pigeons and assorted other novelty

i think i mostly started this to not whine about my everyday life but to whine about stupid things that people do and other things that annoy me.

number one. pigeons.

filthy little more often than not deformed birds. i'm pretty sure at least 73% are hiv positive too and are just waiting for me to not run after them and kick at them so they can gang up behind me and claw my face when i'm least expecting. those little beady eyes creep the hell out of me and you're kidding yourself if you think they don't know exactly where they're taking a dump.

number two. bluetooth cell phone things.

i hate them. plain and simple. i walk down the street and someone behind me says something loudly and i turn and look, thinking the guy is hollering at me and he just stands there looking at me like i'm the jerk. if you're talking on a phone, use a phone. more times than not i think people are just talking to themselves too which is super weird and creepy and not cool. this isn't even an excuse for people in cars. forget those stupid laws. if you can't drive and talk at the same time then you shouldn't be allowed to walk up and down stairs for your own safety. don't even try the distraction argument, a radio was in the car way before a phone and you have to look down to mess with that... way worse than staring straight ahead and talking. and if you have trouble driving with only one hand then life's just going to be such a bummer for you that i'd suggest staying in bed and watching oprah on tv all day rolling over every once in a while so that you don't get bedsores.

three. people that walk around with their phones playing loud, tinny sounding, crappy music.

i actually think that sums itself up pretty well. get some headphones. nobody wants to hear swede-pop techno at 9 in the morning on the metro courtesy of some asian looking dude sitting in the corner attending his own private concert. seriously man.

four. names.

they're weird. i was talking with nancy about this earlier and it makes sense, but is still strange to me. names are contrived things that are made in reference to something that's not the name at all but something completely and entirely separate and different.

five. dogs that wear clothes.

especially little dogs. little dogs are awful. rats on leashes. they're like little pet mice but a little bigger and a lot lamer because at least mice are mice and in a pinch you can let them go in someone's house you don't like very much. but these things are especially obnoxious when they are dressed up with a plaid sweater or any other sort of lame attempt to hide their inherent lameness. it's awful. if you're really that desperate then just have another kid. or adopt one. at least they can talk.

six. different languages.

sure they're fun to learn and when you finally get one you feel like a real champ, but really what's the need. if everyone had a common language then everything would be peachy. i understand that lots of diversity of culture and tradition would be lost if all languages were assimilated into one, but just think of how amazingly easy it would be to buy a pair of pants in a different country. i'm not sure if i buy into the whole tower of babble thing but if it's true then god sure is one vindictive dude.

seven. fashion.

it's stupid. look like this guy and you win.



that's all.

right now

i am wondering if monkeys really do like bananas that much. i mean i know donkey kong does, but i don't hold the same conviction for monkeys in the wild and even in zoos.

and now i'm thinking about how i feel bad for animals in zoos even though i've read life of pi a couple times and it's a convincing argument about how they're better off sometimes in zoos but i still feel bad. mostly for that poor rhinoceros in the berlin zoo that had a parking lot to hang out in. unfortunate. at least in africa he'd have safari jeeps to ram into.

that's all.

an island called ireland, random tales from my walk home from class, and my pants blowing a huge hole in the crotch

this last weekend i went to ireland. it was grand. i got in after an early flight and took the bus to my friend's school. what i didn't realize is that the bus doesn't really tell you what stop you're at and it can be kind of difficult to figure out what street you're on when you've never been in a country before and are sandwiched between a 60 year old woman talking about her bad knees and some dude that smelled like the music blaring out of his headphones way too close to my head. garbage.

i essentially jumped the gun and got off the bus too early in fear of getting off too late and ended up walking a mile or two to the campus only to find that my friend was most certainly not where she said she would be. i spent the next hour trying to figure out how to dial her number on a payphone, those things are so damn tricky in ever different country, and finally met up much to my relief.

