Querido Segovia,

My, my, my, you've been quite the wild ride. You've been nothing I expected, a lot of the things I needed, and few of the things I was looking for. You've made me cry and smile and shake with anger and frustration and laughter. I came all this way only to meet a bunch of Americans and a handful of SPaniards, and I'm still feeling embarrassed about that. Everyday, you taunt me with all the htings I wanted to do and wished I would do but never started. Everyday, the way I wanted things to be and the way things are clash terribly, and it takes every ounce of mental strength I have to remember that that is more than okay, it is good and real, and that although it's easiest to be stung by the losses, there are so many wonders for me to remember. 

The last weeks I've realized that it's been a semester of self examination, self reflection. How many other people have said these same words before, but my oh my how much I have learned about the person that I am right now.What makes me laugh, though, is that in a few more months at the tail end of all this craziness, I'll be just as transformed. 

Sometimes I wonder if it was selfish to spend all this time looking inward--wasn't this year supposed to be about looking out? But perhaps it might be like that "You have to love yourself before you can love another person" type deal. I've got to look inward before looking outward. I mean, seriously. It's about time I had some serious self relection time. Burying myself in textbooks the last few years made it a little difficult to figure out exactly who this person writing these blogs is. But now I've got a better idea. 

Segovia, thanks for all your help with Spanish. Everyday I speak it, I am reminded of how much more there is to learn, but it is hard to forget how far I've come. You introduced me to a new way of life, and some of the most wonderful people. 

You've pushed me. Left me exhausted, exhilarated, inspired. You gave me some of your time, and I know now that the few moments I had here are not enough.  

Nos vemos pronto. Un beso. 
P. 

Sintra: The Fairy Tale

Hey, so, remember when I went to Lisbon?

There's this wonderful little town just outside of the capital city. The town itself feels like it hasn't changed in 200 years, but what really captured my imagination were the mansion, palace and old arab fortress that were built on the hills around the town.

For the rest of the weekend I was telling people to go to Sintra, go to Sintra, go to Sintra. Why? Because it looks like a fairy tale.

The footage I got doesn't quite capture how spectacular this place is, but hopefully it might convey the vague idea of how lovely my visit was.

French Food

While talking with my friend in Florence, she asked me if I was excited for the food. I, of course, said yes. My stomach dictates a lot of my decisions. But I also added, "I'm not certain if I've ever had actual French food. The closest I might have ever gotten in Salut in Edina."

My friend laughed.

But. So. Yes. The food.

Mom and I hoped on board a French cooking class, that and all the other AMAZING food I ate, was practically a religious experience. I'll let some of the pictures do the talking.

Paris.

Three weeks ago I was bent double underneath the dome of the Duomo in Florence, Italy. Despite our perilous position, my friend and I had been chatting about Paris for the last half hour.

Paris.

When that name is whispered it means everything. Love, beauty, history, fashion, war, food. It speaks of fame and poverty, glorious hope and heartbreaking loss, refined arts and desperate arts. It's a fairy tale, a dream, a nightmare, a city like all others and like none others.

I just spent five days in this famed city. That would be the explanation for my not posting at all the last week. Sorry not sorry.

While I entertained the idea of going to Paris sometime this year from the beginning, it wasn't until two months or so ago that I knew I'd make it there with part of my family. We didn't really have any plans. We didn't really know what we wanted to do. But we managed to have a good time anyway.

There isn't much that I can write about Paris that others before me haven't written already. Plenty of people have waxed poetic about the history, the people, the language, the food. Any part of the city, you name it, and people have written about it. And I don't know enough about the City of Light to even pretend to be able to contribute to the vast collection of opinions on and experiences of Paris.

But I'll tell you what I can.

Paris is a lovely city. And five-ish days there aren't enough. Something tells me that Paris deserves at least a week, maybe two. And if you're daring a month or two or three. It's easy for us foreigners to get caught up in the urge to see everything--that's a little of what happened to me.

We also walked up and down the banks of the Seine River any number of times. As always, I seem to like the water parts of the city best. 

So yes, I did go to the Louvre and some other museums. I did go to Notre Dame and another chapel, and view the city from the top of Notre Dame's towers and from the Eiffel Tower. And believe me, that was all great.

