Just In Case Y'all Were Wondering...

This is how I am today.

To Be Honest...

Quite often I feel like my entire life is composed of comparisons. It's like instead of seeing colors, I see only black and white- new and old. For the most part I'm excited by all the differences. I love taking the bus from the beach to the beautiful architecture of the Centro, buying two fresh baked baguettes with a 1 euro coin from my coin purse, and the sheer honesty here. I'm approaching these changes with optimism. I'm keeping my mind open.
But, as those of you who know me well know, I struggle with optimism. Recently I've had a hard time finding anything but negativity in this foreign country. I feel like a news anchor for the international news- only focusing on the bad when there is so much good in the world around me. To be honest, the mindset I'm in right now disgusts me and I force myself to smile and say I love it here. I force myself to think I'm happy when really, I'm frustrated by the slurry Spanish and the unspoken social rules that I'm just expected to know.
Remember when I mentioned how much I love the pure honesty here? Well, even in this pessimistic state of mind I still appreciate it. One of my favorite things I've heard here was said by my friend Sandra after she asked me how I was one day and I answered "good!". She said, "You don't always need to be good. You don't always need to smile. If you're having a bad day you can glare at people and not talk because it means you get to wake up in the morning with the bad mood out of your system. Just act how you feel because keeping it bottled up just makes it worse."
She's right. One part of being honest is being honest in how you feel, not just in what you're telling people. It's OK to have a bad day as long as you don't take those emotions out on others in a harmful way. It's OK to want to go home and just watch 50 First Dates with your little sister, more than you want to see a world-famous piece of architecture. It's OK to frown all through school because it isn't something you wanted to do. It's even OK to complain to your mom for nearly an hour about how much you hate your professors and how all the girls are gossiping about you as an American and you don't know why because you thought they were your friends (thank you for that, by the way). Having a bad day is OK. Pretending you're not having it is not.
I'm learning how to stop cowboying up when I don't need to, which is hard considering I've been raised on that motto. If there's one thing that's different about Spain that I can enjoy through the good and the bad, it's the honesty- it allows me to be myself. And that is something I can live with.

See life through my eyes with my mind's commentary

 The Centro- Technically called "Centro de Ciudad" but everyone just calls it "El Centro" because it's just downtown. It's always crowded, especially this main road (where no cars are allowed to go) but the architecture is incredible and I can't stop going back! My new favorite after school activity is going to the Centro and exploring the side streets.

 The Centro again- still the main street. Shops line it (including an H&M!) but most are very expensive. I'm still looking for a cute thrift store or something where I can buy my clothes for cheap. I haven't bought anything yet but I'm sure I will in the next couple weeks.

 Me in front of the bull fighting ring- the most famous landmark in Malaga. Search the city up in Google and this is what you'll find. I have yet to actually visit it, though my host family tells me we'll be going to see a bull fight while I'm here. I've heard they're a bit gruesome, but I simply have to see ONE!

 The neighborhood my school is in- called El Palo, it used to be where the old fishermen live so it's notorious for being one of the most run down parts of Malaga. Luckily I'm only here during the day so it's not scary, but there's definitely lots of graffiti and litter everywhere. Even my school is kind of run down; it adds to the character, but what a change from Summit.

 Another view of the bullfighting ring with the city and the sea in the background. I feel so lucky to be one train away from walking along the Mediterranean Sea; I'm an ocean child and it feels so good to be back living so close to the crashing waves. Not that the waves here crash so much as they weakly slap the sand (or rocks depending on where you are) but it's good enough for me.

My school IES El Palo. It's rather large though this picture doesn't accurately depict it; there are 5 stories though only 4 at a time are accessible. That doesn't make any sense but that's how it is. There's also not a parking lot because no one can drive to school- those who can drive mopeds which are super popular (and freaking awesome!) here. I have 6 classes a day but 11 classes in total, and every day I have a different schedule. Confusing but at least they're all exactly an hour and I have them all with the same group of people so we just walk around in a herd except when I go to my bilingual classes.

 This is the beach within walking distance of my house! It would take about an hour to walk but with the bus it's only 20ish minutes. It's a rock beach which I like because it doesn't have any of that dirty imported sand. There's a prettier beach (reminds me more of the Oregon coast, to get to the one that reminds me of the California coast you have to walk west) if you walk east for a bit, but this one does just fine. The water is so calm- it's almost like a lake. I've also heard that on super clear, unsmoggy days you can see Africa in the horizon.

 This is facing the east. There's a nice row of sea-facing restaurants if you follow a sketchy path that takes you nearly through the water, but it's all worth it. I went there a couple of nights ago with some girlfriends and we ended up walking all the way to Playa Virginia, a mile or more away! It's nights like those that I'm so grateful for the bus system.

 The cathedral in the center is breathtaking. I've seen it both at night and during the day, and it's on my list of things to do here to go and tour it. It's huge and I'll probably have to dedicate an entire day to it but that's part of the fun! I took this picture on an outing with some friends that included a kebob wrap and being nice to hobos. I don't think my Spanish friends understood that concept but they were pretty cool about it. That's what I love most about Spain so far- the people are incredible! Making friends is so easy because everyone is so open.

