And the jet lag continues ...

I took a nap yesterday afternoon.  I only slept for an hour and a half, but I couldn't sleep until 3:30 last night ... I'm not sure what the deal is, but I'm super sleepy today, since I woke up at 6, 7, and 8, finally dragging myself out of bed at around 9.  I can't decide if I need a nap or if I should just tough it out until tonight.  I can't really concentrate being this sleepy, so I think a nap is going to win.  Plus, everyone is out of work today since it's summer and the nicest day in about 3 weeks here.

I'm still feeling really, really sad about leaving Chicago, which is no fun at all.  I know I need to just get over it and realize that I'll see friends from the US in Paris in about a month, Peter will be here in just over two months and I'll be back home in just over three months.  Good milestones ... and I know I'll survive, I'm just extra emotional since I'm super tired.

Tonight we're going to a jazz concert in the park near my apartment, which should be good.  I think we might go out for chalet afterward, which will save me from grocery shopping for another night.

Spanish seems simultaneously harder and easier now that I'm back.  I feel like I'm understanding more.  But I also feel like I can't say anything ... or when I do say something no one understands.  I'm working on it, and trying to be patient with myself.  I've only been here for 3 months, so I need to remind myself that I'm doing pretty well, all things considered!

In cooking news, I bought myself some casserole dishes to put in the oven!  And I have grand plans for some serious cooking.  I think part of the reason I get sad in the evenings by myself is that I'm not challenging myself.  The rest of the day, I challenge myself at work, or speaking Spanish when I'm out and about, but then I get back to my place and cook something super easy.  Then I get bored. And lonely.  No more of that!

I have a number of exciting crochet and knitting projects that I love - I'll update more as I work on them!

Jet lag is not my friend

Fortunately, I have plenty of friends here and have managed to settle back in pretty well.  I went out for some pintxos with one of my friends last night and then met some other friends at our weekly music night.  I left very, very early since I was totally exhausted.  I went back to my apartment and almost finished unpacking.    I fell asleep for a good two hours and then was wide, wide awake.  This is the worst part of jet lag for me - total exhaustion but the inability to sleep.  After years of fun times with insomnia, I have decent coping strategies.  I tend to get really stressed out staying in bed trying to make myself sleep, so I get up and walk around a little bit.  When I'm jet lagged (and not just normally struggling with insomnia) I also drink a ton of water every time I wake up, since I tend to be pretty dehydrated.  Unfortunately, lack of sleep and dehydration aren't my only jet lag issues.  I tend to also have stomach grossness (I'm never hungry and nothing tastes good) and I am usually really, really cold.  Apparently, body temperature also takes time to adjust with jet lag.  Add in the fact that it's been 65 degrees and rainy in San Sebastian, and I'm sitting in my office wearing to sweaters, long pants, and two pairs of socks.  I'm feeling totally unfocused, so I'm going to stop writing, grab lunch, and then head back to my apartment for a little nap.

A silver lining

Any of you who see me on Facebook know that I was less-than-pleased about my return to Spain.  I had a great, fantastic, magnificent, perfect (etc.) trip back to the US, and leaving was not something I was looking forward to.  At all. 

I had a truly terrible Monday, after a truly phenomenal Sunday/birthday.  I woke up and was immediately weepy, as I had been off and on for parts of the trip when I thought about going back to Spain.  But today (or is it yesterday? I can't keep track of time when I fly), it just didn't stop.  I felt really, really sad all day.  Totally forgot about errands I wanted to run while I was out running errands.  I would sit down and the cat would come up to my lap, and I'd just start sobbing.  Pete told me I was being hysterical.  And I was.  I was a huge baby about leaving our house, driving to the airport, leaving the car in the parking garage, saying goodbye before security. I pretty much cried for 3 hours straight.  I cried at the gate.  Sobbed in the bathroom.  You get the picture.  I cried on the plane at the beginning of the flight (we left over an hour late, and taxied on the runway for 45 minutes, so I was just itching to get off the plane).  But.

I had four seats to myself, so once the seatbelt sign was off, I took a quick catnap (less than 1 hour) before dinner was served.  Then, I ate dinner, and watched the movie.  During the movie, I was sitting in the second of my four seats with my legs stretched across the other three.  A lady came up and asked if she could sit in the other seat.  I told her sure, but made no offer to move.  I knew she wanted to stretch out over two seats, and by the looks of this woman, if I gave her two, she'd go for the third.  I was not going to be relegated to a single seat, when I purposely chose this aisle yesterday when I checked in because no one else was sitting in it.  I know it was totally selfish of me to keep all my seats, and if she had been nice rather than pushy, I would have happily given her two.  But I had a bad day. I was dehydrated from crying.  I was totally exhausted, and I planned on sleeping.  In a totally weird coincidence, as she was trying to make her push for more of my seats we hit the only 10 minutes of turbulence in our flight.  After about 3 minutes, she decided she couldn't sleep and went back up to the row she was sharing with her husband (they each already had two seats! So she was definitely pushing for 3 of mine).  We had 5 more minutes of bumps, the movie ended, and I stretched out across all four seats.  For the first hour or so, I dozed, listening to music and just trying to relax.  I first stretched out at around 4:30 and remember looking at my watch at 5:20.  The next thing I knew it was 7:15.  I woke up feeling pretty good.  I had breakfast, and we landed.