we walked around dublin a little bit and it is actually a really pretty city. i had it in my head that it was just full of rain and clouds and wind and drunks which is all pretty much true but i didn't picture such a nice city with a big river running through it and clean streets and buildings. another thing i didn't realize is how expensive it was. we went to dinner with a couple of her friends and it ended up being a promotion for amstel so after we got some free beer we headed to find a bar in the old district of town, temple bar area. it was quite a lot of fun. i had never really watched a rugby match before and as i did i realized that the people who play that sport are the gnarliest dudes out there. there was one guy the size of a tree with hair down to his butt and i think if i saw him on the subway at 1 in the morning i'd cry and curl up in the corner. scary stuff.



as we were walking around in this area i ran into someone i hadn't seen since highschool, philip valley. i went to highschool with him and it turns out he's in bilbao for the semester and was in dublin that weekend and what do you know there it was. very random. caught up for a bit and headed home.

the next day we went to the guinness factory which i guess is something that everyone has to do at least once i suppose. when in dublin, right? it was a bit of fun and although i don't really like guinness the tour was neat and the view from the top where the bar is was very nice.



nothing too excited happened that night. the world championship rugby game was on and we watched it a bar and then something wonderful happened. we went and got pizza. it was delicious.

that's mostly my trip. there's more but i'm tired.

now, walking home from school today i took a different route and saw a grocery store that only sells frozen food. everything in the store is in a freezer. i saw a man running down the street with blood all over his shirt and someone else chasing him. it was really strange and i don't know what was going on, but it weirded me out. and right before i turned to make it up to my street i heard a most awful screeching sound and it was an old guy playing a violin he obviously didn't know how to play. funny thing was it seemed he was doing it for money as the case was open on the ground in front of him. i didn't see any change but maybe if he keeps practicing.

that's all i have for now. i'm really tired.

dinner in a house (yes a real house), school ruining my life and high school cheerleaders

i don't really have much to talk about. last night i went to dinner at my spanish friend alex's house. yes a real house. she made a lot of food and it was all very good and i felt very happy. it was kind of far away and i didn't really want to go but i got off my ass anyways against better judgement and it kind of paid off.

today i went to class. it was a bummer.

i came home and transformers had finished downloading. i watched it. i'll go ahead and give it a b. i was going to give it a b+ because it hit all the necessary buttons a movie in that genre needs to hit so well, but then michael bay's name popped up at the end and i just couldn't do it. the guy made pearl harbor.

i mean... pearl harbor.

coldplay is kind of girly. but sometimes i still listen to spies off of parachutes because it reminds me that once upon a time in highschool i would lay on my back on the floor of my friend poli's room and would stare at the ceiling for a while not really doing much. kind of weird? sure. kind of relaxing? yes. until his dog sized cat would come in and walk on me while i was half sleeping, leaving a trail of nasty cat hair all over anything i wore. i hate that cat.

i'm tired of pants that are too long. is it too much to ask for people to sell pants in both a waist size and a leg length? maybe it is. oh it is? i'm sorry, i didn't know.

there's a spanish vice magazine on my table here and i've been keeping it because there are some terrific pictures in it i'd like to put in my room to disguise this filthy wall color but i've been lazy and haven't gotten pins or putty or whatever i need to put stuff up on the walls so it's just been hanging out here on my table for a couple weeks. whenever i got back from san sebastian i guess.

i'm going to ireland this weekend. dublin.

it's pretty ballsy to try and cover a sigur ros song. thursday didn't do too bad. wolf ticket... oh well.

i like the song ohio by damien jurado very much. the rest of it, i just can't really get into.

i ask where she's headed she tells me ohio i've not seen my mother in ages. it's been a long time. a real long time.

time to leave. love you all.

except for nate, nick, casey and poli.

drinking list numero dos. don't judge me.

i'll preface this with a sorry, but these some things just need to be said.

things that pissed me off tonight.

boots with heels.
-no offense to girls who wear them but they're really kind of ugly. stick with heels. trust me.

