Reflections
So David informed me a few days ago that it has been "fully a sixmonth" since I last posted, so I've decided to do a reflection of my past year. . .seems fitting since we are about to venture into 2008. My year has flown by, many things have happened, many changes have come into being.
A year ago I was on my way to my Granddad’s to leave the next day for my trip to Spain. I was anxious, yet excited. That trip lasted 4.5 months: I learned spanish and about another culture, met life-long friends, and grew tremendously. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I can't wait until I can go back. Some of my life-long friends are Spaniards, so I definitely want to visit them. Let's see if I can go month-by-month with some events that stand out:
enero: I was scared out of my wits. I had homesickness for about 3-4 days, and then magically it was better. Mainly I had stressing about not understanding anything, it was ROUGH, but after the weekend everything seemed better. This first month was filled with lots of partying and getting to know the city. I also met Alvaro. He's an AMAZING friend, and was such a big help for me the entire time I was there.
febrero: Annie came! She was to be my roommate for the remainder of the trip. One major event from this month is what I call hell night it was Annie's first weekend in Spain. We were having a botellon next to the river, and as soon as I walked up, before I had even a sip of wine, I went to sit down and my phone tried to jump out of my hand into the river. I commented on how lucky I had been. Then a bottle of wine later, after I had gotten off the phone with Annie, I again went to sit down, and this time the phone made it into the river. I almost went in after it, which would not have been a good plan considering the water would have been freezing and it was about a 10 feet drop from where we were sitting. . . luckily my friends convinced me that it was NOT worth it. Next thing that happened, shortly after Annie arrived, these two girls crashed a moped just behind us, and we had to take care of them. . .they were fine, just pissed and a little bruised, one girl broke her pinky and we had to convince her to take her ring off before it had swollen up too big. If that wasn't bad enough for the evening, there where these 2 russian guys that had borrowed one of my friend's lighters, and then the kind of hung around near us. . .creepy. . .well, another group of our friends were a little ways down the river, so I went down to hang out with them along with a couple of other girls. After awhile I decided I wanted to stay down there the rest of the evening so I walked back to the other group to get my stuff. Annie and Kelli said that they wanted to go back with me, but they wanted to finish their conversation with some other folks first, so I left them. As I was walking back to the 2nd group, one of the Russian guys comes over to me and tried to stop me. I just kept my head down and continued walking, saying the whole time (in Spanish), “I need to get back to my friends. They’re waiting for me.” He tried to put his arm around me to stop me, and I ducked out of it; then he started walking backward in front of me with his arm outstretched, I side-stepped it and kept walking. Finally, he gave up and I got to my group and immediately told them what happened. Five or ten minutes later, Kelli comes running down to us yelling the Annie had gotten robbed. While they were walking down to us, the guy came up and grabbed onto her purse, pulling at it, Annie apparently screamed and let the guy have the purse. Kelli threw her bottle at him, but missed, and they ran off. To this day I don’t understand why he didn’t try to take my things, I was completely alone, my hands full; and even though only one of them attacked, there had been two, they could easily have taken me. I sometimes think that he decided to rob them because I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. This is one of my reminders that I definitely have some sort of guardian. (Thanks.) Anyway, after ALL of that, I ended my night by taking care of a completely wasted, sick friend. Hell Night.
marzo: Haha. . my favorite excursion of my trip was this month. We went to Granada. . .fuuuuuun stuff. . .I saw the Alhambra: stunning. I smoked a huka: interesting. I had the best tea EVER. And I got propositioned, in a way, by some very good looking Spanish Musicians: TUNA musicians, Don Juans of the past. . .lol. . .
abril: This was an awesome month. :D Happy Birthday to me! Lol. One of my favorite memories is from when I went to an animal shelter a couple of times with Ana (my host mom’s niece). It was a lot of fun. Ana volunteers there, at El Refugio, and I got to help her out and play with the animals. I enjoyed myself so much, and got to know Ana a lot better. The other main thing that happened this month was my trip to Barcelona and Scotland. WOW! Kelli and I decided that we wanted to go, so we went! We had an INCREDIBLE time. . .
mayo: Sad Month. I had to come home. My last night there though, so amazing! we went out and partied ALL night. . .I didn’t walk in until about, I don’t know, at most an hour before we had to leave for the plane. . .yeah, it was fun.
So I came home, May 18th 2007. It felt almost as if I had never left. I re-acclimated so quickly, I surprised myself! On the 19th I was in one of my best friend’s wedding, and on the 20th I started work and worked all summer. I absolutely LOVE my job, so it didn’t bother me one single bit. I had one vacation with my family just before I went back to school in August.
Now for this last semester. LOTS happened. Big, life altering events/changes happened. I’m not going to go into detail, but here is the reader’s digest version: met the love of my life, Brandon, the man I will marry; changed one of my degrees from BFA theatre to a BA in theatre, and then dropped the theatre major completely for just a Spanish BA degree (I had been a double major), now I will graduate a semester early, next December; I was also in the play To Kill a Mockingbird (not life altering, but important). So now we are into December, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been going into a New Year. I hope that everyone else has had a blessed year, and I hope that the coming year brings twice as many blessings.
