It Couldn't Possibly Already Almost Be Over, Right?

The title says it all. This trip was too short. While everyone else here is for the most part on their first trip abroad or away from home at all, and they are counting down the hours until they are home, I'm wishing we could stay here longer. I've been in their shoes before, but I'm glad I'm not right now.

The more comfortable I am with a place the more I love it. I love being able to wander the streets alone and find my way home again. Today I walked around by myself for I think the first time in all of the seven weeks. My heart was heavy. I knew exactly which stores would likely have what items I was looking for. I knew what prices were good and which were complete tourist traps. I knew the names of some of the streets and neighborhoods and passed some of my favorite spots in this beautiful city. 

Spain is crazy. Spain is beautiful and so much like I expected it to be, and also nothing like I expected it to be.

It was easy for me, comfortable. The shower has hot water, and even though the tap water tastes like pennies you don't die or even get sick, not even a tummy ache, if you drink it. I had a bed here with a mattress, and who needs a door anyway? My clothes were washed for me, in a... get this- washing machine, and hung on line to dry. They drink fanta here, just like every Spanish speaking country in the world, or so I'm convinced. They eat weird food, but they have a McDonald's next to a Burger King in the city center. I've had dunkin donuts here twice, but I've also eaten Spanish Tortilla (which is probably not what you think it is), and pisto, delicious pisto, man I'll miss the pisto con huevos fritos, gazpacho galore, fried calamari, more gazpacho, and so on.

Some things are different. Others not.

Spain isn't America, Spain isn't Michigan or Ohio or any city I've ever visited in the US of A, but for Spain too, I can now use that happy little four letter word. Home.

I can't even write this because my eyes are flooding and I have to keep my act together to avoid having to explain my emotions to Angelita in Spanish, because  that'd be a challenge. 

Two days ago Angelita, my host mother, told me she would cry when I leave. She's gotten used to having me here, coming home to me, and cooking me dinner. She's gotten used to me on walks and in her car driving to Angela's to take a swim. I teared up when she told me she would cry when the time to say goodbye came.

It's strange how your heart acts in foreign countries. Maybe it's just me but it's so much easier to welcome strangers into your heart when everything around you is new and different. 

Literally not sure I can keep writing this that's how in love with Angelita I am. 

Blinking back the tears.

If you know me at all, or at least me cerca 2007, you probably know my passion for the television show Gilmore Girls. Before I left I was scared of what a Spanish family would be like. I knew little but I did know that I was living alone with a mom, but I knew she had a daughter, among a few other things. I said to my mom, the real one who birthed me and so on, "maybe they'll be like Lorelai and Rory". Angelita and her daughter Angela laugh everyday until they cry at least once a day. They care for Angelita's mother Juanita when she comes to stay from Madrid, and daily, hourly, every minute and second love baby Irene to pieces. Among the many other members of the family the four generations of these women that I've met, lived with, shared meals with, laughs with, and more are by far the closest I've come to a live version of Lorelai, Emily, Lorelai II, and Lorelai III (Rory). Again if you know me, you know how much that means to encounter.

Its about being 21 and having your mother take your plate and take the fish off the bones for you then taking the bones off you plate so you don't have to look at them while you eat. Which is what just happened. She takes care of me. She feeds me nisperros, which are one of the strangest fruits I've ever eaten. She does it all because she knows I'm foreign, and being foreign makes you feel like you're 7-years-old all over again. You're lost and you're hot and you're grumpy, you want nothing more than your mom, and for her to buy you a Happy Meal. You don't know how much money something costs so you just hand over a bill that you know must be big enough and hope they give you correct change. The currency is strange and you can't understand the language is pretty much the same as what US dollars and English is to a 7-year-old.

Okay so I'm all over the place here: sorry. Maybe it's a perfect reflection of how all over the place I am in life. I'm already 21 and in Spain with quite the track record for travel and packing and taking classes and eating weird food and learning foreign languages. I'm only 21 with barely the next day of my life planned let alone the next year, two weeks of solitude and adventure await and then onward to that fabulous house I once lived in for another two weeks of even more adventures. I'm lost and I'm found. I think that wraps it up perfectly.

I'm not sure I'm ready to leave, but I'm definitely ready to go. That's how I usually feel around this phase of my travels. All I can say is: thank goodness I have two weeks left on my European adventure. I'm not ready to be done exploring, and I'm in desperate need of some alone time.

May you all be lost and yet found as well.

(Also my card reader is broken and has been for several weeks so I can't upload any photos... Sorry! Hoping to get a new one this week!)