Semanas Catorce a Dieciseis: The Final Moments

29 April ~ 22 May 2011

I was robbed the other week—yup, you heard right. My time with my iPhone, which I had only possessed for a mere five months, had apparently expired. I’m not proud to reveal how said action occurred, but to be frank, I was outwitted by a ten-year old. In my defense, I would like to believe he had some kind of formal training—a klepto apprentice, if you will. The fact is, being duped by a child does something to a person… it really does.

So here is the full story: I was sitting outside of Dunkin Coffee studying French…in Spain…and was using my phone as a paperweight for the stack of flashcards I was making. The flashcards were at most seven inches away from me when this dirty young boy approached me with a cardboard sign with some black scribble on it. This is nothing new in Spain as there are always people, mainly the Senegalese men trying to sell you knock-off sunglasses and watches, pestering you when sitting outside. Like I was always do, I shook my head and said no, and continued to work. Ten minutes later when I was packing up, I had realized what had happened: that scumbag low-life loser put his sign over my stuff, and used the hand not holding the sign to grab my phone and slide it back to himself when he pulled back his sign. I mean, you could have at least given me my SIM card. And, if you’re reading this—from my phone—would you like the charger seeing that I have no need for it now?

After I packed up my things, I went on a wild goose chase through the alleyways of Granada with bulging crimson eyes and a little bit of steam spewing from my ears. I had absolutely zero qualms about linebacker-tackling a child in public—none. But let’s get even further into the ingeniousness of it all; it was a holiday in Spain, Día de la Cruz, and there were thousands of kids everywhere! After nearly an hour of hopeless circling, I gave up and went to Lauren and Ashley’s for emotional support. Only Ashley was home, but she let me use her laptop to temporarily suspend my account so whoever now owned my phone couldn’t make calls or use data and rack up a dizzying phone bill.

As would be expected, an awkward moment regarding the aforementioned catastrophe would follow. It was roughly 2 am the night my phone departed, and I was nearly asleep. I was still in limbo and could hear what was going on in the apartment. I could hear Tina informing Rosa and José about my phone situation—not only the fact that it was stolen, but I had no alarm clock now—when I hear footsteps nearing my door. I knew José was going to come in so, I leaped up and began throwing on my t-shirt and dorm shorts, the latter never making it on before he knocked and walked in. “¿Estabas dormiendo? Were you sleeping?” Like an idiot, I said “no….” as if he couldn’t see the internet alarm I had found that was set on my laptop, and a completely dark room with me holding my shorts in place like they were on. If this was not awkward already, when Rosa and Tina both poked their heads in around José’s body, it most certainly was—me, half-dressed, face-to-face with all three roommates with a prevailing uncomfortable silence that could kill.

Thankfully, there was a pizza party at Patrick’s to lighten up the rather awful week. We ordered 100- euros worth of pizza like the lot of fatties that we are and tried to decide upon a movie. At one point, I thought we had all agreed, with the exception of myself, on a horror movie in Spanish—great, the last thing I want is to be scared shitless AND not understand what is even being said. It turned out to be Shutter Island in English to my great fortune. What is with all of Leo’s latest movies having to be seen twice to understand what the hell just happened? –Just a random thought.

This next part might be a bit graphic for some of you, so if you want, skip to the next paragraph, but I need to let the world know this. I had a bit of a bad bowel movement the other night; there was blood. Sometimes I have a bit of blood every once in a while, but never this much. It was no big deal until the morning after. I decided to wear my new white shorts to class the next day and every single time I felt a bit of gas coming, I panicked and tried my absolute hardest not to let it pass. The only thing I could envision was somehow causing blood to come out again, and seep through my thin white shorts. I did not want to look as if I had just somehow had a period. I've been trying to keep my uterus a secret.

