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A late goodbye

I am back in Columbia finishing up school now. Florian and I talk about once a day over skype. I am super busy with Journalism classes. I miss Madrid and my friends muchisimo. But life is busy here, and there are friends to enjoy in Columbia too!

In Prague!

A quick update, lack of internet lately...

Berlin=awesome. I loved: Tiergarten, the sweet hippie cafe where Florian and I ate a vegetarian buffett breakfast and all the history. What an amazingly interesting city. We saw the wall, tons of commie apartment buildings, amazing uber-modern skyscrapers and a lot of great Doner Kebaps (Turkish gyro).

Before that I was in Giessen with Florian. It has been nice to be with more people who speak Spanish! Although the Argentinian accent of my dear friends can be hard to understand :). Early on I got to see Marburg, where Florian studies, which is just north of Giessen. It has a castle and several very old churches. We had a coffee at a cafe by the river. Between the river and the castle, I was ready to spend another month just in Marburg.

Also got to see Amsterdam with Helen and Allie, though the rain and lack of planning limited severly what I got to see. We still managed to enjoy ourselves. It is a beautiful city, loved the canals.

I am currently panicking about moving back to boring old America, trying not to get emotional about leaving Florian and trying to figure out this Czech language. I want to devote my life to studying languages.

Also wondering if I could handle the winters in Berlin. I am thinking no, but will you all still love me if I run away to Europe? I am very much looking forward to coming home. I am already planning potlucks in my head. And I am in desperate need of a good dance party, so you all have to fill me in on where to go now that Shattered is closed.

Love & besos! Be home soon!

Seriously?!

Looks like I won't be getting the Adelante beat. But how freaking sweet would it be to work for the radio station? I hope that is an option for me. If not, fall semester is not looking good.

Acabo de...I mean, I just had this dream...

So. I'm starting to have epic dreams again.

A few nights ago, I was in the states and I almost missed a train back to Spain. And I hadn't packed at all. Exactly like the recurring dream I had in the fall.

Just woke up from a dream that was very blatantly about how I am not looking forward to going home because I expect to miss Spain and the Erasmus life terribly. I kept trying to speak in Spanish to everyone. Have to find a way to speak Spanish daily in Columbia! I really hope I get the Adelante (Latin American community) beat for the Missourian.

There were also performing orca & belgua whales...but I don't think that meant anything. They were just sweet.

staying up late to listen to kels's game

Check out this poem Marta posted. Loving it. Took me back to senior year of high school, trying to do Stat homework with Leah while drinking a peppermint patty mocha. All I remember is falling in love with Billy Collins and impromptu poems written on paper napkins.

Don't let this post fool you into thinking I'm homesick. I'm an Erasmus student for life now.

Study break!

While researching for the paper I have to turn in in less than 24 hours, I was distracted by the primary results on The New York Times site. Did you know John McCain is 71!? That's ridiculously old if you ask me. Other interesting facts: Mike Huckabee was born in Hope, Arkansas-where my grandfather was born and raised. Also where Bill Clinton was born. Let me tell you, that is the kind of town that would make you want to grow up and change the world. It would make me want to be a democrat though.

Still rooting for Obama. He won in Missouri by 1%! That's nuts!

Ikea furniture is okay, but...

This late evening, in a moment of solitude and procrastination, I sat organizing my photos into subcategories in iPhoto. I fleshed out the photo album of my Paquin apartment from last year and pined away for better lighting and fabulously garage-sale awful furniture. I'm now sitting at my quiet open window, remembering all the quiet moments on the roof, talking to my roommates through the kitchen window. I miss that place. It was impossible to keep clean because it was so old. The floors were kitschy & went perfectly with my mismatched furniture and found decorations.

I regret leaving Nancy's life-size cardboard cutout of Beyonce in Columbia. It fit in my suitcase.

That said, they don't have bidets in Columbia.

The reason I was homesick

I grew up in Columbia, Missouri. It was always a source of pride to me that I was born in Tacoma, Washington-it meant I was a little bit cooler than the rest of Central Missouri. But I would never tell someone I was from the Pacific Northwest anymore.

Lee Elementary school made me culturally aware to things other than the Spice Girls. Then there was a dry spell where I grew up and tried to fight off suburban white culture. I escaped and ended up back on Paquin, living behind Lee Elementary. I worked at a coffee shop and regained that pride. But now I was proud of being from Columbia. Every detail of downtown life felt cool. I refused to call it "The District." I made a point of only shopping local. My bike was my favorite possession. I relished the fact that I could have no plans on a Friday afternoon, but be at THE party by Friday night.

I left all this-a community that took me 18 years to find-for Spain. And was surprised when I didn't find a great coffee shop in four months? It will take time to have such a rich life in Madrid, and it may be that instead of having a regular bar and a predictable party, I experience life by wandering a bit.

I am glad I'm going back to Madrid because I think I can do it better than I have been. I can do it with more fervor, creativity and inquisition! But for the next week, I am enjoying how great it is to have a place where everybody knows your name.

Columbia things I am really excited about!:
1. Our beloved theater Ragtag is finally moving.
2. The amazing downtown community is once again buzzing about the True/False film festival. Columbia: Go! See a documentary! It is the best weekend of the year.
3. The Missouri Theater is expanding. I am torn-upset to lose the charming but crumbling old building, but hopeful that they will do the new place up right.
4. All of my friends seem full of ideas-most are going off to study abroad, the rest seem to be planning escapes to bigger and better lives. My heart is bursting with their excitement.
5. The fact that this still exists-and it was featured in the worst magazine in Columbia! Thanks to the J-school, my town is very well-documented, so believe me when I say this publication sucks. My friend Kyle says the articles are mostly on etiquette for Republican fondue parties and how to make your house bigger. With stories like that, a feature on MSR3000 is especially sweet. I'll leave the magazine unnamed, but you should all check out Kyle & Tony's 2AM radio show on KOPN.
6. Snow.
7. Mike the carpenter, who sits outside Ragtag everyday full of stories about growing up in the Haight-Ashbury district and hitch-hiking through Europe.

If you are bored in Columbia, please take a stroll downtown. There is life on those streets and passion in every single coffee shop on 9th St. Considering there are like 17, there's probably enough passion to go around.

Merry Christmas!

America!

On Friday night, I left Sol around 4AM, was in bed by 4:30 and then this happened: 2 hours of sleep, met Anna in the metro, a 10 hour flight, delays for rain and snow, a 1 hour flight, 3 hours in a car lost in Chicago with my huge suitcase on my lap, savored time with dear Nancy, 2 hours sleeping on her couch, a taxi that almost didn't show up, a taxi that sped just enough to get us to Union Station on time, a 5 hour train ride that lasted 7 hours, 5 hours of sleep sitting up in the train, meeting Anna's family and the best BLT of my life, sleeping in the car to Columbia, loving on my family, slightly surreal (due to lack of sleep) Artisan Xmas party.

Highlights: sleeping sitting up, meeting Nancy's family, talking in English, stealing a pack of cloves at the Artisan gift exchange.

Mostly I am jet-lagged and wondering what I am doing here in Missouri. Home feels weirder than I thought it would.

Tomorrow: Artisan, Lakota, Kaldi's, Main Squeeze. And then repeat.

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.