Horrible Travel Guides: Orange Beach, Alabama

Orange Beach, Alabama, is a place that a surprising number of people have heard of and undoubtedly will hear more of since popular Spring Break destinations are bringing down the banhammer on fun drinks.  So now you can do one of two things: go somewhere else like Orange Beach or start drinking Mountain Dew Kickstart. If you’re into doing neither, you can always put your alcohol in water bottles or shampoo bottles and sneak it past the police. You’re such a rebel.

Then help your friend Sam the Seal have a good time.

As always though, let’s start out with a history lesson.

History of Orange Beach

Sometime between the years 500 AD and 2015 AD, (or BCE you politically correct turd), a very bored and very lost Spanish monk wandered over the Florida-Alabama state line and muttered to himself “This place smells like boiled peanuts, racism, an uncontrollable woman’s period, and Cam Newton.” The monk, unbeknownst to himself, had discovered Alabama. The monk instantly yelled “dibs!” (dibos for my Spanish readers) and began spitting on the sand so that no one would claim the property for themselves. After running out of saliva and energy, the monk decided that it might be time to name the place. He wanted the place to be unique, something that no one else could steal from him. He decided to pick a word without any rhyming possibility. He shuddered at the memory of Brother Franco who had named his discovery Bart Beach. After thinking for hours, he settled on Orange Beach. He pulled out his phone to make sure orange had no rhyme, forgetting that the internet had yet been invented. If only he could have, because orange rhymes with both Blorenge and Sporange. He could have selected: bulb, angel, or month. But thus the name carried on until this day.

Here is the monk both enjoying the beach and hallucinating about some mountains.

But now, let’s find some things to do with your time!

Things To Do With Your Time!

Interrogate some Fish

Haven’t you ever heard the terms “something seems fishy” or “this seems fishy”? Ever thought of the reasons behind these phrases? Because fish know something, or else there wouldn’t be a reason for these phrases.

Now, it’s hard to interrogate a fish in their natural environment, because you lose the element of surprise. Trying to interrogate a fish in water is like trying to argue with a vegan Crossfit athlete in the middle of a gym filled with quinoa. Also, your question “Tell me what you know, or I swear to the almighty Cthulhu I will rip your eyes out!” sounds like “blarghifpoottthhh” under water.

Are you rethinking your boat outing now?

Think about the last time you kidnapped and interrogated someone. Was it nice and fun for the other person? Did you go easy on them and take them to Starbucks? Of course not! You probably started out with an easy opening line like “Roses and red, violets are blue, I have a gun, get in the van” or “Does this smell like chloroform to you?” You have to take the same approach with the fish. The best way to do this though, is to go out on the water and throw out a j-shaped hook attached to string until one of them is dumb enough to try and eat the hook. Fish are MORONS.

Once they’ve swallowed their metal death trap, it’s time to throw them into a bucket to show you really mean business.

TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW.

The fish at this point, are much more likely to talk. Ever wanted to know how the Mayans really disappeared? What about the truth of the JFK assassination? What about another word for synonym? Fish have all the answers, and you just need to beat the questions out of them to get what you want. Remember, patience is not the key at all. In fact, it’s the anti-key. So it’s kinda like giving a key to a stranger and expecting him/her/it to know which door it goes too. This is before you sprint in the opposite direction.

It’s the one with the keyhole!

You see, after millions of dollars and thousands of hours in the name of fish research, it has been concluded that fish cannot survive outside of water. Unless we’re talking about Satan’s personal fish pet, the Snakehead Fish, you can rest assured those millions were well spent. Those fish can breathe out of water and have been known to attack humans. They’ll be interrogating YOU.

As always, there will be fish who don’t want to talk. They’ll spit in your face and say evil things about your mother. These fish require something a bit more harsh.

Try and spit at me now, fishsticks. (Fish hate that name).

Take a page from the Romans and crucify your fish. Although without legs or arms, this may seem difficult, but I trust you can figure it out. This, of course, kills them instantly, but you just take a picture on your phone, throw your phone into the ocean, and scare the caviar out of the other fish. They will be very willing to talk. Very willing. 

Freshen Up

So this situation goes without saying, but you just walked outside and instantly have 4 beautiful women (or men) following you everywhere you go, begging you to take them out for a night on the town. This situation happens so often you’re generally pretty prepared for this, but tonight you finally forgot your magical smell good spray.

Here, try this new fragrance. Your husband will love it!

Fortunately for you, there is a gas station just around the corner. Gas stations always have 2 things: cans of spam and restrooms. You duck into the bathroom, pull out a quarter and sigh in relief when you see this:

More standard than sinks .

Is tonight an Obsession kind of night? Maybe you’ll go crazy and mix Drakkar and Eternity? The possibilities are really endless! (Not really, you can have a possible 251 combinations, sorry for getting your hopes up. Also, the Easter Bunny doesn’t exist because Santa used him for Christmas dinner during a particularly sad time sometime in the Middle Ages).  Now head back out there and have the time of your life!

Ignore People without Ruining your Posture

It’s been 36 seconds and your posse is already annoying you. One refuses to stop talking about diversity motivated stamps and the other one has been voting for themselves in every election since they’ve been alive. It’s time to get rid of these people, but you want to be subtle. Your option of beating them with a fire poker until they leave is out of the question. What if you just take out your phone? You pull out your phone subtly from your back pocket and now is a great time to send some fake texts. But what, your phone is dead! You knew you shouldn’t have put it in the microwave to charge it.

But you thought you saw it work on Mythbusters…

Using your eagle-eye vision, you spot an arcade and take your group into the land of wasted money. There are so many options floating around, they really should have fixed the plumbing. There are however, three games that catch your eye. You run over to the first one and begin your grand apathetic movement.

Also called “When steroids, meth, and cocaine mix”.

Now you can start playing this single player game without needing to turn around and talk to these horribly boring people. But as luck would have it, you fail quickly. Time to go to a new game!

Also called “Hey Starving African Kids, this is What We do With Extra Food!”

As you continue slicing into pineapples, apples, strawberries, and not cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, squash, or corn. You smile as one of your party members turns around and leaves, followed quickly by another. Two still remain, including the one who believes toenails are a good source of protein, so you quickly turn to your last game.

Also called, “Just Throw your Phone into a Wall”.

This is the breaking point for your last two posse members, as they both storm off into the sunset, never to be seen again. Now it’s time to enjoy a quiet night while you reek of gas station cologne!

Witness Bus-inspired Dogs Run in Circles

When was the last time you rode a Greyhound bus? Hopefully never. However, one thing you can do is go witness small bus spawns run around in circles while people scream “C’mon 9” so they can win 3 bucks.

There are also tons of TVs with other events you can lose money to.

If you’ve never been to a Greyhound race, don’t expect passenger buses carrying hundreds of people to race for your pleasure, although that would be a very different kind of awesome. No, these are Greyhounds, special long-legged dogs that can run super fast, something like 700 MPH, I can’t really remember. You’ve definitely seen a Greyhound if you’ve ever watched The Simpsons, as the dog they acquire in one of the first episodes, Santa’s Little Helper, was a former Greyhound racer.

The event itself is rather exciting, as 9 dogs run around really fast after a mechanical rabbit named Casey. I highly recommend reading some kind of guide to dog racing or else it’ll be the equivalent of you wiping your butt with money and flushing it down the toilet.

You’re also guaranteed to see a very misplaced man wearing a Real Madrid jersey. This is particularly odd in South Alabama, where the only recognized sport to the residents is Alabama or Auburn football. Everything else can just go light itself on fire. But here’s proof.

¡Hala Madrid!, ¡Hala Madrid!
Noble y bélico adalid,
caballero del honor.
¡Hala Madrid!, ¡Hala Madrid!
A triunfar en buena lid,
defendiendo tu color.

To me however, this is like finding a Milwaukee Bucks fan on the island of Fiji. Quick, name 3 Bucks players not named Jabari Parker.

Conclusion

it’s really up to you if you want to go to Orange Beach or not. I mean, I’m pretty neutral about it. There’s nothing too exciting about it. Whatever.

Horrible Travel Guides: Jacksonville

Wonderful, beautiful Florida. The popular spring break destination. The temporary location of Lebron James’ talents. The launching pad into space. Home to America’s most visited city. And the state most likely to have a majority of its land underwater by 2100.

If you were to walk up to a random stranger and begin beating them with a wooden spoon and didn’t stop beating them until they gave you five cities from Florida, chances are Jacksonville would be one of them.

If you were continue beating said stranger with a spatula and asked for the most popular tourist destinations in Florida, they probably wouldn’t name Jacksonville.

“No, idiot, there isn’t a Springfield in…wait…there is.”

So why would you ever want to go to Jacksonville? Because it’s outside the top 30 in most dangerous cities in Florida? Of course that same site said Crossville, Tennessee, is more dangerous than Memphis, Tennessee, which is like saying that a Toyota Prius will do more damage to your house than an M-1 Abrams tank by running into it at 45 MPH. Or maybe you got lost? Who knows dear reader, but let’s go ahead and get on with our history lesson!

History of Jacksonville

Florida was a state colonized by the Spanish so it makes sense that Jacksonville would also be colonized by the Spanish. Let’s just go with that. Anyway, the Spanish, being the intelligent, clairvoyant people that they are, thought of the future song “Hit the Road Jack”, which they took to be short for Jackson and set the place as a homage to all the famous people with the name Jackson, such as: Michael Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Jesse Jackson, Reggie Jackson, Mark Jackson, Peter Jackson, and of course Andrew Jackson who invaded Florida and kicked out the Native Americans resulting in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of Native Americans. The same President that started the Trail of Tears. OK, maybe the Spanish didn’t quite think this one through.

Was it President Monroe’s super vague orders about the Native Americans or the confusion over the words “hug” and “fight” that caused Jackson to commit such heinous acts? We’ll never really know.

Now that you’ve learned everything there is to know about Jacksonville, let’s find out things to do with your time!

Things To Do With Your Time!

Admire the Lack of Radio Selections

Since you are probably coming from Asia (because who doesn’t follow up a good Asian trip with a detour in Jacksonville), you’re definitely not going to want to even sneeze in the direction of an airplane, so you’re gonna have to drive. Upon driving, you’ll probably want to listen to the radio because if it’s there, you might as well use it. Similar to all those freckles on your arm during your “connect the dot” sessions. Ignore the stares in public, they don’t understand true creativity and art.

However, you’ll notice that on your long, adventure-filled drive that there are few radio stations to listen to. The ones you do find, however are broken down into two categories: Christian Preachings and Country music. There is nothing wrong with either of these stations, but neither are great at keeping you awake.

Is that a cassette player??? They make those in Asia?

So the next best option is to play games. After 34 seconds of the license plate game, go ahead and see how long you can keep your eyes closed or drive with your elbows. It’s much better than listening to a man complain that he hit a 12-point buck with his tractor because he drank too much Natty light.

Go to the Beach and See Nothing

One of the things everyone looks forward to when they go to Florida is going to the beach and then spending hours, if not weeks, getting the sand out of their various orifices and clothes. But while your doubling your body weight in unwanted sand, there are so many other things to do: go play in the water, fish, play a game, build a sandcastle, feed your younger sibling to a shark, people watch, read a book, or look out into the ocean and admire the beauty or try and locate that one oil rig that’s always out there somewhere.

Trash, low umbrella, and no one else in sight, seems legit.

Most of you probably enjoy all of them, the last one especially. Isn’t it just nice to look at something beautiful instead of your computer while you’re “working” or Jerry’s plumber’s crack every time he drops his sandwich? If you came looking to do that in Jacksonville, might as well pull up Google image search on your phone.

Try spotting that oil rig now you loser.

Visibility will, at best, get to about 50 yards. So have fun playing in fog and not being able to see anything at all. You can always pretend like you’re a character in that horrible horror film The Fog or whatever it was called. Ah, who am I kidding, just head back into the hotel and hope they have Miami Vice reruns on.

Observe Obvious Road Signs

How many times in your life have you blown off those strange, octagonal signs? Like 50 times today, right? Aren’t red lights more of a recommendation than an actual law? They drive on the other side of the road in world superpowers like Brunei and The Republic of Mauritius, so why shouldn’t you?

