katie's blog

I started watching Lost (like, started started, I'd never seen any of it before) about two months ago and just now finished the fifth season. As lovely and addicting as it all was, I really only got, like, super into it around the end of the 4th season. And I mean like...super into. Let's just say that I watched the entire 5th season in like two days. I have been in this weird Lost-induced funk for the past couple days, my dreams are haunted by crazy shit going on that makes no sense but all the Lost characters are there. And now I'm listening to the Chrono Cross soundtrack and it's all sort of islandy and epic and is making me think even more about Lost. What the eff, mate. GET OUT OF MY HEAD. Only, don't, because I love being in love with geeky TV shows. Is there a Lost comic series or something? Video game? Dorky Facebook quizzes that tell me what character I am? (just kidding on that last one - I already took it, and I'm Sawyer.)

So, can I please turn some magic icy wheel of green-lighted doom and go to 2010?

I am looking in to adding Amsterdam and Morocco onto my schedule in Europe. Morocco would just be a day trip from Spain, Amsterdam I would do instead of Munich (which would mean no Oktoberfest). I'm saddened about not going to Oktoberfest but that would add a CONSIDERABLE amount of money onto my already steep bill for this whole adventure. Plus I've read stuff where you need to reserve a bed in a hostel almost a year in advance, and since that leg of my trip is about 3 months away, I think I am, in a word, screwed. So, plan b: Amsterdam! Which is awesome. I can smoke legally and go see whores in widows on my way to the Anne Frank house.

This week I noticed that I have a considerable amount of white hair growing on the sides of my head. It's rather long so it must have been growing for at least a year. It's also not just, like, a strand here and there, it literally looks like I had white paint on my hand and ran it through my hair. There is a lot of it. Fortunately I'm blonde and my hair is already light, and some of it is like...silvery blonde already, so you can't really tell unless I point it out. And I guess I haven't noticed it in all this time so surely it can't be TOO noticeable? But, still, wtf, I'm 22! :(

Working out is going well, I was talking to a woman I work with last night about working out and mentioned that I'd been running two miles a day for about two weeks, and she said something to the effect of "if you can already see a change in your body after two weeks, that's good!" I had said nothing about noticing any change, so I assume that means that she has noticed, which is good. I'm taking today off, I think, mainly because I'm hungover as shit but also because my legs need a bit of a break.

I bought some plane tickets (and by "some" I mean 5) around Europe for when I'm in Spain, and I have a pretty good idea of where I'm going. I mainly picked out bigger cities and towns for my route even though I am planning on going to smaller places as well, but for now I just put a marker on the map where bigger places are so that it would be easier to get a general route and how long it would take. So! Here is the plan, so far. Dates and locations are fairly loose, this is just so I can get an idea, though the stuff from Frankfurt to London is pretty set in stone since I already have tickets for that.

Barcelona, August 18-21
Valencia, August 24-25
Sevilla, August 29
Lisbon, Sept 2
Santiago de Compostela, Sept 6
Leon, Sept 4
Salamanca, Sept 6
Caceres, Sept 8
Toledo, Sept 10
Madrid, Sept 12
Santander, Sept 17

Frankfurt, Sept 17
Krakow, Sept 22
Stockholm, Sept 26
London, Sept 28

Santander, Sept 30
Bilbao, Oct 1
Zaragoza, Oct 2
Barcelona, Oct 3-5

Home, Oct 5

View Spain 2009 in a larger map

My plans for Spain are slowly but surely starting to come together into something fairly solid. I have a pretty good idea of places I want to go, anyway. I am thinking that I will spend a few weeks in Spain, then maybe go somewhere else for a few days or so, then come back to Spain. Travel within Europe is very cheap (if you know where/when to look) so going somewhere else would not really change anything financially. Spain is still the main focus of my trip though so I don't want to get carried away with trying to go a ton of different places.

So we'll see!

Anyway, I have boosted my workout routines considerably and am up to running 2 miles a day (which is a lot for me, as I hate running) as well as free weights. I am going to try and run almost every day, and the days that I don't run I will go on a bike ride or something. I live in a really beautiful part of the Denver metro area that you would never guess is in the middle of a huge city. Rolling hills, streams, fields with horses grazing, lush vegetation....It's rained a lot this year as well so everything is super green and really gorgeous, it's kind of weird since stuff is usually a bit...brown around here. But it's nice to bike through the trails! Plus biking = tan.

Sooooo hopefully I will be in (really?) good shape by the time I get to Spain. I am also going to have to watch my beer and Chipotle burrito intake....which will be hard! Oh well.

BTW I'm going to start tagging new Spain discussion with "Spain 09" in a lame attempt to keep this year's trip's entries somewhat separated from when I studied abroad there in 06/07.

Soooo I did it. Bought my plane tickets. I am leaving Denver on August 17, will fly non-stop to London and then hop on a connecting flight to Barcelona. Seven weeks later on October 5, I will do the same thing in reverse. I am ridiculously excited, ridiculously nervous and....ridiculously excited. I have no idea what I'm going to do there. I want to go to around 12ish places so I figure I can stay about 3 or 4 days in each place, though I'm keeping things open so I'll stay longer in places I really love, less in places I feel less attracted to.

I am going to go to some of the "big" locations, like Madrid, Sevilla, Valencia, Grenada, etc (as well as starting and ending in Barcelona.) But I also really want to go to several places that I have no idea about. I really want to go to Extremadura, east of Portugal, which apparently is "more rural" than most other places, but other than that I have no idea what's there. But I plan on finding out! Right now I am sort of planning on doing a clockwise jaunt through Spain, starting in Barcelona, going south to Valencia and then west through Andalusia, then north and over etc.

