Home tomorrow! Happy Anniversary today!

Hello, dear readers... I know, I know. My post-a-week resolution only lasted, what, 3 posts? The usual excuses: I've been über busy and on the road. I'm still recovering from my first (of many more) epic Euro-trips and to be honest, have found it much easier to catch up on a season or two of Dexter than to tackle another blog post. I've made it a little over halfway through the 4th season... Christmas-y, I know. :)

It's scary how creepy John Lithgow can be... and who the heck shot Deb and Lundy if it wasn't him??? [source]

Anyway, I'm sitting in one of my Calahorra haunts, Cafetería Niza. It meets my criteria of: good coffee, good tortilla, but more importantly, wifi and outlets that work. I would normally be in class at this time, but because the internet at the school doesn't seem to be working and because my activity (showing "How The Grinch Stole Christmas") depended upon it working, my teacher said, "Well, I guess you have a free hour."

If only I could have known this would happen... I wouldn't have bothered getting up at the before the crack of dawn to catch my ride, as I now do now do not have class until 10:20. Oh, and guess what we're doing in that class? Watching the second half of a movie they started yesterday. One of many times I ask myself, "why am I here?" I really could have just skipped the whole week and gotten home early... If there are any future auxiliares reading this, note that you can probably skip the week before winter break starts. Your teachers (at institutos, anyway) have nothing serious planned, and your time would be better spent elsewhere. Sleeping, perhaps.

BUT, morning crankiness aside, TONIGHT, I LEAVE FOR MADRID!!! IN 10 hours, I will be on a bus, napping and dreaming about some ruby red slippers clicking together... Unfortunately I'll have about 12 hours to wait in the airport before I actually take off. Is it strange that I'm actually kind of excited about trying out the whole sleeping in the airport thing? And can you believe there's a how-to website with reviews of airports, tips, and anything else you might need to know? Ah, the things we travelers value. :)

This will be me around 6am... AFTER I make it through security... [source]

I will have stories to share, I am sure. I just hope that they're the kind that make me laugh. :)

Anyway, in less than 36 hours, I will be home for the holidays. Hallelujah. Amen. I need my family. And I need a week to refocus... somehow that's always easier at home. Can't wait. Cannot wait.

I'll try to update from the airport-- I've read that there's free wifi. If not, hasta luego, amigos. I'll catch up with you Stateside!

P.S. Happy 26th Anniversary to my wonderful parents! Boy, am I happy that happened ;)

And so it begins...

Exactly 4 weeks ago today, I left my friends, family and the comfort of 'home' to embark on this adventure in España. And now, here I sit in my very first "I'm a big girl and living on my own" apartment. It has been a whirlwind of a month, and since I haven't posted in, oh, a while (procrastination much?), I think it would be best to begin with a recap... with pictures...

First of all, within the week before I left, I received a very special visit from a very special someone. This was perhaps the most jam-packed, memorable 3 days I could ever have imagined. Tennis, soccer, coffee, movies, napping, risotto, picnicking, dinner with awesome people... basically in-person quality time.
The only downside was that it was also the shortest 3 days imaginable.

Sadness in the car at the airport when he had to leave.

Luckily, we have a long flight across the Atlantic to which to look forward. :)

A few days later, the parents and I headed to the airport for a second time, and this time, I was the one who'd be getting on the plane.

Madre y yo, before the send off.

And then, around 12:30, I was off. After a pitstop in Washington D.C. where I was

Not quite butterflies... but something similar

It's finally starting. My nerves/excitement/oh my god, I'm going to Spain in 12 days feelings are starting to become more pronounced. I've been excited, of course, (I mean, how could I not be), but in between reading some early blog entries of auxiliars who have already gone through what I am about to experience, looking around at the mess packing going on in my room, and realizing it's been a good year and a half since I've spoken some solid español... well, I'm just kind of freaking out.

And another 6 Random Ramblings...

1. Perhaps I should make these random ramblings a weekly occurrence so that several months don't pass between posts.

2. I am currently on Amelia Island, staring out at the Atlantic Ocean. Mom and I have been here for about a week... and I'm afraid it's not been long enough to make me okay with going back to work. The good news is that the rest of my working days are broken up by visits to friends, a wedding, and a visit from Alex (he's my boyfriend!). Then, it's off to Spain!!!

