gas station

the gas station. also known as the oil station. also known as my grocery store. if i keep living off the gas station i swear to god man, a) im going to be a fat pig b) ill be out of money. for the past two nights i have bought a sub for dinner from there. now im gonna tell you this, this sub was good. it was real good. especially when u put some chips on it. but its just not gonna cut it for the next three months according to my waist line and my health. and my wallet.

miss you please come visit me!

before i got here, i rarely ate bread..ever. bread was like…was like slovakians eating peanut butter. disappointingly not plausible. however. the bread here..its like… its like heaven in my mouth. I eat bread every day for lunch and now carrying it over to dinner..i even bought bread at the store..im pretty sure ive never bought bread before that didn't say hyvee brand on it and was cut into slices. in other words, i need to get my fat ass to the grocery store and buy some healthy food.

you know how i said yesterday that i picked  a random lunch today? well it was pancakes. i got kind of lucky on that one i think because i saw what the other stuff was and it just did not look appealing. but then again what really does from their cafeteria?

another random pic. miss you guys as well. their typical life.

i was at work today forrrr a solid 10 hours. it was a killer and tomorrow will just be longer. thank god i enjoy working there and like the people i work with otherwise it would be awful! my days literally just disappear… its already 11 and iddont know where my day went. but hela and i went to a pub after work and got a beer called radler. it was the best thing id ever drank..it was like beer with lemon but..it just tasted like i could drink it for breakfast lunch and dinner. i also tried to get a phone for the fifth time but failed again. i am having some problems.

radler yall

lets see what else did i do today… hela and i walked around the city and she showed me a bunch of places..i bought some stamps! lets just say these are the most expensive post cards ive ever sent. or will send. i also went to some giant store after work with hela jardka & rodka that is literally as big as our mall, but its only one store and 3 stories. it has literally everything in the world that you would need. you may ask me why i did not buy groceries? and i would say i didn't have enough time! i also went to hte bank to see fi i could set up an account. my banks are killing me with a this transaction fee every time i use my card!! and im out of euros!!!  i then came home and slept because i was exhausted and now im going to try and sleep again soon… but first im watching house because i just realized i had the first 3 seasons on my computer and thats the only source of tv i have. too lazy to go out tonight. poop emoji.

alllsooo at work, here it is custom totake your shoes off when you enter a house or something, so the people iw ork with keep a seperate pair of sandals at work tha tthey put on..and i bought some…just trying to fit in here…………………. well see if it works. lets b real..probably not.

random thoughts: a lot of hte girls here wear tights all the time, like every day.
our lab has these sweet lights all over the place that turn on every time you walk past them. clever
this is the stairs label….. run into a giant block?

this was the toilet paper holder…..

NOW THIS is funny. at a pub called rock oK the other night, the crazy spaniards were trying to learn the differnece of how to say these words. and literally pronounced all of htem the same way so i didn't know what they were saying so they had to type them into their phone. we spent like an hour trying to distinguish between them and they still didn't get them right

im tired. goodnight moon

river

DAY 7

thought #1:  the word river. this is the language barrier between me and my roommates. for some reason… the word river is an impossible obstacle in our relationship. its like… jade's doggy door that separates her from the rest of the house. i think it took us about 9 minutes to figure out that we were talking about the "river" not the "raper" or the "rider", but the river.

thought #2: its finals here right now. they have like a month to take them or something, i have no idea. however, men in suits, ties, dress shoes everywhere. women in dresses, skirts, heels. And then there is me. I love how all the students dress up for their exams. They have oral exams so they want to look presentable. they are lookin fly. and i am looking like doo-doo.

thought #3: a man who works for the tram people came up to me today and asked me if he could see my ticket to get on. Thankfully i bought a 3 month pass a few days ago. He literally asked nobody besides me. Could it have been the fact that i was shifting back and forth anxiously trying to see out the window to make sure i didn't miss my stop? could it be the fact that it looks like the USA planted me in slovakia? or could it be the fact that  i simply am the target of a racist attack. you tell me. no im just kidding, but i was really surprised that somebody actually came up and asked me if i had my ticket. he said it maliciously as if he knew i didnt have one and thought he was going to catch me. Because not only did he look at my card, but he opened it up, examined it for 5 min, and then looked disappointed that i did, in fact, have a real card to use the tram.

