Conniption

So, today after finishing up some homework I decided to do some journaling before my next class. Journaling usually takes me back to my days in Spain,just spending my school days writing about the old man in his blue robe, standing outside on his balcony in the apartment complex across from my school. Oh San Cernin, how I DON'T MISS YOU. I'm feeling pretty badly for all my host siblings that are there at the moment...five of them are there. Poor things. Oh the land where history and philosophy teachers wear lab coats. I will never understand. Anyways, I didn't just think of school, I thought of all my amazing moments and memories and that led me to think back to my blog. Where some of my favorite stories are told. I then switch gears and type in my blog url. And that's when I nearly had a conniption. A page came up (that was clearly not my beloved blog) that said "the page can not be found" or reached or whatever internet lingo they use. My began pounding because not all of my posts are saved. I think I've saved maybe September-November of 2010. Yikes. So I better get on that....BUT I was thinking that if I posted a blog now, blogspot wouldn't think I had fallen off the face of the earth. With that, this post is to keep my blog alive. Maybe I should keep writing in this? Tales from Buckeye Nation? We'll see. Speaking of Ohio State, can I just say how much I love this year? I decided to switch my Neuroscience (pre-med) major to International Relations and Diplomacy (I kept the Spanish major as well...of course). I've also recently decided to minor in theatre because I'm in "The Craft of Acting" right now and I never want class to end. It's easily one of the best classes I've ever taken. Last night I asked my dad if it was okay if I went to Broadway...he said, "yeah, sounds great" hahah. And then when I told him that I agreed to run a 15K he said, "Alex, that's not going to happen. Ever." Hmm. Thanks Papi. On that note, have a great Friday everyone!

I Miss The Mountains.

      It's been a little over three months since I've last blogged, but it seems like just yesterday I was writing all about my adventures all over Europe. A big part of the reason I didn't write very much at the end of the exchange was because I was dealing with very personal experiences. Saying goodbye, I have realized, is not an easy thing to do. So basically the my last entries would have consisted of sob story after sob story. Maybe.
    After all those goodbyes, I am now back in the states. It feels good to be back home, to be with my family and friends, to drive my car, to see Chancie...but, and there's always a 'but', it is not always easy. Before I begin to write about how I miss my other life, I want to say that I am very happy to be home and that I am extremely excited about starting the next chapter of my life at OSU this Wednesday. Now, back to the 'but'...I do miss my life. My life. When I see people for the first time they usually ask me how my 'trip' was and I reply with, "absolutely amazing," and they smile and the conversation is over. Not always, but often. I guess I'm struggling because I want people to know that I had a life over there and that while the conditions weren't permanent, my experiences and the people that I have met will have a permanent place in my heart. And that's just it. They're always on my mind, my friends and memories, so I always miss them.
     I realize that this blog is completely all over the place. We can blame that on the time: 1:20 am, and my lack of writing for three months. I was just feeling really nostalgic tonight as I looked back through photos (I had a problem with my iPhoto and thought I had lost all my photos, so I had to spend quite a while trying to figure that out...but I finally found the pictures and imported them back into iPhoto. So, throughout this process I saw all of my pictures from this year). My pictures brought back such great memories. So I miss the beautiful mountains that surround Pamplona and all of its beautiful parks and cafes. I miss my friends and our crazy conversations and our way of truly understanding each other. I miss my host families and their generosity towards me and making this a great experience. I miss the culture. I miss speaking Spanish. I miss walking everywhere and using public transportation. I miss dancing. I miss my other life.
      Having said all this, I want to add that I am so happy I have all these memories now. I am happy that I have loved my exchange as much as I possibly could. And now that all of this is out there, I am ready to finally finish packing and get ready for my next adventure at Ohio State, because by the time next summer rolls around I am going to be blogging about how much I miss my life there, too, and how I can't wait for fall. This is just how I get. It's been a bit of a challenge trying to find my balance again, just as it was for me a year ago in my first few months in Spain. I've tried to keep the stories to a minimum, because I think people get tired hearing about people they don't know and places they haven't been. I don't know, but I seem to get this vibe from time to time. I talk the other Pamplonians (exchange students in my city) quite often. Almost every day in one form or the other. We are all still connected, and we all still care.
    Now I must force myself to stop writing because I have to babysit in the morning. My parents keep telling me that I'm not getting enough sleep as it is and here I am at 1:40 writing about how I miss dancing in Spanish clubs. Silly. Nevertheless, here are my thoughts. Besos!
    

