Who knew I liked soccer?

When I was in 1st grade, my parents signed me up for soccer--because, you know, it’s American Law or something. For the whole season, I ran around cones during drills, learned that you were supposed to kick with the inside of your foot, and learned that the ultimate objective was to kick the ball into the net.

“Because the coach tells you to!” I answered my dad when he asked me why.

I didn’t touch the ball once during the season. I did, however, kick puffy dandelions like it was my job.  I think I might have played right wing?  I remember being told to stand on the circle. So I did. Era todo. Sue me--I’m not aggressive. Give me shiny objects, tap shoes, and music over competitive sports any day.

I still don’t know a damn thing about soccer. What I do know, however, is that I’ve absolutely loved being in Spain during the World Cup. Just like I loved watching my old music professor get all riled up at the beginning of classes, watching the entire town light up on the night of a match--and later that night following their win--was one of the most electric things that I could have experienced. I’ve actually gone out to watch every soccer game here. Do I know what’s happening?  No. Do I know when they score?

OH MY GOSH YES I DO. Even if you’re not watching the screen (although I usually am, in a weak attempt to soak up any soccer knowledge I could gain over this almost-four-week period through osmosis), you know when Spain scores. The entire pub erupts into shouts and screams, stomps and applause, foghorns and noisemakers. Cars on the street begin all honking their horn in the same pattern (for the rhythmically inclined, it’s a 1, 2, 3+4, 1+2+, +4! rhythm that is totally from something that ends in “let’s go!”)

a batch of cookies to the first person to tell me what that’s from--it’s been bothering me ALL MONTH. And it’s not often it takes me this long to figure it out. But you can’t google “dun, dun, dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun--let’s go!” It doesn’t work.

Then the songs begin. A refrain consisting of nothing but ¡Olé! over and over again, or a rousing refrain of “Yo soy Español, Español, Español” gets the whole pub clapping and singing. It’s electric, and so exciting to watch--although I do feel like a bit of a poser if I sing that song, since it’s so blatantly obvious that I’m not Spanish (my roommate and I have taken to singing (no) soy Español instead, so we can still take part in the celebration without lying. Phew--that’s a load off my conscience!

Late into the night, the cars continue honking that exact same rhythm. Over. And. Over. And. Over. But it’s not obnoxious!  There’s such an electricity in the air that it’s just incredible. I wrote a bit about this during my Granada post, but still. It’s two days later, and people are still celebrating. 

Confession: I was asleep by 12:30. I know, it seems lame. I think we were also the only people who had to be doing anything by 9 a.m. the next day. And who also don’t get a siesta. Yes, I may be in Spain, but this school totally runs on an American schedule. I’m just sayin’. Don’t judge.

Oh, and if nothing else, I’m totally rooting for Spain every four years when the World Cup rolls around. 

¡Olé, olé olé olé!

"Make a Jail With Your Teeth!"

I'm just gonna throw it out there: I was a Speech Kid.

From Kindergarten through 3rd grade, I was pulled out of my normal class and sent down to Mrs. Bubb's room, where I would be taught time and again how to form my mouth and make the noise that came out sound something like my formidable consonant: the ever-troublesome "S." Still to this day, I remember Mrs. Bubb telling me during that weekly hour to put my front teeth together, my tongue right behind them, and try to whistle a noise out. "Make a jail with your teeth! You can do it! It'll be easier with this sentence right here!" I grew to hate those "S" tongue-twisters more than anything else.

Three years later, Mrs. Bubb decided I was capable enough to make that stupid sound on my own. I'll never forget the time I was sitting on my knees on the floor of our living room, while my dad played the piano, and it happened. I was practicing my "S," just like Mrs. Bubb told us to, and in the middle of my dad playing "Honesty" by Billy Joel, I heard a whistle. It was slight, but I knew it was there. 

...and then I couldn't do it a minute later. Traumatic, I know. Such was my relationship with Speech for the second half of my 8-year-old life.

You may be wondering why I'm even bothering to bring this up, when I'm supposed to be talking about the marvelous time I'm having in Spain. Well, we were studying "The Manner and Place of Articulations" in our Phonology segment today in class, and I was having flashbacks to my Speech days. But not happy, nostalgic flashbacks; these were more of the PTSD variety. In determining where my tongue was supposed to go for each phoneme, every so often I'd revert back to my 8-year-old self and want to exclaim "but it is at the roof of my mouth! I don't know where it's supposed to go! Does it really matter? It's close enough!" 