Just drive with confidence and you’ll surely avoid things like this.

Sometimes however, there are signs that are too obvious to ignore or “bend to your advantage”. Take the following photo as an example.

Insert the Nicolas Cage meme face right here.

It might be hard to tell by the photo, but behind all of those “road closed” signs are nothing but felled trees. So basically, they’re closing a road that doesn’t even exist. There is no road. There is no closure. Creepy spoon kid from the Matrix, is that you?

Nope, just me checking my email.

Uselessly Use Binoculars

OK, raise your hand if you’ve ever used binoculars. Now think about how weird it looks to have your hand raised in a room by yourself at a computer.

Anyway, binoculars can be used for many, many things. Bird-watching, looking at monuments, spying on your neighbors, etc. Many people (i.e. people who don’t want to pay a billion dollars for tickets or are just super jealous that Master Chief can zoom with his helmet) use them for sporting events to get a closer view of the action.

Those that use them for sporting events typically sit reallllllllyyyyy high up. Like touch the sky high. Typically, you’ll see them at football, soccer, or baseball events, where attendance can be anywhere from 50,000 to about 109,000. Sometimes binoculars are used at basketball games, but once again, only if the viewer is sitting rather high. Not if the viewer is let’s say, about 15 rows off court.

Here are a bunch of people paying lots of money to see people who aren’t getting paid make money for others who say the people playing shouldn’t get paid.

I’m sure all of you dear readers have been in an arena about the same size or perhaps a little larger than this one. Let’s zoom in a little bit here…

Getting closer…

Maybe just one more zoom?

Stupidity at its finest.

Let’s go back to the first photo so I can point this woman out.

Oh good, what’s 15 feet in front of me is now half an inch from my face.

You can’t tell it, but this woman is a trendsetter.(Also, I understand that you can’t actually see the binoculars being used, but it’s really hard to time a photo from the other side of the arena while you’re trying to watch the game. Leave me alone). That jersey number that’s easily distinguish because you could hit it with a tennis ball being so close? She wants to to see the stitching. You think the players look tired? She wants to count the sweat beads on their faces. Trying to see what the coach is saying by watching his mouth? Why not look inside his mouth.

This is the equivalent to Shaquille O’Neal using a stepladder to dunk or trying to explain the importance of tea to any Brit.

There you have it, enjoy your stay to Jacksonville. Or don’t. You probably won’t go.

Horrible Travel Guides: New York

The Big Apple. I ❤ NYC. Pizza. The Yankees. Taxi cabs.

No matter where you come from, chances are incredibly high that you have in fact heard of New York (Nueva York for all of my Spanish readers). The tall buildings, fast pace of life, and lack of Southern hospitality make this place one of a kind. But, yes, you’re here now! Time to explore the sites. But first, as always, let’s start off with a little history lesson.

New York History

Top hats for ever!

New York hasn’t always been New York, and as explained by the DMX classic Where the Hood At?, most commonfolk know the city used to be called New Amsterdam. This was because those filthy Dutch (just kidding, Dutch people are perfect) colonized the area first and then before leaving us, founded the most hated franchise in American sports, the Yankees. Realizing that they had, in fact, creating something so despicable, changed the name of the city to New York, fled, and hoped everyone would forget about the matter. Everyone did, of course, until the combined destruction of Godzilla, the aliens from Indepedence Day, the meteor from Armageddon, the monster from Cloverfield, and the collateral damage of The Avengers “saving” the city unearthed rare, formerly hidden parts of New York. Historical experts were able to find documents the Dutch didn’t have time to destroy. Now that you’re all caught up, let’s go see the city!

Things to do With Your Time

Go Hang out with Mormons at Yankee Stadium on the 75th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s Day

Backpack not included.

Now this activity will require a bit of timing, well perfect timing to be honest, because the 75th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s day only comes around 75 years after the first Lou Gehrig’s day happened. But fear not, because with your efforts you will be rewarded with a bobblehead if you are among the first 5,000 people to arrive at the ballpark. The first step is to buy a calendar, then tickets, then get on the subway at least 5 days before the game starts to accommodate for that “New York rush hour”, and wait. You won’t look as suspicious if you go with a group, such as the Mormon missionaries pictured above. They are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, but they might get suspicious if you follow them around for too long without actually doing anything.

Take Advantage of the Unique Stores and Advertisements

So let’s say you’ve watched Sleepless in Seattle recently and you happen to be in New York with your lover. Your endorphins are flowing, you want to do something romantic, gosh dang it you’re in love! But you don’t want to “just do dinner” or whatever, you’ve got to pamper your partner. So what’s one of the first things you do? Send them to a spa! 

Now you’re on a budget, because eating a cracker in New York runs you about 15 bucks, but you want it to be nice. But those nice shoes are so uncomfortable, better get a nice foot rub. Wait, what’s that? They only do one foot? 50 bucks? Huh, which food to decide. Well, then you remember your lover was one of those people duped by a cement soccer ball in Germany during the 2006 World Cup, and you choose the right foot. Good, now they feel relaxed!

But DANG IT, you just had to bring the dog for your weekend getaway. Better find a dog sitter. But not just any dog sitter, your dog is special. Your dog sways those hips like a Heidi Klum on the runway and only buys from the best designers. She spends her free time watching Real Housewives of Atlanta and if she spends less than 5 hours on her hair each morning, it’s a weird day. But you’re in luck, because you come across this ad:

Thank goodness, the Diva Dog Walking Service! Now you’re all set. So you get on the Subway. Nothing can break your spirits. Except maybe that homeless guy who just vomited onto his at on a leash. You look up and see a disheartening sign however:

But you know what? You’re better than that. You chuckle, take a picture, and walk away and have the night of your life. Until you see that homeless guy again.

Admire Everything that isn’t at the MET

OK, you’ve done sports, you’ve had a great evening, now what? Go throw rocks at bikers at Central Park? Nah, you’re too cultured for that, better go to the MET.

The MET is one of the most famous museums in the entire country, so you’re elated to go in. So elated in fact, that you pay 2 cents to get in. Why? Because you can! (fun fact, that’s actually true, you pay what you want to get in).

Oh man, you’re in there now. What to do, what to do? You’ve got the whole day ahead of you. You scan the museum map and decide that yes, you want to go see a Sursanga! You just love those Middle Eastern instruments. You run, knocking over toddler after toddler to get there first before those other greedy visitors come, and immediately check the information sign.

Great, everything is just as you memorized from the Wikipedia page. You turn to your left, eagerly awaiting to see it in person, but then:

WHAT THE HELL. It’s not there! Well, that’s OK, you run off again to go look for the sitar, this time knocking over a security guard. Thinking of something to say to overcome the scenario you say, “Uh, nice hair.” The security guard is taken aback before smiling and saying, “Carry on museum goer, let no one get in your way.”

You’re befuddled as to why that worked, but then you turn around and see him from behind.

It all makes sense now.

Nonetheless, you run off to the Sitar exhibit. They have to have this after letting you down about the Sursanga. So you eagerly look…

Not again…

What about that new display of Medieval coins?

Not in your lifetime.

Maybe that sword hilt your cousin told you about?

Nope, you should just leave.

Well, fear not. You should at least check out the other things that are there. Like the helmet that’s shaped like the turd emoji.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Google it.

And if you’re feeling particularly lucky as you close out your NYC journey, you can always go to second base with this guy.

Hey baby.

Horrible Travel Guides: Visiting Krakow

Poland isn’t exactly at the top of anyone’s list when they travel to Europe. Poland is famous for sausages,being stuck in the middle like you always are on airline flights, and concentration camps. That’s right, one of the things Poland is most famous for is one of the saddest things in the entirety of human history. 

Anyway, before I begin the travel guide, let’s discuss a brief history of Poland!

Polish History

Could you refuse a beard like that?

Poland had a lot of kings, none of whom I remember, but it must have had kings because I went to a castle. Outside the castle was a girl handing out free samples of Polish candy. I ended up getting 5 pieces because they had strawberry and she never stopped me from getting more than one piece. You should go to this castle and find the free candy girl. Don’t worry, she’s not in a creepy van.

Or maybe it was a Cathedral? I don’t really remember.

Anyway, we can skip Polish history to WWII which started off by making a giant Polish sandwich. Germany invaded Poland after apparently dressing up some German soldiers in Polish army gear and using that as an excuse to make things explode in Poland. Then the USSR (now Russia for those of you who are confused) invaded from the West and well, Poland was split between two. Poland became a huge place for resistance and their Jewish ghetto  in Warsaw actually held out longer than the entire country of France because France sucks at everything! Then WWII ended, Poland was stuck in the USSR bloc, then they weren’t and now they have a cool country.

Now that you’ve learned SO MUCH let’s jump to things to do with your time!

Things To Do With Your Time!

Learn the Signs

Upon arriving in Poland, you will want to eventually go to the bathroom. You will have probably arrived via plane, which means unless your pilot is an idiot, you’ve probably landed in the airport! So you head to the bathroom, and if you’re like me, you’ll have stuff to throw away: gum wrappers, your ticket stub, maybe part of your nasty sandwich, that baby’s hairbrush you stole, and of course your syringe. But wait! This is where it gets super confusing, because you see this stupid thing!

What do you want from me?

You’ll look to your right and see Boris is just as confused as you are and Marek on your left has thrown his hands up in a fit even though he’s seen this 50 times. So what do you do? You walk to the bus and find someone to reverse pickpocket of course! But then, things get stranger!

You should just walk.

OK so don’t touch hands with a stranger, got it. Wrap your dog’s mouth with red licorice, OK a little strange but doable. But whatever you do, DO NOT PLAY YOUR TRUMPET WHILE ROLLERBLADING IN THE BUS! And don’t eat ice cream while you do it either. Or bring a hamburger and soda on board. But wrap your dog’s mouth in red licorice. 

Admire the Pigeon Carnage

Now that you’re in Krakow, feel free to walk down the streets. Sure, the streets look incredibly dangerous, because they are…for pigeons. You won’t notice this until you’ve turned left a few times then found a long street with some cars on it. They also have a decent fries place, where you can get this and homemade Cola. 

This was like 4 bucks I think.

First off, this place is a hole in the wall. Literally. It didn’t even have a real door. See the background on that photo? The plywood? That was the wall for the whole restaurant, which is a term you should take incredibly lightly. It was more like a walk-in closet that happened to have a Polish man making food. Feel free to ask for directions to this guy too, but he speaks no English and his facial expressions border on “I just got alien probed” to “shoot, the kitchen is on fire again.”

But when you leave this place, which I give roughly 4 out of 7 wizard hats, you should turn left and walk down a road, where you will see the most bizarre dead pigeon.

Yes, that is excitement you’re feeling.

It’s hard to tell with this picture, but this bird had smashed into the ground and broke up into tens of pieces. That stuff is usually reserved for model airplanes, real planes, and your mother’s fine china. Not birds. So go and be on the lookout for these splintering birds!

Go Lose at a Polish Museum’s Videogame

I love museums and you should too! I also love military history museums except when they’re written in Polish, a language in which I speak one word. But you should head over to the Polish Military History museum which is located right next to about 5 run down, empty buildings. The best part is that it’s entirely free, and oh yeah, this videogame!

The graphics are somewhat worse than your N64.

The game gives you a real WWII sniper rifle, without real bullets, and puts you head to head against a Nazi tank. For those of you keeping score at home, this is not a fair fight whatsoever. This is on par with Superman vs. Alfred (Batman’s butler), not a fair fight at all.

Oh wait…crap.

Regardless, you usually want to bring about 6-7 more dudes with you and a bazooka, or two, or another tank. Not a sniper rifle. Now you could use the rifle to kill the one driving the tank, but that’s not the point of the game. The point is to shoot the tank about 10 times so it…stops. Not stops firing, just stops moving. However, hitting the tank is incredibly difficult because the gun is way off and you will see this screen about 45 times.

Gee thanks, I had no idea.

Now don’t get frustrated, keep trying. But just know you’re going to see that obvious message way too many times. It doesn’t take quarters either, which is good because you probably don’t have any American currency on you. But you should wonder, and ask the museum staff: this soldier can take roughly 8 tank shells directly to the face, why isn’t he off fighting in the war, running head first into Nazi lines? That would be a fun game. Oh wait, that’s already Call of Duty. 

