When Poverty Strikes in Europe

Alright, this is for all you fools out there who think you want to go to Europe. PSA- you don't.

Europe is expensive and all you do is spend time running after a 10 cent Euro coin when it falls out of your purse and rolls down a hill.

In Europe you want food from home but not only can you not afford McDonalds... but you can't afford a bag of Doritos at the corner market.

In Europe everything is beautiful and right in front of your eyes, it looks like Epcot in Disney World and every day here I spend pinching myself telling myself that this actually is the real deal. But it costs money. (The other day in Segovia I went inside the castle that inspired the Cinderella's castle that is at Disney World, and is also used as the Disney Logo, like the real castle...  like where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella lived, slept, ate, entertained, prayed, and you know lived)

Europe mocks and taunts us American students who work for the equivalent of 6.50 Euros in an hour. An hours worth of work for not even enough for a meal at McDonalds. Nope.

I literally crawled under a table today in public to fetch my fallen 10 cent Euro coin.

We do it for the weekend trips. We do it for the beach, for the trains, for the sketchy ride board transportation that is all we can afford. We do it for the planes. The Eiffel Tower. The Prado. The beach. The busses. The peanuts bought at the bus station. The hostels. The hostels with free croissants in the morning that are fresh and soft and warm. We do it for the very small gifts we buy for our friends and family - cough cough emphasis on the very small, don't get your hopes up people -, we do it for the Catacombs, sleeping in rooms with strangers, eating food we've never tried. Did I say we do it for the beach?

After it all, when were tired, dirty, smelly, hungry, thinking about getting on our hands and knees in public because our feet hurt so badly from walking all day, you know, ...after it all, we do it for the memories. The memories are worth every single 10 cent Euro coin I've ever chased in the past and that I will ever chase in the future.

Man, what would life be without this amazing world to experience it in?

Another Day

Another great day feeling completely at home here in Spain. Classes are giving us all so much homework it's been hard to even have time to leave our houses. Were all pretty bummed about that, but living with these people has been the best two weeks. I can't wait to have more time to post about Irene's 1st birthday party. 

Fried ... Something

Today I went for a walk with Angela, Angelita, and Irene to walk one of Angela's student, Alfonso, home after tutoring. His mom studied abroad in Rodchester, New York for a year when she was in college I believe and so it was fun to meet her and speak a bit of English. 

I had a long day of very frustrating homework and Angela who is studying English and also a teacher felt bad, she tried to help, and to be honest it was very funny to realize I'm always living with a teacher wherever I go. 

Anyway after I looked rather frustrated she told me I'd been working for too long and after she finished with Alfonso we'd go on a walk. 

The walk led to the choice of seafood or pizza for dinner, of course I said "no me importa" it doesn't matter because let's face it I was just thrilled to eat out! 

Seafood it was and I had my first try of well.. I'm not sure what it was. But I was assured it was seafood and not "meat" (they are both very good about that stuff) Angelita started piling stuff on my plate to try telling me which I could eat the whole thing and which I could use my hands on. For someone who has never eaten what was served to us in my life let alone after 3 years as a vegetarian and only a few months as a pescatarian let's all give me a round of applause for just going for it. In Spanish the verb is probar- or to try, as in to try a fried calamari, and squid, and anchovies, and fish. One big plate of mystery fried seafood. With bread and sangria of course. I must say, it was delicious. Like really I mean that. Being a pescatarian has proven to make me quite the happy person in life, tonight validated my desicion. 

It was so fun to go out to dinner with them, they strangely feel like family. I've never had a family abroad that has so included me in their everyday lives as much as they already have. On Sunday we go to Angela's for dinner, all I understood was that this week they aren't having paella, Angelita was quite disappointed by this hahahaha. 

I could go on but it's late and I'm so exhausted. Really I am. Too much Spanish and thinking and school and translation and walking and heat and baby and weird food and being lost and too much. 

When we got home we took off our shoes and I showed Angelita my yoga mat shoes to say she was fascinated, thrilled, over the moon, enamored, would be a huge understatement. In a country where they only wear fancy heels and leather wedge sandals yoga mat shoes are probably the most comfortable thing she has ever put on her feet. 

