Hookah fulfillment

This adventure has so far only left me feeling sane about a quarter of the time. This entire week I have been sleeping from about 5AM to 2PM instead of at night like normal people. Needless to say, I haven't gotten much done. However, Antonio is very commited to learning English and tonight he dragged me out of my safe cocoon room to a sweet Kurdish hookah bar where we studied my native language. Seriously-he brought a book. Though let me tell you, the idea that God has allowed me to make money by hanging out with a nice Italian guy at a hookah bar...is wild. I don't think I could have planned it better myself.

I also got a letter from Dylan today. He is about 6 months or so into his mission in Switzerland and being his pen pal is another great part of my life. His note was short and sweet and affirming-kind of like he is. I mean...Dylan is really kick-ass and hardcore and tough...

Anyway, despite all my breakdowns and feeling crazy, there are sweet things about this life I am living. And I will look back and remember apple tobacco, traveling friends, couchsurfers and Italian accents.

Hippie comeback

Tonight Anna and I went to a book study through an English-speaking church in Madrid called Oasis. The book: Irresistible Revolution. We showed up a half an hour late and I hadn't read any of the book. Just another day in Madrid for me, only tonight I enjoyed the lonely confusion in my own language.

The small group reminded me of Amanda's church in Santa Monica and I found myself thinking about God for the first time in a few days and it felt so good. One of the girls from the study loaned Anna and I her copy of the book. I am now 4 chapters in and very nervous that my life is about to change.

The author makes his own clothes and has dreadlocks. That's the least of it, so far, he's renounced Christian culture and made friends with lepers in Calcutta. I've got butterflies.

Una amistad hecho por los cielos

I feel like things are finally starting to calm down and even out in my life. A huge weight has been lifted by buying a ticket home for Christmas. Before I was so consumed by the limitations of money and the ridiculous idea that I had to tough it out for the year. I think part of me thought I would be giving up by going home (even if it was just for a few weeks). Then I started to think about what my sister would do and I realized that, no questions asked, she would have already bought the ticket. Sometimes I try to live by unnecessary rules I have made up for myself. It is good that I have let this one go. I feel like a weight has been lifted.

Aside from the wonderful Christmas to come, I finally have a job here. God pretty much just threw that one at me-I didn't even try. Twice every week I go out for coffee with Antonio, from Rome, and we talk for an hour and a half. He pays for my drink and gives me 12 euros. It is a sweet deal.

Thirdly, I am finally feel a sense of community here. Today I sat outside my Facultad with Jesús. I drank my mint tea and watched the wind blow the leaves off the trees (Fall finally found Madrid!). He smoked his Marlboros and played Justice for me on his MP3 player in classic Spanish style, us sharing the headphones.

Tonight I met a group of friends at Boñar de León, a bar I like for the free food, though Adam informed me the food was "de mierda". A mi, me da igual. But we sat around and finalized Christmas and New Year's party plans and drank wine and ate paella. Then John, Vincent, Anna and I hung out at my apartment listening to Simon and Garfunkle before going to El Junco where Vincent played his saxaphone and Anna and John sat in the back room. This jazz club is so...jazzy. There are black leather couches and the whole room is full of smoke. Everything about the place screams cool. Vincent and I stood watching the seven other saxaphone players take turns on stage and I realized that these songs I am learning at El Junco will forever remind me of Madrid. And I will have happy memories of this city.

Besos!

Cassidy updated her status.

I am...
elated to be going home for Christmas with my family!
about to google "jaw hurting" to see if this cold of mine is actually a foreign disease.
drinking white nectar numi tea and daydreaming about the Artisan.
blessed to have friends who will mail me puppy chow and love.
going to talk to Nancy tomorrow, finally.
wondering how to get Guillaume Canet to marry me.
wondering if I am too sick to go to El Junco and listen to Vincent play his sax.
mostly looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, in my basement, in my town, in my midwest, in my country, in my language.

Glee

It is 2:10AM and it is raining. At first I thought someone was showering in one of the apartments across the "courtyard", but it is actual rain. I ran to the front of the apartment and watched all the cars moving through it, their headlights reflecting on the wet road. The city is so much more colorful when wet! It made me think of this warm, scratchy blanket my great grandma made for my dad. It has held together rather well and has been in our living room for as long as I can remember. My favorite place to be is wrapped up in that blanket on the bench on our front porch at home in a thunderstorm. The best is if I can see the whole thing, muggy start to wet toes finish. Rain is my favorite sound.