guys who wear dolce and gabana long sleeve rhinestone t-shirts.
-self explanatory, they have rhinestones

g-star raw.
-the jeans are ugly. sorry.

guys who wear sunglasses at night in bars.
-umm. who the hell do you think you are?

people who smoke hash in bars.
-seriously? go to retiro. they love that crap there.

expensive drinks.
-i had to pay four euros and fifty centimos for a beer tonight. that's like 8 dollars.

little dogs.
-i understand why you have them. you live in a tiny box apartment. but you're still a dick. you cater to every demand a rat on a leash has. you pick up it's poop. come on. and they yap.

bouncers.
-please, make fun of my shoes some more. threaten to not let me in because i don't wear the same leather dress shoes as everyone else. you are so cool. my vans are not. you are right.

spanish girl bartenders.
-you're cute, but don't pretend like you don't like overcharging me for drinks. i'm on to you.

spanish phone companies.
-you drain all my money very fast. very fast. i'm upset with you.

balloons.
-ok, some party i get it. but why do you pop so easily? you really scare the hell out of me every time that happens. please... go quietly into the night.

guys who ask for cigarettes.
-no. i don't have any. stop asking.

guys who ask for a lighter.
-no. i don't have one. stop asking.

people who dress like it's the north pole.
-by my estimate it's 60 degrees out. leave the gloves, overcoat, and beanie at home. you look like an eskimo.

guidos.
-self explanatory. get over yourself. quickly. the sooner the better.


ok that's all i have.

oh wait, this too.

if i'm half as awesome as this guy when i leave i'll be happy with myself.




love you all.

not sure.

today a girl told me that she hadn't heard of fleetwood mac before. and when i asked if she'd heard the song landslide, she told me matter of factly that the dixie chicks sang that song. another friend told me deadly serious that his favorite movie was the girl next door.

i'm not speaking with either of them anymore.

i just got over being sick. that's not true. i still am but almost done. hopefully tomorrow i will wake up and feel like a ten thousand dollar bill which i'm sure feels pretty good.

life right now feels very surreal. not sure if it's the weird lamp on my table or the french cold medicine i took an hour or two ago but everything seems very strange.

it could also be this awfully colored room. it's like snufflupagus from sesame street ate a bunch of mik and oranges and then become violently ill, spraying all sorts of filth out of his snuffly trunk onto my walls.

it really is disgusting.

probably the coolest thing i've done since i wasted 2 years of my life in junior high playing diablo

we went camping in the mountains.

friday around 2 i met some people at school and from there we went to the train station at atocha and got a train to segovia. the only problem was that one of the girls that was supposed to come with us ended up being late and we had to catch the 6pm train instead of the 4pm and we were worried about the light because it ended up taking an hour to get there and we wanted to hike a bit before setting up camp but it ended up being alright.

so we get on the train and are heading northeast and after about an hour we see a stop that we like and get off at a little alpine village called cercedilla which was really cool. we traipse through the town and one of the spanish girls asks a local where the hiking trails are. by now it's getting dark and we all have huge backpacks and one guy has a tent lashed to his and they ask us why we want to hike mountains in the dark and us not wanting to say we're camping because it's probably (yes it is) prohibited just say we're dumb and like to hike in the dark. with big backpacks. and tents.



they point us in the right direction and 30 minutes later we're in the woods, 6 of us climbing almost straight up towards the top of the mountain thing. there were my two friends boris and ilya and then a couple of random people who had heard us talking about it and wanted to join. they ended up being really cool and i was glad that they came. a guy named alex from jersey, a girl named rosie from switzerland and this alex girl who grew up in madrid. it was a really random group but good.

so we get up to this clearing on the top of this mountain and the light is almost gone so we start gathering wood for a fire (which was prohibited along with the camping) and putting up the tents. we borrowed one from the school and it was the easiest damn thing i've ever done in my life setting it up. you just unzip the package and it pops up and you have a tent. we didn't even stake it down because we threw our packs in it and it kept it in place. i was very happy. so we end up getting the tents set up right as it gets pitch black and start a small fire in the middle of this rock circle so nothing can catch on fire and life is good. this was our tent.



