January 19th - April 21st, 2009

A Breakdown:

Cost for trip: $2600
Months spent in Europe: 3
Months spent in Spain: 2 and a half-ish
Hours spent on a plane: 35+
Hours spent online: 200+ (estimate)
Hours spent doing what I was here to do: 20ish
Hours spent in detainment: about 6
Countries visited: 5
Countries kicked out of: 2
Total modes of various transportation used (plane, bus, car, on foot, etc): 7
Mona Lisa's seen: 1
Cost of phone bill: no comment
Total visits to a church service: 2
Ice cream consumed: enough to make Blue Bell blush
Moments of irritation and desperation: countless
Moments of joy and happiness: more than countless
Friends made: at least a couple. Maybe. Hopefully?
Cameras broken: 1
Facebook photo albums created: 7
Naked people seen on beach: too many
Sunburns: 3
Spanish words learned: about 20
Most important of those words: "queso"
Knowing that I can do anything I set my mind to and having an amazing experience that I'll remember for the rest of my life: priceless.

So, I'm sitting in the office. Alone, which is better than what was going on yesterday. And I've got some Snow Patrol coming through the headphones, mellowing the mood. In an attempt to help the next three hours of my life pass quickly, I decided to update. But the thing that really sucks is that its an insanely beautiful day outside.

Monday morning, I hop a train to Paris. There, its some lovely debriefing with what will hopefully not be ScaryTerry. I'm preparing to vent, making a mental list of everything that has happened over the past 3 months. But I'm starting to think that I don't have enough brain capacity to store everything that's happened. But then, Tuesday morning, it go time. A flight from Paris to Philly to Charlotte and then, oh then, one final stop in the lovely city of Jackson, MS. And then what? Who knows. Readjustment. Starbucks. Quality time with people. Lots of good ole American food. Move on with life. It'll just be nice to finally be somewhere that I feel wanted and useful. Haven't felt that in about, oh I don't know, 3 months.

And how do I feel about all of this? Relief. Glad to finally be getting out of this situation, to finally have breakdowns on a weekly basis and finally get back to my normal, unemotional state. Excited. I'm ready to be home and see people that actually give a crap about me and that I really really miss. That'll be nice. Disappointment. I'm quitting. No matter what anyone says otherwise, I know in my heart that I couldn't hack it and I had to quit. Its something I'm going to have to deal with. Fear. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Sadness. I'm leaving a place that I love, that's completely beautiful and awesome. I'm also leaving my compadre, roommate, and teammate of three months. And I'll miss her. It'll be weird to not sleep three feet away from someone every night or have daily venting sessions. I only hope she doesn't snap one day, climb a clocktower, and kill everyone within 100 yards. That'd be bad.

But this time next week, what will I be doing?! Starbucks! Barnes and Noble! Target! Being home!

I will not, however, be able to see this whenever I want anymore.

Ah, my ever changing world of when I'm going home. Currently: sometime before April 21st.

That means I have two weeks, give or take some. That made me realize how much I still have to do and see before I leave. Plus, there are gifts to buy so that people back home don't throw fits at me.

For the most part, my frustration is pretty low. But that's mostly because I don't really care anymore and am just going through each day, biding my time. Terrible thing to say, but so completely true. My day currently: Wake up sometime between 10:30-12, shower, eat lunch, watch some TV/movie online, go sit in the office for three hours and pretend to be busy while silently wanting to kill someone, come back home for some possible Skypage, dinner, Skypage, waste time online, sleep by about 2:00. Every day. Quite sad.

But now, a picture:

This is what happens when you're forced to sit in a room for three hours a day and do work that you are completely unmotivated to do. And when you have a laptop but no internet access. Turn up the volume and enjoy.

Continual ball of frustration

So when am I coming home? I have no idea.

Number of jobs I've already applied for today: 13
Number that have already been declined: 2
How many of those would I actually enjoy: maybe 2

The love of my life, my everything, my beautiful, flawless possession that I hold in the utmost value, it is broken. My wonderful camera that I got for graduation and have cherished for only a few short months went crashing to the floor yesterday. Broke my heart. The lens is jammed or broken or something. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry.

I'm totally in one of those moments in life where it seems that nothing is going right and in an effort to combat it, I'm going numb. And that's never good.

This has been such a downer of a post. So here's a Spanish flower:

It was an emotionally lousy week followed by a pretty good weekend. We helped out with the Chat Weekend retreat, which pretty meant doing what we were told to do. But when not doing that, it was fun to just chill out with people. Both Texans and Basque. Met a bunch of really great people. They say that its impossible to build relationships here because its impossible to break through the coldness of the people. But having something like this weekend helps to build friendships that could last for quite a while.

One of my favorite things that I've learned here: my name doesn't exist. That is why whenever I introduce myself to someone, all I get is a blank stare and them asking me to repeat it a few times. Makes me feel special.

So, we've spent more than a month preparing for the past week and a half. Now that the past week and a half are past, I am really curious as to what the rest of our time will be filled with. Conversation groups? Maybe, but I don't exactly do much of those. Just one, actually. And I don't believe anyone is keen on giving me my own, which is fine with me. So, back to taking pictures? Sounds good.

I'm ready for some baseball. And cupcakes. And Starbucks. And fried catfish. And a million other things that I miss so dearly. Most of which are food.

Sheep

So as of today, I've been in Europe 2 months. That's kind of a long time. At least to me it is. And it seems that for those 2 months, I've been a constant ball of frustration and irritation. Once, just once, I'd like things to go as planned. I don't want last minute changes or alterations or cancellations or additions. I want to know what I'm doing, where I'm going, and then go and do it. As planned. I know I have to be flexible and bendable, but you can only take so much bending before you snap and break.

So the Texas kids were pretty cool. I liked a few of them. And it was nice to have other people around that were American. Ah, I sometimes miss Americans. That is, until they take pictures on the bus, wear touristy jackets and fanny-packs, sing in public, and generally irritate me with their ignorance to other cultures. However, their visit did teach me something: I know quite a bit about San Sebastian. What things are, where to go, what to do, the ins and outs, places to eat/shop, etc. Felt like a pro. Also loved the rush I got from being in charge. A little bit power-hungry, if you will.

So now that the kids are gone and the weekend we've been working toward is here, I have no idea what we're doing next. Chatting, I guess. But I'm not exactly responsible enough for my own group, nor do I want one. I'd like to just be left alone to work on my assignment that I actually enjoy. Again, slipping into the giant ball of frustration.
~Breathe, let it go, think of the Beatles and ice cream~