Se Acaba la Aventura/The Adventure Ends

One week from today I leave for the United States. After 3 months and 3 weeks, I finally will be returning home. It has been a wonderful ride, and now that I have reached the point where it is about to end, I'll admit that I will miss it here. I came to the realization that, after Portland and Boston, Spain is my next home. I have spent more time here than I have in any other place in the US. The rest of this post will be my attempt to cover all the aspects of Spain that I will miss when I go back home.

I will miss the food here. Some of my fellow preshquitos probably won't agree with me, but I have really enjoyed the food I've had with my host family. The Spanish diet consists mainly of meat and bread. That's what I always imagined my banquet in heaven would have. I think when we first arrived here the PRESHCO program directors purposely served us really scary things so that when we got to our host family's house we would be more open to the slightly different foods they have. My favorite food here is tortilla de patata aka tortilla española. It's a kind of tort thing that is made up of potatoes and eggs and a little bit of onion. I am going to try to make it when I get home. My second thing I've had here is this chicken with onion sauce that my host mother makes. Yum. I will also miss having a huge pig leg just sitting in the kitchen. Some nights I would walk into the kitchen and see my host father Rafa just slicing pieces of ham off for us to have with whatever was our main dish. We'd always have a side plate filled with ham and cheese. I would eat so much of that.

The best nutella crepe ever

The desserts here are to die for. I recently found out that our hotel in Madrid the night before we leave won't be anywhere near the heart of the city, where both my napolitana and crepe stores are located. So it would seem that I will not get my final nutella crepe, and chocolate napolitana. My heart is broken. I will just have to try to make myself a nutella crepe when I get home. I love how there are lots of nutella desserts here. Ice cream toppings that taste like nutella, candy bars that taste like nutella, etc. The US needs to get on that, seriously. Sigh. I am going to miss the dulces.

I will be sorry to leave my host family. I have enjoyed talking with them during lunches and dinners. My host father Rafa is funny, and they are both always really great about answering any questions I may have about anything. I don't have a photo of my host father still. Hopefully I remember to take one before leaving. That'd be really sad if I didn't remember to do that. Everyone in the family is so nice. My host mother and father, my host sisters Mery and Ara, their husbands Niklas and Joaquin, and all the kids, Belen, Nesta, And Zoila. It's just been so great. And Ara's little baby, Joaquinillo is too cute for words. I got to hold him one time, and it was awesome. I love holding babies. Until they cry. Then I can give them back to their parents. I'm so grateful to have had this wonderful family, because after hearing some of the horror stories my fellow preshquitos have told, I know that it could have been very different.

I am going to miss how life in Spain is much more relaxed than in the US. Both with regard to education and just normal day to day business. In stores the workers aren't frantically running around, snapping at you for your order. You can sit in a cafe for hours, and they will only come up to you asking if you want anything once, right after you sit down. They won't keep pestering you, and they won't ever ask you to leave. They don't have places to get coffee to go, because nobody is ever in such a hurry that they don't have time to sit down. Nobody will ever knock you over in the street because they're in such a rush to get to wherever it is they are going. My classes have not been demanding, even the course where I'm directly enrolled in the University. Going back to Wellesley is going to be a bit of a shock, where the work is actually demanding.

My Sevillanas dance class has been probably my favorite activity here in Spain. I don't know why, but I love it so much. This coming Friday we have our final performance. Hopefully I don't forget it all. I need to remember to ask one of my friends to record me and my partner dancing. I just hope we don't mess up during the final performance. My mom is going to throw a Spanish themed New Year's party, and she wants me to teach everyone how to dance the Sevillana. That should be a lot of fun. I finally figured out how to make my hands look good while I dance. Usually I can get the feet to look right, but my hands always look out of place. This time though, I think I've got it.

