No matter how close forever feels right now.
You can't hurt forever.
Even if your heart whispers in your ear and tries to convince you otherwise.
You can't bleed forever." - www.iwrotethisforyou.me
My life in Spain is near perfect, short of calling anything that in this world. I have every intention of leaving and getting back to the Texas I love so much, but every day that goes by lately makes me realize how much I'm going to miss Europe. I've just learned SO many things, opened my eyes with conversations & people I never would have met, and feel such peace. I am SO grateful for this opportunity and my supportive relationships.
With that said, back to living in the moment: MY MOM IS COMING TO SPAIN! I've known this for a few weeks now, but seeing the plane ticket email makes it official :-) She wants to go to Paris (where neither of us speak the language?! haha) and then we'll spend the second half of that great last week in February in the south of Spain I currently call home.
So back to Christmas break...
I had the opportunity to go to Belgium and visit Bruges & Brussels with 2 great women who work with me in the Andalusia school district...I still don't know how to word that in English from Spanish haha. The train we rode to the center of the city opened up to large windmills on stunning green fields and beautiful slanted roof (for the snow that wasn't there that weekend..) homes. Bruges was a small town that you couldn't believe with your eyes! It was a Christmas storybook full of horse drawn carriages, lemon mayonnaise covered fries, really good famous waffles made with buttermilk and a layer of sugar in the middle (I thought everyone should know what the real recipe is!), chocolate shops, a Belgian beer brewery and outdoor stands that sold delicious local foods, like bratwursts and broccoli soup. Brussels was another train ride away and it was a huge city, so take everything from the previous quaint little town and put it in a New York City-style setting. As usual, there certainly wasn't enough time to explore :)
Madrid happened right after that, as mentioned in my previous blog - followed by LOTS of rest at my piso. I even missed my cold shower and 4 flights of stairs during my travels! I visited the fresh fruit/veggie/spice/bakery/olive/meat market almost every day and ran to the salt mine outside of my city. Christmas break going in the new year really brought on another appreciation of everything I'm blessed to enjoy.
Finally, in my travels, I went to Barcelona with my roomie Jackie this past weekend. It is hands down the top 3 places I've ever been to!!! Hawaii and Italy are on their own level, but I just really love how positively overwhelming that amazing city was. The tapas were unique and piled high with half the ingredients I didn't recognize, Catalan language was everywhere: a fascinating combination of Spanish & French (sidenote: eventhough I haven't seen Harry Potter, it felt like I walked into the whole changing stairways thing when I heard the "Spanish" in this area, and I loved learning about it!), Gaudi's passion for Catalonia was beautifully apparent in his buildings AND in the design that the city celebrated all over from the ceramics to the newer buildings, the run on sentences are endless basically...the first night, Jackie and I checked out a restaurant across from the hostel where we tried Cava Sangria for the first time, with a cinnamon stick as the stirrer and differet fruit from the typical recipe. Our bartender was a good sport with all our questions and even let me ask if he was really a Barcelona Futbol fan or if he secretly like Real Madrid (blasphemy haha). We checked out the Dow Jones Bar afterwards, which is set up like Wall Street, where customers control the prices with purchases of certain brands and had a lot of fun meeting new people! Saturday morning, we crawled out of the coral colored walls of our room and stumbled upon a great coffee shop. I LOVED the advice he gave this coffee nerd :)
me: what kind of beans do you use?
50 year old man: it doesn't matter. it just doesn't matter. i don't care if it's a 50 euro bag of beans, or a 5 euro cheap one. though the brazil colombian blend i had once was good...but it doesn't matter.
me: oh... is it the grind?
him: no. not that either, yes you could grind it too coarse or fine, and burn the flavor in the latter. but that doesn't ultimately affect the drink.
me: oh okay...this coffee's just really good.
him: that's because someone who cares made it. that's it. that's life; have passion - have success. in every little thing, you have to know what you're doing and want to do it. that's it.
me: got it :) Pablo Neruda?! haha
him: you're welcome. i mean, they do say i'm pretty great at making coffee too and i know my stuff :) but still...
We then took the metro to Park Guell and walked past a lot of cactus that were "tagged" by people from all over the world, along the climb up to a view of Barcelona. It's amazing how their must see places REALLY stand out! Park Guell brings people together, out in the open and it makes sense: EVEN TIME TAKES A BREAK. I loved it, family, couples, friends...everyone was just enjoying the time together. We thought it'd be a good idea to walk to Sagrada Familia after that....and ended up covering amost half of Barca haha but it was worth the walk! The basilica had the most beautiful stained glass windows I've ever seen and a great museum underneath. It reminded me of this, I am so thankful for the order of things so far: going to Malaga first to visit Pable Picasso's museum with 66 million euro worth of work and quotes from those who encountered this artist. It led up to seeing the Guernica piece in Madrid weeks later, when I was able to explore the Reina Sofia museum and the sketches/video leading up to this creation. It was a very cool similar experience with Gaudi's work here. The museum showed all the research he did and made the visit so much more meaningful. Even his house was very creative!
We went over to check out the Olympic Stadium and another angle for a view of the city with a sunset. The magic fountain was not running when we got there, but it was all the more reason to go back. I can't wait to go back! The malls were in the coolest locations (one was an old bull ring and the other was on the port), the plazas were huge & exciting, and Las Ramblas were a fun location to lose yourself in.
Okay I've rambled as usual, so thanks if you made it this far and know that I miss a lot of people back home!
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