El Dia Final

Tuesday, August 2

My last day in Spain.

(I never count travel days.)

I had no idea what to do with myself today. I sat around my room and read for a while. I walked a few blocks and tried to window shop and just soak in some Madrid, but it was too hot to be comfortable outside.  I came inside to use the internet, but even that was making me restless.

I guess my body just knows it’s almost over, and doesn’t want to give up without a fight.

My final plan for Spain was to go see the Flamenco Ballet just a couple blocks from my hostel, and I’m incredibly grateful I did.

The show was Carmen, the Spanish opera, but only the dancing was performed live.  There were traditional Spanish costumes. There was fan dancing, castenettes, matadors, and really just all things Spanish.

The show was fantastic, and it was a perfect culmination of my stay.

It was just so Spanish, for lack of a better phrase. And it was a beautiful show that captured my attention through every minute and had me holding my breath in the final scenes.

I’m sure the girl sitting next to me thought I had a nervous tick, because I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to stomp and clap along with all of the music, since Flamenco is (roughly) a Spanish version of tap dancing.

Overall, it was just a perfect way to end my night, and I’m so glad I went today instead of another day of the trip.

From here, I’m just going to call it a night early, since I’m planning on leaving my hostel at 7:30 tomorrow morning to give myself plenty of time at the airport.

And oddly, I’m not that sad to be leaving.

I don’t want to go - don’t get me wrong. But I think I said my Spanish goodbyes to Oviedo, and Madrid has just been a method of transitioning myself back to the real world. I’ve started getting emails about work and school, and I’ve spoken to my family and friends about plans for when I’m home, and really everything has been preparing me to leave Spain.

I think also, that I’m not worried about leaving because I know it’s not goodbye forever, just adios for now.

I’m sure I’ll be back.

Whether it’s a year from now, five years, ten or twenty, I know I’ll be here again, I’ll be traveling again, and this will not be a once in a lifetime experience. Though it has been worthy of the phrase, I refuse to allow my trip to be only once.

I don’t believe anything should be shut into a box like that, wrapped up in the neat little phrase “once in a lifetime.”

Because if I never expect something this amazing to happen again, what am I waiting for?

Instead, I’ll call it unique. And wonderful. And fantastic. And fulfilling and adventurous and beautiful and eye-opening. 

And fun. Most of all, fun.

But once in a lifetime? Maybe for some people, but not just once in mine. 

Si llueva, llueve sin fin

Tuesday, August 2

It rained last night in Madrid.

Thanks for the weather update; I’m sure you’re saying to yourself.

But it was worth sharing, because rain here is an anomaly.

Until it happened, I couldn’t actually imagine rain pouring down on Madrid. The city is so hot and so outdoors oriented that it seemed impossible. What would everyone do with their sidewalk café if it rained? Where would the hoards of people walking through Puerta del Sol head for the night? What about the dozens of jobless Spaniards who call Puerta del Sol or the park a few blocks South their homes?

I still don’t know how all of those people handled it, but standing on my balcony last night, watching it rain and lightening a little and thunder was beautiful in an unexpected fashion.

The Spanish have a saying that I’ve heard several times; it’s the title of this blog.

Si llueva, llueve sin fin.

It’s not so different from our saying, “when it rains it pours.”

And while that was definitely true in Oviedo, where the weather is much cooler and living in the shadows of the mountains brings lots of rain, it’s not quite as true here in Madrid.

It only rained for maybe 15 minutes last night. Call me crazy, but it almost felt as if Madrid simply willed the rain to stop.

For the same reason it’s so hard to imagine it raining here, I can easily believe that the city has the kind of magic.

Travel Truths

Monday, August 1

There are a handful of travel truths I’ve learned along the way.

While most of them are only self-truths, and I can’t vouch for them across the board, I still feel they’re worth recording.

#1 - It is possible to wake up without an alarm clock. I have survived now for 34 days without an alarm to wake me up. I was late one time. Weirdly, I consider it one of the greatest triumphs of this trip for myself that I’ve managed to make this work. Each day, I just let the sun and the noise wake me up, I check my iPod to figure out the time, and I adjust accordingly. It’s been an adjustment but never bad.

