My Nigerian Creeper

So today was a very interesting day to say the least. I woke up feeling like it was any other Thursday (my favorite day since I don't have class on Thursdays), but to my surprise I was overwhelmed by complete and utter creeperdom. I decided to FINALLY go to the post office to ship my souvenirs and extra knick knacks. I already know trying to stuff all the crap I've collected over the past few months into my suitcases would be futile. I already had the boxes, so I packed them up and headed out for the post office. Then the creepiness commenced.

I was about a block from El Corte Ingles (there's a post office on the 7th floor), when I heard a man say "Hello". Since I didn't know him, I ignored him and kept walking. Then he said hello again, this time clearly staring into my face. I responded Hola and kept walking. He asks me, "You speak English?" I said yeah and he says "I know you do." That should have been enough of a red flag for me to know he was a major creep. He starts a bit of small talk with me then asks me where I'm going. At this point, we're in front of the main doors to El Corte so I say "Here" and turn into El Corte thinking that would be the end of it.

I was wrong. I turned and realized that he was following me through El Corte. I'm pretty creeped out by now, so I decide to be as nice as possible to keep him from possibly freaking out. Here's a quick outline of how this conversation went:

Nigerian Creeper (NC): So where are you from?

Me: The US. And you?

NC: Nigeria. 

Me: Oh. I know lots of Nigerians.

NC: Really? Male or female?

So I'm even more creeped out by this question. Why does it matter?

Me: Ummm, both.

NC: So what's your name?

Me: I don't want to tell you my name and I would appreciate if you would stop following me.

NC: Why don't you want to tell me your name?

Me: Because you're a stranger.

NC: I won't be a stranger if you tell me your name. My name is ...

I'm not sure what he said. He had a really thick accent, so I'm not quite sure what he was saying half the time. At this point we're at the elevator and I'm praying he doesn't follow me onto the elevator.

Me: I'm not telling you my name. Please stop following me.

NC: Why do you keep saying that you don't want me to follow you? I don't understand.

Me: It's because I don't want you to follow me. You're a stranger. In America, it's frowned upon to follow someone and continue to talk to them after they have asked you to leave them alone.

Of course, he follows me onto the elevator (that thankfully has other people on it already). He's trying to talk to me through other people, but I'm still not sure what he's saying. He asks me if I'm a Christian, then starts to recite some Bible verse and some quote about inner beauty or something. The elevator opens and he follows me off. That's when he hit me with the super creepiness.

NC: When I saw you in Plaza de España, my heart just jumped with joy.

I was like SCHUH!?!?!? You followed me all the way from Plaza de España? El Corte Ingles is about 4 blocks from Plaza de España, so now I'm officially creeped out. We get off the elevator and I realize I'm on the wrong floor. I ask a worker in Spanish where the post office is she tells me how to get there. He's amazed that I speak Spanish, then proceeds to follow me up the escalator to the next floor. I ask him again to stop following me and he again responds that he doesn't understand why I don't want him to follow me. I get to the counter and begin the ridiculously expensive process of shipping items internationally. After about 15 minutes, the lady tells me they don't accept cards so I have to go all the way to the bottom floor to the ATM to get cash. I turn around and he's STILL THERE!!! And he starts to follow me to the elevator.

NC: Are you done?

Me: Please leave me alone! 

NC: Why do you keep using the elevator?

Me: Because I have to go down 8 floors!!! Now can you stop following me?

Of course he then follows me onto the elevator and down 8 floors. I use the ATM and turn around and he's still there.

Me: Please stop following me.

NC: Well, I just feel like I need to tell you I love you. You just have such a great spirit.

Me: Please leave me alone. You're starting to creep me out.

NC: Well then let me give you my number.

Me: I don't want your number because I won't call you.

NC: Well then give me your number.

Me: NO!! I don't want you to call me either.

NC: Well then where do you live?

Me: If I won't give you my number, I'm not going to tell you where I live.

NC: Then, how will we see each other again.

Me: That's the point. I don't want to see you again. I would really appreciate if you would stop following me now.

NC: Okay. Will I see you again.

Me: No, hopefully not.

And then he finally walks away. This whole ordeal lasted about 30 minutes before he finally got the hint that I didn't want him to follow me. The whole time I'm thinking in my head "How do you say this man is following me in Spanish"? So creepy. I always try to stay positive, so I just told myself at least this didn't happen right when I got to Spain. I would have been a nervous wreck if that had happened in February. It's okay though. He didn't seem like a dangerous creeper, just a creepy creeper.

