Moments

I don't think I need to say I've been terrible at keeping this blog updated, because obviously you know, and I think it's getting redundant. 

I spent last week in Lisbon, met some amazing people, had a great time, and now I'm in Faro, Portugal. I have just a few more days left and it's crazy to think I'll be home next week. 

Probably the least informative update possible, but chances are if you're interested and care to ask, I'm sure I will tell you once I'm home.

In the meantime, enjoy some moments of yours truly...

The Tease of My Life 

If you read my blog last summer, you might remember I stumbled across an adorable store in Dublin whereupon I bought my red knit hat for way too much money. It was a problem, and I thought I was over this. Then, lo and behold, I’m wandering the airport in Madrid, my thruway at the time to Lisbon, and there it is: Accessorize. Really? I can’t go through this again. Don’t go in. I went in. BUT I did not buy anything. I’m not sure which was worse: the satisfaction of knowing I resisted, or the dissatisfaction of knowing I resisted. It’s like the store gods were in a terrible mood the day I was born and decided, “Hey, let’s design a shop that has absolutely everything Jaimie loves inside: we’ll throw in scarves, bags, hats, dresses, wallets, the whole shebang of her obsessions. We’ll let her discover it, and we’ll make it all ridiculously priced, place it conveniently in other countries, allow it a website that doesn’t ship to the states and call it good. I hate you, shop gods.

P.S. I just looked it up and apparently the first Accessorize store was opened in London in 1984, so I guess my theory is shot.

  

"A" for Effort, Claudio

Probably the best, or most creative, attempt at picking me up came from Claudio, an Italian newly settled in Barcelona. I noticed him for no other reason than his sadly unsubtle passing by moments and stares. But I was content enough with my book to pretend he wasn’t there. As I was getting up to leave, though, he comes over with a stack of books. In slightly broken, but not terrible, English, he tells me he wants me to take them; that he’d read them all and now wanted to pass them on to me. I said thanks, but I was leaving Barcelona that night and didn’t have room for so many books. I told him to pick his favorite and I’d bring it along. He was insistent, though. After a few more formalities, lying about not having a facebook, turning down his invite for drinks, and honestly just wanting to leave, I grabbed all the books…sufficiently unhappy at having to lug the stack back to my hostel. On the upside, I was nearly through with the paperback Katy loaned me and would need a new beach book anyway. When I was looking through the books to decide which to take with me, I noticed he’d written in them. He wrote down his email and facebook name in one, little notes in the others.

And that’s when I thought, "You know, if I didn’t have a boyfriend, and if I’d wanted to be bothered at the beach, and if I’d been attracted to him in the least, and if he’d come across a bit more smooth, this might have worked." Basically, the idea behind his attempt was nice, though a waste of his time.

Beach Invasion

Like I said, I don’t particularly like to be bothered at the beach, so I try to find the least crowded space possible, and I feel rather great when I can accomplish something of the sort. That being said, it really irritates me when people mess that up. I understand that the beach is public space where, short of on top of someone, you can really set yourself anywhere you’d like.

But when you have this much room on one side....

 And this much room on the other…

Also, that's Claudio standing up...

 I don’t appreciate being invaded by several teenage boys. 

Excuse me, but could you be any closer?? No really, please sit on me…you may as well.

I shook out my sandy towel without a care and moved.

Thong Man

The only thing worse than seeing this gross oily, orange man in a thong was having him strip it off right in front of me.  

So Long, Marvelous Market

I briefly mentioned Mercat de la Boqueria in my Barcelona post. I’m really sad I won’t be making it back to Barcelona, and partly for that market. I loved it.

They commit.

Wild Mushrooms

Entire rabbits

Flip Flop Fail

One of my favorite things in Majorca was hiking along the coves of the coastline. I loved it. It wasn’t a difficult hike in the least, and one time I found it perfectly acceptable to do it in flip flops. Not even halfway along, this happened....

I trekked on, despite my foolish appearance that came with the effect of walking as if I had a flipper on my foot. I’ll not hike again in such flimsy flops. 

 Food Wanted

While I've been gone, Josh has sent these pics to my phone…

And I sent him this…

I miss him cooking for me!

Just... ew.

There’s a disgustingly large number of fish in Lisbon. Really, it’s disgusting. I guess you’d have to know my incredible dislike for groups and clusters of things to understand how repulsive this was to me. 

 Drugs & Thugs (maybe)

Leave it to me to try to find a shortcut back to my hostel on my evening run…

With groups of men huddled together along this path and the water, and my thoughts of, “Oh [four letter word], this is it for me,” marked the end of my shortcut-taking days.

Take Two(million) of Cycling Clumsiness

It’s official: I can’t ride bikes. I fall nearly every time I’m on one. It’s inevitable. Honestly. And as much as I’d like to blame the man nearest by when this incident occurred, it wouldn’t be right to pass my clumsiness off to him. This has Jaimie written all over it. 

If I were a Bum

Bums are classy in Lisbon. This is the Nob Hill of Bumville.

Sleepless Nights

At my hostel in Faro, there’s a lovely window and balcony literally right by my bed. From my pillow, this is it.
It’s nice, isn’t it?

No. Because it turns into a scary ginormous (is not a word? Really? Huh) tree that makes terrible noises with the wind and causes lack of sleep. Needless to say, my pillow went on the other end of the bed last night.

Ironically enough, my inability to sleep also had to do with the last book I read about a serial killer, a book Claudio gave me. First I thought, that's what I get for brushing him off so easily. But no, that's just what I get when I read scary books.

“Just two years after a majority of visitors to Merriam-Webster OnLine declared it to be their "Favorite Word (Not in the Dictionary)," the adjective "ginormous" (now officially defined as "extremely large: humongous"), has won a legitimate place in the 2007 copyright update of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate^® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition."

Yeah, so go away red squiggly line.

 Aw, Flirty Birds...Wait.

Today I was in a park and I saw some cute birds in cages. They looked like they were flirting, and I thought it was adorable. So I decided to record them. Then they started doing something else, and I stopped, lest the people behind me think I was some pervert. Slightly embarrassing.