Never Cross the Street

Just waiting…and waiting…

So if there’s one thing in Poland that everyone agrees on, it’s that you should never cross the street unless explicitly told too. Even if there are no cars coming. Even when it’s time to walk, you wait awhile before actually walking. This is all about cultural learning man, you just gotta take it in! You could try running across when no one else will, but everyone will stare at you, bearing eyes into your skull like that time you took veal to that vegan party. So what do you do? Don’t cross the street, ever. Try to find one really long street you really like and just walk up and down that one. I recommend one with a lot of touristy things on it or one that leads to a square, then you have lots of options. But whatever you do, don’t cross the street. 

I hope this has helped you in your next trip to Krakow! Take an umbrella too. 

 

Mafia-The Short Story

Parties.

Every party is different. You start off with your basic childhood parties in which family and maybe your best friend show up to watch you awkwardly blow out candles while trying to prevent your younger brother from blowing out the candles as well. Then you may graduate on up to themed parties like Cowboys and Indians, Aliens, or Baseball Players on Steroids.

As you get older though, at least for boys, I have no idea what girls do, you just want to have some friends over and play videogames. Then maybe go play basketball in your driveway at 1 AM, go cause some neighborhood trouble, then watch your friend drink 11 Mountain Dew Code Reds while you play Wrestlemania XVIII on the Gamecube.

Here’s RVD on the cover with 2 legends.

Then you get to high school where parties can start getting a little more adult. There actually may be girls there (gasp) and you have the house to yourself since your parents are in Aruba for the weekend. Or you’ll have a game night. Or you do exactly what I just described in the previous paragraph.

And so the party scene expands and improves (or gets worse, depending on your outlook) and each party has a chance to be something memorable. Maybe it was the party where you and your friends played Halo for 8 hours straight and beat the campaign on Legendary. Maybe you met a significant other at a party. Maybe you found a terrible party and left for something more fun. Maybe it was a party with a crazy costume that made everyone laugh. Or maybe it was the party where you burned a house down after trying to grill burgers.

Through all these different events, life stages, and people, there is always one party that can be fun: the game night party. Whatever your game of choice may be, I can remember having one of these as early as 5 and as recent as 2 weeks ago. One very popular party game is Mafia or Assassin as I’ve heard some people call it.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about the rules of the game are pretty simple. The game requires at least 8 people (more or less) and everyone in the group is assigned a “character”. One person is the narrator, assigned before the game, and depending on group size you have two or more Mafia members, a Sheriff or Policemen, and a Doctor. The rest of the group are Townspeople AKA cannon fodder.

The point of the game is for the Mafia to “kill” all the people in the town, including the Police and the Doctor. They do this when the Narrator tells everyone to “go to sleep” where they put their heads down and the Mafia choose one person to kill. The Mafia then go to sleep and the Police are allowed to ask the Narrator (silently) about one person being the Mafia. After they go to sleep, the Doctor is awoken and is asked to save one person. Because the Doctor is usually a selfish buttface, he/she almost always saves his/herself. After all of this occurs, the town is awoken, informed of who met an untimely demise, then given a chance to make accusations for little evidence.

Accusations range from “You smell funny”, “You said something mean to person X earlier so you must be the killer”, “You seem awfully quiet”, “You’re talking a lot”, to everything in between. At the end of an accusation, one person is “killed” and are out of the game. The cycle repeats until the townspeople have killed the Mafia, the Mafia have killed all the Townspeople, or everyone yells at each other and someone is actually killed.

Almost always with a garage door.

But it got me thinking, what would this scene look like in real life? Well, I gave my best attempt at what I think it would look like.

Mafia-The Real Life Short Story

It’s a Wednesday night and George Booth is driving back from his most recent case in Atlanta. This wasn’t exactly the lawyer life he had dreamed about, with the tall buildings, Franklin and Bash-like atmosphere, the huge paycheck, and the slamming of palms on tables. Instead, these images had been replaced by long driving hours, a barely working car, a nasty toe fungus, and a small paycheck. Bouncing from town to town wasn’t exactly George’s idea of the glitzy lawyer life, but it’s what it took to put food on the table instead of scrounging for roadkill which had become an all too common weekend activity.

The weather was getting worse, the rain was coming down so hard George couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. He knew he should have listened to his mother when she said he should replace his roof of his car. Just then he heard a sputtering noise and thought “No, no, not now. Wow, four “n” words in a row.” He high fived himself before getting out of the car. All he could see was some kind of purple smoke which probably meant either the reincarnation of Barney Satan or something very bad. He settled on the Barney Satan option and slowly backed away. The rain had let up slightly and George saw headlights in the distance. He put out his right arm and fired a completely unnecessary flare with his left arm. The car pulled over and a man with a half beard said, “You need a lift stranger?”

“Yeah, that’d be great If you could just take me to the next town and maybe I can find a mechanic.”

“Oh, I don’t think you can get it fixed tonight. I know the mechanic and he only works mornings. You may have to sleep in town for the evening.”

George nodded in his odd circular motion before getting into the truck before he realized he hadn’t actually been invited into the truck. “You realize I didn’t actually invite you into the truck? But no worries,” said the half-bearded man.

George looked out the window as they passed a sign, “Welcome to Shell Lake! Population: 73 and however many people are in your car”.  He sighed as his driver pulled into the parking lot of a hotel.

“Well, here you go. The mechanic is just across the street. The hotel will be open. Good luck to you,” and with that the half-bearded man shoved George out the door and sped off, running over the gorilla that had recently escaped from the zoo.

George brushed himself off and walked inside, “Room for 1 please!” he said, over enthusiastically. The man behind the desk didn’t look up and pointed to a key rack with a dozen keys on it. Above the rack was a sign that said, “Choose one.” So George chose #6 and stumbled off to bed.

He was awoken by the loudest bell he had ever heard because the bell was in his room. Next to the bell was the hotel owner who said, “Morning, sorry about the bell. We don’t have a tower and we found out that room six is the highest point in the town. Anyway, there was a murder in the town last night and we all need to go to court.”

“Why didn’t you put the bell in any other room?”

The question was greeted by a slap to the face as the man walked out of the room. George sighed and thought the meeting couldn’t take too long. He shouldn’t have any problems, he was clearly innocent in the unfortunate murder. He had two witnesses and had slept there all night. He quickly showered and then walked to the courthouse.

The judge was an old man with an eyepatch, nothing unlike what George had seen hundreds of times.

“Alright citizens and new fellow, I am Judge Nelson. I am sorry to be the one that brings such terrible news to you all, but Mr. Lewis was found this morning with a knife in his back and he is dead.”

A murmur went through the crowd before Judge Nelson turned up his dubstep to drown out the murmuring noise.

“Now now, I understand this is a troublesome event. But we all know who is behind the crime.”

George sighed a sigh of relief. He was anxious to get home and finish his card house. Although he couldn’t remember if he had left the window open. Last time he did that his card house had fallen over and half of his TV was gone. He gathered his coat and began to stand up until Judge Nelson spoke up again.

“It’s the Mafia.”

George almost spit out the coffee he didn’t drink that morning and began chuckling.

“You think this was the Mafia? This town has as many people as my high school graduating class. What in the world would the Mafia be doing here? What proof do you have?”

“Proof? We have no proof. Nor do we need proof. It was the Mafia.”

Before George could speak again he was ushered back into his seat with a confused look on his face. He couldn’t believe that a small town like Shell Lake would have a prominent Mafia influence. But he had seen stranger things, like the time his brother peeled an apple only using his eyelashes.

“Now you all know how this works. Let the proceedings begin.”

George rubbed his face in a depressed mood. It looked like he was going to be in town for at least the rest of the day. Maybe during recess he could talk to the Judge Nelson about being on his way. He also just remembered he had left the toaster on. It was at this moment that George noticed that what he assumed was the town sheriff hadn’t said a word. Wasn’t a little odd that a judge was announcing a murder instead of the local law enforcement. Before George could think about it any more an elderly woman in the front row stood up and yelled, “I think Rob did it,” she pointed at a boy of about 25 years, “I saw him walk by Mr. Lewis’ house last week.”

“Yeah, old lady, that was last week. In case you weren’t listening the murder happened last night.”

“Well I still think you did it. I also don’t like your shirt.”

With that the elderly woman sat down and Judge Nelson said, “Alright we have our first accused, Rob. Do we have any other accusations?”

Rob stood up and said, “Yeah, old lady, I think it was you.”

The woman looked flabbergasted before saying, “You don’t have any evidence.”

This started a back and forth of “he said/she said” before Judge Nelson cranked up his dubstep once again. “Alright, as it stands we have two accused. Anyone else wishes to accuse someone?” The room was silent before Judge Nelson spoke up again, “Alright accused, you have ten seconds to defend yourselves. Old woman, go first.”

The elderly lady stepped up, cleared her throat and began, “Well, I-”

Judge Nelson hit a conveniently placed buzzer before saying “Sorry, time is up. Rob?”

“I am not the killer. I really liked Mr. Lewis. I was only going by his house because I lost my yo-yo.”

Judge Nelson once again hit his buzzer and said, “OK, everyone who thinks Rob is the killer raise your hand.” Around 17 people raised their hands. “Well I’m sorry old woman, but it looks like the people have spoken. You are guilty.”

The woman tried to put up a protest before an anvil was dropped on her head. She was removed from the room and Judge Nelson continued, “Alright Sheriff, you may ask if one person is the Mafia. But no one else look!” So all the townspeople closed their eyes, including George but mainly because he just found out that people don’t survive anvil to face collisions like they do in cartoons. He heard Judge Nelson say “Nope, not her.”

George couldn’t stand it any longer. “Wait, you just executed a woman based on plain heresay and it appears you know who the killer is?”

“Yes to both your inquiries. What of it?”

“Well, that’s plainly illegal. The woman deserved a fair trial and she was only accused because she accused someone else. And you can’t withhold information about a potential murderer. That’s not safe.”

“Son, I’m the judge and I can do whatever I want. Now townspeople, go home and go to sleep!”

“But it’s 9 in the morning!”

“GO TO SLEEP I SAY!”

So George reluctantly returned to his hotel room and stared at the ceiling for the next 12 hours before falling asleep.

George woke up the next morning with a bell literally ringing in his here, because it was beside his bed.

“Geez, again with the bell?”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one that chose to sleep in room 6 dummy.”

George performed the same morning routine with an added twist of his foot going through the loose spot in the floor and the shower curtain falling off the rails. After finally going downstairs, he asked the girl at the front desk, “So, when will the mechanic be open?”

“Oh not for a few days, not at least until this murder case gets solved.”

“You mean we all have to go back to court today?”

“Oh of course! Don’t you know anything about law? It’s common knowledge!”

“Well, actually I’m-”

George couldn’t finish his sentence because he was interrupted by another bell. He looked outside to see all the townspeople shuffling their way into the courthouse. George sighed and realized he had no other option.

It was rather stuffy in the courthouse today, with a lot of paraphernalia lying all over the floor. George walked over to his same seat and sat down. He rose awkwardly when Judge Nelson entered the room and saw the doctor and the sheriff enter the room as well.

“Folks, I have some terrible news. There was another murder last night. Mr. Gonzalez was eating cereal last night, enjoying his liberal media when he choked and then drowned in his cereal!”

A gasp went through the crowd and the townspeople began to all talk to themselves. All except for George, who had more than a few questions so he raised his hand. Judge Nelson saw his hand and this time electrocuted his bobcat which let out a horrible scream, quieting the crowd instantly. “Yes, stranger, what’s your question?”

“Well, I actually have a few. Which way did Mr. Gonzalez die? Did he choke on his cereal or somehow manage to drown in his cereal bowl? What was the time of death? Do you have any more details?”

Judge Nelson waved his hand and said, “Actually, we think it’s poison that killed him.”

“Well, that’s a start. How do you know what poison? It would also answer the choking and drowning question. Also, why isn’t the Sheriff disclosing any of this information? That’s usually job, albeit it not in a courtroom. How was the autopsy performed so fast?”