I'm a history nerd. Not everything sticks in my head, but I like to think I know a thing or two more about european history than your average person. This makes walking through a city like Paris, where practically every street corner holds a story, so much fun and so strange. It's like history at once feels closer and farther away. Seeing places helps me grasp more firmly what happened--the changing of palaces between the Louvre and Versailles, walking by street corners with plaques commemorating assassinations that occurred during the Second World War, wandering through the halls of Versailles, where treaties were signed and mobs demanded change. In Paris, pieces of history dropped into place.

Mona Lisa. As I'd been told, it's a little underwhelming.
But still cool to learn a little about.

But, as I've probably said before, for me the moments I like best are the moments no one else will experience, the sort of stories I'll tell for a while, or the sort of stories my older brother will not let me forget...

One day, I wanted crepes. We were somewhere between the Orangerie Museum and the Eiffel Tower. Not part of the city where there are a bunch of eateries. We wandered the streets for about 40 minutes making out way to the tower. We did find a little café just a hop, a skip, and a step away from the famed tower. I got my crepe. But the hunt was ridiculous enough for my older brother to immediately taunting me every time we pass some place that advertises their crepes--in France and in Barcelona.

There's a famous English bookstore just a bit away from Notre Dame. Named after the Bard, it's apparently got a famed history and been a friend to writers "Down and out" on the streets of Paris for round about a hundred years. It was a meeting place for the Lost Generation and these days serves as a home away from home to a new generation of young, struggling, dreaming writers. It has its fair share of literary minded tourists pace through its tiny aisles , but it has by no means lost its personality. Books are pile haphazardly up to the ceiling, and upstairs can be found a goldmine of old books--not for selling, but for sitting and reading in their little library. I spent round about an hour there, hunting down some good, Paris-themed books. That's a new thing of mine: I want to read about the places I've been. Read up on their history, but also dip into the literature born in these cities.


A dear family friend of hours works as a flight attendant on transatlantic flights between Minneapolis and Paris. She speaks French quite fluently, so she's the one who makes all the French announcements on the plane. Because of her job, she finds herself in Paris for a day or two on a nearly weekly basis. We knew that one of these days we'd end up on a flight with her. Just happened to be on one to Paris. So we spent our first full afternoon in Paris being guided by our friend. This good friend of ours has gotten to know the city quite well over the last few years, and I can't imagine a better introduction to the city: a walk through the city with great company and a sprinkling of history here and there.
Twenty years or so ago, when we first met, we would never have expected to meet by chance on a sunny afternoon in Paris. And what a beautiful sunny day it was.

Missed Connections

Over the last week or so of my time in Segovia, I've been thinking of those Missed Connections posts Craig's List. I haven't spent too much time browsing through them, but I've always liked the idea of sending little hope-filled messages to that person who could have been anything or everything with the smallest of chances that maybe that message would be seen.

And as these last few weeks have slid by, I've found myself writing some of my own messages.

P- You were looking for someone to practice your English with. But I wasn't going to be in town much longer. If only you had told me earlier, if only I'd had more time here, we could have gotten coffee. That talk we had is half the reason why I want to find a triathlon to do sometime soon. Good luck with your swimming. Two years and your technique is looking good. You just need to work on building up strength and stamina and you'll be golden. You don't know how much I appreciated it when you told me that I swam beautifully.

M - I never learned your name. You probably don't know that you were the first one to talk to me at the pool. Thanks for letting me know that no one was angry at me for being a little faster than your average swimmer at the pool. Your laugh and your confidence always made me smile. I wish I'd realized you were on your way out of the pool when I saw you last. I didn't get the chance to say goodbye. 

J - You said you might be at the pool at 9:30. I didn't see you though and, so didn't get the chance to say goodbye. You are so warm. Thanks for telling me where I could get my hair and nails done. I appreciate how sincere you were. 

A - We went out for drinks a couple of times. But our schedules were never very compatible, and I was always to busy and studious for the full all night out that you Spaniards are used to. Then November happened and neither of use were in town. Hope to see you in May. Even though I only saw you a few times, you're one of the coolest and most thoughtful people I've ever met. Your inner philosopher was quite the pleasant surprise. Good luck in whatever country you end up working in. 

It's become obvious to me that 3.5 months is not nearly long enough to start to build a space for yourself in a new place. It took me at least a month to get even remotely comfortable with the language and another one to gather the courage to talk to people. I kept thinking I was doing something wrong, because I hadn't made a whole lot of friends outside of the people I saw on a daily basis through my host family and my classes, but let's be honest, the way I function as a not-exactly-social person means that it takes me longer to build what feels to me like meaningful relationships.