This is also when I realized that I'm still not making the "sh" sound properly, even 15 years later. Because no matter what, the sides of your tongue are not supposed to be the only part touching the roof of your mouth. Discovering this was almost as upsetting as not being able to properly "make a jail with my teeth" for my dad after I had done so for myself less than a minute before. I've also learned that I'm [somehow] subconsciously hyper-aware of my speech tendencies and how I pronounce certain sounds. However, a useful tool for a potential choir director, or just for someone who plans on talking a lot in life.

The fun story in all of this?  I need to take and pass a phonology exam in order to get my certificate from TEFL. Thank goodness Mrs. Bubb told me how to incarcerate my tongue, or this whole trip might have been for naught! Well, not for naught (/nɑ:t fɔ:r nɒt/), but it'd be a sad ending nonetheless.

Granada

Mom, Dad, and anyone else who cares:

You are so lucky that the TEFL program wasn’t set for Granada--I’d never come back!  I was in the city for a grand total of 24 hours, and it’s already risen to one of my Top Five Favorite Places Ever, potentially even top 2--Boston still beating it by a hair because my highest concentration of “family” is still there. High praise, no? The last time I fell in love with a city, I was 12 years old, walking through Haymarket, and saying to myself, “I’m going to live in this city and shop in this market when I grow up.”  So, who knows?  You can’t call yourself the “Renaissance and Baroque City” and not make me want to stay.

The whirlwind tour of Granada began when Lyndsey and I caught the early train on Saturday morning. After rushing around for the first hour we were awake (I opened my eyes at 6 a.m. and Lyndsey had also forgotten to set her alarm, both of us needing to get dressed, pack, and be out the door by 6:30 if we were going to get to the train station in time to purchase tickets for the 7:00 train), I’ve discovered there is no better way to dually wake up and calm down than by taking a train through the Andalusian countryside. Unlike so many of the high-traffic railways of the US (or at least the Boston-New York rail I take so often), I can’t even see the tracks of the train headed in the opposite direction. It’s just field after field, hills rolling on top of each other, as far as the eye can see.

There are three different types of land along this route: there’s the tan field, likely home to something unable to be grown in the scorching July sun; olive trees, deep green and bushy, planted in rows that remind me of the orange groves I’d pass on my drives across Florida; and sunflowers, still very small now, but sure to be much larger by the time they’re harvested and sold in the fall. 

Every so often we’d pass a small town, its whitewashed plaster buildings reflecting the rising sun beautifully. it’s also incredibly different from Sevilla, where each building is a different bright color. Some of these towns just rise and fall in the distance, some are smaller stops for our train. Occasionally in the far distance I’ll see windmills, which (thanks to Lyndsey) remind me of Don Quixote, that quintessential Spanish novel, which makes the entire thing feel more Spanish and makes me feel more authentic--regardless of the fact that the ticket guy didn’t understand me the first time I asked for a ticket this morning.

The subtle rocking of the train lulled me to sleep, and I woke up as we were approaching Granada. We had nothing planned except to see the Alhambra, the ancient palace and fortress of the Moors and the last to fall to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 during the 15th-century Spanish Reconquest. It’s as we’re walking through the city, towards the Alhambra on the other side of town, that I fall in love with the city as I’ve only done once before.

Granada has the build of a city and the pace of a small town, which is either growing on me a) because it’s how they do in Spain, or b) because we woke up early and walked over 10 miles that day and I was just not set to go fast the whole time. Even as Lyndsey and I traipsed around with no set plan, finding church after church and cute little plaza after cute little plaza, the trees were blooming a vivid, seemingly doctored shade of green and the buildings were adorned with such details that I couldn’t believe a place like this existed in the 21st century outside of literature. 

At night, the streets were lit with lights draped over the streets like they are on Harvard Ave. or in Brighton Center, except even larger and more colorful (and, I have to admit, classier shops on the streets themselves, too). We passed a band playing music in one of the plazas while a bunch of people--mostly older couples--danced, and it was so wonderful and incredible and Spanish that it made me beam one of those “I can’t believe this is my life” smiles. Yes, I’m a sap in Spain--deal. 

This was also the night that Spain won the World Cup quarter-finals game against Paraguay, and while the game ended around 10:30 p.m., people were driving through the streets in their cars and on their Vespas, shouting and honking their horns in celebration until well past midnight. The energy in the city was electric--although I can’t really count that as just Granada, as I’m sure it was that way in every part of the country. You all know I’ve never been a soccer person, but it’s hard not to get excited when you’re surrounded by an entire population of Ralf Gawlicks and other such soccer lovers who are spending June and July living for the sport. 