“Well,” the Sheriff started, “We haven’t done an autopsy and my job is just to find this Mafia person.”

“Yes, but it’s also your job to investigate. Wait, how do you know it was poison then?”

“It’s my job to find this Mafia person.”

Judge Nelson intervened, saying, “Son, we just assume it was poisoned. It was actually Doctor Larkin who found him. He was bringing over Mr. Gonzalez Disney Teen magazines. Their mail seems to always get switched.”

“It’s my job to find this Mafia person,” the Sheriff repeated.

George ignored him and said, “So the doctor found him dead?”

Dr. Larkin spoke up for the first time and said, “Actually, he was still breathing when I found him.”

George slapped his head so hard he gave himself a bald spot on the back of his neck. “Why didn’t you save him?”

The Townspeople began to laugh before Judge Nelson said, “Son, you don’t understand medicine do you? Or the law? You see, yesterday while you were in la-la land we asked the good Doctor to choose someone to save in case of another murder. Naturally, the Doctor chose himself so he couldn’t, by law, save Mr. Gonzalez.”

George found a nice wall to ram his head into and started to say something before Judge Nelson cut him off, “Now now, no more questions, comments, or concerns. You can call this number on the back of my cereal box if you have anymore of those. Let us start the accusations!”

Today was not nearly as smooth as the previous day and accusations were flying around the room. It seemed that everyone had been accused at least once. The reasons didn’t even make sense. There were some credible ones like “you always hated Mr. Gonzalez” to “I saw you around his house last night with a bottle of poison” and “didn’t you say you’d think it was funny to have someone drown in cereal?”. George also heard “You have four toes” and “I’m bored”. It took three electrocutions to Judge Nelson’s bobcat to get the crowd to quiet down. Finally, three people were accused and brought to the front. Two middle-aged men and a young woman. The young woman lacked any kind of real backing and only one person raised their hand, which turned out to be her ex-boyfriend.

“I still want my Digimon collection back!” He screamed.

Finally, the votes were cast and George was forced to vote. Judge Nelson counted and the votes were split even, 34-34.

“OK, dysfunctional couple. You two must decide the fate.”

The couple immediately launched into an argument about who last used the toothpaste and the phantom Digimon card collection. Finally they voted, and only to the surprise of the mute man in the back, their votes were split.

Judge Nelson stated, “Well, the people have spoken. Both men must die.” Judge Nelson pulled a lever and both men fell into the black abyss where they were more than likely never heard from again.

“Townspeople, close your eyes!” the Judge boomed.

“Wait, wait. This just isn’t right. You can’t send two men to their death simply because there was a tie in the votes! That’s a clearer violation of the basic laws of court!”

“And what do you know about law?”

“Well, I think I know the most about law. I’m a lawyer, have been for years!”

“Well hooray. I once ate glue in first grade and have orange armpit hair. Anyone else have fun facts of themselves to share?”

“It’s my job to find this Mafia person,” the Sheriff repeated.

Judge Nelson then turned to the Sheriff and said, “Alright everyone close their eyes! Now Sheriff, who do you think is the Mafia?”

George could hear the cloth of his shirt move as the Sheriff silently pointed at someone and he heard the Judge say, “Yes. Now Townspeople go to sleep!”

“But if you-” George began in protest.

“Go to sleep!!”

George had to run away from the bobcat and back to his hotel room. He once again sat in his bed for hours before finally falling asleep.

DONG.

Once again, George had forgotten about the bell. He didn’t say anything and shuffled downstairs, saw all the townspeople going into the courthouse, and silently followed. Along the way he found some nice gravel to munch on.

He was the last one to enter, but the first one with the questions as he raised his hand.

“Son, you’re the last one to enter but always the first one with the questions. What do you want?”

“I just don’t understand how you can’t disclose this information. If you know who the murderer is, shouldn’t you be telling us?”

The whole crowd roared again with laughter and Judge Nelson had to use his foghorn to quiet everyone down. “Son, I think you went to Toilet Paper University. You know nothing about law!”

“Yes I do! If you have direct information of a murder you should be telling us.”

“It’s your job to find the murderer. I’m only here to make sure rules are followed.”

“It’s my job to find this Mafia person,” the sheriff said.

“Well, I see this record is still broken. Fine, continue with whatever this is,” George said as he sat down in defeat.

“Folks, I have bad news. Last night, a 747 was passing over and a turbine fell off mid-flight and fell through the roof of Mrs. Stuart. She is dead.”

Another gasp went through the crowd and again Judge Nelson had to use his foghorn to quiet the crowd down.

George couldn’t help himself.

“OK, I understand. The first thing was actually murder. That’s pretty blatant as far as murder goes. The second one you’re not even sure what happened. This one is just plain chance. There is no way anyone in the world could plan for a turbine falling to crush someone. Besides, I didn’t even hear this.”

Someone pointed out the window and George was shocked to see a huge turbine sitting in someone’s house. He thought to himself that he needs to sleep lighter in case those bears ever came back to his house again.

“Well, she wasn’t actually crushed. It landed in her house and trapped her inside. It wasn’t until a gas leak blew up that she died. Doctor Larkin was there again at the scene.”

“Well did you see her alive?”

“Yes, I did. I could’ve opened the window for her. But once again I had elected to save myself in case of a murder so it was against the law for me to save her.”

George couldn’t believe his ears but turned to the Sheriff, “Well, you know who the Mafia is, don’t you? Why don’t you tell us.”

“It’s my job to find this Mafia person. Plus I don’t want anyone to find out I’m the sheriff, then they might try to kill me.”

“But you’ve been making it so obvious. You have a ten gallon hat on and a shotgun strapped to your face. You are the Sheriff!”

He put up  his hands in a sheepish “I don’t know look” before Judge Nelson continued.

“Let the accusations begin!”

The room was remarkably silent except for a man in the corner who was half smiling, half laughing and shaking nervously. His eyes kept darting around vigorously and he kept producing a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow.

“I accuse him!” George said.

Everyone looked over at the man and he stood up, still shaking.

“What’s your name?”

“Mi chiamo Vittorio Camorra,” replied the man.

“What did he say?”

“Mr. Camorra is Italian. He doesn’t speak any English. He actually has a nice Italian sign above his house. It says Cosa Nostra. That means welcome or something like that.”

“No, Cosa Nostra is another name for the Mafia. It comprises all the Italian Mafia families! It’s obvious it’s him! Someone ask him what he was doing last night.”

After a few word-reference visits, a man said, “He said he was cleaning his guns, knives, and other tools of murder.”

“This is so obvious! It’s him, right there! Sheriff, is it this guy?”

“It’s my job to find this Mafia person,” the Sheriff replied.

The room went silent as the Italian man raised his finger, pointed it at George, and said, “Tu.”

George remembered enough Pre-K Spanish to know that meant “you”, and he wasn’t worried until the crowd started to join in.

“Yeah, it’s totally this guy! He’s always challenging our rules, trying to make something different.”

“You scumbag! Always thinking you’re better than us!”

“Has anyone seen my Komodo dragon?”

Judge Nelson once again had to use his foghorn to quiet the crowd down, before saying, “Alright, start the voting process. Everyone for Mr. Camorra?”

George was the only one to raise his hand.

“All in favor of this new fellow?”

The entire room went up, some people raising both their hands. One very deformed woman raised three.

“Wait, don’t I get a chance to defend myself?”

“I think you’ve had enough time to talk. You’ve been the main character in this story!”

And with that George was ushered away. The last thing he heard was the Sheriff asking about another Mafia person. The last thing he thought was what a stupid town Shell Lake was.

 

5 Unexpected Things That Happened to me in Spain

I’ve learned a lot of random things in the past year: to always put an adequate amount of broth in the pot while cooking rice, that -40 is the only degree where Fahrenheit and Celsius are the same, the Spanish equivalent for “OK”, and that I should never eat cheese before exercising.

But one idea I’ve grasped forcefully like Homer Simpson strangling Bart Simpson is that whatever specific idea I have about a certain situation is very far off from what will actually happen. For example, I thought the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets would be battling each other out for the top of the Atlantic Division in the NBA but both squads have often looked like vegetarians at a meat-lovers conference, lost and confused. But going past the basic basketball example, I often look back at myself a year ago and think “Would I ever have pictured myself in this situation?” And the answer is definitely no.

Sure, I had applied for Spain, but one year ago I thought I would be going to Florida State for Italian Studies, studying two years there, and then finding a career. Spoiler alert: Florida State rejected me and that was that. Would I have pictured myself sitting here, experiencing everything I’ve experienced 6 months ago? Sure, but what I had pictured in my mind is vastly different than what I’m actually doing. Some things have greatly exceeded my expectations, some have fallen short, and some have simply confused me more (Why can’t anyone in Spain make a decent French fry?). Overall, this picture in my mind has been erased clean and a whole new picture is being drawn. The best part? It’s not close to being finished.

Now the point of this article isn’t to list out crazy things that have happened. The gold medal for that would most undoubtedly be the Madrid trash strike. I’m used to random European strikes, but having to walk around a pile of trash taller than I was was a bit of surprise. So was seeing a man climb on top of a light pole then refuse to come down out of protest for something. So was the time that a 25 minute train ride inexplicably took 2 hours. Sure, these things will make good stories in the future, but I want to look at some other aspects that help white-out my previous mental picture.

5. How Mentally Tired I Would Be

I remember the last time I worked on a crossword puzzle. I was on a flight going from Houston to Nashville; my phone was dead, I had already finished my book, and there was no one next to me I could bother. So I picked up the in-flight magazine was, flipped through a few travel articles, and found the crossword puzzle. Any crossword puzzle I do usually involves one with all the answers close by or fun pictures. Basically, I’m attuned to stealing crossword puzzles from kids at restaurants.

Anyway, I am very bad at crossword puzzles. I LOVE trivia, but crossword puzzles are the Bane to my Batman, they pick me up and break my back. However, I was dominating this crossword puzzle. 5 Across? Obviously swine. 31 Down? Yes, it’s Swaziland. But of course I hit a wall, racked my brain for the next 30 minutes and then just gave up. I remember feeling like I had just studied for a test or written a paper, all the while I had done a stupid crossword puzzle.

The mental fatigue here has surprised me as well. Coming into this, I knew I would be on my feet 5-6 hours a day, maybe participating in recess or PE, and then having to walk 1 or 2 miles home every day. I was expecting to be physically exhausted. What I’ve found, however, is the exact opposite. I never knew hearing my native language butchered in thousands of ways possible could wear me out so much. Combine that with talking at a pedestrian pace in baby language and all of a sudden I’m finding it harm to form intelligent thoughts in English. There are times where I will go 3 or 4 days without having a normal English conversation. Yes, there are a few teachers who speak wonderful English at my school, but I still cannot go full colloquial and talk at a normal 100% speed. Is this a bad thing? No, of course not, it’s what I signed up for. I just vastly underestimated how much bad English would take a toll on my mind. There are some days where I would like to come home and listen to someone count to 100 in perfect English. Or tell me their favorite vegetables. Speaking of English…

4. How Quickly the whole “help me speak English and correct me and I’ll help you with Spanish” thing dies

There are plenty of ways to teach a language. You can combine the native language with the language you’re learning in a vocab centered learning, you can have a teacher who refuses to use your native language 95% of the time, or you can have a drill sergeant scream at you the difference between ser and estar.

HOW YOU FEEL AND WHERE YOU ARE ALWAYS USE THE VERB ESTAR

But most people will agree that the best way to learn a language is to truly immerse yourself. Want to learn Italian? Go to Italy. Want to learn Chinese? Go to China. Want to learn Basque? HA good luck.

This was one of the main reasons I, and most others, came to Spain, to improve Spanish skills. Everyone I know that has come over here has done exactly just that, whether that be by practicing with teachers, taking classes, or just using it every chance they get. That’s what you have to do if you wish to improve your level. Unfortunately, language acquisition does not work by osmosis although I’m still holding out for a scientist to do something about that.

So along the way, I arrived with the idea of “I’m going to speak Spanish everywhere I go!” I have greatly failed in this, but I have taken a number of opportunities to speak and have learned a lot from these areas.

