Bookends

I filled my last few days in Granada wandering around with a trembling lip and a painful lump in my throat. Then, on my walk home on my last night, Simon and Garfunkel's "Bookends" came on my iPod and I lost it, weeping like a crazy lady. If you know the song, you know where I'm coming from. Mr. Simon, you sir, have a way of pulling at my heart strings.

My life in Granada has come to an end and I couldn't be more sad. Time went much too quickly.

I spent my last night walking through the city. There are some cities that just completely come to life at night. Granada is one of them. It has that certain warm, golden glow to it that only big cities have, alive and sparkling and intoxicating. It buzzes, pulsates, with its own life and you can't look away even if you wanted to. You just have to stare everywhere all at once to remember, to take it all in. It is completely bewildering and completely wonderful. I wandered through the city's many crowded, bustling plazas, through Christmas festivals filled with happy little children running at my feet and overwhelmed parents chasing after them. I walked slowly, listening to the street musicians and the Spanish I can now understand. It was the perfect way to end my time there, seeing the city at night, at its best.

I am going to miss Granada and its quiet, overwhelming grandeur. I'll miss the food. I'll miss my host family, with whom my goodbye was painfully bittersweet. There aren't words for the gratitude I feel for their infallible kindness. Mostly, I'll miss the amazing friends I made. We'll never all be there together again.

I knew I'd have to leave, that my time there was short. And I know that one day this will not feel as important - as monumental - as it feels today. In fact, I hope that my time in Granada is far from the coolest thing I do with myself. I hope it is just first in a long list of really impressive things. Nonetheless, it has changed me.

I don't think it has made me into a seasoned world traveler or a wine connoisseur or a fluent Spanish speaker or whatever else, but it has made me feel damn good to be alive. I know now that I continue to exist outside my realm of comfort. I know now that I can do things like this, that I want to do things like this. I am standing here at the very beginning of my life and I am looking forward to whatever is next.

I am home now, and I am so glad that I was there.

Thanks for reading.

A weekend of Gluttony

I believe that post-it notes are a much underrated simple pleasure of life. If I go anywhere remotely cool, and most places are, I buy a good guide book (Thanks Rough Guide to Spain!) and a pack of post-its. Then, I post-it note every inch of that book. A few weeks ago, I was looking at my Spain guide book and I realized that the only post-it note left was Basque country. So, of course, my friends Eddie, Jess and I went.

I wanted to go there for one because I thought I should see the north of Spain and two because it sounded really, really awesome. Basque occupies the northern corner of Spain, right along the French border and it has it's own language and an entirely different culture than the rest of Spain. The origin of the Basque people is unknown - their language is unrelated to any other and they managed to avoid being conquered by the Romans, the Muslims and the Christians. You could say they are hearty. In recent years, they have become more famous for the ETA terrorist group, which is very unfortunately fighting for independence by blowing people up. It is a shame really that Basque has become synonymous with this violence.

Twelve hours and two bus rides later, we arrived in Basque country, which is so forested and green that it looked technicolor to us, coming from the arid landscapes of the south. Bilbao, our first stop, is a gritty place but really charming at the same time. Once there, we went straight to the city's main attraction: the Guggenheim museum, which is just as spectacular in person as it is in photographs. It is said to look like a blossoming flower or a fish jumping out of water - I for one thought it looked like a silver, curvy building. Perhaps I lack that poetic instinct?



The inside was quite the experience as well. A lot of really eccentric modern art. One room was filled with towering seashell-like sculptures that you could walk through. Another section showed independent films, one of which was exhibited in a plywood tunnel and showed an obese woman kneading pizza dough.

We spent our night in Bilbao wandering through the winding streets of the old town, pintxo-hopping. A word about pintxos. They are the Basque version of tapas and also God's gift to the people of Earth. Basque is Spain's self-proclaimed food capital and they are not kidding. Over the course of the two days we were in Basque, I had tempura fried vegetables with curry sauce, various goat cheese concoctions, omelettes, mushroom risotto...dear lord my mouth is watering.

Whew.

Back to Bilbao. While leaving one bar, we came across a crowd singing in the street. We asked an old couple what it was about, and they answered with tears in their eyes, that it was National Basque day. I have to admit I got a little verklempt.

Our next stop was San Sebastian. This city was without doubt my favorite city that I visited in Spain. It is a beautiful and scenic beach town built along a harbor with narrow, old streets and buildings impressive enough to match the landscape. We spent the day here exploring an old castle built on top of a mountain on the harbor. Castle exploring might just be one of my favorite pastimes.



That night we again went out to explore the glorious world of Basque cuisine. San Sebastian has the most bars per square meter in the world and we got a bit more than tipsy just so we could keep eating.


After a few confusing train changes and a brief lunch in the ambiguous border city of Hendaye (I still don't know what country it is in), we arrived in Bordeaux, France. Now, if anyone is planning on ever visiting this city, I should warn you now that the area around the train station is more than a little seedy. Sex shops. Creepy people. Did I mention sex shops? But once we dropped off our bags at our creepy, straight out of The Shining hotel, Bordeaux completely won us over. We treated ourselves to a nice dinner where we all cleaned our plates in happy silence and wandered around the city. Bordeaux is perfect for wandering and just so french. In the morning, we had Cafe Au Lait and Pan Du Chocolat underneath the ancient city gates.