You may have noticed I’ve said virtually nothing of what we did in Granada--well, I’ve got a bunch of pictures of the Alhambra, so check them out if you’d like. But what affected me the most was the manner in which the people and the city just lived--it’s so historical, and yes so right now. Francis Mayes, in her book Under the Tuscan Sun, said it better than I could, even thought she’s writing about southern Italy as opposed to southern Spain:

In these stony old Tuscan towns [or in Granada, as far as I’m concerned], I get no sense of stepping back in time that I’ve had in Yugoslavia, Mexico, or Peru. [Andalusians] are of this time; they simply have the good instinct to bring the past along with them. If our culture says burn your bridges behind you--and it does--theirs says cross and recross.

You can look up the hill and see the Alhambra from any section of the city. The nearly 500 year-old cathedral is visible from the train station. And they have signs, statues, and memorials commemorating this “Rennaisance and Baroque” city at every turn. But as the city comes to life that night, I realize that it’s not just commemorating what was 500 years ago, but also living fully in the here-and-now in a balance that rarely find in the States--one of the few places being where I live. Come to think of it, I just might have found my European Boston in more ways than one.

The day I failed at Laundry

My roommate Lauren always says that any article of clothing she owns needs to be able to be thrown into the laundry with every other piece of clothing she owns--if it doesn't make it out alive, then it didn't deserve to be in her closet in the first place.

Aside from most of the dresses I've made, I tend to live by Lauren's philosophy as well, though not in as many words. You always hear the horror stories of one red sock in with the whites, and you're ready for a Valentine's Day party after, but it's never happened to me.

Then I came to Spain.

And failed at reading icons. Not Spanish--that I can handle. what I can't handle are the pictures on our washing machine, such as the little curlicue.

What the heck is the curlicue supposed to mean? I get the snowflake. Except that it's not that cold. What's the leaf for?  Or the funnel?  Why in God's name are you putting a funnel in the washing machine?!? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

And the numbers are not minutes. They're degrees. Celsius.

So when I put the dial on the 90, that was bad news bears.

But hey, bright side, right? My formerly tan sweater is now a kickin' shade of grey. My blue shirt is now really blue. The white part of one of my dresses has a nice little pink hue to it now. Anything elastic is now white, regardless of whatever color it formerly was.

No, I have NO FREAKING IDEA what I did to my laundry.

At least my roommate and I got a good laugh out of this!  And hey, now I don't need to buy a new shirt to remember my time here!

"Oh, this old thing?  Yeah, it used to be a different color. Then I went to Spain, the magical place where nothing stays the same--even my clothes."

Miss Allie strikes again!

I got to teach my first class today!  TEFL (the program I'm here through) has a 'basic module' that they want us to follow exactly, which includes a six-line dialogue with some interchangeable vocabulary about a given subject. My topic?  School (shocker, I know). Over the past week, I've been drawing and coloring sheets of paper with vocabulary words for the students, all in preparation for this one teaching session. Thanks to this rigid module, pretty much one conversation has been in my head this past week:

A: What are you studying?

B: I am studying math. [or science, art, literature, history, economics, music]

A: What will you do in class?

B: I will take a test. [do an experiment, draw, write a report, study, take notes, play an instrument]

A: What do you need to bring?

B: I need to bring my calculator. [ruler, pencil, pen, textbook, notebook, violin]

I feel like a live-action Rosetta Stone exercise.

And yes, I made them learn "violin" before any other instrument. Because I'm the teacher and in charge of their language acquisition, that's why.

AND IT'S BETTER THAN YOUR INSTRUMENT. I mean, no offense. But it is. 

And I know how to draw that one.  That too.

The class went very well!  Even Nati, a woman who wouldn't do anything in the first class for fear of messing up, volunteered to read what she wrote later in the class out loud. It was a really well-written paragraph about how she likes English, but is absolutely terrible and fears she will never learn the language. Kind of awkward to clap for Debbie Downer after hearing an 'I fail' diatribe. But it's me, so of course I did!

Boring post? Yes. Just wanted to remind you that I actually am doing something while I'm over here besides eating with tiny spoons, watching flamenco, and getting attacked by giant pigeons.

Honesty and Confidence, por la comida

In Sevilla, there seems to be a tendency to own and enjoy what you have. Maybe it’s just Triana, the area I’m living in, but there’s an authenticity without pretension. They have the oldest and richest history of any place I’ve ever been to (although that’s not saying much), and yet there is much less pretension then the States--or at least Boston--has about its own history.   There’s a reality here that I’m really starting to fall in love with.  

