23...any different?

Yesterday I turned 23 years old. It's quite strange, I've actually thought more about where I've come since as far back as I can remember on this birthday more than any other. Let's put things in perspective now:

*My mother had already had my big head to take care of for two years by the time she was 23 years old. I can't even imagine having a kid right now. But, hey, different strokes for different folks right?

*I've been alive for almost a quarter of a century; that's a pretty substantial amount of time considering that when I was developing my sense of time, I was less than I decade old.

*We have had 4 different presidents in my lifetime, including two double-termers. That is pretty significant, come on; also, these geniuses have managed to get us in innumerable wars/battles/etc. and have succeeded in destroying much of what the U.S. once was and stood for. 

*I never, never, NEVER, imagined I would be who I am today or am where I am at. For better or worse, for knowing all of you, having my wonderful family and friends, I am pretty content with my here and now.

*No matter how old I am, I don't feel like I have ever really "arrived" at the next step or where I was going. Whether this is because I am always having to plan for the next thing, or whatever it may be, it's sometimes unsettling. On the other hand, I think that it keeps me moving forward as well, so I'm trying to live with this.

Off the subject from my birthday directly, this last week has been pretty interesting. On Thursday, while walking home at 5:30am from a night out, I was stopped by the police. They thought I looked suspicious and as such followed me. I was getting spooked because I walked through an area that makes me a bit uncomfortable at that time of night. After hearing a few sounds behind me, I pulled out my big, bad 1 inch pocket knife. As soon as I did that, the secret police in their unmarked soccer-mom van pulled up to the curb, jumped out and started yelling at me. One cop was particularly rude and was awfully pushy with his baton. "You aren't in the U.S. you know. You can't walk through the streets with guns and whatever you want." Suck it dude. They wanted to fine me 300 euros for a concealed weapon. but then let me go since I explained that we foreigners aren't well educated in international weapons and firearms laws. I should be a lawyer.

The following day I went to Carnaval in Cadiz. In a word, insanity. The city goes from a population of somewhere around 400,000 to over 1.2 million in a weekend. People come from all over the world to spend this "holy" festival with the Spaniards. Friday night is just a big party in public plazas and in the street. I was out until about 6 am with my friend Dave and had a pretty good time. I would say that the churros and chocolate on the way home were definitely the highlight of the event. Saturday is when everyone dresses up like on Halloween, most often in group costumes. A few of us went as the Ninja Turtles, yours truly being Donatello. Since I couldn't fit in a child's costume, I made my own out of basketball shorts, green tights, a green t-shirt and a purple pair of woman's underwear that I cut into my headband. About 8 of us went out together after a bit of a party in my friend Matt's house. We met up with another good friend Lolo and his friends from Granada...they are insane bunch. There were 7 of them dressed up as bees, going around the crowd buzzing, and "stinging" people with their tails. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to going and seeing them soon. My night came to a sudden halt with an unfortunate accident (no, not incontinence), but overall I think I got the idea of the insanity that is Carnaval.

Narrowing lens, changing perspective.

The internet is FLOODED with things to spend time on. I can bounce from Youtube video to Youtube video, to blog, to news website, to you name it. Let us not even begin to mention the life-sucker that is Facebook. I hate how many times a day I check my Gmail account and how sometimes I feel slightly anxious or disconnected when I am away from my computer for a few days.

When did I start communicating with people just as much through this as in person? Maybe, it was when I moved away from my old friends and family. Maybe, it was when I made new friends in other places and wanted to keep in touch with them. It's so great that I can keep in contact with so many people through internet. But, do we communicate because we want to really and would otherwise without it? I feel like sometimes things like Facebook and email may have us communicating with each other out of obligation to want to be connected with so many people in so many different ways.

The more I do this, the less I communicate with my immediate environment. I don't take time to just think, I don't listen to the words of the music that I have on, I don't take deep breaths of the way I used to, I don't smell it, and I don't always chew my food to taste it. It seems like all of these things become the background my laptop, whether it be while I am reading news from one of 5 websites I check daily, or an episode of Californication.

