Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

Prologue: 

I am now exactly 3 weeks behind on my blog, and in an effort to catch up, I am pulling a Hail Mary and doing a quadruple-feature. FOUR FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! I am so jealous of all you lucky readers. Below is the most epic blog post I have ever written and will ever write.

Part I: Sepanta Arash Miriam Barcelona
Get it? Kind of like Vicky Cristina Barcelona except with our names. God I am SO the next Woody Allen.

Song: The Tallest Man on Earth - "King of Spain"

• song is super relevant because:
• talks about Barcelona
• looking for love <3
• talks about flamenco
• leather boots (even though I don't have any it seems relevant

Also, here is a picture of me with The Tallest Man on Earth (musician not the actual tallest man on Earth)(he's actually really short)(this was in Boston, not Barcelona)

He is the one next to me in the middle.

Anyway, we took the plane to Barcelona on January 1, and decided to do it Miriam-style AKA not book a hostel. We arrive in the early afternoon to the greatest/cleanest airport in the world. I didn't take this picture but this is what it looked like:

I should pause here to say that I had forgotten my camera so none of the pictures on this trip are actually mine. Also, I am going to keep it pretty quick since it was so long ago and I barely remember anything. For further reading, you can relate to Arash's post (which was actually surprisingly halfway decent):

http://tspingthrougheurope.blogspot.com/2011/01/leather-up-its-going-to-be-legen-wait.html

Anyway, after trying to figure out how to get out of the airport for half an hour, we got into a bus and got off in the middle of the city (it was also the cleanest bus ever). We walked around and found a hostel (it was called Paris Hostel or something). We headed out to walk around, had free dinner at a bar and I don't remember what else.

The next day we checked out of our hostel and headed out to the famed Kabul Hostel. We moved into our 8-bed room, where we were greeted by 2 Argentine guys (forgot their names) and 2 Brazilian girls (named Mariana and Mariana) and one random person that I don't think said anything the entire time we were there.

Anyway, that day we did some things (probably not exciting) and then decided to go to the Barcelona game that night. We took the metro to the stadium and waited in the crazy lines and eventually got super good seats for 50 euros each. This was our view:

Unfortunately, my boys Lio and Pique didn't play but it was still a good game.

After the game we went back to the hostel and then met up with my friend Joana.

Jo:


Jo is probably the happiest and most carefree person I know. To give you an idea, she spent last summer volunteering at music festivals, and then hitchhiking from California to New York to catch her flight back to Barcelona. Right now she is hitchhiking to Timbuktu.

She took us to a flamenco concert that was really great (it was on my list of things to do in Barcelona). Their music was beautiful and it was like seeing 3 Idins at the same time.

After that she took us to a free rock concert where we ran into our waiter from earlier that day.

Me rocking out. (being me)

Song #2: I'm From Barcelona - "We're From Barcelona"

• relevant because:
• isn't it obvious?

By now it was almost 1 AM so it was time to go back to the hostel...and get our night started. We changed and got ready to go to a club with our hostel at 1:45 to a Brazilian party. For some reason, none of the Brazilians went, and we learned why. It wasn't that much fun and it was too crowded.

One thing I learned about Brazil: Mariana #1 was telling us how it was annoying that everybody always thought Brazil was a land where beautiful women walked around naked all the time and that's all that people thought. Apparently, she said they are only naked SOME of the time. (I never knew any of this before.) I think I'm going to go to the World Cup in 2014. Anyone want to come with?

OK, I am writing too much about Barcelona. The rest will be quick.

The next day we went to Parc Güell which was amazing. While I was there I decided I want to go back to Barcelona again really soon. This is what it looked like:

Later that night, we went to a club, this time the Marianas came. It was better than the night before, but it wasn't until Arash and I went to the bathroom that it got better. We were peeing and some British guy was yelling, and the guy peeing next to us yells "F-CK THE BRITISH!" and Arash as a joke is like "Yeah!" The guy turns to us and is like "What do you know? You're probably Persians." And we're like WTF how does he know? He said I had an accent which is crap but anyway, he turned out to be really nice. He was a professional poker player from Finland of Turkish origin and his sister had just married an Iranian and they had VIP at the club. They invited us up and we got free drinks for the rest of the night and met all of his friends. I even lost my sweater at some point and he ran up to me as we were leaving with it. He is on the left:

After that we went to get some gyros with the Marianas and then went to bed at 6 AM, for what I can say would be a pretty typical Barcelona Monday night.

The next day we saw the amazing Sagrada Familia and it was by far the greatest cathedral I have seen. (As much as it hurts to say, it was so much better than Notre Dame.)

Then I stayed in that night to study for my finals and Arash and Miriam went out (I am so boring). At the airport I joined the Barcelona team and we said our goodbyes.