Trying to enjoy my own damn grass.

I forced myself to get up for class today. In class I finally copied the syllabus from another student. Yea Cervantes!

I sat in the cafeteria-the only other warm part of my facultad besides the computer lab, which is closed right now. I sat in the cafeteria and read a book (in English!) on Spanish women writers. I was reading the history of women's suffrage in Spain when I realized I was actually interested in Spanish history. I am beginning to identify with Spain in some way. My apathy towards Madrid is so lame! It was refreshing to CARE about this place for once.

Just now I walked over to another building to use a computer lab, and it started to rain. I almost started crying I was so happy. It is cloudy and cold and sprinkling a bit, and honestly, I'm just glad for something different. I walked through a garden in the midst of this happiness and found a (dead for the winter) pomegrante tree. Which couldn't have been any cooler.

It is raining!!!

Amigas

I just found out that my beloved friend and sister, Amy Sharland, is going to be in France for Christmas. I feel like Cindy Lou-Who at the end of the Grinch who Stole Christmas when he gives back all the presents. I'm going to the Alps!

I am also trying to figure out how to be a better friend from across the ocean, and it kills me to know I am missing out on people's lives changing and growing. Sometimes I am homesick for my own reasons, but mostly I just wish I could be in Sarah's small group and skip class with Nancy.

If I have ever told you I love you, I still do.

-Cass

Fall wouldn't come to Madrid so I had to go find it.

Paris is humid, cold and rainy. Of course I fell in love, what other choice did I have?

The weather was different every five minutes, just like in Columbia. It seemed more modern than Madrid, but the sunken steps in Notre Dame made me fantasize about...well, honestly, being a gypsy like Esmerelda. The whole city was absolutely enchanting. I found hummus in the first grocery store I found. I lived mostly on croissants.

Favorite things I didn't expect:
-They have a seemingly sweet bike rental system on the sidewalks
-Amazing international food-ate the best Japanese food ever on the steps of the Louvre.
-Excellent espresso, best I've had since Gimme Coffee in Brooklyn.
-Huge beautiful trees on the sidewalks and plenty of rain to keep them happy

...all things to keep in mind when I decide whether or not to move there. In love.

One of the coolest things about our visit was couch surfing. Pat figured it all out, but essentially we used the website to meet up w/ these French guys and stay with them for free instead of in a hostel. The first two nights (including Pat's B-day), we stayed w/ Nicolas and Pierre in a really sweet old apartment. We didn't get to hang out with them much, but they made us coffee, gave us a futon (three on one bed...it was a challenge, but warm) and a set of keys. I was amazed by their trust and generosity. I start to believe in crazy concepts like world peace when a complete stranger from another country will invite me into his home. Pierre & Nicolas had had 35 other people stay on their couch in the last 2 months! And the second night we were there, one showed up! A girl from Hungary who had stayed with these guys before came and we got to talk to her until Pat and I went out to celebrate his 21st with a Hoegarden beer.

The last half of the weekend we stayed with Freddy & Felipe. They lived right around the corner from the Eiffel Tower, and since we were with them on Saturday and Sunday, we got to hang out with them a little more. They took us to a friends for dinner and we drank wine and watched a boxing match and then went out together. Pat bought me a crepe in the middle of the night, and I spilled jelly all down my jacket. Lame! Anyway, I thought Freddy was hilarious and he seemed to think I was too, so we pretty much laughed the entire weekend. Sunday night they took us out to a restaurant down the street. It was such a blessing to have them, the only way I know how to order food is to point and ask "How much?". I can count my French phrases on one hand, which is more than I had before I got on the plane. Freddy and Felipe walked us through how a French meal works (cheese is very important and coffee is at the end-no matter how bad Anna wants espresso).

We spent the last day revisiting places we couldn't get enough of, and taking a billion more pictures. Now I'm in bed on San Bernardo wishing I was riding a bike along the Seine river or hanging out with Freddy and hoping I can find a way to fall in love with Madrid too.