Then, I decided to splurge at the airport.  Madrid-Barajas, like all airports, has fancy-schmancy lounges you can go to if you are flying first class.  But, they also have a VIP lounge that you can pay to access.  The lounge has free snacks, drinks (alcoholic and non), tv, newspapers, magazines, and free internet.  So, I decided to pay up.  I figure I can easily spend the amount it cost to get in on internet access in the terminal and food and drink, plus here, there are actual chairs you can rest in (seating is lacking throughout the terminal).  Plus, I had a scheduled 4.5 hour layover (cut to just over 3 hours after our late arrival, going through immigration, transferring terminals, and going through security again).  It was totally worth it.  As was being selfish with my seats.  I am still really sad to have left Chicago, but I'm not as sad to be back in Spain. 

The thing is ... and I'm sure more will come on this later as I think about my trip back home ... everyone asked how Spain is.  And my stock answer was usually "good ... and hard ..."  And everyone assumes that the hard part is being away from Pete (and Sophie).  Which is, honestly, the hardest part.  But really, my response should be "hard, but good."  Because that's what it is.  Life in Spain is just immeasurably harder than life in the US.  Yes, of course it's getting easier. I have great friends.  I speak the language better.  I understand what I'm doing more.  And I LOVE my job.  But it's really hard.  It's hard to negotiate simple tasks that take 10 seconds in the US.  It's hard to find things that I want to buy.  And forget pricing things at different places.  If I can find it, I buy it.  As I've documented here, grocery shopping is hard, cooking is hard.  Life is just harder here.  Even if Peter were here, life would still be harder.  Harder isn't bad.  But going home and being reminded how easy everything is made coming back very, very hard. 

I was also reminded how "home" home is.  My apartment here is starting to feel more like a home and San Sebastián feels familiar, but it's not home.  If home is where the heart is, my home and my heart are in Chicago.  Where a warm little kitty snuggles on my lap within ten seconds of sitting down.  Where I can hold my husband's hand, see his face, and hear his voice untouched by digital transformation and distance.  Here isn't home.  Not like that.

I'm trying not to wish away my time here.  To enjoy it.  To enjoy the challenges, the joys, and the friendships.  My challenge for myself between now and November is to try to enjoy this life more.  To not think about what I don't have, but to cherish what I do have. And I am working on that.  And will continue to work on it.

But it's hard not to count down the days.   36 days until I go to Paris for a week and bring back some American friends to San Sebastián.  65 days until Peter comes to visit for a little over a week.  98 days until I go home again.

Quick update

I've been in the US for a week and a couple of days now ... my trip is wrapping up on Monday.  I have had a great, great time here and have been feeling sorry for myself about my upcoming return trip to Spain.  I know it will be really very hard for me to go back and hard for a couple of days once I get there, but I also know I'll survive.  More soon ...

Today's the day!

Greetings from the beautiful Madrid Barajas airport!  I sucked it up and paid for internet, since I have a nearly 4 hour layover here (and I desperately needed to charge my iPad which didn't get charged last night - even though it was plugged into my computer.  BOOO!  Also, there are no outlets just setting around the airport for you to do this)!  Plus I wanted to update you all a little bit on life the past few weeks.  I have been totally and completely swamped with work.  I've been trying like crazy to get everything done before I left.  I definitely have plans to work while I'm home (I even have a couple of meetings planned)!  I need to re-write a paper draft, analyze some data, preparing stimuli, and write part of an application for a grant I'm applying for.  I managed to finish a lot of stuff while I was working like a crazy person, so I'm leaving feeling good.  We'll see how I feel about work when I return in <2 weeks.