3. SPAIN!!! Oh my goodness. I am leaving for Spain on September 18th and will get to Madrid on the morning of September 19th. Orientation isn't until the 29th so that gives me 10 days to get to Logroño, La Rioja to find an apartment... which could be difficult since the festival of San Mateo will be going on pretty much that whole time. I'm thinking Couch Surfing and a lot of luck will be my main allies in this endeavor. SOOOOOOOOO excited though :)

4. I just downloaded an unhealthy number of ebooks onto my Kindle... and paid nothing for them (yay public domain). Now, I am excited but also a little daunted (by the sheer volume of literature to get through). One (electronic) page at a time...

5. I've been reading this book from the library called Decoding the Universe. It's a history lesson of sorts leading up to the development of information theory and the science behind it. I'm in the middle of a chapter discussing the gentlemen that honed the laws of the behavior of gases and the relationship between work, temperature and energy... Boyle, Charles, Joule. My high school chemistry classes came rushing back to me and I very soon was missing all that knowledge I once possessed. Then he started talking about entropy and the second law of thermodynamics... how entropy (or equilibriumness) is always either constant or increasing. I'm going to stop myself now, but let's just say I was nerding out big time. And REALLY missing math, stat, and science. Maybe I should go back to school...

6. Speaking of school, I've been investigating possible post-Spain adventures and endeavors, including the Erasmus Mundus scholarship for graduate studies in Europe. The program I've fallen for (seriously, my heart speeds up when I read its description) is a Masters in Economic Development and Economic Growth (MEDEG for short)... Just read it again while I was searching for the link. Just got excited again.

Ayayay... :)

10 More Random Ramblings...

... to revive a blog that's been neglected for over half a year.

1. I opened my KINDLE today!!! I haven't yet explored or taken advantage of all its capabilities, but saying that I'm excited would be quite an understatement. Two of my favorite words when next to each other: Public domain. Looks like I will be catching up on the classics as I travel across Europe... which leads me to...

2. I AM GOING TO SPAIN! This September, I will be leaving for an as-of-now-unknown city in the La Rioja autonomous region of Spain. I will be helping teach Spanish kids of some age how to speak English 12-16 hours a week. The rest of the time is mine. My plan for this extravagant free time: 1) become a highly successful private English tutor; 2) experience as much of Europe as possible; 3) learn a third language (français? deutsch?); and 4) apparently catch up on the classics.

3. Speaking of classic literature, I am rereading The Hobbit. I was going to simply move on to The Lord of the Rings, but since it's been... around 9 years (wow) since I've read the prequel, I figured it best to start from the very beginning. J.R.R. Tolkien, I appreciate you much more now than I did in the 8th grade.

4. The fact that I can easily remember things from a decade ago makes me feel old. Another realization: I am almost halfway toward my 10 year high school reunion. Wow.

5. Have you ever had a song that you've listened to for years and then all of a sudden, you listen to it for the ump-teenth time and you finally hear it? That happened to me today. Regina Spektor's "Ghost of Corporate Future." I suppose I owe the revelation to my current status as a recent graduate averse to getting sucked into the cubicle starting block of the 'real world' rat race. Perhaps that's a cynical way to put it... I could be excited about a cubicle if I was excited about the work I was doing in the cubicle... what that might be, I still don't know.

6. My cubicle would be the coolest cubicle on the block. :P

7. I'd really rather not have a cubicle, awesome as mine would be. A non-traditional work-place would suit me much better, I think... again, if only I knew what that meant.

8. I need to write more. Here, in my journal, and just in general. Letters. Yes, I need to write more of those as well.

9. I remember a William Blake quote that I actually first heard in a movie ("P.S. I Love You"): "I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create." I've always wanted to identify with that...


10. I will write again tomorrow.


Good night, blog.


Bonus rambling:
11. Perhaps my blog should have a name. I just named my Kindle 'Lewis' after a favorite author (C.S., not Carroll). Perhaps tomorrow.