#2 - The greatest feeling in the world is clean feet. While it’s not something I would’ve expected, the loveliness of clean feet is hard to describe. After coming home from the beach or from exploring Oviedo or Madrid, the one thing that’s guaranteed to make me feel right with the world is stepping onto a clean rug after a shower or a rinse and knowing the grime is gone from my feet. After about the age of 8, your feet are really the only thing that makes contact with the earth anymore. You can’t just go play in the sand or in a park, but your feet take you everywhere, and often that shows. Of course, cleaning my feet also exposes how callused and blistered they’ve been, but so it goes.

#3 - Travel Reading is the best. I’ve blogged about this before, but really reading has been an essential part of this trip for me. It’s been a way to explore new cafes and parks; it’s been a relaxing adventure instead of the sometimes-stressful excursions and nights out and hikes to Jesus and the rest; and it’s been a solitary way to unwind and relax.

#4 - The only real knowledge is experience. If there’s any lasting truth I will take from this trip, it’s this idea. You can’t really know and understand something until you’ve experienced it. I studied Spanish for 6 years, and yet I’ve learned so much more in the last 5 weeks than I imagined I still had to learn. I can tell my Spanish has improved immensely. I can speak with the hostel front desk and the cleaning lady in just Spanish, I can ask questions at the grocery store, I asked a man today for directions. And while I might have known some of the vocabulary and could’ve probably written these things down before, this month has gotten rid of my shyness about Spanish. I know it’s hard to imagine me being shy while I ramble on about life, but I promise that I am with Spanish, or rather was. I hope I never learn this newfound confidence.

If nothing else, I have a wealth of knowledge and experiences that I will continue to draw on for the rest of my life. I can only hope the future will bring more opportunities to experience culture and language first-hand. 

Muchas gracias

Monday, August 1

I wanted to make sure to take the time to thank all of you who have stopped by to read this blog at some point.

To my understanding, I actually have a fairly respectable group of family and friends who have read my ramblings with patience and love, and even excitement.

The reality is that this blog was meant to be about me and for me, as a log of what I experienced while here.

But the motivation behind it, on days when writing a blog seemed like just about the last thing I wanted to do, was always knowing that there we people who wanted to read it. That day might have seemed perfectly normal to me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t share some pictures and insights and experiences with my people from home.

So thank you. Whether you’ve read one blog or twenty or all of them, thank you for taking the time to visit and to support. This adventure wouldn’t be the same without my blog and the memories I’ve preserved here, and you have been the needed push.

As I wind down my trip and head into my last full day of Spain, it’s odd to realize how much I’ll miss writing. While it’s not what I expected, it’s been very therapeutic and much needed to write all of the time.

I probably won’t continue with blogging after I get back to the U.S., although I will be sure to put up a few post-travel blogs about the transition back into live at home. It’s just too hard for me to devote the necessary time during the school year.

But thank you again for a wonderful summer. I hope I haven’t been too boring or too long-winded (though I’m sure I’ve been both at times). I hope you’ll stick with me through the next few posts. Leaving this place is going to be hard. 

New Conversations

Sunday, July 31

Have you ever had a one-day friend?

It’s kind of an odd concept to be friends with someone for only one day, but that’s pretty much what happened to me today.

I had met this sweet girl Kierra in Oviedo. She was in the same program with a group from Philadelphia, and was even in my class during the mornings. And while I did know her, I didn’t know her very well.

Nonetheless we ended up booking the same hostel in Madrid, so I invited her along to my only plans for Sunday - to go to church in the morning and then walk around the royal gardens.

Mass was beautiful and very ornate. The cathedral is huge and since it is the central church in Madrid, it is home to more than 20 priests, 3 bishops, 2 archbishops and a cardinal. The cardinal presided over mass but the rest all helped out with readings, incense, communion and every little detail. I’ve never been to a mass with that many people in the ceremony or in the crowd.

Kierra is not Catholic, so after mass I explained some of the traditions and a few of the beliefs and what had happened. We walked through the royal gardens and explored, and it was just really great to have someone there.

I was worried Madrid was going to be lonely for these four days, but having her around today made the whole thing seem quick and made the day speed by. And even though Kierra leaves early tomorrow, it is great to have known her.

We ended up getting dinner and then coming back to the lobby for the free Sangria. Everyone in the hostel was chatty, so we quickly got to talking with a few other girls, and it was wonderful to hear their stories and backgrounds and talk about random things from not tipping your waiter in Spain to Harry Potter and Disneyland, and more serious things like the difference between white woman hair and black hair.