La Caixa

For my history of Palma in the Mediterranean class, each student was assigned a cultural center. We had to visit our assigned place then give a presentation to the class about the history of the building, the foundation that sponsors it, and the activities held there. My assigned place was the La Fundación de la Caixa. La Caixa itself is a bank, but it sponsors programs for the community and all sort of other awesomeness. I went to visit today (since my presentation is Monday) and I was generally pleased. I'm really not an artsy person, so I was actually glad that the exhibitions weren't solely paintings. 

The permanent exhibition is called La estética de Anglada Camarasa (The aesthetics of Anglada Camarasa). Hermen Anglada Camarasa was a Mallorcan painter who was known for his paintings having a "radiant plasticity" (which pretty much meant they like painting made with melted plastic). That part was fine, but like I said, I'm not really a super artsy person.

The first temporary exhibition is called Federico Fellino. El circo de las ilusiones (Federico Fellini. Circus of Illusions). Fellini was a quirky film maker with a cult following almost. His most famous film is probably La Dolce Vita with Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni from 1960. He also had some weird book of dreams that I think are drawing of his actual dreams or his imagined dreams. Most of the drawings were of giant large-chested nude women with teeny tiny little men. I'm not quite sure what that was about, but I just moved on to the next exhibition.

The second temporary exhibition is called Números de Buena Familia (Numbers of Good Family: I don't like this translation, but it was the one given by the museum). This exhibition was all about the history of numbers, the different types of numbers, how we use numbers in everyday life, and how numbers are used to estimate things. I liked this exhibit way more than the other two, but I'm a numbers person so this is just personal preference.

All in all, it was a cute place to spend an hour or two. There's really only three main exhibitions, so if none of them interest you (or if you don't have a class project) I don't really see why anyone would go. Honestly, I was more interested in the building itself. La Caixa bought what was once the Gran Hotel, which was the first hotel in Mallorca and was super ritzy back in the day. The architecture and detail that went into this building is amazing and is worth the trip itself. And seeing as how entrance is free, vale la pena to check out the exhibitions since you're already there.

View of La Caixa at night

Museo de Joan Miró

Today we had a visit to the museum of Joan Miró who was a famous Mallorcan artist. In the beginning his paintings started off very complicated with a ton of detail, but by the time of his death they were... different. He claims he spent years trying to simplify his work, but personally I liked his older work better. There was a case full of his drawings and they literally look like something my 4 year old nephew drew that I would post on my refrigerator. I really think he just said "F it, I'm already famous" and he just started scribbling randomness and called it art. Maybe I just don't get it, but I don't think anybody I was with got it either. One of his displayed "masterpieces" is literally a piece of poster board with a smear of red paint on it. What? If that's all you need to do, why am I not an artist? This guy really lived the life too. Check out the amazing view from in workspace.

View from walkway to Miró's studio

View from walkway to Miró's studio

This is supposed to be his representation of a woman. ???

SEMANA SANTA - Amiens, France

After my amazing time in Paris, I didn't want to leave, but the time had come. I was going to visit a fellow Scottie in Amiens, France where she was studying abroad for the semester. My friend and I woke up, ate breakfast, and headed right for Gare du Nord (the train station) to buy our ticket to Amiens. Unfortunately, due to our history of transportation fails and lack of knowledge of the French language, we were kind of discombobulated. I decided to call French Scottie (although it's CRAZY expensive with Vodafone) to try to figure out what we needed to do. Of course, she told us and we were still lost, but then a really nice Frenchman came to our aid. He told us where to buy the tickets and helped us find the right railway.

Gare du Nord train station

 We got on the train and were off to see French Scottie. After about an hour and a half on the train, we arrived in Amiens where French Scottie promptly picked us up and took us to her apartment. After meeting her Canadian roomie and a quick rest up, we were out again to find lunch. We got kebabs (which have quickly become my favorite food in Europe) and talked about the latest goings on in America. I had clearly been WAY out of touch because this was my first time hearing about Trump going crazy on Obama. After lunch, we went to the main cathedral in Amiens, which apparently is the tallest and largest cathedral in France. We climbed the absolutely ridiculous number of stairs to the first level where the giant rose window is. French Scottie got a little nauseous and decided to go back down, but my friend and I decided to keep going up all the way to the top. The view was SPECTABULOUS!!! It was definitely one of my favorite "I'm really high up right now views" so far (except for the Eiffel Tower of course).