She's amazing today she laughed at me until she cried on at least three different occasions. Really I love her. I can't imagine leaving in just 6 weeks. Watch me scrap all my travel plans to get to stay with her. Haha, unlikely but still. She is amazing, wonderful, happy and she feeds me well most of the time, but tries to feed me well allllll of the time. I'll have to spend time writing out small stories from my walks and adventures with Angelita later but for now voy a dormir, I'm going to sleep. Hasta mañana, buenos noches.

Where Do I Begin?

Well, here goes nothing. I've officialy wrapped up my first week here in Spain, Wow. If you had told me to guess how it would be a week ago there is no way I would ever have guessed it would be so wonderful. Really please don't mind if this blog post is the most scatter brained thing you've read all year, I honestly have no idea of where to begin.

How about with my host family? Angelita is my host mom, and she lives alone, well not now that I'm here. I think she likes having me around for some company at the end of the day but at the same time there is no part of her that is lonely. Everyday her daughter Angela comes over and eats lunch here with me before she heads to work. She teaches English to young students and also taks English classes herself. She is very kindand works very hard to get me to just speak Spanish without thinking about every word I say. Possibly, no most definitly the best part of this family is Irene. Everyday Angela brings her daughter Irene over to my house so that Angelita can watch her while Angela goes to work. I get to play with her and hold her ands shes the happiest litle chubby cheeked kid I've ever met.

Angelita works very hard to only feed me food that I like and every time she makes something new she says "you can just tr it first" which is much appreciated because I feel like I can always say I don't like it. Every time I've ever traveled abroad I've been served food I don't really like. Nepal, Mexico, and Morocco weren't my ideal meals, but here I actually really like most of the food she make. Everything is fresh and flavorful, its much healthier than at home and not as heavy. One thing I've learned about Spanish cuisine in the past week is their love for olive oil, they will put it on anything, and to be honest they will drown anything in it. Last night watching her put olive oil on our salad bowl I thought she would've stopped pouring a good 73 seconds before she did. She tries to feed me a lot especially bread, she loves bread as do all Spaniards but Angelita especially, she owns a bread store a few miles from town, and from the sounds of it from everyone else in our group of students I have the freshest bread at my house.

The classes seem more or less simple. I'm taking Introduction to Literature, Advanced Linguistics, and a Modern Languages class. I have class Monday through Thursday 9 am to 11 am and then I'm done for the day. I usually go home after and eat lunch with Angela once she gets here. Things are sometimes difficult because I don't have internet access in my bedroom so I can only be in contact with people if I sit in the living room where everyone wants to speak to me in Spanish and where Irene is, who always throws fits if I don't let her play with my computer or my phone, which is not always favorable since she's you know not even one-year-old yet and is in the phase of throwing whatever she can get her hands on across the floor.

The group of students here from Ohio University is amazing. I'm already good friends with some of them. Every weekend for the most part we have free to go explore and go on European adventures. So when I arrived later than expected on Monday morning, my bags didn't. So I had to wait until Wednesday to get them. The difficult part was that no one knew what time they would be coming so I had to spend the entire day at home. Of course Wednesday was the day that everyone met up to plan excursions and trips for the weekends. So- when I showed up to class Thursday morning, showered and clean and smelling pretty, Taylor one of my already good friends here looked at me after class around 11 am and said "yeah hey want to go to Paris with us this weekend?" Because I'd already begun to feel left out, because I didn't want to miss out, because I wanted to make friends, because I didn't have other plans, because it's Paris and I'm in Spain and, because it's Paris do I even need another reason than that of course I said yes. I mean after all I went to India for a weekend once pretty much just to see the Taj Mahal, why not go to France for a weekend pretty much just to see the Eiffel Tower?

So I guess I'm a little travel rebel. But hey crap tons of euros later and here I am back in Spain able to say I've seen Paris. While we obviously didn't have time to see everything we woke up in a hostel where we got free breakfast of tea and croissants, we made it into the Catacombs after a 3 hour wait, which was absolutely crazy, shopped a little, made stops at the Louvre, Love Lock bridge where we even bought our own locks, we saw the Arc du Triumph from a distance, saw Notre Dame, had some lunch, exchanged some money and ended with a picnic under the Eiffel Tower. We rode the metro all day and never really got lost. It was absolutely crazy to be honest. We pulled it off, Paris in a day. And while yes we could have spent much more time there and actually gotten in to all of the marvelous places we visited, it was still one of the coolest prettiest most memorable places I've ever been. And while yes I still hope to go back one day and have time to spend in the Louvre and all, for a one day trip with three new friends as a 21-year-old I'd say my trip kicked some major weekend butt.