This is most in the “less quality, higher quality” mindset around food that is relevant throughout most of Europe (or so I’ve heard). Dishes are smaller and shared among friends, coffees are gloriously strong but tiny, and they love the tiny spoons for ice cream as much as I do. Food is less processed, which means it won’t stay as fresh as long. Things aren’t as sweet here. Dried fruit is just as popular, if not moreso, than candy; in fact, candy stores are called frutas secas, or ‘dried fruits.’ You don’t find Splenda at the grocery store. Bread goes stale. All in all, it’s more real. If you want bread, you’ll get bread. They baked it that morning. Bigger isn’t always better. More can be overkill.

Now, I’m no foodie by any means, and I’ve loved all the meals I’ve eaten out. Also, I really don’t want to seem like an ‘ugly American,’ so I probably wouldn’t complain if I did have an issue with any food. But Sevillanos do it to each other all the time. If you’re going to take the time to enjoy their food, and give them your money, you’re going to enjoy it.

And enjoy it they do. While there’s not as much food on the plates, the food that’s there is eaten over even more time than we take for our “Super Value” meals in the States. You enjoy it. You enjoy the company of the people you’re with. And you’re honest if you don’t. The time spent eating should be enjoyed, and your time--and being--is worth more than it’s given when you stuff yourself with crappy food.

Furthermore, hardly anyone here is filled with fake sugary-sweetness. In the US, we’re used to having people sugarcoat the truth. We all earned a soccer trophy sometime in grade school, didn’t we? I mean, I got one and I didn’t touch the ball once the whole season (can you even call it a “participation trophy” at that point?). I mean, I haven’t been to any youth soccer games here, but I’m presuming everyone doesn’t go home with a shiny piece of plastic. Sevillanos can be brutally honest; if you aren’t prepared to hear it, then you might want to get out of la cocina. At first, it was off-putting. Whereas in the U.S., you get a lot of people who will beat around the bush rather than tell you what they're thinking, Spaniards are so far from telling you what you want to hear. I’m no child psychologist, and I’m not going to say one’s better than the other, but I think people develop a “thicker skin” here than at home. 

This honesty is their way of expressing affection, as they are more concerned with your being genuinely happy, rather than being filled with an artificial happiness based on what you want to hear. It’s really quite refreshing, to be honest. And simple. A lot of things here--the food, the people, the way of life--can be hacked up to simple.

We put so much stock into being accepted by our society that we don’t always have that inner security that is necessary in sustaining a full, rich life. There’s something realistic, and yet self-respecting, about the Sevillano way of life; they have the self-esteem to own their opinions, but not in the same way that Americans at times overwhelm their neighbors. It seems that various opinions can coexist, simply because people respect their neighbors. Or maybe I’m off--I’ve only been here five days. 

How high school led me to this very moment

It’s no secret that my interests changed vastly between high school and college. In high school, I was a Spanish-obsessed competitive dancer who enjoyed playing the violin in the orchestra and planned on becoming an English as a Second Language teacher. Tonight, I fulfilled my 18-year-old self’s every dream in one three-hour setting. How’s that for efficiency?

I’ve been blessed here to be assigned a roommate, Lyndsey, who is a Music and Spanish major at Bethel College, a small Christian school in Indiana. It’s almost disturbing how many interests we have in common, really.  Anyway, when our teacher told us she was going to see Carmen the next night in the bullring, and that there were still tickets available, the two of us FREAKED OUT. I mean, there was squealing, beaming, and slightly-irrational money-spending happening. But, hey, we were going to see Carmen performed in Sevilla!  Lyndsey was additionally excited because it would be her first opera.

Well, she’ll still have to go to her first opera, because this was a reworked Flamenco piece that told the story through dance and guitars, except for the few times someone sang, Arabic chant-style, in Spanish. BUT IT WAS AWESOME. So Sevillano. My high-school self totally missed a calling in life. All of my high-school passions came together in this rendition of Carmen: dance, Andalucía, and, well, Carmen. 

Therefore, the #1 thank-you of the night goes to my orchestra teacher, Mr. Beck, for being obsessed with the story of Carmen and re-telling it to us the entire time we were rehearsing to play the music. I was even able to re-tell the story before the thing started to the Irish family sitting behind us, which was awesome. I got her son’s (who lives in Boston, not the one in Sevilla with her) number, and I’m supposed to look him up when I get back. Ah, life.