Easier.

      My life used to be easier. I'm sick of making decisions. It's a shame that it happened so soon, because this is only the beginning. I'm going to move to one of those super tiny and remote islands in the South Pacific. You can only visit if you bring bug spray and Resee's and a good attitude. I don't want to solve any more problems at the moment. I want to take the next little boat to my little island and listen to music and eat ice cream until I get super fat but only it won't matter because there will be hardly any people. Or problems. Fabulous! I'm definitely going to bring my dog Chance because he's cute and friendly and I miss him so incredibly much. I think I'll have a zip lining course installed in the trees. That'll be fun. Oooh and Elton John will come have a special performance there and I can sing and listen to musicals all I want without anyone telling me to shut up. Yep. Reality was alright, but I'm over it. I'm going to San Sebastian tomorrow, so I'll just catch a boat from there.
     I actually really am going to San Sebastian tomorrow. I need a day to escape the stress of being here at the moment. Im excited for a day at the ocean. I can wear my new bathing suit, listen to my music, and tan. That's close enough to that imaginary life I just created. I hope the water is warm enough to swim in! Ciao for now.
    

Tabby Kat.

     This past week has a been a crazy one, that's for sure. It's been filled with stress, lots of time out of the house, and goodbyes. On Friday night we all had to say goodbye to Tabea. We went to the Animal Park and sat in our circle and wrote in each others' journals and laughed. After awhile it began to get cold so we moved to Rob's to eat French fries and hang out one last time all together (for now, at least). We played our favorite game that we like to call "mostly".  Mostly is where you say "Who is the most likely to _____." And then we all point at the person we think is most likely to do that particular thing. We also really like to play "Who's who?" Which is just placing ourselves in pop culture/fictional characters. So basically we like to talk about ourselves? I think that's what this is getting to....hahahaha. I always fall into the mom/big sister/wants a family/will have 14 kids and live on a farm/looks like a watermelon in that pink and black shirt category. So that's fun.
    After our time at Rob's we all headed back to Tabs' apartment so she could say goodbye to her host family and we could get her luggage. Her luggage was incredibly heavy, but it was only about a 10-15 minute walk, so we survived. The harder part was actually saying goodbye. We all love Tabs so incredibly much. We've talked about this recently and it's as though we're more than just friends: we are soul mates. We all complete each other so perfectly. I couldn't possibly love them anymore than I already do. So you can imagine how the goodbye was.

     Three days later and I really miss Tabea. I spent so much time with her this year. She is such an amazing woman. I love her to death. I know that we will see each other again...and it may even be this summer, as crazy as that is. I hope it's soon.

Life Goes On.

     What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Life isn't always cupcakes and butterflies and I'm realizing this more and more with each day. Bad things happen to good people all the time and we live in a world where politics can be more important than ethics. It's sad. But it's life. And it's all worth it. Sometimes we feel like giving up when it seems as though the whole world is caving in on you...but we keep fighting. The fighters fight 'til the end. We come out stronger and with more life experience. In a way it's almost a good thing because we learn to appreciate the good things in life so much more. Like eating mint chocolate chip ice cream on a sunny day and playing with your dog in the yard. The little things. They're the best. They're worth it all.

Prontisimo.