thought #4: were going out tonight. i hope i make it to work tomorrow.

thought #5: will somebody please point me in the direction where i can buy coffee to go? and some stamps?

thought #6 if you want a postcard you should give me your address. not like anyone reads this blog anyway though

thought #7: i stuck a probe down my rats throat all the way into its stomach to inject glucose this morning to do an oral glucose test. all im saying is that i would not enjoy being that rat. especailly when we cut part of its tail off to get some blood after we stuck something 4 inches long into its stomach. even though i felt bad for the guy..it was pretty cool

thought #8: i watched some students do a tracheotomy on a rat today..such a tiny trachea. also, when they put the tube in so it could breathe, the rat was breathing on its own at the same time…soo..it didn't work.. imagine somebody having an asthma attack because thats what it sounded like. all im saying is that i would not enjoy being that rat.

thought #9: my days literally fly by and i don't know where they go. I think its because my computer time is still iowa time, so i look at it. Also its when i can talk to my parents and erin its late here but early there..so i think i just put myself in that time zone

but…anyways. dovidenia! comemos pizza ahora

you know its a good day when your animals are having sex

DAY 6

sooo today i made it successfully to work today without any problems! i think thats kind of a big deal. we spent about half our day today measuring blood pressures of rats and mice. this is no easy feat. they insist on flopping and flailing their tails in all directions and we cant get a good reading and it takes FOREVER! (poop emoji)

meet one of my friends. his name is …………..

however, were also trying to mate 10 of our mice currently. and we couldnt take the blood pressure of one of the ladies because they legit no joke were having sex for 4 hours and we didn't need it to be elevated. we were in a pickle because we REEALLLLY need them to get pregnant but we also wanted their blood pressure..so we just waited. we figured it couldnt take THAT long. until it took 4 hours. we even went to lunch, did another part of the experiemnt, shook coke a few hours, etc etc. and they were still going at it. that poor little lady mouse is all i have to say. but is it sad when the thing i get excited is about that my mice are having sex? ITS A GOOD DAY!

after that i had to go relieve some stress and take in the view from the medical faculty that we have….its decent.

now the other half..

let me ask you, how much do you think you need to shake a coke bottle and open it up before the coke finally becomes flat? I'll tell you. about 4 hours worth. i think that was my work out on the day. what are we? scientists who sit around and shake coke bottles all day so that they will be flat so the rats can drink them? when i drink out of a pop bottle i think that its flat in like 30 minutes without all the extra work of shaking and opening…...we even went to the extremes and put the pop in the incubator to try and get them flat. I think this actually helped. but eventually we thought it was flat enough to put the rats in their cages and start day 1 on ze experiment.

NOW let me ask you…. what would happen if you knocked this entire table of coke over….they don't have lids on…let me tell you.
so.. PICTURE THIS:….

JOKES i didn't knock them over! but you thought i did for a second!!

living in my dorm is like living in spain and going to work is like living in slovakia. around the people in my dorm i do attempt to talk to them in spanish..and then i go to work this morning and say hola to the people there. seriously? hola is not my language or theirs. its cool though because im learning more of both languages…im trying at least!

tonight i was testing pablo for his english exam…… well first of all, he asked me what iw as going to eat for dinner, and i said pretzels and chocolate, and he said come to his room because he was going to make me dinner, so i went down there, and pretzels was googled on his computer ahhaahhaa. i was dying. its hilarious because they put everything into google translate that they don't know what it is. i tested him on his english and apparently i am a harsh teacher according to ramon pero pablo will be muy inteligente para esta exam. (i suck at spanish) but anyways him and ramon were crackin me up. 

this past weekend i went boating with my friends, it was a blast. we should go again next weekend. i take that back, erin just told me that i drowned in the lake.