That led us into a much deeper conversation about the stereotypes we are all expected to live up to, how much the media degrades normal people, and our own struggles with living up to and giving up on those expectations. It was eye-opening and enlightening, and certainly not a conversation I expected to have, let alone with three relatively random strangers from all different parts of the U.S. in the lobby of a hostel in Madrid.

They’re random, the things that bring us together, but often they’re beautiful.

Cultural Landmarks

Saturday, July 30

On my first day back in Spain, I wanted to take it pretty easy, but there were some definite necessities to be filled.

As I was hungry and I’m trying to go the cheap/easy route and get sandwich materials and eat on the go, I had to find a supermarket of some kind.

Luckily, my hostel has interent, so I jumped online and Googled the nearest ones. There were some about five blocks away, up a street off of Puerta del Sol. Knowing they wouldn’t be too hard to find, I set off.

And when I got to Peurta del Sol, I remembered a very exciting fact. There is an El Corte Ingles right by there. El Corte Ingles is like every chain store mixed together in the world. And they have a supermarket.

Jackpot.

Not having ever fully explored an El Corte Ingles, I took my time to go to every single floor before heading to the supermercado in the basement.

There were seven floors.

El Corte Ingles is not kidding around.

The store had everything from a makeup and beauty section, sportswear, swimwear, children’s clothes, a souvenir shop, two restaurants, a bridal boutique, a tailor on the same floor as men’s suits, juniors’ sections, electronics, and a bookstore. I’m telling you, you’ve never seen anything like this.

I’m thinking world’s most epic game of hide and seek.

Then I headed to the grocery store downstairs, after spending more than an hour just exploring. I got some of the essentials like water and granola bars, and then all of the stuff I needed to have sandwiches and chips at my disposal. The hostel gives me breakfast, and I’m also planning on taking some of the fresh fruit provided there to supplement.

Now officially starving, I hauled my bags back to the hostel and threw myself together a sandwich. I really am going to miss the fresh bread and chorizo here, it’s all just so authentic and delicious. Even though it was from a supermarket, it was still baked and carved right there. You don’t get that in America, especially not on a college-student budget.

After eating I was kind of restless, but I also didn’t want to explore too far away and not be back before dark. So I grabbed my book and headed down a random street in search of a café.

I found a place with some nice open-air tables off of a big street, and sat down to read and watch the world go by. Without even realizing it, I sat there for two whole hours. At one point, the 8 o’clock hour hit, and the hotel across the street had a funny little display of these wooden Spanish characters for the hour mark. 

It was really cute. Everyone applauded when it was over.

At one point in my two hours, I looked up the street to realize that the sun was setting. As I looked up, the sun was just beginning to dip below a building in the distance, and it was shining so that, even though I was looking directly at the sun, the light was above my head. It was one of those beautiful moments where you’re actually looking underneath the setting sun, and it was very peaceful.

I set my book down and just watched the sun sink lower behind the building for a few minutes, not really thinking about anything or focusing on any one image except how beautiful the sunset was.

Call me silly, but it was a profound moment for its simplicity.

Eventually I decide that a setting sun meant I should get going, and I headed back up the hill toward my hostel.

At around 10p.m. I went down to the lobby because they have free Sangria every night, and a cold drink sounded perfect in the Madrid heat.

When I got down there, I met this incredibly interesting man named Jorge. He’s from Colombia, he’s here with his new wife, and he was eager to practice his English (by which I mean he was overly talkative). Jorge mostly just talked about traveling and visiting new places, but at one point he stops me and points to all of the people sitting in the lobby.

Do you know what brings all of these people together? He asked.

Free Sangria, I oh-so-sarcastically replied. (FYI Hispanic people don’t get American sarcasm, oops!)

He just kind of looks at me and then launches into this speech about each of these people looking for something, that everyone was here with a purpose and a story and family and friends who cared about them and wondered how they were doing. That each of them had chosen these dates and this hostel with care, but yet didn’t care why anyone else had.

It was a very rare notion. I hadn’t given a lot of thought to everyone else sitting in that room, most of them using wifi, just like me. How many of them were college students? How many were using that wifi to talk to family or friends from back home? Are any of them keeping a blog similar to mine?

For the most part, I’ll never know, but it was an eye-opener to have someone ask you that, to blatantly point out that I don’t know what brings all of my companions here.

Perhaps I’ll make it a mission tomorrow to make a new friend or two and find out exactly what their story is, despite being in the final chapters of my own tale. 