Part II: Piggyback Murder
(Sorry I really can't think of a better title.)

Song: Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele - "Oh, Paris!"

• relevant because:
• I returned to Paris
• Dent May is super hot

So after Barcelona, I returned to Paris and took my finals (don't want to talk about it), and then was left with nothing to do for 3 weeks. So, I decided I would begin my transformation from "awesome" to "awesome and independent". This became a theme for the next couple weeks.

Saturday night, Seamus and Justin invited me over for dinner and chillin' and after a few drinks, Justin decided to give me a makeover. He used a real blade and carved out an R&B singer from my face.

The next night was Steph's birthday. People gave mixed but generally positive reviews on the new look. We went to Pastapapa, the greatest chain restaurant ever. They had fresh pasta (apparently normal pasta isn't fresh) and the largest portions ever. Unfortunately, Arash wasn't there to finish my leftovers. After that, we walked around and went on the metro while I played guitar. I am going to just believe that the looks we got from people were of enjoyment of the Justin Bieber medley I was playing and not of disapproval (such a poorly written sentence). After stocking up on more wine, we headed to the Eiffel Tower, first by metro, then by walking, and eventually after about an hour and a half of walking we made it there, where Jonny was waiting for us.

(For the rest of the night, I entrusted my camera to Lili, so I can neither take credit/blame for the rest of the pictures.)

Some of my favorite pictures that she took:

Ok, but really I have to thank her or I wouldn't know what to write on this blog since I've forgotten everything that happened and am just going by her pictures.

After our Eiffel Tower jam session, we headed to Aurélien's place. For some reason it took us another 2 hours to get there, and not without some drama.

First this happened:

Then this happened:

Then, naturally, this happened:

Yes, that's red wine.

The crime scene.

Then we got to Aurélien's place. There are not too many pictures of once we got there (it's better that way) but after a couple hours Jonny and Steph passed out and the rest of us had deep conversations about Facebook, French desserts, and relationship outlooks.

Part III: Time to Say Goodbye

Song: Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman - "Time To Say Goodbye"

• relevant because:
• Arash was leaving soon and it was time to say goodbye

The next day, Arash returned from his Spain excursion. It was good to see him again, and we went to Disneyland to catch up. But we only went to the movie theater there and saw "Somewhere". It was pretty good (he'll disagree). The next morning I took him to the station and we bid each other goodbye. This was the last I saw of him as he left onto his journey of adulthood and suithood:

I went back to my apartment and slept. Until I was woken up by a phone call from Lili telling me Arash was outside my door. I thought it was a joke, but I checked and sure enough, he was standing there. Apparently he never got a ticket...

Do you know when you say bye to someone and then wish you'd told them things that you hadn't, and then spend the rest of your life regretting it? It was kind of like that but not at all. Arash slept for most of the day and then we went out to dinner with Lili and Corinna. It was good to have Arash back to finish my leftovers (the pho bowls were huge!).

Then the next morning Arash left for real. To America.

I just realized there wasn't even enough time for the song to get to the part where the guy sings (the good part) so you can take a break and just listen to the song now before reading the next part.

I'll wait.

Part IV: Bring it, Martha Stewart

Song: Unknown Artist - "Martha Stewart Song"

• relevant because:
• I am dethroning Martha Stewart as greatest housewife

So, this leaves me with last week (almost caught up). Arash left and I decided to get to work. The first thing I learned was to make French toast (it seemed fitting). Here is a picture of my breakfast that morning:

Feeling a little bit cocky, I decided to try my hand at rice that evening. This is what happened:

No, those are not spices, cheese, or anything else. Just rice. I still ate it. And it only took like 3 hours to clean the pot. Feeling like I had to master it before I moved on, I tried it again, this time with chicken.

Better, but I knew I could do better. And so, for one final time, I made the same dish, and this time it was amazing (I am totally unbiased).

Rice, chicken, sauteed onions and mushrooms, baguette, millefeuille, and a glass of milk.

I can't decide if I should be a professional chef or a food photographer, it all looks so good! In fact, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it so I'm going to go make some food right now. Blog Break!

Ok. Now that I mastered cooking, I had to move onto my next skill: laundry. Who knew I was a natural?

Before

After

Slowly but surely, I'm getting there. I just ate some double tomato bruschetta, and even though I should blog about this next time I can't resist showing off.

Now, I am making some zereshk polo. It's going to look something like this when I'm done:

Epilogue:

Anyway, in other news I just got back from Marrakesh. I'll write about that tomorrow (AKA sometime in the next month). And the reason the writing got so bad towards the end is that I don't actually expect anyone to read this far. If you're still reading this, you get a prize.