      Prontisimo in Spanish means extremely fast, or soon. That is how I feel about what is going on at the moment to some of my exchanger friends. On May 17th all of our host parents received an email from the Rotary member who is the head of exchange in Pamplona. The email stated that those of us who are in Segundo Bachillerato (senior class) will end their exchange on May 20th. At that point it was up to the host families if they wanted to let us stay longer, with permission from our parents in the U.S., taking all responsibility of we students until we fly home. The Rotary here states that we are no longer their responsibility. Three days in advance. The 20th is tomorrow. I am very fortunate to have the host family that I do, because they are willing to let me stay until I leave for the Euro trip with my family (June 11th). On the other hand, some families are not so willing to let us stay in their houses. My friend Tabea is boarding a plane to her home in Germany on Saturday. She's been packing and planning and printing out tickets. She can no longer come to Malaga with the rest of the group, but she's handling everything really well. She is so excited to see her family and friends again in Germany, but sad to leave Pamplona, and as we like to call ourselves, the Pamplonians. Now, Mitchell's situation is a bit more problematic than Tabs' because his current host family says that he must leave on the 20th. There are no flights out of Pamplona before then with such short notice. He needs a place to live. By tomorrow.
     With all this said, I can now tell you what how we've been spending our past couple of days. All of us have been calling home telling our parents to write up permission letters, get them notarized, scanned, and sent to our counselor stating that we're basically no longer exchange students. That was the easy part. Tabs sat in an internet cafe yesterday with her computer in front of her and coffee in hand. We all met her at the cafe and talked in a state of shock once we heard the news about her early departure. We don't want to see her go. Not yet. We were supposed to have a month left with her. Our Tabby Kat. We then left Tabs to talk to her mom and figure things out while we went to the supermarket and a million places down town looking for flyers with places for rent for Mitchell. We got quite a few numbers and held on to them to call later. Natalie and Mitchell went home for lunch and Elle, Athena, and I went to a store to get some bread, cheese, yogurt, and cereal for lunch. We walked to our favorite park and met Tabs there and ate our lunch. We stayed there for hours forgetting about all these problems and laughing about all of our memories while we created more. It was the perfect lunch. Later,  Bex, Nat, and Mitch met us there and we talked while Becca drew cheebies of all of us (cheebies are little animated pictures of people...I don't know the right way to describe them...) and they are so cute!! After an hour or so we left the park to look at hostel prices for Mitchell. On the way I fell for no apparent reason...until I looked down and saw that my new shoes had broken. It was only my second time wearing them so I was sad. Bex reassured me we could super glue them (thank goodness...they were 30 Euro). We went to lots of hostels and found out that they were all pretty expensive...about 30 Euro a night. That's really expensive for a hostel. In Madrid we paid about 12 Euro a night. The we all split up. Mitch and Elle went to another hostel, Nat and Athena went to put money on their bus cards, and Becca and I went to buy super glue. We all met at Athena and Mitch's bus stop. Becca fixed my shoe and then we all went home for dinner. I had fried plantains, cheese, and a banana smoothie. It's one of my favorite meals here :)
      Last night I received the "okay" from the guy in charge here saying that he received the permission from my parents and I can travel and basically do what I want...(because he is not responsible...) Tonight we are all supposed to meet our counselors at 10 in the evening (that's right...PM....seriously?) to get our insurance fund of 400 Euro. I'll be happy to have that money and to be done. I have had an absolutely incredible experience here. I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I can't say it was because of the Spanish Rotary. I was told before I came that the Rotary was not strong. I was asked if I was a strong person and I replied "yes, of course." It's a good thing I am...and it's a great thing that I have amazing exchange student friends here. I don't believe that it is acceptable to throw a student out on the street with three days notice. I don't think that is ethical in any way. Now my friends are in such a pickle (Athena decided this was the best word :P haha). We are making the best of it though, and still having a great time with the time we have all together. Que pena, que pena. Have a nice Thursday everyone.

Bittersweet.

     My year is winding down. It really is starting to come to a close. My friends here are so excited about our Malaga trip at the end of the month and all of my family back home is ecstatic about coming to Europe to visit me and travel and I can't help but not feel a thing. Once I board that bus for Barcelona to see my family, I will have said goodbye to a very special host family and six of my best friends. The weight of this dreaded heart ache gets heavier and heavier with each day. On the other hand, I will be so thrilled to see my family again. I'm counting on it being the best moment of my life...but when set next to all of the depressing goodbyes everything just evens out. I feel so neutral. It's just a very bittersweet situation. So for now, I'm just excited about this moment. I know that I love my life at this moment in time and that is enough. I go crazy when I let all of these other thoughts flood my mind and then I start to freak out...which is never good.
     This year has been beyond my wildest dreams. It's been difficult and wonderful and stressful yet absolutely amazing. I am living my dream. I am speaking a foreign (well not so foreign anymore) language and living in a country an ocean away from my hometown and I did this without not knowing a single person here before September...this is what I've wanted for so long and I'm so happy that I've been blessed with this chance of a lifetime...but I know this is just a chapter in my exciting adventurous life. I don't know exactly what the content of the next chapters will be, but I think I know some of their titles. I needn't worry about all that yet. Tomorrow holds something new and exciting for the Spain chapter: I'm going to jump on the trampoline at Mitch's house with Athena and Tabs. This may not sound like a big thing, but trust me, there are bound to be many funny stories from it.
     I'm happy with today and excited about tomorrow. And that's enough.