Yes, I did see people on a near daily basis with whom I held conversations, whose names I knew and who knew my name.  But since I only started to come out of my shell in November--and I was hardly in Segovia in November, I didn't get much of a chance to build those relationships into anything more than casual acquaintance status.

Another person might have been able to do that. Another person a little less quite and intimidated by language barriers, another person might have made a little home in the new place faster than I could. But another person is not me and that's okay and that's one of the things I've figured out here.

But the idea of falling in love with this city without those people-connections to it is a strange one to me. What am I leaving behind? A good host family, good memories, and these missed connections. And that's what pulls at my heart the most--the things that could have been if only there was more time.
Now more than ever I see the appeal of going to one place for an entire gap year. But I'm too exited for what's coming up next to change my plans.

Getting a chance to make these connections is just one more excuse to come back, or go somewhere else, for longer. (Sorry, Mom and Dad, I know that's an alarming statement). Now that the language won't be quite the obstacle it was at first, I'd be able to dive into those missed connections.

Do these missed connections mean I somehow regret my time here? Nope. Not a chance.

This last weekend, the city was shrouded in a thick fog. The sort of mist that rounds out shapes and repaints things a new color. The sort of fog that makes places you've seen day in and day out for who-knows-how-long unrecognizable. You see things with new eyes when the fog rolls in.

Looking that this place I'd been living in, so different clothed in fog. Unburdened by memories good and bad, it's easy to re-see how beautiful a place is. I could look around me and say, with confidence that, yes, I will remember this city fondly. For the sound of my footsteps in the uneven streets brings to mind the rhythm of the Spanish language that no longer falls strangely in my ears. And at every corner I can count the number of things learned this place has brought me.

Dear December

Well, you are flying by quite fast. You haven't been too cold, and your nights have been crystalline in their clarity. You are a friend to the stars.

In Spain, you show a different face. And maybe I'm too accustomed to your nature in Minnesota, but here it does not feel like winter, just that brief space of time between autumn and winter stretched out, into infinity. It feels as if you've frozen time. There is a sort of limbo-like feeling to the world. Your days are lazy and empty, and yet we walk quickly through the streets. We plan things and put them off to tomorrow. And Christmas will never come, not because of some White Witch, but because the days between the here and the then are many.

December, this time you are unlike any December I've ever known. You are so very different: in place, in texture, in language, in departures.

But I still recognize you. The air feels the same. Crystal and infused with cooking smells. The everpresent bite of chill. The strange way the fire in the stars burns brighter this time of year. The lights and decoration, the shapes of trees and snowflakes.

Every year, I am convinced you are my favorite month. You're the month to end the year. And perhaps it is because I never want the year to end quite yet, but I always have been glad of the strange way you move through time. January always feels too new and abrupt. I am always unprepared for the new year. But the old year. Yes, the old year, I could do with having more time in the old year. There are always more things that changed than I could have guessed at the start. And looking back at January last, well, I didn't even know where I'd be over the summer, I didn't even know were I'd be next year or the year after that. I didn't know what a summer of changes I would have. I had no idea what it would feel like for my friends to go off to separate places.

Dear December, thank you for your long days. Thank you for the moments of frozen stillness when I do not need to look ahead. Thank you for opening up room for reflection in the stars. Thank you for making the world so clear and still. Thank you for making good things come to an end, and bringing new beginnings. Thanks for making us learn to look back and forward. Thanks for being the beginner and the ender of new and thrilling years.  

Cada Día Mejor

Over the last few months a few refrains have flown into my head and gotten stuck there.

One in particular appeared out of nowhere after a particularly successful morning at the pool. And these days, when I talk about "successful" in terms of swimming in the morning, I don't mean how fast I swam, I mean how many conversations I succeeded in having.

The first time I remember chanting this refrain while dancing down the hallway to the locker rooms occurred sometime in the beginning of November. I'd gotten out of a very full pool that Wednesday morning. One guy who works at the pool, the one who waves to me when I come it and "Hasta Luego"s me as I leave, came up to me as I was walking off the pool deck.

"Disculpe. Hace mucho calor hoy. Hay mucho gente en la piscina," he said, apologizing for the cuantity of people in the pool that morning.