my friend ilya had brought a tiny camping pot and some rice and soup so we filled it with water and put it in the middle of the fire with rice and a little wine and had a nice hot hobo dinner. i was ecstatic. the stars were out and the fog was rolling around the mountain, there wasn't a bright moon so the smoke couldn't be seen which was good. i was paranoid that we were going to get rolled in the middle of the night by cops but we were in the middle of nowhere, at least a 45 minute hike up the woods with no trail on this mountain so we were fine.

we fit 4 people into a tent made for 2 and woke up the next morning very cold, very sore, and very tired. but a good night in all aspects of the word good. we cleaned everything up and headed back down the mountain, but not before checking out the view we'd missed because of the darkness. it looked kind of like this.



we went back down to the town and the alex girl and i were tired and had work to do so we took a train back to madrid while the others took a train further up into the mountains and went hiking all day. i was too tired to hike and ended up coming home yesterday and falling asleep for a bit, watching some tv shows on my computer, reading and writing, and doing a little studying.

last night i went to the girl's house for dinner again and we went to a party that someone in lyndsey's credentialing program was having all the way out in the middle of nowhere around 1 and because her friend is gay almost all the guys at the party were gay and it was kind of funny to be the only straight dude in the room. everyone was really nice and it was a good time in a nice apartment with lots of different types of people with good music and good food and good drinks and we took a night bus back to gran via (the main street) at 3am because the metro stops running at 2am (lame) and walked back to their house to drop some stuff off. a few people decided we still wanted to stay out but by the time we were back in sol, the area with all the bars and fun places, it was 4 and most everything besides gnarly clubs were shutting down so we went back to their house and i fell asleep on the couch and woke up this morning to a french girl hitting me in the head with a pillow. came back home and slept for a bit.

oh how wonderful life is.

today i've been working on writing an evaluation to an answer i gave to an essay question on my last economics test to improve my grade. it's long and slow work because of the complexity of these darn models. i think that tonight i will go to buen retiro park to watch all the crack addict hippies burn outs bang on drums and get some reading done.

that's about it for the life of mitchell right now. i'm tired but need to write the rest of this paper.

oh and call me. or skype me, my name is mitchellburbick. surprising hm? it'd be nice to hear from anyone.

+34 610389550

ummm.

this is why god created youtube. and awesome bands with pretty dudes.


(i know god didn't create youtube.)

(and no this is not a joke. it's awesome.)

rain

it's been raining in madrid for the last couple days pretty much without stop. it's a nice break from the sun and the heat all night, but when i hang my clothes up on the line to dry, i'd appreciate a couple hour break from the rain and for the sun to come out and say 'hello' and dry my clothes extra super fast.

they've been on the line for the last 3 days becoming even more water logged than when i had originally taken them out of the washer. i only have 7 shirts and 4 of them are hanging on the line being rained on so this puts me in a sort of predicament that i'd really care about if i were a girl. turns out i kind of like wearing the same clothes 3 days in a row so it suits me well.

midterms are this week. but they're not really midterms. they're tri-terms because we have two sets of midterms but the word 'mid' has a connotation of half and half the semester is most certainly not over. only a third is. though it's strange to think that a month has already gone by.

oh another nasty thing about the rain here. there are trees planted in the sidewalk at regular intervals and they are set below the level of the sidewalk so their little cut out square holes in the sidewalk that they sit in fill with water running down the street and the water turns brown and nasty from all the mud and the cigarette butts that people just leave everywhere. somewhat icky.

i booked my flight to sweden yesterday. i'll be there for 4 full days in december and i think i may just freeze. i'm heading to dublin in october and then amsterdam and brussels in november, sweden and budhapest and croatia in december. hopefully. if my money doesn't run out.