 These two above photos are from a mini procession through the Centro one evening. These are very common especially during Easter week- which here is called Semana Santa- when day long religious marches happen. They wear those hats that, in America, are associated with the KKK but here are a symbol of faith in God and Spanish tradition. My host dad told me I might get to wear one which I think would be both an incredible experience and a funny thing to take pictures of.

 My current host family has a vacation home in Marbella, a tourist city on the outskirts of Malaga. It has both a beach and a pool in addition to the house itself which can sleep up to 10! The day I went here we stayed at the pool and barbequed, but I'm hoping to go back to go to the beach. It's different than the beaches in Malaga because the sand seems cleaner- most of the beaches here are man made so it's easy for the sand to end up as dirt.

 When we went to Marbella my host sister, Ana, was in charge of showing me around. This is the pool that we spent the day at- I fell asleep in the sun, but luckily my host mom, Isabel, covered me up with a towel to avoid getting sunburnt. Ana and I swam for a bit too, but the pool was very shallow. I could touch with my knees and still breathe the whole time! 

To be entirely honest, I don't know the name of this place. I do know, however, that it's on the way from the Centro to the train station. Here everything is judged by its distance from the Centro. Buses are either entering or exiting it. It's actually very close to the center, so it proves to be a very convenient reference site!

Time Warp

I never knew time could be so fickle. I've been here ten days, though depending on the minute that time could feel closer to ten weeks, ten hours, or anything in between. The time doesn't pass by quickly here, but it sure doesn't drag on either. The days I spend in Malaga, Spain seem to wax and wane unpredictably.
Sometimes this time warp is good- like when I can't tell how long I've had my friends here because we're already so comfortable with each other. Or when I can mostly understand the teachers but they still don't make me do any work. Or when I can just hang out with my host family and I don't feel like I have to do anything extra special, but I'm still new enough that they get to ask me questions (which I like answering).
However, it can also affect me negatively- like when I think I can go to bed when everyone else goes to bed, but I can't because I'm still a bit jet lagged. Or when I hop on the bus and think I know Malaga really well but instead end up stranded 30 minutes away from my school with ten minutes to get to class. Or when my Spanish "skills" deceive me and I end up saying "yes" to something I didn't want to do.
All "good" and "bad" aside, however long the time has been that I've been here has been incredible. I think one of the reasons my hours seem like minutes and my days seem like weeks is that I have so many new things jammed inside my head. Apparently when your brain can't take anything else in, it loses its knowledge of what "time perception" means. And it makes sense that I have no room left- I am learning about culture, people, Malaga, Spanish, customs, the world, and even Greek (I am taking 5 language classes in case anyone was counting). But most importantly, I am learning about myself in relation to all of those things.
Regardless of how quickly or slowly the time passes, the time I've spent here has been time well spent. Every day I am grateful for something new, and I realize how lucky I was to have certain things back home as well. I like the contrast (proof that I am my father's daughter) and look forward to more of it in the near, or far, future.

If you'd like to know anything specific about my exchange experience, email me at hannahleahgold@gmail.com or message me on Facebook.
Keep calm and travel on.

Home Tour Malaga: First family

Featuring way too many stairs and a great display of my superb Spanish skills. Sponsored by the color orange.

Sunshine and ocean air, I'm on my way

As soon as I received my visa, everything has seemed to move along pretty quickly. I found out yesterday that I would for sure be on the 7:30 plane out of Portland and on my way to Malaga, meaning I leave tonight to stay in Portland overnight.
I thought I was prepared for this- honestly, I did! I've been waiting nearly four weeks for this day now (actually, much longer than that; but that's how long I've been ready to go and packed and all that jazz), but once it got here everything's gone by so fast I feel lost in a whirlwind. All of a sudden I have 24 (well, 3 now) hours to say goodbye to everyone I love. I didn't know I liked so many people until it came time to have to leave them for eleven months.
I'm still getting used to the fact that I will not sleep in my bed for close to a year. I'm still getting used to the fact that after I drop him off at work, I won't see my brother for a very long time. I'm still getting used to the fact that I won't get puppy love and tree climbing when I go to the Nopps'. I'm still getting used to the fact that I made several very strong girls cry today when I had to give them one final hug- man, was that hard. Saying goodbye to my best friends in the whole world was not something I'd care to repeat!
This is all part of the adventure; the nervousness, the stress, the sadness. And that makes me okay with all of it.

And now, your feature presentation

It's been nearly four weeks of waiting but I've done it and now my visa has finally arrived. For those of you who aren't familiar with the purpose of a student visa, the importance of having it in my position is that it allows me to board that plane to Spain (I heart rhyming). Though I don't know when I'm leaving still, it's a relief to know that it will most likely be within the next week or so- whenever they can stick me on an airplane to Madrid.
Unless you've had your dream snapped suddenly for a foreign, inexplicable reason and left hanging for almost a month without any estimate of when it's expected to be repaired and set back on track, I don't think you can understand what this really means to me. It's more than just having my passport back (though that is a nice, added bonus)- it represents progress and tells me that maybe, just maybe, I'm allowed to have what I've worked for.