Take Life a Paragraph at a Time

Tuesday January 29, 2008

Today went really well. I swear its almost like being on a rollercoaster here in Spain. Some days are really good while others are really bad, but I’m sure that is what’s expected in a four-month program. Class got out at 12:15pm today instead of at 1pm, so I felt like a million dollars because of those extra 45 minutes. It’s the little things in life, right? After class Sam and I set off to find the Post Office. After searching for a while we finally found the building. The line was about 25 people deep, so we decided to just find a small store that sold stamps. We wandered around until we found one and apparently we just happened upon just the right store. We bought our stamps and the guy even had a conversation with us! Many times people are too busy to talk to us or they think that we just don’t understand so it was nice to have a Spaniard strike up a conversation that didn’t start with a catcall. He asked if we were here on vacation and we said that we were studying for the semester and then he pointed us to the closest mailbox. It was all around a win for team Sam and Emily. After leaving the shop we headed in what we thought was the right direction towards home. We finally came to a point where we didn’t know where we were…until I spotted a street that I knew. We followed my instinct (Lord only knows why) and we actually ended up in the right spot! I actually helped out when it came to finding the way home, you can only imagine how stoked I was. I think for the next 5 minutes that’s all we talked about. Sam and Emily-2, Spain-0. After lunch we all worked on homework for a while. I learned today that you have to take life in Spain one paragraph at a time, and that is now the new motto for the trip (its more relative to the homework side of things, but it works overall). While the big picture and goals look overwhelming at times, I need to remember to focus on the little things that make me happy both here and back in the US. One of those “little happys” came in the form of a singing birthday card from Tish Lavrenz today. I was super excited to get the mail and then when it sung to me I just died. I think my host sister things I’m crazy because the moment I opened the singing greeting card she peaked her head around the corner and looked lost. I explained the card and reaction to her and I think she loved it too. Sam got a package today so we are rollin’ in the sweets. Nick called around 4:45pm and wanted to meet at Republica to find flights for a potential trip to Ireland. Allison and I met Nick around 5pm and we both began to search for trips, Allison for the Paris trip, Nick and I for the Ireland trip. I’m excited to travel but with the difficult academic schedule I don’t know when it’s going to be possible! Tonight is going to be a chill night because it has been a good day and we don’t want to ruin what we have going for us.