november highlights (thus far, ella)

1.) Stayed out til 8:30 last Saturday morning, walking home as the sun came up. Turned into a nocturnal day; I went to sleep at 8:52 and woke up at 4:30. Awesome.

2.) Shots that taste like chocolate cake (for reals) for my friend's birthday.

3.) Election night party at our favorite bar - our beloved (and muy guapo) bartenders put CNN on the big screen, instead of the weird-ass music videos they usually play (freakin' Spain, dude), and we cheered every time a state came up blue. Cheered even harder when they played a commercial with images of Seattle. Pike Place we miss you!! Also got to shake my head and laugh at the American boys who dragged tables over and played beer pong. Guess they miss home a lot these days.

4.) Re-downloading Limewire and downloading fun dance-y songs, so now I can have dance parties in my room when I need to warm up. I'm sorry, I know it's awful, but I love "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry. Something about the beat. But my favorite is "Hips Don't Lie." How did I not have this song before now??

P.S. My senior year of high school, Hips Don't Lie was my AP U.S. History teacher's ringtone. Mr. Wilson, 6'5" or something like that, wonderfully dry sense of humor; his phone rang in class one time and he said, "Oh, it's Shakira, she's been doggin' me." Amazing.

5.) Walking to my friend's house today and realizing that my jacket, however cute, was completely unnecessary because it was in the 70s, perfectly blue skies and sunny like the middle of September. B-E-A-Utiful.

6.) Flirting - successfully - with...let's see. Hot Italian bartender named Fabio (I know); hot German student named Helge; hot Spaniard named Felix (like the cat, he says)...I think that's everyone of note. I call it successful because they gave me besitos. Check for Spain.

7.) Going out with the aforementioned Spaniard 2 weekends in a row and spending a good 5 1/2 hours each time practicing my Spanish. True, he has to repeat some more colloquial words several times before I get what he's saying, but we had legit conversations and I'm feeling pretty confident about my language skills. Word, yo.

8.) Bought cute skinny jeans and the sexiest shirt I've ever owned or worn or seen. Vale.

9.) Historia del Arte was only a half hour long on Friday and then the teacher bought us coffee (well, tea for me). Love it.

10.) Talked to Roman and Kaetochi for like an hour and a half on Thursday and then - finally!! - got to talk to Sarah for the first time since I've been over here. (I'm not counting the times we tried and failed because of sketchy internet.) The rest of y'all - freakin' download Skype and call me. I miss you.

Love always,
molly