Diary of a sola traveler 1

(For the next week and a little bit I will be traveling around Spain. I'm keeping a journal with me wherever I go and I'll be transcribing those entries here when I get the chance.)

Feb 23, 2012
As I sit here in the airport, I'm slowly coming to terms with what is set right in front of me. I'm about to embark on a week and a half of adventure...alone. It's no secret that I thrive when I'm with people and that I hate being alone. But this journey is going to be me filled with my own thoughts. Just right now, I am sitting at the airport waiting. There's nothing to do and nothing to see. And noone to talk to. I'm sure this will be a common situation on this trip and I'll have to learn to deal with it.
I remember the first time I flew alone. I had just come back from Guatemala with CTI in highschool and I was flying back home. I'm sure I was nervous, but I knew what was doing and it went smoothly.
And I have gone many places not knowing anyone before and I havemade friends easily. But in all these cases, I was in situations where I met people in the same situation or program as myself.
This time, though, I travel solo through and through. I'm not just hopping on a flight by myself or meeting up with a program. This is all me. Iknow two years ago I would never have been able to do this. But I have grown since then and have gotten comfortable with what used to be outside of my comfort zone. No now I head even outside of these new regions of my comfort zone. I will need to be vigilant, outgoing, and I think most importantly I will need to have confidence in myself. I am more capable than what I give myself credit for.

My favorite quote is "A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what they are built for."

So with that being said...
...here I go!

---------




Well I made it to the city and got situated in my room and then I decided to just take a relaxing stroll. Being good with directions, no map was needed for where I was going. I guess that helped a bit with the nerves. I strolled along Lad Ramblas with my head high and my hand on my purse and now I am sitting in the warm sun in Placa Catalunya, or Placa Pidgeon as I like to call it. Now, I'm sitting on the far side of the Placa from where I came from and to get to this seat, I had to cross this sea of birds. All was going well and I was watching where I was stepping when, all of a sudden, something disturbed them and I was caught in the middle of a huge pidgeon "flypede" (I can't call it a stampede since they weren't doing any stamping). I'm lucky I got out of there with a clean head, but I'm pretty sure a pigeon wing collided with my head.

---------

22*C and time for the beach! From Placa Catalunya I took a relaxing walk down past the statue of Columbus and on down to the beach. Today is such a beautiful day. The sun is shining, I don't even need to wear a coat, and there are so many people out and about. This is the Spain that I love. It's amazing how many people are out on the beach, too. I guess they're as excited about the surge of warm weather as I am. Luckily for me, though, it's still cool enough that everyone's still wearing their clothes.

Barcelona weekend Feb 9th-12th

Last weekend I flew up to Barcelona. You can find really cheap flights around here and this was a perfect example. Round trip from Malaga to Barcelona was a mere 25€. that's cheaper than a bus to Madrid from here.
Anyway, it was a great weekend. We spent one day at Park Guell which is a stunning display of Gaudi's architecture. It was so evident how much inspiration he gets from nature because so much just blended in beautifully with the surrounding plants and trees.

We also went to the Sagrada Familia. Last time I was there, the interior was still unfinished and there were construction walls blocking the view of the center. But now, all that construction is already done and it is a working church. It was absolutely breathtaking. Besides all of the detail, one thing I loved was that the floors were so basic and all of the detail and art in the architecture was above your head. So you were constantly looking up. The way that it should be all the time.

Another thing this trip that we did that I didn't do last time was climb up Montjuic. It wasn't so much a "climb" as a long walk uphill but once we got to the top the views of the city stretched all the way to the other side where the mountains cut off the expansion of the city. On top of Montjuic is situated the old fortress castle overlooking the port. Thongs like this just don't exist in the US. Also on top of this "mountain" is the Olympic stadium, lots of gardens and a "Pueblo Español." we didn't go into the pueblo because it just houses examples of the famous places and landmarks of places in Spain. We'll be seeing all of these things in real life eventually. I feel so lucky about that!

The last night we ended up staying up all night to catch our flight at 6am. It was tough to stay awake for all that travel and I think I came down with a cold because of it. But it was definitely worth it.

Que toda la vida es sueno...

...y los sueños, sueños son.

Yesterday I had my first dream in Spanish! I usually don't remember my dreams so it's possible I've had dreams in Spanish before but I think this is a great stepping stone. :) I don't remember much of it, since dreams have a tendency of floating back to the clouds where they came from, but I remember that a couple of the teachers in my school were in it.

Also yesterday, I taught dance in my two PE classes. I taught them some basics of hip hop and then taught a short dance to some choreography that I came up with. It was so amazing. Dancing and choreographing are two things I love to do. It made my day. I miss it so much and I wish I had more of an outlet for it, but I'll take what I can get. The kids loved it and begged the teacher if I could do it again so I think the week before Semana Santa after their PE exam I will do another day of dancing.


(The quote for the title of this post comes from my favorite Spanish play- "La vida es sueño" by Calderon de la Barca. Or "Life is a dream". I think the poetry is just so beautiful.)

Craving a challenge.

Could life get any easier than it already was? Well yeah...kinda.

This past week, Leslie and I switched our schedules so that I would now work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and now she is working Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
(It's hard to believe that this marks the half-way point of this year here).

Well, with my old schedule, I had a lot of English classes where I would prepare activities and conversation questions for small groups that I would take out of the class for part of the time. I had a lot of room for creativity and preparing. Now, with my new schedule, I have a lot of the bilingual social sciences, math, and social studies classes and only one English class. The teachers in these other classes have all of the planning for the bilingual periods pretty much already done. So they give me the worksheets and I go to class to read them out loud and help with pronunciation. Easy, right? Yes. My planning time has gone now practically to zero.

Now I know I really shouldn't be complaining about this.  I've even dubbed this year my "stress detox" year and there are so many worse things to complain about in the world. But, I need to be challenged in some way.  I need to make more goals for myself. I need to be more involved and proactive in my life over here. Although, I'm a bit at a loss as to how to do this.

I've already completed my goal of finding the best croquetas in town (which I actually found the first week I was here, but I had to check other places just to make sure).  I have been reading more. Yes, I've even been reading some news more.  I've been going on walks. I've been improving my Spanish by trying to talk more.
But none of these things really challenge me.
I want to travel more, but a tight budget tends to restrict that. I want to take dance classes, but there aren't really any offered in my small town that I have found. Intercambios sound awesome, but again, small town.

Any ideas? I could really use some?