Thank-you #2 goes to Sra. Meacham and her introduction of Andalucía to my Spanish class my junior year. I remember learning about Sevilla and Córdoba, reading poems by Federico García Lorca, and falling in love with the gitano culture. I felt like I was channeling her the whole night. Also, thanks for showing me pictures of the Spanish priest outfit, so that when they showed up at the end of the show I knew it wasn’t the KKK out to lynch Carmen about 2 minutes too late.

Last, but by no means in any universe least, thank-you #3 goes to Ms. Janell, my dance teacher, who, well, taught me dance (duh). But for real--I was watching the dancers’ feet yesterday, and I felt like I was studying a new style of tap dance. I actually was figuring it out as we went along!  I definitely know a few steps of flamenco now--and OH MY GOODNESS do I want to learn more.  I missed a calling in life: I want to be a flamenco dancer in Carmen in Seville. Surrounded by cultura sevillana, guitars, and dancing? Yes, please.

I won’t lie--we were surprised, to say the least, that it wasn’t an opera. We laughed about it the whole time. We hadn’t read the poster--we just saw Carmen and RAN to the ticket office.  About five minutes in to the policeman’s first dance, Lyndsey leaned over and said “shouldn’t they have sung by now?” Yeah, we were those Americans. But it didn’t change our impression of how FREAKING AWESOME it all was.

Oh, but it doesn’t end there!  You’d think the night couldn’t get any weirder?  You didn’t stay through intermission. Animals entertained us. Well, people and animals. First, a guy on a horse came out and the horse danced around for awhile. When BHoff took us to the Saratoga Race Track when I was in middle School, I thought that the dressage stuff was the weirdest thing ever and a complete waste of time. It’s so much cooler when you have a torreador brass band playing in the background. Weird to see a horse dance sideways in a circle?  Yes. Cooler when you’re in Spain, and thousands of people around you love it?  Absolutely.

But ye of little faith, that was only the preamble to the intermission!  What can beat a dancing horse?  TRY A BULL. No, the bull wasn’t prancing, but the bull came out and about 5 different torreadors teased him for awhile. They’d run out right in front of him, he’d charge, they’d sprint away and jump over the edge of the ring, the bull’d collide into the ring. These guys are ridiculous, and I totally get it the hype. It gives the audience a rush of adrenaline to watch the torreadors flirt with their lives.

fun fact: bullfighting is related to flamenco in Spain. First, both originated in Sevilla. But more interestingly, bullfighting is a reworked version of flamenco. In the bullfight, the torreador plays the “female,” while the bull is the “male.” In both (as in life, according to Sevillanos), the female flirts with, seduces, and evades the male, until she eventually kills him.

 Andalucía in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen.

Is it too early to call my greatest night here?  Awesome--I look forward to more crazy, unexpected times. 

"...and then a pigeon landed on my head."

There are many perks to living in an apartment where your bedroom has a wall--literally, a whole wall--of windows that open up to the street. In a city like Seville, where the summers can apparently get pretty hot, I'm appreciating the beautiful breeze that flows into my room because my windows are wide open, the sun's streaming in when the curtains are drawn, and at night it seems like I'm sleeping outside without all the mess of, well, sleeping outside.

Until, that is, you wake up because a BIRD FLEW IN YOUR ROOM AND LANDED ON YOUR HEAD.

I think it was a pigeon. Honestly, I couldn't tell you much else except that it was gray, avian, and ON MY HEAD.

Nope, I'm not sleeping the rest of the night. I feel like this was the Sevillian version of a baptism or something. It should have been a tortilla española or something, but they don't fly. Pigeons do.

There was much screaming (or rather, just loud, unintelligible noises--it's 2 am here, after all), arm-flailing, and, thank goodness, flying out the window on the part of the bird. Because if there's one thing that this huge, gloriously open wall of windows is good for, it's making sure the bird it let in flies out. At least Alfred Hitchcock isn't directing my life, or this little incident could have had a much more disastrous ending.

As fair warning, I'm going to end all of my stories with "...and then a pigeon landed on my head" from now on. It's so much more interesting than "...and then I moved" and infinitely more personal than finding five dollars.

Good night, sleep tight--and don't let the pigeons attack you!