Notre Dame d'Amiens

Close up of the giant rose window

View from the very top of the cathedral

After the cathedral, French Scottie took us to a laundromat, which we both needed greatly. While our clothes were washing we went to this awesome store called Eurorama. They seriously need these stores in the US. They have all kinds of cute trinkets and home decor for really low prices. If I had more space in my luggage, I would have loved to buy a few things there. We walked around Amiens a little more, then went to retrieve our clothes. After laundry time, we went out with French Scottie to meet some of her friends. There were 5 Canadians, 2 Mexicans, a Brazilian, a Chinese guy, a Korean, and a German, so it was a pretty diverse group of people. We talked for a few hours before French Scottie, my friend and I went back to the apartment to make dinner, French Scottie's special recipe for honey garlic chicken. As we made dinner (and got splashed by hot oil) we watched the pilot episode of Modern Family because French Scottie wanted to  convince us it was the best show ever. I must admit, it was pretty darn funny. After dinner, we watched a bit of Good Hair before my friend got tired and Megavideo cut us off. We went to sleep because we had a big day ahead of us.  We would be off to Italy the next day.

SEMANA SANTA - Paris (Part Three)

Day 3

At this point, I am completely in love with Paris. I am already trying to think of when I can come back. Since we had one whole day left, we had to go to Versailles. I don't think I had any idea how immense Versailles is. The gorgeous redhead and I weren't planning on spending the whole day there, so we could go back to the city and meet our only friend who wasn't coming with us. That plan didn't work at all. We spent almost 6 1/2 hours there and STILL didn't see the whole property. It was gorgeous though. The palace itself was pretty gaudy for my taste, I'm more of a simple have what you need kind of girl. Everything was guilded and painted and fancy, no wonder the common folk went bizwacko when the French monarchy built it. I understand trying to impress people when they come over for dinner or whatever, but is a gold gate really necessary, really?

Giant golden gate

We finally get in after a ridiculous line, and the inside was just as lavish as the outside. It was interesting to visit I guess. When we went to the Hall of Mirrors, I didn't even realize where we were at first. It's not nearly as sparkly and shiny as in the pictures. Somebody should have gotten out the Windex that day. Anywho, I can't say I wasn't impressed by the house itself, but I couldn't help but think it was a bit much. Seriously, French people were starving in the streets and somebody was in Versailles chilling behind their shiny golden gate. Anyway, the palace was nice, but I was much more excited to see the gardens. I was flabbergasted by the size of the garden and the property. From the street it just looks like a giant shiny house, but behind it is gardens about 4 km deep. We had to pay for the palace and the gardens separately (palace was free since we're European students and 7 euros for the gardens), but the 7 euros was completely worth it.

Hall of Mirrors

The Queen's bed?

Right as we entered the Musical Gardens, we sat on the steps and had a quick lunch. The Musical Gardens and the Park are pretty much a giant well manicured maze with statues, fountains, and other peculiarities randomly sprinkled in. The first place we went was the musical pond. Music played from well hidden speakers and as the it played, water from the pond was shot up in patterns to go along with the music. It was pretty cool. After the musical pond, we wandered through the maze-like park and took as many creative/crazy pictures as possible.

View of gardens from the stairs

Musical pond

Creative?

It's not what it looks like, I swear!!

Better : )

This didn't work out as well as we thought it would. Oh well.

 We then decided to head for Marie Antoinette's estate. I thought it was kind of funny that she disliked Louis so much she had her own separate estate on the other side of the property. Talk about marital issues. Of course against my better judgment, we follow our directionally challenged friends who try to go to Marie Antoinette's estate. We ended up back at the front of the gardens. Ugh. So finally, I pull out my handy dandy map to make sure we're going the right way this time. At this point, the estate will be closing in about an hour and her estate was really the only thing I wanted to see. The redhead and I end up  taking a much shorter path than the other directionally challenged friends with us and we have plenty of time to look around. Her estate looks like something out of a fairytale. The buildings had thatched roofs with tulips growing on them. How adorable is that?

Tulips on the roof : )

I really love this picture for some reason : )

Marie Antoinette's house

It was about time for the estate to close so we headed out to meet our friend who didn't come with us that day. Someone in our group decided it would be super fun to visit the Bastille (why, who knows). Most people try to avoid infamous prisons, but whatever. We figure out the right stop (which is luckily named Bastille), but then discover that construction started that day and the stop we needed wasn't open. We just got off one stop earlier and walked in the general direction until we see the building. Only problem is there is no building. My friend didn't realize that the Bastille was mostly destroyed by 1789 and remaining pieces moved to parks in 1899 (I won't lie, I just looked that up on Wikipedia). Pretty much the only thing left there is a commemorative statue.

