink.

Um...this is just a cool picture.








My dad and I went to a random site and I saw some chalking which made me nostolgic for cornell. This one says "Un Mundo ideal es cuando mairiel y (other name) son juntos...te amo" (An ideal work is when mairiel and other peorson are together...i love you) I started to get teary and stupid and my dad got confused and I kept trying to explain why it was cool and failed miserably. Perhaps you all will understand...











Any way....so after an obviously hard day of travel with my dad, filled with rather strenuous, time pressing activity,
















We continued our adventure at the near by castle which was just at the end of a second peninsula comming off the first and closing off part of the bay of santander. It was a nice little time pass while we waited for the sun to set and our day to end.


Then the sun did set, and it was kind of amazing.

That night I went out by my self and looked around the city to find something exciting. Instead, infront of a rather desolate church I found the reminants of a wedding party.
After pondering the rather interesting nature of such, I slept, drempt, woke, ate, my father left for london and I for my next adventure. I was walking around when I saw this really beautiful cat wandering about the next city and folowed it to the top of a hill...




From the hill I could see all the way down to the other side of the peninsula it was amazing. The water was green, the children were laughing, the parents were bickering, the older kids were drinking and I was scaling the large, long forgotten corals that had fosilized over time into rather unforgiving, very sharp, structures.





















Day one of classes was fun, we covered alot of popular european topics...



















And then I made a sand castle.













And then to end this little fountain of information, I have a small dedication. I don't know how else to do this so Amy, I saw this picture and bend over laughing thinking of your mom and that game we played that one time that had john lennon and the song imagine...any way, John lennon and imagine are inevitably tied to your mother now in my mind and this was just funny. It was a double take since it was a really nice, random bar in the middle of houses, on a street corner and was being frequented by large groups of middle aged women and one 19 year old guy who was rather thugish. Any way, when life gives you lemons....

With all the best,

Ch 1. Arrival

Um...how do you say, ^_^ because right now, you really would kill to be where I am. For my chocolate loving kin, I am in a chocolate cafe right now, a huge display of perfect chocolates of every flavor, nature, country, and origin, borders me on my left. To my right, families sit and chat. A little boy eyes me curiously over his Spiderman comic, an old couple looks close to the end but seem to have nothing in mind but each other and, rather conspicuously, a chocolate fountain sits unused on the other sideof the cafe. For the cofe lovers, I just had another cafe con leche, the ridiculously strong coffe drink that EVERYONE drinks here, no matter what (mind you, this is my third today). For my nature lovers, through the glass cafe of chocolate and past the people awkwardly looking in at me and wondering who is that strange american boy with the colored laptop and odd hat (NO ONE WEARS HATS HERE...), you can see the beaches of santander, with a glimpse of the harbor down the street and into the Bay Santanderino with the mountains outlining the backdrop that leads to the rest of spain. For you history/government people, just up the street one way is the government building of the capital, down the street the bank dedicated to a major war hero who defended spain from france, the cathedral of Cantabria, and in the last direction another curch. And for you math people, after my own heart, the decor is amaizng. Perfectly spaced, perfectly clean, round tables with triangulated legs which cross and waht happens to be the apex of hte beatifully curved chairs.

Seriously, die.

Any way- I got here a few days ago with my dad and have been having a blast. We traveled to some of the nicer areas in the area and beaches but its a story best told with pictures which I will upload tomorrow. I just found this chocolate cafe with wifi so I am too happy NOT to post.