Traveling To and Fro

Saturday, July 30

You have your choice of ways to travel in Spain.

As a foreigner, I am still able to rent a car, take a train, ride a bus, or really use any form of transportation.

So in heading back to Madrid I had two main choices (cars are out for me, scary enough when I’m regularly driving, let alone in a foreign country). I took the train up to Oviedo, so ultimately I decided to try out the bus since it was a new experience and it was cheaper.

It was a toss up either way.

Luckily I turned out pretty well. The bus right was supposed to be 5 hours, with a stop half way at a small gas station with a café for both the bus and the patrons to refill.

For the first half of the trip, I was one of only two people who got to sit by themselves. I don’t know how that happened, but I made the most of my two seats, stretching out, leaning against the window, falling asleep for a bit, reading, and generally enjoying the ride.

It was actually much more pleasant than the train, and I would recommend bus travel (in Spain, no guarantees on Greyhound in the US).

We got out halfway, and although I didn’t realize it was a bus station, apparently it was enough of one that my ride-buddy joined us for the second half. He was nice enough, but a little odd and talkative (Talkative Spaniards are an interesting blessing/curse. You learn a lot, you get overwhelmed quickly.). Overall, he was not a bad partner, I just longed for my double seat back.

And then, in typical Spanish fashion, our bus that was supposed to arrive at 1:15 in Madrid arrived at 3p.m. instead. Typical, but annoying.

And then, because I couldn’t figure out the metro system at the bus station because it’s on a separate line, I ended up paying for a taxi.

Traveling from Oviedo to Madrid wasn’t quite like the trip before. This time, I recognized some of the landmarks, I was more awake for the ride, and I could tell as we approached the city.

It got even more exciting in the cab ride, as I started recognizing landmarks: a church we had been too, a park we had walked in, the train station we had thought we were going to until we caught our mistake only a few hours before. It all was familiar to me.

How surreal is that? How can I be familiar with Madrid?

But then, this trip has made me familiar with Oviedo like the back of my hand, is it really absurd to think I might develop some of that with Madrid as well? When I’m done, I will have been in Madrid for 8 total days of this trip, and that’s a lot of time to get familiar with a city.

And while I certainly won’t know the whole thing, I’m looking forward to being familiar with the area around Puerta del Sol. 

It’s nice to be back.

Goodbye Until Tomorrow

Friday, July 29

I can’t believe I’m leaving Oviedo tomorrow.

I can’t believe I officially finished classes today, including getting a diploma.

I can’t believe I’ve already said goodbye to friends from classes for the last time, and friends from Mizzou until next month.

I can’t believe a month of my life has flown so quickly that I don’t remember where all it’s gone.

I can’t believe I’m eating my last dinner with my host mom tonight.

Overall, I just can’t believe how the time as flown. Wasn’t I just arriving and trying to get a feel for my host mom and classes and Oviedo and all of it? And now it’s over.

There are so many things I’m excited to go back for: my family and friends, getting to see my dogs, training starting next Saturday, new residents, playing with my dogs, RHA for this year, getting my toe fixed, hugging my dogs, and all of it.

But there are so many things I’ll miss here as well: hanging out in the parks around Oviedo, coca-cola light, maxibon cookies, laughing to myself every block because there’s always a new grocery store, the view from my window, the beautiful sights of Oviedo, Spanish people and their good-natured, too-relaxed, deadlines-schmedlines attitudes, and all of the rest.

So the title of this blog is a lyric from a good song. The lyrics are a great summary of how I’ve been feeling today. The song goes: “Goodbye until tomorrow, goodbye until the rest of my life, I have been waiting, I have been waiting for you.”

I have been waiting for this experience all of my life, and now that it’s over, I know it isn’t really over. The reality is that it’s only goodbye until I figure out how to come back, until I spend more time here, until I travel again.

So Oviedo, goodbye, and thanks for the wonderful memories, the new friends, and the summer of my life. 

Finally Finals

Thursday, July 28

The amount of work we’ve had here has not been overwhelming by any means (previous post excluded). We’ve had a little to do each day, but it was all very simple to get done and still have plenty of time to experience Oviedo and Spanish culture.

But nonetheless, coming out of finals and knowing all of the studying was over was such a releasing feeling.

It’s strange how sometimes you don’t even realize you’re worried about something until it’s over and the tension lifts from your shoulders, you crack the first smile of the day, and you just kind of feeling like running down the stairs and out the door.

