Not alone anymore

La Bethany ha llegado! She's sitting behind me reading my trashy british Cosmo that I picked up when my flight was delayed from barcelona. You didn't know I went to Barcelona?? Where have you been?
More like where have I been. Mentally. I guess I'm trying to settle myself around the idea of being here before I sit down and recount what's happened to me so far. But then I'd have to wait for... well, too long and there would be too much to tell before I even got started and THEN where would I be? This is why I have always been a bad journaler. Let's see if I can start to be a bit better.

Let's see. I spent the first week or so here buying things for the apartment, setting up, getting to know my roommates. My apartment is very close to the center of town, and from the windows that face the street you can see the royal palace (beautiful at sunset). My room has a window looking into the interior patio of the building (no view for me), but otherwise the place is fully equiped and awesome location-wise, and the rent is just fine; I have no complaints. My roommates are Javi and Manolo (two spanish boys, Javi a student, Manolo a middle/high school math teacher), and Elodie, who is 20 and french and studying here for the year. She's been good company, as her English is better than her Spanish, we speak mostly in English (which has made the transition to being here a bit surreal - I've spent most of my time speaking in English thus far). Elodie's boyfriend, Pierre, visits for the weekend periodically. He's here now with Elodie, Beth and I.
Elodie has also agreed to help me learn french - I'm going to partly teach myself out of a some textbooks i bought, and partly she'll be my tutor, We'll see how this one goes.

But I had so much time to kill before starting work, and I was getting stir-crazy in the apartment, in need of new company and to get out of my own head. So I bought me a ticket to:

BARCELONA.
I'm afraid pictures will have to come a long soon, though not yet. I thought my cameras was broken. It has now recovered, but I haven't really taken many pictures yet... I went to visit Alex Brostoff, another SLC/Boston area girl. Actually, my intention was more to go to Barcelona and spend some time with Alex while there. I pretty much ended up spending 5 days with her and a couple of her friends from her study aborad program. the weekend coincided with the La Mercé celebration (the biggest festival of the year in BCN), and it was tough to balance seeing some of the awesome museums and touristy offerings, AND part of the festival, AND spending time on the beach (which I was dying to do). I got in a bit of everything. Friday on las ramblas, Saturday the Picasso Museum and introducing Alex & co. to calimoxo, sunday on the beach and to Park Güell, a Gaudí designed park - with a beautiful sunset view of the city. Sunday night was a bit crazy - we talked and drank until late, and ended up at a club where an unfortunately stupid young man found out the hard way what happens when you try to accost me and my friends, even if we are drunk and dancing suggestively a la american (if you want the full story, just ask me). We never went to bed that night - just stayed up until the next night (slept on the beach in the afternoon).
That was the interesting part of the weekend; being the sage, experienced traveler and live-r abroad. (How did that happen?) But they had so many questions, and I tried to give them all the tips and clues and double-entendres that it took me my whole year living here to put together - the ones that would have made so many things easier if only someone had clued me in from the outset. So I'm trying to them a fighting chance. I hope I was helpful (but since they kept thanking me all weekend as if I were doing them the most unbelievable favor, somehow I think they already appreciate the utility of a bit of hand-me-down know-how.)

Now I'm back. Beth is here (just in time to save me from "still not used to living here" syndrom; when I suffer from this, I don't leave my apartment, even though a whole city with a million thing to do is available to me, because it's a whole city with a million things to do. I don't have my "places" figured out yet - you know, the places you go when you just want to hang out and walk or read a book, without spending money, or very little, places you go to just for the sake of not having anything else to do and just wanting to get outta the house? Yeah, well, I need those. And I haven't figured mine out yet. So I've been inside watching lame spanish daytime TV and napping in indirect sunlight all day long).
Finally the week of beginning work has arrived!! Today the Segovia crew also arrives back to school and I'll have them nearby again. So now everything is starting for real! I've survived the awkward transitional period! HOOORRRRRAAAAYYY!!!!!!

Ta-WOO!

So here I bloody am...

For better or for worse.

Perhaps it isn't the right idea to start this blog, and this experience for that matter, off on a not-entirely-positive foot. Then again, its not an entirely negative one, either, is it now? I'm trying (hard) to be neutral, to not have high expectations - because then I will be onl pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised, not disappointed. Is that so odd? I suppose I am a pessimist after all. If not a neutralist. How about a balance-ist? I do have a fancy yin-yang tattooed on my bum. I think that counts for something.

It's just that everyone is so excited for me. For the past several months I've told them my plans and instantaneously this cartoon grin appears on their faces. "Oh! You'll have the time of your life!" "Isn't that amazing!" "What a wonderful idea! You are so brave to be doing this!"

To set the record straight, I do not feel particularly brave (no more than any of my other friends in starting new jobs in new places or new apartments). I also already have some experience in this country, so its not as difficult for me as it would be for someone else. I actually don't feel like I had much of choice: this was really the best plan I could come up with, or rather the only plan (considering that wallowing on my parents' couch was never a real option for me. I wanted out of the house! Out! Now! And New York is just too much. I was so done with the 24/7 hustle.)

All that said, I will admit that I feel a bit more vulnerable here. Less than I did before. Perhaps not less than I would in New York, for example. But I dislike feeling vulnerable at all. Ever. So it will take some getting used to again.

And with that, I give you a glimpse into my emotional state. So what has actually happened to me so far? And where will I go with such a defensive attitude?

We'll just have to wait and see. You and I both.