Music

Yesterday I played viola and sang in public at the bar where my friend's boyfriend runs a session every week.  I was terrified because I didn't know very many people there (and haven't played a viola in about a billion years), but it went okay.  Hopefully, I'll have some more chances to do this.  Unfortunately, this bar is probably closing down soon.  The location isn't great for generating customers, since it's far away from places where people normally go out, so you have to plan to go there - you won't just walk by and wander in.  I guess they're looking for a new place to open, but rent is really expensive, so it might not happen.  The guy who runs the session is looking at other bars to play in, which I think would be good.

I'm hanging out tonight with my Spanish friend and two of her friends.  The plan is to speak mostly in Spanish ... not sure how that will go!  If the weather is nice we might take a day trip to one of the towns nearby this weekend, which would be more Spanish time.  Since that's one of the points of coming here, I do feel like I need to practice more.  It's just still really hard to have a real conversation with people.

I'm starting to see how much easier things are and how much things have changed, though, since I arrived here.  I found a note in my bag the other day from my first day here, when I was jet-lagged and totally overwhelmed.  It was a list:  Find grocery store, find bus stop, buy food.  The note was simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious.  I remember being so out of it that I thought "I need to write down that I need to buy food, or I might not have anything to eat today."  I moved here knowing nothing.  At all.  And on days that are stressful or where I have to figure out something new (Where do you buy pins?  How about bug repellent?), I remind myself how far I've come so far.  I came here and didn't know where the grocery store was, how to get to work, where to do laundry.  And now I know all of those things, and I figured them out mostly by myself.  So on a day when I have to figure out whether or not I need to pay taxes this year (answer - no, not yet), or figure out how to get to a street that is supposed to be parallel to the street I'm on according to the map (but is actually 7 stories above me and the buildings I'm standing by), I remind myself I've done harder things already.  I've been a little worried about coming back after Puerto Rico in a couple of weeks and about coming back after some time in Chicago and Michigan in July.  I'm sure coming back won't be easy, but it also won't be as hard as the first time I came.  And that's a huge relief.