Our last city was Toulouse. It may have been because it was our last day of vacation or because we were there on a Sunday night, but while we there, I felt tired and numb to the city. We did however get to experience a Christmas festival, which filled an impressive plaza with glowing stalls selling all kinds of wonderful things. After the festival, we again wandered through the city and looking back, I can see how charming it is.



It was a weekend of wandering through amazing places and eating amazing food with really great people. You really can't ask for much more in a vacation and I think it was a great trip to end my study abroad on.

I go home tomorrow.

Expect an emotional last blog post from me very soon.

Family Reunion

On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I went to the airport to pick up my family. I was nervous and excited and I ended up at the airport about two hours early, pacing and fidgeting. It was so great to see their faces again, to be with people who really, really know me and still like me in spite of that.

Showing them around Granada was surreal. This city has been my place for so long that I felt possessive and self-conscious about it. I wanted everything to go perfectly, to be so smooth that they just had to shuffle dumbly from one awe-inspiring place to the next. If I could have arranged for them to be escorted around in golden carriages, being fanned with palm fronds, I absolutely would have. I wanted them to love it here as much as I do. So, with the bar set that high, I did spend a good amount of time feeling inadequate. But let's be honest - who doesn't feel inadequate most of the time anyway? Despite all my nerves, I think they all really liked it here.

On Saturday, my mom, dad and sister Beth arrived. I took them out for an absurdly huge lunch first, and then we visited the royal chapel and the cathedral - a good introduction to the humbling grandeur of this city.



On that Sunday, my brother Andrew and his girlfriend Robin arrived. While my dad went to the airport, Beth, my mom and I wandered over to the Archaeological museum - but not without stopping at a church to buy some chocolate-covered, coconut-filled balls of heaven (literally) from the cloistered nuns. This experience is best described as a candy shop mixed with a confessional mixed with a lazy susan. You don't know whether to kneel down and pour your heart out, or start arranging hors d'oeuvres.

When we were all finally together, I took everyone on a walk through the Albaicin, the ancient Muslim neighborhood, frantically trying to repeat everything I could remember from my Islam class. We finished the day at a cozy wine bar by my school. My favorite people in the world, a heaping pile of honey-drenched, spicy chorizo, creamy goat cheese, and several bottles of great wine - all the good things in life.



Monday was mostly a day of classes for me and a day at the Alhambra for them. Although I think they all really enjoyed it, I also think it may have sucked the energy out of them. The place is huge and I didn't warn them. I made it up to them later though by taking them for hot chocolate and churros - which just might fix all of life's problems if you eat them enough.

Tuesday, the world of my Spanish family collided with the world of my American family, but not in some sort of strange epic battle. Paqui had them over for lunch and, naturally, cooked a ridiculous amount of very impressive food. I served as a translator for the meal, but it really wasn't necessary. You can tell a lot about a person even without language. Well, not me personally, I just eat everyone's soup... but you get the idea. In the end, Paqui and my mom were gushing over each other and Andrew was bonding with Jesus and Antonio over Real Madrid. It went well.

That night we made the drive to Marbella, the Costa Del Sol resort town where we stayed for the rest of the trip. On Wednesday, we drove to Gibraltar for the day. Most people are aware that Gibraltar is an English colony, but what people don't know is that it is also a weird parallel universe version of Britain with palm trees, an over-abundance of native Spanish-speakers and apes. Yes, apes. Unnervingly large apes, to be exact. It is confusing to be in a place where at one point you're eating fish and chips in a pub, and the next, you are on top of a mountain watching your brother scold a monkey for trying to steal his shopping bag. No, monkey, NO.



The next day we went to Ronda. After a terrifying, white-knuckled drive through the foggy mountains, we made it to the town. Ronda is a traditional Andalusian pueblo, with white-washed buildings that would make anything charming, but this one, to top it off, was built on the edges of a cliff. One and a half football fields straight down. Ronda also offers a cave complete with prehistoric paintings, Spain's oldest bull ring and countless opportunities for jokes about Rhonda's massive gorge.





That night was Thanksgiving night. We didn't have turkey or stuffing or anything traditional, but we did make an insane amount of really delicious food and I did feel significantly worse about myself by the time it was done, so I would say we had a pretty normal Thanksgiving. It was wonderful just to be able to be with my family.

The last day trip was to Tangier, Morocco, but my mom and I opted out. Instead, we spent the day wandering around Marbella's old town while my dad, Andrew, Beth and Robin experienced Morocco and the carpet-selling schemes of its guided tours. After that, we had one more day in Granada and then they were off to the real world.


It was amazing to have my family here and there's really no way to describe that. I have always been the kid in the family who stays close to home. I am loving my own adventure - and to have them be a part of it, even for such a short time, was more than I could ask for.