Azores Day 9: What's a Trip to Europe Without Some Language Barriers?

First things first Blog, when I say I'm going to take a picture of a cow, I actually take a picture of multiple cows. Case in point:

The ocean is a part of this because that's what the cows see when I'm not standing there causing herd befuddlement and taking pictures.

Livestock photography was just one small part of today's excursions. I also climbed on some rocks, got afraid of the tide again, and found out Portuguese people, like every other European, pretend they don't speak English until you try to speak their language and fail.

I've pretty much figured out how to navigate the landscape here. There are rocks to climb, waters to swim in, and pastures to hike across. None of these things, however, have taught me how to speak Portuguese. I don't know if there is anything in this world that can teach me how to speak Portuguese. It sounds beautiful, difficult, nonsensical, and like every single Latin-based language combined into one. Just when you think it's like Spanish, you find out it's more like French. Or Russian. Or none of these. And I guess the Portuguese get really offended if you try to speak Spanish to them because apparently the two have a history of not getting along. Also, I'll reiterate, Portuguese and Spanish are two entirely different languages.

I knew that fact even though I ended up speaking Spanish (poorly) today when I found myself in a tiny grocery store in search of eggs, milk, and, of course, wine. I don't even really know Spanish, but it's the only language that was ever even a little bit taught to me besides English. So when the two men who were lurking next to the wine started talking to me, I had nothing--I mean nothing--to say in their language. I didn't even know how to say hello in this language (it's ola) when I first got here. I mean, I knew how to say hello in Portuguese at the time of this interaction, but it wouldn't have made sense. The conversation had already been initiated. Ola wasn't going to cut it. After they kindly moved out of the way so I could look at the wine I said the only other Portuguese word I know: obrigada.

They were amused by this. I decided to try and instill their help since despite this grocery store's tininess, I couldn't find the milk. I had seen the word milk in Portuguese when Carly and I were at Biscoitos the other day. I remembered it was pretty much like the Spanish word for milk, leche. So I just went for it. "Donde es el leche?"

Shit. I was speaking (terrible) Spanish to Portuguese people. It's like you can't not do it.

But they were nice and could tell I was trying and that's when they pulled their European slight of hand and decided to whip out some English chops by telling me that the milk was right behind me. Of course it was. Why would it be in a refrigerator? That would make too much sense.

Beyond that, they helped me pick out some wine (from the mainland!) and ring up my things. Thanks Portuguese guys. You brought me out of my comfort zone and accepted me for the unilingual American I am. Except I was a little confused when everyone said ciao to me as I left. So we say goodbye like Italians?

So now I guess I know three words in Portuguese: ola, obrigada, and ciao (even though I already knew ciao from Italy, but whatever). Oh wait. Scratch that. I know a fourth: fodis which of course means fuck. Like Carly's husband says, you've got to learn the swears first. I don't know why, but it sounds like good advice so I'll go with it.

Spring Fake-Out Week Seems to Have Struck Again

Blog, I'm going to write a short post about the weather because I like to rant about tedious things.

First things first, I'm in South Carolina and it's 50 degrees outside. I'm winning right now.

However, Facebook has made me aware that this past weekend was what I like to call "spring fake-out week" in Minnesota. It was melty and wonderful out. People probably ditched their parkas for short shorts and roller-blades as they made their through melted slush in a burst of cabin-fever-related insanity. It happens every year. I'm doubt my absence has caused any change in this.

But remember Blog, it's "spring fake-out week". This means that winter has made you think that it's ok to wear short shorts and roller blades, BUT DON'T LET IT MAKE A FOOL OF YOU.

While this weekend's Facebook posts consisted of excitement and joy pertaining to the reminder that summer is a thing, this Monday's posts have turned to school cancellations (in North Dakota anyway) and the usual curmudgeony grumbling about an endless winter. It's still March, Blog. Blizzards are a thing. For me, they're a thing until April.

As I mentioned, I'm in South Carolina. It's 50 degrees outside. I'm one lucky S.O.B. right about now. However, I return to the land of lakes on Saturday evening. I'm beyond excited to be home and see my friends and know my way around again. I can't wait to sleep in my own bed and see the Minneapolis skyline. But Minneapolis is in Minnesota and it's March. This is my spring fake-out week. Hell, it's been spring fake-out months. It all seems nice and easy and warm and wonderful now; like this is how life ought to be. But in a mere five days, I'll be reminded that winter is still a thing and I won't be in the clear for another two months (by my standards). A blizzard is happening at home as I speak. Who cares if it was just 40 degrees and amazing up there? IT MEANS NOTHING.