It's funny how much easier travel is now than just a month ago when I flew to Puerto Rico.  I've had actual conversations with actual Spanish people at the bus stop, the hotel, the hotel restaurant and the airport.  Before I relied a lot on "I don't understand" or "I don't speak Spanish" when people would talk to me, but now I muddle a long.  As soon as I open my mouth it's clear that I'm a "guiri" (not from around here), but people understand me more or less and I understand them (mostly).  I don't get identified as a foreigner much when I'm in San Sebastián, but as soon as I'm in an area with more foreigners, I do.  The funny thing is that Spanish people assume I'm from the following places (in this order):  Ireland, England, France, Canada.  Obviously, French people don't mistake me for French - and anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes with people from the UK or Ireland knows I'm not from there.  But I just found out that the doorman of our building was referring to me as "the Irish girl" for the past three months - I told him I was going "home" to Chicago yesterday, and he was pretty surprised.  Anyhow, travel is much smoother now that I'm getting a stronger command of the language.  A lot of it is still stressful and crazy, but this time there were no lost tickets at the airport and my bag came in underweight!  This, in and of itself, is a minor miracle since I packed another suitcase inside my big suitcase + my various stuff for two weeks of travel.  In other travel news, at the end of this trip, I will (or should) have elite status on American Airlines.  Which means 2 (TWO!!) free checked bags, along with priority boarding, security, check-in and priority for upgrades.  This will make traveling for the following year much more pleasant.

Before I left I wrote a list of things I will miss in Spain while I'm gone, so I can look at it on my way back and not be too sad to leave again:  Pintxos, cheap food and drink, good bread, my friends, live music multiple days a week, gelato, 1 and 2 euro coins (seriously, why don't we have these in the US?), my stripey blanket, great weather (mostly) where you don't need air conditioning and rarely need heat.  Others I can't remember right now :)

This week was also San Fermin.  You may think you don't know what San Fermin is, but I can almost guarantee you do.  I'll give you a hint, San Fermin is a festival that takes place in Pamplona.  That's right - the running of the bulls.  Pamplona is about an hour south of San Sebastián and they run dozens of buses all day between the two cities during San Fermin.  Unless you have a car, the way you do San Fermin is:  arrive at 10 or 11 pm, stay up all night (usually drinking), then at 5 am, get as close to the fences as you can to watch the 7 am running of the bulls through the streets and into the stadium.  Then you can stay for bullfights, etc.  Everyone wears all white outfits with a red kerchief around the neck and a red belt.  I didn't go this year, in part because I am not crazy and did not want to stay up all night (especially within a few days of changing time zones).  Plus, huge crowds and tons of drinking isn't really my scene.  Anyhow, it's been fun watching people arrive and leave for San Fermin in their crazy costumes.

Since my allotted hour of internet is nearly up, I will sign off and try to find some food and entertain myself for the 2.5 hours before my flight boards!

Too many things ...

I owe you all posts about:
- the Blues Festival on Saturday (which I'll try to write in Bilbao today)
- a few great things about being here
- my favorite new Basque word
- my trip to Chicago tomorrow!!

Coming soon, I promise.

Now is not the time ...

Now is not the time to get a cold, but I'm afraid it's here.  I've been sniffling, sneezing, and wheezing for about 24 hours now.  As much as I would like to blame it on the crummy weather we've been having, I'm afraid there is no excuse.  I'm also just feeling sort of generally crummy.  Hopefully, I can get rid of whatever this is sooner than later.  Flying while sick is really no fun at all, and if this cold does what it normally does and migrates into my sinuses, I will almost certainly be dealing with ear pressure and general face pressure early next week, which is REALLY lame for flying.  

Procuring things like vitamin C and zinc here is a really pain in the butt, so I'm going to try to tough it out for a day or two, buy a ton of orange juice, and sleep as much as I can.  Or at least more than I have been.  Even though my friends have been out of town this week, I've not managed to get into bed before midnight or to fall asleep before one this week.  When I typically wake up at 7 am, I am definitely dragging, especially since last night was FREEZING so I had to get up to get a sweatshirt and socks at around 2:30 ... but then that was overkill so I woke up really warm at about 5:30.  At least no mosquitos attacked last night (which they did on Monday and Tuesday of this week).  

Anyhow, fingers crossed that this crumminess is just weather related and I am totally recovered so I can enjoy being in the US!

The Office

I heard a great interview with Javier Bardem on Fresh Air from a couple of weeks ago.  I found him super charming because he is SO Spanish and his accent is so Castillian.  If nothing else, I can tell speakers from South America apart from those from the peninsula just by accent (and by attitude, quite honestly).  Anyhow.  He said this thing about acting (and speaking more generally) in English, and his statement summed up exactly how I feel about speaking Spanish here.


"It's a totally different situation.  It's like here, I'm trying to express myself, and share some opinions and be relax, and there's this office in my brain full of people working at the same time that I'm talking to you trying to not be wrong with the intonation, with the words.  So it's very exhausting. If I speak Spanish, that office is closed. There is nobody in the office.  I'm fine by my own."


This statement is so perfect because it IS exhausting.  And it is like having an office of people running around, grabbing files, trying to type your script and hand it to you in the milliseconds it takes to say something.  And it shows perfectly that even with the office up and running (and even with a much more proficient speaker than I am) mistakes happen, and it is very, very hard in your non-native language to "be relax" and to be "fineby my own".


