Day Sixty-One: An Old Dog

8/15/15, 11:20 PM PDT

After a month of traveling in Europe and getting used to either speaking in French, Tagalog (to shit-talk the people near us with no risk of them understanding us) or very simplified English, suddenly switching back to a country that only speaks English is very very strange. Awkward, almost. Like you know when you don't write anything by hand in awhile, your handwriting turns to trash? Sort of like that for me, but instead of mini Parkinsons moments with graphite and cellulose, they're little stutters and a general inability to find words.

I met up with Angela and Kayla today at Chipotle and just ordering my burrito (from our friends, Jonah M and Michael P as well) was DIFFICULT. It felt uncomfotrable to find the right words to say, which was weiiiiiiiird. I felt very awkward, it's just an inexplicable thing.

Damn it, I might have to relearn English again.

"All this reading is required? And there's a test tomorrow?!"

Luckily, a few days with my friends ought to fix that really quickly.

We went to Petco after gorging ourselves in a Chipotle. Kayla and Angela were both really surprised that the male mice available in Petco had some junk in their trunk.

I had to google search "Mouse balls" for this
picture, so the least you could do is appreciate it.

And later, we found these squeaky hedgehogs that sounded less like "Gotta Go Fast!" and more like the anti-smoking ads they run on TV starring tracheotomy victims.

Now, the following story I am about to tell will be a moment in my life that I will never forget. 

So at one point, we were looking at dog toys near the front of the store when a frail, elderly woman entered the pet shop while pushing around a small shopping cart with an equally frail, equally elderly dog sitting in the cart's basket. It was brown, a bit shaggy, and shivered slightly, much like an old person on the verge of collapsing from skeletal failure.

Of course, me being the moron that I am, didn't initially notice the dog in the cart, I just noticed the old woman. So after I saw the lady and returned my attention to the dog toys we were looking at, Angela innocently said "Hey look at that old dog!"

And I immediately thought she was talking about the woman. And I said, in a very loud voice,

"Angela! You can't call her that!"

Right as said old woman and her dog passed me. I saw her look at me. Her and her old dog.

I escaped. No way was I gonna live down that shame if she ever got a clear look at my face, so I hid behind an aisle selling dog training supplies and used ALL my willpower to prevent howling in laughter. Eventually, Kayla followed me to the aisle and she was basically crying from laughter after she realized what I did.

I avoided that woman's gaze the rest of the time we were in the store. Should I have apologized for calling her an old dog through proxy? Maybe.

Nah.

RFotD: It took way too long to rotate that video of us squeezing the hedgehogs back to the correct orientation. Editing some thing like that should be way easier, I swear.

Day Sixty: The Great Room Cleaning Initiative

8/14/15, 11:20 PM PDT

Today, I spent the bulk of the day cleaning my room. And for good reason. When I left, my room looked kinda like this:

I mean it's not bad, but it's not fantastic either...

(Psst, that's not my real bedroom, it's a representation since I didn't have a before picture)

But when I got back, it somehow ended up looking like this:

"HOW DID I GET A DRUMSET IN MY ROOM?"

I'm not entirely sure how, but when I got back, somehow the spiders must have interfered and made it like a MILLION times more messy or something because when I stepped into my room, I was DISGUSTED. Literally disgusted.

Well... maybe not literally. I kinda just saw it and thought the fact that my desk and floor was unnavigable was mildly inconvenient. But regardless of my motive, I decided to DEEP CLEAN MY ROOM. I removed everything that wasn't essentially an immovable part of my room, moved it to my hallway, sorted out the stuff I needed and didn't need, reorganized everything, redecorated so everything would look aesthetically pleasing, and BOOM. After about six hours of work, this is what it looks like now:

If you look carefully, you can find a few interesting little things in my room.

It may not look like much, but this is MARVELOUS compared to the previous iterations of my room. YOU CAN ACTUALLY FIND STUFF WITHOUT LOOKING THROUGH MOUNTAINS OF BOOKS! And I have 500% MORE DESK SPACE. ENOUGH TO FIT MY LAPTOP AGAIN!

Yeah, I'm very happy.

And then I realized that Samantha's going to LA tomorrow for a week and I could have spent those six hours with her instead of with the crap in my room.

But fear not! I got to see her today anyway, for two hours too! So I'm still very happy.

RFotD: She threatened to leave me because I just got back from a month-long trip and I decided to spend my first day back with my room instead of with my bae.

Day Fifty-Nine: A Fun Flight, A Not-So-Fun Landing

8/13/15, 9:23 AM PDT

Today, we finally leave Europe. It's a bittersweet sort of feeling. On one hand, Europe has been an AMAZING experience with a lot of sights, food, experiences, and especially food, so I'm definitely gonna miss it. But on the other hand, I can't wait to hang out with my friends again, so I'm pretty glad that I'm leaving.

It was a nine-hour flight from Barcelona to our first transfer, which was Atlanta, Georgia. There were a few things notable about the flight. One, their in-flight safety video was pretty funny.

