Bitches Hoarding Bagels

The Great Whites of Barca

So I guess my bitches and I are better travel agents than we thought. In the beginning of the abroad, we mapped out our weekend trips, haphazardly choosing when to go to Amsterdam, Prague, Florence, etc, etc. We wanted to pick the sceney weekends, but lezbihonest we aren’t the most sceney people in all of Barce. Case and point: we “Barce” instead of “Barca.” You know us…those girls who are in VIP but like, kind of chill with the short boys in the far back corner while trying to steal shots from the hands of the ano bitches who are replacing their dinner with said vodka. I kid. We’re cool. I mean we did come to Barce, whoops Barca. But sometimes I find that rather than big fish in a small pond, we are now just small fish in a big ocean- kind of like all these new “abroad” bloggers drowning in my sea of blog awesomeness. I’ll always be the great white of these waters. (Except for Hot Karl’s…food on food on food.)

Well turns out my group of friends are the great whites of Barca (well maybe more like the school of fish that tailgates them, but never gets eaten by them), because we chose all the sceniest travel weekends of abroad, by coincidence of course. For those of you not abroad, or just not cool abroad, let me tell you it was two weekends ago Amsterdam, this past weekend Barcelona, and next weekend Prague. (Praha? What’s cool these days? See…school of fish.) In all honesty, we really randomly picked these weekends with not rhyme or reason to any of it. Just so happened that every JAP in Europe and her group of guy friends from school were staying in the Amsterdam Marriot, trying to get into Opium last Thursday night in Barce, and plans to…what the fuck is there to do in Prage?… like take pics in front of that graffiti wall in Prague. How did this happen? The world may never know.

As the cosmic abroad gods aligned in Barcelona this past weekend, I found myself overwhelmed by the amount screeching voices ordering “vawdka selztas,” before I realized that the loudest one was coming from me. In reality, it made me see how not sceney Barcelona is, contrary to popular belief, and had me thanking my lucky stars for this place to be “chill” again. (You know you have a problem when you consider Loco Lunes “chill.”) However, the run-ins were not exclusive to the night. In fact, the daytime ones were infinitely worse because you needed to do the stop and chat…EVERY TIME. Like dude/bitch, I haven’t seen you since our teen tour four and a half years ago. I’m not tryina catch up with you on Las Ramblas because you’re indeed still just some bitch and/or smuman Jewish boy. 

Seeing as I am an anxiety ridden, foreign lovin’ freak, I spend my nights off from going out browsing guide books left here from previous CEA tenants whose moms were thoughtful enough to send them with a Frommer’s and perusing through guides of jappy travelers past, most of whom have no idea I have their guide in my possession. This, in addition to my tagging along on Asian tours at Sagrada Familia (led by guides who I understand perfectly), has made me an expert on all things Barcelona. I have a lifetime of knowledge…so much so, that my friends so cleverly helped me to create my second entrepreneurial endeavor (the first being this blog…yet to see a penny), Bus2Flal. My tour guide company will rival that of a similar name except it will have something extra- a secret underground night life tour that only the coolest great white sharks on my trips will know about. You only know where and when to be if you’re in the loop. And if you’re the coolest of the cool you get to take a shot with Flal (that’s me!) It’s that kind of thing where people ask, “Was Flal on your Bus2Flal trip? No? Oh that’s awkward…you must have been with a bunch of hillbillies from Seville. Because you know Flal don’t miss a group of Barca kids.

In all honesty, having all the intruders here this weekend was downright annoying. Yes, it was great to see all my friends from Prague and Florence. Yes, I loved getting pats on the back for doing things right, even if it was just for saying false statements about Barcelona so confidently that all the above mentioned friends thought I knew what the fuck I was talking about to the point where the encouraged me to start a tour guide company. But no, I did not like the crowds, or the additional rival JAPs, or the obscene amount of combat boots in Park Guell. Or the six girls wearing different color varieties of my silk Ruby and Jenna shirt paired with the same black Pleasure Doing Business skirt from Clothes Horse. There’s enough of that without all the visitors. Hopefully my winter gear for Prague next weekend will be more unique. Oh wait…my winter gear is Uggs, a long Michael Kors jacket, and an Urban head wrap. Definitely won’t find many of those. Like WTF?!

Stop Trying to Make Pub Trans Happen

So in preparing to go abroad, one of the things everyone gets excited for is traveling. Upset you’re missing the scene in Barcelona because you went with Prague? Not to worry, you’ll be here the third weekend in February and vice versa. (Sucks to be Israel though. You’re kinda stuck. Better hope from some cuties or you’re gonna need to learn some Hebrew real good, real fast.) You get stressed before you travel though. Should you be buying Sensation tickets or going to Dublin for St. Pattys? What’s the move?! News flash- there is no move. My anxiety to wait to book my travel plans in order to have them include my plethora of new friends was completely unfounded because you really just book your trips with the people you came with (maybe pick up a few along the way) or meet your friends who are abroad in Florence. (To answer the question: Sensation. I know I said there was no move, but if there were a move it would definitely be Sensation. Belgium chocolate? Sign me the fuck up.)

However, no one prepares you for the stress of planning these trips. Since when did jappy girls become capable travel agents? (Although my high school career test did tell me I would most like become a travel agent. Something to think about.) My mom has been booking all my flights, hotels, car rides to Hebrew school, dinner reservations, doctors appointments, hearing test, etc, etc, for years now so to throw me in the deep end and expect be to book 8-10 European excursions including flights, hostels (let’s be real I’m staying in 8-10 Marriots), and weekend itineraries is a little much. And the fact that we have so much trouble with it just makes me wonder how anyone just slightly stupider than I am is able to plan anything. And trust me, there are a lot of stupider girls than me abroad. Just sit in on my CEA photo class for five minutes.

These past two weekends me and my bitches finally started traveling. First thing I realized is that it’s totally unnecessary for me to have a passport because traveling between European countries is an actual joke. I’m not getting any stamps and its bullshit. Second thing I realized is that the airlines we booked are exponentially cheaper for a reason, and let me explain why. So last weekend we went to Paris and this past weekend we went to Amsterdam. Died for each, but can’t really compare. Only similarity is that I ate my way through both. Let me start of with Paris though… 

It’s our first trip and we’re going to Paris so me and my friends are extremely excited. Although we are praying for our Carrie and Big moment in the most romantic city in the world, we know our highlight will most likely be the crepe crawl we do and the in depth analysis we have in comparing the different ones we eat. (“Banana and Nutella crepe seven was a little too heavy of the ‘tella, but 13 lacked bananas.”) Although it was fucking freezing and we obviously signed up for a three hour walking tour and a night time bar crawl, the actual trip was incredible. It was the flying experience that we just shit the bed with. I’m blaming it on a really really ridiculous cheap and possibly illegal airline that shall remain nameless so as to save me from lawsuits and such (although I don’t think this so called “airline” could actually afford to have a lawyer), but in reality it was probably our lack of experience in handling situations without our moms and teachers that led to this clusterfuck. 

Its Thursday night and we are ready to leave for Paris and decide to be money saving students and take the train to the airport. After aimlessly running around the train station for 30 minutes looking for our sixth friend, unable to figure out where to get it from, overwhelmed by far too much luggage for a mere three days and unable to resist the urge to stop at every metro vending machine to buy an All Bran bar, we just say “Fuck it, we’re taking a cab.” No shit. The fact that we thought we could make public transportation happen is almost comical, so strop trying to make pub trans happen. It’s not going to happen. Eventually we hail a cab and make it to the airport only to so confidently tell the cab driver that it is terminal “beh” (my Spanish has gotten so good its incredible what going to a third of your Spanish classes can do for you) when really it was terminal “ceh.” Just so happens ceh is like a 10-minute walk from beh. When we finally get to ceh, my friend’s ticket just like didn’t work so she had to buy another on the spot. And when the airline said “one bag per person,” we took that to mean “bring two bags”…so we did. Only to be told that we had to pay 30 Euros to check our bag. After attempting to stuff my industrial sized backpack into my tiny carry on luggage, I finally caved and dropped the 30 to check my bag. Had to work my ass off to get three drinks bought for me after that to make up for it. But in reality the thing I was most pissed about from our terrible flying to Paris experience was that I slept through the hummus on the way there. For that, I will never forgive myself.

Traveling to Amsterdam went a lot more smoothly. Probably because we never attempted to take pub trans and just went straight for the cab. Also, we took half the clothes in order to fit them into one bag, which is why it looks like I was in Amsterdam for one day in my pictures. One outfit, two and a half days, and lots of disgusted looks from bitches who paid the money to check. However, since we didn’t have paid-for, organized activities, we did fuck some shit up along the way including but not limited to: 1. We didn’t get to have the number one pancakes at the Pancake Bakery so we had to go to the knock off pancake place, 2. The pancakes aren’t actually pancakes, they’re crepes, 3. We only had three waffles, 4. We slept through dinner…twice, 5. We didn’t think we were high until we realized we ate a falafel sandwich, stir fry, and candy all within 20 minutes, 5. We bought tickets to a canal cruise even though the canal was frozen, 6. We went to the Red Light District sober (seriously that shit can be a little scarring, so try and black it out a little but not completely…lifelong memories right there), 7. We didn’t bring home any Stroop Cookies, etc, etc. 

Me and my friends will just never be the girls who have their shit together, and I’ve come to love it and accept it. We will never have a clean apartment, we will never be on time to class, we will never know the move before it’s too late, and we will never be expert travelers. But, regardless of the mishaps, I’d like to say we killed it in Paris and Amsterdam. What am I basing that on, you ask? The fact that Liam Neeson isn’t looking for any of us right now. Too soon for those stories. Like WTF?!

Barcelona Butt Bumping

Being a total jack ass spaz moron, I clearly make a fool out of myself on a daily basis here- to Americans and Spanish people. It’s something I got used to years ago. My life is full of mortifying moments, oftentimes the keynotes of this blog, however experiencing them abroad is a bit more horrifying. Up until now they have been filled with the inability to communicate with cab drivers, assuming a vodka Red Bull is two Euros instead of 10 (we’re definitely not in College Park anymore), and making three trips back to the Paki convenience store within an hour to restock on wine and the best popcorn man has ever created while the same cashier is there. (No class and definitely no shame.) However, today took the cake for the worst, most mortifying experience that has every happened to me in Barcelona. No. I’ll take that Barcelona and top it with…my life.  And that’s including getting a nosebleed in the tanning bed last year in prepping for spring break. (Already starting the GTL minus the L regime for spring break this year. Spring break in Lagos? I could definitely fuck with that. Time to up the G and the T.)

So my friends, Kacy and Spinner, and I went to get breakfast at a place that allegedly had over 50 omelets (in reality there were like 14) to get egg whites for the first time in 3 weeks, but guess what…no egg whites. So I’m trying to explain to this non-English speaking waiter what a fucking egg white is (“Just the whites.” “Whites?” “No yolk.” “What is yolk.” “No yellow.” “Yellow?” “DO YOU KNOW ANY FUCKING ENGLISH?!?!”) All this is going down around 2 pm, the most crowded time at any restaurant here, and this family is sitting next to us consisting of a grandpa, an older couple, and their HOT ASS SPANISH SON, probably in his late 20s. So this hottie hottie hottie hottie OMG HOTTIE leans over and says to me, “What are you trying to order?” in perfect English. (Needless to say, I was in love at first sight and hearing of his English. Nothing hotter than a hot Spanish man who I actually can talk to.)  I turned bright red and said, ever so coyly, and by that I mean I turned bright red… “egg whites.” Cute right? This was only to have him respond that they don’t make egg whites in Spain. No shit Sherlock. Then he told me to order a hambuger. I laughed as if to say, ‘I’m just not in the mood,’ but in reality was thinking, ‘Wouldn’t you like to know the last time I ate a hamburger? I’m going to go with Fourth of July 2002.’ Burgers are so not Lagos. I was distracted the entire meal from that point on.

We made random small talk with the family throughout the meal, but mostly it was just me and Spinner laughing heinously loud to get his attention and Kacy being completely silent. (Pretty sure Kacy got it right, because people don’t laugh in public here. It’s a very unhappy country. Or we are just insanely obnoxious. Probably the latter. ) Things started to get a little awkward when the grandpa did order a hamburger and Spinner stared it down and said to us, forgetting they were an English speaking family, “Holy shit, I want that burger.” Obviously, the grandpa heard and, get this, offered her a bite. I kid you not. He said “Do you want to try it?” And when she said no, he insisted and said “Don’t be shy.” Shit started to get awkward.

When we finished before they even got their food (apparently Americans eat at a disgustingly fast pace aka the three of us could be competitive eaters if we really wanted to be), we had to leave to hit some sights. The tables being extremely close, I had to make a decision about what side to exit on. I decided I thought there was more room on their side so I went with that direction. Then there was the whole butt or front debate. I always go with butt. Looking someone in the eye while manhandling past them is way more embarrassing then grinding up on them. So I said goodbye, and squeeze through the tables, butt to my new friends and I…wow I’m panicking of embarrassment just thinking about it now… knock the hottie hottie hottie’s drink over. With my butt. Fuck hamburgers not being Lagos. Food is not Lagos. 

Kacy and Spinner were just staring at me, offering no moral support. I turned around, almost started to cry, and grad the hottie’s shoulder and basically scream in his face “OH MY GOD I’M SO SORRY” and he looks up at me with a look of “1. You little bitch you just spilled my afternoon beer, and 2. Get your filthy paws off my silky draws aka get the fuck off my shoulder.” WHY WOULD I GRAB HIS SHOULDER?! It was literally so mortifying. Clearly I was just trying to touch his shoulder. (Never washing my left hand again.)

And this whole time I was planning on going to the bathroom before we went on our sight seeing activities for the day. Being so embarrassed from this whole debacle, I just shoved my friends out the door and ran for the hills. And ruined my whole trip to Sagrada Familia because I had to pee so badly. No bathroom in Gaudi’s holy church. My experience was more ruined by the fact that I shit the bed with the hottie hottie hottie sitting next to me though. But in reality, did I honestly have a chance in dating a beautiful, friendly, bi-lingual, Spanish 28 year old? Most likely not. I should probably work on a moderately attractive, semi-nice, fairly articulate, Jewish college boy first. Major downgrade. Like WTF?!

Freshman Week of Abroad

Well, I have made it through the two and a half weeks of abroad and I am alive to tell the tale. It’s a struggle though. Every morning I wake up feeling like someone put a syringe in me and sucked out all the energy. I don’t get how these people live like this. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Barcelona is an amazing city. I already feel so immersed in the culture, besides the fact that I don’t speak any Spanish, haven’t really had any local cuisine, don’t know anything about Spanish history, go to the most touristy locations, and live with four Americans.  Ok, it’s been like 15 days. Hopefully immersion will come, but at this point the beginning of abroad is feeling oddly like the beginning of college for many reasons. No one tells you that it’s like graduating from high school all over again…in a good way. Scratch that, in a great way. Barcelona definitely seems to trump College Park, but I am starting to draw some similarities. Thank God my lack of independence forced me to come with my friends or this would ACTUALLY be like the beginning of freshman year. Even though I knew my roommate then too…

First of all: the food. Just like you went to college not wanting to gain your freshman fifteen, you go abroad not wanting to become a morbidly obese whale, which is proving to be extremely difficult. The only reason they don’t have a funny alliterated name for an abroad weight gain is because no numbers start with an “A.” Abroad eighty sounds dec (slant rhyme?), but 80 pounds in a semester might be a bit of a hyperbole. Actually with the lack of dietary products here you never know. They don’t have skim milk or Splenda abroad! Or egg whites! Or Weight Watchers Ice Cream! #JapAbroadProblems. No joke it’s such an ish. The reason my Chai Tea Lattes from Starbucks (so authentic) taste so much better here isn’t because I feel euro chic drinking coffee in Barce, it’s because they use all fat milk in them even though I say “skim milk.” They don’t even know what that means, so they just give me tons of milk straight from the cow, unprocessed and retaining all of its original fattiness, along with massive amounts of real sugar.  

The desire to not get fat applies to the gym as well. Going to the gym abroad is just like going to the gym at school. You gotta know the right gym to go to.  As a freshman girl, you’re still too young and inexperienced to know that going into the weight room at 5:30 pm on a weekday is a death sentence. You are guaranteed to see every guy you’ve ever hooked up with, tried and failed to hook up with, or just want to hook up with sometime in the near future. (Even though those guys don’t usually know who you are so it’s fine that they’re there at the same time as you… they’ll just think you’re some random geed.) Having just ellipticaled your ass off to burn off the four (cough seven) beers you swore you wouldn’t drink (it always starts with a vodka seltzer, but never does end with one), you might not want to be seen pumping five pound iron next to any of the above mentioned men- unless you’re a feminine looking athlete or cheerleader, which absolutely no one reading this blog is.  As a freshman boy, you simply don’t understand that if you go on the elliptical you are subject to mass humiliation because there are more girls on those ellipticals than there are at a midnight premiere of Twilight. It’s tredmill or nothing, bro. Same thing goes for here. Except for the fact that I fucked it up and joined the wrong gym and therefore never have any “awkward” run ins by the water fountain, which you always say you don’t want but in all honestly that’s the only reason you go to the gym in the first place. I joined some local gym and have to run next to ridiculously fit Spanish women every day.  Nothing makes you want to hit a vat of paella like a beautiful Spanish hottie running in her underwear next to you. Never felt paler. Seriously… 

Just like you’re scrambling to get notebooks before classes start as a frosh, unknowingly wasting time and energy by making yourself go to the bookstore at the most crowded time of the year (except for before a white out tailgate…who owns white Maryland shirts?!) even though you wont have to take notes for another week, the same thing happens when you’re abroad. Well, unless you’re me and taking Photo in Barce and a class about blogging (sidebar: I am a pro at both because, well, obviously I’m an expert blogger and I was in AP Photo in high school. Oh yeah buddy. Straight A’s abroad. Too bad it’s pass/fail). However, I did think having a notebook could be useful, and already knowing where the wack Spanish version of Staples was from my super glue buying experience (only good pair of wedges broke night one, that’s what happens when you fall…a lot), I decided to buy a single notebook and a single pen. I also needed something to fill my beautiful, new “abroad girl/jappy jetsetter” North Face backpack with something other than my Blackberry. Yet, this country doesn’t understand the concert of lined paper. Only graph paper. Literally every single notebook in Barcelona is graph paper and I honestly, for the LOG (love of God), cannot understand why. Is this a country of expert graphers in which TI-83+’s are all replaced by manual graphing? If not, can these Catalonians make a deal with Five Star or Mead and get some lined fucking one subjecters up in this bitch?

 Well, regardless, having notebooks would require being able to understand your teachers, an issue that further links the beginning of freshman year to the beginning of abroad. However, this time there is an actual language barrier. Freshman year, I just had no clue what the hell Blackboard was until like mid-November when I realized I missed like 14 assignments that I was supposed to turn in on Blackboard.  Could have contributed to the subpar GPA.  The same goes for abroad. Thankfully I am a pro photographer and blogger, like I previously mentioned, because these accents go right over my head. In actuality, I’m pretty sure none of my teachers really even have thick accents, I’m just so all consumed with Long Island being the only way of speaking out there that, to me, anyone from outside the Tri State Area sounds like they grew up in a hut in Tim Buck Two.

 Two and a half weeks in, I feel like I’m finally getting the hang of things. Listening to promoters, quite similar to the faceless sophomore frat bois, on where to go at night, figuring out how to run into the right people where, and most importantly finding a convenience store that is open 24 hours and befriending the owner- it’s like I’m in College Park. Why am I making my parents pay all the extra money for this bullshit? It’s CP with better architecture and slightly, scratch that, intensely more serious night life. Now I know why. JK…it’s all about the Tapas baby. Like WTF?!

Me and My Beats

Merry Christmas! As you should know by this point, my dad grew up on a farm in Iowa and we go there for Christmas every year in order to see the fam and also, I suspect, in an attempt by my father to “ground” me a bit. Too late, pops. My head is in the clouds and there’s not much you can do about it at this point. Christmas in Iowa gives me the opportunity to explore my inner WASP, the recessive half of my cultural background that you all know I wish were more dominant. (Just didn’t work out in the Punnett square. Waspiness and wrinkled peas just don’t make the cut.) With this opportunity, I bet you think I love coming here every year, but Iowa WASPs are far different from Connecticut WASPs. Instead of pearls, Lilly Pulizter and eating disorders, it’s church, high fat content food, and JC Penny. But, I’ve told you about Xmas in Iowa before and I’d hate to sound like a broken record, so for a recap see December 23, 2010.

My parents were never the kind of parents who traveled for their kids. Yeah, we went to Disney World once, but other than that my sister and I have been traveling to locations far above our sophistication level for years now, to locations that were appealing to them. (I still don’t think I’m ready to embrace the cultural differences of Spain, which is why I am choosing to spend my four months there with a bunch of Americans). So, I’ve come very accustomed to flying far and wide. However, I still do not understand what other people are thinking on these flights, especially around the holidays (it seems like people get ruder).  People literally have no regard for common courtesy or general in-flight etiquette. This time seemed to be particularly bad. You think that New Yorkers traveling to the mid-West would be a bit nicer, but trust me that is not the case. Everyone is still a bunch of ass holes.