The Bastille

After our historical site fail, we go to dinner at the restaurant across the street from Notre Dame again. I got salmon and ratatouille, which was super delicious (and finally something French).  After dinner, we head back to hotel to rest up for our travels the next day. One friend and I are going to Amiens to visit my friend from Agnes Scott who's studying abroad there before we fly to Florence the following day.

Overall, I LOVED LOVED LOVED Paris. I loved Paris so much, I signed up for a French class for next semester. I know as soon as I have any time (and money) to visit Europe again, I will be heading straight for Paris. I'm taking a French class so the next time I go to Paris I won't feel completely useless. We mostly stuck to touristy areas because none of us spoke French, but I want to be able to visit the places real French people go. Although it wasn't a problem, I felt kind of bad being in France not speaking a word of French (other than je suis la reine of course). 

SEMANA SANTA - Dance Party in Front of the Sacré-Cœur

A spontaneous dance party in front of the Sacré-Cœur is just one of those things you can't plan (thereby making it spontaneous I guess). Anywho, after we came outside the Sacré-Cœur, we noticed some hot guy hanging off a light post juggling a soccer ball with his foot. I thought Well that's different. It's much better than the people in Plaza Mayor with a headless suit outfit expecting me to give them a euro for doing nothing. These guys were really working for their euros. I got some amazing pictures of this guy on a light pole with Paris as his background.

His friend is like "How does he do that?" : )

After the show with the pole, we thought it was over...we were wrong. Speakers came from who knows where and the music started. First up was a spunky blond with a pixie haircut and the ability to shake her groove thang (I'm corny, I know). Then, the light pole guy came to perform some on the ground balancing acts with the soccer ball. Another guy (who I may have a tiny crush on) starts dancing and flipping off of stuff (and therefore will be referred to as the hot French spider monkey). He almost gave me a heart attack at first, but made for some pretty awesome pictures.

Spunky blond

The ball is spinning on a pen, not the other guy's hand : )

Hot French spider monkey almost gave me a heart attack

He flipped off that. Once again, heart attack.

You would think the show was over, not quite.

After this gracious bow, the music started again and the blond was back to dancing. As she danced, a very happy man (who shall hereinafter be referred to as the Brazilian because of his brightly colored outfit) got up and started dancing with her. They had lots of fun and eventually more people began to join them. More people came until there was a whole dance troupe up there. These guys had to be professionals because they were a little too good to be normal people. The Brazilian was leaping and twirling around like a certified ballerina. There was no denying he was a trained dancer.

The "Brazilian"

The rest of his dancing buddies

Michael Jackson time

Eventually, lots more normal people got up to dance. When the Macarena came on everybody joined in.  There was even some random guy, who I would guess was borderline intelligence impaired, in a white track suit who got up and started dancing. Then, the hot French spider monkey/"I like to flip off things and give Chelsea a heart attack" guy takes his shirt off and starts walking up the stairs to the Sacré-Cœur on his hands. I have to admit that by this point I'm in total creep mode and taking pictures of him with my friend's camera because mine wasn't working well enough in the dark. Good times : ) 

Who's this guy?

Hot French spider monkey going up the stairs on his hands

Me being a total creep

Pakistani creeper

Did I mention that this whole time the gorgeous redhead is getting hit on by a Pakistani creeper? He was obviously under the influence of some kind of something and he was getting a little too "hands all over the world" with her. Weird thing is he had the same name (a very unique name might I add) as one of our other friends with us. So weird, right? The blurriness of this of this photo is probably how his vision was that night.

Towards the end, some guy came up and decided he wanted to start rapping. English definitely is not his first language, but for some reason that the language he decided to rap in. When he first started, I thought he said something about the monkey section, but my friend is like, no he said smoking section. I'm thinking Oh, that makes more sense...I think. Then he starts throwing out profanity for no reason. He's like Drop that f*cking beat! Play that sh*t!  Of course I find this super hilarious, and I can't take him seriously at all (not that I took him that seriously before). Then, he definitely said something about monkey music. I was like I knew he said monkey section! He was just foolishness. Not the best way to end an amazing street performance, but whatever. He was probably somebody's brother who just wanted a little stage time.

This was definitely my favorite night of Semana Santa. Fun was had by all and it made me love Paris even more. There's nothing better than a spontaneous dance party in front of an epic cathedral as you watch the sun set over Paris. I only wish I knew who these people were so I can send them pictures of their epic awesomeness. I'm sure they would love to have them.