I brushed the problem off, "No pasa nada, estoy acustombrada a esta cantidad de gente." It's the truth, there were maybe six people in my lane that day, and it certainly wasn't the first time that I'd swum with so many people.

A few more lines were exchanged before the ritual hasta luegos and I left. In the locker room I ran into a woman with whom I'd swum with a little bit. She's a tiny old woman, dressed in a purple swim suit. The first time she talked to me it was to tell me she hoped that she wasn't bothering me--wondering if she'd been in my way while we were swimming.

This time she looked at me, laughing, and asked how many laps I swam everyday--a million? And from there the conversation continued--how many laps I actually swam (I didn't count), how often she swam at the pool, how long I'd been swimming.

It might seem silly. It probably is. But at the same time, I felt hugely accomplished after holding these conversations. I'd seen these people many times a week for the last two months, but as is the nature of swimming, it's sort of hard to talk to people in the middle of your workout.

After talking to these people, I practically danced and skipped my way through the locker room. Chanting quietly to myself, "¡Cada día mejor!"

This has happened a couple of other times, especially after conversations with this pool friends of mine. They also seem to come in waves. Some days I talk to everyone. Some days I don't talk to anyone.

It seems mostly to be based on luck. But it's in those moments that I am most happy that I did this because I can actually see what progress I've made. There have been times when I've questioned what it is exactly that I'm doing and what I wanted to do...but in the moments when that refrain floats through my mind, there aren't as many doubts.

If My Life Were A Novel: On Swimming, part 1

Strange as it may seem, one of the things I most looked forward to during my gap year was obsessively following the progress of my swim team. Last month they competed in the Sections and State competitions, and they did wonderfully. Waking up to my MeetMobile app telling me their times and scores was the highlight of my month, especially when I got to exchange messages with my swimmer friends celebrating their victories and the unbelievable progress made by many of the members of the team.

So congrats team. I’m so proud to have gotten to be a part of this wonderful family. You don’t know how much you all have taught me.

As some of you know, and as some of you probably guessed, last season was a tough one for me. If forced me to learn a lot, especially the kind of things about which I thought I knew, but really had no clue.

A little over a year ago, two of my closest friends knocked on the back door to my house, and spent a few minutes talking with my parents before tentatively walking down the stairs to the basement. They found me sitting on the couch watching Doctor Who, wrapped in a pool of misery and self-doubt and self-pity. They’d come after swim practice, bringing gifts of brownies and puff popcorn, hoping to offer me support, and maybe figure out what was going on.

While their friendship and support made me want to cry, I refused to explain what was wrong. I dodged their questions, giving half answers, unwilling to examine my emotions, unwilling to think critically about the situation I’d found myself in.

We were three weeks out from what felt like the most important swim meet of my life, and just a few hours earlier everything bad that could have happened in a practice happened. It took the tears waiting to be shed all season finally being let out and staring at the walls of the locker room for me to realize how deep a hole I was in.

The season had been rough for me. Frustrated by everyone else’s improvement, and what appeared to be my regression, somewhere along the line, any positive mental attitude I’d once had disappeared. Every single race became torturous and every single practice became a battleground. And soon I was filled with self-doubt, confusion, and frustration.

Only after the Worst Day, only after hitting the lowest of the lows, did I realize how desperately I wanted to get away from that spot. With this newfound determination, an early morning meeting with my coach the next day, and three weeks to prepare myself, somehow I walked into that last big meet with a tool box of weapons, ready to keep a smile on my face on that last day of competition, no matter what happened.

Starlight

Earlier tonight my host dad regaled the family with his unexpectedly great ability to play the recorder. Turning out various Christmas tunes and songs I recognized from my own days wielding the recorder, he gleefully attempted to teach his youngest sons some of the tunes.

The walks have come back. I feel like I lost the habbit of walking a lot through the streets during the crazy month that was October. When Skyping with my parents, I honestly could not tell them what I'd spent the week doing. I honestly couldn't remember.

But now I've got more time on my hands. I've finished the two final essays that I didn't actually have to write, and my final classes are held tomorrow. Now, after tutoring my host brothers, I don my coat and step out the door, intent on wandering the lit up streets for at least an hour. And over these walks I've taken to looking up at the stars a bit. And I've taken to reciting that little childhood rhyme. You know the one.