A year ago I was on my way to my Granddad’s to leave the next day for my trip to Spain. I was anxious, yet excited. That trip lasted 4.5 months: I learned spanish and about another culture, met life-long friends, and grew tremendously. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I can't wait until I can go back. Some of my life-long friends are Spaniards, so I definitely want to visit them. Let's see if I can go month-by-month with some events that stand out:
enero: I was scared out of my wits. I had homesickness for about 3-4 days, and then magically it was better. Mainly I had stressing about not understanding anything, it was ROUGH, but after the weekend everything seemed better. This first month was filled with lots of partying and getting to know the city. I also met Alvaro. He's an AMAZING friend, and was such a big help for me the entire time I was there.
febrero: Annie came! She was to be my roommate for the remainder of the trip. One major event from this month is what I call hell night it was Annie's first weekend in Spain. We were having a botellon next to the river, and as soon as I walked up, before I had even a sip of wine, I went to sit down and my phone tried to jump out of my hand into the river. I commented on how lucky I had been. Then a bottle of wine later, after I had gotten off the phone with Annie, I again went to sit down, and this time the phone made it into the river. I almost went in after it, which would not have been a good plan considering the water would have been freezing and it was about a 10 feet drop from where we were sitting. . . luckily my friends convinced me that it was NOT worth it. Next thing that happened, shortly after Annie arrived, these two girls crashed a moped just behind us, and we had to take care of them. . .they were fine, just pissed and a little bruised, one girl broke her pinky and we had to convince her to take her ring off before it had swollen up too big. If that wasn't bad enough for the evening, there where these 2 russian guys that had borrowed one of my friend's lighters, and then the kind of hung around near us. . .creepy. . .well, another group of our friends were a little ways down the river, so I went down to hang out with them along with a couple of other girls. After awhile I decided I wanted to stay down there the rest of the evening so I walked back to the other group to get my stuff. Annie and Kelli said that they wanted to go back with me, but they wanted to finish their conversation with some other folks first, so I left them. As I was walking back to the 2nd group, one of the Russian guys comes over to me and tried to stop me. I just kept my head down and continued walking, saying the whole time (in Spanish), “I need to get back to my friends. They’re waiting for me.” He tried to put his arm around me to stop me, and I ducked out of it; then he started walking backward in front of me with his arm outstretched, I side-stepped it and kept walking. Finally, he gave up and I got to my group and immediately told them what happened. Five or ten minutes later, Kelli comes running down to us yelling the Annie had gotten robbed. While they were walking down to us, the guy came up and grabbed onto her purse, pulling at it, Annie apparently screamed and let the guy have the purse. Kelli threw her bottle at him, but missed, and they ran off. To this day I don’t understand why he didn’t try to take my things, I was completely alone, my hands full; and even though only one of them attacked, there had been two, they could easily have taken me. I sometimes think that he decided to rob them because I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. This is one of my reminders that I definitely have some sort of guardian. (Thanks.) Anyway, after ALL of that, I ended my night by taking care of a completely wasted, sick friend. Hell Night.
marzo: Haha. . my favorite excursion of my trip was this month. We went to Granada. . .fuuuuuun stuff. . .I saw the Alhambra: stunning. I smoked a huka: interesting. I had the best tea EVER. And I got propositioned, in a way, by some very good looking Spanish Musicians: TUNA musicians, Don Juans of the past. . .lol. . .
abril: This was an awesome month. :D Happy Birthday to me! Lol. One of my favorite memories is from when I went to an animal shelter a couple of times with Ana (my host mom’s niece). It was a lot of fun. Ana volunteers there, at El Refugio, and I got to help her out and play with the animals. I enjoyed myself so much, and got to know Ana a lot better. The other main thing that happened this month was my trip to Barcelona and Scotland. WOW! Kelli and I decided that we wanted to go, so we went! We had an INCREDIBLE time. . .
mayo: Sad Month. I had to come home. My last night there though, so amazing! we went out and partied ALL night. . .I didn’t walk in until about, I don’t know, at most an hour before we had to leave for the plane. . .yeah, it was fun.
So I came home, May 18th 2007. It felt almost as if I had never left. I re-acclimated so quickly, I surprised myself! On the 19th I was in one of my best friend’s wedding, and on the 20th I started work and worked all summer. I absolutely LOVE my job, so it didn’t bother me one single bit. I had one vacation with my family just before I went back to school in August.
Now for this last semester. LOTS happened. Big, life altering events/changes happened. I’m not going to go into detail, but here is the reader’s digest version: met the love of my life, Brandon, the man I will marry; changed one of my degrees from BFA theatre to a BA in theatre, and then dropped the theatre major completely for just a Spanish BA degree (I had been a double major), now I will graduate a semester early, next December; I was also in the play To Kill a Mockingbird (not life altering, but important). So now we are into December, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been going into a New Year. I hope that everyone else has had a blessed year, and I hope that the coming year brings twice as many blessings.