My two finals for the day were not that bad, both were exactly as I’d predicted they’d be, which is comforting. And we’ll see grades tomorrow, so the quick turn-around will be great.

As an end-of-the-trip celebration, Professor Zemke took all of the Mizzou students out to lunch at a small restaurant up by the main shopping district. Not having really eaten out here, since eating dinner is so different, it was fun to sit through a Spanish lunch.

We got a choice of soup or salad and then of chicken or fish. My whole table chose both salad and chicken (so much for trying each others!) and the salads were deliciously colorful. It had everything from tomatoes and carrots that you’d expect, to radishes and tuna (I gave mine up) and an egg that are a little different, to the distinctly Spanish potato included on top.

The chicken was served family-style, fell straight off the bone, and was sensational. It came cooked together with potatoes and peppers, and the whole meal was just delicious.

Finally, we got our choice of chocolate cake of cheesecake for dessert. Since everyone else around my table chose chocolate, I went for the cheesecake, and got to share bites since everyone wanted to try mine. They were both delicious, though it was a little thin for cheesecake.

And apparently all of that extravagance is just a typical lunch!

Afterwards, Maddy and Craig and I walked around Oviedo on the South end, past the Cathedral. It’s an old and very beautiful part of town that none of us had yet explored. We ended up walking in a giant circle and found Campo San Francisco (the big park in town) in the end.

We, naturally, chose to go play on the playground equipment! In doing so, we discovered that there was a whole section of “exercise equipment” in the park. It was hilarious as we played around on these incredibly odd machines that didn’t feel like they did anything to work out your body.

The “abs machine” was a circle that you held onto while standing on a rotating disk and twisted back and forth. We all jumped on and spun around for a while and just laughed and had fun. That is, until some woman actually began using the other equipment and we felt like we should probably stop disturbing the peace.

We all headed home and got ready, and then went out for our last night in Oviedo, since people start leaving tomorrow. It was a happy, yet slightly bittersweet evening as we all made the most of our last evening together.

A Walk in the Park

Wednesday, July 27

The title of this blog is a joke, and not a very good one at that.

Being that today is the final day before our exams, I knew going in that I had a lot of studying to do. But then, in the last minutes of our Hispanic Poetry class, Professor Zemke informs us that we have to turn in written analysis from every one of the poems we did in the last two weeks.

And while he had told us to do them originally, he had made it clear to several people that he didn’t intend for him to read them and that they were our notes.

Or so we thought.

So on top of studying for two exams, I now had exactly 18 1-page poetry write-ups to do in the next 24 hours.

So after lunch, I took my book and headed to the park that’s just down the street. (Hence the walk in the park thing…) It was an incredibly unsuccessful trip; I think I got one whole analysis done. Instead I spent the time talking with Maddy and Matilda, soaking up some Spanish sun, and enjoying being outside.

No regrets, but my walk in the park certainly made the rest of my evening no walk in the park.

 At around 9 p.m., after I’ve finished 8 of the 18 write-ups, I realized that I desperately needed internet to be able to understand one of the poems. So I gathered my stuff together and hauled it over to the mall, where I’ve gotten internet access.

But then, when I log on, I run into a very pleasant problem on Facebook. Turns out, one of my best friends got engaged!

I was so happy for her, and still am (MY CONGRATS TO LINDSEY AND BRETT!!), but it was also bittersweet because I couldn’t be there to congratulate her and celebrate with them and be excited.

Luckily she was online, so I was able to chat with her via Facebook for a few minutes and I got filled in on the details. But then she asked me where I would be next August, when they’re planning on having the wedding.

And the real, kind of terrifying answer is that I don’t know.

I have no idea where I’ll be in a year. There are about 10 possibilities for what I want to do after I graduate, I have no idea which ones I will be accepted to or denied from, I can’t say where I’ll be living, and more than half of these options would make it impossible for me to attend her wedding.

And as I explained to Lindsey, I’ll try my best to be there, but I can’t make life decisions with things like that in mind. I realize that if I want to spend the next ten years or so of my life traveling and experiencing a variety of countries, foods, customs, jobs, cities, and people, then I’m probably going to miss out on a lot with the people I love back home.

Missing her engagement was only a small slice of that feeling, but it has made me realize that I have to embrace the reality of living far away.

And then I realized that I still had a mountain of homework and studying awaiting me, so I raced back home and got to work!