off i go to London…another journey begins
Image Credit: Flickr User “mostque” // Image used under Creative Commons License
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this is something that I have never done, but I am going to do it today before I leave on my trip through northern europe. i want to thank everyone who is reading this for making my blog and overwhelming success. [jet] started as a study abroad diary/blog of sorts…but then I remember looking at this map one day, and seeing a reader from Iran, and another from Cuba…and thats when I realized that this can be so more, and what started as a forum for my sometimes silly ramblings has become international. i want to thank everyone who has has read, is reading, and those who will read in the future. from Los Angeles, to New York, London, Paris, Madrid, Algiers, Istanbul, Mumbai, Shanghai and all the way to Melbourne…looking at this map of my readers from the past week is motivation for me to keep writing from my corner of the world.
. Thank you . Merci . Grazie . Obrigado . Danke . Gracias .
this means a lot to me
so by now its mostly known that on august 16, 2010 i will be returning to the United States for a while to finish school. i say for a while because i have no intention to staying much longer than school requires me to, and I already see dark clouds on the horizon for the 2012 election, and I would like to houseclean my relationship with the United States just in case that idiot Sarah Palin indoctrinates 51% of the electorate (or 49,8% like Dubya did) and wins the presidency…that is all far flung and paranoid, but as it supports my ambition to get out…i will at least pay the wild theory lip-service.
in a few days I am going to embark on a rather long trip…Sevilla will give way to London, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin, and for two weeks I will be living from my leather duffle with little more than my camera, a few outfits, and hopefully the occasional gin martini if I stumble across a decent looking lounge. i guess now that I am 21 I can talk about those grown up things and not have any perspective American employers get their panties in a wad…let me tell you how good that feels, it is especially irrelevant considering my stated ambitions in the above paragraph.
but I digress…back to my trip, I am quite excited, seeing as how I haven’t been in either Dublin or Amsterdam, and expect to find them both at least a little interesting. if anyone has interesting things to do/see/eat/drink I would appreciate an e-mail if you already have it, or a comment here on the blog if you don’t. My schedule is relatively full between museums, shopping and a few personal favorites in Paris and Berlin…but hopefully I can squeeze in other things in other places.
I leave in four days, and return to Sevilla on the 12th…then I will be off to Madrid for a few days (14-16 august) and then on the 16th I will be flying to Washington D.C. While I am on the trip, I will have little access to the blog, so I am preparing some things to share with you from the year that haven’t been published yet. Of course, I will write reports from each city, and bombard my public with photos upon return.
…mine forever
and ever more mine…
so apparently I turned 21 a few days ago…at least that is what my e-mail inbox, starbucks gold card mailer, facebook, and twitter tell me…so I guess I am apt to believe them all.
we celebrated this rather relevant day with a nice gathering by the river…cuba libres and mojitos gave way to 2am, and then 3am, then 4am, then walks around the city talking about whatever crossed our intoxicated minds
we might have even drank veuve clicquot out of red solo cups…just maybe =P
old friends and new alike came out to celebrate what may be the most irrelevant birthday of your life outside the United States.
there are no pictures
i did not vomit
there weren’t 10.000 people
i even showed up to work the next day
and I wouldn’t have it any other way…because it was an awesome birthday for a mildly awesome person.
here’s to being 21, every rooftop in Washington DC better be on the lookout come August 16th, because where’s there’s a party, hot people, and a skyline..its guaranteed i’m not too far away.
so the second week is now over, i have gotten into a nice schedule of waking up and going to work, coming home and taking a nap, and ending the week being absolutely dead, mostly because of the kids, but also because of the 110 degree heat that we deal with here on a daily basis. i’ve gotten to the point that I can actually wear pants and be comfortable…so maybe you’ll see me in a sweater in the United States, because 85 degrees is just downright chilly these days for me.
i can’t say that I am 100% happy with my situation right now, a lot of Sevilla is really weighing me down, and now that most of my friends have left the city for the summer (school is finally over) I find myself with a lot of free time, and there just isn’t that much to do. Clearly, summer is about relaxing, its about being able to enjoy your time, but for me its also a time to think. Obviously, there is a coming transition in my life, the move back to the United States, which I am already anticipating to be quite a bumpy few weeks. I am obviously hoping for the best but preparing for the worst when it comes to matters of getting re-accustomed to the people, the culture, etc. But also, I am really starting to analyze my time here, what I came from, what I’ve become, what I have learned along the way. The worst part is that only now am I realizing that, despite the face that every goal that I had set for myself has been achieved here in Spain, I could have done much more with a little bit more positioning.
