Well everyone, I made it to Santander safe and sound. I'll try to get around to posting picture soon. Right now I'm too stoked about the fact that I found internet in my apartment to try and move at all to do much of anything.
This post is mostly about the journey here...it's not that interesting, but I don't want to forget anything about this trip!
At 5:30 a.m. (PST) on Friday, I started my journey to Santander – a journey that would lead me closer to confusion every step of the way, both literally and figuratively, over a 24 hour period.
I left my aunt and uncle’s house at 6:00 a.m. to go to the Seattle airport. After meeting Sara (my roommate at Oregon State), we started our real journey. Our first flight was from Seattle to Philadelphia. We left Seattle at 8:45, and arrived in Philadelphia at 4:40 p.m. (EST).
On that flight I accidentally broke a sink in the bathroom…I completely blame the sink because I swear I am not actually strong enough to break something with one hand. But I digress.
Our next flight left Philadelphia at 6:40 p.m. (EST) for Madrid. On this flight, Sara and I were cramped beyond good sense into our teensy-tiny seats. We arrived in Madrid around 7:00 a.m. (I’m not sure what time zone…but we definitely felt as if we had skipped over Thursday completely.)
This flight took us a little closer to confusion – more Spanish was spoken, and we were leaving the land of cell phone reception, no fees for debit cards, and all the comforts that English offers us.
We then went to our next gate and boarded a small plane for Bilbao around 8:15 a.m. (small is a relative term here, it still seemed pretty big to me). We boarded without too many problems – although there was slight confusion on when we boarded, since there were no back-up English announcements to the Spanish ones. I slept this entire flight (only an hour long), which somewhat helped me prepare for the journey ahead.
We got to Bilbao at 9:15 a.m., and immediately set off to find a city bus to take us to the bus station. I finally (bravely, I might add) asked a woman if the bus line we were in would in fact take us to our desired destination, and then we felt a little better about what was going on.
When we reached the bus station, a little more confusion set in – we had to figure out where to purchase tickets, where the bus was leaving from, and where to wait for it.
We had an encounter with a strange German man who took a liking to us – poor Sara got so much smoke exhaled into her face because this man had no sense of personal space and a love for his cigarettes. And singing random lines from popular songs by Michael Jackson...but again, I digress.
Eventually we boarded the bus to Santander, had a relaxing hour-and-a-half journey (for me anyway, I am thrilled by my ability to sleep on trips) to our home for the next few months.
Of course, we weren’t there yet – we arrived at the bus station in Santander, found a spot where we had Internet to update family and friends of our arrival, then set off to find a taxi.
The taxi took us to Sara’s apartment to drop off her bags, then we started what we thought would be a few-block trek to my apartment…it turns out that our houses are on the same street though, just with different names, so my apartment turned out to be about six down from hers.
We quickly dropped off my bags and set off to find a place to purchase phones so we could call home. We had no luck, since by this time it was almost 3:00 p.m. – the time shops close down so everyone can go home for lunch and a siesta.
After this quick trip (which took us to the paseo, the waterfront walkway only a few blocks from our house), we went our separate ways to join our host families for dinner...and that's when my freak-out started.
I began to panic - what was I doing here, so far from home and everyone that means the most to me? So far from understanding everything going on around me, so far from the comfort of having internet acces, so far from being able to contact everyone I need to at the push of a button.
I began to convince myself that I needed to go home - and now. I tried to nap, but couldn't fall asleep because I was too busy calculating how long it would take me to get back to an airport, thinking about whether or not I'd still get financial aid if I withdrew, figuring out how I'd navigate the confusion that is Spain by myself.
I wrote out an entry in my journal with all the important phone numbers I'd need - my advisors here and at home, financial aid, airlines, etc., so I could contact them once I found a phone. I even went as far as to repack my suitcase so I'd be ready to leave.
Sara and I met up at 7:00 to wander the streets again, and I told her I needed to go home. She didn't take it well at first...and who would? I clearly had not given the city a chance at all. She wasn't thrilled as I wrote e-mails and tried to get in touch with people (all without a phone, which further stressed me out), but eventually saw that I really was just homesick and sad that I couldn't talk to my family. She began to cheer me up as I began to acknowledge that the likelihood of me being able to go home soon was smaller than small - last-minute flights are incredibly expensive, and I definitely don't have an extra $3,000 lying around...not to mention so many people invested so much in me going on this trip.
After I talked myself through those logistics of money and potentially losing financial aid and having to navigate by myself, I realized that this experience won't be so bad.
Will it be challenging? Yes. In more ways than one - I know I'm going to miss my family and friends every day. I know the language is going to be difficult to grasp. I know I won't know exactly what is going on at all times. I know I won't be able to talk to whomever I want to talk with at every moment of the day.
I'm hoping that I'll overcome these challenges - sooner than later would obviously be best, but it's all a big process I suppose.
Sara and I decided that I need to stay busy right now. This morning we wandered around the city and finally got phones (I was able to make a quick call to Jonny, which helped me feel better about being gone. And family, I would have called you first but it was 2:57 a.m. and I figured none of you would answer). Later this afternoon we're going to take a walk to find the university and try to get our bearings in that regard.
Tonight we have a group dinner, so hopefully that will make me feel better too. In times like these, I really prefer to be surrounded by people...it's hard when I don't know where anyone lives and have no way to contact them! Tonight I hope to get to know some other people on the trip a little better and get to explore more of the city with them so I don't feel quite as alone.
Also tonight I hope to figure out how to use my phone card so I can actually call my family, which will help me feel even better about being so far away.
I knew I'd be homesick on this trip...I just didn't know it'd be this bad. I freaked out several people (Kendall, mom, Jonny, my advisors) by telling them I wanted to come home, but I'm hoping once I get settled in and start school and have more things to keep me occupied (as well as more available internet and ways of getting in touch with people), I'll start to feel smaller pangs of homesickness.
Any encouragement would be great - thanks to everyone who has sent me e-mails through this process...even when I don't have internet, if I've received them I can read them (and I read them over and over again, just so you know), and it encourages me to really try to enjoy myself. If anyone else wants to send me such e-mails, I wouldn't be opposed :) (silvaa@onid.orst.edu)
Hopefully I'll start taking more pictures here and be able to share a post with them soon. I'll also give details about my host family and all of that fun stuff.
Thanks for all your love and support!
♥ abigail
No comments:
Post a Comment