SPAIN (TOM TOOK A LOT OF THESE PHOTOS)

Tom and I went to the catacombs. Here is the only skull you can take a decent picture of without using flash.

Park in Valencia.

Playground made out of stranded Gulliver.

Building that looks like a helmet that a Star Wars character would wear.

Dumpster/beach.

Boardwalk/Palm Trees.

Creepy mural that is hopefully and ad for the circus.

Soccer/Short Shorts.

Old Man/The Sea.

"Trying to figure out if it's real."

Statue whose nose fell off.

Market/Construction.

"Architecture."

Valencia is way more colorful than Paris.

Also way warmer.

Blue shingles.

There are orange trees all over the place but the oranges are really sour so "you only see tourists eating them." Tom ate one to be tough.

Roofs.

The seal of the city of Valencia. Their mascot is a bat because when they were reconquering the city from the Moors they didn't know when to attack so they waited for a sign and then a bunch of bats came out of nowhere so they took that as the sign and won the battle.

Nightmare before Christmas tower.

Another tower.

Square.

St. Vincent's mummified severed arm is in this church. We tried to go see it a million times but there was always a huge line or the church was closed or one day there was no line but they wanted people to pay 3 euros to get in.

Pink.

Fountain Man.

More architecture.

SO BRIGHT.

Ian.

Inside of a church.

New Year's Day fireworks display downtown. The goal is not for the fireworks to be visually appealing but just really, really loud.

"Bidet as a Drinking Fountain."

Ian's house/Ian.

Lola/Ian.

Park outside their house.

Old ramparts/clouds.

ALMOST CHRISTMAS

I have had this song stuck in my head for the past two days.

It snowed "a lot" again.

Scenes from my walk to work:

Anarchists.

My friend was trying to buy French Christmas cards to send to her family but she could only find ones that said "Merry Christmas."

Graffiti in the metro station is so cliche.

French Santa Claus.

The girl I tutor is in some really rigorous high school program to prepare her to go to a "Grand Ecole" which is a great school so I was like oh like the Sorbonne, and she was like no that school sucks, there are way better ones. Yeah, totally looks like a crappy school.

Christmas sweat for the low, low price of 9.99.

In French sweat means sweatshirt. Jogging means sweatpants. I don't know who comes up with this shit. It seems like if you're going to use English words you should just use the same ones we do. It would make teaching English to French kids a lot easier.

French Christmas trees.

French Christmas chocolate.

French Christmas dinner.

French Christmas clown.

Someone put duct tape on one of her nipples for modesty.

"The weather is rotten and so is the government."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

Saturday Market.

Not one more dead for an American war.

Where I would live if I was rich.

Sweet Wiley Coyote mail truck.

Fruit delivery truck.

Palais de Justice.

Ridiculous anti-fur ad campaign.

Screw a pony, I want a whole pony mafia for Christmas.

Palais de Jail.

Animalerie. The place you buy animals at.

Turkey pigs.

White Christmas.

Garden Gnomes.

Garden gnomes in jail.

Dogs are watching you.

Ferris wheel.

Going to the Louvre for real.

No joke I really went inside.

There was no line.

Heartwarming painting of flowers and babies.

Sweet lamp.

Fishmongers.

So much grayness.

Sea dragons.

Famous painting.

Napoleon was so rich he used gold as wallpaper.

And he paid people to watch him sleep.

Seagulls playing in the fountain.

At work I had to teach a class how to write a letter to Santa in English (not my idea). The kids were all like how do you write XBOX 360 in English? How do you write ipod in English? How do you write Blackberry in English? It was ridiculous. The only words I got to teach them were cellphone and laptop. And nothing. There was a kid who wanted nothing for Christmas.

Serious snow.

Apparently there is a clean up your dog's shit law.

Best restaurant name in Paris.

Best graffiti in Paris.