(This next one wasn't the one we had on our flight, but I found it while looking for the one we had and it is also very funny)

And two, their in-flight film library was ENORMOUS. I decided to watch three films, which were The Imitation Game, Slumdog Millionaire, and, my favorite, Assassination Classroom.

Just reading the synopsis makes me excited.

I'm not gonna lie, Assassination Classroom has a VERY weird concept. Basically it's about a yellow octopus-like creature with ridiculous superpowers that decides to teach a classroom of middle school failures how to become assassins before destroying the earth at the end of the school year if they don't kill him by then.

Yeah, it's weird. But I absolutely LOVED it. It was really funny, had surprisingly decent CGI, was over the top, and ended with the promise that there would be a SEQUEL, which I am very excited for. You can take a look at the trailer here, if you like:

Now, on a different note, let me tell you about the migraine that is the Atlanta International Airport. We were only here to wait for a transfer, but for some stupid reason, we had to get the luggages we checked in to the flight from the airport just to recheck them in after we got them. Why do we have to do this? Why can't they just take the bags themselves and put it on our transfer flight, like every other airport does automatically?

And before you say "Oh, Michael! You're overreacting, it's only one tiny baggage recheck, that's not a brain hemorrhage waiting to happen!"

Except we never got our luggage from the carousel. So we couldn't recheck in our bags because WE NEVER GOT THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. And the airport staff were absolutely no help either, whenever we asked them they would interrupt us by saying "Oh, just wait for them at the carousel, they'll show up eventually." EXCEPT THE CONVEYOR BELT ISN'T MOVING FOR OUR CAROUSEL ANYMORE. So when we got that message through, they'd say "Okay, then just go to LAX without your bags and they'll probably be there when you arrive."

Probably. Probably. Oh so if we do go and they don't end up being there, we're just dead, huh? The bags are stuck in Atlanta forever.

We asked several other people and NONE OF THEIR ANSWERS WERE THE SAME. Some people suggested looking at other carousels to see if they got mixed up, which we did, in vain. Some recommended going to our airline at this airport and filing a baggage claim, which we couldn't do because our connecting flight was leaving in 20 minutes and the line looked like it was moving slower than the earth's tectonic plates. And some just gave us a "Sorry, but I don't know what else to tell you" which I guess was the best thing they could have said because at least they were being honest.

So we eventually flew to LAX, landed at 9PM, waited in their luggage carousel, and lo and behold, our bags weren't there. So we filed a baggage claim and after the hour long line, you know what happened to our bags?

They got put on a DIFFERENT FLIGHT. So Delta promised us that they'd fly them over to San Diego's airport and deliver them to our door tomorrow morning.

Hopefully they follow up on that promise.




RFotD: Yes, they did deliver on that promise, thankfully.

Day Fifty-Eight: Fucking Grass

8/12/15, 8:12 PM CET

Today, we ran out of swipes for our public transport card, so we couldn't explore the city further. However, we felt like we covered a TON of the city anyway, so we were very happy to take today as a rest day.

We did walk around our hotel to see what was nearby though. And apparently, this whole time we had a hotel that was RIGHT NEXT TO FC BARCELONA'S FOOTBALL STADIUM.

Hmm... their stadium looks a little bit... messi. Heh.

So of course, we went in. Or at least, we went into the only thing accessible on non-sports days, which was the gift shop. And, as expected from one of the most valuable, popular sports teams in the world, the interior of the FC Barcelona Megastore was incredible.

If you stand in the correct place, those things hanging from the ceiling
look like Messi's kicking foot. This is true.

Remember my trip to FC Bayern's stadium and how I said the level of fandom there was ridiculous? Turns out, fandom bordering on creepy obsession is common in European sports teams. Especially when they sell this:

Grass. FUCKING GRASS. Seriously, I mean what would you even do with it? Plant it in your backyard? Shit, maybe if you cultivate it enough, you'll grow your own Suarez, right?

And if it's not crazy enough, they also have miniature versions in magnets that you can stick right on your fridge.

Then again, if you think this is a good purchase, your
fridge is probably already shaped like Messi's face.

Ridiculous.






RFotD: I'm not actually angry, I think this stuff is hilarious, truthfully.

Day Fifty-Seven: Wok'ing Around Town

8/11/15, 12:23 PM CET

Today is my dad's birthday! In celebration of that fact, we decided to just relax and take it easy so it would be a low stress, low navigation kind of day.

Just kidding. We went everywhere. First up was Spain's Arc de Triomf.

Complete with unappreciative hipster man on the lower left corner.

For my readers familiar with la culture française, you'd recognize the similarities between that arch and the one in Paris. And you're right. They are very similar.

That's honestly all the city guide said about the arch. I don't know if they're connected or if they'll eventually turn into stargates, I have no clue.

Shrugs

We also visited a MASSIVE Gothic Cathedral that they had here.

Damn, look at those fractals.

Even from that wide shot, you can see the ridiculous intricacy of the architecture.

At this point, I think every blog post I have on Spain has contained the word
"architecture" somewhere.

It didn't really have a badass name like the Notre Dame or anything, it was only called the "Gothic Cathedral," even in the city signs. But it's still very fancy.

