Early Mornings Make Me Productive (By Spain Standards)

This morning I agreed to help Cristina out with Nico. She can't pick him from his crib/stroller so she can't really have him over if MA or someone else to help out isn't around. But Jairo needed to go to work today and I figured, hey, what do I really need to go to my last day of class for anyway when there's a cute baby that needs my help!? So I woke up at 7 with Cristina to be awake when Nico arrived. And here I am sitting on the couch 2 and a half hours later- he's finally fallen asleep. But I'm up and at em' now, and I've already missed class, so why not take the time to go back and journal some things that have slipped through the cracks in this whirlwind of a last month I've been having? 

MC left almost 2 weeks ago. That's just crazy to me! That means I have just one more week left in Sevilla. In exactly one week from right now I'll be in Lisbon, waiting on my long flight back to America. Say whhhaaaaattt?? The summer study abroad students arrived  last Friday, so almost exactly a week ago. That means that they're already done with 1/5 of their entire experience in Sevilla. That's even crazier to me. I can't imagine only coming abroad for a summer now that I have spent so long here. It seems kind of sad to me, come to think of it. They get a teaser of what it's like to be living abroad, but they can never get fully immersed, can never build lasting relationships with their host families, can never travel to all the places they undoubtedly want to see while in Europe. Actually, I don't think any amount of time is totally satisfactory. If I were here for a year, I would still find things I've missed out on, knots left untied and items on my to-do list left unchecked, and I would probably think to myself, "how could anyone only come here for a semester!? You just can't do it all in 5 months!" But hey, all we have are the experiences that are our own and I can't help comparing what they're experiencing to whatever I've gone through. I have a couple friends here, studying for the summer, and I wanted to meet up with them last weekend when they arrived. They were at Hotel Alcazar, where I began my journey, and as soon as I stepped inside I was immediately sent back to January when I first arrived in Spain, in a total state of shock and awe, having absolutely no idea what was going on or what lay ahead. I meant to just walk around with the two of them, but it turned out that lots of the other summer folks wanted to see some of the city too, so I ended up giving a mini tour to the bunch. Marian wanted to sit and have a coffee after so we went to Cafe de Indias, which just so happened to be the very place MC and I went to on our first day. Talk about a flashback, woah. 

And as I watch my new roommates (yes, I have two now) across the table from me at meal time, I see myself 5 months ago. Only now, when Cristina talks I can half listen and still know what she's talking about, and way back in the beginning I would be hanging out to every word, trying to make sense of what she might be talking about based on random vocabulary I could pick out (which was not very often). And now, when I want more bread, I get up and get it without thinking twice. And now, when I'm ready to be done eating I know how to semi-interrupt C in a non-rude way, let her know what's up, and finish lunch on my own time. Now, I have so many inside jokes and funny stories with C that we never run out of things to talk about, never need the TV or the radio to keep from having an awkward silence. Now, sometimes I just want to keep sitting at the table, talking, long after I've finished eating, because really, I have nowhere to be and I'm cherishing the last few meal times we have together. 

Things that are hilarious about the new dynamics in the house: 

-Spaniards in general are so funny about vegetarians. They respect that many Americans' are, but they definitely don't understand the whole concept. One of the girls is, so on one of the first days she asked why. Well. When she said "it was a personal choice," I thought it was over. Turns out, she dug herself deeper when she said "I've been a vegetarian for 2 years." Cristina goes off, then, saying "I understand why if your parents are and you've been raised that way your whole life, or if you have a condition and you can't eat meat..." etc. etc., all reasons that are acceptable for vegetarianism; personal choices, randomly out of the blue one day, are not one of them. She then doesn't hesitate to explain that she needs to go see a doctor to make sure she's getting the right nutrients, and there's no way she is with the way she's eating right now, and that she's worried for her. HAHAH, it's been 3 days and she's already telling her she knows what's best. That's Cristina for ya, gotta love it.
-Spaniards also don't worry about hurting feelings/being politically correct, and you have to have tough skin sometimes, or just learn to let things roll off your back. I hope this chica has. The same girl (vegetarian) just happens to be pretty young for study-abroad age and is just a small person in general (in stature, voice, actions...she's just really petite and quiet). Cristina compared her to her 6-month-old grandson, saying how all he does is eat and sleep and that's all she does too. I looked at her like she might not want to say that, but she just kept going, and even asks her multiple times a day, "Are you going to nap now, little baby?" Also hilarious.
-I've learned lots of things to do and not to do around the house, like to unplug the toaster, don't leave toothpaste in the sink, leave the window open after showering, don't shut doors loudly, DEFINITELY don't hang your clothes up outside...okay so they've never done that but they're still learning the ins and outs of the house and I am loving being on the other side of it. I know I'm not at all, but I feel so wise, sitting in my room hearing her lecture the new girls about something they've forgotten to do. Or like when I spent one night earlier this week watching Ted in Spanish with MA and C in the living room and the girls went out to "explore" as they say (and as MC and I used to say when we were in their shoes). When they came back I could hear them coming up the stairs and all I could think to myself was "so this is what Cristina always hears when I'm the one coming back." And then the trouble with opening the door- I remember so clearly learning how to work the keys, and how when I would come in she would be there in her chair, craning her neck to look back at us and say "Que?? Dificultad con la puerta??" I hear them outside now, fiddling with the door, and I started to get up to help them with it and C just goes, "tranquila, hija, necesitan aprender," meaning, "let them figure it out." That's just what we did, and that's what they'll do eventually, too. But right now, they're just so fresh and new to everything in Sevilla, seeing it all with bright eyes, which makes me feel all the more like a seasoned vet. I know I'm not, I know there's so much more I've got to experience here, which is a great feeling and one that makes me so sad to leave, because I know I'll never feel "ready" to go back. I'll be ready to see family and to eat the foods I want again, but I'll never have another semester like this in my life and to think that its already happened, its over now, is not something I'll really want to come to grips with. 

Basically, over the past week I've been hit with the emotions of excitement to get off that plane in Charlotte, such contentedness with feeling so at home in Sevilla (especially when I see first-hand the alternative, the new kids meandering the street, wide-eyed and almost surely lost), the bittersweet feeling of my classes coming to an end, meaning I am almost done with studying (if it can really be called that) but also meaning I'll be a senior and that much closer to facing the real world, nervousness about what's to come next when I get home and actually have to search for a job, and total gratitude for my friends here who already know what I might be thinking/feeling on any given day because they're going through it too.