Random Chaos

It's early Wednesday morning, meaning a week ago right now I was still on my flight here, not even in Madrid yet. WHAT? That doesn't seem possible, but after a week of being here I think I've experienced every possible range of emotions a person can have. There's just so much coming at you that's new and scary, and then so exciting, and then nerve racking, and then just downright frustrating. My brain doesn't know which one its supposed to be tapping in to at what time. This post is about the past couple days and how things I've done within hours of each other have put in me polar opposite moods.

Sunday was all about trying to schedule classes and look for flights/hostels etc. for trips I want to take during the course of the semester. Definitely shouldn't have attempted to multitask that because it had my head reeling by the end of the day and I was not a happy camper. We went to a nearby coffee shop in Nervion and pushed 3 tables together to accommodate all of our papers/laptops/notebooks and didn't move from there for hours. We only left when we had to go sit down for lunch for 2 hours with our senoras, and from there we walked to a McDonald's (free wi-fi, didn't have to buy anything) and sat for another 3 hours trying to schedule things. At the end of the day, I had just been sitting, staring at a computer for way too long with nothing accomplished, and I was ready to give up. But I'm making it a goal while I'm here to try to get something positive out of every experience, even if it is just a lesson I can apply for later. What can I say I've learned from that experience? Don't do it all. Don't even try. I'm going to A. not worry about classes, I don't really care what I'm in at this point, and B. just plan one trip out at a time and not worry about getting everything squared away. SO I booked a trip to Morocco for 3 weeks from now, yay!

Sunday night was absolutely hilarious, and a total turn-around from the day. Cristina's favorite movie is Pretty Woman (mom, you'd love this woman for lots of reasons, one being you guys can watch together). MC and I watched it in Spanish with her. She also randomly, without us asking her to (we do ask her to do funny things a lot, like say American phrases which she cannot AT ALL), started doing the Gangnam Style dance and saying "pretty woman, pretty woman!"... obviously we cracked up.

The first day of class was crazy: looking for the bookstore to buy, having to go get passport photos taken to give to teachers, getting actual homework to do (I have a 15 minute solo presentation today). And I'm not a fan of freezing cold classrooms, which those were. Tomorrow I'm wearing gloves to take notes. We also took a tour of la Catedral de Sevilla which I'll talk about some other time but we had to meet there at 12:45 and MC and I have such a far walk from our house that by the time we got home from school to drop our backpacks off and then head out for the cathedral, we literally had to run some. When I got there I was dripping sweat and lost; we had to ask policemen where Fernando was (of course they didn't know). We did find our group eventually, and the tour was cool (mostly), but I just hate being late to places. The same thing happened that night when we wanted to go put minutes on our little Sevilla phones and had to make it back for dinner. Getting minutes on the phone was a difficult process in itself, but we also took the wrong way home and ended up in the total opposite direction of our house. After realizing our mistake, and realizing we didn't actually know which way was the right way, we had to ask for directions. We made it back for dinner by like 9:15 but still. So annoying. Two things about all this: I feel like I have good common sense and can usually get my bearings pretty quickly when I go to a new place. When I interned in Charleston I found my way around so easily. I know this is a foreign country but I am still amazed at how I can see an intersection I can be so sure leads one way and can be so wrong. I'm still not even sure I'm taking the right way to class in the morning, and I've walked to the school and home at least 7 times now. The second thing I've learned with this experience and the past couple days is that Spanish is hard! I don't know what I expected coming here but I get so genuinely frustrated and tired of trying to understand everyone all the time and having to communicate back. It takes SO MUCH EFFORT. I'm not complaining, but I just didn't realize how much work my brain does on a daily basis to just listen and form sentences. When you have to make the conscious effort to stay in tune to what teachers are saying, what your senors is saying at meals, what the phone people are saying to you at the store, you just end up so much more tired by the end of the day! Sometimes MC and I just drop the Spanish by dinnertime. We'll something like "Necesitamos hacer la tarea... and then we wanna go get ice cream." Cristina will then say ¿como? and we'll just go "ehhhh never mind." 

I don't have a lot of pictures to go with all this, but I'm sort of just venting here. It's not all fun and games and exploring and trying new foods here, of course, and that's not what I expected at all, its just the adjustment period still. After everything, each day I'm so very happy to be here. The days are gorgeous and mild, Cristina, with all her quirks and strange annoyances, is a great senora to have, I have an awesome roommate, I'm in Europe...I have a lot to be thankful for. That's what I mean by this crazy spectrum of emotions. As frustrating as things can be when I remind myself of these things and my mood instantly changes. I'd love to find a place to do some yoga here, even if its just by myself. I need a little bit of grounding- I think it will help me balance some things out...