Loving, Leaving, and Starting Again

Well, folks, I think it is safe to say that last year was a massive failure. In terms of blogging, that is. The whole two posts that I took the time to write from Spain last year really served well to document my time abroad. As long as you weren't curious what happened after September.

I suppose I was somewhat justified in not blogging all the time. I was constantly working either on homework for my masters or stuff for the classes I taught at my job. It was a busy year and finding time to blog about it all just wasn't happening.

But all that is about to change.

Here I sit in my apartment in Madrid once again, about to start year #2 in Spain. I never really would have expected a second year here had you asked me last August, but things just kind of fell into place that way, as they always seem to do.

So now I'm here again with MUCH more free time on my hands. I'll only be teaching this year, so that pesky masters won't get in my way anymore. Which should be awfully nice.

In any case, I think it would be appropriate if, before starting this new year of experiencing life abroad (and actually blogging about it this time), I did a little recap of last year. Which should be about as close to impossible as anything else I've attempted on here.

But here's my method. I've looked through all of my pictures from the last year (okay, so maybe I kind of glanced through them) and chose one picture from each month that I think pretty much sums up that particular month. I'll give the background story for each picture and with each story, you should more or less get a feel for the year in general. I guess we'll see if it works.

August - This picture is of some of my lovely friends (from L to R - Jorge, Kayla, Annie, Jacek, William and me) in Valencia, Spain. I was lucky enough in the beginning of the year to take a little "Intro to Spain" trip to Jávea and Valencia on the Mediterranean coast. While there, I got to see several of my friends who had studied at OU and just enjoy being in Spain. It was a fantastic way to start the year. I didn't yet have any responsibilities and just had two full weeks of relaxing. Not exactly how the rest of the year would be...

September - This is a picture that I had posted previously when talking about the roommates in my first apartment in Madrid. Yes, I said "first apartment." I'll get to that.

But in early September, things didn't seem like they could be any better. I had seven roommates (Gaby and Simón from France, Saila from Finland, Gigi from Italy, Maite and Guillermo from Spain, and Kayla from Oklahoma) and things were busy, but it was all so dang exciting. Meeting all these new people and having all these new experiences were just incredible. Everything was so new and I was loving life.

October - A lot of things happened in October and it was difficult to narrow my choice of photo down to just one, but I chose this picture for two reasons. But first, the back story. At Halloween, Kayla and I took a trip to Paris, France to visit several of our friends: Jacek from Germany, Jorge and Gloria from Spain, and William and Marc from France. It was an awesome reunion and we had the best possible time. One of my favorite trips from the year, without a doubt.

So anyway, my two reasons for choosing this picture: 1) Because Paris has become one of my favorite cities in the world, if not my absolute favorite, and being there in the fall was beautiful. 2) Because at that point in time (at the end of October) Kayla and I were reaching our breaking points. We had begun to realize that our living situation was less than ideal. (Okay, it was horrible. 8 people and 1 bathroom? Pure insanity.) We saw that we had almost no free time due to the demands of our program. And, if we were both honest with ourselves, we were probably both a little homesick. So we really needed something good in our lives to bring us back from the brink right at that time, and this trip was just exactly what we needed. Kayla and I talked later about that trip and agreed that it was a turning point for the year. Who knows it the year would have ended up so great without it.

November - I think this picture is somewhat self-explanatory, but I'll give a brief explanation anyway. Four of us from our program (Kayla, Alicia, Amanda and myself) all decided to have an American-style Thanksgiving celebration. We just couldn't imagine a year without it. And if all of us couldn't be at home to enjoy our mothers' home-cooking, then we would make the best of it. One of our friends from Valencia (Susana) offered her house to create this massive feast, and I think we did a pretty good job. And all of the Spaniards agreed with us.

December - I was lucky enough to be able to fly home at Christmas and no picture is better than this one of me with my nephew to represent how great that trip was. At that point I had been in Spain for five months, and I needed some family time.

January - Soon after returning to Madrid, I made another trip to Valencia to visit all of our great friends there. We had a really big gathering of OU people and just had a great weekend. This trip was also needed, because right after getting back to Madrid, I think I was missing home just a bit. And being around all of our awesome friends that we had met in Oklahoma, I felt much better about things.

February - Over the year, things just got better and better in all aspects. I found a new, much better apartment. I was getting much better at managing out time for homework. And things at my job were becoming really fun. This picture is of me and some of the other teachers I work with during Carnival. It's strange getting used to all of the crazy Spanish traditions and it was always a good time. The reason we're all dressed up is because Spaniards use Carnival as their time to dress up in crazy costumes instead of Halloween, when the only acceptable costume is something very scary. That was a fun day.

March - In March, around Spring Break time in the US, Spain has Semana Santa, or Holy Week in English. During that week, the country basically shuts down. In Semana Santa, you have two options: One is to stay in Spain and enjoy the festivities, because there is a lot going on at that time. But we chose Option Two, which was to travel outside of the country. So a group of us did a tour of Italy for about 10 days. We started in Milan, then went on to Venice, then Florence, and finally Rome. This is us in front of the Coliseum. And what an amazing trip it was.

April - Otherwise known as Birthday Month. Kayla and I have birthdays that are only a few days apart, so everyone in our program was nice enough to throw us a big joint birthday party. And it was incredibly fun. And it really made me realize what amazing friends we had made over the year.

May - Another Spanish holiday and another Spanish costume. In May in Madrid, there is a holiday for the city's patron saint, which is Saint Isidro. Madrid has a traditional costume, which my Spanish friend Adriana and I are modeling in this photo. Adriana also worked at my school last year, and we were required to wear these costumes. It was really cute to see all of the little kids in their little costumes.

June - This is the month where everything paid off. This is a picture from our Graduation Day. It's a picture of every single person in my program. It was a really great group of people and I made a lot of great friends. A lot of them are back this year with me, and I'm excited about that. And I'll definitely miss those who aren't here again.

What's also cool about this picture is that it was taken in the chapel where we had our graduation ceremony. The chapel is part of our university and it is around 600 years old! People like Miguel Cervantes (the guy who wrote Don Quixote) have received their degrees here, and now I've joined their ranks!

July - Perhaps my favorite picture of all! In July my parents came to visit me in Madrid and I couldn't wait to get them here. After a few days in Madrid, we then went on to Barcelona, Paris, and Rome and it really was the trip of a lifetime. It was my parents' first time out of the US and I was so excited to show them all of the places that I've come to know. This picture is of us right after Spain won the World Cup. We watched the game at a big outdoor area in the middle of the city with thousands of Spaniards and enjoyed the celebrations that went along with it. And, of course, we wore our Spain colors, as you can see here.

So, as you can see, it was an incredible year. It's almost hard for me to describe just how amazing it all was in such a short space (if you can call this short!). But it really was wonderful year with all of it's ups and downs. I learned a lot and made a lot of great friends who I know I will have for the rest of my life. And I had the experience of a lifetime.

But now it's time for Spain Round 2. And it's time to make way for some new experiences and some new friends. It's time to start again. And if this year is half as good as the previous one, then I know that I'm in for some fantastic times.

Tomorrow starts my first day at school and the start of my year. I guess we'll see how it goes.