First Week

Yesterday marked my first week and Spain and let me tell you- I have never been on such an emotional roller coaster. This experience makes you incredibly vulnerable to even the most minor things- someone will post an inspirational video on Twitter and I'll cry for half an hour out of overwhelming feelings, I'll go past a beautiful overlook and take off with the excitement of being alive, play the wrong chord on the ukulele and spiral into a ten minute depression. As of now I've just woken up (yes I know at 11:30, gotta love Spain) so I'm too exhausted to be anything but a bleary, out of it medium.

The morning after I arrived, my host family and I went into Santiago for my first time ever, excluding a brief half-asleep lunch immediately following my arrival . Words simply cannot describe this marvelous place, and I have already fallen in love with the atmosphere, history and culture. And although Santiago must been seen for its self, I'll try and do it justice....I wrote this in my journal after a couple of days being here.

"The first thing Spaniards tell me here once I mention that I love Santiago is "Pero la ciudad es muy pequeno". And for people having lived here their whole life I'm sure it is, yet for me, coming from a small town with little under 23,000, the leap to 100,000 is perfect. I feel as though I can easily find a familiar intimacy within both the graffittied concrete of the new city and the uneven cobblestones of the old within my ten months while letting my strange new home remain an elusive adventure. I love how the two cities mingle and morph into one another, traditional Galician bagpipes echoing through out the cobble stones and to the edges of modern expanse, peregrinos (pilgrims coming from the their trek) wandering in awe across both territories, gorgeous parques overlooking both the old and the new. I love the narrow alleys that open up into Medieval plazas; I love how you can sit in a cafe with your amigos for an hour, still nursing a nearly empty Coca-Cola bottle; and I love the chic Spaniards who dominate the streets. Galicia is truly a world of its own- pine trees mingling with palm trees, the mountainous land speckled with red roofed buildings, and weather bipolarity which surpasses that of New England. I can't wait to spend the next ten months here."

Obviously that was written on one of my more optimistic days, but it surely sets the scene. So my first real morning was spent being tourists in the old city, mingling with the Pilgrims. I sure my host family were amused by my awestruck face...the history and culture was enchanting. Here are some of my many photos from that day.

just your typical Santiago street

The Cathedral!

My host family minus Victor and plus Victor Jr's friend Pedro 

the light in the cathedral was so pretty

We walked in on the Sunday mass for the pilgrims. Quite famously, four priests swing incense through out the church in the beginning of service.My host father said its because the pilgrims smell so bad after walking their camino. Here's a link to a random video that displays it much better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtxuvtZqOog (around 2:30 it really gets high).

traditional monk attire (the shell is the symbol of the Camino de Santiago)

me in one of the plazas

I have to be honest, the next couple of days after that were pretty boring and lonely. Victor left for the States, my host parents were gone during the day because of work and my host brother Pablo was rarely at home / didn't talk to the weird American now residing in his house. Being alone had a massive effect on me...I got extremely homesick and Katie pretty much became my therapist via Whatsapp. Luckily I was introduced to Ane, a girl in my neighboorhood and finally had amigos! The next couple of days I hung out with Ane and her friends and also with another exchange student, Ben, from Germany.

Friday, Victor, my host dad, came back from Lugo (he lives there during the work week) and the next morning we went to the market. Oh my God, if I could live there I would. Fresh everything- vegetables, fruit, bread, fish, meat. I just kept thinking to myself this is what Europe is. Its absolutely massive, filled with gorgeous food everywhere. Unfortunately, being my forgetful self as usual, I brought my camera without a memory card, so all of my photos are low-quality from a phone. There was a vendor selling pulpo, or octopus. Galicia is famous for its pulpo, and for a good reason- its amazing! For lunch we had the fresh fish (incredibly ugly but oh-so delicious), tomatoes and percebes- also extremely unappealing looking, but tubular shellfish- a regional delicacy.

When people ask me how Spain is I immediately respond with amazing. Not that every single second of every single day is filled with beautiful, awe inspiring moments, but I think collaboratively the teary, lonely, desperate times make this experience infinitely more complex and worthwhile. There's a quote, "exchange is not a year in a life, but a life in a year", which could not be more appropriate. While this week has easily been the hardest of my entire life, I'm so grateful to have this opportunity. I know this is right for me and that I am stronger, smarter, and braver for even just surviving one week. This being an experience of a lifetime, I'm going to get off the computer now and go outside. So besos everyone! Wish me best of luck for my first day of school Tuesday.