Our way of communicating is changing. In many ways this is great and I'm happy to be able to stay close to my loved ones while I am out and about, doing my thing. But, I think in some way, for me personally, the constant inundation of sounds, information and stuff that I find on my computer has me losing touch with myself. I'm turning into a consumer of another variety. I can take and read and listen and take in mass amounts of whatever it may be, just because it is at my fingertips.

I realized this between soccer on the beach in Getares yesterday and my morning rituals here in my apartment. I was surrounded by natural beauty, having a good time with friends, and appreciating it all, while somehow feeling anxious because I couldn't check my mail at a moment's notice. And yet, this morning, I sit here at my computer, no less anxious, no more fulfilled.

One week til Carnaval! Visitors this weekend! etc.!

Next weekend is the big weekend of Carnaval. Hannah, Meghan, Rocio (my roommate) and myself are going to stay with our friend Matt and hopefully have a blast. The streets are supposed to be just ridiculously packed with people all dressed up in group costumes. We've decided to bring an idea we've seen in the US to Spain. We are going to go as Facebook pages, a few of us at least. If you have not seen this, you need to do a Google image search and educate yourself. I think it's pretty brilliant and should be a lot of fun since we are going to have a blank wall and allow people to write on it. Ha, we may have to censor the pictures depending on what people write.

This weekend Matt and Amy are coming from Cadiz and Puerto de Santa Maria (a.k.a. Little Guantanamo) to visit us. It's always a good time to see these two. Matt usually stays with me and Amy with the girls, B v G. Stupid jokes aside, it should be good since we usually cook, hang out and just do whatever. I'm up for a weekend like that after an extremely planned last couple of months...or at least it feels like that.

I'm feeling more musical these days and am going to start playing my friend Lolo's guitar a bit more often, and maybe the one in the school when I have the chance on breaks. I need some kind of outlet in this sense. My outlet has been searching  and listening to new music. I have to say lately I'm really liking Apparat, Modeselektor, Moderat, Jonsi, Ratatat and Andrew Bird. A bit more on the tranquil side, but that is what the mood calls for.

Oh, and bonus! Uncle Sam is going to be returning me enough money to buy my new airplane ticket home! Too bad I wanted to buy meaningless crap with it to stimulate the economy...of Spain!

Alright, I'm going to go prepare a lesson. Here is a video that I can enjoy any time of the day and in whatever odd mood I may be in.

Sigur Ros - Við spilum endalaust - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Long overdue.

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile. I have been quite distracted...and got lazy, made a video entry and tried to upload it without success. But that will happen quite soon, I promise. I just got back from a few days in Sevilla, where I hung out with my friends Mike and Sam, that I met in Germany. It was nice to be able to show them around, help them see some stuff they might have otherwise seen and spend a weekend outside of Algeciras. When I upload the pictures to my Flickr account, they will speak for themselves.

A bit of disappointing news, I won't be receiving the Fulbright Grant. It would have been amazing, since it would have been over and above the amount of funding I needed. But, that son-of-a-gun is competitive. So now I am filling out apps for a few other scholarships that I think I have a better shot at, and my mom is starting to work on fund raising for me. Once again, if anyone feels compelled to help, donate, smack me, etc. please let me know.

I turn 23 in two weeks, which is a little daunting and sad, while pretty irrelevant. I haven't spent my birthday with my family since I can remember because of bowling, travel or something. I'd really like to, but what can you do. Meh. But, I will be going to the biggest festival in Spain, Carnaval, in the second best place to do it in the world, my second home, Cadiz. I'm stoked to go with my roommates and my friends and participate in something so unique. Check out what people do for this madness, Google search "carnaval cadiz".

That's all I can muster right now due to 9 hours of sleep over the past two days and endless hours of tours and walking. Take care and until next time.

Rain is worse than snow.