My family here is wonderful. Mi mama, inmaculada, is a single lady who works at the hospital and talks to her stuffed animals and dog...more to her stuffed animal, I can't quite tell why. She is a bit anal and enjoys decorating my room in random pictures of...shit, that lady with the white dress that blew up, and that other lady who sings, with long black hair, and goes "uh huh." Regardless, when she is not talking to her stuffed animals, she paints recreations of Monet's work and puts them around the flat. Mi abuela, Maria, lives with Inmaculada and does the house work and cooks wonderfully, which is to say nothing of her sangria which is as sweet as honey and perfect as pepper (both of which they graciously bought for me when I let slip i love sweet deserts and spicy food...totally on accident but i guess stuff works out). We live right behind the bank of santander and from my room, which has this awesome terrace on the top floor of hte 7 story building with huge french doors that open to the night, where I can look out over the bay and drink my sangria. Its kinda amazing. My room started out in this little box of a room that had a view of...the other people in the building...like into their rooms and I was feeling a bit voyeristic till I realized that during siesta the women downstairs sings while she makes lunch and at night, the women across form us sings when she cleans up from dinner. Its kinda wonderful and I'm a bit sad I moved, but everyone and a while I hear their voice coming through the window and down the hall and I recuse my self to imagining the domestic lives that pain these women so that they sing of far away places and lost loves who once where, but never will be.

Any way- other than that, classes are going well and I hate learning spanish, STILL. Buy, as amy so wisely taught me in 11th grade, if I funnel my linguistic rage into the language my grammer becomes flawless. Today, I told my teacher that I feared her and thought she would hurt the class if we got out of hand....she was impressed that I could use random tenses and I was happy to vent. I got approving looks from the random german people in the class and the Norwegian looked a bit confused. But, meh.

Any way- that is all for now. I suppose every cloud has a silver lining...but luckily there are rarely clouds in Santander, making the rather frigid continuious 67 feel like a pleasent 80.

Thats all for now folks but Ill get my pictures up tomorrow and attemps to post with greater regularity in teh future so I dont have to load up two posts again.

Hoping everyone is doing well,

and still rather aggrivated that people here don't wear hats and thus I look like some broken tourist with a bag.


oh- and random story. So there are two things that the people here say to me. I have found one person, my host mom, who did not say this but had her own commens. With out fail, every person I have met in depth and my class mates as well, make one of two comments after we meet. response one- I get this...look followed by "Oh...like Antonio Banderes **swish noise making a z in the air**. Zeta, like Zorro. The Pakistani Zorro! How cool...you are cute (eres guapisimo...loosely translated)." Or, response two- "I love your bag. how wonderful. did you get it in france? It looks strange. And the print- I've always wanted a bag like that..." Unfortunately both are delivered rapidly so I respond tartly to the first and stupidly to the second. Any way- cafe con leche passes through me like water...but count your blessings, no?

May our days be illuminated and our nights be guided.

Prologue

You would kill to be where I am. To my right the white sand beaches of the Mediterranean lazily hold a picturesque scene of water, people, happiness and a day in the sun. To my left, a watery Venice peers out, inviting me to adventures unknown. No, I am not traveling abroad in wondrous locations like China, England, Jordan, France or Italy. As I type this very entry, I am sitting, stowed away like a little criminal, in a corner seat an BuonGiorno Coffee, a local cafe in Colleyville.

Perhaps you would not kill to be where I am, but murder would be on the mind. And as far as travels go, I will be. In case you were amongst the few not regaled by the premeditated adventures that await me, I will be spending a year in Spain. But, until then, there are dues to be paid, parents to be assuaged, and time to be spent.

I have no very exciting picture to be posted but, in time, I shall. After all, I just discovered that I arrive in Santander on a fiesta day and Immaculada, my host mother, will be in the hospital working. Perhaps I may need some patience in the face of chaos. But, premeditation is a crime for a reason.

In other exciting news (a phrase i love and is rarely followed by exciting tangential news, but lets put that to the test, eh?) we may be getting a dog, a German Shepard/lab mix. Rather cute and the most perfect little puppy you have ever seen. I think the guy at the shelter thought i might have issues because I was being overly affectionate but cest la vie.

We'll, Ill be sure to keep you up to date with the story of my journey and, as it unfolds, so shall I before you. To a good year and a great adventure. Perhaps I will wander, perhaps I will have near brushes with ethereal personifications, or perhaps I shall have a more religious experience. Whatever I have, I share with you.

^_^