One of the ways that immediately presented roughly 50032 times was this:

“Oh, you speak English?”

“Yes, I’m from America. It is my native language (insert with sly smile that they won’t recognize nor politely laugh at)

“Oh great! I want to practice my English. I can help you with your Spanish if you want.”

“That’d be awesome!”

KABLAMMO! I just secured my first intercambio and I’m gonna be fluent by this weekend. Well…these situations die. Rapidly. Similar to any New Year’s Resolution you had…I jest…but seriously.

More often than not, these people have little to no interest in actually helping you with your Spanish. They simply want to talk AT you in English or they will forget they wanted to practice their English all together. I have had multiple people who simply talk…and talk…and talk at me in English, broken or good, without ever doing basic conversational things like asking a question about you, listening to your input, or stop talking.

Maybe if I just keep staring forward he’ll go away.

A lot of times when you do try and respond back in Spanish or try and start the conversation in Spanish they keep responding in English. For most English speakers, this presents a kind of awkward stage: do I keep speaking in English or talk in Spanish? I know for me, being a polite Southern person, I would usually keep talking in English. But then I changed my action: respond in Spanish no matter what. I am in Spain and they speak Spanish here, so why shouldn’t I?

Now, there are some people I work with and interact with that actually do want to have a conversation and with these people I am more than happy to speak English with them…as long as they actually do help with my Spanish. I often learn a lot about culture and language and truly value these conversations.

But 95% of my encounters have either turned into an English machine gun at my face or puppy on the side of the road abandonment. All in all, I had this idea that I would set up tons of these “you help me and I help you” speaking activities only to find out that…they really don’t work. They die just as fast as Soulja Boy’s career after his one famous song puttered out.

3. How Much I Would Miss America

Talk to anyone who knew me in the months preceding Spain, and they would all say the same thing: Jake is incredibly ready to go to Spain. I was going back to Europe for a whole year! I was leaving a lot behind, but I was 100% ready to go and make the most of this trip. Who knows, maybe I wouldn’t come home for years? I would just stay over here forever, leaving America behind. Just call me Senor Jake.

Then about 2 months in, I really started to miss America. A lot. More than I thought I would. I hadn’t been planning on coming home at Christmas but started feeling the urge to come back and see friends and family. I missed watching sports at a normal time. I missed videogames. I missed American food. There were a lot of big and small things that I missed greatly.

I felt an odd tug of uncertainty. I had wanted to come to Spain. I didn’t want to go back to America at all. Eventually I caved, got a ticket, and came home for the holidays. I ate all the American food, watched a bunch of sporting events, spent a lot of time with my family and friends, and did everything I wanted to. Honestly, I wasn’t ready to go back to Spain. I love America and wanted to stay here, what had happened to me? I never pictured myself having any similar reaction. I had been having the exact opposite feeling for the past 5 months and here I was, not wanting to finish my dream. Which brings me to number two on the list.

2. How Much I Don’t Miss America

Now, all of you that have a basic understanding of the English language are currently fuming at the ears saying “you said the exact opposite in the last point”. While that is true, let me explain.

I really, truly felt all of those things that I mentioned above. Some days I really miss coming home, playing Halo 4 for 3 hours while eating a hamburger then meeting my friends at the closest bar to watch an NBA game. I won’t ever stop missing that to be honest. But as a friend asked me while I was here, “are all the things you miss big things, or things you can overcome?”

Wow. Never thought of it that way. Of course I would classify my family and friends as big things that I miss, but it’s different when they all support you and want nothing but the best for your travels. What I found myself really missing was the small things: driving a car, being able to go to a grocery store after 9:00 PM, and using ESPN as background noise. Were these things absolutely integral to my life? Nope. They were things I would simply have to adapt to. And the amazing thing is? The more I started to accept and adapt these things helped me miss America less to the point where I don’t miss it much at all.

I never expected to essentially go on this roller coaster of not even entertaining the possibility of missing America, to missing it so much, to not missing it again. I’m living my life in Spain, not thinking about what could be back home. Which brings me to the last point…

1. It’s Less About the Experience and More About Living

Some of the most common questions posed to many early-twenty year olds is “So, what do you want to do with your life?”, “What are you up to these days?” and “What’s your plan?” Leading up to my departure, I was asked by multiple people what I was doing for the fall. The following dialogue always took place:

“So you strapping, young man, what are you doing this fall?”

“Well, I’m going to Spain for a year to teach.”

“Wow Spain! That’s great. You should really take advantage of that experience. Say hi to Franco for me!”

“Thanks, I’m excited. Um, you know Franco has been dead for like 30 years right?”

Maybe you’ve seen where he’s buried.

OK, I added a little but this was the general response I received. And it’s a great response! People were/are always excited for me and were encouraging me to really enjoy my time and do everything.

People that go on short vacations usually operate with a Yes-man type of attitude, taking every opportunity that presents itself. Just heard about this awesome restaurant from a local? Yeah, let’s go! The guys next to you at the baseball game just invited you to a hot dog eating contest? Sign me up! Some guy just invited you to go illegally poach sharks? Better say no to that one, but maybe listen to his awesome stories before calling the police.

But a short trip is vastly different from an entire year. When I first arrived, I was that yes-man, going and doing everything I could. Sure, I just met you 5 minutes ago but let’s go do that thing you just said. It’s normal to stay out in Spain until 7:00 AM? That sounds miserable but I’ll do it anyway. That’s what, blood sausage? Yeah, I’d love some.

There was a time when I realized that it was impossible to take advantage of everything that presented itself to me. I would have to say no. And you know what? That’s exactly how life is lived in a normal place. You can’t accept everything, you have to pace yourself. It becomes less of doing things just to do them so you can tell people about it and more about doing something because you want to. Not because it would make a good story or you’re bored, because you want to.

This next part may be a little nitpicky but whatever. I realized about 2 months in I wasn’t here experiencing Spain as much as I was living in Spain. Of course I want to go see Flamenco, meet Spaniards, and try Spanish foods. But that’s also part of life here. I want to live in Spain, not simply run through it trying to gather as much experience as I can. I felt like I originally came here to shotgun blast my year here instead of aiming down the sights for things that would benefit me. That’s when I realized that it’s OK to say no, it’s OK to not experience everything, but it is not OK to run through or let everything pass you by. I’m here to live first and find my experiences through living.

It’s often said you cannot force a good night out, they just happen. The experiences would come to me if I lived and explored, not if I was constantly trying to make them happen. I didn’t have to go crazy, I just needed to live in the now, the here, and enjoy whatever experience I encounter. And I can honestly say the best times I’ve had are when I do just that.

How Did I Get Here? Why I’m in Spain-The Uninspiring True Story

The other day I was laying in bed thinking about two things: what would my hand motions look like if I had telekinesis and how in the world did I get to Spain? Moving across the world for a year of your life isn’t something that usually just happens. These kind of actions take thought, time, maybe a positive/negative chart and a plane ticket.

And preferably a plane.

My time in Spain has been largely positive. There are days where I think I could live here forever and marry a Spanish girl. There are days where I think I’ve made a terrible decision. There are days when I flip-flop like John Kerry in 2004. But overall am I happy here? Yes, definitely yes.

But it wasn’t until last week when I really started to think how I actually got here. Not the fact that yes, I hopped on a plane that didn’t explode over the Atlantic and safely arrived in Spain. Then I proceeded to lug my two giant suitcases to my apartment in Colmenar Viejo where I am currently typing. But I started to think of the actual events that led me to this beautiful country. I found a bizarre trail that goes back to seventh grade.

So here I am in a country where punctuality is considered a federal crime, nearly halfway through my current job teaching English. I’m working in a tiny pueblo way outside Madrid with students aged 7-18. There are some amazing days and then some days where I want to jump out the nearest window. I did not choose this school nor did they choose me per se. Sure, I had input on my basic location and teaching preference (in Madrid with secondary) but my placement was largely random. The company I “work” for is called BEDA, and while I haven’t found exactly what the acronym is, my best guess is Bilingual Enthusiasts Diving into Academics. Overall, I consider myself lucky to have landed with this program. The pay is good enough to live, and hey, I’m in Spain. But how did I hear about BEDA?

It’s March 27, 2012, and I’m sitting at my college “job” as an office assistant at a residence hall at Baylor University. I’ve been staring at the computer screen for the last 15 minutes and my palms are sweating so much I can’t even hold onto the mouse. I’m more nervous than I’ve been in a long time. I’ve chosen my flight to Italy, leaving Nashville May 31 on a flight to Rome where I will change planes and officially arrive in Genova, Italy, on June 1. This is something I’ve wanted to do for the past year. I want to do something cool right out of college right? I’ve worked my tail off to get my Italian to be stellar, so shouldn’t this be my capstone for it? Gelato tastes good right? I’ve researched all my options, planned accordingly, and told everyone I’m going to Italy for the summer to teach English with a program called ACLE. I know 100% that this is something I want to do. Or is it? Am I scared to go or am I more worried about seeing my bank account drop significantly? Probably both. A timer appears on the screen saying I have 3 minutes left to do something or the screen will reset. I end up closing my eyes, looking away, and hitting the left button of the mouse to make the purchase. Fast forward to week six of my teaching experience and I’ve already deemed this summer one of my best summers ever. I’m teaching Red Level (roughly 7th grade) in a tiny town called Cavagnolo. It is here that I meet a friend named Britt. After the basic introductions and blah blah, she tells me she’s staying in Europe and going to freaking Spain for a year. She tells me about the BEDA program and answers all of my questions over the week and the next few months. Spain seems cool. But why did I want to go to Italy?

So much English going on right now.

It’s August 29th, 2010, and I just said goodbye to my father before I leave for Rome, Italy, for my semester abroad. As I hop into my car he sends me a text message that says “Love you! I forgot to tell you that you’ll make a great Italian!” It’s 2 days before I’m supposed to leave for my semester abroad. This will be my second time in Rome, my first being a family vacation at the beginning of that summer. I’m excited to go back to live there fully. I arrive September 1, eat pizza, and instantly decide this was the best idea. I spend my semester travelling, playing on a Rome ultimate frisbee team, going to language exchanges, and immersing myself in all things Italian. I fell in love instantly. I would walk by the Colosseum to just stare at it, imagining Roman citizens walking in to see the gladiators. Some days I would walk to a corner, spin around, point, and start walking that way. The city could do me no wrong. I had waited years for moments like these and I was taking them all in. But why was I so excited about Rome?

Believe me, I’m freaking out inside.

It’s September 22, 2004, and I am sprinting out of my mother’s Honda Chrysler minivan to go into Best Buy. I’ve waited a year for this. I am finally going to buy Rome: Total War. I’ve watched every trailer and seen every screenshot. I saved up my money for this game and now it is finally going to be mine. Since I reserved it, I also get a bonus CD with the game’s soundtrack. In my haste, I accidentally put the game CD in the car’s CD player causing my mother to think the CD player is broken and stopping in the middle of the road to check it out. Over the next 9 years, (yes I still play it), I conquered the ancient world dozens of times. The game is pretty historically accurate and I loved that part about it. I researched the hastati, principe, and triarii. I looked into the different factions and starting buying books about Rome. Not little kids books, but books you could build a house in to protect you from a nuclear blast. My history nerd was fulling coming out. I was playing a videogame AND learning history! That’s amazing! But why was I such a history nerd?

If this doesn’t look awesome then you’re stupid.

It’s my seventh grade year and I have a meeting with my mom and the college advisor. Why? Because I should maybe at least get an idea of what I want to do with my life. Joke’s on them, I still don’t know what I want to do! Anyway, I remember Mrs. White looking at me and asking “Jake, what school subject interests you the most?” Well, it couldn’t be math, I just registered a 34 on a test. Not science either, too many experiments. English was cool, but I wasn’t that great of a writer. So I just shrugged and said “Well, history is cool. It’s what I’m most interested in.” My mother probably cursed under her breath knowing that her son might pursue a rather useless liberal arts degree (surprise, I did) and I wouldn’t be able to afford a nice beach house for future family reunions. She didn’t let that dissuade her and other family members from buying me history books and encouraging my hobby. But why did I choose history?