My "office" is further complicating things because it has decided that Spanish and French are basically the same thing, so words from one must be interchangeable with words from the other.  So in addition to not remembering words, and saying crazy things in half-English, I also speak this SpanishFrench mashup that few people (besides my two friends who speak both Spanish and French) understand.  I'm a little worried that not having Spanish classes until September will cause the office to go out of business, but I'm trying to keep it up by going to my intercambio and making my Spanish friends speak to me more and more in Spanish.  My non-Spanish speaking friends also speak more and more in Spanish because we're around other Spanish speakers more and more, which is also good practice.  And, apparently, now I'll be practicing with my nun friend in the morning too (see below).

Settled

I am trying to remember how settled I feel here for when I come back from my trip and, inevitably, feel like I'm not settled anymore.  But now I have my routine.  I see the same people on the bus and on the street.  I remember to dodge the poop on the sidewalk up the hill to the bus stop.

And today, I had another breakthrough in feeling settled here.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned before, but I'm pretty sure there is a convent near my house.  Nuns (not in habits usually, but in very simple clothes carrying rosaries, etc.) are always all over the neighborhood.  One in particular always stops and talks to the locals at the bus stop.  Typically, this was the two little kids who waited for their private school bus with their mom, or the guy who also works in Parque Miramon (the technology park where my office is) and has apparently lived here forever.  And she typically ignores me, or just says hello quickly on her way past.  Well, today, she sat down next to me at the bus stop and chatted away until the bus came.  I only understood about 50% of what she was talking about.  I had been knitting when she came by, and she talked a lot about her mother who used to knit, and also something about the weather, I think.  I did a lot of nodding and saying "claro," "bueno" and "vale" (great words for any spanish conversation - basically meaning, "of course" or "right" or "yeah").  She was also convinced that I am from the UK - as many, many people are.  Apparently, according to people other than the nun who have made this mistake, I don't "seem" American, whatever that means.

I hope I can settle back into the routine I have quickly when I get back ... and I hope the time in Chicago doesn't fly by too quickly (though I know it will).  A week from now I will be an hour away from boarding my plane to Chicago.  It's sort of sad, but I am actually really psyched that my whole travel day, from leaving the hotel to getting into Chicago will only be about 15 hours, instead of the 23 or so hours I traveled on my last trip across the Atlantic.  And 3.5 hours of that is layover in Madrid where I can window shop in the mall!  Can't WAIT!!

As if the Basque Country couldn't get weirder ...

I walked from the bus to the BCBL today with a guy who is visiting from the US for a month.  We walked past the open lawn that is in front of one of the buildings to find 3 horses grazing, and 3 security guards, hanging out at a distance watching them.  No fences or borders of any sort keeping them from bolting into the street where cars go rather quickly.  Nothing to keep them from making a break for any of the wooded areas nearby.  Weird, weird Monday morning.

End of an era

I completed Stripey Blanket today.  It is so beautiful, I can hardly stand it.  The edging turned out a little funky in the corners, so I quickly stitched up some tiny crocheted flowers and leaves to sort of flatten out the edging.  I'm pretty sure I still should block the blanket (get it it wet and stretch it out, so it's all even, etc.) in order to make it perfect, but that's going to have to wait 'til I can figure out how to do it practically.  I love, love, love it.  Photos to come tomorrow.

Rebajas. And Mullets

I'm ruminating on two very Spanish (or Basque) things:  Rebajas and mullets.

Rebajas are the twice yearly sales that happen in Spain.  Basically, places can have "ofertas" or "propociones" at any time, which is a single item or two on sale.  Rebajas happen only in July and January at the same time for all shops - think a week of "Black Friday" sales in the US.  I really want to go and check them out, since I haven't been able to do much shopping since I got here.  I'm a little scared it's going to be nightmarishly busy, but I think I'm going to try.  I'll definitely go to a couple of housegoods stores to try to finish stocking my house with what I need.  I'm going to try to get my Spanish friend to come with me so that I won't be too overwhelmed by myself.

The other thing that deserves mention is the mullet.  I'm not sure if I've talked about it before, but the Basques LOVE their mullets.  They are EVERYWHERE.  Largely, it's associated with the nationalistic movement (the non-violent, independence movement) here.  They're equally popular on men and women.  Here are some of the other popular additions to the mullet:  very, very, very short bangs (almost like there aren't bangs, but they're there and just very short), asymmetric bangs, mullet plus extremely long braid in the back, mullet plus long curl down the side.  To top it off, many people here have thick sort of curly hair - giving everyone the permed mullet look.

Most Spanish/Basque things I can get on board with.  Dinner at 10, eating a lot of my meals standing up and going from bar to bar, an extreme fondness for wine, lots (and lots) of walking, respect for kids and elders, rebajas, only working 'til 2:30 on Fridays, short work days in the summer, at least 6 weeks of paid vacation every year, etc.  But the mullet?  Not so much.