buutt its like 1:00 am now and im a little tired soo i should probalby get to sleep. goodnight moon. btw, i miss you my friends and my family. xoxo gossip girl (jk)

remember when i said i was going to go to bed early? nope looks like were going to mark twain. how do these people do this? (mark twain is a bar near us down by the river)

also, this blog would be so much better if i could use emojis. --insert poop emoji--

donde estoy

 DAY 5

its already sunday at 3.. i literally am not sure where the weekend went. the past two days ive woken up at like 12 or 1.  literally dont remember the last time i slept that late. i feel like i have homework or something that i should be doing…but i dont..its weird. summer.

last night was truly one of the most ridiculous things ive ever experienced. thank god for pablo thats all im saying or i probably would have ended up on the side of the street in bratislava somewhere. people ask me, where did you go last night? and i just say i dont know.  i dont know because i cant pronounce anything here for the life of me, but also because i drank a lot of beer. however, i had a blast. i also gave some guy a ponytail (not cut it off like some people would……). i would compare this guy to umm wyatt's friend with the long curly hair. i think these guys were french that we were with last night and i kept trying to talk to them in spanish. i dont know why…

me and pablo i suppose doing some sort of salsa at he disco…yikes

 also id just like to say that being here i have embarrassed myself and every person from the US. i am a disgrace. literally i know where no countries are and know nothing about any country..including the US. i think the spaniards and the slovaks know more about the USA than i do. how embarrassing. but truly i am learning a lot.....so thats good…. but yes, my apologies to the US and you guys should probably get a better school system because we're dumb.

monika just gave me a boss manicure and while she was doing it i think she wanted to punch me because my nails looked so awful.  she is like an asian in a polish body.. es muy fantastico.

buttt everyone should probably watch this video...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCekVRev3bk because its hilaroius. and people like these guys. they got 2nd place in something like american idol here. go waterland!

this morning i had a brief scare that i lost my passport....no worries..we found it in someones room.....im never getting let back into the US.

i think later we are going to go to eat at a cafe annnnddd yup it will probably be an early night for me because i think we got back home at like 5 or 6 this morning? kill me. crazy spaniards.

the cafe we went to last night before going out had hammocks..they were awesome..except i think im the only person who thought they were cool

adios for now!

DAY 4

Todayyy i saw ze cittttyyyyy a little bit. my roommate from poland, Monika, showed me around thankfully because I wouldnt have been able to do it myself! I have a few things to say I think but I can't remember what they are... however I did finally take some pictures. whenever i walk around I just think that every who sees me is thinking "stupid american" especially when i have my camera around my neck, its "stupid american tourist taking pictures"

To be honest i'm not really sure where we were but there were just like a million cafes in a row and had gorgeous outdoor seating and the furniture was so comfortable and i paid 6 dollars for 2 diet pepsi or excuse me "pepsi light"..ahh yes..the life. But no along the river there are so many cute cafes and stuff and it was simply lovely. Next to the cafes is a giant mall so we went in there and bought some shtuff. however i have no room in my suitcase so i dont know what would cause me to purchase anything while I am here.

but seriously, i think my favorite thing about htis place is that there are just cafes and random bars and just cute hang outs everywheere. even in the mall there were like 10 cafes. but i haven't bought any coffee yet....still need to do that

walking around the city today was great, it really is a pretty place. around my dorm, not so much, but when you get to the center it is. I love how there is so much space where a lot of people jut sit relax and drink or eat. or lay down and read a book. or just sit down and hang out! This place was built for people to just hang out it. why is cedar rapids not liek that? or ames? poooooo. or iowa?

i still have yet to unpack so i should really get going on that. one of my roommates, sarah, left this morning to go back to spain. so now its just me and monika in the room.

also, i had so many things to say and im pretty sure i have yet to say any of them. i dont remember!!! the shopping here is so much better. i wanted to buy everything. unfortunately im poor. ballas de mierda.

i also like that so many peopel bring their dogs out just to like the city center..but honest to goodness. none of them are on leashes! they are with their owners and their owners have leashes in their hands, but the dogs just run free! theyre mainly small ones but its just funny. until one of them like poops on me. it won't be so cute and funny then.

oh and if you were wondering my living situation (which you probalby weren't)...lets just say we do our dishes in the same place we brush our teeth

annnndd this is my room. my beds on the left. yyupp