Saturday, January 5, 2013

Rambling: Hasta Luego, España

Well I had this post 90% done before I left Spain, but then the holidays happened and I avoided doing anything mildly productive.  Late is better than never, so here is my trip summed up in 24 bullet points:

Things I Will Miss About Spain
1) Meeting up with the girlies, especially for churrrrrros
2) My Spanish family :) And being silly with Chiquita
3) The 20-second commute to work (downstairs to upstairs)
4) Cheap travel - I bought a round-trip plane ticket for $48 total, and one of my fave hostels was $9. And you never go through customs!
5) Being in a constant state of awareness and learning in Spanish. (Current favorite word? Elfo. It means elf) 
6) Feeling like a superior expat or traveler when annoyed at American tourists 
8) 40 degrees is "freezing cold" 
9) The family's massage chair. I will buy one someday
10) Driving the SmartCar.  And just how cute it is. And surprisingly, round-abouts
7) Patatas bravas, fried eggplant by the housekeeper, the kaki fruit, and frozen ready-to-heat crepes
11) So. much. free. time.

Things I Am Looking Forward to in the US

1) Seeing people I love <3
2) Thai food, Panera, and Noodles & Co
3) People not looking at me like I'm crazy when I ask for veggie burgers, soy milk, and almond yogurt
4) Not having one vegetarian option at most quick food places - bread and cheese sandwich. Just bread and cheese. Sometimes butter. I should have been keeping a count of how many I ate, with an increasing level of grudging. At least Italy had caprese sandwiches. My last was symbolically in the airport (it was like heaven at the airport in London during my layover seeing FOUR different vegetarian sandwiches. AND soup.)
5) Having internet on my phone all the time 
6) Not having to do math ("plus seven hours") or troubleshoot technology to schedule dates
7) Measuring in pounds and inches and Fahrenheit
8) Making money
9) Access to Pandora and Netflix again 
10) All the holidayyyy fun coming up
11) Owning a hair straightener again 
12) Planning the next adventure :-) 

Things I Learned
1) I am now a champ traveler. The best way to get from point A to point B? Check. How to plan a daytrip? Check. How to pick a cheap authentic restaurant? Check. Packing and navigating airports like a jet-setter? Check
2) Hostels > hotels
3) Confirmation again that for kids, checklists of 'challenges' > reward systems
4) When to push kids to understand/practice language, and when to give them a break
5) Get the audioguide. Especially at art museums
6) Spanish expressions - ¡como mola! ¡ala! ¡jope! (or the grown up version, "jo"). ¡que guay! 
7) British expressions - uni, tiddles, whilst, loads, serviette, wellies, advert, bother, maths, waistcoat, biscuit... I now say "I'm going to the loo" :)  And they really do love to queue
8) "We're open til 8" actually means "we're open til 8 except for the 3 hours in the middle of the day when we're closed for siesta" 
9) I really, really appreciate living in a country without a terrible depression or unreliable authorities
10) I think I FINALLY mastered the difference between tratar/intentar/probar (all meaning "to try") and which is cuenta/cuento (the bill/story)... yes, by asking a waitress for "the story" at the end of a meal
11) The rest of the world thinks we're crazy for loving guns, putting all our poor people in the same part of cities, eating crap food, and not having cheap health insurance
12) A new appreciation for the intricacies of language - for an example in English, you may think you're fine and dandy by learning the word "work" in the dictionary (an occupation or exerting force) but that doesn't prepare you for let's go work out, this plan isn't working out, they're working out their relationship, order it with the works, a work of art, or werk it gurl
13) Reminder of this - "You have exactly one life in which to do everything you'll ever do. Act accordingly." - Colin Wright

1 comment:

  1. I just caught up on your blog! I'm so glad I got to read about your adventures. What are you up to next?

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