It’s the beginning of my seventh grade year and I’ve just been dropped off at Circuit City, the still thriving electronics mega-conglomerate. My mother has to go run some errands around Bellevue and I’d rather look at computers and videogames than go look at dry-cleaning and hear comments about how the .3cm I grew since the last time I saw the dry-cleaning lady translates over into 4 feet in her eyes. I decide to go to the video game section and browse the PC games. Nothing really catches my eye until a find a game called Medieval: Total War. I casually turn the box over and one thing immediately draws me in: “Fight on field battles with up to 10,000 soldiers!” 10,000? Red Alert 2 would max out at around 50 soldiers and Age of Empires II had a population cap of 250, so this sounded incredible. I bought the game and played the hell out of it for the next year. My greatest accomplishment was conquering the world with Denmark, whose most notable achievement is having a pastry named after their people group. This game was also historically accurate and I began doing research on the side of my playing. Who was king during this time? When did gunpowder really get popular? Was this soldier really like that? So began my first real true interest in history sparked by a videogame.

The only bad thing is the game could sometimes look like a pixel explosion.

So there you have it, the reason I feel I am in Spain is because of a videogame I picked up at a Circuit City about 11 years ago. If I hadn’t picked up that game so long ago, would I still be here? Maybe. I may have never found the game and I may have never found myself here. I’m excited because I know this isn’t the end of the journey. I can’t wait to see what adventures I will encounter. Who ever said videogames weren’t good for anything?

Frozen: The Hidden Superpower

One of the biggest holiday movies of the year is Frozen, a cute, animated story about a queen with mysterious ice powers and her efforts to control them or risk losing her land filled with comedic characters. The movie features Idina Menzel, the leading actress of that one Broadway play with the famous song about shooting a huge middle finger to basic physics.

 

If you don’t get the joke now you never will.

Frozen begins when eventual queen Elsa and younger sister Anna are young children. Considering Disney characters have disproportional heads and anatomically incorrect bodies, we couldn’t get an exact age without the help of DisneyWiki.According to the offical website, the story begins when Elsa is the wee age of 8, and we can suspect Anna to be anywhere from 4-7. Many siblings are born two years apart, so it’s a safe guess to assume Anna is 6, still young enough to be cute but not old enough to dodge telekinetic ice blasts.

Elsa is the aforementioned queen who has the power of controlling all things cold, a power known as thermokinesis. When Elsa and Anna playfully romp around in the ballroom/winter wonderland of Elsa’s creation, she shows extraordinary skill, precision and control over her powers. She effortlessly freezes the ballroom floor, invites a snowstorm indoors and projects varying volumes of snow without any formal training. All of this is done by pure will power and hand motions. She spends the rest of the movie trying to contain her powers but ultimately learns to control them by using such wonderful emotions like acceptance, love and happiness.

Looking past the comedic scenes, awkward love story, and Game of Thrones−esque plot to steal Elsa’s throne, one can see that Elsa is one of the most powerful beings ever created. She has complete control of any moisture and while she struggles to control this amazing power at times, she is able to pull of some truly amazing feats. She´s not just a pretty face; she´s a pretty face with comically large eyes that can possibly kill everything and change entire climates with just a thought.

Strengths

As we see in the movie, Elsa’s powers are not limited to projectiles from her hands. Various structures, attacks and creatures spawn from her feet, head, hands and abdomen.

Before I get too ahead of myself, let’s backup to 8 year-old Elsa and a child with literally no training and immense power. Beyond just creating snow and ice, she has immense control and regulation over temperatures. Since she is an Ice Queen, she herself is not affected by freezing wind, snow and ice, but she is able to project this homeostasis to people and environments around her.

Which definitely could have helped this guy.

Playing with Anna in the ballroom and being able to maintain frozen snow in a presumably warm castle means two astounding things. The first is that she can keep others warm and keep others from freezing. Anna doesn’t have protection against subzero temperatures and unless the 6 year-old has extensive nerve damage, she should be downright frigid and incapacitated.

It’s unknown if she can be protected against this Subzero though.

Even such powerful men can only make so many snowballs before their hands freeze off. Anna is completely unaffected by the cold weather because Elsa wills it. Exactly how she does it is unknown, but she can easily protect others.

Another possible explanation is that she can make the impossible: snow that isn’t cold. I don’t have a good explanation of that because it makes no sense in the scientific physical world. It would simply have to be magical, which also exists in both the DC and Marvel universes.

This doesn’t explain why Anna doesn’t get cold in the first snow scene, but Elsa’s ability to make climate change gives weight to both theories above. Plain and simple, Elsa can change an entire climate. She did it when she was 8 in a ballroom and then froze Scandinavia when she was 21. This explanation makes a lot of sense when you look at the end of the movie and how Elsa protects her snowman friend, Olaf. Needing freezing temperatures to survive, she either creates a climate for Olaf to survive in or she makes Olaf a type of snow that doesn’t do things like, oh you know, melt. Olaf is able to do things like smell flowers without damaging the serenity of the flowers, and it makes me believe that Elsa can make unnatural snow unaffected by cold. More on Olaf later.

Beyond “just” you know, changing the climate of Scandinavia, she has the ability to hone her powers, freeze living and also inanimate objects, and create ice out of thin air. We already know that her powers are not limited to what she can touch or what fancy schmancy hand motions she makes. Yes, when shooting ice beams at attackers she emits the ice from her hands, but she can also do things like freeze an entire fjord by walking on it. Through her shoe, she effortlessly runs across the water and puts a thick layer of ice on top of the water.

The ability to will ice to appear through layers of material means that she is highly dangerous no matter what the situation. If she can freeze a fjord through her shoe, then it follows that her powers can effectively phase through any material. If she puts her mind to something and concentrates, Elsa is able to direct her magic through any surface. Considering Elsa froze the greater part of Scandinavia, and had remote control over her powers, she could will her powers anywhere her imagination could take her. Simply by wishing so, she could create, freeze and destroy.

After dismantling the ecosystem, stranding hundreds of party guests and effectively killing the sunscreen business, Elsa flees to the top of a large mountain. It is during this moment that the movie’s top song, “Let it Go”, and full demonstration of Elsa’s powers are displayed. But click on that link, it’s  a wonderful song.

Aren’t convinced that her frozen magic is effectively telepathic and determined by her will? Any doubts of this are clearly disproved in creation of Olaf. The real, sentient living Olaf she made on the North Mountain. Elsa clearly demonstrates craftiness and beauty when sculpting ice structures, like how she beautifies her own staircase, freezes the castle’s fountains into gorgeous structures, or creates dancing snowflakes in her hand. So the creation of Olaf as a proportional snowman isn’t hard to come by. She already knew what a snowman looks like, so yes, that part was easy and shouldn’t be impressive. Except with the non-snow parts of Olaf.

Here she is creating a sentient being with the wave of a hand. What have you accomplished today?

Science lesson time! Coal seams, the giant blocks of coal underground, are not easy to harvest. There’s a reason why coal mining is revered as such a grungy and dangerous job. To obtain coal, it takes tremendous effort to excavate and transport. Even the modern surface mining is expensive, labor intensive and time consuming. Coal is about a 3.5 on the Mohs Hardness Scale, meaning your little fingers could not mold it into ideal shapes at all, much less in seconds.

Or it can give you the black lung, pa!

Yet Elsa is able to extract perfectly sized and shaped coal instantly simply by willing a perfect snowman. She didn’t will there to be coal and then it appeared. She simply willed there to be the Olaf from her imagination, and her magical subconscious constructed everything else that needed to be there. Hell, Harry Potter has to be pretty specific when he uses the spell Accio to summon objects close by, like seen in The Goblet of Fire. He had to practice for weeks with his broom, the Firebolt, just for one life or death instance to summon his stick from a known location and distance.

Elsa also is able to create an enormous snow monster that does her bidding with a simple wave of the hand. The only thought was “defend me at all costs” and the creature would do so. She was able to think and create without using any of her energy to keep the monster alive. Theoretically, she could create multiple giant monsters with a mere thought. She could tell them anything from “bring me a coffee” to “go destroy that town,” the possibilities are endless.

Being able to control “coldness” and being able to change the climate has an even scarier implication. It means she can control all wind. Five feet in front of her or ten miles away, she has control over the wind. Why? In short, wind is basically a difference in atmospheric pressures and temperatures. Elsa demonstrated pretty well that she can move objects around by waving her hands, so in effect, that translates over in being able to fine tune the temperature in so many locations precisely that she controls wind without getting into the nitty-gritty science parts of it. Complete mastery of temperatures equates to complete control of wind, and in effect, all weather. She can make some super cold air slam down on some hot air, and kablooie, tornado. I guess the argument against super cataclysmic disasters about that is that her subconscious is somewhat sensible and goes for the path of least resistance, but what is going to be the path of least resistance every time? What if she really wants some ice cream so her ice powers pull some ice cream from four miles away through the village, six wallls, one window and little Timmy’s head. Dangerous, right?

That is what makes her so powerful, because the only limits she has to her power is her own imagination. She can create, at will, anything she wants simply by thinking it. . If she can create ice with just the moisture in the air then move it with her mind, what’s to prevent her from creating an ice plane and flying around the world with it? Nothing except her own imagination.

Rainbow not included.

This is also terrifying because the effects take place long after she is done with anything. Remember the fjord she froze? She only meant to freeze a little path, but then everything froze. And then didn’t unfreeze. Same with Anna. During the second duet in her ice castle, she spins around and accidentally shoots her ice magic through Anna’s heart, and then a day later, Anna is frozen. Elsa’s magic has a lasting effect long after she has departed from the scene.

Speaking of hitting Anna with her ice blast, what exactly is she shooting out when she shoots ice? The whole “freezing her sister’s” heart thing is fascinating as well.

When first struck with the ice, Anna’s hair starts to freeze, but it goes much beyond that shortly after. As Anna is slowly being turned into ice, she makes one final effort to save her sister and jumped in between a sword and her sister before turning completely into ice. Flesh, bone. clothes and hair are turned to rock hard H20. Elsa has the power to molecularly rearrange anything, or at least convert anything to water or ice. We learn at the end she actually does have the power to revoke her power once she turns Norway back to summer, so theoretically, she could just immediately zap people into ice and then thaw them into water instantly. Death by immediate touch.

Speaking of her ice, it is shown that Elsa has the power to make different ices of all thicknesses, shades, colors and sizes. We saw from her beautification of the castle that architecture and weight were not a factor in her limitations (if she really has any). A several hundred foot chandelier was just chilling, you know, defying physics and stuff. Maybe it was super light ice. That doesn’t even exist, but maybe she was able to infuse a lot of air in the ice and make it really light? Her staircase was broken off by the snow giant and shown to be temperamental and not absolute, but then Anna the Ice Cube shattered Franz’ sword. Considering Franz really couldn’t have been swinging that hard, her body would have to be astronomically harder than diamonds to make a sword with no nicks or scratches shatter the way it did.

Possibly the most dangerous aspect about Elsa is her ability to literally change the molecular composition of both living and non-organic objects. In the creation of her ice castle, she effortlessly changes her regal dress into one of ice. She doesn’t just put a layering of ice on top of her clothes to mask the appearance – she physically turns the ice into cloth. She also creates a cape that follows her and mimics the billow and flow of cloth… out of ice. That is physically impossible to keep ice in its solid form while having the components of liquid.

This stretches back to the imagination aspect of her powers, but Elsa’s ability to perceive a quintessential object and then construct it only makes her that much more powerful. When she created the ice staircase, I bet she wasn’t drawing on 15 years of architecture studying to perfectly map out the arc of her staircase so that it went to the next ledge perfectly. She simply willed it so, and it became as such. Creating a structurally sound castle of ice in seconds? Not a problem.

Weaknesses

While Elsa possesses vast physical potential and abilities, she severely lacks in the mental department (and after she stayed in her room for years, her test scores have to be WAY down). That vast change in the ecosystem she caused earlier? That was because she became really, really anxious after her powers were discovered then she freaked, changed the ecosystem, and ran away. Just be thankful every teenage girl isn’t like that.

Pictured: attitude. Not pictured: turning someone into solid ice.