Star light, star bright
First star I see tonight
Wish I may wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight

Why? I donno. It's cute? It makes me look up at the universe and realize how small a part of it I am? It reminds me that my family can see the same stars back home? It's a sort of meditation on where I am? It's a way to remember to look at my surroundings and remember that I have spent so much time here? 

I donno. 

But I enjoy it. 

And do I make a wish at the end of the rhyme? You bet. 

If My Life Were A Novel: The Remodel, Part 1

This is something I wrote back in the summer while reflecting on the events occurring throughout those months. I didn't put it up at the time because I wasn't to happy with how I worded certain parts of it. I've fixed it up a bit, but kept it set in the past, because as you'll see, to change it to talking about today would require an entire re-write, and I'm not about that....so....here you go:

When my parents moved into my childhood house nearly 19 years ago, they knew that they would remodel it eventually. Eventually. Maybe when they had the money, when they had the time. But, growing up in this house I was always aware of that my mother especially dreamed of the remodel. I distinctly remember hearing her say, “Uhg, I cannot wait to replace this wallpaper” as she looked around the kitchen. She had plans for the rest of the house, but it was the kitchen that was most threatened by this dream, because it was an odd kitchen, narrow and long, whose appliances were old when we bought the house.

As a child I disliked change. And I dreaded the prospect of remodeling our house, I was very attached to the walls and the floors, the rugs and the windows that defined the space where I grew up. I had never stepped into that building as a stranger. I had only walked through those doors as a child coming home. 

Do you know how when you know a place well enough that you stop seeing the floorboards as floorboards and the rugs as rugs and the cabinets as cabinets, instead you see the layer of memories you have of that space?You see your life in that building playing out along the walls like a timeline. Here’s the floorboard that always squeaks. There’s the stain from my grape juice. That is where Storm chewed up the rug. This was the best hiding spot I ever found. That is how I saw my home. I knew how many steps it took to get up the stairs, how to navigate the halls in the dark of night. 

In short, it was my home.

And as a child, I felt that if I lost those walls and floors, those windows and rugs, that I would lose my home forever, regardless of how nice a house was built in its place.

When I was a senior in high school my parents once again began to seriously consider the remodel. This was perhaps the third time they had contacted an architect over the years. And to be honest, I didn’t think anything would come of it. But the meetings continued, and gradually it occurred to me that maybe this remodel wasn’t just going to happen eventually—it was going to happen soon. And I let this knowledge sit in the back of my mind, percolating.

One day I came home from school to find my parents in a meeting with a prospective builder, some guy they new from church. I grunted a greeting, retreated to my bedroom, and pulled out my homework. During dinner that night my parents updated my brother and I about how the meeting went, and funny thing went on in my stomach as I listened to my parents and as a few pieces fell into place.

In recent years it had become obvious to anyone looking that our house had gotten crumbly. Leaks and burst pipes occurred on a regular basis. All our appliances were gradually powering down. Doors dropped off of cabinets. Hairline crack grew inside my bedroom wall. Water damage from our leaky roof left water-color paintings on our ceiling. And one year one of those paintings grew so large that a corner of my bedroom ceiling collapsed.

Something had to be done. Good stewards would tear out the house’s skeleton and give it new bones, adding strong muscles and organs along the way to keep it alive for the rest of our occupancy of our house and everyone who lives there after it.

And then there is the matter of timing. I never talked about it with my parents, but this remodel was happening just as I was getting ready to, essentially, move out. I was going off on an adventure abroad for a year before moving to the other side of the country for four more years of school. And who knows what will happen after that.

It was obvious to me, almost from the get-go, that I would never really live in the new house. That the place my parents were building would only be home home to them and my little brother. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, and we can argue plenty about the meaning of home, but that’s how it feels. When I am sitting in Spain emailing my parents, I won’t imagine them reading these emails sitting in the kitchen of a rental home, I’ll see them sitting in the kitchen that no longer exists. I’ll imagine my little brother eating dinner all alone with Mom and Dad at the old dinner table, and wonder if maybe they will switch up the seating arrangement so that they’ll all be sitting closer together.

Then the big realization hit me: even if my childhood home stood as it always had, crumbles and all, I would not spend much time there either—I’d be away at school, on my gap year, spending my summers as a camp counselor.

I think it was in that moment that I realized that big changes were ahead of me. 