One night, when I was just bumming for company, I went to Lizzie’s. I was standing in the kitchen when I could vaguely hear Adele’s “Turning Tables.” I just assumed Valerie was jamming out in her room, which is, to be fair, roughly on the opposite side of their kitchen wall. I had mentioned to Lizzie that I could hear her music and we both had our ears up to the wall listening. We then began to try and freak her out by punching the wall and raking it with our fingernails. We then wandered into Lizzie’s room, where I could then hear Pitbull and Ne-Yo’s “Give Me Everything.” That’s odd. I then just said it must have been her upstairs neighbor the whole time. I clearly remember standing by her door looking up at the ceiling and saying “Yup, it’s your upstairs neighbor, I can hear it clear as day right here.” I walked over to her bed to sit down and she remarked that the music “seems to be moving.” Nothing caught my attention more than when I next heard Zoe Badwi’s “Freefallin.” Zoe is an Australian artist I came across on the Internet, and I found it too much of coincidence that all of these songs were on my iPod as well. I reached into my cargo pocket where I discovered my iPod blaring at full blast on shuffle. Whoops. Can you spell r-e-t-a-r-d?

Sadly, my days in Granada were winding down. I could not believe how quickly four months had managed to fly by. I don’t remember many details from these final moments as I got lazy with my blog note-taking, but because I was spending every moment taking it all in for one last hoorah. I remember having another rendezvous with Ariel’s cousin again; she was deported from Italy and needed a place to go. I don’t recall exact details for the deportation, but I’m suspecting they were mafia-related.

Oh yeah, I had my 21^st birthday during my final days. It was an absolute disaster. Well, it was fun, before I fell asleep for two-and-a-half hours clinging to the porcelain god. That was…a blast (no pun intended). Normally, 21^st birthdays aren’t a cause for extra celebration in Europe since they crawl out of the womb alcoholics, but I had my caring circle of American pals that ensured it was a celebration. You would think it would have been the burning Absinthe shot I took that put me up over the edge after roughly four mixed drinks, a couple of apple schnapps shots, and a beer, but no, it was the rum and Coke I had nearly an hour and a half later; thank you for that again, Lauren. The next thing I knew, I was sitting outside the club on the sidewalk trying to make my world not do summersaults. At some point, Valerie began entertaining us with a dazzling story about Gandalf and the stick, not to be confused with Harry Potter.

                                                             Before

                                                         Some point later...

Knowing the day after my 21^st would most likely be a pounding, nauseating affair, I somehow, by the grace of all of the world’s gods, to pack my suitcases three days before I left. I was reviewing Air Berlin’s baggage policy when I came across this…interesting rule: “The following articles may only be carried in checked baggage: toy guns and commercially available toys that could be used as a weapon.” Hmmm…I really don’t believe you can club someone to death with a squirt gun—or! Oh, no! What if someone holds up the plane with a Nerf gun?!

My flight home was a bit stupid—well, I was stupid for booking it. I had not even realized I booked a flight that left Málaga Sunday afternoon and arrived in Berlin Sunday night for a twelve hour layover. In the U.S. I wouldn’t think twice about potentially spending the night in the terminal outside of my gate, but such initially seemed impossible in Berlin. I had arrived around nine Sunday evening and my flight to New York left at ten the following morning. I went to the gate my flight was supposed to leave from, but there was a passport check station before you could even enter the gate. I then decided to do a lap around the terminal to find a place to camp out to find, there wasn’t any. What the hell am I going to do? I asked a lady at one of the check-in counters, who was getting ready to leave, if the terminal was open all night. She told me it was not, but terminal D was. “Ok, great. Thanks” She looked rather puzzled, but I made my way over to the adjacent terminal.

This was just awesome might I add…sitting…waiting…alone…in the empty terminal with ten-and-a-half hours to go until my connecting flight. I even kept a log of my mind-numbingly boring night:

10:50p: Watching the night man on his squeegee machine washing the floor.

10:57p: The cleaning man just ran into the airport directory sign on his machine…quite funny.

11:01p: Discovered I have Bejeweled Blitz on my laptop! Mildly entertaining!

11:50p: Done with Bejeweled. I now have company: a drunk who is walking laps, two other passengers waiting patiently, and what I thought were two more drunks might just be two hobos because I am currently watching the one dig through the trash.

11:57p: And now there is a lost Asian man wandering aimlessly with his luggage cart.

1:01a: Finished an epic doodle. One passenger must feel unsafe sleeping with us, which may explain why he is now sleeping behind the ticket counter.

1:25a: Can’t possibly do anything else. I’m going to attempt sleeping.

4:45a: Just finished taking nearly 16-18 fifteen minute naps since comfort was not available on these metal chairs. Off to my terminal to the Starbucks until boarding.  

Un saludo,

Bryce