The main source of her comfort is her younger sister Anna, and when she knows that she has Anna with her she is much more mentally stable and apt. But what would happen if Anna was in danger? What if something happened to Anna that was vastly out of Elsa’s control? Would she be a danger to those around her? Probably. It would be like Chernobyl but with insane ice powers instead of nuclear fallout.

But despite all of her strengths and weaknesses, would Elsa really want to use them at all? One of her first orders of post “change ecosystems and freak everyone out” business is creating an ice rink in the middle of the town square at the end of the movie. I feel like she’d be more inclined to use her powers to make cool ice flowers or ice puppies or something instead of making giant monsters to go ROFLstomp the next town.

Another scary thing about Elsa is the fact that she has no idea what she’s doing at times. She purposefully created the snow giant to keep herself safe, but Olaf was a mistake. During Olaf’s song, he references “buddies,” which begs the question, how many other Olaf’s and other snowmen did she create? We see one legitimate snowman in the song but also sand reincarnations of other snowmen implying that Elsa created a beaucoup of sentiment and independent snowman that probably all died when summer came back.

One of the last things that happens in the movie is they end a “trade agreement” with one of their neighboring cities. Trade, imports, and exports are decently important for any economy (YOU HEAR THAT GREECE????) and losing your most significant trade partner is quite an ordeal. Could this lead to future invasion? Possibly. But what of it? Elsa could simply touch the water and turn it all into ice, freeze the ships out there, and wait for everyone to die. Or just hurl 5 ton iceballs at the ships from a distance. Or make ice planes. Or make a giant snow storm. Or a tornado.

Or knock out everyone’s internet.

But being so reluctant to initially use her powers could cause her to be reluctant to use them again, especially to their fullest potential.

Comparisons for Elsa

The two best comparisons for Elsa are Frozone from The Incredibles and of course Ice-Man from X-Men. I’m excluding Mr. Freeze because he wears a suit and shoots an icegun and doesn’t have any real powers per se. Also his one movie appearance was equivalent to rat dung.

Did you know his character was inspired by Shani Davis? Don’t know who that is? Better Google him! Sochi is coming up.

Let’s start with Frozone, who’s second power is “attractive male” but also has the ability to shoot ice out of his hands and control moisture. This website states that Frozone was able to freeze a bowl of fruit punch once using will power, showing he may have telekinesis but he never uses it again. Um, hooray, I guess? He and Elsa both have the ability to make ice out of nothing and be impervious to the cold. He also has much more natural athletic ability and overall agility than Elsa which plays into his favor but he lacks constant telekinesis and the ability to create sentient beings. Safe to say out of the three characters listed, he is the least threatening and least powerful.

OK, Ice-Man. He is listed as an omega-level mutant which means he’s likely waaaaay more powerful than your favorite X-Men character. Like Elsa, he is described as only “being limited by his imagination”. Unlike Elsa, it took him years and people possessing him (seriously) to be able to reach his full potential. At first Ice-Man could only cover himself in snow. He looked like a deformed, confused snowman but was then able to cover himself in ice and later make himself ice. Pure ice. Isn’t his name so creative now?

Probably the most jacked snowman you’ve ever seen.

In a bizarre twist, he is able to put himself back together like that liquid dude from Terminator 2. Which he does after being shot my Mystique AKA Jennifer Lawrence. Ice-Man also has the ability to transport himself rapidly through water because he can just melt himself down and go across the oceans. He saves a lot on plane rides and cross country travel. He also has the ability to clone himself but it is unclear how many times he can clone himself.

Ice-Man has two main weaknesses, one being his aforementioned lack of desire to reach his potential. Kinda like how Shaquille O’Neal never tried hard at free throws. Or Vince Carter. It takes two separate mutants possessing him to uncover his full powers, and then they just come out and make fun of him for being such a wimp. His second weakness is that Ice-Man gets really tired really quickly. He can only produce so much ice before his body wears out and he can’t do anything else anymore. It’s estimated that Ice-Man can only operate for about 3 hours before taking a milk and cookie break.

This is what greatly separates Ice-Man from Elsa. Elsa spends almost no energy making giant monsters, ice castles, and other beings while Ice-Man gets really freaking tired like you when you tried to train for that 1K. Elsa could simply hide away somewhere while her beings do battle for her while Ice-Man would have to do the fighting himself and possibly regroup himself if part of his body shatters.

In conclusion, Elsa is one of the most potentially powerful beings to live. While her mental fortitude may cost her, her complete and utter dominance of water, ice, and temperature would protect her from nearly anything. Her ability to expel little energy in the use of her powers would prove overwhelming for anyone who tried to stop her. Thank goodness she’d rather comb her hair and sing songs.

NBA Storylines Turned into Everyday News Stories Part 1

I have always made the claim that the NBA is the most fascinating league on the face of the Earth. Mind you, I am just a tad biased because I love basketball, but I believe that the off court incidents, trade possibilities, and overall personalities in the NBA are more entertaining than any other sport. Ever heard of Metta World Peace?

Oh you know, just a small 4th quarter tradition.

We’re a little over 5 weeks into the 2013-2014 NBA season, a season that has so far been pretty terrible. Sure, they’re have been amazing plays, dunks, and individual performances, but when a 6-10 record gets you first place then you trade away your best player to suck even more? That makes for a decently terrible year. However, the terrible play of half of the league isn’t enough to keep interesting headlines out of the sports news’ world.

So here’s how this is going to work, I’m going to take an interesting NBA story and turn it into an everyday news story headline. That sounds a tad confusing, but I promise you and your noggin will be able to comprehend this. So, starting at number 1….

Historic Building Collapses After Receiving ‘Much needed renovation’

During the offseason, Kings forward Rudy Gay underwent corrective eye surgery because what else is there to blame when you’re a “scorer” who shoots a whopping 41% from the field. This may not seem bad, but pick something you think you’re really, really good at then say you only do it well 41% of the time. That’s terrible.

In the past years, the NBA has taken on a super-analytical approach to basketball using crazy stats to measure one very important thing: efficiency. Gay, as seen by most analytical pundits, is one of the most inefficient players in the entire league. Why?

Let’s go back to our headline up there. The workers are renovating the building and they come to an area where they need to redo a small railing section. They have the necessary tools to fix the railing, but instead of using those metal tools they all have so handily on their belts, they just use a crude mashup of ducttape and gorilla glue. Will the setup probably work? Sure, for a little while before it crashes again. Time to use those handy dandy tools right, like a hammer and a buzzsaw? Nope, they just use ducttape and gorilla glue again.

I’m sure there’s something I can do here…

This is basically Rudy Gay. He’s a freak of a human being, a 6’8 long armed forward blessed with incredible athletic abilities. But he seems to know how to use these skills as well as a baby giraffe knows how to sprint. Gay is the king of the most inefficient shot in basketball: the long 2 pointer. He seems to have a knack for standing really close to the three point line without actually shooting a three pointer. That’s why he put up a staggeringly horrible 37 shot outing in which he scored only 30 points. Just for those scoring at home, that’s .81 points per shot, which is, uh, really really bad CONSIDERING A MADE BASKET IS WORTH AT LEAST 2 POINTS.

The eyesight was supposed to fix his shooting problem because when you’re saying things like “I have trouble seeing the rim sometimes”, that’s something you should look into. Well, how has that eye surgery worked out? His shooting percentages have actually gotten worse. How is that possible?

Numerous Fortune 500 Companies Spending Profits solely on Lottery Tickets, Bankruptcy Imminent, Employees Confused

The 2013 NBA draft is already being called the worst draft since 2000. That draft produced a grand total of TWO All-Star appearances and gave us househould names such as Marcus Fizer and Etan Thomas. Never heard of them? That’s because no one else has.

As I am writing this, the current number one pick of the 2013 NBA draft, Anthony Bennett has not gained a triple-double (where you have double digits in multiple statistical categories) for the entire season. Two other rookies have already had that in one game. For hilarity’s sake, watch this video.

However, the 2014 draft is shaping up to be one of the most historic drafts in NBA history. Draft experts are already calling the top 5 players “The Big 5” because they believe these 5 players are legitimate franchise changers.

Let’s head back up to the headline. As happened in the past, there is a monstrous Powerball, but this one has skyrocketed to a billion dollars. And for this fake story’s sake let’s pretend the dollar is destroying every other currency in the world. So, these amazing companies are using their hard-earned money to buy every lottery ticket from every sketchy gas station in America. They’re going all in, the big prize. However, the companies employees are a little confused for obvious reasons. Is the company going out of business? Are the big bosses giving up? What’s going on? Did someone eat my sandwich again? So they keep working really hard, the exact opposite of what the company’s main goal is.

Confusion…lice…OR BOTH?

As bizarre as it is to say, this is exactly what numerous NBA teams are trying to do right now. Why? Having a worse record guarantees you a high pick in the 2014 draft, so they can grab one of the main guys. And guess what? It really isn’t working. The Phoenix Suns, Philadelphia 76ers, and Toronto Raptors, just to name a few, are teams that were built to lose. Literally. But…no one seemed to pass the memo along to the players that they are supposed to suck. So guess what? Management is trading away their best players in order to get worse. Seems like quite a gamble because just getting the worst record doesn’t guarantee you the #1 pick. Fun fact: Chicago won the #1 pick in 2008 to draft Derrick Rose with just a 0.7% chance of winning it. Hilarious.

Financial Records Show Company VP’s Still Received Paychecks Years After Death

Even if you don’t watch much basketball, you have probably heard of at least 2 active players: Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Kobe is one of the game’s greatest players ever and LeBron does amazing thing everyday and may be the greatest ever when it’s all said and done. If you are ever near a TV and LeBron is playing, take 5 minutes out of your day to watch. If you don’t own a TV, I suggest going out and looting one.

While many money transfers and purchases are electronic and done by super duper computers, there are still errors every now and then. I’ve been overcharged for something on my credit card and I’m sure something similar has happened to you dear reader. Even this convicted killer is still receiving paychecks in jail. But imagine if you will two separate VPs of formerly successful companies. The key word in the last statement is the lovely adverb “formerly”. They sadly pass away, the company falters, and a financial intern informs the current board in a puberty cracking voice that the “former VP is still receiving his fat paycheck even though he’s dead and contributing little to nothing to the company”. Reluctantly, the board says there is nothing they can do about it because of a past contract they signed with the family and they dismiss Jimmy the intern to make a Dunkin Donuts run.

Dang it Jimmy! Wrong restaurant and you spilled the coffee!

So you would think Kobe and LeBron would probably be the highest two paid players in the league right? Well, Kobe actually is and will be for the next two years thanks to his new extension. LeBron is actually #9. However, as it stands at this moment, the number 2 and 3 players on the highest paid lists are playing for teams whose records stand at a combined 11-28. The Charlotte Bobcats, who set a record for worst winning percentage over 2 years ago, have 10 wins.

These players are Joe Johnson, for the Brooklyn Nets, and Amare Stoudemire, for the New York Knicks. Now, I already talked about Stoudemire in a previous blog, but it’s hard not to mention these travesties. I’m being just a tad unfair to Johnson, but handing over $23 million to a guy who averages 15 points(which is tied for 42nd in the league) and shoots 42% is a little…bizarre. Stoudemire who will rake in a hefty $44 million over the next two seasons is averaging 6.2 points per game. He barely plays and has the knees of a paper mache doll. Anyone reading this probably has better knees than Amare but YOU aren’t a professional basketball player. By comparison, Houston’s Chandler Parsons is averaging 16.8 points and bringing home just over $926,000.

This doll without knees has better knees than Amare.

Days After Being Elected Mayor, Mayor Burns Down City Hall

Maybe sometime in your college years, you and your friends decided to take a crazy trip somewhere. Maybe you went to Vegas, Miami, New York, or some other big city. For me, it was New Orleans with some of my best friends. Usually these trips are taken near the end of one’s college career, kinda seen as a last hurrah of sorts. Maybe when you were planning the trip you asked friends and family for advice on where to go. Chances are zero of you were told “oh man, you gotta go to Milwaukee”.