Day 1, Hour 34

In college, we had three qualifiers that, when accomplished, signified that a new day had begun, regardless of how many hours one had (or more practically had not) slept the night before. The acts were simple, practical, and overall good life choices:

1. Had you showered?

2. Had you changed your clothes?

3. Had you eaten breakfast?

If you could answer "yes" to two out of those three questions (really, we weren't asking a whole lot), than a new day had indeed started, and you should go grab some coffee and be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, or at least at your class hoping information was absorbed through osmosis.

I ate breakfast.  That's the only one I can say actually happened "today," whatever that might be (thank you, Delta, for ensuring that I'm one-third legitimate!).  Now, it's pretty well-documented that I don't do schedules well. Or rather, I do spontaneity better. I also much rather arrive early than late. So when I say I got to Seville 4 hours earlier than I planned, that's just par for the course. Let me explain.

After a successful and timely flight to Madrid (minus the lovely kids who tag-teamed the crying game throughout the fight), I got to the train station at 8:30 a.m.--and discovered there was a 9:00 to Sevilla! Since I didn't feel like waiting around for hours, I went to the Information girl to ask if I may advance my ticket. She must have had a really good time last night, because she did not seem like she was having a good morning. Let's just say that, between my rusty Spanish and her hangover, it took some time to figure it all out. But by 11:30 this morning, I was in Sevilla! Travel improvisation for the win.

I get to Seville, stash my crazy-heavy suitcase in a locker at the train station, and set out exploring. Not an over-the-moon, shoot for the stars, World Series kind of excursion, but by no means a failure. I held up my tradition of getting ridiculously lost amid the web of Sevillian roads that makes Boston look good,  and made up for any excess sitting I might have done earlier that "day." If only I had thought to change before stashing my suitcase, I'd actually think this traveling pulled off without a hitch. It would have been a two-day affair, and I wouldn't think twice about it. Nothing quite beats my self-consciousness when I realized that I was meeting my classmates in the same dress I'd had on for over 30 hours, and that I hadn't brushed my teeth in that time, either, since I hadn't yet gone to sleep or woken up. Overshare?  Sorry.

Classes start tomorrow! I'm choosing to go to sleep early, wake up when I'm supposed to, and therefore disbelieve in that whole "jet-lag" thing. All without coffee. Ready, go.

Wait--WHAT?!?

February 20, 2010, 10:30 p.m.:

Hey Mom, it's Allie. So you know how I sometimes make huge and potentially life-altering decisions at the drop of a hat? Well, guess what.

If you are reading this, you know who I am and how spontaneous I can be. I've switched majors more times than one should proudly admit, started a bell choir with extraordinarily little ringing experience (sorry, Meyer, but it's true), and have decided to learn new languages and musical instruments simply because there was nothing good on TV. And as with most of my ridiculous decisions, my decision to go to Spain began with a late-night phone call to BHoff. But why, in the midst of my second semester of graduate school, did I decide to transport myself halfway around the world to become certified for a job that is not not my intended career?

Because I felt trapped. As ridiculous as it sounds, I'd been in Boston for 4 1/2 years, in school the entire time, and I felt as if life was just happening around me while I had been floating through it. This spring semester, however, the vehicle gods had apparently replaced my boring, yet floating, life-raft for a bumper car driven by an 8-year-old hellbent on hitting everything in sight. This past year was the hardest year of my life thus far; it repeatedly pushed me to my academic, professional, and emotional limits. I didn't know what, if anything, I could do about it.

By February, I was done. I contemplated applying to the Peace Corps and various other volunteer programs, but realized I didn't want to put my degree on hold--just take control of my life again for the summer. That night, I saw some photos of a friend from BC who was in a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) program in Florence, Italy, and I decided right away that this was exactly what I should be doing with my summer. Even better, there was a program in Seville (which happened to be the very first city I'd heard of in Spain, thanks to my 6th-grade Spanish teacher's obsession with ¡Sevilla!). Even my obsession with Latin America couldn't turn me away from this opportunity to live in Andalucía for a month--and so I signed up for the program, coughed up the deposit, and booked my flight that night.

Yes, Dad, it's ironic and slightly ridiculous that I'm traipsing halfway around the world to get a certificate in the same field that I originally went to BC to study for an actual degree. Things like this are why you love me. And don't worry, roommates, I already bought my return ticket; you know as well as I do that if I hadn't, there's too good a chance that I'd up and move and become española with the other cool kids. But for the next month, especially considering the state of transcontinental phone calls, the six-hour time difference, and my own flightiness, this is going to be my way of ensuring the people I love that I'm still alive. And haven't run off with a gitano or decided to become the Spanish Maria Von Trapp.

I jest. Kind of.