-Katrina

Some musicians in the old city

Entrance to the parque me and Ben found ourselves in

Panoramic view from the park

Pescado feo....I don't actually know the real name for this but trust me, the photo doesn't do its ugliness justice

la comida

percebes, so good!

Pulpo vendor

Me with my pulpo!

Mucha fiesta no mucho siesta

Oh my, the past couple of days have been an absolute whirl wind. I woke up on September 4th at 5:55 to watch the sunset from the west end of the Atlantic for the last time in a year. It might of been the poet inside of me, but the view gave me a strange sort of peace that last the entirety of the day. I said goodbye to my pets and got in the car to drive to New York with my family. Saying good bye was hard but I didn't completely realize it would be for 10 months...I still don't. Just like that, I was on my way to Espana and started this incredible journey. Leading up to my departure I skyped with a couple of other people, Sean and Katie from the AFS Spain group often. It was so strange to finally meet them in person considering we already knew each other so well and I enjoyed already having good friends.

The skype amigos about to take off

Orientation was fine, more an opportunity to hammer general information about cultural awareness and safety into us than anything else. I would have wished for more time to get to know the other AFSers but we found time for that later. 

The next morning we all put on our blue shirts and hauled our impossibly heavy (yet not nearly filled enough) suitcases down stairs for the end of orientation and to catch the bus to the hotel. Since every AFSer ever advocates for underpacked suitcases above all and a good half of us never listen, I have some advice for people who have already decided to over pack:

1. Get a light suitcase. My first suitcase weighed 13lbs and with a weight limitation of 44lbs thats way too much to spare. I had to run to TJ Maxx to grab a new suitcase so I could at least try to fit everything I needed.

2. Get light host family presents. I brought two jars of homemade jam, autocrat and two impossibly heavy sweatshirts...weighing all together probably a little under 10 pounds. My host family liked the gifts but there were definately other presents I could have given with less weight.

3. This might go without saying but buy a bag scale (working!) and bring it. My bag scale didn't really work all the time but when it did it proved incredibly useful, which leads into numero cuatro.....

4. Most importantly- BEFFRIEND SOMEONE WHO UNDERPACKED. Katie somehow managed to bring a small suitcase and two backpacks....contrasting my stuffed massive suitcase carry on suitcase and backpack. I gave her my heavy things to get through security originally but my bag ended up being fine in the end.

As expected, the flight proved gruesome on the whole sleep front. Starving and tired, we landed in Zurich with four hours to kill however we wanted. People bought Swiss chocolate as well as other souvenirs before we boarded to fly to Madrid. We landed two hours later, during one of which I luckily slept. 

The host country orientation took place in Europe's largest hotel, which did not disappoint. I wish I took a photo of the place because the size of it was overwhelming. I actually got lost in it several times.  AFS Spain interviewed Katie, Lucia and I about how we felt finally being in Spain. Katie showed us all up with her Spanish since she had competed every level on Duolingo and I hardly remembered how to say "hola" but the volunteer running it assured me that my accent was funny, he could edit out all of my pauses and "como se dice"s and that it would be great to see my improvement.....if that says anything to you about my language skills.

It was really chill to meet everyone from all over and generally our roommates were from other countries.  Por ejemplo, I roomed with a girl from the Czech Republic and a girl from Thailand. AFS Spain was really cool about rules, curfews and bed assignments though so we were able to hang out long after the orientation ended and switch rooms if we wanted (although I didn't). Unfortunately I only went to bed at 4:30 and had to get up at 6 with the ten other students going to Galicia the next day so its safe to say I was very tired meeting my host family.

the exchange students de Galicia

All in all it had been about three days with maybe 6 hours of sleep when I finally saw mi familia. After a five hour train ride, I got off at the train station to see them. We are in the far right, I am next to my mom Maribel and my brother Pablo. After saying hello to them we then walked to lunch with the other exchange students in this monastery turned hotel. I was extremely tired to right after I went home to take my first fiesta.

So far Spain has been great and although I miss my fellow AFSers I'm looking forward to spending time with my host family and getting to know the community. Since school doesn't start until the 17th I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunity.