Red Squiggly Lines

I opened a brand new Word document to write something in English to find that the language was still set to Spanish.

Since I'm in such a different environment right now, Spain seems like it was a blur that probably happened. As trivial as it is, this little detail reminds me quite vividly that this time last month, I was walking down streets illuminated with butterscotch streetlights and smelling of cigarettes, wine, pastries, and lilacs.

Two times I got teary

When I came back from my trip to Italy in March, there was this package waiting for me on my bed, and I let out a scream. Then I read the letters that my apartment-mates sent me, and I started tearing up. Then I looked through the goodies, found my favorite "cardboard" crackers accompanied by some very extra crunchy peanut butter, and I became very thrilled. Needless to say, that day was a very emotional one for a girl who's usually a stone. Apartment-mates, if you guys are reading this, I just wanted to say thanks once again. One of the most significant things I had to give up to study abroad was living with you guys for another semester. I have such fond memories of our late night chats and antics, cooking together, planning our Christmas party, sitting primly in the living room when we finally got couches, grocery shopping and thrifting, and playing in the snow. If we were to be given an exam on apartment drama, I think we'd all fail because we never experienced it. So this sentence marks the end of my mushy-gushy paragraph on how lovely these mates of the apartment are, but our friendship? I hope it's only the beginning.

Okay, so I honestly did not expect to be too emotional when it came time to say bye to Spain because I was very excited about returning home. Of course I was sad to leave, but I thought the two feelings would cancel each other out into ambivalence.

But let me start with when I was in junior high and high school. I went to a very small international school in Mexico. It was a place where everyone knew your name and you knew what your teachers did for the weekend. It was a normal occurrence for me to see the principal in his comfy colored shorts at the grocery store. When I decided to attend the University of Virginia, I thought I'd have to say farewell to associating academic settings with the Cheers theme song. But the little Valencian program gave me a chance to experience once again that close-knitty feeling that I much rather prefer to the fish-in-the-sea environment. But before I start sounding like a study abroad brochure, I will get to the point: I teared up when saying goodbye to my Spanish mass media professor (the rad lady in the glasses). I don't know whether this testifies to my nerdiness or just how lovely a professor she was--perhaps both, but probably a greater proportion of the latter. Anna Chover, I will miss our chats and your vivacious teaching style--especially that time you repeatedly stomped on a rebellious piece of chalk into pieces as punishment for continually rolling off your desk. And I love how much passion you have for newspapers.

Of course, I can't end this post without mentioning a certain peculiar art history professor of mine, Enrique (below). He was so shy and awkward on a daily basis, lived with two cats, and once gave us a lesson on the most effective way to position a bomb in order to completely blow up a building. Excuse me? Which reminds me of another awkward professor/moment: once, my culture and conversations professor Joaquin made us promise not to tell, then proceeded to tell us that the woman he married was not the one he loved the most; he married her more out of convenience. Times are tough, so I guess he thought it clever to consolidate students and therapist into one.

The phrase "a unique educational experience" is ringing in my ears in a variety of pitches. My professors were fantastic, strange, and unromantic. There's a slim chance I'll find out things like these about my professors in the semesters to come, which is a pity because I've rather enjoyed discovering that professors are real people, too.

My Latin American Lit professor! He was brilliant.

Howdy stranger

It is 5:30 AM mountain standard time, which means I'm in Texas, baby!

I arrived last night after an 18-hour journey. The first thing I've eaten since being back in the States is a KFC dinner because it was the only place that was open.

The mac and cheese was tasty.

The first thing I want to do today is go to Barnes and Nobles, breathe in its wonderful smell that I've missed all semester, then go on with the rest of my day, which I hope includes thrift store shopping for some musty old books.

I think I'll write four or five more posts (this blog has become a sort of scrapbook for me) and then take a break from explaining Spain.

Okay, well, time to wake up my parents! Have a good one.

Goodbye, chubby dear Spanish tomatoes

Saying farewell to one little detail at at time--

A step back to relish it in

Last Thursday at the Chinese restaurant

I scooted out of my chair to make sure I realized what a warm, cozy memory my brain was taking in.

It's almost time to go

Today was the first of many final goodbyes here in Spain. (Claudia dear, you might not want to read this.) It almost didn't happen though. You see, I was supposed to meet my German friends at a place called Alameda, but I assumed we were talking about the park named Alameda when they actually meant the metro stop. So I felt kinda sad about not getting to say goodbye. But later this evening, I came across Pia at Zara's, and I'm so thankful that I at least got to say goodbye to her. She doesn't even live in Valencia, so coming across her like this was definitely an unexpected and wonderful surprise.

I realized that saying goodbye here in Spain is a gritty experience. The chances of us seeing each other again are slim jim. I mean, it could happen, but realistically, it might not. Four months was not long enough to become bosom buddies, but the good-byes are nevertheless hard because human disconnections are painful.

Some little things I'll miss:

Skyping with my parents

The cuteness of Spanish children. When it's chilly the little girls wear a variation of this Mary Jane shoe style with thick stockings and woolly coats. We spotted this pale pink one perched on this bush. What a kind stranger to have put it there just in case the owner's parent was looking for it.

Sunday lunches. Since Saturday was Spain's labor day, all the markets were closed . Thus, my host padre had no time to go buy green beans and lima beans for this paella dish, yet it was still tasty.

Valencia and its riverbed park

Mini-hoorah

In one hour, I will have taken four finals, turned in one 8-page term paper and three short summary essays--all in the course of two days.

Summer is a sizzling on the tip of my tongue.

Beach photoshoot on a gray day

I'm going to miss my host sis Jazmín dearly. She wants to study journalism and work for one of the top newspapers in Spain--el País. This is the weekend before finals, but we decided to take a study break and check-off one of the things we had planned to do since forever ago. (I felt especially liberal with my time since I had just finished a paper four days before it was due. If I ever read over this blog post, I hope I won't be as shocked as I am now.) So we went to the beach and I snapped while Jazmín and her novio Jóse lovy-dovingly gazed into each other's eyes. Valencia's normally sunshine and butterflies, but yesterday it turned all Ursula on us.

We barely escaped the thunderstorm, and picked up some pretty shells and reddish clay rocks before heading home.

Babies

I met this little guy at the park at the beginning of the semester. His dad is from Saudi Arabia, and his mom is French. What a cutie. I was just reminded of him after coming across this little gem. Babies is a largely dialogue-free documentary that follows four babies in San Francisco, Namibia, Mongolia and Tokyo from birth to their first steps. I can't wait to watch it.

Another baguette tale

There is a direct correlation between me posting so much today and this weekend being the weekend before finals. Anywho, I was at the center's biblioteca today writing my media studies paper and somehow ended up walking to the supermarket? I guess my feet don't like it when my brain gets all the attention--and it needs a lot of attention for it to work properly. (Sorry, I think all the cheese I ate is transforming itself into its figurative cousin.)

But long story short, my nose caught the aroma of the oven-fresh baguettes (Spanish people eat bread with every meal so the markets replenish quite frequently). Then I wandered over to the cheese section, and this being a Dali sort of day (time melted), I decided to make my first purchase of Camembert cheese (the inspiration for his piece, "The Persistence of Memory").

I don't know why but I feel very grown-up when I purchase cheese. Besides wine or any other alcoholic beverage, I feel like you have to have some sort of knowledge of cheese in order to pick the right kind. Today I was just lucky--Camembert is delicious! A bit sharper than Brie but it still has that really silky, almost buttery taste. One thing I'll miss about Spain is how cheap the cheese is. I'm not sure my college student budget will allow for many expensive cheese purchases next semester, but I'm willing to sacrifice clothes-shopping for food-shopping (is this sad and/or masculine of me?) so we'll see. I also bought two dinky tomatoes and used one of them for my afternoon bocadillo. It was juicy and slightly sweet, proving to be the perfect fresh accompaniment to the Camembert--I didn't even need to drizzle any olive oil.

Well, I guess my study break's over.

Cutting the cheese [smirk]

Last Friday lunch in Spain

Flamenco 4/29

Change of pace

Things are slowing down.
It doesn't feel like things are slowing down because my mind is on the paper that is due on Tuesday, the exams to take, and the assignments to turn in. But as we were all gathered around a tableclothed table today with thick ceramic plates of delicious Chinese seafood and noodles in celebration of a dear friend's day of birth, I realized that I better take a step back and relish the moment because our laughter, our conversation, this combination of people gathered together will likely never happen again. This is not to sound gloomy, mind you, nor to sound dramatic. But I don't mind sounding sentimental because it allows me to appreciate these last days a little more.

Some of the moments of today:
Asking my host sister last minute questions about Spanish politics for my exam
The older plump gentlemen who recited poetry to us while we were sitting in a sandwich shop. He used lots of gestures and claimed to be a multi-millionaire. Later on he grabbed his cafe con leche and drank it outside.
A quaint evening festival that we came across while walking towards the bridge with red and white flowers. I saw the biggest loaf of bread ever and took pictures of fancy flamenco-dancing feet.
Hearing about a relationship where the guy and girl have never seen each other, but the girl is a graphic designer, so she made a picture of them together using snazzy photo editing.
Laughing while eating pistachio ice cream, peaches, kiwi, bananas, and whipped cream
Going back to my apartment to change into my prairie shoes because I had a blister on my foot
Finding my favorite Spanish drink: a boxed mango and pineapple juice mixed with milk and tasting just like a light smoothie
Wondering if I should go to the book fair tomorrow or just study all day
Finally being able to wear my cow boxer shorts because it's getting all summery
Finding myself looking forward to flossing at the end of the day
Drinking a half cup of water before getting into bed and writing this post.

Good night!

Second post about clothes

Outfit combinations still going strong! I asked my mom to bring me another one of my Gymboree-esque skirts, so I've added it to the rotation.

Besides that, today I learned how to make a Spanish tortilla and a yogurt cake.

And one more thing I forgot to mention: last Friday was Día de San Jose (also the anniversary of Shakespeare's life and death) which means the ladies gift books to the gentlemen who in return give roses to the ladies. Some people complain that it's a chauvinistic practice. But I think it's unnecessary to think that way because if we cared about all the possible ways women lose their power/rights/etc., then we can never focus on crux issues such as eradicating female circumcision and sex slavery (there are over 1,000 female sex slaves in Ohio alone--Google it.)

Whew. Anyways, didn't mean to get on that tangent. I just wanted to mention the sweetness of this holiday. I wish we could do this back in the States.

But since I already brought it up, something must be done. By us.

Above: April 26th

Below: February 8th

Talent show

Shortly after the talent show

On Friday I did something that I would never have done in the States: I sang a techno-y Spanish song at our center's Festival de Cabaret with my two friends Katelyn and Caitlin. We had been practicing for several weeks, and I'm glad we did it. I probably won't ever participate in a talent show again, so I hope the memory of this experience will last me a lifetime. The evening was quite fun. There was a clever work of theatre and a dance based on West Side Story among other things. So since my host family told me I could invite friends over during their absence, four of us headed to Mercadona to buy some packaged pizzas (They don't normally sell frozen pizzas in Spanish supermarkets; instead, the pizzas are fresh and have interesting ingredients such as goat cheese, shrimp, and salmon.) We also bought salad material, calamari tapas, and straciatella (Italian-style chocolate chip ice cream). Then we headed to my apartment, cooked up the food, and ate our dinner at the yellow table-clothed dining table. Afterwards we saw three television shows in English-- an episode each of Bones, House, and Gilmore Girls. I fell asleep though. (I like the feeling of falling asleep while people are watching television, no idea why. But my mom likes this too so maybe it's hereditary? Haha)

Today (Sunday), while I was taking my siesta, I heard a boom and realized that the electricity went out. So I had to make dinner and eat it in the dark while vowing that I would never live alone because while this weekend has been nicely peaceful, I started to feel lonely towards the end of it. Thank goodness for Claudia, who invited me over to her place for an excellent study date.

Special thanks to Rebecca for offering to take pics ( :

Home in Spain

My host family went to Barcelona for the weekend because the middle daughter is planning to attend the open house for prospective college students at the University of Barcelona. Aside from staying by myself in a college dorm room (in a suite full of suitemates, so it doesn't really count), this is the first time I'm sleeping by myself in an empty house.

It's really nice. I forgot how peaceful it feels to be alone. Homestay has been all sorts of wonderful, but it hasn't exactly been peaceful in that still-quiet kind of way.

This semester I'm living with a family of six in a medium-sized apartment. I've never lived with three sisters before, so I've been secretly pretending that I'm the fourth sister and that together we make up the Little Women ( this book always made me long for sisterhood). Besides almost always having to wait for my turn in the bathroom, living here has been a relatively smooth experience. At first, it was weird and here's why: living in someone's home as a stranger feels very odd. There wasn't any previously existing relationship between me and them to explain my sudden intrusion into their family equilibrium, my toothbrush in a holder with six others, my chair awkwardly placed at a table made for six. But I quickly learned things about them, and they learned things about me, and we found out that we shared so many similarities in our perspectives on life, which served as one of the key elements to my adjustment in Spain (ask me about it sometime).

Interestingly, they are not native Spaniards; instead, they emigrated from Ecuador almost twenty years ago. My padre, Frank, works at the Ford Company. At least once a week, Frank and I end up being the last ones at the dinner table while we discuss matters of religious spirituality and non-religious spiritually. These two things have been on my mind all semester, but these things have been on Frank's mind for decades, so I love to glean some of his wisdom. Two days ago, while we were eating some fruity yogurt for dessert, he told me that if he had stayed in Ecuador, he would have been a top bank executive by now (not in a boastful way, but rather dryly). Instead he says that his job at the factory is wearing him down so much physically, with the need to apply cream to his aching joints regularly. He told me this when the girls were in the kitchen washing dishes and his wife was putting little Danny to bed. But when he thinks about how much promise he sees in his kids' lives (academically, personally, and spiritually), these precious years of his that are being claimed by a merciless job aren't as precious as his family. If he needs to work a crappy job to be a supporter of his daughter's dream to study in London or his wife's desire to complete her bachelor's degree, then he's willing to be compensated with the knowledge that he does not take his love for his family lightly. Every time he wakes up at 4 AM to take the bus to work, he's loving his family something fierce.

And when he comes home from the long day at work, Frank twirls his young son around, kisses his wife, and merrily chats with his daughters about this and that.

Meet Christy

The dog my parents got the year I left for college TO REPLACE ME

I miss everyone right now. Except this canine, of course.

Study break

The plan was to get out of class at 6:50 PM and start studying by 7 PM. In Spain they would call me a "friki" [free-kee], which is basically the hybrid of a freak and a nerd. You'd rather just be a lovely little nerd? Well that isn't really plausible because Spaniards use this word one-size-fits-all style. But all this talk is irrelevant because I didn't follow the plan. Instead, I went to one of the main plazas with Claudia and Caitlin because they invited me to go postcard shopping with them. Speaking of postcards, well, I have failed to send them like I should have. But hopefully that will change!

Afterwards, we went to a popular eatery called Cien Montaditos where most items on the menu are only 1 euro each on Wednesdays. We still had to eat dinner with our families, so we ordered a couple simple things to snack on. I ordered a montadito (which is basically a teeny tiny sub) with brie, pulled pork, green peppers, and jamón serrano. Those things can really hold a lot! I was impressed with the little guy. We also shared some fries with four dipping sauces: ketchup, tzatziki sauce, some peppery bbq sauce, and an unidentifiable sauce that tasted a bit like the salsa in Chihuahua but without the spice.

These pictures were taken with my webcam because it was the only type of camera I had with me, friki-style.

Asparagus soup for dinner

Today's dinner reminded me of a French movie I saw on the bus ride to Madrid called Ensemble, c'est tout. The lead role is played by Audrey Tautou, the actress who was also Amélie. The main plot line was a bit too...plotless, for lack of a better word, but there were some elements that I loved. For example, Audrey's character Camille invites her clumsy but sweet neighbor for dinner. The curly-haired, scarf wearing, corduroy blazered man shows up with his grandmother's old picnic set--complete with dainty porcelain dishes and clinkling glasses. Anyways, he finds her place to be an attic room, and they have nowhere to eat besides on the ground beside her bed. But the scene is so cozy: two neighbors in a little attic eating on the floor with silverware. Makes me want to eat all my meals in the context of a fancy picnic.