Finally, I will miss having to speak Spanish a lot. I asked my host parents last night at dinner if my Spanish has improved, and they said yes, so I was really thrilled to hear that. Maybe my choice to go to Spain over the UK was the right decision. I love speaking in Spanish. I didn't get to do it as much as I would have liked, but every meal with my host parents was completely in Spanish. I hope that when I go back to the US that I find enough opportunities to keep speaking the language. I'm not fluent, and I probably never will be, but I can make my way around without a translator, so that's not bad.

My favorite at Cafe y Te, a Bora Bora

So marks the end of a wonderful 4 month adventure. I will have to try to find a way to return. The optimistic person in me insists that I will end up coming back some day. Querido España, aunque no soy de aquí, todavía me aceptaste como tu propia hija, y por eso estoy agradecida. Te extrañaré con toda la fuerza de mi corazón, pero no te preocupes. Yo te encontraré otra vez. And with that, there is nothing left to say except: ¡Viva España!

The Things You Miss

Me and my Soul Roommate

Today is December 1st, so my semester abroad in Spain is officially drawing to a close. I figure I will dedicate my last few posts to reflecting on my time here. Today I'm going to talk about the things you find yourself missing the most when you spend time in another country: both expected and unexpected. The obvious ones are my friends and family, my dog, my home state, my sport, my university, and just the feeling of belonging. No matter how well I blend in because of the fact that I can for the most part pass as being Spanish, there will always be moments when you feel utterly American, and you know that others know it. Examples usually involving talking to people in stores. My Spanish is pretty good, but it is clear within a few sentences that I am not fluent. What I hate the most is when they start speaking to you in English. When they start doing that I stubbornly refuse to respond to them in English. If it is a waiter, they may spend the rest of my time there speaking to me in English, and I will continue to speak in Spanish.

Me playing Squash for Wellesley

Anyways, I digress. Another expected thing you find yourself missing is the food. What I found for me was, it wasn't so much home cooked meals that I missed. I eat excellent home cooked meals every day with my host family. What I have missed most are all my favorite restaurants/fast food places: Papa Johns, Thai food, Sushi, Vietnamese pho, the Indian place at the mall back home, and last but certainly not least, Chipotle/Qdoba. Everyone laughs at that, but if you surveyed all the PRESHCO students, the fast food joint that everyone misses the most is Chipotle. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

Gingerbread houses with the Girls

Now the things you find yourself missing that you never would have expected. Starbucks. They are everywhere in the US, you can't walk more than two blocks without seeing one. We complain about how many there are, but then you go to Spain and there might be one in only the bigger cities. There is no Starbucks in Cordoba. Every chance I got I made sure to buy myself a chai tea latte from Starbucks. I have had 3 total in my semester here. Every time I could it was amazing. Just something that is so familiar, so much like home. The concept of getting hot drinks to go is not really embraced here in Spain. I tried to explain it to my host parents, and they concluded that we Americans are just in much more of a hurry than they are.

Me with my parents

Another thing I find myself missing is efficiency. Just in general. It's horrible to stereotype, but even the Spaniards admit that they aren't the greatest about such things as timeliness. A phrase that is used all the time here is "No pasa nada," which means "Nothing's going on" or more commonly "It's all good." So you could be trying to get somewhere, and the bus is really really late, and the people in charge of the bus will be like, "No pasa nada." Being late doesn't really bother them, which is something that drives me nuts. Also, most stores take FOREVER to do anything. There could be 15 people standing in line, and there will only be one cash register open. And they won't call anybody else over to help get the line moving faster. I was at a Starbucks once, and there were three people working, but one of them just stood off to the side chatting with her co-workers, and the other two just kind of moseyed along. In these moments, I miss the frenzied atmosphere of the US. At least stuff is getting done.

Me and my sister representing our home state Oregon

All in all, there are a lot of things I can't wait to experience again when I get back to the US. I'm excited to see all the Christmas decorations everywhere, which don't seem to be quite as popular here. I have loved being in Spain, and in a later post I will talk about all the things I will miss after I'm gone. I will end this post with a picture of the thing that always lets me know that I'm home after I land in the Portland Airport.