Waiting for Chronically Late Students from August 14
so forgive me if this ends abruptly
Since I've been her a little over a year and it was just my birthday and I'm leaving soon I've been doing a lot of reflecting.
It's remarkable that I've actually been here a year. And that I'm heading off into a haze of beach-fantasy and sangria-lust for another foreign country.
And, it's remarkable how different I feel now. I can't even put my finger on it, but there's a steadiness a sureness a confidence that I didn't have before.
I guess it's about experience and growing up and all of those things, but it's not that things have gotten any easier, per se, it's just I'm less skittery. God, it's really hard to pin it down.
I agonized over the decision to move to Barcelona, and I'm still having second thoughts (fleeting ones, don't worry) and I'm still frightened, but I'm certain that I'll be ok whereas before I had faith that I would be ok. I know now that I can land on my feet. That I'm quick and bright and ready to fling myself into life and that that will serve me well
Continued from August 20
So, it's still the same but a week later!
I'm still not ready to leave but oh so ready to leave and I'm not packed and I'm procrastinating packing because it feels like too big a job and I hate saying goodbye because at least when I left the states I knew I could come back but with Prague I don't think I'll come back, maybe for a visit.
Whew.
This is the countdown. 2 more days of teaching, Wednesday and Thursday, and then I'm jumping on a plane on Monday. Yow.
So, that's my life. Have a screaming headache and I wish it was all packed and ready to go. No such luck.
I might not post for awhile... don't know what the situation in Barcelona will be like! Wish me luck in finding a job and a flat!
2 days from August 25
yowza
I’m in SPAIN from August 27
It's real! I'm here! My couch host is really nice and I actually have a bed, and his friend is going to help me tomorrow with getting a phone and looking at flats and going to the beach!!!!! The beach!! Life is great!
Still here... from August 29
...and still happy.
But, like with every new place I'm exhausted. There's so much to pay attention to, the metro, figuring out where to go when I come out of the metro, everything. But, it's a lot of fun too.
I looked at two flats today (4 yesterday) and I love one of them... I hope the flatmates love me :)
It's in a really cool neighborhood (Poble Sec), pretty near the beach and it's got the Barcelona romance that I fell in love with when I was here in April. Charming old buildings with balconies, I could hear birds in one as I was sitting at an outdoor cafe, a street one street over is pedestrian only (well, except where the cross streets cross the pedestrian area), and it really had a lot of charm. And the price is right. The room is small (very small) but the flat is pretty spacious (not huge, I saw a bigger one yesterday) and seems to have a lot of light. The two guys that live there seem nice...
I have 2 more to see this evening (at 8pm and 9.15 of all hours!)
So, remember all the complaining I did about the men in Prague? Well, Spain is the opposite. I was walking up a zillion stairs out of the metro station and this guy was talking to me, seemed like he was complaining about the zillion stairs, so I smiled. And then he said something directly, and I'm so used to saying I don't understand a language, that I said I didn't speak Spanish, and so he said "nice ass". And like an idiot I kept smiling... until I realized what he had said but by then he was long gone.
So, I guess I can't have my cake and eat it too.
So far everyone else has been nice, all the rooms I've looked at are interior so they look out into an air shaft or the stairwell or something, but that's the way it goes. I'm glad I've seen two flats I like (and 4 that I didn't, or that the timing was wrong) so I have faith that I'll find something pretty soon. It's all about timing. The flat has to be free when I need it and I have to get along with the people and they have to like me enough. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it people like me!
So, now I'm off to figure out how to recharge my mobile phone... Can't be that hard, right?
But maybe a short siesta first. That's what Barcelona's all about.
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