on a happy note, when my apartment got broken into the other day 80 euros of mine were stolen. i'm still not entirely convinced that it wasn't my roommates but whatever. the landlady is taking 130 euros off my final month's rent because of the inconvenience. i don't know why she made it 130 when only 80 were taken but if this is the way it works then i'm going to have a friend break in and take everything. we'll see where i get with that.

more studying to do now.

oops.

oops. here are the pictures that didn't work and one more.

keanu reeves, san sebastian, and the elevator in my apartment buliding that always smell like smoke

i've been putting this off for a while because i knew that when i was going to write it would probably turn out to be kind of long. bummer.

went to san sebastian this last weekend, left on thursday afternoon and got back last night. it was very nice. i got in thursday night and it was raining. it looked like this.



nice. very nice. thursday night we went to the hostel and they gave me a bed to sleep in that was soft but didn't have a very heavy blanket so i stole one off the bed next to me. turns out i slept in a room with 5 other beds all by myself for two out of the three nights. the second night there were a bunch of strange girls in there with me but i came home late and they came home later and made a bunch of noise in the morning when they were leaving but i just kept my head under the covers wishing they would disappear and eventually they did.

after the hostel we went to some silly irish bar that we used to hang out at by the water. it was nice. friday we walked up monte urgell and hung out by the jesus statue and looked around. made it to the magic bar on the side of the hill and checked out the view. we got sidra for cheap and poured it all around. it looked something like this.



thanks bree. oh and to anyone who cares i code these pictures links myself. i'm so cool.

went to the beach later that day and slept for a little bit. it was nice and relaxing. while at the beach some guy that ashley had hung out with last time we were there recognized her and invited us all over to this house for dinner. turns out he's in some super duper chef school in san sebastian and ended up making us a delicious 5 course dinner thing. we ate some part of a duck that's illegal in the states due to ethical animal treating and such. i felt kind of bad. just a little. it was funky tasting but whatever. some german girl came in half way through and proceeded to roll a blunt the size of a hot dog and take the whole thing down herself. ask the girls. i'm no liar.

managed to find our way out the place after dinner and wandered around parte all night. passed by tas tas and thought of sward wearing some gross v-neck and gold chain. i shuddered. went to the metal bar but txomin was on vacation and some goth girl was working the place. it was unfortunate but still fun. sorry john, your score isn't on the machine anymore.

woke up late saturday and spent the day doing nothing. the girls ended up having to go home earlier than they thought to avoid travel complications so we tried to do early dinner at the chinese place on zabaleta but they were going to open to late so we went to an indian place i'd been to before and had a nice spicy dinner for megan's birthday. happy 21 kid. the girls left to go spend the night in the airport in bilboa and i managed to meet up with some people from madrid who were there for the weekend as well. sat on a bench in front of the congress hall and talked for a long time. it was the last night of the film festival and there was some playboy party at bataplan, the club on the beach, but we were over it and went to sleep around 5.

sunday i had the day to myself and it was really sort of strange. i love san sebastian more than any city i've ever been too and having all that time there to myself really made me feel weird. all the memories i have from that city are with lots of people i really cared about, and to be alone in a place i loved without anyone i loved was a new experience for me. it made it something completely different. not living there anymore was strange enough but to be alone sitting on a beach in the same spot where just under two years ago we'd sit and drink and joke and run into the ocean a huge group.. it was interesting. it made my heart both very full and very heavy.

the thing that really made my weekend though i think was this man.



riding a merry go round when you're a kid is cool. riding a merry go round in a pink shirt with your cardigan tied around your neck when you're 60 is bona-fide kick ass.

the only complaints i have about the weekend is that txomin wasn't there, francisco didn't ever get back to me, and that the movies on the busses were scooby doo 2, charlie's angels 2, and a keanu reeves movie where he plays an angry chain smoking dude who's life is a mess until he finally messes up so badly he winds up getting assigned to coach an intercity black kid baseball team which eventually makes both him and the kids better people.

he's such an ass.

love.

oh, and some words from amy hempel to leave you with.

"It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it."

dayummmmm.