I was going to move out of my childhood home. That was already going to happen, the remodel would only make it impossible to return. But on top of that, I wasn’t going to be living with my parents much longer, which meant that my relationship with them would be forever changed. The same would happen with my relationship with my little brother. The same had already happened with my relationship to my older brother. When I think about this, I laugh, because it's so funny that everyone talks about how wonderful this 'next chapter' in college will be, but they always forget to mention that everything else changes, too.

This August, when I hug my parents goodbye and walk through airport security, passport in hand, leaving my home behind in Minnesota, I won’t just be waving goodbye to my parents for a few months, I'll be saying goodbye to that strange glorious thing we call childhood. I'll be saying goodbye to known factors, replacing them with unknowns. 

I’m moving forward into this scary and thrilling new time, but I can’t go back, for the house of my childhood is gone. 

Isn’t it strange that it takes the prospect of losing something dear to realize how close you are to already losing it?

The food blog that could have been

Looking back a month ago, in October when I actually had time to breathe, I had all sorts of plans scribbled down on my "blog ideas" piece of paper. The phrases were sort, but (sometimes) descriptive of the theme I was hoping for:

english isn't bad
nerves/excitment
cada día mejor
perfection
swimming!!!
rule books

Looking back at these blogs that remain unwritten (and in some cases half-written), I realize several things. I came up with these ideas A LONG time ago. I knew November would fly by, but sure did it fly by. There is no way that I've been here a whole three months, but at the same time, I feel like I can hardly remember September.

When I jotted down these ideas, saving them for the next week to write, they seemed immediate and relevant. They seemed a big breakthrough in something. Well now over a month later they seem slightly less immediate, but when I think about it, no less important. Maybe with a few slow days to turn these ideas over I can get something nice written about them.

But even more importantly a serious lost opportunity is made obvious by looking over my posts. Guys. Food should have been more prominent in the blog. This came to my attention in Italy, in which I spent a lot of time thinking about and talking about food.

While I haven't had a whole lot of opportunities to sample the cuisine here, seeing as I do eat with my host family, I can tell you that Spanish food is interesting. Definitely not to everyone's taste. While I quite enjoy it, I'm sure it puts some other people off.

Eggs at night.
An abundance of olive oil.
Pork is the prized meat.
Chocolate milk is consumed on a daily basis.
Bread is an essential part of every meal.

While the ingredients are largely the same, the presentation, the matter of cooking them is largely different. But, lacking the foreknowledge about food, I find it hard to describe.

Filetes of some meet, fried, sitting on my plate next to some form of potatoes or tomatoes or salad. Bread. Sometimes a rice dish. Sometimes a soup.

I remember being unnerved by the way the food looked here at first, but now I don't think twice about it.

But, of course, I am already looking forward to food at home. A big ol' milkshake and burger at the local diner. Big Bowl also sounds delicious.

Barcelona video

Here it is. The overdue video about Barcelona.

This one took a while 3 weeks to write, because there were a lot of things I wanted to write about. Unfortunately, as these things go, I couldn't fit them all in.

I could have talked about how one of the most wonderful things we can do is get together with a bunch of people to do and create amazing things. This is what I saw in the Sardana dance. I could have talked about art and the strange way it manages to connect us, or how sometimes it is the only way we can find to express ourselves. I could have talked about orchestras. I could have talked about how important it is to have people to support you. On my beautiful sunny sunday in Barcelona, I thought of so many things that seem so important to talk about.

But I decided to settle on this moment, because it was the moment that almost made me cry.

...cue the cheesy sports metaphor and overboard special effects!

The typical reflection in list form

As you may have heard passing mention, I went to Italy the weekend after Thanksgiving. I have a wonderful friend studying there, so the trip was an excuse to see the city, but also a chance to meet up with her.

Loved my trip, but, as always, it's really hard to talk about it or explain it or something. Still working out how to relay the stories of traveling without being really boring or totally full of myself. And without imitating the travel bloggers I've been reading.

So here goes.

One. I forget how great it is to see people you've known forever. Although I've met some amazing people in Spain, it is great to talk with someone who knows my history and whose I know.

Two. I have great friends (yeah, all of you).

Three. Italy is beautiful. There's a reason why it's so romanticized in all of the stories.

Four. Food is a wonderful thing. Big, huge, giant thanks to my friend for showing me some fantastic places to eat in Florence.