So our flight was at, like, 7:30 in the morning because God forbid we miss any possible moment we can spend in Iowa. If we can catch lunch day one, we’ve accomplished our goal. So its 7:30 am, obviously everyone is tryina go to sleep on this flight. I popped on my brand new Hannukah Beats (sorry that I’m about a year behind but I still wanted the bald hipster man next to me to think we were on the same level of musical relevance due to the fact that we both had Beats, even though he had the big ones and mine are the small ones…I’m still just a WJG who listens to Justin Bieber and Avicii) and put on my “chill” playlist ready to pass out. And pass out I did. Yet, about an hour and half in to the flight, I was rudely awaken by the jack ass in front of me who put his seat back not a little bit, but all the fucking way. Now I know I’m just a 5’6” girl, but this guy abused his chair-lean-back privileges so much that I felt like Lamar Odom in the back of a smart car. Not exaggerating. But, what I was really pissed about was that this guy chose to do this three quarters of the way into the flight. Like if you were fine up until this point, why do you now, at the time you should actually be waking up, decide it’s necessary to ruin my flight? I had grown accustomed to a comfortable experience so to take it away from me at that point was just rude. (Kind of similar to the message I am constantly ingraining in my parents’ heads, that they will in fact be supporting me financially until I am able to provide myself with the same Bloomingdales-clad lifestyle they have given me for 20 years. Can’t just drop down now.)

Because I looked so cool with my Beats, I could tell the bitchy flight attendant wanted nothing more than to bust my John Mayer/Adele/Coldplay “chill” playlist mock-concert experience.  Sorry you need to deal with cranky people who want constant coffee refills (aka my dad), but you were the one who decided to become a stewardess, not me. This ain’t the Pan Am era anymore, lady. I’m the boss now. So don’t tell me to turn my music off 45 minutes before we land, because I know and you know that me listening to my iPod has zero affect on the pilot’s ability to land this plane. If Sully did it in the Hudson, this dude can do it on an open runway with clear skies. It’s just a power play these stewardess’ use in order to gain back what little respect they think their profession owns them. I’ll give it to them. But everyone and their grandmothers, who don’t even know what an iPod is, know that you don’t need to turn your iPod off 45 minutes before landing. And then she literally watches me turn it off. Like, be a bigger bitch I dare you. Prior to the Beats I used to be able to hide my headphones and continue to listen, but these Dr. Dre money-makers are so not discrete. 

Like I mentioned, this flight was at 7:30 in the morning so that means my eager beaver family had to leave our house at 5:45 am. So I looked like a particularly huge piece of shit. Every time I fly, I say “This time I am going to look nice for the plane, do my hair, doll up a little bit” because you never know who you are going to meet, but I can assure you that never happens. I always, and I mean always, look like I got hit by an 18-wheeler when I travel. (Same thing happens to me at the beginning of every semester when I tell myself I’m going to look good for class this year. Never happens. Thank God I’m a comm. major. NO BOYS!) I never really think too much about the fact that I am going to look like shit for the plane, because I figure everyone is pretty much on my page. Who looks good when they travel? If you’re not wearing oversized Bat Mitzvah sweats, you’re overdressed (which is why I think if I put on leggings I will look “nice”), but it doesn’t seem like everyone else thinks like that. Maybe it’s just La Guardia and JFK, but every single person in that airport looks like they walked out of an Urban Outfitters catalogue. Like, Worlds Trendiest Traveler award goes to everyone in La Guardia except me. Jeans at 7:30 in the morning? Who does that?! And then all these trendy couples are traveling together to like tropical locations throughout the Caribbean and I just wanna slap them. Rub it in more. You dress trendy for the plane and you are going on a honeymoon type vacation with your trendy, plaid shirt-wearing boyfriend. Slore.

Although I am such an experienced traveler, I never fail to complain whilst doing it. I never get to sit next to a random hottie and spark up a conversation that leads to an exchange of numbers and a life long romance (I’d even take a life long friendship.) I never run into celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, someone who I have been expecting to see for years now considering the fact that he GREW UP in Iowa. (You just got divorced, buddy. Would it kill you to come home for the holidays?) And I’ll never understand why rental cars are never, ever cars you have ever seen in mainstream America. Can’t we ever just get a plain old Altima or something? I guess it’s just going to be me and my Beats against the rest of the plane. My next feat: NYE… to go into the city or not to go into the city? That’s every Long Islanders question. Like WTF?!