What A Difference A Day Makes

Well, after my last dreary entry, things picked up. For one thing, the weather got warmer. Today we enjoyed a balmy 64 degrees! I went for a two hour walk along a beautiful river that runs along the periphery of the old part of the city. It is really lovely, and I was stripped down to one layer, in a tee shirt. It felt marvelous. Above is a picture of the river with the Cathedrals in the back ground.

I realize now that I was not prepared for the cold weather. I had plenty of layers to keep my warm, but I am not a bundled up person. I prefer to be barefoot, but not pregnant, in shorts and a sports bra. I'm happy when then temperatures exceed 90 degrees.

I realized a lot of other things after my melt down. One is that I failed to recognize or admit to myself, some of the difficulties involved in this adventure and how much I was extending myself. I have become accustomed to living in my own home, my own space, of being able to get up when I want and make a cup of coffee, of being able to eat when I want or not eat when I don't want, and most of all to eat what I want. I am living in someone else's home, eating what they prepare when they prepare it. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining and the people I am living with are wonderfully kind. It is just different and I have to adjust.

I don't speak the language and very few people here speak any English. I am learning, but I am a long way from being able to express anything other than basic ideas, and even that I do at a snails pace. So I can go to meetings, but I have yet to share, and even if I did share, it would be very rudimentary. I am not able to express what is going on with me yet. And the meetings are pretty much all men. It must be a cultural thing in Spain, because I'm relatively certain the disease is not sexist.

I am also at the age where I lose words in my native language. I go to say something and my ability to recall the  word has slipped a gear, the rolodex is spinning but not hitting on anything. So, trying to build vocabulary in a new language is somewhat of an uphill battle. I have visions of English words falling out of my head, as I try to cram in Spanish vocabulary.

And I go to school with people who are celebrating their twentieth or twenty first birthdays. I have tattoos older than their parents. They study my generation in their history classes. They are so very young. They drink night and day, stay out all night, watch the sun come up, sleep in class, come to class still drunk and/or with the odor of stale alcohol weeping from their pores, have colds, pink eye, and chest congestion. They drink beer during the morning break. The only subject of conversation is how long they drank, how much they drank and when or where they will drink next.They go to exciting places like Lisbon, Barcelona, Paris and all the memories they bring back are whatever they can remember of the bars they spent their time in while in the city. Been there, done all of that and more, never realized how boring and small my world was. But they are young and will hopefully have the opportunity to visit these places again.

Me being me, never thought any of this would be a challenge. I never thought of it as putting myself out there, taking risks, or being brave. Sometimes I can be so dumb, so oblivious, and so in denial. It wasn't until I had my melt down this past week and I received so many kind and encouraging words from friends, that I took a look at the reality. It is a challenge, but it is also an adventure. I am learning, not only Spanish, but things about myself. For one thing, most of the time I don't think of myself as 65. I think of myself as 20 or 25, somewhere in that age range. I am sometimes surprised by my age. It is actually amusing. I have a firm grip on a lot of things that do not serve me well. Letting go, even of things that are useless, or actually harmful or painful, has never been easy for me. I hold onto what is familiar, even if it is painful or unproductive, because I am comfortable with it.

So it is time to practice letting go.I was reading the Tao of Daily Life during my melt down and their is a story, parable if you will, about a guy hanging from a branch off a cliff with a tiger above and a tiger below and rats chewing on the branch he is holding. He sees a yummy strawberry and releases one hand from the branch to grab the strawberry and eat it. It goes on to explain a lot about how this relates to how we live our lives, but my favorite thing I read this morning was,
 "The Tao manifests itself in life, and the characteristics of life is that it grows. Life is constantly exploring new territories, taking chances, and going places it hasn't been before. If we do the same, we will quickly find that life is fresh and exciting and full of possibilities. We will see that living in the present is both easy and exhilarating."
So I wish for you an  interesting life. hehehe.

I am remiss

I have been so busy studying that I don't seem to find time to write. On my past trips I have written ad nauseum. I fondly remember John standing outside many a internet cafe repeatedly asking me if I was finished with my emails. But now I have a computer in my room (habitacion en español) with wireless internet at my command and I am without words. Go figure. Perhaps it is a reluctance to tell on myself.

It is ever so much harder than I imagined being away from all of those I love, from my regular meeting schedule and walking buddies, being on the outside of the student group, no adult conversation, and living in someone else's home. Sitting in class and smelly the ungodly odor of stale alcohol being seeping from the pores of my class mates is no small treat. Listening to endless conversations about drinking and how late they stayed out has become tedious. I am a good student. All my life I have been that annoying person in class who actually wanted to learn more. In these classes the sport of the day is to see how much they can distract the teacher from teaching. For some unimaginable reason, I believe this should all be easy. It is not.

However the trip to Lisbon was a wonderfully refreshing respite. Eileen was a perfect companion and I got to indulge in unlimited adult conversation about topics that actually held my interest. I love Lisbon! My oldest daughter is half Portuguese and I know now where she got all her friendliness. They are the nicest people. The graffiti is amazing (see my facebook pictures). The weather was comfortable.The food was delightful and reasonably priced. There is a lot of amazing old worldliness. Though Eileen and I both found their monuments rather mundane and tiresome. They all appeared to have been purchased from the same discount war hero mall. Maybe they should have their graffiti artists compose the next monument.