Five. Even though I've been living in an old city, they don't get any easier to navigate when you are in new ones. I spent about 45 minutes trying to find my hostel. There was construction blocking the street signs.

Six. Have I mentioned the street signs here? That's one thing that I will definitely say the US has got a handle on that Europe seems to lack. Really good street signage. They are easy to find and easy to read.

Seven. Still no european boyfriend. Although I've been asked by more than a few strangers if I have one. Though, I'm not exactly planning on acquiring one. There's still a little too much of the world to see without attaching myself to a country other than my own yet.

Walking through Firenze

At the risk of sounding like a snob, I'll gladly tell you that I went to Firenze over the weekend. Firenze as in Florence, Italy. One thing I've found myself doing is inadvertently calling cities and places by the local name with my best attempt at the proper pronunciation. Think of it as a form of camouflage if you will. 

It will come to no surprise that this city is gorgeous. It's practically the world capital of Art History, so it's chalk full of beautiful things. Also, I was lucky with the weather. Sunny and beautiful. Followed by some mood creating fog. 

Dome of the Duomo

View from the top of the Duomo

Best view of Firenze?

Statue and bird in the garden

A bit of the country

Clothed in fog

Visiting Firenze was everything and nothing I expected. The city feels old and alive. It's filled with young people who aren't Italians. But I still heard Italian spoken eveywhichwhere. The people, as always, seem to be the nicest I have ever met. I got a chance to see the famous things--the David, the Duomo, the Uffizzi, and the Ponte Vecchio. I got to see some less well known things--a costume museum, and tucked away gelato shops.

But mostly I loved walking along the river, whose banks have seen the progression of history. Have seen love and death. Have seen the rise and fall of great families and empires, have seen battle and art.

It is a place to walk in today, to follow the steps of so many before.

Happy December, Everyone!

First, some housekeeping:

I only have two weeks left here in Spain, so my time will be spent drinking up all of it. Sorry if the blog gets a little neglected.

I am planning to write about my time in Italy, (Oh, yeah, I went to Florence? Did you know that?) and also videos are slowly being created....but I've been hitting some major writing block (hense, the housekeeping post)

After my program here ends, my following plans will kick in. I'm going to gallivant around Spain and Paris with my family. YAY! Followed by a solid 60 hours at home before heading to New Zealand. I'm only just beginning to realize how much more there is left to do this year. My god. Nine months is a long time.

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Okay, on to the real stuff. It's December already. What? When did that happen. It always seems to come out of nowhere. 

If I had thought ahead, I would have prepared something really cool to do in December. Like a little blog a day or short video a day, maybe with a title like "Dear December." But alas, it is the 3rd of December, and I wonder if it is too late to do so. 

The cities here dress up for December. They bring out their best lights, their prettiest decorations. Shop windows have multi-colored lights rotating, and grand shapes of white lights hang across every street. They play Christmas music here, too, and sometimes I find myself stopped in the middle of the street, surprised by the familiar tune issuing from some nearby shop. 

While it is cold, it isn't too cold. And there's an absence of snow. I know it has been snowing like crazy and students are probably dreaming of snow days. Like that's gonna happen.

The other thing I have been seriously missing about the Christmas season is the cookies. Now, I'm not the biggest baker in the world, although I do like to think my family has a mean chocolate-chip banana bread recipe, but man, could I do with some Christmas cookies right now. Or better yet, plain old cookie dough. 

If I'm brave enough, I might venture to say that December is my favorite month. Yes, my birthday is in December. Yes, so is Christmas. Yes, it's cold and dark, and filled with the stress of exams. 

But.

There's something about December that always says, "Winter has come." Maybe it's that the snow shows up suddenly, and I know it won't decide to leave for many more months. Maybe it's the chill outside that makes me want to cozy up to a book or blank journal. Maybe it's the way the air crystalizes everything around you: your breathe, the windows, the twinkling lights, and your memories. I've been putting together a little Word doc of poetry that I've fallen in love with. It's pretty small right now, because, I'm embarrassed to admit, my knowledge of poetry isn't as vast as I'd like it to be. 

There's something about December that opens up its arms to you, inviting you to settle down and take a good long moment to think. Slow down for a bit. Sit. And drink wine with old friends late into the night. 

Time, I think, does not move in December in the same way it does in other months. Somehow, moments last forever while they melt away like the first snowflakes falling on the palm of your hand.