There is a small town somewhere in some small, insignificant state like South Dakota where a local man rises among the ranks and is elected town mayor. He has some rough edges but overall everyone is proud of him for how far he has come. He’s happy to be mayor. Then, after a city council meeting, the town awakes to find city hall burned to the ground! Security footage from Uncle Ed’s Hardware Store catches the culprit’s face on camera and it’s…the mayor? What in the world?

Larry Sanders or LARRY SANDERS! as Grantland writer Zach Lowe likes to call him, was recently handed a 4 year, $44 million dollar contract. Now for a small market team like Milwaukee, this is kinda a big purchase. Sanders had made him self a feared defender in the league and also a bit of a lunatic. But nonetheless, Milwaukee felt they found their center for the future. Going back to vacationing in Milwaukee, if you ever make the mistake or get lost and somehow get there, you’re probably not going to go to a club. And if you do, you’re probably not going to get into a fight. Well, unless you’re Larry Sanders.

There may have been a time in your life where you were a little bit of an underdog, never really given a chance, but then someone gave you that chance and you screwed it up. Maybe it was a little league baseball game and you nailed the ref with a bat. Maybe you were given a new office and you inexplicably threw your computer out of your window. Well, Larry Sanders either started or got involved in a fight and tore a ligament in his thumb, something that required surgery. He may not be back for another month and the Bucks are terrible. Their fans even have a website dedicated to save their team.

In case you haven’t seen the club fight video, I’m embedding it now because you have to watch it. It may be one of the greatest things ever.

So this was part one of two, I’ll eventually get around to writing more headlines. Stay out of Milwaukee clubs.

American Children vs. Ragazzi vs. Chicos

In the past 2 years, I have been able to get a very hands-on approach with education systems in three different countries: the United States, Italy, and Spain. It has been, at most times, a lot of fun to work with these different groups. Other times, as any teacher will tell you, there are some very, very crazy days.

Like the day Manute Bol and Mugsy Bogues stood next to each other.

In the United States, I served as a substitute teacher and grew up in the American education system. That’s about all my experience there. In Italy, I worked in English camps for the summer of 2012. English camps are essentially what they sound like, camps based around learning English. There is a mix of classroom teaching as well as outside-the-classroom activities. In Spain, I am currently serving as a language assistant and help teach a wide range of classes, from astronomy(which I know nothing about, but THEY don’t know that) to elementary English.

During my time in these different countries, I have noticed many similarities and many differences between the different students. So in this blog I’ll break down what exactly all those wonderful things are for your reading pleasure.

Overall Classroom Behavior

Remember those days when you were bored out of your skull in class? The teacher was explaining the history of parabolas and how that relates to post-modernism and it just wasn´t clicking with you today. What did you do? Most students feign interest in the subject, take sparse notes, draw, or study for other classes. What do all of these things have in common? They´re silent for the most part.

In the United States, kids for the most part, are well-behaved. Yes, there is always going to be that disruptive kid or two in every class who you may have to ask to quiet down more than once or stop throwing his feces at little Suzy, but at the end of the class, he or she will at least be quiet, kinda. American kids (especially in the south of the United States) are brought up to be very respectful, calling everyone Mr. and Mrs., not talking while others talk, and the basic rules of manners. A few fellow teachers here in Spain commented that their American born students are the best behaved out of all the classes.

In Italy, the ragazzi (Italian word for guys essentially) were also generally well behaved. As compared to the American children, they could be a bit rowdier and more difficult to control but the loudest ones would immediately quiet down as soon as you sternly told them to be quiet. They also may have been a bit rowdier because of the setting, because who really wants to go to a camp where you are learning English? Even my most difficult class, which led me to throw a soccer ball at a kid, only had one really bad day. Italian kids, on the whole though, tend to move to the beat of their own drum. They will do whatever activity you tell them to do, but they usually will do it in their own way, sometimes the exact opposite way you tell them to do something.

Now that brings us to Spanish children, chicos. The biggest difference between Spanish kids and all other kids is they simply never shut up. Simply put, Spanish children are the worst behaved children I’ve ever been around in my life. They don’t know when to stop talking. Actually, they never stop talking. I have stood by their desks, asked them to be quiet, to which they quickly nod their heads but instantly turn around and keep talking. I myself was extremely lucky in my school placement and got put in a private bi-lingual school with well-behaved kids. What I´ve learned from fellow language assistants is that my problems barely scratch their surface.

The only thing that really works is kicking them out of class or having a Spanish teacher shame them in Spanish for half an hour. I’m still wondering if this is a giant cultural thing or simply an overall lack of respect, it is very difficult to tell at this point.

This isn’t to say I hate all the Spanish kids, there are a few classes which I absolutely love and are very well behaved, it’s just the majority of kids tend to be incredibly ill-mannered. Sometimes it´s like trying to control a tire-yard fire with a small water gun.

Or like trying to control Britney in 2007.

Competitiveness

We all have that over competitive friend, who brings out some bizarre rule after you call shotgun then freaks out when you don´t give it to him. And this situation didn´t happen when you were 12, it happened last week. American kids, as a whole, seem to be less competitive than they once were. I could link you numerous articles I found in less than three seconds, but that would take a really long time, so here´s one by Forbes.

Also, here´s a picture of a bear riding a shark, because why not?

While this article largely discusses the economic impact of a lack of competitiveness, it highlights a ¨generic problem¨with American society as a whole. Without diving into a completely different blog post, I´ll just say that American children are MUCH less competitive than their Italian and Spanish counterparts.

Games, in my opinion, are one of the best ways to teach kids. They are forced to remember the information, it´s fun, and there is usually a prize involved. Since I´m cheap it´s usually just a high five from me.

Or if I´m feeling really generous

It´s fun to pit two sides of the class together or girls vs. boys or something like that. But with Italian kids, no matter what the side, playing the game means playing for blood. I have never seen two groups go at each other as much as Italian kids after giving them a game on spelling or past perfect. They are at each other´s throats like Mike Vick´s…never mind.

Spanish kids are competitive but while Italian kids want to kill each other, Spanish kids simply want to get each other in trouble and complain. Somehow, it´s usually another team´s fault if they get a question wrong, no matter how bizarre that sounds. They´re kinda like Chris Dudley in this video after getting dunked on by Shaq. Even though they just got posterized, they always react in anger like a three year old even if they´re sixteen.

Reception 

I´m sure anyone reading this that has been a teacher, camp counselor, VBS leader, etc. has had the following idea:  ¨Oh man, I´m going to be amazing at this job, my kids are gonna love me. All of them. THEY ARE GONNA LOVE ME SO MUCH BECAUSE I´M AMAZING.¨

And then how many of you have found that that´s generally impossible? There is always going to be one kid who doesn´t like you for whatever reason. Maybe it´s because he hates he´s missing Dragonball Z, maybe he just doesn´t talk much, or maybe he has tonsurephobia and you keep talking about getting your hair cut.

But usually any kids´positive reaction makes you forget about Bratpants McGee and it´s usually worth it. Except when it´s not,

Anyway, with American children it can be pretty hit or miss. My time substituting and working as a counselor has generally been positive, mainly because I´m tall and I know things about sports. If you´re older, you´re generally cooler. This didn´t change much demographically after working for some inner-city schools in Waco. So I would say the reaction to a teacher is generally positive but not overwhelming. American students also seem to acknowledge that teachers demand respect and they are without a doubt people of authority.

Italian kids are a little different. They are excited to see you, but not really that excited. They would always say ¨hello¨but sometimes you felt like Frodo had lent you his one ring and you were wearing it. Once again, this may have been because of the nature of a summer camp and there are approximately 49 trillion things that are more fun to do than learn English, but the reaction was never negative, it was overall pretty neutral.

Now those of you that have been keeping score think I´m ragging on the Spanish children, but this is where they score a major point. Spanish children are very, very excited to see you. Every time I walk in between classes I receive roughly 55 million back slaps and I have the following dialogue: ¨How are you Jake?¨ ¨I´m pretty good how are you?¨¨I´m fine thanks and YUUUU?¨ even though they already asked me how I was. I´ve had classes give me a standing ovation when entering. This isn´t anything special that I´m doing, I´ve been told this is actually a common thing. And yes, I am not a full time teacher and my role is to make conversation activities which are usually fun, but the reception to the full-time teachers is generally positive as well. Basically, if you want to feel good about yourself, go walk into a Spanish classroom, preferably one of the lower levels.

Passion for Learning

This is perhaps the hardest area to quantify because of the wide range of students. While I wish I could sum this up with some kind of cool bar graph, that’s just not possible.

I remember my first day in 6th grade and how freaking awkward it was. Girls freaked me out (and to some extent still do), I didn’t really have too many friends, and I had braces. A lethal triple threat combination. Anyway, the first day we had “orientation”, in which a bunch of teachers stood up and told us some stuff that was decently important. Out of all the teachers that spoke, I only remember one saying “No one here is going to make you do your homework or study for a test”. There was a quiet murmur in the crowd as if someone had just told us that if someone volunteered themselves as tribute we would have free pizza for the rest of the year.

You will do.

He followed this statement by saying, “But if you don´t study or do your homework, you’ll fail the class and we’ll see you again next year, but it’s your choice.” That sent another murmur through the crowd, in which looking back on it, should have been quite obvious. I really think that was the first time in my life that I thought about my current actions having a huge consequence for my future. Also, this teacher was telling me that my school work was completely my choice. I had graduated from “eating this messy cookie in the car will make Mommy yell at me” to “maybe I should try at this school thing”.

In most Americans, there is a constant drive to be moving, get something done, and advance yourself in anyway. That´s probably why there´s roughly 47 million of those motivational posters and why every girl you know has some similar section on Pinterest. It´s also a contributing factor to why most people only hold a job for 4 years (about 15-20 jobs in a lifespan) and why 80% of people under 25 are likely to change their job in the next year. There is always some kind of drive for advancement and thinking “if this job isn’t getting me where I want to go, then it’s time for a change”. I am a victim of this myself, having held 3 jobs in the past year.

But, I believe this idea is being lost on our youth for many different reasons. From my time working with students in elementary, middle school, and high school, there is a growing desire to be lazy and not compete to be the best, something that the Wall Street Journal attributes to the lack for good long distance American runners.

But whether or not there is a drive to improve one’s self or just a loathing of the job, there is always moving in American students, at least from my perspective. You can debate whether or not this is a good or bad thing on your own, this is just something I’ve seen.

This is drastically different in both Italy and Spain. While I have definitely seen some motivated, driven Italian and Spanish students, they both seem to lack that internal drive and accountability. This can be boiled down to two things: there is no consequence system in school in Spain at all and a horrible future job life. You can put a kid in the classroom or give him a negative mark for the day, but there is no such thing as demerits, ISS (in school suspension), EMD (early morning detention), out of school suspensions (very rarely), and the even rarer expulsion. There is no major consequence for bad action or sbeing rude in class. A lot of kids just don’t care about anything.

There´s sometimes a thought process among of Americans of wanting to immediately move onto the next big thing in life. First, you want to be a teenager, then graduate high school, then go to college, then get a perfect job, then get married, then have kids, then retire, and then you die. While these are certainly things most everyone wants to accomplish, sometimes people think that ¨my life will be perfect or better if I just get to X¨. And you know what? Sometimes things do get better when you reach a destination. College was that for most people. At times, people become too focused on obtaining that next step rather than enjoying the current area they´re in,  but there is always something to look forward to, which is different for everyone.

However, the current economic and job market situation in Spain (and Europe really for that point) isn´t exactly fantastic. Currently, Spain´s unemployment rate sits at a staggering 27% and the youth unemployment rate is much, much worse.

So when talking to Spanish youths, a lot of them have similar outlooks: ¨what´s the point of trying so hard just to be unemployed?¨ or ¨I´m going to find a good job to get out of the country as fast as I can¨.  The sad part is that this area is something generally out of their control. But when it comes back around, it´s makes sense as to why children would be unmotivated when there seems to be no prize waiting for them.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I have loved my teaching jobs and look forward to pursuing it as a career in the future. I just believe American children seem to have more initial drive when it comes to their educational careers while Italian and Spanish children seem to be more open, receptive, and overall kinder students. It would be very interesting to combine them all in one class together. I may not survive.