Exhausted, poor, and still lost in Toledo is how I am now. So hopefully that gives you enough background of what I'm up to! Photos to come later!

Okay, Really Though... I Have a Good Excuse

I know I've been terrible about blogging. With three classes here in Toledo I've been busy but also, this weekend I went with three new friends to explore Paris! So there! Hah! I told you I had a good excuse... I'll blog it all soon with photos too! I promise! Until then, good night for now, hasta luego!

La Tierra

Okay, I know I need to post. I'll be better I promise, but to be perfectly honest I'm simply too busy having a wonderful time! 

My first two days in Spain have been amazing! My host mother is wonderful, truly truly wonderful, and I'm already thinking in Spanish. 

I'm not sure I have collected thoughts yet.

I could tell you what I'm eating and what it looks like. 

I could tell you the long dramatic story of my journey over here and then how they lost my luggage. I could tell you about how I cried on my birthday. I could tell you how tired I was, I could tell you about the dogs here and the firemen cleaning the cathedrals for the celebration of Corpus Christi. I could tell you about my passionate love for Irene. I could tell you about my bed and my view and it all. 

But today while walking around, I realized something, and that is that walking around on ground that isn't flat is just better. Stone rodes, pebbles, coble stone, bricks, dirt, gravel, and muddy rice paddies, if you can feel what it is beneath your feet you're doing something right.

So that's my first prophetic statement from Spain. May you feel the ground beneath your feet wherever you go. May you realize the land, the history, the culture, the food, the language and all that comes with walking where you walk. And heaven forbid you walk somewhere with none of those beautiful aspects, may you leave in search of a feeling beneath your toes! It's worth it. I promise.

Adios por ahora, voy a salir para pasar tiempo con mis amigos nuevos! 

One Day Away!

I cannot believe how the time has flown! I'm only one day away from leaving for Spain!

Things have been crazy as I wrapped up my junior year and headed home to Michigan for the last week.

I've been sad to head out again so soon; I'm home sick already. It's been quite a few years of traveling and constantly being on the move, and it has gotten me to a point of just wanting to stay home for some stability. But hey- what's the fun in stability when you can have experiences planting rice, riding camels, taxi rides, yak cheese momos, Guelaguetza parades, rocks in your shoes, sun burns on Monte Alban, goat cheese in Chefchaouen, Hindu weddings, birthday celebrations for the Dalai Lama at a Tibetan refugee camp, babies sleeping in your arms, cactus for lunch, bus rides, train rides, bug bits the size of an orange, bucket laundry, motorcycle rides, getting scratched by a wild monkey, seeing a wild elephant, canoe rides, elephant rides, bike rickshaw rides in Old Delhi, auto rickshaw rides from the Taj Mahal to the Red Fort, mint tea, chai tea, avacado smoothies for breakfast, the chance to be asked to wear a headdress and speak to Shawafas, hugs goodbye, tears goodbye, countless new friends, never ending memories and stories to share, not to mention a GAZILLION photos to go along with it. Okay so maybe I'm not ready for stability, not if I think of all the endless gifts my travels have given me thus far.

So here I am one day out from nine weeks of travel through Europe. I will head out on Saturday from Madrid and take a bus to Toledo, where I will live, with my host mother, Angelita, for seven weeks. Today I had the gift of hearing from an old friend who traveled to Toledo last summer with Ohio University for the Spanish language program as well. The great news? She found out that I will be living with her same host family. She offered some amazingly helpful tips as well as helped calm any worries I could ever have. And now? Now I am so excited.

The best part of traveling is becoming a part of a family with someone abroad, finding a place that you fit in, in there culture, in their society, in their world.

While I'm not completely sure where my last two weeks in Europe will take me, I am making my final stop Sarajevo where I will take my flight to London, stay for a night, and then head back to Detroit. Plans are to see Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Zagreb, Croatia sometime during my journey. I cannot wait to see all that Europe has to offer me on this trip.

As I finish up my packing and spend my last day with my family I can only hope that this summer will be yet another one filled with many great travels. The summer I turned 21 I went to Europe, here goes nothing!