Its no secret that lately I have been questioning my decision to come to Sevilla instead of Madrid. I know that wonderful things have happened to me in Sevilla, and that I have been very lucky to have the experience that i have had, but at the same time, there are certain parts of life that have suffered. I feel out of touch at an international level here in Sevilla, there is very little culture, very little art, very little modernity, and hence, its very hard to keep abreast of trends, and contemporary topics…its hard to be “relevant.” I’m also the person that will always take one more step, always anticipate the next move, and always want a little bit more. Its a mindset and an attitude that ensures success, but it also guarantees that I will never fully appreciate everything that I already have until its all gone. just like everything else, its great, and its damming.
in a few weeks, this is all going to be another chapter in life signed and closed…before I write anymore in this space…I am going to get my thoughts together and clear my head of my doubts…besides, you should never regret when you can ponder…
so my first week of teaching is over, started my second week today…in a month I will be in the middle of a wonderful northern european circle tour, and after coming back from Malta, it finally internalized that I couldn’t live in Sevilla forever.
i sort of knew this was coming…i came to sevilla knowing that it was small, and I wanted to try it for the simple fact that I didn’t know if I could downsize from a city the size of Washington or New York to something much less significant. and even before I really internalized the feelings I have now, I thought them, but I maybe didn’t believe them. don’t get me wrong, sevilla is great, its just small…its homey…its very much like a regional center, there isn’t much culture, there isn’t of anything except for good weather and good parties…thats great for a while, but sometimes we need more in life.
after being in malta and seeing just how international it is, it was very easy to come back to Sevilla and make a critical assesment of my situation here…frankly there is nothing wrong with it, its just not everything that it could be. i know that living in madrid I would be much more complete than living here, its not a question of being happier, its a question of being fulfilled…sometimes I feel empty here, and thats a feeling I know that I wouldn’t get in a bigger city.
this blog has always been about feeling, its been about reflection, and now its time for things to come full circle. vacation ended on september 9th of last year, when I first started classes, school ended for me last week, and so now this is real life…it would be very easy to say, “well yeah, doing nothing anywhere is heaven, and you got Sevilla to boot!” but its not that simple…its not the work that makes me think, its the people around me that make me think…after you get to know a culture, and really know it, you see things that you wouldn’t see upon arrival. you know a person by the way they speak, you get an idea of who someone is by their gestures, their inflection…they are all things we take for granted in our first culture and language…but its not as simple in another place. i have to say its been quite a while since I picked up on this, but I sort of ignored the things I was seeing because I liked where I was…ignorance may be bliss, but it is no way to live.
maybe I’ve gotten comfortable, maybe i’ve gotten tired, maybe i’ve just finally seen how things really are…who knows
i’m not saying that I’ve moved on…I have connections here that may fade, but will never disappear. however it is time to expand, its time to evolve, and thats an evolution that won’t take place in Sevilla…Sevilla has done all it can for me.
our third and fourth days in Malta were spent on the beaches…big surprise
obviously, there can only be so many pictures of the beaches, so instead of posting those, I have decided to group some of my favorite pictures from the trip into a single post. after seeing these, its really easy to understand how reluctant I was to board the plane to come home to Sevilla, and even more understandable is my desire to return to Malta as soon as possible.
our second full day in malta was spent on the islands of Gozo and Comino, the second and third largest of the Maltese nation. Gozo has a burgeoning wine and vineyard industry, and Comino is known for its fabulous rock bay known as The Blue Lagoon. Normally, I wouldn’t believe such a thing actually existed, however, the water here was so clear that you could see to a depth of almost 15 metres with no problem whatsoever. the boats, beaches, and company of good friends made for a perfect second day on our mediterranean holiday.
to celebrate the end of the schoolyear, four of my friends and I spent four days on the islands of Malta and Gozo. located about 100km from Palermo, Malta is an interesting culture that has managed to blend the carefree Mediterranean lifestyle with a strict sensibility that comes from having been a British protectorate for much of the 20th century. the result? an island where life is good, living is easy, and a party is never too far away. from the food, to the people, to the nightlife, even the beaches…Malta was an absolute score, and after only 4 days I was pretty ready to miss my plane back to Sevilla and spend a few weeks basking in the island sun.
the first day of our trip we made a hike of the beaches near out apartment and walked the streets of St. Julians and Valetta, the capital of Malta. The many ports, narrow streets, and interesting blend of north african, italian, and maltese architecture was a great setting for a day of exploration and relaxation.