SEMANA SANTA - Paris (Part Two)

Day 2

After the spectabulous day before, I was really looking forward to heading out for another day in Paris. Our first stop for the day was the Louvre. We heard it was gigantic and the lines are super ridiculous, so we wanted to get there early so we would have plenty of time to look around and beat the lines. Not only did we not have to wait in crazy lines, but we also got in free. Because we are European students (at least for this semester) we didn't have to pay. Sweet deal : ) There was no possible way to see everything in one day (unless you literally spend the WHOLE day there), so we decided to see the most well-known, can't come to the Louvre and not see them things. One of the first things we saw the Mona Lisa, where I had to fight my way through because some tall people have no respect for the vertically challenged. Then, on to the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and a few of Michelangelo's masterpieces.

This is me trying  to get a picture of the Mona Lisa

 

Great shot...after fighting my way through the mob

Venus de Milo

Winged Victory of Samothrace

Michelangelo's "Rebel Slave"

Can I have your autograph?

Remember me talking about the gorgeous redhead with us? Well she happened to be a spitting image of Botticelli (and a ton of other Renaissance artists) affection and she looked like a lot of the women in the paintings. At one point she's taking a picture next to a painting and a guy goes OMG it's you!!! Can I have your autograph?!? I thought that was super cute : ) Other random thing. Some guy (with a thick country accent) yells out Tell er we're gonna meet er at the Mona. I thought it was super funny like, do you come here all the time? Is the Mona Lisa your regular everyday meeting place? Random, but funny.

After about 3 hours inside, we go outside and sit next to the giant glass pyramid to have lunch. As we're sitting one of our friends runs up all atwitter thanking God she found us. There were six of us, but we had split up into 2 groups. She went to the bathroom, came back and the other two with her were gone. They had her bag, cell phone, and ID so couldn't get into the Louvre and she couldn't call them to find out where they were. She had just been standing outside wandering for the last few hours. Poor thing. We got called the other two to bring her bag and she finally got to go inside. Then, as we're eating, some guy comes up to us and goes So what's the big deal? What's exactly in the Louvre? Is it worth it? We're like seriously dude? It's the Louvre. How are you in Paris, standing in front of the Louvre, asking if it's worth going inside? Silly man.

View from top floor window

After the Louvre, we headed for the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees. We took an obscene amount of pictures at the Arc de Triomphe then took a stroll down Champs Elysees. It's supposed to be like the ritzy version of Rodeo Drive, but it just seemed like a pretty street to me. Nothing super spectacular. 

 

Champs Elysees

So we decide to head to the Sacré-Cœur (Sacred Heart) cathedral, which we kept hearing was way more interesting than Notre Dame. Randomness: I'm pretty sure I saw Rick Steves as we were walking towards the Sacré-Cœur. Anyway, Sacré-Cœur is on a giant hill and you can take the stairs or take a trolley-like thing. Of course my friends, being fans of sexy calf muscles, decide we should take the stairs. Ugh. But once we got to the top it was well worth it. The view was amazing and the cathedral itself was gorgeous. We happened to meet the other half of our group, who were chilling eating baguettes and drinking wine in the grass. We went inside (where some guy had to keep yelling no photos! because some people just can't respect rules, even in a church) and just sat and admired where we were. After about 10 minutes we go back outside to get a good seat to watch the sunset over Paris. That's when the real fun began. A dance party broke out in front of the Sacré-Cœur! It was just one of those amazing things (that probably happens in Paris all the time) that you just can't plan. They didn't just dance, but they were acrobats as well. It was FANTABULOUS! I enjoyed it so much, I shall dedicate an entirely separate post to it : )

This guy made it up 7 stairs and was already tired.

Sacré-Cœur

AMAZING street performers

Sacré-Cœur at sunset

Preview of dance party

 After the amazing dance party in front of the Sacré-Cœur, we head back down the hill for dinner. We find this cute restaurant and order food sort of late (we're officially on the Spanish  eating schedule by now). I order a salmon quiche that was super delicioso (I can't even think of more adjectives in English so I'm switching to Spanish). After dinner we head back to the hotel. We decide to watch some French TV just because and we turn on this channel that's playing old silent films. The movie had the original words displayed in English, with French subtitles, but it was dubbed in German. We didn't figure the German part out for a while, so we're trying to repeat what we hear thinking they go along with the words at the bottom. Talk about super confused. By that time, we realize we just need to go to sleep and that exactly what we did.