Both my dad and my sister immediately asked me "where else" am I going, as if going to Spain wasn't enough. My dad mentioned Greece and the UK, my sister mentioned Italy and France. Maybe! I might keep an eye on Ryanair.com and see if they have any insane deals, since sometimes their flights are cheaper than it would be to go elsewhere in Spain by rail. So I'm open to the possibility of going somewhere else for a bit, but this is still a "trip to Spain" so I don't want to get carried away. Plus I don't speak Greek, Italian or French, lol, and part of the reason I'm going to Spain, apart from it being amazing, is that I speak the language.

But yeah...I already have a little countdown going. 62 days!!! :D

I don't want to go into full-on Rant Mode but I would really like to sit everyone in the world down and tell them, nicely, that NOT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD THINKS AND FEELS LIKE YOU, NOR SHOULD THEY. One of the many fascinating things about this world is difference and variety. I don't want you to be like me, so why do you want me to be like you?

1195972255798

Though, am I a hypocrite for getting angry at people for not thinking like that, which is how -I- feel? *sigh*

In short: Fuck you, white heterosexual male America.

Last night I went to see Nine Inch Nails for the third time (I saw them once in Barcelona in 2007 and then again here in Colorado at Red Rocks last September) at Fiddler's Green in Englewood, southeast of Denver. It was a pretty awesome show, as expected. I can't say if it was better or worse than the other concerts, all three have been quite different. The Barcelona concert was in a really tiny venue and was super loud and crazy. The concert at Red Rocks was very intensive on the visuals, with lots of screens up with shit being projected onto them in sync with the music, etc. They also played a lot from Year Zero and Ghosts at Red Rocks, so it was mostly new stuff.

The concert last night was mostly older stuff. There were only two songs from With Teeth and Year Zero (Hand That Feeds and Survivalism) and then they played Non-Entity from the NINJA Tour Sampler that was actually really fucking good live, I thought. Other than that it was all "older stuff" which I think I like more anyway. Quite a lot of Downward Spiral which I usually think is my favorite album (it changes a lot.) I was very excited and happy to get Heresy, Something I Can Never Have, Burn, Suck, Dead Souls, the Day the World Went Away, Hurt and of course one of my all time favorites, Reptile, which is ridiculously amazing to see live. Hurt was kind of a disapointment I guess. Maybe it's because I've already seen it twice before so the "omigawd Hurt" thing isn't really there anymore, I dunno. I didn't really get excited or get chills or anything. Still a great song to see live though, just not as good as the previous times.

Anyway then Jane's Addiction came on and we stayed for a few songs but then left before everyone else did to avoid the crowds. Dave Navarro did some crazy guitar solo that was neat, then the singer guy whose name I don't know started going off about how we need a "fashion revolution." It was enjoyable, the little bit we saw.

Anyway I found this setlist on the NIN forums and it seems to jive well with my memory and no one on the forum corrected it, so I'm going to assume it's right.

Wish
Last
Heresy
March of the Pigs
Something I Can Never Have
Metal
Reptile
Burn
Gave Up
Non-Entity
The Way Out Is Through
Mr. Self Destruct
Survivalism
Suck
Dead Souls
The Day The World Went Away
Hurt
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like a Hole

If they are indeed "waving goodbye" and won't be touring anymore, they sure went out with a bang. Excellent show (I must say that I usually hate going to concerts, but all the NIN concerts I've been to have been extremely enjoyable and I've always been sad when they end.)

I'm going in to work at the liquor store today, which is good because I was getting tired of sitting around and doing nothing. I'm not sure how many hours a week I'll have, but anything is better than nothing, obviously, so I'm pleased. Some people don't have a job at all!

I'm about to go up to my room and begin the Great Clothing Purge of 2009. The ARC is coming tomorrow to pick up donations and I will hopefully have a lot to contribute. Toys and other things like that will probably also get thrown in, stuff that has been buried in my closet since I was a kid and that I've never bothered to do anything with. NOW IS THE TIME.

Hopefully my room will manage to get cleaned up a bit in the process...

(does that subject heading sound way dirty or is that just me?)

After tonight I think I'm going to try and be as alcohol-free as possible. That's not to say that I won't have a glass of wine or a beer occasionally but I absolutely cannot continue to drink like I do now. It's fucking up my body, makes me irritated and depressed the next morning and is, like, expensive and stuff.

I realize that working at a liquor store might not be the BEST thing with this new goal in mind, but I also am hopeful that if I have something to look forward to and save up for - i.e. getting the hell out of dodge - then it will be easier to not pick up a $8 six pack every other night after I get off work.

Here's hoping I'll at least be somewhat successful!

Oh, and in other news: Today was the last day of anything at all school-related. My family gets into Gunnison tomorrow afternoon, then the graduation ceremony is Saturday morning and then we're driving back to Denver on Sunday. EXCITING. :D

What's the biggest disappointment you've suffered?

This is probably lame but it was recent and is what came to mind first: being duped by fake people on Twitter. I was following two people who I thought were actors from a show I watch (Skins), only to find a few days later that they were fakes. The whole fandom was in an uproar about it because other people from the show had fallen for it and the Twitter accounts were even featured in a weekly "Twitter Watch"-type article on a rather prominent website. So, yeah, I was upset and disappointed. I think I was actually more upset because whoever was behind the accounts (not sure if they were two people or the same) was a pretty funny lady/dude and I @ replied both of them at least once.