Algeciras has had more rain this winter than it has in many, many years. Here, the wind is so erratic due the unique geography, that it will gust 40 km/h from one direction and literally 10 seconds later 40 km/h from the opposite direction. This being so, and I am quite serious, the streets literally look like a battlefield, filled with the corpses of broken umbrellas. I thought I was smarter than the natives - ha - and was going to avoid losing my umbrella to the squall. As if. Within 10 minutes of walking in the perfect storm, my umbrella was broken and I was completely soaked from head to toe, save my rain jacket and my bag which are waterproof. Through this experience I've learned that: 1) it's acceptable to cancel an appointment or class because of rain here, and 2) that 5 euro umbrellas are good for one use.

Pictures to come. Peace and love.

Back from Germany. Happy New Year!

A lot of time has passed in between my entries. I deliberately took a break from writing - and using the internet, really - while I was in Germany. I was trying to reset in a way. I realized that I spent too much time on my computer and not enough doing things that I really wanted to do, like read, run, etc. It's far too easy just to spend time bouncing between news sites, facebook and any other number of time consumers. Maybe it's a bit of a new year resolution to me, to not spend so much time online. That would probably be a good one, since I really haven't made a resolution yet...any suggestions?

Germany was amazing, plain and simple. Far too much time had passed since I had seen Ben, but we picked up like a week had passed. His family took me and a slew of Australians in for about three weeks; I stayed the longest. It was nice to spend Christmas with his mom, dad, 3 brothers, their kids and the neighbors. While I missed my family, I feel like I didn't miss them as bad as I would have had I not stayed with such a loving, warm group of people. Christmas dinner was on the 24th, as per tradition in Germany, and we shared it with nearly 25 people. Much different from my family, we were sipping schnapps and great German beer until about 3am. I don't mean to get down on my "native traditions", but I kind of like the German way of doing things in this respect.

We went out with Ben's friends - who I think I may now call friends of my own - to neighboring towns to go bowling (my dreaded return to the game), dancing at electronic clubs and eat the sacred food, doner. Due to the high percentage of Turkish people in Germany, and inebriated youths' need for cheap, tasty food, we found ourselves in a doner restaurant no less than 10 times in 3 weeks. A doner is like a kebab, with lamb and chicken, salad and two sauces wrapped in warm flatbread. While I always went with felafel, being a good vegetarian, I did try the doner and can say that it is pretty amazing.

I did a bit of traveling with Ben, Jani and Tom (Ben's best friends and neighbors), and a few other Australians, Mike and Sam, who were staying with Ben for a bit while backpacking Europe. We went to Cologne to see the cathedral, Dortmund and Bochum for the Christmas markets and Berlin for New Year. I saw far too many awesome things to describe in a reasonable length. I will say though, that Berlin is possibly my favorite city on earth that I have seen thus far, and would really like to live there one day. It has such a mix of culture, history, music, food and great architecture. Combine this with a relatively cheap cost of living and I am sold. I'd really like to go back and learn a bit more German and chalk it up as another great life experience. But, who knows what my future holds for me.

I got back to Spain on Saturday night at about midnight due to a delayed flight in Germany. I was fortunate enough to meet two really nice Dutch girls who weathered the delay, cold and lack of buses with me from 1pm on Saturday until 3am on Sunday. After seeing them off - to a friend who was nice enough to drive two hours to come and pick them up - I tried to find somewhere to sleep. Too cheap to pay for a hostel for 3 hours and unable to find a 24 hour place to grab and coffee and do some reading, I took to sleeping in the entrance of a bank for a miserable hour, doing the same in front of the bus station for another hour and then finally getting into the station once it opened at 6am. Without saying more, I was never happier to get back to Algeciras.

I've returned with a renewed view of the remainder of my time here. I'm going to try and engage people more in general, be less ashamed that my Spanish doesn't sound like theirs (a near impossibility for anyone not from Andalucia) and set out to make my internship in Argentina a reality.

Happy New Year to everyone. Peace and love from the other side of the Atlantic.