We had one very funny experience. We were on one of those double deck tour buses that roam around the city pouring information into your ear that you forget two minutes after you hear it.They are useful for getting the lay of a city and for taking pictures. Pl;us, for the price of our ticket we got bus transportation to and from the airport and use of all the City cable cars and buses. I suppose I should return to my story at some point here. Anyway, we were on top of the bus in the second row, waiting for two women to get off and vacate the first row seats. They did and we moved up. Shortly thereafter this woman comes up and asks in a demanding voice if she can have the seat next to me. I assent and move so she can get in, at which time I find out she didn't want to sit next to me, she wanted to sit on me. I think her gambit was to make me as uncomfortable as possible while pushing me off the seat. I decided I did not want to engage in butt wars. I know when I am significantly out gunned, so to speak. So I moved back to the second row behind Eileen. Then woman turns around to her man and tells him he can come up now the seat is empty, o rI think that is what she said, because she was speaking German. At which point I said under my breath, "That explains a lot." and at that moment Eileen busts up because she was thinking, "It figures," but didn't get it out of her mouth before I spoke. Ten we both just enjoyed a good long giggle. We enjoyed this moment several times over the next few days.

If you are German and offended, I'm sorry. But I think the Germans are in heated competition with Americans for being the rudest travelers. Since I am both American and of German descent, I try really hard not to contribute to the points.

Well it's late and I'm tired from my little melt down and emotional upheaval earlier today, so I will say good night and hope to hear some comments from you folks.

Late Night Thoughts

It is almost midnight here and I believe I'm becoming somewhat of a night owl. The people in Spain seem so civilized. School doesn't start until 9:30 am, it appears that most folks get up around 8 am, around  they get to what they are doing about 9:30 or 10, break for a long meal and rest around 1:30 and then return to what they do 4:30 or 5, do it until 9 or so and go home for another meal and relaxation. It's actually quite nice.

I find I have not desire to get up at 5:30 or 6 am. It's too darned cold here to do that anyway. And there just doesn't seem to be any hurry. I'm enjoying the slower pace.

I'm feeling pretty good this evening. Today was a bit dicey. I don't think I've ever felt homesick before and it hit me big time today. For some reason I decided I'm never going to learn Spanish, this is all a waste of time, I'm too old, it's too hard. I'm too little and it is way too big. Somewhere in the midst of all this self pity oozing from every pore, I realized an attitude adjustment was sorely needed. So I talked to the bears and they agreed.

It is curious how my mind works. It fascinates me. Here I am living the dream, getting to do things I've always wanted to do, having my happy childhood, and I can still somehow find a way to feel sorry for myself. If it weren't so dang funny, it would be sad. Well no more fuss and feathers - I just love that expression - I think it is time for sleep.

A Time Out of Sequence, Notes from my Exercise Book

We are sitting on a runway in Newark watching the lights of the airport shining, blinking; red, yellow, green and white signals conveying information, directing traffic. Then we are moving, rolling along, approaching the take off runway, speeding up faster and faster, feeling the air lifting the plane, up, up, up, come on Nelly, the pilot is revving the engines, faster, faster, acceleration, pushed back in the seat and then in a moment of extreme lightness we are airborne. I have never understood exactly how these huge, heavy, metal, mechanical, cylindrical tubes get off the ground. But now I am looking down on the city lights, patterns of streets and a stadium outline. As we bank a turn I am looking up at the sliver of a moon.

After many long hours flying over the ocean, eating dinner, reading, studying, unable to sleep wrapped in excitement about the journey we are slowly approaching our newest destination.

The plane flies toward the horizon.  Madrid, as if in a hurry to meet us, getting ever closer as the world turning on its axis revolves in our direction.  I am watching the sun become visible over the clouds like a very long fire straight across the horizon.  I believe the world is one fire. After daylight appears I see clouds resembling the cotton batting used to make a quilt. I believe I am looking down on the tops of  Banyan trees, but it is the clouds I see.

As we move from the Atlantic to European land mass there is a powdering dust of evil white coating the landscape as if some demonic baker had been sifting confectioner’s sugar over a very lumpy cake. It is my first premonition of how cold it will be in Spain this winter.

A Change of Plans - Maybe

It is time to begin writing. I left California a week ago and it has been a nonstop whirlwind of activities for the entire week. Before I began this journey I thought I would write daily and describe my adventures. But this past week has caused me to pause and reconsider. I am here to learn to speak Spanish. In order to speak Spanish fluently, I need to think in Spanish. This is beginning to happen. However, English is my dominant language. I’m not sure, but I believe that maybe the more time I spend thinking, speaking and writing in English, the slower will be my progression to Spanish.

I do want to share this journey with all my friends, and I want my friends to share with me what is going on in their lives too. So I will write, but maybe not as often as I anticipated.

So the main topic here is the weather. It is the coldest winter in more than 200 years! I hate cold weather. I like temperatures in the high 90s and above. So maybe there are lessons here for me.

I am with a bunch of young kids. Now I like young people, but not in gaggles. There one or two who are 23 to 25, the rest are 21 and under. The main topic of their conversation, interestingly enough, is not the opposite sex (that is second on the list.) Heading the list by a mile is alcohol. What they drink, where they drink, how long they drink, wo they drink with and what happens when they drink. They talk about alcohol more than we do at meetings. lol

But I’m hanging in and they seem to like me and accept me as part of their community. Yesterday we received lessons from a real live and still fighting matador on how to fight a bull. We even got to practice the moves with a fake bull. Apparently at some point on this trip we are going to the countryside to visit the matador and receive further instruction in this tradition/sport. We are also going to practice with baby bulls. And we are going to do the running of the bulls, like Pamploma, with baby bulls. I will try to get pictures for you of me in these rather precarious situations. The matador by the way is extremely good looking and very nice. His moves with the cape are like a very intricate ballet. He is becoming a close runner up to Johnny Depp. J