Incredibly, they had LCD screens at the time this was constructed.

Later that night, we ate at a delicious Asian buffet called "Wok."

This restaurant was across from our hotel, so since we didn't have to go far, we
just... wok'd.

The buffet wasn't that great compared to buffets in California though. They had sushi, but they only allowed you to take FIFTEEN PIECES per eating session. Which kind of sucked. But we still left with full bellies, so it was still worth it.

Happy 50th birthday, dad! You're a ripe old age now, but it's been fun having you as my dad for the past 18 years. Here's to many, many more years!




RFotD: My dad says he is 50 years old every time I ask him, so I'm not sure if he really is 50 this time or if he's just lying to me again.

Day Fifty-Six: Barcelona Life Is A Beach

8/10/15, 11:10 PM CET

Spain has so much gorgeous architecture that we basically have to stop every few seconds to take pictures of it all. It's a good thing that our main mode of transportation is the subway, else my camera would literally be full from all the pictures I take.

This wasn't even a landmark or anything, it was just awesome-looking.

One of the more prominent architectural marvels in the city, however, is the National Art Museum in Catalunya. And for good reason. It is MASSIVE.

See this? This is from A MILE AWAY. (Approximately)

This was the closest I could get while still getting all of its architecture in the shot.

The view from said building is magnificent.

Architecture as far as the eye can see...

Tell you what though, these Spanish people are a bunch of wannabes. Look at them and their blatant ripoff of my college's Janss Steps.

Biters.

We also visited the Olympic Park that they had. It wasn't as pretty as the one in Munich, in my opinion, but it is still very very nice.

With a public foot dipping station too! Wow!

I think my favorite thing about their Olympic Park was this AWESOME trippy space needle-like thing that looked like it could be straight out of a sci-fi dystopia film.

Complete with giant alien traffic cones too. Oooooooh, spooky.

When the sun started getting less hot, we decided to get on this thing called a funicular. Basically a slanted trolley thing designed to take you up steep slopes, it's hard to describe but if you've ever seen The Grand Budapest Hotel, it's the pink thing that takes the people to the hotel.

The pink thing in the center of the frame.

From there, we briefly looked at a Spanish fort they had...

Proof that I mean "my family" when I say "we," I'm not just roaming Spain solo.

Looks like a sandcastle made with those rectangular buckets from Target.

Then rode the gondola...

Gondola, cable car, I'm never really sure what to call these things.

All the way to their beach!

Perfect timing for golden hour too!

Every shot of the beach I got is a shot that I absolutely LOVE. Look at this!

Look at that glow, man.

Vague silhouettes are gorgeous.

We ate at that restaurant, it was actually not that deliciosa.

Good night, Barcelona!

If there's one thing I can say about Spanish beaches, it is that their sand is INCREDIBLE. It's clumpy and lumpy, but still somehow manages to feel incredibly soft and silky to step on. It's interesting, definitely.

Sorry I'm cutting these entries pretty short, I'm in a rush to catch up on entries right now, BUT for good reason. I have a little special something that's more career oriented for me that'll require a bit more time, but I'll disclose information on that later!





RFotD: ALMOST CAUGHT UP. Writing this as of August 16 and I am ALMOST DONE.

Day Fifty-Five: Paella, Tibidabo, And A Soylent Snack

8/9/15, 11:20 PM CET

If you asked me what a "Tibidabo" is prior to today, I would have thought it was a kind of Japanese snack, or a Filipino meat covered in vinegar and soy sauce. But nope, neither are correct. Tibidabo is actually the name of a HUGE amusement park, situated at the top of one of Barcelona's mountains.

Pretty, huh?

This place is AMAZING. They had some pretty awesome rides, including this little spinning plane ride that goes OVER THE MOUNTAINSIDE. You can see it on the right side of the picture above. 

They also had a Ferris Wheel...

Wonder if it ever takes a day off.

And, strangely, the entire thing was right next to a very large church called the Sagrat Cor, or the Sacred Heart.

The big thing on the left.

Later on in the day, we also tasted a Spanish staple: paella! Essentially, it's fried rice mixed with sauce and a BUNCH of seafood, and it is DELICIOUS.

It took 20 minutes to prepare, which sounds like a long time until you actually see it:

The rice is hidden beneath the layer of sauce around the seafood.

Yes, it was the most amazing thing I've eaten. The bowl that it came on was MASSIVE, but my entire family still managed to finish it.

Well, most of it, at least.

\
We also visited Park Guell today. It's a relatively large park, with some more nice architecture from the very creative Antoni Gaudi, which you saw in yesterday's post. Here's a few pictures that I grabbed!

I especially loved the look of that tower over there, so of course...

Golden Hour Joby looks amazing. Or it might be incorrect white balance
Joby, I'm not sure.

And to end today, here's a pretty disturbing candy bar that I found in a shop on the way home.

Manufacutured by the Soylent Corporation, Philippines Division.

RFotD: Filipinos also come in milk and dark chocolate flavors. Allegedly, they are named because they have a brown outer layer and a white inner layer.