Time to make the most of the warm air and clear roads while I still can. It won't always be this way, Blog. Also, I need to eat some BBQ before The South and I part ways, but that's another tedious entry for another day.

From Storms to Cats to Bad Poetry

April showers are rather torrential for May flowers to be coming along any time soon.

I've realized with living in the city that I have trouble distinguishing between the low roars of planes hovering over my neighborhood and that of the constant roll of thunder. The sound is similar between these two things and when I realize that I'm usually sticking my ear out for an aircraft, I grow disappointed in the fact that there won't be any thunderstorm spectacle for me to witness. Like every overly romantic woman who fills out an online dating profile, I love a good thunderstorm. I used to be petrified of them when I was a kid since the seven-year-old version of me equated thunder, rain, and any breeze strong enough to rustle a tree to a deadly tornado. I used to watch the horizon from the westward-facing picture window in our kitchen, waiting for some sort of ominous funnel cloud to touch down on the prairie and make its way to our yard to destroy everything I knew within the two acres we resided. It never happened. Though tornadoes are totally possible in North Dakota, I've never actually seen one in person. The closest I've come is witnessing a funnel cloud form in a blue-gray sky above my cousin's wedding reception in central Minnesota a few years ago.

Tonight I dismissed the thunder for a busy day at the airport, but then the rain started and I was happy. Thunderstorms remind me of home and they make me feel like I'm out on the prairie again, even though I'm within the confines of the city. It's dark now, so no matter where I am, I wouldn't be able to see the storm glowering down on us. Still there's always a part of me that wants to jump above the buildings and trees that surround me to get a glimpse of just how brilliant that lightening is; how dark those clouds are; how likely there is for a funnel to touch down. When I moved here, I never realized that the lack of a horizon would be so disorienting during a summer storm. North Dakota lets you see the weather before it hits you. It puts a storm into context and gives you a rough timeline of how long it's going to be before the lightening is overhead and the rain is taking over outside.

Whenever it rains like this I still give a quick rundown of everything I own that could possibly be outside, even though it's only a car that I have out in the elements year-round. I still give a thought to my long-dead cat, Kate, who I always would mentally check when I heard the thunder and rain take over outside. There were the times when my check would result in the realization that he was still outside, and a quick dart to the door would reveal his tiny and wet body sitting on the stoop, waiting to be let in. The joys of having an indoor/outdoor cat. I'd take care of him though and dry him off with a towel and cuddle him on the couch; happy that he was safe and sound.

Tonight the thunder is rolling and the rain is falling and I purposely opened my window to let the sound of falling water into my apartment. I thought of Kate, even though he's been dead for 15 years, and took comfort in the fact that there isn't a miserable animal outside who is my responsibility. While I think I would love to have a cat again, I can't. My apartment won't allow it. And I don't know if I'm willing to put out the money and time needed for even something as low-key as a cat at this point. Plus cats, I've learned, are temperamental. Kate was an exception to the hot/cold and unpredictable nature of most felines. Three things to know about him:

1. I named him Kate despite his maleness because I was three when I met him and was under the impression that all cats were female.
2. The name Kate was inspired by my favorite letter, K. I liked the sound. It is a female letter to me (more explanation on that here). And as I mentioned before, all cats to three-year-old Samantha were girls.
3. Kate had three legs. He was my three legged cat with half a tail. I was always told he was run over by a lawnmower. I have a firm belief that this disability lead to his ability to be as chill and laid back as possible.

I have to admit, Blog. The recent memory of my childhood pet led me to delve into my storage compartment downstairs in search of a picture of him. Alas, I couldn't find one. I did find, however, something that I had feared I left on Ryan's bookshelf in the haste I had moved out of his house: my pathetic yet inspiring journal of poems from high school. Every overly romantic girl who writes about her love of poetry on her online dating profile has one. I thought mine had been swallowed by Maple Grove, but it hasn't. It is here, safe with me. It has the complete Makeup Bag Trilogy along with a bunch of other songs I wrote when I was a teenager; intact yet forgotten by the years of dormancy my songwriting mind has been in. It's good to know I still have it. Thanks to the thunder, to the rain, and to the distant memories of my three-legged cat, I've happened upon a wealth of bad poetry, handwriting, and a couple brilliant songs.

There's a mosquito bite on my leg
It hurts a lot
But not as much as when I lost you
My makeup bag
My face is now so white
My eyes look as if they have no sight
But it's all for the better
It doesn't really matter
People can see the real me

Trust me, Blog. It sounds better with a guitar behind it.

Coping with Birdland

Blog. The summer consequences of this apartment are making themselves apparent.

I expected it to be warm up here in the summer time. I don't have air conditioning and I don't plan on figuring out how one would fit in the french windows I have in this place. That being said, I must invest in a fan sometime soon. The lack of air circulation in here is managable during these early days of June, but if it continues being 80 degrees for the next three months, I'm going to have to take steps to make this place have some generator of cool air that is not my fridge.

How annoying and perfectly Minnesotan of me. Was it only three months ago I was complaining about the bitter winter that wouldn't end? And here it is, over and done with; the sun is out, the snow is melted, and I'm sitting here hemming and hawing about the heat that hasn't even been here for a week. I'm scrapping my complaints and will just focus on the fact that I need a fan up here. I don't need it to be 15 degrees again. That is a stupid temperature that is not welcome here. Unless it's January. Then it can happen but that's only because it's supposed to happen in January and if I'm perfectly honest, I get a little creeped out if it doesn't get that cold in the winter.

I digress. The heat is an obvious and expected summer consequence of living on the second floor of a building that was erected 80 years ago. The not so obvious and unexpected summer consequence that has been made blaringly apparent to me over this weekend is that of the birds, blog. The birds.

They wake up at 5:30 every morning and as a result, so do I. That is when the chirping begins. Oh, how pleasant, you think. You wake up to the melodious tunes of nature right outside of your window every day. How mother nature of you. Yes, it can be pleasant, but I don't need to be up at 5:30 in the morning. In fact, I hate waking up extra early because then I get ready for my day and have extra time before I need to leave for this or that and then I get bored and agitated because I could still be sleeping. So when they wake me up at 5:30, I do just that. I try to go back to sleep. Turns out, going back to sleep is tricky when birds are incessently chirping right outside of your window. But so it goes in the morning. I'm usually out of here by 7:30 anyway so it's not like I have to listen to them all day or anything.

Unless it's the weekend and I have no plans. Then I might end up listening to them all day.

Did you know that birds don't only incessently chirp in the morning, but they do so all day long and into the evening as well? I believe they are currently on hour 14 of chatting away about whatever birdly activities they've been up to today. Seriously birds. What the hell do you have left to say?

"Oh, it's so fun being a bird. Look at me fly, other birds." 

"Hey, I made a nest out of twigs and grass and random garbage!" 

"I laid an egg! Bitchin'!"

The chirping is also amplified because my window faces the apartment building right next to mine and thus a corridor is created where they prance around all day bouncing their bird sounds off the bricks. Sometimes they'll even fly right up to my window and hang out for a minute or two. It's almost as if they're talking directly to me. What am I, Princess Aurora lost in the woods? Are you guys trying to tell me that that woodsman is actually a prince and I'm really a princess? What's that birds? Watch out for Malificent and her evil spinning wheel! Whatever do you mean? Oh birds! You're so knowledgeable!

You guys going to bed anytime soon? You're getting annoying.

I can't help but point out that Amy #3 would be so proud of me comparing my life to that of a Disney movie. If she didn't hate me with her entire being, I might have considered revealing this accomplishment to her. Oh well.

The easy fix to this bird problem would be to just shut my windows. But of course, that would leave my apartment especially sweltering. So I take the good with the bad and keep the fresh air flowing throughout the 400 square feet I call home and let the sounds of urban nature fill its confines. After awhile my ears and mind grow used to the chirping and chattering anyway and I kind of just block it all out of my present being. Of course, once I'm snapped out of that self-induced bird-ignoring trance, it's really hard to get back to into it.

Shhh blog. I think they are growing tired. They're like the fucking energizer bunny all day long, but come 8 or 9 o'clock they grow weary of the fun they've had with their aimless flying, nest building, and attempts to warn me of danger and begin to hunker down for the evening. This leaves me with a few nighttime hours of quiet and solitude, which I take in with the utmost appreciation. It's almost as if I am their mother and once they go to sleep for the night, mama gets out the vodka and enjoys some time to herself.

But between the heat and the birds, this apartment is a great one. I love how small it is here and my desk is right by my window. And while the view isn't so great and the sounds outside can drive me a little nutty, there's something incredibly quaint about writing in you blog, and glancing over to opened french windows that reveal the outside banter of sparrows, traffic, drunks, and people taking out their garbage. What a nice little romantic life this can be.